{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_11693/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_11693","id":"gutenberg_11693","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/11693","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Christianity","Sermons"],"text":"THE WORLD'S GREAT SERMONS\n\n\nGRENVILLE KLEISER\n\nFormerly of Yale Divinity School Faculty; Author of \"How to Speak in\nPublic,\" Etc.\n\nWith Assistance from Many of the Foremost Living Preachers and Other\nTheologians\n\n\nINTRODUCTION BY LEWIS O. BRASTOW, D.D.\n\nProfessor Emeritus of Practical Theology in Yale University\n\n\nVOLUME VIII TALMAGE TO KNOX LITTLE\n\n1908\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\nVOLUME VIII.\n\n\n  TALMAGE (1832-1901).\n  A Bloody Monster\n\n  SPURGEON (1834-1892).\n  Songs in the Night\n\n  POTTER (1834-1908)\n  Memorial Discourse on Phillips Brooks\n\n  ABBOTT (Born in 1835).\n  The Divinity in Humanity\n\n  BROOKS (1835-1893).\n  The Pride of Life\n\n  GLADDEST (Born in 1836).\n  The Prince of Life\n\n  CLIFFORD (Born in 1836).\n  The Forgiveness of Sins\n\n  MOODY (1837-1899).\n  What Think Ye of Christ?\n\n  FOWLER (1837-1908).\n  The Spirit of Christ\n\n  WHYTE (Born in 1837).\n  Experience\n\n  WATKINSON (Born in 1838).\n  The Transfigured Sackcloth\n\n  LORIMER (1838-1904).\n  The Fall of Satan\n\n  LITTLE (Born in 1839).\n  Thirst Satisfied\n\n\n\n\nTALMAGE\n\nA BLOODY MONSTER\n\nBIOGRAPHICAL NOTE\n\n\nThomas De Witt Talmage was born at Bound Brook, N.J., in 1832. For\nmany years he preached to large and enthusiastic congregations at the\nBrooklyn Tabernacle. At one time six hundred newspapers regularly\nprinted his sermons. He was a man of great vitality, optimistic by\nnature, and particularly popular with young people. His voice\nwas rather high and unmusical, but his distinct enunciation and\nearnestness of manner gave a peculiar attraction to his pulpit\noratory. His rhetoric has been criticized for floridness and\nsensationalism, but his word pictures held multitudes of people\nspellbound as in the presence of a master. He died in 1901.\n\n\n\n\nTALMAGE\n\n1832--1901\n\nA BLOODY MONSTER[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Copyright, 1900, by Louis Klopsch, and reprinted by\npermission.]\n\n_It is my son's coat; an evil beast hath devoured him._--Gen. xxxvii.,\n33.\n\n\nJoseph's brethren dipt their brother's coat in goat's blood, and then\nbrought the dabbled garment to their father, cheating him with the\nidea that a ferocious animal had slain him, and thus hiding their\ninfamous behavior. But there is no deception about that which we hold\nup to your observation to-day. A monster such as never ranged African\nthicket or Hindustan jungle hath tracked this land, and with bloody\nmaw hath strewn the continent with the mangled carcasses of whole\ngenerations; and there are tens of thousands of fathers and mothers\nwho could hold up the garment of their slain boy, truthfully\nexclaiming, \"It is my son's coat; an evil beast hath devoured him.\"\nThere has, in all ages and climes, been a tendency to the improper use\nof stimulants. Noah took to strong drink. By this vice, Alexander the\nConqueror was conquered. The Romans at their feasts fell off their\nseats with intoxication. Four hundred millions of our race are\nopium-eaters. India, Turkey, and China have groaned with the\ndesolation; and by it have been quenched such lights as Halley and De\nQuincey. One hundred millions are the victims of the betelnut, which\nhas specially blasted the East Indies. Three hundred millions chew\nhashish, and Persia, Brazil, and Africa suffer the delirium. The\nTartars employ murowa; the Mexicans, the agave; the people at Guarapo,\nan intoxicating product taken from sugarcane; while a great multitude,\nthat no man can number, are the votaries of alcohol. To it they bow.\nUnder it they are trampled. In its trenches they fall. On its ghastly\nholocaust they burn. Could the muster-roll of this great army be\ncalled, and could they come up from the dead, what eye could endure\nthe reeking, festering putrefaction? What heart could endure the\ngroan of agony? Drunkenness! Does it not jingle the burglar's\nkey? Does it not whet the assassin's knife? Does it not cock the\nhighwayman's pistol? Does it not wave the incendiary's torch? Has it\nnot sent the physician reeling into the sick-room; and the minister\nwith his tongue thick into the pulpit? Did not an exquisite poet, from\nthe very top of his fame, fall a gibbering sot, into the gutter, on\nhis way to be married to one of the fairest daughters of New England,\nand at the very hour the bride was decking herself for the altar; and\ndid he not die of delirium tremens, almost unattended, in a hospital?\nTamerlane asked for one hundred and sixty thousand skulls with which\nto build a pyramid to his own honor. He got the skulls, and built the\npyramid. But if the bones of all those who have fallen as a prey to\ndissipation could be piled up, it would make a vaster pyramid. Who\nwill gird himself for the journey and try with me to scale this\nmountain of the dead--going up miles high on human carcasses to find\nstill other peaks far above, mountain above mountain white with the\nbleached bones of drunkards?\n\nThe Sabbath has been sacrificed to the rum traffic. To many of our\npeople, the best day of the week is the worst. Bakers must keep their\nshops closed on the Sabbath. It is dangerous to have loaves of bread\ngoing out on Sunday. The shoe store is closed: severe penalty will\nattack the man who sells boots on the Sabbath. But down with the\nwindow-shutters of the grog-shops. Our laws shall confer particular\nhonor upon the rum-traffickers. All other trades must stand aside for\nthese. Let our citizens who have disgraced themselves by trading in\nclothing and hosiery and hardware and lumber and coal take off their\nhats to the rum-seller, elected to particular honor. It is unsafe for\nany other class of men to be allowed license for Sunday work. But\nswing out your signs, and open your doors, O ye traffickers in the\npeace of families and in the souls of immortal men. Let the corks fly\nand the beer foam and the rum go tearing down the half-consumed throat\nof the inebriate. God does not see! Does He? Judgment will never come!\nWill it?\n\nIt may be that God is determined to let drunkenness triumph, and the\nhusbands and sons of thousands of our best families be destroyed by\nthis vice, in order that our people, amazed and indignant, may rise up\nand demand the extermination of this municipal crime. There is a way\nof driving down the hoops of a barrel so tight that they break. We\nhave, in this country, at various times, tried to regulate this evil\nby a tax on whisky. You might as well try to regulate the Asiatic\ncholera or the smallpox by taxation. The men who distil liquors are,\nfor the most part, unscrupulous; and the higher the tax, the more\ninducement to illicit distillation. Oh! the folly of trying to\nrestrain an evil by government tariff! If every gallon of whisky\nmade--if every flask of wine produced, should be taxed a thousand\ndollars, it would not be enough to pay for the tears it has wrung from\nthe eyes of widows and orphans, nor for the blood it has dashed on\nthe Christian Church, nor for the catastrophe of the millions it has\ndestroyed for ever.\n\nI sketch two houses in one street. The first is bright as home can be.\nThe father comes at nightfall, and the children run out to meet him.\nBountiful evening meal! Gratulation and sympathy and laughter! Music\nin the parlor! Fine pictures on the wall! Costly books on the table!\nWell-clad household! Plenty of everything to make home happy!\n\nHouse the second! Piano sold, yesterday by the sheriff! Wife's furs at\npawnbroker's shop! Clock gone! Daughter's jewelry sold to get flour!\nCarpets gone off the floor! Daughters in faded and patched dresses!\nWife sewing for the stores! Little child with an ugly wound on her\nface, struck by an angry blow! Deep shadow of wretchedness falling in\nevery room! Doorbell rings! Little children hide! Daughters turn pale!\nWife holds her breath! Blundering step in the hall! Door opens! Fiend,\nbrandishing his fist, cries, \"Out! out! What are you doing here?\" Did\nI call this house second? No; it is the same house. Rum transformed\nit. Rum embruted the man. Rum sold the shawl. Rum tore up the carpets.\nRum shook his fist. Rum desolated the hearth. Rum changed that\nparadise into a hell.\n\nI sketch two men that you know very well. The first graduated from one\nof our literary institutions. His father, mother, brothers and sisters\nwere present to see him graduate. They heard the applauding thunders\nthat greeted his speech. They saw the bouquets tossed to his feet.\nThey saw the degree conferred and the diploma given. He never looked\nso well. Everybody said, \"What a noble brow! What a fine eye! What\ngraceful manners! What brilliant prospects!\"\n\nMan the second: Lies in the station-house. The doctor has just been\nsent for to bind up the gashes received in a fight. His hair is matted\nand makes him look like a wild beast. His lip is bloody and cut. Who\nis this battered and bruised wretch that was picked up by the police\nand carried in drunk and foul and bleeding? Did I call him man the\nsecond? He is man the first! Rum transformed him. Rum destroyed his\nprospects. Rum disappointed parental expectation. Rum withered those\ngarlands of commencement day. Rum cut his lip. Rum dashed out his\nmanhood. Rum, accurst rum!\n\nThis foul thing gives one swing to its scythe, and our best merchants\nfall; their stores are sold, and they sink into dishonored graves.\nAgain it swings its scythe, and some of our physicians fall into\nsuffering that their wisest prescriptions cannot cure. Again it swings\nits scythe, and ministers of the gospel fall from the heights of\nZion, with long resounding crash of ruin and shame. Some of your own\nhouseholds have already been shaken. Perhaps you can hardly admit it;\nbut where was your son last night? Where was he Friday night? Where\nwas he Thursday night? Wednesday night? Tuesday night? Monday night?\nNay, have not some of you in your own bodies felt the power of this\nhabit? You think that you could stop? Are you sure you could? Go on\na little further, and I am sure you cannot. I think, if some of you\nshould try to break away, you would find a chain on the right wrist,\nand one on the left; one on the right foot, and another on the left.\nThis serpent does not begin to hurt until it has wound 'round and\n'round. Then it begins to tighten and strangle and crush until the\nbones crack and the blood trickles and the eyes start from their\nsockets, and the mangled wretch cries. \"O God! O God! help! help!\" But\nit is too late; and not even the fires of we can melt the chain when\nonce it is fully fastened.\n\nI have shown you the evil beast. The question is, who will hunt him\ndown, and how shall we shoot him? I answer, first, by getting our\nchildren right on this subject. Let them grow up with an utter\naversion to strong drink. Take care how you administer it even as\nmedicine. If you must give it to them and you find that they have a\nnatural love for it, as some have, put in a glass of it some horrid\nstuff, and make it utterly nauseous. Teach, them, as faithfully as\nyou do the truths of the Bible, that rum is a fiend. Take them to the\nalmshouse, and show them the wreck and ruin it works. Walk with them\ninto the homes that have been scourged by it. If a drunkard hath\nfallen into a ditch, take them right up where they can see his face,\nbruised, savage, and swollen, and say, \"Look, my son. Rum did that!\"\nLooking out of your window at some one who, intoxicated to madness,\ngoes through the street, brandishing his fist, blaspheming God, a\nhowling, defying, shouting, reeling, raving, and foaming maniac, say\nto your son, \"Look; that man was once a child like you.\" As you go by\nthe grog-shop let them know that that is the place where men are slain\nand their wives made paupers and their children slaves. Hold out to\nyour children warnings, all rewards, all counsels, lest in afterdays\nthey break your heart and curse your gray hairs. A man laughed at my\nfather for his scrupulous temperance principles, and said: \"I am more\nliberal than you. I always give my children the sugar in the glass\nafter we have been taking a drink.\" Three of his sons have died\ndrunkards, and the fourth is imbecile through intemperate habits.\n\nAgain, we will grapple this evil by voting only for sober men. How\nmany men are there who can rise above the feelings of partizanship,\nand demand that our officials shall be sober men? I maintain that the\nquestion of sobriety is higher than the question of availability; and\nthat, however eminent a man's services may be, if he have habits of\nintoxication, he is unfit for any office in the gift of a Christian\npeople. Our laws will be no better than the men who make them. Spend a\nfew days at Harrisburg or Albany or Washington and you will find\nout why, upon these subjects, it is impossible to get righteous\nenactments.\n\nAgain, we will war upon this evil by organized societies. The friends\nof the rum traffic have banded together; annually issue their\ncirculars; raise fabulous sums of money to advance their interests;\nand by grips, passwords, signs, and strategems, set at defiance public\nmorals. Let us confront them with organizations just as secret,\nand, if need be, with grips and pass-words and signs, maintain our\nposition. There is no need that our beneficent societies tell all\ntheir plans. I am in favor of all lawful strategy in the carrying on\nof this conflict. I wish to God we could lay under the wine-casks a\ntrain which, once ignited, would shake the earth with the explosion of\nthis monstrous iniquity!\n\nAgain, we will try the power of the pledge. There are thousands of men\nwho have been saved by putting their names to such a document. I know\nit is laughed at; but there are some men who, having once promised a\nthing, do it. \"Some have broken the pledge.\" Yes; they were liars. But\nall men are not liars. I do not say that it is the duty of all persons\nto make such signature; but I do say that it would be the salvation\nof many of you. The glorious work of Theobald Mathew can never be\nestimated. At this hand four millions of people took the pledge, and\nmultitudes in Ireland, England, Scotland, and America, have kept\nit till this day. The pledge signed has been to thousands the\nproclamation of emancipation.\n\nAgain, we expect great things from asylums for inebriates. They have\nalready done a glorious work. I think that we are coming at last to\ntreat inebriation as it ought to be treated, namely, as an awful\ndisease, self-inflicted, to be sure, but nevertheless a disease. Once\nfastened upon a man, sermons will not cure him, temperance lectures\nwill not eradicate it; religious tracts will not remove it; the Gospel\nof Christ will not arrest it. Once under the power of this awful\nthirst, the man is bound to go on; and, if the foaming glass were on\nthe other side of perdition, he would wade through the fires of\nhell to get it. A young man in prison had such a strong thirst for\nintoxicating liquors that he had cut off his hand at the wrist, called\nfor a bowl of brandy in order to stop the bleeding, thrust his wrist\ninto the bowl, and then drank the contents. Stand not, when the thirst\nis on him, between a man and his cups. Clear the track for him. Away\nwith the children! he would tread their life out. Away with the wife!\nhe would dash her to death. Away with the cross! he would run it down.\nAway with the Bible! he would tear it up for the winds. Away with\nheaven! he considers it worthless as a straw. \"Give me the drink!\nGive it to me! Tho the hands of blood pass up the bowl, and the soul\ntrembles over the pit--the drink! Give it to me! Tho it be pale with\ntears; tho the froth of everlasting anguish float on the foam--give it\nto me! I drink to my wife's wo to my children's rags; to my eternal\nbanishment from God and hope and heaven! Give it to me! the drink!\"\n\nAgain, we will contend against these evils by trying to persuade\nthe respectable classes of society to the banishment of alcoholic\nbeverages. You who move in elegant and refined associations; you\nwho drink the best liquors; you who never drink until you lose your\nbalance, let us look at each other in the face on this subject. You\nhave, under God, in your power the redemption of this land from\ndrunkenness. Empty your cellars and wine-closets of the beverage, and\nthen come out and give us your hand, your vote, your prayers, your\nsympathies. Do that, and I will promise three things: first, that you\nwill find unspeakable happiness in having done your duty; secondly,\nyou will probably save somebody--perhaps your own child; thirdly,\nyou will not, in your last hour, have a regret that you made\nthe sacrifice, if sacrifice it be. As long as you make drinking\nrespectable, drinking customs will prevail, and the plowshare of\ndeath, drawn by terrible disasters, will go on turning up this whole\ncontinent, from end to end, with the long, deep, awful furrow of\ndrunkards' graves.\n\nThis rum fiend would like to go and hang up a skeleton in your\nbeautiful house, so that, when you opened the front door to go in, you\nwould see it in the hall; and when you sat at your table you would see\nit hanging from the wall; and, when you opened your bedroom you would\nfind it stretched upon your pillow; and, waking at night, you would\nfeel its cold hand passing over your face and pinching at your heart.\nThere is no home so beautiful but it may be devastated by the awful\ncurse. It throws its jargon into the sweetest harmony. What was it\nthat silenced Sheridan, the English orator, and shattered the golden\nscepter with which he swayed parliaments and courts? What foul sprite\nturned the sweet rhythm of Robert Burns into a tuneless babble? What\nwas it that swamped the noble spirit of one of the heroes of the last\nwar, until, in a drunken fit, he reeled from the deck of a Western\nsteamer, and was drowned. There was one whose voice we all loved to\nhear. He was one of the most classic orators of the century. People\nwondered why a man of so pure a heart and so excellent a life should\nhave such a sad countenance always. They knew not that his wife was a\nsot.\n\nI call upon those who are guilty of these indulgences to quit the path\nof death! Oh! what a change it would make in your home! Do you see how\neverything there is being desolated? Would you not like to bring back\njoy to your wife's heart, and have your children come out to meet you\nwith as much confidence as once they showed? Would you not like to\nrekindle the home-lights that long ago were extinguished? It is not\ntoo late to change. It may not entirely obliterate from your soul the\nmemory of wasted years and a ruined reputation, nor smooth out from\nyour anxious brow the wrinkles which trouble has plowed. It may not\ncall back unkind words uttered or rough deeds done; for perhaps in\nthose awful moments you struck her! It may not take from your memory\nthe bitter thoughts connected with some little grave. But it is not\ntoo late to save yourself, and secure for God and your family the\nremainder of your fast-going life.\n\nBut perhaps you have not utterly gone astray. I may address one who\nmay not have quite made up his mind. Let your better nature speak out.\nYou take one side or other in war against drunkenness. Have you the\ncourage to put your foot down right, and say to your companions and\nfriends, \"I will never drink intoxicating liquor in all my life; nor\nwill I countenance the habit in others\"? Have nothing to do with\nstrong drink. It has turned the earth into a place of skulls, and has\nstood opening the gate to a lost world to let in its victims; until\nnow the door swings no more upon its hinges, but, day and night,\nstands wide open to let in the agonized procession of doomed men.\n\nDo I address one whose regular work in life is to administer to\nthis appetite? For God's sake get out of that business! If a we be\npronounced upon the man who gives his neighbor drink, how many woes\nmust be hanging over the man who does this every day and every hour of\nthe day!\n\nDo not think that because human government may license you that\ntherefore God licenses you. I am surprized to hear men say that they\nrespect the \"original package\" decision by which the Supreme Court\nof the United States allows rum to be taken into States like Kansas,\nwhich decided against the sale of intoxicants. I have no respect for\na wrong decision, I care not who makes it; the three judges of the\nSupreme Court who gave minority report against that decision were\nright, and the chief justice was wrong. The right of a State to defend\nitself against the rum traffic will yet be demonstrated, the Supreme\nCourt notwithstanding. Higher than the judicial bench at Washington is\nthe throne of the Lord God Almighty. No enactment, national, State, or\nmunicipal, can give you the right to carry on a business whose effect\nis destruction.\n\nGod knows better than you do yourself the number of drinks you have\npoured down. You keep a list; but a more accurate list has been kept\nthan yours. You may call it Burgundy, Bourbon, cognac, Heidsieck, sour\nmash, or beer. God calls it \"strong-drink.\" Whether you sell it in low\noyster-cellar or behind the polished counter of a first-class hotel,\nthe divine curse is upon you. I tell you plainly that you will meet\nyour customers one day when there will be no counter between you. When\nyour work is done on earth, and you enter the reward of your business,\nall the souls of the men whom you have destroyed will crowd around\nyou, and pour their bitterness into your cup. They will show you their\nwounds and say, \"You made them\"; and point to their unquenchable\nthirst and say, \"You kindled it\"; and rattle their chain and say, \"You\nforged it.\" Then their united groans will smite your ear; and with the\nhands out of which you once picked the sixpences and the dimes they\nwill push you off the verge of great precipices; while rolling up from\nbeneath, and breaking away among the crags of death, will thunder, \"Wo\nto him that giveth his neighbor drink!\"\n\n\n\n\nSPURGEON\n\nSONGS IN THE NIGHT\n\nBIOGRAPHICAL NOTE\n\n\nCharles Haddon Spurgeon was born at Kelvedon, Essex, England, in 1834.\nHe was one of the most powerful and popular preachers of his time,\nand his extraordinary force of character and wonderful enthusiasm\nattracted vast audiences. His voice was unusually powerful, clear and\nmelodious, and he used it with consummate skill. In the preparation of\nhis sermons he meditated much but wrote not a word, so that he was\nin the truest sense a purely extemporaneous speaker. Sincerity,\nintensity, imagination and humor, he had in preeminent degree, and\nan English style that has been described as \"a long bright river of\nsilver speech which unwound, evenly and endlessly, like a ribbon\nfrom a revolving spool that could fill itself as fast as it emptied\nitself.\" Thirty-eight volumes of his sermons were issued in his\nlifetime and are still in increasing demand. Dr. Robertson Nicoll\nsays: \"Our children will think more of these sermons than we do; and\nas I get older I read them more and more.\" He died in 1892.\n\n\n\n\nSPURGEON\n\n1834--1892\n\nSONGS IN THE NIGHT\n\n_But none saith, Where is God my maker, who giveth songs in the\nnight_?--Job xxxv., 10.\n\n\nElihu was a wise man, exceeding wise, tho not as wise as the all-wise\nJehovah, who sees light in the clouds, and finds order in confusion;\nhence Elihu, being much puzzled at beholding Job thus afflicted, cast\nabout him to find the cause of it, and he very wisely hit upon one of\nthe most likely reasons, altho it did not happen to be the right one\nin Job's case. He said within himself--\"Surely, if men be tried and\ntroubled exceedingly, it is because, while they think about their\ntroubles and distress themselves about their fears, they do not say,\n'Where is God my maker, who giveth songs in the night?'\" Elihu's\nreason was right in the majority of cases. The great cause of the\nChristian's distress, the reason of the depths of sorrow into which\nmany believers are plunged, is this--that while they are looking\nabout, on the right hand and on the left, to see how they may escape\ntheir troubles, they forget to look to the hills whence all real help\ncometh; they do not say, \"Where is God my maker, who giveth songs in\nthe night?\" We shall, however, leave that inquiry, and dwell upon\nthose sweet words, \"God my maker, who giveth songs in the night.\"\n\nThe world hath its night. It seemeth necessary that it should have\none. The sun shineth by day, and men go forth to their labors; but\nthey grow weary, and nightfall cometh on, like a sweet boon from\nheaven. The darkness draweth the curtains, and shutteth out the light,\nwhich might prevent our eyes from slumber; while the sweet, calm\nstillness of the night permits us to rest upon the lap of ease, and\nthere forget awhile our cares, until the morning sun appeareth, and\nan angel puts his hand upon the curtain, and undraws it once again,\ntouches our eyelids, and bids us rise, and proceed to the labors of\nthe day. Night is one of the greatest blessings men enjoy; we have\nmany reasons to thank God for it. Yet night is to many a gloomy\nseason. There is \"the pestilence that walketh in darkness\"; there\nis \"the terror by night\"; there is the dread of robbers and of fell\ndisease, with all those fears that the timorous know, when they have\nno light wherewith they can discern objects. It is then they fancy\nthat spiritual creatures walk the earth; tho, if they knew rightly,\nthey would find it to be true, that\n\n  \"Millions of spiritual creatures walk this earth,\n  Unseen, both when we sleep and when we wake,\"\n\nand that at all times they are round about us--not more by night than\nby day. Night is the season of terror and alarm to most men. Yet even\nnight hath its songs. Have you never stood by the seaside at night,\nand heard the pebbles sing, and the waves chant God's glories? Or have\nyou never risen from your couch, and thrown up the window of your\nchamber, and listened there? Listened to what? Silence--save now and\nthen a murmuring sound, which seems sweet music then. And have you not\nfancied that you heard the harp of God playing in heaven? Did you not\nconceive, that yon stars, that those eyes of God, looking down on you,\nwere also mouths of song--that every star was singing God's glory,\nsinging, as it shone, its mighty Maker, and His lawful, well-deserved\npraise? Night hath its songs. We need not much poetry in our spirit,\nto catch the song of night, and hear the spheres as they chant praises\nwhich are loud to the heart, tho they be silent to the ear--the\npraises of the mighty God, who bears up the unpillared arch of heaven,\nand moves the stars in their courses....\n\nIf we are going to sing of the things of yesterday, let us begin with\nwhat God did for us in past times. My beloved brethren, you will find\nit a sweet subject for song at times, to begin to sing of electing\nlove and covenanted mercies. When thou thyself art low, it is well to\nsing of the fountain-head of mercy; of that blest decree wherein thou\nwast ordained to eternal life, and of that glorious Man who undertook\nthy redemption; of that solemn covenant signed, and sealed, and\nratified, in all things ordered well; of that everlasting love which,\nere the hoary mountains were begotten, or ere the aged hills were\nchildren, chose thee, loved thee firmly, loved thee fast, loved thee\nwell, loved thee eternally. I tell thee, believer, if thou canst go\nback to the years of eternity; if thou canst in thy mind run back\nto that period, or ere the everlasting hills were fashioned, or the\nfountains of the great deep scooped out, and if thou canst see thy\nGod inscribing thy name in His eternal book; if thou canst see in His\nloving heart eternal thoughts of love to thee, thou wilt find this a\ncharming means of giving thee songs in the night. No songs like those\nwhich come from electing love; no sonnets like those that are dictated\nby meditations on discriminating mercy. Some, indeed, cannot sing of\nelection: the Lord open their mouths a little wider! Some there are\nthat are afraid of the very term; but we only despise men who are\nafraid of what they believe, afraid of what God has taught them in His\nBible. No, in our darker hours it is our joy to sing:\n\n  \"Sons we are through God's election,\n    Who in Jesus Christ believe;\n  By eternal destination,\n    Sovereign grace we now receive.\n  Lord, thy favor,\n    Shall both grace and glory give.\"\n\nThink, Christian, of the yesterday, I say, and thou wilt get a song\nin the night. But if thou hast not a voice tuned to so high a key as\nthat, let me suggest some other mercies thou mayest sing of; and they\nare the mercies thou hast experienced. What! man, canst thou not sing\na little of that blest hour when Jesus met thee; when, a blind slave,\nthou wast sporting with death, and He saw thee, and said: \"Come, poor\nslave, come with me\"? Canst thou not sing of that rapturous moment\nwhen He snapt thy fetters, dashed thy chains to the earth, and said:\n\"I am the Breaker; I came to break thy chains, and set thee free\"?\nWhat tho thou art ever so gloomy now, canst thou forget that happy\nmorning, when in the house of God thy voice was loud, almost as a\nseraph's voice, in praise? for thou couldst sing: \"I am forgiven; I am\nforgiven\":\n\n  \"A monument of grace,\n  A sinner saved by blood.\"\n\nGo back, man; sing of that moment, and then thou wilt have a song in\nthe night? Or if thou hast almost forgotten that, then sure thou hast\nsome precious milestone along the road of life that is not quite grown\nover with moss, on which thou canst read some happy inspiration of His\nmercy toward thee! What! didst thou never have a sickness like that\nwhich thou art suffering now, and did He not raise thee up from that?\nWast thou never poor before, and did He not supply thy wants? Wast\nthou never in straits before, and did He not deliver thee? Come, man!\nI beseech thee, go to the river of thine experience, and pull up a few\nbulrushes, and weave them into an ark, wherein thy infant faith may\nfloat safely on the stream. I bid thee not forget what God hath done.\nWhat! hast thou buried thine own diary? I beseech thee, man, turn over\nthe book of thy remembrance. Canst thou not see some sweet hill Mizar?\nCanst thou not think of some blest hour when the Lord met with thee at\nHermon? Hast thou never been on the Delectable Mountains? Hast thou\nnever been fetched from the den of lions? Hast thou never escaped the\njaw of the lion and the paw of the bear? Nay, O man, I know thou hast;\ngo back, then, a little way, and take the mercies of yesterday; and\ntho it is dark now, light up the lamps of yesterday, and they shall\nglitter through the darkness, and thou shalt find that God hath given\nthee a song in the night.\n\nBut I think, beloved, there is never so dark a night, but there is\nsomething to sing about, even concerning that night; for there is one\nthing I am sure we can sing about, let the night be ever so dark, and\nthat is, \"It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, and\nbecause His compassions fail not.\" If we cannot sing very loud, yet we\ncan sing a little low tune, something like this--\"He hath not dealt\nwith us after our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities.\"\n\n\"Oh!\" says one, \"I do not know where to get my dinner from to-morrow.\nI am a poor wretch.\" So you may be, my dear friend; but you are not so\npoor as you deserve to be. Do not be mightily offended about that; if\nyou are, you are no child of God; for the child of God acknowledges\nthat he has no right to the least of God's mercies, but that they come\nthrough the channel of grace alone. As long as I am out of hell, I\nhave no right to grumble; and if I were in hell I should have no right\nto complain, for I feel, when convinced of sin, that never creature\ndeserved to go there more than I do. We have no cause to murmur;\nwe can lift up our hands, and say, \"Night! thou art dark, but thou\nmightst have been darker. I am poor, but, if I could not have been\npoorer, I might have been sick. I am poor and sick--well, I have some\nfriend left, my lot cannot be so bad, but it might have been worse.\"\nAnd therefore, Christian, you will always have one thing to sing\nabout--\"Lord, I thank Thee, it is not all darkness!\" Besides,\nChristian, however dark the night is, there is always a star or moon.\nThere is scarce ever a night that we have, but there are just one or\ntwo little lamps burning up there. However dark it may be, I think you\nmay find some little comfort, some little joy, some little mercy left,\nand some little promise to cheer thy spirit. The stars are not put\nout, are they? Nay, if thou canst not see them, they are there; but\nmethinks one or two must be shining on thee; therefore give God a song\nin the night. If thou hast only one star, bless God for that one,\nperhaps He will make it two; and if thou hast only two stars, bless\nGod for the two stars, and perhaps He will make them four. Try, then,\nif thou canst not find a song in the night.\n\nBut, beloved, there is another thing of which we can sing yet more\nsweetly; and that is, we can sing of the day that is to come. I am\npreaching to-night for the poor weavers of Spitalfields. Perhaps there\nare not to be found a class of men in London who are suffering\na darker night than they are; for while many classes have been\nbefriended and defended, there are few who speak up for them, and (if\nI am rightly informed) they are generally ground down within an inch\nof their lives. I suppose that their masters intend that their bread\nshall be very sweet, on the principle, that the nearer the ground, the\nsweeter the grass; for I should think that no people have their grass\nso near the ground as the weavers of Spitalfields. In an inquiry by\nthe House of Commons last week, it was given in evidence that their\naverage wages amount to seven or eight shillings a week; and that\nthey have to furnish themselves with a room, and work at expensive\narticles, which my friends and ladies are wearing now, and which they\nbuy as cheaply as possible; but perhaps they do not know that they are\nmade with the blood and bones and marrow of the Spitalfields weavers,\nwho, many of them, work for less than man ought to have to subsist\nupon. Some of them waited upon me the other day; I was exceedingly\npleased with one of them. He said, \"Well, sir, it is very hard, but I\nhope there is better times coming for us.\" \"Well, my friend,\" I said,\n\"I am afraid you cannot hope for much better times, unless the Lord\nJesus Christ comes a second time.\" \"That is just what we hope for,\"\nsaid he. \"We do not see there is any chance of deliverance, unless the\nLord Jesus Christ comes to establish His kingdom upon the earth; and\nthen He will judge the opprest, and break the oppressors in pieces\nwith an iron rod, and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel.\" I\nwas glad my friend had got a song in the night, and was singing about\nthe morning that was coming. Often do I cheer myself with the thought\nof the coming of the Lord. We preach now, perhaps, with little\nsuccess; \"the kingdoms of this world\" are not \"become the kingdoms of\nour Lord and of his Christ\"; we send out missionaries; they are for\nthe most part unsuccessful. We are laboring, but we do not see the\nfruits of our labors. Well, what then? Try a little while; we shall\nnot always labor in vain, or spend our strength for naught. A day is\ncoming, and now is, when every minister of Christ shall speak with\nunction, when all the servants of God shall preach with power, and\nwhen colossal systems of heathenism shall be scattered to the winds.\nThe shout shall be heard, \"Alleluia! Alleluia! the Lord God Omnipotent\nreigneth.\" For that day do I look; it is to the bright horizon of that\nsecond coming that I turn my eyes. My anxious expectation is, that the\nsweet Sun of righteousness will arise with healing beneath His wings,\nthat the opprest shall be righted, that despotisms shall be cut down,\nthat liberty shall be established, that peace shall be made lasting,\nand that the glorious liberty of the gospel shall be extended\nthroughout the known world. Christian! if thou art in a night, think\nof the morrow; cheer up thy heart with the thought of the coming of\nthy Lord.\n\nThere is another sweet to-morrow of which we hope to sing in the\nnight. Soon, beloved, you and I shall lie on our dying bed, and we\nshall want a song in the night then; and I do not know where we shall\nget it, if we do not get it from the to-morrow. Kneeling by the bed of\nan apparently dying saint, last night, I said, \"Well, sister, He has\nbeen precious to you; you can rejoice in His covenant mercies, and His\npast loving-kindnesses.\" She put out her hand, and said, \"Ah! sir, do\nnot talk about them now; I want the sinner's Savior as much now as\never; it is not a saint's I want; it is still a sinner's Savior that\nI am in need of, for I am a sinner still.\" I found that I could not\ncomfort her with the past; so I reminded her of the golden streets, of\nthe gates of pearl, of the walls of jasper, of the harps of gold, of\nthe songs of bliss; and then her eyes glistened; she said, \"Yes, I\nshall be there soon; I shall meet them by-and-by;\" and then she\nseemed so glad! Ah! believer, you may always cheer yourself with that\nthought. Thy head may be crowned with thorny troubles now, but it\nshall wear a starry crown directly; thy hand may be filled with\ncares--it shall grasp a harp soon, a harp full of music. Thy garments\nmay be soiled with dust now; they shall be white by-and-by. Wait a\nlittle longer. Ah! beloved, how despicable our troubles and trials\nwill seem when we look back upon them! Looking at them here in the\nprospect, they seem immense; but when we get to heaven, we shall then,\n\n  \"With transporting joys recount\n  The labors of our feet.\"\n\nOur trials will seem to us nothing at all. We shall talk to one\nanother about them in heaven, and find all the more to converse\nabout, according as we have suffered more here below. Let us go on,\ntherefore; and if the night be ever so dark, remember there is not a\nnight that shall not have a morning; and that morning is to come by\nand by.\n\nAnd now I want to tell you, very briefly, what are the excellences of\nsongs in the night above all other songs.\n\nIn the first place, when you hear a man singing a song in the night--I\nmean in the night of trouble--you may be quite sure it is a hearty\none. Many of you sang very prettily just now, didn't you? I wonder\nwhether you would sing very prettily, if there was a stake or two in\nSmithfield for all of you who dared to do it? If you sang under pain\nand penalty, that would show your heart to be in your song. We can all\nsing very nicely indeed when everybody else sings. It is the easiest\nthing in the world to open your mouth, and let the words come out; but\nwhen the devil puts his hand over your mouth, can you sing then? Can\nyou say, \"Tho he slay me, yet will I trust in him\"? That is hearty\nsinging; that is real song that springs up in the night. The\nnightingale singeth most sweetly because she singeth in the night. We\nknow a poet has said that, if she sang by day, she might be thought to\nsing no more sweetly than the wren. It is the stillness of the night\nthat makes her song sweet. And so doth a Christian's song become sweet\nand hearty, because it is in the night.\n\nAgain: the songs we sing in the night will be lasting. Many songs we\nhear our fellow-creatures singing in the streets will not do to sing\nby-and-by; I guess they will sing a different kind of tune soon. They\ncan sing nowadays any rollicking, drinking songs; but they will not\nsing them when they come to die; they are not exactly the songs with\nwhich to cross Jordan's billows. It will not do to sing one of those\nlight songs when death and you are having the last tug. It will not do\nto enter heaven singing one of those unchaste, unholy sonnets. No; but\nthe Christian who can sing in the night will not have to leave off\nhis song; he may keep on singing it forever. He may put his foot in\nJordan's stream, and continue his melody; he may wade through it, and\nkeep on singing still, and land himself safe in heaven; and when he is\nthere, there need not be a gap in his strain, but in a nobler, sweeter\nstrain he may still continue singing His power to save. There are a\ngreat many of you that think Christian people are a very miserable\nset, don't you? You say, \"Let me sing my song.\" Ay, but, my dear\nfriends, we like to sing a song that will last; we don't like your\nsongs; they are all froth, like bubbles on the beaker, and they will\nsoon die away and be lost. Give me a song that will last; give me one\nthat will not melt. Oh, give me not the dreamster's gold! he hoards it\nup, and says, \"I'm rich\"; and when he waketh, his gold is gone. But\ngive me songs in the night, for they are songs I sing forever.\n\nAgain: the songs we warble in the night are those that show we have\nreal faith in. God. Many men have just enough faith to trust God as\nfar as they can see Him, and they always sing as far as they can see\nprovidence go right; but true faith can sing when its possessors\ncannot see. It can take hold of God when they cannot discern Him.\n\nSongs in the night, too, prove that we have true courage. Many sing by\nday who are silent by night; they are afraid of thieves and robbers;\nbut the Christian who sings in the night proves himself to be a\ncourageous character. It is the bold Christian who can sing God's\nsonnets in the darkness.\n\nHe who can sing songs in the night, too, proves that he has true love\nto Christ. It is not love to Christ to praise Him while everybody else\npraises Him; to walk arm in arm with Him when He has the crown on\nHis head is no great deed, I wot; to walk with Christ in rags is\nsomething. To believe in Christ when He is shrouded in darkness, to\nstick hard and fast by the Savior when all men speak ill of Him and\nforsake Him--that is true faith. He who singeth a song to Christ in\nthe night, singeth the best song in all the world; for He singeth from\nthe heart.\n\nI am afraid of wearying you; therefore I shall not dwell on the\nexcellences of night songs, but just, in the last place, show you\ntheir use.\n\nIt is very useful to sing in the night of our troubles, first, because\nit will cheer ourselves. When you were boys living in the country, and\nhad some distance to go alone at night, don't you remember how you\nwhistled and sang to keep your courage up? Well, what we do in the\nnatural world we ought to do in the spiritual. There is nothing like\nsinging to keep your spirits alive. When we have been in trouble,\nwe have often thought ourselves to be well-nigh overwhelmed with\ndifficulty; and we have said, \"Let us have a song.\" We have begun to\nsing; and Martin Luther says, \"The devil cannot bear singing.\" That is\nabout the truth; he does not like music. It was so in Saul's days: an\nevil spirit rested on Saul; but when David played on his harp, the\nevil spirit went away from him. This is usually the case: if we can\nbegin to sing we shall remove our fears. I like to hear servants\nsometimes humming a tune at their work; I love to hear a plowman in\nthe country singing as he goes along with his horses. Why not? You say\nhe has no time to praise God; but he can sing a song--surely he can\nsing a Psalm, it will take no more time. Singing is the best thing to\npurge ourselves of evil thoughts. Keep your mouth full of songs, and\nyou will often keep your heart full of praises; keep on singing as\nlong as you can; you will find it a good method of driving away your\nfears.\n\nSing, again, for another reason: because it will cheer your\ncompanions. If any of them are in the valley and in the darkness with\nyou, it will be a great help to comfort them. John Bunyan tells us,\nthat as Christian was going through the valley he found it a dreadful\ndark place, and terrible demons and goblins were all about him, and\npoor Christian thought he must perish for certain; but just when his\ndoubts were the strongest, he heard a sweet voice; he listened to it,\nand he heard a man in front of him saying, \"Yea, when I pass through\nthe valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.\" Now, that man\ndid not know who was near him, but he was unwittingly singing to cheer\na man behind. Christian, when you are in trouble, sing; you do not\nknow who is near you. Sing, perhaps you will get a companion by it.\nSing! perhaps there will be many a heart cheered by your song. There\nis some broken spirit, it may be, that will be bound up by your\nsonnets. Sing! there is some poor distrest brother, perhaps, shut up\nin the Castle of Despair, who, like King Richard, will hear your song\ninside the walls, and sing to you again, and you may be the means of\ngetting him a ransom. Sing, Christian, wherever you go; try, if you\ncan, to wash your face every morning in a bath of praise. When you go\ndown from your chamber, never go to look on man till you have first\nlooked on your God; and when you have looked on Him, seek to come down\nwith a face beaming with joy; carry a smile, for you will cheer up\nmany a poor way-worn pilgrim by it.\n\nOne more reason; and I know it will be a good one for you. Try and\nsing in the night, Christian, for that is one of the best arguments in\nall the world in favor of your religion. Our divines nowadays spend a\ngreat deal of time in trying to prove Christianity against those who\ndisbelieve it. I should like to have seen Paul trying that! Elymas the\nsorcerer withstood him: how did our friend Paul treat him? He said,\n\"Oh, full of all subtlety and all mischief, thou child of the devil,\nthou enemy of the righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the\nright ways of the Lord?\" That is about the politeness such men ought\nto have who deny God's truth. \"We start with this assumption: we will\nprove that the Bible is God's word, but we are not going to prove\nGod's word. If you do not like to believe it, we will shake hands, and\nbid you good-by; we will not argue with you. The gospel has gained\nlittle by discussion. The greatest piece of folly on earth has been\nto send a man round the country, to follow another up who has been\nlecturing on infidelity just to make himself notorious.\n\nWhy, let them lecture on; this is a free country; why should we\nfollow them about? The truth will win the day. Christianity need not\nwish for controversy; it is strong enough for it, if it wishes it; but\nthat is not God's way.\n\nGod's direction is, \"Preach, teach, dogmatize.\" Do not stand\ndisputing; claim a divine mission; tell men that God says it, and\nthere leave it. Say to them, \"He that believeth shall be saved, and he\nthat believeth not shall be damned\"; and when you have done that,\nyou have done enough. For what reason should our missionaries stand\ndisputing with Brahmins? Why should they be wasting their time\nby attempting to refute first this dogma, and then another, of\nheathenism? Why not just go and say, \"The God whom ye ignorantly\nworship, I declare unto you; believe me, and you will be saved;\nbelieve me not, and the Bible says you are lost.\" And then, having\nthus asserted God's word, say, \"I leave it, I declare it unto you; it\nis a thing for you to believe, not a thing for you to reason about.\"\n\nReligion is not a thing merely for your intellect; a thing to prove\nyour own talent upon, by making a syllogism on it; it is a thing that\ndemands your faith. As a messenger of heaven, I demand that faith; if\nyou do not choose to give it, on your own head be the doom, if there\nbe such, if there be not, you are prepared to risk it. But I have done\nmy duty; I have told you the truth; that is enough, and there I leave\nit. Oh, Christian, instead of disputing, let me tell thee how to prove\nyour religion. Live it out!\n\nLive it out! Give the external as well as the internal evidence; give\nthe external evidence of your own life. You are sick; there is your\nneighbor who laughs at religion; let him come into your house. When\nhe was sick, he said, \"Oh, send for the doctor\"; and there he was\nfretting, and fuming, and whining, and making all manner of noises.\nWhen you are sick, send for him, tell him that you are resigned to the\nLord's will; that you will kiss the chastening rod; that you will take\nthe cup, and drink it, because your Father gives it.\n\nYou do not need to make a boast of this, or it will lose all its\npower; but do it because you cannot help doing it. Your neighbor will\nsay, \"There is something in that.\" And when you come to the borders of\nthe grave--he was there once, and you heard how he shrieked, and how\nfrightened he was--give him your hand, and say to him, \"Ah! I have a\nChrist that will do to die by; I have a religion that will make me\nsing in the night.\" Let me hear how you can sing, \"Victory, victory,\nvictory!\" through Him that loved you. I tell you, we may preach fifty\nthousand sermons to prove the gospel, but we shall not prove it half\nso well as you will through singing in the night. Keep a cheerful\nframe; keep a happy heart; keep a contented spirit; keep your eye up,\nand your heart aloft, and you prove Christianity better than all the\nButlers, and all the wise men that ever lived. Give them the analogy\nof a holy life, and then you will prove religion to them; give them,\nthe evidence of internal piety, developed externally, and you will\ngive the best possible proof of Christianity.\n\n\n\n\nPOTTER\n\nMEMORIAL DISCOURSE ON PHILLIPS BROOKS\n\nBIOGRAPHICAL NOTE\n\n\nHenry Codman Potter was born at Schenectady, New York, in 1834, and\nwas graduated from the Theological Seminary of Virginia in 1857. He\nwas appointed rector of Grace Protestant Episcopal Church, New York,\nin 1868, and was coadjutor to his uncle, Horatio Potter, from 1883\nto 1887, when he was made Bishop of the Diocese of New York. He won\nconsiderable distinction as a clear-cut and eloquent speaker. He\ndealt in pulpit and on platform, with many public questions, such as\ntemperance, capital and labor, civic righteousness, and the purifying\nof East Side slum life. He advocated personal freedom, and invariably\nspoke with authority. He was particularly happy as an after-dinner\nspeaker. He died in 1908.\n\n\n\n\nPOTTER\n\n1834--1908\n\nMEMORIAL DISCOURSE ON PHILLIPS BROOKS[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Reprinted by permission of Bishop Henry C. Potter and The\nCentury Company, publishers of \"The Scholar and the State.\"]\n\n_It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the\nwords I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life_.--John\nvi., 63.\n\n\nHe who stops over-long in the mere mechanism of religion is verily\nmissing that for which religion stands. Here, indeed, it must be owned\nis, if not our greatest danger, one of the greatest. All life is full\nof that strange want of intellectual and moral perspective which fails\nto see how secondary, after all, are means to ends; and how he only\nhas truly apprehended the office of religion who has learned, when\nundertaking in any wise to present it or represent it, to hold fast\nto that which is the one central thought and fact of all: \"It is the\nspirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I\nspeak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.\"\n\nAnd this brings me--in how real and vivid a way I am sure you must\nfeel as keenly as I--face to face with him of whom I am set to speak\nto-day.\n\nNever before in the history, not only of our communion, but of any or\nall communions, has the departure of a religious teacher been more\nwidely noted and deplored than in the case of him of whom this\nCommonwealth and this diocese have been bereaved. Never before,\nsurely, in case of any man whom we can recall, has the sense of loss\nand bereavement been more distinctly a personal one,--extending to\nmultitudes in two hemispheres who did not know him, who had never seen\nor heard him, and yet to whom he had revealed himself in such real and\nhelpful ways.\n\nIt has followed, inevitably, from this, that that strong tide of\nprofound feeling has found expression in many and most unusual\nforms, and it will be among the most interesting tasks of the future\nbiographer of the late Bishop of Massachusetts to take note of these\nvarious memorials and to trace in them the secret of his unique power\nand influence.\n\nBut just because they have, so many of them, in such remarkable\nvariety and from sources so diverse, been written or spoken, and no\nless because a memoir of Phillips Brooks is already undertaken by\nhands preeminently designated for that purpose, I may wisely here\nconfine myself to another and very different task. I shall not\nattempt, therefore, even the merest outline of a biographical review.\nI shall not undertake to analyze, nor, save incidentally, even to\nrefer to, the influences and inheritances that wrought in the mind\nand upon the life of your late friend and teacher. I shall still less\nattempt to discover the open secret of his rare and unique charm and\nattractiveness as a man; and I shall least of all endeavor to forecast\nthe place which history will give to him among the leaders and\nbuilders of our age. Brief as was his ministry in his higher office,\nand to our view all too soon ended, I shall be content to speak of him\nas a bishop,--of his divine right, as I profoundly believe, to a place\nin the episcopate, and of the preeminent value of his distinctive and\nincomparable witness to the highest aim and purpose of that office.\n\nAnd first of all let me say a word in regard to the way in which he\ncame to it. When chosen to the episcopate of this diocese, your late\nbishop had already, at least once, as we all know, declined the\noffice. It was well known to those who knew him best that, as he had\nviewed it for a large part of his ministry, it was a work for which\nhe had no especial sympathy either as to its tasks, or, as he had\nunderstood them, its opportunities.\n\nBut the time undoubtedly came when, as to this, he modified his\nearlier opinions; and the time came too, as I am most glad to think,\nwhen he was led to feel that if he were called to such an office he\nmight find in it an opportunity for widening his own sympathies and\nfor estimating more justly those with whom previously he had believed\nhimself to have little in common.\n\nIt was the inevitable condition of his strong and deep convictions\nthat he should not always or easily understand or make due allowance\nfor men of different opinions. It was--God and you will bear me\nwitness that this is true!--one of the noblest characteristics of his\nfifteen months' episcopate that, as a bishop, men's rightful liberty\nof opinion found in him not only a large and generous tolerance, but\na most beautiful and gracious acceptance. He seized, instantly and\neasily, that which will be forever the highest conception of the\nepiscopate in its relations whether to the clergy or the laity, its\npaternal and fraternal character; and his \"sweet reasonableness,\" both\nas a father and as a brother, shone through all that he was and did.\n\nFor one, I greatly love to remember this,--that when the time came he\nhimself, with the simple naturalness which marked all that he did,\nwas brought to reconsider his earlier attitude toward the episcopal\noffice, and to express with characteristic candor his readiness to\ntake up its work if he should be chosen to it; he turned to his new,\nand to him most strange, task with a supreme desire to do it in a\nloving and whole-hearted way, and to make it helpful to every man,\nwoman, and child with whom he came in contact. What could have been\nmore like him than that, in that last address which he delivered to\nthe choir-boys at Newton, he should have said to them, \"When you meet\nme let me know that you know me.\" Another might easily have been\nmisunderstood in asking those whom he might by chance encounter to\nsalute him; but he knew, and the boys knew, what he had in mind,--how\nhe and they were all striving to serve one Master, and how each--he\nmost surely as much as they--was to gain strength and cheer from\nmutual recognition in the spirit of a common brotherhood.\n\nAnd thus it was always; and this it was that allied itself so\nnaturally to that which was his never-ceasing endeavor--to lift all\nmen everywhere to that which was, with him, the highest conception of\nhis office, whether as a preacher or as a bishop,--the conception of\nGod as a Father, and of the brotherhood of all men as mutually related\nin Him.\n\nIn an address which he delivered during the last General Convention\nin Baltimore to the students of Johns Hopkins University, he spoke\nsubstantially these words:\n\n    \"In trying to win a man to a better life, show him not the\n    evil but the nobleness of his nature. Lead him to enthusiastic\n    contemplations of humanity;\"\n\nin its perfection, and when he asks, 'Why, if this is so, do not I\nhave this life?'--then project on the background of his enthusiasm his\nown life; say to him, 'Because you are a liar, because you blind your\nsoul with licentiousness, shame is born,--but not a shame of despair.\nIt is soon changed to joy. Christianity becomes an opportunity, a high\nprivilege, the means of attaining to the most exalted ideal--and the\nonly means.'\n\n\"Herein must lie all real power; herein lay Christ's power, that he\nappreciated the beauty and richness of humanity, that it is very near\nthe Infinite, very near to God. These two facts--we are the children\nof God, and God is our Father--make us look very differently at\nourselves, very differently at our neighbors, very differently at God.\nWe should be surprized, not at our good deeds, but at our bad ones.\nWe should expect good as more likely to occur than evil; we should\nbelieve that our best moments are our truest. I was once talking with\nan acquaintance about whose religious position I knew nothing, and he\nexprest a very hopeful opinion in regard to a matter about which I was\nmyself very doubtful.\n\n\"'Why, I said to him, 'You are an optimist.'\n\n\"'Of course I am an optimist,' he replied, because I am a Christian.'\n\n\"I felt that as a reproof. The Christian must be an optimist.\"\n\nMen and brethren, I set these words over against those of his Master\nwith which I began, and the two in essence are one. \"The words that I\nspeak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.\" There is a life\nnobler and diviner than any that we have dreamed of. To the poorest\nand meanest of us, as to the best and most richly-dowered, it is alike\nopen. To turn toward it, to reach up after it, to believe in its\never-recurring nearness, and to glorify God in attaining to it, this\nis the calling of a human soul.\n\nNow then, what, I ask you, is all the rest of religion worth in\ncomparison with this?--not what is it worth in itself, but what is its\nplace relatively to this? This, I maintain, is the supreme question\nfor the episcopate, as it ought to be the supreme question with the\nministry of any and every order. And therefore it is, I affirm, that,\nin bringing into the episcopate with such unique vividness and power\nthis conception of his office, your bishop rendered to his order and\nto the Church of God everywhere a service so transcendent. A most\ngifted and sympathetic observer of our departed brother's character\nand influence has said of him, contrasting him with the power of\ninstitution, \"His life will always suggest the importance of the\ninfluence of the individual man as compared with institutional\nChristianity.\"\n\nIn one sense, undoubtedly, this is true; but I should prefer to say\nthat his life-work will always show the large and helpful influence of\na great soul upon institutional Christianity. It is a superficial\nand unphilosophical temperament that disparages institutions; for\ninstitutions are only another name for that organized force and life\nby which God rules the world. But it is undoubtedly and profoundly\ntrue that you no sooner have an institution, whether in society, in\npolitics, or in religion, than you are threatened with the danger\nthat the institution may first exaggerate itself and then harden\nand stiffen into a machine; and that in the realm of religion,\npreeminently, those whose office it should be to quicken and infuse it\nwith new life should themselves come at last to \"worship the net and\nthe drag.\" And just here you find in the history of religion in all\nages the place of the prophet and the seer. He is to pierce through\nthe fabric of the visible structure to that soul of things for which\nit stands. When, in Isaiah, the Holy Ghost commands the prophet, \"Lift\nup thy voice with strength; lift it up, be not afraid: say unto the\ncities of Judah, Behold your God!\" it is not alone, you see, his voice\nthat lie is to lift up. No, no! It is the vision of the unseen and\ndivine. \"Say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God!\"\n\nOver and over again that voice breaks in upon the slumbrous torpor of\nIsrael and smites the dead souls of priests and people alike. Now\nit is a Balaam, now it is an Elijah, a David, an Isaiah, a John the\nBaptist, a Paul the Apostle, a Peter the Hermit, a Savonarola, a Huss,\na Whitefield, a Wesley, a Frederick Maurice, a Frederick Robertson, a\nPhillips Brooks.\n\nDo not mistake me. I do not say that there were not many others. But\nthese names are typical, and that for which they stand cannot easily\nbe mistaken. I affirm without qualification that, in that gift of\nvision and of exaltation for which they stand, they stand for the\nhighest and the best,--that one thing for which the Church of God most\nof all stands, and of which so long as it is the Church Militant\nit will most of all stand in need: to know that the end of all its\nmechanisms and ministries is to impart life, and that nothing which\nobscures or loses sight of the eternal source of life can regenerate\nor quicken;--to teach men to cry out, with St. Augustine, \"_Fecisti\nnos ad te, Domine, et inquietum est cor nostrum donec requiescat in\nte_\": Thou hast made us for Thyself, O Lord, and our heart is unquiet\nuntil its rests in Thee,--this however, as any one may be tempted to\nfence and juggle with the fact, is the truth on which all the rest\ndepends.\n\nUnfortunately it is a truth which there is much in the tasks and\nengagements of the episcopate to obscure. A bishop is preeminently,\nat any rate in the popular conception of him, an administrator; and\nhowsoever wide of the mark this popular conception may be from the\nessential idea of the office, it must be owned that there is much in\na bishop's work in our day to limit his activities, and therefore his\ninfluence, within such a sphere.\n\nTo recognize his prophetic office as giving expression to that mission\nof the Holy Ghost of which he is preeminently the representative, to\nillustrate it upon a wider instead of a narrower field, to recognize\nand seize the greater opportunities for its exercise, to be indeed\n\"a leader and commander\" to the people, not by means of the petty\nmechanisms of officialism, but by the strong, strenuous, and unwearied\nproclamation of the truth; under all conditions to make the occasion\nsomehow a stepping-stone to that mount of vision from which men may\nsee God and righteousness and become sensible of the nearness of both\nto themselves,--this, I think you will agree with me, is no unworthy\nuse of the loftiest calling and the loftiest gifts.\n\nAnd such a use was his. A bishop-elect, walking with him one day in\nthe country, was speaking, with not unnatural shrinking and hesitancy,\nof the new work toward which he was soon to turn his face, and said\namong other things, \"I have a great dread, in the Episcopate, of\nperfunctoriness. In the administration, especially, of confirmation,\nit seems almost impossible, in connection with its constant\nrepetition, to avoid it.\"\n\nHe was silent a moment, and then said, \"I do not think that it need be\nso. The office indeed is the same. But every class is different; and\nthen--think what it is to them! It seems to me that that thought can\nnever cease to move one.\"\n\nWhat a clear insight the answer gave to his own ministry. One turns\nback to his first sermon, that evening when, with his fellow-student\nin Virginia, he walked across the fields to the log-cabin where, not\nyet in holy orders, he preached it, and where afterward he ministered\nwith such swiftly increasing power to a handful of negro servants.\n\"It was an utter failure,\" he said afterward. Yes, perhaps; but all\nthrough the failure he struggled to give expression to that of which\nhis soul was full; and I do not doubt that even then they who heard\nhim somehow understood him. We pass from those first words to the\nlast,--those of which I spoke a moment ago,--the address to the\nchoir-boys at Newton,--was there ever such, an address to choir-boys\nbefore? He knew little or nothing about the science of music, and with\ncharacteristic candor he at once said so. But he passed quickly from\nthe music to those incomparable words of which the music was the mere\nvehicle and vesture. He bade the lads to whom he spoke think of\nthose who, long ago and all the ages down, had sung that matchless\nPsalter,--of the boys and men of other times, and what it had meant to\nthem. And then, as he looked into their fresh young faces and saw the\nlong vista of life stretching out before them, he bade them think of\nthat larger and fuller meaning which was to come into those Psalms of\nDavid, when he,--was there some prophetic sense of how soon with him\nthe end would be?--when he and such as he had passed away,--what new\ndoors were to open, what deeper meanings were to be discerned, what\nnobler opportunities were to dawn, as the years hastened swiftly on\ntoward their august and glorious consummation! How it all lifts us\nup as we read it, and how like it was to that \"one sermon\" which he\nforever preached!\n\nAnd in saying so I do not forget what that was which some men said was\nmissing in it. His, they tell us--who hold some dry and formalized\nstatement of the truth so close to the eye that it obscures all larger\nvision of it,--his, they tell us, was an \"invertebrate theology.\" Of\nwhat he was and spoke, such a criticism is as if one said of the wind,\nthat divinely appointed symbol of the Holy Ghost, \"it has no spine nor\nribs.\"\n\nA spine and ribs are very necessary things; but we bury them as so\nmuch chalk and lime when once the breath has gone out of them! In the\nbeginning we read, \"And the Lord God breathed into his nostrils the\nbreath of life, and man became a living soul.\"\n\nAnd all along since then there have been messengers of God into whom\nthe same divine breath has been, as it were, without measure breathed,\nand who have been the quickeners and inspirers of their fellows.\nNothing less than this can explain that wholly exceptional and yet\nconsistent influence which he whom we mourn gave forth. It was not\nconfined or limited by merely personal or physical conditions, but\nbreathed with equal and quickening power through all that he taught\nand wrote. There were multitudes who never saw or heard him, but by\nwhom nevertheless he was as intimately known and understood as if he\nhad been their daily companion.\n\nNever was there an instance which more truly fulfilled the saying,\n\"The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.\"\nThey reached down to the inmost need of empty and aching hearts and\nanswered it. They spoke to that in the most sin-stained and wayward\nsoul which is, after all, the image of the invisible God,--spoke\nto it, touched it, constrained it. \"What has this fine-bred Boston\nscholar,\" plain men asked, when he bade him come to us and preach in\nour Trinity--\"what has such an one to say to the business men of Wall\nStreet?\" But when he came, straightway every man found out that he had\nindeed something to say to him,--a word of power, a word of hope, a\nword of enduring joy and strength!\n\nA kindred thinker of large vision and rare insight, New England born\nand nurtured like himself, speaking of him not long after his death,\nsaid:\n\n    \"There are three forms pertaining to the Christian truths: they\n    are true as facts, they are true as doctrines intellectually\n    apprehended, they are true as spiritual experiences to be\n    realized. Bishop Brooks struck directly for the last. In the\n    spirit he found the truth; and only as he could get it into a\n    spiritual form did he conceive it to have power.\n\n    \"It was because he assumed the facts as true in the main, refusing\n    to insist on petty accuracy, and passed by doctrinal forms\n    concerning which there might be great divergence of opinion, and\n    carried his thought on into the world of spirit, that he won so\n    great a hearing and such conviction of belief. For it is the\n    spirit that gives common standing-ground; it says substantially\n    the same thing in all men. Speak as a spirit to the spiritual\n    nature of men, and they will respond, because in the spirit they\n    draw near to their common source and to the world to which all\n    belong.\n\n    \"It was because he dealt with this common factor of the human and\n    the divine nature that he was too positive and practical. In the\n    spirit it is all yea and amen; there is no negative; in the New\n    Jerusalem there is no night. We can describe this feature of his\n    ministry by words from, one of his own sermons: 'It has always\n    been through men of belief, not unbelief, that power from God has\n    poured into man. It is not the discriminating critic, but he whose\n    beating, throbbing life offers itself a channel for the divine\n    force,--he is the man through, whom the world grows rich, and whom\n    it remembers, remembers with perpetual thanksgiving.'\"\n\nAnd shall not you who are here to-day thank God that such a man was,\ntho for so brief a space, your bishop? Some there were, you remember,\nwho thought that those greater spiritual gifts of his would unfit him\nfor the business of practical affairs. \"A bishop's daily round,\" they\nsaid, \"his endless correspondence, his hurried journeyings, his weight\nof anxious cares, the misadventures of other men, ever returning to\nplague him,--how can he bring himself to stoop and deal with these?\"\n\nBut as in so much else that was transcendent in him, how little here,\ntoo, his critics understood him! No more pathetic proof of this has\ncome to light than in that testimony of one among you who, as his\nprivate secretary, stood in closest and most intimate relations\nto him. What a story that is which he has given to us of a great\nsoul--faithful always in the greatest? Yes, but no less faithful in\nthe least. There seems a strange, almost grotesque impossibility in\nthe thought that such an one should ever have come to be regarded as\n\"a stickler for the canons.\"\n\nBut we look a little deeper than the surface, and all that is\nincongruous straightway disappears. His was the realm of a divine\norder,--his was the office of his Lord's servant. God had called him.\nHe had put him where he was. He had set his Church to be His witness\nin the world, and in it, all His children, the greatest with the\nleast, to walk in ways of reverent appointment. Those ways might irk\nand cramp him sometimes. They did: he might speak of them with sharp\nimpatience and seeming disesteem sometimes. He did that too, now and\nthen,--for he was human like the rest of us! But mark you this, my\nbrothers, for, in an age which, under one figment or another,\nwhether of more ancient or more modern license, is an age of much\nself-will,--we shall do well to remember it,--his was a life of\norderly and consistent obedience to rule. He kept to the Church's\nplain and stately ways: kept to them and prized them too.\n\nBut all the while he held his soul wide open to the vision of his\nLord! Up out of a routine that seemed to others that did not know or\ncould not understand him, and who vouchsafed to him much condescending\ncompassion for a bondage which he never felt, and of which in vain\nthey strove to persuade him to complain,--up out of the narrower round\nin which so faithfully he walked, from time to time he climbed, and\ncame back bathed in a heavenly light, with lips aglow with heavenly\nfire. The Spirit had spoken to him, and so he spoke to us. \"The flesh\nprofiteth nothing: it is the spirit that quickeneth. The words that I\nspeak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.\"\n\nAnd so we thank God not alone for his message, but that it was given\nto him to speak it as a bishop in the Church of God. We thank God that\nin a generation that so greatly needs to cry, as our _Te Deum_ teaches\nus, \"Govern us and lift us up!\" he was given to the Church not alone\nto rule but to uplift.\n\nWhat bishop is there who may not wisely seek to be like him by drawing\nforever on those fires of the Holy Ghost that set his lips aflame?\nNay, what soul among us all is there that may not wisely seek to\nascend up into that upper realm in which he walked, and by whose\nmighty airs his soul was filled? Unto the almighty and ever-living God\nwe yield most high praise and hearty thanks for the wonderful grace\nand virtue declared in all His saints who have been the chosen vessels\nof His grace and the lights of the world in their several generations;\nbut here and to-day especially for his servant, Phillips Brooks, some\ntime of this Commonwealth and this diocese, true prophet, true priest,\ntrue bishop, to the glory of God the Father.\n\n\n\n\nABBOTT\n\nTHE DIVINITY IN HUMANITY\n\nBIOGRAPHICAL NOTE\n\n\nLyman Abbott was born at Roxbury, Mass., in 1835. As successor to\nHenry Ward Beecher, at Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, he ministered with\ngreat spiritual power until 1898, when he resigned his pastorate to\ndevote his entire time to _The Outlook_, of which he was, and still\nis, the editor. Dr. Abbott's conception of the minister's work is\nbriefly summed up in his own words:\n\n\"Whenever a minister forgets the splendid message of pardon, peace and\npower based on faith in Jesus Christ as God manifest in the flesh,\nwhenever for this message he substitutes literary lectures, critical\nessays, sociological disquisitions, theological controversies, or even\nethical interpretations of the universal conscience, whenever, in\nother words, he ceases to be a Christian preacher and becomes a lyceum\nor seminary lecturer, he divests himself of that which in all ages of\nthe world has been the power of the Christian ministry, and will be\nits power so long as men have sins to be forgiven, temptations to\nconquer, and sorrows to be assuaged.\"\n\n\n\n\nABBOTT\n\nBORN IN 1835\n\nTHE DIVINITY IN HUMANITY\n\n_Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, ye are\ngods? If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and\nthe scripture cannot be broken; say ye of him, whom the Father hath\nsanctified, and sent into the world, thou blasphemest; because I said,\nI am the Son of God_?--John X., 34-36.\n\n\nThe context and argument is this: Jesus Christ has declared that He\nwill give unto His sheep eternal life; and that no one can pluck them\nout of His hand, because He and His Father are one; and the Father\nwho gives these sheep to His care and keeping is greater than all the\nforces that are leagued against them. Thereat the Jews took up stones\nagainst Him, saying: \"Being a man thou makest thyself equal with God.\"\nAnd Christ answers with our text. He refers them back to the Old\nTestament, which, He says, declares of the judges of Israel, of the\nmen to whom the inspiration of God came, that they are divine. \"Why,\nthen,\" He says, \"do you accuse Me of blasphemy because I claim\ndivinity?\" It is impossible to consider this a mere play upon the\nword; that Christ uses the word God in one sense in one paragraph\nand in another sense in the paragraph immediately following. It is\nimpossible to conceive that this is a kind of sacred pun. No, no; the\nargument is clear and unmistakable. According to your Old Testament\nscripture, He says, the men in whom and to whom and through whom the\npower and grace of God are manifested are themselves the partakers\nof the divine nature. If that is so, if the men of the olden\ntimes, patriarchs and prophets, through whom the divine nature was\nmanifested--if they are divine, do not accuse me of blasphemy because\nI claim for Myself divinity. If in this message, on the one hand,\nChrist claims kinship with God, on the other He lifts the whole of\nhumanity up with Him and makes the claim for them. The religion of the\nOld Testament and the New Testament, the religion of Christianity and\nof Judaism, is a religion of faith in God. But it is not less truly a\nreligion of faith in man, and of faith in man because man is a child\nof God. And the one faith would be utterly useless without the other.\nFor faith in God is effective because it is accompanied with faith in\nman as the child of God.\n\nAnd in this faith in man is the inspiration of all human progress.\n_Faith_ in man, I say. Faith sees something which the eye does not\nsee. Faith sees something which the reason does not perceive. Faith\nis not irrational, but it perceives a transcendent truth, over beyond\nthat which the sense perceives. Faith is always intermixed with hope\nand with a great expectation, either with a hope because it sees\nsomething which is not yet but will be, or else with a hope because it\nsees something which is not yet seen but will be seen. Faith in a man\nis not a belief that man is to-day a great, noble character, but it is\na perception in man of dormant possibilities of greatness and nobility\nwhich time and God will develop. It is only the man who has faith in\nman who can really interpret man. It is faith in man that gives us all\ntrue human insight. The difference between a photograph and a portrait\nis this: the photograph gives the outward feature, and stops there;\nand most of us, when we stand in a photograph saloon to have our\npicture taken, hide our soul away. The artist sees the soul behind the\nman, knows him, understands something of his nature, and paints the\nsoul that looks out through the eyes. He sees in the man something\nwhich the sun does not exhibit, and makes that something shine on\nthe canvas. The artist in literature sees an ideal humanity, and\ninterprets it. Realism in literature does not portray the real man.\nAnthony Trollope pictures the Englishman as he is to-day, and society\nas any man may take it with a kodak; but Dickens gives Toby Veck and\nTiny Tim; George Eliot, Adam Bede and Dinah Morris. Men say that no\nsuch boy ever lived as MacDonald has portrayed in Sir Gibbie. In every\nstreet Arab is a possible Sir Gibbie; and MacDonald has seen the\npossible and shown us what Christianity may make out of a street\nArab. In this perception of a possible in man lies the spirit of all\nprogress in science. The man of practical science laughs at the notion\nof an iron railway on which steam cars shall travel faster than\nEnglish coaches. But the man of faith in men, who believes that it is\nin the power of men to dominate the powers of nature, builds the road.\nThe man of practical science laughs at the notion that we can reach up\nour hands into the clouds and draw down the lightning. But Franklin\ndoes it. The man of faith is sometimes mistaken, but he is always\nexperimenting, because he always believes that man to-morrow will\nbe more than man is to-day or was yesterday. And all progress in\ncivilization has its secret in this great faith in man as a being\nthat has a mastery, not yet interpreted, not yet understood, not yet\ncomprehended in its fulness, over all the powers of nature.\n\nNow, is there any ground or basis for this faith in man? Have we a\nright to believe that man is more than he seems to be, as we can see\nhim in the street to-day? Have we a right to build our institutions\nand fabrics on this belief? Have we a right to think that man can\ngovern himself, or must we go back and say with Carlyle and Ruskin\nand Voltaire that the great body of men are incompetent to govern\nthemselves, and a few wise rulers must govern them? Have we a right to\nbelieve that all the progress that has thus far been made in\nscience is but an augury of progress far greater, reaching into the\nillimitable? Have we a right to say that these portraits of a possible\nhumanity, this Portia, this Toby Veck, this Tiny Tim, this ideal man\nand woman, are real men and real women in possibility, if not in\nthe actualities of life? Or are we to think of them as simply\nphantasmagoria hung up for the delectation of a passing moment? The\nBible makes answer to that question,--the Bible preeminently, but\nthe great poets and the great prophets of all religions; the Bible,\nbecause the poets and the prophets of the Bible transcend the poets\nand the prophets of all other religions. And that declaration is that\nman is made in the image of God, and that God dwells in man and\nis coming to the manifestation of Himself in growing, developing,\nredeemed humanity. Our Bible starts out with the declaration that God\nmade man in His own image. The poets take the idea up. MacDonald tells\nus in that beautiful poem of his, that the babe came through the blue\nsky and got the blue of his eyes as he came; Wordsworth, that the\nchild's imaginings are the recollected glory of a heavenly home; and\nthe author of the first chapter of Genesis, that God breathed his own\nbreath into the nostrils of man and made him in the image of God. All\nfancy, all imaginings? But, my dear friends, there is a truth in fancy\nas well as in science. We need not believe that this aspiration that\nshows itself in the pure mind of a little child is a trailing glory\nthat he has brought with him from some pre-existent state. We need not\nthink that it is physiological fact that the sky colored the eyes of\nthe babe as the babe came through. Nor need we suppose that man was\na clay image into which God breathed a physical breath, so animating\nhim. But beyond all this imagery is the vision of the poet. God in\nman; a divine life throbbing in humanity; man the offspring of God;\nman coming forth from the eternal and going forth into the eternal.\n\nThis is the starting-point of the Bible. Starting with this, it goes\non with declaration after declaration based on this fundamental\ndoctrine that man and God in their essential moral attributes have the\nsame nature. It is human experience which is used to interpret divine\nexperience. According to pagan thought, God speaks to men through\nmovements of the stars, through all external phenomena, through even\nentrails of animals. Seldom so in the Bible, save as when the wise men\nfollowed the star, and then that they might come to a divine humanity.\nIn the Old Testament God speaks in human experience, through human\nexperience, about human experience, to typify and interpret and\nexplain Himself. God is like a shepherd that shepherds his flock.\nGod is like a king that rules in justice. He is like the father that\nprovides for his children. He is like the mother that comforts the\nweeping child. All the experiences of humanity are taken in turn and\nattributed to God. The hopes, the fears, the sorrows, the joys, the\nvery things which we call faults in men--so strong and courageous are\nthe old prophets in this fundamental faith of theirs that man and God\nare alike--the very things we call faults in men are attributed to the\nAlmighty. He is declared to hate, to be wrathful, to be angry, to be\njealous; because, at the root, every fault is a virtue set amiss; and\nthe very faults of men have in them something that interprets the\npower and will of God, as the very faults of a boy interpret the\nvirtues of his father. All through the Old Testament God manifests\nHimself through human experience. He speaks in the hearts of men; He\ndwells in the experience of men; He interprets Himself through the\nlife of men; and, finally, when this one selected nation which has a\ngenius for spiritual truth has been so far educated that there is no\ndanger that it will go back and worship man, that it will become a\nmere hero-worshiper, when it has been so far educated that there is no\ndanger of that, then Jesus Christ comes into the world--God manifests\nHimself in human life.\n\nWho, then, is Jesus Christ? Let John tell us. The Oriental world was\npuzzled about the question of the origin of evil. They said, in brief,\na good God cannot make a bad world. Out of a good God, therefore,\nthere have emanated other gods, and out of these gods other gods,\nuntil at last there came to be imperfect gods or bad gods. And the\nworld was made, some of them said, partly by a good god and partly by\na bad one; and others by an imperfect god who was an emanation of the\nperfect one. Of these emanations one was Life, another was Light,\nanother was the Word. And John, writing in the age of Oriental\nphilosophy, uses the phraseology of Oriental philosophy in order that\nhe might tell mankind who and what Jesus Christ is. \"In the beginning\nwas the Word, and the Word was God.\" God never was an abstraction;\nfrom the very beginning He was a speaking God, a living God, a\nmanifesting God, a forth-putting God. \"The same was in the beginning\nwith God. All things were made by him; and without him was not\nanything made that was made. And this Word became flesh and dwelt\namong us (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten\nof the Father), full of grace and truth.\" Let me put this into\nmodern language. What is it but this? From eternity God has been a\nmanifesting God. When the fulness of time came, God, that He might\nmanifest Himself to His children, came into a human life and dwelt\nin a human life. He that had spoken here through one prophet, there\nthrough another prophet; He that had sent one message in this\ndirection and another in that; He that had spoken through signs and\ntokens, as the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews says, in divers\nmanners and in fragmentary utterances--when the fulness of time had\ncome, He spoke in one perfect human life, taking entire possession of\nit and making it His own, that He might manifest Himself in terms of\nhuman experience to humanity. Or turn to Paul and let me read you this\ndeclaration; \"Let this mind be in you which was also in Jesus Christ;\nwho, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with\nGod, but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of\na servant, and was made in the likeness of man, and being found in\nfashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death,\neven the death of the cross.\" What is this, again, but the same\ndeclaration? God desiring to show Himself to humanity, entered into\none human life, became subject to human conditions, shared the\nweakness, the wants, the ignorance of humanity, entered into and was\nidentified with one human life.\n\nDo I say, then, that Jesus Christ was a man like other men? No. But I\ndo say that in their essential qualities God and man are identical,\nand God entered into humanity that He might show to humanity what He\nis. I do say, not that Jesus Christ was a man like other men, but that\nother men may become like Jesus Christ. I hold a bulb in my one hand\nand a tulip in my other. Will any man say to me, this beautiful flower\nwith all its rich coloring is like this bulb? Oh, no! But let the\nsun of God shine long enough on this bulb, put it where it belongs,\nsubject it to the conditions of life, and this bulb will become like\nthis flower. Man is made in the image of God. All that is in man\nthat is not in God's image does not belong to man's nature. Natural\ndepravity? There is no natural depravity. Depravity is unnatural.\nDepravity is contra-natural. It is against the whole law of man's\nbeing. It is never wrong for any creature God has made to act out the\nnature which God endowed him with. It is not wicked for a tiger to be\nravening. It is not wicked for a snake to be sinuous. It is wicked for\nman to be ravening or sinuous, because it is against the divine nature\nthat God has put in man. He made man for better things.\n\nGod made man in His own image, God coming through successive stages,\nmanifesting Himself in successive relations of Himself in human\nexperience, God at last disclosing Himself in one pure, sinless,\ntypical man in order that man through that humanity might know who and\nwhat God is--and is that the end? Oh, no! That is the beginning,\nonly the beginning. For what did God come in Christ? Simply to show\nHimself? Here is a hospital--all manner of sick; the paralytic, the\nfever-stricken, the consumptive. Is it good news to these hospital\nbedridden ones if an athlete come in and show them his life, his\nmuscles, the purity of his lungs, the health of his constitution, and\nthen goes out? But if he comes in and says, \"My friends, if you will\nfollow my directions I will put into you consumptive ones some of the\nstrength of my lungs, into you fever-stricken ones some of the purity\nof my blood; into you paralytic ones some of the sinew and muscle\nI possess--you can become like me,\" then there is good news in the\nmessage. If God came into the world simply to tell us what God is and\nwhat the ideal of humanity is, the gospel would be the saddest message\nthat could be conceived, as delivered to the human race. It would add\ngloom to the gloom, darkness to the darkness, chains to the chains,\ndespair to despair. He comes not merely to show divinity to us, but to\nimpart divinity to us; rather, to evolve the latent divinity which He\nfirst implanted in us. As God has entered into Christ, He will enter\ninto me. Christ says to me: As I am patient, you can become patient;\nas I am strong, you can become strong; as I am pure, you can become\npure; as I am the Son of God, you can become the Son of God. Therefore\nHis message is the gospel that it is.\n\nChrist is not a man like other men. I can find in the biography of\nJesus no trace of sin. In every other biography, oh, how many traces!\nThere is no trace of repentance. The Hebrew Psalmist laments his\niniquity. Paul confesses himself to be the chief of sinners. Luther,\nCalvin, Melanchthon, Edwards--go where I will, in the biography of\nall the saints there are signs of sin and iniquity. Never a trace of\nrepentance or confession in Christ. In all others we see a struggle\nafter God. \"My heart panteth after thee, as the hart panteth after\nwater-brooks.\" \"I count not myself to have attained, but, forgetting\nthose things that are behind, I press forward toward the mark.\" Never\nin the written biography of Christ a trace of that aspiration after\nsomething not yet reached. On the contrary, a great peace and a great\npossession. He says: I have come full of life. I have come to give\nlife. This sinless Christ comes that He may give to us that which\nHe Himself possesses; that He may take the sin out of our lives and\nsorrow out of our hearts, and for the yearning desire give a great,\ngreat peace. I have come, He says, that you might have life. How much,\nLord and Master? Life more abundantly. What kind of life, Lord and\nMaster? Eternal life. Has He come with that great life of His to give\na little and then stop? Nay, to give all to every one that every one\nwill take.\n\nI marvel to find Christian men denying that Christ is the type and\nmanifestation and revelation of the possible divinity in universal\nhumanity. It is written all over the Bible. What says Christ Himself?\nI have come that you might have life, and that you might have it more\nabundantly. As the Father has sent Me into the world, even so I send\nyou into the world. You shall be My disciples. You shall learn of Me.\nYou shall be My followers, and tread where I have trod. You shall take\nup My cross, and suffer as I have suffered. The secret of My life\nshall be the secret of your life. Ye shall be in Me. I will abide with\nyou. Ye shall be as a branch grafted on the vine, drawing the same\nlife as I have, as out of My very veins. As the Father was in Me, so\nI and My Father will come and abide in you. He breathes upon the\ndisciples and tells them to receive the Spirit that was in Him; and in\nHis last prayer He prays that they may share His glory, that they may\nbe one with the Father, as He is one with the Father. Paul takes up\nthe same refrain and repeats it over and over again. Righteousness in\nman is the righteousness of God, God's own righteousness coming out\nof God's heart into human hearts. Ye shall be partakers of the divine\nnature. Ye shall be joint heirs with the Lord Jesus Christ, inheriting\nall that Christ inherited from His Father. Ye shall have the same\nspirit that was in Christ. Metaphor and trope and figure are exhausted\nin the endeavor of the apostle to set forth this sublime truth. Christ\nis the servant of God. We are the servants of God. He is the Son of\nGod. We are the sons of God. He is the light of the world. We are\nthe lights of the world. He is a priest forever. We are priests\nperpetually serving in His temple. He is the one eternal sacrifice. We\nare to present our bodies a living sacrifice before God. He is dead.\nWe are to die with Him. He has risen. We are to rise with Him. Already\nwe sit in the heavenly place with Christ Jesus. We are changed from\nglory to glory into His image. We are predestined to be conformed to\nthat image. We are bid to pray that we may be rooted and grounded in\nChrist, and that with Him, we may be filled with all the fulness of\nGod.\n\nDo I say, then, that I am equal to Christ? Or that I shall ever become\nequal to Christ? No! Let me try to make this plain to the child, and\nthen the rest will perhaps understand it. Here is a great man. He is\na great statesman. He is a great poet. He is a great orator. He is a\ngreat philosopher. He is a great general. He is Bismarck and Gladstone\nand Dante and Napoleon and Raphael and Plato all combined in one.\nAnd he has children, and this boy is a statesman, and this boy is a\ngeneral, and this boy is an orator, and this boy is a poet, and this\nboy is an artist. No one of them comprizes all the genius that was in\nhis father, but each one has one quality of that father, and all the\nboys together reflect their father's nature. No, I shall never be\nequal to Christ. But according to the measure of my own capacity,\nI may reflect even here and now something of Christ and be really\nChrist-like.\n\nChrist is my Master. I acknowledge no other Master than Him. I wish to\nfollow where He leads. I gladly believe whatever He says. And I have\nno other ambition--oh, I wish it were true that I never had any other\nambition!--than to be like Him. But He is my Master because He bids me\nfollow where He leads, because He gives what I can take, because He\npromised what He will yet fulfil. I believe in the divinity of our\nLord Jesus Christ. It is the center of my faith, as He is the center\nand source of my life. But I do not believe in the medieval formula\nthat Jesus Christ is God and man mysteriously joined together, because\nto believe that would be to leave me both without an ideal of man\nwhich I might follow, and without a manifestation of God to which I\nmight cling. In my country home two Christians quarreled. An atheist\nwent to them and said to one of them, \"Your Christ said, 'Forgive\nall your enemies and love one another.'\" \"Yes,\" he said, \"Christ was\ndivine. He could. I cannot.\" But there was nothing of moral virtue\nthat God wrought in Christ that He cannot work in you and me if we\ngive Him time enough. And, on the other hand, this separation of \"God\"\nand \"man\" in Christ denies the real manifestation of God to man.\nJesus called His disciples to watch while He wrestled with agony in\nGethsemane, and Dean Alford, speaking on Gethsemane, says this was the\nmanifestation in Christ of human weakness. No! no! A thousand times,\nNo! It is the glorious manifestation of that sympathy in God which\nwants the sympathy of the feeblest of His followers, as the mother\nwants the sympathy and love of the babe on her lap. \"Beloved, now are\nwe the sons of God; and it doth not yet appear what we shall be. Only\nwe shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.\" There are two\nthings we do not know. Genius is always a mystery, spiritual genius\nthe greatest mystery of genius, and Christ the greatest mystery of\nall. We do not know what we shall be, any more than one who never had\nseen a garden could guess what the mold would be when the spring had\nfinished its work. Those are two things we do not know. But there are\ntwo things we do know. We shall be like Him, and when we are like Him,\nwe shall see Him as He is. We shall be like no imagination of Him, no\ndeteriorated or imperfect conception of Him; but when we come to see\nHim in all the regal splendor of His character, with all the love, all\nthe justice, all the purity, all the divine glory which is adumbrated\nand shadowed here because our eyes could not look upon it and still\nlive--when we come to see Him in all the glory of that divine\ncharacter, we shall be like Him--_we shall be like Him_.\n\n\n\n\nBROOKS\n\nTHE PRIDE OF LIFE\n\nBIOGRAPHICAL NOTE\n\n\nPhillips Brooks was born at Boston, Mass., in 1835, graduated at\nHarvard in 1855 and studied theology at the P.E. Seminary, Alexandria,\nVa. He was elected rector of the Church of the Advent, Philadelphia,\nin 1859, and three years later to that of Holy Trinity in the same\ncity. In 1869 he became rector of Trinity Church, Boston, and was\nconsecrated Bishop of Massachusetts in 1891. He died in 1893. He was\nin every sense a large man, large in simplicity and sympathy, large in\nspiritual culture. In his lectures to the students at Yale he spoke of\nthe preparation for the ministry as being nothing less than the making\nof a man. Said he:\n\n\"It cannot be the mere training to certain tricks. It cannot be even\nthe furnishing with abundant knowledge. It must be nothing less than\nthe kneading and tempering of a man's whole nature till it becomes of\nsuch a consistency and quality as to be capable of transmission. This\nis the largeness of the preacher's culture.\" Doctor Brastow describes\nhim thus: \"The physical equipment was symbol of his soul; and the\nrush of his speech was typical of those mental, moral, and spiritual\nenergies that were fused into unity and came forth in a stream of\nfiery intensity.\"\n\n\n\n\nBROOKS\n\n1835--1893\n\nTHE PRIDE OF LIFE[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Published for the first time by the kind permission of\nWilliam G. Brooks.]\n\n_The pride of life_.--1 John ii., 16.\n\n\nJohn is giving his disciples the old warning not to love the world,\nthat world which then and always is pressing on men's eyes and ears\nand hearts with all its loveliness and claiming to be loved. \"Love not\nthe world, neither the things that are in the world.... For all that\nis in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and\nthe pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.\"\n\nWhat is the pride of life? Pride is one of those words which hover in\nthe middle region between virtue and vice. The materials which under\none set of circumstances and in one kind of character make up an\nhonorable self-respect, seem so often to be precisely the same as\nthose which under another set of circumstances and in another kind of\ncharacter make up arrogance and self-conceit. This last is the tone\nevidently in which John speaks. So it is with most moral minglings.\nAll character is personal, determined by some force that blends the\nqualities into a special personality. The same apparent qualities\nunite into the most various results. It is like the delicate\nmanufacture of mosaics. The skilful workers of Rome or Venice put in\nthe same ingredients in nature and amount, and the composition comes\nout at one time dull and muddy and at another time perfectly clear and\nlustrous. Some subtle difference in the mixture of the constituents\nor in the condition of the atmosphere or in the heat of the furnace\nalters the whole result. So out of life we may say in its various\nminglings there come various products in character, either humility or\nthankfulness or contentment or self-respect, from some failure of the\nqualities to meet in perfect union, from some fault in the shape or\nmisregulation of the temperature of the human furnace in which they\nare fused, this degenerate and confused result of pride which yet\nis often so near to, that we can see how it was only some slightest\ncause, some stray and unguarded draft across the surface that hindered\nit from being, one of the clear and lustrous combinations of the same\nmaterial. But that fact makes it no better. The muddy glass is no more\nuseful because it is made of the same components as the clear glass.\nThere is nothing still to be done with it but to throw it away.\n\nWhat then is the pride of life which is bad, which \"is not of the\nFather, but is of the world\"? Life itself we know is of the Father. In\nwhatever sense we take that much-meaning word, life is God's gift. The\nmere physical being, if that be life, is the creation of His mighty\nword. The continuance, the prolongation of the vital function, if\nthat be life, that too is the result of His never-sleeping care. The\nsurrounding circumstances, the scenery of our experience, if that be\nlife, is also of His arranging. The spiritual vitality, all the higher\npowers as we call them, of thought and feeling and conscience, if they\nbe life, no hand but His strung and tuned their manifold and subtle\ncords. Everywhere there is no life but what He gives. It is not of the\nworld. In no sense does any creative power of being issue either from\nthe material earth, or from the social system, or from the mass of\nconventional laws and standards, each of which is sometimes, in\ndifferent uses of the word, characterized as \"the world.\" They may all\ninfluence and change and give character to life, but none of them can\ncreate it.\n\nAnd perhaps this brings us to what we want. The world may give a\ncertain character or shape to life, even altho it cannot create it.\nNow pride is a certain character or shape of life. It is a term of\ndescription not of the material of life but of a particular result of\nthat material fused into a particular furnace. In general the shape of\nlife which pride describes may be otherwise characterized as\narrogant self-reliance or self-sufficiency. We may reach more minute\ndefinitions of it before we are done, but this seems to make the\nmeaning plain when it is said that the pride of life is not of the\nFather, but of the world. Life comes from God. It is the world's\ninfluence that shapes that life, which has no moral character in\nitself, into arrogance and self-sufficiency, makes it up into pride\ninstead of into humility, and so leaves as the result the pride of\nlife. The pride of life, then, is God's gift which means dependence\nchanged and distorted into independence, revolt and disobedience.\n\nMost necessary is it that in all we say we should keep clear in mind\nthat the first gift is God's. The substance of life is His. All evil\nis misuse, otherwise repentance must be cursed with misanthropy and\nhopelessness instead of being as it always ought to be, the very\nbirthplace of hope, the spring of a new life from the worn-out failure\nof an old, back into the possibility of life that is older still, as\nold as man's first creation.\n\nLet us see where the pride of life shows itself. First of all\ndoubtless in the mere exuberance of animal strength. To be well and\nstrong, full of spirit and physical vitality, this is beyond all doubt\none of the most precious gifts of God. We never can forget the large\nstrong physical strain with which our Bible opens, the torrent of\nhealth and full life that seems to pour down to us out of those early\ndays when the world was young, when the giants made the earth shake\nunder their mighty tread and the patriarchs outlived the forests with\ntheir green old years. The fulness of physical vitality is of God, to\nbe accepted as His benefaction, to be cultivated and cared for with\nthe reverence that His gifts demand. And round the mere physical life\ngroup a whole circle of tastes and enjoyments and exercises which\nbelong with the sensuous more than with the intellectual or moral part\nof us, and whose full life seems to be dependent upon the fulness of\nphysical being, the mere perception of beauty, the love of comfort,\nthe delight in enterprise and adventure and prowess. The sum of all\nthese is what we call full physical life. It is what gives youth its\nmost generous charm and makes it always poetic with its suggested\npowers and unaccomplished possibilities.\n\nBut yet this mere fulness of life as we all know has its dangers. Mere\nhealth is overbearing by its very nature. There is a lack of sympathy\nin it. Not knowing suffering itself, it is not respectful of suffering\nin others. It is not careful of inflicting suffering. The full blood\nsings of nothing but itself. It is careless of others. It is careless\nof God, not malignantly cruel, nor deliberately atheistic, but selfish\nwith a sort of self-absorption which is often, very gracious in its\nforms and infidel with a mere forgetfulness of God. Who of us does not\nknow, and who of us, wavering between his standards and his feelings,\nhas not very often found it hard to tell just how he ought to value\nthe enthusiastic and arrogant self-sufficiency of healthy youth?\n\nIt is this, I take it, that is described here as \"the pride of life.\"\nWherever there is eager and full-blooded youth there it appears. It\nbreaks out in the wild and purposeless mob of lower city life, in the\nimpatience and insubordination of the country boy who longs to be free\nfrom his father's farm, in the crude skepticism of college students'\nfirst discussions of religion. It is jealous of slight, of insult,\nof the least suspicion of restraint or leading. It belongs to strong\nyoung nations as well as to strong young men. By it they flaunt\ndefiance in the face of the world and are afraid of the imputation of\nprudence. It is what you can see in the faces of any group of eager\nyoung men as you pass them on the street. Sometimes it makes them\nattractive and sometimes it makes them detestable. It turns the noble\nyouth into a hero and the mean youth into a bully. A fine nature it\nleads into the most exquisite tastes and encircles it with art and\nmusic. A coarse nature it plunges into the vilest debauchery and vice.\nIn good fortune it makes the temper carelessly benignant. In bad\nfortune it makes the temper recklessly defiant. It works these very\ndifferent effects but is always the one same spirit still,--the pride\nof life. The gift of life which came from God, taken possession of by\nthe world and tamed into self-sufficiency, a thing not of the Father,\nbut of the world, who does not know in himself, or see in somebody\nhe watches, something of this pure pride in life? Just to live is so\nattractive that the higher ends and responsibilities of living drift\naway out of sight. This instinctive almost physical selfishness is the\nphilosophy of more than we think both of the good and of the bad that\nis in young people.\n\nI have seen too much of it to undervalue the sweet and sober piety of\nold age. There is a beauty in it that is all its own. A softness and\ntenderness and patience and repose in the western sky that the bolder\nglories of the east where the morning breaks never can attain. Many\nand many of the best men we have known have been old men, but no one\nlooks at men's progress without feeling that a great deal of what\npasses for growth in goodness as men grow old is in reality only the\ndeadening of the pride of life from the dying-down of the life itself.\nMany and many a man who passes for a sober, conscientious, religious\nsort of man at fifty, if you put back into his cooled blood the hot\nlife he had at twenty-five would be the same reckless, profligate,\narrogant sinner that he was then. It is the life, not the pride, that\nhe has lost. Many and many a man thinks that he has saved his house\nfrom conflagration because he, sees no flame, when really the flame\nis hidden only because the house is burnt down and the fire is still\nlurking among the ashes, hunting out any little prey that is left and\nhungrily waiting for more fuel to light up the darkness again. One\nthing at least is true, that the goodness of old age in what we may\ncall its passive forms, humility, submission, patience, faith, is\nnecessarily far more hard to recognize and be sure of than the same\ngoodness in a younger man. What you call piety may be only deadness.\n\nAnd young men are often pointed just to this old age as the golden\ntime when they will be religious as they cannot be now. They look to\nit themselves. \"You are full of the pride of life,\" men say to them;\n\"Ah, wait! By and by the life will flag. The senses will grow dull,\nthe tastes will stupefy, the enterprise will flicker out, and the days\ncome in which your soul will say 'I have no pleasure in them.' Just\nwait for that! Then your pride will go too, and then you will need and\nseek your God.\" It is a poor taunt and a poorer warning. If you have\nnothing better to say to make men use their powers rightly than to\ntell them that they will lose their powers some day, the answer will\nalways be, \"Well, I will wait until that losing day comes before\nI worry.\" If you tell a young man that his life is short, the old\nbacchanalian answer is the first one, \"Live while we live.\" You must\nsomehow get hold of that, you must persuade him that the true life now\nis the holy life, that life, this same life that he prizes, ought to\nbreed humility and faith, not arrogance and pride, or else you\nmust expect to talk to the winds. It surely is important that the\nconversion of the pride of life must come not by the putting-out of\nlife but by making it a source of humility instead of pride.\nThe humbleness of life. How can it come? By clearer and deeper\ntruthfulness to let us see what the real facts of the case are, that\nis all; but that is very hard, so hard that it can be brought about by\nno other than the Almighty Holy Ghost. Let me see that this physical\nlife of mine, having no true character of its own, is made to be a\ngreat machinery for simply conducting the knowledge and the love of\nGod into my life; let all my study of the exquisite adaptations of\nthe physical organs for their work be sanctified with this idea, this\never-pervading consciousness that eye and ear and hand are doors for\nthe knowledge and the love of Him to enter by, and that all their\nmarvelous mechanism is only the perfecting of hinges and bolt that He\nmay enter more impressively and lovingly and entirely; let me learn\nthat every bright taste or fine instinct or noble appetite is a ray of\nsunlight, not the sun, is the projection into my life of some force\nabove, outside of me, which I can find only by climbing back along the\nray that is projected, up to it; let me see all animal life a\nstudy and preparation for this final life of man, sensations and\nperceptions, growing clearer and clearer as we rise in the scale until\nin man they are fit to convey this knowledge which man alone can have,\nthe knowledge of God; let me see this, and I must be ashamed to make\nthat life a thing of pride which might be the seat of such an exalted\nand exalting dependence and humility. I am unwilling that those\nwell-built cisterns which ought to be so full of God should hold\nnothing but myself, as if one crept into his aqueduct and closed it up\nwhere the water came into it from the fountain and lived in it for a\nhouse and found it very dry.\n\nWe see clearly enough what the change is that is needed. It is\nto substitute for self-consciousness as the result of life the\never-abiding consciousness of God. Do you ask how it shall be done?\nAh, my dear friends, that is the very miracle of the gospel. I can\ntell you only this about it, which the Lord has told us all before:\n\"Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.\" The\nkingdom of God, that region of life in which God is the life's King.\nAnd again: \"If any man love me he will keep my words and my Father\nwill love him and we will come unto him and make our abode with him.\"\n\"We will come to him!\" That is what we want, for that is the source of\nall humility, the coming of God into us, and the condition is love and\nobedience, the spiritual and the active forms of faith. That is all we\ncan say. And that is enough, for in that this at least is clear, that\nsuch a conversion is a work that God has undertaken to do for us, that\nHe asks of us nothing but submission to His willing helpfulness, and\nthat being a transformation of life, it may, nay it must, be done\nwhile life is in possession, it can be done best when life is in its\nfullest. We have not to wait till movement is slow and color is dull.\nWe are not tempted to make a vacancy and call it piety; but when man's\nlife is so full that it tempts him daily to self-consciousness and\npride, then let him open it wide to the consciousness of God and\nennoble it with the full dignity of that humility whose first\ncondition is the presence of God in the soul that He built for His own\ninhabiting.\n\nThere is a condition possible where the life shall flow with God as\nfully and freely as it ordinarily flows with self, where the greater\nvolume it acquires, it only bears the more of Him; where every joy\ndelights in Him, and every power depends on Him, and the whole man\nlives in Him and knows it. It is not a constant effort. It is the\nspontaneous direction of the whole nature. It is the new condition\nof the Christian who has been exalted from the human pride into the\ndivine humility of life, out of self to God.\n\nBut I suggested at the outset that the word life was used in various\nmeanings, and in connection with one or two of them I should like to\ndevelop a little what is meant by this phrase the \"pride of\nlife.\" Life sometimes familiarly signifies what we otherwise call\ncircumstances. A man is said to \"get on in life,\" not with reference\nto his growing older or growing healthier, but as he grows more rich,\nmore prosperous. The pride of life in this sense would be the pride\nof success, which we see wherever men are struggling in this world of\ncompetition. Look at the young merchant who is making a living. Things\ngo well with him. He rises from stratum to stratum of that commercial\nsystem whose geology is the ever-eluding study of the toilers of the\nstreet. He grows rich. His store begins to spread with the pressure of\nnew enterprises. His house begins to blossom into the rich bloom\nof luxury. He is greeted with a new respect. He is courted with an\neagerness he never knew before. Friends gather about him. His word has\nweight. His name means money. He is successful. What is the result?\nThose facts in themselves signify nothing, let us remember, but\nmaterial capable of being made into one thing or another wholly its\nopposite. These are the gift of the Father, every one of them, all\nthat profusion of life. But there is a possible effect of them all in\ncharacter, a pride, which is not of the Father, but of the world. With\na morbid sympathy the man assimilates all that is poor and mean and\nworldly out of his prosperity, and rejects, because he has no affinity\nfor it, all that is good and sweet and heavenly. He is chilled and\nnarrowed and embittered. All the old sweetness and humility fade out\nof his nature. Need I tell you of it? Our streets are full of the\npride of life. Its types only, its outer types flash in the splendid\ncarriages and blaze in the fronts of gaudy houses and sweep the floors\nof drawing-rooms and the aisles of churches. Those types, the mere\noutward trappings of success, are not wherein the badness lies. The\nreality is in the hard hearts and selfish tempers and undocile minds\nwhich, in the splendor or the squalidness of wealth, show the sad ruin\nof self-sufficient success, the pride of life.\n\nThe pride of life kills out the life itself. Is there a sadder picture\nthan you have in the life of a man, old or young, to whom God has\nsent prosperity, who by his own act then turns that prosperity into a\nfailure by being proud of it? Christ Himself has told us how it is.\nThe life is more than meat. He has no tolerance for this little\nmeaning of a word that He made so large. The life is more than meat.\nYes, life is meat and man, and to lose the best manhood to get the\nmeat, to lose the soul to save the body, to fail of heaven above you\nand before you that you may own the ground under your feet, that is\nnot success but failure. \"In all time of our prosperity, Good Lord\ndeliver us!\" May God help you who are prosperous.\n\nI would speak again of what is called intellectual life, the life of\nthought. It is \"of the Father,\" indeed. We picture to ourselves\nthe pure joy of God in thought. Free from so many of our cumbrous\nprocesses, free from the limitations of slow-moving time, free from\nall imperfection, with an instantaneous thought as is His being, the\nintellect that is the center of all reason revolves in its unfathomed\nmajesty. And man thinks too. God makes him think. God gives him powers\nto think with, and then, as when you pour for your child a stream of\nwater out of your cisterns upon the wheels of the machinery that you\nhave first built for him, God gives man thoughts to exercise his power\nof thinking upon. Can anything be more humble? The power was from God,\nthe thoughts by which the power moves were God's thoughts first. \"Oh,\nGod, I think Thy thoughts after Thee,\" cried John Kepler, when he\ncaught sight of the great law of planetary motion. But mere thought,\nself-satisfied, seeking no unity in God, owning no dependence,\nboasting of itself, counting it hardship that it cannot know all where\nit knows so much, this is the pride of thought, and this is not of the\nFather, but is of the world. How arrogant it is! How it is jealous of\ndictation, how it chafes under a hand that presses it down and a voice\nthat says to it, \"Wait! what thou knowest not now thou shall; know\nhereafter.\" How carefully it limits its kind of evidence, shutting out\neverything that sounds like personal communication, revelation, in its\nimpatient independence; how studiously it orphans itself. And then\nhow, in some moods, orphaned by its arrogance, it suddenly becomes\nintensely cognizant of its orphanage, and the child's hunger for a\nFather takes possession of its heart and it is dreary and miserable!\n\nI always know, when I speak thus of types of men, that you will think\nthat I am talking of those types in their extreme specimens. I am\nnot speaking to-day of the miracles of physical vitality, nor of the\nover-successful men with their colossal fortunes, nor of the mighty\nthinkers only. We all have our certain share in these various kinds of\nlife, and each of us may make his little share a seed of pride. We\nare strangely ingenious here. We have an easy faculty of persuading\nourselves that ours is best of everything and growing arrogant,\nunfilial and worldly over it. I speak to the men confident in their\nyouth and health, to the merchants strong in their business credit,\nto the thoughtful brains at work over their problems of settling the\nuniverse for themselves. I warn them all against the pride of life. I\nwould try to show them all that the same material which is capable of\nbeing made into pride is capable also of being made into humility. I\nwould tell them therefore that they have not to be made old or sick or\npoor or stupid before they can be made humble, that the best humility,\nas well as the hardest, is that which can come to them here, right in\nthe midst of their strength and wealth and study!\n\nDo you ask how that can be? It is time that I tried to tell you, tried\nto tell how one may be full of life and yet be free from the pride of\nlife. That question must somehow be answered, or else the world will\nbe condemned to choose forever between an arrogant prosperity and a\nsalvation by misery, distress and disaster, by death. What do we need\nfor the salvation of a prosperous life? The answer in one word is\nconsecration. Consecration, that is what we need. There have been men\nin whom life seemed complete who have yet walked very humbly. They had\nno pride of life. And why? Because always before them and above them\nthere stood some great principle, some idea, some duty to which\ntheir life belonged, not to themselves. All work is modest, all idle\nself-contemplation is vain. And what the young man needs with his\nvague aspirations and conceits is to make himself the servant of some\nworthy purpose. And what the merchant needs with his growing business\nis to count himself the steward of some worthy Master. And what the\nstudent needs with his active mind is to trace the footsteps of the\nGod of wisdom in the path he walks and to count the reaching nearer to\nHim, the true prize and object of all thinking. Consecration! We are\nproud of life because we do so little with it. It is as if the bearer\nof dispatches sat down calmly and boasted of the well-made box in\nwhich they had been given to him, and never bore them to their\ndestination. Life is force, to be transmitted and delivered to a\npurpose and an end. It loses its true nature and sweetness, it\ncorrupts into pride, when it is robbed of its true purpose and\ncherished only for itself.\n\nWe can find our example of the consecrated man wherever we see true\nlives lived in history or about us now, in the Bible or in common\nlife. Moses, David, Paul! But why look at the poor, imperfect copies\nwhen in our Lord Himself we have the consummate human life clothed in\nthe wondrous humility of His appointed work. The life of lives! and\nyet was ever any life so utterly free from the tawdry pride that makes\nour poor achievements so wretched and unsatisfying. You say He cut\nHimself off from all that men are proud of. Not so. He gave up house\nand home, but he carried about with Him always the devotion of the\npeople, the mystery of unknown power and the consciousness of great\nwork and influence, the very things that have always seduced the best\nmen most and in their highest labors made them proud. You say He was\ndivine and so could not be humble. Yes, but He was profoundly human\nalso, and humility is not subserviency or meanness. It is a grace not\nunworthy of, nay, necessary to, even the perfect humanity. But one\nthing stands out always: His was the consecrated life. It was all\ngiven to its purpose. \"He was called Jesus because he should save his\npeople from their sins.\" \"Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's\nbusiness?\" \"Behold we go up to Jerusalem and the Son of Man shall be\nbetrayed.\" \"To this end was I born and for this cause came I into the\nworld, that I should bear witness unto the truth.\" Everywhere the\nconsecration, a life appointed to an end, the face set to Jerusalem,\nthe hands and feet waiting for the cross! Meanwhile it was the fullest\nlife, but lived so high that the \"pride of life\" lay all below under\nHis feet and out of sight.\n\nAnd our life must be consecrated even as His was. What shall the\nconsecration be? Far be it from me to undervalue the exaltation into\nhumility that comes to a man when he consecrates himself to any great\nand noble cause. I believe that it helps to save any man from pride\nwhen he gives himself to his family or his country or his fellow men,\nto truth, to liberty, to purity, to anything outside of and above\nhimself, but there is a consecration higher and fuller and more saving\nthan any such can be. We go back to the Cross. Jesus is dying there\nfor us. He dies and we are saved. What then? When a soul \"knows its\nfull salvation\" and sees it all bought by, all wrapt up in, that\nRedeemer, then in the outburst of a grateful love, he gives himself\nto the Redeemer Christ. There is no hesitation, no keeping back of\nanything. He is all offered up to Christ; and then to serve that\nChrist, to follow Him, to do His will, to enter into Him, that is\nthe one great object of the whole consecrated life, and in that\nconsecration, the straining of the life toward that One Object, the\n\"pride of life\" is swept down and drowned. Not merely the life then,\nbut the use of the life, comes from the Father. It is not of the\nworld. The soul is saved!\n\nThe salvation of the Cross! Its center is the forgiveness of sins\nwhich the cross alone made possible; but is not its issue here, in the\nlifting of the soul above the pride of life and consecrating it in the\nprofoundest gratitude to \"Him who redeemed us and washed us from\nsins in His own blood\"? What humility! What self-forgetfulness! What\nunworldliness! What utter childhood to the Father!\n\nMy friends, my people, would you be saved, saved from your sins, saved\nfrom yourselves, saved from the pride of life? You must be His that\nyou may not be your own! He died for you that you might not henceforth\nlive to yourself but unto Him. You must be consecrated to your Savior.\nIf there is one soul in my church to-day who is weary and dissatisfied\nwith his self-slavery, I offer him Jesus for Savior, for Master! If\nany man thirst let him come unto Him and drink. Turn unto Him and be\nye saved! You can, you must! His service is life, life in its fullest\nbecause life in humility. Outside of His gospel and His service there\nis the pride of life, and the pride of life is death.\n\n\n\n\nGLADDEN\n\nTHE PRINCE OF LIFE\n\nBIOGRAPHICAL NOTE\n\n\nWashington Gladden, Congregational divine, was born at Pottsgrove,\nPa., in 1836. After graduating at Williams College he was ordained\npastor, and occupied pulpits in Brooklyn, Morrisania, N.Y., and\nSpringfield, Mass., until 1882, when he assumed charge of the First\nCongregational Church of Columbus, Ohio. He has also occupied\neditorial positions, and has published many books on social and civil\nreform and the practical application of Christian truth to popular and\ncommon life. His style, whether he is writing or speaking, combines\nvigor with grace.\n\n\n\n\nGLADDEN\n\nBORN IN 1836\n\nTHE PRINCE OF LIFE[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: From Mr. Gladden's \"The New Idolatry.\" By permission of\nThe McClure Co. Copyright, 1906, by McClure, Phillips & Co.]\n\n_And killed the prince of life, whom God hath raised from the\ndead._--Acts iii., 15.\n\n\nThis is the phrase with which Peter, in his great speech in the temple\nporch, describes the Master whose disciple he had been for three years,\nwhose death he had witnessed on Calvary, and to whose resurrection from\nthe dead he is now bearing witness. \"The prince of life!\" It is one of\nthe many great titles conferred upon the Lord by those who loved Him.\nReverence and devotion fell from their lips in lyrical cadences whenever\nthey spoke of Him, and they wreathed for Him garlands of words with\nwhich they loved to deck His memory. He was \"the Prophet of the\nHighest\"; He was \"the Great High Priest\"; He was \"the Shepherd of the\nSheep\"; He was \"the Captain of Salvation\"; He was \"the First Born of\nMany Brethren\"; He was \"Redeemer,\" \"Reconciler,\" \"Savior.\" Gratitude and\naffection shaped many a tender phrase in which to describe Him, but\nthere is none, perhaps, more luminous or more comprehensive than this\nwith which the impulsive Peter, facing the men who had put Him to death,\ngave utterance to his loyalty. Its pertinence is confirmed by the word\nof Jesus Himself, in one of the sayings in which He described His\nmission: \"I am come that ye might have life, and that ye might have it\nabundantly.\" Author and Giver of life He was, and what He gave He gave\nwith princely munificence--freely, unstintedly.\n\nThe phrase seems to be one on which we may fitly dwell to-day, since\nthe day of the year which commemorates His birth occurs on the day of\nthe week which celebrates His resurrection. Both events proclaim Him\nthe Prince of Life. In the one He is the Bringer of new life, in\nthe other He is the Victor over death; and thus He becomes, in the\nimpassioned confessions of the apostle, the Alpha and the Omega, the\nAuthor and the Finisher of Faith, the First and the Last and the\nLiving One.\n\nThose who are familiar with the New Testament narration do not need to\nhave their attention called to the constant ministry of this Son of\nMan to the vital needs of men. The impartation of life seems to\nhave been His main business. Somehow it came to be believed by the\nmultitude, at the very beginning of His public ministry, that He\npossest some power of communicating life. The wonderful works ascribed\nto Him are nearly all of this character. The healing of the sick, the\ncleansing of the lepers, all resulted from the reenforcement of the\nvital energies of the sufferers. When He laid His hand upon men, new\nlife seemed to speed through their veins. We have known some who\nseemed to have, in some imperfect way, this quickening touch. It is\na physiological fact that warm blood from the veins of a thoroughly\nhealthy person, transfused through the veins of one who is emaciated\nor exhausted, quickens the wavering pulse and brings life to the\ndying. It may be that through the nerve tissues, as well as through\nthe veins, the same vitalizing force may be communicated, and that\nthose who are in perfect health, both of body and of mind, may have\nthe power of imparting life to those who are in need of it. The\nmiracles of healing ascribed to Jesus must have been miracles in the\nliteral sense; they were wonders, marvels--for that is what the word\nmiracle means; that they were interruptions or violations of natural\nlaw is never intimated in the New Testament; they may have been purely\nnatural occurrences, taking place under the operation of natural\nlaws with which we are not familiar. We are far from knowing all the\nsecrets of this wonderful universe; the time may come when these words\nof Jesus will have larger meaning than we have ever given them: \"If ye\nabide in me, the works that I do shall ye do also, and greater works\nthan these shall ye do, because I go unto my Father.\"\n\nThe fact to be noted is, however, that the people with whom Jesus was\nbrought into contact were made aware in many ways of the impartation\nof His Life to them. \"Of His fulness,\" said John, \"we all received,\nand grace for grace.\" There seemed to be in Him a plenitude of\nvitality, from which health and vigor flowed into the lives of those\nwho came near to Him. Nor does this seem to have been any mere\nphysical magnetism; there is no intimation that His physical\nendowments were exceptional; the restoring and invigorating influence\noftener flowed from a deeper source. The physical renewal came as the\nresult of a spiritual quickening. He reached the body through the\nsoul. The order was, first, \"Thy sins be forgiven thee\"; then, \"Arise\nand walk.\" If the spirit is thoroughly alive, the body more quickly\nrecovers its lost vigor. And it was mainly in giving peace to troubled\nconsciences and rest to weary souls that He conferred upon those who\nreceived Him the great boon of life.\n\nThus Jesus proved Himself \"the Prince of Life.\" In the early ages of\nthe Church the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, came to be described as\n\"the Lord and Giver of Life\"; but that was because He was believed to\nbe the Continuator of the work of Jesus--the spiritual Christ.\n\nThere seems to be in this conception a great and beautiful revelation\nof the essential nature of Christianity. There are many ways of\nconceiving of this, but I am not sure that any one of them is more\nsignificant than that which we are now considering. Those words of\nJesus to which I have before referred are wonderful words when we come\nto think upon them. They occur in that discourse in which He describes\nHimself first as the Good Shepherd, and contrasts Himself with the\nthieves and robbers who have been ravaging the flock. \"The thief\ncometh not,\" He says, \"but that he may steal and kill and destroy; I\ncame that they may have life, and may have it abundantly,\" Have we\nnot here the great fundamental distinction between men--the line that\nseparates the evil from the good, the just from the unjust, the sheep\nfrom the goats--that distinction which Jesus marks so clearly in His\nparable of judgment, and which must never, in our interpretations or\nphilosophizings, be blotted or blurred? Some are life-givers; some are\nlife-destroyers. \"The thief cometh not but that he may steal and\nkill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and may have it\nabundantly.\"\n\nI do not suppose that Jesus meant in this to declare that there is a\nlarge class of persons whose entire purpose it is to steal and kill\nand destroy; probably there are none so malevolent that they do not\ncherish some kindly impulses and perform some generous deeds. It is a\ndistinction between acts, or perhaps between tendencies of character,\nthat He is making. He speaks in the concrete, as He always does; but\nHe expects us to make the proper application of His words. The fact to\nwhich He guides our thought is this--that there are ways of living,\nforms of conduct, which are predatory and destructive of life, and\nother ways that tend to make life increase and abound. When Jesus\ncontrasts His own conduct, as one who gives life and gives it\nabundantly, with the thieves and robbers who kill and destroy, we must\ninterpret the conduct of those whom He describes as destructive of\nlife--as tending to the diminution of life. Indeed, it is a very deep\nand awful truth that all our social action tends in one or other of\nthese directions. Life, in its proper relation, is the one supreme and\ncentral good; the life of the body is the supreme good of the body;\nthe life of the spirit is the supreme good of the spirit. And you can\nrightly estimate any act or habit or tendency of human conduct only by\ndetermining whether it increases and invigorates the life of men, body\nand spirit, or whether it reduces or diminishes their life. Good men\nare adding to the life of those with whom they have to do; evil men\nare debilitating and depleting the life of those with whom they have\nto do.\n\nEven in our economic relations the final effect of all our conduct\nupon those with whom we deal is to replenish or diminish their life.\nThe wage question is at bottom a question of more or less life for the\nwage-worker. Starvation wages are wages by which the hold upon life\nof the wage-earner and his wife and children is weakened. Systems of\nindustry are good in proportion as they enlarge and invigorate the\nlife of the whole population; evil in proportion as they lessen and\nweaken its life. So all industrial and national policies are to be\njudged by the amount of life which they produce and maintain--life of\nthe body and of the spirit. Those strong words of John Ruskin are the\neverlasting truth:\n\n\"There is no wealth but life--life including all its powers of love,\nof joy and of admiration. That country is the richest which nourishes\nthe greatest number of noble and happy human beings; that man is\nrichest who, having perfected the functions of his own life to the\nutmost, has also the widest helpful influence, both personal and by\nmeans of his possessions, over the lives of others,\"\n\nWe have here, as you see, the Christian conception--the very word of\nthe Prince of Life, of Him who came that we might have life, and that\nwe might have it abundantly. And when His kingdom has come, this will\nbe the end for which wealth is sought and used in every nation.\n\nIt is possible to use wealth so that it shall be productive of life;\nso that the entire administration of it shall tend to the enlargement\nand enrichment of the life of men; so that the labor which it employs\nshall obtain an increasing share of the goods which it produces; so\nthat all the conditions under which that labor is performed shall be\nfavorable to health and life and happiness; so that the spiritual\nlife, also, of all who are employed shall be nourished by inspiring\nthem with good-will and kindness, with the confidence in man which\nhelps us to have faith in God. Such an administration of wealth is\nperhaps the very best testimony to the reality of the truth of the\nChristian religion which it is possible to bear in this day and\ngeneration. One who handles capital with this clear purpose can do\nmore to establish in the earth the kingdom of heaven than any minister\nor missionary can do.\n\nBut it is possible to use wealth in the opposite way, so that it shall\nbe destructive rather than productive of life. A man may manage his\nindustry in such a way that the last possible penny shall be taken\nfrom wages and added to profit; in such a way that the health of his\nemployees shall be impaired and their happiness blighted and their\nhope taken, away. He may do this while maintaining an outwardly\nreligious behavior and giving large sums to philanthropy. But such\na handling of wealth does more to make infidels than any heretical\nteacher or lecturer ever did or can do.\n\nThe fact needs to be noted that all the predatory schemes by which\ncapital is successfully inflated and nefariously manipulated, and the\ncommunity is thus burdened, are deadly attacks upon the life of the\npeople. They filch away the earnings of the laboring classes. They\nincrease the cost of rent and transportation and all the necessaries\nof life. They extort from the people contributions for which no\nequivalent has been given, of commodity or service. Thus the burden of\ntoil is increased and the reward of industry is lessened for all who\nwork; the surplus out of which life would be replenished is consumed,\nand the amount of life in the nation at large is lessened. Every one\nof those schemes of frenzied finance about which we are reading\nin these days is a gigantic bloodsucker, with ten million minute\ntentacles which it stealthily fastens upon the people who do the\nworld's work, and each one of the victims must give up a little of his\nlife for the aggrandizement of our financial Titans. When such schemes\nflourish, by which men's gains are suddenly swollen to enormous\nproportions, somebody must be paying for it, and life is always the\nfinal payment. It all comes out of the life of the people who are\nproducing the world's wealth. The plethora of the few is the depletion\nof the millions. In every great aggregation of workers, the faces of\nthe underfed are a little paler and the pulses of the children beat a\nlittle less joyously, and the feet are hastened on that journey to\nthe tomb--all because of those who come to steal and to kill and to\ndestroy.\n\nSuch is the contrast between beneficent business and maleficent\nbusiness. The good business employs men, feeds them, clothes them,\nshelters them, generously distributes among them the goods that\nnourish life; the bad business contrives to levy tribute on the\nresources out of which they are fed and clad and nourished, and thus\nenriches itself by impoverishing the life of the multitude.\n\nAnd I suppose that we should all find, whether we are engaged in what\nis called business or not, that the work which we are doing, the way\nin which we are spending our time and gaining our income, is tending\neither to the enlargement and increase of the life of those with whom\nwe have to do or to the impoverishment and destruction of their life;\nand that this is the final test by which we must be judged--are we\nproducers of life or destroyers of life? Is there more of life in the\nworld--more of physical and spiritual life--because of what we are and\nwhat we do, or is the physical and spiritual vitality of men lessened\nby what we are and what we do? Are we helping men to be stronger and\nsounder in body and mind and soul for the work of life, or are we\nmaking them feebler in muscle and will and moral stamina?\n\nWhen Jesus Christ came into the world the civilization prevailing--if\nsuch it could be called--was under the dominion of those who came\nto steal and to kill and to destroy. Rome was the world, and the\ncivilization of Rome, with all its splendor, was at bottom a predatory\ncivilization. It overran all its neighbors that it might subjugate and\ndespoil them; its whole social system was based on a slavery in which\nthe enslaved were merely chattels; the life of its ruling class was\nfed by the literal devouring of the lives of subject classes. Of\ncourse, this civilization was decadent. That terrible decline and fall\nwhich Gibbon has pictured was in full progress. It was in the midst of\nthis awful scene that Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea. Can anyone\ndoubt that His heart was full of divine compassion for those who were\ntrampled on and preyed upon by the cruel and the strong, for those\nwhose lives were consumed by the avarice and greed of their fellows?\nWhat did He mean when, at the beginning of His ministry in the synagog\nwhere He had always worshiped, He took in his hand the roll of the\nprophet Isaiah and read therefrom: \"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,\nbecause he hath anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor; he\nhath sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight\nto the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to proclaim the\nacceptable year of the Lord\"--adding as He sat down, under the gaze of\nthe congregation, \"To-day hath this scripture been fulfilled in your\nears\"? What could He have meant but this, that it was His mission to\nchange the entire current and tendency of human life; to put an end to\nthe plunderers and devourers; to chain the wolfish passion in human\nhearts which prompts men to steal and to kill and to destroy; to\ninspire them with His own divine compassion; to give life and to give\nit abundantly? And is it not true that so far as men do receive of His\nfulness, so far as they are brought under the control of His spirit,\nthey do cease to be destroyers and devourers of the bodies and souls\nof their fellows, and become helpers, saviors, life-bringers? And is\nnot this included in His meaning when He says: \"I am come that they\nmay have life, and that they may have it abundantly\"?\n\nTo-day, then, we hail Him as Prince of Life, the glorious Giver to men\nof the one supreme and crowning good. And the manner of the giving is\nnot hard to understand. He gives life by kindling in our hearts the\nflame of sacred love. Love is life. Love to God and man brings the\nsoul into unity with itself; it is obeying its own organic law, and\nobedience to its law brings to any organism life and health and\npeace. If the spirit of Christ has become the ruling principle of our\nconduct, then we have entered into life, and it is a life that knows\nno term; it is the immortal life. If the spirit of Christ has entered\ninto our lives, then in all our relations with others life is\nincreased; we are by nature givers of good; out of our lives are\nforever flowing healing, restoring, saving, vitalizing influences; and\nwhen all the members of the society in which we move have received\nthis spirit and manifest it, there are none to bite and devour, to\nhurt and destroy; the predatory creatures have ceased their ravages,\nand the world rejoices in the plenitude of life which He came to\nbring.\n\nWe hail Him, then, to-day, as the Lord and Giver of life. We desire to\nshare with Him the unspeakable gift, and to share it, as best we may,\nwith all our fellow men. What we freely receive from Him, we would\nfreely give. What the whole world needs to-day is life, more life,\nfuller life, larger life. We spend all our energies in heaping up the\nmeans of life, and never really begin to live; our strength is wasted,\nour health is broken, our intellects are impoverished, our affections\nare withered, our peace is destroyed in our mad devotion to that\nwhich is only an adjunct or appendage of life. Oh, if we could only\nunderstand how good a thing it is to live, just to live, truly and\nfreely and largely and nobly, to live the life that is life indeed!\n\nShall we not draw to this Prince of Life and take from Him the gift\nthat He came to bring? Is not this the one thing needful? We are\nreading and hearing much in these days of the simple life. What is it\nbut the life into which they are led who take the yoke of this Master\nupon them and learn of Him? It is a most cheering omen that this\nlittle book of Pastor Wagner's is falling into so many hands and\nlittering its ingenuous and persuasive plea before so many minds\nand in so many homes. If we heed it, it must bring us back to the\nsimplicity of Christ. Pastor Wagner is only preaching over again the\nSermon on the Mount; it is nothing but the teaching of Jesus brought\ndown to this day and applied to the conditions of our complex\ncivilization. It is the true teaching; none of us can doubt it. And I\nwish that we could all begin the new year with the earnest purpose to\nput ourselves under the leadership of the Prince of Life. I know that\nwe should find His yoke easy and His burden light, and that there\nwould be rest for our souls in the paths into which He would lead us.\nWe should know, if we shared His life, that we were really living; and\nwe should know also that we wore helping others to live; that we were\ndoing what we could to put an end to the ravages of the destroyers and\nthe devourers, and to fill the earth with the abundance of peace.\n\nIs not this, fellow men, the right way to live? Does not all that is\ndeepest and divinest in you consent to this way of life into which\nJesus Christ is calling us, as the right way, the royal way, the\nblessed way? Choose it, then, with all the energy of your volition,\nand walk in it with a glad heart and a hope that maketh not ashamed.\n\n\n\n\nCLIFFORD\n\nTHE FORGIVENESS OF SINS\n\nBIOGRAPHICAL NOTE\n\n\nJohn Clifford, Baptist divine, was born at Lawley, Derbyshire,\nin 1836. He was educated at the Baptist College, Nottingham, and\nUniversity College, London. He has had much editorial as well as\nministerial experience and has published a number of works upon\nreligious, educational and social questions. The Rev. William Durban,\nthe editor, writing from London of John Clifford in the _Homiletic\nReview_, styles him \"the renowned Baptist preacher, undoubtedly the\nmost conspicuous figure in his own denomination.\" He speaks of \"the\nprofundity of thought,\" \"simplicity and beauty of diction,\" the\n\"compactness of argument\" and \"instructive expository character\" of\nthis preacher's discourses.\n\n\n\n\nCLIFFORD\n\nBORN IN 1836\n\nTHE FORGIVENESS OF SINS\n\n_I believe in the forgiveness of sins_.--Apostles' Creed.\n\n\nThis is the first note of personal experience in the Apostles' Creed.\nWe here come into the society of men like John Bunyan and go with\nthem through the wicket-gate of repentance, through the Slough of\nDespond, getting out on the right side of it, reaching at length the\ncross, to find the burden fall from our backs as we look upon Him who\ndied for us; and then we travel on our way until we come to the River\nof Death and cross it, discovering that it is not so deep after all,\nand that on the other side is the fulness of the life everlasting.\n\nIt is a new note, and it is a little surprizing--is it not?--to most\nstudents of this creed that we should have to travel through so many\nclauses before we reach it. It scarcely seems to be in keeping with\nthe spirit and temper of the early Christian Church that we should\nhave all this analysis of thought, this statement of the facts of\nChristian revelation, this testimony as to the power of the Holy\nSpirit, before we get any utterance as to that individual faith by\nwhich the Christian Church has been created, and owing to which there\nhas been the helpful and inspiring fellowship of the saints.\n\nI say it is a new note, but it is fundamental. When the Creed does\ntouch the inward life, it goes straight to that which is central--to\nthat which is preeminently evangelical. Without the doctrine of the\nforgiveness of sins you could have no good news for a sinful world;\nbut with the assertion of this faith as the actual faith of the man,\nyou have possibilities of service, the upspringing of altruism, the\nconquest of self, the enthronement of Christ, the advancement of\nhumanity after the likeness of Jesus Christ.\n\nA note it is which is not only fundamental but most musical,\nharmonious and gladdening. In the ancient Psalms we hear it\noft--\"Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me bless his\nholy name, who forgiveth all thine iniquities, who healeth all thy\ndiseases.\" It recurs in the prophets: \"I, the Lord, am he that\nblotteth out thy sins; yea, tho they be as a thick cloud, I will blot\nthem out.\" It is the highest note reached by the singers of the Old\nTestament; but it comes to us with greater resonance and sweetness\nfrom the lips of the men who have stood in the presence of Jesus\nChrist, and who are able to say, as they look into the faces of their\nfellows: \"Be it known unto you that through this man is preached unto\nyou the forgiveness of sins from which you could not have been freed\nby the law of Moses.\" With emphasis, with, strength, with fulness of\nconviction, with gladdening rapture, these men proclaimed their faith\nin the forgiveness of sins, and tho the Creed of the churches travels\nslowly after the faith of the early Church, its last note sounds out\na note of triumph: \"I believe in the forgiveness of sins, the\nresurrection of the body, and life everlasting.\"\n\nIt is the crown of the whole Creed. It is the flowering of the truths\nthat are contained in the Creed. Let a man understand God, and let him\nhave such a vision of the Eternal as Job had, and he is constrained to\nsay, \"I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes.\" He desires first\nand chiefly to know that the true relation between the human spirit\nand God which has been broken by sin has at length been rearranged,\nand that sin is no longer an obstacle to the soul's converse with a\nholy God, but that the ideal relation of the human spirit with the\ndivine spirit is reestablished by the proclamation of forgiveness.\nFor, as you know, pardon is not the extinguishing of a man's past;\nthat cannot be done. What has been done by us of good or evil abides,\nit endures; not God Himself can extinguish the deeds of the past. What\nforgiveness does is this: it rearranges the relations between the\nspirit of man and our Father, so that the sins of the past are no\nlonger an obstacle to us in our speech with Him, our trust in Him--our\nusing the energies of God for the accomplishment of His purposes. It\nis the restoration of the human spirit to right relations with God.\nForgiveness of sins conies, therefore, at the very start of a right\nlife. It is the beginning. All else in the spiritual life succeeds\nupon this.\n\nI know there is a theory among us, and I am prepared to endorse it,\nthat, if we are trained by godly parents in godly homes, we may grow\ninto the spiritual life, pass into it, as it were, by stages which it\nis impossible for us to register. We are largely unconscious of\nthese spiritual ascents; they are being made by the gracious use\nof influences that are in our environment, that reach us through\nsanctified folk, and we travel on from strength to strength, and,\nthen, perchance, in our young manhood or womanhood, there comes a\ncrisis of revelation, and we discover that we are in such relations\nwith God our Father, Redeemer, and Renewer as fill us with peace,\ncreate hope and conscious strength. But I assure you that in addition\nto this experience there will come, it may be early, it may be late,\nsome moment in the life when there is discovered to the individual\nspirit making that ascent a sense of the awful heinousness of sin; and\ntho we may not have such a unique experience of evil as the Apostle\nPaul had, and become so conscious of it as to feel, as it were, that\nit is a dead body that we have to carry about with us as we go through\nlife, interfering with the very motions of our spirit; yet we do\napproximate to it, and it is through these approximations to\nthe Apostle Paul that we are lifted to the heights of spiritual\nachievement, and are qualified for sympathy with a sin-stricken world,\nand inspired by and nourished in a passionate enthusiasm to serve that\nworld by bringing it into right relations with God.\n\nWhen, therefore, a man says, \"I believe in God the Father Almighty,\nmaker of heaven and earth,\" he is asserting that which, being turned\nto its full and true use, carries him to this goal, \"I believe in the\nforgiveness of sins.\" For a full and true doctrine of God can only\nbe heartily welcomed when it is associated with the message of the\nforgiveness of sins. Otherwise the visions of the eternal Power may\nstart in us the cry of Peter: \"Depart from me, for I am a sinful man,\nO Lord,\" When a man asserts his faith in Jesus Christ, God's only Son,\nour Lord, who was crucified, who suffered under Pontius Pilate, who\ndied on the cross; he is himself asserting his faith in the great\npurpose for which God sent His Son; even to take away the sin of\nthe world, to make an end of iniquity, to bring in an everlasting\nrighteousness; and so out of that faith he prepared for the response\nwhich the soul makes to the workings of the Spirit, the Holy Ghost\nwithin him, and he is able to say from his own knowledge of what God\nhas been to him, \"I believe in the forgiveness of sins.\"\n\nFriends, you have said this again and again, some of you hundreds of\ntimes. You have asserted it week by week. What did you mean by it?\nWhat exactly was the thought in your heart as the words passed over\nyour lips, \"I believe in the forgiveness of sins\"? Was it simply the\nrecognition of a universal amnesty for a world of rebels? Was it\nmerely the assertion of your confidence in the goodness of God\nirrespective of His holiness? Or when you uttered that faith of yours,\ndid it mean that you were able to say, \"My sins, which were many,\nare all forgiven. My sins are forgiven, not may be--that pardon is a\nglorious possibility only--but are forgiven, not will be forgiven at\nsome future time. I am now at peace with God through faith, in our\nLord Jesus Christ\"? Could you say that? Was that what it meant; or was\nit simply the repetition of a phrase which has been handed down to\nyou by your predecessors, and which you took up as part of an ordered\nservice, without putting the slightest fiber of your soul into it?\n\nDepend upon it, the mere recitation of a creed will not bring you\nGod's peace, it will not open your heart to the access of His infinite\ncalm. It will not secure you that emancipation from evil which will\nmean immediate dedication of yourself to work for the emancipation\nof the world. You must know of yourself, of your own heart and\nconsciousness, that God has forgiven you. And if you do get that\nconsciousness, that moment of your life will be marked indelibly upon\nthe tablet of your memory. The dint will go so deeply into your nature\nthat it will be impossible for you to forget it. Speaking for myself,\nI can at this moment see the whole surroundings of the place and time\nwhen to me there came the glad tidings, \"God has forgiven you.\" \"God\nwas in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not reckoning unto\nmen their trespasses.\"\n\nDo you believe in the forgiveness of sins? Then preach it. Tell it\nto other people. Let your neighbors know about it. I do not mean\nby preaching at the street corners, but by getting into such close\naffectionate touch, with your friends as that you shall be able to\npersuade them to disinter the thoughts of their own hearts, and show\nthe sorrows that are there--sorrows produced by sin. For, believe me,\nbehind all the bright seeming of human countenances there is a subtle\nbitterness gnawing constantly at the heart, consequent upon the\nconsciousness of failure--the sense of having broken the law of God. I\nknow that hundreds of people go into the church and tell God that they\nare miserable sinners. They do that in a crowd; it is saying nothing.\nThey no more think of saying it in such a way as to place themselves\napart from their fellows than they would of saying: \"I am a thief!\"\n\nDo you believe in the forgiveness of sins? What, then, are you going\nto do with your faith?\n\nProve your faith by your works. Every time you ask God for forgiveness\nyou should feel yourself pledged to a most strenuous and resolute\nfight with the sin you ask God to forgive. The acceptance of pardon\npledges you to the pursuit of holiness, and yet we have to keep on\nwith this doctrine, because it is not only the very beginning of the\nChristian life, but also the continuous need of that life.\n\nWe have to say night by night, \"Forgive the ill that I this day have\ndone.\" And if we say it as we ought, as really believing that God\nforgives us, so that we may not lose heart, may never encourage\ndespair of final victory, we shall get up next morning resolved to\nmake a fiercer fight than ever with the evil that sent us on our knees\nlast night. Do you believe in the forgiveness of sins? Let the joy of\nit come to you, and as your own heart overflows with the fulness of\nthat joy, declare unto others God's salvation, and teach transgressors\nHis way. Do you believe in the forgiveness of sins? Then find in that\nfaith an impact to obedience to the law of Jesus: \"Be ye perfect even\nas your Father in heaven is perfect\"; and do not forget that He who\nbegins the good work in you with His pardon will carry it on to the\nday of Jesus Christ; so that you may add the last words of the\nCreed: \"I believe in the resurrection from the dead and in the life\neverlasting.\"\n\nIt is not altogether a good sign that we have pushed eternity out of\nour modern thought. Confronted as man is every moment by a sense of\nthe fragility and the brevity of human life, it is not surprizing\nthat we should welcome everybody who comes with a message concerning\neternity.\n\nIs there not, in truth, beauty in the old Anglo-Saxon story of the\nbird that shot in at one open window of the large assembly hall and\nout at another, where were gathered together a great company of thanes\nand vassals; and when the missionary was asked to speak to them\nconcerning God and His salvation, the thane who was presiding rose\nand said, recalling the bird's speedy flight from side to side of\nthe hall, \"Such is our life, and if this man can tell us anything\nconcerning the place to which we are going, let him stand up and be\nheard.\" Brothers, a few days may carry us into eternity. \"Boast not\nthyself of to-morrow, thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.\"\nStrong, hopeful, rich in promise of service is to-day; to-morrow\nfriends may be weeping, kith and kin full of sorrow for our\ndeparture. This life does not end all; we are going to an eternity of\nblessedness, to progress without limit, to an assimilation with God\nthat shall know no sudden break or failure, but shall be perfect, even\nas He is perfect.\n\n\n\n\nMOODY\n\nWHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST?\n\nBIOGRAPHICAL NOTE\n\n\nDwight Lyman Moody, the evangelist, was born at Northfield,\nMassachusetts, in 1837, and died in 1899. As a business man he brought\nto his evangelistic work exceptional tact, initiative, and executive\nability, but the main source of his power lay in his knowledge of the\nBible, his constant companion. In preaching he largely disregarded\nform, and thought little of the sermon as such. His one overwhelming\nand undeviating purpose was to lead men to Christ. His speaking was in\na kind of monotone, but his straightforward plainness never failed to\nbe effective. He usually held the Bible in his hand while speaking,\nso that there was little of gesture. His great sympathetic nature is\nspoken of by Henry Drummond in these words:\n\n\"If eloquence is measured by its effect upon an audience, and not by\nits balanced sentences and cumulative periods, then this is eloquence\nof the highest sort. In sheer persuasiveness Mr. Moody has few equals,\nand rugged as his preaching may seem to some, there is in it a pathos\nof a quality which few orators have ever reached, and an appealing\ntenderness which not only wholly redeems it, but raises it, not\nunseldom, almost to sublimity.\"\n\n\n\n\nMOODY\n\n1837--1899\n\nWHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST?[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: By permission of the Fleming H. Revell Company, owners of\ncopyright.]\n\n_What think ye of Christ_?--Matt, xxii., 42.\n\n\nI suppose there is no one here who has not thought more or less about\nChrist. You have heard about Him, and read about Him, and heard men\npreach about Him. For eighteen hundred years men have been talking\nabout Him and thinking about Him; and some have their minds made up\nabout who He is, and doubtless some have not. And altho all these\nyears have rolled away, this question comes up, addresst to each of\nus, to-day, \"What think ye of Christ?\"\n\nI do not know why it should not be thought a proper question for one\nman to put to another. If I were to ask you what you think of any of\nyour prominent men, you would already have your mind made up about\nhim. If I were to ask you what you thought of your noble queen, you\nwould speak right out and tell me your opinion in a minute.\n\nIf I were to ask about your prime minister, you would tell me freely\nwhat you had for or against him. And why should not people make up\ntheir minds about the Lord Jesus Christ, and take their stand for or\nagainst Him? If you think well of Him, why not speak well of Him and\nrange yourselves on His side? And if you think ill of Him, and believe\nHim to be an impostor, and that He did not die to save the world, why\nnot lift up your voice and say you are against Him? It would be a\nhappy day for Christianity if men would just take sides--if we could\nknow positively who is really for Him and who is against Him.\n\nIt is of very little importance what the world thinks of any one else.\nThe queen and the statesman, the peers and the princes, must soon be\ngone. Yes; it matters little, comparatively, what we think of them.\nTheir lives can only interest a few; but every living soul on the face\nof the earth is concerned with this Man. The question for the world\nis, \"What think ye of Christ?\"\n\nI do not ask you what you think of the Established Church, or of the\nPresbyterians, or the Baptists, or the Roman Catholics; I do not ask\nyou what you think of this minister or that, of this doctrine or that;\nbut I want to ask you what you think of the living person of Christ?\n\nI should like to ask, Was He really the Son of God--the great God-Man?\nDid He leave heaven and come down to this world for a purpose? Was it\nreally to seek and to save? I should like to begin with the manger,\nand to follow Him up through the thirty-three years He was here upon\nearth. I should ask you what you think of His coming into this world\nand being born in a manger when it might have been a palace; why He\nleft the grandeur and the glory of heaven, and the royal retinue of\nangels; why He passed by palaces and crowns and dominion and came down\nhere alone.\n\nI should like to ask you what you think of Him as a teacher. He spake\nas never man spake. I should like to take Him up as a preacher. I\nshould like to bring you to that mountain-side, that we might listen\nto the words as they fall from His gentle lips. Talk about the\npreachers of the present day! I would rather a thousand times be five\nminutes at the feet of Christ than listen a lifetime to all the wise\nmen in the world. He used just to hang truth upon anything. Yonder is\na sower, a fox, a bird, and He just gathers the truth around them, so\nthat you cannot see a fox, a sower, or a bird, without thinking what\nJesus said. Yonder is a lily of the valley; you cannot see it without\nthinking of His words, \"They toil not, neither do they spin.\"\n\nHe makes the little sparrow chirping in the air preach to us. How\nfresh those wonderful sermons are, how they live to-day! How we love\nto tell them to our children, how the children love to hear! \"Tell me\na story about Jesus,\" how often we hear it; how the little ones love\nHis sermons! No story-book in the world will ever interest them like\nthe stories that He told. And yet how profound He was; how He puzzled\nthe wise men; how the scribes and the Pharisees would never fathom\nHim! Oh, do you not think He was a wonderful preacher?\n\nI should like to ask you what you think of Him as a physician. A man\nwould soon have a reputation as a doctor if he could cure as Christ\ndid. No case was ever brought to Him but what He was a match for. He\nhad but to speak the word, and disease fled before Him. Here comes a\nman covered with leprosy.\n\n\"Lord, if thou wilt thou canst make me clean,\" he cried.\n\n\"I will,\" says the Great Physician, and in an instant the leprosy is\ngone. The world has hospitals for incurable diseases; but there were\nno incurable diseases with Him.\n\nNow, see Him in the little home at Bethany, binding up the wounded\nhearts of Martha and Mary, and tell me what you think of Him as\na comforter. He is a husband to the widow and a father to the\nfatherless. The weary may find a resting-place upon that breast, and\nthe friendless may reckon Him their friend. He never varies. He never\nfails, He never dies. His sympathy is ever fresh, His love is ever\nfree. Oh, widow and orphans, oh, sorrowing and mourning, will you not\nthank God for Christ the comforter?\n\nBut these are not the points I wish to take up. Let us go to those who\nknew Christ, and ask what they thought of Him. If you want to find out\nwhat a man is nowadays, you inquire about him from those who know him\nbest. I do not wish to be partial; we will go to His enemies, and to\nHis friends. We will ask them, What think ye of Christ? We will ask\nHis friends and His enemies. If we only went to those who liked Him,\nyou would say:\n\n\"Oh, he is so blind; he thinks so much of the man that he can't see\nHis faults. You can't get anything out of him unless it be in His\nfavor; it is a one-sided affair altogether.\"\n\nSo we shall go in the first place to His enemies, to those who hated\nHim, persecuted Him, curst and slew Him. I shall put you in the\njury-box, and call upon them to tell us what they think of Him.\n\nFirst, among the witnesses, let us call upon the Pharisees. We\nknow how they hated Him. Let us put a few questions to them. \"Come,\nPharisees, tell us what you have against the Son of God, What do you\nthink of Christ?\" Hear what they say! \"This man receiveth sinners.\"\nWhat an argument to bring against Him! Why, it is the very thing that\nmakes us love Him. It is the glory of the gospel. He receives sinners.\nIf He had not, what would have become of us? Have you nothing more\nto bring against Him than this? Why, it is one of the greatest\ncompliments that was ever paid Him. Once more: when He was hanging on\nthe tree, you had this to say to Him, \"He saved others, but He could\nnot save Himself and save us too.\" So He laid down His own life for\nyours and mine. Yes, Pharisees, you have told the truth for once in\nyour lives! He saved others. He died for others. He was a ransom for\nmany; so it is quite true what you think of Him--He saved others,\nHimself He cannot save.\n\nNow, let us call upon Caiaphas. Let him stand up here in his flowing\nrobes; let us ask him for his evidence. \"Caiaphas, you were chief\npriest when Christ was tried; you were president of the Sanhedrin; you\nwere in the council-chamber when they found Him guilty; you yourself\ncondemned Him. Tell us; what did the witnesses say? On what grounds\ndid you judge Him? What testimony was brought against Him?\" \"He hath\nspoken blasphemy,\" says Caiaphas. \"He said, 'Hereafter you shall see\nthe Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the\nclouds of heaven.' When I heard that, I found Him guilty of blasphemy;\nI rent my mantle and condemned Him to death.\" Yes, all that they had\nagainst Him was that He was the Son of God; and they slew Him for the\npromise of His coming for His bride!\n\nNow let us summon Pilate. Let him enter the witness-box.\n\n\"Pilate, this man was brought before you; you examined Him; you talked\nwith Him face to face; what think you of Christ?\"\n\n\"I find no fault in him,\" says Pilate. \"He said he was the King of\nthe Jews [just as He wrote it over the cross]; but I find no fault in\nhim.\" Such is the testimony of the man who examined Him! And, as He\nstands there, the center of a Jewish mob, there comes along a man\nelbowing his way in haste. He rushes up to Pilate, and, thrusting out\nhis hand, gives him a message. He tears it open; his face turns pale\nas he reads--\"Have thou nothing to do with this just man, for I have\nsuffered many things this day in a dream because of him.\" It is from\nPilate's wife--her testimony to Christ. You want to know what His\nenemies thought of Him? You want to know what a heathen, thought?\nWell, here it is, \"no fault in him\"; and the wife of a heathen, \"this\njust man.\"\n\nAnd now, look--in comes Judas. He ought to make a good witness. Let us\naddress him. \"Come, tell us, Judas, what think ye of Christ? You\nknew the Master well; you sold Him for thirty pieces of silver; you\nbetrayed Him with a kiss; you saw Him perform those miracles; you were\nwith Him in Jerusalem. In Bethany, when He summoned up Lazarus, you\nwere there. What think you of Him?\" I can see him as he comes into the\npresence of the chief priests; I can hear the money ring as he dashes\nit upon the table, \"I have betrayed innocent blood!\" Here is the man\nwho betrayed Him, and this is what he thinks of Him! Yes, those who\nwere guilty of His death put their testimony on record that He was an\ninnocent man.\n\nLet us take the centurion who was present at the execution. He had\ncharge of the Roman soldiers. He told them to make Him carry His\ncross; he had given orders for the nails to be driven into His feet\nand hands, for the spear to be thrust in His side. Let the centurion\ncome forward. \"Centurion, you had charge of the executioners; you saw\nthat the order for His death was carried out; you saw Him die; you\nheard Him speak upon the cross. Tell us, what think you of Christ?\"\nHark! Look at him; he is smiting his breast as he cries, \"Truly, this\nwas the son of God!\"\n\nI might go to the thief upon the cross, and ask what he thought of\nHim. At first he railed upon Him and reviled Him. But then he thought\nbetter of it: \"This man hath done nothing amiss,\" he says.\n\nI might go further. I might summon the very devils themselves and ask\nthem for their testimony. Have they anything to say of Him? Why, the\nvery devils called Him the Son of God! In Mark we have the unclean\nspirit crying, \"Jesus, thou Son of the most high God.\" Men say, \"Oh,\nI believe Christ to be the Son of God, and because I believe it\nintellectually I shall be saved.\" I tell you the devils did that. And\nthey did more than that, they trembled.\n\nLet us bring in His friends. We want you to hear their evidence. Let\nus call that prince of preachers. Let us hear the forerunner; none\never preached like this man--this man who drew all Jerusalem and all\nJudea into the wilderness to hear him; this man who burst upon the\nnations like the flash of a meteor. Let John the Baptist come with his\nleathern girdle and his hairy coat, and let him tell us what he thinks\nof Christ. His words, tho they were echoed in the wilderness of\nPalestine, are written in the Book forever, \"Behold the Lamb of God\nwhich taketh away the sin of the world!\" This is what John the Baptist\nthought of him. \"I bear record that He is the Son of God.\" No wonder\nhe drew all Jerusalem and Judea to him, because he preached Christ.\nAnd whenever men preach Christ, they are sure to have plenty of\nfollowers.\n\nLet us bring in Peter, who was with Him on the mount of\ntransfiguration, who was with Him the night He was betrayed. Come,\nPeter, tell us what you think of Christ. Stand in this witness-box and\ntestify of Him. You denied Him once. You said, with a curse, you did\nnot know Him. Was it true, Peter? Don't you know Him? \"Know Him!\" I\ncan imagine Peter saying: \"It was a lie I told then. I did know\nHim.\" Afterward I can hear him charging home their guilt upon these\nJerusalem sinners. He calls Him \"both Lord and Christ.\" Such was the\ntestimony on the day of Pentecost. \"God had made that same Jesus\nboth Lord and Christ.\" And tradition tells us that when they came to\nexecute Peter he felt he was not worthy to die in the way his Master\ndied, and he requested to be crucified with the head downward. So much\ndid Peter think of Him!\n\nNow let us hear from the beloved disciple John. He knew more about\nChrist than any other man. He had laid his head on his Savior's bosom.\nHe had heard the throbbing of that loving heart. Look into his Gospel\nif you wish to know what he thought of Him.\n\nMatthew writes of Him as the royal king come from His throne. Mark\nwrites of Him as the servant, and Luke of the Son of Man. John takes\nup his pen, and, with one stroke, forever settles the question of\nUnitarianism. He goes right back before the time of Adam. \"In the\nbeginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was\nGod.\" Look into Revelation. He calls him \"the bright and the morning\nstar.\" So John thought well of Him--because he knew Him well.\n\nWe might bring in Thomas, the doubting disciple. You doubted Him,\nThomas? You would not believe He had risen, and you put your fingers\ninto the wound in His side. What do you think of Him?\n\n\"My Lord and my God!\" says Thomas.\n\nThen go over to Decapolis and you will find Christ has been there\ncasting out devils. Let us call the men of that country and ask what\nthey think of Him. \"He hath done all things well,\" they say.\n\nBut we have other witnesses to bring in. Take the persecuting Saul,\nonce one of the worst of his enemies. Breathing out threatenings he\nmeets Him. \"Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?\" says Christ. He\nmight have added, \"What have I done to you? Have I injured you in any\nway? Did I not come to bless you? Why do you treat Me thus, Saul?\" And\nthen Saul asks, \"Who art thou, Lord?\"\n\n\"I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom thou persecutest.\" You see, He was not\nashamed of His name, altho He had been in heaven; \"I am Jesus of\nNazareth.\" What a change did that one interview make to Saul! A few\nyears afterward we hear him say, \"I have suffered the loss of all\nthings, and do count them but dross that I may win Christ.\" Such a\ntestimony to the Savior!\n\nBut I shall go still further. I shall go away from earth into the\nother world. I shall summon the angels and ask what they think of\nChrist. They saw Him in the bosom of the Father before the world was.\nBefore the dawn of creation, before the morning stars sang together,\nHe was there. They saw Him leave the throne and come down to the\nmanger. What a scene for them to witness! Ask these heavenly beings\nwhat they thought of Him then. For once they are permitted to speak;\nfor once the silence of heaven is broken. Listen to their song on the\nplains of Bethlehem, \"Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy,\nwhich shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day, in the\ncity of David, a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.\" He leaves the\nthrone to save the world. Is it a wonder the angels thought well of\nHim?\n\nThen there are the redeemed saints--they that see Him face to\nface. Here on earth He was never known, no one seemed really to be\nacquainted with Him; but He was known in that world where He had been\nfrom the foundation. What do they think of Him there? If we could hear\nfrom heaven we should hear a shout which would glorify and magnify His\nname. We are told that when John was in the Spirit on the Lord's Day,\nand being caught up, he heard a shout around him, ten thousand times\nten thousand, and thousands and thousands of voices, \"Worthy is the\nLamb that was slain, to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and\nstrength, and honor, and glory, and blessing!\" Yes, He is worthy of\nall this. Heaven cannot speak too well of Him. Oh, that earth would\ntake up the echo and join with heaven in singing, \"Worthy to receive\npower, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and\nblessing!\"\n\nBut there is still another witness, a higher still. Some think that\nthe God of the Old Testament is the Christ of the New. But when Jesus\ncame out to Jordan, baptized by John, there came a voice from heaven.\nGod the Father spoke. It was His testimony to Christ: \"This is my\nbeloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.\" Ah, yes! God the Father\nthinks well of the Son. And if God is well pleased with Him, so ought\nwe to be. If the sinner and God are well pleased with Christ, then the\nsinner and God can meet. The moment you say, as the Father said, \"I am\nwell pleased with Him,\" and accept Him, you are wedded to God. Will\nyou not believe the testimony? Will you not believe this witness, this\nlast of all, the Lord of hosts, the King of kings himself? Once more\nhe repeats it, so that all may know it. With Peter and James and John,\non the mount of transfiguration, He cries again, \"This is my beloved\nSon; hear him.\" And that voice went echoing and reechoing through\nPalestine, through all the earth from sea to sea; yes, that voice is\nechoing still, Hear Him! Hear Him!\n\nMy friend will you hear Him to-day? Hark! what is He saying to you?\n\"Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give\nyou rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me; for I am meek and\nlowly in heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke\nis easy, and my burden is light.\" Will you not think well of such a\nSavior? Will you not believe in Him? Will you not trust in Him with\nall your heart and mind? Will you not live for Him? If He laid down\nHis life for us, is it not the least we can do to lay down ours for\nHim? If He bore the cross and died on it for me, ought I not to be\nwilling to take it up for Him? Oh, have we not reason to think well of\nHim? Do you think it is right and noble to lift up your voice against\nsuch a Savior? Do you think it is just to cry, \"Crucify Him! crucify\nHim!\" Oh, may God help all of us to glorify the Father, by thinking\nwell of His only-begotten Son.\n\n\n\n\nFOWLER\n\nTHE SPIRIT OF CHRIST\n\nBIOGRAPHICAL NOTE\n\n\nCharles H. Fowler, Methodist Episcopal divine, was born 1837 in\nBurford, Ontario, Canada, was educated at Syracuse University and the\nGarrett Biblical Institute, Evanston, Ill. He was ordained in 1861\nand after filling pastorates in many places was made president of\nthe Northwestern University in 1872, but vacated this post to become\neditor of the _Christian Advocate_; four years later he was appointed\nmissionary secretary and in 1884 was elected bishop. He was well-known\nas an able preacher and administrator. He died in 1908.\n\n\n\n\nFOWLER\n\n1837--1908\n\nTHE SPIRIT OF CHRIST\n\n_Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of\nhis_.--Rom. viii., 9.\n\n\nI read that with the conviction that it is one of the most searching\npassages that can be found in the Book of God. It takes hold of the\nquestion of our salvation as a very substantial and thorough question.\nIt removes indefinitely, almost infinitely, from this problem of our\ndestiny, all shadow of uncertainty or of doubt. It brings us squarely\nto the facts in our character. On the force of this Scripture we are\nborne up on to a platform where we stand with our hearts uncovered and\nnaked before the eye of God.\n\nThis means that the saint must be great in the arduous greatness of\nthings achieved; that there is no chance for sainthood by any fixt,\nimputed plan, but that our real selves shall test and make our real\nfuture.\n\nI never read this Scripture in the presence of a Christian\ncongregation without feeling that I have in some way chopped down\nthrough every heart with a great broadaxe. There is no whitewashing\nthis passage: \"If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none\nof his.\" Not, \"He will do tolerably well, but not quite as well as he\nmight do\"; not that he will get on after a fashion, and have quite a\nrespectable entrance into the city of the great King, tho he may not\npush quite as far toward the front as he might have done if he had had\nthe Spirit of the Lord Jesus. Not that at all; but, if any man have\nnot the Spirit of Christ, there is not the remotest shadow of a chance\nfor him: \"he is none of his.\"\n\nAnd so I put this at you, asking you, on account of the great fact\nthat you are going hence, to so apply this critical test to your\nhearts and lives that you may see and feel your need, and that you may\ntake hold on the great supply, and have that actual transformation of\ncharacter that will justify you in believing that you have the Spirit\nof Christ.\n\nThe success of the missionary cause turns upon exactly the spirit of\nthis text. I have no faith in the final triumph, of the missionary\ncause based upon any other ground than that of the honest, deep-down\nconviction of the people of God that the Lord God of Heaven wants this\nwork done. I am here as a believer in a supernatural gospel--not with\nphilosophy that may be framed out of the human life of Jesus, but with\na religion that is based upon the supernatural life of the divine\nChrist. And I appeal to you on this subject of missions as to a\ncompany of men who believe in the divine authority of the Book of God;\nwho believe in a blood atonement; who believe in salvation by faith\nonly; who believe in the pardon of sin and in the regeneration of your\nnatures; who believe in the power of the Holy Ghost; who believe, in\nshort, in the sum and substance of an old-fashioned orthodoxy. And I\nput this cause upon you as such believers, knowing that, if such\nis your position, you have at least the large part of the argument\nwrought into the very fiber of your being, by which you cannot stop\nshort of the conviction that what you have need of for your salvation\nother people will need for their salvation. You know that you need a\ndivine Redeemer; you know that you need the divine pardoning of your\nsins; you know that you need the supernatural and divine cleansing of\nyour hearts; you know that you need the divine, unbreakable promises;\nyou know that you need this Word, and the way to salvation set forth\nin this Book of God, by which you know that there is none other name\ngiven under heaven among men, whereby we must be saved. And so I\ncome to you as to those who have had some experience in supernatural\nmatters, with the cause based upon this Book of God, asking that your\nexperience may be made possible for the multitudes beyond, who have\nnot yet had this opportunity.\n\nLet us take some of the simpler and plainer things in this question,\nthat we may come up to it without any hesitation. Now, I do not need\nto go into the question as to what God will do with the heathen. I\ndon't know what He will do with them. I know as much about it as you\ndo, or anybody else, because I know what the Book says about it. God\nknows better about this than I do, and will find a way that I cannot\ndream of. But, because the words are not uttered by divine authority,\nI dare not stand here and utter any word of hope for any man beyond\nthe gospel committed to me to preach. This I know: That if the heathen\nhave the Spirit of the Lord Jesus, whether they ever saw the Lord\nJesus or not, they are of His. And this I know: That if this\ncongregation have not the spirit of the Lord Jesus, tho it may have\nseen Him, they are not of His. And this I know: That He will save a\nJew and a Gentile on the same terms; that He will do no better for the\nGentile than He will for the Jew, and no better for the Jew than for\nthe Gentile. And if there was no other name given under heaven among\nmen by which an ancient Jew or an ancient Gentile might be saved, that\nis true to-day. The Lord Jesus thought that these people needed the\ngospel, and that they needed it so much that He actually came and\nsubmitted Himself unto death that they might have the gospel. And\nGod seems so thoroughly to believe that they need the gospel that He\nactually gives His only-begotten Son to die, that they may have the\ngospel. He treats the case just exactly as if He thought, at least,\nthat they do really need this divine Redeemer. He has done, in every\nstep and process of this great work of world-saving, just exactly as\nHe would have done had He absolutely thought and believed that they\nneeded a divine Redeemer.\n\nAnd then I understand another thing out of the Book: That the very\nlast and supreme utterance of the Master on earth grew out of His\nconviction that we should do exactly this thing. And see how He comes\nup to it, little by little! He does not rush suddenly upon it--He does\nnot, upon any truth. It is not in the divine plan to flash upon us\nin anything. Truths grow; moral ideas grow. They come into the race\nlittle, and hardly able to stand at all; we can barely find them\nbeneath us in the lower strata of our being. But they struggle into\npower and strength until they fill the field of vision. Nearly every\ngreat truth of Old and New Testament Scripture is to be found in\nthe Book of Genesis. In Genesis you will find the principle of the\natonement; you will find the division of animals into clean and\nunclean, foreshadowing sacrifice; you will find the principle of the\nacceptance of offerings that came out of the flock, and the rejection\nof the offerings out of the field; you will find the pardon of sin and\nthe giving of covenants--all the essential parts of the New Testament\ngrowing with their roots away back in Genesis. There is the first\ndeclaration of the coming of this wondrous Redeemer. It was so dim and\nuncertain that it was hard to tell what it meant; somehow, somewhere,\nsome time, \"the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head.\" It\nwas so dim that our first great mother, when she had gotten her first\nson, cried out in her joy, \"I have gotten a man from the Lord!\" She\nthought she had the Redeemer, but she had only a murderer. It was\nmany a century before the Redeemer would come. The truth was unfolded\nlittle by little; a little brighter it shone on the altars of the\npatriarchs; it was unfolded a little more in the visions of the\nprophets; was exemplified in the ceremonials of the temple; and in the\nfullness of time it came with the Master and His disciples and the\noutpouring of the Holy Ghost.\n\nAnd then see, when the Master comes, how He takes hold of us, knowing\nthat we are but little, and that we have to be lifted up and enlarged\nbefore we can take in these great truths! He says: \"I have more to\ntell you: you cannot bear it to-day; I will tell you to-morrow.\" And\nso He gives lesson and instruction, and parable and illustration, all\nthrough. His life, teaching these disciples, chosen on account of\ntheir particular adaptation for the reception of His truth; walking\nwith them day by day, trying to lift their thought toward the\nspiritual and the eternal; teaching them that it is not His plan to\nput them on His right hand and His left, and trying to lift them up\ntoward a spiritual and eternal kingdom. So He keeps on all the time,\nlifting them out of their littleness, saying to them later: \"You shall\nbe my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in Judea, and in Samaria, and in the\nuttermost parts of the earth.\" They did not know what to make of that.\nHe was lifting them out of their narrowness. And so He pushes on still\nfurther with them, lifting them up, until, in the supreme hour of His\nearthly history--after His agony, after the cross, after He had broken\nasunder the bars of the sepulcher, after He had risen, and been\ndeclared to be the Son of God by the resurrection from the dead--He\nhovers over the Church, coming down to speak to them by the sea-side\nand mountain-side; appearing to them suddenly, vanishing as quickly;\noffering His hands to their touch, showing His body to their vision,\nyet all the time lifting them up, until He brought them to the thought\nand gave to the Church the idea of His ubiquity, saying: \"Lo! I am\nwith you alway, even unto the end of the world\"; and they appreciated\nthe feeling that He was within hand-reach, and that this was a\nspiritual kingdom, and that they could take hold upon the great\nspiritual forces. And thus He lifted them up and prepared them for\nHis great truth, until at last, in the supreme moment of His earthly\nhistory, we see Him yonder on the summit of the mount--the earth\nbeneath Him, the angels gathered above Him--with His hands spread out\nover His followers, with the summit of Olivet receding beneath His\nfeet. He cries out to them: \"All power is given unto me in heaven and\nin earth. Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in\nthe name of the Father, and the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; teaching\nthem to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and lo!\nI am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.\" And the\nunspeakable glory took Him out of their sight.\n\nThat is the supreme utterance of the Master after many a century of\npreparation, opening our hearts, bringing us to this great truth, and\nthat this one thing He wants done is His final charge to believers: Go\neverywhere; teach, preach, baptize, agonize, give, sacrifice--out to\nthe very ends of the earth. And lo! I am with you alway, and you shall\nlack no good thing. Surely, there can be no doubt that the Master, at\nleast, thinks that these people have a great need for this gospel.\n\nThere are some who have an idea that salvation is to be the sum and\nsubstance of what we are. Well, I think that way myself: that, if you\nfind heaven on the other side of death, you will take it over with\nyou; if there is any condition of peace, you will take that condition\nof peace with you. Death will be no more than going over a seam in\nthis carpet. The moment after death will differ from the moment before\ndeath in your essential character no more than any two consecutive\nmoments in your life. If you are a mean, narrow, selfish, ugly, cross\nman the moment before death, you will be a mean, narrow, selfish,\nugly, cross man the moment after death. If you find a good character\nover yonder, you will take it over with you. If you have a good\ncharacter to take over with you, you will have it in the Lord Jesus\nChrist here. If you live on that basis, I think this is pretty safe\nthat those millions out yonder in the darkness, plunged in ignorance\nand superstition, knowing nothing about morality and nothing about\nheaven--those millions want a chance, that the same law that governs\nour lives will govern theirs. I surround my boy with the best possible\nopportunities; I watch every book that comes in his hands; I watch\nevery playmate that I possibly can that comes in his path; I see to\nit, as my highest business on this footstool--higher than my call to\nthis pulpit--that that boy has a fair chance for heaven. If I push him\nout into the alley to herd with criminals, and be dandled in the lap\nof vice, and be familiar with all corruption, I have no moral right to\nexpect to meet him in heaven. But if I multiply advantages about him,\ngive him the best possible books and surroundings, make him at home\nwith the Lord Jesus, so that he talks about his salvation and life\neternal as he does about matters in the home, I have a good right to\nexpect that the King will give me His eternal peace.\n\nNow, I think that the law that holds over my boy holds over all boys\nin China and Japan and Hindustan; that, just in proportion as we\nmultiply the light and the favorable circumstances about them, then in\nthat proportion we increase their fair chance for heaven. I think it\nis sound in philosophy. I believe that, just in proportion as we act\nby it, we will be safe.\n\nNow, they are plunged in darkness. They know nothing about our way\nof salvation, nothing about the pardon of sin, nothing about purity,\nnothing about righteousness, nothing about heaven. We want to multiply\ntheir chances to rid themselves of sin, and to take hold upon life,\nand make their way in the path of peace. And the Master seems to so\nthink it that He says: \"Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations.\" And\nif they will believe it, as I read, they will be saved. \"But how can\nthey believe if they have not heard? And how can they hear without a\npreacher? And how can they preach except they be sent?\" So the Master\nsays, Go, send quick, everywhere. That I take to be the teaching of\nthe Book concerning their needs.\n\nBut there is another side of it, and that is the side that swings in\nunder the passage I have read this morning, and that is our side of\nit, our relation to the cause: \"If any man have not the Spirit of the\nLord Jesus, he is none of his.\"\n\nNow, what is the spirit of Christ? I will tell you: He came not to be\nministered unto. Please remember that. Not to see how much He could\ngather into His own bosom out of the lives of others. Not to be\nministered unto; not to be petted, and dandled, and lifted along and\nfed all the way, with no burden and no care and no work--not that. He\ncame, not to be ministered unto, but to minister; to pour out of His\nlife into the lives of others; to see what He could do to make others\nblest; and \"to give his life a ransom for many.\" Not merely to give\nthe little pittance that He could spare and not know it any more than\none would miss the farthing with which he would buy his ride on the\nstreet car, but to give His life a ransom for many. And if any man\nhave not that spirit, he is none of His.\n\nNow I preach you a doctrine of salvation by faith only, and I put the\nemphasis on the word only. That is exactly what I need as a sinner: I\nwant some sort of release from my past transgressions that will give\nme a new start. I have gotten behind; I am borrowing money to\npay interest with, and I see no way out. I must have a spiritual\nbankruptcy law. Somebody must come in to my relief, or I am\neverlastingly undone. And so I preach this blest doctrine of the\nBook of God: \"By grace are ye saved, through faith, and that not of\nyourselves: it (the salvation) is the gift of God.\" I take salvation\nas a divine gift, and take it with a glad heart. It gives me a new\nchance; it unhinges my present struggle for heaven from the past\ntransgressions of my life, and gives me an open door to heaven that I\ncould not reach on any other platform. And so I preach this doctrine\nto sinners, knowing that it is exactly what they need.\n\nThere is another part of it that covers the question of our pardon;\nthat takes all my past sins and wipes them out; that gives me a new\nchance for righteousness. Now mind: That pardon, that new life, that\nnew chance works out all the time necessarily from my finger-ends; it\nshows itself in my life, absolutely, as certainly as it is there; and\nif I cannot find the fruit of it in the fruits of the Spirit, in the\ninterest in God's cause, in patience and teachableness, in gentleness\nand love, I have the absolute demonstration that I have not the thing\nitself. Saved by faith, kept alive, kept saved by work, in work, by\ngrace in work. Let me touch that theology just a little. If you\nare pardoned, you are pardoned by the Lord in a second, through\nfaith--when you believe, that is. Pardon is an operation in God's mind\nconcerning myself; you cannot pardon yourself. God pardons. If we are\npardoned He can do it in a second, when we believe.\n\nThe next step in the case is, that there is not anything in the Book\nof God that gives us any ground to believe that in that same faith, or\nbelieving, or pardon, we will be instantly lifted up into the stature\nof a man in Christ Jesus. What I mean to say is this: That there is\nnot one word in this Book that will justify any man in believing that\nhe may be brought by any process to the stature of a man in Christ\nJesus in a minute. But some good brother will say: \"Oh! now I am just\na little afraid that you are striking against that blest old Methodist\ndoctrine of sanctification.\" No, I am not. I haven't said anything\nabout sanctification. But I will. If you are sanctified, or cleansed,\nthat is God's work, through faith, and He can do it in a second. Now,\nunderstand me definitely, you cannot cleanse yourself. God cleanses\nyou through faith in the cleansing blood of His Son. It is His work.\nYou cannot grow into it. You can grow in it, but if you don't grow in\nit you may know you are not in it--you are in something else. But you\ncan grow in it, because it is God's work, and He will do it when you\nbelieve. But what of that? What are you after you are cleansed? I will\ntell you. You are a clean baby: that is all. You are not a man in\nChrist Jesus; you are only a babe--cleansed, indeed, and greatly\nimproved by the process, too, but you are not matured. Do not miss,\nnow, the broad distinction between purity and maturity. You are\npurified, through faith, in a second; you are matured through many a\nstruggle and many a year. God cannot make a twenty-one-year-old saint\nin one second less than twenty-one years. There is no platform marked\nover with faith upon which a man may step and be lifted up into the\nperfect stature of a man in Christ Jesus in a minute. It is not the\nteaching of the Book. But all the year, loving, and giving, and\nfighting, and praying, and walking in righteousness, you will mature\ncharacters, and by and by you will grow into the manhood in Christ\nJesus that is set before us in the gospel. Now, if you come in here\nand tell me that there is a baby over yonder in the next square, that\nis three weeks old, and can talk Greek and Latin, and Spanish and\nItalian, and solve all the problems in mathematics, I will tell you\nthat that is a monstrosity, and you don't want that kind of babies in\nyour house: they will turn you out in a few days. So, if you come\nin here and tell me that you have, down in your prayer-meeting, a\nspiritual baby three or four weeks old, that can teach all the old\nsaints, and can tell them all about God, and heaven, and faith, and\ntheology, and all about everything in the Church, I will tell you\nthat that is a monstrosity. And you don't want that kind in your\nprayer-meeting; they will turn you out before a great while. St. Paul\nsays: \"Ye are born babes, and ye are fed on milk\"; and the trouble\nwith too many of us is that we keep on that diet when we ought to be\neating meat. The Master says: \"First the blade, then the ear; after\nthat, the full corn in the ear.\" So I am free to say that God's plan\nof making saints is to give them the divine germ--if you please, the\nsupernatural principle; or, as our scientists would say, with proper\nenvironments, \"That have the divine initial impulse,\" but as our\nfathers would have said, \"They got through at the altar\"; born of God,\nand then cleansed of God in the true process of education and faith,\nthey matured at the harvest. God gives us the start and the cleansing,\nand we have to do all the rest of it. He will give us opportunity for\ngrowth by loading and goading us, by setting on our track every sort\nof force to test us--to \"polish us,\" as the old Hebrew word means.\nWhen Abraham was tested he was \"polished.\" He will put us on such\nlines that, if we stand true to our convictions and walk according to\nthe light we have, He will bring us on to manhood.\n\nSee how wonderfully the Word of God fits down upon this? Take that\nremarkable passage that, to me, is as beautiful as anything can be,\nwhere He says: \"Come unto Me, all ye that labor\"--I know what\nthat means in the struggle under sin--\"all ye that labor and are\nheavy-laden, and I will give\"--I will give: it is mine. You cannot\nearn it: you cannot buy it; you cannot find it; you cannot dig it out.\nIt is mine--\"I will give you rest\"--the blest pardon that only God can\ngive. Then, in the very next second and breath, He says: \"Take my yoke\nupon you\"--that means work--\"and learn of me\"--that is more work--and,\n\"For I am meek and lowly of heart, and ye shall find\"--that is yours;\nI do not give that to you; that is not mine to give; that is yours.\n\"Ye shall find rest to your souls.\" That is the rest that comes from\nthe crystallization of the character in righteousness; that comes from\nthe habit of believing, and the habit of obeying, and the habit of\npraying; from the habit of righteousness, until the old saint is ready\nfor any struggle, and never expects to be turned aside. That, I take\nit, is God's plan of building up saints, and for fitting them for the\nrest that is in God, that abides.\n\n\n\n\nWHYTE\n\nEXPERIENCE\n\nBIOGRAPHICAL NOTE\n\n\nAlexander Whyte, senior minister of St. George's Free Church,\nEdinburgh, was born at Kirriemuir (Thrums), Scotland, in 1837. He was\neducated at Aberdeen University (M.A., 1862), and at New College,\nEdinburgh (1862-66), and after being assistant minister of Free\nSt. John's, Glasgow, from 1866 to 1870, became at first assistant\nminister, and later (1873) minister, of Free St. George's, Edinburgh,\na position which be still retains, having had there an uninterrupted\nsuccess. He is the author of a number of biographies, his most recent\nwork being \"An Appreciation of Newman.\"\n\n\n\n\nWHYTE\n\nBORN IN 1837\n\nEXPERIENCE\n\n_And patience; experience; and experience, hope_.--Romans v., 4.\n\n\nThe deeper we search into the Holy Scriptures the more experimental\nmatter do we discover in that divine Book. Both in the Old Testament\nand in the New Testament the spiritual experiences of godly men form a\nlarge part of the sacred record. And it gives a very fresh and a very\nimpressive interest to many parts of the heavenly Book when we see how\nmuch of its contents are made up of God's ways with His people as well\nas of their ways with Him. In other words, when we see how much of\npurely experimental matter is gathered up into the Word of God. In a\nbrilliant treatise published the other year, entitled, \"The Gospel in\nthe Gospels,\" the author applies this experimental test even to our\nLord's teaching and preaching. Writing of the beatitudes in our Lord's\nSermon on the Mount that fresh and penetrating writer says: \"When our\nSavior speaks to us concerning what constitutes our true blessedness\nHe is simply describing His own experience. The beatitudes are not the\nimmediate revelation of His Godhead, they are much more the impressive\ntestimony of His manhood. He knew the truth of what He was saying\nbecause He had verified it all in Himself for thirty experimental\nyears.\" Now if that is so demonstrably true of so many of our Lord's\ncontributions to Holy Scripture, in the nature of things, how much\nmore must it be true of the experimental contributions that David and\nPaul have made to the same sacred record. And we ourselves are but\nimitating them in their great experimental methods when we give our\nvery closest attention to personal and spiritual religion, both\nin ourselves and in all our predecessors and in all our own\ncontemporaries in the life of grace in all lands and in all languages.\n\nNow by far the deepest and by far the most personal experience of\nevery spiritually minded man is his experience of his own inward\nsinfulness. The sinfulness of his sin; the malignity of his sin; the\nungodliness and the inhumanity of his sin; the dominion that his sin\nstill has over him; the simply indescribable evil of his sin in every\nway: all that is a matter, not of any man's doctrine and authority;\nall that is the personal experience and the scientific certainty, as\nwe say, of every spiritually minded man; every man, that is, who takes\nany true observation of what goes on in his own heart. The simply\nunspeakable sinfulness of our own hearts is not the doctrine of David,\nand of Christ, and of Paul, and of Luther, and of Calvin, and of\nBunyan, and of Edwards, and of Shepard only. It is their universal\ndoctrine, indeed, it could not be otherwise; but it is also the\nevery-day experience and the every-day agony of every man among\nourselves whose eyes are open upon his own heart.\n\nAnd then, if you are that spiritually enlightened man, from the day\nwhen you begin to have that heart-sore experience of yourself you\nwill begin to search for and to discover those great passages of Holy\nScripture that contain the recorded experiences of men like yourself.\n\"I am but dust and ashes,\" said the first father of all penitent and\nbelieving and praying men. \"I am vile,\" sobs Job. \"Behold, I am vile,\nand I will lay my hand upon my mouth. I have heard of thee by the\nhearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor\nmyself and repent in dust and ashes.\" And David has scarcely heart or\na pen for anything else. \"There is no soundness in my flesh because of\nthine anger; neither is there any rest in my bones because of my sin.\nMy loins are filled with a loathsome disease. For, behold, I was\nshapen in iniquity.\" And Daniel, the most blameless of men and a man\ngreatly beloved in heaven and on earth: \"I was left alone and\nthere remained no strength in me: for my comeliness was turned to\ncorruption, and I retained no strength.\" And every truly spiritually\nminded man has Paul's great experimental passage by heart; that great\nexperimental and autobiographic passage which has kept so many of\nGod's most experienced saints from absolute despair, as so many of\nthem have testified. Yes! There were experimental minds long before\nBacon and there was a great experimental literature long before the\nEssays and the \"Advancement\" and the \"_Instauratio Magna_.\"\n\nAnd then among many other alterations of intellectual insight and\nspiritual taste that will come to you with your open eyes, there will\nbe your new taste, not only for your Bible, but also for spiritual\nand experimental preaching. The spiritual preachers of our day are\nconstantly being blamed for not tuning their pulpits to the new themes\nof our so progressive day. Scientific themes are prest upon them\nand critical themes and social themes and such like. But your new\nexperience of your own sinfulness and of God's salvation: your new\nneed and your new taste for spiritual and experimental truth will not\nlead you to join in that stupid demand. As intelligent men you will\nknow where to find all the new themes of your new day and you will be\ndiligent students of them all, so far as your duty lies that way, and\nso far as your ability and your opportunity go; but not on the Lord's\nDay and not in His house of prayer and praise. The more inward, and\nthe more spiritual, and the more experimental, your own religion\nbecomes, the more will you value inward, and spiritual, and\nexperimental preaching. And the more will you resent the intrusion\ninto the evangelical pulpit of those secular matters that so much\nabsorb unspiritual men. There is another equally impertinent advice\nthat our preachers are continually having thrust upon them from the\nsame secular quarter. And that is that they ought entirely to drop\nthe old language of the Scriptures, and the creeds, and the classical\npreachers, and ought to substitute for it the scientific and the\njournalistic jargon of the passing day. But with your ever-deepening\nknowledge of yourselves and with the disciplined and refined taste\nthat will accompany such knowledge you will rather demand of your\npreachers more and more depth of spiritual preaching and more and more\npurity of spiritual style. And then more and more your estimates of\npreaching and your appreciations of preachers will have real insight\nand real value and real weight with us. \"The natural man receiveth\nnot the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness to him:\nneither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.\" But\nhe that is spiritual discerneth spiritual things and spiritual persons\nand he has the true authority to speak and to write about them.\n\nAnd then, for all doubting and skeptically disposed persons among\nyou, your own experience of your evil heart, if you will receive that\nexperience and will seriously attend to it, that will prove to you\nthe true apologetic for the theism of the Holy Scriptures and for the\nsoul-saving faith of Jesus Christ. What is it about which you are\nin such debate and doubt? Is it about the most fundamental of\nall facts--the existence, and the nature, and the grace, and the\ngovernment of Almighty God? Well, if you are really in earnest to know\nthe truth, take this way of it: this way that has brought light and\npeace of mind to so many men. Turn away at once and forever from all\nyour unbecoming debates about your Maker and Preserver and turn to\nwhat is beyond all debate, your own experience of yourselves. There is\nnothing else of which you can be so sure and certain as of the sin and\nthe misery of your own evil hearts, your own evil hearts so full\nof self-seeking, and envy, and malice, and pride, and hatred, and\nrevenge, and lust. And on the other hand, there is nothing of which\nyou can be so convinced as that love, and humility, and meekness,\nand purity, and benevolence, and brotherly kindness, are your true\nhappiness, or would be, if you could only attain to all these\nbeatitudes. Well, Jesus Christ has attained to them all. And Jesus\nChrist came into this world at first, and He still comes into it by\nHis Word and by His Spirit in order that you may attain to all His\ngoodness and all His truth and may thus escape forever from all your\nown ignorance and evil. As William Law, the prince of apologists,\nhas it: \"Atheism is not the denial of a first omnipotent cause. Real\natheism is not that at all. Real atheism is purely and solely nothing\nelse but the disowning, and the forsaking, and the renouncing of the\ngoodness, and the virtue, and the benevolence and the meekness, of\nthe divine nature: that divine nature which has made itself so\nexperimental and so self-evident in us all. And as this experimental\nand self-evident knowledge is the only sure knowledge you can have of\nGod; even so, it is such a knowledge that cannot be doubted or\ndebated away. For it is as sure and as self-evident as is your own\nexperience.\" And so is it through all the succeeding doctrines of\ngrace and truth: The incarnation of the divine Son: His life, His\ndeath, His resurrection, and His intercession: and then your own life\nof faith, and prayer, and holy obedience: and then your death, \"dear\nin God's sight.\" Beginning with this continually experienced need of\nGod, all these things will follow, with an intellectual, and a moral,\nand a spiritual demonstration, that will soon place them beyond all\ndebate or doubt to you. Only know thyself and admit the knowledge:\nand all else will follow as sure as the morning sun follows the dark\nmidnight.\n\nAnd then in all these ways, you will attain to a religious experience\nof your own, that will be wholly and exclusively your own. It will not\nbe David's experience, nor Paul's, nor Luther's, nor Bunyan's; much as\nyou will study their experiences, comparing them all with your own. As\nyou go deeper and ever deeper, into your own spiritual experience,\nyou will gradually gather a select and an invaluable library of such\nexperiences, and you will less and less read anything else with very\nmuch interest or delight. But your own unwritten experience will, all\nthe time, be your own, and in your own spiritual experience you will\nhave no exact fellow. For your tribulations, which work in you your\nexperience,--as the text has it,--your tribulations are such that in\nall your experimental reading in the Bible, in spiritual biography, in\nspiritual autobiography, you have never met the like of them. Either\nthe writers have been afraid to speak out the whole truth about their\ntribulations; or, what is far more likely, they had no tribulations\nfor a moment to match with yours. There has not been another so weak\nand so evil heart as yours since weak and evil hearts began to be;\nnor an evil life quite like yours; nor surrounding circumstances\nso cross-bearing as yours; nor a sinner, beset with all manner of\ntemptations and trials, behind and before, like you. So much are you\nalone that, if your fifty-first Psalm, or your seventh of the Romans,\nor your \"Confessions,\" or your \"Private Devotions,\" or your \"Grace\nAbounding,\" could ever venture to be all honestly and wholly written\nand published, your name would, far and away, eclipse them all. You do\nnot know what a singular and what an original and what an unheard-of\nexperience your experience is destined to be; if only you do not break\ndown under it; as you must not and will not do.\n\nBegin, then, to make some new experiments upon a new life of faith,\nand of the obedience of faith. And begin to-day. If in anything you\nhave been following a false and an unphilosophical and an unscriptural\nway of life, leave that wrong and evil way at once. Be true Baconians,\nat once, as all the true men of science will tell you to be. \"If we\nwere religious men like you,\" they will all say to you, \"we would do,\nand at once, what you are now being told to do. We would not debate,\nor doubt, but we would make experiment, and would follow out the\nexperience\": so all the scientifically minded men will say to you.\nCome away then, and make some new experiments from this morning. For\none thing, make a new experiment on secret prayer. And then come forth\nfrom your place of secret prayer and make immediate experiment on more\nlove, and more patience, and more consideration for other men,\nand, especially, for the men of your own household. Be more\ngenerous-minded, and more open-handed, as God has been so\ngenerous-minded, and so open-handed toward you: if that has indeed\nbeen so. Make experiment upon the poor and the needy and help them\naccording to your ability and opportunity and watch the result of the\nexperiment upon yourself; and so on, as your awakened conscience, and\nas the regenerate part of your own heart, will prompt you and will\nencourage you to do.\n\nMake such experiments as these and see if a new peace of conscience\nand a new happiness of heart does not begin to come to you, according\nto that great experimental psalm,--\"Oh, that my people had hearkened\nunto me, and Israel had walked in my ways! I should soon have subdued\ntheir enemies, and turned my hand against their adversaries. He should\nhave fed them also with the finest of the wheat: and with honey out of\nthe rock should I have satisfied thee.\"\n\n\n\n\nWATKINSON\n\nTHE TRANSFIGURED SACKCLOTH\n\nBIOGRAPHICAL NOTE\n\n\nWilliam L. Watkinson, Wesleyan minister, was born at Hull, 1838, was\neducated privately and rose to eminence as a preacher and writer.\nThe Rev. William Durban calls him \"The classic preacher of British\nMethodism.\" \"He ranks,\" says Dr. Durban, \"with Dr. Dallinger and the\nRev. Thomas Gunn Selby as the three most learned and refined of living\npreachers in the English Methodist pulpit. Dr. Watkinson is famous for\nthe glittering illustrations which adorn his style. These are for the\nmost part gathered from biography, the classics, and science, and\nof late years Dr. Watkinson has become more and more addicted to\nspiritualizing the aspects of modern scientific discovery. Dr.\nWatkinson never reads his utterances from a manuscript. Nor does\nhe preach memoriter, as far as the language of his addresses is\nconcerned. They are always carefully thought out and are never\ncharacterized by florid diction. His simple, strong Anglo-Saxon\nendears him to the people, for he is never guilty of an obscure\nsentence. He is in the habit of saying, 'I have always been aware that\nI have no power of voice for declamation, and therefore I can only\nhope for success in the pulpit by originality of thought.'\" He was\npresident of the Wesleyan Conference, 1897-1898, and editor of the\n_Wesleyan Church_, 1893-1890. He has published several volumes of\nsermons.\n\n\n\n\nWATKINSON\n\nBORN IN 1838\n\nTHE TRANSFIGURED SACKCLOTH[1]\n\n[Footnote: Printed by permission of B.P. Button & Company from \"The\nTransfigured Sackcloth and Other Sermons,\" by W.L. Watkinson.]\n\n_For none might enter into the king's gate clothed with\nsackcloth_.--Esther iv., 2.\n\n\nThe sign of affliction was thus excluded from the Persian court in\norder that royalty might not be discomposed. The monarch was to see\nbright raiment, flowers, pageantry, smiling faces only; to hear\nonly the voices of singing men and singing women; no smatch of the\nabounding wormwood of life was to touch his lip, no glimpse of its we\nto disturb his serenity. The master of an empire spreading from India\nto Ethiopia was not to be annoyed by a passing shadow of mortality.\nNow, this disposition to place an interdict on disagreeable and\npainful things still survives. Men of all ranks and conditions\ningeniously hide from themselves the dark facts of life--putting these\naside, ignoring, disguising, forgetting, denying them. Revelation,\nhowever, lends no sanction to this habit of passing by the tragedy\nof life with averted face; and in this discourse we wish to show the\nentire reasonableness of revelation in its frank recognition of the\ndark aspects of existence. Christianity is sometimes scouted as \"the\nreligion of sorrow,\" and many amongst us are ready to avow that the\nPersian forbidding the sackcloth is more to their taste than the\nEgyptian or the Christian dragging the corpse through the banquet; but\nwe confidently contend that the recognition by Christ of the morbid\nphases of human life is altogether wise and gracious.\n\nI. We consider, first, the recognition by revelation of sin. Sackcloth\nis the outward and visible sign of sin, guilt, and misery. How men\nshut their eyes to this most terrible reality--coolly ignoring,\nskilfully veiling, emphatically denying it! \"The heart from the moment\nof its first beat instinctively longs for the beautiful....\" We strive\nfor the right and the true: it is circumstance that thrusts wrong\nupon us. What is popularly called sin these philosophers call error,\naccident, inexperience, indecision, misdirection, imperfection,\ndisharmony; but they will not allow the presence in the human heart of\na malign force which asserts itself against God, and against the\norder of His universe. That principle which is darkness in the mind,\nperverseness in the will, idolatry in the affections, \"every passion's\nwild excess, anger, lust, and pride,\"--the existence of any such\nprinciple they absolutely and scornfully deny. There is no evil in the\nuniverse, all is good, and where everything is good human nature is\nstill the best. A single substance comprises all that is, and no place\nis left for that profoundly decisive and destructive element called\nsin; all that we have to do is to descant on the marvelous loveliness\nof the world, the serene harmony of the universe, man's love of the\ntrue, the beautiful, and the good. Intellectual masters like Emerson\nand Renan. ignore conscience; they refuse to acknowledge the\nselfishness, the baseness, the cruelty of society; they are deaf to\nthe groans of creation; they smile, and expect us to smile, whilst\nthey clap a purple patch of rhetoric on the running sores of humanity.\nNo sackcloth must pass their gate, and no craftsman of Ind ever wove\ngossamer half so delicate and delightful as the verbal veil with which\nthese literary artists attempt to conceal the leprosy of our nature.\n\nAnd men generally are willing to dupe themselves touching the fact\nand power of sin; they are strongly disinclined to look directly and\nhonestly at that inner confusion of which we are all more or less\nconscious. We willingly acknowledge our transgression of the higher\nlaw, that we do the things we ought not to do, and leave undone the\nthings that we ought to do; we have an unpleasant feeling that all is\nnot right, nay, indeed, that something is seriously wrong; but we do\nnot unshrinkingly acquaint ourselves with the malady of the spirit as\nwe should at once acquaint ourselves with any malady hinting itself in\nthe flesh. The sackcloth must not mar our shallow happiness. Great is\nthe power of self-deception, but in no other direction do we permit\nourselves to be more profoundly cheated than we do in this. In the\nvision of beautiful things we forget the troubles of conscience,\nas the first sinners hid themselves amid the leaves and flowers of\nParadise; in fashion and splendor we forget our guilty sorrow, as\nmedieval mourners sometimes concealed their cerements with raiment of\npurple and gold; in the noises of the world we become oblivious of the\ninterior discords, as soldiers forget their wounds amid the stir and\ntrumpets of the battle. With a busy life, a gay life, we manage to\nforget the skeleton of the heart, rarely permitting ourselves to look\nupon the ominous specter which some way or other has entrenched itself\nwithin us, and which is the bane of our existence.\n\nNevertheless, sin thrusts itself upon our attention. The greatest\nthinkers in all ages have been constrained to recognize its presence\nand power. The creeds of all nations declare the fact that men\neverywhere feel the bitter working and intolerable burden of\nconscience. And, however we may strive to forget our personal\nsinfulness, the cry is ever being wrung from us in the deepest moments\nof life, \"O wretched man that I am! who can deliver me from the body\nof this death?\" The sense of sin has persisted through changing\ngenerations; it is the burden of experience and philosophy, and\nthe genius of the race has exhausted itself in devising schemes of\nsalvation.\n\nAeschylus, Dante, Shakespeare, knew of truth, justice, purity, and\nlove, of the supreme and eternal law of righteousness; they knew that\nman alone of all this lower creation is subject to this transcendental\nrule; they knew also that the violation of this highest law lay at the\nroot of the world's mysterious and complex suffering--in other words,\nthat sin was the secret of the tragedy of life. The beasts are happy\nbecause they are beasts; they do not lie awake in the dark weeping\nover their sins, because they have no sins to weep over; they do not\ndiscuss their duty to God, they do it; whilst, on the contrary, men\nare unhappy because being subject to the highest law of all, and\ncompetent to fulfil that law in its utmost requirements, they have\nconsciously fallen short of it, wilfully contradicted it. We cannot\naccept the coat of many colors, whatever the flatterers may say; the\nsackcloth is ours, and it eats our spirit like fire.\n\nMost fully does Christ recognize the great catastrophe. Some modern\ntheologians may dismiss sin as \"a mysterious incident\" in the\ndevelopment of humanity, as a grain of sand that has unluckily blown\ninto the eye, as a thorn that has accidentally pierced our heel,\nbut the greatest of ethical teachers regarded sin as a profound\ncontradiction of that eternal will which is altogether wise and good.\nMore than any other teacher Jesus Christ emphasized the actuality and\nawfulness of sin; more than any other has He intensified the world's\nconsciousness of sin. He never attempted to relieve us of the\nsackcloth by asserting our comparative innocence; He never attempted\nto work into that melancholy robe one thread of color, to relieve it\nwith one solitary spangle of rhetoric. Sin was the burden of the life\nof Christ because it is the burden of our life. Christ has done more\nthan insisted on the reality, the odiousness, the ominousness, of\nsin--He has laid bare its principle and essence. The New Testament\ndiscovers to us the mystery of iniquity as ungodliness; its inmost\nessence being unbelief in God's truth, the denial of His justice,\nthe rejection of His love, the violation of His law. The South Sea\nislanders have a singular tradition to account for the existence of\nthe dew. The legend relates that in the beginning the earth touched\nthe sky, that being the golden age when all was beautiful and glad;\nthen some dreadful tragedy occurred, the primal unity was broken up,\nthe earth and the sky were torn asunder as we see them now, and the\ndewdrops of the morning are the tears that nature sheds over the sad\ndivorce. This wild fable is a metaphor of the truth; the beginning of\nall evil lies in the alienation of the spirit of man from God, in the\ndivorce of earth from heaven; here is the final reason why the face\nof humanity is wet with tears. How vividly Christ taught that all our\nfear and we arise out of this false relation of our spirit to the\nliving God! Above and beyond all, Christ recognizes the sackcloth that\nHe may take it away. In the anguish of his soul Job cried, \"I\nhave sinned; what shall I do unto thee, O thou Preserver of men?\"\nChristianity is God's full and final answer to that appeal. In Christ\nwe have the revelation of God's ceaseless, immeasurable, eternal love.\nIn Him we have the satisfaction of God's sovereign justice. Our own\nawakened conscience feels the difficulty of absolution; it demands\nthat sin shall not be lightly passed over; it wearies itself to find\nan availing sacrifice and atonement. \"Behold the Lamb of God, that\ntaketh away the sin of the world!\" In Him, too, we have that grace\nwhich brings us into accord with the mind and government of God.\nChrist reveals to us the divine ideal life; He awakens in us a passion\nfor that life; He leads us into the power and privilege, the liberty\nand gladness, of that life. He fills our imagination with the vision\nof His own divine loveliness; He refreshes our will from founts of\nunfathomable power; He fills us with courage and hope; He crowns us\nwith victory. \"God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself,\nnot imputing their trespasses unto them.\" Sin is ungodliness; Christ\nmakes us to see light in God's light, fills us with His love, attunes\nour spirit to the infinite music of His perfection. Instead of\nshutting out the signs of wo, Christ followed an infinitely deeper\nphilosophy; He arrayed Himself in the sackcloth, becoming sin for us\nwho knew no sin, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.\nWe have redemption in His blood, even the forgiveness of sins; he\nestablished us in a true relation to the holy God; He restores in\nus the image of God; He fills us with the peace of God that passeth\nunderstanding.\n\nNot in the spirit of a barren cynicism does Christ lay bare the\nghastly wound of our nature, but as a noble physician who can purge\nthe mortal virus which destroys us. He has done this for thousands; He\nis doing it now; in these very moments He can give sweet release to\nall who are burdened and beaten by the dire confusion of nature.\nSin is a reality; absolution, sanctification, peace, are not less\nrealities. Christ's gate is not shut to the penitent, neither does\nHe send him empty away. We go to Him in sackcloth, but we leave His\npresence in purity's robe of snow, in honor's stainless purple, in the\nheavenly blue of the holiness of truth. The Spirit of the Lord God is\nupon Him, that He may give to the mourners in Zion beauty for ashes,\nthe oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of\nheaviness.\n\nII. We consider the recognition by revelation of sorrow. Sackcloth is\nthe raiment of sorrow, and as such it was interdicted by the Persian\nmonarch. We still follow the insane course, minimizing, despising,\nmasking, denying suffering. Society sometimes attempts this. The\naffluent entrench themselves within belts of beauty and fashion,\nexcluding the sights and sounds of a suffering world. \"Ye that put far\naway the evil day, and cause the seat of violence to come near; that\nlie upon beds of ivory, and stretch themselves upon their couches, and\neat the lambs out of the flock, and the calves out of the midst of the\nstall, that chant to the sound of the viol, and invent to themselves\ninstruments of music, like David; that drink wine in bowls, and anoint\nthemselves with the chief ointments: but they are not grieved for the\naffliction of Joseph.\" So do opulent and selfish men still seek \"to\nhide their heart in a nest of roses.\" Literature sometimes follows\nthe same cue. Goethe made it one of the rules of his life to avoid\neverything that could suggest painful ideas, and the taint of his\negotism is on a considerable class of current literature which\nserenely ignores the morbid aspects of life. Art has yielded to the\nsame temptation. The artist has felt that he was concerned only with\nstrength, beauty, and grace; that he had nothing to do with weakness,\nagony, wretchedness, and death. Why should sorrow find perpetual\nremembrance in art? Pain will tear our bodies, but we will have no\nwrinkles on our statues; suffering will rend our heart, but we will\nhave no shadows on our pictures. None clothed in sackcloth might enter\nthe gate that is called Beautiful.\n\nMost of us are inclined to the sorry trick of gilding over painful\nthings. We resolutely put from us sober signs, serious thoughts, and\nsometimes are really angry with those who exhibit life as it is,\nand who urge us to seek reconciliation with it. When the physician\nprescribed blisters to Marie Bashkirtseff to check her consumptive\ntendency, the vain, cynical girl wrote, \"I will put on as many\nblisters as thee like. I shall be able to hide the mark by bodices\nbrimmed with flowers and lace and tulle, and a thousand other\ndelightful things that are worn, without being required; it may even\nlook pretty. Ah! I am comforted.\" Yes, by a thousand artifices do we\ndissemble our ugly scars, sometimes even pressing our deep misfortunes\ninto the service of our pride. Many of the fashions and the diversions\nof the world much sought after have little positive attractiveness,\nbut the real secret of their power is found in the fact that they\nhide disagreeable things, and render men for a while oblivious of the\nmystery and weight of an unintelligible world.\n\nNevertheless suffering is a stern fact that will not long permit us to\nsleep. Some have taught the unreality of pain, but the logic of life\nhas spoiled their plausible philosophizing. A man may carry many\nhallucinations with him to the grave, but a belief in the unreality of\npain is hardly likely to be one of them. The laughing philosopher is\nquite invincible on his midsummer's day, but ere long fatality makes\nhim sad. There is no screen to shut off permanently the spectacle of\nsuffering. When Marie Antoinette passed to her bridal in Paris, the\nhalt, the lame, and the blind were sedulously kept out of her way,\nlest their appearance should mar the joyousness of her reception; but,\nere long, the poor queen had a very close view of misery's children,\nand she drank to the dregs the cup of life's bitterness. Reason as we\nmay, suppress the disagreeable truths of life as we may, suffering\nwill find us out, and pierce us to the heart. Indeed, despite our\ndissimulations, we know that life is not a matter of lutes, doves, and\nsunflowers, and at last we have little patience with those who thus\nseek to represent it. We will not have the philosophy which ignores\nsuffering; witness the popularity of Schopenhauer. We resent the art\nwhich ignores sorrow. True art has no pleasure in sin and suffering,\nin torture, horror, and death; but on its palette must lie the sober\ncolorings of human life, and so to-day the most popular picture of the\nworld is the \"Angelus\" of Millet. We will not have the literature that\nignores suffering. \"Humanity will look upon nothing else but its old\nsufferings. It loves to see and touch its wounds, even at the risk of\nreopening them. We are not satisfied with poetry unless we find tears\nin it.\" We will not have the theology which ignores sin and suffering.\nThe preacher who confines his discourses to pleasant themes has a\nmeager following; the people swiftly and logically conclude that if\nlife is as flowery as the discourse, the preacher is superfluous.\nFoolish we may often be, yet we cannot accept this Gethsemane for a\ngarden of the gods; the most wilful lotus-eater must perforce see the\nstreaming tears, the stain of blood, the shadow of death. Nature in\nthe full swing of her pageantry soon forgets the wild shriek of the\nbird in the red talons of the hawk, and all other sad and tragic\nthings, but humanity is compelled to note the blood and tears which\nflow everywhere, and to lay these things to heart.\n\nChrist giveth us the noblest example of suffering. So far from\nshutting His gate on the sackcloth, once more He adopted it,\nand showed how it might become a robe of glory. He Himself was\npreeminently a Man of sorrows; He exhausted all forms of suffering;\ntouching life at every point, at every point He bled; and in Him we\nlearn how to sustain our burden and to triumph throughout all the\ntragedy. In His absolute rectitude, in His confidence in His Father,\nin His hours of prayer, in His self-sacrificing regard for His\nfellow-sufferers, in His charity, and patience, we see how the\nheaviest cross may be borne in the spirit of victory. We learn from\nHim how divine grace can mysteriously make the sufferer equal to the\nbitterest martyrdom; not putting to our lips some anodyne cup to\nparalyze life, but giving us conquest through the strength and\nbravery of reason in its noblest mood, through faith in its sublimest\nexercise, through a love that many waters cannot quench nor the\nfloods drown. Poison is said to be extracted from the rattlesnake for\nmedicinal purposes; but infinitely more wonderful is the fact that the\nsuffering which comes out of sin counterworks sin, and brings to pass\nthe transfiguration of the sufferer.\n\nChrist teaches us how, under the redemptive government of God,\nsuffering has become a subtle and magnificent process for the full\nand final perfecting of human character. Science tells us how the\nbird-music, which is one of nature's foremost charms, has risen out of\nthe bird's cry of distress in the morning of time; how originally the\nmusic of field and forest was nothing more than an exclamation caused\nby the bird's bodily pain and fear, and how through the ages the\nprimal note of anguish has been evolved and differentiated until it\nhas risen into the ecstasy of the lark, melted into the silver note of\nthe dove, swelled into the rapture of the nightingale, unfolded into\nthe vast and varied music of the sky and the summer. So Christ shows\nus that out of the personal sorrow which now rends the believer's\nheart he shall arise in moral and infinite perfection; that out of the\ncry of anguish wrung from us by the present distress shall spring the\nsupreme music of the future.\n\nThe Persian monarch forbidding sackcloth had forgotten that\nconsolation is a royal prerogative; but the King of kings has not\nforgotten this, and very sweet and availing is His sovereign sympathy.\nScherer recommends \"amusement as a comfortable deceit by which we\navoid a permanent _t\u00eate-\u00e0-t\u00eate_ with realities that are too heavy for\nus.\" Is there not a more excellent way than this? Let us carry our\nsorrows to Christ, and we shall find that in Him they have lost their\nsting. It is a clumsy mistake to call Christianity a religion of\nsorrow--it is a religion _for_ sorrow. Christ finds us stricken and\nafflicted, and His words go down to the depths of our sorrowful heart,\nhealing, strengthening, rejoicing with joy unspeakable. He finds us\nin sackcloth; He clothes us with singing-robes, and crowns us with\neverlasting joy.\n\nIII. We consider the recognition by revelation of death. We have,\nagain, adroit ways of shutting the gate upon that sackcloth which is\nthe sign of death. A recent writer allows that Shakespeare, Raleigh,\nBacon, and all the Elizabethans shuddered at the horror and mystery\nof death; the sunniest spirits of the English Renaissance quailed to\nthink of it. He then goes on to observe that there was something in\nthis fear of the child's vast and unreasoned dread of darkness and\nmystery, and such a way of viewing death has become obsolete through\nthe scientific and philosophic developments of the later centuries.\nWalt Whitman also tells us \"that nothing can happen more beautiful\nthan death,\" and he has exprest the humanist view of mortality in\na hymn which his admirers regard as the high-water mark of modern\npoetry. But will this rhapsody bear thinking about? Is death\n\"delicate, lovely and soothing,\" \"delicious,\" coming to us with\n\"serenades\"? Does death \"lave us in a flood of bliss\"? Does \"the body\ngratefully nestle close to death\"? Do we go forth to meet death \"with\ndances and chants of fullest welcome\"? It is vain to attempt to hide\nthe direst fact of all under plausible metaphors and rhetorical\nartifice. It is in defiance of all history that man so write. It is in\ncontradiction of the universal instinct. It is mockery to the dying.\nIt is an outrage upon the mourners. The Elizabethan masters were far\ntruer to the fact; so is the modern skeptic who shrinks at \"the black\nand horrible grave.\" Men never speak of delicious blindness, of\ndelicious dumbness, of delicious deafness, of delicious paralysis; and\ndeath is all these disasters in one, all these disasters without hope.\nNo, no, the morgue is the last place that lends itself to decoration.\nDeath is the crowning evil, the absolute bankruptcy, the final defeat,\nthe endless exile. Let us not shut our eyes to this. The skeptic\noften tells us that he will have no \"make-believe.\" Let us have no\n\"make-believe\" about death. Let us candidly apprehend death for all\nthat it is of mystery and bitterness, and reconcile ourselves to it,\nif reconciliation be possible. If we are foolish enough to shut the\ngate on the thought of death, by no stratagem can we shut the gate\nupon death itself.\n\nWithout evasion or euphony Christ recognizes the somber mystery. The\nfact, the power, the terror of death are displayed by Him without\nreserve or softening. And He goes to the root of the dire and dismal\nmatter. He shows us that death as we know it is an unnatural thing,\nthat it is the fruit of disobedience, and by giving us purity and\npeace He gives us eternal life. The words of Luther, so full of power,\nwere called \"half-battles\"; but the words of Christ in their depth and\nmajesty are complete battles, in which sin, suffering, and death\nare finally routed. He attempts no logical proof of immortality; He\nsupplies no chemical formula for the resurrection; He demonstrates\nimmortality by raising us from the death of sin to the life of\nrighteousness, by filling our soul with infinite aspirations and\ndelights. Here is the proof supreme of immortality. \"Verily, verily, I\nsay unto you, he that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do\nalso; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto\nmy Father.\" The moral works are the greater works. Wonderful is the\nstilling of the sea, the healing of the blind, the raising of the\ndead, but the moral miracles of our Lord express a still diviner power\nand carry with them a more absolute demonstration. If, therefore, we\nhave known the power of Christ delivering our soul from the blindness,\nthe paralysis, the death of sin, lifting it above the dust and causing\nit to exult in the liberties and delights of the heavenlies, why\nshould we think it a thing incredible that God should raise the\ndead? If He has wrought the greater, He will not fail with the less.\nChristianity opens our eyes to splendid visions, makes us heirs of\nmighty hopes, and for all its prospects and promises it demands our\nconfidence on the ground of its present magnificent and undeniable\nmoral achievements. Its predictions are credible in the light of its\nspiritual efficacy. \"And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because\nof sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the\nSpirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that\nraised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies\nby his Spirit that dwelleth in you,\" Being one with Christ in the\npower of purity, we are one with Him in the power of an endless\nlife. Death has its temporary conquest, but grace reigning through\nrighteousness shall finally purge the last taint of mortality. Not\nthrough the scientific and philosophic developments of later centuries\nhas the somber way of viewing death become obsolete; Christ bringing\nlife and immortality to life has brought about the great change in the\npoint of view from which we regard death, the point of view which\nis full of consolation and hope. In Christ alone the crowning evil\nbecomes a coronation of glory; the absolute bankruptcy, the condition\nof an incorruptible inheritance; the final defeat, an everlasting\nvictory; the endless exile, home, home at last. Once more, by boldly\nadopting the sackcloth Christ has changed it into a robe of light.\n\"That through death he might destroy him that had the power of death,\nthat is, the devil\"\n\nWe cannot escape the evils of life; they are inevitable and\ninexorable. We may hide from our eyes the signs and sights of\nmourning; but in royal splendor our hearts will still bleed; wearing\nwreaths of roses, our heads will still ache. A preacher who complains\nthat Christianity is \"the religion of sorrow\" goes on to predict\nthat the woes of the world are fast coming to an end, and then the\nsorrowful religion of Jesus Christ will give place to some purer\nfaith. \"Through the chinks we can see the light. The condition of man\nbecomes more comfortable, more easy; the hope of man is more visible;\nthe endeavor of man is more often crowned with success; the attempt\nto solve the darkest life-problems is not desperate as it was. The\nreformer meets with fewer rebuffs; the philanthropist does not despair\nas he did. The light is dawning. The great teachers of knowledge\nmultiply, bear their burdens more and more steadily; the traditions\nof truth and knowledge are becoming established in the intellectual\nworld. It is so; and those of us who have caught a vision of the\nbetter times coming through reason, through knowledge, through manly\nand womanly endeavor, have caught a sight of a Christendom passing\naway, of a religion of sorrow declining, of a gospel preached for the\npoor no longer useful to a world that is mastering its own problems of\npoverty and lifting itself out of disabling misery into wealth without\nangelic assistance. This is our consolation; and while we admit,\nclearly and frankly, the real power of the popular faith, we also see\nthe pillars on which a new faith rests, which shall be a faith, not\nof sorrow, but of joy.\" Now, the deepest sorrow of the race is not\nphysical, neither is it bound up with material and social conditions.\nAs the Scotch say, \"The king sighs as often as the peasant\"; and this\nproverb anticipates the fact that those who participate in the richest\ncivilization that will ever flower will sigh as men sigh now. When the\nproblem of poverty is mastered, when disease is extirpated, when a\nperiod is put to all disorganization of industry and misgovernment,\nsocial and political, it will be found by the emancipated and enriched\ncommunity what is now found by opulent individuals and privileged\nclasses, that the secret of our discontent is internal and mysterious,\nthat it springs from the ungodliness, the egotism, the sensuality,\nwhich theology calls sin. But whatever the future may reveal, all the\nsorrows of life are upon us here and now; we cannot deny them, we\nhave constantly to struggle with them, we are often overwhelmed by\nirreparable misfortune. Esther \"sent raiment to clothe Mordecai, and\nto take his sackcloth from him; but he received it not.\" In vain do\nmen offer us robes of beauty, chiding us for wearing the color of the\nnight; we cannot be deceived by flattering words; we must give place\nto all the sad thoughts of our mortality until haply we find a\nsalvation that goes to the root of our suffering, that dries up the\nfount of our tears.\n\nIn a very different spirit and for very different ends do men\ncontemplate the dark side of human life. The cynic expatiates on\npainful things--the blot on life's beauty, the shadow on its glory,\nthe pitiful ending of its brave shows--only to gibe and mock. The\nrealist lingers in the dissecting chamber for very delight in\nrevolting themes. The pessimist enlarges on the power of melancholy\nthat lie may justify despair. The poet touches the pathetic string\nthat he may flutter the heart. Fiction dramatizes the tragic sentiment\nfor the sake of literary effect. Cultured wickedness drinks wine\nout of a skull, that by sharp contrast it may heighten its sensuous\ndelight; whilst estheticism dallies with the sad experiences of life\nto the end of intellectual pleasure, as in ornamental gardening, dead\nleaves are left on ferns and palms in the service of the picturesque.\nBut Christianity gives such large recognition to the pathetic element\nof life, not that it may mock with the cynic, or trifle with the\nartist; not because with the realist it has a ghoulish delight in\nhorror, or because with the refined sensualist it cunningly aims to\ngive poignancy to pleasure by the memory of pain; but because it\ndivines the secret of our mighty misfortune, and brings with it the\nsovereign antidote. The critics declare that Rubens had an absolute\ndelight in representing pain, and they refer us to that artist's\npicture of the \"Brazen Serpent\" in the National Gallery. The canvas is\nfull of the pain, the fever, the contortions of the wounded and dying;\nthe writhing, gasping crowd is everything, and the supreme instrument\nof cure, the brazen serpent itself, is small and obscure, no\nconspicuous feature whatever of the picture. The manner of the great\nartist is so far out of keeping with the spirit of the gospel.\nRevelation brings out broadly and impressively the darkness of the\nworld, the malady of life, the terror of death, only that it may\nevermore make conspicuous the uplifted Cross, which, once seen, is\ndeath to ever vice, a consolation in every sorrow, a victory over\nevery fear.\n\n\n\nLORIMER\n\nTHE FALL OF SATAN\n\nBIOGRAPHICAL NOTE\n\n\nGeorge C. Lorimer was born at Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1838. He was\nbrought up by his stepfather who was associated with the theater,\nand in this relation he received a dramatic education and had some\nexperience on the stage. In 1855 he came to the United States, where\nhe joined the Baptist Church and abandoned the theatrical profession.\nLater he studied for the Baptist ministry, being ordained in 1859. He\ndied in 1904. His direct and dramatic, pulpit style brought him into\ngreat popularity in Boston, Chicago, and New York. At Tremont Temple,\nBoston, he frequently spoke to overflowing congregations. He is the\nauthor of several well-known books, from one of which the sermon here\ngiven is taken as indicating his familiarity with and liking for\ndramatic literature. His pulpit manner always retained a flavor of\ndramatic style that contributed to his popularity.\n\n\n\n\nLORIMER\n\n1838--1904\n\nTHE FALL OF SATAN[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Copyright, 1882, by \"The Homiletic Monthly,\" New York.]\n\n_I beheld Satan, as lightning, fall from heaven_.--Luke x., 18.\n\n\nWhether the \"glorious darkness\" denoted by the name Satan is an actual\npersonage or a maleficent influence, is of secondary moment as far\nas the aim and moral of this discourse are concerned. If the ominous\ntitle applies to an abstraction, and if the event so vividly\nintroduced is but a dramatical representation of some phase in the\nmystery of iniquity, the spiritual inferences are just what they would\nbe were the words respectively descriptive of an angel of sin, and of\nhis utter and terrible overthrow. I shall not, therefore, tax your\npatience with discussions on these points, but shall assume as true\nthat literal reading of the text which has commended itself to the\nripest among our evangelical scholars.\n\nThe Scriptures obscurely hint at a catastrophe in heaven among\nimmortal intelligences, by which many of them were smitten down from\ntheir radiant emerald thrones. Their communications on the subject\nare not specific and unambiguous, and neither can they escape the\nsuspicion of being designedly figurative; intended, probably, as much\nto veil as to reveal. One of the clearest statements is made by Jude,\nwhere he says: \"And the angels which kept not their first estate, but\nleft their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains,\nunder darkness, unto the judgment of the great day\"; and Peter, in\nlike manner, speaks of God sparing not the angels that sinned, \"but\ncast them down to hell\"; and yet these comparatively lucid passages\nsuggest a world of mist and shadow, which becomes filled with strange\nimages when we confront the picture, presented by John, of war in\nheaven, with Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon, \"that\nold serpent called the devil.\" Back of them there doubtless lies a\nhistory whose tragic significance is not easily measured. The sad,\nimperishable annals of our race prove that sin is a contingency\nof freedom. Wherever creatures are endowed with moral liberty,\ntransgression is impliedly possible. It is, consequently, inherently\nprobable that celestial beings, as well as man, may have revolted from\nthe law of their Maker; and a fall accomplished among the inhabitants\nof heaven should no more surprize us than the fall of mortals on\nearth. Perhaps, after all, there is as much truth as poetry in\nMilton's conception of the rebellion, and of the fearful defeat that\novertook its leader:--\n\n                   \"Him the almighty Power\n  Hurled headlong flaming from the ethereal sky,\n  With hideous ruin and combustion, down\n  To bottomless perdition: there to dwell\n  In adamantine chains and penal fire,\n  Who durst defy the Omnipotent to arms.\"\n\nAn apostle, admonishing a novice, bids him beware of pride, \"lest he\nfall into the condemnation of the devil.\" Here presumptuous arrogance\nand haughtiness of spirit are specified as the root and source of the\ngreat transgression. Shakespeare takes up this thought:--\n\n  \"Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition.\n  By that sin fell the angels: how can man, then,\n  The image of his Maker, hope to win by't?\"\n\nAnd Milton repeats it in the magnificent lines:--\n\n                      \"What time his pride\n  Had cast him out of heaven, with all his host\n  Of rebel angels; by whose aid, aspiring\n  To set himself in glory above his peers,\n  He trusted to have equalled the Most High,\n  If He opposed; and, with ambitious aim,\n  Against the throne and monarchy of God\n  Raised impious war in heaven, and battle proud,\n  With vain attempt.\"\n\nOur Savior, also, sanctions this idea in the text. Joining His\ndisciples again, after their brief separation, He finds them elated\nand exultant. They rejoiced, and, apparently, not with modesty, that\ndevils were subject unto them, and that they could exorcize them at\ntheir pleasure. While they acknowledged that their power was due to\nthe influence of His name, they evidently thought more of\nthemselves than of Him. They were given to unseemly glorifying and\nself-satisfaction, and were met by the Master's words--half warning,\nhalf rebuke--\"I beheld Satan, as lightning, fall from heaven.\" He thus\nidentifies their pride with that evil spirit which led to angelic\nruin, and seeks to banish it from their hearts: \"Rejoice not that the\ndemons are subject unto you, but, rather, rejoice because your names\nare written in heaven.\" Rejoice not on account of privilege and\npower, but on account of grace; for the memory of grace must promote\nhumility, as it will recall the guilt of which it is the remedy.\n\nWe have, here, a lesson for all ages and for all classes of society--a\nlesson continually enforced by Scripture, and illustrated by history.\nIt deals with the insanity of pride and the senselessness of\negotism. It reminds us, by repeated examples, of the temptations to\nself-inflation, and of the perils which assail its indulgence. \"Ye\nshall be as gods,\" was the smiling, sarcastic allurement which\nbeguiled our first parents to their ruin. They thought that before\nthem rose an eminence which the foot of creaturehood had never\ntrodden; that from its height the adventurous climber would rival\nDeity in the sweep of his knowledge and the depth of his joy. Elated\nand dazzled by the prospect, they dared tread through sin to its\nattainment, vainly dreaming that wrong-doing would lead to a purer\nparadise and to a loftier throne. One step, and only one, in the\ngratification of their desires, converted their enchanting mountain\ninto a yawning gulf, and in its horrid wastes of darkness and of\nsorrow their high-blown pride was shamed and smothered. The haughty\nking walked on the terrace heights of Babylon, and, beneath the calm\nsplendor of an Assyrian sky, voiced the complacent feeling which\ndulled his sense of dependence upon God--as the perfumes of the East\nlull into waking-slumber the faculties of the soul. Thus ran his\nself-glorifying soliloquy: \"Is not this great Babylon that I have\nbuilt for the house of the kingdom by the might of my power, and for\nthe honor of my majesty?\" Alas for the weakness of the royal egotist!\nIn an hour his boasting was at an end, and, reduced by the chastening\njudgment of the Almighty to the level of the brute creation, he was\ncompelled to learn that \"those who walk in pride the King of heaven\nis able to abase.\" Similar the lesson taught us by the overthrow\nof Belshazzar when, congratulating himself on the stability of his\nthrone, and in his excess of arrogance, he insulted the sacred vessels\nwhich his father had plundered from the temple at Jerusalem. I say\ntaught us, for the foolhardy braggart was past learning anything\nhimself. Like the yet more silly Herod, who drank in the adulation of\nthe mob as he sat shimmering in his silver robe and slimed his speech\nfrom his serpent-tongue, he was too inflated and bloated with vanity\nto be corrected by wholesome discipline. Both of these rulers were too\nself-satisfied to be reproved, and God's exterminating indignation\novertook them. Like empty bubbles, nothing could be done with them,\nand hence the breath of the Almighty burst and dispersed their\nglittering worthlessness. Pope John XXI., according to Dean Milman, is\nanother conspicuous monument of this folly. \"Contemplating,\" writes\nthe historian, \"with too much pride the work of his own hands\"--the\nsplendid palace of Viterbo--\"at that instant the avenging roof came\ndown, on his head.\" And Shakespeare has immortalized the pathetic doom\nwhich awaits the proud man, who, confident in his own importance and\nin the magnitude of his destiny, is swallowed up in schemes and plans\nfor his personal aggrandizement and power. Wolsey goes too far in his\nself-seeking, is betrayed by his excess of statecraft, and, being\npublicly disgraced, laments, when too late, his selfish folly:--\n\n                             \"I have ventured,\n  Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders,\n  These many summers on a sea of glory,\n  But far beyond my depth: my high-blown pride\n  At length broke under me; and now has left me,\n  Weary, and old with service, to the mercy\n  Of a rude stream, that must forever hide me.\"\n\nIt is not difficult to discern the fatal effects of this spirit in\nthe lives of the great and mighty; but we are frequently blind to its\npernicious influence on the lowly and weak. We do not realize, as we\nought, that the differences between men lie mainly in their position,\nnot in their experiences and dangers. The leaders of society are\nmerely actors, exhibiting on the public stage of history what is\ncommon to mankind at large. However insignificant we may be, and\nhowever obscure our station, our inner life is not far removed from\nthat of the exalted personages who draw to themselves the attention of\nthe world. The poorest man has his ambitions, his struggles and his\nreverses; and the first may take as deep a hold upon his heart, and\nthe second call forth as much cunning or wisdom to confront, and the\nlast as much bitterness to endure, as are found in the vicissitudes\nof a Richelieu or a Napoleon. The peasant's daughter, in her narrow\ncircle, feels as keenly the disappointment of her hopes, and mourns as\nintensely the betrayal of her confidence, or the rude ending of her\nday-dreams, as either queen or princess, as either Katharine of\nEngland or Josephine of France. We do wrong to separate, as widely as\nwe do in our thoughts, ranks and conditions of society. The palace and\nthe hovel are nearer to each other than we usually think; and what\npasses beneath the fretted ceiling of the one, and the thatched roof\nof the other, is divided by the shadowy line of mere externalities.\nAnd so it happens that the fall of an angel may be pertinent to the\nstate of a fisherman-disciple, and the fall of a prime minister or\nruler have its message of warning for the tradesman and mechanic.\n\nIndeed, it will generally be found that the failures of life, and the\nworse than failures, are mainly due to the same cause which emptied\nheavenly thrones of their angelic occupants. What is it, let me ask,\nthat comes into clearer prominence as the Washington tragedy[1] is\nbeing investigated and scrutinized? Is it not that a diseased egotism,\nor perhaps it would be more correct to say, a stalwart egotism, robbed\nthis country of its ruler, committed \"most sacrilegious murder,\" and\n\"broke ope\"\n\n  \"The Lord's anointed temple, and stole thence\n  The life o' the building.\"\n\n[Footnote 1: The assassination of President Garfield.]\n\nLike bloody Macbeth, who greedily drank in the prognostications of the\nweird sisters, tho he feared that the \"supernatural soliciting\" could\nnot be good, because they pandered to his monstrous self-infatuation,\nGuiteau, having wrought himself up through many years of\nself-complacency, claims to have believed that the divine Being had\nchosen him to do a deed which has filled the earth with horror. Thus\nthe growth of self-conceit into mammoth proportions tends to obscure\nthe rights of others, and to darken with its gigantic shadow the\nlight of conscience. If we are to admit the prisoner's story, as the\nexpression of his real condition prior to the assassination, we look\non one so intoxicated with the sense of his own importance that he\nwould \"spurn the sea, if it could roar at him,\" and hesitate not to\nperform any deed of darkness that would render him more conspicuous.\nOthers, less heinous offenders than this garrulous murderer, have,\nfrom similar weakness, wrought indescribable mischief to themselves.\nThe man, for instance, who frets against providence because his\nstanding is not higher and his influence greater, has evidently\na better opinion of his deservings than is wholesome for him. He\nimagines he is being wronged by the Creator--that his merits are not\nrecognized as they should be--never, for a moment, remembering that,\nas a sinner, he has no claims on the extraordinary bounty of his\nheavenly Father. From murmuring he easily glides into open rebellion,\nand from whispered reproaches to loud denunciations. There are people\nin every community whose pride leads them into shameful transactions.\nThey would not condescend to mingle with their social inferiors, but\nthey will subsist on the earnings of their friends, and consider it no\ndisgrace to borrow money which they have no intention of returning.\nTheir vanity, at times, commits them to extravagances which they have\nno means of supporting. They ought to have carriages and horses,\nmansions and pictures, with all the luxuries of affluence--at least\nso they think--and, being destitute of the resources requisite to\nmaintain such state, they become adepts in those arts which qualify\nfor the penitentiary. Others have such confidence in the strength of\ntheir virtue, such commanding arrogance of integrity, that, like a\ncaptain who underestimates the force of an enemy and overrates his\nown, they neglect to place a picket-guard on the outskirts of their\nmoral camp, and in such an hour as they think not they are surprized\nand lost. Even possessors of religion are not always clear of this\nfolly, or safe from its perils. They \"think more highly of themselves\nthan they ought to think\"; they come to regard themselves as specially\nfavored of heaven; they talk of the Almighty in a free and easy\nmanner, and of Jesus Christ as tho He were not the Judge at all. When\nthey pray, it is with a familiarity bordering on irreverence, and\nwhen they deal with sacred themes it is with a lightness that breeds\ncontempt. When they recount the marvels which they have wrought in\nthe name of Christ, it is hardly-possible for them to hide their\nself-complacency; for, while they profess to give Him the glory, the\nmanner of their speech shows that they are taking it to themselves.\nThey are like the disciples, who were as proud of their prowess in\ncasting out devils as children are with their beautiful toys, and\nthey are as much in need of the Savior's warning: \"I beheld Satan, as\nlightning, fall from heaven.\" And because they have failed to give\nheed unto it, they have oftentimes followed the Evil One in his\ndownward course, and in a moment have made shipwreck of their faith.\n\n  \"As sails, full spread, and bellying with the wind,\n  Drop, suddenly collapsed, if the mast split;\n  So to the ground down dropped the cruel fiend\";\n\nand earthward have the unsaintly saints of God as swiftly sped, when\nthey have fostered the pride which changed angels into demons.\n\n\"How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!\" What\nmore pitiable spectacle than the ruin of an angel! We have seen the\nforsaken halls of time-worn and dilapidated castles, have stood in\nthe unroofed palaces of ancient princes, and have gazed on the\nmoss-covered and ivy-decked towers of perishing churches, and the\nsight of them has tilled our hearts with melancholy, as we thought\nof what had been, and of the changes that had swept over the fair,\nvaliant and pious throngs whose laughter, bravery and prayers once\nmade these scenes so gay and vocal. All is hushed now, and the silence\nis broken only by the hoot and screech of the owl, or by the rustle of\nthe nightbat's leathern wing. But how much sadder is the form of the\nmighty spirit, who once sat regnant among the sons of light, emptied\nof his innocence, filled with foul, creeping, venomous thoughts and\nfeelings, uncrowned, dethroned only with malignity and throned in\nevil! The Bible calls him the prince and the god of this world; and\neverywhere we are surrounded with evidences of his despotic sway.\nUnlike earthly rulers, whose exhausted natures exact repose, he\nis ever sleepless, and his plotting never ends. Enter his somber\npresence-chamber, and commotion, bustle, activity will confront and\namaze you. He is continually sending his emissaries forth in every\ndirection. The perpetual wranglings, ceaseless distractions,\nirreconcilable contradictions, disquieting doubts, discouraging\noutlooks, inharmonious and jangling opinions, unaccountable delusions,\nclashing and crashing dissonances, cruel hatreds, bitter enmities and\nstormful convulsions, which so largely enter and deface the course of\nhuman history, proceed mainly from his influence. We know that \"the\nheart of a lost angel is in the earth,\" and as we know its throbbings\ncarry misery and despair to millions of our fellow-beings, we can\nsurmise the intensity of we wherewith it afflicts himself. Mrs.\nBrowning's Adam thus addresses Lucifer:--\n\n                          \"The prodigy\n  Of thy vast brows and melancholy eyes,\n  Which comprehend the heights of some great fall.\n  I think that thou hast one day worn a crown\n  Under the eyes of God.\"\n\nBut now the vast brow must wear a heavier gloom, and the eyes betray a\ndeeper sorrow, as in his ruin he has sought to bury the hopes and joys\nof a weaker race. How different his dealings with the race from those\nwhich mark the ministry of Christ! Immortal hate on the one side of\nhumanity; immortal love on the other; both struggling for supremacy.\nOne sweeping across the soul with pinions of dark doubts and fears;\nthe other, with the strong wing of hope and fair anticipations. One\nseeking to plunge the earth-spirit into the abysmal depths of eternal\ndarkness; the other seeking to bear it to the apex of light, where\nreigns eternal day. And of the two, Christ alone is called \"the\nblest.\" In the agony and anguish of His sufferings He yet can exclaim,\n\"My joy I leave with thee\"; and in the lowest vale of His shame can\ncalmly discourse on peace. The reason? Do you ask the question? It\nis found in His goodness. He is good, and seeks the good of all; and\ngoodness crowns His lacerated brow with joy. This Satan sacrificed\nin his fall; this he antagonizes with, in his dreary career, and so\nremains in the eyes of all ages the monument of melancholy gloom.\nThus, also, is it with man, whose haughtiness thrusts him into evil.\nHe is morose and wretched, crusht beneath a burden of we, which weighs\nthe eyelids down with weariness and the heart with care, and\nwhich constrains him to curse the hour of his birth. Next to the\ngrief-crowned angel, there is no more pitiable object in all God's\nfair creation than a human soul tumbled by its own besotted pride into\nsin and shame. \"How is the gold become dim! how is the most fine gold\nchanged!\" aye, changed to dross, which the foot spurns, and which the\nwhirlwind scatters to the midnight region of eternity.\n\nIn view of these reflections, we can understand the stress laid by the\ninspired writers on the grace of humility. We are exhorted to be like\nJesus, who was meek and lowly in heart; and we are commanded to esteem\nothers better than ourselves. These admonitions are not designed to\ncultivate a servile or an abject spirit, but to promote a wholesome\nsense of our own limitations, weaknesses and dependence. They would\nfoster such a state of mind as will receive instruction, as will lean\non the Almighty, and recognize the worthiness and rights of all. Just\nas the flower has to pass its season entombed in the darkness of its\ncalyx before it spreads forth its radiant colors and breathes its\nperfume, so the soul must veil itself in the consciousness of its own\nignorance and sinfulness before it will be able to expand in true\ngreatness, or shed around it the aroma of pure goodness. Crossing the\nprairies recently between this city and St. Louis, I noticed that the\ntrees were nearly all bowed in the direction of the northeast. As our\nstrongest winds blow from that quarter, it was natural to inquire why\nthey were not bent to the southwest. The explanation given was, that\nthe south winds prevail in the time of sap, when the trees are supple\nwith life and heavy with foliage, and consequently, that they yield\nbefore them. But when the winter comes they are hard and firm, rigid\nand stiff, and even the fury of the tempest affects them not. Thus\nis it with human souls. When humility fills the heart, when its\ngentleness renders susceptible its thoughts and feelings, the softest\nbreath of God's Spirit can bend it earthward to help the needy, and\ndownward to supplicate and welcome heaven's grace. But when it is\nfrozen through and through with pride, it coldly resists the overtures\nof mercy, and in its deadness is apathetic even, to the storm of\nwrath. Nothing remains but for the wild hurricane to uproot it and\nlevel it to the ground. Such is the moral of my brief discourse. God\ngrant we may have the wisdom of humility to receive it!\n\n\n\n\nKNOX LITTLE\n\nTHIRST SATISFIED\n\nBIOGRAPHICAL NOTE\n\n\nWilliam John Knox Little, English preacher, was born 1839 and educated\nat Cambridge University. He has filled many parochial cures, and in\n1881 was appointed canon of Worcester, and sub-dean in 1902. He also\nholds the vicarage of Hoar Cross (1885). He is of high repute as a\npreacher and is in much request all over England. He belongs to the\nHigh Church school and has printed, besides his sermons, many works of\neducational character, such as the \"Treasury of Meditation,\" \"Manual\nof Devotion for Lent,\" and \"Confirmation and Holy Communion.\"\n\n\n\n\nKNOX LITTLE\n\nBORN IN 1839\n\nTHIRST SATISFIED[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Reprinted by permission of Hodder & Stoughton, London.]\n\n_My soul is athirst for God, for the living God; when shall I come and\nappear before the presence of God?_--Psalm xlii., 2.\n\n\nThe verse, dear friends, which I have read to you for a text is one\nof those verses which justify in the highest degree the action of the\nChristian Church in selecting the Hebrew Psalter as, in fact, her\nprayer-book. There are many passages, as you will feel with me, in the\nHebrew psalter that express in a very high degree the wants of the\nhuman soul; but perhaps there is no passage more telling, more\ntouching, more searching, more expressive than that solemn and that\nexalted sentiment which is spoken in the text, \"My soul is athirst\nfor God, for the living God; when shall I come and appear before the\npresence of God?\" The passage is a justification, then, of the action\nof the Christian Church. People sometimes ask why in the daily\nservice, why on Sundays, you rehearse the Psalms, which have about\nthem so much that is incomprehensible, so much that requires\nexplanation; why there are those tremendous denunciations of enemies,\nwhy there are those prayers that seem at first sight to touch\nwants that we modern people scarcely know; but if you want a real\njustification and a handy answer you may fall back upon the general\ntexture of the psalter as exprest by such solemn words as those of the\ntext. If you would find any document, any volume that will speak your\nthoughts best about and towards eternity, you cannot select a better\nthan the Hebrew psalter, for the general tone and temper of its\nteaching is the cry of the soul for God.\n\nAnd then there is another thought upon the threshold of such a subject\nthat demands our attention. This verse of the text, being a sort of\nexample or representative verse of the psalter, expresses to us--does\nit not?--the attitude and the mission of the Christian Church. The\nattitude. For what is the position, dear friends, of the Christian\nChurch? What are the struggles of Christian souls except, in the midst\nof a world that is quite complicated with difficulties, in the midst\nof a world that is overwhelmed with sorrow, in the midst of a time of\nsevere temptation, to constantly rise and gaze high above the thought\nof evil, and gaze towards the sun of brightness, and cry for God? And\nwhat is the mission of the Christian Church? Is it not to help men and\nwomen in their struggle and their sorrow to forget at least at times\ntheir pettinesses and degradation to rise to better standards and\nloftier ideals, and cry for God? And if that be the mission of the\nChristian Church, then I hold--and that is my point this morning--that\nthat is the justification of such noble efforts as have been made in\nyour church to enable so great, so sinful a city as London to have at\nleast moments of relaxation from its world-wide weariness, moments of\npause in the pursuit of its sin, and to call it back from that\nwhich is overpowering tho transient--to ask it to pass them in the\nministrations of religion. What is the object of such a church as\nthis? Why, buried among your buildings, in the midst of this great,\npowerful, sinful city,--why has it a mission for eternity? Why is\nit good that you should do your best? Why is it praiseworthy and\nbeautiful that your rector and churchwardens should have exerted\nthemselves to the utmost to make this church what it ought to be?\nWhy? Because there is not a man or woman in London, not one in this\nbustling crowd, not one in this confusion of commerce, not one in this\nsink of sin, but might say \"Yes\"--ought to say, and must ultimately\nfeel, and should now be taught to realize that the soul has one\nsatisfaction, one only--\"My soul is athirst for God, for the living\nGod.\" Well, if that be so, can we be wrong, dear friends, can we waste\nour time, if we ask ourselves this morning something quite practical\nabout this thirst of the soul?\n\nAnd, first of all, I submit that in such a verse as this, and in such\na work as this, we are face to face with one of those great governed\ncontrasts that are found throughout Scripture and throughout human\nlife. I may say, _par parenth\u00e8se_, that that is one of the great\nproofs of sacred Scripture. When your shallow thinker, when your wild\nand profound philosopher, kicks the sacred Book with the toe of his\nboot, and denounces it because he does not like the measure of Noah's\nArk or the exact activity of Jonah's whale, the moment you begin\nto think beneath those mere sharpnesses of speech and those mere\nquicknesses of the thought, you say this: \"There may be this or that\nabout the surface of Scripture which I do not and cannot explain, and\ncannot entirely understand; but at least there is no book--no, not\nexcepting Milton; no, not even excepting Dante; no, for us English\npeople, making no reserve for Shakespeare--there is no book that,\nafter all, expresses that deep, inner, serious fact of my being, of\nmy soul, of myself; the fact that lives when our facts are dying; the\nfact that persists in asserting itself when the noise of the world is\nstill; the fact that does not care about daylight only, but comes up\nin the dark; the fact that whispers low when I am in the crowd, but\nspeaks loud in the darkest night, when the clock is ticking on the\nstairs, and conscience has stalked out and stood before me, asserting\nfacts that I cannot contradict--there is no look that can speak that\nfact of facts, that thirst, that longing, that desolation, that\ndesire, that hope, that activity, that possibility of supreme\ncontention and final victory, there is nothing like the Bible that\ndoes that.\" And so wise men, while they admit difficulties, thoughtful\nmen, while they do not controvert the fact that that which is divine\nneeds larger explanation, fall back upon such great governed truths as\nthat text to support the Bible. The Bible says, asserts, determines,\nand insists upon the truth which the Church is insisting upon, which\nyou and I, in our better moments, emphasize and say \"Amen\" to--the\nsoul is athirst for God. The Bible brings home the great contrast that\nis present to us all.\n\nLet us dwell, that we may realize this thirst of the soul, upon the\ncontrast. There are, at least, four forms of attraction which are\npresented, as I suppose, to your soul, certainly to mine. First of\nall, there is the attraction of natural beauty. If you stand on a fair\nAugust afternoon on the terrace, for instance, at Berne, or on the\nheights of Chaumont; if you gaze at the distant Alps, crowned with\nsnow which was generated in winter, but which takes the brightness and\nglory of diamonds in the summer sun; if, coming from the noise and\nheat of England, you first gaze at that line of strange pointed\nmountains crowned with that whiteness, struck with the sunlight, you\nare moved by natural beauty. If you stand in America on the upper\nreaches of the St. Lawrence, and watch the river as it hurries to its\ndestiny at Niagara; if you see the tossing water writhing almost like\nliving creatures anticipating a dreadful destiny and passing over the\nfall; or if, rising out of what is tragic in nature, you come to what\nis homely--if, for instance, you see the chestnut woods of spring with\nan inspiration of quiet joy, or if you see the elms at Worcester or\nHereford in our common England in the autumn time with an inspiration\nof sorrow; wherever you turn with eye or head, with a feeling in your\nheart, a thought in your mind, nature demands her recognition; and you\nLondon men, in the toil of your struggle, in the noise of your work,\nin the dust of your confusion of life, when you get your holiday in\nspring or autumn,--unless, indeed, you have passed into the mere\ncondition of brutes,--while you still keep the hearts of men, you feel\nthere is something in the apostles of culture, in the teachers of\nesthetics, in persons who say that beauty is everything to satisfy the\nsoul. Nature, you say--and you say it justly--says, \"Beauty.\" You\nfind a delight as you gaze upon nature. Yes, dear friends, you are\nstimulated, you are delighted, you are consoled; there is one thing\nwhich you are not--you are not satisfied.\n\nOr, quite possibly, you turn to that which seems to English natures\nmore practical and less poetical--you turn to the attraction of\nactivity. You say the poets, or the preachers, or the dreamers may\ngaze upon nature; but Englishmen have something else to do--we have to\nwork. You look at the result of activity, and it is splendid. Imagine,\npicture for a moment, political achievement; picture to yourselves the\npower not only of a mind, but of a personality, of a character\nwhich can attract vast millions who have never gazed upon the human\nexpression in the human face--can attract them to great love or to\ngreat hatred, can mold the destinies of an empire, can change the\ncurrent of the time--think of such men as Richelieu or Cavour, or more\nmodern instances, and you understand what is the greatness and the\npower of the attraction of political activity. Or, to come nearer\nhome, go into your London city, and watch the working of your London\nmart. What have you before you there? The activity of the hearts and\nminds of Englishmen, sending out the force of the life that is in them\nfrom the heart that is beating in those tremendous centers to the\ndistances that are only stopt by the most distant frontiers of the\nworld. Your sayings and thoughts are quoted throughout the markets of\nEurope--yes, throughout the markets of other continents; your actions\nand decisions make the difference between the decisions and the\nactions of men that you have never seen, that you shall never see. The\nMedici were a power in Florence, first as bankers, then as governors.\nThere are men in London who have power throughout the world, not only\nin Florence, not as profest governors, but as practical governors\nthrough the activity of commercial instinct. Certainly, it seems to me\nquite possible that there may be minds carried away by such a great\nactivity; but that great activity I submit to your deeper, quieter\nEnglish Sunday thought--that activity will stimulate, will delight,\nwill attract, will intoxicate; one thing it will not do--I am bold to\nsay it will never satisfy.\n\nAnd if I may take another instance for a moment, there is this pure\nintellect, bidding good-by to the political arena, to the commercial\nstrife, saying farewell to the dreams of beauty, and falling back\nupon the cells of the brain, traversing the corridors of thought, and\nentering first here and there into that labyrinth of instinct, or\nassociation, or accumulative learning. Certainly, there is a power of\na delight that the world can never realize outside the region of the\nbrain. If that needs proof you have only, dear friends, to meditate\nupon such lives as Newton, or Shakespeare, or Kepler, or if you turn\nto the region of meditative thought, to such lives as our own George\nEliot--yes, there is that in the mere exercise of intellect which\nis intoxicating, which is consoling even to the highest degree. But\nintellect, after all, finds its frontier. I may say of it what I\nhave said of the esthetic sentiment, what I have said of the active\nsentiment in man: it attracts, it delights--what is more, I think\nit even consoles; but the one thing I find about it that to me is\nperfectly appalling is that it does not satisfy.\n\nThere are many of you perhaps to-day who will demand that I should\ntake my fourth instance, and will ask that that at least may do its\nduty. Will it? There is the region of the affections--that region\nwherein we stray in early spring days as pickers of the spring-flowers\nof our opening life, where suns are always glorious and sunsets only\nspeak of brighter dawn, where poetry is in all ordinary conversation\nand hope springs to higher heights from hour to hour, where Mays\nare always Mays and Junes are always Junes, where flowers are ever\nbursting, and there seems no end to our nosegays, no limit to our\nimaginations, no fetter to our fancies, no restraint to our desires.\nThere is the world, the vast, powerful world, of the passions,\npurified by exhaustive cultivation into what we call the affections\nof a higher life. By them we deal with our fellow-creatures; by them,\nwhen we are young, we form great friendships; by them, as we grow\nolder, we form around us certain associations that we intend to\nsupport us as life goes off. We have all known it. There is the\nfriend, there is the sweetheart, there is the wife, there is the\nchild, there are the dear expressions of the strong heart that after\nall beats in Englishmen. But as life goes on, first in one object and\nthen by anticipation and terror perhaps in others, we watch those who\nhave been dear to us pass in dim procession to the grave, and we find,\nafter all, that in the world of affections that old strange law that\npervades one branch of the contrast prevails; it can stimulate, it can\nsupport, it can console, it can delight, it can lead to delirium\nat moments, but it does not satisfy. And, my brothers and sisters,\nbecause you and I are born not for a moment, but for infinite moments;\nnot for the struggle of time, but for the great platform and career of\neternity--because that is so, never, never, never, if we are true to\nourselves, shall we pause in the midst of our mortal pilgrimage until\nwe find, and grasp, and embrace, and love that which satisfies. When\nyou awaken up a young heart to that truth, then that heart, as I hold\nit, is on the path of conversion. When amidst the struggle of sin you\nhave determined the soul to strive after that truth, then that soul is\nin progress of solid conversion and final perfectibility. But, at any\nrate, all human nature joins that cry of the Christian, and the Bible\nspeaks of it as it always does--its ultimate truth expressing what we\nneed. No; there are many things given, there are many attractions to\ndraw; they will stimulate, they will help, they will console, they\nwill give pleasure; there is one thing that satisfies the immortal,\nthere is one life that meets your need: \"My soul is athirst for God,\nfor the living God; when shall I come to appear before the presence of\nGod?\"\n\nWhy, dear friends, why is it that these things do not satisfy? There\nlies a city in the Volscian Hills, fair and beautiful, climbing in its\npeaks and pinnacles up little ledges of the rocks, and down into the\ndepths of the valleys. And if you wander some two days from Rome, and\ngaze upon those mountains, historic in their memories and splendid in\ntheir beauty, you are struck by the tenderness and the attraction of\nthat city. It is a city of flowers. The flowers stream up its streets\nin grave procession; they climb up the pillars of churches, embracing\nthem and holding on with arms of deep affection; they laugh in the\nsunshine, they weep in the shadow, they are shrouded in the clouds of\nnight, but they blaze again in the blaze of the morning. There is\nthe dim funereal ivy, there is the brightness and glow of the purple\nconvolvulus, there is the wild-rose clustering round the windows. They\nare lying asleep on the doorsteps, they gather themselves into\nknots as if to gossip and to talk in the language of flowers by the\ndoorways--utterly beautiful! You look at the city with wonder and\nastonishment--with desire. How wonderful, you say, that church tower\ncovered with its flowers; that altar covered with flowers not gathered\nand placed in vases, but with Nature's own hand arranging an offering\nto the living God. These streets that sound no footfall of an angry\nmultitude, but that listen to the footfall of a quiet nature--yes,\nit is beautiful in the early morning. But stay there until the later\nafternoon, when the fog begins to gather; stay there until night-time,\nwhen the miasma begins to rise; stay there until morning, and you\nare in danger of destruction from poison. It is a land of flowery\nexpression; but it is not a land of real life.\n\nMy friends, the activity of man, the poetic faculty of man, all the\ngifts and all the capacities of man--they are beautiful, they are\ntouching, they are attractive; but if they are all, if they express\nall that you have to offer, and all that is in you to feel, then they\nare hollow, or they-are poisonous, and like that city of flowers. Why?\nBecause there is in you and me a soul that lies behind our thought,\naltho there is more than feeling there--a soul that supports our will,\nand is more than our volition. It thinks, but is not thought; it\nfeels, but is not feeling; it wills, but is not volition. There\nis something deeper in man than his esthetic desire or his active\npractise, something deeper beneath us all than anything that finds\nexpression, certainly than anything that finds satisfaction. There is\nthe self; there is myself, yourself; there is that strange, mysterious\nlife of loneliness which stands, and thinks, and judges, and\nappraises. When, by divine grace, we escape from the voice of the\ncrowd, and from the cry of custom, from the delirium of desire, that\npoor lonely self within us pleads to us in a cry like the call of\nthe starveling crying to the rich man that passes by, \"Oh, will you\ngratify desire? Oh, will you gratify pleasure? Oh, will you stimulate\nactivity, and will you leave me alone? I, yourself, your very self,\nthe foundation of your life, the permanent expression of your\nimmortality--I must be satisfied, and being infinite and immortal, I\nknow but one satisfaction: 'My soul is athirst for God, for the living\nGod; when shall I come, and appear before the presence of God?'\"\n\nIf that be true, or if it be approximately true, dear friends, let us\nask ourselves this morning these questions. Let us be quite practical.\nWhat do you mean, you may say for a moment, by the thirst for God? I\nremember long ago in Paris, in conversation with one whom I deem\none of the greatest modern statesmen, tho not one of the most\nsuccessful--I remember, when a mere boy, talking to that thoughtful\nman just at the moment when he was standing amidst the ruins of his\nactivity, and gazing with the placid spirit with which a good man\ngazes when he feels that he has done his duty, tho the world can see\nthat he has failed--I remember talking to him on such questions as\nthese, and what he said, among other things, was this: \"In dealing\nwith mankind and in dealing with yourself you must rise by degrees,\nyou must advance from point to point; there is a point of achievement,\nbut you cannot reach the point of achievement unless you have gone\nup the ladder of progress.\" I follow his advice. What do we mean by\nthirsting for God? My friends, on the lower round of that ladder, I\nmean thirsting for and desiring moral truth. I mean that the soul\nwithin you is thirsting and imploring for the satisfaction of its\nmoral instincts. Turn for an instant to the ten commandments; they are\ntrite, they are ordinary, they are placed before you in the east end\nof your church, after the old custom of your practical, unaesthetic,\nand undreaming England. Ask what they mean. Turn to the second table.\nYou are to reverence your father and mother. Why? Because they are\nthe instruments of life that God gives. You are to reverence life in\nothers in the sixth commandment. Why? Because life is the deepest\nmystery that God can possibly exhibit to you. In the seventh\ncommandment--I scarcely like to say, but yet it is wise to repeat, it\nis necessary to assert it--we are to remember, you and I, when we\nare young, when we are active, when we are passionate, the great\nresponsibility of man; you are not to trifle with that awful mystery,\nthe transmission of life, life which unites itself with eternal love.\nYou are to remember respect for property, for that which divine\nprovidence has placed by wise laws in the hands of others. You are to\nremember that the best of properties is a good character. Finally, in\nthe tenth commandment, you are not to forget that divine providence\nguides you, and you are not to murmur and be angry when He guides you\nwho knows the best for you, and when you have done your best. And\nrising from the second table and coming to the first, you are not to\nforget that there is one object for every soul, as the text asserts.\nYou are not to forget that a jealousy may be created, ought to be\ncreated, if you put anything before God. You are not to grudge God the\nrestraint of speech, and--thank God, still it is possible to appeal to\nthe wise instincts of England--you are not to grudge on your Sunday\nthe gift of your time. These are the outlines of the grave moral law\nthat runs deep into the heart of the Christian; and I answer, the\nthirst for God means the thirst within me to fulfil that grave moral\nlaw.\n\nBut, my friends, pause for a moment. After all, that would only be a\nskeleton. After all, simply to draw out the outlines of a picture is\nnot the work of an artist. Suppose you ask a master in music, \"How am\nI to produce the real result of stately sound?\" He will tell you about\nthe common cord; he will tell you about the result of its changes and\nits affinities, and will speak of those results as harmony; or he will\ntell you about the gamut of sounds--sounds found in the wind upon the\nmountains, found in the surging sea, found in the voice of childhood,\nfound in the whisper of your dreams--sound that is everywhere, sound\nthat wanders up and down this wild, wild universe. He will tell you\nall that, and explain how in proper steps, in wise modulations, that\nis melody, as the union of sounds is harmony. Is that enough? Would\nthat produce \"The Last Judgment\" of Spohr, that made you dissolve in\ntears? Would that produce the chorus of Handel that made you almost\nrise and march in majesty? Would that fill you with deep thoughts in\nBeethoven, or fire you into joy in Mendelssohn? Oh, no! You have your\nskeleton, but you have not one thing, the deepest; genius has to touch\nwith its fire the fact that is before you; you want the mystery of\nlife. And then suppose you turn to an artist and ask him to guide you\nin painting, and he talks to you about light and shadow, about the\nlaying of the color, about the drawing of lines, about the exact\nexpression of the distant and the present, of the foreground and the\nbackground, and having learned it all, you produce what seems an\nabortion; you ask yourself, \"What is the meaning of this?\" Is this\nenough to make you quiver, in Dresden, before the San Sisto, carried\naway by those divine eyes of the \"Mother of Eternity,\" or rent with\nsorrow before the solemn eyes of the Child? Is this enough to fill you\nwith tears of delight when you enter the Sistine Chapel and see St.\nJohn as he kneels with his unshed tears about the dead Christ? What is\nthere wanting in the touch of your artist? There is wanting genius;\nthere is wanting life. Or to take one instance more. You ask somebody\nto teach you sculpture, to tell you how to make yourself master in the\ntreatment of stone. He will tell you wise things about the plastic\nmaterial that you have to mold with thumb and finger, and then about\nthe use of the chisel and the hammer to produce the result in the\nstone, following the treatment of that plastic material. But when you\nhave learned it all, can you really believe that you will produce the\neffect of that majestic manhood that you see in the David of Angelo\nin the Piazza of Florence, or that wise, determined progress that is\nexprest in Donatello's St. George? What is the difference between your\nfailure and the results of those men? Genius--life. And when you turn\nto the moral law, and when you ask yourself, \"How can I learn to\nbe athirst for God?\" the preachers say, \"Accept the moral law; act\nexactly in distinct duty to your parents; say, 'Corban, it is a gift\nby whatsoever thou mayest be profited thereby'; do your duty strictly\nto the letter and nothing more; be conservative about your property;\nrestrain yourself from desire of change; do not stimulate and do not\nsatisfy your passions beyond what is exactly exprest in the moral\nlaw.\" But then, if you speak the truth, you say, \"And in the end what\nam I? Why, after all, most commonplace, and, in truth, most sinful.\"\nWhat is the difference? This difference: there wants here the touch of\ngenius; there wants the touch of life divine, grace that illuminates\nthe moral law; there wants, my friends, the enthusiasm for goodness,\nthe science of sciences, the art of arts, the delight and the desire\nof doing right because it is right, the great and splendid spirit that\nbelongs to all of us; and yet it is the highest when the thirst of\nyour soul is real. Certainly it is to know God's guidance in law; but\nwhat is law? It is to grasp that atmosphere of life and reality which\ncomes out of the moral law to those who seek it in a living person\nfirst--the desire of goodness, the desire, the love, the enthusiasm,\nthe ambition, cost what it may, of doing right because it is\nright. Oh, my friends, I submit--and I submit it without fear of\ncontradiction--that is an ambition worthy of Englishmen. Certainly\nwe are not dreamers; certainly God has given us practical activity;\ncertainly, whatever we misunderstand, this we can understand, the\nthirst of the soul for God is the thirst to love goodness because it\nis right.\n\nAnd then hastily to conclude, I would say that that thirst is exprest,\nthat that thirst is satisfied, not only in moral law and in its\natmosphere, but in one thing more that I think we can all understand.\nWhen we read the New Testament, so simple, so straightforward, so\ntrue, so beautiful, with some difficulties, but no difficulties that a\ntrue heart can find insuperable--when we read the New Testament we are\nbrought face to face with the teachings of Christ. And there is this,\nmy friends, more about these teachings, that if you are to follow them\nout you have not time enough in time; the teachings of our Master\ndemand eternity--there is something about them infinite, so simple, so\nbeautiful, and yet we feel that we are insufficient to fulfil them in\nthis sphere of time. If my soul is athirst for God, it is athirst for\nthe fulfilment of those great, splendid, practical teachings which\nremind me that I am to begin to learn my lesson in this narrow school,\nbut that I shall fulfil my achievement in that great land beyond the\ngrave. Is that enough? No; no, when the heart is lonely; no, when the\nsun is setting; no, when the clouds are gathering round us; no, when\nthe storm is coming up. It is useless for the preacher, if he tries to\nbe real, to talk about law, or the result of law, or the splendor of\nteaching; if we know the human heart in its width and its activity, if\nit is to find satisfaction it must find it in a personal life. You\nmay say you cannot know God. That is the ordinary answer of the human\nsinning heart, which in modern times calls itself agnostic. Know God!\nWell, of course it is truly said that it is by mere license of speech\nwhen you talk of knowledge about human perceptions--it is wisely said.\nYou perceive a fact, my friend; you must perceive it in itself, and as\nit is, and by an intellect that can infallibly state that it is so\nand in that manner. Knowledge like that is impossible, I grant; but\nbetween that scientific knowledge and utter unbelief there are shades,\nfirst of all of assent that shuts out doubt, and at last, at the other\npole, of a doubt that almost shuts out assent. Between the two there\nare activities of life, and if you are to say, \"I cannot know the\npersonal God with scientific knowledge,\" I grant it; but you cannot\nknow anything, not only in theology, but in politics, or social life,\nor moral conduct, or conduct that is not moral--you can know nothing,\nyou can never act at all, because all our action is not on knowledge,\nbut on belief, and therefore when we turn to a personal life that is\nnot perceived by the activity of the senses we only demand that you\nare to accept that which it is possible to accept in any sphere of\nactivity, and which you do accept. It is possible for you, according\nto the laws of your being, to accept a personal Christ. \"But,\" you\nsay--and I must remind you of it as I close--\"a personal Christ,\nbut still clothed in human lineaments, a personal Christ who is\nmysterious--how can you accept that?\" How can you not? My friends, the\nhuman intellect is so framed that it acts habitually upon ideas that\nare true yet indistinct. You act on space, you act on time, you have\ninfinity, you have in your mouth the word \"cause.\" What do you know\nexactly about infinity, or space, or time, or cause? The human\nintellect, it is truly said, first by the greatest of the fathers,\nthen repeated by modern thinkers--the human intellect is so great,\nfirst, that it can take exact ideas, and then, because it is infinite,\nthat it can act instantly upon ideas that are real but indistinct.\nChrist--yes, first He is indistinct yet most real--real because He\nentered into history, real because He exprest the idea that is in the\nbrain and heart of us all; indistinct because these little twenty\ncenturies have separated us from His actual historic life; but a fact\nto those who seek Him, because His power is to make Himself an inward\ngift to the human soul, because His activity is such that He meets us\non the altar of His sacred sacrament, that He meets us in the divine\nWord to express His thoughts, that He meets us in consolation, that He\nmeets us in absolution, in moments of sorrow and of prayer. Oh, you\nare not driven to a distant infinity! Oh, you are not asked to rest\nupon a shadow I Oh, you are not besought to play the dreamer or\nthe sentimentalist, when you think about God! Oh, you are asked to\nremember that fair, sweet vision--the vision of a Man so devoid of\nvulgarity, that whilst He loved the people He did not despise the\ngreat--the vision of a Man so strong that He could face a multitude,\nso tender that He could raise the lost woman, so gentle that the\nlittle children gathered their arms about His neck; the vision of\na Man at home with fishermen, and at home with the high-born, with\nthoughts so deep that they permeate modern Christendom, with thoughts\nso simple that they taught truth to ancient Galilee; the vision of a\nMan who encouraged youth, the One on whom we rest, by whom we hang, in\nwhom we hope, who sympathizes with all our best desires, who does not\ndenounce us, but only intercedes and pities; the Man who never places\nHimself upon a Pharisaic pedestal, but feels with the child, with the\nboy, with the man, with the woman,--the Man of men, the crown of our\nhumanity, the God in Man, the Man in God, the power of the sacraments,\nthe force of prayer, the sweet, dear Friend who never misunderstands\nus, never forsakes us, never is hard upon us. My friends, it is your\nprivilege, it is mine, beyond the privilege of the psalmist, to know\nin the gospel, to know in the Church, Christ, God exprest in humanity.\nIs your soul athirst for the highest? You may find it if you could\ncome in repentance, if you come in desire, if you come in quiet\ndetermination to do your duty; you may find it satisfied--yes, now\nsatisfied--in Christ.","title":"The World's Great Sermons, Volume 08: Talmage to Knox Little","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":54154}