{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_14497/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_14497","id":"gutenberg_14497","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14497","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Episcopal Church -- Sermons","Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865 -- Sermons","Sermons, American"],"text":"ADDRESSES\n\nBY\n\nTHE RIGHT REVEREND\n\nPHILLIPS BROOKS\n\nBISHOP OF MASSACHUSETTS\n\nPHILADELPHIA\n\nHENRY ALTEMUS\n\n1895\n\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n\n                                                PAGE\n\nI. THE BEAUTY OF A LIFE OF SERVICE                9\n\nII. THOUGHT AND ACTION                           34\n\nIII. THE DUTY OF THE CHRISTIAN BUSINESS MAN      63\n\nIV. TRUE LIBERTY                                 88\n\nV. THE CHRIST IN WHOM CHRISTIANS BELIEVE        110\n\nVI. ABRAHAM LINCOLN                             140\n\n\n\n\nI. THE BEAUTY OF A LIFE OF SERVICE.\n\n\nI should like to read to you again the words of Jesus from the 8th\nchapter of the Gospel of St. John:--\n\n     \"Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on Him, if ye\n     continue in My word, then are ye My disciples indeed; and ye shall\n     know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. They answered\n     him, We be Abraham's seed, and were never in bondage to any man;\n     how sayest Thou, ye shall be made free? Jesus answered them,\n     Verily, verily, I say unto you, whosoever committeth sin is the\n     servant of sin. And the servant abideth not in the house forever,\n     but the Son abideth ever. If the Son, therefore, shall make you\n     free, ye shall be free indeed.\"\n\nI want to speak to you to-day about the purpose and the result of the\nfreedom which Christ gives to His disciples and the freedom into which\nman enters when he fulfils his life. The purpose and result of freedom\nis service. It sounds to us at first like a contradiction, like a\nparadox. Great truths very often present themselves to us in the first\nplace as paradoxes, and it is only when we come to combine the two\ndifferent terms of which they are composed and see how it is only by\ntheir meeting that the truth does reveal itself to us, that the truth\ndoes become known. It is by this same truth that God frees our souls,\nnot from service, not from duty, but into service and into duty, and he\nwho makes mistakes the purpose of his freedom mistakes the character of\nhis freedom. He who thinks that he is being released from the work, and\nnot set free in order that he may accomplish that work, mistakes the\nChrist from whom the freedom comes, mistakes the condition into which\nhis soul is invited to enter. For if I was right in saying what I said\nthe other day, that the freedom of a man simply consists in the larger\nopportunity to be and to do all that God makes him in His creation\ncapable of being and doing, then certainly if man has been capable of\nservice it is only by the entrance into service, by the acceptance of\nthat life of service for which God has given man the capacity, that he\nenters into the fulness of his freedom and becomes the liberated child\nof God. You remember what I said with regard to the manifestations of\nfreedom and the figures and the illustrations, perhaps some of them\nwhich we used, of the way in which the bit of iron, taken out of its\nuselessness, its helplessness, and set in the midst of the great\nmachine, thereby recognizes the purpose of its existence, and does the\nwork for which it was appointed, for it immediately becomes the servant\nof the machine into which it was placed. Every part of its impulse flows\nthrough all of its substance, and it does the thing which it was made to\ndo. When the ice has melted upon the plain it is only when it finds its\nway into the river and flows forth freely to do the work which the live\nwater has to do that it really attains to its freedom. Only then is it\nreally liberated from the bondage in which it was held while it was\nfastened in the chains of winter. The same freed ice waits until it so\nfinds its freedom, and when man is set free simply into the enjoyment of\nhis own life, simply into the realization of his own existence, he has\nnot attained the purposes of his freedom, he has not come to the\npurposes of his life.\n\nIt is one of the signs to me of how human words are constantly becoming\nperverted that it surprises us when we think of freedom as a condition\nin which a man is called upon to do, and is enabled to do, the duty that\nGod has laid upon him. Duty has become to us such a hard word, service\nhas become to us a word so full of the spirit of bondage, that it\nsurprises us at the first moment when we are called upon to realize that\nit is in itself a word of freedom. And yet we constantly are lowering\nthe whole thought of our being, we are bringing down the greatness and\nrichness of that with which we have to deal, until we recognize that God\ndoes not call us to our fullest life simply for ourselves. The spirit of\nselfishness is continually creeping in. I think it may almost be said\nthat there has been no selfishness in the history of man like that which\nhas exhibited itself in man's religious life, showing itself in the way\nin which man has seized upon spiritual privileges and rejoiced in the\ngood things that are to come to him in the hereafter, because he had\nmade himself the servant of God. The whole subject of selfishness, and\nthe way in which it loses itself and finds itself again, is a very\ninteresting one, and I wish that we had time to dwell upon it. It comes\ninto a sort of general law which we are recognizing everywhere--the way\nin which a man very often, in his pursuit of the higher form of a\ncondition in which he has been living, seems to lose that condition for\na little while and only to reach it a little farther on. He seems to be\nabandoned by that power only that he may meet it by and by and enter\nmore deeply into its heart and come more completely into its service. So\nit is, I think, with the self-devotion, consecration, and\nself-forgetfulness in which men realize their life. Very often in the\nlower stages of man's life he forgets himself, with a slightly\nemphasized individual existence, not thinking very much of the purpose\nof his life, till he easily forgets himself among the things that are\naround him and forgets himself simply because there is so little of\nhimself for him to forget; but do not you know perfectly well how very\noften when a man's life becomes intensified and earnest, when he becomes\ncompletely possessed with some great passion and desire, it seems for\nthe time to intensify his selfishness? It does intensify his\nselfishness. He is thinking so much in regard to himself that the\nthought of other persons and their interests is shut out of his life.\nAnd so very often when a man has set before him the great passion of the\ndivine life, when he is called by God to live the life of God, and to\nenter into the rewards of God, very often there seems to close around\nhis life a certain bondage of selfishness, and he who gave himself\nfreely to his fellow-men before now seems, by the very intensity,\neagerness, and earnestness with which his mind is set upon the prize of\nthe new life which is presented to him--it seems as if everything became\nconcentrated upon himself, the saving of his soul, the winning of his\nsalvation. That seat in heaven seems to burn so before his eyes that he\ncannot be satisfied for a moment with any thought that draws him away\nfrom it, and he presses forward that he may be saved. But by and by, as\nhe enters more deeply into that life, the self-forgetfulness comes to\nhim again and as a diviner thing. By and by, as the man walks up the\nmountain, he seems to pass out of the cloud which hangs about the lower\nslopes of the mountain, until at last he stands upon the pinnacle at the\ntop, and there is in the perfect light. Is it not exactly like the\nmountain at whose foot there seems to be the open sunshine where men see\neverything, and on whose summit there is the sunshine, but on whose\nsides, and half way up, there seems to linger a long cloud, in which man\nhas to struggle until he comes to the full result of his life? So it is\nwith self-consecration, with service. You easily do it in some small\nways in the lower life. Life becomes intensified and earnest with a\nserious purpose, and it seems as if it gathered itself together into\nselfishness. Only then it opens by and by into the largest and noblest\nworks of men, in which they most manifest the richness of their human\nnature and appropriate the strength of God. Those are great and\nunselfish acts. We know it at once if we turn to Him who represents the\nfulness of the nature of our humanity.\n\nWhen I turn to Jesus and think of Him as the manifestation of His own\nChristianity--and if men would only look at the life of Jesus to see\nwhat Christianity is, and not at the life of the poor representatives of\nJesus whom they see around them, there would be so much more clearness,\nthey would be rid of so many difficulties and doubts. When I look at the\nlife of Jesus I see that the purpose of consecration, of emancipation,\nis service of His fellow-men. I cannot think for a moment of Jesus as\ndoing that which so many religious people think they are doing when they\nserve Christ, when they give their lives to Him. I cannot think of Him\nas simply saving His own soul, living His own life, and completing His\nown nature in the sight of God. It is a life of service from beginning\nto end. He gives himself to man because He is absolutely the Child of\nGod, and He sets up service, and nothing but service, to be the ultimate\npurpose, the one great desire, on which the souls of His followers\nshould be set, as His own soul is set, upon it continually.\n\nWhat is it that Christ has left to be His symbol in the world, that we\nput upon our churches, what we wear upon our hearts, that stands forth\nso perpetually us the symbol of Christ's life? Is it a throne from which\na ruler utters his decrees? Is it a mountain top upon which some rapt\nseer sits, communing with himself and with the voices around him, and\ngathering great truth into his soul and delighting in it? No, not the\nthrone and not the mountain top. It is the cross. Oh, my brethren, that\nthe cross should be the great symbol of our highest measure, that that\nwhich stands for consecration, that that which stands for the divine\nstatement that a man does not live for himself and that a man loses\nhimself when he does live for himself--that that should be the symbol of\nour religion and the great sign and token of our faith? What sort of\nChristians are we that go about asking for the things of this life\nfirst, thinking that it shall make us prosperous to be Christians, and\nthen a little higher asking for the things that pertain to the eternal\nprosperity, when the Great Master, who leaves us the great law, in whom\nour Christian life is spiritually set forth, has as His great symbol the\ncross, the cross, the sign of consecration and obedience? It is not\nsimply suffering too. Christ does not stand primarily for suffering.\nSuffering is an accident. It does not matter whether you and I suffer.\n\"Not enjoyment and not sorrow\" is our life, not sorrow any more than\nenjoyment, but obedience and duty. If duty brings sorrow, let it bring\nsorrow. It did bring sorrow to the Christ, because it was impossible for\na man to serve the absolute righteousness in this world and not to\nsorrow. If it had brought joy, and glory, and triumph, if it had been\ngreeted at its entrance and applauded on the way, He would have been as\ntruly the consecrated soul that He was in the days when, over a road\nthat was marked with the blood of His footprints, He found His way up at\nlast to the torturing cross. It is not suffering; it is obedience. It is\nnot pain; it is consecration of life. It is the joy of service that\nmakes the life of Christ, and for us to serve Him, serving fellow-man\nand God--as he served fellow-man and God--whether it bring pain or joy,\nif we can only get out of our souls the thought that it matters not if\nwe are happy or sorrowful, if only we are dutiful and faithful, and\nbrave and strong, then we should be in the atmosphere, we should be in\nthe great company of the Christ.\n\nIt surprises me very often when I hear good Christian people talk about\nChrist's entrance into this world, Christ's coming to save this world.\nThey say it was so marvellous that Jesus should be willing to come down\nfrom His throne in heaven and undertake all the strange sorrow and\ndistress that belonged to Him when He came to save the world from its\nsins. Wonderful? There was no wonder in it; no wonder if we enter up\ninto the region where Jesus lives and think of life as He must have\nthought of life. It is the same wonder that people feel about the\nmiracles of Jesus. Is it a wonder that when a divine life is among men,\nnature should have a response to make to Him, and He should do things\nthat you and I, in our little humanity, find it impossible to do? No,\nindeed, there is no wonder that God loved the world. There is no wonder\nthat Christ, the Son of God, at any sacrifice undertook to save the\nworld. The wonder would have been if God, sitting in His heaven, the\nwonder would have been if Jesus, ready to come here to the earth and\nseeing how it was possible to save man from sin by suffering, had not\nsuffered. Do you wonder at the mother, when she gives her life without a\nhesitation or a cry, when she gives her life with joy, with\nthankfulness, for her child, counting it her privilege? Do you wonder at\nthe patriot, the hero, when he rushes into the battle to do the good\ndeed which it is possible for him to do? No; read your own nature deeper\nand you will understand your Christ. It is no wonder that He should have\ndied upon the cross; the wonder would have been if, with the inestimable\nprivilege of saving man, He had shrunk from that cross and turned away.\nIt sets before us that it is not the glories of suffering, it is not the\nnecessity of suffering, it is simply the beauty of obedience and the\nfulfilment of a man's life in doing his duty and rendering the service\nwhich it is possible for him to render to his fellow-man.\n\nI said that a man when he did that left behind him all the thought of\nthe life which he was willing to live within himself, even all the\nhighest thought. It is not your business and mine to study whether we\nshall get to heaven, even to study whether we shall be good men; it is\nour business to study how we shall come into the midst of the purposes\nof God and have the unspeakable privilege in these few years of doing\nsomething of His work. And yet so is our life all one, so is the kingdom\nof God which surrounds us and infolds us one bright and blessed unity,\nthat when a man has devoted himself to the service of God and his\nfellow-man, immediately he is thrown back upon his own nature, and he\nsees now--it is the right place for him to see--that he must be the\nbrave, strong, faithful man, because it is impossible for him to do his\nduty and to render his service, except it is rendered out of a heart\nthat is full of faithfulness, that is brave and true. There is one word\nof Jesus that always comes back to me as about the noblest thing that\nhuman lips have ever said upon our earth, and the most comprehensive\nthing, that seems to sweep into itself all the commonplace experience of\nmankind. Do you remember when He was sitting with His disciples, at the\nlast supper, how He lifted up His voice and prayed, and in the midst of\nHis prayer there came these wondrous words: \"For their sakes I sanctify\nmyself, that they also might be sanctified\"? The whole of human life is\nthere. Shall a man cultivate himself? No, not primarily. Shall a man\nserve the world, strive to increase the kingdom of God in the world?\nYes, indeed, he shall. How shall he do it? By cultivating himself, and\ninstantly he is thrown back upon his own life. \"For their sakes I\nsanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified.\" I am my best, not\nsimply for myself, but for the world. My brethren, is there anything in\nall the teachings that man has had from his fellow-man, all that has\ncome down to him from the lips of God, that is nobler, that is more\nfar-reaching than that--to be my best not simply for my own sake, but\nfor the sake of the world into which, setting my best, I shall make that\nworld more complete, I shall do my little part to renew and to recreate\nit in the image of God? That is the law of my existence. And the man\nthat makes that the law of his existence neither neglects himself nor\nhis fellow-men, neither becomes the self-absorbed student and cultivator\nof his own life upon the one hand, nor does he become, abandoning\nhimself, simply the wasting benefactor of his brethren upon the other.\nYou can help your fellow-men: you must help your fellow-men; but the\nonly way you can help them is by being the noblest and the best man that\nit is possible for you to be. I watch the workman build upon the\nbuilding which by and by is to soar into the skies, to toss its\npinnacles up to the heaven, and I see him looking up and wondering where\nthose pinnacles are to be, thinking how high they are to be, measuring\nthe feet, wondering how they are to be built, and all the time he is\ncramming a rotten stone into the building just where he has set to work.\nLet him forget the pinnacles, if he will, or hold only the floating\nimage of them in his imagination for his inspiration; but the thing that\nhe must do is to put a brave, strong soul, an honest and substantial\nlife into the building just where he is now at work.\n\nIt seems to me that that comes home to us all. Men are questioning now\nas they never have questioned before whether Christianity is indeed the\ntrue religion which is to be the salvation of the world. They are\nfeeling how the world needs salvation, how it needs regeneration, how it\nis wrong and bad all through and through, mixed with the good that is in\nit everywhere. Everywhere there is the good and the bad, and the great\nquestion that is on men's minds to-day, as I believe it has never been\nupon men's minds before, is this: Is this Christian religion, with its\nhigh pretensions, this Christian life that claims so much for itself, is\nit competent for the task that it has undertaken to do? Can it meet all\nthese human problems, and relieve all these human miseries, and fulfil\nall these human hopes? It is the old story over again, when John the\nBaptist, puzzled in his prison, said to Jesus, \"Art thou He that should\ncome? or look we for another?\" It seems to me that the Christian Church\nis hearing that cry in its ears to-day: \"Art thou He that should come?\"\nCan you do this which the world unmistakably needs to be done?\n\nChristian men, it is for us to give our bit of answer to that question.\nIt is for us, in whom the Christian Church is at this moment partially\nembodied, to declare that Christianity, that the Christian faith, the\nChristian manhood, can do that for the world which the world needs. You\nsay, \"What can I do?\" You can furnish one Christian life. You can\nfurnish a life so faithful to every duty, so ready for every service, so\ndetermined not to commit every sin, that the great Christian Church\nshall be the stronger for your living in it, and the problem of the\nworld be answered, and a certain great peace come into this poor,\nperplexed phase of our humanity as it sees that new revelation of what\nChristianity is. Yes, Christ can give the world the thing it needs in\nunknown ways and methods that we have not yet begun to suspect.\nChristianity has not yet been tried. My friends, no man dares to condemn\nthe Christian faith to-day, because the Christian faith has not been\ntried. Not until men get rid of the thought that it is a poor machine,\nan expedient for saving them from suffering and pain, not until they get\nthe grand idea of it as the great power of God present in and through\nthe lives of men, not until then does Christianity enter upon its true\ntrial and become ready to show what it can do. Therefore we struggle\nagainst our sin in order that men may be saved around us, and not simply\nthat our own souls may be saved.\n\nTell me you have a sin that you mean to commit this evening that is\ngoing to make this night black. What can keep you from committing that\nsin? Suppose you look into its consequences. Suppose the wise man tells\nyou what will be the physical consequences of that sin. You shudder and\nyou shrink, and, perhaps, you are partially deterred. Suppose you see\nthe; glory that might come to you, physical, temporal, spiritual, if you\ndo not commit that sin. The opposite of it shows itself to you--the\nblessing and the richness in your life. Again there comes a great power\nthat shall control your lust and wickedness. Suppose there comes to you\nsomething even deeper than that, no consequence on consequence at all,\nbut simply an abhorrence for the thing, so that your whole nature\nshrinks from it as the nature of God shrinks from a sin that is\npolluting and filthy and corrupt and evil. They are all great powers.\nLet us thank God for them all. He knows that we are weak enough to need\nevery power that can possibly be brought to bear upon our feeble lives;\nbut if, along with all of them, there could come this other power, if\nalong with them there could come the certainty that if you refrain from\nthat sin to-night you make the sum of sin that is in the world, and so\nthe sum of all temptation that is in the world, and so the sum of future\nevil that is to spring out of temptation in the world, less, shall there\nnot be a nobler impulse rise up in your heart, and shall you not say: \"I\nwill not do it; I will be honest, I will be sober, I will be pure, at\nleast, to-night\"? I dare to think that there are men here to whom that\nappeal can come, men who, perhaps, will be all dull and deaf if one\nspeaks to them about their personal salvation; who, if one dares to\npicture to them, appealing to their better nature, trusting to their\nnobler soul, that there is in them the power to save other men from sin,\nand to help the work of God by the control of their own passions and\nthe fulfilment of their own duty, will be stirred to the higher life.\nMen--very often we do not trust them enough--will answer to the higher\nappeal that seems to be beyond them when the poor, lower appeal that\ncomes within the region of their selfishness is cast aside, and they\nwill have nothing to do with it.\n\nOh, this marvellous, this awful power that we have over other people's\nlives! Oh! the power of the sin that you have done years and years ago!\nIt is awful to think of it. I think there is hardly anything more\nterrible to the human thought than this--the picture of a man who,\nhaving sinned years and years ago in a way that involved other souls in\nhis sin, and then, having repented of his sin and undertaken another\nlife, knows certainly that the power, the consequence of that sin is\ngoing on outside of his reach, beyond even his ken and knowledge. He\ncannot touch it. You wronged a soul ten years ago. You taught a boy how\nto tell his first mercantile lie; you degraded the early standards of\nhis youth. What has become of that boy to-day? You may have repented. He\nhas passed put of your sight. He has gone years and years ago. Somewhere\nin this great, multitudinous mass of humanity he is sinning and sinning\nand reduplicating and extending the sin that you did. You touched the\nfaith of some believing soul years ago with some miserable sneer of\nyours, with some cynical and sceptical disparagement of God and of the\nman who is the utterance of God upon the earth. You taught the soul that\nwas enthusiastic to be full of scepticisms and doubts. You wronged a\nwoman years ago, and her life has gone out from your life, you cannot\nbegin to tell where. You have repented of your sin. You have bowed\nyourself, it may be, in dust and ashes. You have entered upon a new\nlife. You are pure to-day. But where is the sceptical soul? Where is the\nruined woman whom you sent forth into the world out of the shadow of\nyour sin years ago? You cannot touch that life. You cannot reach it. You\ndo not know where it is. No steps of yours, quickened with all your\nearnestness, can pursue it. No contrition of yours can drawback its\nconsequences. Remorse cannot force the bullet back again into the gun\nfrom which it once has gone forth. It makes life awful to the man who\nhas ever sinned, who has ever wronged and hurt another life because of\nthis sin, because no sin ever was done that did not hurt another life. I\nknow the mercy of our God, that while He has put us into each other's\npower to a fearful extent, He never will let any soul absolutely go to\neverlasting ruin for another's sin; and so I dare to see the love of God\npursuing that lost soul where you cannot pursue it. But that does not\nfor one moment lift the shadow from your heart, or cease to make you\ntremble when you think of how your sin has outgrown itself and is\nrunning far, far away where you can never follow it.\n\nThank God the other thing is true as well. Thank God that when a man\ndoes a bit of service, however little it may be, of that too he can\nnever trace the consequences. Thank God that that which in some better\nmoment, in some nobler inspiration, you did ten years ago to make your\nbrother's faith a little more strong, to let your shop boy confirm and\nnot doubt the confidence in man which he had brought into his business,\nto establish the purity of a soul instead of staining it and shaking it,\nthank God, in this quick, electric atmosphere in which we live, that,\ntoo, runs forth. Do not say in your terror, \"I will do nothing.\" You\nmust do something. Only let Christ tell you--let Christ tell you that\nthere is nothing that a man rests upon in the moment, that he thinks of,\nas he looks back upon it when it has sunk into the past, with any\nsatisfaction, except some service to his fellow-man, some strengthening\nand helping of a human soul.\n\nTwo men are walking down the street together and talking away. See what\ndifferent conditions those two men are in. One of them has his soul\nabsolutely full of the desire to help his fellow-man. He peers into\nthose faces as he goes, and sees the divine possibility that is in them,\nand he sees the divine nature everywhere. They are talking about the\nidlest trifles, about the last bit of local Boston politics. But in\ntheir souls one of those men has consecrated himself, with the new\nmorning, to the glorious service of God, and the other of them is asking\nhow he may be a little richer in his miserable wealth when the day\nsinks. Oh, we look into the other world and read the great words and\nhear it said, Between me and thee, this and that, there is a great gulf\nfixed; and we think of something that is to come in the eternal life. Is\nthere any gulf in eternity, is there any gulf between heaven and hell\nthat is wider, and deeper, and blacker, that is more impassable than\nthat gulf which lies between these two men going upon their daily way?\nOh, friends, it is not that God is going to judge us some day. That is\nnot the awful thing. It is that God knows us now. If I stop an instant\nand know that God knows me through all these misconceptions and blunders\nof my brethren, that God knows me--that is the awful thing. The future\njudgment shall but tell it. It is here, here upon my conscience, now. It\nis awful to think how the commonplace things that men can do, the\ncommonplace thoughts that men can think, the commonplace lives that men\ncan live, are but in the bosom of the future. The thing that impresses\nme more and more is this--that we only need to have extended to the\nmultitude that which is at this moment present in the few, and the world\nreally would be saved. There is but the need of the extension into a\nmultitude of souls of that which a few souls have already attained in\ntheir consecration of themselves to human good, and to the service of\nGod, and I will not say the millennium would have come, I don't know\nmuch about the millennium, but heaven would have come, the new Jerusalem\nwould be here. There are men enough in this church this morning, there\nare men enough sitting here within the sound of my voice to-day, if they\nwere inspired by the spirit of God and counted it the great privilege of\ntheir life, to do the work of God--there are men enough here to save\nthis city, and to make this a glowing city of our Lord, to relieve its\npoverty, to lighten its darkness, to lift up the cloud that is upon\nhearts, to turn it into a great, I will not say psalm-singing city, but\nGod-serving, God-abiding city, to touch all the difficult problems of\nhow society and government ought to be organized then with a power with\nwhich they should yield their difficulty and open gradually. The light\nto measure would be clear enough, if only the spirit is there. Give me\nfive hundred men, nay, give me one hundred men of the spirit that I know\nto-day in three men that I well understand, and I will answer for it\nthat the city shall be saved. And you, my friend, are one of the five\nhundred--you are one of the one hundred.\n\n\"Oh, but,\" you say, \"is not this slavery over again? You have talked\nabout freedom, and here I am once more a slave. I had about got free\nfrom the bondage of my fellow-men, and here I am right in the midst of\nit again. What has become of my personality, of my independence, if I am\nto live thus?\" Ay, you have got to learn what every noblest man has\nalways learned, that no man becomes independent of his fellow-men\nexcepting in serving his fellow-men. You have got to learn that\nChristianity comes to us not simply as a luxury but as a force, and no\nman who values Christianity simply as a luxury which he possesses really\ngets the Christianity which he tries to value. Only when Christianity is\na force, only when I seek independence of men in serving men, do I cease\nto be a slave to their whims. I must dress as they think I ought to\ndress; I must walk in the streets as they think I ought to walk; I must\ndo business just after their fashion; I must accept their standards; but\nwhen Christ has taken possession of me and I am a total man, I am more\nor less independent of these men. Shall I care about their little whims\nand oddities? Shall I care about how they criticise the outside of my\nlife? Shall I peer into their faces as I meet them in the street, to see\nwhether they approve of me or not? And yet am I not their servant? There\nis nothing now I will not do to serve them, there is nothing now I will\nnot do to save them. If the cross comes, I welcome the cross, and look\nupon it with joy, if, by my death upon the cross in any way, I may echo\nthe salvation of my Lord and save them. Independent of them? Surely. And\nyet their servant? Perfectly. Was ever man so independent in Jerusalem\nas Jesus was? What cared He for the sneer of the Pharisee, for the\nlearned scorn of the Sadducee, for the taunt of the people and the\nlittle boys that had been taught to jeer at Him as He went down the\nstreet, and yet the very servant of all their life? He says there are\ntwo kinds of men--they who sit upon a throne and eat, and they who\nserve. \"I am among you as he that serveth.\" Oh, seek independence.\nInsist upon independence. Insist that you will not be the slave of the\npoor, petty standards of your fellow-men. But insist upon it only in the\nway in which it can be insisted upon, by becoming absolutely the servant\nof their needs. So only shall you be independent of their whims. There\nis one great figure, and it has taken in all Christian consciousness,\nthat again and again this work with Christ has been asserted to be the\ntrue service in the army of a great master, of a great captain, who goes\nbefore us to his victory, that it is asserted that in that captain, in\nthe entrance into his army, every power is set free. Do you remember the\nwords that a good many of us read or heard yesterday in our churches,\nwhere Jesus was doing one of His miracles, and it is said that a devil\nwas cast out, the dumb spake? Every power becomes the man's possession,\nand he uses it in his freedom, and he fights with it with all his force,\njust as soon as the devil is cast out of him.\n\nI have tried to tell you the noblest motive in which you should be a\npure, an upright, a faithful, and a strong man. It is not for the\nsalvation of your life, it is not for the salvation of yourself. It is\nnot for the satisfaction of your tastes. It is that you may take your\nplace in the great army of God and go forward having something to do\nwith the work that He is doing in the world. You remember the days of\nthe war, and how ashamed of himself a man felt who never touched with\nhis finger the great struggle in which the nation was engaged. Oh, to go\nthrough this life and never touch with my finger the vast work that\nChrist is doing, and when the cry of triumph arises at the end to stand\nthere, not having done one little, unknown, unnoticed thing to bring\nabout that which is the true life of the man and of the world, that is\nawful. And I dare to believe that there are young men in this church\nthis morning who, failing to be touched by every promise of their own\nsalvation and every threatening of their own damnation, will still lift\nthemselves up and take upon them the duty of men, and be soldiers of\nJesus Christ, and have a part in the battle, and have a part somewhere\nin the victory that is sure to come. Don't be selfish anywhere. Don't be\nselfish, most of all, in your religion. Let yourselves free into your\nreligion, and be utterly unselfish. Claim your freedom in service.\n\n\n\n\nII. THOUGHT AND ACTION.\n\n\nI want once more to read to you these words from the eighth chapter of\nthe Gospel of St. John:\n\n     \"As He spake these words, many believed on Him. Then said Jesus to\n     those Jews which believed on Him, If ye continue in My word, then\n     are ye My disciples indeed; And ye shall know the truth, and the\n     truth shall make you free. They answered Him, We be Abraham's seed,\n     and were never in bondage to any man: how sayest Thou, Ye shall be\n     made free? Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you,\n     Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin. And the servant\n     abideth not in the house for ever: but the Son abideth ever. If the\n     Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.\"\n\nThere are two great regions in which the life of every true man resides.\nThey are the region of action and the region of thought. It is\nimpossible to separate these two regions from one another and to bid\none man live in one of them alone and the other man live only in the\nother of them. It is impossible to say to the business man that he shall\nlive only in the region of action, it is impossible to say to the\nscholar that he shall live only in the region of thought, for thought\nand action make one complete and single life. Thought is not simply the\nsea upon which the world of action rests, but, like the air which\npervades the whole solid substance of our globe, it permeates and fills\nit in every part. It is thought which gives to it its life. It is\nthought which makes the manifestation of itself in every different\naction of man. I hope we are not so deluded as men have been sometimes,\nas some men are to-day, that we shall try to separate these two lives\nfrom one another, and one man say, \"Everything depends upon my action,\nand I care not what I think,\" or, as men have said, at least, in other\ntimes, \"If I think right, it matters not how I act.\" But the right\nthought and the right action make one complete and single man.\n\nNow we have been speaking, upon these Monday noons, with regard to the\nfreedom of that highest life which is lived under the inspiration of\nJesus Christ and which we call the Christian life. We have claimed that\nit is the highest of all lives because it is the freest of all lives,\nthat it is the freest of all lives because it is the highest, and it\nmay be that we have thought that it was true with regard to the active\nlife in which men live, it may be that we have somehow persuaded\nourselves, that it has seemed to us as if there were evidence that a man\nwho lived his life in the following of Jesus Christ was a free man in\nregard to his activity. But now there comes to us the other thought, and\nit is impossible for us to meet together as we have met together again\nand again here without asking with regard to the other region of man's\nlife and how it is with man there, for there are a great many people, I\nbelieve, who think that while the Christian faith offers to man a noble\nsphere of action and sets free powers that would otherwise remain\nunchanged, yet when we come to the region of thought or belief, there it\nis inevitable that man should know himself, when he accepts the faith of\nJesus Christ, it is inevitable that there the man should become less\nfree than it has been thought that he was before the blessed Saviour\nwas accepted as the Master and the ruler of his life. Men say to\nthemselves and to one another, \"Yes, I shall be freer to act, I shall be\nnobler in my action, but I shall certainly enchain mind and spirit, I\nshall certainty bind myself to think, away from the rich freedom of\nthought in which I have been inclined to live.\" We make very much of\nfree thought in these days. Let us always remember that free thought\nmeans the opportunity to think, and not the opportunity not to think. We\nrejoice in the way in which our fathers came to this country and in\ntheir children perpetuated the purpose of their coming, in order that\nthey might have freedom to worship God. Do we worship God? Simply to\nhave attained freedom and not to use freedom for its true purpose, not\nto live within the world of freedom according to the life which is given\nto us there--that is to do dishonor to the freedom, to disown the\npurpose for which the freedom has been given to us. I want to speak to\nyou then, while I may speak to-day, with regard to the freedom of the\nChristian thought.\n\nI want to claim, that which I believe with all my soul, that he who\nlives in the faith of Jesus Christ lives in the freest action of his\nmental powers, and there sees before him and makes himself a part of the\nlarge world into which man shall enter, in which he has perfect liberty\nand can exercise his powers as he could never have exercised them\nwithout. It is not very strange to think that men should have sometimes\ncome to think that the religion of Jesus Christ was a slavery that was\nlaid upon the mind of man, because very often those who have been the\ndisciples of that religion, those who have been the preachers and\nexponents of that religion, have claimed just exactly that thing. They\nhave seemed to say to themselves and to one another, to the world to\nwhich they speak, that man does give up the powers of his reason when he\nenters into the powers of his faith, when he enters into the great realm\nof faith. Led by some sort of influence, led by some heresy with regard\nto the capacity of man, or with regard to the dealing of God with man,\nor with regard to the purposes of man's life upon the earth, they have\nbeen content to say that man must give up the power of thought in order\nthat he might enter into the Christian life and attain to all the\npurposes of the Christian discipline, they have been content to say that\nman must give up the noblest power of his nature in order to enter upon\nthe highest life. Well might a man hesitate, hesitate whatever the\nblessings that were offered to him in the fulness of the Christian\nexperience, if he were called upon to give up that which made the very\ncentre and glory of his life, that which linked him most immediately to\nthe God from whom he sprang. It would be as if in the storm the ship\nshould cast over its engine in order to save its own life. The ship\nmight be saved a little while from going down in the depths of despair,\nbut it never would reach the port to which it had been bound; it never\nwould accomplish the purpose of the voyage upon which it had set forth.\nLet us put absolutely away from, us all such thoughts. Let us come under\nthe inspiration of Jesus Christ Himself, who says to us, in these words\nwhich we have repeatedly read to one another, that it is the truth that\nis to make us free, and that the entrance of the man therefore into that\nfreedom is the largest freedom, of every region of man's life.\n\nI want to speak to you of the way in which my Master, Jesus Christ,\nappeals to the intelligence of man, of the way in which He comes to us\nin the noblest part of our nature, and claims us there for our true life\nwithin Himself. I would feel altogether wrong if I let you depart, if I\nallowed you to meet here with me week after week and say these words\nwhich I am privileged to speak to you unless I did thus claim that the\nChristian life is the largest life of the human intellect, that in it\nthe noblest and central powers of man shall attain to their true\nliberty. It is given for us perhaps to ask ourselves for one moment why\nit is that man thinks, is ready to think, that he must give up the very\nnoblest part of his life, his powers of thinking, in order that he may\nenter into Christianity. It seems to me that there are certain reasons\nfor it which we can see; but how fallacious those reasons are! Is it not\npartly because man, when he is called upon to live Jesus' life, when he\nis called upon to be a spiritual creature, immediately sees that he is\nentering into a new and different region from that in which his reason\nhas always been exercised. He has been dealing with those things that\nbelong to this earth, with the different duties and opportunities and\npleasures that present themselves to him every day, and that higher and\nloftier region into which he has entered seems to have no capacity to\ncall forth those powers which he has been using in this lower region.\nAnd then I think again there is upon the souls of men who deal with\nChristianity one great conviction which is very deep and strong. It is\nthat the Christian religion cannot be absolutely that which it presents\nitself to human mankind as being, because it is so rich in the blessings\nthat it offers, because it comes with such a large enjoyment to our\nhuman life, and opens such great opportunities for human living. Is it\nnot because it seems to us too good to be true that we sometimes turn\naway from Christianity, and think that if we enter it at all we must\nenter it in the dark, that it cannot possibly appeal to these human\nnatures and make them understand its truth, and let them take it into\ntheir intelligence that thence it may issue into the soul and become the\nguiding power of the life? Sometimes it seems as if Christianity were\nso high that it was impossible that man should attain to it, as if it\nwere something altogether beyond our human powers. Do you want me, a\ncreature with this human body and this human relationship, with this\nbody and with these perpetual bindings and connections with my\nfellow-men, do you want me to mount up and live among the stars and hold\ncommunion with the God of all? And if you want me to, is there any\npossibility of my doing it? Such a life is glorious, but not for me. It\ngoes beyond any capacity that I possess. Ask yourselves, my friends, if\nsomething like this which I have tried to describe is not very often in\nyour minds as you hear the magnificent invitations which Christ gives to\nthe human soul to live its fullest life, to man to be his fullest being.\nThere are, no doubt, other reasons which present themselves to men, and\nof those I do not speak. I will not think that the men who are listening\nhere to me now, in a base and low way shrink from the evidence of\nChristianity and from the life of Christ because they do not want to\nenter into that religion because it would make too great demands upon\nthem in the sacrifices that they would be called upon to make. It is\nsaid sometimes, and I doubt not that it is sometimes true, that men will\nnot see the power and truth of Christianity because they do not want to\nsee it. It seems to me that the other is also often true, and it is\nthat upon which we would much rather dwell. Men sometimes hesitate at\nChristianity and tremble, and will not enter into the great region that\nis open to them, because they do not want it so intimately. The\ncritical, the sceptical disposition is very often born just of man's\nperception of the glory of the life that is offered to him, and of the\nintense desire that is at the bottom of his soul to enter into that\nlife. Who is the man that criticises the ship most carefully as she lies\nat the wharf, that will see what capacity she has for the great voyage\nthat she has set before her? Is he the man who means to linger\ncarelessly upon the bank and never sail away, or the man who is obliged,\nif she can sail across the ocean, to go with her? Just in proportion to\nthe depth of interest with which we look upon all Christian truth we\nmust be deep questioners with regard to the truth of that truth. We must\nsearch into all its evidence. We must try to understand how it commends\nitself to all our minds. But first of all we want to know certainly what\nChristianity is, if it is able to deal with the thing with which we are\npuzzling or never to give an intelligent definition of it.\n\nHow is it now? I go to a certain man and ask him, \"Why do you not\nbelieve in Christianity?\" and he says, \"It is incredible. I cannot\nbelieve in it.\" \"What is it that you cannot believe in?\" and then he\ntakes forsooth some little point of Christian doctrine, some speculation\nof some Christian teacher, some dogma of some Christian church, and\nsays, \"That is incredible,\" as if that were Christianity. Over and over\nagain men are telling that they do not believe in Christianity, when the\nreal thing that they do not believe in is something that is no essential\npart of Christian faith whatsoever. They never have given to themselves\na real definition of what the Christ and the Christianity in which they\nare called upon to believe, into which they are invited to enter, really\nis. The lecturer goes up and down the land and in the face of mighty\naudiences he denounces Christianity. He declares it to be unintelligible\nand absurd, to be monstrous and brutal. And when you ask what it is that\nhe is thus denouncing, what it is that he is thus convicting over and\nover again, you find that it is something not simply which makes no part\nof Christianity, but which is absolutely hostile to the spirit of\nChristianity itself. Many and many a sceptical lecturer is denouncing\nthat which Christian men would, with all their hearts, denounce; is\ndeclaring that to be untrue which no true Christian thinker really\nbelieves, that which is no real part of the great Christian faith, which\nis our glory. Do not think when I speak thus, when I say that there are\nthings attached to Christianity which men do not believe, that they do\nnot believe in the great truth of Jesus, without them, which men\ndenouncing think that they are denouncing the religion which is saving\nthe world. Do not think that I am simply paring away our great Christian\nfaith, and making it mean just as little as possible in order that men\nmay accept it into their lives. I am coming to the heart and soul of it.\nI want to know, if my life is all bound up with this religion of Jesus\nChrist, I want to know intrinsically what that religion is. I will\nscatter a thousand things which in the devout thought of men have\nfastened themselves to it. It is but clearing the ship for action, the\nmaking it ready that it may do its work, the binding everything tight\njust before the storm comes on, for that is just the moment when nothing\nessential to the ship itself must be cast away, when I make sure, if I\ncan, that every plank and timber, that every iron and brass is in its\ntrue place and ready for the strain that may be put upon it.\n\nBut what, then, is the Christian religion? It is the simple following of\nthe divine person, Jesus Christ, who, entering into our humanity, has\nmade evident two things--the love of God for that humanity, and the\npower of that humanity to answer to the love of God. The one thing that\nthe eye of the Christian sees and never can lose is that majestic,\nsimple figure, great in its simplicity, in its innocence, in its purity\nand in its unworldliness, that walked once on this earth and that walks\nforever through the lives of men, showing Himself to human kind,\nmanifest in human kind. The power to receive it, the divine life wakened\nin every child of man by the divine life manifested in Jesus Christ.\nThat is the great Christian faith, and the man becomes a Christian in\nhis belief when he assures himself that that manifestation of the divine\nlife has been made and is perpetually being made, and he answers to that\nappeal of the Christ. He manifests his belief in action when he gives\nhimself to the education and the guiding of that Christ, that in him\nthere may be awakened the life of divinity, which is his true human\nlife. Is it not glorious, this absolute simplicity of the Christian\nfaith? It is not primarily a truth; it is a person, it is He who walked\nin Galilee and Judea, who sat in the houses of mankind, who hung upon\nthe cross, in order that He might perfectly manifest how God could live\nand how man could suffer in the obedience to the life of God, and then\nsent forth out of that inspiration and said, \"Lo, I am with you always,\ndoing this very thing, being this very Saviour, even to the end of the\nworld.\" That which the Christian man believes to-day as a Christian,\nwhatever else he may believe in his private speculation, in his personal\nopinion, is this: The life of God manifest in Jesus of Nazareth and\nthenceforth going out into the world wakening the divine capacity in\nevery man.\n\nYou say, \"How can a man believe that? What evidence is there of it?\" The\npersonal evidence of Jesus Christ himself. It is the self testimony of\nChrist that makes the assurance of the Christian faith. Does that sound\nto you all unreasonable? Do you turn here in your pew or in your aisle\nand say, \"After all, it is the old story which I have tested and know to\nbe untrue.\"\n\nSuppose yourself back there in Jerusalem. Suppose the self testimony\ncame to you from the very person of Jesus Christ. Suppose the words that\nHe absolutely said and the deeds that He absolutely did bore to you a\ntestimony that some greater than a human life was there, and that then,\nas you pressed close to Him and became a part of His life, you found\nyour own life awakened and became a nobler man, ashamed to sin, aspiring\nafter holiness, thinking noble thoughts, lifting yourself not above the\nearth, but lifting yourself with the whole great earth, which then is\ntaken up into the presence of God and made sacred through and through. I\nknow no man in whom I trust except by the personal evidence that he\nbears to me of himself. I know no man's nature finally but by that\ntestimony which the nature gives me of him. Bring me all evidence that\nthe man is trustworthy, and then when I am convinced I will go and stand\nin the presence of that man himself, and he shall tell me. So the world\nstood, so the world stands to-day in the presence of Jesus Christ. His\npresence on earth is an historic fact. The words that He spoke are\nwritten down in a true record. The deeds that He did are the history of\nthe manifestations of His character, and the story of His christendom is\nthe continued manifestation of His life, the divine life in the life of\nman, made divine through Him. Now, a question that comes in the\nChristian's mind is \"Why don't people believe this?\" Why should they\nnot? Is it not written in the historical record? Has it not manifested\nitself in the experience of mankind? If it has, surely then it appeals\nto man's reason, and is not merely the act of the blind, stupid thing\nwhich we call faith, but it is the noblest action of that hour in which\nI believe, in the heavens above me and in the earth under my feet, in\nthe brother with whom I have to do in the long course of history, in the\ntotal humanity which has grandly lived. The reason that men do not\nbelieve it is that of course there seems to be to them some strange and\nprevious presumption with regard to it, something which makes the story\nincredible. They say it is the supernatural in it, that it goes beyond\nthe ordinary experience of man. Ah! it seems also strange to me, the\nordinary experience of man. Who dares to dream that human life has lived\nits completest and shown the noblest power of receiving God into itself?\nWho dares to think that these few thousand years have exhausted this\nmajestic and mysterious being that we call man? Who dares to think of\nhis own life that, in these few thirty, forty, fifty years that he has\nlived, he has known and shown all that God can do in and for him? Who\ndares to say that it is impossible, that it is improbable, that he who\nis the child of God shall receive some newer and closer access to his\nfather, that there shall come some new revelation which shall be written\nnot in a book, not upon the skies, not in the history of human kind, not\non the rocks under our feet, but here in our human flesh, that there\nshall be an incarnation, that the God who is perpetually trying to\nmanifest Himself to human kind should find at last, should take at last\nthe most exquisite, the most sensitive, the most perfect, the most\ndivine of all material on which to write His message, and in that human\nnature show at once what God was and what man is? Until there be some\nexhaustive sight of human nature as that, it is in no wise improbable\nthat there would be that which outgoes our observation, that once in the\nlong music of our human life the great key-note of humanity shall be\nstruck, that once in our great groping after the God who made us He\nshall seem to draw the veil aside, nay, more than that, shall come and\nlike the sunlight crowd Himself through every cloud until He takes\npossession of our humanity.\n\n\"Ay,\" but you say, \"those miracles in the life of Jesus Christ, how\nstrange those are; how strange that He should have touched the water and\nthe water become wine; how strange that He should have called to the\ndead man and he should have come forth from the tomb; how strange that\nHe should have spoken to the waters and the storm grow still!\" Ah, my\nfriends, it seems to me that there again we are dishonoring nature as\njust before we did dishonor man. There again we are thinking that we\nhave exhausted the capacity of this wondrous world in which we live.\nWhat is the glory of that world? That it answers to human kind. In the\nmystic tradition of the Book of Genesis it is told how, when God first\nmade man, He set him master of this world and all its powers; and, ever\nsince, the world has been answering to man, who is its master, and every\nmessage that comes back to him, every response that the field makes to\nthe farmer, or that the rock makes to the scientist, is but an assertion\nand the culmination and the fulfilment of that which God did back there.\nAs man has been, so has the world responded to his touch and call.\nSuppose that to-morrow morning the perfect man should come, not the man\nsimply of the twentieth century or of the twenty-first, who shall be\ngreater in his humanity than we, but suppose the perfect man, the\nperfect man because the divine man, comes. I cannot dream that nature\nshall not have words to say and a response to make to him that it will\nnot make to these poor hands of mine. I can do something with the rock\nand field, I can do something with the sea and sky. What shall he do who\nis to my humanity what the perfect is to the absolutely and dreadfully\nimperfect? What shall the divine man do? When Paul speaks in that great\nverse of his and tells us how the whole creation groaneth and travaileth\nwaiting for the manifestation of the Son of God, the whole future\nhistory of human science, of man's knowledge and use of the world, is in\nhis words. The world shall know man as fast as man shows himself, and\nwhen the Son of God shall be manifested, then the groaning and\ntravailing creation shall set all its powers free, and with the\nknowledge with which it floods him and with the usages and service with\nwhich it supplies him, it shall claim at last its glory as the servant,\nthe obedient servant of man. The Son of man has come. You may at least\nsuppose it if you do not believe it. And if He came to-morrow morning,\nwould not this whole world lift itself up and answer Him? Who can say\nwhat the hills and valleys and trees and oceans and seas would have to\nsay to Him who at last manifested that which the world had been waiting\nand groaning for, the manifestation, the complete manifestation, of the\nSon of God? That is the reason why I claim that miracles--I do not know\nthat there have not been fastened upon the miraculous power of Jesus\nstories of things, thinking that they were done miraculously, which He\ndid by what we choose in our ignorance to call the ordinary powers of\nnature--but I do know that the coming into the world must have been more\nto this world, that it would have been the most unnatural and incredible\nthing if the divine man coming here had been to the world and the world\nhad been to him only what it is to us.\n\nAnd now the question comes to each one of us--for I must hasten on--how\nshall a man get within the region of that which perhaps you recognize,\nwhich I do not see how you can help believing, how shall a man get\nwithin the region of that higher power and let it be the rule of his\nlife, let it manifest itself through him? How do you get within the\npower of any force, my friends? Here is Christ, a force if He is\nanything, not a spectacle, not a miracle, not a marvel, not wonderful to\nlook at, but a force to feel. How do you get within the power of any\nforce? You look out of your window, and men say the frost is freezing,\nand you see your neighbors wrapping their cloaks about them and going\ndown the street as if they were cold. Men say that a storm is blowing,\nand you see them shelter themselves against the storm that blows. How\nwill you make that storm a true thing for yourself? Go out into it. Let\nthe frost smite your cheek, let the rain beat into your face, let the\nwind blow upon your back, and then you know by personal experience what\nyou had known by your observation before. And so I say that only when a\nman puts himself where he can feel the power of the Christ, where it is\npossible for him, if there be a Christ, if Christ be all that the\nChristian religion claims that He is, only when a man puts himself where\nhe needs and must have and must certainly feel that Christ, if there be\na Christ, only then has he a right to disbelieve if the Christ be not\nthere, only then has he a right to believe if the Christ find him there.\nAnd where is that? When a man takes up the highest duties, when he\naccepts the noblest life, when he lays open his soul to the great\nexactions and obligations which belong to him in his spiritual nature,\nwhen he tries to be a pure man, a devoted man, a noble man, only then\nhas he a chance to know that force which only then comes into its\nactivity. Only when a man tries to live the divine life can the divine\nChrist manifest Himself to him. Therefore the true way for you to find\nChrist is not to go groping in a thousand books. It is not for you to\ntry evidences about a thousand things that people have believed of Him,\nbut it is for you to undertake so great a life, so devoted a life, so\npure a life, so serviceable a life, that you cannot do it except by\nChrist, and then see whether Christ helps you. See whether there comes\nto you the certainty that you are a child of God, and the manifestation\nof the child of God becomes the most credible, the most certain thing to\nyou in all of history.\n\nIt may have been that such moments have been in some of your lives.\nThink of the noblest moment that you ever passed, of the time when,\nlifted up to the heights of glory, or bowed down into the very depths of\nsorrow, every power that was in you was called forth to meet the\nexigency or to do the work. Think of the time when you stood upon the\nmountain top or plunged into the gulf. Remember that time--it may have\nbeen the death of your little child, it may have been your own\nsickness, it may have been your failure in business, it may have been\nthe moment of your complete success in business, when you were\nsolemnized as the great shower of wealth poured down upon you, and you\nfelt that now you really had some work for God to do in the world. Ah,\nlook back to that moment and see if then it seemed so strange to you\nthat God should come into the presence and person of His universe, of\nHis children, and take possession of their life. We grow so easily to\nforget our noblest and most splendid times. It seems to me there is no\nmaxim for a noble life like this: Count always your highest moments your\ntruest moments. Believe that in the time when you were the greatest and\nmost spiritual man, then you were your truest self. Men do just the\nother thing. They say it was \"an exception, a derangement of my nature,\nan exultation, a frenzy, it was something that I must not expect again.\"\nHow about the time when they plunged into baseness and made their soul\nlike a dog's soul? They shudder at the thought of that because they\nthink it would come again. Nay, nay, shudder if you will at the thought\nof that, but believe that the highest you ever have been you may be all\nthe time, and vastly higher still if only the power of the Christ can\noccupy you and fill your life all the time.\n\nI said that there were many things that people attached to Christianity\nthat did not belong to Christianity. I know there are. It is impossible\nthat a great system like the system of Christ, a great person like the\ngreat person of Christ, should be in the world, and men not have\nspeculated and thought in regard to Him. Those are not Christianity. I\nwant to-day, if I may do nothing else, to tell you absolutely how simple\nand single the Christian faith, the Christ, really is. It is not the\ninspiration of this book or any theory in regard to its inspiration. It\nis not the election of certain souls and the perdition of other souls.\nIt is not the length of man's punishment, whether it is going to be\nforever and ever, or whether man is to go to his restoration. It is not\neven the constitution of the divine life, the great truth of the way in\nwhich God lives within His own nature. None of these are the essence of\nthe Christian faith, but simply this: The testimony of the divine in man\nto the divine in man that lifts the man up and says: \"For me to be\nbrutal is unmanly; to be divine is to be my only true self.\" Why do I\nbelieve in God? If some man asked me, when on the street, I think I\nshould have an answer to give him. I could give one great reason--two\ngreat reasons which are really but one great reason--why I believe in\nGod. I believe in God, my friends, I believe in God with all my soul,\nbecause this world is inexplicable without Him and explicable with Him,\nand because Jesus Christ believed in Him; and it was Jesus Christ that\nshowed me that this world demanded God and was inexplicable without Him;\nthat made certain every suspicion and dream that I had had before, and\nJesus Christ believed in Him. Shall I go to the expert about chemistry\nor geology and ask him the truth with regard to the structure of the\nworld and the meeting of its atoms and forces? And shall not I go to the\nspiritual expert, to him in whom the spiritual life of man has been\nclearest, and say, \"O Christ, tell me what is the centre and source and\nend of all?\" When he says, \"God,\" shall I not believe Him?\n\nIt is impossible, as I have suggested to you again and again in what I\nhave been saying, that a man can have his mind open to the receipt of\nthe truth of a person unless he be a certain kind of man himself. I do\nnot know but the basest and the wickedest man who lives may believe in\nthe Copernican theory, or that two and two make four, yet I cannot help\nbelieving that if he were a better and truer man he would believe even\nthose truths, outside of himself, of science and arithmetic, more fully\nand deeply. Men were not all astray in the first thing that they were\nseeking after, though they were wofully astray in many things that they\nsaid about it, when they talked about faith and works. Faith enters in\nthrough the soul that does a noble deed, and in the coming in of that\nfaith the higher deed becomes possible to him. Hear the words that Jesus\nsaid, words that our age must take to itself until it shall be wiser\nthan it is to-day: \"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see\nGod.\" \"If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine,\nwhether it be of God.\" Ponder those words, my friends. See how\nreasonable they are. See how important they are. See how they have the\nsecret of your own life, of what it is to do, of what it is to be,\nforever and ever sealed up in them. These two things, I am sure, are\ntrue with regard to the method of belief--that no man can ever go\nforward to a higher belief until he is true to the faith which he\nalready holds. Be the noblest man that your present faith, poor and weak\nand imperfect as it is, can make you to be. Live up to your present\ngrowth, your present faith. So, and so only, as you take the next\nstraight step forward, as you stand strong where you are now, so only\ncan you think the curtain will draw back and there will be revealed to\nyou what lies beyond. And then live in your positives and not in your\nnegatives. I am tired of asking man what his religious faith is and\nhaving him tell me what he don't believe. He tells me that he don't\nbelieve in baptism or inspiration or in the trinity. If I asked a man\nwhere he was going and he told me he was not going to Washington, what\ncould I know about where he was going? He would not go anywhere so long\nas he simply rested in that mere negative. Be done with saying what you\ndon't believe, and find somewhere or other the truest, divinest thing to\nyour soul that you do believe to-day, and work that out: work it out in\nall the action and consecration of the soul in the doing of your work.\nThis I take to be the real freedom of Christian thought--when the man\ngoes forward always into a fuller and fuller belief as he becomes\nobedient to that which he already holds.\n\nBut yet I know I have not touched the opinion, the feeling, nay, I will\nsay the black prejudice that is upon many, many minds. \"Ah, but you have\nbound yourself,\" you say. \"You have given your assent to a certain\ncreed, you believe certain dogmas. To put it as simply as you have put\nit to us this morning, you believe a certain person. I, I am free, I\nbelieve nothing, I can go wandering here and everywhere and disbelieve\nto my heart's content.\" Yes, I do believe something, and I thank God for\nit. But I deny with all my intelligence and soul the very idea that in\nbelieving that something I have shut my soul to evidence. I am ready to\nhear any man living, any man living to-day who will prove to me that the\nChrist has never lived and that he is not the Lord of men. I will listen\nto any man who is in earnest and who is sincere. I will not listen to\nany trifler, caviller, who is merely trying to make a point and to get\nahead of the poor arguments that I can use; but let any fellow-man come\nto me with an earnest face, either of puzzled doubt, or of earnest and\nconvinced unbelief, and say to me, \"Are you not wrong?\" or \"I believe\nthat you are wrong,\" and I, of course, will talk to him. Do I want to\nbelieve anything that cannot be proved to be true, anything that my\nintelligence shall not receive? Why should I believe it? Shall I trust\nmyself to the ship merely because I have refused to examine its timbers,\nwhen men tell me that it is unsound? Shall I throw away my truthfulness\nsimply for the sake of holding what I want, what I choose to call the\ntruth? It is not because it is safe, it is not because it is pleasant,\nit is because it seems to the Christian man to be true, that the\nChristian man believes in the presence, the life, the power of Jesus\nChrist. Therefore come, let me hear every one of you what you have to\nsay. Let me see where that upon which my soul rests for its very life\nbreaks down; but, until I hear, I will go forward, strong in the\nassurance of that which takes hold of all my life, convinces my reason,\nlays hold of my affections, enlarges my actions, and opens my whole\nbeing to the freedom of the child of God.\n\nAnd why should not you, my friends, why should not you? I honor the\nsceptic, the faithful and devout sceptic, with all my soul. I am no\nscorner of the man who, without scorn, finds it impossible to accept\nthat which to my soul seems to be the absolute truth. I will scorn only\nthat which God scorns. He scorns the scorner, and only the scorning man\nis worthy of the scorn of human kind. But while I honor the sceptic,\nwhile I invite him to make manifest his scepticism, not merely for his\nsake but for my own, I will not hold, I cannot hold that he is living a\nlarger life than the man whom the Christ invites to every noble duty, to\nevery faithful fulfilment of himself. I will feel that he, perhaps by\nthe necessity of his nature, perhaps by his circumstances, perhaps by\nsomething which came down to him from his ancestors, is shut in, is a\ncontained and hampered and hindered man, and I will long for the day\nwhen he, lifting up his eyes, sees that Christ walking in the midst of\nhumanity, and yet at the head of humanity, manifesting our human nature,\nbut outgoing our human nature, glorifying our streets while He\ninterprets our streets for the first time into their full meaning,\ngiving to our shops and houses a radiancy which they have expected and\ndreamed of, but never felt, and tempting us always into a deeper belief\nin Him, which, embodying itself in a completer consecration to the right\nand true, shall lead us on into the fulness which he fills. Can I, can\nyou, have Christ in human history, Christ in the world, and live as if\nHe were not here? Will you not give yourself to that of Him which you\nknow to-day? Will you not at least lay hold of the very skirts of His\ngarment and say, \"I see that Thou art good, I see that Thou art true.\nLead me into the goodness and truth which by communion and sympathy\nshall know Thee more. Lord, I believe. I believe just a little. Lord, I\nknow that that must come which Thou hast said has come in Thee. I would\nenter into Thee, to see whether it has indeed come in Thee, and Thou\nshalt lead me, Thou shalt teach me. Lord, I believe. I have not grasped\nThee. No man has grasped Thee. The man who says that he has grasped Thee\nproves thereby that he does not know Thee. I know that I have not\ngrasped Thee, but I will follow Thee by doing righteousness, by serving\ntruth, by knowing and acknowledging Thee until all of that shall become\nclear to me. I will follow Thee, and Thou shalt lead me into the glory\nwhich Thou Thyself abidest in. Lord, I believe, Lord, I believe, help\nThou mine unbelief.\" The story of the present, the hope, the pure,\ncertain hope of the future is in those great words: \"Lord, I believe,\nhelp Thou mine unbelief.\"\n\n\n\n\nIII. THE DUTY OF THE CHRISTIAN BUSINESS MAN.\n\n\nI will read to you once again the words which I have read before, the\nwords of Jesus in the eighth chapter of the Gospel of St. John:\n\n     \"As He spake these words, many believed on Him. Then said Jesus to\n     those Jews which believed on Him, if ye continue in My word, then\n     are ye My disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the\n     truth shall make you free. They answered Him, We be Abraham's seed,\n     and were never in bondage to any man: how sayest Thou, Ye shall be\n     made free? Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you.\n     Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin. And the servant\n     abideth not in the house forever: but the Son abideth ever. If the\n     Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.\"\n\nI do not know how any man can stand and plead with his brethren for the\nhigher life, that they will enter into and make their own the life of\nChrist and God, unless he is perpetually conscious that around them with\nwhom he pleads there is the perpetual pleading and the voice of God\nHimself. Unless a man believes that, everything that he has to say must\nseem, in the first place, impertinent, and, in the second place, almost\nabsolutely hopeless. Who is man that he shall plead with his fellow-man\nfor the change of a life, for the entrance into a whole new career, for\nthe alteration of a spirit, for the surrounding of himself with a new\nregion in which he has not lived before? But if it be so, that God is\npleading with every one of His children to enter into the highest life;\nif it be so, that God is making His application and His appeal to every\nsoul to know Him, and in Him to know himself, then one may plead with\nearnestness and plead with great hopefulness before his brethren. And so\nit is. The great truth of Jesus Christ is that, that God is pleading\nwith every soul, not merely in the words which we hear from one another,\nnot merely in the words which we read from His book, but in every\ninfluence of life; and, in those unknown influences which are too subtle\nfor us to understand or perceive, God is forever seeking after the souls\nof His children.\n\nI cannot stand before you for the last time that I shall stand In these\nmeetings, my friends, without reminding myself and without reminding you\nof that; without reminding myself also and without trying to remind you\nof how absolutely conformable it is to everything that man does in this\nworld. The great richness of nature, the great richness of life, comes\nwhen we understand that behind every specific action of man there is\nsome one of the more elemental and primary forces of the universe that\nare always trying to express themselves. There is nothing that man does\nthat finds its beginning within itself, but everything, every work of\nevery trade, of every occupation, is simply the utterance of some one of\nthose great forces which lie behind all life, and in the various ways of\nthe different generations and of the different men are always trying to\nmake their mark upon the world. Behind the power that the man exercises\nthere always lies the great power of life, the continual struggle of\nnature to write herself in the life and work of man, the power of beauty\nstruggling to manifest itself, the harmony that is always desiring to\nmake itself known. To the merchant there are the great laws of trade, of\nwhich his works are but the immediate expression. To the mechanic there\nare the continual forces of nature, gravitation uttering itself in all\nits majesty, made no less majestic because it simply takes its\nexpression for the moment in some particular exercise of his art. To the\nship that sails upon the sea there are the everlasting winds that come\nout of the treasuries of God and fulfil His purpose in carrying His\nchildren to their destination. There is no perfection of the universe\nand of the special life of man in the universe until it comes to this.\nThe greatest of all forces are ready without condescension, are ready as\nthe true expression of their life, to manifest themselves in the\nparticular activities which we find everywhere, and which are going on\neverywhere. The little child digs his well in the sea-shore sand, and\nthe great Atlantic, miles deep, miles wide, is stirred all through and\nthrough to fill it for him. Shall it not be so then here to-day, and\nshall it not be the truth, upon which we let our minds especially dwell,\nand which we keep in our souls all the time that I am speaking and you\nare listening, that however He may be hidden from our sight God is the\nultimate fact and the final purpose and power of the universe, and that\neverything that man tries to do for his fellow-man is but the expression\nof that love of God which is everywhere struggling to utter itself in\nblessing, to give itself away to the soul of every one for whom He\ncares?\n\nIt is in this truth that I find the real secret, the deepest meaning,\nof the everlasting dissatisfaction of man that is always ready to be\nstirred. We moralize, we philosophize about the discontent of man. We\ngive little reasons for it; but the real reason of it all is this, that\nwhich everything lying behind it really signifies: that man is greater\nthan his circumstances, and that God is always calling to him to come up\nto the fulness of his life. Dreadful will be the day when the world\nbecomes contented, when one great universal satisfaction spreads itself\nover the world. Sad will be the day for every man when he becomes\nabsolutely contented with the life that he is living, with the thoughts\nthat he is thinking, with the deeds that he is doing, when there is not\nforever beating at the doors of his soul some great desire to do\nsomething larger, which he knows that he was meant and made to do\nbecause he is the child of God. And there is the real secret of the\nman's struggle with his sins. It is not simply the hatefulness of the\nsin, as we have said again and again, but it is the dim perception, the\ndeep suspicion, the real knowledge at the heart of the man, that there\nis a richer and a sinless region in which it is really meant for him to\ndwell. Man stands separated from that life of God, as it were, by a\ngreat, thick wall, and every effort to put away his sin, to make himself\na nobler and a purer man, is simply his beating at the inside of that\ndoor which stands between him and the life of God, which he knows that\nhe ought to be living. It is like the prisoner hidden in his cave, who\nfeels through all the thick wall that shuts him out from it the sunlight\nand the joyous life that is outside, who knows that his imprisonment is\nnot his true condition, and so with every tool that his hands can grasp\nand with his bleeding hands themselves beats on the stone, that he may\nfind his way out. And the glory and the beauty of it is that while he is\nbeating upon the inside of the wall there is also a noble power praying\nupon the outside of that wall, The life to which he ought to come is\nstriving in its turn, upon its side, to break away the hindrance that is\nkeeping him from the thing he ought to be, that is keeping him from the\nlife he ought to live. God, with His sunshine and lightning, with the\ngreat majestic manifestations of Himself, and with all the peaceful\nexhibitions of His life, is forever trying, upon His side of the wall,\nto break away the great barrier that separates the sinner's life from\nHim. Great is the power, great is the courage of the sinner, when\nthrough the thickness of the walls he feels that beating life of God,\nwhen he knows that he is not working alone, when he is sure that God is\nwanting him just as truly, far more truly, than he wants God. He bears\nhimself to a nobler struggle with his enemy and a more determined effort\nto break down the resistance that stands between him and the higher\nlife. Our figure is all imperfect, as all our figures are so imperfect,\nbecause it seems to be the man all by himself, working by himself, until\nhe shall come forth into the life of God, as if God waited there to\nreceive him when he came forth the freed man, and as if the working of\nthe freedom upon the sinner's side had not something also of the purpose\nof God within him. God is not merely in the sunshine; God is in the\ncavern of the man's sin. God is with the sinner wherever he can be.\nThere is no soul so black in its sinfulness, so determined in its\ndefiant obstinacy, that God has abandoned his throne room at the centre\nof the sinner's life, and every movement is the God movement and every\neffort is the God force, with which man tries to break forth from his\nsin and come forth into the full sunlight of a life with God. Do you not\nthink how full of hope it is? Do you not see that when this great\nconception of the universe, which is Christ's conception, which beamed\nin every look that He shed upon the world, which was told in every word\nthat He spoke and which was in every movement of His hand--do you not\nsee how, when this great conception of the universe takes possession of\na man, then all his struggle with his sin is changed, it becomes a\nstrong struggle, a glorious struggle. He hears perpetually the voice of\nChrist, \"Be of good cheer. I have overcome the world. You shall overcome\nit by the same strength which overcame with Me.\"\n\nAnd then another thing. When a man comes forth into the fulness of that\nlife with God, when at last he has entered God's service and the\nobedience to God's will, and the communion with God's life, then there\ncomes this wonderful thing, there comes the revelation of the man's\npast. We dare to tell the man that if he enters into the divine life, if\nhe makes himself a servant of God and does God's will out of obedient\nlove, he shall then be strong and wise. One great element of his\nstrength is going to be this: A marvellous revelation that is to come to\nhim of how all his past has been filled with the power of that spirit\nwith which he has at last entered into communion, to which he has at\nlast submitted himself. Man becomes the child of God, becomes the\nservant of Jesus Christ, and this marvellous revelation amazes him. He\nsees that back through all the years of his most obstinate and careless\nlife, through all his wilfulness and resistance, through all his\nprofligacy and black sin, God has been with him all the time, beating\nhimself upon his life, showing him how He desired to call him to\nHimself, and that the final submission does not win God. It simply\nsubmits to the God who has been with the soul all the time. Can there be\nanything more winning to the soul than that, anything that brings a\ndeeper shame to you, than to have it revealed to you, suddenly or\nslowly, that from the first day that you came into this world, nay,\nbefore your life was an uttered fact in this world, God has been loving\nyou, and seeking you, and planning for you, and making every effort that\nHe could make in consistency with the free will with which He endowed\nyou from the centre of His own life, that you might become His and\ntherefore might become truly yourself? Through all the years in which\nyou were obstinate and rebellious, through all the years in which you\ndefied Him, nay, through the years in which you denied Him and said that\nHe did not exist, He was with you all the time. What shall I say to my\nfriend who is an atheist? Shall I believe that until he comes to a\nchange of his opinions and recognizes that there is indeed a ruling\nlove, a great and fatherly God for all the world, that he has nothing to\ndo with that God? Shall I believe that God has nothing to do with him\nuntil he acknowledges God? God would be no God to me if He were that, if\nHe left the man absolutely unhelped until the man beat at the doors of\nHis divine helpfulness and said, \"I believe in Thee at last. Now help\nme.\" And to the atheist there appears the light of the God whom he\ndenies. Into every soul, just so far and just so fast as it is possible\nfor that soul to receive it, God beats His life and gives His help. That\nis what makes a man hopeful of all his fellow-men as he looks around\nupon them and sees them in all the conditions of their life.\n\nAnd this could only be if that were true, if that is true, which we are\ndwelling upon constantly, the absolute naturalness of the Christian\nlife, that it is man's true life, that it is no foreign region into\nwhich some man may be transported and where he lives an alien to all his\nown essential nature and to all the natural habitudes in which he is\nintending to exist. There are two ideas of religion which always have\nabounded, and our great hope is, our great assurance for the future of\nthe world is, that the true and pure idea of religion some day shall\ngrow and take possession of the life of man. One idea, held by very\nearnest people, embodied in very faithful and devoted lives, is the\nstrangeness of religion to the life of man, as if some morning something\ndropped out of the sky that had had no place upon our earth before, as\nif there came the summons to man to be something entirely different from\nwhat the conditions of his nature prophesied and intended that he\nshould be. The other idea is that religion comet by the utterance of God\nfrom the heavens, but comes up out of the human life of man; that man is\nessentially and intrinsically religious; that he does not become\nsomething else than man when he becomes the servant of Jesus Christ, but\nthen for the first time he becomes man; that religion is not something\nthat is fastened upon the outside of his life, but is the awakening of\nthe truth inside of his life; the Church is but the true fulfilment of\nhuman life and society; heaven is but the New Jerusalem that completes\nall the old Jerusalem and Londons and Bostons that have been here upon\nour earth. Man, in the fulfilment of his nature by Jesus Christ, is\nman--not to be something else, our whole humanity is too dear to us. I\nwill cling to this humanity of man, for I do love it, and I will know\nnothing else. But when man is bidden to look back into his humanity and\nsee what it means to be a man, that humanity means purity, truthfulness,\nearnestness, and faithfulness to that God of which humanity is a part,\nthat God which manifested that humanity was a part of it, when the\nincarnation showed how close the divine and human belonged\ntogether--when man hears that voice, I do not know how he can resist,\nwhy he shall not lift himself up and say, \"Now I can be a man, and I can\nbe man only as I share in and give my obedience to and enter into\ncommunion with the life of God,\" and say to Christ, to Christ the\nrevealer of all this, \"Here I am, fulfil my manhood.\"\n\nAnd do not you see how immediately this sweeps aside, as one gush of the\nsunlight sweeps aside the darkness, do not you see how it sweeps aside\nall the foolish and little things that people are saying? I say to my\nfriend, \"Be a Christian.\" That means to be a full man. And he says to\nme, \"I have not time to be a Christian. I have not room. If my life was\nnot so full. You don't know how hard I work from morning to night. What\ntime is there for me to be a Christian? What time is there, what room is\nthere for Christianity in such a life as mine?\" But does not it come to\nseem to us so strange, so absurd, if it was not so melancholy, that man\nshould say such a thing as that? It is as if the engine had said it had\nno room for the steam. It is as if the tree had said it had no room for\nthe sap. It is as if the ocean had said it had no room for the tide. It\nis as if the man said that he had no room for his soul. It is as if life\nsaid that it had no time to live, when it is life. It is not something\nthat is added to life. It is life. A man is not living without it. And\nfor a man to say that \"I am so full in life that I have no room for\nlife,\" you see immediately to what absurdity it reduces itself. And how\na man knows what he is called upon by God's voice, speaking to him every\nhour, speaking to him every moment, speaking to him out of everything,\nthat which the man is called upon to do because it is the man's only\nlife! Therefore time, room, that is what time, that is what room is\nfor--life. Life is the thing we seek, and man finds it in the fulfilment\nof his life by Jesus Christ.\n\nNow, until we understand this and take it in its richness, all religion\nseems, becomes to us such a little thing that it is not religion at all.\nYou have got to know that religion, the service of Christ, is not\nsomething to be taken in in addition to your life; it is your life. It\nis not a ribbon that you shall tie in your hat, and go down the street\ndeclaring yourself that you have accepted something in addition to the\nlife which your fellow-men are living. It is something which, taken into\nyour heart, shall glow in every action so that your fellow-men shall\nsay, \"Lo, how he lives! What new life has come into him?\" It is that\ninsistence upon the great essentialness of the religious life, it is the\ninsistence that religion is not a lot of things that a man does, but is\na new life that a man lives, uttering itself in new actions because it\nis the new life. \"Except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom\nof God.\" So Jesus said to Nicodemus the ruler, Nicodemus the amateur in\nreligions, who came and said, \"Perhaps this teacher has something else\nthat I can bind into my catalogue of truths and hold it.\" Jesus looked\nhim in the face and said: \"It is not that, my friend, it is not that; it\nis to be a new man, it is to be born again. It is to have the new life,\nwhich is the old life, which is the eternal life. So alone does man\nenter into the kingdom of God.\" I cannot help believing all the time\nthat if our young men knew this, religion would lift itself up and have\na dignity and greatness--not a thing for weak souls, but a thing for the\nmanliest soul. Just because of its manliness it is easy. \"Is it easy or\nis it hard, this religion of yours?\" people say to us. I am sure I do\nnot know the easy and the hard things. I cannot tell the difference.\nWhat is easier than for a man to breathe? And yet, have you never seen a\nbreathless man, a man in whom the breathing was almost stopped, a\ndrowning man, an exhausted man? have you never seen, when the breath was\nput once more to his nostrils and brought down once more into his empty\nlungs, the struggle with which he came back to it? It was the hardest\nthing for him to do, so much harder for him to live than it was for him\nto die. But by and by see him on his feet, going about his work, helping\nhis fellow-men, living his life, rejoicing in his days, guarding\nagainst his dangers, full of life. Is life a hard thing for him? You\ndon't talk about its being hard or easy any more than you talk about\nlife itself. The man who lives in God knows no life except the life of\nGod. Let men know that it is not mere trifling, it is not a thing to be\ndallied with for an instant, it is not a thing for a man to convince\nhimself by an argument, and then keep as it were locked in a shelf: it\nis something that is so deep and serious, so deep and serious that when\na man has once tested it there is no more chance of his going out of it\nthan there is of his going out of the friendship and the love which\nholds him with its perpetual expression, with the continued deeper and\ndeeper manifestation of the way in which the living being belongs to him\nwho has a right to his life.\n\nNow in the few moments that remain I want to take it for granted most\nseriously, most earnestly, that the men who are listening to me are in\nearnest, and I want to try to tell them as a brother might tell a\nbrother, as I might tell to you or try to tell to you if sitting before\nmy fireside, I want to try to answer the question which I know is upon\nyour hearts. \"What shall I do about this?\" I know you say; \"Is this all\nin the clouds? Is there anything I can do in the right way?\" If you are\nin earnest, I shall try to tell you what I should do, if I were in your\nplace, that I might enter into that life and be the free man that we\nhave tried to describe, of whom we believe certain special and definite\nthings. What are they? In the first place I would put away my sin. There\nis not a man listening to me now who has not some trick of life, some\nhabit that has possession of him, which he knows is a wrong thing. The\nvery first thing for a man to do is absolutely to set himself against\nthem. If you are foul, stop being licentious, at least stop doing\nlicentious things. If you, in any part of your business, are tricky, and\nunsound, and unjust, cut that off, no matter what it costs you. There is\nsomething clear and definite enough for every man. It is as clear for\nevery man as the sunlight that smites him in his eyes. Stop doing the\nbad thing which you are doing. It is drawing the bolt away to let\nwhatever mercy may come in come in. Stop doing your sin. You can do that\nif you will. Stop doing your sin, no matter how mechanical it seems, and\nthen take up your duty, whatever you can do to make the world more\nbright and good. Do whatever you can to help every struggling soul, to\nadd new strength to any staggering cause, the poor sick man that is by\nyou, the poor wronged man whom you with your influence might vindicate,\nthe poor boy in your shop that you may set with new hope upon the road\nof life that is beginning already to look dark to him. I cannot tell you\nwhat it is. But you know your duty. No man ever looked for it and did\nnot find it.\n\nAnd then the third thing--pray. Yes, go to the God whom you but dimly\nsee and pray to Him in the darkness, where He seems to sit. Ask Him, as\nif He were, that He will give you that which, if He is, must come from\nHim, can come from Him alone. Pray anxiously. Pray passionately, in the\nsimplest of all words, with the simplest of all thoughts. Pray, the\nmanliest thing that a man can do, the fastening of his life to the\neternal, the drinking of his thirsty soul out of the great fountain of\nlife. And pray distinctly. Pray upon your knees. One grows tired\nsometimes of the free thought, which is yet perfectly true, that a man\ncan pray anywhere and anyhow. But men have found it good to make the\nwhole system pray. Kneel down, and the very bending of these obstinate\nand unused knees of yours will make the soul kneel down in the humility\nin which it can be exalted in the sight of God.\n\nAnd then read your Bible. How cold that sounds! What, read a book to\nsave my soul? Read an old story that my life in these new days shall be\nregenerated and saved? Yes, do just that, for out of that book, if you\nread it truly, shall come the divine and human person. If you can read\nit with your soul as well as with your eyes, there shall come the Christ\nthere walking in Palestine. You shall see Him so much greater than the\nPalestine in which he walks, that at one word of prayer, as you bend\nover the illuminated page, there shall lift up that body-being of the\nChrist, and come down through the centuries and be your helper at your\nside. So read your Bible.\n\nAnd then seek the Church--oh, yes, the Church. Do you think, my friends,\nyou who stand outside the Church, and blame her for her inconsistencies,\nand tell of her shortcomings, and point out the corruptions that are in\nher history, all that are in her present life to-day--do you really\nbelieve that there is an earnest man in the Church that does not know\nthe Church's weaknesses and faults just as well as you do? Do you\nbelieve that there is one of us living in the life and heart of the\nChurch who don't think with all his conscience, who don't in every day\nin deep distress and sorrow know how the Church fails of the great life\nof the Master, how far she is from being what God meant she should be,\nwhat she shall be some day? But all the more I will put my life into\nthat Church, all the more I will drink the strength that she can give to\nme and make what humble contribution to her I can bring of the\nearnestness and faithfulness of my life. Come into the Church of Jesus\nChrist. There is no other body on the face of the earth that represents\nwhat she represents--the noble destiny of the human soul, the great\ncapacity of human faith, the inexhaustible and unutterable love of God,\nthe Christ, who stands to manifest them all.\n\nNow those are the things for a man to do who really cares about all\nthis. Those are the things for an earnest man to do. They have no power\nin themselves, but they are the opening of the windows. And if that\nwhich I believe is true, God is everywhere giving himself to us, the\nopening of the windows is a signal that we want Him and an invitation\nthat He will be glad enough to answer, to come. Into every window that\nis open to Him and turned His way, Christ comes, God comes. That is the\nonly story. There is put aside everything else. Election,\npredestination, they can go where they please. I am sure that God gives\nHimself to every soul that wants Him and declares its want by the open\nreadiness of the signal which He knows. How did the sun rise on our city\nthis morning? Starting up in the east, the sun came in its majesty into\nthe sky. It smote on the eastward windows, and wherever the window was\nall closed, even if it were turned eastward, on the sacred side of the\ncity's life, it could not come in; but wherever any eastward window had\nits curtains drawn, wherever he who slept had left the blinds shut, so\nthat the sun when it came might find its way into his sleepiness, there\nthe sun came, and with a shout awoke its faithful servant who had\nbelieved in him even before he had seen him, and said, \"Arise, arise\nfrom the dead, and I will give thee life.\" This is the simplicity of it\nall, my friends. A multitude of other things you need not trouble\nyourselves about. I amaze myself when I think how men go asking about\nthe questions of eternal punishment and the duration of man's torment in\nanother life, of what will happen to any man who does not obey Jesus\nChrist. Oh, my friends, the soul is all wrong when it asks that. Not\nuntil the soul says, \"What will come if I do obey Jesus Christ?\" and\nopens its glorified vision to see all the great things that are given to\nthe soul that enters into the service of the perfect one, the perfect\nlove, not until then the perfect love, the perfect life, come in. A man\nmay be--I believe it with all my heart--so absolutely wrapped up in the\nglory of obedience, and the higher life, and the service of Christ, that\nhe never once asks himself, \"What will come to me if I do not obey?\" any\nmore than your child asks you what you will do to him if he is not\nobedient. Every impulse and desire of his life sets toward obedience.\nAnd so the soul may have no theory of everlasting or of limited\npunishment, or of the other life.\n\nSimply now, here, he must have that without which he cannot live, that\nwithout which there is no life. Jesus the soul must have, the one\nyesterday, to-day, and forever; He that is and was and is to be. Men\ndwell upon what He was, upon what He is; I rather think to-day of what\nHe is to be. And when I see these young men here before me looking to\nthe future and not to the past,--nay, looking to the future and not to\nthe present, valuing the present only as it is the seed ground of the\nfuture, the foundation upon which the structure is to rise whose\npinnacle shall some day pierce the sky,--I want to tell them of the\nJesus that shall be. In fuller comprehension of Him, with deeper\nunderstanding of His life, with a more entire impression of what He is\nand of what He may be to the soul, so men shall understand Him in the\ndays to be, and yet He shall be the same Christ still. The future\nbelongs to Jesus Christ, yes, the same Christ that I believe in and that\nI call upon you to believe in to-day, but a larger, fuller, more\ncompletely comprehended Christ, the Christ that is to be, the same\nChrist that was and suffered, the same Christ that is and helps, but\nthe same Christ also who, being forever deeper and deeper and more\ndeeply received into the souls of men, regenerates their institutions,\nchanges their life, opens their capacities, surprises them with\nthemselves, makes the world glorious and joyous every day, because it\nhas become the new incarnation, the new presence of the divine life in\nthe life of man.\n\nMen are talking about the institutions in which you are engaged, my\nfriends, about the business from which you have come here to worship for\nthis little hour. Men are questioning about what they care to do, what\nthey can have to do with Christianity. They are asking everywhere this\nquestion: \"Is it possible for a man to be engaged in the activities of\nour modern life and yet to be a Christian? Is it possible for a man to\nbe a broker, a shopkeeper, a lawyer, a mechanic, is it possible for a\nman to be engaged in a business of to-day, and yet love his God and his\nfellow-man as himself?\" I do not know. I do not know what\ntransformations these dear businesses of yours have got to undergo\nbefore they shall be true and ideal homes for the child of God; but I do\nknow that upon Christian merchants and Christian brokers and Christian\nlawyers and Christian men in business to-day there rests an awful and a\nbeautiful responsibility: to prove, if you can prove it, that these\nthings are capable of being made divine, to prove that a man can do the\nwork that you have been doing this morning and will do this afternoon,\nand yet shall love his God and his fellow-man as himself. If he cannot,\nif he cannot, what business have you to be doing them? If he can, what\nbusiness have you to be doing them so poorly, so carnally, so\nunspiritually, that men look on them and shake their heads with doubt?\nIt belongs to Christ in men first to prove that man may be a Christian\nand yet do business; and, in the second place, to show how a man, as he\nbecomes a greater Christian, shall purify and lift the business that he\ndoes and make it the worthy occupation of the Son of God.\n\nWhat shall be our universal law of life? Can we give it as we draw\ntoward our last moment? I think we can. I want to live, I want to live,\nif God will give me help, such a life that, if all men in the world were\nliving it, this world would be regenerated and saved. I want to live\nsuch a life that, if that life changed into new personal peculiarities\nas it went to different men, but the same life still, if every man were\nliving it, the millennium would be here; nay, heaven would be here, the\nuniversal presence of God. Are you living that life now? Do you want\nyour life multiplied by the thousand million so that all men shall be\nlike you, or don't you shudder at the thought, don't you give hope that\nother men are better than you are? Keep that fear, but only that it may\nbe the food of a diviner hope, that all the world may see in you the\nthing that man was meant to be, that is, the Christ. Ah, you say, that\ngreat world, it is too big; how can I stretch my thought and imagination\nand conscience to the poor creatures in Africa and everywhere? Then\nbring it home. Ah, this dear city of ours, this city that we love, this\ncity in which many of us were born, in which all of us are finding the\nrich and sweet associations of our life, this city, whose very streets\nwe love because they come so close to everything we do and are, cannot\nwe do something for it? Cannot we make its life diviner? Cannot we\ncontribute something that it has not to-day? Cannot you put in it, some\nlittle corner of it, a life which others shall see and say, \"Ah, that\nour lives may be like that!\" And then the good Boston in which we so\nrejoice, which we so love, which we would so fain make a part of the\nkingdom of God, a true city of Jesus Christ, we shall not die without\nhaving done something for it.\n\nI linger, and yet I must not linger. Oh, my friends, oh, my fellow-men,\nit is not very long that we shall be here. It is not very long. This\nlife for which we are so careful--it is not very long; and yet it is so\nlong, because, long, long after we have passed away out of men's sight\nand out of men's memory, the world, with something that we have left\nupon it, that we have left within it, will be going on still. It is so\nlong because, long after the city and the world have passed away, we\nshall go on somewhere, somehow, the same beings still, carrying into the\ndepths of eternity something that this world has done for us that no\nother world could do, something of goodness to get now that will be of\nvalue to us a million years hence, that we never could get unless we got\nit in the short years of this earthly life. Will you know it? Will you\nlet Christ teach it to you? Will you let Christ tell you what is the\nperfect man? Will you let Him set His simplicity and graciousness close\nto your life, and will you feel their power? Oh! be brave, be true, be\npure, be men, be men in the power of Jesus Christ. May God bless you!\nMay God bless you! Let us pray.\n\n\n\n\nIV. TRUE LIBERTY.\n\n\nAn earnest appeal to all that enter that Liberty. May I read to you a\nfew words from the eighth chapter of St. John? \"Then said Jesus to those\nJews which believed on Him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my\ndisciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make\nyou free.\"\n\nLet us not think, my friends, that there is anything strange about the\nspectacle which we witnessed this morning. The only strange thing that\nthere could be about it is that anybody should think that it is strange\nthat men should turn aside for half an hour from their ordinary business\npursuits, that they should come from the details of life to inquire in\nregard to the principles, the everlasting principles and purposes of\nlife; that they should turn aside from those things which are occupying\nthem from day to day and make one single hour in the week consecrated to\nthe service of those great things which underlie all life--surely there\nis nothing very strange. There is nothing more absolutely natural. Every\nman does it in his own sort of way, in his own choice of time. We have\nchosen to do it together, on one day of the week during these few weeks\nwhich the Christian Church has so largely set apart for special thought\nand prayer and earnest attempt to approach the God to whom we belong. It\nis simply as if the stream turned back again to its fountain, that it\nmight refresh itself and make itself strong for the great work that it\nhad to do in watering the fields and turning the wheels of industry. It\nis simply as if men plodding along over the flat routine of their life\nchose once in a while to go up into the mountain top, whence they might\nonce in a while look abroad over their life, and understand more fully\nthe way in which they ought to work. These are the principles, these are\nthe pictures which represent that which we have in mind as we come\ntogether for a little while each Monday in these few weeks, in order\nthat we may think about things of God and try to realize the depth of\nour own human life. The first thing that we ought to understand about it\nis that when we turn aside from life it is only that we go deeper into\nlife. This hour does not stand apart from the rest of the hours of the\nweek, in that we are dealing with things in which the rest of the week\nhas no concern. He who understands life deeply and fully, understands\nlife truly; he has forever renewed his life; and if there comes into our\nhearts, in the life which we are living, a perpetual sense that life\nneeds renewal, a richening and refreshing, then it is in order that we\nmay go down into the depths and see what lies at the root of\nthings--things that we are perpetually doing and thinking. It is this\nthat brought us together here: it is that we may open to ourselves some\nnewer, higher life. It is that we may understand the life that we may\nlive, along side of and as a richer development of that life which we\nare living from day to day, which we have been living during the years\nof our life. How that idea has haunted men in every period of their\nexistence, how it is haunting you, that there is some higher life which\nit is possible to live! There has never been a religion that has not\nstarted there, lifted up its eyes and seen, afar off, what it was\npossible for man to do from day to day, in contrast with the things\nwhich men immediately and presently are. There is not any moment of the\nhuman soul which has not rested upon some great conception that man was\na nobler being than he was ordinarily conceiving himself to be; that he\nwas not destined to the things which were ordinarily occupying his life;\nthat he might be living a greater and nobler life. It is because the\nChristian Scriptures have laid most earnestly hold of this idea, it is\nbecause it was represented not simply in the words which Christ said,\nbut in the very being which Christ was, that we go to them to get the\ninspiration and the indication, the revelation and the enlightenment\nwhich we need. I have read to you these few words in which Christ\ndeclares the whole subject, the whole character of which His life is and\nwhat His work is about to do, because it seems to me that they strike at\nonce the key-note of that which we want to understand. They let us enter\ninto the full conception of that which the new life which is offered to\nman really is. There are two conceptions which come to every man when he\nis entering upon a new life, changing his present life to something that\nis different from the present life, and being a different sort of\ncreature and living in a different sort of a way. The first way in which\nit presents itself to him--almost always at the beginning of every\nreligion, perhaps--is in the way of restraint and imprisonment. Man\nthinks of every change that is to come to him as in the nature of denial\nof something that he is at the present doing and being, as the laying\nhold upon himself of some sort of restraint, bringing to him something\nwhich says: \"I must not do the thing which I am doing. I must lay upon\nmyself restraints, restrictions, commandments, and prohibitions. I must\nnot let myself be the man that I am.\" You see how the Old Testament\ncomes before the New Testament, the law ringing from the mountain top\nwith the great denials, the great prohibitions, that come from the mouth\nof God. \"Thou shalt not do this, that, or the other--Thou shalt not\nmurder. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt\nnot covet thy neighbor's goods.\" That is the first conception which\ncomes to a man of the way in which he is to enter upon a new life, of\nthe way in which the denial in his experience is to take effect. It is\nas if the hands were stretched out in order that fetters might be placed\nupon them. The man says, \"Let some power come that is to hinder me from\nbeing this thing that I am.\" And the whole notion is the notion of\nimprisonment, restraint So it is with all civilization. It is perfectly\npossible for us to represent civilization as compared with barbarism, as\naccepted by mankind, as a great mass of restrictions and prohibitions\nthat have been laid upon human life, so that the freedom of life has\nbeen cast aside, and man has entered into restricted, restrained, and\nimprisoned condition. So it is with every fulfilment of life. It is\npossible for a man always to represent it to himself as if it were the\nrestriction, restraint, and prohibition of his life. The man passes\nonward into the fuller life which belongs to a man. He merges his\nselfishness into that richer life which is offered to human kind. He\nmakes himself, instead of a single, selfish man, a man of family; and it\nis easy enough to consider that marriage and the family life bring\nimmediately restraints and prohibitions. The man may not have the\nfreedom which he used to have. So all development of education, in the\nfirst place, offers itself to man, or seems to offer itself to man, as\nprohibition and imprisonment and restraint. There is no doubt truth in\nsuch an idea. We never lose sight of it. No other richer and fuller idea\nwhich we come to by and by ever does away with the thought that man's\nadvance means prohibition and self-denial, that in order that man shall\nbecome the greater thing he must cease to be the poorer and smaller\nthing he has been. But yet there is immediately a greater and fuller.\nWhen we hear those words of Jesus, we see immediately that not the idea\nof imprisonment but the idea of liberty, not the idea of restraint but\nthat of setting free, is the idea which is really in His mind when he\noffers the fullest life to human kind. Have you often thought of how the\nwhole Bible is a Book of Liberty, of how It rings with liberty from\nbeginning to end, of how the great men are the men of liberty, of how\nthe Old Testament, the great picture which forever shines, is the\nemancipator, leading forth out of imprisonment the people of God, who\nwere to do the great work of God in the very much larger and freer life\nin which they were to live? The prophet, the psalmist, are ever\npreaching and singing about liberty, the enfranchisement of the life of\nman, that man was not imprisoned in order to fulfil himself, but shall\nopen his life, and every new progress shall be into a new region of\nexistence which lie has not touched as yet. When we turn from the Old\nTestament to the New Testament, how absolutely clear that idea is!\nChrist is the very embodiment of human liberty. In His own personal life\nand in everything that He did and said, He was forever uttering the\ngreat gospel that man, in order to become his completest, must become\nhis freest, that what a man did when he entered into a new life was to\nopen a new region in which new powers were to find their exercise, in\nwhich he was to be able to be and do things which he could not be and do\nin more restricted life. It is the acceptance of that idea, it seems to\nme, that makes us true disciples of Christ and of that great gospel, and\nthat transfigures everything. When my friend turns over some new leaf,\nas we say, and begins to live a new life, what shall we think of him? I\nlearn that he has become a Christian man, that he is doing something,\nthat he is working in a way and living a life which I have not known\nbefore. What is my impression in regard to him? Is not your impression,\nas you look upon that man, that somehow or other he has entered into a\nslavery or bondage, that he has taken upon his life restrictions and\nimprisonments which he did not have before? And you think of him,\nperhaps, as a man who has done a wise and prudent thing, who has done\nsomething that is going to be for his benefit some day in some distant\nand half-realized world, but as a man who, for the present, has laid a\nburden and bondage upon his life. That is never the tone of Christ; it\nis never the tone of the Christian gospel. When a man turns away from\nhis sins and enters into energetic holiness, when a man sacrifices his\nown self-indulgence and goes forth a pure servant of his God and his\nfellow-men, there is only one cry in the whole gospel of that man, and\nthat is the cry of freedom. As soon as he can catch that, as soon as I\ncan feel about my friend, who has become a better man, that he has\nbecome a larger and not a smaller, a freer and not a more imprisoned\nman, as soon as I lift up my voice and say that the man is free, then I\nunderstand him more fully, and he becomes a revelation to me in the\nhigher and richer life which is possible for me to live. But think of\nit for yourselves, for a moment, and ask what freer life really is. Try\nto give a definition of liberty, and I know not what it can be said to\nbe except something of this kind: Liberty is the fullest opportunity for\nman to be and do the very best that is possible for him. I know of no\ndefinition of liberty, that oldest and dearest phrase of men, and\nsometimes the vaguest also, except that. It has been perverted, it has\nbeen distorted and mystified, but that is what it really means: the\nfullest opportunity for a man to do and be the very best that is in his\npersonal nature to do and to be. It immediately follows that everything\nwhich is necessary for the full realization of a man's life, even though\nit seems to have the character of restraint for a moment, is really a\npart of the process of his enfranchisement, is the bringing forth of him\nto a fuller liberty. You see a man coming forward and offering himself\nas one of the defenders of his country in his country's need. You see\nhim standing at the door where men are being received as recruits into\nthe army of the country. He wants liberty. He wants to be able to do\nthat which he cannot do in his poor, personal isolation here at home. He\nwants the badge which will give him the right to go forth and meet the\nenemies of his country, and he enrolls himself among these men. He makes\nhimself subject to obligations, duties, and drill. They are a part of\nhis enfranchisement. They are really the breaking of the fetters upon\nhis slavery, the sending him forth into freedom. He is like a bit of\niron or steel that lies upon the ground. It lies neglected and perfectly\nfree. You see it is made by the adjustment of the end of it so that it\ncan be set into a great machine and become part of a great working\nsystem. But there it lies. Will you call it free? It is bound to be\nnothing there. It is absolutely separate, and with its own personality\ndistinct and individual and all alone. What is to make that bit of iron\na free bit of iron, to let it go forth and do the thing which it was\nmeant to do, but the taking of it and the binding of it at both ends\ninto the structure of which it was made to be a part? It seems to me the\nbinding of a man,--it seems to me that the binding of the iron is not\nthe yielding of its freedom. It is not merely after finding its place\nwithin the system that it first achieves its freedom and so joins in the\nmusic and partakes of the courses with which the whole enginery is\nfilled. Is not it, then, for the first time a free bit of iron, having\naccomplished all that it was made to do when it came forth from the\nforge of the master, who had this purpose in his mind? This, then, is\nfreedom; everything is part of the enfranchisement of a man which helps\nto put him in the place where he can live his best. Therefore every\nduty, every will of God, every commandment of Christ, every\nself-surrender that a man is called upon to obey or to make--do not\nthink of it as if it were simply a restraint to liberty, but think of it\nas the very means of freedom, by which we realize the very purpose of\nGod and the fulfilment of our life. It is interesting to see how all\nthat is true in regard to the matter of belief, doctrine, and opinions\nwhich we are apt to accept. How strange it very often seems that men go\nto the Church, or to one another, and say: \"Must I believe this doctrine\nin order that I can enter into the Church?\" \"Must I believe this\ndoctrine in order that I may be saved?\" men say, with a strange sort of\nnotion about what salvation is. How strange it seems, when we really\nhave got our intelligence about us and know what it is to believe! To\nbelieve a new truth, if it be really truth and we really believe it, is\nto have entered into a new region, in which our life shall find a new\nexpansion and a new youth. Therefore, not \"Must we believe?\" but \"May I\nbelieve?\" is the true cry of the human creature who is seeking for the\nrichest fulfilment of his life, who is working that his whole nature may\nfind its complete expansion and so its completest exercise. We talk a\ngreat deal in these days and in this place about a liberal faith. What\nis a liberal faith, my friends? It seems to me that by every true\nmeaning of the word, by every true thought of the idea, a liberal faith\nis a faith that believes much, and not a faith that believes little. The\nmore a man believes, the more liberally he exercise his capacity of\nfaith, the more he sends forth his intelligence into the mysteries of\nGod, the more he understands those things which God chooses to reveal to\nhis creatures, the more liberally he believes. Let yourselves never\nthink that you grow liberal in faith by believing less; always be sure\nthat the true liberality of faith can only come by believing more. It is\ntrue, indeed, that as soon as a man becomes eager for belief, for the\ntruth of God and for the mysteries with which God's universe is filled,\nhe becomes all the more critical and careful. He will hot any longer, if\nhe were before, be simply greedy of things to believe, so that if any\nsuperstition comes offering itself to him he will not gather it in\nindiscriminately and believe it without evidence, without examination.\nHe becomes all the more critical and careful, the more he becomes\nassured that belief, and not unbelief, is the true condition of his\nlife. The truth that God has entered into this world in wondrous ways\nand filled its life with Jesus Christ, the truth that man has a soul and\nnot simply a body, that he has a spiritual need, that God cares for him\nand he is to care for himself, that there is an immortal life, and that\nthat which we call faith is but the opening of a gate, the pushing back\nof a veil,--shall a man believe those things as imprisonments of his\nnature, and shall it not make him larger? Shall it not be the indulgence\nof his life when he enters into the great certainties which so are\noffered to his belief, believing them in his own way? Let us always feel\nthat to accept a new belief is no to build a wall beyond which we cannot\npass, but is to open the door to a great fresh, free region, in which\nour souls are to live. And just so it is when we come to the moral\nthings of life. The man puts aside some sinfulness. He breaks down the\nwall that has been shutting his soul out of its highest life. He has\nbeen a drunkard, and he becomes a sober man. He has been a cheat, and\nbecomes a faithful man. He has been a liar, and becomes a truthful man.\nHe has been a profligate, and he becomes a pure man. What has happened\nto that man? Shall he simply think of himself as one who has crushed\nthis passion, shut down this part of his life? Shall he simply think of\nhimself as one who has taken a course of self-denial? Nay. It is\nself-indulgence that a man has really entered upon. It is an indulgence\nof the deepest part of his own nature, not of his unreal nature. He has\nrisen and shaken himself like a lion, so that the dust has fallen from\nhis mane, and all the great range of that life which God gave him to\nlive lies before him. This is the everlasting inspiration. This is the\nillumination. I don't wonder that men refuse to give up evil if it\nsimply seems to them to be giving up the evil way, and no vision opens\nbefore them of the thing that they may be and do. I don't wonder that,\nif the negative, restricting, imprisoning conception of the new life is\nall that a man gets hold of, he lingers again and again in the old life.\nBut just as soon as the great world opens before him then it is like a\nprisoner going out of the prison door. Is there no lingering? Does not\nthe baser part of him cling to the old prison, to the ease and the\nprovision for him, to the absence of anxiety and of energy? I think\nthere can hardly be a prisoner who, with any leap of heart, goes out of\nthe prison door, when his term is finished, and does not even look into\nthat black horror where he has been living, cast some lingering, longing\nlook behind. He comes to the exigencies, to the demands of life, to the\nnecessity of making himself once more a true man among his fellow-men.\nBut does he stop? He comes forth, and if there be the soul of a man in\nhim still, he enters into the new life with enthusiasm, and finds the\nnew powers springing in him to their work. And if it be so with every\nspecial duty, then with that great thing which you and I are called upon\nto do--the total acceptance by our nature of the will of God, the total\nacceptance by our nature of the mastery of Jesus Christ. Oh! how this\nworld has perverted words and meanings, that the mastery of Jesus Christ\nshould seem to be the imprisonment and not the enfranchisement of the\nsoul! When I bring a flower out of the darkness and set it in the sun,\nand let the sunlight come streaming down upon it, and the flower knows\nthe sunlight for which it was made and opens its fragrance and beauty;\nwhen I take a dark pebble and put it into the stream and let the silver\nwater go coursing down over it and bringing forth the hidden color that\nwas in the bit of stone, opening the nature that is in them, the flower\nand stone rejoice. I can almost hear them sing in the field and in the\nstream. What then? Shall not man bring his nature out into the fullest\nillumination, and surprise himself by the things that he might do? Oh!\nthe littleness of the lives that we are living! Oh! the way in which we\nfail to comprehend, or when we do comprehend, deny to ourselves the\nbigness of that thing which it is to be a man, to be a child of God!\nSometimes it dawns upon us that we can see it opening into the vision of\nthese men and women in the New Testament. Sometimes there opens to us\nthe picture of this thing that we might be, and then there are truly the\ntrial moments of our life. Then we lift up ourselves and claim our\nliberty or, dastardly or cowardly, slink back into the sluggish\nimprisonment in which we have been living. How does all this affect that\nwhich we are continually conscious of, urging upon ourselves and upon\none another? How does it affect the whole question of a man's sins? Oh!\nthese sins, the things we know so well! As we sit here and stand here\none entire hour, as we talk in this sort of way, everybody knows the\nweaknesses of his own nature, the sins of his own soul. Don't you know\nit? What shall we think about those sins? It seems to me, my friends,\nthat all this great picture of the liberty into which Christ sets man,\nin the first place does one thing which we are longing to see done in\nthe world. It takes away the glamour and the splendor from sin. It\nbreaks that spell by which men think that the evil thing is the glorious\nthing. If the evil thing be that which Christ has told us that the evil\nthing is--which I have no time to tell you now--if every sin that you do\nis not simply a stain upon your soul, but is keeping you out from some\ngreat and splendid thing which you might do, then is there any sort of\nsplendor and glory about sin? How about the sins that you did when you\nwere young men? How can you look back upon those sins and think what\nyour life might have been if it had been pure from the beginning, think\nwhat you might have been if from the very beginning you had caught sight\nof what it was to be a man? And then your boy comes along. What are the\nmen in this town doing largely in many and many a house, but letting\ntheir boys believe that the sins of their early life are glorious\nthings, except that those things which they did, the base and wretched\nthings that they were doing when they were fifteen and twenty and\ntwenty-five and thirty years old, are the true career of a human nature,\nare the true entrance into human life? The miserable talk about sowing\nwild oats, about getting through the necessary conditions of life before\na man comes to solemnity! Shame upon any man who, having passed through\nthe sinful conditions and habits and dispositions of his earlier life,\nhas not carried out of them an absolute shame for them, that shall let\nhim say to his boy, by word and by every utterance of his life within\nthe house where he and the boy live together, \"Refrain, for they are\nabominable things!\" To get rid of the glamour of sin, to get rid of the\nidea that it is a glorious thing to be dissipated instead of being\nconcentrated to duty, to get rid of the idea that to be drunken and to\nbe lustful are true and noble expressions of our abounding human life,\nto get rid of any idea that sin is aught but imprisonment, is to make\nthose who come after us, and to make ourselves in what of life is left\nfor us, gloriously ambitious for the freedom of purity, for a full\nentrance into that life over which sin has no dominion. And yet, at the\nsame time, don't you see that while sin thus becomes contemptible when\nwe think about the great illustration of the will of God and Jesus\nChrist, don't you see how also it puts on a new horror? That which I\nthought I was doing in the halls of my imprisonment I have really been\ndoing within the possible world of God in which I might have been free.\nThe moment I see what life might have been to me, then any sin becomes\ndreadful to me. Have you ever thought of how the world has stood in\nglory and honor before the sinless humanity of Jesus Christ? If any life\ncould prove, if any argument could show on investigation to-day that\nJesus did one sin in all his life, that the perfect liberty which was\nhis perfect purity was not absolutely perfect, do you realize what a\nhorror would seem to fall down from the heavens, what a constraint and\nburden would be laid upon the lives of men, how the gates of men's\npossibilities would seem to close in upon them? It is because there has\nbeen that one life which, because absolutely pure from sin, was\nabsolutely free; it is because man may look up and see in that life the\nrevelation and possibility of his own; it is because that life, echoing\nthe great cry throughout the world that man everywhere is the son of\nGod, offers the same purity--and so the same freedom--to all mankind; it\nis for that reason that a man rejoices to cling to, to believe in,\nhowever impure his life is, the perfect purity, the sinlessness of the\nlife of Jesus. When you sin, my friends, it is a man that sins, and a\nman is a child of God; and for a child of God to sin is an awful thing,\nnot simply for the stain that he brings into the divine nature that is\nin him, but for the life from which it shuts him out, for the liberty\nwhich he abandons, for the inthrallment which it lays upon the soul.\nThere is one thing that people say very carelessly that always seems to\nme to be a dreadful thing for a man to say. They say it when they talk\nabout their lives to one another, and think about their lives to\nthemselves, and by and by very often say it upon their death-bed with\nthe last gasp, as though their entrance into the eternal world had\nbrought them no deeper enlightenment. One wonders what is the revelation\nthat comes to them when they stand upon the borders of the other side\nand are in the full life and eternity of God. The thing men say is, \"I\nhave done the very best I can.\" It is an awful thing for a man to say.\nThe man never lived, save he who perfected our humanity, who ever did\nthe very best he could. You dishonor your life, you not simply shut your\neyes to certain facts, you not simply say an infinitely absurd and\nfoolish thing, but you dishonor your human life if you say that you have\ndone in any day of your life or in all the days of your life put\ntogether, the very best that you could, or been the very best man that\nyou could be. You! what are you? Again I say, The child of God, and this\nwhich you have been, what is it? Look over it, see how selfish it has\nbeen, see how material it has been, how it has lived in the depths when\nit might have lived on the heights, see how it has lived in the little\nnarrow range of selfishness when it might have been as broad as all\nhumanity, nay, when it might have been as the God of humanity. Don't\ndare to say that in any day of your life, or in all your life together,\nyou have done the best that you could. The Pharisee said it when he went\nup into the temple, and all the world has looked on with mingled pity\nand scorn at the blindness of the man who stood there and paraded his\nfaithfulness; while all the world has bent with a pity that was near to\nlove, a pity that was full of sympathy because man recognized his\ncondition and experience, for the poor creature grovelling upon the\npavement, unwilling and unable even to look upon the altar, but who,\nstanding afar off, said, \"God be merciful to me a sinner!\" Whatever else\nyou say, don't say, \"I have been the very best I could.\" That means that\nyou have not merely lived in the rooms of your imprisonment, but that\nyou have been satisfied to count them the only possible rooms of your\nlife, and that the great halls of your liberty have never opened\nthemselves before you. Shall not they open themselves somehow to us\nto-day, my friends? Shall we not turn away from this hour and go back\ninto our business, into our offices, into the shops, into the crowded\nstreets, bearing new thoughts of the lives that we might live, feeling\nthe fetters on our hands and feet, feeling many things as fetters which\nwe have thought of as the ornament and glory of our life, determined to\nbe unsatisfied forever until these fetters shall be stricken off and we\nhave entered into the full liberty which comes to those alone who are\ndedicated to the service of God, to the completion of their own nature,\nto the acceptance of the grace of Christ, and to the attainment of the\neternal glory of the spiritual life, first here and then hereafter,\nnever hereafter, it may be, except here and now, certainly here and now,\nas the immediate, pressing privilege and duty of our lives? So let us\nstand up on our feet and know ourselves in all the richness and in all\nthe awfulness of our human life. Let us know ourselves children of God,\nand claim the liberty which God has given to every one of his children\nwho will take it. God bless you and give some of you, help some of us,\nto claim, as we have never claimed before, that freedom with which the\nSon makes free!\n\n\n\n\nV. THE CHRIST IN WHOM CHRISTIANS BELIEVE.\n\n\nI want to read to you again the words of Jesus in the eighth chapter of\nthe Gospel of St. John: \"Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on\nHim, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; and ye\nshall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. They answered\nhim, We be Abraham's seed, and were never in bondage to any man: how\nsayest thou, Ye shall be made free? Jesus answered them, Verily, verily,\nI say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin. And the\nservant abideth not in the house for ever: but the Son abideth ever. If\nthe Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.\" The\nservice of God is not self-restraint, but self-indulgence. That is the\nfirst truth of all religion. That is the truth which we found uttered in\nthose words of Jesus when we were thinking of them the other day. That\nis the truth to which we return as we come back again to think of those\nwords and all that they mean and all that the speaker of them means to\nus and to our lives. When we remember that truth, when we recognize that\nno man is ever to be saved except by the fulfilment of his own nature,\nand not by the restraint of his nature, when we recognize that no man,\nno personal, individual man, is ever to be ransomed from his sins except\nby having opened to him a larger and fuller life into which he has\nentered, we seem to have displayed to us a large region, into which we\nare tempted to enter, and which is so rich and inviting to us that we\nimmediately begin to ask ourselves if it is possible that there should\nbe such a region. It is simply a great dream that we set before us. It\nis something that we imagine, something that comes out of the\nimaginations and anticipations of our own hearts, simply stimulated by\nthe possibilities of the life in which we are living. It would be very\nmuch indeed, if it were only that. It would bear a certain testimony of\nitself, if it simply came out of the perpetual dissatisfaction of men's\nsouls, even if there were no distinct manifestation of that life and no\npossibility of entering into it at once with our own personal\nconsecration, with the resolution of our own wills. But if it were\nsimply a dream, ultimately it must fade away out of the thoughts of\nmen. It is impossible that men should keep on, year after year, age\nafter age, this simple dream of something which does not exist. It would\nbe like those pictures which the poet has drawn, something which appeals\nto nothing in our human nature and stands only as a parable of something\nthat is a great deal lower than itself. The poet pictures to us in his\nimagination those things which do not appeal to our life, because they\nfind nothing to correspond to their high portraits, to show those\ntransformations of nature into something that is entirely different and\nforeign to itself. If religion be simply the dream that some men hold it\nto be, if it simply be the cheating of man's soul with that which has no\nreality to correspond to it, then it will be no more than this. Is there\nany assurance that is given to us, that is before the soul of man, of\nsome great new life which it is given for man to seek, without which it\nis given for no man to be satisfied? I do not know where any man could\nfind that assurance absolutely and entirely, unless there had stood\nforth before us the person of Him who spoke these words and who\nmanifested them in His life. And therefore it is that, having pictured\nto you the richness of the life which is open to every man, his own true\nlife, the large freedom into which he may go if, giving up his sins he\nenters into the fulness of the life of God, I cannot help now calling\nyou to think about Him who gives, not merely by His words, but by the\nwhole of His own person and life, that manifestation of the reality of\nthe divine existence and tempts us to follow after Him. In other words,\nwe come to-day to think of Christ, Christ who claims to be the master of\nthe world, Christ from whom the revelation of that higher life has come,\nnot in its first instance in the manifestation of the words which he\nspoke, for it had been the dream of human hearts through all the ages,\nbut who made it so distinct and clear that ever since the time of Christ\nmen have been able to cease to seek after it, men have never been able\nto give up the hope and dream that it was there. It is our Christ in\nwhom we Christians believe. It is the Christ in whom a great many of you\nlistening to me now claim to believe--I do myself--in whom many of you\ndo believe, whom many of you have followed into that newer life. I would\nto God that I could so set Him before you to-day, could so make you feel\nhis actual presence in the life which we are living, which we may be\nliving, that there should be no question in any man of the power that is\nopen before him to enter into the higher life and to fulfil his soul to\nGod. What I want to do, in the few moments which I may speak to you this\nmorning, is--laying aside all the theological conceptions regarding\nHim, laying aside everything that attaches to the complications and\nmysteries in which His nature has been involved in men's dreams of Him,\nlaying aside everything which the churches are holding as the special\ndoctrine of their especial creed--to go back to the very beginning and\nsee if we can understand anything of what it is--this personal Christ,\nwho lives here in the world and manifests the power of God and opens the\npossibility of every man. Surely it is good that we should know\nsomething about Him of whom we speak so much, that there should be some\nclear and directest conception of one whose name has been upon the lips\nof men for eighteen hundred years; and it is possible for us, in the\nsimplest way, to understand how His power has come into the world and to\nsee where it is possible that it should come and enrich our lives and\nmake us different men. We go back, then, to the very beginning of the\naspiration after God, which is in the heart of man everywhere. There has\nnever been a race that has been without it. There has never been a\ngeneration that has not reached forward and thought there was a higher\nlife, a fuller liberty, to which it could come. It has been in all the\nreligions which have been not simply fears, but which have been the\nhighest utterances of all the different races in all the different\ngenerations of mankind and all the different countries of the world; and\nthere was one especial race in one especial part of the world in whom\nthat aspiration was especially strong. We will not ask how it came to be\nthere. There it was in this strange people living on the eastern shore\nof the Mediterranean Sea, and in all its history marked out by the\nstrange peculiarity that it was a spiritual people, that in the midst of\nall its sins, blunders, and weaknesses it was forever lifting up its\nsoul to God and striving to find Him out. Very often it blundered\nstrangely and sadly. Very often it failed to get that for which it was\nseeking, by the very impetuousness, rashness, and earnestness of search.\nBut it was always seeking after Him. And the years rolled by, and by and\nby in the midst of that great nation there was a little company of men\nwho, accompanying one another from the beginning of their lives, had\nbeen searching after this God and trying everywhere if they could find\nHim. And one day they heard that down by the river which ran through\ntheir country, which was sacred to them from the multitude of old\nnational associations, there was a great teacher come, who was declaring\nthat for which the human soul was forever reaching after, the need of\nescaping from sin and entering upon and leading a higher life. This\nlittle company went down and met two disciples of John the Baptist, and\nlearned from them everything that they had to teach them. Their souls\nwere stirred by that which he had to say. But one day, while he was\nteaching them, it seemed as if they had come to an end of that which he\ncould teach them. He looked up, and there upon the hill just above the\nriver there was passing one upon whom the gaze of the fishermen by the\nriver immediately kindled, and he lifted his hand and said, \"He is the\none who is to teach you now. You must go after him. Behold the Lamb of\nGod, which taketh away the sin of the world.\" Great and mysterious\nwords, that filled in that which men had believed in all the records\nthey had read and the thinking they had done before! And they turned\naway from John and went after this new teacher and, following to His\nhouse, there they abode with Him during that day and the days that\nfollowed after. Little by little, as we read the story of their being\nwith him, we can see them taken into His power, we can see how there was\na certain fascination in His presence which laid hold upon them. It\nseemed at first to be purely human, to be the way in which one strong\nman takes possession of his fellow-man and compels him to rely upon him.\nIt was upon purely human ground. It was in the manifestation of the\nexcellence of this human nature of ours that they believed in Jesus and\ngradually became His disciples. Little by little it so commanded them\nthat at last the moment came when it was impossible for them to separate\nthemselves from Him; and one day, when the people were turning away from\nHim when He was preaching and saying things that it was hard for them to\nunderstand, He looked around upon them and said, \"Are you going also,\nwill you leave me now?\" And then there burst forth from the lips of one\nof them, the most strong and characteristic act of the little company,\nthose great words that declared how He had become necessary to them:\n\"Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life.\" You\nsee the power that Jesus had acquired over these men. You see the way in\nwhich He had taken them absolutely into His dominion, simply because of\nthe manifestation of character and life, simply because He had shown\nthem what man might be and opened the springs of the better life in\nthemselves by the words He had spoken to them. And then they lived on\nwith Him still, and by and by they had become so convinced by His truth\nand wisdom, His character had so taken possession of them, that they\nwere ready to believe anything that He said. One day He lifted up His\nvoice and declared that which had gradually been dawning upon them all\nthe time, that He was more than they were, that He had brought in some\nmysterious way a divine life into this world and had much to communicate\nto them. He told them that He was the Father from whom His life and\ntheir life had come. He told them that He and the Father were one. He\ntold them, not in theological statement, not as men have worked out\nsince in their desire to know it fully, but in the simple statement of\nthe truth that could be the inspiration of their life, that in His\npresence there was here the very presence of God among them. It was not\nstrange to them, though human creatures, though men, that the highest\naspiration of their humanity had never thought God so far from this\nworld that it seemed to them strange that there should be in very human\npresence the divine life here with them. They could not explain it and\ndid not try to explain it. Here it was, that which they had seen\nshadowed in the divinest men whom they had known, that which they had\nrecognized. Here it was before them in this being who had won such a\npower over them that they were ready to accept His testimony with regard\nto Himself. Oh! my friends, let us not feel that the evidence of our\nChristian faith fails when it is seen to rest upon the word of Christ\nHimself. My neighbor knows more of himself than I know of him. I know\nmore of myself than any man can know of me, if only I be earnest and\nsincere. And that the greatest of men who ever trod this earth should\nnot know more of His nature than any other man should know, and that\ntherefore His word should not be the richest revelation of that which is\nin His life and makes His power over mankind, that is incredible.\nTherefore the men were right when they believed Jesus' own word and\nlooked to Him for the divinity which He said was present with Him upon\nthe earth. Then His life went on, and by and by fulfilled itself in the\none great action in which He declared those two things which He longed\nto know, the life and newness of God and the power of their human\nnature. He gave His life for them, indeed, in the awful suffering that\npreceded and that culminated upon the cross. He gave His life in\ncrucifixion for them, and in that crucifixion opened the divinest doors\nof His life, when opening a sanctuary of sorrow; and He bade them enter\nin and know there the absolute life of God and the great capacity of\nhuman nature to sacrifice itself for God. And before He died, and\nafterward, He again appeared to them. He spoke great words which said\nthat this was not the end of things, that after they had ceased to see\nHim and touch Him and hear His voice He still was to be present in the\nworld. He said that the mysterious presence of those who had passed\naway, which all had known, was to culminate and be fulfilled in Him. \"I\nam with you alway, even unto the end of the world.\" Wherever you \"are\ntogether in my name, there am I.\" Words and words and words again like\nthose He spoke, in which He declared that He was to be an everlasting\npresence among mankind, and therefore that which had taken place in the\nlife of those disciples might forever take place; that that which Jesus\nhad done in the days when He was present upon the earth should be\ncontinually repeated, in that He was forever to do that which He had\nbeen doing, giving Himself to human kind for their inspiration, for\ntheir elevation, for their correction, for their reproof, as He had been\ndoing, their salvation, as He had been doing in those days in which He\nwas here among them. Men have believed that simply. They have recognized\nthat word of Christ, and found the fulfilment of it in their own lives;\nand that has been the Christian religion,--just exactly what it was in\nthe old days when Jesus was present in Jerusalem and Galilee. Just\nexactly what men did then men have been doing in all the generations\nthat have come since. Just exactly what was possible then is possible\nfor them now--that we may become the followers of that same Christ and\nthe receivers through Him of the divine life, by which alone the human\nlife is perfected and fulfilled.\n\nThat is the Christian religion. That is the Christian faith. Is it not\nclear and simple, whether it be true or not? My friends, you may believe\nit or you may disbelieve it, but the Christian faith is clear and simple\nenough surely in this statement, stripped of a thousand difficulties,\nperplexities, and bewilderments. That is it, that there is in the world\nto-day the same Christ who was in the world eighteen hundred and more\nyears ago, and that men may go to Him and receive His life and the\ninspiration of His presence and the guidance of His wisdom just exactly\nas they did then. If you and I had been in Jerusalem in those old days,\nwhat would we have done, if we were more than mere creatures of others,\nmore than men merely absorbed in our business, if there were any\nstirring in our souls after the deeper and diviner desires, could we,\nwould we have been satisfied until we had gone wherever He might be,--in\nthe temple, in the courts, or on the country road,--and found that\nJesus, and entered into some sympathy with His life, that He might give\nto us what revelation of life and what guidance of will it might be\npossible should come from Him to men who trusted Him, until we had\nentered into sympathy with Him and the fascinations of His character?\nThat is the Christian life, my friends, the thing we make so vague and\nmysterious and difficult. That is the Christian life, the following of\nJesus Christ.\n\nWhat is the Christian? Everywhere the man who, so far as he comprehends\nJesus Christ, so far as he can get any knowledge of Him, is His servant,\nthe man who makes Christ a teacher of his intelligence and the guide of\nhis soul, the man who obeys Christ as far as he has been able to\nunderstand Him. What, you say, the man who imperfectly understands\nChrist, who don't know anything about His divinity, who denies the great\ndoctrines of the Church in regard to Him, is he a Christian? Certainly\nhe is, my friends. There is no other test than this, the following of\nJesus Christ. So far as any soul deeply consecrated to Him, and wanting\nthe influence that it feels that He has to give, follows Christ, enters\ninto His obedience and His company, and receives His blessings, just so\nfar He is able to bestow it. I cannot sympathize with any feeling that\ndesires to make the name of Christian a narrower name. I would spread it\njust as wide as it can be possibly made to spread. I would know any man\nas a Christian, rejoice to know any man as a Christian, whom Jesus would\nrecognize as a Christian, and Jesus Christ, I am sure, in those old days\nrecognized His followers even if they came after Him with the blindest\nsight, with the most imperfect recognition and acknowledgment of what\nHe was and of what He could do.\n\nAnd then, again, is it not very strange, certainly, that there should\nbe, in these later days, in all these centuries that have passed between\nthe day of Jesus Christ and us, that there should have come a vast\naccumulation of speculation and conjecture, of theorizing and thought\nwith regard to Christ and what He was, and that a great deal of it\nshould have been very strange and should seem to us to-day to have been\nvery silly, a great part of it should have seemed to be but a work of\nintelligences that were half dulled and blinded, full of prejudice, and\nshrinking from the error and the danger in which they stood? What does\nit mean--all these complicated theologies that we say are keeping us\naway from the simple following of the grandest figure that has ever\npresented Himself before human kind? I know not how else it can be when\nI see what has been the power of Jesus over thoughts and homes and\nhearts of men through all these years. It seems to be a previous\nnecessity that He who most fastens the heart and life of man, who seems\nto be most necessary to the soul of men, shall so attract their thought,\nshall so draw them all to Himself that their crudest speculations, that\ntheir most erroneous conceptions, shall fasten upon him, and they shall\nbe in some true way a testimony of the way in which He has always held\nthe human heart. This is the way in which all crudities of theology, all\nthe weaknesses of speculation, all even of the most strange and foul\nthoughts in regard to the life of Jesus and His manifestation in the\nworld, have accumulated around that gracious figure, so simple and\nstrong, which walks through our human life and manifests to us the God.\nSurely it is in one conception of it, and the true conception of it, the\ngreat perpetual testimony of how men have cared about Jesus, that they\nhave speculated about Him in such strange perplexing ways. But He about\nwhom the world does not care walks through the world and bears His\nsimple being. There is nothing that fastens upon Him, that perplexes His\nlife, that makes mysterious and strange the life He lives. But where is\nthe great man in all the history of human kind that has not gathered\nabout his person and work the speculations of those whom we find, with\ntheir crude and unguided minds, have formed their theories in regard to\nHim? It is the very abundance of the strange speculations with regard to\nChrist, it is the very strangeness of the theories that have been formed\nwith regard to Him, that has shown me how He has drawn the hearts of\nmen, how He has not let them go, but compelled them to fasten themselves\nto Him, to think about Him and try to follow Him in such poor, blind\nways as they were able to give themselves to Him in. This, then, is the\nChristian faith. This is the way in which the larger life opens before\nmankind, by the following of a person, by the giving of the life into\nthe dominion and the guidance and the obedience of one who goes forward\ninto that life, himself thoroughly believing in it--for Jesus believed\nin it with all His human soul.\n\nBut then, we ask ourselves, is it possible that we can gather from such\na life as Jesus lived so long ago, a life that was lived back in the\nvery dust of history and that has come down to us in records which seem\nsometimes to be flecked with tradition and obscured with the distance in\nwhich they lived, is it possible that I should get from him a guidance\nof my daily life here? Am I, a man of the nineteenth century, when\neverything has changed, in Boston, in this modern civilization,--can\nJesus really be my teacher, my guide, in the actual duties and\nperplexities of my daily life and lead me into the larger land in which\nI know he lives? Ah! the man knows very little about the everlasting\nidentity of human nature, little of how the world in all these\nchangeless ages is the same, who asks that; very little, also, of how in\nevery largest truth there are all particulars and details of human life\ninvolved; little of how everything that a man is to-day, upon every\nmoment, rests upon some eternal foundation and may be within the power\nof some everlasting law. The wonder of the life of Jesus is this--and\nyou will find it so and you have found it so if you have ever taken your\nNew Testament and tried to make it the rule of your daily life--that\nthere is not a single action that you are called upon to do of which you\nneed be, of which you will be, in any serious doubt for ten minutes as\nto what Jesus Christ, if He were here, Jesus Christ being here, would\nhave you do under those circumstances and with the material upon which\nyou are called to act. Men have tried to go back and imitate the very\nactivities of the life of Jesus Christ, to do the very things that He\ndid. Souls have fled across the sea and tried upon the hills and in the\nplains where Jesus lived to reproduce the life that has so fascinated\nthem. They were poor and unphilosophic souls. The soul that takes in\nJesus' word, the soul that through the words of Jesus enters into the\nvery person of Jesus, the soul that knows Him as its daily presence and\nits daily law--it never hesitates. Do I doubt--I, who see myself called\nupon to be the slave of these conditions which are around me--to do this\nthing? Because it is the custom of the business in which I am engaged,\ndo I doubt fora moment if I turn aside and open this New Testament,\nwhich is Jesus' law with regard to that thing? I, with my passion\nboiling in my veins, leading me to do some foul act of outrageous lust,\nhave I a single moment's doubt what Jesus would have me do if He were\nhere--what Jesus, being here, really wants me to do? There is no single\nact of your life, my friend, there is no single dilemma in which you\nfind yourself placed, in which the answer is not in Jesus Christ. I do\nnot say that you will find some words in Jesus' teachings in the Gospel\nof Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John that will detail exactly the condition\nin which you find yourself placed; but I do say that if, with your human\nsympathies and your devoted love, you can feel the presence of that\nJesus behind the words that He said, the personal perfectness, the\ndivine life manifested in the human life, there is not a single sin or\ntemptation to sin that will not be convicted.\n\nThere is where we rest when we claim that Jesus Christ is the master of\nthe world, that He opens the great richness and infinite distances of\nthe human life, that He shows us what it is to be men. It would be\nlittle if He did that simply with the painting of some glorious vision\nupon the skies beyond; but that He comes into your life and mine, into\nour homes and our shops, into our offices and on our streets, and there\nmakes known in the actual circumstances of our daily life what we ought\nto do and what we ought not to do--that is the wonder of his revelation;\nthat is what proclaims him to be the Son of God and the Son of man.\nThink, as you sit here, of anything that you are doing that is wrong, of\nany habit of your life, of your self-indulgence, or of that great,\npervasive habit of your life which makes you a creature of the present\ninstead of the eternities, a creature of the material earth instead of\nthe glorious skies. Ask of yourself of any habit that belongs to your\nown personal life, and bring it face to face with Jesus Christ and see\nif it is not judged. A judgment day that is far away, that is off in the\ndim distance when this world is done--it shall come, no doubt. I know\nnone of us can know much with regard to it, except that it is sure. But\nthe judgment day that is here now is Christ; the judgment day that is\nright close to your life and rebukes you, if you will let Him rebuke you\nevery time you sin, the judgment day that is here and praises you and\nbids you be of good courage, when you do a thing that men disown and\ndespise, is Christ. Therefore it is no figure of speech, it is no mere\necstasy of the imagination of the preacher, when we say that in the\nmidst of these streets of ours, more real than the men that walk in\nthem, more real than the sidewalks that are under our feet, and the\nbuildings that tower over us, there walks an unseen presence. An unseen\npresence? Yes. Are you and I going to be such creatures of our senses\nthat we shall not believe that there are powers that touch us that we\ncannot see? Am I going to be so bound down to these poor fingers and to\nthese poor eyes that I shall know myself in no larger connection with\nthe great, unseen world? I will not. No great man, no manly man, has\never allowed such a limitation of himself. There is the unseen presence\nin the midst of our life, and he who will feel it may feel it, and that\nunseen presence speaks to him continually. It knows every one of us. It\nknows the rich man and knows what his wealth has made of him. It knows\nwhether it has made him selfish. Shall I say it? He, the Christ, the\npresent Christ, knows whether the rich man's riches have made him\nselfish and base and mean, covetous and poor and little-souled, or\nwhether he has been glad to rise to the greatness of his privilege, and\nbe the very utterance of the beneficence of God upon the earth. He knows\nthe poor man and his struggles, he knows the poor man and his\nself-respect. He speaks to the poor man's soul, who has been kept poor\nbecause he will not enter into the baser methods and motives of our\nmodern life, and is despised, and says to him, \"Be of good courage, for\nI know what you are.\" He speaks to the poor in distress and poverty. He\nspeaks to the wretched in their disappointment and their pain. He is\ntheir comforter. He knows every sin. He knows every sorrow of our life.\nHe goes, unseen on earth, into the chambers where the dead lie dead, and\nwhere the sick lie dying, and He speaks His words of consolation, He\nopens up the glory of the perfect life. He lays his hand upon the\nmourner whose soul is bowed down to the earth and says, \"Look up,\" and\npoints into eternity and heaven. All these things Christ can do not\nmerely, but Christ is doing. He is the inspiring power of this life,\nthat keeps it from rotting in its corruption and degradation. We dwell\ntoo much, I think, upon some of these things; we cannot dwell too much,\nperhaps, but we dwell out of proportion, it may be, to the thought of\nJesus Christ, the comforter of sorrow. He is the comforter of sorrow,\nfor he knew and he knows what sorrow is. In His own crucifixion, in that\nwhich came before His crucifixion, He knew the suffering of this earthly\nlife. There is no human being who ever has known the misery of man as\nJesus knows it, and so He comes to all sorrows with tender consolation.\nGod grant, God grant He may come to any of you who have come into these\ndoors to-day with a sorrow, with a fear, with a dread upon your hearts,\nwith souls that are wrung, with bodies that are suffering! God grant\nthat the Christ may comfort you, may comfort you! But not only that.\nShall there be no Christ for those who for the moment seem to need no\ncomfort?\n\nShall there be no Christ for the strong men who have before them the\nduties of their life, and who want the strength with which to do them?\nShall there be no Christ for the young men, the young men standing in\ndanger, but also standing in such magnificent and splendid chances? It\nis great to think of Christ standing by the sorrowing and comforting\nthem. It is great,--we will not say it is greater,--it is very great,\nwhen by the side of the young man just entering into life there stands\nthe Christ, saying to his soul, with the voice that he cannot fail to\nhear: \"Be pure, be strong, be wise, be independent; rejoice in Me and My\nappreciation. Let the world go, if it is necessary that the world should\ngo. Serve the world, but do not be the servant of the world. Make the\nworld your servant by helping the world in every way in which you can\nminister to its life. Be brave, be strong, be manly by My strength.\" Oh!\nyoung man, if you can hear the Christ speak to you like that behind all\nthe traditions of the street, behind the teachings of the books, behind\nall that the wise and successful men say to you, behind all the cynics\nand sneerers say to you, the great, strong, healthy voice of Jesus\nChrist, who believes in man because He has known man filled with\ndivinity, and believes in you because He knows that which has been set\nbefore you by your Father in the sending out of your life, and who longs\nand prays and waits to strengthen you, that you may do your work, that\nyou may escape from sin, that you may live your life, this great figure\nof the present Christ that Christianity can produce--it is not the\nmemory of something that is away back in the past, it is not the\nanticipation of something to come in the future. We talk about Christ\nthe Saviour, and think about Calvary long ago. We talk about the Christ\nthe Judge, and think of a great white throne set in some mystic valley\nof Jehoshaphat, where some day the world is to be judged. We do not so\nget hold of Christ. The Christ who is in the past is not our Christ\nunless His power holds forth, the power of His spirit, which is the\nwhole knowledge of the life in which we live. We think of the Christ of\nthe future, for whom all the world is waiting. He will never enter into\nus and lead us unless we know that He is here and now. It does seem to\nme sometimes that if men would only take religion as a real and present\nthing, and if, instead of worshipping it in the past and expecting it\nwith fear and dread and vain hope in the future, it could be a real\nthing with them here and now, something in which they are to live, not\nto which they are to flee in moments of doubt, not of which they should\nmake rescue, but in which they should do all their work and live, then\nreligion would be to the soul of man so that it could not be cast aside,\nso that they must enter into it and take it into themselves and make it\ntheir own. Religion is not the simple fire-escape that you build, in\nanticipation of a possible danger, upon the outside of your dwelling and\nleave there until danger comes. You go to it some morning when a fire\nbreaks out in your house, and the poor old thing that you built up\nthere, and thought you could use some day, is so rusty and broken, and\nthe weather has so beaten upon it, and the sun so turned its hinges,\nthat it will not work. That is the condition of a man who has built\nhimself what seems to be a creed of faith, a trust in God in\nanticipation of the day when danger is to overtake him, and has said to\nhimself, I am safe, for I will take refuge in it then. But religion is\nthe house in which we live, it is the table at which we sit, it is the\nfireside to which we draw near, the room that arches its graceful and\nfamiliar presence over us; it is the bed on which we lie and think of\nthe past and anticipate the future and gather our refreshment. There is\nno Christ except the present Christ for every man, unto whom all the\npower of the historic Christ is always appearing, and who is great with\nall the sweet solemnity that comes from the knowledge of what in the\nfuture He is to be to the world and to the soul. I am anxious to-day to\nimpress this upon you: that the Christian faith is not a dogma, it is\nnot primarily a law, but is a personal presence and an immediate life\nthat is right here and now. I am anxious to have you know that to be a\nChristian does not mean primarily to believe this or that. It does not\nmean primarily, although it means necessarily afterward, to do this or\nthat. But it means to know the presence of a true personal Christ among\nus and to follow. Here is the only true power by which a religion can\nbecome perpetual. Men outgrow many dogmas which they hold. The lines in\nwhich they try to live change their application to their lives. But I\nknow a person with a deep, true life; I enter into a friendship with one\nwho is worthy I should be his friend, and he is mine always. What is the\nmeaning of this sort of talk that we hear about a faith that they held\nonce, but they have outgrown? What is the reason of this expectation\nthat seems to have spread itself abroad, of necessity that the boy who\nhad a religion should lose his religion some time or other, and that by\nand by he should take up a man's religion somewhere upon the other side\nof the gulf of infidelity and godlessness, through which he has passed\nin the mean while? You expect your boy of ten years old to be religious\nwith a child's sweet, trusting faith; and you hope that your man of\nforty and fifty, beaten by the world, is to have found a God who can be\nhis salvation. But the years between? What do you think of your young\nmen of fifteen, twenty, twenty-five, and thirty years old? To have\noutgrown the boy's faith, and not to have come to the man's faith? That\nseems almost to be an awful fate and destiny which you expect for them.\nBut if our faith be this, then there shall be no need, no chance that a\nman shall outgrow it. Know Christ with the first conceptions, imperfect\nand crude, of his boy's life, and he shall go on knowing more and more\nof that Christ. That friend, the Christ he knows at twenty-five, shall\nbe different from the Christ he knew at ten, just exactly as the friend\nI know at fifty is different from the friend I knew at thirty, twenty\nyears ago; and yet He is the same friend still, forever opening the\nrichness of an ever richer life, filling it with new experiences, with\nnew manifestations of Himself. Let him drop something which seemed to\nhim to be a part of the religion, but was only a temporary phase or\ncondition of it, going forward with the soul all through the opening\nstages of life, and at last going forward with the soul into the life\nwhere it shall see as all along it has been seen, and know as it has\nbeen known. The old legend was that the clothes of the Israelites, which\nthe Bible said waxed not old upon them in the desert during those forty\nyears, not merely waxed not old those forty years, but grew with their\ngrowth, so that the little Hebrew who crossed the Red Sea in his boy's\nclothes wore the same clothes when he entered into the Promised Land. It\nis the parable of that which comes to the man who has a true Christian\nfaith, a faith which comes in the personal friendship of Christ, a faith\nwhich comes not in the belief of certain things about Him, not in the\ndoing slavishly of certain things which it seemed as if it had been said\nby Him that we must do, but in the personal entrance into His nature in\na life for Him, in which He is able to send His life down into us.\n\nThen there is another thing that people are always thinking, that I hear\nvery often from men, and that I have no doubt that I should hear from\nmany of you, one by one. You talk about your earlier religion as if it\nhad been some sort of a bondage from which you had escaped. How common\nit is to hear men, especially in this region, say: \"I would be, perhaps,\nreligious, except that there was so much religion forced upon me in my\nearliest days. I was driven to church when I was a boy, in those old\nPuritan days. I went to school, where they forced prayers upon me all\nthe time. I was made to be religious, so now I cannot be religious.\" Was\nthere ever a more dreadful thing than for a soul to say that, because,\nit may be, of the unwisdom, or the imprudence, the overzeal and the\nmistaken zeal of other men, we have not got the full blessing of that\nrich, open, free life with Christ which the youth may have, and\ntherefore we will abandon the privileges of our higher life which is\ngiven to us in our manlier years? It all comes of this awful way of\ntalking as if religion were the duty and not the inestimable privilege\nof human kind. The Christ stands before us and says, \"Come to me.\" You\nsay, \"Must I?\" And He answers, \"You may.\" He will not even say, \"You\nmust.\" You may. And duty loses itself in privilege, and the soul enters\ninto independence and escapes from its sins, fulfils its life, lays hold\nof its salvation, becomes eternal, begins to live an eternal life in the\naccepted and loving service of Christ.\n\nNow just one word, my friends. If this be so, whether you to-day are\nready to make Christ your master and your friend or not, do not, I beg\nyou, let yourself say that it is a silly or unreasonable belief, thus to\nknow of a spiritual presence which is here among us, in which God is\nreally in humanity. Do not let yourselves say, my friends, that the man\nwho gives himself to Jesus Christ and earnestly tries to enter in deeper\nand deeper into his life and tries to do his will, that he may know the\nChrist and know himself in the Christ more and more--dare not call that\nbrother a fool, as you have sometimes called your Christian man who\nwatched scrupulously over his life and prayed, yes, prayed, the thing\nyou think perhaps the foolishest thing that man can do, the thing that\nis the most reasonable act that any man does upon God's earth. If man is\nman and God is God, to live without prayer is not merely an awful thing:\nit is an infinitely foolish thing. When a man for the first time bows\ndown upon his knees and prays, \"Oh! Christ, come unto me, reveal Thyself\nto me, make me to know Thee, that I may receive Thee, make me to be\nobedient that I may take Thee into my life,\" then that man has claimed\nhis manhood. I beg you, I implore you, I adjure you that, if you be not\nready to be Christian, you at least will know that the Christian life is\nthe only true human life, and that the man who becomes thoroughly a\nChristian sets his face toward the fulfilment of his humanity, and so\nfor the first time truly is a man. \"As many as received Him,\"--so the\ngreat Scripture word runs of this Christ of whom we have been\ntalking,--\"As many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the\nsons of God.\"\n\nJust think of it!--the sons of God! The power to become that to as many\nas will receive the present Christ.\n\n\n\n\nVI. ABRAHAM LINCOLN.[1]\n\n\"He chose David also His servant, and took him away from the sheepfolds;\nthat he might feed Jacob His people, and Israel His inheritance. So he\nfed them with a faithful and true heart, and ruled them prudently with\nall his power.\"--PSALM lxxviii. 71, 72, 73.\n\n\nWhile I speak to you to-day, the body of the President who ruled this\npeople, is lying, honored and loved, in our city. It is impossible with\nthat sacred presence in our midst for me to stand and speak of ordinary\ntopics which occupy the pulpit. I must speak of him to-day; and I\ntherefore undertake to do what I had intended to do at some future time,\nto invite you to study with me the character of Abraham Lincoln, the\nimpulses of his life and the causes of his death. I know how hard it is\nto do it rightly, how impossible it is to do it worthily. But I shall\nspeak with confidence, because I speak to those who love him, and whose\nready love will fill out the deficiencies in a picture which my words\nwill weakly try to draw.\n\nWe take it for granted, first of all, that there is an essential\nconnection between Mr. Lincoln's character and his violent and bloody\ndeath. It is no accident, no arbitrary decree of Providence. He lived as\nhe did, and he died as he did, because he was what he was. The more we\nsee of events, the less we come to believe in any fate or destiny except\nthe destiny of character. It will be our duty, then, to see what there\nwas in the character of our great President that created the history of\nhis life, and at last produced the catastrophe of his cruel death. After\nthe first trembling horror, the first outburst of indignant sorrow, has\ngrown calm, these are the questions which we are bound to ask and\nanswer.\n\nIt is not necessary for me even to sketch the biography of Mr. Lincoln.\nHe was born in Kentucky fifty-six years ago, when Kentucky was a pioneer\nState. He lived, as boy and man, the hard and needy life of a\nbackwoodsman, a farmer, a river boatman, and, finally, by his own\nefforts at self-education, of an active, respected, influential citizen,\nin the half-organized and manifold interests of a new and energetic\ncommunity. From his boyhood up he lived in direct and vigorous contact\nwith men and things, not as in older States and easier conditions with\nwords and theories; and both his moral convictions and his intellectual\npinions gathered from that contact a supreme degree of that character by\nwhich men knew him, that character which is the most distinctive\npossession of the best American nature, that almost indescribable\nquality which we call in general clearness or truth, and which appears\nin the physical structure as health, in the moral constitution as\nhonesty, in the mental structure as sagacity, and in the region of\nactive life as practicalness. This one character, with many sides, all\nshaped by the same essential force and testifying to the same inner\ninfluences, was what was powerful in him and decreed for him the life he\nwas to live and the death he was to die. We must take no smaller view\nthan this of what he was. Even his physical conditions are not to be\nforgotten in making up his character. We make too little always of the\nphysical; certainly we make too little of it here if we lose out of\nsight the strength and muscular activity, the power of doing and\nenduring, which the backwoods-boy inherited from generations of\nhard-living ancestors, and appropriated for his own by a long discipline\nof bodily toil. He brought to the solution of the question of labor in\nthis country not merely a mind, but a body thoroughly in sympathy with\nlabor, full of the culture of labor, bearing witness to the dignity and\nexcellence of work in every muscle that work had toughened and every\nsense that work had made clear and true. He could not have brought the\nmind for his task so perfectly, unless he had first brought the body\nwhose rugged and stubborn health was always contradicting to him the\nfalse theories of labor, and always asserting the true.\n\nAs to the moral and mental powers which distinguished him, all\nembraceable under this general description of clearness of truth, the\nmost remarkable thing is the way in which they blend with one another,\nso that it is next to impossible to examine them in separation. A great\nmany people have discussed very crudely whether Abraham Lincoln was an\nintellectual man or not; as if intellect were a thing always of the same\nsort, which you could precipitate from the other constituents of a man's\nnature and weigh by itself, and compare by pounds and ounces in this man\nwith another. The fact is, that in all the simplest characters that line\nbetween the mental and moral natures is always vague and indistinct.\nThey run together, and in their best combinations you are unable to\ndiscriminate, in the wisdom which is their result, how much is moral and\nhow much is intellectual. You are unable to tell whether in the wise\nacts and words which issue from such a life there is more of the\nrighteousness that comes of a clear conscience, or of the sagacity that\ncomes of a clear brain. In more complex characters and under more\ncomplex conditions, the moral and the mental lives come to be less\nhealthily combined. They co-operate, they help each other less. They\ncome even to stand over against each other as antagonists; till we have\nthat vague but most melancholy notion which pervades the life of all\nelaborate civilization, that goodness and greatness, as we call them,\nare not to be looked for together, till we expect to see and so do see a\nfeeble and narrow conscientiousness on the one hand, and a bad,\nunprincipled intelligence on the other, dividing the suffrages of men.\n\nIt is the great boon of such characters as Mr. Lincoln's, that they\nreunite what God has joined together and man has put asunder. In him was\nvindicated the greatness of real goodness and the goodness of real\ngreatness. The twain were one flesh. Not one of all the multitudes who\nstood and looked up to him for direction with such a loving and implicit\ntrust can tell you to-day whether the wise judgments that he gave came\nmost from a strong head or a sound heart. If you ask them, they are\npuzzled. There are men as good as he, but they do bad things. There are\nmen as intelligent as he, but they do foolish things. In him goodness\nand intelligence combined and made their best result of wisdom. For\nperfect truth consists not merely in the right constituents of\ncharacter, but in their right and intimate conjunction. This union of\nthe mental and moral into a life of admirable simplicity is what we most\nadmire in children; but in them it is unsettled and unpractical. But\nwhen it is preserved into manhood, deepened into reliability and\nmaturity, it is that glorified childlikeness, that high and reverend\nsimplicity, which shames and baffles the most accomplished astuteness,\nand is chosen by God to fill his purposes when he needs a ruler for his\npeople, of faithful and true heart, such as he had who was our\nPresident.\n\nAnother evident quality of such a character as this will be its\nfreshness or newness; if we may so speak. Its freshness or\nreadiness--call it what you will--its ability to take up new duties and\ndo them in a new way, will result of necessity from its truth and\nclearness. The simple natures and forces will always be the most pliant\nones. Water bends and shapes itself to any channel. Air folds and adapts\nitself to each new figure. They are the simplest and the most infinitely\nactive things in nature. So this nature, in very virtue of its\nsimplicity, must be also free, always fitting itself to each new need.\nIt will always start from the most fundamental and eternal conditions,\nand work in the straightest even although they be the newest ways, to\nthe present prescribed purpose. In one word, it must be broad and\nindependent and radical. So that freedom and radicalness in the\ncharacter of Abraham Lincoln were not separate qualities, but the\nnecessary results of his simplicity and childlikeness and truth.\n\nHere then we have some conception of the man. Out of this character came\nthe life which we admire and the death which we lament to-day. He was\ncalled in that character to that life and death. It was just the nature,\nas you see, which a new nation such as ours ought to produce. All the\nconditions of his birth, his youth, his manhood, which made him what he\nwas, were not irregular and exceptional, but were the normal conditions\nof a new and simple country. His pioneer home in Indiana was a type of\nthe pioneer land in which he lived. If ever there was a man who was a\npart of the time and country he lived in, this was he. The same simple\nrespect for labor won in the school of work and incorporated into blood\nand muscle; the same unassuming loyalty to the simple virtues of\ntemperance and industry and integrity; the same sagacious judgment\nwhich had learned to be quick-eyed and quick-brained in the constant\npresence of emergency; the same direct and clear thought about things,\nsocial, political, and religious, that was in him supremely, was in the\npeople he was sent to rule. Surely, with such a type-man for ruler,\nthere would seem to be but a smooth and even road over which he might\nlead the people whose character he represented into the new region of\nnational happiness and comfort and usefulness, for which that character\nhad been designed.\n\nBut then we come to the beginning of all trouble. Abraham Lincoln was\nthe type-man of the country, but not of the whole country. This\ncharacter which we have been trying to describe was the character of an\nAmerican under the discipline of freedom. There was another American\ncharacter which had been developed under the influence of slavery. There\nwas no one American character embracing the land. There were two\ncharacters, with impulses of irrepressible and deadly conflict. This\ncitizen whom we have been honoring and praising represented one. The\nwhole great scheme with which he was ultimately brought in conflict, and\nwhich has finally killed him, represented the other. Beside this nature,\ntrue and fresh and new, there was another nature, false and effete and\nold. The one nature found itself in a new world, and set itself to\ndiscover the new ways for the new duties that were given it. The other\nnature, full of the false pride of blood, set itself to reproduce in a\nnew world the institutions and the spirit of the old, to build anew the\nstructure of the feudalism which had been corrupt in its own day, and\nwhich had been left far behind by the advancing conscience and needs of\nthe progressing race. The one nature magnified labor, the other nature\ndepreciated and despised it. The one honored the laborer, and the other\nscorned him. The one was simple and direct; the other, complex, full of\nsophistries and self-excuses. The one was free to look all that claimed\nto be truth in the face, and separate the error from the truth that\nmight be in it; the other did not dare to investigate, because its own\nestablished prides and systems were dearer to it than the truth itself,\nand so even truth went about in it doing the work of error. The one was\nready to state broad principles, of the brotherhood of man, the\nuniversal fatherhood and justice of God, however imperfectly it might\nrealize them in practice; the other denied even the principles, and so\ndug deep and laid below its special sins the broad foundation of a\nconsistent, acknowledged sinfulness. In a word, one nature was full of\nthe influences of Freedom, the other nature was full of the influences\nof Slavery.\n\nIn general, these two regions of our national life were separated by a\ngeographical boundary. One was the spirit of the North, the other was\nthe spirit of the South. But the Southern nature was by no means all a\nSouthern thing. There it had an organized, established form, a certain\ndefinite, established institution about which it clustered. Here,\nlacking advantage, it lived in less expressive ways and so lived more\nweakly. There, there was the horrible sacrament of slavery, the outward\nand visible sign round which the inward and spiritual temper gathered\nand kept itself alive. But who doubts that among us the spirit of\nslavery lived and thrived? Its formal existence had been swept away from\none State after another, partly on conscientious, partly on economical\ngrounds, but its spirit was here, in every sympathy that Northern winds\ncarried to the listening ear of the Southern slave-holder, and in every\noppression of the weak by the strong, every proud assumption of idleness\nover labor which echoed the music of Southern life back to us. Here in\nour midst lived that worse and falser nature, side by side with the true\nand better nature which God meant should be the nature of Americans, of\nwhich he was shaping out the type and champion in his chosen David of\nthe sheepfold.\n\nHere then we have the two. The history of our country for many years is\nthe history of how these two elements of American life approached\ncollision. They wrought their separate reactions on each other. Men\ndebate and quarrel even now about the rise of Northern Abolitionism,\nabout whether the Northern Abolitionists were right or wrong, whether\nthey did harm or good. How vain the quarrel is! It was inevitable. It\nwas inevitable in the nature of things that two such natures living here\ntogether should be set violently against each other. It is inevitable,\ntill man be far more unfeeling and untrue to his convictions than he has\nalways been, that a great wrong asserting itself vehemently should\narouse to no less vehement assertion the opposing right. The only wonder\nis that there was not more of it. The only wonder is that so few were\nswept away to take by an impulse they could not resist their stand of\nhatred to the wicked institution. The only wonder is, that only one\nbrave, reckless man came forth to cast himself, almost single-handed,\nwith a hopeless hope, against the proud power that he hated, and trust\nto the influence of a soul marching on into the history of his\ncountrymen to stir them to a vindication of the truth he loved. At any\nrate, whether the Abolitionists were wrong or right, there grew up\nabout their violence, as there always will about the extremism of\nextreme reformers, a great mass of feeling, catching their spirit and\nasserting it firmly, though in more moderate degrees and methods. About\nthe nucleus of Abolitionism grew up a great American Anti-Slavery\ndetermination, which at last gathered strength enough to take its stand\nto insist upon the checking and limiting the extension of the power of\nslavery, and to put the type-man, whom God had been preparing for the\ntask, before the world, to do the work on which it had resolved. Then\ncame discontent, secession, treason. The two American natures, long\nadvancing to encounter, met at last, and a whole country, yet trembling\nwith the shock, bears witness how terrible the meeting was.\n\nThus I have tried briefly to trace out the gradual course by which God\nbrought the character which He designed to be the controlling character\nof this new world into distinct collision with the hostile character\nwhich it was to destroy and absorb, and set it in the person of its\ntype-man in the seat of highest power. The character formed under the\ndiscipline of Freedom and the character formed under the discipline of\nSlavery developed all their difference and met in hostile conflict when\nthis war began. Notice, it was not only in what he did and was towards\nthe slave, it was in all he did and was everywhere that we accept Mr.\nLincoln's character as the true result of our free life and\ninstitutions. Nowhere else could have come forth that genuine love of\nthe people, which in him no one could suspect of being either the cheap\nflattery of the demagogue or the abstract philanthropy of the\nphilosopher, which made our President, while he lived, the centre of a\ngreat household land, and when he died so cruelly, made every humblest\nhousehold thrill with a sense of personal bereavement which the death of\nrulers is not apt to bring. Nowhere else than out of the life of freedom\ncould have come that personal unselfishness and generosity which made so\ngracious a part of this good man's character. How many soldiers feel yet\nthe pressure of a strong hand that clasped theirs once as they lay sick\nand weak in the dreary hospital! How many ears will never lose the\nthrill of some kind word he spoke--he who could speak so kindly to\npromise a kindness that always matched his word! How often he surprised\nthe land with a clemency which made even those who questioned his policy\nlove him the more for what they called his weakness,--seeing how the man\nin whom God had most embodied the discipline of Freedom not only could\nnot be a slave, but could not be a tyrant! In the heartiness of his\nmirth and his enjoyment of simple joys; in the directness and shrewdness\nof perception which constituted his wit; in the untired, undiscouraged\nfaith in human nature which he always kept; and perhaps above all in the\nplainness and quiet, unostentatious earnestness and independence of his\nreligious life, in his humble love and trust of God--in all, it was a\ncharacter such as only Freedom knows how to make.\n\nNow it was in this character, rather than in any mere political\nposition, that the fitness of Mr. Lincoln to stand forth in the struggle\nof the two American natures really lay. We are told that he did not come\nto the Presidential chair pledged to the abolition of Slavery. When will\nwe learn that with all true men it is not what they intend to do, but it\nis what the qualities of their natures bind them to do, that determines\ntheir career! The President came to his power full of the blood, strong\nin the strength of Freedom. He came there free, and hating slavery. He\ncame there, leaving on record words like these spoken three years before\nand never contradicted. He had said, \"A house divided against itself\ncannot stand. I believe this Government cannot endure permanently, half\nslave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved; I do not\nexpect the house to fall; but I expect it will cease to be divided. It\nwill become all one thing or all the other.\" When the question came, he\nknew which thing he meant that it should be. His whole nature settled\nthat question for him. Such a man must always live as he used to say he\nlived (and was blamed for saying it) \"controlled by events, not\ncontrolling them.\" And with a reverent and clear mind, to be controlled\nby events means to be controlled by God. For such a man there was no\nhesitation when God brought him up face to face with Slavery and put the\nsword into his hand and said, \"Strike it down dead.\" He was a willing\nservant then. If ever the face of a man writing solemn words glowed with\na solemn joy, it must have been the face of Abraham Lincoln, as he bent\nover the page where the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 was growing\ninto shape, and giving manhood and freedom as he wrote it to hundreds of\nthousands of his fellow-men. Here was a work in which his whole nature\ncould rejoice. Here was an act that crowned the whole culture of his\nlife. All the past, the free boyhood in the woods, the free youth upon\nthe farm, the free manhood in the honorable citizen's employments--all\nhis freedom gathered and completed itself in this. And as the swarthy\nmultitudes came in, ragged, and tired, and hungry, and ignorant, but\nfree forever from anything but the memorial scars of the fetters and the\nwhip, singing rude songs in which the new triumph of freedom struggled\nand heaved below the sad melody that had been shaped for bondage; as in\ntheir camps and hovels there grew up to their half-superstitious eyes\nthe image of a great Father almost more than man, to whom they owed\ntheir freedom,--were they not half right? For it was not to one man,\ndriven by stress of policy, or swept off by a whim of pity, that the\nnoble act was due. It was to the American nature, long kept by God in\nhis own intentions till his time should come, at last emerging into\nsight and power, and bound up and embodied in this best and most\nAmerican of all Americans, to whom we and those poor frightened slaves\nat last might look up together and love to call him, with one voice, our\nFather.\n\nThus, we have seen something of what the character of Mr. Lincoln was,\nand how it issued in the life he lived. It remains for us to see how it\nresulted also in the terrible death which has laid his murdered body\nhere in our town among lamenting multitudes to-day. It is not a hard\nquestion, though it is sad to answer. We saw the two natures, the nature\nof Slavery and the nature of Freedom, at last set against each other,\ncome at last to open war. Both fought, fought long, fought bravely; but\neach, as was perfectly natural, fought with the tools and in the ways\nwhich its own character had made familiar to it. The character of\nSlavery was brutal, barbarous, and treacherous; and so the whole history\nof the slave power during the war has been full of ways of warfare\nbrutal, barbarous, and treacherous, beyond anything that men bred in\nfreedom could have been driven to by the most hateful passions. It is\nnot to be marvelled at. It is not to be set down as the special sin of\nthe war. It goes back beyond that. It is the sin of the system. It is\nthe barbarism of Slavery. When Slavery went to war to save its life,\nwhat wonder if its barbarism grew barbarous a hundred-fold!\n\nOne would be attempting a task which once was almost hopeless, but which\nnow is only needless, if he set himself to convince a Northern\ncongregation that Slavery was a barbarian institution. It would be\nhardly more necessary to try to prove how its barbarism has shown itself\nduring this war. The same spirit which was blind to the wickedness of\nbreaking sacred ties, of separating man and wife, of beating women till\nthey dropped down dead, of organizing licentiousness and sin into\ncommercial systems, of forbidding knowledge and protecting itself with\nignorance, of putting on its arms and riding out to steal a State at the\nbeleaguered ballot-box away from freedom--in one word (for its simplest\ndefinition is its worst dishonor), the spirit that gave man the\nownership in man in time of peace, has found out yet more terrible\nbarbarisms for the time of war. It has hewed and burned the bodies of\nthe dead. It has starved and mutilated its helpless prisoners. It has\ndealt by truth, not as men will in a time of excitement, lightly and\nwith frequent violations, but with a cool, and deliberate, and\nsystematic contempt. It has sent its agents into Northern towns to fire\npeaceful hotels where hundreds of peaceful men and women slept. It has\nundermined the prisons where its victims starved, and made all ready to\nblow with one blast their wretched life away. It has delighted in the\nlowest and basest scurrility even on the highest and most honorable\nlips. It has corrupted the graciousness of women and killed out the\ntruth of men.\n\nI do not count up the terrible catalogue because I like to, nor because\nI wish to stir your hearts to passion. Even now, you and I have no right\nto indulge in personal hatred to the men who did these things. But we\nare not doing right by ourselves, by the President that we have lost,\nor by God who had a purpose in our losing him, unless we know thoroughly\nthat it was this same spirit which we have seen to be a tyrant in peace\nand a savage in war, that has crowned itself with the working of this\nfinal woe. It was the conflict of the two American natures, the false\nand the true. It was Slavery and Freedom that met in their two\nrepresentatives, the assassin and the President; and the victim of the\nlast desperate struggle of the dying Slavery lies dead to-day in\nIndependence Hall.\n\nSolemnly, in the sight of God, I charge this murder where it belongs, on\nSlavery. I dare not stand here in His sight, and before Him or you speak\ndoubtful and double-meaning words of vague repentance, as if we had\nkilled our President. We have sins enough, but we have not done this\nsin, save as by weak concessions and timid compromises we have let the\nspirit of Slavery grow strong and ripe for such a deed. In the barbarism\nof Slavery the foul act and its foul method had their birth. By all the\ngoodness that there was in him; by all the love we had for him (and who\nshall tell how great it was); by all the sorrow that has burdened down\nthis desolate and dreadful week,--I charge this murder where it belongs,\non Slavery. I bid you to remember where the charge belongs, to write it\non the door-posts of your mourning houses, to teach it to your\nwondering children, to give it to the history of these times, that all\ntimes to come may hate and dread the sin that killed our noblest\nPresident.\n\nIf ever anything were clear, this is the clearest. Is there the man\nalive who thinks that Abraham Lincoln was shot just for himself; that it\nwas that one man for whom the plot was laid? The gentlest, kindest, most\nindulgent man that ever ruled a State! The man who knew not how to speak\na word of harshness or how to make a foe! Was it he for whom the\nmurderer lurked with a mere private hate? It was not he, but what he\nstood for. It was Law and Liberty, it was Government and Freedom,\nagainst which the hate gathered and the treacherous shot was fired. And\nI know not how the crime of him who shoots at Law and Liberty in the\ncrowded glare of a great theatre differs from theirs who have levelled\ntheir aim at the same great beings from behind a thousand ambuscades and\non a hundred battle-fields of this long war. Every general in the field,\nand every false citizen in our midst at home, who has plotted and\nlabored to destroy the lives of the soldiers of the Republic, is brother\nto him who did this deed. The American nature, the American truths, of\nwhich our President was the anointed and supreme embodiment, have been\nembodied in multitudes of heroes who marched unknown and fell unnoticed\nin our ranks. For them, just as for him, character decreed a life and a\ndeath. The blood of all of them I charge on the same head. Slavery armed\nwith Treason was their murderer.\n\nMen point out to us the absurdity and folly of this awful crime. Again\nand again we hear men say, \"It was the worst thing for themselves they\ncould have done. They have shot a representative man, and the cause he\nrepresented grows stronger and sterner by his death. Can it be that so\nwise a devil was so foolish here? Must it not have been the act of one\npoor madman, born and nursed in his own reckless brain?\" My friends, let\nus understand this matter. It was a foolish act. Its folly was only\nequalled by its wickedness. It was a foolish act. But when did sin begin\nto be wise? When did wickedness learn wisdom? When did the fool stop\nsaying in his heart, \"There is no God,\" and acting godlessly in the\nabsurdity of his impiety? The cause that Abraham Lincoln died for shall\ngrow stronger by his death,--stronger and sterner. Stronger to set its\npillars deep into the structure of our nation's life; sterner to execute\nthe justice of the Lord upon his enemies. Stronger to spread its arms\nand grasp our whole land into freedom; sterner to sweep the last poor\nghost of Slavery out of our haunted homes. But while we feel the folly\nof this act, let not its folly hide its wickedness. It was the\nwickedness of Slavery putting on a foolishness for which its wickedness\nand that alone is responsible, that robbed the nation of a President and\nthe people of a father. And remember this, that the folly of the Slave\npower in striking the representative of Freedom, and thinking that\nthereby it killed Freedom itself, is only a folly that we shall echo if\nwe dare to think that in punishing the representatives of Slavery who\ndid this deed, we are putting Slavery to death. Dispersing armies and\nhanging traitors, imperatively as justice and necessity may demand them\nboth, are not killing the spirit out of which they sprang. The traitor\nmust die because he has committed treason. The murderer must die because\nhe has committed murder. Slavery must die, because out of it, and it\nalone, came forth the treason of the traitor and the murder of the\nmurderer. Do not say that it is dead. It is not, while its essential\nspirit lives. While one man counts another man his born inferior for the\ncolor of his skin, while both in North and South prejudices and\npractices, which the law cannot touch, but which God hates, keep alive\nin our people's hearts the spirit of the old iniquity, it is not dead.\nThe new American nature must supplant the old. We must grow like our\nPresident, in his truth, his independence, his religion, and his wide\nhumanity. Then the character by which he died shall be in us, and by it\nwe shall live. Then peace shall come that knows no war, and law that\nknows no treason; and full of his spirit a grateful land shall gather\nround his grave, and in the daily psalm of prosperous and righteous\nliving, thank God forever for his life and death.\n\nSo let him lie here in our midst to-day, and let our people go and bend\nwith solemn thoughtfulness and look upon his face and read the lessons\nof his burial. As he paused here on his journey from the Western home\nand told us what by the help of God he meant to do, so let him pause\nupon his way back to his Western grave and tell us with a silence more\neloquent than words how bravely, how truly, by the strength of God, he\ndid it. God brought him up as he brought David up from the sheepfolds to\nfeed Jacob, his people, and Israel, his inheritance. He came up in\nearnestness and faith, and he goes back in triumph. As he pauses here\nto-day, and from his cold lips bids us bear witness how he has met the\nduty that was laid on him, what can we say out of our full hearts but\nthis--\"He fed them with a faithful and true heart, and ruled them\nprudently with all his power.\" The _Shepherd of the People_! that old\nname that the best rulers ever craved. What ruler ever won it like this\ndead President of ours? He fed us faithfully and truly. He fed us with\ncounsel when we were in doubt, with inspiration when we sometimes\nfaltered, with caution when we would be rash, with calm, clear, trustful\ncheerfulness through many an hour when our hearts were dark. He fed\nhungry souls all over the country with sympathy and consolation. He\nspread before the whole land feasts of great duty and devotion and\npatriotism, on which the land grew strong. He fed us with solemn, solid\ntruths. He taught us the sacredness of government, the wickedness of\ntreason. He made our souls glad and vigorous with the love of liberty\nthat was in his. He showed us how to love truth and yet be\ncharitable--how to hate wrong and all oppression, and yet not treasure\none personal injury or insult. He fed _all_ his people, from the highest\nto the lowest, from the most privileged down to the most enslaved. Best\nof all, he fed us with a reverent and genuine religion. He spread before\nus the love and fear of God just in that shape in which we need them\nmost, and out of his faithful service of a higher Master who of us has\nnot taken and eaten and grown strong? \"He fed them with a faithful and\ntrue heart.\" Yes, till the last. For at the last, behold him standing\nwith hand reached out to feed the South with mercy and the North with\ncharity, and the whole land with peace, when the Lord who had sent him\ncalled him and his work was done!\n\nHe stood once on the battle-field of our own State, and said of the\nbrave men who had saved it words as noble as any countryman of ours ever\nspoke. Let us stand in the country he has saved, and which is to be his\ngrave and monument, and say of Abraham Lincoln what he said of the\nsoldiers who had died at Gettysburg. He stood there with their graves\nbefore him, and these are the words he said:--\n\n     \"We cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this\n     ground. The brave men who struggled here have consecrated it far\n     beyond our power to add or detract. The world will little note nor\n     long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they\n     did here. It is for us the living rather to be dedicated to the\n     unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly\n     advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great\n     task remaining before us, that from these honored dead we take\n     increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full\n     measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead\n     shall not have died in vain; and this nation, under God, shall have\n     a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the\n     people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth.\"\n\nMay God make us worthy of the memory of Abraham Lincoln!\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote 1: A sermon preached in Philadelphia, while the body of the\nPresident was lying in the city.]","title":"Addresses by the Right Reverend Phillips Brooks","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":38830}