The Sunday-night evangel; a series of Sunday evening discourses delivered in Independence Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church, Kansas City, Missouri

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THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

The

Sunday-Night Evangel

A Series of Sunday Evening Dis-
courses delivered in Independence
Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church,
Kansas City, Missouri

BY

The Rev. Louis Albert Banks, D.D.

Author of "Christ and His Friends," "The Worid's
Childhood," "The Problems of Youth," Etc.

I.

t

FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY

New York and London
1911

THE SW '«®'^^

PUBLIC ilSaABY

18440B

-,..:. AND

Copyright, 1911,

BY

Funk & Wagnalls Company

Printed in the United States of America

Published, October, 1911

CONTENTS

PAGE

Visions 1

The Soul's Hearthstone .... 15

The Wheels of Providence .... 30

The Rainbow About the Throne . . 43

A Man on His Feet 58

A Man Alone With God 71

The Weak Spot in a Man's Armor ... 86

A Chain of Influence 98

The Man Who Was Left 109

The Perils of the City 120

The Man With Four Faces 135

The Traveler's Sanctuary .... 150

The Walls of Character 165

Cushions — Good and Bad 178

The Soul's Satisfaction 189

The Unseen Factor in a Human Life . 202
The Masquerade of Life . . . . .219
The Life That is Worth Living . . . 234
The Miracle of Turning a Man Into

Another Man 250

V

89y688'

vl CONTENTS

PAGE

Christ and the World's Leavings . . . 267
The Importance of Quality in Souls . 283

The Soul's Imperatives 299

A Study in Palmistry 311

The Secret of a Towering Personality . 327

The Waves of Time 343

The Sweetening of the Heart .... 354

God's Reward for Love 374

The Porter at the Gate of Souls . . . 393

The Gentleness of God 408

The Golden Church 424

THE SUNDAY-NIGHT
EVANGEL

T

VISIONS

I saw visions." — Ezekiel 1:1.

HE distinguished French divine, Theo-

dore Monod, says that one of the most
sensationally sad things in its impression upon
him that he ever beheld was on one occasion
when, passing through one of the most splendid
and glorious views in the Alps, he saw by the
wayside a woman sitting with a deprest and
gloomy face, bearing on her breast a piece of
pasteboard with the words, "A blind woman."
He had been enjoying the glorious views to
the utmost and it went through his soul like
a piercing dart that for this woman there
were no rocks or mountains; no white mist
and brightness of the immaculate snow; no
clouds driving through the sky; no sun, no
moon, no day, no night.

We do not know how to thank God enough

2 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

for the vision that comes to us through our
eyes. We are obhged to use material language
in speaking of spiritual things. There is not
one of the senses of the body which we do not
appeal to as an illustration of what takes place
in the soul. We speak, for instance, of taking
hold of God, or of bowing under the hand of
God. That is the sense of touch between God
and ourselves. Or we speak of tasting. The
Psalmist says, "O taste and see that the
Lord is good." And there is a passage in
Isaiah which appeals to the sense of smell.
It says, "He shall have the spirit of counsel
and might, the spirit of knowledge, and the
fear of the Lord," and that the Spirit of the
Lord "shall make him of quick understand-
ing"; but the marginal reference says "of
good scent" in the fear of the Lord — that is,
the man who renders himself submissive to the
Spirit of God shall have a scent like a hound
after spiritual things. As the keen-scented
deer-hound tracks his prey unerringly where
others catch no guidance, so the man who
surrenders himself to God to do His will,
shall follow the scent of the divine trail amid
all the mazes of life.

VISIONS 3

Some one suggests an interesting concep-
tion of how it might have pleased God to have
made our bodies differently, and to have en-
dowed us with four senses instead of five.
Suppose it had been thought sufficient that
we should be able to see and hear, to feel and
taste, but were denied the sense of smell; and
yet God, denying us this, had filled the world
with odorous buds and fragrant trees, as now.
Then the fragrance of the lily would have
been in vain, the perfume of the violet un-
real, and all the sweet scent of the roses non-
existent. But suppose God had, presently,
let it be imagined, repented, and had given
to one solitary man the sense of smell; and
this man, forgetting the deprivation of the
others, should come to us with his question,
"Can you tell me why there should be so
great a difference between the fragrance of
the violet and that of the rose.^" We would
say to him, "My dear sir, we do not under-
stand you; the shape of the flowers and their
size and color we can speak of, but what this
fragrance is, we are unable to understand."
And should he go on to speak such words as
smell, odor, and scent, we could only insist on

4 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

our denial. And it is precisely in the same
way that visions of God are rare or impossible
to some men and so frequent with others. A
man is not necessarily beside himseK because
he sees what others say is not there, or hears
a voice when all the world declares there was
no sound. For take the supposition we have
been discussing and suppose a cure were
worked on us, and for the first time we should
walk out into the flower-garden with the
sense of smell. With what wonder we should
become aware of their odors, and go from
flower to flower to try them all! The more
a man grows sordid and selfish, and devoted
to earthly things, the more he needs the added
sense for spiritual vision. When a man is
wholly given up to business, a woman alto-
gether immersed in frivolity, the day of seeing
visions of God is gone. I have had many a
man in my church and congregation, con-
cerning whom I have been moved to pray the
prayer that Elisha prayed for his young
secretary, when he cried aloud unto God at
Dothan, "Open the young man's eyes, that
he may see." It is this spiritual vision which
we are to study. And I wish to call your

VISIONS 6

attention to some visions which in one way
or another have come or will come to every
one of us on the journey of life, and our lives
in their result will depend upon how we treat
these visions.

First, there are the visions of youth, full
of hope and courage concerning our own life.
Joseph saw visions like that. He saw visions
in which all the sheaves in the field and all
the stars in the sky bowed down before his
earnest and triumphant career. It is suggest-
ive of the visions of noble life and achievement
that come to every true-minded young man or
yoimg woman. Oh! those blessed visions of
youth. A good, strong man who has worked
hard against odds and succeeded said to me
the other day: ''There is nothing that I
have seen in the Bible concerning visions and
dreams that I have not realized myself in my
youth, when I have been forced to be out at
night under the clear sky, watching the stars.
Wonderful things were given me to see in
those young days." And the same thing has
happened to other men under other circum-

6 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

stances. Abraham Lincoln saw his visions in
the IlHnois backwoods, and tracing the career
of any great souls you will find that success
and triumph have been won by obedience to
these early visions. Saul, a brilHant young
lawyer, full of passionate bigotry and egotism,
was persecuting the Christians to the very
death when, on his road to Damascus at the
noon-day, there came that vision of light
which transformed the whole world for that
man. It lifted him out of selfishness. It
lifted him up into fellowship with Jesus
Christ. It put upon his shoulders the burden
of the world's salvation. Under those burdens
and in that fellowship there was developed a
manhood that will stand forever in the gallery
of the immortals.

Some of you are dreaming dreams and
seeing visions which God is giving you con-
cerning a noble manhood which is possible
for you. What are you going to do with
your visions .f^ Happy indeed will you be if,
after a while, when your hair whitens and your
eyes look into the sunset, you will be able to
say with Paul, "I have not been disobedient
unto the heavenly vision."

VISIONS

II

Ever and anon God sends to men visions
which awaken their consciences. These are
seasons of spiritual illumination, moments of
intellectual and spiritual insight, during which
a man obtains deeper knowledge of the mys-
teries of life than in years of ordinary activ-
ity. Some one says that life is conditioned
by death more than by length of days. The
current of history is often changed in a day.
The geography of a continent has been some-
times determined by the achievements of an
hour. And when God opens the heavens, as
he did to Ezekiel, and grants a man ''Visions
of God," the man is often transformed in a
moment. The young Isaiah caught such a
vision of God and it gave him a sudden il-
lumination of his own heart. He had been
living complacently enough until then; but
when he saw the holiness and glory of God,
it showed the black spots on his own soul,
and he cried out, "I am unclean." But the
result of that vision of his sin and God's
holiness led to the cleansing of his heart and
to a beautiful and glorious career. There is

8 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

an incident in the life of Peter much Uke that.
One day when Peter was on a fishing-trip with
his Master he caught a sudden ghmpse of the
godhke hohness of the character of Jesus
Christ, and feehng his own unworthiness and
sin, he cried out in the anguish of his soul,
"Depart from me, O Lord, for I am a sinful
man." But Peter, too, under the influence
of such visions, came after a while to his day
of Pentecost. Are there not some who hear
me who need just such visions as these .^^
You have been comparing yourself with some
poor, half-discouraged neighbor who is a
church-member, and have felt very self-
complacent about it. I pray God to give
you a vision of Himself; to show you a
glimpse of the holiness of Christ, that in
the blaze of that white, pure light, you may
see the ugly blackness of your own selfish-
ness and sin.

On one occasion Elijah had fled away in
cowardice and fear and God appeared to him
at the mountain-cave and said to him, " What
doest thou here, Elijah.^" Oh, my friends,
there are some of you that were reared in
Christian homes and taught to pray to God

VISIONS 9

at your mother's knee, who are now Uving
without prayer and without hope in God.
I would that God would come to you as He
did to EHjah in that cave on the slopes of
Mount Horeb and send His ringing question
quivering like an arrow into the depths of
your soul to-night — "What doest thou here? "
With all the Bible-reading and Sunday-school
teaching of your childhood, with all the loving
prayers that sheltered your youth, what doest
thou here in indiflference and sin?

Ill

Then there are visions of mercy and for-
giveness. Jacob had such a vision. He had
deceived his father and cheated his brother,
and was on the way into exile in punishment.
Ah, my friend, do not forget that soft sins
make hard lodgings. Jacob knew it that
night at Bethel when he lay down on the
hard ground and took a stone for his pillow.
You look him over, as he lies there, and you
say, "He is only a fraud, a deceiver; he is only
getting his just deserts." Ah, how httle hope
there would be for any of us if God dealt with

10 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

US in that way. But God's heart is the heart
of true fatherhood and He determined to give
Jacob a new chance. And so there comes to
the poor, tired boy, mean and wicked tho he
is, that wonderful vision of God's infinite
mercy and compassion. He sees a great
ladder, with its feet on the earth, reaching
up to heaven; he sees angels, coming and
going, with swift feet and tender faces, on this
heavenly ladder; from the top of the ladder
a Presence bends over him with a tenderness
that he had never seen even on the face of
his father, the gentle Isaac; and in a voice of
infinite graciousness he hears God saying to
him that He is the God of his father and that
He will watch over him, and if he repents of
his sin, and is true to God, God will be true
to him forever. My friend, you that have
wandered away from God, you may be sure
that God feels that way about you to-night,
and is seeking to make you see His mercy
and tenderness. The whole story of the life
of Jesus Christ is one great vision of the
mercy of God to sinful men. The tenderest
story you ever heard about mercy is not
strong enough to really illustrate God's mercy

VISIONS 11

and willingness to give you salvation, and
yet we hear some wonderful stories of mercy.

A mother once went to London in search
of a dissolute daughter, and was directed to
a midnight mission. She had no clue by which
she might find her lost one among the millions
of that vast city. It was suggested that she
might put her own picture where each one
entering might see it. She did so, and, from
afar, watched the incoming strangers. One
after another passed it with an indifferent
glance, but at length there came a young
woman who paused, started, clasped her hands
with grief, and sobbed aloud before the photo-
graph. The mother arose, gathered the weep-
ing outcast in her arms, exclaiming, with the
ardent and joyful emphasis of love, "My
daughter! The lost is found." She returned
to her mother's home and to her mother's God.
But with even greater tenderness than that
does Jesus go seeking after the lost lambs,
and in so doing reveals to us the mercy of
God.

I doubt not that some one here is listening
to me now, who longs for the comfort and
safety of the Christian life. You look at it

12 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

from afar and wish you were a Christian. All
your life you have expected sometime to give
yourself with earnestness to the Christian
life, but the years are passing and you are
farther away than ever. The enemy of your
soul shows you the difficulties in the way
until you are like the spies which Moses sent
into the promised land, who came back with
the grapes and the pomegranates, and with
wonderful stories of the richness of the land,
but scared because of visions of giants who
made them feel hke grasshoppers in their
presence. So the difficulties of the Christian
life loom up before you and make you a
coward. Oh, I would that you might have
a vision such as Jesus had when He said, "I
beheld Satan as lightning falling from heaven."
Jesus saw all the devils pulled from their
thrones and cast down into the deep. Noth-
ing can stand against the poor sinner who
with humble heart surrenders himseK to God
through Jesus Christ. No trying circum-
stances can come to us in this life which can
take away the peace of a young man who
devotes himself to the service of Christ. You
may conjure up all the evil conditions you

VISIONS 13

can think of, and you can not imagine any-
young man being put in a harder place than
was the young Stephen, whose story Luke
tells us in the Acts of the Apostles. Stephen
was not a preacher. He was a layman; a
young man who had been selected because of
his ability in business and his fidelity to
Christ to serve the early church in a business
capacity. But one day, when he had oppor-
tunity, Stephen bore his earnest testimony for
his Master, and the mob of evil men became
so enraged that they stoned him to death;
and as he was dying, some of them became
so fierce that they gnashed on him with their
teeth; but afterward they bore testimony
that under that terrible experience his face
was like the face of an angel in its glorious
beauty and light, and at the very last he looked
up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and
Jesus standing on the right hand of God, and
said, "Behold, I see the heavens opened and
the Son of man standing on the right hand of
God." The mob could not stand that, and so
they prest him to his death, and dying, he
cried, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." Oh,
my friends, the God who gave that vision to

14 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

Stephen is your Heavenly Father, and the
Christ to whom Stephen committed his passing
soul is making intercessions for you at the
right hand of God. Give Him your heart
here and now.

THE SOUL'S HEARTHSTONE

** And the fire was bright." — Ezekiel 1 : 13.

A WONDERFUL vision is this from which I
have selected my text. The prophet saw
what appeared to him a great looking-glass
of glowing metal, and he beheld, coming out
of the midst of it, the likeness of four living
creatures, and every one of them had four
faces, and every one of them four wings, and
these glowing creatures shone like burnished
brass. They seemed to be messengers of the
Most High God, and they went whithersoever
the Spirit of God desired. They were not
only beautiful and splendid, they were alert
and quick in their service, and went to and
fro on their errands of mercy hke flashes of
lightning.

Now, I do not presume to dogmatize on
the meaning of this vision. Most of the
great Biblical scholars think that these living
creatures are visions of angels, messengers of
God who go on missions of mercy from their
Heavenly Father's throne to all parts of the

1$

16 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

universe, whithersoever He sends them. But
whatever may be true concerning the special
message meant to be given by the vision,
this is true, that each of these Hving creatures
was in the hkeness of a man, and whatever
other faces they had, each of them had the
face of a man, and tho they had wings by
which they could fly, each of them had the
hands of a man under his wings. And
whether they were intended to represent
angels or men, in the essential revelation con-
cerning their character and their relation to
God they are full of teaching for every one
of us.

I have called our theme to-night "The
Soul's Hearthstone," because it has not to do
with the warming or lighting of a man from
without, but with the illumination and the
warming of his nature from within. The
prophet as he beheld noted that, "As for the
likeness of the living creatures, their appear-
ance was like burning coals of fire, like the
appearance of torches: the fire went up and
down among the living creatures, and the
fire was bright, and out of the fire went forth
hghtning. And the living creatures ran and

THE SOUL'S HEARTHSTONE 17

returned as the appearance of a flash of
Hghtning." It is this bright fire within the
soul of man which we are to study. It is the
highest glory of a man that he may be lighted
from on high. In the Book of Proverbs it is
declared that ''The spirit of man is the candle
of the Lord," and the Psalmist says that God
will light his candle. It is a testimony to the
greatness of man's nature that he has the ca-
pacity of being set on fire to right living and
right purposes by the heavenly flame, and
that is the message that I want to bring to
you to-night, that you may be lighted of
God, and your soul's hearthstone may be
warmed with heavenly fire, and the way of
life may be illuminated for you from heaven.

God will reveal Himself to every man's
soul. God does not deal with us as races
or tribes of men. He deals with us as in-
dividuals, and it is well for us, very frequently,
to disentangle ourselves from the community
or the city and realize our own individual life,
not only our freedom as individuals, but

2

18 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

our responsibility. Watkinson, the English
preacher, says that Ezekiel is peculiarly the
teacher of individuahty. His great message
was to detach the person from the tribe. He
took the individual and made a wide margin
around him, and sought to make the individual
conscious of his isolation and accountability.
I think we need that very much in our own
time. We need to protect ourselves from the
tyranny of the crowd that surges around us
in the great city. We are Hable to forget
ourselves in such a deluge of personalities.
One of the greatest perils of our day is to
lose the sense of individuahty and merge
ourselves in communities and corporations
and syndicates. For we must remember that
in just so far as we sacrifice our individual-
ity, we merge ourselves in the mass and part
with our distinctive greatness and splendor
as men. What a man needs to-day is to rise
up against the multitude and assert himself
and say, "I also am a man, just as surely a
man as if I were the only man under the sun."
Now, then, to each human soul, because it
is His child, God reveals Himself and comes
with heavenly fire to light the flames from

THE SOUL'S HEARTHSTONE 19

above. You remember how He came to
Moses. We do not know how He came the
first time in Egypt when Moses was young,
and when God so stirred his soul with in-
dignation against the brutahty and lust and
wickedness of the Egyptian court that he
made the great choice, choosing rather to
suffer affliction with the despised Hebrews
than to enjoy the pleasures of the palace as
the adopted and flattered son of Pharaoh's
daughter. He fled away into the wilderness
and until he was eighty years of age he herded
sheep on the slopes of Mount Horeb in the
desert. And then God came again to reveal
Himself and rekindle the fire in the heart of
Moses. Coming along across the desert pas-
ture one day, Moses beheld the bush aflame
with fire, and he put his shoes off his feet in
holy reverence, and talked to his God. And
there was kindled that day another fire in the
heart of Moses himself. He had come out
a sheep-herder in the morning; he went home
at night a prophet and a statesman of the
Most High God, to go forth and appear before
Pharaoh in his palace and dominate him and
master him: to lead out the hosts of God's

20 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

people from Egypt, to climb Mount Sinai and
commune with God until he should become
the mightiest law-giver of all the centuries.
No man who bares the hearthstone of his soul
that God may build His fire thereon can tell
what will happen to him for good. Moses
and David were only sheep-herders, unknown
and of little account, until God kindled His
fire in their souls, and one became the law-
giver of the race and the other its mightiest
singer. Saul was only a bigoted, cruel, young
lawyer, without clients, until he met Jesus
Christ near the gates of Damascus, but the
heavenly fire was kindled in his soul, and it
burned until, transformed into Paul, he be-
came the mightiest evangel of all the ages
and gained an immortal record as a blessing
to mankind. Dwight Moody was only a
shoe-clerk, with no education, no gift of speech,
of not much value anywhere, until one day
an earnest disciple of Jesus Christ came into
the shoe-store and took hold upon that dumb
young clerk with loving purpose and won his
soul to God, and the heavenly fire was kindled
there. Oh, how bright the fire was! How it
burned until it blazed a shining path from

THE SOUL'S HEARTHSTONE 21

ocean to ocean, and from land to land, until
tens of thousands of redeemed souls blest
God for the name of Dwight Moody!

My friend, no one knows what injfinite value
there is in you if you will but yield your soul
to be the hearthstone for the fire of God.
There are possibilities in you that you do not
dream of. When once your nature is warmed
from heaven and the radiant beams of the
Sun of Righteousness have called into activity
the bulbs that have been buried under your
selfishness and sin — ah, then your life will
bud and blossom and be clothed upon with
beauty and with usefulness!

II

This thought of the bright fire glowing on
the hearthstone of a man's soul suggests to us
the communion and fellowship possible be-
tween a man and his God. And I assure you
that that heavenly fire in the human heart is
the surest guaranty to true happiness and
peace. The most interesting and delightful
people who have ever lived have received that
which made them so charming from the fire

22 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

on the soul's hearthstone. One of the most
famous Christians of the last generation was
the English General Gordon, commonly known
as "Chinese Gordon," who lost his life in the
Sudan. He was more famous as a Christian
than for anything else, altho his heroism was
of so high a type as to make him sure of a
place in history forever. Mr. Huxley, the
scientist, who was not partial to Evangelical
Christianity, nevertheless said that General
Gordon was "the most refreshing character
of the century." That which made him so
refreshing was the bright fire on his soul's
hearthstone.

One of the saints of tne earlier time, who
was a marvelous blessing to the world, was
Catherine of Siena. She was the daughter of
a poor tanner, born in the lowliest quarter of
the city of Siena, and when she was a mere
child of eight, she had a vision of Jesus
standing in the sunset in the clouds above
the city, and from that hour she was the bride
of Christ, and became one of the greatest
forces of her generation. And there is on
record an account of how certain learned
doctors went to hear her preach, with con-

THE SOUL'S HEARTHSTONE 23

tempt in their hearts, or at least curiosity and
nothing more. They came back weeping,
they knew not why, for the Holy Spirit rested
upon Catherine that night. They went to
scorn, they came back home to sob. The
holy fire on the good woman's hearthstone
melted their stubborn opposition.

And your great happiness must depend on
this fire in the soul. Bishop Anderson, of the
Methodist Episcopal Church, spent a day with
Bishop Goodsell very shortly before that good
man's departure from the earth. The Bishop
preached in the morning and was just leaving
the church to take the train in order to meet
another engagement. As he passed out of the
door of the church he was met by a reporter
who said, ''I understand this has been a very
interesting service. Would you be good
enough to give me the essential features of
it.?" "Well," said the Bishop, "I should be
very glad to, my friend, but I am under the
necessity of taking the train in just a few
minutes. I have only time to walk to the
depot. If you care to walk along with me,
we can converse as we walk and I will be
very glad to give you any information that

24 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

will be of value to you." So they walked
along and the Bishop told him about the
service. Evidently his courtesy and the
courtliness so characteristic of Bishop Goodsell
imprest the reporter; and after he had obtained
all the information that he desired, he turned
to the Bishop and said: "I wish to thank
you, sir, for your gracious courtesy; and now
let me ask you a question, if you have no
objections; you seem to be unusually ap-
proachable for a man in your position, and
I should like, if I may, to ask you a question
I have thought about a good many times.
Now, tell me, don't you preachers have an
awfully dull time of it.^" Then he said, "You
don't smoke, do you.^^" "No," said the
Bishop. "And you don't chew, do you.'^ "
"No," answered the Bishop. "And you
don't go to the theater.?" "No; I don't go
to the theater." "And you never play
cards.? " "No; I never play cards." "Well,
it does seem to me, now, honestly and
frankly, that you preachers would have an
awfully dull time of it." And Bishop Ander-
son says he wishes the whole world could
have heard Goodsell's response. As simply

THE SOUL'S HEARTHSTONE 26

and frankly as a child, lie told that man of
the world how, away back yonder, in the
day of his boyhood, God's Spirit had
touched his heart and brought him into the
new light, and how a little later He made it
very clear to him that he was called to the
work of the Christian ministry, and how, in
the days of his early manhood, he had given
himself up to this divine call, and how the
growth of opportunities in the Christian
ministry had been a constant surprize to him,
until he had come to see the extension of
God's kingdom in all lands and in the islands
of the sea, and what glorious fellowship he
had had with the best men of his time, and
what an unfailing inspiration he had found in
being God's servant through all the years.
It was a magnificent defense of the joys of
the Christian life and he sent that reporter
away with a glimpse into another world, in-
finitely higher and sweeter and richer than he
had known.

My dear friend, there is no joy like the
beautiful holy joy that will warm your heart
when the glowing flames on the altar of your
soul make you know that God loves you and

26 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

His tenderness is about you and will guide
you, not only here in this world, but to any
world to which He may call you.

It may seem to you now in your bright
youth that you do not need a guide, but the
heavy loads will come, and the dark hours,
and the trying times, and the great mysteries
when only the guidance of Him who makes
your heart like a warm fireside can give you
confidence and peace. There is nothing more
exquisitely beautiful than Bret Harte's poem
that tells the story of what death really is to
the man who lives in fellowship with God:

As I stand by the cross on the lone mountain's crest,

Looking over the ultimate sea,
In the gloom of the mountain a ship lies at rest.

And one sails away from the lea.
One spreads its white wings on a far-reaching track,

With pennant and sheet flowing free;
One hides in the shadow with sails laid aback —

The ship that is waiting for me!

But lo! in the distance the clouds break away!

The Gate's glowing portals I see;
And I hear from the outgoing ship in the bay

The song of the sailors in glee.
So I think of the luminous footprints that bore

The comfort o'er dark Galilee;
And wait for the signal to go to the shore,

To the ship that is waiting for me.

THE SOULS HEARTHSTONE 27

III

Another thought I must not fail to press
home upon you from our theme to-night, and
that is, that if we shut the heart's door against
the call of God, and will not permit our souls
to be lighted by the heavenly flame, we open
the way for a baleful fire to be lighted on the
hearthstone of the soul — the influence of which
will not only work disaster to ourselves but to
those who come in contact with us. Phillips
Brooks, in one of his great sermons on "The
Candle of the Lord," sets out with graphic
clearness the possibility of the human candle
being plunged down to hell and lighted at the
yellow flames that burn out of the dreadful
brimstone of the pit, until we see a man who
is rich in every brilliant human quality cursing
the world with the continual exhibition of the
devilish instead of the Godlike in his life.
When the power of pure love appears as a
capacity of brutal lust; when the holy in-
genuity with which man may search the
character of his fellow man, that he may help
him to be his best, is turned into the unholy
skill with which the bad man studies his

28 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

victim, that he may know how to make his
damnation most complete; when the almost
divine magnetism which is given to a man in
order that he may instil his faith and hope
into some soul that trusts him is used to
breathe doubt and despair through all the
substance of a friend's reliant soul; when wit,
which ought to make truth beautiful, is de-
liberately prostituted to the service of a lie;
in all these cases, and how frequent they are
no man among us fails to know, you have
simply the spirit of man kindled from below,
not from above, the candle of the Lord burning
with the fire of the devil. Oh, my friend, it
is a terrible thing to go through life with the
devil's fire burning on the hearthstone of
your soul, burning out there everything that
is good and pure and holy, giving no real
warmth to bless those whom you love, shed-
ding forth an influence that will do harm to
those who admire you or are led by you.
How many times I have seen children trying
to warm themselves by an irreligious father's
fire, who have been singed as fatally as moths
are destroyed in the street-lamp at night.
My friends, you were not made to burn at

THE SOU US HEARTHSTONE 29

the flames of hell. Your nature belongs to
God, and only by yielding yourselves as a wick
to His fire can your soul come to its true
happiness, your personality to its noble use-
fulness, and your life become a hearthstone
where every one who is attracted by your
influence shall be comforted and inspired and
blest.

THE WHEELS OF PROVIDENCE

"Their work was as it were a wheel within a wheel." — Ezekiel
1:16.

THE theme suggested here is one of the
greatest that the human mind can con-
template. It deals with the presence of God
in human activity, the pervading personality
of God in all our human life, controlling and
mastering the universe in which we live,
causing all things to work together to bring
about good to His children. It speaks of the
God who rides upon the wings of the wind,
who makes the thunder-storm His scavenger,
driving off poisonous vapors and cleansing the
atmosphere that it may nourish human life;
the God who makes the frost and the snow
and the ice, as well as the earthquake and the
volcano, to be factors in the health and bless-
ing of the world. We are not able always to
see the working of the machinery; wheels
work within wheels that are hidden from our

30

THE WHEELS OF PROVIDENCE 31

vision; but the long course of history proves
to us that the supreme dominating factors of
the universe are the revolving wheels of God's
providence. This is brought out very beauti-
fully in a poem written by Derzhavin, a
Russian author. It shows the divine benevo-
lence of God as a ruling factor in the universe
with such clearness that the Emperor of Japan
has had it translated into Japanese, and it
is hung up, embroidered with gold, in the
Temple of Jeddo. It has also been translated
into the Chinese and Tatar languages, written
on a piece of priceless silk, and suspended in
the Imperial palace at Pekin. Its length pre-
cludes my quoting all of it, but I hope that
some paragraphs of it may bring before our
minds a reverent and impressive conception
of the benevolent activity of God in relation
to our own Hves. The poet sings:

O thou eternal One! whose presence bright
All space doth occupy, all motion guide;
Unchanged through time's all -devastating flight;
Thou only God! There is no God beside!
Being above all beings! Three-in-one!
Whom none can comprehend, and none explore,
Who fiUst existence with thyself alone,
Embracing all, supporting, ruling o'er;
Being whom we call God — and know no more!

32 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

In its sublime research, philosophy-
May measure out the ocean deep, may count
The sands or the sun's rays — but God ! for thee
There is no weight nor measure; none can mount
Up to thy mysteries. Reason's brightest spark,
Tho kindled by thy light, in vain would try-
To trace thy counsels, infinite and dark;
And thought is lost ere thought can soar so high.

Thou from primeval nothingness didst call,
First chaos, then existence. Lord! on thee
Eternity had its foundation, all
Sprung forth from thee, — of light, joy, harmony,
Sole origin; all life, all beauty, thine.
Thy word created all, and doth create;
Thy splendor fills all space with rays divine;
Thou art, and wert, and shalt be! Glorious,
Light-giving, life-sustaining Potentate!

What am I then? Naught!
Naught! But the effluence of thy Hght divine.
Pervading worlds, hath reached my bosom, too;
Yes, in my spirit doth thy spirit shine,
As shines the sunbeam in a drop of dew.
Naught! but I five, and on hope's pinions fly
Eager toward thy presence.
I am, O God! and surely thou must be!
Thou art! directing, guiding all, thou art!
Direct my understanding then, to thee;
Control my spirit, guide my wandering heart;
Tho but an atom midst immensity,
Still I am something, fashioned by thy hand!
I hold a middle rank 't-wixt heaven and earth.
On the last verge of mortal being stand.
Close to the realm where angels have their birth,
Just on the boundaries of the spirit land !
The chain of being is complete in me;

THE WHEELS OF PROVIDENCE 33

In me is matter's last gradation lost,
And the next step is spirit — Deity!
I can command the lightning and am dust!
A monarch, and a slave; a worm, a god!
Whence came I here, and how? so marvelously
Constructed and conceived? Unknown! this clod
Lives surely through some higher energy.
For from itself alone it could not be!
Creator, yes! Thy wisdom and thy word
Created me! Thou source of life and good!
Thou spirit of my spirit, and my Lord !
Thy light, thy love, in the bright plenitude,
Filled me with an immortal soul, to spring
Over the abyss of death, and bade it wear
The garments of eternal day, and wing
Its heavenly flight beyond the little sphere.
Even to its source, to thee, its author there.

Oh, thoughts ineffable! Oh, visions blest!
Tho worthless our conception all of thee,
Yet shall thy shadowed image fill our breast
And waft its homage to thy Deity.
And, when the tongue is eloquent no more,
The soul shall speak in tears of gratitude.

This wheel within a wheel is at work in
every human life, and it is not hard to trace
it afterward, tho it is not always so easy to
be sure at the time. We can imagine Joseph,
fresh from his happy life with his father, in-

34 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

toxicated with his dreams and visions, when
he is suddenly seized by the angry hands of
his envious brothers and sold away into slavery
to have been very much shocked, and we
would not have wondered if, for a time, his
faith in God had been shaken. And then we
find him in Egypt, where by his cheerfulness
and the charm of his personality, sustained
by his faith in God, and the assurance of
his heart that all shall be well with him, he
comes into a place of great influence and power.
And then suddenly we see him, by a most
cruel arrangement of circumstances, through
no possible fault of his own, dragged from
this new position of strength and achieve-
ment and condemned to a dungeon. Surely,
now, Joseph will lose his faith and his con-
fidence. But he does not. He goes on pray-
ing to God, and after a time, when God's
purpose is fully ripe, he comes out of the
dungeon to the palace of Pharaoh, to be prime
minister in Egypt, and to save the people
alive. Now, looking back on the history, we
can see the wheel within the wheel that was
all the time revolving for the blessing of
Joseph, for the enlarging of his sphere of

THE WHEELS OF PROVIDENCE 35

usefulness, and to make him a greater bene-
factor to the world. Everything in the story
of Joseph that looked cruel and hard at the
time was a blessing in disguise, the wheel
within the wheel. So some things may have
happened in your life that have shaken your
faith in the goodness and kindness of God's
purpose toward you, but it is only the wheel
within the wheel, and some day, when you
look back over your life, as Joseph looked
back over his from the palace of Egypt, when
he was able to send food to save his family
from starving, you will know that in every
one of these experiences which have seemed
mysterious and inexplicable there has been
the hand of God, full of mercy and kindness.
Let us trust God in the dark, as Joseph did,
and we shall find that the God who stood by
him and kept him in peace and brought him
to victory, will be our God, who will never
fail us.

II

God often makes one wheel work within
another wheel in our lives to humanize us;
to give sympathy and kindness to our hearts,

36 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

to help US to be able to put ourselves in
another's place and appreciate the sorrows
and the trials which they endure.

A very interesting story is told of the
English queen mother, Alexandra. While she
was still the Princess of Wales, she lost her
eldest son, the Duke of Clarence, and her
mother heart was broken by his death. But
a queen has many duties to perform and this
noble woman tried to conceal her grief, which
was revealed only in her broken health and
in a growing tenderness and consideration for
others. Soon after the death of her son she
was walking in a quiet place near the palace
of Sandringham, which was then her home,
when she met an old woman sobbing and
tottering under a load of packages. It seems
that the woman was a carrier and supported
herself by shopping and doing errands in the
market-town for the country people. "But
the weight is too heavy at your age," said the
princess. "Yes. You are right, ma'am. I
have to give it up, and if I give it up I will
starve. Jack carried them for me — my boy —
ma'am." "And where is he now?" inquired
the princess. "Jack! he's dead. Oh, he is

THE WHEELS OF PROVIDENCE 37

dead!" she cried with breaking heart. With-
out a word the princess hurried on, but her
friend who was with her saw the future queen
draw her veil over her face to hide the tears.
Not many days after a beautiful Httle cart,
drawn by a stout donkey, stopt at the old
woman's door. And afterward she drove to
and fro on her errands in great comfort. But
for years she did not know that her benefac-
tress was the queen of England, who also had
a dead boy. Ah, the wheel within a wheel
of a fellow feeling makes us wondrous kind.

A young man spoke to me the other day
about a certain woman whom he greatly
admired because of the gentleness and sweet
charm of her nature, and remarked, ''She
has had a great deal of trouble," and I re-
pHed to him, "No doubt that is the secret
of her peculiar sweetness and charm." The
wheel within the wheel had wrought in her
nobihty and beauty of character. If we sub-
mit ourselves to the wheels of God's provi-
dence, they work only to make us noble and
to bless us.

38 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

III

Our personal salvation must come from
these wheels of providence working in our
hearts. The Spirit of God moves mysteriously
and unseen in the human breast, but the
result we can see. Perhaps you have tried
to hve a clean life with vour unclean heart
and you have failed, and you doubt the pos-
sibility of such a transformation in your
nature that a clean life would flow forth from
your heart. You surely ought not to doubt
it with all the analogies of nature about us
to-day. Look at a man like Luther Burbank,
the wizard worker in botany in California.
He takes a tree that has been going to the
bad for ages, and that has become mean,
noxious, ugly. He begins to treat it, and by
and by he dehvers it from habits that have
been fashioned by centuries. He turns its
life, its energies, into fresh channels, and, to
use the words of his biographer — *'By the
shock of re-creation" he makes it a thing of
beauty and fragrance and f ruitf ulness ! So
Dr. Watkinson says, if a clever man can go
into nature and break a tree of its bad habits

THE WHEELS OF PROVIDENCE 39

and make of it a thing of beauty and glory,
what can the great Gardener of human hearts
do when He puts forth all of His strength on
the penitent soul? Can not God break us of
habits fashioned by years? Can not His grace
turn our energies into better channels? Can
not He, by the shock of re-creation, make of
us new creatures and strengthen us to walk
in newness of Hfe? Nature teems with anal-
ogies of conversion. If you go away from
your house some day, leaving your ink-pot
open where the sun shines through the window
on it, when you go back your ink is gone.
And if you will go out and look up into the
sky, if the conditions are favorable, you may
see your bottle of ink in the rainbow. Xature
knows how to cleanse and refine and trans-
figure and transform, and surely you can not
believe that in a world where every day you
see the miracle of renewal and cleansing and
transfiguration, the only thing that can not
be changed is the human soul, that which is
more important to change than anything else.
But, thank God, we do not have to depend on
analogy. The world teems with illustrations,
with H\'ing, credible witnesses of the power

40 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

of God to work in a human soul, making the
unclean clean, and transforming the sinful
heart into harmony with the soul of Jesus
Christ.

A lady told me only the other day a most
interesting story of the conversion of her
father. He was a successful actor, and had
been a number of years on the stage. He
was not a dissipated man, but a man careless
of spiritual things and living without faith
and hope in God. One day, in a strange
city, in company with a group of other actors
of the company with which he was playing,
he was wandering about the streets without
any particular aim, save to be in the open
air, when passing a cottage he heard a woman
singing in a singularly sweet but very sad
voice. He slipt up to the window, scarcely
knowing why he did so, and at the fireplace
sat a mother holding her dead child in her
arms. He could not be sure, but he was
imprest that the child was dead. The mother
was singing:

'Depth of mercy, can there be
Mercy still reserved for me? "

THE WHEELS OF PROVIDENCE 41

Tremendously imprest with the strange
sight, he motioned to the others, one of whom
was a singer who had a singing part in the
play, and as she drew near, the sad, sweet
voice of the woman within came to them:

"I have long withstood his grace;
Long provoked him to his face;
Would not harken to his call;
Grieved him by a thousand falls."

The little group who had been so strangely
drawn to the place made themselves known,
and went in, and found that the little babe
had been ill and the husband had been away
all night on a drunken spree, and the mother,
keeping her sad vigil, had had the unutterable
grief of seeing her child die in her arms, and
not knowing that there was any one within
hearing, her lonely, broken heart had burst
forth in Charles Wesley's old hymn, in appeal
to the mercy of God. Her unexpected visitors
did what they could to help her, and went
away thinking of nothing else but the scene
they had witnessed. That night at the
theater, a strange thing happened. When the
singer who had been of the party stood up
before the audience to sing the gay song which

42 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

was her part, without any premeditation, her
conscience was so aroused that she began,
instead :

"Depth of mercy, can there be
Mercy still reserved for me?"

and bursting into tears, left the stage. Both
this woman and the lady's father, who told
me the story, were at once converted to
Christ, and this man became a most devoted
Christian, and tho that was many years ago,
he has ever since lived a life of fruitful
Christian service, and thanks God every day
for the strange Providence that led him to
the Savior.

God waits to work the same blest trans-
formation in your heart.

THE RAINBOW ABOUT THE THRONE

"As the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud in the
day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness round about.
This was the appearance of the Ukeness of the glory of Jehovah."
— Ezekiel 1 : 28.

EZEKIEL had seen a vision of the throne
of God and upon it he had seen one Hke
unto the Son of man. He had been filled with
awe at the majesty and sublimity of the
throne, and as he watched with reverence,
about the throne came the rainbow. Alto-
gether it makes a beautiful theme. There is
nothing more splendid in all the panorama
of nature than the rainbow. It is not only
beautiful, but there is something about it that
is exalted, that lifts the soul upward. It
teaches us not only the omnipotence of God,
but when we connect it with its story in the
Bible, it teaches us also of His love. When
the lightnings have died away and the noise
of the storm is spent, and the fields and pas-
tures are dripping with the summer shower,
then it is that the rainbow comes forth on

43

44 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

the back of the retreating storm as a messenger
of God. The celestial arch connecting heaven
and earth appeals to the very deepest things
in a man's nature and lifts his soul into con-
fidence and trust.

Like all these early memories of Genesis,
memories of the childhood of the race, traces
or fragments of them may be found among
all the ancient peoples. Every one of the
ancient nations has religious ideas connected
with the appearance of the rainbow. The
Greeks considered it as the path on which
Iris, the messenger of the King and Queen
of Olympus, traveled from heaven to earth;
Homer describes the rainbow as placed in the
clouds to be a sign to man either of war or
icy winter. But Iris herself was very fre-
quently identified with the rainbow, and she
was considered to be the daughter of Wonder,
by Brightness, the daughter of Oceanus, which
parentage describes appropriately the nature
and origin of the rainbow. Her usual
epithets are "swift-footed" and "gold-
winged," and the probable etymology of her
name points to the connection between earth
and heaven, between man and the Deity; and

THE RAINBOW ABOUT THE THRONE 45

thus she is the conciHating, the peace-restoring
goddess, and is represented with a herald's
staff in her left hand. The Persians regarded
the rainbow as a divine messenger. An old
Persian picture shows a winged boy on a rain-
bow and before him kneels an old man in a
posture of worship. The Hindus describe
the rainbow as a weapon in the hands of
Indras, with which he hurls flashing darts
upon the wicked giants, and the Chinese con-
sider it as foreboding trouble and misfortunes
on earth. But the Hindus regard it as also
a symbol of peace, which appears to man
when the combat of the heavens is silent.

The Bible story of the rainbow is far more
coherent. We see Noah, after the ark has
landed on Mount Ararat, coming forth with
his family in the dawn of the new era of the
world, after the retreating waters of the flood.
He goes forth to worship and builds his altar
unto God, and the Lord makes a covenant
with him and tells him that He will make the
bow in the clouds after rain to be the token
of that covenant; a token that can be seen in
every land under heaven. No man shall go
beyond its reach — and wherever that token

46 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

is seen, it shall be a witness to the pledge of
God, that He will never again deluge the
world and that summer and winter, seed-time
and harvest, shall follow each other in their
turn until time shall be no more. Sometimes
you hear the cheap critic ask, "But, was there
no rainbow before the flood?" Of course
there was. There must always have been
rainbows, from the time the sun and rain
first knew each other. Ages before man was
created, when there was no eye to look on
them save God and the angels, the heavenly
hosts must have rejoiced at the beauty of the
rainbow in the sky above the ancient moun-
tains. But, as Joseph Parker said, old forms
may be put to new uses. Physical objects
may be clothed with moral meanings. The
stars in the heaven and the sand by the sea-
shore may come to be unto Abraham a family
register. One day common bread may be
turned into sacramental food, and ordinary
wine may become as the blood of atonement!
The rainbow, which was once nothing but a
thing of evanescent beauty, created by the
sun and the rain, after that morning of Noah's
worship on the mountain top, became the

THE RAINBOW ABOUT THE THRONE 47

token of a covenant and was sacred as a rev-
elation from heaven. A few years ago some
one brought over a flock of skylarks and turned
them loose on Long Island. John Burroughs
tells how he once was wandering in the woods
listening to one, as in the ecstasy of his up-
ward flight he would burst into song, when
he saw an old Englishman also listening.
The Englishman had not known that there
were any skylarks on Long Island. He had
not heard one for thirty years, since he left
his English home, and when he heard that
old familiar bird-song of his boyhood, he took
off his hat as tho he were in church and lifted
his eyes to heaven and the tears ran down
his face as he listened. He might have heard
a thousand skylarks sing in England and never
have shed a tear, but to hear the dear song in
a strange land, it was a token of a covenant
between him and his old home that touched
the deepest fountain of his soul. So God did
not create a sign, He did no violence to the
universe, but He took the rainbow and set ii
apart to be a token of this new covenant
which He had made with His children.

48 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

We may see suggested in our theme that
tho human hfe is full of clouds, across our
clouds God puts the arch of the rainbow as
a token of His presence, and of His willingness
to be helpful and full of blessing to us. I
think it is interesting that the rainbow goes
all the way through the Bible with us, from
first to last. We find the rainbow first in the
Book of Genesis, and early in the book, in
the story of the world's childhood. It is
there that God paints His bow in the cloud
and promises never to desert us, and gives
it to us as a token of His mercy, an assurance
that His presence shall go with us. And again
in Isaiah we have reference to it, when God
says: * ''In overflowing wrath I hid my face
from thee for a moment; but with everlasting
loving-kindness will I have mercy on thee,
saith Jehovah, thy Redeemer, for this is as
the waters of Noah unto me; for as I have
sworn that the waters of Noah shall no more
go over the earth, so have I sworn that I will

* Isa. 54.

THE RAINBOW ABOUT THE THRONE 49

not be wroth with thee, nor rebuke thee. For
the mountains may depart, and the hills be
removed; but my loving-kindness shall not
depart from thee, neither shall my covenant
of peace be removed, saith Jehovah that hath
mercy on thee." And again in Ezekiel we
find in our text the rainbow of God's mercy
round about the throne of His judgment and
power. And then again in the last book of
the Bible, in the Book of Revelation, we have
two references to the rainbow, each one of
them used to suggest the love and mercy of
God, which always attend on His majesty
and power. And so, if we follow through the
history of God's dealings with His people, we
shall see that God hath put His rainbow on
every cloud. One day David was feasted at
the banquet of the king and on the next day
he was an outcast in the cave of AduUam, but
God's bow was in the clouds and He gave him
pisalms to sing in the wilderness. The Egyp-
tians overtake Moses with his struggling band
of pilgrims and the Red Sea confronts them,
but God's bow is in the clouds, a pillar of
fire by night and a pillar of cloud by day,
and they are guided safely. The women, on

4

50 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

the way to Joseph's tomb to anoint the poor
wounded body of Jesus, said among them-
selves, "Who will roll us away the stone?"
But God's bow was in the clouds, and the
stone was rolled away, and they saw a vision
of angels who told them of the resurrection
of their Lord. The disciples walked on the
way to Emmaus, sorrowful and sad, saying
about Jesus, *'We had hoped that it was he
who should have redeemed Israel," and, lo,
when they took their stranger friend in with
them to their evening meal, their eyes were
opened and they beheld their Lord. Paul
tells us that when he was first called to stand
before the tyrant to answer for his faith, that
even he trembled, but God's bow was in the
clouds, and he tells us: ''At my first answer
no man stood with me, but all men forsook
me. Notwithstanding, the Lord stood with
me, and strengthened me, and I was dehvered
out of the mouth of the lion." And there are
many of you who hear me who have had your
own cave of Adullam, and have known your
dark clouds and trying experiences, and yet
you could bear glad testimony that in the
darkest hour God's bow was in the cloud full

THE RAINBOW ABOUT THE THRONE 51

not only of beauty, but tender with mercy
and the assurance of divine help.

II

The rainbow as a token of God's covenant
with man speaks the same message all around
the world to all the tribes of men. It should
suggest to us that we who have received the
Gospel of Christ, and have known the joy of
our sins forgiven, are under obligations to
carry the same message of mercy wherever
God has set His bow in the clouds. It should
quicken us in our willingness to give of our
substance to carry the Gospel to foreign lands.
For the same God who so loved us that He
gave His Son to die on the cross, that our
sins might be forgiven, is the God of the
Eskimo and the African and the Hindu and
the Chinaman and the Japanese. He is God
over all. The}^ too, are His children. He
sets the rainbow as an arch in their clouds,
and we are debtors to them, and must carry
to them the light and hope and mercy which
has been given to us. The world would
speedily be converted to Christ if we could
all feel this obligation as we ought.

52 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

III

The rainbow is a token of mercy. It sug-
gests to us the mediation of Christ which
brings heaven and earth together. The rain-
bow always ends at the earth. Many is the
boy who has tried to chase to the foot of it
that he might find there the bag of gold.
But its span reaches high in the heavens, and
thus it binds earth and heaven together. So
Christ is the rainbow around the throne, born
of our flesh, cradled in Bethlehem's manger,
a boy in a carpenter-shop at Nazareth, reach-
ing to our earth, brother with us, and yet
reaching up to the highest heavens, taking
hold upon the very throne of God in His power
and majesty and goodness. So He becomes
the rainbow which ties heaven and earth to-
gether. And this arch of mercy in the Gospel
is a token of equal power for all sorts and
conditions of men. The vilest sinner, as well
as the most self-righteous Pharisee, finds in
this rainbow of mercy the bridge which is
needed to span the gulf between his soul and
God. I have been reading recently a book

THE RAINBOW ABOUT THE THRONE 53

by Harold Begbie, entitled, in this country,
"Twiceborn Men." When Mr. Begbie
brought this book out in England, he called it
*' Broken Earthenware." It is a story of the
most utterly lost men that could be found in
London who found in the rainbow of mercy
a bridge which spanned the distance between
the vilest wretch and the saint of God. I
can only hint at a single story in these
tremendous human documents. One he calls
"The Plumber." It gives a picture of a
skilled artizan which is literally heart-break-
ing. The degradation, the dishonesty, of this
man is almost incredible in a civilized country,
and yet this man was completely transformed.
He had been constantly threatening his wife,
and she followed him to the public-house one
day to get him out if possible, for nearly all
of his very large earnings were spent there.
He was full of irritation at the sight of her
at the door, and he said, "God, if you don't
leave me alone I'll — " He had exhausted
blasphemy and malice. He did not know
what to say. He paused for a moment with
that murderous scowl on his face and finally
to the amazement of his wife, and those about

54 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

him, ended the sentence by saying, "I'll sign
the pledge." And he went straight from that
public-house to a Salvation Army friend he
knew, and told him that he wanted to give
up his bad life. The man got him to kneel
and ask God for his pardon; got him to come
to the meeting, and before them all make
confession, and as Christ cast out the demons
from that poor fellow at Gadara, so He ex-
pelled the devils from this poor man's breast.
He was so happy he could have shouted for
joy. But he was also so frightened at fear
of losing this happiness that he dared not
thinks about it. His description afterward
sounds just like this book of Ezekiel. He
seemed to be walking in a shining light, on
pavements of fire, with the trees waving to him,
with his soul dazed by ecstasy. The result
of this extraordinary change was that his dis-
sipated companions among whom he worked
turned upon him, and, indeed, persuaded the
foreman and the manager to dismiss him;
and because he had become clean, a pure and
sober man, he lost his work. He was driven
as a tramp into the country to seek work, and
his only comfort was in the words of the

THE RAINBOW ABOUT THE THRONE 55

Gospel, "I am the vine and ye are the
branches." And when, in his despair, he re-
turned to London, he had to give up all
thought of being a plumber. He could get
no work; the word was passed around that he
had become a saint; and he is now a common
laborer, a sweeper of the London streets;
but he is one of the happiest men in London.
The man's face is a TeDeum and he is still
walking that shining way and all the trees
wave to him in love from his God. Ah, you
say, "Religion is surely a good thing for a
miserable drunkard, for a man who has lost
control over himself." But, my friends, how-
ever moral and lifted above this man you may
be, if you are not on praying terms with God,
you need this rainbow of mercy as well as
did this poor plumber. Suppose I put over
against this drunken plumber of the London
slums, one of the most gifted and brilliant
minds of the last century, that wonderfully
beautiful and cultivated man, John Ruskin.
On Good Friday, 1852, John Ruskin wrote
this in his diary: "One day last week I
began thinking over my past life, and what
fruit I have had, and the joy of it which

5G THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

has passed away, and of the hard work of it,
and I felt nothing but discomfort, for I saw
that I had been always working for myself
in one way or another. Then I thought of
my investigations of the Bible, and found no
comfort in that either. This was about two
o'clock in the morning, so I considered that
I had now neither pleasure in looking to my
past life, nor any hope, such as would be my
comfort on a sick-bed, of a future one, and
I made up my mind that this would never do.
So after thinking, I resolved that at any rate,
I would act as if the Bible were true, that if
it were not I would be, at all events, no worse
off than I was before; that I should believe
in Christ and take Him for my Master in
whatever I did; that to disbelieve the Bible
was quite as difficult as to believe it; and
when I had done this, I fell asleep. When I
arose in the morning, tho I was still unwell,
I felt a peace and spirit in me that I had
never known before." And years afterward,
if you had talked to John Ruskin, he would
have told you that this transformation of the
inner life w^as needed just as much by him,
brilliant Oxford scholar tho he was, as it was

THE RAINBOW ABOUT THE THRONE 57

by the drunken, criminal plumber about whom
Mr. Begbie tells us.

My dear friends, the old legend of the bag
of gold at the foot of the rainbow has in it
a vein of eternal truth. It is the gold of the
spirit, the gold of eternal peace, and it is in
the rainbow that is round about the throne
of God where you may find it. At the foot
of the cross where a sinner bows in humble
repentance and faith its treasure will always
be found.

A MAN ON HIS FEET

"And he said unto me: Son of man, stand upon thy feet,
and I will speak unto thee." — Ezekiel 2:1.

THE prophet tells us that when he saw
the great vision which he has been de-
scribing in the preceding paragraphs, a vision
of shining wheels, with strange faces and
living creatures coming and going in their
midst, and in the midst of it all a throne, with
the rainbow of mercy about it, revealing the
glory of Jehovah, he was overwhelmed with
the majesty of the sight and the consciousness
of his own unworthiness, and he fell upon his
face before it. Then it was that the voice
came to him with this message calling him to
stand upon his feet and listen to the message
which God would impart to him.

We are quite accustomed in the Bible to
see men receiving the message of God on
their knees, or prone on their faces, expressing
their deep humility and a profound sense of
their own lack of worthiness to stand before

58

A MAN ON HIS FEET 00

God. We see Moses when God appeared to
him in the burning bush, bowing himself
down to the earth, for he was afraid to look
upon God. And at different times we see
that rugged soldier Joshua, and the poet-king
David, and the brave and fearless Daniel,
and John the beloved disciple, when the great
visions came to him on the Isle of Patmos —
again and again we see these men, who never
failed to meet their fellow men eye to eye
and face to face, casting themselves down be-
fore God in deep humihation, and there is in
this a great and true lesson. As Phillips
Brooks has said in commenting on this pas-
sage, there is a great truth set forth in all
such pictures. It is that only to human
humility can God speak intelligibly. Only
when a man is humble can he hear and
understand the words of God.

But there is here another picture with an-
other truth. When God was about to give
this message to Ezekiel, He said to him, "Son
of man, stand upon thy feet and I will speak
unto thee." Not on his face, but on his feet;
not in the attitude of humiliation, but in the
attitude of self-respect; not stript of all

60 THE SrXDAY-MGHT EVANGEL

strength and lying like a dead man, waiting
for life to be given him, but strong in the
intelligent consciousness of privilege, and
standing ahve, ready to cooperate with the
living God who spoke to him; so the man
now is to receive the word of God. It is not
contradictory to the other idea, but it is
different from it. When God raised Ezekiel
and set him on his feet before He spoke to
him, it suggests to us the idea that man may
lose the words of God because of a low and
grovehng estimate of himself as well as be-
cause of a proud and conceited one. The best
understanding of God can only come to a
man when he is upright and self -reverent in
his privilege as the son of God. Unless a
man honors his own life, he can not get God's
best and fullest wisdom: unless you stand
upon yoiu* feet, you will not hear God speak
to you.

I think our theme should suggest to us a
man's pri\41ege and, therefore, his duty to
stand on his feet with his face toward the
sky, glowing in the sunshine, enhvened with

A MAN ON HIS FEET 61

hope, and shining with thanksgiving and glad-
ness, in appreciation of his great inheritance
as a man. I can not see how we do not all
of us catch ourselves laughing sometimes until
the tears of joy wet our faces, simply at the
gladness of being alive as the children of God.
I do not think any grace becomes a true man
more than the grace of gladness, and apprecia-
tion, and laughter. And it is a great factor
in life and in the successful carrying of its
burdens. George AYilliam Curtis once said
that some farmers go up to a fence and look
over at the cabbages with a face so sour that
the cabbages wilt right down; but that some
other men go up and look on the corn-fields
with faces so bright and laughter so contagious
that the corn-stalks clap their hands for joy.
Charles Lamb, who had sorrow enough,
God knows, used to say that a laugh was worth
a hundred groans in any market. Russell
Conwell tells us, in one of his merry lectures,
that he went one day into the market to buy
potatoes. He passed by the sour dealer, and
the indifferent dealer, and came to the German
woman, whose face was like the moon in the
last quarter; who was jolly and happy as she

62 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

laughed and said, "This basket is eighty cents,
and this sixty cents; and this sixty-cent basket
is just as good." And Con well was so happy
with her that he said, "Madam, I will take
both of them, I will take all that you have."
And he tells us that every time the potatoes
came upon the table, every eye winked at
him, and suggested the happy old German
woman's face, and he and his family ate
those potatoes with happiness and good di-
gestion. The moral comes out when he
learned that after two years the smiling
German woman had bought out the sour
young man and the indifferent man, and was
the prosperous owner of all three stalls.

I am sure if we stood upon our feet in true
appreciation of the glorious gifts of God to
us in the way He has enriched us in man-
hood and womanhood, in all the gifts of body
and mind and heart, and in the hopes and
longings and prophetic aspirations of our
souls, that we would say the grace of laughter
much more frequently than we do. Man is
the only being to whom God has given the
grace of laughter, and when a man ceases to
laugh, he has begun to degenerate downward

A MAN ON HIS FEET 63

toward the beasts that can not laugh. The
Bible tells us there will be a time when all
tears shall be wiped away, but there will
never be a time when good men will cease to
laugh. I have read of a missionary convert
in New Guinea, who prayed "for help to live
a holy, active life here and go hereafter to
the place of laughter," and I think that was
a good prayer. When our mouth is filled with
laughter and our tongue with singing, then
we shall say, "The Lord hath done great
things for us, whereof we are glad." O man,
stand on thy feet and appreciate the dignity
and splendor with which God has endowed
thee as a man and thank Him with joy and
laughter. It is only in that way that we can
bless the world as we ought. Christ said to
His disciples, "Ye are the light of the world."
He did not say they were to be the gloom or
the sorrow or the tears of the world, but the
brightness the sunshine, the joy of the world.
It is told in the story of Tom Hood, the
poet, that a minister whose face was said to
have been as long as a yardstick, and as
cold as a gravestone, came in to see him
when he was very ill, and said to him in

64 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

drawling tones, "Mr. Hood, don't you wish
you were a Christian?" Hood looked up at
him a moment and replied, '*Well, sir, if it
made me feel as you look, no." My friends,
we must hve our religion, not only on great
occasions, but in all the ordinary days,
thanking God for life, blessing Him for the
power to think, and hope, and love, and live
forever, and letting these great gifts surround
us like an atmosphere until the glorious gospel
of the happy God shall be the natural good
tidings men shall expect from the light they
see in our faces and the laughter they hear
on our hps.

n

Our theme should suggest to us our privilege
of standing on our feet in fellowship with
Christ, sharing with Him the joy of bringing
blessing and salvation to the world. There is
nothing in this world more joyous and more
certain to inspire a man with the consciousness
of his true dignity as a man than working
with Christ to carry forward the great move-
ments of God in the salvation of the world.
The man who is a partner with Christ, who
is working together with Him, must in the very

A MAN ON HIS FEET 65

nature of things feel his own self-respect and
have reverent thoughts concerning his own
manliness. This attitude toward ourselves,
while it guards us against meanness which
would be beneath our true dignity, also gives
us inspiration and joy that no other fellow-
ship could give. This is the secret of the
great joy that sustained men like William
Carey, and David Livingstone, and Bishop
Thoburn, and multitudes of other men and
women, many of the world's rarest souls,
people who would have graced any place in
the centers of culture and power, but who have
given themselves for life to heathen lands, to
bring the Gospel of Christ to people who are
sunk in the deepest degradation. Yet they
were never bored by their experiences, their
hves never lacked in joy, because they lived
in such a sensitive attitude to Jesus Christ
that they were conscious of standing on their
feet with linked arms in blest fellowship with
that divine Personage whose three years of
human ministry is filling the whole world with
the charm and the glory of His presence.

Dr. Schofield said to a girl in his church,
who was going to China as a missionary,
5

66 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

"What makes you want to go to China?"
She looked at him in astonishment. "I sup-
pose," he said, **yo^ ^^e going because of
your love for these poor people." "Not at
all," she replied. "I don't love them at all.
I never had any love for the Chinese, what-
ever." "Then why are you going?" "Oh,"
she said, "I am going simply because I love
Jesus." Five years afterward he saw her
again. "How is it now between you and the
Chinese?" he asked. "Ah," she said, "I
love them now." It was the inspiration of
her love for Jesus that created her love for
the people. And so it is with every man
who comes to appreciate the infinite love of
Jesus Christ, in the atonement for himself,
and in response to Christ's great love gives
himself to be the friend of Jesus and the
partner with Him in men's salvation. We
will first work for men because we love Christ,
and then there will grow up in our hearts a
love so profound and deep that it will see
underneath all the degradation the possibility
which Jesus ever saw in men and women.
But the supreme inspiration of our love for
men must always be the love of our Lord.

A MAN ON HIS FEET 67

And as we give ourselves to partnership in
working for others, and carrying their burdens
and helping them toward heaven, heaven
comes to be the natural port of our souls, be-
cause we shall be needed there as we are here
to carry on our divine fellowship begun on
earth. Some poet tells of a good woman
who had thus wrought in fellowship with her
Savior and who carried many loved ones on
her shoulders, that —

She knocked at the Paradise-gate,

She tirled at the golden pin.
"Who is this that cometh so late,

And thinks to be let in?"
"Ah! keep me not here without,

Open quickly!" she cried,
"For there are those that need me, need me,

Waiting just inside."
Weary she was and worn.

Her knees and her shoulders bent.
But she leaped hke a yearling doe

Across the threshold of Ught —
She flew to the arms that drew her, drew her,

As a homing dove takes flight.
One was clasping her wrist.

And one was grasping her gown :
To one that cried to be kissed

Tenderly stooped she down.
As a bird outspreadeth its wings,

She gathered them closely in —
"Now is the time, O children, children,

When life shall at last begin!"

68 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

III

Some of you who listen to me have not yet
accepted Christ as your Savior and given
Him the response of your heart and Hfe in
answer to His dying love for you. You ought
to see in our theme a call to stand up out of
your sins and your wicked ways, out of your
selfishness and indifference, and walk upon
your feet, redeemed and forgiven through
Christ, to live a new life of obedience and
righteousness and fellowship with Him.

Luke tells us that on one occasion Jesus
borrowed Simon Peter's boat for a pulpit,
when a great crowd had gathered and begged
to hear Him speak. Peter's fishing-boat was
there and Christ asked him to row back a
little from the land so the people could all
see and hear, and then He preached to them.
The sermon is not given to us, but after the
sermon was over, the Master told them to
row out and put down their nets for fish,
but Peter said, in a discouraged tone, that it
was no fishing-day at all. They had been
fishing all day and taken nothing. Never-
theless, to please Christ, he said he would

A MAN ON HIS FEET 69

put down the net and he did, and the net
was so filled that they had to beckon to the
other boats to come and help them, and they
had more fish than they could take into the
boats, and Peter, who had fished all day in
vain, suddenly felt that the hand of Christ
was in it, and that it was a Divine hand,
with more than mortal power, and feeling his
own sinfulness and unworthiness, he fell down
before Christ with his head on the knees of
Jesus and cried out in anguish, "Depart from
me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord." But
Jesus called him to his feet and put hope and
courage into his heart by saying, "Fear not;
from henceforth thou shalt catch men." So,
to any one here who is conscious of unworthi-
ness and sinfulness in the sight of God, who
sees that in many ways you have been
groveling in your spirit in the mire and the
clay of life, I would to God that this sermon
might be used as a divine appeal to your
soul, calhng you to stand on your feet. De-
termine here and now that there shall be no
more groveling in sin, living beneath your
privilege as a man, but an upright walk as
the son of God, in fellowship with the all-

70 THE SUNDAY-NIOHT EVANGEL

glorious Christ. I wish you might have the
spirit of David when he prayed in keen con-
sciousness of his sinful Hfe, "Create in me a
new heart, O God." And God heard his
prayer. From that hour David walked up-
right, with his face toward the sky. Saul,
stricken down on his way to Damascus, and
his eyes opened to see the wickedness of his
life, heard the voice of Jesus saying to him,
"Arise and stand upon thy feet,'' and from
that hour Paul went forth to his splendid and
heroic life. Once in Worcester, Massachu-
setts, at midnight, a poor drunkard had a
kind hand laid on his shoulder by a Christian
man. It was like a call from heaven to rise
out of drunkenness and stand upon his feet,
and from that hour John B. Gough walked
forth sober, a new creature in Christ Jesus,
to be a blessing to the world. My friend,
stand upon your feet to-night and hear the
message of God to your own soul!

A MAN ALONE WITH GOD

"Arise, go forth into the plain and I will there talk with
thee."— Ezekiel 3 : 21.

IT was necessary that the young Ezekiel
should go forth from the crowd and lose
himself in the solitudes of the open plain,
that in the silence God might speak to him
the great message for which the people were
perishing. I do not take it from the reading
that the place was at all important. A
mountain, or a forest, or an island in the sea
would have been just as good. The necessary
thing was that the young man should separate
himself from the crowd, and the things which
distracted his attention, and give his mind
and heart a chance for God to speak to
him.

We are always going, like a pendulum of a
clock, to extremes. There have been ages
when men who would serve God all went to
the plain or the mountain cave, and hid
themselves away as hermits, that they might

71

72 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

escape the temptations of the world and have
an opportunity for communion with God.
Then there have been other ages, Hke our
own, when the rush and noise and materiahsm
of practical e very-day life absorb the attention
and there are few who go to the plain for
meditation and communion. Our own age
has gone to a dangerous extreme in this matter.
It has many good things in it, and, on the
whole, I am full of hope and believe that the
world is constantly growing better; but the
danger of our age is that we shall give our-
selves up to the outer, physical, spectacular
performances of life and lose the life-blood of
the soul through lack of hidden communion
with heaven, from which all true spiritual life
must come.

We may find many illustrations of this
danger in the literature of our time. Our
English ambassador, Mr. James Bryce, re-
cently asked Americans, in a public address,
the direct question, *' Where are your poets?"
in reply to which one of our journalists says

A MAN ALONE WITH GOD 73

that we might go back at Mr. Bryce and ask
him, in turn, "Where are England's poets?"
It would be a good reply to him, but it does
not answer the question. I fear that the true
answer would be that the atmosphere of our
time is too dusty and noisy and earthy for
poetry. Of course, human nature is as it al-
ways was, and poetry wears the winning grace
that it ever did. We could love it and delight
in it were not our hearts preoccupied. Poetry
is in its nature spiritual, while the popular
interest of our day is absorbed in a competing
materialism. Great corporations, vast cities,
steel bridges, mighty navies, transcontinental
railways, millions of exports, gigantic fortunes
of magic creation, — these and things like them
hold our interest. Amid their glitter and din
the muse woos us to little purpose. Hence
it is that we are in no condition to make de-
mands for poetry, and the engineer, the cor-
poration manager, the corporation lawyer,
not the poet, is the man of our desire. And
back of all this there is a deeper reason
still, in an atmosphere of thought to which
the poet is of all men most sensitive. If we
are to have great poetry again, we must

74 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

have a new epoch of men and women who
go to the plain and, alone with God, get
messages for humanity.

I think that the one great literary master
of our time is a proof of this. There has just
passed away from earth in Russia the greatest
literary prophet of our age, and I think his
story, with which I, hke many of you, no
doubt, have been refreshing myself, is a proof
of the reality of our theme to-night. For
thirty years Tolstoy has been in his own way
a mighty preacher of the Gospel of Christ.
It was a momentous hour for himself, and one
fraught with great results for the world, when
after a long struggle he found his way to the
feet of Christ. The story of that struggle
and what led up to it is well known; he has
told it himself in imperishable pages. Born
to social eminence, educated as a Russian
noble, a soldier, a man of "society," and a
man of the world, in the worst sense, he
excelled his contemporaries by the fulness of
vigor with which he flung himself alike into
good and bad. Genius crowned him, and
success, as it is called, smiled upon him from
all sides. After a career of reckless self-

A MAN ALONE WITH GOD 75

indulgence, he was still to be saved from
ruin, but not easily. In the midst of his life
the bitter cry of Ecclesiastes broke from his
heart — "Vanity of vanities!" And so he was
drawn away into the plain with his hungry
soul. Long and bitter were the stages by
which he groped his way toward the light.
At last he found it in the face of Christ, not
the official Being set forth in the creeds and
ceremonies of the Russian Greek Church,
which was the only church he knew, but the
simple, strong, earnest Prophet of the Brother-
ly Life. He read the Sermon on the Mount,
and pondered what he conceived to be its
guiding principles. They led him to a posi-
tion which not many are fully able to accept,
but it afforded him a unique opportunity of
preaching a Gospel of Deliverance.

He withdrew from the Court and from
cities and public throngs and adulation. Face
to face with God, he communed with his own
soul and with his Maker. He was seized upon
by the Spirit of Him who gave His life upon
the cross for the sins of men. He looked
about him and saw the peasants of his native
Russia going on the way of life like dumb.

76 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

driven cattle, serving the selfish interests of
heartless capitalists and driven by kings and
nobles to the shambles of war. Tolstoy could
not hold his peace. These, even the least of
them, were his brethren. For them, if he had
gifts to use, his genius should be poured out.
And the world has no parallel for centuries
to the fruit of his wonderful mind in these
last three decades. By parables, and stories,
and essays, and expostulations, and criticisms,
he has toiled in the cause of mankind. He has
sought to woo them to love one another, to
speak the truth in simplicity, to be content
with humble fare, and to earn it by honest
labor, to forgive freely, to abjure violence in
every form. Tolstoy has not seen clearly
some sides of the Gospel, but after all abate-
ments have been fairly made, his influence
has been a priceless one on the world. He
has challenged the Christianity of the churches
of the world and has done more to arouse them
to righteousness than any other prophet since
John Wesley. And yet it was out of the
plain, the lonely Russian steppes, that the
prophet came, the most unlikely place on
earth. Put a man alone with God and there

A MAN ALONE WITH GOD 77

is no foot of the globe so barren but out of it
may come something splendid and glorious.

II

Our theme this evening is illustrated with
great clearness by our Savior in His dis-
course to His disciples about prayer. It was
a time when religion had degenerated into
forms and there was much public ceremony
but very little inner spirit. Jesus, wishing to
make clear to His disciples and to all that
should come after them the supreme impor-
tance of the hidden spiritual Hfe, says: ''Take
heed that you do not your righteousness be-
fore men, to be seen of them; else you have
no reward with your Father who is in heaven.
When, therefore, thou doest alms, sound not
a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do
in the synagogs and in the streets, that they
may have glory of men. . . . But when thou
doest alms, let not thy left hand know what
thy right hand doeth, that thine alms may
be in secret; and thy Father who seeth in
secret shall recompense thee. And when ye
pray, ye shall not be as the hypocrites, for

78 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

they love to stand and pray in the synagogs
and in the corners of the streets, that they
may be seen of men. . . . But thou, when
thou prayest, enter into thine inner chamber,
and having shut thy door, pray to thy Father
who is in secret, and thy Father who seeth
in secret, shall recompense thee." This is a
passage which, in my judgment, we need to
ponder much in these days. The aw^ul
speed with which we live, with express-train,
and motor-car, and the aeroplane, and the
increased emphasis which has been put upon
money-getting in our time, are having a
terrible effect in doing away with family wor-
ship, and with secret worship for the individual
Christian. William Arthur said a few years
ago what is still more pertinent in our time,
that in the bustle and noise of the activities
of every day, the whisperings of the Divine
Voice, ever appealing to our hearts, are un-
heard and unheeded, even as would be the
strains of a song-bird amid the din of battle.
In the swift race for worldly prosperity or
distinction or honor, the messages of Divine
love, straight from the Father's heart to ours,
fall without leaving any impression, even as

A MAN ALONE WITH GOD 79

the silvery moon-beams leave no mark upon
the granite rock. It is, then, for our soul's
health and strength that God frequently uses
with us stringent measures, and, by His
dealings with us, forces us to think of the un-
seen, both within us and beyond us. Every
now and then we hear the Divine mandate:
"Arise, go forth into the plain, and I will
there talk with thee."

Everything on earth that has life and
growth must have these occasional periods of
rest and seclusion. After the earth has been
clothed for a few months with the green of
springtime and summer and the flowers have
rejoiced in blossom, the sun is withdrawn, and
the leaves wither and fade, and the blossoms
die, and the sap goes down into the root, or
into the bulb underground, and there in dark-
ness and seclusion and quiet it gains fresh
strength for another period of activity and
growth and beauty. If you have an eye
strained or weary or sore by much reading or
ceaseless watching, you find it necessary to give
it rest and seclusion that its marvelous and
delicate mechanism may be readjusted and rec-
reated for future calls. If your brain is tired

80 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

and your mind becomes confused through long
study, you know that the necessity is that
you shall retire and give it freedom from its
task that it may gain strength for new exer-
tion. Every now and then a business man
with large responsibilities resting upon his
shoulders, awakens to the fact that he is not
made out of iron or steel, but out of flesh and
blood and nerves, and that his body and mind
are so jaded and weary that retirement in rest
and solitude in the hills, or the woods, or by
the sea is essential if his great working ma-
chine is to be capable of further activity and
usefulness. Now these illustrations speak to
us of a deep principle in nature and in man —
that even darkness and solitude are sometimes
absolutely necessary for fit preparation for the
best work. We may not say that God could
have talked to Ezekiel quite as well in the
town as on the plain. If He could. He
would.

I have said all these things to illustrate to
our minds the great fact that if we are to be
true Christians and have developed within us
great spiritual personalities, we must give
opportunity every day amid the rush of life

A MAN ALONE WITH GOD 81

for God to talk with us. We must have some
time and place when we separate ourselves
from all the world, even from our own families.
And there must be some little quiet spot
where we **shut the door" and talk with
God.

Dr. Gunsaulus, in a great sermon on the
text, "Shut the Door," raises the question as
to where the door is to be found. His sugges-
tion is that after you have shut the door in
your own room, outside things may come in
and so occupy your mind that God can not
talk to you, and he says he wonders some-
times, when trying to have a secret moment
in his own life, if there might not have been
a second meaning in the word when Jesus
said: *'I am the door," and that the only
way to shut the door on all the world is by
giving ourselves completely to Christ. No
one knew the world outside as Jesus knew it;
no one knows our hearts as He knows them;
no one else will take our thoughts, our feelings,
our souls; no one else can shut the world out
and the soul in. Here is a man who has been
trying to pray and shut the door as Jesus told
him to do. It takes more intellect to shut

6

82 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

that door than to write Hindustanee or Shake-
speare; more character than to marshal an
army and lead it to battle. No muscular
power will do it; no intellectual refinement
or process of philosophical investigation; no
wealth. You will have to leave your wealth
outside. "Shut the door." It is only the
man, in the grandeur of his solitude, in the
presence of God. And when a man tries to
do that he finds out how hard it is. There is
the past. Nothing rankles more than a man's
past. There it is, with its head lifted up and
saying: "x4ih, here I am. Look at me. I
know you. I have heard you pray before.
Those hands, I know where they have been.
That heart, I know how dark it is." Ah, it
is a terrible thing to have the past come up
like a snake and hiss at the closed door when
a man seeks to get alone with his God. Some-
times you think you have the door shut, but
the past, that seems like a giant fully armed,
too big to get into the door, suddenly trans-
forms, flattens itself out, lies down like a
serpent, and by and by you hear it wriggling
at the door, hissing. Oh, we must have a
door that fits so accurately that whether the

A MAN ALONE WITH GOD 83

past slithers like a serpent or comes like a
giant, we can shut the door. There is only
one Person in this universe who can do that,
and that is Jesus Christ. He has power on
earth to forgive our sins of the past. He can
take the sting out of our sins forever. He
can blot our sins out of God's record. Christ
can shut us in with God where we may
commune with Him and find peace and power.
Christ has said that if we pray to God in
secret. He will reward us openly, and in that
secret place of hiding where we talk with God
we shall get such power that when we go
forth in the public place of temptation we
shall overcome in that power.

I must not close without a word to some of
you who are not Christians, tho all your life
you have heard about Christ. You have been
giving yourself to the pursuit of worldly
things which seem to you more practical and
of more value ; but, my friend, you are making
a great mistake as to values. There is nothing
of so much value as your soul. Some of you
were at the great Columbian Exposition at
Chicago in 1893. In the i\Ianufacturers'
Building there was a certain place in the

84 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

jewelry exhibit where you always saw a crowd.
No matter what time of day you passed by,
morning, noon, or night, there was always a
mass of people there. What was it the crowd
wanted to see? Nothing but a cone of purple
velvet revolving on an axis, and toward the
apex of that cone, a large, beautiful diamond,
worth a fabulous sum of money. And people
by thousands, and tens of thousands, and
hundreds of thousands — in the course of the
exposition, by millions — came just to look
at that one precious stone. It was well worth
looking at. But the soul of one man, one
woman, one child — not merely the soul of the
great, the wise, and the rich, but the soul of
the poorest, the most ignorant, the most
sorrowful person in this city, the soul of the
most neglected child — is worth infinitely more
than ten thousand precious stones like that.
The man who bought that stone died a while
ago in New York, and the woman for whom he
bought it would not even go and see him on
his dying bed, and was married again in a
month. That is all the diamond was worth.
But your soul, if through Jesus Christ it is
cleansed and redeemed and made pure, will

A MAN ALONE WITH GOD 85

not only live forever, but it will shine forever
in infinite gladness and joy. Pause, I pray
you, in the mad rush of life, and give yourself
time to be alone with your God, that He may
talk with you unto your salvation!

THE WEAK SPOT IN A MAN'S ARMOR*

"Neither shall any strengthen himself whose life is in his
iniquity." — Ezekiel 7 : 13 (marginal rendering).

IT is right and wise that we should on
Christmas day look on both sides of the
great Christmas truth. This morning we
looked into the manger crib of Bethlehem and
saw Mary with the Child Jesus in her bosom,
and we communed together upon the love and
tenderness and beauty that gather about the
Christmas time. But it is wise for us, be-
fore this new Christmas day passes into his-
tory, to look faithfully at the other side of
the shield and appreciate keenly the awful-
ness of the sin that called Jesus Christ from
heaven that He might give Himself as a
ransom to redeem mankind. Christmas is
not all joy; it is not all beauty; there is a
background as black and dark as hell itself.
It was sin that caused Him who was rich for
our sakes to become poor, that He might save us.

*A Christmas-night sermon.
86

THE WEAK SPOT IN A MAN'S ARMOR 87

In the chapters connected with this striking
text we have set forth in a graphic manner
the awfulness of sin and the fearful judgments
that come upon sin. But, as Joseph Parker
says, there is mercy even in the terribleness
of the revelation. An opportunity for re-
pentance was created by the very awfulness
of the method of revelation. Threatenings
are meant to lead to promises. The thunder-
storm is sent to avert us from a way that is
wrong and to drive us to consideration on
account of sin. God does not fulminate
merely for the sake of showing His greatness;
when He makes us afraid, it is that He may
bring us to final peace. Nothing is more
evident than that underneath all these denun-
ciations, and in explanation of them, there is
a subhme moral reason. These judgments
are not exhibitions of omnipotence; they are
expressions of a moral emotion on the part
of God. These people had departed from
Him; they had done everything in their power
to insult His majesty and to call into question
his holiness and His justice; they had wor-
shiped false gods; and not until the cup of
their iniquity was full did the last beam of

88 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

light vanish from the sky and the whole
heaven become darkened with thunder-clouds.
Our text is an assurance on the part of God
that no amount of financial success or political
triumph can make a thing which is evil right.
Sometimes sin seems to blossom out into
beauty and the rod of a man's pride and
iniquity is covered with adornment, and the
sinner seems to be the proudest and most
fascinating personality in the community.
But the heart of our theme comes out of God's
assurance that no beauty, no seeming success
of a sinful life, is really secure, and we know
that the world is full of illustrations of that.
Judas was successful in betraying Jesus Christ
into the hands of His enemies, and he got the
money into his own pocket, but we know what
an awful failure it was for Judas. And suc-
cessful, blossoming sin to-day is no safer than
it was in the days of Judas.

The first thought which I wish to emphasize
out of our theme is suggested by the condi-
tions set forth in this chapter, which tells how.

THE WEAK SPOT IN A MAN'S ARMOR 89

under the judgment of God, because of their
sins, a famine is to come upon the country,
and the rich people will suffer just as much as
the poor. Their gold and silver will be use-
less, for it can buy nothing. It suggests to
me a great and solemn truth which is just as
real in our own time as in any day of the world,
and that is that sin brings about a famine of
soul which money, in any form or in any
amount, is powerless to satisfy. In the long
run every man and every woman who has
not the bread of life to eat must have a
soul famine. I think the best definition of a
spiritual man I have ever seen, is one given
by Phillips Brooks when he says: "A spiri-
tual man is a man who deals with the spirit
and the soul of things, and lives for them.'*
And he compares two money-making men.
One of them values his money for the comfort-
able uses he can put it to; the other is not
satisfied until he has got at the heart of
riches, and absorbed his wealth into his char-
acter, and made himself by it a richer nature
and a fuller man. Here are two religious
men. One of them rejoices in religion for the
good it does. He says that it secures order

90 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

in this world and saves suffering in the world
to come. Another man feeds his heart on the
very substance of religion itself. To commune
with God and love Him and obey Him is the
very life of life. Life would be death without
it. Here are two scholars. One of them
studies for the advantages that learning brings;
the other studies for the pure joy of knowing.
Truth and the human mind meet and satisfy
each other. You see in all these cases that
a man is truly rich not because he has property
or religion in the technical sense, or knowledge,
but because he is genuinely at the soul of
things, in harmony with God and His purpose.
Our final proof of all this must be in Jesus
Christ Himself, whose birthday we celebrate
to-day. If there is any man here to-night
who is getting into his blood the thirst for
money, and is tempted to a feeling that the
pursuit of wealth is the greatest thing in the
world, I beg you on this Christmas night to
remember that the great Master of men, He
after whose name we wish to be called, never
had any and never wanted to have any of this
wealth to the pursuit of which men are giving
their lives in these days. I am sure we can

THE WEAK SPOT IN A MAN'S ARMOR 91

not look upon the life of Jesus Christ to-night
without feeling that the hunt for money, on
its own account, is very vulgar and poor.
And if we can really see that, it will calm our
fever. It is not necessary that we should be
rich. There is no real need of it whatever.
The Man who struck the highest, purest note
of human life. He who showed God to man,
He who brought man to God, He who re-
deemed the world — He was not rich, but poor.
Ah, what an awful thing it would have been
if Christ had been a rich man! Conspiring
with all man's native passion to be rich, the
sight of a rich Redeemer would have turned
the money -fever loose until this world would
have been a hell indeed.

Of course it is quite possible to mis-read
the poverty of Jesus Christ so as to suggest
that a man is good simply because he is poor.
But that we must not do. Old Father Taylor,
of the Seaman's Bethel in Boston, who had
great experience with men, used to say that
there were three kinds of poor people: "God's
poor; the devil's poor, and the poor devils."
And I think that was about right. There are
people whose sins keep them poor, and there

92 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

are other people who sin until they become
like beasts of prey in their devilish iniquity.
But the true riches lie outside of the question
of physical poverty or riches. Only sin can
make famine in the soul, and only goodness,
loving reverence of God, and sincere obedience
to Him, can make a soul rich in all the ex-
periences of human life.

II

I wish we might learn from our theme that
no man ever gets strong through iniquity.
Man is strong only when he surrenders him-
self to God to do the divine will. We
measure lives in a very imperfect way. We
call a man great because of certain spectacular
things in connection with him. If a man has
large property, or if he does something that
looms large in the public eye, we speak about
it afterward as a great life. While some other
man who lives in a narrow sphere and never
serves as a headline in the daily paper, or calls
forth the astonishment of men, we call a
small man, and we speak of his life as a little
life. But God does not measure men in that

THE WEAK SPOT IN A MAN'S ARMOR 93

way. All lives are little lives looked at from
their quantity, in God's view. God judges
lives by motives and spirit, and a man in a
very narrow sphere, with very limited cir-
cumstances for uttering himself, may live in as
high and noble a spirit and with a motive as
holy as the king in his palace. Look at life
from that standpoint and you will see that
no life is strong that is not pleasing to God.
Have all the money you please, have all the
soldiers you wish to back you, have the
loftiest position the world can give you, and
if at heart you are wrong, and are lifting your
hand against God, then you are not a great
man, and you have no power to strengthen
yourself in your iniquity, and the slightest
breath from the throne of God would tumble
you down from your eminence to destruction.
No man is strong who is not strong in the love
and honor of God. As has been truly said
by a great preacher, there is only one real
and true strength in this universe, and that
is God's strength, and no man ever did any
strong thing yet that God did not do that
strong thing in him. A man makes himself
full of strength only as the trumpet at the

94 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

lips of the trumpeter makes itseK full by letting
himself be held in the hand of God. As the
brush is powerless to paint a picture by itself,
and becomes filled and inspired with genius
when it is put into the hands of a Raffael
or a Michelangelo, so man, putting himself
into the hand of God, loses his ignorance and
his weakness and becomes full of the gracious-
ness and power of the infinite God.

My dear friend, if your life has been feeble
and weak because it has been selfish, and you
have been trying to do your work alone, I
implore you to put your life into God's hand
and it shall glow with power. You remember
what Paul said: ''I live, yet not I, but Christ
liveth in me." That may become true of
every one of us. Why should a man hesitate
to put his life into the hands of the God who
made it, and who alone is able to perfectly
master it and make it strong and beautiful
beyond all his dreams?

If you are ever out on Puget Sound in that
young giant State of Washington, you will
probably go down to see the Snoqualmie Falls.
And a beautiful sight you will see. You will
see a splendid river flowing through a deep

THE WEAK SPOT IN A MAN'S ARMOR 95

channel, plunging two hundred and sixty-
eight feet, sheer and clear, down into the
canon. The impression one receives, except
in the descending curve at the top of the fall,
is not of power, but of beauty and grace
associated with gentleness. But after you
have looked at the falls, the guide will take
you down a deep black shaft, through the
flinty basaltic rock, two hundred and seventy
feet, to the chamber below. This chamber is
a power-room, thirty feet high and fifty feet
wide, excavated out of the rock, with a gallery
running hundreds of feet till it reaches the air
at the bottom of the chasm. In this shaft is
set a steel tube eight feet in diameter which is
to carry the water down to the motors. At
the foot of this tube the water pressure is one
hundred and twenty -five pounds to the square
inch. The motors are on the principle of two
interlocked turnstiles set in a circular steel box.
The water can not pass at the sides, nor above
nor below; it must turn the turnstiles to get
through. Each of these wheels, which I speak
of as turnstiles, weighs twenty -four thousand
pounds, and they revolve at the speed of
three hundred and sixty revolutions a minute.

96 THE SUNDAY'NIGHT EVANGEL

Now I have painted the picture for you to
call your attention to the fact that for thou-
sands of years the Snoqualmie River had been
coming down out of the Cascade Mountains
and pouring itself in that tremendous cascade
into the canon below in absolute wasteful-
ness, doing nothing useful in the world on ac-
count of these falls. But a man comes along,
a canny Scotchman, who has learned how to
master these things, and he lays hold on that
splendid stream and by drawing away only a
small portion of it, he makes that wasteful
prodigal put forth the strength of a hundred
thousand horses and drive those huge wheels,
weighing twelve tons each, at the incredible
velocity of three hundred and sixty revolu-
tions per minute. He takes a little part of
that wasteful, frothy beauty and fetters it
down in that black cavern and forces it to
plant white feet on steps of steel until they
exert the energy of a hundred thousand
Vulcans. And what is the result of it all.'^
Ah, the energy received from the water turning
those great wheels down in that dark cavern
is sent along aluminum wires to the cities of
Tacoma and Seattle and Everett. It lights a

THE WEAK SPOT IN A MAN'S ARMOR 97

hundred thousand homes ; it illuminates streets
and churches; it whirls tens of thousands of
people along in the street cars; it welds iron
in the shops ; it grinds flour in the great mills,
and in a hundred ways it ministers to man's
comfort and progress.

I would to God we might really catch the
truth of this illustration. The most pitiable
waste is in humanity. How much of us is
going to waste.^ Ask yourself that question
to-night. There is only one Person in the
universe that knows so much about your soul
that He can take it into His holy hands and
conserve all its energy and turn all the force
of your being into true and noble channels
and make of you the blessing to the world
that it is possible for you to be. My brother,
I beg you no longer to allow your life to go to
waste in sin. Turn it over to God, that He
may cleanse it and clothe it with power and
use it for His subhme purpose!

A CHAIN OF INFLUENCE

"Make the chain."— Ezekiel 7 : 23.

THE scholars do not agree as to just what
is the significance of this call for a chain
on the lips of the prophet. It was a bloody
time, the land was full of crimes against God
and man. It might mean a cry for a chain
with which to fetter those who were arrested
by the judgments of God, or it might indicate
the chain of events that follow one another like
links, making a strong, irresistible chain that
holds the sinner to the day of judgment.
Whatever it may have meant in its original
utterance, it is legitimate for us to find in
it a suggestion of the chain of influence by
which men may be held to goodness and re-
strained from evil.

I

First of all I wish to see in our theme the
chain of influence which it is possible for us,
through right conditions, controlled by love

98

A CHAIN OF INFLUENCE 99

and reverence, to throw around childhood and
youth so that they shall be bound by the
heavenly constraint while life shall last. This
is a theme upon which it is always impossible
for me to talk without emotion. I shall never
forget to thank God for the chain that began
to be forged in the little log cabin where I
was born, and went on, link by link, during
my childhood and youth. Oh, the precious
links in that chain! The first one of those
links was the assurance of the love of my
parents. That I never doubted for a moment.
I was a tempestuous youth and full of faults
that required discipline, but the love that
administered it was a golden link in that
chain. The next link was the family prayers.
Every evening my father took down the Bible
that had been six months on the plains in an
ox wagon when they pioneered their way to
the Northwest. That was a holy book to
me in a different way than any other Bible
was holy, and every day the good man read
from those pages and knelt and prayed by
that fireside. It was not an occasional thing
on Sunday or holidays; but day after day,
through all the years of childhood. That

18440B

100 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

little prayer-service sanctified the home life,
cleansed its atmosphere of petulance and self-
ishness, and brought our hearts close together,
and made God seem near and real. Then
there was another link — and what a strong
link it was — my mother's secret prayer.
Every day she went away to a quiet place and
sang and prayed and cried her soul out to
God. I never knew her to come back but
with songs and a radiant glow on her counte-
nance. It seems to me that if every other link
broke in my faith in the power of God to
speak to human hearts with comfort and
blessing, that link would hold, and so long as
I had the memory of the light I have seen on
mother's face, coming back from her secret
prayer, that chain of faith would abide.
Then there was the Christian attitude toward
the neighbors. Not only in the daily prayer
for them, but in the spirit of brotherly kind-
ness and unselfishness which my father and
mother were always ready to show toward
them. The generous willingness to share
whatever they had with the poorest in the
neighborhood was another link that held my
boyish heart.

A CHAIN OF INFLUENCE 101

Then I went to school in a Christian college
where the president and the professors loved
God and sought to serve Him, and believed
that the Bible was an essential element in a
true education, and did not fail to constantly
impress the relation of God to the universe
we studied. That was another link in the
chain that restrained me. And at last, when
I went forth into life, wherever I went, that
chain held fast. If I passed a saloon door
and other young men were going in, that
chain of holy influence blocked my path.
Were other people cynical and skeptical about
God and about Christ and spiritual things,
there was that golden chain stretched between
me and their associations and their sneers,
and so all my life I have had reason to thank
God for a chain that began to be forged in
the love with which my father and mother
bent over my cradle and gained its Hnks in
prayers and faithful discipline and education.

Now, I have recounted these things to stir
us all up to help make a chain about the
young life of to-day in our homes. In the
schools, in our Sunday-schools, among all of
our acquaintanceship and relation to child-

102 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

hood and youth, let us each one seek to forge
our own Hnks in that chain of Divine influence
that will hold to righteousness, in all the years
to come, the young who come in touch with us.

II

I wish to find also suggested in our theme
the possibility of forging a chain of love in
the deeds of our daily lives that shall be an
abiding influence for good cheer and helpful-
ness in an ever-widening circle about us.
Henry Ward Beecher forged a chain like that
which filled all Brooklyn with its beautiful
influence. It used to be said that when the
Beechers lived on the Heights in Brooklyn,
they could always tell when Mr. Beecher was
coming home in the evening from the voices
and the joyous laughter of the children. All
the street urchins, as well as the more well-
to-do children in the vicinity, knew him, and
would often wait for his coming. When they
saw him in the distance, they would run and
gather around him, get hold of his hands, get
into those large overcoat pockets for the nuts
and the good things he so often filled them

A CHAIN OF INFLUENCE 103

with before starting for home, knowing as he
did full well whom he would meet. And the
children would tug at him to keep him with
them as long as they could, he all the time
laughing or running as if to get away, but
enjoying it more than any of them.

One Decoration Day in Brooklyn, as the
great procession was moving into Greenwood
Cemetery with its bands of rich music, w^ith
its carriages laden wdth sweet and fragrant
flowers, with its waving flags, beautiful in the
sunlight, a poor and humble-looking w^oman,
with two companions, by her apparent nerv-
ousness attracted the attention of the gate-
keeper. He kept her in view for a little w^hile,
and presently saw her as she gave something
she had partially concealed to one of her
companions, who, leaving the procession, went
over to the grave of Mr. Beecher, and tenderly
laid it there. Reverently she stood for a
moment or two, and then, retracing her steps,
joined her two companions, who with bowed
heads were waiting by the wayside. The
gate-keeper went to the grave and found a
gold frame, and in it a poem cut from a
volume, a singularly beautiful poem through

104 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

which was breathed the spirit of love and
service and self-devotion to the good and the
needs of others. And at one or two places
where it fitted, the pen had been drawn
across a word and Mr. Beecher's name in-
serted, which served to give it a still more
real, vivid, and tender meaning. At the bot-
tom this only was written, "From a poor
Hebrew woman, to the immortal friend of
the Hebrews.'* There was no name, but this
was sufficient to tell the whole story — some
poor, humble woman, but one out of a mighty
number whom he had at some time befriended
or helped or cheered, whose burden he had
helped to carry, and soon perhaps had for-
gotten all about it. It was a link in a chain
that held him always in love for the poorest
and commonest men and women and children,
and a link also in a chain which held all who
knew him to him with cords stronger than
steel. My friends, let us make a chain of
love that shall not only make our lives help-
ful and beautiful, but shall be drawing and
restraining toward goodness every one within
our reach.

A CHAIN OF INFLUENCE 105

III

I am sure that there are some who ought
to find in our theme this evening a call to
chain-making on their own account. It ought
to arouse you, on this first Sunday evening
of the New Year, to forge the first link of
your own making in the chain of your personal
salvation. There has already been a chain
of mercies stretching back to the cross on
Calvary, a chain of ten thousand links of
mercies and love that has drawn you to God's
house to-night and given you the opportunity
of hearing His word. But if you are ever to
be saved from your sins it must be through
you yourself forging, by the help of God,
some links in the heavenly chain. There
must be that link of repentance which does
not simply mean being sorry that you have
done wrong; but means, above everything,
the turning away from your sins, the ceasing
to do wrong and the beginning to do right.
Then there must be the link of acceptance
of the atonement which Jesus Christ made for
you as an all-sufficient salvation from your
sins.

106 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

Dr. Len Broughton tells the story of a
young man during the Civil War, who was in
the Southern Army and was wounded in one
of the battles fought around Richmond, Vir-
ginia. A brother of his, a preacher, was
summoned to his bedside, which was thought
to be his dying bed. The night after this
preacher brother came, he found his wounded
brother in great agony, not so much of body
as of spirit. He was delirious practically all
night, and kept talking about going home.
In the morning, near daybreak, he became
quiet and sank into a sleep, and when he
awoke his mind was clear. As soon as he
saw his brother there, he said, "Oh, brother,
I have had the hardest fought night I ever
had in my life. I have fought all through
the night." His brother said, "In battle.^"
" No," he replied, " not in battle. I was trying
to go home to mother, and, on the road, I
came to a place where there was straight
mountain on one side, straight mountain on
the other, and straight mountain in front.
There was no way by which I could get
around. I would climb up a bit, lose my
hold, and fall again; and all the night long

A CHAIN OF INFLUENCE 107

I was climbing and falling until after a while
I was so exhausted that I could not climb
any more, and I lay at the foot of a hill and,
as I lay there, flat on my back, at the foot of
the hill, exhausted, I saw something gather
over the summit of the hill that looked at
first like a cloud; a small cloud to be sure,
but it quickly got larger and larger until it
covered the whole hill region. Then, from
the center of the cloud, I saw something
stand out like a Cross, crimson with blood,
and then I saw the hill fade away and the
road through the hill region was perfectly
clear on to home." His brother said, "Do
you interpret that dream .^" The wounded
man replied, "Yes, brother. All my life long
I have been trying to climb the mountain of
my sin by resolving and resolving to do better
and to do better, and all the time I have
found that it was but to get so high and fall
back. Now I propose, God helping me, to
trust in the Cross and let the Cross melt away
my sins." And it did. My friends, I do not
doubt I speak to some of you who are con-
scious that you are sinners in the sight of
God, and if you had to face death to-night

108 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

and the great white throne of judgment, you
would be filled with dismay and with terror.
I beg you to make a chain from right where
you are as a sinner that will hnk into the chain
of God's love which is anchored in the Cross
where Jesus Christ died to redeem you.
Accept Jesus as your Savior. Lay hold upon
Him with links of faith and confidence, and
He will blot out your sins, renew your spirit,
and hold you by a chain of divine love to the
righteous life you have so often desired and
yet failed in your own strength to achieve.

THE MAN WHO WAS LEFT

"And I was left."— Ezekiel 9 : 8.

THE prophet Ezekiel, in one of his wonder-
ful visions, saw six men go forth as the
executioners of the righteous judgments of
God upon the wicked. Each one of them had
a slaughter weapon in his hand and in their
midst was a man who was drest not as an
executioner, but was clothed in linen, with a
writer's ink-horn by his side, and this man
was instructed to go forth through the city
and set a mark of protection upon every one
he found whose heart was set against the
iniquity and sin of the people, who sighed for
a purer and holier life. And every one upon
whom that mark was found was to be spared
in that day of judgment. It does not appear
that the prophet himself had received this
mark of protection, and after recounting the
scenes of bloodshed that followed the execu-
tion of the divine mandate in his vision, he
exclaims, "And I was left," as with astonish-
ment that such should have been the case.

109

no THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

I think there are in the theme lessons of
great interest and helpfulness for ourselves at
the present moment. We have just passed
through the gates of another year. I noticed
in the papers the other day a very striking
description of the gates which are now being
made in Pittsburg for the Panama Canal.
There are to be ninety-two of these gates,
and any one of them will be about the height
of a six-story building and will be sixty-five
feet wide and seven feet thick, and the steel
structure of these gates alone will weigh sixty
thousand tons, or nearly eight times as much
as the Eiffel Tower in Paris. I noticed that
the writer describing them emphasized the
fact that they were the largest gates in the
world. But large as they are, they are small
indeed compared to those invisible but irrev-
ocable gates that have shut out the old year
from our power. It would be as hard for us
to reach back into one day of the last week of
the old year and change the happenings of
a single hour, as it would to go back into the
days of Julius Caesar and pluck out of it a
day of opportunity. The curtain falls, cut-
ting off all that is behind it, day after day and

THE MAN WHO WAS LEFT 111

year after year. Some one writing of the
closing of a year on the last day of the old
year sings:

"Over the sorrow, and over the bliss,
Over the teardrop, over the kiss,
Over the crimes that blotted and blurred,
Over the wound of an angry word,
Over the deeds in weakness done.
Over the battles lost and won,
Now at the end of the flying year
(Year that to-morrow will not be here),
Over our freedom, over our thralls,
In the dark and the midnight — the curtain falls.

"Over our gain, and over our loss.
Over our crown, and over our cross,
Over the fret of our discontent.
Over the ill that was never meant.
Over the scars of our self-denial.
Over the strength that conquered trial —
Now in the end of the flying year,
Year that to-morrow will not be here.
Quietly final, the prompter calls;
Over it swiftly the curtain falls.

"Over the crowds and the solitudes,
Over our shifting, hurrying moods,
Over the hearths where bright flames leap,
Over the cribs where the babies sleep,
Over the clamor, over the strife,
Over the pageantry of Hfe —
Now in the end of the flying year,
Year that to-morrow will not be here,
Swiftly and surely from starry walls.
Silently downward the curtain falls.'*

112 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

In a very true and important sense every
definite period of time, like a year, comes to
its end as a judgment day. One great value
of marking time is that it brings men often
to judgment in their own hearts and minds,
and causes reflection, and often brings about
resolutions for amendment, and determina-
tions for truer living. It would be well for all
of us, before we get too far away from the
closed gate, from the dropt curtain of the
old year, to ask ourselves the question, ** Why
am I left?" I was talking with a man the
other day, and he spoke of many of his friends
and acquaintances who had been recently
called away by death, and he remarked, "I
can not understand why it is that they should
have been taken and I left." It might do us
good if each of us should ask that question,
" Why am I left.^ " Most of you are Christian
people. Are you going to do better work
this year for the Lord? Are you determined
to be faithful this year to God? Shall Christ
have in you a faithful representative in the
home where you live, in the business where

THE MAN WHO WAS LEFT 113

you work, among the men and women who
are your social companions? Shall these
people who come in contact with you frequent-
ly this year see the influence of Jesus Christ
on your thinking and on your affections?
Has God left you to do better work in the
world, to win some stars for your immortal
crown, to ripen your character for the eternal
harvest? And if that is so, will it be in vain
or will it be gloriously justified? Some of you
are not Christians. You have had a good
many years since you came to know the differ-
ence between right and wrong. You heard
about Christ tenderly when you were a child,
and during all the years since that time, in
joy and in sorrow, in the church and in many
experiences in your personal life, the still
small voice of the Spirit of God has spoken
to the conscience in your breast and ad-
monished you. Sometimes you have been
almost persuaded; you have stood at the very
door of salvation, and then have turned away
again to the world. And now the question
comes again — "Why am I left?" If you had
died last year, as you have lived, consciously
refusing God your heart and your service, you

114 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

feel that it would not have been well with
you; but you have been spared. You are
conscious that you have not deserved it.
You have rebelled against the known will of
your Heavenly Father; you have sinned
against God's righteous law. You have been
selfishly indifferent to the appeals of the
Christ who died to redeem you. If you had
died in that state, you feel that you must have
been condemned, and yet you have been left.
The gates of the old year have closed and you
come into the New Year, still with the possi-
bilities of forgiveness and mercy and salvation.
Why have you been left.^ Perhaps it has
been because of the prayers and intercessions
of a godly father or mother. There is an in-
teresting story in the Bible which brings out
in beautiful colors the mercy and compassion
of God in seeking to save the children of those
who have been true to Him. It is in the story
of one of the kings of Israel, a degenerate
son of greater ancestors. Abijam had gone to
the bad. He had committed about all the
sins that a wicked, godless king was likely to
be tempted to indulge in. Yet the inspired
writer says, "Nevertheless, for David's sake

THE MAN WHO WAS LEFT 115

did the Lord his God give him a lamp in
Jerusalem." What a touching statement!
That was the lamp of mercy. But for David's
sake, Abijam would have found it all darkness
long before he did. David had been long
dead and in heaven, but for the sake of the
man who had tried to serve Him with an
honest heart, and who, when he went wrong,
repented in deep sincerity, God continued to
let the lamp of mercy shine on his wicked
grandson. And I wonder if there are not
some of you who have been spared in your
indifference and ingratitude because of the
loving prayers of a saintly father, or a holy
mother, who, it may be, has long since gone
home to heaven! And yet those prayers may
be in vain; they were in vain for Abijam.
God continued to let that lamp of mercy hang
out for the wicked king for years, but Abijam
only hardened his heart against the God of
his fathers. He seems to have thought that
because God did not strike him down at once,
He never would. I can hear him saying to
himself, or to some of the flattering, drunken
courtiers that fawned upon him^ ''My grand-
father David was a great man, no doubt; but

116 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

he was old-fashioned, and he was altogether
too sensitive about sin. Whenever he found
that he had done wrong, he was full of tears
and repentance; that was not in good form for
a king. I do as I please and I don't see but
I am just as well off as he was." And so he
sneered and went on sinning against God
until his day of judgment came, and he went
down into the darkness of eternal night. My
friends, if the lamp of mercy, fed by the oil
of the prayers of holy grandparents, or of a
loving father, or a tender mother, still shines
upon your path with rays of hope, do not
spurn it or be indifferent to it, but turn about
now and follow that light until it leads you
home to God. Ask yourself to-night, "Am
I left alive in vain.^^ Shall the day of mercy
pass away and at last, in a different sense, in
a sense that shall fill my soul with terror,
shall I be left outside the gate of eternal
life?"

II

I think our theme ought to bring us another
message to-night. There is another day of
judgment coming. The Bible is not more

THE MAN WHO WAS LEFT 117

clear about anything than that the deeds
of this life are critical concerning the eter-
nal life. If the Bible teaches anything, it
teaches that for every one of us there is
coming a day of judgment when we shall
stand before God and give an account for the
deeds done in the body. Who shall be able
to stand in that day? The teaching of the
Gospel is plain as day that no man will stand
there justified except he be marked by the
atoning blood of Jesus Christ. In EzekieFs
vision, the man with the ink-horn went forth
among the people and marked every man and
woman and child that sighed for goodness,
whose heart was stirred against evil, and when
the men with the slaughter weapons saw that
mark, they passed by and that soul was pro-
tected.

When the children of Israel were to march
out of Egypt and Pharaoh hardened his heart,
God sent His death angel over all the land of
Egypt to slay the first-born in every house.
But God told Moses that the Hebrew people
should kill a lamb for every family and sprinkle
the blood upon the door-posts of the house,
and when the death angel came by in the

118 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

night, wherever the blood was sprinkled he
passed by, and that house was safe, and the
first-born was spared. So the day of judg-
ment is coming, and we must stand before
God and give an account of our conduct.
Who shall be able to stand .^^ Are there any
that will be able to stand in their own
righteousness and say to God, "I lived all
my life in yonder world, steadfast in the truth,
perfectly pure and holy, never sinning against
the law of love".? Will there be any.^^ lam
sure it will not be me. Will it be you.f^ I
am sure there is not one of you will dare to
look forward to standing before the great white
throne with such a statement on your lips.
Think of the many times you have rejected
the love of Christ and have refused Him your
confession, and then remember that it is that
same Christ, with the marks of the crown of
thorns upon His forehead, with the prints of
the nails in His palm, who will sit on that
throne of judgment. Ah, the tender light of
those eyes of your Savior would blast you
into blindness with a lie like that on your lips.
No, there will be no one to stand there
justified, save those who in repentance for

THE MAN WHO WAS LEFT 119

their sins and through humble faith in Jesus
Christ have accepted Him as their Savior
and have had His blood sprinkled upon their
hearts. They shall be spared; they shall be
left to the glory of God forever.

I thank God that we are still left to life
and to mercy. I thank God that I may
preach to you the glorious Gospel of His
love; that I may come in Christ's name and
say to you in His own words, "Him that
cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out."
Accept Him now, lest the day come when you
shall be left of His mercy and of the oppor-
tunity of repentance!

THE PERILS OF THE CITY

"The city is full of wresting of judgment: for they say Jehovah
seeth not."— Ezekiel 9:9.

AND is not that the chief peril of the city?
The works of man are evident. They
roar through the streets in automobiles and
cars. They crowd and jostle on the sidewalks,
in business and traffic. Man and his work are
everywhere in the city. The city pecuHarly
stands for the glory and achievement of man,
but the work of God is thrust aside. The
very sky is so full of smoke that many times
we can not see the sun at noonday nor the
stars at night. So, in the crowd of mankind,
in the dust and smoke and noise of man's
achievement, God is likely to be forgotten.

In the country we do not see so much of
man's work, but we see infinitely more to re-
mind us of the presence of God. Wordsworth
was walking in the country, listening to the
soft murmuring of mountain streams, and

120

THE PERILS OF THE CITY 121

gazing on the steep and lofty cliffs, and the
hedgerows of pastures and fields, when he
sang:

And I have felt
A Presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts, a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky and in the mind of man.

It was the consciousness of God that stirred
the heart and mind of Wordsworth. He was
not seeking after God, but nature suggested
God to him. The mountains in their purple
depths and the stars in their glittering hearts
brought the consciousness of God to his soul.
And who of us has not felt the same thinof
again and again .^ How many times I have
felt it in the mountains, looking up at the
snow-white peaks all about me. And again I
have felt it in the forests, walking down the
wooded aisles where the great trees rose like
Gothic columns, and reminded me of Bryant's
thought when he wrote:

The groves were God's first temples. Ere man learned
To hew the shaft, and lay the architrave,
And spread the roof above them, — ere he framed
The lofty vault, to gather and roll back

122 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

The sound of anthems; in the darkhng wood
Amidst the cool and silence, he knelt down
And offered to the Mightiest solemn thanks
And supplication.

And again he sings:

Thou hast not left
Thyself without a witness, in these shades.
Of Thy perfections. Grandeur, strength, and grace
Are here to speak of Thee. This mighty oak —
By whose immovable stem I stand and seem
Almost annihilated — not a prince.
In all that proud old world beyond the deep,
Ere wore his crown as loftily as he
Wears the green coronal of leaves with which
Thy hand has graced him. Nestled at his root
Is beauty, such as blooms not in the glare
Of the broad sun. That delicate forest flower,
With scented breath, and looks so like a smile,
Seems, as it issues from the shapeless mold,
An emanation of the indwelling Life,
A visible token of the upholding Love,
That are the soul of this wide universe.

And so it is in the free world outside the
town and the city that, through snow and
rain and wind and storm, as well as in the
budding of springtime and the white and
yellow harvest of the summer and the crim-
son and yellow and bronze glory of the au-
tumn, God is forever speaking to men and
making them conscious of HimseK. And I

THE PERILS OF THE CITY 123

do maintain that the first chief peril of city
Hfe to man's moral and spiritual nature comes
from the fact that his own work and achieve-
ment, by its very din and noise and smoke,
is likely to cause him to forget God.

Another peril of the city which is likely to
cause a wresting of judgment, of which the
prophet speaks, comes from the fact that
when men and women get together in crowds
they lose the keen sense of their personal re-
sponsibility to God, and they play upon each
other as a violin is played upon by the strings
of the bow, and exaggerate in their minds the
desirability and importance of worldly amuse-
ments and pleasures until the greater values
of life are forgotten. There is nothing more
pitiful in American life, in many of our great
cities, than to see how some of the old families,
that a generation or two ago were among our
greatest names, and were the backbone of
civic life in the cities where they dwelt, have
gone utterly to disaster in the new generation
through worldly pleasures and dissipation.

124 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

A friend of mine in an eastern city told recently
the story of three strong famihes who were
easily the first families in the city and State
where he grew up. The head of one of these
houses was a railroad magnate, the head
of another was a wholesale merchant and
a banker, and the third was a lumber
king. Each one of them lived in a palace.
These men were fine types of Christian man-
hood. First in business, they were philan-
thropists, and were first in their churches.
There is a college named for one of them;
there is a hospital named for one of them;
there is a church named in honor of one of
them. All this was not much more than
twenty years ago. The railroad man lived to
be very old, and to the end he had the heart
of a little child; but when he died at last, he
died a bankrupt and with a broken heart.
His sons ruined him. One of them is in
a lunatic asylum — dissipation brought him
there; one of them is dead — his appetite slew
him; and the other one ekes out a miserable
existence partly on charity and partly on
whatever he can find to do. When the lumber
king came to die, my friend, who is a minister.

THE PERILS OF THE CITY 125

stood at the grave with three splendid-looking
sons and two beautiful daughters. One of
the daughters is dead. The other daughter's
husband has run through her money. And
two of the three sons, at least, are known as
high-rollers, and are shamefiJly wasting the
money that their father accumulated by the
frugality and toil of a long lifetime. . The
other one, the wholesale merchant and banker,
died, leaving to his only son a fortune and
splendid reputation and a name treasured far
and wide even yet for integrity and noble
hving, but only a little while ago that name
was trailed in the mire of the divorce court
to which that young man's fourth wife had
brought him. What a record that is, and the
terrible thing about it is that it is not so very
uncommon. These young people degenerated
from the noble physical and mental and moral
life of their parents, through the mistaken
and exaggerated idea of pleasure. In the
rush and turmoil of modern city life they were
largely brought up by servants. The fathers
were so busy they had little time to look after
their sons. The mothers were so busy with
their social life that they had little time for

126 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

their daughters in deaHng with that which
was noblest in their hves, and so they grew
up in a hothouse existence and were luxurious
and idle and soft, and it was pleasure that
killed them.

The young people who read of the wild
hilarity of the social pleasures of the very
rich are often envious and jealous of them,
and think what a happy time they must have.
But all history and observation prove that the
people who live simply for pleasure are the
worst cheated people in the world. If you
will read the confessions of Tolstoy you will
see that for ten years he went from banquet
to banquet, drinking rich wines, feasting, fol-
lowing his tailor, concocting flatteries, lies,
sleeping by day and dissipating at night, and,
he adds, "My observation is, that no galley
slave, or apostle like Paul, has to toil as hard
as a society man and a society woman," and
both have lost their beauty, their happiness,
and their health before the life-course is half run.

Dr. Newell Dwight Hillis brilliantly says
that pleasure promises a velvet path, air
heavy with roses, the wine and nectar of
Venus and Bacchus. Pleasure promises per-

THE PERILS OF THE CITY 127

fumed bowers, days of happiness, nights of
laughter and song. But pleasure is a de-
ceiver. Sensualism is sweet in the mouth but
bitter in the digestion. The epicurean begins
to live for the appetite and ends with keen
torture of the stomach that can not digest
gruel. The youth begins by mixing laughter
with his wine, and ends with nerves broken,
limbs twisted, face hideous with disease and
anguish. In the days of the Inquisition, cruel
men deceived the prisoner, as pleasure and
sensualism deceive the young now. With
soft words the jailer promised the prisoner
release on the morrow. When the appointed
hour came he opened the door and pointed
down the corridor, and oh, joy of joys ! yonder
was the greensward, cool with grass and gay
with tulips and crimson flowers. With a
shout of joy the prisoner ran forward to cast
himself upon the cool ground, but lo! it was
a mockery, a delusion, a lying deceit. What
afar off seemed grass was really sheet iron
painted in the similitude of verdure. What
looked like red tulips and crimson flowers was
iron, beaten into the similitude of blossoms
and heated red hot by flames underneath.

128 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

Where coolness was promised, scorching was
given. The vista promised pleasure; it gave
pain. And when a man or a woman looks
from afar off upon a worldly life, with all
its pleasures of appetite and physical sense,
it wears a brilliant aspect and a crimson hue,
but near at hand the scene changes, the honey
is bitter, and all the fountains of peace are
poisoned.

Pleasure is God-given, do not doubt that,
but it is never given as the end of living. It
is God's reward of merit. It rises like
fragrance from a flower on the doing of duty.
If fills the soul with gladness in lifting burdens
from the shoulders of the weak. Only they
know true pleasure who give themselves with
whole-hearted purpose to do the work God
has given them to do. To them God gives
pleasure as He gives beauty to the waterfall
or fragrance to the violet-clad hillside or to
the meadow dotted with lilies.

II

Another peril of the city is that the dwellers
in cities are under constant temptation to be-
come feverish about money and physical sue-

THE PERILS OF THE CITY 129

cess and to undervalue simple goodness and
genuine integrity. The great wealth is lodged
in the city. The great railroad headquarters
are in the city. The great centers of money
naturally are in the city, and it is in the city
where the feverish race for money is keenest.
It is in the city that we see what money does
— in the towering skyscraper buildings, in the
splendid mansions in which rich people live,
in the carriages and chariots with which they
go forth to their pleasures. Rome in her
proudest, most wasteful days never made such
display of wealth as is seen to-day in modern
cities. Now there is nothing in this world
so likely to wrest the judgment, to use the
quaint but striking language of the text, as the
hot pursuit of money. It does not make much
difference whether a man gets the money or
not; it is the "love of money," the hot fever
after money, the nose keen to the trail for
money, that wrests the judgment and blinds
men and women so that they lose their souls
in the mad search. Dr. Jowett was preaching
not long ago on the text, ''The god of this
world hath blinded their minds," and he
called his sermon ''Blinded by gold-dust!"

9

130 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

He brings out in that discourse that worldH-
ness is Hfe without ideals, hfe without moral
vision, life without poetic insight. Worldli-
ness is imprisonment within the material.
And that is the peril of the city — that
material things crowd us on every side until
the conscience is lulled to sleep and we be-
come heedless about God. As our text says,
men come to feel that "God seeth not."
We need to watch ourselves that we do not
allow the sensitive moral nature to be dead-
ened and conscience to be silenced. One of
the fatal things about the city is that there
is so little time to muse and meditate that
imagination becomes inoperative and the
spiritual instinct becomes coarsened and the
inner eye ceases to be conscious of God's
presence. The god of this world, so regnant
in the bank, in the store, in the political
caucus, and in the business whirl of the city,
plugs the eyes so that men can not see.

Ill

Another great peril of the city is that in
it we are peculiarly tempted to extravagance;
to envy and jealousy and foolish competitions.

THE PERILS OF THE CITY 131

So much of our life in the city is superficial,
so many people are all the while on dress
parade and think of life only as a show forever
on exhibition. If I may go back to William
Wordsworth again and quote lines written
more than a hundred years ago, you will see
that they apply accurately to this peril of our
modern cities:

O friend, I know not which way I must look

For comfort, being as I am opprest

To think that now our hfe is only drest

For show: mean handiwork of craftsman, cook,

Or groom! We must run glittering, like a brook

In the open sunshine, or we are unblest!

The wealthiest man among us is the best I

No grandeur now in Nature or in book

Delights us. Rapine, avarice, expense —

This is idolatry, and these we adore.

Plain living and high thinking are no more —

The homely beauty of the good old cause

Is gone — our peace, our simple innocence.

And pure religion, breathing household laws.

Dr. Donald Mackay said a few years ago,
speaking of the perilous life of New York
City, that there can be no life of worthy
thought where existence is loaded down with
the vulgarities of luxury. Thought, which is
the life of the soul, not only deteriorates, it
dies, when we make the cares of the body the

132 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

be-all and the end-all of our days. And he
declares that the two most illiterate classes
in society to-day are the abject poor, who by
necessity must think of the needs of the body,
and, therefore, can think of nothing else; and
the idle rich, who by choice devote their hours
to the trivial problem of what they shall eat
and what they shall drink and wherewithal
they shall be clothed.

But the most serious peril is that the great
middle class of men and women, who belong
neither to the abject poor nor the idle rich,
but are the great army of wage-earners and
moderately well-to-do business people in city
life, are under the constant strain of tempta-
tion to live beyond their means and to give
themselves up to vulgar competition in making
a display that will surpass their neighbors.

"The body it is," said Bossuet, the great
French preacher, ''which drags us down from
the loftier levels of thought, which chains us
to the earth, when we ought to be breathing
the pure air of heaven." So it is that to-day
vulgar ambition everywhere in the cities is
to "go one better" in the matter of functions
and entertainments. Too often, under this

THE PERILS OF THE CITY 133

spur of ruthless competition, home hfe is de-
Hberately and often criminally sacrificed for
a show of social life, and social life becomes
the vestibule through which the family passes
into the prison house of debt, and on and on
a dark road that oftentimes ends in shame
and disaster.

My dear friends, I have spoken thus seri-
ously of the dangers of the city because my
heart is made to bleed many, many times at
the skeletons that are brought to me by
broken-hearted men and women. Now the
fact is that human nature is the same in the
city as in the country, and the ten command-
ments are just as binding in the city as on
the farm. The great elemental truths of the
human soul are the same here as there. And
there is no place in the world that man needs
so deeply to live every day with a conscious-
ness of the presence of God, and to be in such
relation to Him that prayer springs spon-
taneously from a trusting heart to his lips,
as in the city. There is no place where home
life is so important as in the crowded city.
Where temptations are abundant without and
appeal to young life on every side, our homes

134 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

should be kept very beautiful with reverence
toward God, and love toward each other, and
sympathy for all mankind. In such a home
life is the true antidote and the surest defense
against the temptations of the street. Our
churches, too, in the city, should be fortresses
of righteousness, but they should also be
hospices of rescue and love, going out into all
the community round about with tenderness
and welcome for those who lack the homes
that make our lives secure.

The best way to be safe from the peril of
the city is to give yourself completely to the
service of God and the fellowship of Jesus
Christ in making the city safe for some one
else. The positive life that is full of helpful-
ness will know the blessing which Paul had
in mind when he said, "Walk in the Spirit,
and ye shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh."

THE MAN WITH FOUR FACES

"And every one had four faces: the first face was the face of
a cherub, and the second face was the face of a man, and the
third the face of a lion, and the fourth the face of an eagle." —
Ezek. 10 : 14.

THIS text strongly suggests the many-
sided character of ideal manhood. John
Ruskin, in his "Love's Meinie," describes the
Phalerope, a strange bird living out of the
way of human beings, in the polar regions of
Greenland, Norway, and Lapland, which he
calls, *'The Arctic Fairy." It is a central type
of all bird power, but with elf gifts added; it
flies like a lark, trips on water-lily leaves like
a fairy, swims like a duck, and roves like a
sea-gull, having been seen sixty miles from
land ; and finally, tho living chiefly in Lapland
and Iceland, it has been seen serenely swim-
ming in the hot water of the geysers in which
a man could not bear his hand. As this bird
is the central type of all bird power, so in
Ezekiel's vision there is pictured a central
type of what man may be under the inspira-
tion and aid of the Spirit of God.

135

136 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

I

We have first portrayed to us in this
possible man the thoughtful, contemplative,
worshipful man. This we have suggested in
the face of the cherub. I follow John Milton's
lead, who in his poem, "II Penseroso," sings:

" But first, and chief est, with thee bring
Him that yon soars on golden wing,
Guiding the fiery-wheelc d throne
The cherub Contemplation."

This worshipful face suggests the true
dignity and nobility of human nature. After
the lecture in the dissecting-room of a great
medical college one day, a student, usually all
vivacity and chatter, was observed by his
friend to be very thoughtful and silent.
Asked why, the young man replied, "A curious
thing happened in the laboratory to-day.
Pointing to the body on which we were
working, the professor suddenly said, ' Gentle-
men, that was once tenanted by an immortal
soul.' " The young student had never before
thought in that manner about the body he
was dissecting, and it startled him with its
tremendous significance. And if we should

THE MAN WITH FOUR FACES 137

walk out on the street to-morrow and con-
sciously realize that every man, woman, and
little child whom we meet is an immortal
soul of infinite value to God, I am sure it
would startle us into a nobler idea of the
value of manhood.

We need to be thus startled ever and again,
or we lose the highest conceptions of the
capacity of man. Dr. Hillis says that the
round of monotonous tasks causes men to
come to feel that life is one huge stone-pile,
that all work is drudgery, and they fall into
dull and sullen moods. To get on and pos-
sess things alone seems worth while; men come
to live to the eye and the ear and the hand,
through food and clothes and money alone.
Slowly a dark shadow creeps over the face of
the sun itself, and one by one a man loses his
ideals of life. After a while he comes to be
able to sneer at ideals. A little later bitterness
begins to tinge his spirit, and at last a man,
who was made to live with his feet on the earth
but his face toward the heavens, going singing
across the years, becomes heavy, inert, scorn-
ful, faithless. But it is the glory of our
charter in our creation as the sons of God

138 THi: SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

that God does not leave us to go on in such
deterioration without making appeals to us.
God comes to us sometimes through joy
unexpected, or sorrow with its surprizes, and
makes overtures to our souls. And there is
no man among us who has not had his hours
when lands, offices, and earthly honors dis-
solved like mists, and we saw clearly that the
riches of the soul as the true, reverent son
of God was the one thing worth while in our
lives.

The men and women who live in that
spirit all the time become beautiful and
glorious in their influence upon life about
them. The presence of God in the man or
the woman gives the worshipful face that is
divine in its helpfulness in human associa-
tions. I have read recently the story of a
mother in New England, who never saw a
railroad or telegraph or steamship; who never
saw a college, and was always poor and
pinched with need, but she put her eleven
children through a good university, saw one
of them sent to the United States Senate,
another chosen governor of the State in
which she lived, another an honored judge.

THE MAN WITH FOUR FACES 139

another a trusted banker, and all of them
respectable and influential citizens. It was
the worshipful soul of the woman that made
her a masterful personality and was at the
same time divine in its graciousness.

"As a rare perfume in a vase of clay

Pervades it with a sweetness not its own,
So, when thou dwellest in a mortal soul,

All heaven's own sweetness seems around it thrown."

It is this deep current in religion which we
need in this active, earnest time. We do not
need men so much to turn away from business
to religion, but we want men in every depart-
ment of business life who are dominated by
true spiritual character and who have the
thoughtful and reverent face. A young man
in Chicago said to a distinguished minister,
"I have decided to follow Christ wholly, and
consequently I have given up painting." He
was a promising artist. But the wise minister
said to him, "You have no right to rob
Christ of a gift God bestowed upon you in
your creation; get out your palette, bring
back your brushes, mix your colors in the
light of the heavenly vision, and fling a picture
on the canvas for the sake of Christ. All

140 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

you have belongs to Him. He who emptied
heaven to redeem you asks but a Httle thing
when He asks that in this holy partnership
you should empty your whole life out in
sacrificial service for Him." What we need
above everything to-day is men and women
who, in business and professional life, will
consecrate themselves to win the earth for
Jesus Christ.

II

The second face in the vision we are study-
ing was the face of a man. I think this should
suggest to us the humanities, the face of
brotherhood, the human, red-blooded kinship
face which makes us look upon our brothers'
need as if it were our own. And there is
nothing that gives me so much hope of the
final redemption of man, aside from the infinite
power of God, as the capacity which man
shows, even among the coarse and evil, for
this brotherly humanness. There is so much
more of it in men than we believe. Jacob
Riis, who knows the underlife of New York
City as no one else does, tells of a family of
thieves. One of them was consumptive and

THE MAN WITH FOUR FACES 141

was slowly dying. He committed a crime
and the police were after him. In order to
screen him and let him stay at home with his
mother, his brother, who was innocent, al-
lowed himself to be taken, and quietly ac-
cepted a sentence of nineteen years' imprison-
ment in his stead. When the younger man
at length died, some one urged the convict
to tell the whole story, but he replied, "No,
it w^ould only make mother sorry." Now I
tell you that a poor thief who could do that
and did do that, has in him the capacity for
the noblest saintship and the sublimest hero-
ism known to men. Jesus Christ knew what
He was doing when He gave Himself as a
ransom for a race of lost sinners. Man has
the capacity for the noblest brotherhood that
can be conceived. And it is this humanity,
this face of the man, that we need to empha-
size to ourselves these days.

There is a beautiful legend which tells of
three maidens who were loitering along the
banks of a silvery stream. One held in her
hand a bunch of blue violets ; another a bunch
of ripe strawberries; the third held the tips
of her fingers in the stream. An old woman

142 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

came along, leaning on a staff, asking alms.
The three maidens refused her. A maiden
down the stream, not so well clad, dropt a
penny into her hand with a kind word, and
she vanished. She appeared again in the
form of a fairy and found them disputing as
to which had the most beautiful hands. And
the fairy said: "I see you are in a dispute
as to which has the most beautiful hands.
Hold up your hands; I w411 settle the dispute."
They did so, and she said: "It is not the
hand that is fragrant with the odor of blue
violets; it is not the hand that is crimson with
strawberries; nor is it the hand washed white
in the silvery stream that is most beautiful."
Then, casting her eye down the stream to the
maiden not so well clad, who had given her
the penny, she said: /"It is the hand that
helps others that is the most beautiful.^
And so it is the human face full of sympathy
and brotherhood that is most like the Christ.
There is another thought, however, in this
face of the man, which needs to be emphasized
— that it suggests a man's adaptation of him-
self to the duty in hand. God has given us
this wonderful treasure of the Gospel in

THE MAN WITH FOUR FACES 143

earthen vessels. No angel could come and
take our place and preach this Gospel as we
can preach it, if we are mastered by sympathy
and love, to the people with whom we are
associated. And we must use our position as
father or mother or employer or friend or
comrade in order that we may bring Christ
to the hearts of those near to us.

The Rev. W. E. Cousins has written a book
called *' Madagascar of To-Day." In this
book he tells how at one time the Queen of
that island became uneasy about the growing
influence of foreign ideas, and wished to get
rid of the missionaries. She sent some officers
to carry her message. The missionaries were
gathered together to meet the queen's mes-
sengers, and were told that they had been a
long time in the country and had taught
much, but that it was now time for them to
think of returning to their native land. The
missionaries, alarmed at this message, an-
swered that they had only begun to teach
some of the elements of knowledge and that
much remained to be imparted. They men-
tioned several branches of education, among
which were the Greek and Hebrew languages.

144 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

which had already been partially taught to
some. The messengers returned to the queen,
and soon came back with this answer: "The
queen does not care much for Greek and
Hebrew. Can you teach something more
useful? Can you, for example, teach how to
make soap?"

"Give me a week," said the leading mis-
sionary, and the week was given. At its close
the queen's messengers again met the mis-
sionaries, who were able to present to them
a bar of fairly good white soap, made entirely
from materials found in the country. This
was an eminently satisfactory answer, and the
manufacture of soap was forthwith introduced.
As a result of making this bar of soap, the
missionaries gained a respite v/hich gave them
time to win the people to Christ. My friends,
we must use every power of our humanity for
the glory of God and the uplift of our brothers.

m

The third face was the face of a lion. The
lion is used everywhere in the Scripture to
suggest courage, and the ideal manhood must

THE MAN WITH FOUR FACES 145

always be a courageous manhood. Sincere
Christian manhood must, in the very nature
of things, be brave, for its rehance is upon
God.

During the Spanish-American War, when
there was great terror along the Atlantic Coast
for fear Boston would be destroyed by the
Spanish fleet, one brave, self-composed man
said, "They can not destroy Boston; Boston is
a state of mind." Courage is a state of mind.
Isaiah says, ''Thou wilt keep him in perfect
peace whose mind is stayed on thee." Emer-
son said, ''Hitch your wagon to a star."
Thus you will share its travels; and the soul
that attaches itself to God shares His strength
and His peace.

The man who stands like a lion for what he
is sure is right can well afford, even for this
world, to pay little attention to the passing
flurry of abuse or opposition. When James
Russell Lowell delivered his Commemoration
Ode on the two hundred and fiftieth anni-
versary of Harvard College, Grover Cleveland,
then President of the United States, and who
was standing bold as a lion against bitter
abuse and opposition within and without his

10

146 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

party, sat a few feet before him. Mr. Lowell
exprest a sense of honor at the presence of
the President of the United States, and with
wonderful fitness added that in the perils and
toils of his high office, he could offer the prayer
of the Greek sailor, when his boat was driven
on the tempestuous and stormy sea: "O
Neptune, you may save me if you will; you
may sink me if you will; but, whatever hap-
pens, I shall keep my rudder true." And Mr.
Cleveland lived to have his courage and
nobility of purpose universally honored. It
is this face of the lion, boldly standing for
righteousness, that helps on the cause of
Christ. It was when the people saw *'the
boldness of Peter and John," that great atten-
tion was attracted to Christ and His Gospel.

IV

And then we have the face of the eagle.
There can be no doubt what this means. The
eagle is a bird of the upper air. It is not in
the marsh or the meadow or the lowlands
where he seeks his nesting-place; but high on
som.e jutting point of rocks, hanging over a

THE MAN WITH FOUR FACES 147

precipice beyond the reach of human feet or
the claws of wild beasts, in some cave of the
granite wall, you will find his nest. Or on
some lofty hill-top, in the deep forests, where
a great tree rises a hundred feet without a
limb, in that giant tree-crown you may find
the home of the eagle. And the eagle is a
bird who loves the realm of the sky; he loves
to soar far above the earth. He seems to be
the only living thing in all God's creation that
is able to look unblinking in the face of the
sun. Undazzled, he lifts himself on his strong
wing and soars in the heavens, sweeping ever
upward till, lost to human vision, he seems to
have lost himself in that realm of light that
beats about the sun itself. It is to this that
man is compared. Not only the worshipful
face, not only the face of human brotherhood,
not only the face as courageous and bold as a
lion, but the ideal man is to have the face of
the eagle, always w^ith his eye turned heaven-
ward, forever progressing, forever advancing,
hoping, expecting, every day for something
better still. This is man's glorious privilege.
Onward, ever onward, is the spirit of true
manhood and womanhood. Columbus, har-

148 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

assed by the mutiny of his crew, but still
persevering, is an illustration of the ad-
venturous soul who refuses to be hindered by
the scruples of the timid and the prejudices
of those who would hold man back from his
noblest achievement. Joaquin Miller, the
poet of the Sierras, puts the thought in a most
graphic picture:

" Behind him lay the gray Azores,

Behind, the gates of Hercules;
Before him not the ghost of shores,

Before him only shoreless seas.
The good mate said, ' Now must we pray,

For lo! the very stars are gone;
Brave admiral, speak; what shall I say?'

'Why, say, "Sail on, sail on, sail on!" '

'My men grow mutinous day by day;

My men grow ghastly wan and weak.'
The stout mate thought of home; a spray

Of salt wave washed his swarthy cheek.
'What shall I speak, brave admiral, say.

If we sight naught but seas at dawn? '
'Why, you shall say at break of day,
"Sail on, sail on, sail on, and on." '

"They sailed and sailed as winds might blow,
Until at last the scared mate said,

'Why, now not even God would know
If I and all my men fall dead;

THE MAN WITH FOUR FACES 149

These very winds forget their way,

For God from these dread seas is gone.
Now speak, brave admiral; speak, and say.' —

'They sailed and sailed. Then spake the mate:

' This mad sea shows its teeth to-night.
He curls his lip, and lies in wait.

With lifted face as if to bite;
Brave admiral, say but one good word.

What shall we do when hope is gone?'
The words leaped as a leaping sword:

'Sail on, sail on, sail on, and on.'

Then pale and worn, he kept his deck,

And peered through darkness. Ah, that night
Of all dark nights! and then a speck —

A light, a light, a light, a light!
It grew: a starHt flag unfurled!

It grew to be Time's burst of dawn.
He gained a world! He gave that world

Its greatest watchword, 'On! and on!' "

THE TRAVELER'S SANCTUARY

"Yet will I be to them a sanctuary ... in the countries
where they are come." — Ezekiel 11 : 16.

OUR text is one of those great promises of
God which shine out in the Bible Hke
great Hghts along a dark street and tell us of
the infinite love and mercy of our Heavenly-
Father. The people referred to in the text
were to be scattered abroad throughout the
world because of their sins and rebellion.
They were to be exiled travelers in strange
lands, often lonely and homesick, knowing
not where they were to go, meeting opposition
and prejudice as foreigners among strangers.
But God says that He will be to them again
and again as a sanctuary along the troubled
way of their lives.

It is a broader view that I wish to take to-
night. I desire to see in our text a picture
of life as a whole. No figure used to describe
human life is so easy for us to understand as
when we view it as a journey. We are all

150

THE TRAVELER'S SANCTUARY 151

travelers, whether we will or no. Sometimes
we think of life as the traveler and we
as the stationary observers by the wayside;
but it all has the same effect. The journey
goes on and we with it. Many of you have
had the experience of one of those moving
sidewalks where the passenger simply takes
his seat, perhaps conversing with a friend, or
reading his book, and ere long he is half a
mile away w^ithout noting that he is travehng.
So the years are bringing us on our journey.
Some one sings with graphic force of "The
March of the Years":

'Do you hear the rhythmic beat
Of the firm and forward feet

Of the years?
White with frost and red with heat,
Charged with gifts to all they meet,
In desolate wood, in crowded street,

March the years.

"You may watch them as they go
Through life's stages, while they grow

Into night.
First is spring's imperial glow;
Next is summer's flush and flow;
Lastly age and winter's snow.

And long night.

152 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

"Steady, regular, their pace.
Every movement full of grace,

March the years.
Yet he runs a breathless race.
And his forces he must brace,
Who keeps step by step through space
With these years.

"They are charged with gifts for man;
Let him wrest the best he can

From the mass.
Shadow, substance, deed and plan,
Honors, gold, dreams, talisman.
You may seize, but for a span.

As they pass.

"They can heal your heart — or break;
They can wake your thirst — or slake;

Smiles or tears
They can give, and you must take.
Yet they come for love's own sake,
And true servants you can make

Of these years."

In the olden times a sanctuary was a place
of refuge. Churches and abbeys and temples
and altars were used as places of sanctuary
to which men fled when in danger of their
lives. So God assures us that tho we be
exiled and lonely travelers on the earth, like
strangers in a foreign land, He will be to us

THE TRAVELER'S SANCTUARY 153

a sanctuary of refuge. I think it will be a
comfort and an inspiration to us to notice
some of these sanctuaries which God provides
along the way of life to save us from loneliness
and homesickness and despair.

One of these divine sanctuaries is the friend-
ship and love which God gives us with faithful
and loyal hearts. Percy Ains worth, one of
the most brilliant and saintly of the young
Wesley an preachers, who was called away
from earth a little while ago, just as his life
was expanding into full beauty and power,
wrote a little poem entitled ''The Road," in
which he glorifies the sanctuary of love which
God gave him as a traveling sanctuary of
refuge in the person of his wife. He sings:

"Stand with me, near my side,

High on the breast of the hill,
Here where the view is wide,

Here where the air is still.
How can I understand

This silence, these leagues of light,
Save as I hold your hand.

You, who are half my sight?

164 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

"Stand with me, closer yet,

Low in the mist of the valo,
Here where I might forget,

Here where my hope might fall.
How can my heart rejoice,

How can I wait and be strong.
Save as I hear your voice.

You, who are all my song?

"Lean on me all the way,

Where the road winds long and white,
'Neath the sun of love by day,

And the stars of peace by night,
High where the hillside sings,

Low where the vale is trod,
Out to the verge of things.

Up to the feet of God."

This thought of love, with its faith and
confidence, as a sanctuary in every emergency
of Hfe, is the sweetest assurance which Christ
gives us concerning our human journey.
When He gave His disciples their great com-
mand to go into all the world and preach the
Gospel to every creature. He coupled with it
the tender promise, "Lo, I am with you al-
way, even unto the end of the world."

The earthly life of Jesus, with its wealth of
incident and story, revealing the beauty and
tenderness of His friendship and love, brings

THE TRAVELER'S SANCTUARY 155

God very close to us as a sanctuary. I have
seen a quaint little story of a child who one
day asked his mother: "Has any one seen
God?" His mother said: "No." The child
then concluded, with a wisdom beyond his
years: "If no one has seen God, I will con-
tent myself with Jesus." Vaguely, no doubt,
that little boy felt that Jesus was the way in
which God must have looked to the people
who saw Him during the years of His human
life. Jesus shows us what God is like in
character and spirit, and in the atmosphere
of life. Christ revealed to us a human life so
shot through and through with the radiance
of heaven that we see God in Him, and it
brings God close to us, and in that friendship
and fellowship we may find blest sanctuary.

II

God has opened to us a sure sanctuary in
prayer. Wherever we are, no matter how
lonely, or how far exiled from comfortable
surroundings, the sanctuary of prayer is al-
ways close at hand. I was reading recently
a story of Washington AUston, one of our

156 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

early American poets who was still more
famous as an artist. Allston was once in
desperate poverty in London, where he had
gone to pursue his profession as an artist.
He was driven almost to despair by the
financial straits in which he found himself.
It seemed for a while there was nothing open
when the hope was suddenly forced upon him
that God could and would help him, if he
would ask. He locked the door, fell upon
his knees, and cried to the Lord for help,
and while he was praying, he was aroused by
a knock. He opened the door and met a
British nobleman, a stranger to himself, who
had come to inquire about the artist's painting
of "The Angel Uriel," which he purchased,
before leaving the room, for two thousand
dollars. That occasion marked the conver-
sion of Washington Allston. It was for him
the new birth of faith and hope in God. To
the day of his death he regarded it as a direct
interposition of God in behalf of a needy,
suffering man, and during the rest of his life
he was a devout and earnest Christian. It
is easy to sneer at such an incident, as it is to
sneer at all good things ; but to Washington

THE TRAVELER'S SANCTUARY 157

AUston it was a sanctuary which God opened
up to him in his dire need.

Prayer is a sanctuary where we always may
be sure to find strength to bear the burdens
of Hfe. It is not a brave nor a noble thing
for us to get rid of the burdens which truly
belong to us or which opportunity has given
us to help carry for others. But these loads
are often too heavy for our strength unaided,
and at such a time it is our duty and privilege
to turn to God, and in the sanctuary of prayer
seek the help which our Heavenly Father will
never fail to give us. He may not take away
the load, but He will do what is better, give
us the strength to carry it. I was reading
not long ago the story of a man who was
writing of his own boyhood, and he related
the incident, how, one stormy winter day, when
the snow lay deep on the field and the old
zigzag fences were cracking with the frost, the
father, with the help of the boy, had finished
an afternoon's work at the barn. One more
task only remained to be done: the big wood-
box must be heaped up with fuel for the long
winter evening and for the morrow. On the
particular evening in question the boy had

158 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

carried the wood into the house as the father
chopped it, load after load, till the last one
had been reached, which, boy fashion, was the
biggest of all. He had started toward the
door with this load, his knees aching, his jfingers
numb with cold, and his arms seeming ready
to pull out from the backbone, when the
father came up behind him. The boy thought
he would take the load from him; but, instead
of that, he took the boy up in his arms, just
as he was, load and all, and thus he took him
into the house where the children were playing
on the floor in the light of the fire. Thus it
is that often a mightier Father comes to those
whose hearts go out to Him, upon whom He
has placed a burden of great work, not to make
their load less, bat to give them more support.

Ill

God gives a beautiful sanctuary at the end
of life's journey — a sanctuary from fear and
dread. When President Garfield was lying
wounded and ill in a cottage on the New
Jersey shore, with the whole nation thinking
of him, he caught, one day, a soft, sweet

THE TRAVELER'S SANCTUARY 159

melody, which was wafted into his chamber.
*'What is it?" asked Dr. BHss, his physician,
who was alone with him at the time. *'It is
Crete," said Garfield, referring to his wife,
whose name was Lucretia. "Open the door,
please," asked the sick man. As the door
swung open the subdued tones of Mrs. Gar-
field's voice were heard as she sang the old
hymn, "Guide me, O thou great Jehovah."
"Listen," said the President, as she sang the
last verse:

"When I tread the verge of Jordan,
Bid my anxious fears subside;
Bear me through the sweUing current;
Land me safe on Canaan's side:

Songs of praises
I will ever give to thee."

"Glorious, isn't it, Bliss.^" said Garfield.
Even then the noble sufferer was near "the
verge of Jordan," and the Christian faith of
the singer and the listener was a sanctuary
for them both. When I see a good man die,
see him go forth into the other world with a
smile on his lips and noble courage in his
heart, I think how glorious it is for a man,
by the grace of God, to go toward the sunset

160 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

of life and toward the eternal world in the
brave spirit of a traveler, instead of like drift-
wood carried by a current, that can not help
itself. The true Christian comes to death in
the spirit that Clinton Scollard sings of the
departure of his friend:

"Into the dusk and snow
One fared on yesterday;
No man of us may know
By what mysterious way.

"He had been comrade long;
We fain would hold him still;
But, tho our will be strong,
There is a stronger Will.

"Beyond the solemn night

He will find morning-dream,
The summer's kindly light

Beyond the snow's chill gleam.

"The clear, unfaltering eye,
The inalienable soul.
The calm, high energy —
They will not fail the goal!

" Large will be our content
If it be ours to go
One day the path he went
Into the dusk and snow! "

THE TRAVELER'S SANCTUARY 161

IV

There is one other sanctuary for human
travelers about which I want to speak to you
this evening, and it is a message which I feel
sure some of you ought to hear. The sanctu-
ary to which I refer is the mercy-seat to which
God invites a sinning soul. It also is a mov-
able sanctuary. Right where you are, even
as I speak, you may, if you will, enter into
it through faith in Jesus Christ, and by
breathing out the prayer of your soul in con-
fession of your sins and in asking for pardon,
you may find the refuge which God has pro-
vided in the Cross of Christ.

Do you know, I think there are a good

many people these days who greatly desire to

be out-and-out Christians, and yet are failing

to find the way into the kingdom of God

through lack of a definite confession of sin

and a straightforward obedience to Christ in

confessing Him. A friend of mine who is a

Presbyterian minister in an eastern city, a

few weeks ago told this story. Some years

since he brought into his household an orphan

boy about twelve years of age. The boy's
11

162 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

father and mother had been early friends of
his. Brought up on a farm, the boy had
never seen a city. During the months that
followed, a strong attachment developed be-
tween the boy and the man. The boy never
seemed so happy as when in the minister's
company. He would sit by the hour and talk
over his studies, and his pleasures and ambi-
tions for the future. But one day the minister
thought he detected a change in the boy. He
endeavored to dismiss the suspicion from his
mind, but it persisted. There could be no
doubt about it — something had disturbed
their tender relations. Naturally enough, in
seeking an explanation, he sent his memory
back over the path of the yesterdays in search
of some blunder or oversight upon his part,
but could recall nothing that would furnish
an explanation of the boy's behavior. After
assuring himself that he had not changed in
his attitude toward the boy, he began, as
tactfully as possible, to study the lad. When-
ever the minister talked with him, the boy's
eyes sought the ground; when he took him
out walking, he lagged behind; when he in-
vited him to bring his books into the study

THE TRAVELER'S SANCTUARY 163

(which had been his former dehght), he ex-
cused himself, and finally, for various reasons,
he often failed to join him at mealtime. At
his wits' end, the minister finally sought out
his school-teacher, who informed him that the
boy had been very naughty. After finding
out all the facts, he called the boy into his
study. At first he would not enter, but stood
with his foot in the crack of the door, thus
preparing himself for a hasty retreat should
occasion demand. But the minister reassured
him by saying that he need have no fear of
him, since he should always remain his true
and kind friend. When they were seated op-
posite each other, the man asked if he had
been unkind to him at any time. Had he
denied him any legitimate pleasure .^^ Had he
overlooked his needs .^ Was he feeling well.?
Then he closed in upon him with leading
questions, and little by little he drew forth
the confession, and then the tears, and then
a perfect storm of repentance which broke
the man up quite as much as it did the boy.
But when it was all over and the full con-
fession was made to the minister, and repara-
tion made to the teacher, in the shape of a

164 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

note of apology, the clouds broke, and through
the stars they could both see the sunshine.
Immediately the boy was himseK again, and
they were upon the same terms of intimacy
as before.

Now, my friend the minister says that as
the boy sat before him that evening, giving
him sentence by sentence the story of his
guilt, which he already knew, he thought he
understood as never before the great im-
portance of a confession of one's sins to
Christ and public acknowledgment of Him
as a Savior. Christ yearns to have you
draw near to Him, but as long as you excuse
yourself from the confession which must be
made before forgiveness is granted, there will
remain between you a wide gulf of separation.
Come to Him now!

THE WALLS OF CHARACTER

"When one buildeth up a wall, behold, they daub it with un-
tempered mortar: say unto them that daub it with untempered
mortar, that it shall fall."— Ezekiel 13 : 10, 11.

THE wall to which Ezekiel alludes was no
doubt one of the cob walls in the East,
daubed with bad mortar, which had not been
well tempered — that is to say, not well mixt
with the straw which they used to make it
substantial and hold it together. This poor
quality of mortar, when the rain comes, soon
gives way, the whole wall softens and melts,
and it goes down in a collapse. The prophet,
however, was using this only as a figure to con-
vey a most tremendous truth. He was speak-
ing of their national life and their attitude
toward God and righteousness. He was telling
them that the day would come when their
walls of character as a people should be tried,
not only by showers, but by storms of hail and
by bitter winds of wrath, and in that day only
righteous character would stand the tempest,

165

166 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

and both the walls and the people who had
tempered them with this poor mortar would
go down in disaster.

We have here suggested a theme of unusual
picturesqueness, applicable to ourselves. We,
too, are building lives and characters that will
be tested by storms of trial and temptation,
and everything depends on the quality of our
building. We are often deceived into thinking
that the goods we are able to gather by our
skill and toil, the position we are able to
reach before our fellow men, or the learning
we are able to conquer, is the thing that will
abide. But it is not so. The real walls of
life that stand the storm are the true quali-
ties of goodness and genuine righteousness.
Henry Drummond once said that he had
traveled all over the world, and the finest
thing he had ever seen was a good man.
What do you mean by a good man? A good
man, according to the Christian standard, is
a man who, amid all the temptations and
seductions of this earthly life, is trying to live
up to the highest that he knows; a man who
has the fear of God before him, and who
knows no other fear; the man who tramples

THE WALLS OF CHARACTER 167

on his lower nature and asserts the sovereign-
ity of the soul over the body; the man who
would never descend to a mean action or soil
his lips with foul language or stain his hands
with ill-gotten or unholy gains; the man who
believes that the great thing is to be right;
who would rather lose his popularity and his
money than his integrity ; the man who carries
about with him a tender and a loving heart,
and who does what he can to make the world
better and sweeter for those who are coming
after him. I take it that this is Christ's ideal
of a good man, and if we are trying to patch
up the walls of life with a cheaper material
than that, we are using untempered mortar
that some day will come down in the storm.

Our theme suggests the pitiable weakness
of a sinful life. By a sinful life I do not mean
necessarily a drunkard or a thief or a libertine
or a scoundrel whose sins shame and disgrace
him before the eyes of men. I mean a life
that is not essentially genuine in its goodness,
in its sincere obedience to God, and its en-

168 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

deavor to do its best according to the light
God gives the soul. I think one of the most
pitiful things is the way men deceive them-
selves by plastering up the walls of life with
their patches of untempered mortar so as to
make them look a little better before others.
I would to God that we could see ourselves
as clearly as we see others. There is no
greater blessing to a man than to be able to
see himself in the clear light of truth. Laura
Richards gives a little allegory about a man
who was complaining of his neighbors. *'I
never saw such a wretched set of people,"
he said, *'as are in this village. They are
mean, greedy of gain, selfish, and careless of
the needs of others. Worst of all, they are
forever speaking evil of one another." "Is
it really so.^" asked an angel who happened
to be walking with him. *'It is, indeed,"
said the man. "Why, only look at this fellow
coming toward us! I know his face, tho I
can not just remember his name. See his
little, shark-like, cruel eyes, darting here and
there like a ferret's, and the lines of covetous-
ness about his mouth! The very droop of
his shoulders is mean and cringing, and he

THE WALLS OF CHARACTER 169

slinks along instead of walking." "It is very
clever of you to see all this," said the angel,
"but there is one thing which you did not per-
ceive." "What is that?" asked the man.
"Why, that it is a looking-glass we are ap-
proaching," said the angel. Oh, if we could
only look in the looking-glass of God's Word
with undazzled eyes, and see ourselves, and
honestly seek regeneration of character, in-
stead of patching it up or plastering it over
by worldly makeshifts, how infinitely better it
would be for us.

Men's very successes often mark the
measure of their weakness and their failure.
A man forgets God and his duty to his
spiritual nature and his fellow men, and gives
himself over to greed, and makes what the
world calls success, and after a while in the
spirit of Nebuchadnezzar he looks around
complacently and says: "Is not this great
Babylon which I have built .^" He credits
his prosperity to the skill of his own brain,
and the sinew of his own arm; and as he boasts,
he loses his own soul. Some one writes:

170 THE SUNDAY-NIOHT EVANGEL

I knew a youth of large and lofty soul,
A soul aflame with heavenly purpose high.
Like a young eagle's, his clear, earnest eye,
Fixt on the sun, could choose no lesser goal.
For truth he lived; and love, a burning coal
From God's high altar, did the fire supply
That flushed his cheeks as morning tints the sky,
And kept him pure by its divine control.
Lately I saw him, smooth and prosperous,
Of portly presence and distinguished air.
The cynic's smile of self-content was there,
The very air about him breathed success,
Yet by the eyes of love, too plainly seen.
Appeared the wreck of what he might have been.

The poet has here described the Hfe-story
of many people. Their prosperity led them
to forget God and their walls are built up
with untempered mortar that must finally
come down in ruin.

Some of you are very self-complacent, altho
you know that in no true and real sense of the
word are you Christians. You were brought
up in Christian homes and you have been so
hedged about by the influences of Christian
life that you have been kept back from out-
breaking sin. But you lack that crowning
grace that makes for salvation. You have
not obeyed God; you have not confessed
Christ as your Savior; you have not accepted

THE WALLS OF CHARACTER 171

the sacrifice of Jesus as your definite atone-
ment for sin. This touch of obedience to
God, which would transform your hfe and
make you a new creature in Christ Jesus, you
lack, and if you continue to lack that, the
end must be that your life and character will
be a failure. It is told of Brullof, the famous
Russian painter, who lived in the first half
of the last century, that one day he corrected
a pupil's study. When the pupil looked at
the altered drawing, he exclaimed, "Why, you
only touched it a tiny bit, but it is quite
another thing." Brullof replied, "Art begins
where the tiny bit begins." And this was the
doctrine of Jesus Christ. He declared that
faithfulness in that which is least is the great
essential of a noble career. The great col-
lapses in life are often the results of the small
slips. It is the tiny bits that make the human
picture a success or a failure.

II

But I am grateful to God that in presenting
to you this sad picture of the danger, and in-
deed the certain ruin, that must come upon
a life of disobedience to God persisted in, I

172 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

may still come as a messenger of good tidings
and urge upon you the truth that God is
always seeking to deliver us and to offer to
us His grace and strength to build our walls
of character and life anew. In Isaiah, in the
29th chapter, w^e have another word of God's
about walls, where He says, "Behold, I have
graven thee upon the palms of my hands;
thy walls are continually before me." In
this case the Lord was speaking about walls
that were broken down and in ruins. The
people to whom His message was coming
were the captive Jews in Babylon and they
thought of their broken and ruined walls with
great discouragement, but God makes them
know that He has a vision of the walls re-
builded in all their beauty and glory. And
so I bring you the message to-night that our
God, through Jesus Christ, is seeking after
you to renew and rebuild the walls which
your sins have broken down. I saw not long
ago a very quaint but heart-searching sort
of poem written by Dr. Hake, an Englishman,
to which he has given the unusual title "Old
Souls to Mend." It describes the divine and
redeeming presence of Christ going as a

THE WALLS OF CHARACTER 173

Seeker, unrecognized, through the street and
the market-place, in the hovel and palace,
and even into His own temples:

While standing on the palace-stone,

He is in workhouse, brothel, jail;
He is to play and ballroom gone,

To hear again the beauties rail;
With tender pity to behold
The dead ahve in pearls and gold.

In meaning deep, in whispers low,

As bubble bursting on the air,
He lets the solemn warning flow

Through jeweled ears of creatures fair,
WTio while they dance, their paces blend
With His mild words. Old souls to mend!

And when to church their sins they take.
And bring them back to lunch again,

And fun of empty sermons make,
He whispers softly in their train;

And sits with them if two or more

Think of a promise made of yore.

Of those who stay behind to sup
And in remembrance eat the bread.

He leads the conscience to the cup,
His hands across the table spread.

When contrite hearts before Him bend,

Glad are His words. Old souls to mend!

The little ones before the font

He clasps within His arms to bless,

As long ago, so still His wont
On them to lay peculiar stress.

Besides, of such His kingdom is;

Him they betray not with a kiss.

174 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

Christ is seeking now, as He sought in the
days of His incarnation, pursuing the wanderer
with unwearied love, with prayers, with tears,
with entreaties, through the long search that
comes to an end only when He finds. He is
seeking some of you as a shepherd seeks for
his lost sheep, with eyes like the eyes of
eagles, and ears alert to catch the faintest
sound. And why does He seek? Ah, He
sees the beauty of the rebuilded walls of your
character. He sees the redeemed and glorified
building of your soul. He sees a man or a
woman with all the innocence and glory of
your childhood matured and blossoming and
bearing fruit, unstained and unmarked by the
sins which have marred and smothered the
beauty and nobility that was possible for you.
Christ's great love sees all that and, oh, how
He longs to see it realized in you.

Henrik Ibsen, in the greatest dream of his
literature, "Peer Gynt," tells the story how
Peer left his native place in disgrace and long
after came back an old man, and on his re-
turn he is possest with a question he can not
abandon: "Where have I, Peer Gynt, been
all these years?" He means Peer Gynt, the

THE WALLS OF CHARACTER 175

unspoiled, unfallen, who sprang from the
thought of God: Where has that innocent,
noble Peer Gynt been through all the years?
He hears the crooning voice of Solveig, who
had been his sweetheart when a boy, singing
that the summer may pass and the next
winter too, but he will come again. Tho
blind, she feels it is he when he draws nigh;
and he asks her the question that has been
occupying him. ''Oh, that is a question easy
to answer," says Solveig. "Where would you
look for that Peer Gynt but in the heart of
one who loves him?" And when he replies
that that is just an idea of her own, that
she was the mother of that idea, Solveig says
something that goes to the marrow of life:
" Granted I am its mother, who is the father,
who put the idea into my head? God." And
Ibsen's dream ends there. That is the hope
of mankind, that God loves us and has a vision
of our possibilities so splendid that in His
great love He gave Christ to die on the Cross
that that dream might be reaUzed. And
Christ had such a glorious vision of our re-
deemed humanity that He went forth to
the Cross with joy. Fr^erick Maurice said,

176 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

"My hope is not in my hold on God, but in
God's hold on me."

I bring you this sublime message to-night.
Tho the walls have been frail and daubed
with untempered mortar, still God has not
lost His vision of the nobler wall that is pos-
sible, and Jesus Christ is seeking His way into
your heart that He may rebuild your walls so
that they may stand forever. Why not act
now.^ Nothing is so full of folly as delay in
a matter so important, and when the possi-
bilities for gain are so great. It is hard to
find adequate illustrations whereby to show
the folly of delay in accepting the offers of
God in the conversion of the soul. Left to
ourselves we are certain failures, and our lives
are so uncertain, and the influences that affect
us and draw us away toward final folly are
so uncertain and unknown to us, that when
Jesus Christ stands before us in the Gospel
with infinite skill to bring to us just the change
and transformation that we need to make our
lives safe and glad and beautiful, what ama-
zing folly that we turn away from Him and
say, "I know if ever I am saved I must be
saved through Jesus Christ. I know no one

THE WALLS OF CHARACTER 177

else can do for me what He can do, but yet
I must wait and think about it, and put it
away for some other time." You are doing
what the wicked king did when he turned
Paul away to a more convenient season,
which never came. "To-day is the day of
salvation. If you hear his voice, harden not
your hearts!"

12

CUSHIONS— GOOD AND BAD

"Wo to the women that sew pillows upon all elbows." —
Ezek. 13 : 18.

"Put now these rags and worn-out garments under thine
armholes, under the cords." — Jeremiah 38 : 12.

"My yoke is easy." — Matthew 11 : 30.

OUR theme starts with the first text, with
its strange rebuke of the women who
cushion the armholes, or sew pillows on the
elbows. We must always remember that this
prophet was in an Oriental country and the im-
agery used naturally springs out of the life
which he saw about him. The people of the
East are generally indolent and voluptuous.
The art which they most study is the art of ma-
king themselves physically comfortable. They
are what we would call a very lazy people. En-
ter an Eastern divan, or the drawing-room of
an aristocratic mansion or palace, and the
Western traveler is at once struck with the in-
genuity and care with which provision is made
for the ease of the body and the enjoyment
of the senses. Odors and perfumes of sweetest

178

CUSHIONS— GOOD AND BAD 179

fragrance are diffused through the room;
fountains or vases of cold water are used to
cool the heated air of the tropics; the sides
and corners of the room are cushioned all
around, while movable cushions of every form
and size, richly embroidered and ornamented,
are spread on the couches and chairs, and
even on the jfloor. In the days when this love
of ease and luxury was carried to excess, pil-
lows were provided not only for the head and
shoulders and back, but for the arms and for
every joint, that every part of the body might
He softly and feel comfortable. It would not
be twisting the Scripture to translate the text
so as to make it read "pillows for all arm
joints," including the armholes, as it is in-
terpreted in the old version, as well as the
elbows and wrists. This is the condition of
things that caused Ezekiel to seize this
picturesque imagery as a text for a great
message to his people.

Ezekiel uses this quaint and forcible imagery
to impress on the people that their salvation
could come only through a thorough and gen-

180 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

uine turning from their sins and obedience
to God. This earnest prophet had been com-
missioned to hft up his voice against an army
of false prophets who had been misleading
the people by proclaiming a salvation without
repentance and grace without judgment. He
is filled with righteous indignation at the bid
which these demagogs make for popularity
by trying to accommodate their message,
which purported to come from God, to the
selfishness, the laziness, and the sinful desires
of the people; and so he chooses this imagery
to urge home on the conscience of the entire
nation that a true peace, real security, genuine
tranquillity, could be obtained only by fear-
lessly and honestly laying bare the truth,
however stern and uncomfortable it might be,
and not by covering it up with devices cal-
culated to hide its hideousness and soften its
painfulness.

I am sure that this message is needed in our
own time. This old custom of making cush-
ions for all joints and undertaking to fit
the salvation of God to the selfish desires of
wicked men is still in vogue. There is a
tendency to bring the Gospel requirements

CUSHIONS— GOOD AND BAD 181

down to men rather than to lift men up to
the requirements of the Gospel. My dear
friends, a religion that does not change you,
that does not hold you to your duty, that
does not gird you for honest service of God
and men, that does not stimulate you to a
keener devotion for right living and a more
prayerful relation to your Heavenly Father,
is of no value to you. A religion that does
not change a man so that in business and in
society and in politics it will mark him as
something different from wicked and sinful
men, is useless. Hence Christ says that if
any man will follow Him, let him deny him-
self and take up his cross and come after Him.
Now what does that mean? It means that
a man, when he undertakes to be a Christian,
undertakes, by the help of God, in the gracious
companionship of Jesus Christ, to deny those
things in his own nature that are wrong. He
means to fight to the death those appetites
and passions which would shame him if ex-
hibited in the immediate presence of Jesus
Christ.

And what does it mean to say that he will
take up his cross .^^ It must mean that he will

182 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

take up the burden of Christianity in the
community where he hves and in the world.
He will, with all his heart and ability, bear
Christ's cross before the world. He will let
the mark of Christ be on him and henceforth
he will be known as Christ's man. And so,
when I ask you, my brother, to be a Chris-
tian, I do not ask you to any mushy, goody-
goody sort of life. I ask you to be a sol-
dier in the most glorious chivalry the world
ever saw, I ask you to take up a knighthood
more romantic and splendid than history
tells us about. You are to break a lance for
every good cause and for every weak soul,
and with the colors of the Cross you are to
live your whole life in noble warfare for the
best things dreamed of in earth or heaven.

n

In the second text we have a suggestion of
a time and circumstance where cushions are
desirable and honorable when used by us.
The text is a key to a most interesting story,
a Bible story which is not often told. Jere-
miah, like the brave hero he was, told his
people of their folly, their sins, and their

CUSHIONS— GOOD AND BAD 183

approaching doom, and they hated him for
it. Then the angry princes went to King
Zedekiah and told him that Jeremiah had
frightened the people, that instead of doing
good he was doing harm. That is just what
some of the great heads of corporations now
say when an unselfish and heroic public
servant rises up and exposes the grafters and
points out the way of righteousness in business
and political life. They have to admit things
are bad, but they claim that these prophets
of righteousness make business uncertain and
do more harm than good. Well, the king, in
this case, was not a man with a very strong
backbone. They asked the king to kill the
prophet, and while he would not do that out-
right himself, he gave way to them and said,
"Behold, he is in your hands." He was a
coward, like Pilate, and wanted to make a
semblance of keeping his own hands clean of
a good man's blood. So these people took
Jeremiah away, and they seemed to have
been a Httle fearful themselves of killing him
outright before the people, so they thought
they would kill him by degrees. They took
him to an old dungeon, a deep pit which often

184 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

had water in it, and they let him down there
to die. But instead of the pit being full of
water, there was only a lot of mud in the bot-
tom, and Jeremiah sank down in the mire.

Now, the king, Zedekiah, had a black
servant whose name was Ebed-Melech. All
we know about him is what happened at this
time. But we see enough to know that tho
his skin was black, his heart was white.
When he heard of what the princes had done,
he went to the king and pleaded for Jeremiah's
life. Perhaps Jeremiah had been good to
him, and that kindness had been bread cast
upon the waters, which now came back to
bless the prophet. Ebed-Melech was a good
servant and the king told him he could go
and save the prophet. So he went, and re-
membering how weak and frail the prophet
was, and how deep the pit, he hunted up a
lot of worn-out garments and soft rags and
these he took with him to the pit's head, and,
tying them to the end of a rope, he let them
down to Jeremiah in the pit. But Jeremiah
was faint and ready to die, and he did not
notice. So the big black man put his head
down over the pit and shouted ''Jeremiah!

CUSHIONS— GOOD AND BAD 185

Jeremiah!! Jeremiah!!!" And when he gets
him roused enough to see that somebody is
coming to his aid, he shouts down to him,
"Put these rags and worn-out garments under
your armholes and fasten the cords around
them, so that I may pull you out." And at
last, Jeremiah, with feeble, trembling fingers,
manages to make the cords fast, and is lifted
out.

Now, our message is that if you are going
to do a kindness, there is no way too beauti-
ful or gentle. A kind, helpful deed is such a
beautiful picture that it always ought to be
well framed. Even the black Ebed-Melech
remembered when he was going to do so great
a deed as to save a man's life, that it was worth
while doing it in a kind and gracious way.
He remembered how weak the prophet was
and knew the cords would bruise and chafe
his tender flesh, and so he undertakes to lift
him out in a gentle way. My friends, we
ought to do the good deeds which God gives
us a chance to do in the most beautiful way
we can devise. And in the greatest of all
work which God ever puts in our hands, the
privilege of helping to rescue men and women

186 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANOEL

from the deep dungeon of sin, from the mire
and the clay of their wicked habits and their
sinful passions, we ought to study and devise
ways by which we can most tenderly lift
them out of the dark depths of iniquity.
There ought to be in this story a message, I
am sure, to each one of us who are Christians,
and who have had on our hearts some people
whom we have longed to see brought into the
forgiving love of our Savior. Let us ask
ourselves whether we have been as thoughtful
as we ought about the details of our efforts
to win them to Christ. When it is so great
a thing as the salvation of a man's soul, it
ought to be worth while to put our very best
thought into it, our deepest affection and
tenderness into the problem of making a
success of the rescue.

Ill

And in our last text we have the comforting
suggestion that after all the true cushions,
that give the most peace, and the certain
rest, and the easier career, are in the way of
the earnest Christian life. It was to the tired

CUSHIONS—GOOD AND BAD 187

people, the people who were hard- worked,
who were taxed, and opprest, and burdened
till they knew scarcely which way to turn,
that Jesus said, "Come unto me, all ye that
labor and are heavy laden, and I will give
you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and
learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in
heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."
The great cushion under the yoke of the man
or the woman who is yoked up with Jesus
Christ is in this, that his conscience is easy.
He has the assurance that his sins are all
forgiven. He has the glad consciousness that
he is doing the best he can and that God is
pleased with him. Oh, w^hat a cushion that is !
Another cushion that keeps the shoulder of
the true Christian from chafing is the glad
and happy association which he has with
Christ. He is keeping step with Jesus. He
is pulling at the same load with the divine
Savior of the world. A man may be poor
and unknown, but he is yoked up with the
most beautiful, the most glorious, the most
lovely character the world ever saw. He
may not seem to have much strength, but

188 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

such strength as he has is cooperating with
Jesus Christ to dry the tears of mankind, to
cure the heartaches of humanity, and hft the
world up to God.

My friend, if you want a cushion that will
give you peace in every stress of life or death,
hear and heed the call of Christ, "Come
unto me!"

THE SOUL'S SATISFACTION

"He satisfieth the longing soul." — Psalm 107 : 9.

AN ENGLISH writer heads a suggestive
article with this title: "The Ache of
Modernism." He rings the changes on the
fact that there is in our modern Hfe a deep
undertone of dissatisfaction and unrest which
the rich inheritance of the present generation,
richer than in any age of the world, neverthe-
less fails to satisfy. The world was never
more beautiful than it is to-day, and its beau-
ties were never so available as at the present.
Science and art have opened to us their
treasures, and culture is spreading before us
an ever-widening domain. And yet, notwith-
standing that the world is fuller of agencies
that uplift and console and bless than ever
before, this undertone of melancholy and un-
rest is forever beating on the shores of life
like the deep moan of the sea. Nor is it
confined to any one class of the community.
Lecky, the philosopher, says, "Anxiety and

189

190 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

ennui are the Scylla and Charybdis on which
the bark of human happiness is wrecked/*
And these are the burdens of the rich and
poor alike.

In this rich, luxurious age it seems straiigr
to the superficial observer to find the riot of
tragedy and unhappiness among the well-to-
do and the rich. Much of our modern fiction
is given up to picturing the doings and the
vaporings, the follies of men and women who
have had enormous wealth in money and op-
portunity and privilege poured into their laps.
The man who hunts "a pleasant story" to
read these days is hard put to it. Our litera-
ture is largely filled up with melancholy and
tragedy. We have seen within the last few
weeks, during the financial disturbances, men
committing suicide who still had two or three
or more millions of dollars left in their treas-
ury, because other millions had taken wings
and flown away. All these things emphasize
to us the fact that man is too great for
simply worldly satisfaction. If he were only
an animal, these things could give him peace;
but because he is greater and has in him a
nature granted of God, akin to the divine,

THE SOUL'S SATISFACTION 101

he can not find satisfaction in mere worldly
goods. But we have here in our text a great
declaration. The Psalmist declares that God
"satisfieth the longing soul.*' There can be
no greater theme for us to study than that
satisfaction.

Among the many utterances of the Bible
which promise satisfaction none is more uni-
versal in its application than that which
promises satisfaction in the hour of weariness.
Through the mouth of Jeremiah we have this
divine declaration, "7 have satiated the weary
souV Weariness may come from a thousand
sources. It may come to the young and to the
old, to the high and to the low, to the rich
and to the poor, to the successful perhaps
fully as frequently as to the defeated. Is
there some '*balm in Gilead" that can heal
the ache of weariness and cause the dying
bough of man's courage to send out new bud
and blossom again with the vigor of eternal
hope?

The writer to whom I first referred, in

192 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

discussing *'The Ache of Modernism," sug-
gests that this world-weariness may rise from
life's monotony. The daily tasks tend to
grow odious when the hands have to take up
the same duties day after day. One of the
greatest burdens is the sense of being im-
prisoned in the commonplace. When men
pass the whole of their days in making pin-
heads, he says it is no wonder that they fret
and chafe at the deadly dulness of things;
that the mother in humble surroundings,
caring for her child day after day, her life
limited to that narrow round of humble
service, finds it monotonous and the soul
aches and moans with deadly weariness.
How does God heal that weariness.^ The
world is full of illustrations. There was once
a shoemaker whose whole career seemed
chained to his bench, where he made wooden
pegs and drove them into the soles of shoes
for his neighbors to wear. Surely there was
a chance for the soul to ache with weariness.
What relieved it? A Bible fell into his hands.
He read it and studied it with ever growing
wonder. His soul grew on what it fed upon.
The marvelous career of Paul, the tent-maker,

THE SOUL'S SATISFACTION 193

who became the great missionary to the
Gentiles, absorbed every spare moment. His
soul reveled in the wonderful story of that
missionary career until there was born in him
the great purpose to make every peg he drove
into a shoe-sole a factor in the world's re-
demption, and so, instead of finding life
weary and useless, he became William Carey,
the father of modern missions.

Here is a young mother, the wife of a poor
workingman in humble circumstances, whose
child comes to her as the gift of God, and
when she looks into its eyes and caresses its
soft baby hair she thinks of the manger in
Bethlehem, and the Christ who was cradled
there. Into her heart comes a sisterhood to
Mary, the mother of Jesus, and there is born
in her soul the wonderful conviction that if
she can so mother this child as to bring it to
be a good man or a noble woman she is the
most honored of all God's creatures. To such
a mother all monotony is gone and all weari-
ness is healed. In her is realized the poet's
vision when he sings:

13

104 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

The whole world once to a mother came

To buy her child away;
There were rich and poor, there were great and small,

There were wise men old and gray.

Said one, "For your child I'll give you gold ";
But the mother smiled tenderly,
"There is gold enough in my baby's hair,"
She quietly said, "for me."

"Jewels!" a childless couple cried,

But smiling again, she said:
" My baby's eyes are my diamonds bright,

His hps are my rubies red."

"My kingdom," offered a gray-haired king.

But strange was the look she gave;
"This is my king, who Hes asleep,

And I his adoring slave."

"The world and its treasures, all, wilt take?

Its gold, its castles and lands?"
"The world," she replied, "could purchase not

The touch of my baby's hands."

So the world returned to its wealth and pride,

To sail its ships on the deep;
But none were happy as she who sat

Singing her baby to sleep.

In connection with this last utterance in
regard to weariness the Lord says, ''I have
replenished every sorrowful souV Sorrow, like
weariness, is as wide as human Hfe and struggle
and defeat, and yet God declares that He has
power to replenish the sorrowful soul. The

TEB SOUL'S SATISFACTION igs

divine cure for sorrow lies in the promise and
revelation of immortality. If this world is
all, then there is for many only the giving up
to sorrow, the surrender to despair. But God
lifts us out of the "Slough of Despond" with
the golden chain of immortal hope. These
are only our school-days here, and we can
afford to make light of uncomfortable things
which last but for a little while if they are
helping to fit us for the great purpose of our
creation. The captain of an ocean steamer
will tell you that a little head-wind is a good
thing and favors a rapid voyage; it makes
the furnaces draw. There are many graces
that are dependent upon sorrow for their
growth. Go into a great paper-mill and see
the contrast between the heap of filthy rags
at one end and the pure and spotless white
paper. rit the other. What a trial the rags go
through before they come out in this new and
glorified form! They must first be torn to
pieces and ground to pulp, bleached with
chemicals until all stains are removed, washed
over and over; bleached again by the action
of powerful and searching ingredients ; washed
again until the torn and helpless pulp is

196 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

white as a snowflake; caught upon a wire
cyHnder after the severe shaking which crosses
the jBbers and gives firmness to the fabric,
they are passed between and around the hot
surfaces which make the paper smooth and
even. So God satisfies the sorrowing soul by
bringing to its conception the wonderful faith
that the Divine discipline means the cleans-
ing away of our sins, the beautifying of our
natures, and the bringing us at last to eternal
triumph.

Dr. Campbell Morgan tells a pathetic but
beautiful story about Commander Booth-
Tucker, who lost his wife a few years ago in
a terrible railway accident. A few weeks
afterward Dr. Morgan was holding meetings
in a Western city. Booth-Tucker came to
visit Morgan, who declares that he shall never
forget the talk he had with him. Dr. Morgan
said to him, "Commander, the passing of
your beloved wife was one of the things that
I freely confess I can not understand." The
bereaved man looked at him across the break-
fast table, his eyes wet with tears, and yet his
face radiant with that light which never shone
on sea or land, and said, "Dear man, do you

THE SOUL'S SATISFACTION 197

not know that the Cross can only be preached
by tragedy?*' Then he told Morgan this
incident: "When my wife and I were last
in Chicago, I was trying to lead a skeptic to
Christ in a meeting. At last the skeptic said,
with a cold, glittering eye and sarcastic voice,
*It is all very well. You mean well; but I lost
my faith in God when my wife was taken out of
my home. It is all very well; but if that beau-
tiful woman at your side lay dead and cold by
you, how would you believe in God.'^' "

Within one month his wife had been taken
away through the awful tragedy of that rail-
way accident, and Commander Booth-Tucker
went back to Chicago, and, in the hearing of
a vast multitude, said, "Here in the midst of
the crowd standing by the side of my dead
wife as I take her to burial, I want to say
that I still believe in Him, and love Him,
and know Him."

II

In connection with our text there is a
reference to a satisfaction of the soul which
is very significant and precious. The entire

198 THE SUN DAY 'NIGHT EVANGEL

verse reads, "For he satisfieth the longing
soul, and filleth the hungry soul with good-
ness J'

There is a soul hunger which is the supreme
proof of the greatness of the soul. The soul
can not be satisfied without goodness. There
is no other food that can give it peace. Dr.
George Gordon, in a recent sermon preached
at the National Conference of the Congrega-
tional churches, brings this out very strong
and clear in the declaration that nothing can
much avail that does not enrich and improve
our personal being; nothing can work us much
harm that leaves high existence unscathed,
untouched. Health, wealth, position, fame,
influence, intellectual power, rich relations
with high minds of the race are good only as
they raise our lives to higher excellence, only
as they impart to us a finer grace and nobility.
If all the good things of life leave us low and
worldly and selfish, then they have failed,
miserably failed, to be of value; they are but
vanity in the presence of the worm that
gnaws and the fire that is unquenched. All
our prosperity, our luxury and success, are
vain if they leave us still in our sins. If the

THE SOUL'S SATISFACTION 190

soul is hungry and restless and unsatisfied,
what does it avail if we possess the whole
world? Here is the closet where the skeleton
dwells. "It is not in the body — that is well;
it is not in the means of existence, for these
are abundant; it is not in position, for that
is honorable; nor in repute, for that is fair;
nor in intellectual power, for that is respect-
able, and in many cases eminent. All these
rooms in our dwellings are open; the sweet
air and the gracious sunshine fill and flow
through them." But it is in another room,
the apartment of our personal nature, our
personal being. Are you just and kind, or
unjust and selfish? Open the door into that
inmost recess of your being and look upon
the veritable character of your soul. The
Greek Socrates said, under an unjust sentence
of death, "There is no evil can happen to a
good man in life or in death." The Christian
Paul asks, "Who shall separate us from the
love of God?" Here is a magnificent concep-
tion of goodness and love. If we are evil, if
our affections and ambitions grovel among low
things, if we degrade ourselves by greed and
dishonor, then there is no peace for the soul,

200 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

there is nothing that can satisfy the heart's
longing. So long as we are wrong, and doing
wrong, nothing really good can come to us
either in life or in death. There is only one
great food that can still the soul-hunger and
satisfy its longings, and that is goodness.
Does any man cry out of the depths of a
hungry heart, "How can I find goodness .f^"
My reply is that you must find it at the feet
of God through repentance and faith in Jesus
Christ. It is not for us to make ourselves
good, but with complete surrender we must
come in childlike simplicity to Him who is
the Author and Father of goodness. The God
who gave goodness to Paul the persecutor,
who lifted David out of the mire and the
clay, who transformed a poor drunken tinker
like John Bunyan and filled his soul with the
dreams of "Pilgrim's Progress," that God is
the hope of the sinner. He has power to fill
the hungry soul with goodness, and goodness
is the one thing that matters to us. No
matter what other success we have, it will
all go for nothing unless we become good.
If we achieve goodness through the mercy
and love of God in Jesus Christ, then nothing

THE SOUL'S SATISFACTION 201

can save us from being victors in our career.
Some one nobly sings:

It matters little where I was born,

Or if my parents were rich or poor;
Whether they shrank from the cold world's scorn,

Or walked in the pride of wealth secure;
But whether I live an honest man,

And hold my integrity firm in my clutch,
I tell you, my brother, as plain as I can.
It matters much!

It matters little how long I stay

In a world of sorrow, sin, and care;
Whether in youth I am called away.

Or live till my bones and pate are bare;
But whether I do the best I can

To soften the weight of adversity's touch
On the faded cheek of my fellow man,
It matters much!

It matters little where be my grave,

On the land or on the sea,
By purling brook or 'neath stormy wave.

It matters little or naught to me;
But whether the Angel of Death comes down

And marks my brow with his loving touch,
As one that shall wear the victor's crown.
It matters much!

THE UNSEEN FACTOR IN A HUMAN
LIFE

"But God— ."—Acts 13 : 30.

THE two significant words of our text are
used many times in the Bible in this
same relation. In this case they are used in
Luke's description of the resurrection of Jesus
Christ. The high priests had hounded Jesus to
His death, and had secured His crucifixion. He
had been taken down from the cross and laid
away in the grave. His enemies were jubilant.
The mob gave itself to carousal. But these
foes had left God out of the account, and Luke
quietly writes, "But God raised him from the
dead."

"Ian Maclaren" used to tell of two pictures
which he once saw in the Salon in Paris. One
represented a king lying on his bed. He had
just died, and his servants, who a moment
before had flown at his word, were engaged
in rifling his casket and his wardrobes. What
do you think was the legend beneath.'^ " WiU-

202

UNSEEN FACTOR IN A HUMAN LIFE 203

iam the Conqueror." Such a victory! Just
a moment dead, and his own servants were
despoiHng him! The other picture repre-
sented a Man lying in a rocky tomb, also
dead; but the angels were keeping watch, and
to that tomb, now empty, all ages and all
generations are coming. He was the Con-
queror and His the victory. Many a man
whom the world has hailed as conqueror has
failed miserably because he failed to take God
into account, and many whom the world
counted a great failure have come to immortal
success because God interfered.

James Anthony Froude tells the story of a
slave in a French galley who was one morning
bending wearily over his oars. The day was
breaking, and, rising out of the gray waters,
a line of cliffs was visible, and the white houses
of a town and a church tower. The rower
was a man unused to such service, worn with
toil and watching, and, it was thought, likely
to die. A companion touched him, pointed
to the shore, and asked him if he knew it.
'*Yes," he answered, "I know it well. I see
the steeple of that place where God opened
my mouth in public to His glory, and I know,

204 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

how weak soever I now appear, I shall not
depart out of this life till my tongue glorify
His name in the same place." That place was
St. Andrews; that galley slave was John Knox;
and we know that he came back and did
glorify God in that place, and others also.

Our theme this morning is this imseen
factor in human Hfe which is suggested by the
pecuHarity of this phrase. I will recall a few
utterances that are specially full of teaching
and inspiration, suggesting the interference
of God in human Hfe.

It is specially interesting in this connection
to note that nothing can give to men a per-
manent \ataUty which can triumph over all
difficulties and endure all defeats save the
virihty which comes from association and
communion with God. We have this sug-
gested in Paul's letter to the Ephesians, where,
speaking of the deprest and dull and heavy
hfe of selfishness and sin which they had once
experienced, contrasting it with their present,
he bursts forth in joyous exclamation: "But

UNSEEN FACTOR IN A HUMAN LIFE 205

God, being rich in mercrv', for his great love
where\vith he loved us, even when we were
dead through our trespasses, made us aHve
together with Christ." There is something
\ery inspiring and ver>' beautiful in this sug-
gestion of "being ahve with Christ." In an
age when many people are bored, and we
have such words as "ennui," and people who
have every opportunity of wealth and culture
are fairly yawning themselves out of existence,
it is inspiring to remember that in ever\"
nation and in even' tribe of the earth where
men are truly made ahve with Christ they
have as much enthusiasm and gladness and
joy of H\'ing as in any age of the worid.
There is nothing more charming than this
supreme \'itaUty. It was said of Sir Wilfred
Lawson, the pioneer Christian temperance
leader of England, that he could well afford
to be a teetotaler. He was alwavs in the
condition of a man who has taken a power-
ful stimulant, sparkUng, bubbling, ebuUient.
Whatever his circumstances were, he could
jest, and the laughter was from the heart.
Sir Wilfred Lawson pursued his aim with un-
de\4ating tenacity, but he disguised the sever-

206 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

ity of his conscience by his gay, random, un-
forced wit. His laughter was as joyous and
glad and happy as a child's. My friends, if
any of you are saying to-day —

Oh, show me the road to Laughter-town,

For I have lost the way!
I wandered out of the path one day,
When my heart was broken, my hair turned gray
And I can't remember how to play;

I've quite forgotten how to be gay,
It's all through sighing and weeping, they say.
Oh, show me the road to Laughter-town,
For I have lost the way.

If that is your cry to-day, I know that I can
point you the way to laughter-town. It is
the way to that fellowship with God which
will make you truly alive in Jesus Christ.
People who live in joyous vitality with Christ
alone can have that vital gladness that, pass-
ing through trials and defeats, will feel them,
indeed, but will not be conquered by them.

Alfred Tennyson celebrated the memory of
Jephthah's daughter in one of his best poems,
"The Dream of Fair Women." In this poem
the great heroines of history pass before the
poet in a dream; and among them comes this
daughter of Jephthah. As he looks at her,

UNSEEN FACTOR IN A HUMAN LIFE 207

he sees in her breast the mark of the spear-
wound. The look of tragedy and sorrow is
in her countenance still; yet when the poet
would sympathize with her fate, and cries out,
"History records no blacker crime than that
rash vow," she waves him back. She wants
no pity; she feels the need of none. What
matter if her life be sacrificed, so her country
be free, her father's honor be saved .'^ "It
comforts me,'* she concludes:

It comforts me in this one thought to dwell,
That I subdued me to my father's will;

Because the kiss he gave me, ere I fell,
Sweetens the spirit still.

Moreover, it is written that my race
Hew'd Ammon hip and thigh, . . . Here her face
Glow'd, as I look'd at her.

She locks her Ups; she left me where I stood:
" Glory to God," she sang, and past afar,

Thridding the somber boskage of the wood.
Toward the morning star.

It is a beautiful picture which the poet
paints for us, but that same vital joy which
rises superior to all trial and struggle is known
by multitudes of Christian men and women
in the most ordinarv walks of life.

208 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

n

There are a number of occasions in which
this significant phrase is used in the Bible to
suggest how God interferes to overthrow the
sinner who defies righteousness. Even in the
days of Solomon this was clear to observing
eyes, and the writer of that Book of Wisdom
says, "But God overthroweth the wicked."
But there is a still more significant utterance
of this sort in the Hfe of Jesus. It is interest-
ing to recall the brief story which the Master
tells, and which Luke has written down for
us in his biography of Christ:

And He spake a parable unto them, saying, The ground of
a certain rich man brought forth plentifully:

And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do,
because I have no room where to bestow my fruits?

And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my bams, and
build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods.

And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid
up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.

But God said unto him. Thou foolish one, this night thy soul
shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be which
thou haijt provided?

So is he that laveth up treasure for himself and is not rich to-
ward God.

UNSEEN FACTOR IN A HUMAN LIFE 209

This man had left God out of the account,
but not even the millionaire can do that with
safety. We have just had a terrific illustra-
tion of how the god of this world throws gold
dust into the eyes of business men and makes
them deaf and blind to the God of all the
universe. We have just seen closed the
struggle in our State to blot out the curse of
strong drink, to take away the State's partner-
ship in sorrow and misery and crime which
springs from the liquor saloon as from a
mighty fountain of iniquity. And we have
seen, not because they thought it right, not
because they thought the saloon to be other
than a curse to the homes of the people, but
because they believed it would hurt business,
and for a time endanger the streams of gold
pouring into their pockets — because of this, we
have seen bankers and merchants and manu-
facturers, many of them members of Christian
churches and officers in the house of God,
banding themselves together to entrench and
continue this monstrous iniquity, this cruel
oppression upon the poor and the weak. We
may well beheve that God looks down upon
these men and says, "Thou fooHsh ones.'*

14

210 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

But there are other circles where men have
the erroneous impression that success depends
upon wickedness and is impossible with com-
plete devotion to righteousness.

Richard Le Gallienne brought out a book
a while ago in memory of Robert Burns, in
which he undertakes to apologize for and
excuse the immorahties of Burns by saying,
"Well-ordered feelings, a balanced mind, and
regular habits have seldom resulted in poetry,
hardly ever in poetry of the highest order."
Such stuff as that! And yet we hear many
people talk as if they felt much the same way.
It is all folly. Both Lord Byron and Robert
Burns missed by a great gulf the glory they
might have known if they had lived pure lives.
And it is not true that there can be no great
poetry coupled with great righteousness.
Think of Dante and Vergil in the older
world; think of Milton and Wordsworth and
Tennyson and Browning in England. And
if we come to America we have our own
galaxy of immortal poets such as Holmes and
Whittier and Bryant and Longfellow and
Lowell and many others whose lives were as
pure and sweet as their songs. No, my friend,

UNSEEN FACTOR IN A HUMAN LIFE 211

neither in business, in literature, in art, nor
in politics, can any man safely leave God out
of the account.

Ill

And now I want to turn to a most com-
forting suggestion, and that is, that tho all
men be against the Christian, the servant of
God has God with him, and He will be his
keeper wherever he goes. In the seventh
chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, the story
of Joseph is recalled, how his brothers, moved
by their envy and hate, sold Joseph into
Egypt, and they thought that would be the
last of him. They thought they had put an
end to all his dreams and visions, but, Luke
writes, "But God was with him." And we
all know the story, how God was his keeper
in a strange land, and brought him to triumph.
And we may find comfort in this faith, that
if we give ourselves over to God, to be kept
by Him, we may rest in peace. He will inter-
fere in our behalf. Thousands of years ago
a man wrote a letter — in poetry — ^to a friend
who had a large family. The friend had a

212 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

hard life and lived very anxiously and became
much careworn. He rose early and sat up
late, worrying about the high cost of living,
just as we do now. Now this man had a
friend who had great spiritual insight, and
his poet-friend wrote him. You may find his
letter in the one hundred and twenty-seventh
Psalm, in the Bible, but you may paraphrase
this letter something like this: "My dear
fellow, give God a chance. You have ex-
cluded Providence from your life, and that
is why you are laboring so heavily at the oar.
Do you realize that no city is kept safely un-
less God walks behind the watchman; no
house is ever truly built unless God guides
architect and bricklayer, little as they may
realize that guidance.^ He is in the small
affairs of life as much as in the large. Do
your best, then sleep, and trust God to keep
His beloved — of whom I believe you are one
— even while they are sleeping."

We should be comforted with the conscious-
ness that God knows all about us:

He knows the bitter, weary way:

He knows the endless stri\dng, day by day,

The souls that weep, the souls that pray.

UNSEEN FACTOR IN A HUMAN LIFE 213

He knows how hard the fight hath been,
The clouds that come our lives between,
The wounds the world hath never seen.

He knows when faint and worn we sink,
How deep the pain, how near the brink
Of dark despair we pause and shrink.

He knows! Oh, thought so full of bliss,
For tho our joy on earth we miss,
We still can bear it, feeling this —
He knows.

But perhaps some of you have a Httle
shiver of doubt and you say to yourself,
"Does God know, and yet send no rehef?"
Yes, He knows.

Ralph Connor tells the story of a Httle
crippled girl who could not understand how
God could be good and let her suffer so.
Her friend asked her about the plaster jacket
the doctors had put on her. " Did it hurt you
when they put it on?" "It was awful," she
replied, shuddering as she thought of it.
"What a pity your father was not there!"
said her friend. "Why, he was there." "Your
father there, and did not stop the doctors
hurting you so cruelly?" "Why, he let them
hurt me. It's going to help me, perhaps make
me able to walk about some day." "Oh,

214 2' HE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

then they did not hurt you in cruelty, just
because they wanted to? I mean that your
father loved you, tho he let you be hurt; or,
rather, he let the doctors hurt you just because
he loves you, and wants to make you well."

The girl became very thoughtful. Present-
ly the light began to shine in her face. Then
she asked, as the mystery of it all began to
become clear to her, "Do you mean that tho
God let me fall and suffer so, He loves me?"

Her friend nodded. Presently she said, as
if to herself, "I wonder if that can be true."

My friend, you may be sure that God could
relieve us of all the hard things we bear if
He would. There is nothing that God could
not do. Pilate boasted to Jesus that he had
power to crucify Him, or to release Him,
as he chose. But Jesus answered, "Thou
canst have power only as it is given thee from
above." This is God's world, and nothing
can get out of God's hands. And God says
to every man that is seeking to do right, "My
loving-kindness shall not depart from thee."
And God loves us just as much when He lets us
suffer that we may be made better and nobler
as when He sends us what we call prosperity.

UNSEEN FACTOR IN A HUMAN LIFE 215

IV

But I am loath to close our study without
a word of special appeal to any who do not
know God in the forgiveness of their sins.
Are you a sinner against God? Is your heart
and conscience clouded with the feeling that
you are under the condemnation of the broken
law of God? Then we may find hope in this,
that while it is impossible for one man to
save another man from his sins, it is still
true that God has power on earth to forgive
sins. When Christ said to the poor, sick
man, "Thy sins be forgiven thee," the critics
said, "Who can forgive sins, but God only?"
Thank God, it is still true that God can inter-
fere through Jesus Christ in the salvation of
the sinner. My friend. Dr. Wilbur Chapman,
the evangelist, told recently the story of a
remarkable event which took place two or
three years ago one July day in London. It
was the running of the Marathon race from
Windsor Castle to the Stadium, twenty-six
and one-third miles; with thousands waiting
to welcome the runners, among the thousands
the Queen. Not since the ancient Greek fell

216 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

dead at the feet of hundreds of thousands,
after carrying a message of war a distance
of twenty-six miles from the battlefield of
Marathon to the pubKc square of Sparta,
was ever such a thrilUng climax to a long-
distance run. "Make way for the Marathon
runners!" finally came the announcement as
from the throat of a giant, when the approach
of the runners was heralded. Everything
else was forgotten, and the crowd, on its feet,
turned its face to the entrance of the Stadium.
The silence was breathless. For ten minutes
in perfect silence the crowd of one hundred
thousand stood, with all eyes focused on the
gate directly opposite the royal stand, where
the runners were to enter. Then the great
voice rang out again: "The runners are in
sight. Italy is in the lead ! " Finally, a figure
looking almost as small as that of a pigmy,
appeared at the gate, and staggered down the
incline leading to the track. He was clothed
in a white shirt and red runner's knickers.
This uniform confirmed the announcement
that Italy was the leader in the race. The
runner stood for a moment as tho dazed, and
turned to the left, altho a red cord had been

UNSEEN FACTOR IN A HUMAN LIFE 217

drawn about the track in the opposite direc-
tion for the runners to follow. It was evident
that the runner was practically delirious from
his efforts. A squad of officials ran out and
expostulated with him, pointing to him the
right track, but he waved them away as tho
they were trying to put him upon the wrong
path and cheat him out of a victory dearly
won. In a great roar the crowd shouted
directions to the confused runner. At length
Dorando, for he had been generally identified,
started on the right path along the track.
Then followed an exhibition that will never
be forgotten by those who witnessed it. He
staggered on toward the turn in the track
and dropt to the ground. It was but human
that those who had witnessed his struggle
should gather around him and lift him to his
feet. But to all it was evident that he had
run himself to the limit of his endurance.
None of the spectators had expected to see
him rise when he fell like a soldier crumpled
up by a bullet, his face haggard and drawn.
He was quickly lifted to his feet. Clearly
he was unconscious. His limbs would not
support him. One man took him by the arm.

218 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

another stood at his back, and he was pushed
and dragged across the tape and then allowed
to drop to the track and lie there, until a
stretcher was brought to carry him away.
But he lost the race. He was near; he was
actually within sight of the goal, but he lost
the race!

Oh, my friend, I beg you do not fail to
read the parable ! You may have been almost
persuaded to be a Christian, but remember,
** Almost is but to fail." It was against the
rules for the officials to help Dorando, but it
is not against the rules of God or heaven for
your Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, to step
forth, when we have faith in Him and have
done our best, to help us over the goal, and
He will do this. Will you not do your part
here and now and take Christ as your Savior?

THE MASQUERADE OF LIFE

"Why feignest thou thyself to be another?" — I Kings 14 : 6.

THERE is nothing in wealth, or position,
or power of circumstance to ward off the
common ills of human life. Sickness and pain
and death find their way through the windows
of the mansion or palace just as surely as into
the cabin of the mountaineer, the hut of the
sheep-herder, or the cottage of the farmer.
Jeroboam was a king and lived in splendid
style with hosts of servants to care for him
and wait on his slightest wish. The very
lives of multitudes of people were in his hand ;
but all this could not keep back the sickness
that fell upon his only son and caused his
heart to sink with fear for the life that was
infinitely dear to him, for a father's heart
beats under the king's jacket with the same
tender solicitude as that which throbs beneath
the blouse of the carpenter.

Now Jeroboam had been a wicked man.
«io

220 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

He was a backslider. He had fallen away
from God and His worship. But when his
child fell ill, all his infidelity slipt away from
him and down in his heart's depths he knew
there was no hope for help save in the God
of his fathers. And so he determined to try
to find out what really was to happen by
playing a trick on the prophet of God.
Strange how a man will imagine that he can
deceive God. At Shiloh there lived in retire-
ment a venerable prophet of the Most High,
Ahijah, a very old man who had entirely lost
his sight with age. And King Jeroboam told
his wife, the queen, to disguise herself as a
peasant woman and take with her ten loaves,
some cakes, and a cruse of honey, something
to feed the old man and comfort his stomach
and give him a pleasant mood, and then ask
of him what is to become of the child which
is so dear to them both. And so the queen
strips off all the fine garments of the palace
and clothes herseK as a middle-aged woman
from the peasant farms, and goes trudging
dow^n the road on foot to Shiloh, with her
loaves and her cakes and her cruse of honey
on her back.

THE MASQUERADE OF LIFE 221

But men do not deceive God that way.
He who sees into the hearts of kings as well
as ordinary men, spoke to the blind prophet
and told him that the queen was on her way
to inquire concerning her son, and revealed
to the prophet what he should say to her.
And so when the old blind man heard the
sound of her feet, and he heard them at a
distance, for blind eyes make quick ears, he
put the queen into confusion by exclaiming
to her before she had said a word: *'Come
in, thou wife of Jeroboam; why feignest thou
thyself to be another? For I am sent to thee
with heavy tidings. Go, tell Jeroboam, thus
saith Jehovah, the God of Israel."

But the queen of Israel is not the only
masquerader. Much of life is a masquerade
ending with a transformation-scene, when the
cry of "Masks off!" puts many to confusion.
Shakespeare, in "As You Like It," makes one
of his characters say, speaking of the world,

"This wide and universal theater
Presents more woful pageants than the scene
Wherein we play."

To which another replies.

222 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

"All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in his nurse's arms.
Then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like a furnace, with a woful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth, and then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modem instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history.
His second childishness and mere oblivion
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything."

Again, in "Macbeth/' the great dramatist
makes that warrior of melancholy fate, speak-
ing of life as a whole, say —

"Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more."

THE MASQUERADE OF LIFE «2S

The more we study into life and the more
we know of it, the more we shall appreciate
the large factor masquerade is in it. We find
that few things are what they seem and
that few people are exactly what they seem.
Charles Lamb used to say in his time, "The
only honest men are beggars. They are the
only people in the universe who are not
obliged to study appearances." But in our
time we have found that beggars are often
only masqueraders, like the queen of Israel
in peasant dress, for revenue only. David
wrote, " I said in my haste, all men are Hars " ;
on which old Adam Clarke quaintly remarked,
"Had he lived in our time, he might have said
it at his leisure." I am sure there must be in
our theme that which will repay earnest study.

I

Life teaches us that there are many who
masquerade under evil garments who are like
those whom Jesus declared to be nearer the
kingdom of God than some who masquerade
in the robe of a self-righteous profession.
Mrs. Harold Gorst, who has written a most
powerful book on the social question as it

224 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

exists in our modern cities, tells a story which
she knows to be a fact, of life among the
poor and degraded classes in the East End of
London. The story tells of a little orphan
girl who was left by her murdered mother as
the guardian of her infant brother. She could
not earn enough to maintain that poor little
baby life, and one day, for lack of the rent
for the miserable room they occupied, she and
her charge were about to be turned into the
street. She asked her neighbors, one after
another, for help, and met only refusal. Poor
creatures, they did not have the money.
Standing on the rickety staircase she cried
out in despair, "Nobody will help me, nobody
will help me ! " A voice behind her said, "Yes,
somebody will," and a poor harlot who lived
on the same staircase gave the little child
her all, and within two hours was herself
turned into the street. When we see a sight
like that, we see how clearly Jesus Christ saw
through the masquerade of life into the real
hearts of men and women when He said to
the self-righteous Pharisees, "Verily I say
unto you, that the publicans and the harlots
go into the kingdom of God before you."

THE MASQUERADE OF LIFE 225

And I would like to put over against that
story the summary of a terrible book which
some of you have read, which is called, "The
Silence of Dean Maitland." The central
figure is that of a young clergyman who in
early life commits two of the greatest crimes
known to man. He is guilty of lust and
murder; both through moral weakness. His
dearest friend falls under suspicion, and is
sent to penal servitude, he, through moral
cowardice, remaining silent and acting a lie.
The rest of his life becomes a He. He climbs
the ladder of promotion, step by step. He
receives the nation's homage in the end, a
courtly man, a fortunate man, a popular man.
But in the very last scene of all, he has to un-
mask, and deliberately strips himself of his
burden of falsity and tells the world what he
is, and what he has done. He went into the
outer darkness by his own act.

II

A peaceful heart and a radiant power of in-
fluence can come only through genuineness of
soul, through perfect sincerity of heart and
I>iirpose. Jowett, the great English preacher,

15

226 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

who charmed many audiences in this country
last summer, declares that peace is the general
glow of health, resulting from the inter-
related life of many members, each of whom
occupies his appointed place in the spiritual
order and is possest of equity and truth.
And if that is true of peace among the nations
or peace in the community, it must be also
true of peace in a man's own heart. God's
Word says, ** There is no peace for the wicked."
David says, "Righteousness and Peace have
kissed each other." That is the sweet and
beautiful fellowship. If a man's thoughts,
if his passions, his impulses, his purposes, are
impure, there can be no peace in his soul.
There is no cohesion among the unclean.
Dirt is always divisive. Did you ever try to
solder a couple of pieces of tin together? If
you did, you found that one of the first things
you had to do was to see that both the edges
were clean. If they are dirty, they can not
be soldered. The same thing is true in the
art of the surgeon in the hospital. Dirt is
the enemy of healing; the gaping edges of
the wound will come into communion if both
are made clean. The same law prevails in

THE MASQUERADE OF LIFE 227

the sphere of the home. There is no cohesion
among the unclean. If jealousy break out,
the communion is broken. If lust appear,
the family circle is shattered into fragments.
In the home the price of peace is purity.
Oh, my friends, the same is true in your
own soul. The price of peace and the
radiant beauty and power that will shine
forth from a soul at peace with itself,
is purity. There must be genuineness, no
masquerading.

Modern science has shown us that radium
light penetrates opaque objects and causes
other bodies to glow with some of its light.
A photographer was one day experimenting
in his dark-room with a small vial of radium.
A couple of diamonds were suspended over a
plank three inches thick, and the radium was
placed at a distance beneath, when soon the
diamonds began to glow and blush with a
mysterious fire. Another marvelous discovery
made a few years ago is that invisible rays of
light emanate from the nerves of the human
body. A French scientist reading a paper be-
fore the French Academy of Sciences, telling
of his "N rays," says that he found that the

228 THE SUNDAY'NIOHT EVANGEL

more active the nerves of thought or impulse
were, the more powerful were these rays; the
more intense the mental action, the stronger
the phosphorescent play about the forehead,
the eyes, and the face. Does it not seem as if
these recent discoveries of penetrative "R"
and "N*' rays were anticipated by the medie-
val artists, who placed halos around the heads
of their saints? And we can not but re-
member how the spirit-light penetrated the
fleshly matter of Stephen's face in the hour
of his assassination, so that even his enemies
bore witness that it shone like the face of
an angel. Some one has said, "The plainest
face becomes beautiful in noble and radi-
ant moods." Every genuine soul, perfectly
cleansed from impurity of thought or purpose
and fired with earnestness for the truth and
enthusiasm of love for the higher life, who
is touched with the divine force that impels
to the heroic in life, is a radioactive center of
cheering and inspiring influence. No matter
where such a man works, or what the special
threads of power he holds, there goes forth
from him a radiant power that makes him
a veritable light of blessing in the world.

THE MASQUERADE OF LIFE 22»

Thomas Carlyle once said, **I have seen
gleams in the faces of men which let me see
into a higher country.*'

Ill

The thought must give us pause, that life
will certainly prove us, and finally bring out
the reality, and death will complete the un-
masking. We must stand before God at last,
and before all the universe, for just what we
are, without any masquerade of time, or
wealth, or circumstance. Percy Ainsworth,
a delightful young English preacher, who had
his translation too early for those who loved
him, speaking of the simple life, said that
the one eternal authority, Jesus Christ, had
exprest the simple life by saying, "A man's
life consisteth not in the abundance of the
things that he possesseth." If the setting of
life is to be simple and genuine, then the
content of life must be spiritual. Do not
confuse your mind between simphcity and
economy. The simple life is not a matter of
learning to live within your income; it is the
attempt to do that which complicates life.

230 TkB SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

Multiply your income by what you will, and
still it can not keep you. The simplest thing
that goes to make life lies beyond your income.
In the world of the heart, no man can pay his
way. The simple life is the life that trusts
the Fatherhood of God, the Saviorhood of
Jesus Christ, the voice of the Spirit. Life is
made up of things that defy all valuation by
this world's standards, things the worth of
which can be exprest only in that mystic
coinage that is stamped with the image of
One wearing a crown of thorns, and that has
for its superscription, "Ye did it unto me."
The truly simple hfe and the truly beautiful
life can be lived only by the faith that
transfigures duty, the love that transfigures
association and fellowship, and the prayer
that Hnks life's essential poverty to God's
infinite riches, and looks for a city of rest
beyond the earthly need and the earthly
nightfall.

The masquerade of life will soon be over
for all of us, and the most important thing
for each of us is that within all the scaffolding
and display of our earthly career there shall
be building up a personality and a character

THE MASQUERADE OF LIFE 231

which shall stand unconfused and unblushing
when God shall cry "Masks off!" before an
assembled universe. Here in the midst of the
bustle and competition and struggle of our
modern life it is hard to tell how much is
mask and how much is man in the personality
of those who play their parts, but the time
will come when only the man will be left. In
that day some people who have made a great
appearance in the world will dwindle into
contemptible insignificance, and other people
who have not counted for much will suddenly
swell and expand into great place and power.
Professor George Huntington, some years ago,
embodied this thought in a poem entitled,
*' How Much is He Worth?" drawing his in-
spiration from the simultaneous death of two
men widely known, one of whom was very
rich and one very poor. The rich man, how-
ever, was rich only in gold, which he left behind,
while the poor man was rich in mind and
heart, and faith, and good deeds, the essence
of which he carried with him. He sings:

THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

How much is he worth? Let them reckon who care.
A five-and-twenty-fold millionaire,

A money-king is he,
With glitter and splendor on every hand,
With miles of houses and leagues of land.
And gold as the incomputable sand

On the boundless shores of the sea.

How much is he worth? Let them tell us who can,
Not the sum of his gold, but the worth of the man

To the world of hving men.
For worth is not in the things possest.
'Tis the wealth of the mind. 'Tis the heart in the breast.
'Tis the goodness that blesses and is blest.

A milUonaire! What then?

How much is he worth? Let Death declare,
For Death has come for the milUonaire,

And naked and poor Ues he.
The gold has dropt from his cold, dead hand.
He holds no title to house or land.
But his narrow house, and his bed in the sand

Out under the graveyard tree.

How much is he worth? Let them answer who dare.
What, none to speak for the millionaire

In the miUions of living men?
A worthless life, by the world forgot!
A worthless carcass, to mold and rot!
A worthless soul, to the weighing brought

In the scales of God! And then?

THE MASQUERADE OF LIFE 333

II

How much is he worth? Let them reckon who care.
A larder scant, and a coat threadbare,

And a shilling or two has he,
A cot, and a little rood of land,
A sweating brow and a toiling hand,
Yet he counts his riches more than the sand

On the shores of the boundless sea.

How much is he worth? Let them tell us who can.
There's less in the purse, but there's more in the man.

To count in the world of men.
For he holds the most precious of things possest.
He's wealth in his mind; he's a heart in his breast.
And the love of the hearts that his love has blest.

Humble and poor! What then?

How much is he worth? Let Death declare,
With his touch of peace on the brow of care,

And the kind heart hushed to sleep.
There's rest at last for the toiling hand;
But the seed it dropt in the fruitful land
Hath harvests measureless as the sand

On the shores of the infinite deep.

How much is he worth? Let the angels declare
The worth to heaven of its chosen heir,

To God of his saintly men.
A life with fragrant memories fraught;
A soul resplendent with good deeds wrought;
A victor and king to the crowning brought

In the palace of God! And then?

THE LIFE THAT IS WORTH LIVING

"In him was life, and the life was the light of men." — John 1:4.
"He that hath the Son hath Ufe."— 1 John 5 : 12.
"I came that they may have life, and may have it abund-
antly."—John 10: 10.

LIFE is the keynote of the universe. Na-
ture, whatever else it reveals to us, shows
us from the depths of the ocean to the tops of
the highest mountains the never-ceasing strug-
gle for life. Canon Scott Holland says that
that alone gives to nature its coherence, its
unity, and its purpose. Every leaf, every
blade of grass, every insect, every bird — all
the swarming population of the forest, all the
teeming multitudes of the deep sea, they are
there simply to live; they are there with all
their energy, pushing, pressing, rushing, fly-
ing. Why.^ and whither? What is it they are
after? What will it all come to? We do
not know. Nor do they. Only this one irre-
sistible motive is there: The fuller life, the
higher degree of life, the higher capacity of
living.

THE LIFE THAT IS WORTH LIVING 235

And in that very act of living nature finds
its joy — joy in the act of feehng ahve, feehng
that Hfe is still on the increase. So as we
look out on nature, in spite of all its tre-
mendous tragedies, and its dark secrets, and
snares, and dooms, and even its torture — ^yet
still the sense of joy prevails over all, the mere
joy of being alive. Alfred Wallace, the nat-
uralist, tells us that looking out over those
vast forests in which he wrought out so much
of the great work of his life, the joy of living was
always the dominant note of the woods; and
still above all the death that they secreted,
every little creature was rejoicing. So far as
it was alive, it was dancing with that joy.

Phillips Brooks in the last sermon which
he preached on earth discust "The Sacredness
of Life"; his text was from David's twenty-
first Psalm, "He asked life of thee, and thou
gavest it him, even length of days for ever
and ever." In that sermon the great preacher
enlarges on the fact that in the beginning of
our human lives life seems to be merely Ufe,
life in its first and simplest form. The un-
conscious infant lives in a mere animal ex-
istence, and later when the strong and healthy

236 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

boy begins to grow conscious of the delight of
life, it is pure Hfe, Hfe simply as a fact, life not
with reference to the deeper powers it con-
tains or the far-off issues with which it has
to do that gives him such hourly delight in
living. There comes back to many of us, I
am sure, the ringing verse in which Browning
has made this very David, when he was a boy,
sing in the presence of King Saul of this pure
consciousness of joy in the mere fact of being
alive.

" Oh, the wild joys of living! The leaping from rock up to

rock,
The strong rending of boughs from the fir-tree; the cool silver

shock
Of the plunge in a pool's li\ang water, — the hunt of the bear,
And the sultriness showing the Hon is couched in his lair.
And the meal — the rich dates yellowed over with gold-dust

divine
And the locust's flesh steeped in the pitcher! The full draft

of wine,
And the sleep in the dried river-channel where bulrushes tell
That the water was wont to go warbhng so softly and well.
How good is man's hfe, the mere living! How fit to employ
All the heart and the soul and the senses forever in joy."

In placing this bright unquestioned boy-
hood at the beginning of every man's career
God would seem to indicate that He meant this

THE LIFE THAT IS WORTH LIVING 237

sense of life as a blessing in itself, to be the
basis out of which all the sense of the special
blessedness of special events in life must grow,
as if He meant to have us take life as a whole
and thank Him for our creation before we
look deeper and see what are the true pur-
poses of hfe. But by and by the time for that
deeper look must come. Not always can
David be content with the leaping from rock
to rock, the plunge in the pool, and the sleep
in the dry bed of the summer brook. The
thoughts and anxieties and duties of a man
come crowding up into the life of the light-
hearted boy. Care for things to which he
was once all indifferent, hopes of things about
which he once never dreamed, ambitions and
desires of influence and power, the delight in
half-discovered faculties, and as the crown
of all, conscious religion, or the reaHzed re-
lationship with God, the love of and obedience
to Christ, all of these become his one after
another. If there be the proper growth and
development of manhood, one after another
life has come to mean these things.

THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

What constitutes the abundance of Hfe
which we are invited to seek in Jesus Christ?
My reply would be that we are to seek life
and not the machinery about life. Evidently
physical life is but an illustration, a type, of
the true life of manhood. And no abundance
of physical things can make joyous and
abounding living in the high sense of what
life means to man. Of course, when we are
to talk about this noblest life which is to be
found in Christ, w^e are driven in the last
appeal back to Christ Himself. Stanley
Gerald Dunn, in an exceedingly interesting
and thoughtful article, has recently discust
"The Romanticism of Christ.'' In that
study he calls attention to the difference be-
tween Christ's idea of the abundant life and
the common standard of the world. When
men think of the abundant life, they think
of the rich, but he calls attention to the fact
that the rich are often more to be pitied than
the poor. As a rule it is the wrong people who
are rich, the people who have no capacity for
real pleasure. They have no joy, only amuse-

THE LIFE THAT IS WORTH LIVING 230

ments; no object in life, only an office; no
work, only business.

Then, too, the rich man is often tied to his
possessions. He is fearful of losing them;
he becomes the slave of luxurious habits; he
would be miserable without his servants. He
is always relying on other people; he never
lives a man's life at all. Even in the tortures
of hell the rich worldly man can not cast off
the habits of a lifetime. "Send Lazarus,"
he pleads.

Many who have all the means of life never
really live at all. " For a man's life consisteth
not in the abundance of the goods that he
possesseth." He who is bound by his posses-
sions is not free to follow impulse; he fears to
go out at the call of adventure; he dares not
leave all that he has and give himself up to
the destinies of God. Above all, his delicate
life has bred in him a fear of suffering, and
so he misses the revelation that comes from
suffering alone.

There is nothing wrong about riches in
themselves, Christ would say; the danger Ues
in the attitude of mind toward them. Too
often the rich man is not the possessor of his

240 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

riches, but is possest by them. After all,
living is the object of life. It may be a fine
thing to become a great lawyer or a famous
financier, but what is the use of that, if, to
do so, you must give up your hfe? "What
can it profit a man to gain the whole world
and forfeit his own hfe?" Riches are but the
means, not the end; and how many people
give up the real joys of life to amass wealth
or to make a position in the world! Some
one says: "There's the wind on the heath,
brother: if I could only feel that, I would
gladly live forever." You could not imagine
a modern Dives saying that!

There is the romantic spirit in all Christ's
treatment of riches, things, possessions. He
blest the woman who came and broke the
alabaster box of ointment, very precious, over
His head as He sat in the house of the rich
man. Some that looked on the ointment as
a valuable thing in itself failed to see that it
was only the beautiful use of it that justified
its existence at all.

Mr. Dunn calls attention to the fact that
in all romantic literature and in all romantic
lives there recurs the same note. It is in

THE LIFE THAT IS WORTH LIVING 241

Dante and Shakespeare and Shelley; it is in
the life of Francis of Assisi, with his love for
his little sisters the birds, and his brother the
wind. Most perfectly exprest is it in the life
of Christ. He took the world for His home,
the wonderful world of sun and rain, of moun-
tains and seas and towns, and all who did the
will of God and lived natural lives as His
brothers and sisters. Only, of all who went
about with Him and shared in that delightful
companionship He asked in return belief in
Himself, which is indeed belief in human
nature at its highest.

Christ demanded then, as He demands now,
that whosoever will be His disciple and enter
into the abundant life of noblest fellowship
and serenest joy shall defy the tyranny of
things. It is not in goods but in goodness
that you will find the secret of the noblest
spiritual life; not in machinery, but in soul;
in the spirit which conceives loving deeds and
the joyous enthusiasm which performs them;
in the love which takes in God and man and
rejoices in service. Here is life not starved
and lethargic, but abounding, glorious life.

16

242 THE SUN DAY -NIGHT EVANGEL

II

This abounding life in Jesus Christ is full
of power to cast off evil. All life is charged
with power. In the lowest vegetable life
there is remarkable power. I have seen the
story of a workman who could not make out
how it was that he could not shut his door.
Of course the door had not grown, but it
looked as if it had. He could not shut it,
and he took a saw and cut off a bit at the
bottom of it. Time went on, until at last it
would not shut again. What could it be?
The thought struck him: "There may be
something underneath the stone slab." He
took up the stone slab, and he found there a
large fungus. There was life in that fungus,
and because there was life, tho only vegetable
life, it lifted the heavy stone. That is a very
low order of life, but you and I are called to
partake of the very highest order of life.
Hear what Paul says: "That ye might know
what is the exceeding greatness of his power
toward us who believe, according to the
mighty working of his power which he wrought
in Christ, when he raised him from the dead.'*

THE LIFE THAT IS WORTH LIVING 243

My friends, it is this glorious resurrection life
which we have in us when we fully give our-
selves to be the disciples of Jesus.

Some of you have sought to escape from
the power of sin and have failed. It is this
life which you need. You have said: "I
must throw off this wicked habit " ; and you
have made new resolutions. But you need
something more than resolutions. You need
the vigor of a new life in you to stimulate
and give strength and vitality to your resolu-
tion. If there was spiritual life enough in
you, you would be able to throw off that
wicked habit as the vigorous tree throws off
its leaves when it no longer needs them. Sir
John Lubbock once gave a lecture in London
on "The Fall of the Leaf," a scientific lecture,
of course. He brought into the lecture-room
a branch of a tree. He told his hearers that
this branch once grew on a tree in his grounds,
and he went on to say: "Many of you think
that the fall of the leaf is a process of death.
I want to prove to you that the fall of the
leaf is a process of life. That branch I broke
off in the autumn. I did not sever it from the
tree. There it hung to the tree, but it was

244 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

a broken branch. I watched it. After the
autumn the winter came, and then the early
spring, and I watched the branch. With the
early spring the life-sap began to rise, and I
noticed that all the leaves on the whole tree,
with the exception of the leaves on the broken
branch, fell to the ground because the power
of the life-sap pushed the dead leaves off.
The dead leaves from the broken branch re-
mained, and here they are to-day, and it
needs a good tug to pull them off." What a
wonderful illustration of what we need to
push off bad habits and rise into wholesome
life! You can not pull them off. What do
you need.'^ More hfe-sap, of course! Christ
in us, the hope of glory, furnishes the life-sap
that will push off every evil thing and rise
in glorious growth toward heaven and im-
mortality.

Ill

Finally, we have suggested the joy of life.
It is impossible that we should not get joy
out of living if we really are alive in fellowship
w^ith Jesus Christ. Jesus said to His disciples,
"I am the vine, ye are the branches." That

THE LIFE THAT IS WORTH LIVING 245

means that there is only one root, and only
one life flowing through all the branches. If
we are really Christ's disciples, then the same
joyous triumphant Ufe which made Him gladly
march toward the cross for the joy that was
set before Him will pulse through our veins.
We may be in the midst of many things that
are pulling us down. We may be surrounded
with polluting, deadly influences; but they
can not stop the flow of the heavenly life in
our hearts. The mighty Columbia River
flows far out into the Pacific Ocean before it
loses its identity or its quality. I have seen
the deck-hand drop his bucket over the side
of the steamship and bring it up full of sweet,
wholesome water, altho the great salt ocean
was on each side. That current of pure fresh
water cut straight through the briny deep.
So the pure heart, the soul that has the
Christ-life like a fountain bubbling up out of
the depths, rejoices in love in the midst of
hate, abounds in mercy tho surrounded by
maUce, delights in goodness tho evil raves
about.

Neither sickness nor old age nor adversity
is able to quench this abounding life. A

246 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

friend of mine went to see Mr. Sankey, the
greatest of all the evangelistic singers, a few
days before his death. Mr. Sankey was him-
self expecting to die very soon. The good
man was blind and weak through long illness.
He was glad to meet his friend, invoked the
blessing of God upon him, and thanked him
for coming to see him. The visitor, after a
little conversation, inquired: "Mr. Sankey,
does the Spirit of God and the powder and truth
of religion seem to you as clear and strong as
when the tens of thousands were hanging upon
every word that came from your lips and con-
gratulating you upon your popularity and suc-
cess.'^" He hesitated a moment and said:
"It is more powerful. Then there were many
distractions. God and I are together now
most of the time.*' When he rose to go the
visitor said to him: "You can not do what
you did for me on former occasions." "Oh,
yes," he said, "I will sing for you." And
prone upon his back he gathered all his breath
and strength, and tho the voice was weak and
the portent of death was in the unearthly
pallor of his countenance, a sense of the real
power which had made him what he was be-

THE LIFE THAT IS WORTH LIVING 247

fore the thousands was felt by the Hstener.
It was a triumphal song which he had com-
posed on his death-bed, and which like almost
all his songs had a short chorus at the end of
each stanza. You can not imagine such a
scene connected with any one on earth except
a sincere and joyous Christian,

The famous English preacher, Dr. Dale,
came upon an epoch in his life when he was
much deprest, and he prayed God to forgive
him for the sin of gloom. He felt that his face
had been gloomy, and that his voice had been
gloomy; and he wanted forgiveness for the
gloom that overshadowed his life. At this
time he was getting ready for the Easter Day
services and there flashed upon him, with new
meaning, the thought — Jesus Christ is alive!
He walked up and down his study and said:
"Jesus Christ is alive!" And, in the glory of
that risen life, he went to preach; and his sun
never more went down. In the gladness of
that resurrection vision, in the glory of that
Easter morning, he lived; and his congregation
sang every Sabbath morning all the year
around the Easter hymn, " Christ the Lord is
risen to-day. Hallelujah."

248 THE SUN DAY -NIGHT EVANGEL

A distinguished minister traveling in Japan
last year was called on by a lady who is a
missionary there. She said to him: "I have
come to make a sad confession to you. I
have come to tell you this — that tho I came
out from America to teach the people here
in Japan, I have never had a single hour of joy
in my Christian life, and," she said, *'I feel so
ashamed of it. Can you tell me the secret of
joy.^ Can you tell me how to get some glad-
ness into my life? I feel that I can not com-
mend the religion of Jesus Christ to people
while I have a joyless experience." His
answer was this: "I do not know any secret
of joy like this — I am alive in the risen,
victorious life of my risen Lord. I can not
think of that for five minutes without being
glad, without saying good-by to sorrow and
sighing."

Thank God, the supreme test of the Chris-
tian life is the life itself. Christ is saying to-
day as of old, "Him that cometh tome I will
in no wise cast out!" Now as ever Jesus is
saying, "Behold, I stand at the door and
knock," and if we open the door, He is as
ready as ever to come in and sit at the table

THE LIFE THAT IS WORTH LIVING 249

of our hearts and live there with us the Ufe
of love. Some poet sings:

No pictured likeness of my Lord have I;
He carved no record of His ministry
On wood or stone.

He left no sculptured tomb nor parchment dim,
But trusted for all memory of Him
Men's hearts alone.

Who sees the face but sees in part ; who reads
The spirit which it hides sees all; he needs

No more. Thy grace —
Thy Ufe in my Hfe, Lord, give Thou to me;
And then, in truth, I may forever see

My Master's face!

THE MIRACLE OF TURNING A MAN
INTO ANOTHER MAN

"Thou . . . shalt be turned into another man." — 1 Sam. 10 :6.
"If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature." — 2 Cor. 5 : 17.

OUR theme has to do with the two great
historic Sauls in our rehgious history.
They were a thousand years apart in the
chronological order, and still farther apart in
their inner character, and yet they unite in
our theme with singular appropriateness.

The character of Saul the son of Kish has
always been considered by Bible students a
difficult character to estimate. There is a
certain obscurity which many men have con-
sidered no intellectual searchlight could illu-
minate to the farthest boundary. And yet
it seems to me there is a good deal of human
nature in Saul, and that when we are not
reaching after anything beyond us, but simply
studying Saul as we would one of ourselves,
we find that there are a good many men like
him to-day. Recall the old story for a

250

MIRACLE 251

moment! Saul is a young rancher, a great
splendid fellow nearly seven feet high, head
and shoulders higher than ordinary men.
Physically he is good to look at, but he is just
that and nothing more. He has no reputa-
tion for piety, for brains, culture, or dignity
of any sort. His father's herd of asses are
lost, and Saul goes hunting through the hills
after them. When he and his servant have
hunted until they have lost hope, and Saul
considers it time to go home, his servant tells
him about Samuel, a prophet who does not
live far away, who he thinks could tell him
where the lost herd is, and Saul, nothing
loath, goes by to see Samuel. It throws a
good deal of light on Saul that up to this time
he had not known Samuel. Samuel was the
great prophet of his time. He was peculiarly
the representative of God on the earth in
that day, but neither Saul nor his father seems
to have heard of him. They were so busy
breeding asses that they never went to church
and knew nothing about God's prophets.
Saul did not know Samuel by sight, for when
he saw him he said to him, "Tell me, I pray
thee, where is the Seer's house." Samuel

262 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

answered, "I am the Seer myself. Come with
me, and I will tell thee all that is in thy
heart." And it was in that conversation that
Samuel made known to the astonished Saul
that God had chosen him to be king over
Israel, and Samuel anointed him to the king-
dom. And it was when he went forth from
the house of the prophet that it is said, ''And
it was so that when Saul had turned his back
to go from Samuel, God gave Saul another
heart, and the Spirit of God came upon Saul
and he prophesied."

It is well for us to remember here that
"another heart" has more than one meaning
in Scripture as in other places, and the coming
of the Spirit of God means one thing in one
place and another thing in another. For
instance, the Spirit of God coming upon Jesus
when He was baptized in the Jordan and the
Spirit of God which came upon Samson when
he tore a young lion in his fierce grasp have
not the same meaning. Matthew Henry
has this to say about the "other heart"
spoken of here. He says Saul has no longer
the heart of a husbandman, concerned only
with corn and cattle; he has now the heart of

MIRACLE 253

a statesman, a general, a prince. When God
calls to service, He will make fit for it. If He
advances to another station, He will give an-
other heart; and will preserve that heart to
those who sincerely desire to serve Him. Saul
indeed became another man, but he does not
seem to have become a new creature in the
spiritual sense. It was superficial. The real
heart of the man was never surrendered to
God. Saul had his chance. He was God-
anointed, and God called to his aid friends
whose hearts He had touched, but he did not
rise to the occasion, and in his inner soul he
seems never to have entered into communion
with the Highest.

It is a comfort to turn from this superficial
transformation of the lower man into the
higher to the oft-recurring miracle of Chris-
tianity which is illustrated in Saul of Tarsus,
who became Paul, the great apostle to the
Gentiles. Paul describes that miracle which
happens to-day in every land, when he says,
''If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature;
old things are passed away, behold all things
are become new." You see the idea is the
same as in the case of the first Saul. It is

264 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

the miracle of turning one man into another
man, but the idea appHed to only one man
in the first ease, here it applies to every man
who surrenders himself to Jesus Christ.

The condition of this divine transformation
is, "If any man be in Christ." Paul is no
doubt thinking of himseK. Nothing short of
a new creation could describe to Paul the
change that had come in himself. When Paul
spoke about being in Christ he meant not only
that he had come to love Him, but that he
had entered into the spirit of Christ, and had
grown into such sympathy with the purposes
of Christ that it was the very life-blood of his
soul. He was like a branch that is grafted
into the tree. He had become a part of the
tree of Christ's life. This becoming a part
of Christ was of course a growth. Dr. Free-
man Clark well says that while conversion
is always sudden, for it is simply turning
around, regeneration is gradual, for it is a
growth. Paul was converted in a moment
on his way to Damascus. He changed his
mind about Christianity. He began a new
life. And day by day he grew into the con-
victions and purposes and spirit of Jesus

MIRACLE 255

Christ. Our Christianity must be something
more than beUef, and something more than
conduct. Your behef may put you with
Christ, but it is only your heart's love that
can put you in Christ. A creed is like a
carriage, which may take us to the place where
our friend is, but can not put us into com-
munion with him. But if we are in Christ,
we have new convictions. Spiritual things
become more real to us. God becomes to us
more real. We grow into new affections. A
new heart does not mean any new faculty or
power of loving, but it means new objects of
love. The Bible becomes a new book when
we are in Christ. If you stand outside of
that great white marble cathedral at Milan
and look on the vast windows, they seem
dark and dingy. But when you go inside and
let the light stream through them, they turn
into emeralds, and sapphires, and rubies, and
are gorgeous with the forms of saints and
angels. So when we enter into the Bible with
love for Christ in our hearts and thanksgiving
to God for His goodness to us, its books light
up with a beauty and a glory of which we
never dreamed before.

256 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

That which makes possible this new Hfe in
Christ Jesus to the most unfortunate and
sinful of human beings is that old things pass
away. And that is the glorious commonplace
of our Christian gospel wherever it is preached.
Gipsy Smith tells a story of how one snowy
night, in Aberdeen, Scotland, he felt somebody
tugging at his coat as he was passing through
the crowd into the street. And when he got
under a lamp-post he looked to see who it
was. There stood a little Scotch lassie in
rags in the cold, snowy, sleety street, under
that lamp-post. He stopt and said: "What
do you want, my dear?" She pushed toward
him a piece of tissue paper, all damp, where
she had had it in her hand and squeezed it a
good deal and she said: "Please, sir, I have
brought you some candy," and the preacher
took off his hat and said: "My darling, why
have you brought me some candy .^" "Oh,"
she said, "we have got a new daddy. He
has never been sober until Saturday. I have
never known him sober, but we have got a
new daddy. He is a Christian now. He was
in your meeting on Saturday. We have a
new daddy and I have brought you part of

MIRACLE 257

my candy!'* You see, her father had been
turned into another man. Christ had come
in and fought his evil passion to the death
and made a new creature of him. That had
happened to this man which Mrs. Browning,
the greatest woman poet in human history,
describes in "Aurora Leigh" when she says:

" 'Tia impossible
To get at men excepting through their souls,
However open their carnivorous jaws;
The soul's the way. Not even Christ Himself
Can save man else than as He holds man's soul;
And therefore did He come into our flesh,
As some wise hunter creeping on his knees,
With a torch, into the blackness of some cave,
To face and quell the beast there, — take the soul,
And so possess the whole man, body and soul."

The undying, unconquerable optimism of
the glorious gospel of Christ is in our theme.
No man's case is hopeless, because he can be
turned into another man. Dr. Watkinson,
the English preacher, in one of his recent
sermons, says that the world wants a Savior
more than it wants anything else. He recalls
a recent saying of Sir Oliver Lodge that "The
superior man to-day does not trouble about
his sins, and he troubles even less about their
punishment." Watkinson says he supposes

17

258 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

the superior man is the scientist. And he
goes on to show how greatly the scientist does
trouble himself to-day about our physical
ailments and about the microbes that create
them. Half modern science is concentrated
on the study of disease and the study of
medicine; and if the superior man is going to
deal with the maladies of the physique, is
the superior man going to ignore the moral
maladies that eat out the strength and the
glory of the race.^ He well says: You are
never going to hush the bitter cry of the race
with any kind of rhetorical lullaby like that.
"Oh! wretched man that I am, who shall
deUver me, who can deliver me from the body
of this death?" That is the cry; and it is
a cry that will not down. Jesus Christ is the
hope of the race because He can answer that
cry. He is in His glory when He gets among
lost men; you never see His stature until He
gets among the fallen and the lost. Greatness
is not comfortable among the fallen, for purple
does not match with sackcloth. Fashion is
not comfortable; it is too afraid its satin will
be besmirched. Science is not comfortable
amid the fallen, for while it can work miracles

MIRACLE 259

of transformation in the physical realm, it can
work none in the heart of man. Art is not
comfortable among the fallen, and it retires
as soon as it has taken their portrait. But
Jesus Christ is at home among the fallen; He
is in His glory with lost souls, lost classes, lost
tribes, and lost races, for the Son of man
came to seek and to save that which was lost.
A traveler tells us that on the Continent
he noticed in one of the museums a magnificent
piece of statuary. The keeper told him that
in troublous days of past generations it was
absolutely shattered. It was broken into
thousands of pieces, and lay for years in the
dust. At last came a clever and patient
artist who picked one by one the particles
out of the dust. He made it the work of
years, and at length restored the glorious
sculpture so that now you see it there as
lovely and as perfect as it was in the beginning.
And what that man did with that shattered
marble Jesus Christ can do for a degraded and
sinful human heart. Out of ruins that are
beyond hope to any human eye Christ can
bring forth a new man, created in righteous-
ness.

260 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

I have seen somewhere the story of a dis-
tinguished musician who ordered a manufac-
turer of vioHns to make for him the best
instrument possible. He told him to use the
best material, take all the time he wished,
and use all his skill in its construction. At
last the violin-maker sent for the musician
to come and try the violin. As the musician
drew the bow across the instrument, his
face became clouded. Lifting the violin, he
smashed it to pieces on the counter, handed
the price to the manufacturer, and left the
shop. The violin-maker, who was a true
worker, was not satisfied with mere pay; his
reputation was at stake. He gathered the
fragments of the violin and put them together.
After he had remade the violin out of the
pieces, he again sent for the great musician.
This time the frown was not seen; as he drew
the bow across the strings he told the manu-
facturer that he had succeeded at last in
making just the kind of a violin that he de-
sired. '*What is the price?" inquired the
musician. "Nothing at all," replied the
maker. "It is the same instrument that you
smashed to pieces some time ago; I put it

MIRACLE 261

together, and out of the fragments this perfect
music has been made."

My friends ! It is the supreme glory of our
Christianity that Jesus Christ is able to take
the broken pieces of our lives, that have been
shattered by sin, and patch them together by
His atoning love and bring forth sweeter music
than ever. Do I speak at this time to some
one whose life has been spoiled by sin? You
feel that your heart with all its hopes and plans
has been broken in pieces; that you are like
that shattered violin. And you say to your-
self, ''There can never come any more music
of joy or gladness out of my heart." Oh, I
bring you the Gospel of Christ, which assures
you that if you will surrender this broken and
despoiled heart into the hands of the Savior,
He will build it anew, until you shall be a new
creature in Christ Jesus, and the sweetest
music that was ever awakened from human
heart shall come forth from your soul.

Let no one for a moment imagine that it
is possible you can be an exception, and that
sin has wrought its work upon you beyond
remedy. The hope is in this, that you may
become a new man in Christ Jesus, with

262 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

nature transformed through His divine agency.
It is not a mere reformation that is preached
to us in the Gospel of Christ, it is a trans-
formation. Dr. Jowett, one of the greatest
of the younger Enghsh preachers, says that
the late Charles A. Berry, who afterward was
desired as a successor to Mr. Beecher, dated
the beginning of the great spiritual power of
his ministry to an experience that happened
to him late at night in the city where he was
pastor. He was sitting in his study very late.
Every one else had gone to bed. There came
a knock at the door, and when he opened it
there stood a girl with a shawl over her head.
"Are you the minister.^" she asked. "Yes."
"Then I want you to come and get my mother
in." Berry, thinking it was some drunken
brawl, said, "You must get a policeman."
"Oh, no," said the girl; "my mother is dying
and I want you to get her into salvation."
"Where do you live.^" "I live so-and-so, a
mile and a half from here." "Well," said
Berry, "is there no minister nearer than I.^^"
"Oh, yes, but I want you, and you have got
to come." Berry, in teUing about it, said,
"I was in my slippers, and I sohloquized and

MIRACLE 263

wondered what the people of the church would
think if they saw their pastor walking late
at night with a girl with a shawl over her
head. I did all I could to get out of it, but
it was of no use. That girl was determined,
and I had to dress and go." At last he went
with her and found that the place was a house
of ill fame. In the lower rooms they were
drinking and telling lewd stories, and up-
stairs he found the poor woman dying. He
sat down and talked about Jesus as the beauti-
ful example, and extolled Him as a leader and
teacher; and she looked at him out of her
eyes of death, and said: "Mister, that's no
good for the likes o' me. I don't want an
example — I'm a sinner." And Berry said to
Dr. Jowett, with tears running down his face:
" Jowett, there I was face to face with a poor
soul dying, and had nothing to tell her. I
had no Gospel, but I thought of what my
mother had taught me, and I told her the
old story of God's love in Christ dying for
sinful men, whether I believed it or not."
*'Now you are getting at it," said the woman.
"That is what I want. That's the story for
me." And Berry turned to Jowett with wet

264 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

cheeks and said, "I got her in, and I got in
myself."

I am sure that some of you who are hearing
this message to-day ought to hear it unto
your salvation. To some of you Christ has
come again and again, sometimes with great
power, and it has seemed to your own soul
that the day of your complete redemption
was at hand; but you have thrust Him aside.
Perhaps you have not consciously done this,
but you have been taken up with other things,
and Christ has been left till some other time.
It may be that some of you who are in the
church are not "in Christ" in this high sense
which brings you into loving heart-fellowship
with Him, and makes your life blossom anew
with the graces of the Spirit. There have
been times when your soul has been tre-
mendously stirred, and you have been moved
to give yourself unreservedly to the noblest
Christian life; but the cares of the world have
come in, and these holy emotions have passed
away, and you are still unsaved. To some of
you this has happened not once, or twice, but
many times. Life is passing. Your character
is hardening into fixt and settled conditions.

MIRACLE 266

Your conduct is settling into the deep grooves
of habit. It becomes less and less likely that
any great transformation that shall renew the
very sources of your nature and awaken you
to the noblest life will come to pass. Oh, I
would to God that some divine wind from
heaven might sweep across your hearts this
morning! that the Spirit of Pentecost might
awaken your dormant souls so that you might
hear with new ears and see with new eyes the
opportunities of this hour. Some poet tells
us of a dream which came to him of lost
opportunities for salvation, which aroused his
soul to action. He sings,

I lived once more in youth's fresh mom,

In love with you, unprest by care:
The hours, on beams of gladness borne,

Brought every bliss. Cheer filled the air.
Then Jesus came, and at my heart

So gently knocked I knew 'twas He.
But from the world I could not part;

Time held me, not eternity.
And He — I spurned His love to share —
While I was busy here and there,
Had gone!

He came again at manhood's noon.

When heat and burden of the day
Changed joy to care — alas, how soon! —

And found me toiling in the way.

266 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

He knocked the second time, but I

Refused to let the Savior bear
My load just then. But by and by

I turned from toil, in deep despair,
To let Him in. But He, so fair,

While I was busy here and there,
Had gone!

Once more, when age's eventide,

With lengthening shadows for its years,
Tinged care with grief, He stood beside;

The third time knocked, this time with tears.
But earth, which held my life-scarred heart,

Still bound me with its golden snare.
And afterward, when I would part

From all I had, His cross to bear,
He, who for me no pain did spare,
While I was busy here and there,
Had gone!

I woke with pain. 'Twas a true dream.

Behold, He knocked! "Come in!" I cried,
"My heart's Thy home, come, reign supreme.

And with me through my life abide."
He came, in that sweet twilight hour.

My joys, my cares, my griefs to share —
In youth, manhood, old age my power.

And while I still my cross must bear.
He's promised me a crown to wear,
If I am busy here and there
For Him.

CHRIST AND THE WORLD'S LEAVINGS

"The Last. "—Matthew 19 : 30.
'*The Least."— Luke 9 : 48.
"The Lost."— Luke 19 : 10.

THESE three words, "Least/' "Last/' and
"Lost," were words that were frequently
on the Hps of Jesus Christ. These are the words,
more than any other words in His vocabulary,
that mark the majesty of His personality and
the divine glory of His mission. Every religion
must be judged, not by what it can do with
good people, but by what it can do with bad
people. Almost any philosophy or religion,
economic scheme or communistic program,
can deal with good people, with people who
are amenable to reason, both mental and
moral. Leave out the problem of sin, which
breaks down sanity not only in the heart
but in the mind, and many a philosophic
device which has gone to disaster would have
been a glorious success. Multitudes of these
schemes fail when they come to deal with the

267

268 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

sinner, and there is where Christ is in His
glory. Christ is at home with the sinner,
with the man whom education and science
can do nothing for, with the man whom the
world gives up as a piece of waste, as a burden
to be carried. Jesus Christ knows how to
deal with these leavings of the world. You
can see how clearly Christ perceived that this
was the central value of His divine mission
in the world if you listen to His message to
John the Baptist, who sent to Him from
Herod's prison and asked Jesus to let him
know if He were indeed the Messiah, or
whether he should look for another, and Jesus
told them to go back and tell John the things
which they had seen and heard, how the
blind received their sight, the deaf were made
to hear, cripples were healed, lepers were
cleansed, devils were cast out, and the poor had
the Gospel preached unto them; that is, Jesus
told them to tell John, as certain evidence
that He had come from God as the Savior
of men, not that the best people in the com-
munity were listening to Him, that the great
statesmen and leaders of public opinion be-
lieved on Him, or that the most wealthy peo-

CHRIST AND THE WORLD'S LEAVINGS 269

pie were coming over to His side, and therefore
He must succeed — ^no, that was not what
Jesus said — but, to tell John that the poor,
the neglected, the forgotten, the offscourings,
the outcasts, the world's leavings, were com-
ing into gladness, and joy, and hope.

I feel sure that one of the greatest problems
which confronts us in the world to-day is this
very problem of the world's leavings. Multi-
tudes in the world are making great advances,
are gathering large wealth and great sources
of power, and in our cities that are growing
as the world never saw^ them before, large
numbers of people are enjoying a culture and
a luxury and a power such as private citizens
never knew in the history of the race. But
while this is so, it must not be forgotten that
there are multitudes of people who are not
only being left behind in the race, but who
seemingly are being utterly hardened and
blinded and lost in the darkness of an under-
world into which true spiritual light does not
seem to come.

270 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

Travelers who have penetrated the upper
reaches of the Amazon River tell strange
stories of that wonderful region. It is covered
by a marvelous forest. The sun's rays seldom
reach to the surface of the water and one may
go many miles along waterways where it is
well-nigh as dark as night, because the sky
is almost completely shut out by the mass of
vines which interlace the trees and are so
thick with leaves. Deprived of the sunlight,
all is dark and rank. The damp air is laden
with unhealthful vapor, the surface of the
water, in places where the current is too
sluggish to carry it away, is covered with
scum and weeds.

It requires no little courage to explore these
fastnesses, for a man really takes his life in
his hands, so unhealthy are they. Occasion-
ally, however, one can see the upper portion
of the forest, where there is a little crevice in
its roof of vines. Above this is a marvelous
scene of light and beauty. Birds and butter-
flies and other gorgeous insects are flying from
place to place ; flowers of hundreds of hues and
shapes are blooming from the plants attached
to branch and trunk. While below all is

CHRIST AND THE WORLD'S LEAVINGS 271

lifeless and silent, except for bats, and rep-
tiles, and loathsome things that belong to
the darkness, above the height, where the
mass of vines overshadows the river, nature
has created a world of brightness and ani-
mation.

To attempt to break through the canopy
of vines which hide it from the lower world is
almost impossible, because the vines grow so
thickly; but some daring and tireless natural-
ists have penetrated it, and they say that the
forests really have two surfaces — ^the one
above this artificial roof and the one below.
That which is above is barred from human
entrance. Its inhabitants are mostly birds
and insects that are radiant with beauty un-
equaled in the world. In that upper realm
color reigns supreme — color of flowers, of
butterflies, of birds, radiant in scarlet, in gold,
and blue. They tell us that sometimes you
can see these bright creatures flit in the cavern
below as tho they were curious to see what
was there, but not in all their glory as they
must behold one another above. Sometimes,
as they flit about beneath, they will chance to
cross a sunbeam slanting through a hole in

272 TtlE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

the vegetation; then for an instant they flash
into view Hke an explosion of burning color.
It is thus that the great butterflies are seen
to the best effect. No one can imagine what
a picture they produce in their native haunts
as their wings flash and close and flash again
in the sunlight as they fly.

Now it seems to me it is something like this
that is occurring in the greater world. We are
living in an age when there is an upper world
of great intelligence, of elegance, and culture,
and beauty. And I am an optimist about it,
and believe that there are more people living
in that realm of sunshine where the light is
from the Lamb of God, and has in it the
healing influence of heaven, than ever before.
But still it is also true that down in the dark
shadows of this modern forest of our human
life there are multitudes who through poverty
and sin, working together, have produced
conditions that in some respects seem worse
than the world has ever known, for I cer-
tainly believe that your heathen of the
modern city are much farther away from
God and righteousness than savages who
have never been touched by Christianity.

CHRIST AND THE WORLD'S LEAVINGS 273

As civilization goes higher the pressure is
tremendous if it falls upon poor human be-
ings who have failed to keep step and have
fallen out in the race.

Some years ago Millet, the famous French
artist, painted his great picture, "The Ange-
lus" — two peasants in the field, hearing the
Angelus bell rung, bow their heads in the
attitude of prayer — a wonderful picture which
within a few years attracted the attention
of the entire civilized world. Soon after he
painted "The Man With the Hoe." Edwin
Markham, then entirely unknown, saw in that
picture the theme I am studying with you
this morning — something of debased and
degraded and brutalized humanity ground
down under the pressure of our modern life —
and sprang by a single poem into a reputation
which has grown firm with the years, but he
will doubtless always be known as the man
who wrote "The Man With the Hoe." Ere
we criticize too severely this strong picture
we must remember that it is not our American
farmer he is depicting, but the man of any
land crusht between the glacial sins of the
world's selfishness and greed.

18

274 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

Bowed by the weight of centuries, he leans

Upon his hoe and gazes on the ground,

The emptiness of ages in his face,

And on his back the burden of the world.

Who made him dead to rapture and despair,

A thing that grieves not and that never hopes,

Stolid and stunned, a brother to the ox?

Who loosened and let down this brutal jaw?

Whose was the hand that slanted back this brow?

WTiose breath blew out the light within this brain?

Is this the thing the Lord God made and gave
To have dominion over sea and land;
To trace the stars and search the heavens for power;
To feel the passion of Eternity?
Is this the dream He dreamed who shaped the suns
And pillared the firmament with light?
Down all the stretch of Hell to its last gulf
There is no shape more terrible than this —
More tongued with censure of the world's blind greed-
More filled with signs and portents for the soul —
More fraught with menace to the universe.

What gulfs between him and the seraphim?
. . . What to him
Are Plato and the swing of Pleiades?
What the long reaches of the peaks of song,
The rift of dawn, the reddening of the rose?
Through this dread shape, humanity, betrayed,
Plundered, profaned, and disinherited.
Cries protests to the judges of the world.

O masters, lords, and rulers in all lands,

Is this the handiwork you give to God —

This monstrous thing distorted and soul-quenched?

CHRIST AND THE WORLD'S LEAVINGS 275

How will you ever straighten up this shape;
Touch it again with imrnortality;
Give back the upward looking and the light;
Rebuild in it the music and the dream?

O masters, lords, and rulers in all lands,
How will the future reckon with this Man?

Now, my friends, somebody must deal with
this man and his tens of thousands of brothers
and sisters, dwelHng in multitudes in our great
cities, with smaller numbers in the big towns,
and in some lands even among the peasantry
of the hills. They are not virgin heathen who
are like children. "Heaven lies about us in
our infancy," and so there are many tribes of
uncivilized savages to whose hearts, as among
children, the message of salvation and the
appeal to righteousness find easy entrance;
but these are people who have been hardening
in many cases for generations, until there ex-
ists a certain vicious hatred toward God and
man that seems to be the supreme motive
and spirit of the life. Who shall deal with
these people .f^

276 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

II

Jesus Christ alone has the daring and the
love and the power to deal with these leavings
of mankind. Harold Begbie has recently
written a book which is creating a great stir
in many circles outside of the churches. It has
been called "A Clinic in Regeneration." Some
years ago Professor William James, of Har-
vard University, wrote a book purely from
the scientific standpoint, entitled, "The Va-
rieties of Religious Experience." Mr. Begbie,
a student of Professor James, determined to
continue the study of this all-important sub-
ject, to do it impartially, not from the stand-
point of a religionist at all, but from an earnest
desire to find the truth and to determine what
force, if any, could reach and save the men
and women who have dropt down into the
under-world of spiritual darkness until there
comes to them no appeal from the higher
world of light in which live the majority of
men and women in civilized lands.

He pursued these investigations in Lon-
don, month after month, with as much care as
a great chemist would carry on an experiment

CHRIST AND THE WORLD'S LEAVINGS 277

in his laboratory. This is the conclusion to
which he comes: That whatever it may be,
conversion is the only means by which a radi-
cally bad person may be changed into a
radically good person. Whatever we may
think of the phenomenon itself, the fact
stands clear and unassailable, that by this
thing called "conversion" men consciously
wrong, inferior, and unhappy, become con-
sciously right, superior, and happy. It pro-
duces not a change, but a revolution, in
character. It does not alter, it creates, a new
personality. Mr. Begbie calls his book " Twice
Born Men," and he declares that the phrase
"a new birth" is not a rhetorical hyperbole,
but a fact of the physical kingdom. Men
who have been irretrievably bad and under
conversion have become saviors of the lost call
this transformation a "new birth." It trans-
forms Goneril into Cordelia, Caliban into
Ariel, Saul of Tarsus into Paul the Apostle.
This earnest student searched out in the
metropolis of the world individual men who
had risen from the modern hell of sin and
crime into respectability and beauty of char-
acter, and with tremendous realism he tells

278 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

their stories in his book. He traces them step
by step, showing the causes which made them
absolutely unapproachable by anything which
the law, or science, or human philosophy could
do, and then he shows that under the touch
of Jesus Christ everything was transformed.
Men radically bad, radically evil — a burden
to the State, a scandal to civilization, and a
disgrace to humanity — become, under the in-
fluence of religion, good, honest, industrious,
and kind. Homes where children suffer fright-
fully, where privation and tyranny obscure all
the beauty and all the blessing of existence;
homes so base, vile, and cruel that they can
not be described, become, under the influence
of Christ's religion, happy, virtuous, and glad.
Vices which degrade men lower than the
brutes, which make them loathsome in the
sight of respectable people, and fill our prisons
and workhouses with an immense burden on
the community, under the influence of the
religion of Jesus Christ lose every fiber of
their power and drop away from the strangled
souls of their victims like dead ivy, like an
outworn garment. Sins and crimes which
retard the progress of the race, which breed

CHRIST AND THE WORLD'S LEAVINGS 279

corruption, degeneration, and prosperous mis-
ery, under the influence of the religion of
Jesus Christ cease to have power over the
minds of men and in the instant of conversion
appear horrible and repulsive to them.

Now you must remember that this man has
been studying up the worst people he could
find on earth, people of whom he says: "Sci-
ence despairs of these people and pronounces
them hopeless and incurable. Politicians find
themselves at the end of their resources.
Philanthropy begins to wonder whether its
charity could not be turned into a more fertile
channel. The law speaks of them as ' criminal
classes.' " These are the people, absolutely the
world's leavings, that no medicine, no act of
parliament or legislature, no moral treatise,
and no invention of philanthropy can reach;
and these people, this scientific investigator
declares, Jesus Christ, as proclaimed by His
humble followers in the lowest, darkest, most
damnable slums on earth, does reach and
transform into self-denying, holy-living saints
and heroes. But, brethren, it is our shame
that this book is capable of stirring up so much
excitement as it has, for it is simply the old

280 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

Gospel of the New Testament. Christ has
been transforming every wicked man and
woman who appealed to Him from the days
of Mary Magdalene and Saul of Tarsus until
this day.

I have only time left to urge home upon
our own consciences the duty and privilege
of doing our part in bringing the light and
hope of the Gospel of Jesus to every darkened
and sorrowful soul within our reach. Lord
Byron, in one of his poems, "The Prisoner of
Chillon," tells the pathetic story of a man shut
away in a dungeon, who, on the death of his
sole companion, was left disconsolate beyond
all words. At length, however, he saw that
the stones of his dungeon had parted at a
certain place and left a rift in the wall. He
climbed upward wearily, dragging his chain
after him, and looked through. Oh, joy un-
speakable! He saw again the green fields and
the blue sky. And as he clung there, gazing
through his tears, a bird began to sing be-
neath the wall, —

A lovely bird with azure wings,

And song that said a thousand things,

And seemed to say them all to me.

CHRIST AND THE WORLD'S LEAVINGS 281

My friends, the sweetest privilege that
earth holds for you or for me is to lift dis-
couraged men up to that rift in the wall and
to open before them the vision of Christ and
the sweet life which they may live in brother-
hood with Him, for to save men is to make
them see Jesus, as Mary Magdalene saw
Him. Sir Edwin Arnold puts on the lips of
that sinful woman, grown to be a saint, these
beautiful words:

This Godlike One,
Whom none did once convince of one small swerve
From perfectness; nor ever shall! — so strong
The elements obej'ed Him; so Divine
The devils worshiped; so with virtue charged
The touch of Him was health; so masterful
The dead came back upon His call; so mild
The Uttle children clustered at His knee,
And nestled trustful locks on that kind breast
Which leans to-day on God's — Consider, Sir!
A human heart beat there! a human brain
Pondered, and pitied, and was sorrowful
Behind that sovereign brow. The blood of us —
Of women and of men — coursed crimson, warm,
In those rich veins! Nay, and He ate our meats,
And drank our drinks, and wore the dress we wore;
And His hair fluttered in the breeze which stirred
Peter's and John's and mine.

When men, in the discouragement and de-
spair of their sins, catch this vision of Christ,

282 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

not only as the Son of God but as their Elder
Brother, they, too, will be encouraged to
bring to Him the alabaster box of their love
and service and will rise transformed into the
upper realm of life and being.

THE IMPORTANCE OF QUALITY
IN SOULS

"Till we all attain unto the unity of the faith, and of the
knowledge of the Son of God, unto a full-grown man, unto
the measure of the stature of the fukiess of Christ."— Ephesians
4 : 13 (Am. Rev.).

JOHN RUSKIN, in writing on ''The
Veins of Wealth," says that it is a
serious question whether, among national
manufacturers, that of souls of good quahty
might not at last turn out "a quite leadingly
lucrative one."

I am sure we all agree that nothing can
possibly be of greater value to the Christian
Church than that those who profess to be the
disciples of Jesus Christ should be "souls of
good quahty." Unless we are careful about
our personal quahty, as careful about the
quahty as we are about the quantity, our
Christian testimony in the eye of the world
will be greatly weakened. And surely the
earnest and unceasing determination to seek,
by the aid of the Holy Spirit, purity of heart,

283

284 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

saintliness of disposition, spiritual strength of
character, and holiness of life will always be
found to be, to use Ruskin's quaint phrase,
' ' leadingly lucrative. ' '

There can be no doubt that this is the
supreme purpose of God concerning us. A
life blameless and faultless, producing the
fruit of the Spirit, serviceable and faithful,
commending itself to men by consistent con-
duct, and recommending a religion, vital and
forceful, capable of meeting human demands
and needs — that, surely, is the handiwork of
God which will bring glory to Him, by adding
strength to the church on earth and rebutting
the sneer that there is nothing divine in
religion. This study should be a probe that
goes deep home in our own hearts. When
something is offered to us as of *'good quality,"
our first question is, "Is it worth the price .f^"
It is well for us to ask that question concern-
ing ourselves at the opening of this study.
Am I worth the price that God has paid for
me? Worth the price! What price .^^ Cal-
vary! Has God found me worth that.^^ We
need to face that question honestly. Can
God look upon me and say: "My beloved

QUALITY IN SOULS 285

Son has not died in vain. The price I paid
for your redemption was not too great!" Or
must He say, with a Father's disappointment:
"I gave my best for you, but I have found
you a failure"?

Let us note some of the characteristics of
a good quahty of soul.

A soul of good quality is rich in faith.
Indeed, here we have one of the first charac-
teristics of high soul quality. A soul without
faith is a cramped, narrow-visioned thing.
Ruskin, in a lecture on "The Pleasures of
Faith," addressing himself to those without
faith, says: "In everything that you now do
or seek, you expose yourself to countless
miseries of shame and disappointment, be-
cause in your doing you depend on nothing
but your own powers, and in seeking choose
only your own gratification." How narrow
indeed is such a hfe compared to those who
see God everywhere in everything, and whose
vision is forever rejoicing in the works of
their Heavenly Father. The Psalmist says of
such souls, "They looked unto him, and they

286 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

were radiant.*' A young girl met Frances
Ridley Havergal on a brief railway journey,
and said, long afterward: **I am so glad that
I saw, just once, that God-satisfied face!"
Do we know that richness of faith? If not,
it is because we have narrowed our vision to
the worldly things about us and do not rise
to the communion of faith which would en-
rich us with all the fulness of God.

The late Charles Cuthbert Hall once told
of the wonder and delight with which he saw
the ocean tide come up the Bay of Fundy and
fill the empty river beds. Through the hours
of the ebb the Nova Scotian rivers dwindled
and shrank within their banks. Broad and
barren reaches of sand exposed themselves;
ships listed heavily on their sides, deserted by
the feeble stream trickling in mid-channel.
Then came the tide up the Bay of Fundy, up
from the abundance of the unfathomable sea.
You could hear it coming with a distant
sound of motion and life and unmeasured
power. You could see it coming, with a pure,
white girdle of foam that looked in the sun-
light like a zone of fire. You could smell it
coming, with the smell of freshness, the breath

QUALITY IN SOULS 287

of coolness, the waft of far-off scents from
breeze-blown ocean leagues. You could al-
most feel it coming, for the heart stirred at
sight of it, and the pulse quickened at the
rush of it, and the joy of strength arose in
the soul. It came from the mighty fulness
that could afford to give so grandly; it came
from the opulence of an ocean that could
spend itself without fear of poverty — that
could pour itself out to fill a thousand rivers
yet be not diminished; it came, as Matthew
Arnold says, "with murmurs and scents of
the infinite sea." It entered the river bed;
it filled the empty channel, as one fills a
pitcher at the fountain; it covered the barren
sands with motion and sparkHng life; it lifted
the heavy ships, gave back to them their
rights of buoyancy; set them free upon the
broad waterway of world-wide opportunity.
It changed the very face of the land from
sadness and apathy and dulness to anima-
tion and color and glittering activity.

Thus a rich, whole-souled faith in Jesus
Christ and in His divine fellowship and love
for man comes into an empty human life —
empty because it is simply worldly and narrow

288 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

with the narrowness of earth. Into such a
hfe this glorious faith comes to fill it with the
verv fulness of God. The difference between
a soul and a life without faith in spiritual
things and a soul and a life filled with the
riches of faith in Jesus Christ is the difference
between ebb-tide and flood-tide. The one is
growing emptier and more hopeless and more
desolate, while the other is ever growing
richer and more interesting with sparkling
fulness of life.

II

The soul of good quality is strong in char-
acter and immovable in principle. This
strength and stability of character can come
to us only when our souls are centered in
our relation to God and are bound by the
bond of duty. The human soul is a battle-
ground of warring passions until it is sur-
rendered to Christ and is no longer divided
because it bows before Him as its Lord. To
a soul of the highest quality duty-doing is the
greatest happiness. When duty and desire
coincide, the soul is pure gold.

Thomas K. Beecher has given us a little

QUALITY IN SOULS 289

fable of the watch in which the works are at
war with each other, complaining and con-
suming themselves. One of the pieces says,
*'I am being prest upon by the other parts;
I am not permitted any rest and ease; I am
compelled to go around and around and
around and wear myself out, and all to no
purpose." And then a great revelation
comes! These grumbling pieces of the watch
are permitted to look at the outside world,
and they make the startling discovery that,
if each part does its work, and does its best,
they will move around in harmony with the
stars in the sky, and be like them. Then all
is changed, and their murmurs of discontent
become quiet songs of ecstasy, and ever after,
when the owner of the watch puts it to his
ear, he hears the glad, contented song, "We
keep step with God's stars. We keep step
with God's stars."

No character can be strong and stable with-
out a backbone made up of a keen sense of
obhgation to God, mingled with a conscious-
ness of the presence of God. In Westminster
Abbey there is a memorial to Lord Lawrence
on which are these words: "He feared man

19

290 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

SO little because he feared God so much."
There is the secret of a strong character. It
reminds one of the little prayer that was found
in a Rugby school boy's desk after his death:
"O God, give me courage that I may fear
none but Thee."

A character like that has a quality which
never fails to make itseK felt. And the glo-
rious thing about it is, that this is possible to
you and to me because it depends not on our
own superior powers, but upon the presence
of God in us. A group of rough boys were
demanding some evil deed of a smaller boy.
"I can't do it," said the boy. "You will have
to," said the leader, "for we are all against
you alone, and how will you help yourself.^"
The boy was silent a moment and his face
whitened a Httle, and then he repKed: "I am
not as much alone as you think I am. There
are two of us, and the other one is God, who
has always been more than a match for all
that have come against Him." The leader,
who had been bullying him, casting a sheepish
glance around said: "Come on, fellows; let
him alone. There's no use fooling with a
chap like that."

QUALITY IN SOULS 291

III

A soul of the best quality is warm in love
and sympathy and tireless in service for the
higher good of others. Some one sings:

The man who wins is the man who stays
In the unsought paths and the rocky ways,
And, perhaps, who lingers, now and then,
To help some failure to rise again.
Ah, he is the man who wins!

Real service will mean sacrifice. We must
not expect to be counted followers of Jesus
Christ without sometimes bearing burdens
that cut into the shoulders until the blood
runs. Dr. Jowett, during a recent hohday,
was crossing the Alps. His guide-book told
him that he would reach a place where the
trail would cease, but it gave no further
information. He came at last to the end of
the beaten road. He wandered around un-
certainly for a while, and then he caught
sight of what seemed like a splash of blood
upon a rock, and then at some little distance
another rock similarly splashed, each one he
came to bringing into view another farther
away. And then he inferred that these were

292 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

to be his dumb guides across the trackless
waste. He was to follow the blood marks!
By the red road he should reach his destina-
tion. My dear friends, it is along the red
road of sacrifice, of bearing burdens for one
another, of helpful, loving service, that we
are to develop in ourselves the highest quality
of soul.

Dr. F. B. Meyer, during the great Welsh
revival, saw, one evening, a young miner
come to a crowded meeting. This young
fellow stood up and prayed to God in behalf
of two of his mates, who were scoffing behind.
One of these men immediately arose and said:
"No, that is not true; I was not scoffing. I
simply said I was not an infidel, but an agnos-
tic, and if God wants to save me, I will give
Him a fair opportunity. Let Him do it!"
That boast on his part seemed to strike Evan
Roberts so that he fell on his knees in a perfect
agony of soul. It seemed as tho his very
heart would break beneath the weight of this
man's sin. A friend of Dr. Meyer's, who
stood near him, said: "This is too dreadful!
I can not bear to hear this man groan so!
I will start a tune to drown it!" Meyer said:

QUALITY IN SOULS 293

"Whatever you do, don't do that. I want
this thing to sink into my heart. I have
preached the Gospel these thirty years with
dry eyes. I have spoken to great masses of
people without turning a hair, unmoved. I
want the throb of this man's anguish to touch
my own soul." Evan Roberts sobbed on and
on, and Meyer said: "My God, let me learn
that sob, that my soul may break while I
preach the Gospel to men." After about ten
minutes Roberts arose and addrest the men
in the gallery : " Will you yield? " They said,
"Why should we.?" Then he said to the
people: "Let us pray." The air became
heavy with sighs, tears, and groans. Every-
body seemed to be carrying these two men
upon their hearts, as if the heart must break
beneath the strain. Meyer declares that he
never felt anything hke it. He sprang to his
feet. He felt as tho he were choking. He
said to his friend: "We are in the very heart
of a fight between heaven and hell. Don't
you see heaven pulling this way and hell that.?
It seems as tho one heard the beasts in
the arena." x\fter that one of the men
yielded, while the other, like an impenitent

294 THE SUNDAY'NIGHT EVANGEL

thief, went his way, but Meyer could not but
beheve that he afterward came back to God.
It is this quaHty of soul, this deep, sensitive,
throbbing sympathy expressing itself in de-
votion and earnestness, not in speech alone,
but in deeds, that we must have if we are to
be tUe greatest blessing to the world.

IV

The most tremendous thing that I have to
say to you is that this highest quality of soul
is possible to the humblest and most wretched
sinner. God is able, through Jesus Christ, to
take stones out of the mire and fit them and
cleanse them and polish them till they are of
the best quality for the spiritual temple. If
any man or woman has come in here dis-
couraged and disheartened because of having
yielded to sin, I want to lay emphasis on this,
the very bed-rock truth of the Gospel.

A little while ago a minister, passing
through the ward of a hospital, heard a man
groaning and swearing, and turned toward
him. But a nurse, seeing it, said: "Don't go
near that room, sir. It is of no use. The man

QUALITY IN SOULS 295

is dying, and he is the most hardened, impeni-
tent creature I ever saw. His language makes
us shudder.** "Let me see him," was the firm
reply. The nurse opened the door of the
ward, and stood aside. The man lay on the
bed, doubled up in mortal agony. The min-
ister bent over him with eyes full of tender
compassion.

"My friend," he began, "there is a golden
chain hanging down from heaven to you, and
on it, in flashing letters, is written: *God so
loved the world, that he gave his only
begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in
him should not perish, but have everlasting
life.'"

The dying man looked up at him and out
of sheer astonishment stopped swearing. " On
the chain there is a cross-bar," the preacher
continued slowly, "and on the cross-bar is
inscribed: *Him that\ometh to me I will in
no wise cast out.' Lay hold of this chain,
and it will pull you to glory." And with a
gentle pressure of the man's hand, he left him.

It was noticed that the man did not swear
any more, and late that evening, when the
night nurse came to give him his medicine, he

296 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

said: "Where is the nurse that was here this
afternoon?" He was informed that the other
nurse was off duty and was now asleep. The
dying man's lips quivered, and a shade of
disappointment crossed his face. "I didn't
know. I would like to have seen her again.
I would like to have said *Good-by,'" he
gasped. "Perhaps you may, after all,"
answered the nurse, cheerfully. "She comes
on duty when I go off." "But I shall not
see morning, nurse," he whispered. "Tell me
what it is that you want to say. I will be
sure to give her your message." "Thank you,
nurse. That is very good of you. I want her
to say good-by to that minister for me, and
tell him Bill Carter has laid hold of the chain.
Laid hold of the chain," he repeated, with a
manifest effort, as he sank back on the pillow,
and closed his eyes, never more to open them
on the scenes of earth.

My friend, you who are deeply sensible of
your sin, and of your weakness and unworthi-
ness, God is able, through Jesus Christ, to
change the whole quality of your soul. Mrs.
Burnett has written a sweet and powerful
story that turns around an old woman in a

QUALITY IN SOULS 297

London slum. She had not Hved a good Ufe,
and, in her wicked old age, when lying on a
hospital cot, some visitor told her the Gospel
story. She simply believed it; no more than
that. One who saw her afterward, at a time
of dire need, said: "Her poor little misspent
life has changed itself into a shining thing,
tho it shines and glows only in this hideous
place. She believes that her Deity is in
Apple Blossom Court — in the dire holes its
people live in, on the broken stairways, in
every nook and cranny of it, a great Glory
we will not see — only waiting to be called
and to answer." And what was the result of
this new faith to that old woman in Apple
Blossom Court .'^ Why, the result was what it
always is — ^her face shone like that of Moses
when he tarried in the presence of God on
Sinai. Her face shone like that of Stephen
when his enemies declared that it was like
the face of an angel, because he had looked
into the glory of the throne of God. The
same quality of soul will make the same
gracious influence everywhere.

O discouraged heart, defeated and dis-
heartened by sin until you scarcely have

298 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

courage to try again, I bring you the old,
ever new Gospel which promises the trans-
formation of the soul so thoroughly that
through Christ's dear love the poorest quality
of soul may become the best quality, the very
highest and noblest quality that earth and
heaven know.

THE SOUL'S IMPERATIVES

"I ought!"— Ephesians 6 : 22.
"lean!"— Phil. 4 : 13.
''I will! "—Luke 15 : 18.
"Ihave!"— 2Tim. 4:7.

ALL great character and achievement de-
pend upon the imperatives which master
the soul. A soul without imperatives which
control it, dominate it, and dictate to it is
nerveless and without power. The difference
between a soul mastered by certain kingly
imperatives and one that is free from such
discipline is the difference between a ship
with great engines and perfected machinery
driven by a disciplined crew, and a skilful
engineer, with a wise, brave captain at the
helm, who sends her on her course through
sunshine or storm, carrying her cargo of
human life to a definite port, over chosen
lines of travel across the sea, and a piece of
driftwood, a tree uptorn by the roots in some
tornado, pulled out by the tide, flung aloft on
the breakers and carried whithersoever the

299

300 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

sea listeth without purpose or compass or
guide. Or to change the figure, the difference
between a soul mastered by great impera-
tives and one who does not yield to such
control is the difference between a loyal citi-
zen of the community, who pays taxes, up-
holds the government under which he lives,
earns his bread by the honest sweat of his
brow, holds himself to be a responsible and
helpful part of the neighborhood in which is
his home — the difference between such a man
and a tramp without a home, without moor-
ings, who drifts on the highw^ay, knowing not
where he will get his dinner, holding himself
accountable to no one, and not conscious
that any one cares what becomes of him.

A noble Hfe can not be lived without dis-
cipline and control. Certain great impera-
tives must master and dominate us if we are
to live worthy of our manhood and our
womanhood.

The first great imperative of the soul strikes
the note of duty. ''/ ought.'' That is the
first light which blazes forth in every human

THE SOUL'S IMPERATIVES 301

soul. God has not left Himself without His
witness in your bosom or mine. He has set
a light within us which makes us to know
that there are certain things we ought to do.
George Frederick Watts, the great artist, has
among his pictures in the Tate Gallery in
London, one entitled "The Dweller in the
Innermost." This is a figure supposed to
represent conscience, with the most pen-
etrating eyes that you ever saw. A brilliant
star flashes forth from her forehead, and
feathers spread forth from her cloak. In her
lap are a number of arrows, whose keen heads
must pierce every pretense and bring convic-
tion home to the dullest heart. In her hand
there is a trumpet, intended to peal forth its
lofty summons to the heroic soul. The effect
of the whole picture is to show with irresist-
ible force that right in the soul of man there
is a light from which no evil can be hidden
and in whose presence excuses and pretenses
are of no avail. It is in this illumination
that there rises up a certainty of convic-
tion which causes us to say within ourselves :
"I ought to do this right thing," or, "I
ought not to do this thing which is wrong."

302 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

It is obedience to this inner light, sensitive
loyalty to this divine voice, which leads to
the noblest character.

The sad fact that a great many very
religious people are neither righteous nor
moral is explained by noting their lack of
obedience to this inner conviction, **/ ought.''
Dr. Donald Mackay calls attention to one
of Gladstone's letters to the Duchess of
Sutherland quoted by Lord Morley in his
biography of the great English statesman.
Gladstone says: "There is one proposition
which the experience of life burns into my
soul; it is this, that a man should beware
of letting his religion spoil his morality. In
a thousand ways, some great, some small,
but subtle, we are daily tempted to that
great sin." What did Gladstone mean by
that.^ He immediately adds — for he was an
intensely religious man himself — "To speak
of such a thing seems dishonoring God; but
it is not religion as it comes from Him, it is
religion with the strange and evil mixtures
which it gathers from dwelling in us." And
that is the heart of the trouble. A religion
which concerns itself chiefly with certain

THE SOUL'S IMPERATIVES 303

forms and creed expressions, which separates
itself from life, which is formal and official
instead of being real and vital, imperils the
foundations of morality. There was much
truth and wisdom in the advice which young
David Livingstone received from his grand-
father as he set out for college in Glasgow:
*'Dauvit, Dauvit," said the old Scotchman,
"make your religion an everyday business
of your life, and not a thing of fits and
starts." And if you are going to do that,
the first great imperative of your soul, which
you are to follow as you follow an index
finger which points along the highway, is,
"/ oughtr'

II

The second imperative of a great soul is
the conviction that it can do what God
requires of it. It is a sad day indeed for
any man when he is deluded into believing
that the deed he ought to do is impossible.
But it is inconceivable that God has made
it our duty to do anything which we can not
do. The natural, healthy soul responds at
once to the conviction of what it ought to

304 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

do with the accompanying conviction that
it can do it. But here is a man who has
yielded to the temptation to do evil until
the soul is crippled, and he feels that he is
handicapped in taking up the duties of life.
Some poet describes a young man praying:

God harden me against myself,
This coward with pathetic voice;
That craves for ease and rest and joy —
My hoUowest friend, my deadliest foe,
My clog whatever road I go.

If any of you who hear me are weighted
down with such a load of sin and defeat, I
can only say to you that here is where the
Gospel of salvation through the Cross comes
in. *'This is a faithful saying, and worthy
of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came
into the world to save sinners." To con-
tinue with our poet, you may change your
song :

"Yet One there is can curb myself,
Can roll this strangUng load off me.
Can break the yoke and set me free."

Paul says, with splendid courage, "I can
do all things through Christ which strength-
eneth me." And so from any sense of weak-

THE SOUL'S IMPERATIVES 305

ness to do your duty, to do that which you
are convinced you ought to do, I call you to
the divine truth that you need not be alone,
but that you may have the partnership of
Jesus Christ to help you in the struggle to do
right. The secret of all great characters is
in this divine fellowship in right doing. Turn
to the Old Testament and read some of its
sentences: '*I will lift up mine eyes unto the
hills, from whence cometh my help"; "I
sought him whom my soul loveth"; "I
shall be satisfied when I awake with thy
likeness"; "I will not let thee go except
thou bless me." It is in such sentences
that you come upon the secret of the sub-
lime spiritual virility in the character of
these Old-Testament men. Jacob, David,
Isaiah struggled up out of meanness and sin
into spiritual majesty and power because
they sought the Lord day and night and in
their fellowship with Him found the power
of God that helped them to overcome the
evil that was in them.

20

306 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

III

The third note is a note of purpose. First
**/ ought^' — a sense of duty; then **/ can" —
a sense of power; then "/ wiir' — a purpose
of obedience. Purpose, of course, is closely
associated with decision. It is born of an
electric shock — a flash of lightning which
suddenly illuminates what has hitherto been
vague or dark, and the soul, rising up in the
new light, says, '*I will!" The prodigal had
been feeding hogs for a good while. It
took a long time for all his splendid raiment
to become rags. No doubt he went down
through all the experiences of the seedy
times that make the stairway between the
rich and the very poor. But during all
this time his soul w^as blinded. The true
situation was obscured from his eyes. The
father's heart was always full of love for
him. In the old home there was always
plenty to eat. The servants in his father's
house were always better treated than he in
this far country. But he did not realize
these things until suddenly, like a lightning's
flash out of a thunderstorm, he saw himself

THE SOUL'S IMPERATIVES 307

and his father and his father's house in their
true relation, and something in his soul rose
up and said, **I ought to go home to father
and apologize for my conduct." Then some-
thing else rose up beside it and said, *'I can
at least do that." Then the prodigal him-
self arose and said, "I will arise and go to
my father."

But the will is something more than an
impulse, it is the steadily going on to do the
thing decided upon. Some of you have faced
your duty and said, " I will do it ! " But when
it became hard and unattractive, you gave it
up. If the prodigal had been like that, he
would not have seen the lights of the old
home, nor heard the music, nor tasted the
feast, nor felt the kiss of his father. The
power to will and to carry out that decision
is the highest dignity of our manhood and
our w^omanhood. The Savior says, "He that
endureth unto the end, the same shall be
saved." A great violinist, when he was
asked how long it took to learn the violin,
answered, ''Twelve hours a day for twenty
years." He started out by saying, ''I will
know the violin!" But it was that purpose

308 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

renewed and revitalized every day for twenty
years that made him the greatest violinist in
the world. My friend, you have said, ''I
will follow Christ." It is not enough to say
that once, or to continue to say it for a week
or a month or a year, but every day and
every hour of life we need to keep fresh in
our hearts the supreme vision of Jesus Christ
as the Savior and guide and example of our
souls, and constantly looking unto Him, be
forever saying in our hearts, ''I will follow
Him, serve and please Him, as the jfirst law
of my life."

IV

Then, finally, we have the note of achieve-
ment. To every noble soul which has awa-
kened to the imperatives of duty and power
and purpose, there will come at the last, as
a foretaste of that supreme reward of well-
doing, the consciousness of achievement of
the highest sort in one's own self. See Paul,
a lonely old man, apparently friendless, shut
up in a dark dungeon in Rome. Nero, the
most sensual and devilish incarnation of
wicked power that can be imagined, is on

THE SOUL'S IMPERATIVES 309

the throne. He hates everything for which
Paul stands, and he has determined on Paul's
death. Paul knows all this. He knows that
for him there is no freedom on earth but that
of the executioner's block. But is he sad.^
Is he distrest.^ Is he discouraged.^ Is he
gloomy over the outlook.^ Does he say,
"Nero has won. I have been defeated".'*
No, no! Nothing of the sort. Listen to
him: "I am now ready to be offered, and
the time of my departure is at hand." Note
now the tone of achievement. He is about
to depart. He is going on a long journey, but
he is not going empty-handed. Life has not
been in vain. He has gathered treasures by
the way. Listen to what he says: "I have
fought a good fight, I have finished my
course, I have kept the faith; henceforth
there is laid up for me a crown of righteous-
ness, which the Lord, the righteous judge,
shall give me at that day: And not to me
only, but unto all them also that love his
appearing." It is this sense of divine achieve-
ment for which I long and pray both for you
and for myself.

When Tennyson was a young man, there

310 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

was born into his soul the conviction that
the greatest thing in the world was the
human soul, and we hear him sing:

For tho the Giant Ages heave the hill
And break the shore, and evermore
Make and break and work their will;
Tho world on world in myriad myriads roll
Round us, each with different powers,
And other forms of Hfe than ours,
What know we greater than the soul?

The years rolled by, and Tennyson, after
eighty years had passed over his head, was
still writing about the greatness of the soul;
but now he is congratulating himself that
with the passing of the years he has van-
quished the brute that was in him, and, like
Paul, rejoices in the accomplishment of this
great achievement. Standing on the edge of
eternity, he sings:

I have climbed the snows of Age, and I gaze at a field in the past
Where I sank with the body at times in the sloughs of a low
desire,
But I hear no yelp of the beast and the man is quiet at last
As be stands on the heights of his life with a glimpse of a
height that is higher.

A STUDY IN PALMISTRY

"See my hands."— John 20 : 27.

PALMISTRY in our day is necessarily
connected in our minds with the cheap
quacks who advertise to tell the secrets of
the future by reading the lines in the palm
of the hand. But like every other error or
fad that lives for a long time, it has in it
some vein of truth. You may trace it in
India through the proud caste of the Brah-
mans, back to the earliest traditions of the
history of that ancient people. It was called
an art in Greece in the days of Aristotle and
Pliny. As to its attempt to read the future
which a kindly Providence has wisely hid-
den, it is, of course, a plain fraud. But its
assumption that some record of tempera-
ment and vitality and character may be
determined from the record found in the
hand is undoubtedly based on a sound prin-
ciple. The deeds of a man's life leave their
record on the fleshly tablets of the body.

311

312 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

Paul said that he bore in his body the marks
of the Lord Jesus, and there are many other
men who bear in their bodies the marks made
upon them by the devil's branding-irons.

Our text comes from Christ's meeting with
Thomas, the doubting disciple, after the res-
urrection. Thomas could not believe that
Jesus was risen from the dead, and when the
other friends of Jesus assured Thomas that
they had conversed with Him, he declared
that unless he put his fingers in the very
wounds of Jesus, he would not believe that
the resurrection was a fact. So when Christ
met Thomas, He took him at his own word,
and said: "Reach hither thy finger, and see
my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and
put it into my side: and be not faithless,
but believing." "Thomas answered and said
unto Him, My Lord and my God." You
see, in this case Jesus showed His hands to
Thomas as His credentials. The nail-prints
by which He was held to the cross were sure
evidence that He was indeed the Savior.
Archibald MacMechan sings of the toiling
Christ in his Httle poem, "His Hand was
Hough."

A STUDY IN PALMISTRY SIS

ffis hand was rough and His hand was hard,
For He wrought in wood, in Nazareth town;

With naught of worship, with no regard,
In the village street He went up and down.

His hand was rough, but its touch was light,
As it lay on the eyes of him born blind;

Or strake sick folks in its healing might,
And gave back joy to the hearts that pined.

His hand was hard, but they spiked it fast
To the splintering wood of the cursed tree;

And He hung in the sight of the world, at last,
In His shame. And the red blood trickled free.

Our theme teaches the serious importance
of the deeds of life that leave their record on
the hand. At a gathering of socialists at
Geneva, Switzerland, a session was brought
to quite a dramatic close by a suggestive
incident. The speaker talked much of both
the real and fancied wrongs of the poor
and the workingmen; but when, in the
midst of his graceful periods, this well-drest
dandy of a man, whose hands were encased
in soft gloves, was asked by a brawny,
grimy mechanic to show his hands, there
arose a great uproar and the meeting broke
up in confusion. You and I are hastening on
to the time when the earnest carpenter from

314 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

Nazareth — He of the nail-wounded palm —
will ask each of us to show our hands for the
signs of Christian toil. God grant that it
may not put us to confusion!

The Bible makes so much of the hand that
I am sure it will be interesting for us to make
a study of palmistry as it is treated in the
Word of God.

The Bible makes it very clear that only
clean hands, that are kept undefiled from
iniquity, are pleasing in the sight of God.
David asks, ''Who shall ascend into the hill
of the Lord, and who shall stand in his holy
place.^" and replies, "He that hath clean
hands and a pure heart."

The superintendent of an organ factory
was showing a visitor how organ and piano
cases are made. During the inspection they
came to the finishing department, where the
piano and organ cases receive their last
splendid polish before they are shipped. The
superintendent explained that a solution of
pumice stone and water is used in polishing
the hardwood cases. Polishing can not be

A STUDY IN PALMISTRY 315

done by machinery, but must be done by a
man's hand rubbing, and in order that it be
done well, the hand itself must be kept as
soft as silk. ** These men," said the superin-
tendent, "can not play baseball, or take part
in any rough sports, or do anything that will
soil or harden the hand. Their hands must
be kept clean and soft." So David says, if a
man is to enter into the holiest of holies in the
service of God, he must keep his hands clean,
and it is impossible that we can have hands
like that unless the inner recesses and the
secret chambers of our hearts are kept pure.

II

Hands that are kept clean for God's serv-
ice are fragrant with good deeds. There is
a beautiful touch in the book of Leviticus
where it tells how, when the priest went in to
make atonement in the holy place, he went
with his hands full of sweet incense. Under
the Christian dispensation, every true soul
is a priest unto God, and if we are serving
our fellow men with reverent and honest
hearts, in no matter how humble a way, our
hands are fragrant with that service.

816 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

(1) Merciful service has that kind of fra-
grance. What beautiful hands were those of
the Good Samaritan — the hands that lifted
up the poor man who had been beaten and
robbed; the hands that placed the poor
fellow on his own beast and took him to the
inn and cared for him. What lovely hands
they were. The fragrance of those hands fills
the world to-day. Once in New York City,
while waiting on a ferryboat to cross over
from New Jersey, I saw a poor fellow drift-
ing by in a boat in the ice-filled river, and
he was so stupefied with cold that he could
no longer do anything with the oars. He
would very soon have perished. Some men
who were w^orking on a dock just below the
ferry took a long pole with a hook on it and
caught hold of the boat. Then they ran a
ladder down into the boat, and the poor fel-
low started, but he was so nearly frozen to
death that he could not climb up. Then
one of those big, rough fellows went down the
ladder and got behind him and helped him.
His hands were big and red and horny, but
as he tenderly helped that poor, frozen man
up the ladder it seemed to me that they were

A STUDY IN PALMISTRY 317

the prettiest hands I had ever seen, they
were so kind and gentle. We must be watch-
ing for a chance to make our hands sweet
with service. Remembering our debt to the
hands of Jesus, we should feel that:

Wherever now a sorrow stands,

'Tis mine to heal His nail-torn hands.

In every lonely lane and street,

*Tis mine to wash His wounded feet —

'Tis mine to roll away the stone

And warm His heart against my own.

Here, here on earth I find it all —

The young archangels, white and tall,

The Golden City and the doors.

And all the shining of the floors!

(2) Faithful hands are always fragrant.
It is recorded of Joseph, in the book of Gen-
esis, that when he was sold as a slave in
Egypt his master came to have so much
confidence in him that he entrusted every-
thing into his hands, and it was those faith-
ful hands that were the secret of the career
of Joseph. If he had been faithless in the
house of Potiphar, he would never have been
prime minister in the palace of the Pharaohs.
It was his fidelity as a slave that laid his
foundation for triumph as a ruler. And the

318 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

fragrance of those faithful hands of Joseph
still inspires courage in young hearts unto
the ends of the earth. We must not wait
until some great occasion to be faithful.
Fidelity in a small place is as beautiful as
in a great sphere.

Here in my workshop where I toil

Till head and hands are well-nigh spent,
Out on the road where the dust and soil

Fall thick on garments worn and rent,
Or in the kitchen where I bake

The bread the little children eat,
He comes, His hand of strength I take,

And every lonely task grows sweet.

(3) Helpful hands are always fragrant
hands. How sweet the fragrance the winds
have carried from those garments Dorcas
made so long ago. Into how many church
circles the perfume of her sewing has come,
giving encouragement and inspiration to
noble deeds.

A man who was in San Francisco at the
time of the terrible earthquake a few years
ago, said he saw hundreds of people walking
in the middle of the street, hand in hand.
Even strong men seemed to feel it necessary,
in those dark hours, to have hold of some-

A STUDY IN PALMISTRY 319

body's hand. So in all the hard experiences
of life we need the touch of the hand of
sympathy and kindness. My old friend,
Dr. Theodore L. Cuyler, now in heaven,
once visited in Scotland the church where
the famous McCheyenne used to preach.
He hunted for somebody who had heard
McCheyenne preach. At last he found an
old man who remembered the saintly pastor.
"Can you tell me," said Dr. Cuyler, "some
of the texts of McCheyenne.?" And the old
man made reply, "I don't remember them."
"Then can you tell me some sentences he
used.f^" And again the reply was, "I have
entirely forgotten them." With a feeling of
disappointment the great Brooklyn preacher
said, "Well, don't you remember anything
about him at all?" "Ah," said the man,
"that is a different question. I do remem-
ber something about him. When I was a
lad by the roadside playing, one day Robert
Murray McCheyenne came along, and lay-
ing his hand upon my head, he said, 'Jamie,
lad, I am away to see your poor, sick sister,'
and then, looking into my eyes, he said, ' and,
Jamie, I am very concerned about your own

320 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

soul.' I have forgotten his texts and his
sermons, Dr. Cuyler, but I can feel the
tremble of his hand on my head and I can
still see the tear in his eye." The old Scotch-
man would have agreed about "The Friendly
Hand," as James Whitcomb Riley puts it in
his little poem:

When a man ain't got a cent, an' he's feelin' kind o' blue,

An' the clouds hang dark and heavy, an' won't let the sunshine

through,
It's a great thing, oh, my brethren, for a feller just to lay
His hand upon your shoulder in a friendly sort o' way!

It makes a man feel curious; it makes the tear-drops start,

An you sort o' feel a flutter in the region of the heart.

You can't look up an' meet his eyes; you don't know what to

say.
When his hand is on your shoulder in a friendly sort o' way.

Oh, the world's a curious compound, with its honey an' its gall.
With its cares an' bitter crosses; but a good world, after all.
An' a good God must have made it — leastways, that is what I

say
When a hand rests on my shoulder in a friendly sort o' way.

Ill

But the most serious problem of all our
lives arises from the fact that even hands
that have been clean and serviceable may

A STUDY IN PALMISTRY 321

become soiled by sin, until they become
loathsome in the sight of God. There are
hands that are spoiled by deceit, like Jacob's
hands. His shrewd mother covered them
with the fresh skins of the slain kid and they
deceived his blind father, but they did not
deceive God. Jacob paid dearly for that
treachery.

(1) Hands may be soiled by greed until
ruin lies in the wake. There is no more
significant story told in the Bible than that
of Gehazi, the private secretary of Elisha.
Gehazi liked money and rich things, and the
prophet's private secretary did not have a
great chance at that sort of thing, so when
Gehazi saw Elisha refusing the rich gifts of
silver and gold and fine garments that were
offered him by Naaman for recovering him
from his leprosy, it was too much for him,
and he followed after Naaman and lied to
him, and came back with spoils. I suppose
he congratulated himself at first, but when
he was called into the presence of Elisha
and the searching eyes of that man of God
had looked into his soul, and he went away
with the leprosy of Naaman preying upon

21

322 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

him, there was no reason left for congratula-
tion. His greed-soiled hands were white
with leprosy.

(2) Hands may be soiled by sinful
pleasures. No hands were so strong as
Samson's. That young Hebrew giant was
an army in himself. But he tampered with
his strength in the lap of Delilah until his
hands were soiled with impurity and the
strength was lost out of them. How many
modern illustrations there are of the same
thing.

I remember in my boyhood the coming of
Oscar Wilde to this country, and what an
immense excitement there was about it. In
his youth he was a man of great intellectual
gifts and of exceptional artistic insight; but,
flattered by his friends and elated by pride,
he miserably fell. Near the end of his life,
after he had been years in prison, he tells
the story of his dow^nfall: **The gods had
given me almost everything, but I let myself
be lured into long spells of senseless and
sensual ease. I amused myself with being a
dandy, a man of fashion. I surrounded
myself with the smaller natures and the

A STUDY IN PALMISTRY 323

meaner minds; I became the spendthrift of
my own genius; and to waste an eternal
youth gave me a curious joy. Tired of being
on the heights, I deliberately went to the
depths in the search for new sensations.
Desire, at the end, was a malady, or a mad-
ness, or both. I grew careless of the lives of
others. I took pleasure where it pleased me
and passed on. I forgot that every little
action of the common clay makes or unmakes
character; and that, therefore, what one has
done in the secret chamber, one has some
day to cry aloud on the house-tops. I
ceased to be lord over myself. I was no
longer the captain of my soul, and did not
know it. I allowed pleasure to dominate me.
I ended in horrible disgrace." That one
illustration ought to be enough for all the
world.

But pleasure need not be sinful in itself to
be destructive, if it stands in the way of the
noblest life that we may lead. A few sum-
mers ago a young man lost his life in a
strange way on one of the lakes in eastern
Pennsylvania. He had taken several per-
sons out on the lake to gather pond lilies.

324 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

In reaching for the flowers, the nurse of the
family upset the boat and all were thrown
into the water. The young man was an
expert swimmer, and attempted to save the
nurse and the baby, but became enmeshed
in the lilies and sank. When his body was
recovered, his hands were found bound to-
gether by lily stems. So even the charming
lily, the purest of flowers, the emblem of
virtue, may become an instrument of death.
So there are many pleasures in life, in them-
selves pure and attractive as the lily, but
indulged in to excess they entwine them-
selves about the soul and drown it in world-
liness.

IV

Man's greatest hope and the Gospel's
dearest proclamation is found in the assur-
ance that soiled hands may be cleansed.
Hands soiled by sin can not be cleansed by
any human device. They can not be cleaned
as Pilate tried to cleanse his when he sought
to wash the blood of Jesus from his fingers
by washing his hands in a basin before the
multitude. No washing of remorse or for-

A STUDY IN PALMISTRY 325

getfulness will cleanse the hand that has
been stained by sin. There is nothing in
literature more pathetic than Shakespeare's
picture of Lady Macbeth going about in her
sleep always washing, washing her hands,
and complaining that she could never wash
out the bloody spot, and bemoaning the fact
that all the perfumes of Arabia would not
sweeten that one little hand. But if we are
ever to be saved from our sins, our soiled
hands must be cleansed. St. James says,
''Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify
your hearts, ye double-minded. Humble
yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he
shall exalt you." Only Christ has power to
cleanse the sin-stained hands. But He has
that power. One of the miracles of Jesus
was wrought in the home of Peter. Christ
went home with his friend and found Peter's
wife's mother very sick with a fever, and
the record of it says, ''He touched her
hand, and the fever left her, and she arose
and ministered unto him." Some poet has
found in it a message full at once of heart-
searching and of comfort:

THE SUNDAY'NIOHT EVANGEL .

*'He touched her hand, and the fever left her!"

He touched her hand, as He only can,
With the wondrous skill of the Great Physician —

With the tender touch of the Son of man.
And the fever-pain in the throbbing temples

Died out with the flush on brow and cheek;
And the lips that had been so parched and burning

Trembled with thanks that she could not speak.
And the eyes whence the fever-light had faded

Looked up, by her grateful tears made dim;
And she rose and ministered in her household —

She rose and ministered imto Him.

"He touched her hand, and the fever left her!"
We need His touch on our fevered hands —
The cool, still touch of the "Man of Sorrows,"
Who knows us and loves us and understands.

So many a life is one long fever!

A fever of anxious suspense and care,
A fever of fretting, a fever of getting,

A fever of hurrying here and there.

"He touched her hand, and the fever left her" —
Oh, blessed touch of the Man Divine!
So beautiful then to arise and serve Him,

When the fever is gone from your hfe and mine

Whatever the fever. His touch can heal it;

Whatever the tempest, His voice can still.
There is only joy as we seek His pleasure;

There is only one rest as we choose His will.

Ah, Lord ! Thou knowest us altogether,
Each heart's sore sickness, whatever it be,

Touch Thou our hands! Let the fever leave us-
So shall we minister unto Thee.

THE SECRET OF A TOWERING PER-
SONALITY

"I have not hid thy righteousness in my heart." — Psalm
40 : 10.

"Thy word have I hid in mine heart." — Psakn 119 : 11.

WE have suggested in these passages
what to hide and what not to hide if
we would build up a strong and righteous
personality. I have chosen to put the effect,
the result, before the cause. My purpose is
to call your attention to the personality itself,
and then to inquire into the secret sources of
this vital and enduring character.

David utters this first declaration in rela-
tion to the story of his rescue by the grace
and mercy of God from a pit of sin into which
he had fallen. He had gone down into the
depths of iniquity. He had fallen so low that
the miry clay tugged at his feet and pulled
him lower and lower into its filth. In that
darkness, amid the horror of his remorse, he
cried aloud unto God. And God heard his
cry, and brought him up out of the horrible

327

328 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

pit, and set his feet upon a rock, and estab-
lished him in righteous ways. Not only so,
but God put a new song in his mouth, even
praises unto God. When David had gotten
that far in the story he burst forth into
thanksgiving, and after he has exhausted his
adjectives in telling of the goodness of God,
he speaks for himself, exclaiming, "I have
not hid thy righteousness within my heart;
I have declared thy faithfulness and thy
salvation: I have not concealed thy loving-
kindness and thy truth from the great con-
gregation.''

Now what did David mean by that sen-
tence, "I have not hid thy righteousness in
my heart ".? I was reading a comment on this
Psalm by Griffith Thomas the other day, in
which he says that, to use a New-Testament
phrase, it would mean for us to say the same
thing to-day, "I have not failed to make
confession of Christ as Lord." David is
making public confession of God. He wants
the whole world to know that it is not David's
righteousness that has broken the miry clay
off of his feet, that has cleansed him from his
iniquitous conduct, that has restored him

SECRET OF A TOWERING PERSONALITY 329

again to the joys of salvation. It is not
David's goodness, but God's righteousness
revealed in David, that has brought about
this wonderful result. There is a constant
temptation to hide God's righteousness, and
to avoid the confession of Christ by our words
and our lives. It is often much easier to con-
fess Christ in the church than it is in the store
or in the street. It is often very easy to
confess Christ in the midst of a warm-hearted
gathering of Christian people, but a very
difficult and a very different thing to make
the same confession in our own home or in
our place of business. But David felt that
God's mercy had been so signal to him that
he would be an ingrate if he did not stand
forth to make confession with no uncertain
sound concerning the mercy of God. David
did more than do right by the Lord, he has
given encouragement to poor, sinful men from
that day until this, by his humble and open
confession. Long years afterward David said
to God, " Thy gentleness hath made me great."
And David's experience teaches us that men
are often made by their failures more cer-
tainly than they are by their successes.

330 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

A small boy was helping his father to make
a path. A wheelbarrow loaded with dirt
stood on the hillside above them. It was
just balanced as it stood, but whoever lifted
the handles would need to look carefully or
it would topple over. The little boy, desiring
to help, undertook to lift it, but no sooner
had he lifted the handles than over went the
whole load. As he saw what he had done,
he burst into tears. Then a sense of honor-
able innocence came over him. He had done
his best, and did not know what was going to
happen. But his father knew, and had seen
him set out to lift the wheelbarrow, and tho
a word would have stopt it, said nothing.
*' Father," cried the Httle fellow, "that was
your fault, too. You knew what was going
to happen, and you let me do it." The father
felt at once the justice of the boy's view and
he spoke to the boy in loving recognition of
the fact, and of his purpose to let him learn
by experience.

God is our father, and he is bringing us up
as children. He does not throw us away in
contempt because of our weakness, or our
failure, or our sins. With more patience than

I

SECRET OF A TOWERING PERSONALITY 331

ever father had for a mischievous son — with
more loving-kindness and forbearance than
ever mother had for a wayward daughter —
the Heavenly Father watches over us, seek-
ing to train us and discipline us, and strengthen
us by our mistakes and our failures, and bring
us as He did David into that open light of
comprehension where we will stand out in
the full courage of our convictions at home
or abroad, able to say with the Psalmist, ''I
have not hid thy righteousness in my heart."

In our second text we have the secret of a
personality like that of which we have been
speaking as an abiding, permanent character.
"Thy word have I hid in mine heart." If a
man is to live as the knight of the new chiv-
alry in Jesus Christ, a knight without re-
proach, not occasionally, but steadfastly,
growing in strength and power unto the
eternal life, then it must be true of him as of
the Psalmist, that the word of God is hid in
his heart. Just what did the Psalmist mean
when he said that.^ He did not have the
word of God as we have it, but he had some

332 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

manuscripts of some of the older books of the
Bible, and doubtless there was some refer-
ence to them in this "word." And with that
reference undoubtedly he meant also the rev-
elation of God to him in his own mind and
heart. He meant the message God gave him.
By keeping that in his heart he would be
made strong to resist evil, and would be kept
from yielding to temptations to sin. My
friends, here is the source of our power to be
the sons of God. We, too, must have God's
word hidden in our heart. What does that
"word" mean to us.^ It means not only the
message of God in the Bible, but it means also
the personality of Jesus Christ, who is the
incarnation of God's message to us. So, then,
if we are to be the invincible warriors of God
in our own day, this towering personality is
to be developed and maintained by hiding
in our hearts the message of God in Christ
and in the Bible.

11

Let us look at some of the results of hiding
God's word in our heart. The first result will
be peace. In the same Psalm in which we

SECRET OF A TOWERING PERSONALITY 333

get this second passage, the same writer says:
" Great peace have they which love thy law,
and nothing shall cause them to stumble."
The most important peace for any one of us
is peace in our own souls. Better to have
war anywhere else than war in your own
bosom. Great natures w^ho have been at
peace with themselves have withstood years
of opposition, and borne all manner of oblo-
quy and shame without loss of courage. Men
have gone to the martyr's stake and let their
lives go out as a libation before God amid the
flames with radiant faces and with cheerful
songs of joy on their lips, because tho the
battle raged without, within their own hearts
there was "the peace of God which passeth
all understanding." On the other hand, how
often we see those who have all manner of
pleasant and peaceful surroundings, whose
lives are despoiled and finally broken down
in sorrow and shame because there is no
peace within their own bosoms. God pity
the man who is at war with himself! And
that is one of the most terrible things about
sin, that a man has a battlefield in his own
soul, he is fighting in his own nature. There

334 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

can be no strong and splendid character with
such a war going on. But if we hide God's
word in our hearts, it will bring us peace,
peace in our own souls, for as we come to
know God through His word, we shall get
to understand His will and rejoice in it.

It is through God's word in our hearts
that we come to know God as our Father.
In one of Charles Reade's novels there is the
story of a little child who is handed over to
the keeping of another man by her own father.
Not that he wants to part with her; but they
are poor, and so he gives her into the rich
man's keeping, making her the rich man's
daughter so far as a resolution can do it, in
order to find bread for both. But he stays
about where she is; he keeps watch and
guard over that little life until it is matured;
and the girl, as she grows up, begins to feel
that she can always rely upon the unselfish
love of him who seems but a serving-man.
But her father, as she supposes him to be, is
cold, distant, and even cruel. The day came
when he repudiated her with anger, selfish
and base, because she had brought what
seemed disgrace on his name. Then forward

I

SECRET OF A TOWERING PERSONALITY 335

stept the serving-man, and flung his arms
around her, saying, with the fierceness of
righteous indignation, to the man who had
evilly entreated her: "She never was your
child!" Then the girl knew why it was that
she had always felt such rest, peace, and joy
in the presence of the serving-man. She had
listened to his language of love many a time,
not knowing the speaker to be her father.
And so, my friends, many of you have been
cruelly hurt by worldliness, and the dust and
strife of it has gotten into your heart, and it
may be your heart has grown bitter and hard,
and you have felt that you have been treated
cruelly; but, my friend, the world is not your
father. There is a Heavenly Father who
speaks to you through the written Word,
through the lips of Jesus Christ, and in the
still small voice, and if you will hide that
word in your hearts and commune with Him,
a peace from heaven will possess you and
master you, and in turn you yourself will be
master of all your powers.

336 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

III

If we hide God's word in our hearts, our
hearts will be made sensitive to spiritual
things, and all our powers of spiritual per-
ception will be quickened. This will come
about very naturally, for if we treasure up
the Word of God in our minds and hearts, in
thought and meditation, it will be a constant
inspiration to prayer. No man can meditate
much on the Word of God, with all its rev-
elation of mercy and love, with all its wonder-
ful story of redemption, with all its promise
of present fellowship and heavenly rewards,
without being inspired to prayer and praise.
And conversation with God, communion with
the Divine Heart, which is the very essence
of prayer, can not but quicken spiritual per-
ception. Not only so, but the hiding of God's
Word in our heart purifies the heart. The
Word of God is a cleansing force wherever it
is hidden. Did you ever put a flaxseed in
your eye when it was disturbed by impurities,
and you wept tears of pain, and that little
seed of the flax went about the eye until it
had cleared it of all invading substances.^ My

SECRET OF A TOWERING PERSONALITY 337

friend, there is a method as simple as that of
cleansing your heart from wicked thoughts
and evil purposes. Hide the Word of God
in your heart. Day by day give yourself to
meditation upon it, and your heart will be
cleansed from impure things, and it will make
you sensitive to spiritual realities, for Jesus
says, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they
shall see God."

The greatest test of our well-being, spiri-
tually, is to be found in our power to discern
the presence of Christ and to draw from Him
that ceaseless enthusiasm of service which can
come only from a living faith.

I know of nothing more needed by us to-day
as Christians than the cultivation of that spir-
itual imagination which never can be ours
unless our hearts hold lovingly the Word of
God. Dr. Arthur Pierson calls imagination
the power of "imaging forth." This is the
soul's eye — the spiritual vision. The outer
eye may be closed or blinded, but the image
of what has been seen reappears at will, mem-
ory assisting to recall and reproduce. Every
image, therefore, set before the mind's eye
is a creation of the imagination. Without it

22

338 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

there never could have been Bunyan's im-
mortal allegory, or Milton's celestial poem,
or Michelangelo's Moses. All the greatest
work of architecture and the most beautiful
and glorious things in painting are possible
only because of this inner eye. Captain
Eads said to the builders of his great bridge
across the Mississippi: "I saw the bridge
before the first caisson was sunk." So it is
when we hide God's Word in our hearts and
meditate upon it, the spiritual eye reveals to
us the Christ who day by day is our leader in
all the walks of life. I have been told that
when sightseers visit the wonderful Mam-
moth Cave in Kentucky, the guides mount
a sort of pulpit and preach the tourists a
sermon. The sermon consists of only five
words, and yet the very lives of the visitors
hang on those words. These words are:
"Keep close to your guide." To fall back or
depend upon oneself for even one instant
while within this largest known cavern in the
world may mean death. Its pitfalls are deep
and numerous. Only the guide knows where
safety lies. Even beneath the power of the
strongest illumination the darkness is so in-

SECRET OF A TOWERING PERSONALITY 339

tense that its wonders and beauty, its fairy-
like magic haunts, its myriads of scintillating
stalactites are but imperfectly revealed. Side
by side with every gleaming glory lurks also
death, sure and certain, unless led by a safe
guide.

Oh, tourists on the longer journey and even
more devious ways of human life, there is only
one safe course for you or for me, and that is
to keep close to our guides. Nothing is so
dangerous to us as worldliness, because noth-
ing will separate us so quickly from Him.
Only by hiding God's Word in our heart, by
daily and hourly communion, by keeping our
spiritual senses quickened and alert shall we
be able to cling so close to Christ that we
shall have His constant guidance.

IV

The real power of Christian personality can
never be exhibited by us or revealed in us
except when the word of God is hidden in
our hearts. It is impossible for the Christian
life to be so nourished without it as to exhibit
in full measure Christian manhood or Chris-

340 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

tian womanhood. I have seen somewhere the
story of a Dutch scientist who has recently
completed five years' study in South America.
He took some insects from Holland into the
rich, tropical atmosphere. He thus changed
their environments and put them into friendly
surroundings, and he gave them the best food.
The most he expected was to be able to mod-
ify their coloring, having exchanged the damp,
foggy sky of Holland for the brilliant light
and warmth of the tropics. But lo! these
insects doubled their size; the dim, subdued
tints became gay and brilliant. At last he
discovered that insects that in Holland
crawled, in South America spread their wings
to fly and meet God's sun. He began with
potato beetles in Holland; he ended with
brilUant creatures that lived on the nectar of
flowers and only five summers and winters
were necessary to accomplish the marvel.
And so, my brothers, my sisters, the differ-
ence between a life that is sordid and selfish
and ugly with evil tempers and a life that
exults on spiritual wings, and lives in the
atmosphere of hope and love, is the difference
between a soul starved upon worldly thoughts

SECRET OF A TOWERING PERSONALITY 341

and considerations and a soul that is nour-
ished with the word of God hidden at the
root of thoughts and communion.

But some of you say, with a despairing
note in your voice: "Your sermon is beyond
me. It might do for a spiritual genius, or for
those whose life has been so sheltered and
protected that they have never fallen into
low and sinful conditions. But for me, weak-
ened by sin, discouraged by a hundred fail-
ures, there is no hope that I could ever rise
into such lofty spiritual communion." My
friend, you rob yourself. If you will begin
this very day to treasure up the word of God
in your heart, to hide it there for secret food
and meditation until by aid of your spiritual
imagination Jesus Christ comes to be your
nearest friend and your most abiding and
constant guest, then it can be true that your
very weakness, your very besetting sin, may
become a pathway to a closer fellowship with
Christ, and you may come to know the mean-
ing of that strange saying of St. Augustine,
"Oh, blest sin, since it brought me to my
Savior!"

John Ruskin, in writing of the Cathedral of

342 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

Amiens, tells how in front of the great cathe-
dral there is a statue of Jesus Christ, and on
either side His twelve apostles; and below
them are written their great virtues. Under-
neath that, in symbolic outline, that virtue,
first of all, in its contrast with its kindred
vice, and then in its victory over it. In
Peter's case, his outstanding quality is his
courage, and below it, sculptured in stone,
you see a figure of Peter flying from a leop-
ard— a representation of his cowardice; and
then beneath that you see the same figure
sitting on a leopard and riding forward to
conquest. And the lesson the sculptor wishes
to teach us is that by contact with the Lord
Jesus Christ that very thing which is a man's
weakness can be transfigured into his strength;
that very thing from which he fled become
the glorious chariot on which he rides forward,
conquering and to conquer.

"I hold it true, with him who sings
To one clear harp in divers tones,
That men may rise on stepping-stones
Of their dead selves to higher things."

THE WAVES OF TIME

(A New- Year Sermon)

" Now the acts of David the king, first and last, behold, they
are written in the book of Samuel the seer, and in the book of
Nathan the prophet, and in the book of Gad the seer, with all
his reign and his might, and the times that went over him,
and over Israel, and over all the kingdoms of the countries." —
1 Chronicles 29 : 29, 30.

THIS very striking and picturesque lan-
guage describes David as one might
picture a boulder in the stream with the
current forever flowing over it, sometimes
dashing and splashing about it in the gentle
play of summer, sometimes with the dark,
heavy floods loaded with floating ice of win-
ter, and again with the great swollen current
that follows the springtime storms, but ever
wearing away and shaping and molding the
obstacle in the path of the current. We are
reminded of Bryant's poem, in which he de-
scribes life as a Flood of Years. In subHme
lines he sings:

343

344 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

A Mighty Hand, from an exhaustless um,
Pours forth the never-ending Flood of Years
Among the nations. How the rushing waves
Bear all before them! On their foremost edge,
And there alone is Life; the Present there
Tosses and foams and fills the air with roar
Of mingled noises. There are they who toil,
And they who strive, and they who feast, and they
Who hurry to and fro. The sturdy hind-
Woodman and delver with the spade are there,
And busy artizan beside his bench,
And palhd student with his written roll.
A moment on the mounting billow seen —
The flood sweeps over them and they are gone.
There groups of revelers, whose brows are twined
With roses, ride the topmost swell awhile.
And as they raise their flowing cups to touch
The cUnking brim to brim, are whirled beneath
The waves and disappear. I hear the jar
Of beaten drums, and thunders that break forth
From cannon, where the advancing billow sends
Up to the sight long files of armed men,
That hurry to the charge through flame and smoke.
The torrent bears them under, 'whelmed and hid,
Slayer and slain, in heaps of bloody foam.
Down go the steed and rider; the plumed chief
Sinks with his followers; the head that wears
The imperial diadem goes down beside
The felon's with cropped ear and branded cheek.
A funeral train — the torrent sweeps away
Bearers and bier and mourners. By the bed
Of one who dies men gather sorrowing,
And women weep aloud; the flood rolls on;
The wail is stifled, and the sobbing group
Borne imder.

THE WAVES OF TIME 345

I look, and the quick tears are in ray eyes,

For I behold, in every one of these,

A blighted hope, a separate history

Of human sorrow, telling of dear ties

Suddenly broken, dreams of happiness

Dissolved in air, and happy days, too brief,

That sorrowfully ended, and I tliink

How painfully must the poor heart have beat

In bosoms without number, as the blow

Was struck that slew their hope or broke tl:eir peace.

Sadly I turn, and look before, where yet

The Flood must pass, and I behold a mist

Where swarm dissolving forms, the brood of Hope,

Divinely fair, that rest on banks of flowers

Or wander among rainbows, fading soon

And reappearing, haply gi^ang place

To shapes of grisly aspect, such as Fear

Molds from the idle air; where serpents hft

The head to strike, and skeletons stretch forth

The bony arm in menace. Further on

A belt of darkness seems to bar the way,

Long, low, and distant, where the Life that Is

Touches the Life to Come,

The current of life is sweeping over us and
we are being influenced by the years as they
pass on. First of all, we are influenced in
this, that we are growling older. As the cur-
rent swept over David, molding him little by
little from the ruddy shepherd lad to the
young hero that overthrew the giant, to the
soldier who was the pride of Saul's army, to

346 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

the exile, and afterward as the king, eve.
sweeping him on toward old age. and the
sunset, so the currents that are sweeping over
us are changing us from boys and girls into
young manhood and young womanhood, on-
ward into the high noon of life, and to many
of us it is already afternoon, our faces are
turned toward the west, and we are looking
into the glow of the evening.

But the current is doing more than this for
us. Our habits of life are gathering strength
and stability as the current sweeps along.
Character is building, growing into perma-
nence, under the fashioning power of life.
We are growing stronger and truer. Our
affections and ambitions are seizing firm hold
on high and noble things; or else we are
growing meaner, and our thoughts and im-
aginations, like wild vines, are clinging the
more tenaciously to the earth as we grow
older. The years can not leave us as they
found us. We are either better or worse
than we were a year ago. There is no neutral
ground. It is not possible that a man can
breast the current of life for a year and not
be in some way shaped by it, and the sha-

THE WAVES OF TIME 347

ping depends altogether in its kind upon our-
selves.

There are constantly the two magnetisms,
so to speak, tugging at our souls. On one side
the influence is pulling us heavenward, draw-
ing us upward toward the light and the glory
of a good life; and on the other side there is
a devilish magnetism appealing to the lowest
and the worst that is in us, tempting us down-
ward into a life that is sinful and worldly.

A gentleman who visited the Pan-American
Exposition at Buffalo gives a very striking
description of the electric tower and its illu-
mination at night. It had ten thousand
incandescent lamps that gradually came into
play. First a point here and there glowed
indistinctly, like those pickets of the clouds
which catch the zenith beams of the coming
day. Then the magnificent facade shimmered
like a silken curtain under the rays of a shaded
lamp. Then the front and all its pinnacles
burst into full radiance; and the tower stood
out in the fulness of its celestial beauty,
delicate as a snow-crystal, tremendous as a
granite peak, and brilliant as the walls of
Paradise. No cheers were heard, no clapping

348 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

of jubilant palms. The fifty thousand people
who waited the nightly scene stood in awe-
struck silence, like Moses in the Mount of God,
when before him glowed the burning bush,
radiant but unconsumed. The place seemed
holy ground. Even the most careless seemed
to be moved by an emotion too deep for words,
only to be exprest in silent meditation.

And yet this gentleman tells us that the
tourist who had seen something of the Expo-
sition before the day fled, found himself
haunted by thoughts that would not down.
He could not drive from his mind the fact
that just behind that tower of light lay the
Midway with its different story, where on
every hand there were the vulgar suggestions
that were unholy and wicked. The electric
tower reached up toward heaven like God's
pillar of fire, but the valley of Egypt, with all
its foulness and its unholy lust that takes
hold on hell, was at its feet.

Life is like that. These two influences are
constantly besieging us as the current of life
sweeps over us. If we turn our hearts upward,
if we let our affections and our hope and our
faith twine themselves about God and heav-

THE WAVES OF TIME 319

enly things, then we are illuminated by the
Light of the World. But if, on the other
hand, we turn our faces downward to find our
pleasure and our reward in the things of the
day, if we give ourselves up to a life of the
senses, the hght goes out, and gradually we go
deeper into the darkness. The current that
sweeps over us will mold us into shapes of evil.
These thoughts ought to suggest to us the
great inquiry, *'Am I being shaped into the
kind of man or woman which is pleasing to
God? If my life goes on in the way it is now
being formed, will I be satisfied with it in the
end?" This is a question which ought to
come to those of us who are Christians. Is
the type of our Christian character what it
ought to be? Does our Christian life measure
up to God's standard as laid down in the
Bible? If we were to look at our life, if it
were put like a cloak on another man, or
another woman, and worn in our presence
day after day, would we look on it admir-
ingly and lovingly, and say, "There is a
truly Christian life " ? If you draw back sharp
at such a putting of it, and your heart sinks
with the feeling that your life worn by another

350 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

would only meet your criticism and your
rebuke, then, in the language of God's Word,
let me say to you, "If our hearts condemn us,
God is greater than our hearts."

If we are not living as we ought as Chris-
tians, there is just one thing to do, and that
is to throw ourselves on the mercy of God
and take a new attitude, a right attitude,
toward Him and His service. It w^as said of
Spinoza that he was "the God-intoxicated
man." It was meant by that that he was fujl
of the presence and power of God, he was
carried away with enthusiasm for God. Is it
not true that that is exactly what you need?
If there is a laxity in your Christian loyalty,
and you find that you look upon your duty
as a heavy harness rather than as a privilege
and a delight, is it not because in 3'our heart
and life there is a lack of God.'^ The Psalmist
says of the wicked man, "God was not in
all his thoughts." Is it not true that the same
may sometimes be said of us? Those days
and weeks in which our lives are barren of
religious joy and peace come because we are
thinking about other things and have ceased
to think about God. The man who thinks

THE WAVES OF TIME 351

about God first, who reads his Bible rever-
ently as the day's preparation, who looks to
God in loving confidence to guide him and
give the keynote to the psalm of his daily life,
has an abiding sense of the strong, the pro-
tecting, the Almighty God. Give God your
heart. Let your heart rest safely in God, and
all other things necessary to a good life, to a
noble, happy life, follow logically and nat-
urally in their place. How confidently the
apostle writes of it, "Now are we the sons
of God; and it doth not yet appear what
we shall be: but we know that, when
he shall appear, we shall be like him; for
we shall see him as he is. And every man
that hath this hope in him purifieth himself,
even as he is pure." Give your heart to God
with all its powers until every pulse of your
spiritual life shall bound to the fact that you
are God's child, and you will not be troubled
with doubts or misgivings, all the slavery of
doing religious duty will pass away, and you
will go forw^ard in the year to come with a
sense of victory you have never known before.
To you who are not Christians it is surely
a great message that I bear. If the current

352 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

shall sweep on, and the year pass over you,
facing as you have been away from God, it
can only mean sorrow and disaster. "The
wages of sin is death," and if you are faced
that way, some day you must arrive in de-
spair. For you, too, there is only one hope,
there is only one wise thing to do, and that
is, on this last night of the old year, to turn
from your sins, to turn from every evil way,
to turn toward God through Jesus Christ your
Savior. To go on as you are means ruin. To
turn now means salvation. Get a motto from
Paul. He says: "Forgetting those things
which are behind, and reaching forth unto
those things which are before, I press toward
the mark for the prize of the high calling of
God in Christ Jesus."

What is needed for you is some electric
shock of the divine spirit that will electrify
your will and give you power to take hold
here and now of the divine life. Many a
young man fails in business life because he
never takes hold. He thinks about it, he
meditates on a career which is within his
reach, and which he has ability to perform
with honor. But he dreams about it, and

THE WAVES OF TIME 353

waits, neglecting opportunity after oppor-
tunity, until the current of life sweeps it all
away, and his life is wrecked. Just alongside
is another man with, it may be, not as much
ability, but when the thread of destiny sweeps
within his reach, and he sees his chance, he
lays hold upon it w ith both hands, and makes
a success. It is like that with the salvation of
your soul. There is perhaps no one here to
whom I can say any new word about the
Gospel of Jesus Christ, or the plan of salva-
tion in His name. You have been brought
up in a Christian land, and j^ou have been
hearing about Christ all your life. In a sort
of vague way you have been expecting all
these years that the day would come when
you would give yourself to a Christian life.
But the years have passed over you; oppor-
tunity after opportunity has gone by; life
does not grow more simple, but becomes more
complex and more perplexing as age creeps
on. O man, O woman, in God's name let no
more chances go by! But on this last night
of the old year heed my cry, as in the lan-
guage of the Bible I shout it in your ear, "Lay
hold! Lay hold on eternal life."

23

THE SWEETENING OF THE HEART

"Lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you." —
Hebrews 12 : 15.

OUR text comes to us in the midst of the
aftermath following the author's won-
derful roll-call of the heroes of faith. Turning
from those landmarks that stand like moun-
tain summits along the path of history to tell
where the men of faith, the friends of God,
have lived and labored, he exhorts the people
to whom he is writing to thank God and take
courage. He calls on them to be heartened
by the testimony of these splendid lives. And
then he urges them to be watchful against
certain things which poison the spirit and
embitter the soul of man.

We could have no greater theme for study
than this, for it is the inner life which is of
supreme importance. Samuel Johnson used
to say that the fountain of ^content must
spring up in a man's own mind; and he who
has so little knowledge of human nature as to

354

THE SWEETENING OF THE HEART H55

seek happiness by changing anything but his
own disposition will waste his life in fruitless
efforts and multiply the griefs which he pro-
poses to remove. The center and burning
core of our life is the heart, with its hopes
and fears, its ambitions and its purposes, its
struggles heavenward and its slow drifting
toward sin, its infinite possibilities of purity
and happiness and its endless craving after
peace. God judges us by the heart and we,
too, must judge ourselves by our hearts. The
core of our theme is in this, that there are
certain things which embitter the heart, and
if we are to keep the heart sweet and whole-
some, the source of every good and pure word
and deed, we must take them into account.
Let us examine some of the things which are
likely to make the heart bitter.

The writer of our text teaches us that if we
would shun the danger of bitterness, we must
get rid of our besetting sin. Now, a ''besetting
sin" is one that jumps with our inclinations.
It is one which either by inheritance or by

356 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

much practise has come to be constantly on
the watch for us, and such a sin is sure to be
a root of bitterness which will embitter the
heart and turn the whole life sour unless it is
destroyed.

I was reading recently a very remarkable
book by Mr. George R. Sims, with the rather
sensational title of "The Devil in London."
In this book Mr. Sims, with rare literary
ingenuity, uses Satan as a showman, and in
one case the Prince of Darkness takes his
tourist into one of the most magnificent of
London hotels, saying to the man whom he
leads: "This is a drink case. The man in the
next room is an American millionaire. He
has to be guarded night and day. He has
tried to commit suicide twice. The family
have gone to the theater. The nurse has left
him for a minute — she thinks he is asleep.
Hush!" A man about fifty, with wild eyes
and features that told their terrible tale, came
creeping stealthily from the inner room. He
had on a long dressing-gown, and as he walked
he trod on the front of it and stumbled. He
put out his hand and grasped a chair to
steady himself. For a moment he stood trem-

THE SWEETENING OF THE HEART :i57

bling and gasping. Then, glancing nervously
around, he went to the table on which the
remains of the feast were scattered. Mutter-
ing incoherently, he picked up glass after
glass in which a few dregs of wine remained.
Greedily he swallowed these dregs. When the
glasses were emptied, he searched everywhere
for more. Suddenly he saw that a liqueur
glass stood half hidden by a serviette. The
poor wretch seized it, looked at it, and saw
that a few drops of brandy still remained in
it. With a shriek of joy that was hardly
human he lifted the glass and let the few
drops of spirit trickle into his mouth. Then,
with a sigh, he shuffled feebly back into the
bedroom. "That," said the devil, "is one of
the richest men in America. He is a dipso-
maniac. To drink till he loses his reason is
all that he cares for in life, and for his life's
sake the drink he madly craves for has to be
denied him."

The terrible thing about this is that this
case is known to be drawn true to an actual
life incident, telling the story of a man who
had as great an opportunity for usefulness
and happiness of the noblest kind as can be

358 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

given by our modern civilization. And yet
that was the bitterness to which he came.
Let no one imagine that that particular be-
setting sin has a monopoly of making the
hearts of men and women bitter. Ah, no!
Envy, jealousy, the mere pursuit of pleasure
without regard to the higher joys of the
spirit, bring about equally as terrible wreck-
age to multitudes of others. The peril of a
besetting sin, and, indeed, of all sin, is that
it dulls spiritual perception. A silk thread
stretched across the glass of the astronomer's
telescope will entirely obliterate a star in the
heavens, and so it is true that often a sin
which seems as insignificant as a gossamer
thread will hide the Star of Bethlehem from
the sinner's vision, and there can be no real
sweetness of the heart without a vision of
Jesus Christ.

The bitter heart loses its bitterness when it
really catches a believing vision of Christ as
a Friend and a Savior. John Bunyan had
the same besetting sin as that which embit-
tered and tormented this man. He was not
only drunken, but profane, pleasure-loving,
dissolute. But one day he caught a vision

THE SWEETENING OF THE HEART 359

of Jesus as the divine Savior, and he forsook
everything to follow the Master with such
fidelity and love that he not only stirred all
England, but his heart became the sweet
flower-bed of the noblest and most fragrant
dreams to be found in the literature of his
time, and he exhales sweetness to this day,
and shall, till time shall be no more.

John B. Gough had a heart equally as
bitter, and had reached a wreckage as terrible,
when a glimpse of Jesus transformed him, and
he lost his bitter heart and gained in place of
it a heart so sweet and loving that he charmed
multitudes all around the world out of their
sins and dissipations.

II

We must look at Christ from another angle
of vision if we would sweeten the heart in
trial. Our author urges upon his readers the
necessity of *' looking unto Jesus, the author
and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy
that was set before him, endured the cross,
despising the shame, and hath sat down at
the right hand of the throne of God. For
consider him that hath endured such gain-

360 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

saying of sinners against himself, that ye wax
not weary, fainting in your souls." When we
are tempted to bitterness because of trying
experiences, nothing will sweeten the heart
quicker than to take a close look at Jesus
Christ. Have you lost money or do you fight
a constantly losing battle against poverty, so
that you are not able to give the comforts
that your love longs to bestow on your wife
or your children, and your heart is getting
bitter about it? Then take a look at Jesus.
He was King of kings, yet how was He born
into the world? Perhaps some of you in
traveling abroad have been at the great cas-
tle at Pau in the south of France, and have
seen there, in a magnificent chamber, a very
luxurious, wonderful thing that swung from
side to side when touched ever so slightly. It
is like a great tortoise-shell. It was meant to
be a cradle for a prince, that great prince who
was afterward Henry IV. of France. That was
the preparation that was made to rock the
little French prince when he came into the
world. But when Jesus came to our world
for us, tho He was rich, yet He became
poor, and His cradle was a manger in a cattle-

THE SWEETENING OF THE HEART 361

stall. Not only did He become poor in the
sense of belonging to a very poor family, but
all through His life He chose the part of sacri-
fice and suffering that He might bring some-
thing of comfort and help and peace to others.
I can not understand how any poor man can
take a close, steady look at Jesus Christ with-
out losing the bitterness out of his heart and
feeling something of the divine sweetness of
Jesus coming into it.

Have 3^ou been trying to do right and to
stand for righteousness and yet have been
misunderstood and opposed and abused until
bitterness has sprung up in your heart? Is
it not a common temptation, a temptation
that comes to men of noblest purpose and
sublimest courage who are fighting for the
holiest causes.^ One of the most regrettable
things about the history of the fight for the
overthrow of slavery in America, as about the
fight for the overthrow of the liquor traflSc, is
that men of pure purpose and noble courage
and heroic devotion often become bitter in
their hearts, and not only lose their own joy
but lose their power for good in blessing man-
kind. My brother, the cure for that bitter-

362 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

ness is to consider Jesus Christ. Look at the
Savior, see how He was opposed, how He fought
against odds, how He went His way against
sore abuse to the cross, and yet maintained
His sweetness of heart and took His soul back
undefiled and without bitterness to the pres-
ence of the Father in heaven.

There is still a deeper source of bitterness
to many souls which comes from a conscious-
ness that life is passing, age is coming on
apace, and the character which is stiffening
itself into shape as a finality is far inferior to
that which we anticipated in our childhood
and youth. There can be no bitterer heart
than that which has cherished dreams and
visions of coming to old age with a beautiful,
ideal character; with a gentle, tender nature;
with a sweet, sensitive spirit; with a charm-
ing disposition, and has failed, and feels
keenly and bitterly that sense of defeat. I
suppose there are none of us who are really
with deep, serious purpose seeking to live the
good life who have not ever and again found
ourselves suffering more or less keenly such
an anguish. Dear friends, there is one certain
cure for that bitterness. We must come closer

THE SWEETENING OF THE HEART 363

to Jesus Christ — so close that we can hear
the throbbing of His heart; so close that we
look into the depths of His eyes; so close that
we can see the expression of His countenance.
If we will bring ourselves to live in that
association, the heart shall lose its bitterness
in the consciousness that we are becoming
like Him.

It is a fact often remarked, and all of us
have noted such instances, where an old man
and his wife, who have lived and loved
together for perhaps fifty years, come to
appear very much alike; the same expres-
sions play upon their faces; the same tones
are detected in their voices; their habits of
thought and their trains of ideas follow the
same lines; and even their features seem to
have grown into the same mold. Robert
Browning must have had this thought in his
mind when he wrote:

All love assimilates itself to what it loves.

And Tennyson illustrates the same idea in
another way when he says:

"For love reflects the thing beloved."

364 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

Now this applies to our hearts in our relation
to Christ. If we love Him and live with Him
in tender association, the sweetness of His
heart will pervade and master our own. If
I speak to any whose hearts are restless and
uneasy and bitter with the sense of defeat, I
can only call you to the Savior's presence.
There only is the certainty of sweetness and
of rest. The poet sings:

Oh, the little birds sang east, and the little birds sang west;
And I said in under breath, all our life is mixt with death,
And who knoweth which is best?

Oh, the httle birds sang east, and the little birds sang west;
And I smiled to think God's greatness flows around our incom-
pleteness—
Round our restlessness, His rest.

Dryden, the English poet, used to say that
he felt always contented and quiet and rest-
ful when he sat near a statue of Shakespeare.
It was his way of claiming kinship with the
great dramatic poet. And, my friend, we may
enter into kinship with Jesus Christ. If day
by day we so guide our reading, our medita-
tion, our fellowships, and our prayers, we may
have the vision of Jesus Christ that will cause
His peace to radiate upon us and the sweet-
ness of His nature to transform our own.

THE SWEETENING OF THE HEART 366

III

The author of our text gives as another
reason for bitterness — a wrong view of the
purpose of discipline in our lives. He says,
"Ye have forgotten the exhortation which
reasoneth with you as with sons,

My son, regard not lightly the chastening of the Lord,
Nor faint when thou art reproved of him;
For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth,
And scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.

It is for chastening that ye endure; God
dealeth with you as with sons; for what son
is there whom his father chasteneth not?"
And from this he reasons, "All chastening
seemeth for the present to be not joyous but
grievous, yet afterward it yieldeth peaceable
fruit unto them that have been exercised
thereby, even the fruit of righteousness."
Now, the author's argument is that if we
look upon the providential discipline of life
simply as arbitrary hardness, coming as from
some cruel fate, the heart gets bitter. And
how often is that the case. How often when

366 THE SUNDAY'NIGHT EVANGEL

sickness or sorrow or trouble of any kind
comes we are tempted to become hard and
bitter in our spirit. Is it not always because
we look wrongly at the purpose of life?
If we take into consideration that we are
here in our probation as children getting our
education, being trained under the divine love
for an eternal career more splendid and more
glorious than anything w^e can yet conceive,
will it not sweeten our hearts and make it
impossible for this bitterness to grow up
there, marring not only our happiness but our
characters? I came across, in one of my Eng-
lish papers the other day, a little poem getting
its theme out of the changing of that word
"Disappointment" into "His Appointment,"
which seemed to me not only very ingenious,
but to throw illumination on this phase of
our theme. The poet sings:

" Z)isappointment — His appointment " *

Change one letter, then I see
That the thwarting of my purpose

Is God's better choice for me.
His appointment must be blessing,

Tho it may come in disguise;
For the end from the beginning

Open to His wisdom lies.

THE SWEETENING OF THE HEART 367

" Disappointment — His appointment" :

Whose ? The Lord's who loves me best,
Understands and knows me fully,

Who my faith and love would test.
For, like loving earthly parents.

He rejoices when He knows
That His child accepts unquestionea

All that from His wisdom flows.

"Disappointment — His appointment" :

No good thing will He withhold;
For denials oft we gather

Treasures of His love untold.
Well He knows each broken purpose

Leads to fuller, deeper trust,
And the end of all His dealings

Proves our God is wise and just.

" Disappointment — His appointment " :

Lord, I take it then as such,
Like the clay in hands of potter,

Yielding wholly to Thy touch.
All my life's plan is Thy molding,

Not one single choice be mine;
Let me answer unrepining.

Father, "Not my will, but Thine."

' Disappointment — His appointment " :

Change the letter, then, dear friend,
Take in cheerful acquiescence

All thy Father's love may send;
Soon will faith be lost in vision,

Then in glory thou shalt see
'His appointment," and that only,

Was the right way home for thee.

368 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

IV

Another prolific cause of bitterness of heart
is suggested to us by the author of these par-
agraphs in two different illustrations. First,
in the exhortation to "Follow after peace
with all men." Strife is ever born of selfish-
ness. Men strive when each is determined to
have his own way. The other suggestion is
in the reference to Esau, who sold his birth-
right for a mess of pottage to feed himself
when he was hungry from the hunt. He
could do without the blessing of God, he
could do without the higher spiritual things,
but he must have his mess of lentils. At
the root of it all, it was selfishness that lost
him his birthright, and what a bitter heart it
brought him in the end! The apostle tells
us that tho he afterward sought an oppor-
tunity to repent, with tears, yet he failed.
Now, the cure of this sort of bitterness is
revealed to us in this other suggestion which
we have given in connection with the two I
have mentioned, where the writer of our text
urges, "Lift up the hands that hang down,
and the palsied knees." And that is one of the

THE SWEETENING OF THE HEART 369

most efRcient sweeteners of a bitter heart and
one which is always within reach of every one
of us. For no matter how poor or weak we are,
we may in some way help some one else and
in so doing sweeten our own hearts. Honestly
seeking to help another, from pure and gener-
ous motives, lifts us out of selfishness into
the very noblest spirit of human living.

Dr. W. C. Gray, the great Presbyterian
editor, a year or two before he died, made a
visit to Alaska, and while there had his first
vision of snow mountains rising to what
seemed an incredible height from the shore of
the sea. He declared that it awakened in
him something that had been sleeping for
years, for always. He felt that his nature
had been like an unfolded flower, unconscious
of what was hidden in itself. He was im-
prest with the fact that the dazzhng maj-
esty of the splendid snow mountains did not
overawe him. On the contrary, he rose to
their height and to their grandeur, and was
enraptured by communion with them. He
understood what they said, tho he could not
translate it into words, and he came away
with the feeling that we underrate our own

24

370 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

capacities; that we are constituted and con-
structed in a far larger mold than we usually
understand; that we are much greater beings
than we are accustomed to estimate ourselves
and others. And, my friends, it is only when
we rise out of selfishness into the clear air of
generosity and helpfulness that we can come
into that spirit of lofty communion with
Jesus Christ which will give us the perfectly
sweet and wholesome heart.

Some years ago an American lady, possest
of abundant means, and singularly without
family ties, to whom sorrow and failure had
come most bitterly, went to live in Paris.
She determined that she would cure the sor-
row and bitterness of her heart with amuse-
ment and distraction. Her wealth and her
position made it possible for her to drain the
full cup of social excitement. Some years
passed in this way when at last, weary and
heart-sick and despondent, she sat down and
wrote to a classmate, a distinguished American
of large experience and wisdom. She told
him in this letter that while she was the freest
woman in Paris, she was the most wretched;
she was surfeited with pleasure, yet sinking

THE SWEETENING OF THE HEART 371

deeper into despondency every day. She
closed her letter as the writer of Ecclesi-
astes closes his summary of pleasure-seeking:
"What more can I do than I have done?
'VMiat more can I seek that I have not sought?
And lo, all is vanity and vexation of spirit."
This was the wail that came from this woman
whom multitudes would have envied.

Her friend felt that it was a desperate case,
one which worldly remedies could never reach.
An unrest that an affluent fortune could not
assuage would certainly not be stilled with
twice that fortune. Music, and all that world
of entertainment suggested by it, had lost its
power with her, as it did with Saul before
her, and as the wicked king threw the deadly
javelin at the musician who had no longer
skill to charm him, so this miserable woman
loathed the refined and elegant amusements
that had lost their power to interest her.

Her correspondent determined upon a radi-
cal cure. He felt that for her, as, indeed, for
every one, there was only one cure, and that
was to set her feet to following the track of
Him who went about doing good. Getting
had ceased to give her comfort; there was onlv

372 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

one hope left, and that was in giving, and so,
prayerfully and earnestly, he wrote to her that
she had been seeking for happiness in the
wrong quarter, that the Pearl of Great Price
was not to be found among the goldsmiths'
shops of Paris, but among the hovels of the poor.
The sequel to the story is very beautiful,
for this wise friend tells us that the wretched
woman took his advice, and put forth the
hand of kindness and loving helpfulness, and
all her unrest and the deadly fever that was
consuming her was healed. She gave herself,
and freely from her abundant means, to the
ministries of mercy for which in every great
city there is such constant need; and ere long
she wrote to her friend from an overflowing
heart that a new sweetness and sunshine
filled all her world. It was the sunshine
reflected from the faces of the poor children
whom she had helped and blest by her min-
istrations. Like the good man of old, she
found that the eye that saw her blest her,
and the ear that heard her offered a prayer
for her happiness, and no music that she had
ever listened to in concert or opera had given
her a joy like that.

THE SWEETENING OF THE HEART 373

My friends, this is the open secret of hap-
piness; it is the highway to a sweet and
peaceful heart. It means happiness and peace
now and forever. Jesus Himself has made
known to us that it is the kind of gladness
that will be at a premium in the great day
of accounts. "Then shall the king say unto
them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of
my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for
you from the foundation of the world: for I
was hungry, and ye gave me to eat; I was
thirsty, and ye gave me drink; I was a
stranger, and ye took me in; naked, and ye
clothed me; I was sick, and ye visited me; I
was in prison, and ye came unto me. Then
shall the righteous answer him, saying. Lord,
when saw we thee hungry, and fed thee? Or
athirst and gave thee drink.? And when saw
we thee a stranger, and took thee in? Or
naked, and clothed thee? And when saw we
thee sick or in prison and came unto thee?
And the king shall answer and say unto them.
Verily, I say unto you. Inasmuch as ye did
it unto one of these my brethren, even these
least, ye did it unto me."

GOD'S REWARD FOR L0\^

"Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver
him: I will set him on high because he hath known my name.
He shall call upon me, and I will answer him ; I will be with him
in trouble: I will deliver him and honor him. With long hfe will
I satisfy him and show him my salvation." — Psalm 91 : 14-16.

WE MAY see in this text what God
thinks of love. We are told what the
divine heart is willing to do in response to
those who have set their love upon God. We
carry the credentials in us that we were made
in the image and likeness of God, for in spite
of all our sins and all the havoc that sin has
made with us, in the elemental things we
know how to understand God. We do not
wonder that God cares more for love than
anything else, for it is more than anything
else to any wholesome man or woman among
us. The touch of love is what gives beauty
and attraction in our eyes. The features may
not seem beautiful to others but love makes
them beautiful to us. I was dining with some
friends on a cattle ranch a while ago, and the

374

GOD'S REWARD FOR LOVE 375

host, the father of the family, was being
teased a Httle about his appearance. While a
noble fellow, of lovable personaHty, he was by
no means a handsome man. During the con-
versation his Httle son, only a baby in dresses,
managed to empty his mouth of food suf-
ficiently to say, in the sweetest simplicity,
"My papa looks pretty to me." Some poet
sings the same thought:

Time may set his fingers there,

Fix the smiles that curve about
Her winsome mouth and touch her hair.

Put the curves of youth to rout; ,
But the "something" God put there,

That which drew me to her first;
Not the imps of pain and care,

Not all sorrow's fiends accurst,
Can kill the look that God put there.

Something beautiful and rare,

Nothing common can destroy;
Not all the leaden load of care,

Not all the dross of earth's alloy;
Better than all fame or gold,

True as only God's own truth.
It is something all hearts hold

Who have loved once in their youth

That sweet look her face doth hold

Thus will ever be to me;
Joy may all her pinions fold.

Care may come, and misery;

376 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

Through the days of murk and shine,

Tho the roads be foul or fair,
I will see through love's glad eyne

That sweet look that God put there.

Since we feel like that, it is not hard for us
to understand how God feels about those who
fall in love with Him and pour upon Him
their hearts' affections. There are some won-
derful promises here, telling what God will do
for those who give Him their love.

There is the promise of deliverance. And
when God makes a promise of deliverance
it always includes the deliverance from sin, a
deliverance from the dangerous and deadly
powers of evil. And, indeed, it is only through
our love that God is able to give us this de-
liverance. I read recently of an interesting
experiment that was performed to prove that
light loses its actinic power at low tempera-
ture. A celebrated scientist took a number
of photographic plates, equall^^ sensitized, and
some of them he painted with liquid air; and
air, you know, will liquefy only at a very low
temperature. He imparted this low tempera-

GOD'S REWARD FOR LOVE Zll

ture to the sensitized plates, and they were
exposed, equally with others which had not
been so treated, to the rays of the sun. It
was found that in low temperatures those
plates had not actinic power of response to
the rays of the sun. And so an unloving, cold
heart which has no warm flow of love for its
Lord is incapable of receiving the impressions
and ministries and teachings of His Spirit.
The unloving heart is a narrowed heart, the
unloving life is a restricted life; but the loving
life is the largest hfe into which God can bring
us. And God can only give us this large,
splendid hfe, dehvered from sin and evil,
in response to our love. But, thank God,
through love He can give us freedom from
sin.

A young English army officer came to a
distinguished minister not long ago, and told
him the story of his falhng into sin and into
a dissipated, evil life. He also told the minister
how he now loathed that life. He told how
there had come into his life the love of a good
woman, and as fire burns out dross, so a pure
human love had begun to purify that man's
life, and he said to the minister: "Sir, I want

378 THE aUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

to know something now about the love which
I have heard you proclaim, for if this other is
but a reflection of it, that is a love which can
make me a clean man."

Nothing liberates man from selfishness so
much as a pure and worthy love.

Self is the only prison that ever can bind a soul,

Love is the only angel that can the gates unroll,

And when he comes to call thee, arise and follow fast,

His way may lie through darkness, but it leads to light at last.

One of our modern novelists has a story
of a man who was a drunkard. He loved a
noble woman, and he married, and under the
strength of love he broke the power of his
snare and kept from the drink for twenty
years, and then, when his wife died, and all
the world crumbled under his feet, he went
back again to the pit from which he was dug,
and, says the writer, commenting upon the
story, "Human nature can be checked, human
nature can be developed, but it can not be
changed."

Ah, that is just where our novelist is at
fault. It is the supreme glory of our Chris-
tianity that when a man sets his heart in
love on God through faith in Jesus Christ

GOD'S REWARD FOR LOVE 379

his heart becomes so sensitized that the divine
love is able to set in his affections and ambi-
tions such pure and noble pictures that a
poor river-thief like Jerry McAuley or a jail-
bird like Hadley may become saints with
hearts and lives full of all beautiful and charm-
ing spiritual graces. If you should ask me how
God does this, you could soon confuse me
with your questions. But the fact is beyond
question.

In my young manhood I used to live up
in the great inland empire of Washington and
Oregon, and I have seen the night shut in
with the thermometer below zero, with a foot
of snow on the ground, frozen so solid one
might walk on top of it. And as you looked
out into the moonlight before you went to
bed, as far as the eye could reach there was
the hard glittering of the frozen plain. But
in the midst of the night I have been awakened
with a sense of suffocation, and thrown open
the windows and the doors to get air and relief.
What had happened.^ A wind which they call
"the Chinook" had begun to blow. It is the
soft Pacific wind. In a few hours the grip of
the frost was unloosed, the ice had melted,

.^0 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

and little rills of joy were singing on every
hillside. The power of winter was broken and
the birds caught at the prophecy of spring-
time and sang their sweetest songs. Now,
Jesus Christ says the deliverance of a soul is
like that. A man has been held in the grip of
evil and sin, but under some gracious influence
the heart is softened, the conscience is awa-
kened, his sense of good is quickened, the whole
man is moved heavenward. It is the wind of
God. In Christ's words, "The wind bloweth
where it hsteth, and thou hearest the voice
thereof, but knowest not whence it cometh,
and whither it goeth; so is every one that is
born of the Spirit."

n

There is the promise of safety and pro-
tection. God promises to the man that loves
Him, "I will set him on high because he hath
known my name." All the old walled towns
and castles and fortresses were built on high
points so that they might be easily protected
from enemies who would creep up against
them. If you have traveled abroad, you
have noticed this in Scotland and in Germany,

GOD'S REWARD FOR LOVE «81

wherever you have visited the famous old
castles. They were built on high. So God
says He will put the man on high and he shall
have protection who remembers His name.
How we are like God in delighting to have
people know our names. Since I came here
among you, I have been at my wits' end to
gather into my memory and hold fast all the
names you have given me, and I notice that
when I do not remember the name, while you
are inclined to be very polite and charitable
about it, there is always a little sense of disap-
pointment, and when I do remember the name,
it gives an added pleasure. So God says that
He appreciates it that we know His name, and
give Him our love, and in response to it He
will set us on high. There is no wall so high
or strong as the purity and the innocence
that comes from such a relation to God.

A Christian lawyer once told the Rev. F.
B. Meyer of a very memorable incident in his
own experience. He was employed as a clerk
by an influential firm of lawyers who had a
considerable number of clerks. Their con-
versation, when they were together, was very
coarse and immoral. One morning a young

382 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANOEL

boy was introduced to the oflSce whose pure
face and clear eye bore witness to the sort of
home from which he had come and the dispo-
sition which characterized him. After a while
the conversation among the clerks resumed its
usual channel, pouring along its foul and slimy
course. The boy's face flushed and his eyes
brimmed with tears. "What's the matter,
youngster.'^ " sneered one of the older men. " Do
you want your mother? " This attracted the
attention of the head clerk, who kindly in-
quired if he was feeling ill. "No," said the
boy, "I am all right; but I wish they wouldn't
talk Hke that." The words seemed to awaken
a long-silent chord in the heart of the chief;
and, turning to the rest, he said, " Gentlemen,
the boy is right, and I must request you from
this time on to refrain from any conversation
which is likely to soil the pure mind of an
innocent boy." The lawyer who related this
incident to Mr. Meyer told him that that scene
wrought a permanent reformation in the daily
atmosphere of that office. God set that boy on
high and protected him.

OOD'S REWARD FOR LOVE 883

III

We have also in this passage the promise of
conversation with God. God says of the man
who loves Him, "He shall call upon me, and
I will answer him/' These psalms of David
are largely prayers, sometimes offered in joy
and thanksgiving, and often springing up in
appeal out of the depths of trial and sorrow.
On one occasion David says, " Out of the depths
have I cried unto thee." Some one says the
Bible is the sorrowful man's book. It shows
that the greatest souls who ever lived have
been in the depths; when we are there we are
in great company. If we are wise, we will
talk out our trials and our sorrows with God
face to face. If you think God is not treating
you fairly, say so, but say it in the quiet of
your own room, to God, face to face, and do
not say it in the street or in the newspaper.
I like the way David prayed, and the way the
old saints prayed, when they said just what
was in their hearts to God and He answered
them. Never cherish a grievance in your
heart against God; never go about grouchy
against the Lord. He is not afar off; He is

384 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

near by, nearer than your nearest neighbor,
and if you really love Him, you may call upon
Him and talk to Him as simply as a child talks
to its mother, and He will answer you in ten-
derest tones of love.

The reason so many of us go weak and
trembling and without moral courage is
that we are not keeping our tryst with
God. It is the temptation of men as they get
wise or rich or strong to cease the childlike
simplicity of their prayers and try to be self-
sufficient. Nothing shows our weakness and
lack of wisdom more than that. The only
perfect Life that ever lived in our human
body, whose heart was pure, and who never
cherished one single evil thought, whose deeds
were holy, and whom no man of His day or in
all the ages since has ever convicted of sin —
this Man, the spotless Christ, felt the deep need
of the help of the Heavenly Father, and sought
the mountainside to pray. The Son of man
knelt in humblest conversation with God.
What folly for us to think we can live noble
lives without any help from God! He who
was strong enough to bear our sins and sor-
rows felt far greater need of help than we,

QOD'S REWARD FOR LOVE 885

who sorrow and who sin. I fear none of us
appreciate at its full value the precious privi-
lege of prayer. There is the secret of the per-
fectly charming life. There is the secret of
inexhaustible courage. There is the secret of
the strength that will never give way. God
will converse with the man who loves Him and
in that conversation is everlasting joy and
strength.

IV

God promises companionship to the man
who loves Him. Not only companionship
when he is happy and glad, when he is young
and prosperous, but He says, "I will be with
him in trouble." How beautifully Jesus re-
news that promise of God when He says:
"I will not leave you comfortless; I will come
to you. Lo! I am with you alway, even unto
the end of the world." Henry van Dyke very
beautifully says, commenting on this passage,
that as long as God lives and our souls live, so
long this pledge stands. It is true we can not
always feel this presence. But we can always
know that it is there, always think of it, so
long as thought endures, always rest upon it

25

386 THE SUNDAY-NIOHT EVANGEL

forever and forever; and the reason why this
promise is giveii is that we may hold fast to
this truth. There may be a moment in the
very depth of sorrow and anguish when the
Presence is hidden from us. But it is not
because God is absent. It is because we are
stunned, unconscious. It is Hke passing
through a surgical operation. The time comes
for the ordeal. The anesthetic is ready.
You are about to become unconscious. You
stretch out your hand to your friend. *' Don't
leave me, don't forsake me," you say. The
last thing that you feel is the clasp of that
hand, the last thing you see is the face of
that friend. Then a moment of darkness, a
blank — and the first thing you feel is the hand,
the first thing you see is the face of love again.
So the angel of God's face stands by us, bends
above us, and we may know that He will be
there even when all else fails. Our friends die,
our possessions take wings and fly away, our
honors fade, our strength fails, but beside
every moldering ruin, and every open grave,
in the fading light of every sunset, in the
gathering gloom of every twilight, amid the
mists that shroud the great ocean beyond the

GOD'S REWARD FOR LOVE 387

verge of mortal life, there is one sweet mighty
voice that says, "I will never leave thee, nor
forsake thee. In all thy affliction I will be with
thee, and the angel of my face shall save thee."

We have a promise of honor to those who
love God. " I will deliver him and honor him,"
is the word of God. As this promise is coupled
with "deliverance," about which we were
speaking a moment ago, I take it that the
honor referred to is an honor that comes
from goodness and nobility of character, the
honor which a man has whose influence is
unconsciously shedding blessing as fragrance
exhales from flowers. There is a legend that
there once lived a saint so good that the angels
came down from heaven to see how a man
could be so holy. He simply went about his
daily life, diffusing virtue as the star diffuses
light and the flower perfume, without being
aware of it. The angels said to God, "O
Lord, grant the gift of miracles." God replied,
" I consent : ask him what he wishes." So they
said to the saint, "Should you like the touch
of your hand to heal the sick?" "No," he

388 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

answered, **I would rather God should do
that." "Should you Hke to convert guilty
souls and bring back wandering hearts to the
right path?" "No; that is the mission of
angels." "Should you like to become a model
of patience, attracting men by the luster of
your virtues and thus glorifying God.^ " " No,"
repHed the saint, "if men should be so at-
tached' to me, they would become estranged
from God. The Lord has other means of
glorifying Himself." "What do you desire,
then.^" cried the angels. "What can I wish
for.'^" asked the saint, smiling. "That God
gives me His grace ; with that shall I not have
everything.^" But the angels insisted, "You
must ask for a miracle or one will be forced
upon you." "Very well," said the saint.
"That I may do a great deal of good without
ever knowing it."

The angels were greatly perplexed. They
took counsel together, and resolved upon
this plan. Every time the saint's shadow
should fall behind him or at either side, so
that he could not see it, it should have the
power to cure disease, soothe pain, and com-
fort sorrow.

GOD'S REWARD FOR LOVE 389

And so, according to the legend, it came to
pass. When the saint walked along, his
shadow thrown on the ground on either side
or behind him made arid paths green, caused
withered plants to bloom, gave clear water to
dried-up brooks, fresh color to pale little chil-
dren, and joy to unhappy mothers. And
whatever other honor God gives to those who
love Him, He will give this, the greatest of all
honors, that our daily lives may unconsciously
make the world better and happier.

VI

And finally, we have the promise of a length-
ened and blest life. "Wi^^h long life will I
satisfy him, and show him my salvation."
My dear old friend. Dr. Cuyler, writing on
this promise in his old age shortly before going
away, says that it goes deeper than chronol-
ogy. It describes a life that is long enough
to fulfil life's highest purpose. If you and I
live long enough to do what God made us for,
and Christ redeemed us for, ought not that to
satisfy us.'^ Life is measured by deeds, and
not by hour-marks on a dial. In the warm
morning sun of grace many a young soul

390 THE SUNDAY-NIOHT EVANGEL

grows fully ripe for a harvest of glory. This
last promise, "and show him my salvation,"
coupled as it is with the promise to satisfy
us in regard to our lives, would indicate the
promise of happiness and satisfaction which
only the consciousness of triumph in the great
purpose of human living could give. It is
something we can not win alone, but which we
can have through the divine help. Some one
sings:

I can not do it alone,
Waves run fast and high,
And fogs close chill around.
And the light goes out of the sky;
But I know that we two
Shall win in the end —
Jesus and I.

Coward, and wayward, and weak,
I change with the changing sky;
To-day, so eager and brave.
To-morrow not caring to try;
But He never gives in.
So we two shall win —
Jesus and I.

At harvest time in England a good many
Irish laborers go over to help. There was one
man who was accustomed to go to the same
place year after year, a sullen, moody man.

GOD'S REWARD FOR LOVE 391

But one year he came over completely
changed — bright, joyful, ready to help, en-
couraging every one. And they twitted him
as to the cause, and made humorous sugges-
tions as to the change that had come over
him. At last he turned to them all and said:
"You are quite right about the change, but
you are wrong about the cause. The truth is,
I have found the greatest Friend in the world,
Jesus, and my heart is just full of joy." And
to the heart that loves Him, God will give that
satisfaction which can only come from a con-
sciousness of victory.

Dr. Jowett was once on a railway journey
from Edinburgh, Scotland, to his home.
There was in the compartment with him a
young fellow, who had fought his way up
from poverty, overcoming all obstacles, and
had just succeeded in taking his degree in the
university. The burden of anxiety was lifted,
and Dr. Jowett says that behind his paper he
could hear the young fellow chuckling with
laughter. He did not need to ask him why.
He knew. The fear and uncertainty had gone
out of his life. It just bubbled up in laughter,
as a child laughs. The beautiful thing about

392 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

the laughter of a child is that it bubbles up
like a spring. That young fellow had the
buoyant laughter of a child. He laughed
because he must. Henry Drummond, one
morning in Switzerland, went out on the high
Alps alone and in the august heights of those
uplifted splendors "just laughed." Could
there be anything more beautiful than that?
A man in intimate touch with his Maker, and
when he is amid the splendors of his Lord,
his soul just leaps in laughter, the merry-
hearted, buoyant, optimistic laughter of a
child of God.

I

THE PORTER AT THE GATE OF
SOULS

"To him the porter openeth." — John 10 : 3.

THE PORTER who opens the door to
Jesus Christ is the Holy Spirit. He has
ever opened the way to Jesus. It was He who
opened the gates of prophecy to the coming
Savior. "Holy men of God spake as they
were moved by the Holy Ghost." The Old
Testament is throbbing with expectation and
hope and promise of the coming of Jesus.
Long centuries before the appearance of Christ
the Holy Spirit opened the eyes of Isaiah so
that he looked down through the dust of the
years and beheld the Christ coming as a poor
man and humble, and he cried out: *'He shall
grow up before him as a tender plant and as
a root out of a dry ground: He hath no form
nor comeUness; and when we shall see him,
there is no beauty that we should desire him.
He is despised and rejected of men; a man of
sorrows, and acquainted with grief: And we

3d3

394 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

hid as it were our faces from him. He was
despised and we esteemed him not. Surely
he hath borne our griefs and carried our sor-
rows : yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten
of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded
for our transgressions ; he was bruised for our
iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was
upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.
All we, like sheep, have gone astray; we have
turned every one to his own way; and the
Lord hath laid upon him the iniquity of us
all."

But the Holy Spirit not only showed to the
prophets the humiliation of Jesus, and the
sacrificial side of His life and death. He re-
vealed to them also the blessing which was to
come to men through the sacrifice of Jesus.
For again the Holy Spirit holds the vision of
the coming day before the eyes of Isaiah, and
he exclaims, "Then the eyes of the bhnd shall
be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be
unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap
as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing:
For in the wilderness shall waters break out,
and streams in the desert. . . . And an high-
way shall be there, and a way, and it shall be

THE PORTER AT THE GATE OF SOULS 395

called The way of holiness; the unclean shall
not pass over it; but it shall be for those:
the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not
err therein. No lion shall be there, nor any
ravenous beast shall go up thereon, it shall
not be found there; but the redeemed shall
walk there: And the ransomed of the Lord
shall return and come to Zion with songs and
everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall
obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sigh-
ing shall flee away."

For thousands of years the Holy Spirit
lighted up the way, from age to age pointing
on to the coming of the Christ. He was the
porter that opened the gates of prophecy to
the Savior of the world.

The Holy Spirit opened the portals of this
earthly life to the Lord Jesus. When the
angel appeared unto Mary, prophesying the
birth of Christ, he said: "The Holy Ghost
shall come upon thee, and the power of the
Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also
that holy thing which shall be born of
thee shall be called the Son of God." And
after the birth of Jesus, when the infant
Christ was brought into the temple, Simeon,

396 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

a man upon whom was the Holy Ghost, and to
whom it had been revealed by the Holy Spirit
that he should not see death before he had
seen the Lord's Christ, came, led by the Spirit,
into the temple: and when Joseph and Mary
brought in the child Jesus, the venerable man
took the babe up in his arms and blest God
and said, "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant
depart in peace, according to thy word: for
mine eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou
hast prepared before the face of all people; a
light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of
thy people Israel."

The Holy Spirit was the porter to open the
gate to the public ministry of Jesus. When
Christ came to the Jordan to be baptized of
John, it is recorded that "the Holy Ghost
descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon
him, and a voice came from heaven, which
said. Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am
well pleased." And afterward the story of
the temptation of Jesus begins with the signifi-
cant words, "Jesus, being full of the Holy
Ghost, returned from Jordan, and was led by
the Spirit into the wilderness." And after
the forty days of temptation had passed, the

THE PORTER AT THE GATE OF SOULS 397

same careful biographer says, "And Jesus
returned in the power of the Spirit into
GaHlee." And immediately afterward on
the occasion of His first sermon at Nazareth,
this was the text He chose: "The Spirit of the
Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed
me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath
sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach
deliverance to the captives, and recovering of
sight to the blind, to set at Hberty them that
are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of
the Lord."

The Holy Spirit was the porter to open the
g^tes of death to Jesus. It is true that Christ
gave His life for the sheep as a good shepherd,
but He did not go alone into the valley of
shadows, for the author of the book of
Hebrews says, speaking of the precious ato-
ning blood of Jesus Christ in comparison with
the ancient sacrifices, "How much more shall
the JDlood of Christ, who through the eternal
Spirit offered himself without spot to God,
purge your conscience from dead works to
serve the living God.?"

The Holy Spirit was the porter to open the
gates of the resurrection. It is true that

398 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

Jesus rose from the dead by His own power.
As He Himself says, He had power to lay
down His life and power to take it up again.
But the Holy Spirit was the porter to open
the gate, for does not Paul say in the opening
of his epistle to the Romans, in giving his own
credentials, *' Jesus Christ our Lord, which
was made of the seed of David according to
the flesh; and declared to be the Son of God
with power, according to the Spirit of holiness,
by the resurrection from the dead"? And
again Paul speaks in Ephesians about
"The exceeding greatness of his power to
usward who believe, according to the working
of his mighty power, which he wrought in
Christ when he raised him from the dead.'*
The Holy Spirit is the porter who opens the
gate of the human heart to Christ. Go back
to those days after the ascension of Jesus. The
disciples, timid and afraid, gathered together
daily to pray for that divine comfort and
power that Jesus had promised should come
upon them, and on the day of Pentecost, when
they were assembled together with one accord
in one place, suddenly there came the wind of
heaven, and filled all the house where they

THE PORTER AT THE GATE OF SOULS 399

were, and it seemed as tho cloven tongues
of fire sat upon each of them, and they were
filled with the presence and power of the Holy
Spirit, and were given new courage and utter-
ance such as they had never known before.
And in this new power they went forth unto
the multitude, and while Peter preached to
the great throng, preached with an eloquence
and a persuasive speech such as he had never
dreamed of being able to use, the others,
Mary, the mother of Jesus, Mary Magdalene,
the woman who owed the Master so much in
forgiveness, and Martha, and Lazarus, whom
He had raised from the dead, and James, the
Lord's brother, and Matthew, the converted
business man, and Bartimaeus, who had been
restored from blindness, and one who had a
story of cleansing from leprosy to tell, and
John, who had laid his head on the very bosom
of the Savior — these and a hundred others,
every one of whom had a separate story of
tenderness and compassion and divine love at
the hands of Jesus, quickened by the presence
of the Holy Ghost talked every one to his
neighbor, and in that way the Holy Spirit,
working through these one hundred and twenty

400 THE SUNDA7-NI0HT EVANGEL

earnest men and women, opened the gate of
three thousand souls to Jesus Christ in a single
day.

And the Porter is still opening the hearts
of men to Jesus Christ. It is the Holy Spirit
in the hearts of individual men and women in
the churches who is the porter at the gate of
souls. If we preach Jesus Christ without the
Holy Spirit, we will find ourselves without
power. The sinful heart is depraved and
wicked and locked against Jesus. If we would
open the door to the Savior, we must have the
aid of the Divine Porter. I fear that here is
our greatest weakness in the church. We get
the impression that the church will succeed
because it has money, or because it has learn-
ing, or because it has numbers, or because it
has well organized ecclesiastical machinery,
but, my dear friends, nothing can give real suc-
cess to the Christian church but the presence of
the Holy Spirit in the hearts of its member-
ship. One of the greatest of our English
Methodist preachers said truly not long ago
that all machinery is unavaihng unless it ex-
presses the light, and grace, and power of the
Spirit of truth and hoHness. This wonderfully

THE PORTER AT THE OATE OF SOULS 401

compact organization of the church was the
crystallization of great and holy emotion and
fervent service of Christ. The Spirit of the
living God was in it. But if it is to continue
to do great things for humanity, the divine
Spirit must abide in it. It is true that it may
go on for a time seeming to do good work
after the Spirit has departed from it, but
terrible must be the disaster if it thus con-
tinues.

I remember a few years ago, over in one
of the Eastern States, a railroad engineer
died on his engine. It was one of the engines
where the fireman is separated from the
engineer, and so for a long time nobody knew
the engineer was dead. It was an express
train, and it thundered along at forty miles an
hour in the hands of a corpse, with a dead
engineer lying in the cab. It was not until
the train had gone past two or three signals
to stop that the wondering and frightened
fireman climbed over the engine into the cab
where the dead man lay, and stopt the train
on the very edge of the threatened disaster
that would probably have cost scores of lives.
And yet for nearly a hundred miles the

26

402 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

machinery of that train and great railroad had
been going its own way, and carrying its
precious freight, with a dead man at the
throttle.

I can imagine such a fate happening to a
church. It has the organization, it has a
certain momentum that has come down from
holy fathers and mothers, and it would go on
for a while even if there were a dead man as
a preacher in the pulpit, and dead men for
stewards and trustees and Sunday-school
teachers, and only mummies in the pews;
but in the end it would mean disaster and
terrible ruin. The blest traditions of our
Christianity and of our church life are fragrant
with the mighty presence of the Spirit of the
living God. And we must ever keep before
our eyes and in our hearts the memory of that
presence and power and daily assure ourselves
by precious experience that the same Spirit
abides with us. All our organization is but a
mockery unless the mighty dynamic of the
Spirit of God is in us, and with us, opening
the hearts of men to the Savior.

The Holy Spirit is the porter who opens to
the human soul the highest and noblest life in

THE PORTER AT THE GATE OF SOULS 403

opening the door to Christ, for Christianity
is not a preparation for death only, but a
preparation for Hfe. The poet truly says:

Life is wasted if we spend it

Idly dreaming how to die;
Study how to use, not end, it;

Work to finish, not to fly.

Godly living — best preparing

For a life with God above;
Work! and banish anxious caring!

Death ne'er comes to active love.

Death is but an opening portal

Out of hfe to life on high;
Man is vital, more than mortal,

Meant to Uve, not doomed to die.

Praise for present mercies giving,
With good works your age endow;

Death defy by ChristUke hving.
Heaven attain by service now.

Now the supreme enthusiasms of life, the
red blood of the highest and noblest living,
that drives the soul onward to grander and
still grander achievements, can come only to
the man or the woman to whom the Holy
Spirit has been porter to the divine Christ.
A man may know Christ in a scholarly way
and yet find nothing to stir his blood and

404 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

revitalize his life with a never-dying impulse;
but no man ever comes to know Christ through
the revelation of the Holy Spirit in his inmost
soul but there is a new birth of power from
heaven within him. No man truly and really
Hves without this. President Jordan of Stan-
ford University has published a book under
the title of "Life's Enthusiasms." The
author tells us that his motto was taken from
an old author's counsel to his son who was
about to leave home. "Take with you, my
son," said the father, "a goodly stock of
enthusiasms, for you will lose many of them
long before the life-journey is over." And so
the purpose of the book is to show that the
ideals of youth are like candles, most of which
burn out early, so that when the night falls
the traveler may have to grope his way.
Therefore, a surplus supply of candles must
be borne forward. And we know that this is
true for worldly men. The candle of fame
burns low, and when the wreath is won it is
flung away as worthless. The candle of power,
and the candle of wealth, and the candle of
wisdom burn down into the socket. Even for
Solomon, who had received such rich endow-

THE PORTER AT THE GATE OF SOULS 405

ment from God, the enthusiasms all died out
and the full stock of zest was exhausted. But
for the man to whom the Holy Spirit stands
as porter at the gate of the heart to open the
door to Christ, life becomes happier, work
sweeter, tasks lighter, hopes brighter, as old
age approaches. To the spiritually minded
man the enthusiasm of life increases. Paul
never knew what discouragement meant.
John painted the glowing canvas of the book
of Revelation when nearly a hundred years
old. John Wesley past fourscore years was
the most charming of preachers, the most
delightful of companions, and most fruitful
of revivahsts. Thank God, the world is full
of men and women who live victorious over
all life's troubles, who travel forward radiating
good cheer and hope to the very end of life,
revealing so much of the Spirit of Christ that
all who know them glorify God.

I must not close without a few words con-
cerning the presence of the Holy Spirit, who
is here and now trying to open the door of
some hearts that Jesus may come in. In the
book of Revelation John represents Jesus as
saying, "Behold, I stand at the door, and

406 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

knock: if any man hear my voice, and open
the door, I will come in to him, and will sup
with him, and he with me." By the voice we
understand the secret influences of the Holy
Spirit in our hearts. The voice explains the
knock, and tells us who it is that stands at the
door waiting for full possession of the heart.
Oh, the tenderness and compassion that is
exprest in the figure! Your benefactor, the
Savior who died on the cross in your behalf,
is standing at the door of your heart like a
beggar, asking of you, when you ought to be
asking of Him.

If in the service we have had this morning
the Spirit of God has spoken to your heart,
and you have been conscious of your sin and
your great need of Christ and forgiveness,
then that means that Christ is waiting there,
and that you may be now saved if you will
yield to the divine influence. I have read
somewhere that during the war between
Russia and Japan the mothers and daughters
of Japan conceived the idea of making little
white caps with the sign of the cross in red on
each cap. These they sent to the battle-field,
and after the terrible times of carnage, as the

THE PORTER AT THE GATE OF SOULS 407

nurses passed through the ranks, they saw
those who were wounded and dying and dead;
but on the wounded, if there was any chance
of Hfe, they put the white cap; and by and by,
when the surgeons came along, there was no
need to ask, "Where is the chance of Hfe?"
The Httle white cap, with the sign of the cross
in red, said, "Here is one. Come to my help
before it is too late." I may not be able to
see the white cap to-day, with its red cross
over your heart, telling that tho you are
wounded cruelly by sin, there is still hope for
your salvation, but the Holy Spirit has re-
vealed it to you, and is now revealing it to
you, and I can only beg of you that you yield
the door of your heart to the Savior whom
the Spirit brings, and let Him come in who
has not only the power to forgive your sins,
but to renew a right spirit within you, and
lead you, through holy living, up to the very
throne of God.

THE GENTLENESS OF GOD

"With loving-kindness have I drawn thee." — Jeremiah 31 : 3
(Am. Rev.).

IN LOOKING over a large group of college
buildings one cold winter day, I noticed
that tho they were all nicely warmed, there
seemed to be no furnace or heating-plant in
any of the buildings. When I spoke about
the matter, I was shown at quite a distance
away a central heating-plant which furnished
heat for all. So if we glance at the sentence
immediately preceding our text, we behold
the heating-plant for the world's heart-warm-
ing. The gentleness and loving-kindness
which ministers to man in every age and in
every land has its source there. ** I have loved
thee with an everlasting love, '* is the declara-
tion of our Heavenly Father. Mr. Spurgeon
says that the Christian needs to take up into
himself, as Gideon's fleece absorbed the dew,
this great and glorious statement. It is an
actual fact. The Lord is loving you. Put
those two pronouns together, "I" and "thee."

408

THE GENTLENESS OF OOD 40e

"I," the Infinite, the inconceivably glorious;
"thee," a poor, lost, undeserving sinner. See
the link between the two! See the diamond
rivet which joins them together for eternity:
"I have loved thee." See the antiquity of
this love: "I have loved thee with an everlast-
ing love." I loved thee when I died for thee
upon the Cross, yes, I loved thee long before,
and therefore did I die. I loved thee when I
made the heavens and the earth, with a view
to thine abode therein; yes, I loved thee before
I made sea or shore. There is a beginning to
the world, but there is no beginning for the
love of God to His children. Nor does that
exhaust the meaning of "everlasting love."
There has never been a moment when the
Lord has not loved His children. There has
been no pause, nor ebb, nor break in the love
of God to His own. That love knows no vari-
ableness, neither shadow of turning. "I have
loved thee with an everlasting love." You
may take a leap into the future, and that love
will still be with you. " Everlasting " evidently
lasts forever. We shall come to die, and this
shall be a downy pillow for our death-bed,
"I have loved thee with an everlasting love."

410 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

When we wake up in the great future world to
which we are hastening, we shall find infinite
happiness in "everlasting love." When the
judgment day shall come, and the sight of the
great white throne makes all hearts to tremble,
and the trumpet sounds loud and long, and
our bodies wake up from the silent grave, we
shall rejoice in this divine assurance, "I have
loved thee with an everlasting love." Sun,
moon, and stars may be blotted out, and the
heavens rolled together as a scroll, and the
clock of time cease to mark the hours because
time shall be lost in eternity, but our heaven
shall always be in this, "I have loved thee
with an everlasting love."

This is what gives an atmosphere of hope
to the universe. It is this that makes us face
the future with courage. My friend. Dr.
Frederick Shannon, of Brooklyn, New York,
tells how he called up a justly proud and happy
grandfather one morning, and said, referring
to a call he had made the day before: "It
was worth a trip across the city to see that
beautiful boy." Smiling so broadly that
Shannon could almost see the smile through
the telephone receiver, the grandfather said:

THE GENTLENESS OF GOD 411

"We think he is a fine boy. He left me last
night in the storm, but I have his picture here
on the desk before my eyes.'* What would you
think of a little child, scarcely old enough to
toddle from chair to chair, setting out in the
night and the storm, from his grandparents'
home in New York toward the far-off woods of
Maine? Would you not think that that fond
grandfather, even tho the child's picture
lies upon his desk, would be greatly worried
about the little fellow's journey.^ And yet he
told his friend without a quaver in his voice,
that the child left him in the night and the
storm. Shall I tell you why there was no
trembling anxiety in that grandfather's voice
as he spoke .^ This is why: He saw the little
boy wrapt up snug and warm, folded close
to his mother's bosom, and thus he set out
upon his journey. My friends, we are all the
children of God, and if we will but yield our-
selves to the Divine care, we are in this world
and in all worlds to which God shall take us,
surrounded and sustained and preserved by
the brooding care of a God who pities His
children like a father, and seeks to comfort
them like a mother.

412 TUB SUNDAY'NIOHT EVANGEL

Our text suggests to us that God never
forces a man's will. He does not compel, but
with loving-kindness He draws us. There is
nothing more interesting or important than
the individuality of every man and woman,
every child in the world. Dr. Henry Scott
Holland, the eloquent Canon of St. Paul's,
in London, declares that the intensity of
human individuality is forever surprizing and
shocking our anticipation. It overleaps all
our categories; it refuses to conform to our
conventions. We struggle in vain to bring all
the people we know under some standard of
our own. All the while the unexpected out-
come defies us; the individual man refuses to
be sampled with others. He is himself, after
all, and no other. He is not of a species —
rather, he is a species in himself. Never be-
fore, and never again, can there be a man
just like him. He is a novel creation; he is
unique, and he is alone. He has his own
peculiar stamp, his own special flavor. We
sometimes think that a certain group of people
are very much alike, that when we have known

THE GENTLENESS OF QOD 418

one we have known all. But if we are brought
in close contact we find that in each separate
personaHty we encounter a new problem.
Every man we meet shatters our mold and
forces us to take new ground. How patheti-
cally this lesson is often imprest on two
parents bending together over the crib of their
sleeping child. They watch as the breath
softly comes and goes — how tender, how
delicate, it all is! Yet do they think this child
is phable and that they can make it what they
will.f^ If so, they will find out that even before
it can speak, before it knows how to pronounce
the name of "mother," they will come up
against something which is stubbornly set on
going its own way. It is its own mysterious
self, this babe of theirs. They can only finger
around it and keep close at hand and note the
opening miracle, and await the surprizes of
disclosure. Personality has its sacred right to
be what it is. Individuality must fulfil itself.
We can no more bind it down by our schemes
and classifications than Samson could be
bound by the green withes of the Philistines.
This ought to make us very charitable
toward each other. It ought to make us very

414 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

tolerant of each other. Paul, in his second
letter to the Corinthians, says: "If any man
trust to himself that he is Christ's, let him of
himself think this again, that, as he is Christ's
even so are we Christ's." This suggests to us
that the equal right of every individual man
to be himself has God for its background. It
is the divine origin of each separate personality
that endows it with this inalienable sanctity.
If I am bound by my own claim to individu-
ality to allow the like claim in others, it is
because their claim and mine have the same
source. It is God who gives me my worth. I
am an expression of His desire. I am this in
my own separate self. No one can take my
place, or do what I can, or be what I am. To
wipe me out is to wipe out a thought, a desire,
an act, a decree of God Himself. And for that
very reason every other individuality that
exists demands of me the allegiance that I
owe to the God who made me. I must regard
it. I must find room for it; I must pay it
worship, because of God, who is within and
behind him.

Now all this makes it very clear why God
will not and can not in the very nature of

THE GENTLENESS OF GOD 416

things, force any man's will. He has made us
so like Himself in our individuality, in our
sacred personality, that the power of choice
must abide in us. But as a mother broods over
her child, with patience and wisdom, born of
experience, and with a warmth of tenderness
and love, and seeks by her gentleness to draw
it into the safe and righteous path, so the
loving-kindness of God is ever seeking to
incline us to truth and righteousness.

II

God draws men by great example rather
than by great rebuke. There are warnings in
the Bible and there is stern rebuke, but there
is infinitely more of tender entreaty and more
yet of the possibilities of the human character.
The whole story of Christ is that. It is
said that Michelangelo corrected his pupil's
mistakes, not by criticizing his work, but by
simply sketching a more perfect picture beside
it. How much easier it is to see faults in others
than to present the perfect picture ourselves!
Much of the fault-finding in the home is simply
an expression of selfishness. Where it rules,

416 THE SUNDAY-NIOHT EVANGEL

love is not found. To be always told of flaws
and forever rebuked of shortcomings is one of
the most depressing experiences one can un-
dergo, and there is no greater illustration of
the gentleness of God than that He is forever
seeking to lift us up by giving us encourage-
ment to better things. For every stinging
rebuke of conscience, God gives men ten calls
through the appeals of beauty and mercy and
gentleness to the better way.

Longfellow, in his poem inspired by the
Christlike work of Florence Nightingale in the
Crimean War, sang of this power of every good
deed to inspire and attract us to higher living.

Whene'er a noble deed is wrought,
Whene'er is spoken a noble thought,

Our hearts, in glad surprize,

To higher levels rise.

The tidal wave of deeper souls

Into our inmost being rolls.
And lifts us unawares
Out of all meaner cares.

Honor to those whose words or deeds
Thus help us in our daily needs,
And by their overflow
Raise us from what is low!

THE GENTLENESS OF GOD 417

And this is Christ's way of saving the world.
He said of Himself, "And I, if I be Hfted up
from the earth, will draw all men unto me."
Christ will not compel men, He will not break
down their personality, but the magnetism of
His love will draw them. There is a story told
of a little boy who was operated upon by Dr.
Lorenz, the famous Austrian surgeon. As soon
as the boy came out from the influence of the
anesthetic, he said to the doctor, **It will be a
long time before my mother hears the last of
this, doctor.'*

The operation was a great success. When
the plaster cast was taken off, a friend came to
take him home. In doing so, he called the
boy's attention to the grandeur of the hospital,
but tho the boy admired it, he said, '*I
like the doctor best." He spoke of the nurses,
and tho interested, he said, ''They are
nothing compared with the doctor." It was
a great joy to his mother when she saw the
boy's foot entirely cured, but all that the boy
could say to the mother was, "You ought to
know the doctor that made me walk." So
the mightiest power in the world to-day or in
any day, to win men from sin to righteousness,

27

418 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

is in the happy, grateful testimony to Christ
of those who have been drawn by His love and
His gentleness and have been forgiven of their
sins through His name.

Ill

God's gentleness and loving-kindness are
shown in the way He makes us forget the
things that have marred us and dwarfed us,
and makes us conscious that He Himself has
forgotten in that most wonderful mystery of
the Divine forgiveness. The greatest torment
of sin is that we have no power to forget it.
Out of the depths of the sinful heart, the
natural cry is, that God will forget and let us
forget. The Psalmist's heart-broken plea,

" Hide thy face from my sins
And blot out all mine iniquities . . .

Remember not the sins of my youth, nor my transgres-
sions . . .
Remember thou me,"

is true to life and utters a cry which has been
in all our hearts. And there is nothing more
tender and beautiful in all the Bible — and the
most beautiful things that were ever written
are in the Bible — than the assurances given

THE GENTLENESS OF GOD 419

over and over again that if we repent of our
sins, with a repentance that turns from them
to God, God will not only forgive them, but
that He will forget them. Listen to some of
these declarations: "I, even I, am he that
blotteth out thy transgressions, for mine own
sake: and I will not remember thy sin." And
again, "And they shall teach no more every
man his neighbor, and every man his brother,
saying, know Jehovah; for they shall all know
me, from the least of them unto the greatest of
them, saith Jehovah, for I will forgive their in-
iquities and their sins will I remember no more."
The love of God lets Jesus Christ wrap His
infinite righteousness, the white robes of His
purity, about us, and God sees only the perfect
beauty and purity of the Christ in whom we
are, and for His sake God's loving-kindness
covers all our limitations. A bhnd boy took
the examinations for admission to one of our
great universities. His father sat beside him
and wrote the papers at his dictation. Oc-
casionally the father, in his scrupulous hon-
esty, asked the boy to spell the harder words,
and when he spelled them inaccurately, the
father wrote down the inaccuracy. All the

420 THE SUNDAY'NIOHT EVANGEL

errors were faithfully recorded. The father
said it was one of the hardest ordeals of his
life, to be the recorder of his blind son's
blunders and mistakes. He dared not do
otherwise. But through Jesus Christ, God
dares forget. And the love of God blots out
the very record of our sins. No wonder the
prophet Micah exclaimed, "Who is a God
like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and
passeth over the transgressions of the remnant
of his heritage.^ He retaineth not his anger
forever, because he delighteth in loving-
kindness. He will again have compassion on
us; he will tread our iniquities under foot;
and thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths
of the sea."

IV

Our study this morning must impress upon
our hearts that if we would successfully work
together with God in uplifting humanity, we
must fall into harmony with His great plan
and work by attraction — the attraction of
loving-kindness. Dr. Gunsaulus has well said
that if we are going to work to save men and
make a better civilization, we must have some-

THE GENTLENESS OF QOD 42]

thing better than mere human sociaUsm. The
shallow philosophy of to-day says, "We will
all work together, we are workers together
with men: I lean against you and you lean
against me. And Jones will lean against us,
and there will be three for Williams to lean
against." Here we are every man trying to
trade something that is not complete in order
to get something that is complete. All that is
a rope of sand. We shall never do our best
until we see men as God sees them, until we
realize the material in which God is working.
We must have God's vision of men; we must
be working together with God for men. When
we are workers together with God, then we
have a divine Christ who is able to give men a
new heart into whose presence we may bring
them. Christ will say to them, "I am your
Redeemer. I buy things back and take them
out of pawn. I will give you a new life, a nevv
heart, a new character." It is when we get in
touch with God and the golden chains of our
prayers are twined about His throne, so that
the atmosphere of His loving-kindness per-
vades us, that we are able to help men and
save them.

422 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

And we must not imagine that it is only in
the great emergencies and opportunities of
Hfe that we can help humanity. God is in-
terested in little things, and the greater we
become the greater we will be interested
in little things. President Hadley of Yale Uni-
versity said in an address to his students; "In
the day of judgment the wicked will be con-
demned, not for the great sins which they have
committed, but for the little services which
they have left unrendered. The righteous will
be distinguished, not by the great deeds which
they have remembered, but by the little deeds
that they have forgotten."

The spirit of love is the judgment test for
every one of us, and the spirit of gentleness and
loving-kindness in little things. Some poet
whose name I do not know sings the story of

"One of the Little Women, she came up to heaven's gate;
And seeing the throng were pressing, she signed that she fain

would wait.
'For I was not great nor noble,' she said, 'I was poor and plain;
And should I go boldly forward, I know it would be in vain.'

" She sat near the shining portal, and looked at the surging crowd
Of them that were kings and princes, of them that were rich and
proud;

THE GENTLENESS OF GOD 423

And sudden she trembled greatly, for one with a brow like flame
Came to her, and hailed her gladly, and spoke to her her name:

"'Come, enter the jeweled gateway,' He said, 'for the prize is

thine;
The work that in life you rendered was work that was fair and

fine;
So come, while the rest stand waiting, and enter in here and

now —
A crown of the life eternal is waiting to press thy brow.*

" Then trembled the Little Woman, and cried: 'It may not be I!
Here wait they that wrought with greatness, so how may I pass

them by?
I carved me no wondrous statues, I painted no wondrous things,
I spoke no tremendous sayings that rang in the ears of kings;

"'I toiled in my little cottage, I spun and I baked and swept;
I sewed and I patched and mended — oh, lowly the house I kept!
I sang to my little children, I led them in worthy ways,
And so I might not grow famous, I knew naught but care-bound
days.

'"So was it by night and morning, so was it by week and year;
I worked with my weary fingers through days that were bright or

drear;
And I have grown old and wrinkled, and I have grown gray and

bent;
I ask not for chants of glory, now that I have found content.'

"'Arise!' cried the waiting angel, 'Come first of the ones that

wait.
For you are the voices singing, for you do we ope the gate;
So great as has been thy labor, so great shall be thy reward!'
Theii he gave the Little Woman the glory of the Lord."

THE GOLDEN CHURCH

"I saw seven golden candlesticks; and in the midst of the seven
candlesticks one like unto the Son of man." — Rev. 1 : 12, 13.

JOHN, the apostle of love, no longer a young
man, as he was when at the Last Supper
he lay with his head upon Jesus' breast, but an
old man now, grown more loving and wise
through the years, an exile, banished to the
Isle of Patmos, is in the Spirit on the Lord's
day, and catches this wonderful vision of the
churches that are his peculiar care and
which are rarely out of his mind during these
days of banishment.

He is not left in doubt, but is plainly told
that the seven golden candlesticks represent
the seven churches in Asia Minor, which are
the churches that are specially on his heart.
A separate and distinct message is given to
him for each one of these churches, and it
must have made his heart bound with joy and
gratitude to behold them in their relation to
Christ and as they were seen by the eyes of

424

THE GOLDEN CHURCH 426

God. The world about them was wicked and
idolatrous and looked upon them with con-
tempt, but God saw them as pure gold, illumi-
nated and glorified by the presence of Christ.
And so John seeks to rally them with this
vision of their magnificent privileges. Insig-
nificant as they might seem when judged by
material standards, petty and provincial as
their sphere looked compared with the great
heathen world, they were in God's sight splen-
did and secure. Their narrow lot was glorified
by a shining revelation of Christ's ceaseless
care and active love. Round them difiiculties
and dangers might swarm, but within them
was the Son of man, living and watchful on
behalf of His own.

The true glory of the church lies in the
presence of the Son of man. Dr. Robertson
NicoU truly says that this has always been
the faith which has heartened the true mem-
bers of the church. They have risen over and
over again to minister bravely to the world
and keep the light of God's faith burning,
because they have realized that Christ ceases
not to minister to them, trimming and revi-
ving their own faith by His inward touch. The

426 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

tarnished gold is obvious enough. The flick-
ering Hght is only too patent. But as the
true patriot tenaciously cherishes faith in his
country, refusing to relax his concern on her
behalf even when her policy and actions seem
to discredit her ideals, so the Christian will
sturdily face the actual condition of the
churches, not because he shuts his eyes weakly
to their defects, but because he sees them as
in God's sight, seven golden candlesticks with
the Son of man in the midst of them. It was
this faith that nerved the heart of the Uttle
German monk four hundred years ago and
made him the mightiest power in the world
in his day, and caused the name of Martin
Luther to stand forever as a synonym of faith
in God. He saw the errors and defects of the
church, but he saw also the undying love of
Jesus Christ for His people.

No one saw the defects of the church more
than John Wesley. No one grieved over them
more than he, and yet no one was so hopeful
for the church as he. He poured out his hfe
as a libation before God in glad and glorious
hope, because he shared John's vision of the
Christ in the midst of the churches.

THE (lOLDEN CHURCH 427

We must never for a moment lose sight of
the fact that the presence of Christ in the
church to-day is its true glory. We are so
tempted to think other things more important.
Wealth and culture and social position and
physical prosperity in general are often mis-
taken as indications of success in the Christian
Church, but we must not be deceived. A
church might have all that and be very poor
gilding without any true illumination. And,
on the other hand, physical poverty might be
apparent, persecution might rage as fiercely
as in the days of the apostles, but if Christ,
the ever-living Son of man, be in the midst of
the church, causing its members to live in
His spirit, to do His deeds, showing forth the
spiritual illumination which only comes from
Him, the true gold of Christian glory will be
manifest.

Our study of this theme should teach us
that wherever the church has lost power, or
has lost its hold on the men and women sur-
rounding it, the way to regain that hold is not
by any physical, or worldly, or spectacular

428 THE SUSDAY-yiGHT EVASGEL

method, but by the renewing of spiritual
vitality in the church itself. John Wesley was
once asked how to convert Ireland to the
rehgion of the Apostles, and his reply was that
if the preachers and laymen of the church in
Ireland would Uve and preach like the apostles
the whole problem would be solved. And so
I am convinced that the remedy for any loss
of power or control which the Christian
church may have anywhere experienced is
not in the spectacular but in the spiritual.
The great thing demanded is that the church
return and recall the supremely religious ends
for which God called the churches into exist-
ence and set Christ in the midst of them. The
high aims of the Christian church are worship
and ser^'ice, fellowship with God and man. All
else is gilt, not gold. The \ntal church is the
church needed always.

Vitahty is a strange and wonderful thing.
I have been reading recently a ver\' interest-
ing article in a foreign journal on this subject.
The writer discusses the reason why a certain
statesman was adored and almost idolized In
his native city, and he finally comes to the
conclusion that the main reason is to be found

THE GOLDEN CHURCH ^29

in his unquenchable, irrepressible, and indom-
itable vitality. When vitality is seen personi-
fied, in full play, meeting all emergencies,
rallying after every blow, and rising to every
occasion, it is, wherever it is seen, the idol
of mankind. More especially true is this when
the vitality has been maintained through a
long series of years and seems to defy the
assaults of time. The full, rich life whose
spark is always alight is welcome to every one.
Cheering, sustaining, invigorating, and ela-
ting, this vitaUty constitutes a leader. Nobody
who possesses it ever feels old; he keeps some-
thing of the boy in him. He changes his in-
terests, but never falls into routine. The
spring and facihty of abundant hfe lead to
variations, to modifications, but always to
advance.

Vitahty is the secret of the orator's power.
It was Mr. Gladstone's extraordinarv vitalitv,
even more than what he said, that made him
so consummate a master in speech. The quick
eye, the speaking face, the eloquent gestures,
the passion of the voice, swayed the most
hostile. The same was true of Philhps Brooks.
Robert Hall, who must have been one of the

430 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

very greatest of preachers, had a low and weak
voice, but the power that went from him was
such that often before he concluded his sermon
his whole audience would be standing, having
unconsciously risen to their feet. Indeed, he
had often to lock them in their pews — not to
keep them from running away, but to keep
them from crowding too closely about him
while he poured forth on them the passion of
his soul.

Now we all recognize that for the man, the
individual, there is no power like vitality, that
it is the vital personality which holds tenacious
grip upon those about it, and this should illus-
trate to us the secret of power in the Christian
church. It is the vital church which trans-
forms the world, which sways the community
where it is, and grips men in their sins and
draws them by holy magnetism to Christ as
their Savior. Nothing that is merely spectac-
ular, or evanescent, or transitory in its charac-
ter, nothing that is merely offered as an enter-
tainment to the mind or sense, whether it be
in speech or music or spectacular demonstra-
tion, can really add anything to the true power
of the Christian church over the souls of men

THE GOLDEN CHURCH 431

and women about it. It is only an increased
spiritual vitality which can do that. Surely
there is a message in this for us. About us are
a multitude of worldly men and women who
are careless of God and know not Christ in any
personal comforting sense as their Savior.
Trouble walks like a ghost among them, sick-
ness is their common lot, death is their heri-
tage, they know all the sorrows that break
men's hearts, but in the great depths of their
souls they are "without God and without hope
in the world." Oh! the pitiable need of
humanity about us. Angels must weep at
the waste of human life in these great cities.
The pathos of it, the tragedy of it is beyond all
words to describe. Yet there is only one thing
that can heal these terrible hurts, there is only
one thing that can save modern cities, and
that is a Christian church that is vital and
throbbing with the warm blood of the Christ,
tender, loving, God-like — a church whose life
is felt rather than professed, which will at-
tract by its own glorious power and beauty.
Oh, brothers and sisters, to have a church like
that there must be men and women and chil-
dren Uke that, and not one of us is so impov-

432 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

erished in character or spirit but what if we
open our hearts in full surrender for the Christ
to dwell in us and dominate all our thinking
and living, this glorious vitality may be ours!

n

If we are to be the most useful members of
the Christian church that it is possible for us
to be, it is necessary that we should frequently
catch a vision like that of John's of what
constitutes the true glory of the church. It is
true of every great relation of our lives that we
are always tempted to drop into the routine
and prosaic, and lose out of it, and out of our
thought about it, that which is poetic and
ideal. And if that continues long enough, all
the beauty and glory of that relation departs.
It is no longer gold; it is only gilt. This is
true of marriage and family life. The divorce
courts are full of people who might have lived
beautiful and happy lives in homes that were
a perennial source of comfort and strength, if
they had only occasionally recalled the spirit
which alone makes marriage beautiful and
glorious. Love is the only thing that can make

THE GOLDEN CHURCH 433

marriage or home life permanently comfort-
able or happy, and if all love-making cease
out of the home, if there be no special occasions
when unusual expressions and manifesta-
tions of love transfigure the prosaic round of
every-day living, the family bond will loosen
and die.

It is true of the relations between the em-
ployer and employee. It is one of the saddest
things in the world to-day that we are com-
pelled to look out upon so much warfare be-
tween those who labor and those who employ
labor. The possibilities are so beautiful and so
glorious where the relation is different.

For many years before the panic of 1893 one
of our large American manufacturers had been
giving peculiar attention to the treatment of
his employees, not only treating them with
justice, but holding toward them the same
attitude that he himself would like to find in
others. In return for their service he had
given not only his money, but his personal
friendship and sympathy, and had thus made
himself a trusted and beloved neighbor to all
his people.

Well, the panic came. A month or so after

28

434 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

it began, and when large concerns were failing
in every direction, there filed into his office
one morning some fifteen or twenty men,
representing the several shops in the plant.
Their manners and looks were serious, and in
spite of himself the manufacturer feared that
trouble had come at last. Finally one of the
workmen said that they had thought very
long over the matter that had brought them,
and that they hoped he would be prepared to
accede to their request — that they had noticed
that large concerns which had stood the stress
of many panics were failing every day; that
his own warehouses were filling with goods he
couldn't sell, and that they presumed he, like
others, was unable to obtain payment for
goods already sold, and that they feared he
might be in danger as well as other concerns;
that some of them had been with him for a
few years, some for many years, and some
the length of a generation; that they had
always received fair wages, and had been
able to save some money, and while the indi-
vidual savings were not large, the aggregate
amounted to a good many thousands of dollars
and that they had come to tell him that the

THE GOLDEN CHURCH 435

whole of their savings was at his disposal for
the use of the company, if needed.

What a glorious world it would be if the
relations between employer and employee
were like that the wide world around. But
to make it so, there must be again and again
a vision of the true relation between man and
man which lifts them out of the mere matter
of wages up into the brotherhood and fellow-
ship of human souls.

Now this truth which we have illustrated
by these two relations which we sustain in our
every-day living is just as clear when we apply
it to the church. If we are to be of real and
vital value to the church, we must have our
days of transfiguration, when the church
stands transfigured before us and we see it as
true gold, with the Son of man in the midst of
it. It must be more to us than a mere social
club. It must be infinitely more to us than a
place of entertainment. It must be a fellow-
ship of souls gathered about Jesus Christ as
the living and loving center.

There are two things that can make this
possible: prayer and service. John was in
the spirit on the Lord's day. His heart was

436 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

lifted to God in prayer, and it was in that
communion of prayer that this divine vision
came to him. Thus Uving in communion with
God because our whole lives are lived in the
spirit of prayer makes it possible for us to see
the church and its great work with the eyes
of God. Some one says Jesus practised the
prayer of communion. His night visits to the
hillside meant fellowship with God.

A father was sitting at work at his desk one
day. His little boy came into the room, and
sat down on a chair, as quietly as possible.
After a long time the father looked up. " Why
are you here, sonny .^" "Just to be beside
you, papa." That was heart communion.
The prayer of communion leads us to seek to
get God's point of view in our lives, to under-
stand what He is trying to do with us, to put
ourselves in line with His plan.

Sincere devotion to the service of our fellows
brings us into close fellowship with Christ and
lets us see men from His standpoint. John
bore those churches of Asia Minor upon his
heart. He worked and suffered and interceded
for them until he was able to catch the opti-
mism of God about them, and saw them like

THE GOLDEN CHURCH 437

seven golden candlesticks with the Son of man
in the midst of them. Humanity is glorious to
the people who serve it. Sister Dora, after a
long day's work in her Walsall Hospital for
waifs and strays, for poor souls beaten down
in the battle of life, often went to rest almost
too tired to sleep. But over her head was a
bell, to be sounded in spite of all her weariness
when any sufferer needed her. And the bell
bore this inscription, "The master is come and
calleth for thee. ' ' If you live in that spirit you
will never doubt the gold in humanity. The
most hopeful people about the world and its
salvation have been the people who carried
its burdens most and gave themselves as a
living sacrifice in its behalf. You could not
have made Frances Willard believe that so-
briety would not triumph and drunkenness die
out of God's world. You could not have made
John Howard believe that the world's prisons
would not be reformed and humanized. You
could not have made John Wesley or Cather-
ine Booth believe that there was a sinner so
lost or hardened in iniquity that Christ could
not transform him into a saint. And so to-day
the people who believe most in the Christian

438 THE SUNDAY-NIGHT EVANGEL

church, in its power to help the world, are the
people that are doing most for it, who are
pouring out their souls in earnest and loving
service. To them and to them only comes the
vision of John of a church beautified and glori-
fied until it is a candlestick of pure gold illu-
minated by the presence and the beauty of
the Christ.