{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_16739/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_16739","id":"gutenberg_16739","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/16739","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Christian life","Christianity","Love -- Religious aspects"],"text":"Produced by David Garcia, Jeannie Howse and the Online\nDistributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nThe Greatest Thing\nIn the World\nAnd Other Addresses\n\nBY\n\nHENRY DRUMMOND\n\n\n\n\nNEW YORK      CHICAGO\nFleming H. Revell Company\nLONDON AND EDINBURGH\n\n\n\n\nCopyrighted 1891 and 1898\nBy Fleming H. Revell Company.\n\nPrinted in the United States of America\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n\nLOVE, THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD                 7\n\nLESSONS FROM THE ANGELUS                             35\n\nPAX VOBISCUM                                         44\n\nFIRST! AN ADDRESS TO BOYS                            70\n\nTHE CHANGED LIFE, THE GREATEST NEED OF THE WORLD     82\n\nDEALING WITH DOUBT                                  113\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTORY.\n\n\nI was staying with a party of friends in a country house during my\nvisit to England in 1884. On Sunday evening as we sat around the fire,\nthey asked me to read and expound some portion of Scripture. Being\ntired after the services of the day, I told them to ask Henry\nDrummond, who was one of the party. After some urging he drew a small\nTestament from his hip pocket, opened it at the 13th chapter of I\nCorinthians, and began to speak on the subject of Love.\n\nIt seemed to me that I had never heard anything so beautiful, and I\ndetermined not to rest until I brought Henry Drummond to Northfield to\ndeliver that address. Since then I have requested the principals of my\nschools to have it read before the students every year. The one great\nneed in our Christian life is love, more love to God and to each\nother. Would that we could all move into that Love chapter, and live\nthere.\n\nThis volume contains, in addition to the address on Love, some other\naddresses which I trust will bring help and blessing to many.\n\n(signed) D.L. Moody.\n\n\n\n\nLOVE:\n\nTHE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD.\n\n\nEvery one has asked himself the great question of antiquity as of the\nmodern world: What is the _summum bonum_--the supreme good? You have\nlife before you. Once only you can live it. What is the noblest object\nof desire, the supreme gift to covet?\n\nWe have been accustomed to be told that the greatest thing in the\nreligious world is Faith. That great word has been the key-note for\ncenturies of the popular religion; and we have easily learned to look\nupon it as the greatest thing in the world. Well, we are wrong. If we\nhave been told that, we may miss the mark. In the 13th chapter of I\nCorinthians, Paul takes us to\n\n          CHRISTIANITY AT ITS SOURCE;\n\nand there we see, \"The greatest of these is love.\"\n\nIt is not an oversight. Paul was speaking of faith just a moment\nbefore. He says, \"If I have all faith, so that I can remove mountains,\nand have not love, I am nothing.\" So far from forgetting, he\ndeliberately contrasts them, \"Now abideth Faith, Hope, Love,\" and\nwithout a moment's hesitation the decision falls, \"The greatest of\nthese is Love.\"\n\nAnd it is not prejudice. A man is apt to recommend to others his own\nstrong point. Love was not Paul's strong point. The observing student\ncan detect a beautiful tenderness growing and ripening all through his\ncharacter as Paul gets old; but the hand that wrote, \"The greatest of\nthese is love,\" when we meet it first, is stained with blood.\n\nNor is this letter to the Corinthians peculiar in singling out love as\nthe _summum bonum_. The masterpieces of Christianity are agreed about\nit. Peter says, \"Above all things have fervent love among yourselves.\"\n_Above all things._ And John goes farther, \"God is love.\"\n\nYou remember the profound remark which Paul makes elsewhere, \"Love is\nthe fulfilling of the law.\" Did you ever think what he meant by that?\nIn those days men were working the passage to Heaven by keeping the\nTen Commandments, and the hundred and ten other commandments which\nthey had manufactured out of them. Christ came and said, \"I will show\nyou a more simple way. If you do one thing, you will do these hundred\nand ten things, without ever thinking about them. If you _love_, you\nwill unconsciously fulfill the whole law.\"\n\nYou can readily see for yourselves how that must be so. Take any of\nthe commandments. \"Thou shalt have no other gods before Me.\" If a man\nlove God, you will not require to tell him that. Love is the\nfulfilling of that law. \"Take not His name in vain.\" Would he ever\ndream of taking His name in vain if he loved him? \"Remember the\nSabbath day to keep it holy.\" Would he not be too glad to have one day\nin seven to dedicate more exclusively to the object of his affection?\nLove would fulfill all these laws regarding God.\n\nAnd so, if he loved man, you would never think of telling him to honor\nhis father and mother. He could not do anything else. It would be\npreposterous to tell him not to kill. You could only insult him if you\nsuggested that he should not steal--how could he steal from those he\nloved? It would be superfluous to beg him not to bear false witness\nagainst his neighbor. If he loved him it would be the last thing he\nwould do. And you would never dream of urging him not to covet what\nhis neighbors had. He would rather they possessed it than himself. In\nthis way \"Love is the fulfilling of the law.\" It is the rule for\nfulfilling all rules, the new commandment for keeping all the old\ncommandments, Christ's one\n\n          SECRET OF THE CHRISTIAN LIFE.\n\nNow Paul has learned that; and in this noble eulogy he has given us\nthe most wonderful and original account extant of the _summum bonum_.\nWe may divide it into three parts. In the beginning of the short\nchapter we have Love _contrasted_; in the heart of it, we have Love\n_analyzed_; toward the end, we have Love _defended_ as the supreme\ngift.\n\n\nI. THE CONTRAST.\n\nPaul begins by contrasting Love with other things that men in those\ndays thought much of. I shall not attempt to go over these things in\ndetail. Their inferiority is already obvious.\n\nHe contrasts it with _eloquence_. And what a noble gift it is, the\npower of playing upon the souls and wills of men, and rousing them to\nlofty purposes and holy deeds! Paul says, \"If I speak with the tongues\nof men and of angels, and have not love, I am become sounding brass,\nor a tinkling cymbal.\" We all know why. We have all felt the\nbrazenness of words without emotion, the hollowness, the unaccountable\nunpersuasiveness, of eloquence behind which lies no Love.\n\nHe contrasts it with _prophecy_. He contrasts it with _mysteries_. He\ncontrasts it with _faith_. He contrasts it with _charity_. Why is Love\ngreater than faith? Because the end is greater than the means. And why\nis it greater than charity? Because the whole is greater than the\npart.\n\nLove is greater than _faith_, because the end is greater than the\nmeans. What is the use of having faith? It is to connect the soul with\nGod. And what is the object of connecting man with God? That he may\nbecome like God. But God is Love. Hence Faith, the means, is in order\nto Love, the end. Love, therefore, obviously is greater than faith.\n\"If I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I\nam nothing.\"\n\nIt is greater than _charity_, again, because the whole is greater than\na part. Charity is only a little bit of Love, one of the innumerable\navenues of Love, and there may even be, and there is, a great deal of\ncharity without Love. It is a very easy thing to toss a copper to a\nbeggar on the street; it is generally an easier thing than not to do\nit. Yet Love is just as often in the withholding. We purchase relief\nfrom the sympathetic feelings roused by the spectacle of misery, at\nthe copper's cost. It is too cheap--too cheap for us, and often too\ndear for the beggar. If we really loved him we would either do more\nfor him, or less. Hence, \"If I bestow all my goods to feed the poor,\nbut have not love it profiteth me nothing.\"\n\nThen Paul contrasts it with _sacrifice_ and martyrdom: \"If I give my\nbody to be burned, but have not love, it profiteth me nothing.\"\nMissionaries can take nothing greater to the heathen world than the\nimpress and reflection of the Love of God upon their own character.\nThat is the universal language. It will take them years to speak in\nChinese, or in the dialects of India. From the day they land, that\nlanguage of Love, understood by all, will be pouring forth its\nunconscious eloquence.\n\nIt is the man who is the missionary, it is not his words. His\ncharacter is his message. In the heart of Africa, among the great\nLakes, I have come across black men and women who remembered the only\nwhite man they ever saw before--David Livingstone; and as you cross\nhis footsteps in that dark continent,\n\n          MEN'S FACES LIGHT UP\n\nas they speak of the kind doctor who passed there years ago. They\ncould not understand him; but they felt the love that beat in his\nheart. They knew that it was love, although he spoke no word.\n\nTake into your sphere of labor, where you also mean to lay down your\nlife, that simple charm, and your lifework must succeed. You can take\nnothing greater, you need take nothing less. You may take every\naccomplishment; you may be braced for every sacrifice; but if you give\nyour body to be burned, and have not Love, it will profit you and the\ncause of Christ _nothing_.\n\n\nII. THE ANALYSIS.\n\nAfter contrasting Love with these things, Paul, in three verses, very\nshort, gives us an amazing analysis of what this supreme thing is.\n\nI ask you to look at it. It is a compound thing, he tells us. It is\nlike light. As you have seen a man of science take a beam of light and\npass it through a crystal prism, as you have seen it come out on the\nother side of the prism broken up into its component colors--red, and\nblue, and yellow, and violet, and orange, and all the colors of the\nrainbow--so Paul passes this thing, Love, through the magnificent\nprism of his inspired intellect, and it comes out on the other side\nbroken up into its elements.\n\nIn these few words we have what one might call\n\n          THE SPECTRUM OF LOVE,\n\nthe analysis of Love. Will you observe what its elements are? Will you\nnotice that they have common names; that they are virtues which we\nhear about every day; that they are things which can be practised by\nevery man in every place in life; and how, by a multitude of small\nthings and ordinary virtues, the supreme thing, the _summum bonum_, is\nmade up?\n\nThe Spectrum of Love has nine ingredients:\n\nPatience            \"Love suffereth long.\"\nKindness            \"And is kind.\"\nGenerosity          \"Love envieth not.\"\nHumility            \"Love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up.\"\nCourtesy            \"Doth not behave itself unseemly.\"\nUnselfishness       \"Seeketh not its own.\"\nGood temper         \"Is not provoked.\"\nGuilelessness       \"Taketh not account of evil.\"\nSincerity           \"Rejoiceth not in unrighteousness, but rejoiceth\n                     with the truth.\"\n\nPatience; kindness; generosity; humility; courtesy; unselfishness;\ngood temper; guilelessness; sincerity--these make up the supreme\ngift, the stature of the perfect man.\n\nYou will observe that all are in relation to men, in relation to life,\nin relation to the known to-day and the near to-morrow, and not to the\nunknown eternity. We hear much of love to God; Christ spoke much of\nlove to man. We make a great deal of peace with heaven; Christ made\nmuch of peace on earth. Religion is not a strange or added thing, but\nthe inspiration of the secular life, the breathing of an eternal\nspirit through this temporal world. The supreme thing, in short, is\nnot a thing at all, but the giving of a further finish to the\nmultitudinous words and acts which make up the sum of every common\nday.\n\n_Patience_. This is the normal attitude of love; Love passive, Love\nwaiting to begin; not in a hurry; calm; ready to do its work when the\nsummons comes, but meantime wearing the ornament of a meek and quiet\nspirit. Love suffers long; beareth all things; believeth all things;\nhopeth all things. For Love understands, and therefore waits.\n\n_Kindness_. Love active. Have you ever noticed how much of Christ's\nlife was spent in doing kind things--in _merely_ doing kind things?\nRun over it with that in view, and you will find that He spent a great\nproportion of His time simply in making people happy, in\n\n          DOING GOOD TURNS\n\nto people. There is only one thing greater than happiness in the\nworld, and that is holiness; and it is not in our keeping; but what\nGod _has_ put in our power is the happiness of those about us, and\nthat is largely to be secured by our being kind to them.\n\n\"The greatest thing,\" says some one, \"a man can do for his Heavenly\nFather is to be kind to some of His other children.\" I wonder why it\nis that we are not all kinder than we are? How much the world needs\nit! How easily it is done! How instantaneously it acts! How infallibly\nit is remembered! How superabundantly it pays itself back--for there\nis no debtor in the world so honorable, so superbly honorable, as\nLove. \"Love never faileth.\" Love is success, Love is happiness, Love\nis life. \"Love,\" I say with Browning, \"is energy of life.\"\n\n    \"For life, with all it yields of joy or woe\n    And hope and fear,\n    Is just our chance o' the prize of learning love,--\n    How love might be, hath been indeed, and is.\"\n\nWhere Love is, God is. He that dwelleth in Love dwelleth in God. God\nis Love. Therefore _love_. Without distinction, without calculation,\nwithout procrastination, love. Lavish it upon the poor, where it is\nvery easy; especially upon the rich, who often need it most; most of\nall upon our equals, where it is very difficult, and for whom perhaps\nwe each do least of all. There is a difference between _trying to\nplease_ and _giving pleasure_. Give pleasure. Lose no chance of giving\npleasure; for that is the ceaseless and anonymous triumph of a truly\nloving spirit. \"I shall pass through this world but once. Any good\nthing, therefore, that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to\nany human being, let me do it now. Let me not defer it or neglect it,\nfor I shall not pass this way again.\"\n\n_Generosity_. \"Love envieth not.\" This is love in competition with\nothers. Whenever you attempt a good work you will find other men\ndoing the same kind of work, and probably doing it better. Envy them\nnot. Envy is a feeling of ill-will to those who are in the same line\nas ourselves, a spirit of covetousness and detraction. How little\nChristian work even is a protection against un-Christian feeling! That\nmost despicable of all the unworthy moods which cloud a Christian's\nsoul assuredly waits for us on the threshold of every work, unless we\nare fortified with this grace of magnanimity. Only one thing truly\nneed the Christian envy--the large, rich, generous soul which \"envieth\nnot.\"\n\nAnd then, after having learned all that, you have to learn this\nfurther thing, _Humility_--to put a seal upon your lips and forget\nwhat you have done. After you have been kind, after Love has stolen\nforth into the world and done its beautiful work, go back into the\nshade again and say nothing about it. Love hides even from itself.\nLove waives even self-satisfaction. \"Love vaunteth not itself, is not\npuffed up.\" Humility--love hiding.\n\nThe fifth ingredient is a somewhat strange one to find in this _summum\nbonum_: _Courtesy_. This is Love in society, Love in relation to\netiquette. \"Love does not behave itself unseemly.\"\n\nPoliteness has been defined as love in trifles. Courtesy is said to be\nlove in little things. And the one secret of politeness is to love.\n\nLove _cannot_ behave itself unseemly. You can put the most untutored\npersons into the highest society, and if they have a reservoir of Love\nin their heart they will not behave themselves unseemly. They simply\ncannot do it. Carlisle said of Robert Burns that there was no truer\ngentleman in Europe than the ploughman-poet. It was because he loved\neverything--the mouse, and the daisy, and all the things, great and\nsmall, that God had made. So with this simple passport he could mingle\nwith any society, and enter courts and palaces from his little cottage\non the banks of the Ayr.\n\nYou know the meaning of the word \"gentleman.\" It means a gentle man--a\nman who does things gently, with love. That is the whole art and\nmystery of it. The gentle man cannot in the nature of things do an\nungentle, an ungentlemanly thing. The ungentle soul, the\ninconsiderate, unsympathetic nature, cannot do anything else. \"Love\ndoth not behave itself unseemly.\"\n\n_Unselfishness._ \"Love seeketh not her own.\" Observe: Seeketh not even\nthat which is her own. In Britain the Englishman is devoted, and\nrightly, to his rights. But there come times when a man may exercise\neven\n\n          THE HIGHER RIGHT\n\nof giving up his rights.\n\nYet Paul does not summon us to give up our rights. Love strikes much\ndeeper. It would have us not seek them at all, ignore them, eliminate\nthe personal element altogether from our calculations.\n\nIt is not hard to give up our rights. They are often eternal. The\ndifficult thing is to give up _ourselves_. The more difficult thing\nstill is not to seek things for ourselves at all. After we have sought\nthem, bought them, won them, deserved them, we have taken the cream\noff them for ourselves already. Little cross then to give them up. But\nnot to seek them, to look every man not on his own things, but on the\nthings of others--that is the difficulty. \"Seekest thou great things\nfor thyself?\" said the prophet; \"_seek them not_.\" Why? Because there\nis no greatness in _things_. Things cannot be great. The only\ngreatness is unselfish love. Even self-denial in itself is nothing, is\nalmost a mistake. Only a great purpose or a mightier love can justify\nthe waste.\n\nIt is more difficult, I have said, not to seek our own at all than,\nhaving sought it, to give it up. I must take that back. It is only\ntrue of a partly selfish heart. Nothing is a hardship to Love, and\nnothing is hard. I believe that Christ's \"yoke\" is easy. Christ's yoke\nis just His way of taking life. And I believe it is an easier way than\nany other. I believe it is a happier way than any other. The most\nobvious lesson in Christ's teaching is that there is no happiness in\nhaving and getting anything, but only in giving. I repeat, _there is\nno happiness in having or in getting, but only in giving_. Half the\nworld is on the wrong scent in pursuit of happiness. They think it\nconsists in having and getting, and in being served by others. It\nconsists in giving, and in serving others. \"He that would be great\namong you,\" said Christ, \"let him serve.\" He that would be happy, let\nhim remember that there is but one way--\"it is more blessed, it is\nmore happy, to give than to receive.\"\n\nThe next ingredient is a very remarkable one: _Good temper._ \"Love is\nnot provoked.\"\n\nNothing could be more striking than to find this here. We are inclined\nto look upon bad temper as a very harmless weakness. We speak of it as\na mere infirmity of nature, a family failing, a matter of temperament,\nnot a thing to take into very serious account in estimating a man's\ncharacter. And yet here, right in the heart of this analysis of love,\nit finds a place; and the Bible again and again returns to condemn it\nas one of the most destructive elements in human nature.\n\nThe peculiarity of ill temper is that it is the vice of the virtuous.\nIt is often the one blot on an otherwise noble character. You know men\nwho are all but perfect, and women who would be entirely perfect, but\nfor an easily ruffled, quick-tempered, or \"touchy\" disposition. This\ncompatibility of ill temper with high moral character is one of the\nstrangest and saddest problems of ethics. The truth is, there are two\ngreat classes of sins--sins of the _Body_ and sins of the\n_Disposition_. The Prodigal Son may be taken as a type of the first,\nthe Elder Brother of the second. Now, society has no doubt whatever as\nto which of these is the worse. Its brand falls, without a challenge,\nupon the Prodigal. But are we right? We have no balance to weigh one\nanother's sins, and coarser and finer are but human words; but faults\nin the higher nature may be less venal than those in the lower, and to\nthe eye of Him who is Love, a sin against Love may seem a hundred\ntimes more base. No form of vice, not worldliness, not greed of gold,\nnot drunkenness itself, does more to un-Christianize society than evil\ntemper. For embittering life, for breaking up communities, for\ndestroying the most sacred relationships, for devastating homes, for\nwithering up men and women, for taking the bloom of childhood, in\nshort,\n\n          FOR SHEER GRATUITOUS MISERY-PRODUCING POWER\n\nthis influence stands alone.\n\nLook at the Elder Brother--moral, hard-working, patient, dutiful--let\nhim get all credit for his virtues--look at this man, this baby,\nsulking outside his own father's door. \"He was angry,\" we read, \"and\nwould not go in.\" Look at the effect upon the father, upon the\nservants, upon the happiness of the guests. Judge of the effect upon\nthe Prodigal--and how many prodigals are kept out of the Kingdom of\nGod by the unlovely character of those who profess to be inside.\nAnalyze, as a study in Temper, the thunder-cloud itself as it gathers\nupon the Elder Brother's brow. What is it made of? Jealousy, anger,\npride, uncharity, cruelty, self-righteousness, touchiness, doggedness,\nsullenness--these are the ingredients of this dark and loveless soul.\nIn varying proportions, also, these are the ingredients of all ill\ntemper. Judge if such sins of the disposition are not worse to live\nin, and for others to live with, than the sins of the body. Did Christ\nindeed not answer the question Himself when He said, \"I say unto you\nthat the publicans and the harlots go into the Kingdom of Heaven\nbefore you\"? There is really no place in heaven for a disposition like\nthis. A man with such a mood could only make heaven miserable for all\nthe people in it. Except, therefore, such a man be\n\n          BORN AGAIN,\n\nhe cannot, simply _cannot_, enter the kingdom of heaven.\n\nYou will see then why Temper is significant. It is not in what it is\nalone, but in what it reveals. This is why I speak of it with such\nunusual plainness. It is a test for love, a symptom, a revelation of\nan unloving nature at bottom. It is the intermittent fever which\nbespeaks unintermittent disease within; the occasional bubble\nescaping to the surface which betrays some rottenness underneath; a\nsample of the most hidden products of the soul dropped involuntarily\nwhen off one's guard; in a word, the lightning form of a hundred\nhideous and un-Christian sins. A want of patience, a want of kindness,\na want of generosity, a want of courtesy, a want of unselfishness, are\nall instantaneously symbolized in one flash of Temper.\n\nHence it is not enough to deal with the Temper. We must go to the\nsource, and change the inmost nature, and the angry humors will die\naway of themselves. Souls are made sweet not by taking the acid fluids\nout, but by putting something in--a great Love, a new Spirit, the\nSpirit of Christ. Christ, the Spirit of Christ, interpenetrating ours,\nsweetens, purifies, transforms all. This only can eradicate what is\nwrong, work a chemical change, renovate and regenerate, and\nrehabilitate the inner man. Will-power does not change men. Time does\nnot change men.\n\n          CHRIST DOES.\n\nTherefore, \"Let that mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.\"\n\nSome of us have not much time to lose. Remember, once more, that this\nis a matter of life or death. I cannot help speaking urgently, for\nmyself, for yourselves. \"Whoso shall offend one of these little ones,\nwhich believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were\nhanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the\nsea.\" That is to say, it is the deliberate verdict of the Lord Jesus\nthat it is better not to live than not to love. _It is better not to\nlive than not to love._\n\n_Guilelessness_ and _Sincerity_ may be dismissed almost without a\nword. Guilelessness is the grace for suspicious people. The possession\nof it is\n\n          THE GREAT SECRET OF PERSONAL INFLUENCE.\n\nYou will find, if you think for a moment, that the people who\ninfluence you are people who believe in you. In an atmosphere of\nsuspicion men shrivel up; but in that atmosphere they expand, and find\nencouragement and educative fellowship.\n\nIt is a wonderful thing that here and there in this hard, uncharitable\nworld there should still be left a few rare souls who think no evil.\nThis is the great unworldliness. Love \"thinketh no evil,\" imputes no\nmotive, sees the bright side, puts the best construction on every\naction. What a delightful state of mind to live in! What a stimulus\nand benediction even to meet with it for a day! To be trusted is to be\nsaved. And if we try to influence or elevate others, we shall soon see\nthat success is in proportion to their belief of our belief in them.\nThe respect of another is the first restoration of the self-respect a\nman has lost; our ideal of what he is becomes to him the hope and\npattern of what he may become.\n\n\"Love rejoiceth not in unrighteousness, but rejoiceth with the truth.\"\nI have called this _Sincerity_ from the words rendered in the\nAuthorized Version by \"rejoiceth in the truth.\" And, certainly, were\nthis the real translation, nothing could be more just; for he who\nloves will love Truth not less than men. He will rejoice in the\nTruth--rejoice not in what he has been taught to believe; not in this\nchurch's doctrine or in that; not in this ism or in that ism; but \"in\n_the Truth_.\" He will accept only what is real; he will strive to get\nat facts; he will search for _Truth_ with a humble and unbiased mind,\nand cherish whatever he finds at any sacrifice. But the more literal\ntranslation of the Revised Version calls for just such a sacrifice for\ntruth's sake here. For what Paul really meant is, as we there read,\n\"Rejoiceth not in unrighteousness, but rejoiceth with the truth,\" a\nquality which probably no one English word--and certainly not\n_Sincerity_--adequately defines. It includes, perhaps more strictly,\nthe self-restraint which refuses to make capital out of others'\nfaults; the charity which delights not in exposing the weakness of\nothers, but \"covereth all things\"; the sincerity of purpose which\nendeavors to see things as they are, and rejoices to find them better\nthan suspicion feared or calumny denounced.\n\nSo much for the analysis of Love. Now the business of our lives is to\nhave these things fitted into our characters. That is the supreme work\nto which we need to address ourselves in this world, to learn Love. Is\nlife not full of opportunities for learning Love? Every man and woman\nevery day has a thousand of them. The world is not a playground; it is\na schoolroom. Life is not a holiday, but an education. And\n\n          THE ONE ETERNAL LESSON\n\nfor us all is _how better we can love_.\n\nWhat makes a man a good cricketer? Practice. What makes a man a good\nartist, a good sculptor, a good musician? Practice. What makes a man a\ngood linguist, a good stenographer? Practice. What makes a man a good\nman? Practice. Nothing else. There is nothing capricious about\nreligion. We do not get the soul in different ways, under different\nlaws, from those in which we get the body and the mind. If a man does\nnot exercise his arm he develops no biceps muscle; and if a man does\nnot exercise his soul, he acquires no muscle in his soul, no strength\nof character, no vigor of moral fibre, no beauty of spiritual growth.\nLove is not a thing of enthusiastic emotion. It is a rich, strong,\nmanly, vigorous expression of the whole round Christian character--the\nChristlike nature in its fullest development. And the constituents of\nthis great character are only to be built up by\n\n          CEASELESS PRACTICE.\n\nWhat was Christ doing in the carpenter's shop? Practising. Though\nperfect, we read that He _learned_ obedience, and grew in wisdom and\nin favor with God. Do not quarrel, therefore, with your lot in life.\nDo not complain of its never-ceasing cares, its petty environment, the\nvexations you have to stand, the small and sordid souls you have to\nlive and work with. Above all, do not resent temptation; do not be\nperplexed because it seems to thicken round you more and more, and\nceases neither for effort nor for agony nor prayer. That is your\npractice. That is the practice which God appoints you; and it is\nhaving its work in making you patient, and humble, and generous, and\nunselfish, and kind, and courteous. Do not grudge the hand that is\nmoulding the still too shapeless image within you. It is growing more\nbeautiful, though you see it not; and every touch of temptation may\nadd to its perfection. Therefore keep in the midst of life. Do not\nisolate yourself. Be among men and among things, and among troubles,\nand difficulties, and obstacles. You remember Goethe's words: \"Talent\ndevelops itself in solitude; character in the stream of life.\" Talent\ndevelops itself in solitude--the talent of prayer, of faith, of\nmeditation, of seeing the unseen; character grows in the stream of the\nworld's life. That chiefly is where men are to learn love.\n\nHow? Now, how? To make it easier, I have named a few of the elements\nof love. But these are only elements. Love itself can never be\ndefined. Light is a something more than the sum of its ingredients--a\nglowing, dazzling, tremulous ether. And love is something more than\nall its elements--a palpitating, quivering, sensitive, living thing.\nBy synthesis of all the colors, men can make whiteness, they cannot\nmake light. By synthesis of all the virtues, men can make virtue, they\ncannot make love. How then are we to have this transcendent living\nwhole conveyed into our souls? We brace our wills to secure it. We try\nto copy those who have it. We lay down rules about it. We watch. We\npray. But these things alone will not bring love into our nature. Love\nis an _effect_. And only as we fulfill the right condition can we have\nthe effect produced. Shall I tell you what the _cause_ is?\n\nIf you turn to the Revised Version of the First Epistle of John you\nfind these words: \"We love because He first loved us.\" \"We love,\" not\n\"We love _Him_.\" That is the way the old version has it, and it is\nquite wrong. \"_We love_--because He first loved us.\" Look at that word\n\"because.\" It is the _cause_ of which I have spoken. \"_Because_ He\nfirst loved us,\" the effect follows that we love, we love Him, we love\nall men. We cannot help it. Because He loved us, we love, we love\neverybody. Our heart is slowly changed. Contemplate the love of\nChrist, and you will love. Stand before that mirror, reflect Christ's\ncharacter, and you will be changed into the same image from tenderness\nto tenderness. There is no other way. You cannot love to order. You\ncan only look at the lovely object, and fall in love with it, and grow\ninto likeness to it. And so look at this Perfect Character, this\nPerfect Life. Look at\n\n          THE GREAT SACRIFICE\n\nas He laid down Himself, all through life, and upon the Cross of\nCalvary; and you must love Him. And loving Him, you must become like\nHim. Love begets love. It is a process of induction. Put a piece of\niron in the presence of an electrified body, and that piece of iron\nfor a time becomes electrified. It is changed into a temporary magnet\nin the mere presence of a permanent magnet, and as long as you leave\nthe two side by side, they are both magnets alike. Remain side by side\nwith Him who loved us, and\n\n          GAVE HIMSELF FOR US,\n\nand you, too, will become a permanent magnet, a permanently attractive\nforce; and like Him you will draw all men unto you, like Him you will\nbe drawn unto all men. That is the inevitable effect of Love. Any man\nwho fulfills that cause must have that effect produced in him.\n\nTry to give up the idea that religion comes to us by chance, or by\nmystery, or by caprice. It comes to us by natural law, or by\nsupernatural law, for all law is Divine.\n\nEdward Irving went to see a dying boy once, and when he entered the\nroom he just put his hand on the sufferer's head, and said, \"My boy,\nGod loves you,\" and went away. The boy started from his bed, and\ncalled out to the people in the house,\n\n\"God loves me! God loves me!\"\n\nOne word! It changed that boy. The sense that God loved him\noverpowered him, melted him down, and began the creating of a new\nheart in him. And that is how the love of God melts down the unlovely\nheart in man, and begets in him the new creature, who is patient and\nhumble and gentle and unselfish. And there is no other way to get it.\nThere is no mystery about it. We love others, we love everybody, we\nlove our enemies, _because He first loved us_.\n\n\nIII. THE DEFENCE.\n\nNow I have a closing sentence or two to add about Paul's reason for\nsingling out love as the supreme possession.\n\nIt is a very remarkable reason. In a single word it is this: _it\nlasts._ \"Love,\" urges Paul, \"never faileth.\" Then he begins again one\nof his marvelous lists of the great things of the day, and exposes\nthem one by one. He runs over the things that men thought were going\nto last, and shows that they are all fleeting, temporary, passing\naway.\n\n\"Whether there be _prophecies_, they shall be done away.\" It was the\nmother's ambition for her boy in those days that he should become a\nprophet. For hundreds of years God had never spoken by means of any\nprophet, and at that time the prophet was greater than the king. Men\nwaited wistfully for another messenger to come, and hung upon his lips\nwhen he appeared, as upon the very voice of God. Paul says, \"Whether\nthere be prophecies, they shall fail.\" The Bible is full of\nprophecies. One by one they have \"failed\"; that is, having been\nfulfilled, their work is finished; they have nothing more to do now in\nthe world except to feed a devout man's faith.\n\nThen Paul talks about _tongues_. That was another thing that was\ngreatly coveted. \"Whether there be tongues, they shall cease.\" As we\nall know, many many centuries have passed since tongues have been\nknown in this world. They have ceased. Take it in any sense you like.\nTake it, for illustration merely, as languages in general--a sense\nwhich was not in Paul's mind at all, and which though it cannot give\nus the specific lesson, will point the general truth. Consider the\nwords in which these chapters were written--Greek. It has gone. Take\nthe Latin--the other great tongue of those days. It ceased long ago.\nLook at the Indian language. It is ceasing. The language of Wales, of\nIreland, of the Scottish Highlands is dying before our eyes. The most\npopular book in the English tongue at the present time, except the\nBible, is one of Dickens' works, his _Pickwick Papers_. It is largely\nwritten in the language of London street-life; and experts assure us\nthat in fifty years it will be unintelligible to the average English\nreader.\n\nThen Paul goes farther, and with even greater boldness adds, \"Whether\nthere be _knowledge_, it shall be done away.\" The wisdom of the\nancients, where is it? It is wholly gone. A schoolboy to-day knows\nmore than Sir Isaac Newton knew; his knowledge has vanished away. You\nput yesterday's newspaper in the fire: its knowledge has vanished\naway. You buy the old editions of the great encyclopaedias for a few\ncents: their knowledge has vanished away. Look how the coach has been\nsuperseded by the use of steam. Look how electricity has superseded\nthat, and swept a hundred almost new inventions into oblivion. One of\nthe greatest living authorities, Sir William Thompson, said in\nScotland, at a meeting at which I was present, \"The steam-engine is\npassing away.\" \"Whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.\" At\nevery workshop you will see, in the back yard, a heap of old iron, a\nfew wheels, a few levers, a few cranks, broken and eaten with rust.\nTwenty years ago that was the pride of the city. Men flocked in from\nthe country to see the great invention; now it is superseded, its day\nis done. And all the boasted science and philosophy of this day will\nsoon be old.\n\nIn my time, in the university of Edinburgh, the greatest figure in the\nfaculty was Sir James Simpson, the discoverer of chloroform. Recently\nhis successor and nephew, Professor Simpson, was asked by the\nlibrarian of the University to go to the library and pick out the\nbooks on his subject (midwifery) that were no longer needed. His reply\nto the librarian was this:\n\n\"Take every text-book that is more than ten years old and put it down\nin the cellar.\"\n\nSir James Simpson was a great authority only a few years ago: men came\nfrom all parts of the earth to consult him; and almost the whole\nteaching of that time is consigned by the science of to-day to\noblivion. And in every branch of science it is the same. \"Now we know\nin part. We see through a glass darkly.\" Knowledge does not last.\n\nCan you tell me anything that is going to last? Many things Paul did\nnot condescend to name. He did not mention money, fortune, fame; but\nhe picked out the great things of his time, the things the best men\nthought had something in them, and brushed them peremptorily aside.\nPaul had no charge against these things in themselves. All he said\nabout them was that they would not last. They were great things, but\nnot supreme things. There were things beyond them. What we are\nstretches past what we do, beyond what we possess. Many things that\nmen denounce as sins are not sins; but they are temporary. And that is\na favorite argument of the New Testament. John says of the world, not\nthat it is wrong, but simply that it \"passeth away.\" There is a great\ndeal in the world that is delightful and beautiful; there is a great\ndeal in it that is great and engrossing; but\n\n          IT WILL NOT LAST.\n\nAll that is in the world, the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh,\nand the pride of life, are but for a little while. Love not the world\ntherefore. Nothing that it contains is worth the life and consecration\nof an immortal soul. The immortal soul must give itself to something\nthat is immortal. And the only immortal things are these: \"Now abideth\nfaith, hope, love, but the greatest of these is love.\"\n\nSome think the time may come when two of these three things will also\npass away--faith into sight, hope into fruition. Paul does not say so.\nWe know but little now about the conditions of the life that is to\ncome. But what is certain is that Love must last. God, the Eternal\nGod, is Love. Covet, therefore, that everlasting gift, that one thing\nwhich it is certain is going to stand, that one coinage which will be\ncurrent in the Universe when all the other coinages of all the\nnations of the world shall be useless and unhonored. You will give\nyourselves to many things, give yourself first to Love. Hold things in\ntheir proportion. _Hold things in their proportion._ Let at least the\nfirst great object of our lives be to achieve the character defended\nin these words, the character--and it is the character of\nChrist--which is built round Love.\n\nI have said this thing is eternal. Did you ever notice how continually\nJohn associates love and faith with eternal life? I was not told when\nI was a boy that \"God so loved the world that He gave His\nonly-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should have\neverlasting life.\" What I was told, I remember, was, that God so loved\nthe world that, if I trusted in Him, I was to have a thing called\npeace, or I was to have rest, or I was to have joy, or I was to have\nsafety. But I had to find out for myself that whosoever trusteth in\nHim--that is, whosoever loveth Him, for trust is only the avenue to\nLove--hath\n\n          EVERLASTING LIFE.\n\nThe Gospel offers a man a life. Never offer a man a thimbleful of\nGospel. Do not offer them merely joy, or merely peace, or merely rest,\nor merely safety; tell them how Christ came to give men a more\nabundant life than they have, a life abundant in love, and therefore\nabundant in salvation for themselves, and large in enterprise for the\nalleviation and redemption of the world. Then only can the Gospel take\nhold of the whole of a man, body, soul and spirit, and give to each\npart of his nature its exercise and reward. Many of the current\nGospels are addressed only to a part of man's nature. They offer\npeace, not life; faith, not Love; justification, not regeneration. And\nmen slip back again from such religion because it has never really\nheld them. Their nature was not all in it. It offered no deeper and\ngladder life-current than the life that was lived before. Surely it\nstands to reason that only a fuller love can compete with the love of\nthe world.\n\nTo love abundantly is to live abundantly, and to love forever is to\nlive forever. Hence, eternal life is inextricably bound up with love.\nWe want to live forever for the same reason that we want to live\nto-morrow. Why do we want to live to-morrow? Is it because there is\nsome one who loves you, and whom you want to see to-morrow, and be\nwith, and love back? There is no other reason why we should live on\nthan that we love and are beloved. It is when a man has no one to love\nhim that he commits suicide. So long as he has friends, those who love\nhim and whom he loves, he will live, because to live is to love. Be it\nbut the love of a dog, it will keep him in life; but let that go, he\nhas no contact with life, no reason to live. He dies by his own hand.\n\nEternal life also is to know God, and God is love. This is Christ's\nown definition. Ponder it. \"This is life eternal, that they might know\nThee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent.\" Love\nmust be eternal. It is what God is. On the last analysis, then, love\nis life. Love never faileth, and life never faileth, so long as there\nis love. That is the philosophy of what Paul is showing us; the reason\nwhy in the nature of things Love should be the supreme thing--because\nit is going to last; because in the nature of things it is an Eternal\nLife. It is a thing that we are living now, not that we get when we\ndie; that we shall have a poor chance of getting when we die unless we\nare living now.\n\n          NO WORSE FATE\n\ncan befall a man in this world than to live and grow old alone,\nunloving and unloved. To be lost is to live in an unregenerate\ncondition, loveless and unloved; and to be saved is to love; and he\nthat dwelleth in love dwelleth already in God. For God is Love.\n\nNow I have all but finished. How many of you will join me in reading\nthis chapter once a week for the next three months? A man did that\nonce and it changed his whole life. Will you do it? It is for the\ngreatest thing in the world. You might begin by reading it every day,\nespecially the verses which describe the perfect character. \"Love\nsuffereth long, and is kind; love envieth not; love vaunteth not\nitself.\" Get these ingredients into your life. Then everything that\nyou do is eternal. It is worth doing. It is worth giving time to. No\nman can become a saint in his sleep; and to fulfill the condition\nrequired demands a certain amount of prayer and meditation and time,\njust as improvement in any direction, bodily or mental, requires\npreparation and care. Address yourselves to that one thing; at any\ncost have this transcendent character exchanged for yours.\n\nYou will find as you look back upon your life that the moments that\nstand out, the moments when you have really lived, are the moments\nwhen you have done things in a spirit of love. As memory scans the\npast, above and beyond all the transitory pleasures of life, there\nleap forward those supreme hours when you have been enabled to do\nunnoticed kindnesses to those round about you, things too trifling to\nspeak about, but which you feel have entered into your eternal life. I\nhave seen almost all the beautiful things God has made; I have enjoyed\nalmost every pleasure that He has planned for man; and yet as I look\nback I see standing out above all the life that has gone four or five\nshort experiences, when the love of God reflected itself in some poor\nimitation, some small act of love of mine, and these seem to be the\nthings which alone of all one's life abide. Everything else in all our\nlives is transitory. Every other good is visionary. But the acts of\nlove which no man knows about, or can ever know about--they never\nfail.\n\nIn the Book of Matthew, where the Judgment Day is depicted for us in\nthe imagery of One seated upon a throne and dividing the sheep from\nthe goats, the test of a man then is not, \"How have I believed?\" but\n\"How have I loved?\" The test of religion, the final test of religion,\nis not religiousness, but Love. I say the final test of religion at\nthat great Day is not religiousness, but Love; not what I have done,\nnot what I have believed, not what I have achieved, but how I have\ndischarged the common charities of life. Sins of commission in that\nawful indictment are not even referred to. By what we have not done,\n_by sins of omission_, we are judged. It could not be otherwise. For\nthe withholding of love is the negation of the spirit of Christ, the\nproof that we never knew Him, that for us He lived in vain. It means\nthat He suggested nothing in all our thoughts, that He inspired\nnothing in all our lives, that we were not once near enough to Him,\nto be seized with the spell of His compassion for the world. It means\nthat--\n\n    \"I lived for myself, I thought for myself,\n    For myself, and none beside--\n    Just as if Jesus had never lived,\n    As if He had never died.\"\n\nThank God the Christianity of today is coming nearer the world's need.\nLive to help that on. Thank God men know better, by a hair's breadth,\nwhat religion is, what God is, who Christ is, where Christ is. Who is\nChrist? He who fed the hungry, clothed the naked, visited the sick.\nAnd where is Christ? Where?--\"Whoso shall receive a little child in My\nname receiveth Me.\" And who are Christ's? \"Every one that loveth is\nborn of God.\"\n\n\n\n\nLESSONS FROM THE ANGELUS.\n\n\nGod often speaks to men's souls through music; He also speaks to us\nthrough art. Millet's famous painting entitled \"The Angelus\" is an\nilluminated text, upon which I am going to say a few words to you\nto-night.\n\nThere are three things in this picture--a potato field, a country lad\nand a country girl standing in the middle of it, and on the far\nhorizon the spire of a village church. That is all there is to it--no\ngreat scenery and no picturesque people. In Roman Catholic countries\nat the evening hour the church bell rings out to remind the people to\npray. Some go into the church, while those that are in the fields bow\ntheir heads for a few moments in silent prayer.\n\nThat picture contains the three great elements which go to make up a\nperfectly rounded Christian life. It is not enough to have the \"root\nof the matter\" in us, but that we must be whole and entire, lacking\nnothing. The Angelus may bring to us suggestions as to what\nconstitutes a complete life.\n\n\nI.\n\nThe first element in a symmetrical life is _work_.\n\nThree-fourths of our time is probably spent in work. Of course the\nmeaning of it is that our work should be just as religious as our\nworship, and unless we can work for the glory of God three-fourths of\nlife remains unsanctified.\n\nThe proof that work is religious is that most of Christ's life was\nspent in work. During a large part of the first thirty years of His\nlife He worked with the hammer and the plane, making ploughs and yokes\nand household furniture. Christ's public ministry occupied only about\ntwo and a half years of His earthly life; the great bulk of His time\nwas simply spent in doing common everyday tasks, and ever since then\nwork has had a new meaning.\n\nWhen Christ came into the world He was revealed to three deputations\nwho went to meet and worship Him. First came the shepherds, or working\nclass; second, the wise men, or student class; and third, the two old\npeople in the temple, Simeon and Anna; that is to say, Christ is\nrevealed to men at their work, He is revealed to men at their books,\nand He is revealed to men at their worship. It was the old people who\nfound Christ at their worship, and as we grow older we will spend more\ntime exclusively in worship than we are able to do now. In the mean\ntime we must combine our worship with our work, and we may expect to\nfind Christ at our books and in our common task.\n\nWhy should God have provided that so many hours of every day should be\noccupied with work? It is because\n\n          WORK MAKES MEN.\n\nA university is not merely a place for making scholars, it is a place\nfor making Christians. A farm is not a place for growing corn, it is a\nplace for growing character, and a man has no character except that\nwhich is developed by his life and thought. God's Spirit does the\nbuilding through the acts which a man performs from day to day. A\nstudent who cons out every word in his Latin and Greek instead of\nconsulting a translation finds that honesty is translated into his\ncharacter. If he works out his mathematical problems thoroughly, he\nnot only becomes a mathematician, but becomes a thorough man. It is by\nconstant and conscientious attention to daily duties that thoroughness\nand conscientiousness and honorableness are imbedded in our beings.\nCharacter is\n\n          THE MUSIC OF THE SOUL,\n\nand is developed by exercise. Active use of the power entrusted to us\nis one of the chief means which God employs for producing the\nChristian graces. Hence the religion of a student demands that he be\ntrue to his work, and that he let his Christianity be shown to his\nfellow students and to his professors by the integrity and the\nconscientiousness of his academic life. A man who is not faithful in\nthat which is least will not be faithful in that which is great. I\nhave known men who struggled unsuccessfully for years to pass their\nexaminations who, when they became Christians, found a new motive for\nwork and thus were able to succeed where previously they had failed. A\nman's Christianity comes out as much in his work as in his worship.\n\nOur work is not only to be done thoroughly, but it is to be done\nhonestly. A man is not only to be honorable in his academic relations,\nbut he must be honest with himself and in his attitude toward the\ntruth. Students are not entitled to dodge difficulties, they must go\ndown to the foundation principles. Perhaps the truths which are dear\nto us go down deeper even than we think, and we will get more out of\nthem if we dig down for the nuggets than we will if we only pick up\nthose that are on the surface. Other theories may perhaps be found to\nhave false bases; if so, we ought to know it. It is well to take our\nsoundings in every direction to see if there is deep water; if there\nare shoals we ought to find out where they are. Therefore, when we\ncome to difficulties, let us not jump lightly over them, but let us be\nhonest as seekers after truth.\n\nIt may not be necessary for people in general to sift the doctrines of\nChristianity for themselves, but a student is a man whose business it\nis to think, to exercise the intellect which God has given him in\nfinding out the truth. Faith is never opposed to reason, though it is\nsometimes supposed by Bible teachers that it is; but you will find it\nis not. Faith is opposed to sight, but not to reason, though it is not\nlimited to reason. In employing his intellect in the search for truth\na student is drawing nearer to the Christ who said, \"I am the way, the\ntruth and the life.\" We talk a great deal about Christ as the way and\nChrist as the life, but there is a side of Christ especially for the\nstudent: \"I am the truth,\" and every student ought to be a truth-lover\nand a truth-seeker for Christ's sake.\n\n\nII.\n\nAnother element in life, which of course is first in importance, is\n_God_.\n\nThe Angelus is perhaps the most religious picture painted this\ncentury. You cannot look at it and see that young man standing in the\nfield with his hat off, and the girl opposite him with her hands\nclasped and her head bowed on her breast, without feeling a sense of\nGod.\n\nDo we carry about with us the thought of God wherever we go? If not,\nwe have missed the greatest part of life. Do we have a conviction of\nGod's abiding presence wherever we are? There is nothing more needed\nin this generation than a larger and more Scriptural idea of God. A\ngreat American writer has told us that when he was a boy the\nconception of God which he got from books and sermons was that of a\nwise and very strict lawyer. I remember well the awful conception of\nGod which I had when a boy. I was given an illustrated edition of\nWatts' hymns, in which God was represented as a great piercing eye in\nthe midst of a great black thunder cloud. The idea which that picture\ngave to my young imagination was that of God as a great detective,\nplaying the spy upon my actions, as the hymn says:\n\n    \"Writing now the story of what little children do.\"\n\nThat was a very mistaken and harmful idea which it has taken me years\nto obliterate. We think of God as \"up there,\" or as one who made the\nworld six thousand years ago and then retired. We must learn that He\nis not confined either to time or space. God is not to be thought of\nas merely back there in time, or up there in space. If not, where is\nHe? \"The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth.\" The Kingdom of God is\nwithin you, and God Himself is among men. When are we to exchange the\nterrible, far-away, absentee God of our childhood for the everywhere\npresent God of the Bible? Too many of the old Christian writers seem\nto have conceived of God as not much more than the greatest man--a\nkind of divine emperor. He is infinitely more; He is a spirit, as\nJesus said to the woman at the well, and in Him we live and move and\nhave our being. Let us think of God as Immanuel--God with us--an\never-present, omnipresent, eternal One. Long, long ago, God made\nmatter, then He made the flowers and trees and animals, then He made\nman. Did He stop? Is God dead? If He lives and acts what is He doing?\nHe is\n\n          MAKING MEN BETTER.\n\nHe it is that \"worketh in you.\" The buds of our nature are not all out\nyet; the sap to make them comes from the God who made us, from the\nindwelling Christ. Our bodies are the temples of the Holy Ghost, and\nwe must bear this in mind, because the sense of God is kept up, not by\nlogic, but by experience.\n\nUntil she was seven years of age the life of Helen Keller, the Boston\ngirl who was deaf and dumb and blind, was an absolute blank; nothing\ncould go into that mind because the ears and eyes were closed to the\nouter world. Then by that great process which has been discovered, by\nwhich the blind see, and the deaf hear, and the mute speak, that\ngirl's soul became opened, and they began to put in little bits of\nknowledge, and bit by bit they began to educate her. They reserved her\nreligious instruction for Phillips Brooks. After some years, when she\nwas twelve years old, they took her to him and he began to talk to her\nthrough the young lady who had been the means of opening her senses,\nand who could communicate with her by the exceedingly delicate process\nof touch. He began to tell her about God and what He had done, and how\nHe loved men, and what He is to us. The child listened very\nintelligently, and finally said:\n\n\"Mr. Brooks, I knew all that before, but I didn't know His name.\"\n\nHow often we have felt something within us impelling us to do\nsomething which we would not have conceived of by ourselves, or\nenabling us to do something which we could not have done alone. \"It is\nGod which worketh in you.\" This great simple fact\n\n          EXPLAINS MANY OF THE MYSTERIES OF LIFE,\n\nand takes away the fear which we would otherwise have in meeting the\ndifficulties which lie before us.\n\nTwo Americans who were crossing the Atlantic met on Sunday night to\nsing hymns in the cabin. As they sang the hymn, \"Jesus, Lover of my\nSoul,\" one of the Americans heard an exceedingly rich and beautiful\nvoice behind him. He looked around, and although he did not know the\nface he thought that he recognized the voice. So when the music ceased\nhe turned around and asked the man if he had not been in the Civil\nwar. The man replied that he had been a Confederate soldier. \"Were you\nat such a place on such a night?\" asked the first. \"Yes,\" he said,\n\"and a curious thing happened that night; this hymn recalled it to my\nmind. I was on sentry duty on the edge of a wood. It was a dark night\nand very cold, and I was a little frightened because the enemy were\nsupposed to be very near at hand. I felt very homesick and miserable,\nand about midnight, when everything was very still, I was beginning to\nfeel very weary and thought that I would comfort myself by praying and\nsinging a hymn. I remember singing this hymn,\n\n    'All my trust on Thee is stayed,\n      All my help from Thee I bring,\n    Cover my defenceless head\n      With the shadow of Thy wing.'\n\nAfter I had sung those words a strange peace came down upon me, and\nthrough the long night I remember having felt no more fear.\"\n\n\"Now,\" said the other man, \"listen to my story. I was a Union soldier,\nand was in the wood that night with a party of scouts. I saw you\nstanding up, although I didn't see your face, and my men had their\nrifles focused upon you waiting the word to fire, but when you sang\nout,\n\n    'Cover my defenceless head\n      With the shadow of Thy wing,'\n\nI said, 'Boys, put down your rifles, we will go home.' I couldn't kill\nyou after that.\"\n\nGod was working in each of them, in His own way carrying out His will.\nGod keeps his people and guides them and without Him life is but a\nliving death.\n\n\nIII.\n\nThe third element in life about which I wish to speak is _love_.\n\nIn this picture we notice the delicate sense of companionship, brought\nout by the young man and the young woman. It matters not whether they\nare brother and sister, or lover and loved; there you have the idea of\nfriendship, the final ingredient in our life, after the two I have\nnamed. If the man or the woman had been standing in that field alone\nit would have been incomplete.\n\nLove is the divine element in life, because \"God is love.\" \"He that\nloveth is born of God,\" therefore, as some one has said, let us \"keep\nour friendships in repair.\" Let us cultivate the spirit of friendship,\nand let the love of Christ develop it into a great love, not only for\nour friends, but for all humanity. Wherever you go and whatever you\ndo, your work will be a failure unless you have this element in your\nlife.\n\nThese three things go far toward forming a well-rounded life. Some of\nus may not have these ingredients in their right proportion, but if\nyou are lacking in one or the other of them, then pray for it and work\nfor it that your life may be rounded and complete as God intended it\nshould be.\n\n\n\n\nPAX VOBISCUM. (Copyright, James Pott & Co. Used by permission.)\n\n\nI once heard a sermon by a distinguished preacher upon \"Rest.\" It was\nfull of beautiful thoughts; but when I came to ask myself, \"How does\nhe say I can get Rest?\" there was no answer. The sermon was sincerely\nmeant to be practical, yet it contained no experience that seemed to\nme to be tangible, nor any advice that I could grasp--any advice, that\nis to say, which could help me to find the thing itself as I went\nabout the world.\n\nYet this omission of what is, after all, the only important problem,\nwas not the fault of the preacher. The whole popular religion is in\nthe twilight here. And when pressed for really working specifics for\nthe experiences with which it deals, it falters, and seems to lose\nitself in mist.\n\nThe want of connection between the great words of religion and\nevery-day life has bewildered and discouraged all of us. Christianity\npossesses the noblest words in the language; its literature overflows\nwith terms expressive of the greatest and happiest moods which can\nfill the soul of man. Rest, Joy, Peace, Faith, Love, Light--these\nwords occur with such persistency in hymns and prayers that an\nobserver might think they formed the staple of Christian experience.\nBut on coming to close quarters with the actual life of most of us,\nhow surely would he be disenchanted. I do not think we ourselves are\naware how much our religious life is\n\n          MADE UP OF PHRASES;\n\nhow much of what we call Christian Experience is only a dialect of the\nChurches, a mere religious phraseology with almost nothing behind it\nin what we really feel and know.\n\nTo some of us, indeed, the Christian experiences seem further away\nthan when we took the first steps in the Christian life. That life has\nnot opened out as we had hoped. We do not regret our religion, but we\nare disappointed with it. There are times, perhaps, when wandering\nnotes from a diviner music stray into our spirits; but these\nexperiences come at few and fitful moments. We have no sense of\npossession in them. When they visit us, it is a surprise. When they\nleave us, it is without explanation. When we wish their return, we do\nnot know how to secure it.\n\nAll which means a religion without solid base, and a poor and\nflickering life. It means a great bankruptcy in those experiences\nwhich give Christianity its personal solace and make it attractive to\nthe world, and a great uncertainty as to any remedy. It is as if we\nknew everything about health--except the way to get it.\n\nI am quite sure that the difficulty does not lie in the fact that men\nare not in earnest. This is simply not the fact. All around us\nChristians are wearing themselves out in trying to be better. The\namount of spiritual longing in the world--in the hearts of unnumbered\nthousands of men and women in whom we should never suspect it; among\nthe wise and thoughtful, among the young and gay, who seldom assuage\nand never betray their thirst--this is one of the most wonderful and\ntouching facts of life. It is not more heat that is needed, but more\nlight; not more force, but a wiser direction to be given to very real\nenergies already there.\n\nThe usual advice when one asks for counsel on these questions is,\n\"Pray.\" But this advice is far from adequate. I shall qualify the\nstatement presently; but let me urge it here, with what you will\nperhaps call daring emphasis, that to pray for these things is not the\nway to get them. No one will get them without praying; but that men do\nnot get them by praying is the simple fact. We have all prayed, and\nsincerely prayed, for such experiences as I have named; prayed,\nbelieving that that was the way to get them. And yet have we got them?\nThe test is experience. I dare not limit prayer; still less the grace\nof God. If you have got them in this way, it is well. I am speaking to\nthose, be they few or many, who have not got them; to ordinary men in\nordinary circumstances. But if we have not got them, it by no means\nfollows that prayer is useless. The correct conclusion is only that it\nis useless, or inadequate rather, for this particular purpose. To make\nprayer the sole resort, the universal panacea for every spiritual ill,\nis as radical a mistake as to prescribe only one medicine for every\nbodily trouble. The physician who does the last is a quack; the\nspiritual adviser who does the first is\n\n          GROSSLY IGNORANT OF HIS PROFESSION.\n\nTo do nothing but pray is a wrong done to prayer itself, and can only\nend in disaster. It is as if one tried to live only with the lungs,\nas if one assimilated only air and neglected solid food. The lungs are\na first essential; the air is a first essential; but the body has many\nmembers, given for different purposes, secreting different things, and\neach has a method of nutrition as special to itself as its own\nactivity. While prayer, then, is the characteristic sublimity of the\nChristian life, it is by no means the only one. And those who make it\nthe sole alternative, and apply it to purposes for which it was never\nmeant, are really doing the greatest harm to prayer itself. To couple\nthe word \"inadequate\" with this mighty word is not to dethrone prayer,\nbut to exalt it.\n\n          WHAT DETHRONES PRAYER\n\nis unanswered prayer. When men pray for things which do not come that\nway--pray with sincere belief that prayer, unaided and alone, will\ncompass what they ask--then, not getting what they ask, they often\ngive up prayer.\n\nThis is the natural history of much atheism, not only an atheism of\natheists, but a more terrible atheism of Christians, an unconscious\natheism, whose roots have struck far into many souls whose last breath\nwould be spent in denying it. So, I repeat, it is a mistaken\nChristianity which allow men to cherish a blind belief in the\nomnipotence of prayer. Prayer, certainly, when the appropriate\nconditions are fulfilled, is omnipotent, but not blind prayer. Blind\nprayer is a superstition. Prayer, in its true sense, contains the sane\nrecognition that while man prays in faith, _God acts by law_. What\nthat means in the immediate connection we shall see presently.\n\nWhat, then, is the remedy? It is impossible to doubt that there is a\nremedy, and it is equally impossible to believe that it is a secret.\nThe idea that some few men, by happy chance or happier temperament,\nhave been given the secret--as if there were some sort of knack or\ntrick of it--is wholly incredible and wrong. Religion must be for all,\nand the way into its loftiest heights must be by a gateway through\nwhich the peoples of the world may pass.\n\nI shall have to lead up to this gateway by a very familiar path. But\nas this path is strangely unfrequented where it passes into the\nreligious sphere, I must ask your forbearance for dwelling for a\nmoment upon the commonest of commonplaces.\n\n\nI. EFFECTS REQUIRE CAUSES.\n\nNothing that happens in the world happens by chance. God is a God of\norder. Everything is arranged upon definite principles, and never at\nrandom. The world, even the religious world, is governed by law.\nCharacter is governed by law. Happiness is governed by law. The\nChristian experiences are governed by law. Men, forgetting this,\nexpect Rest, Joy, Peace, Faith to drop into their souls from the air\nlike snow or rain. But in point of fact they do not do so; and if they\ndid, they would no less have their origin in previous activities and\nbe controlled by natural laws. Rain and snow do drop from the air, but\nnot without a long previous history. They are the mature effects of\nformer causes. Equally so are Rest and Peace and Joy. They, too, have\neach a previous history. Storms and winds and calms are not accidents,\nbut brought about by antecedent circumstances. Rest and Peace are but\ncalms in man's inward nature, and arise through causes as definite and\nas inevitable.\n\nRealize it thoroughly; it is a methodical, not an accidental world. If\na housewife turns out a good cake, it is the result of a sound\nreceipt, carefully applied. She cannot mix the assigned ingredients\nand fire them for the appropriate time without producing the result.\nIt is not she who has made the cake; it is nature. She brings related\nthings together; sets causes at work; these causes bring about the\nresult. She is not a creator, but an intermediary. She does not expect\nrandom causes to produce specific effects--random ingredients would\nonly produce random cakes. So it is in the making of Christian\nexperiences. Certain lines are followed; certain effects are the\nresult. These effects cannot but be the result. But the result can\nnever take place without the previous cause. To expect results without\nantecedents is to expect cakes without ingredients. That impossibility\nis precisely\n\n          THE ALMOST UNIVERSAL EXPECTATION.\n\nNow what I mainly wish to do is to help you firmly to grasp this\nsimple principle of Cause and Effect in the spiritual world. And\ninstead of applying the principle generally to each of the Christian\nexperiences in turn, I shall examine its application to one in some\nlittle detail. The one I shall select is Rest. And I think any one who\nfollows the application in this single instance will be able to apply\nit for himself to all the others.\n\nTake such a sentence as this: African explorers are subject to fevers\nwhich cause restlessness and delirium.\n\nNote the expression, \"cause restlessness.\" _Restlessness has a cause._\nClearly, then, any one who wished to get rid of restlessness would\nproceed at once to deal with the cause. If that were not removed, a\ndoctor might prescribe a hundred things, and all might be taken in\nturn, without producing the least effect. Things are so arranged in\nthe original planning of the world that certain effects must follow\ncertain causes, and certain causes must be abolished before certain\neffects can be removed. Certain parts of Africa are inseparably linked\nwith the physical experience called fever; this fever is in turn\ninfallibly linked with a mental experience called restlessness and\ndelirium. To abolish the mental experience the radical method would be\nto abolish the physical experience, and the way of abolishing the\nphysical experience would be to abolish Africa, or to cease to go\nthere.\n\nNow this holds good for all other forms of Restlessness. Every other\nform and kind of Restlessness in the world has a definite cause, and\nthe particular kind of Restlessness can only be removed by removing\nthe allotted cause.\n\nAll this is also true of Rest. Restlessness has a cause: must not\n_Rest_ have a cause? Necessarily. If it were a chance world we would\nnot expect this; but, being a methodical world, it cannot be\notherwise. Rest, physical rest, moral rest, spiritual rest, every kind\nof rest has a cause, as certainly as restlessness. Now causes are\ndiscriminating. There is one kind of cause for every particular effect\nand no other, and if one particular effect is desired, the\ncorresponding cause must be set in motion. It is no use proposing\nfinely devised schemes, or going through general pious exercises in\nthe hope that somehow Rest will come. The Christian life is not\ncasual, but causal. All nature is a standing protest against the\nabsurdity of expecting to secure spiritual effects, or any effects,\nwithout the employment of appropriate causes. The Great Teacher dealt\nwhat ought to have been the final blow to this infinite irrelevancy by\na single question, \"Do men gather grapes of thorns or figs of\nthistles?\"\n\nWhy, then, did the Great Teacher not educate His followers fully? Why\ndid He not tell us, for example, how such a thing as Rest might be\nobtained? The answer is that _He did_. But plainly, explicitly, in so\nmany words? Yes, plainly, explicitly, in so many words. He assigned\nRest to its cause, in words with which each of us has been familiar\nfrom his earliest childhood.\n\nHe begins, you remember--for you at once know the passage I refer\nto--almost as if Rest could be had without any cause; \"Come unto me,\"\nHe says, \"and I will _give_ you Rest.\"\n\nRest, apparently, was a favor to be bestowed; men had but to come to\nHim; He would give it to every applicant. But the next sentence takes\nthat all back. The qualification, indeed, is added instantaneously.\nFor what the first sentence seemed to give was next thing to an\nimpossibility. For how, in a literal sense, can Rest be _given_? One\ncould no more give away Rest than he could give away Laughter. We\nspeak of \"causing\" laughter, which we can do; but we can not give it\naway. When we speak of \"giving\" pain, we know perfectly well we can\nnot give pain away. And when we aim at \"giving\" pleasure, all that we\ndo is to arrange a set of circumstances in such a way as that these\nshall cause pleasure. Of course there is a sense, and a very wonderful\nsense, in which a Great Personality breathes upon all who come within\nits influence an abiding peace and trust. Men can be to other men as\nthe shadow of a great rock in a weary land; much more Christ; much\nmore Christ as Perfect Man; much more still as Savior of the world.\nBut it is not this of which I speak. When Christ said He would give\nmen Rest, He meant simply that He would put them in the way of it. By\nno act of conveyance would or could He make over His own Rest to them.\nHe could give them\n\n          HIS RECEIPT\n\nfor it. That was all. But He would not make it for them. For one thing\nit was not in His plan to make it for them; for another thing, men\nwere not so planned that it could be made for them; and for yet\nanother thing, it was a thousand times better that they should make it\nfor themselves.\n\nThat this is the meaning becomes obvious from the wording of the\nsecond sentence: \"Learn of me, and ye shall _find_ Rest.\" Rest, (that\nis to say), is not a thing that can be _given_, but a thing to be\n_acquired_. It comes not by an act, but by a process. It is not to be\nfound in a happy hour, as one finds a treasure; but slowly, as one\nfinds knowledge. It could indeed be no more found in a moment than\ncould knowledge. A soil has to be prepared for it. Like a fine fruit,\nit will grow in one climate, and not in another; at one altitude, and\nnot at another. Like all growth it will have an orderly development\nand mature by slow degrees.\n\nThe nature of this slow process Christ clearly defines when He says\nwe are to achieve Rest by _learning_. \"Learn of me,\" He says, \"and ye\nshall find rest to your souls.\"\n\nNow consider the extraordinary\n\n          ORIGINALITY OF THIS UTTERANCE.\n\nHow novel the connection between these two words \"Learn\" and \"Rest.\"\nHow few of us have ever associated them--ever thought that Rest was a\nthing to be learned; ever laid ourselves out for it as we would to\nlearn a language; ever practised it as we would practice the violin?\nDoes it not show how entirely new Christ's teaching still is to the\nworld, that so old and threadbare an aphorism should still be so\nlittle known? The last thing most of us would have thought of would\nhave been to associate _Rest_ with _Work_.\n\nWhat must one work at? What is that which if duly learned will find\nthe soul of man in Rest? Christ answers without the least hesitation.\nHe specifies two things--Meekness and Lowliness. \"Learn of me,\" He\nsays, \"for I am _meek_ and _lowly_ in heart.\"\n\nNow these two things are not chosen at random. To these\naccomplishments, in a special way, Rest is attached. Learn these, in\nshort, and you have already found Rest. These as they stand are direct\ncauses of Rest; will produce it at once; cannot but produce it at\nonce. And if you think for a single moment, you will see how this is\nnecessarily so, for causes are never arbitrary, and the connection\nbetween antecedent and consequent here and everywhere lies deep in the\nnature of things.\n\nWhat is the connection, then? I answer by a further question.\n\n          WHAT ARE THE CHIEF CAUSES OF UNREST?\n\nIf you know yourself, you will answer--Pride; Selfishness, Ambition.\nAs you look back upon the past years of your life, is it not true that\nits unhappiness has chiefly come from the succession of personal\nmortifications and almost trivial disappointments which the\nintercourse of life has brought you? Great trials come at lengthened\nintervals, and we rise to breast them; but it is the petty friction of\nour every-day life with one another, the jar of business or of work,\nthe discord of the domestic circle, the collapse of our ambition, the\ncrossing of our will or the taking down of our conceit, which make\ninward peace impossible. Wounded vanity, then, disappointed hopes,\nunsatisfied selfishness--these are the old, vulgar, universal\n\n          SOURCES OF MAN'S UNREST.\n\nNow it is obvious why Christ pointed out as the two chief objects for\nattainment the exact opposites of these. To meekness and lowliness\nthese things simply do not exist. They cure unrest by making it\nimpossible. These remedies do not trifle with surface symptoms; they\nstrike at once at removing causes. The ceaseless chagrin of a\nself-centered life can be removed at once by learning meekness and\nlowliness of heart. He who learns them is forever proof against it. He\nlives henceforth a charmed life. Christianity is a fine inoculation, a\ntransfusion of healthy blood into an anaemic or poisoned soul. No fever\ncan attack a perfectly sound body; no fever of unrest can disturb a\nsoul which has breathed the air or learned the ways of Christ.\n\nMen sigh for the wings of a dove that they may fly away and be at\nRest. But flying away will not help us. \"The Kingdom of God is _within\nyou_.\" We aspire to the top to look for Rest; it lies at the bottom.\nWater rests only when it gets to the lowest place. So do men. Hence,\n_be lowly_. The man who has no opinion of himself at all can never be\nhurt if others do not acknowledge him. Hence, _be meek_. He who is\nwithout expectation cannot fret if nothing comes to him. It is\nself-evident that these things are so. The lowly man and the meek man\nare really above all other men, above all other things. They dominate\nthe world because they do not care for it. The miser does not possess\ngold, gold possesses him. But the meek possess it. \"The meek,\" said\nChrist, \"inherit the earth.\" They do not buy it; they do not conquer\nit; but they inherit it.\n\nThere are people who go about the world looking out for slights, and\nthey are necessarily miserable, for they find them at every\nturn--especially the imaginary ones. One has the same pity for such\nmen as for the very poor. They are the morally illiterate. They have\nhad no real education, for they have never learned\n\n          HOW TO LIVE.\n\nFew men know how to live. We grow up at random carrying into mature\nlife the merely animal methods and motives which we had as little\nchildren. And it does not occur to us that all this must be changed;\nthat much of it must be reversed; that life is the finest of the Fine\nArts; that it has to be learned with lifelong patience, and that the\nyears of our pilgrimage are all too short to master it triumphantly.\n\nYet this is what Christianity is for--to teach men\n\n          THE ART OF LIFE.\n\nAnd its whole curriculum lies in one word--\"Learn of me.\" Unlike most\neducation, this is almost purely personal; it is not to be had from\nbooks, or lectures or creeds or doctrines. It is a study from the\nlife. Christ never said much in mere words about the Christian graces.\nHe lived them, He was them. Yet we do not merely copy Him. We learn\nHis art by living with Him, like the old apprentices with their\nmasters.\n\nNow we understand it all? Christ's invitation to the weary and\nheavy-laden is a call to begin life over again upon a new\nprinciple--upon His own principle. \"Watch my way of doing things,\" He\nsays; \"Follow me. Take life as I take it. Be meek and lowly, and you\nwill find Rest.\"\n\nI do not say, remember, that the Christian life to every man, or to\nany man, can be a bed of roses. No educational process can be this.\nAnd perhaps if some men knew how much was involved in the simple\n\"learn\" of Christ, they would not enter His school with so\nirresponsible a heart. For there is not only much to learn, but\n\n          MUCH TO UNLEARN.\n\nMany men never go to this school at all till their disposition is\nalready half ruined and character has taken on its fatal set. To learn\narithmetic is difficult at fifty--much more to learn Christianity. To\nlearn simply what it is to be meek and lowly, in the case of one who\nhas had no lessons in that in childhood, may cost him half of what he\nvalues most on earth. Do we realize, for instance, that the way of\nteaching humility is generally by _humiliation_? There is probably no\nother school for it. When a man enters himself as a pupil in such a\nschool it means a very great thing. There is much Rest there, but\nthere is also much Work.\n\nI should be wrong, even though my theme is the brighter side, to\nignore the cross and minimize the cost. Only it gives to the cross a\nmore definite meaning, and a rarer value, to connect it thus directly\nand casually with the growth of the inner life. Our platitudes on the\n\"benefits of affliction\" are usually about as vague as our theories of\nChristian Experience. \"Somehow\" we believe affliction does us good.\nBut it is not a question of \"Somehow.\" The result is definite,\ncalculable, necessary. It is under the strictest law of cause and\neffect. The first effect of losing one's fortune, for instance, is\nhumiliation; and the effect of humiliation, as we have just seen, is\nto make one humble; and the effect of being humble is to produce Rest.\nIt is a roundabout way, apparently, of producing Rest; but Nature\ngenerally works by circular processes; and it is not certain that\nthere is any other way of becoming humble, or of finding Rest. If a\nman could make himself humble to order, it might simplify matters; but\nwe do not find that this happens. Hence we must all go through the\nmill. Hence death, death to the lower self, is the nearest gate and\nthe quickest road to life.\n\nYet this is only half the truth. Christ's life outwardly was one of\nthe most troubled lives that was ever lived: tempest and tumult,\ntumult and tempest, the waves breaking over it all the time till the\nworn body was laid in the grave. But the inner life was a sea of\nglass. The great calm was always there. At any moment you might have\ngone to Him and found Rest. Even when the blood-hounds were dogging\nHim in the streets of Jerusalem, He turned to His disciples and\noffered them, as a last legacy, \"My peace.\" Nothing ever for a moment\nbroke the serenity of Christ's life on earth. Misfortune could not\nreach Him; He had no fortune. Food, raiment, money--fountain-heads of\nhalf the world's weariness--He simply did not care for; they played no\npart in His life; He \"took no thought\" for them. It was impossible to\naffect Him by lowering His reputation. He had already made Himself of\nno reputation. He was dumb before insult. When he was reviled, He\nreviled not again. In fact, there was\n\n          NOTHING THAT THE WORLD COULD DO TO HIM\n\nthat could ruffle the surface of His spirit.\n\nSuch living, as mere living, is altogether unique. It is only when we\nsee what it was in Him that we can know what the word Rest means. It\nlies not in emotions, or in the absence of emotions. It is not a\nhallowed feeling that comes over us in church. It is not something\nthat the preacher has in his voice. It is not in nature, or in poetry,\nor in music--though in all these there is soothing. It is the mind at\nleisure from itself. It is the perfect poise of the soul; the absolute\nadjustment of the inward man to the stress of all outward things; the\npreparedness against every emergency; the stability of assured\nconvictions; the eternal calm of an invulnerable faith; the repose of\na heart set deep in God. It is the mood of the man who says, with\nBrowning, \"God's in His Heaven, all's well with the world.\"\n\nTwo painters each painted a picture to illustrate his conception of\nrest. The first chose for his scene a still, lone lake among the\nfar-off mountains. The second threw on his canvas a thundering\nwaterfall, with a fragile birch-tree bending over the foam; at the\nfork of a branch, almost wet with the cataract's spray, a robin sat on\nits nest. The first was only _Stagnation_; the last was _Rest_. For in\nRest there are always two elements--tranquillity and energy; silence\nand turbulence; creation and destruction; fearlessness and\nfearfulness. This it was in Christ.\n\nIt is quite plain from all this that whatever else He claimed to be or\nto do, He at least\n\n          KNEW HOW TO LIVE.\n\nAll this is the perfection of living, of living in the mere sense of\npassing through the world in the best way. Hence His anxiety to\ncommunicate His idea of life to others. He came, He said, to give men\nlife, true life, a more abundant life than they were living; \"the\nlife,\" as the fine phase in the Revised Version has it, \"that is life\nindeed.\" This is what He Himself possessed, and it was this which He\noffers to mankind. And hence His direct appeal for all to come to Him\nwho had not made much of life, who were weary and heavy-laden. These\nHe would teach His secret. They, also, should know \"the life that is\nlife indeed.\"\n\n\nII. WHAT YOKES ARE FOR.\n\nThere is still one doubt to clear up. After the statement, \"Learn of\nMe,\" Christ throws in the disconcerting qualification:\n\n\"_Take my yoke_ upon you, and learn of Me.\"\n\nWhy, if all this be true, does He call it a _yoke_? Why, while\nprofessing to give Rest, does He with the next breath whisper\n\"_burden_\"? Is the Christian life, after all, what its enemies take it\nfor--an additional weight to the already great woe of life, some\nextra punctiliousness about duty, some painful devotion to\nobservances, some heavy restriction and trammeling of all that is\njoyous and free in the world? Is life not hard and sorrowful enough\nwithout being fettered with yet another yoke?\n\nIt is astounding how so glaring a misunderstanding of this plain\nsentence should ever have passed into currency. Did you ever stop to\nask what a yoke is really for? Is it to be a burden to the animal\nwhich wears it? It is just the opposite. It is to make its burden\nlight. Attached to the oxen in any other way than by a yoke, the\nplough would be intolerable. Worked by means of a yoke, it is light. A\nyoke is not an instrument of torture; it is\n\n          AN INSTRUMENT OF MERCY.\n\nIt is not a malicious contrivance for making work hard; it is a gentle\ndevice to make hard labor light. It is not meant to give pain, but to\nsave pain. And yet men speak of the yoke of Christ as if it were\nslavery, and look upon those who wear it as objects of compassion. For\ngenerations we have had homilies on \"The Yoke of Christ\"--some\ndelighting in portraying its narrow exactions; some seeking in these\nexactions the marks of its divinity; others apologizing for it, and\ntoning it down; still others assuring us that, although it be very\nbad, it is not to be compared with the positive blessings of\nChristianity. How many, especially among the young, has this one\nmistaken phrase driven forever away from the kingdom of God? Instead\nof making Christ attractive, it makes Him out a taskmaster, narrowing\nlife by petty restrictions, calling for self-denial where none is\nnecessary, making misery a virtue under the plea that it is the yoke\nof Christ, and happiness criminal because it now and then evades it.\nAccording to this conception, Christians are at best the victims of a\ndepressing fate; their life is a penance; and their hope for the next\nworld purchased by a slow martyrdom in this.\n\nThe mistake has arisen from taking the word \"yoke\" here in the same\nsense as in the expressions \"under the yoke,\" or \"wear the yoke in his\nyouth.\" But in Christ's illustration it is not the _jugum_ of the\nRoman soldier, but the simple \"harness\" or \"ox-collar\" of the Eastern\npeasant. It is the literal wooden yoke which He, with His own hands in\nthe carpenter shop, had probably often made. He knew the difference\nbetween a smooth yoke and a rough one, a bad fit and a good fit; the\ndifference also it made to the patient animal which had to wear it.\nThe rough yoke galled, and the burden was heavy; the smooth yoke\ncaused no pain, and the load was lightly drawn. The badly fitted\nharness was a misery; the well-fitted collar was \"easy.\"\n\nAnd what was the \"burden\"? It was not some special burden laid upon\nthe Christian, some unique infliction that they alone must bear. It\nwas what all men bear. It was simply life, human life itself, the\ngeneral burden of life which all must carry with them from the cradle\nto the grave. Christ saw that men took life painfully. To some it was\na weariness, to others a failure, to many a tragedy, to all a struggle\nand a pain. How to carry this burden of life had been the whole\nworld's problem. It is still the whole world's problem. And here is\nChrist's solution: \"Carry it as I do. Take life as I take it. Look at\nit from My point of view. Interpret it upon My principles. Take My\nyoke and learn of Me, and you will find it easy. For My yoke is easy,\nworks easily, sits right upon the shoulders, and _therefore_ My burden\nis light.\"\n\nThere is no suggestion here that religion will absolve any man from\nbearing burdens. That would be to absolve him from living, since it is\nlife itself that is the burden. What Christianity does propose is to\nmake it tolerable.\n\n          CHRIST'S YOKE\n\nis simply His secret for the alleviation of human life, His\nprescription for the best and happiest method of living. Men harness\nthemselves to the work and stress of the world in clumsy and unnatural\nways. The harness they put on is antiquated. A rough, ill-fitted\ncollar at the best, they make its strain and friction past enduring,\nby placing it where the neck is most sensitive; and by mere continuous\nirritation this sensitiveness increases until the whole nature is\nquick and sore.\n\nThis is the origin, among other things, of a disease called\n\"touchiness\"--a disease which, in spite of its innocent name, is one\nof the gravest sources of restlessness in the world. Touchiness, when\nit becomes chronic, is a morbid condition of the inward disposition.\nIt is self-love inflamed to the acute point; conceit, _with a\nhair-trigger_. The cure is to shift the yoke to some other place; to\nlet men and things touch us through some new and perhaps as yet unused\npart of our nature; to become meek and lowly in heart while the old\nsensitiveness is becoming numb from want of use.\n\nIt is the beautiful work of Christianity everywhere to adjust the\nburden of life to those who bear it, and them to it. It has a\nperfectly miraculous gift of healing. Without doing any violence to\nhuman nature it sets it right with life, harmonizing it with all\nsurrounding things, and restoring those who are jaded with the fatigue\nand dust of the world to a new grace of living. In the mere matter of\naltering the perspective of life and changing the proportions of\nthings, its function in lightening the care of man is altogether its\nown.\n\nThe weight of a load depends upon the attraction of the earth. Suppose\nthe attraction of the earth were removed? A ton on some other planet,\nwhere the attraction of gravity is less, does not weigh half a ton.\nNow Christianity removes the attraction of the earth; and this is one\nway in which it diminishes man's burden. It makes them citizens of\nanother world. What was a ton yesterday is not half a ton today. So\nwithout changing one's circumstances, merely by offering a wider\nhorizon and a different standard, it alters the whole aspect of the\nworld.\n\nChristianity as Christ taught is the truest philosophy of life ever\nspoken. But let us be quite sure when we speak of Christianity that we\nmean Christ's Christianity. Other versions are either caricatures, or\nexaggerations, or misunderstandings, or shortsighted and surface\nreadings. For the most part their attainment is hopeless and the\nresults wretched. But I care not who the person is, or through what\nvale of tears he has passed, or is about to pass, there is a new life\nfor him along this path.\n\n\nIII. HOW FRUITS GROW.\n\nWere Rest my subject, there are other things I should wish to say\nabout it, and other kinds of Rest of which I should like to speak.\nBut that is not my subject. My theme is that the Christian experiences\nare not the work of magic, but come under the law of Cause and Effect.\nI have chosen Rest only as a single illustration of the working of\nthat principle. If there were time I might next run over all the\nChristian experiences in turn, and show the same wide law applies to\neach; but I think it may serve the better purpose if I leave this\nfurther exercise to yourselves. I know no Bible study that you will\nfind more full of fruit, or which will take you nearer to the ways of\nGod, or make the Christian life itself more solid or more sure. I\nshall add only a single other illustration of what I mean, before I\nclose.\n\nWhere does Joy come from? I knew a Sunday scholar whose conception of\nJoy was that it was a thing made in lumps and kept somewhere in\nHeaven, and that when people prayed for it, pieces were somehow let\ndown and fitted into their souls. I am not sure that views as gross\nand material are not often held by people who ought to be wiser. In\nreality, Joy is as much a matter of Cause and Effect as pain. No one\ncan get Joy by merely asking for it. It is one of the ripest fruits of\nthe Christian life, and, like all fruits, must be grown. There is a\nvery clever trick in India called the mango trick. A seed is put in\nthe ground and covered up, and after diverse incantations a full-blown\nmango-bush appears within five minutes. I never met any one who knew\nhow the thing was done, but I never met any one who believed it to be\nanything else than a conjuring trick. The world is pretty unanimous\nnow in its belief in the orderliness of Nature. Men may not know how\nfruits grow, but they do know that they cannot grow in an hour. Some\nlives have not even a stalk on which fruits could hang, even if they\ndid grow in an hour. Some have never planted one sound seed of Joy in\nall their lives; and others who may have planted a germ or two have\nlived so little in sunshine that they never could come to maturity.\n\nWhence, then, is joy? Christ put His teaching upon this subject into\none of the most exquisite of His parables. I should in any instance\nhave appealed to His teaching here, as in the case of Rest, for I do\nnot wish you to think I am speaking words of my own. But it so happens\nthat He has dealt with it in words of unusual fullness.\n\nI need not recall the whole illustration. It is the parable of the\nVine. Did you ever think why Christ spoke that parable? He did not\nmerely throw it into space as a fine illustration of general truths.\nIt was not simply a statement of the mystical union, and the doctrine\nof an indwelling Christ. It was that; but it was more. After He had\nsaid it, He did what was not an unusual thing when He was teaching His\ngreatest lessons--He turned to the disciples and said He would tell\nthem why He had spoken it. It was to tell them\n\n          HOW TO GET JOY.\n\n\"These things have I spoken unto you,\" He said, \"that My Joy might\nremain in you, and that your Joy might be full.\" It was a purposed and\ndeliberate communication of His\n\n          SECRET OF HAPPINESS.\n\nGo back over these verses, then, and you will find the Causes of this\nEffect, the spring, and the only spring, out of which true Happiness\ncomes. I am not going to analyze them in detail. I ask you to enter\ninto the words for yourselves.\n\nRemember, in the first place, that the Vine was the Eastern symbol of\nJoy. It was its fruit that made glad the heart of man. Yet, however\ninnocent that gladness--for the expressed juice of the grape was the\ncommon drink at every peasant's board--the gladness was only a gross\nand passing thing. This was not true happiness, and the vine of the\nPalestine vineyards was not the true vine. \"_Christ_ was the _true_\nVine.\" Here, then, is the ultimate source of Joy. Through whatever\nmedia it reaches us, all true Joy and Gladness find their source in\nChrist.\n\nBy this, of course, is not meant that the actual Joy experienced is\ntransferred from Christ's nature, or is something passed on from Him\nto us. What is passed on is His method of getting it. There is,\nindeed, a sense in which we can share another's joy or another's\nsorrow. But that is another matter. Christ is the source of Joy to men\nin the sense in which He is the source of Rest. His people share His\nlife, and therefore share its consequences, and one of these is Joy.\nHis method of living is one that in the nature of things produces Joy.\nWhen He spoke of His Joy remaining with us He meant in part that the\ncauses which produced it should continue to act. His followers, (that\nis to say), by _repeating_ His life would experience its\naccompaniments. His Joy, His kind of Joy, would remain with them.\n\nThe medium through which this Joy comes is next explained: \"He that\nabideth in Me, the same bringeth forth much fruit.\" Fruit first, Joy\nnext; the one the cause or medium of the other. Fruit-bearing is the\nnecessary antecedent; Joy both the necessary consequent and the\nnecessary accompaniment. It lay partly in the bearing fruit, partly in\nthe fellowship which made that possible. Partly, that is to say, Joy\nlay in mere constant living in Christ's presence, with all that that\nimplied of peace, of shelter, and of love; partly in the influence of\nthat Life upon mind and character and will; and partly in the\ninspiration to live and work for others, with all that that brought of\nself-riddance and joy in others' gain. All these, in different ways\nand at different times, are\n\n          SOURCES OF PURE HAPPINESS.\n\nEven the simplest of them--to do good to other people--is an instant\nand infallible specific. There is no mystery about Happiness whatever.\nPut in the right ingredients and it must come out. He that abideth in\nHim will bring forth much fruit; and bringing forth much fruit is\nHappiness. The infallible receipt for Happiness, then, is to do good;\nand the infallible receipt for doing good is to abide in Christ. The\nsurest proof that all this is a plain matter of Cause and Effect is\nthat men may try every other conceivable way of finding happiness, and\nthey will fail. Only the right cause in each case can produce the\nright effect.\n\nThen the Christian experiences are our own making? In the same sense\nin which grapes are our own making and no more. All fruits\n_grow_--whether they grow in the soil or in the soul; whether they are\nthe fruits of the wild grape or of the True Vine. No man can _make_\nthings grow. He can _get them to grow_ by arranging all the\ncircumstances and fulfilling all the conditions. But the growing is\ndone by God. Causes and effects are eternal arrangements, set in the\nconstitution of the world; fixed beyond man's ordering. What man can\ndo is to place himself in the midst of a chain of sequences. Thus he\ncan get things to grow: thus he himself can grow. But the power is the\nSpirit of God.\n\nWhat more need I add but this--test the method by experiment. Do not\nimagine that you have got these things because you know how to get\nthem. As well try to feed upon a cookery book. But I think I can\npromise that if you try in this simple and natural way, you will not\nfail. Spend the time you have spent in sighing for fruits in\nfulfilling the conditions of their growth. The fruits will come, must\ncome. We have hitherto paid immense attention to _effects_, to the\nmere experiences themselves; we have described them, extolled them,\nadvised them, prayed for them--done everything but find out what\n_caused_ them. Henceforth\n\n          LET US DEAL WITH CAUSES.\n\n\"To be,\" says Lotze, \"is to be in relations.\" About every other method\nof living the Christian life there is an uncertainty. About every\nother method of acquiring the Christian experiences there is a\n\"perhaps.\" But in so far as this method is the way of nature, it\ncannot fail. Its guarantee is the laws of the universe--and these are\n\"the Hands of the Living God.\"\n\n          THE TRUE VINE.\n\n\"I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in\nme that beareth not fruit he taketh away; and every branch that\nbeareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. Now\nye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. Abide in\nme, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it\nabide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the\nvine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the\nsame bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing. If a\nman abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered;\nand men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.\nIf ye abide in me, and my word abide in you, ye shall ask what ye\nwill, and it shall be done unto you. Herein is my Father glorified,\nthat ye bear much fruit; so ye shall be my disciples. As the Father\nhath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love. If ye keep\nmy commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my\nFather's commandments, and abide in his love. These things have I\nspoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy\nmight be full.\"\n\n\n\n\n\"FIRST!\"\n\nAN ADDRESS TO BOYS.\n\n\nI have three heads to give you. The first is \"Geography,\" the second\nis \"Arithmetic,\" and the third is \"Grammar.\"\n\n\nI.\n\nFirst. Geography tells us where to find places.\n\nWhere is the Kingdom of God? It is said that when a Prussian officer\nwas killed in the Franco-Prussian war, a map of France was very often\nfound in his pocket. When we wish to occupy a country, we ought to\nknow its geography. Now, _where_ is the Kingdom of God? A boy over\nthere says, \"It is in heaven.\" No; it is not in heaven. Another boy\nsays, \"It is in the Bible.\" No; it is not in the Bible. Another boy\nsays, \"It must be in the Church,\" No; it is not in the Church. Heaven\nis only the capital of the Kingdom of God; the Bible is the guide-book\nto it; the Church is the weekly parade of those who belong to it. If\nyou turn to the seventeenth chapter of Luke you will find out where\nthe Kingdom of God really is: \"The Kingdom of God is within\nyou\"--within _you_. The Kingdom of God is _inside people_.\n\nI remember once taking a walk by the river near where the Falls of\nNiagara are, and I noticed a remarkable figure walking along the river\nbank. I had been some time in America. I had seen black men, and red\nmen, and yellow men, and white men; black men, the Negroes; red men,\nthe Indians; yellow men, the Chinese; white men, the Americans. But\nthis man looked quite different in his dress from anything I had ever\nseen. When he came a little closer, I saw he was wearing a kilt; when\nhe came a little nearer still, I saw that he was dressed exactly like\na Highland soldier. When he came quiet near, I said to him:\n\n\"What are you doing here?\"\n\n\"Why should I not be here?\" he replied; \"don't you know this is\nBritish soil? When you cross the river you come into Canada.\"\n\nThis soldier was thousands of miles from England, and yet he was in\nthe Kingdom of England. Wherever there is an English heart beating\nloyal to the Queen of Britain, there is England. Wherever there is a\nboy whose heart is loyal to the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of God is\nwithin him.\n\nWhat is the Kingdom of God? Every Kingdom has its exports, its\nproducts. Go down the river here and you will find ships coming in\nwith cotton; you know they come from America. You will find ships with\ntea; you know they are from China. Ships with wool; you know they come\nfrom Australia. Ships with sugar; you know they come from Java.\n\nWhat comes from the Kingdom of God? Again we must refer to our\nGuide-book. Turn to Romans, and we shall find what the Kingdom of God\nis. I will read it: \"The Kingdom of God is righteousness, peace,\njoy\"--three things. \"The Kingdom of God is righteousness, peace, joy.\"\nRighteousness, of course, is just doing what is right. Any boy who\ndoes what is _right_ has the Kingdom of God within him. Any boy who,\ninstead of being quarrelsome, lives at peace with the other boys, has\nthe Kingdom of God within him. Any boy whose heart is filled with joy\nbecause he does what is right, has the Kingdom of God within him. The\nKingdom of God is not going to religious meetings, and hearing strange\nreligious experiences; the Kingdom of God is doing what is\nright--living at peace with all men, being filled with joy in the Holy\nGhost.\n\nBoys, if you are going to be Christians, be Christians as boys, and\nnot as your grandmothers. A grandmother has to be a Christian as a\ngrandmother, and that is the right and the beautiful thing for her;\nbut if you cannot read your Bible by the hour as your grandmother can,\nor delight in meetings as she can, don't think you are necessarily a\nbad boy. When you are your grandmother's age you will have your\ngrandmother's kind of religion. Meantime, be a Christian as a boy.\nLive a boy's life. Do the straight thing; seek the kingdom of\nrighteousness and honor and truth. Keep the peace with the boys about\nyou, and be filled with the joy of being a loyal, and simple, and\nnatural, and boy-like servant of Christ.\n\nYou can very easily tell a house, or a workshop, or an office where\nthe Kingdom of God is _not_. The first thing you see in that place is\nthat the \"straight thing\" is not always done. Customers do not get\nfair play. You are in danger of learning to cheat and to lie. Better a\nthousand times to starve than to stay in a place where you cannot do\nwhat is right.\n\nOr, when you go into your workshop, you find everybody sulky, touchy,\nand ill-tempered, everybody at daggers-drawn with everybody else, some\nof the men not on speaking terms with some of the others, and the\nwhole _feel_ of the place miserable and unhappy. The Kingdom of God is\nnot there, for _it_ is peace. It is the Kingdom of the Devil that is\nanger, and wrath and malice.\n\nIf you want to get the Kingdom of God into your workshop, or into your\nhome, let the quarreling be stopped. Live in peace and harmony and\nbrotherliness with everyone. For the Kingdom of God is a kingdom of\nbrothers. It is a great Society, founded by Jesus Christ, of all the\npeople who try to live like Him, and to make the world better and\nsweeter and happier. Wherever a boy is trying to do that, in the house\nor on the street, in the workshop or on the baseball field, there is\nthe Kingdom of God. And every boy, however small or obscure or poor,\nwho is seeking that, is a member of it. You see now, I hope, what the\nKingdom is.\n\n\nII.\n\nI pass, therefore, to the second head; What was it? Arithmetic. Are\nthere any arithmetic words in this text? \"Added.\" What other\narithmetic words? \"First.\"\n\nNow, don't you think you could not have anything better to seek\n\"first\" than the things I have named to do what is right, to live at\npeace, and be always making those about you happy? You see at once why\nChrist tells us to seek these things first--because they are\n\n          THE BEST WORTH SEEKING.\n\nDo you know anything better than these three things, anything happier,\npurer, nobler? If you do, seek them first. But if you do not, seek\nfirst the Kingdom of God. I do not tell you to be religious. You know\nthat. I do not tell you to seek the Kingdom of God. I tell you to seek\nthe Kingdom of God _first_. _First._ Not many people do that. They put\na little religion into their life--once a week, perhaps. They might\njust as well let it alone. It is not worth seeking the Kingdom of God\nunless we seek it _first_.\n\nSuppose you take the helm out of a ship and hang it over the bow, and\nsend that ship to sea, will it ever reach the other side? Certainly\nnot. It will drift about anyhow. Keep religion in its place, and it\nwill take you straight through life and straight to your Father in\nheaven when life is over. But if you do not put it in its place, you\nmay just as well have nothing to do with it. Religion out of its place\nin a human life is the most miserable thing in the world. There is\nnothing that requires so much to be kept in its place as religion, and\nits place is what? second? third? \"First.\" Boys, _first_ the Kingdom\nof God; make it so that it will be natural to you to think about that\nthe very first thing.\n\nThere was a boy in Glasgow apprenticed to a gentleman who made\ntelegraphs. (The gentleman told me this himself.) One day this boy was\nup on the top of a four-story house with a number of men fixing up a\ntelegraph wire. The work was all but done. It was getting late, and\nthe men said they were going away home, and the boy was to nip off the\nends of the wire himself. Before going down they told him to be sure\nto go back to the workshop, when he was finished, with his master's\ntools.\n\n\"Do not leave any of them lying about, whatever you do,\" said the\nforeman.\n\nThe boy climbed up the pole and began to nip off the ends of the wire.\nIt was a very cold winter night, and the dusk was gathering. He lost\nhis hold and fell upon the slates, slid down, and then over and over\nto the ground below. A clothes-rope stretched across the \"green\" on to\nwhich he was just about to fall, caught him on the chest and broke his\nfall; but the shock was terrible, and he lay unconscious among some\nclothes upon the green.\n\nAn old woman came out; seeing her rope broken and the clothes all\nsoiled, thought the boy was drunk, shook him, scolded him, and went\nfor the policeman. The boy with the shaking came back to\nconsciousness, rubbed his eyes, and got upon his feet. What do you\nthink he did? He staggered, half-blind, up the stairs. He climbed the\nladder. He got on to the roof of the house. He gathered up his tools,\nput them into his basket, took them down, and when he got to the\nground again fainted dead away.\n\nJust then the policeman came, saw there was something seriously wrong,\nand carried him away to the hospital, where he lay for some time. I am\nglad to say he got better.\n\nWhat was his first thought at that terrible moment? His duty. He was\nnot thinking of himself; he was thinking about his master. First, the\nKingdom of God.\n\nBut there is another arithmetic word. What is it? \"Added.\"\n\nYou know the difference between _addition_ and _subtraction_. Now,\nthat is\n\n          A VERY IMPORTANT DIFFERENCE\n\nin religion, because--and it is a very strange thing--very few people\nknow the difference when they begin to talk about religion. They often\ntell boys that if they seek the Kingdom of God, everything else is\ngoing to be _subtracted_ from them. They tell them that they are going\nto become gloomy, miserable, and will lose everything that makes a\nboy's life worth living--that they will have to stop baseball and\nstory-books, and become little old men, and spend all their time in\ngoing to meetings and in singing hymns.\n\nNow, that is not true. Christ never said anything like that. Christ\nsaid we are to \"Seek first the Kingdom of God,\" and\n\n          EVERYTHING ELSE WORTH HAVING\n\nis to be _added_ unto us. If there is anything I would like you to\nremember, it is these two arithmetic words--\"first\" and \"added.\"\n\nI do not mean by \"added\" that if you become religious you are all\ngoing to become _rich_. Here is a boy, who, in sweeping out the shop\ntomorrow, finds a quarter lying among the orange boxes. Well, nobody\nhas missed it. He puts it in his pocket, and it begins to burn a hole\nthere. By breakfast time he wishes that money were in his master's\npocket. And by-and-by he goes to his master. He says (to _himself_,\nand not to his master), \"I was at the Boys' Brigade yesterday, and I\nwas told to seek _first_ that which was right.\" Then he says to his\nmaster:\n\n\"Please, sir, here is a quarter that I found upon the floor.\"\n\nThe master puts it in the till. What has the boy got in his pocket?\nNothing; _but he has got the Kingdom of God in his heart_. He has laid\nup treasure in heaven, which is of infinitely more worth than the\nquarter.\n\nNow, that boy does not find a dollar on his way home. I have known\nthat happen, but that is not what is meant by \"adding.\" It does not\nmean that God is going to pay him in his own coin, for He pays in\nbetter coin.\n\nYet I remember once hearing of a boy who was paid in both ways. He was\nvery, very poor. He lived in a foreign country, and his mother said to\nhim one day that he must go into the great city and start in business,\nand she took his coat and cut it open and sewed between the lining and\nthe coat forty golden dinars, which she had saved up for many years to\nstart him in life. She told him to take care of robbers as he went\nacross the desert; and as he was going out of the door she said:\n\n\"My boy, I have only two words for you--'Fear God, and never tell a\nlie.'\"\n\nThe boy started off, and towards evening he saw glittering in the\ndistance the minarets of the great city. But between the city and\nhimself he saw a cloud of dust. It came nearer. Presently he saw that\nit was a band of robbers.\n\nOne of the robbers left the rest and rode toward him, and said:\n\n\"Boy, what have you got?\"\n\nThe boy looked him in the face said:\n\n\"I have forty golden dinars sewed up in my coat.\"\n\nThe robber laughed and wheeled around his horse and went away back. He\nwould not believe the boy.\n\nPresently another robber came and he said:\n\n\"Boy, what have you got?\"\n\n\"Forty golden dinars sewed up in my coat.\"\n\nThe robber said: \"The boy is a fool,\" and wheeled his horse and rode\naway back.\n\nBy and by the robber captain came and he said:\n\n\"Boy, what have you got?\"\n\n\"I have forty golden dinars sewed up in my coat.\"\n\nThe robber dismounted, and put his hand over the boy's breast, felt\nsomething round, counted one, two, three, four, five, till he counted\nout the forty golden coins. He looked the boy in the face and said:\n\n\"Why did you tell me that?\n\nThe boy said: \"Because of God and my mother.\"\n\nThe robber leaned on his spear and thought and said:\n\n\"Wait a moment.\"\n\nHe mounted his horse, rode back to the rest of the robbers, and came\nback in about five minutes with his dress changed. This time he looked\nnot like a robber, but like a merchant. He took the boy up on his\nhorse and said:\n\n\"My boy, I have long wanted to do something for my God and for my\nmother, and I have this moment renounced my robber's life. I am also a\nmerchant. I have a large business house in the city. I want you to\ncome and live with me, to teach me about your God; and you will be\nrich, and your mother some day will come and live with us.\"\n\nAnd it all happened. By seeking first the Kingdom of God, all these\nthings were added unto him.\n\nBoys, banish forever from your minds the idea that religion is\n_subtraction_. It does not tell us to give things up, but rather gives\nus something so much better that they give themselves up. When you see\na boy on the street whipping a top, you know, perhaps, that you could\nnot make that boy happier than by giving him a top, a whip, and half\nan hour to whip it. But next birthday, when he looks back he says,\n\n\"What a goose I was last year to be delighted with a top. What I want\nnow is a baseball bat.\"\n\nThen when he becomes an old man, he does not care in the least for a\nbaseball bat; he wants rest, and a snug fireside and a newspaper every\nday. He wonders how he could ever have taken up his thoughts with\nbaseball bats and whipping-tops.\n\nNow, when a boy becomes a Christian, he grows out of the evil things\none by one--that is to say, if they are really evil--which he used to\nset his heart upon; (of course I do not mean baseball bats, for they\nare not evils); and so instead of telling people to give up things, we\nare safer to tell them to \"seek first the Kingdom of God,\" and then\nthey will get new things and better things, and\n\n          THE OLD THINGS WILL DROP OFF\n\nof themselves. This is what is meant by the \"new heart.\" It means that\nGod puts into us new thoughts and new wishes, and we become quite\ndifferent.\n\n\nIII.\n\nLastly, and very shortly. What was the third head? \"Grammar.\" Right.\n\nNow, I require a clever boy to answer the next question. What is the\nverb? \"Seek.\" Very good: \"seek.\" What mood is it in? \"Imperative\nmood.\" What does that mean? \"A command.\" What is the soldier's first\nlesson? \"Obedience.\" Have you obeyed this command? Remember the\nimperative mood of these words, \"_Seek_ first the Kingdom of God.\"\n\nThis is the command of your King. It _must_ be done. I have been\ntrying to show you what a splendid thing it is; what a reasonable\nthing it is; what a happy thing it is; but beyond all these reasons,\nit is a thing that _must_ be done, because we are _commanded_ to do it\nby our Captain. Now, there is His command to seek _first_ the Kingdom\nof God. Have you done it?\n\n\"Well,\" I know some boys will say, \"we are going to have a good time,\nenjoy life, and then we are going to seek--_last_--the Kingdom of\nGod.\"\n\nNow, that is mean; it is nothing else than mean for a boy to take all\nthe good gifts that God has given him, and then give him nothing back\nin return but\n\n          HIS WASTED LIFE.\n\nGod wants boys' _lives_, not only their souls. It is for active\nservice that soldiers are drilled, and trained, and fed, and armed.\nThat is why you and I are in the world at all--not to prepare to go\nout of it some day, but to serve God actively in it _now_. It is\nmonstrous, and shameful, and cowardly to talk of seeking the Kingdom\n_last_. It is shirking duty, abandoning one's rightful post, playing\ninto the enemy's hand by doing nothing to turn his flank. Every hour a\nKingdom is coming in your heart, in your home, in the world near you,\nbe it a Kingdom of Darkness or a Kingdom of Light. You are placed\nwhere you are, in a particular business, in a particular street, to\nhelp on there the Kingdom of God. You cannot do that when you are old\nand ready to die. By that time your companions will have fought their\nfight, and lost or won. If they lose, will you not be sorry that you\ndid not help them? Will you not regret that only at the last you\nhelped the Kingdom of God? Perhaps you will not be able to do it\nthen. And then your life has been lost indeed.\n\nVery few people have the opportunity to seek the Kingdom of God at the\nend. Christ, knowing all that, knowing that religion was a thing for\nour life, not merely for our death-bed, has laid this command upon us\nnow: \"Seek _first_ the Kingdom of God.\"\n\nI am going to leave you with this text itself. Every boy in the world\nshould obey it.\n\nBoys, before you go to work to-morrow, before you go to sleep\nto-night, resolve that, God helping you, you are going to seek _first_\nthe Kingdom of God. Perhaps some boys here are deserters; they began\nonce before to serve Christ, and they deserted. Come back again, come\nback again today! Others have never enlisted at all. Will you not do\nit now? You are old enough to decide. The grandest moment of a boy's\nlife is that moment when he decides to \"_Seek first the Kingdom of\nGod_.\"\n\n\n\n\nTHE CHANGED LIFE:\n\nTHE GREATEST NEED OF THE WORLD.\n\n\nGod is all for quality; man is for quantity. The immediate need of the\nworld at this moment is not more of us, but, if I may use the\nexpression, a better brand of us. To secure ten men of an improved\ntype would be better than if we had ten thousand more of the average\nChristians distributed all over the world. There is such a thing in\nthe evangelistic sense as winning the whole world and losing our own\nsoul. And the first consideration is our own life--our own spiritual\nrelations to God--our own likeness to Christ. And I am anxious,\nbriefly, to look at the right and the wrong way of becoming like\nChrist--of becoming better men: the right and the wrong way of\nsanctification.\n\nLet me begin by naming, and in part discarding, some processes in\nvogue already for producing better lives. These processes are far from\nwrong; in their place they may even be essential. One ventures to\ndisparage them only because they do not turn out the most perfect\npossible work.\n\nI. The first imperfect method is to rely on\n\n          RESOLUTION.\n\nIn will power, in mere spasms of earnestness, there is no salvation.\nStruggle, effort, even agony, have their place in Christianity, as we\nshall see; but this is not where they come in.\n\nIn mid-Atlantic the Etruria, in which I was sailing, suddenly stopped.\nSomething had gone wrong with the engines. There were five hundred\nable-bodied men on board the ship. Do you think that if we had\ngathered together and pushed against the mast we could have pushed it\non?\n\nWhen one attempts to sanctify himself by effort, he is trying to make\nhis boat go by pushing against the mast. He is like a drowning man\ntrying to lift himself out of the water by pulling at the hair of his\nown head.\n\nChrist held up this method almost to ridicule when He said, \"Which of\nyou by taking thought can add a cubit to his stature?\" Put down that\nmethod forever as being futile.\n\nThe one redeeming feature of the self-sufficient method is this--that\nthose who try it find out almost at once that it will not gain the\ngoal.\n\n2. Another experimenter says: \"But that is not my method. I have seen\nthe folly of a mere wild struggle in the dark. I work on a principle.\nMy plan is not to waste power on random effort, but to concentrate on\na single sin. By taking\n\n          ONE AT A TIME\n\nand crucifying it steadily, I hope in the end to extirpate all.\"\n\nTo this, unfortunately, there are four objections: For one thing, life\nis too short; the name of sin is legion. For another thing, to deal\nwith individual sins is to leave the rest of the nature for the time\nuntouched. In the third place, a single combat with a special sin does\nnot affect the root and spring of the disease. If you dam up a stream\nat one place, it will simply overflow higher up. If only one of the\nchannels of sin be obstructed, experience points to an almost certain\noverflow through some other part of the nature. Partial conversion is\nalmost always accompanied by such moral leakage, for the pent-up\nenergies accumulate to the bursting point, and the last state of that\nsoul may be worse than the first. In the last place, religion does not\nconsist in negatives, in stopping this sin and stopping that. The\nperfect character can never be produced with a pruning knife.\n\n3. But a third protests: \"So be it. I make no attempt to stop sins one\nby one. My method is just the opposite.\n\n          I COPY THE VIRTUES\n\none by one.\"\n\nThe difficulty about the copying method is that it is apt to be\nmechanical. One can always tell an engraving from a picture, an\nartificial flower from a real flower. To copy virtues one by one has\nsomewhat the same effect as eradicating the vices one by one; the\ntemporary result is an overbalanced and incongruous character. Some\none defines a _prig_ as \"a creature that is over-fed for its size.\"\nOne sometimes finds Christians of this species--over-fed on one side\nof their nature, but dismally thin and starved looking on the other.\nThe result, for instance, of copying Humility, and adding it on to an\notherwise worldly life, is simply grotesque. A rabid temperance\nadvocate, for the same reason, is often the poorest of creatures,\nflourishing on a single virtue, and quite oblivious that his\nTemperance is making a worse man of him and not a better. These are\nexamples of fine virtues spoiled by association with mean companions.\nCharacter is a unity, and all the virtues must advance together to\nmake the perfect man.\n\nThis method of sanctification, nevertheless, is in the true direction.\nIt is only in the details of execution that it fails.\n\n4. A fourth method I need scarcely mention, for it is a variation on\nthose already named. It is\n\n          THE VERY YOUNG MAN'S METHOD;\n\nand the pure earnestness of it makes it almost desecration to touch\nit. It is to keep a private note-book with columns for the days of the\nweek, and a list of virtues, with spaces against each for marks. This,\nwith many stern rules for preface, is stored away in a secret place,\nand from time to time, at nightfall, the soul is arraigned before it\nas before a private judgment bar.\n\nThis living by code was Franklin's method; and I suppose thousands\nmore could tell how they had hung up in their bedrooms, or hid in\nlocked-fast drawers, the rules which one solemn day they drew up to\nshape their lives.\n\nThis method is not erroneous, only somehow its success is poor. You\nbear me witness that it fails. And it fails generally for very\nmatter-of-fact reasons--most likely because one day we forget the\nrules.\n\nAll these methods that have been named--the self-sufficient method,\nthe self-crucifixion method, the mimetic method, and the diary\nmethod--are perfectly human, perfectly natural, perfectly ignorant,\nand as they stand perfectly inadequate. It is not argued, I repeat,\nthat they must be abandoned. Their harm is rather that they distract\nattention from the true working method, and secure a fair result at\nthe expense of the perfect one. What that perfect method is we shall\nnow go on to ask.\n\n\nI. THE FORMULA OF SANCTIFICATION.\n\nA formula, a receipt for Sanctification--can one seriously speak of\nthis mighty change as if the process were as definite as for the\nproduction of so many volts of electricity?\n\nIt is impossible to doubt it. Shall a mechanical experiment succeed\ninfallibly, and the one vital experiment of humanity remain a chance?\nIs corn to grow by method, and character by caprice? If we cannot\ncalculate to a certainty that the forces of religion will do their\nwork, then is religion vain. And if we cannot express the law of these\nforces in simple words, then is Christianity not the world's religion,\nbut the world's conundrum.\n\nWhere, then, shall one look for such a formula? Where one would look\nfor any formula--among the text-books. And if we turn to the\ntext-books of Christianity we shall find a formula for this problem as\nclear and precise as any in the mechanical sciences. If this simple\nrule, moreover, be but followed fearlessly, it will yield the result\nof a perfect character as surely as any result that is guaranteed by\nthe laws of nature.\n\nThe finest expression of this rule in Scripture, or indeed in any\nliterature, is probably one drawn up and condensed into a single verse\nby Paul. You will find it in a letter--the second to the\nCorinthians--written by him to some Christian people who, in a city\nwhich was a byword for depravity and licentiousness, were seeking the\nhigher life. To see the point of the words we must take them from the\nimmensely improved rendering of the Revised translation, for the older\nVersion in this case greatly obscures the sense. They are these:\n\n\"We all, with unveiled face reflecting as a mirror the glory of the\nLord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as\nfrom the Lord, the Spirit.\"\n\nNow observe at the outset the entire contradiction of all our previous\nefforts, in the simple passive: \"_We are transformed._\"\n\nWe _are changed_, as the Old Version has it--we do not change\nourselves. No man can change himself. Throughout the New Testament you\nwill find that wherever these moral and spiritual transformations are\ndescribed the verbs are in the passive. Presently it will be pointed\nout that there is a _rationale_ in this; but meantime do not toss\nthese words aside as if this passivity denied all human effort or\nignored intelligible law. What is implied for the soul here is no more\nthan is everywhere claimed for the body. In physiology the verbs\ndescribing the processes of growth are in the passive. Growth is not\nvoluntary; it takes place, it happens, it is wrought upon matter. So\nhere. \"Ye must be born again\"--we cannot born ourselves. \"Be not\nconformed to this world, but _be ye transformed_\"--we are subjects to\ntransforming influence, we do not transform ourselves. Not more\ncertain is it that it is something outside the thermometer that\nproduces a change in the thermometer, than it is\n\n          SOMETHING OUTSIDE THE SOUL OF MAN\n\nthat produces a moral change upon him. That he must be susceptible to\nthat change, that he must be a party to it, goes without saying; but\nthat neither his aptitude nor his will can produce it, is equally\ncertain.\n\nObvious as it ought to seem, this may be to some an almost startling\nrevelation. The change we have been striving after is not to be\nproduced by any more striving. It is to be wrought upon us by the\nmoulding of hands beyond our own. As the branch ascends, and the bud\nbursts, and the fruit reddens under the co-operation of influences\nfrom the outside air, so man rises to the higher stature under\ninvisible pressures from without. The radical defect of all our former\nmethods of sanctification was the attempt to generate from within that\nwhich can only be wrought upon us from without. According to the first\nLaw of Motion, every body continues in its state of rest, or of\nuniform motion in a straight line, except in so far as it may be\ncompelled _by impressed forces_ to change that state. This is also a\nfirst law of Christianity. Every man's character remains as it is, or\ncontinues in the direction in which it is going, until it is compelled\n_by impressed forces_ to change that state. Our failure has been the\nfailure to put ourselves in the way of the impressed forces. There is\na clay, and there is a Potter; we have tried to get the clay to mould\nthe clay.\n\nWhence, then, these pressures, and where this Potter? The answer of\nthe formula is--\"By reflecting as a mirror the glory of the Lord we\nare changed.\" But this is not very clear. What is the \"glory\" of the\nLord, and how can mortal man reflect it, and how can that act as an\n\"impressed force\" in moulding him to a nobler form? The word\n\"glory\"--the word which has to bear the weight of holding those\n\"impressed forces\"--is a stranger in current speech, and our first\nduty is to seek out its equivalent in working English. It suggests at\nfirst a radiance of some kind, something dazzling or glittering, some\nhalo such as the old masters loved to paint round the head of their\nEcce Homos. But that is paint, mere matter, the visible symbol of some\nunseen thing. What is that unseen thing? It is that of all unseen\nthings the most radiant, the most beautiful, the most Divine, and that\nis _Character_. On earth, in Heaven, there is nothing so great, so\nglorious as this. The word has many meanings; in ethics it can have\nbut one. Glory is character, and nothing less, and it can be nothing\nmore. The earth is \"full of the glory of the Lord,\" because it is full\nof His character. The \"Beauty of the Lord\" is character. \"The\neffulgence of His Glory\" is character. \"The Glory of the Only\nBegotten\" is character, the character which is \"fullness of grace and\ntruth.\" And when God told His people _His name_, He simply gave them\nHis character, His character which was Himself: \"And the Lord\nproclaimed the name of the Lord ... the Lord, the Lord God, merciful\nand gracious, long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth.\"\nGlory then is not something intangible, or ghostly, or transcendental.\nIf it were this, how could Paul ask men to reflect it? Stripped of its\nphysical enswathement it is Beauty, moral and spiritual Beauty, Beauty\ninfinitely real, infinitely exalted, yet infinitely near and\ninfinitely communicable.\n\nWith this explanation read over the sentence once more in paraphrase:\nWe all reflecting as a mirror the character of Christ are transformed\ninto the same Image from character to character--from a poor character\nto a better one, from a better one to a little better still, from that\nto one still more complete, until by slow degrees the Perfect Image is\nattained. Here\n\n          THE SOLUTION OF THE PROBLEM OF SANCTIFICATION\n\nis compressed into a sentence: Reflect the character of Christ, and\nyou will become like Christ. You will be changed, in spite of yourself\nand unknown to yourself, into the same image from character to\ncharacter.\n\n(1). All men are reflectors--that is\n\n          THE FIRST LAW\n\non which this formula is based. One of the aptest descriptions of a\nhuman being is that he is a mirror. As we sat at table to-night the\nworld in which each of us lived and moved throughout this day was\nfocused in the room. What we saw when we looked at one another was not\none another, but one another's world. We were an arrangement of\nmirrors. The scenes we saw were all reproduced; the people we met\nwalked to and fro; they spoke, they bowed, they passed us by, did\neverything over again as if it had been real. When we talked, we were\nbut looking at our own mirror and describing what flitted across it;\nour listening was not hearing, but seeing--we but looked on our\nneighbor's mirror.\n\nAll human intercourse is a seeing of reflections. I meet a stranger in\na railway carriage. The cadence of his first words tells me he is\nEnglish and comes from Yorkshire. Without knowing it he has reflected\nhis birthplace, his parents, and the long history of their race. Even\nphysiologically he is a mirror. His second sentence records that he is\na politician, and a faint inflection in the way he pronounces _The\nTimes_ reveals his party. In his next remarks I see reflected a whole\nworld of experiences. The books he has read, the people he has met,\nthe companions he keeps, the influences that have played upon him and\nmade him the man he is--these are all registered there by a pen which\nlets nothing pass, and whose writing can\n\n          NEVER BE BLOTTED OUT.\n\nWhat I am reading in him meantime he also is reading in me; and before\nthe journey is over we could half write each other's lives. Whether we\nlike it or not, we live in glass houses. The mind, the memory, the\nsoul, is simply a vast chamber panelled with looking-glass. And upon\nthis miraculous arrangement and endowment depends the capacity of\nmortal souls to \"reflect the character of the Lord.\"\n\n(2). But this is not all. If all these varied reflections from our\nso-called secret life are patent to the world, how close the writing,\ncomplete the record within the soul itself! For the influences we meet\nare not simply held for a moment on the polished surface and thrown\noff again into space. Each is retained where first it fell, and stored\nup in the soul forever.\n\n          THIS LAW OF ASSIMILATION\n\nis the second, and by far the most impressive truth which underlies\nthe formula of sanctification--the truth that men are not only\nmirrors, but that these mirrors, so far from being mere reflectors of\nthe fleeting things they see, transfer into their own inmost\nsubstance, and hold in permanent preservation the things that they\nreflect.\n\nNo one knows how the soul can hold these things. No one knows how the\nmiracle is done. No phenomenon in nature, no process in chemistry, no\nchapter in necromancy can ever help us to begin to understand this\namazing operation. For, think of it, the past is not only _focused_\nthere, in a man's soul, it _is_ there. How could it be reflected from\nthere if it were not there? All things that he has ever seen, known,\nfelt, believed of the surrounding world are now within him, have\nbecome part of him, in part are him--he has been changed into their\nimage. He may deny it, he may resent it, but they are there. They do\nnot adhere to him, they are transfused through him. He cannot alter or\nrub them out. They are not in his memory, they are in _him_. His soul\nis as they have filled it, made it, left it. These things, these\nbooks, these events, these influences are his makers. In their hands\nare life and death, beauty and deformity. When once the image or\nlikeness of any of these is fairly presented to the soul, no power on\nearth can hinder two things happening--it must be absorbed into the\nsoul and forever reflected back again from character.\n\nUpon these astounding yet perfectly obvious psychological facts, Paul\nbases his doctrine of sanctification. He sees that character is a\nthing built up by slow degrees, that it is hourly changing for better\nor for worse according to the images which flit across it. One step\nfurther and the whole length and breadth of the application of these\nideas to the central problem of religion will stand before us.\n\n\nII. THE ALCHEMY OF INFLUENCE.\n\nIf events change men, much more persons. No man can meet another on\nthe street without making some mark upon him. We say we exchange words\nwhen we meet; what we exchange is souls. And when intercourse is very\nclose and very frequent, so complete is this exchange that\nrecognizable bits of the one soul begin to show in the other's\nnature, and the second is conscious of a similar and growing debt to\nthe first.\n\nNow, we become like those whom we habitually reflect. I could prove\nfrom science that applies even to the physical framework of\nanimals--that they are influenced and organically changed by the\nenvironment in which they live.\n\nThis mysterious approximating of two souls, who has not witnessed? Who\nhas not watched some old couple come down life's pilgrimage hand in\nhand, with such gentle trust and joy in one another that their very\nfaces wore the self-same look? These were not two souls; it was a\ncomposite soul. It did not matter to which of the two you spoke, you\nwould have said the same words to either. It was quite indifferent\nwhich replied, each would have said the same. Half a century's\n_reflecting_ had told upon them; they were changed into the same\nimage. It is the Law of Influence that _we become like those whom we\nhabitually reflect_: these had become like because they habitually\nreflected. Through all the range of literature, of history, and\nbiography this law presides. Men are all mosaics of other men. There\nwas a savor of David about Jonathan, and a savor of Jonathan about\nDavid. Metempsychosis is a fact. George Eliot's message to the world\nwas that men and women make men and women. The Family, the cradle of\nmankind, has no meaning apart from this. Society itself is nothing but\na rallying point for these omnipotent forces to do their work. On the\ndoctrine of Influence, in short, the whole vast pyramid of humanity is\nbuilt.\n\nBut it was reserved for Paul to make the supreme application of the\nLaw of Influence. It was a tremendous inference to make, but he never\nhesitated. He himself was a changed man; he knew exactly what had done\nit;\n\n          IT WAS CHRIST.\n\nOn the Damascus road they met, and from that hour his life was\nabsorbed in His. The effect could not but follow--on words, on deeds,\non career, on creed. The \"impressed forces\" did their vital work. He\nbecame like Him Whom he habitually loved. \"So we all,\" he writes,\n\"reflecting as a mirror the glory of Christ, are changed into the same\nimage.\"\n\nNothing could be more simple, more intelligible, more natural, more\nsupernatural. It is an analogy from an every-day fact. Since we are\nwhat we are by the impacts of those who surround us, those who\nsurround themselves with the highest will be those who change into the\nhighest. There are some men and some women in whose company we are\n\n          ALWAYS AT OUR BEST.\n\nWhile with them we cannot think mean thoughts or speak ungenerous\nwords. Their mere presence is elevation, purification, sanctity. All\nthe best stops in our nature are drawn out by their intercourse, and\nwe find a music in our souls that was never there before. Suppose even\n_that_ influence prolonged through a month, a year, a lifetime, and\nwhat could not life become? Here, even on the common plane of life,\ntalking our language, walking our streets, working side by side, are\nsanctifiers of souls; here, breathing through common clay, is Heaven;\nhere, energies charged even through a temporal medium with the virtue\nof regeneration. If to live with men, diluted to the millionth degree\nwith the virtue of the Highest, can exalt and purify the nature, what\nbounds can be set to the influence of Christ? To live with\nSocrates--with unveiled face--must have made one wise; with Aristides,\njust. Francis Assisi must have made one gentle; Savonarola, strong.\nBut to have lived with Christ must have made one like Christ: that is\nto say, _A Christian_.\n\nAs a matter of fact, to live with Christ did produce this effect. It\nproduced it in the case of Paul. And during Christ's lifetime the\nexperiment was tried in an even more startling form. A few raw,\nunspiritual, uninspiring men, were admitted to the inner circle of His\nfriendship. The change began at once. Day by day we can almost see the\nfirst disciple grow. First there steals over them the faintest\npossible adumbration of His character, and occasionally, very\noccasionally, they do a thing or say a thing that they could not have\ndone or said had they not been living there. Slowly the spell of His\nLife deepens. Reach after reach of their nature is overtaken, thawed,\nsubjugated, sanctified. Their manner softens, their words become more\ngentle, their conduct more unselfish. As swallows who have found a\nsummer, as frozen buds the spring, their starved humanity bursts into\na fuller life. They do not know how it is, but they are different men.\n\nOne day they find themselves like their Master, going about and doing\ngood. To themselves it is unaccountable, but they cannot do otherwise.\nThey were not told to do it, it came to them to do it. But the people\nwho watch them know well how to account for it--\"They have been,\" they\nwhisper, \"with Jesus.\" Already even, the mark and seal of His\ncharacter is upon them--\"They have been with Jesus.\" Unparalleled\nphenomenon, that these poor fishermen should remind other men of\nChrist! Stupendous victory and mystery of\n\n          REGENERATION\n\nthat mortal men should suggest _God_ to the world!\n\nThere is something almost melting in the way His contemporaries, and\nJohn especially, speak of the influence of Christ. John lived himself\nin daily wonder at Him; he was overpowered, over-awed, entranced,\ntransfigured. To his mind it was impossible for any one to come under\nthis influence and ever be the same again. \"Whosoever abideth in Him\nsinneth not,\" he said. It was inconceivable that he should sin, as\ninconceivable as that ice should live in a burning sun, or darkness\ncoexist with noon. If any one did sin, it was to John the simple proof\nthat he could never have met Christ. \"Whosoever sinneth,\" he exclaims,\n\"hath not seen _Him_, neither known _Him_.\" Sin was abashed in this\nPresence. Its roots withered. Its sway and victory were forever at an\nend.\n\nBut these were His contemporaries. It was easy for _them_ to be\ninfluenced by Him, for they were every day and all the day together.\nBut how can we mirror that which we have never seen? How can all this\nstupendous result be produced by a Memory, by the scantiest of all\nBiographies, by One who lived and left this earth eighteen hundred\nyears ago? How can modern men to-day make Christ, the absent Christ,\ntheir most constant companion still?\n\nThe answer is that\n\n          FRIENDSHIP IS A SPIRITUAL THING.\n\nIt is independent of Matter, or Space, or Time. That which I love in\nmy friend is not that which I see. What influences me in my friend is\nnot his body but his spirit. He influences me about as much in his\nabsence as in his presence. It would have been an ineffable experience\ntruly to have lived at that time--\n\n    \"I think when I read the sweet story of old,\n      How when Jesus was here among men,\n    He took little children like lambs to His fold,\n      I should like to have been with Him then.\n\n    \"I wish that His hand had been laid on my head,\n      That His arms had been thrown around me,\n    And that I had seen His kind look when he said,\n      'Let the little ones come unto me.'\"\n\nAnd yet, if Christ were to come into the world again, few of us\nprobably would ever have a chance of seeing Him. Millions of her\nsubjects in the little country of England have never seen their own\nQueen. And there would be millions of the subjects of Christ who could\nnever get within speaking distance of Him if He were here. We remember\nHe said: \"It is expedient for you (not _for Me_) that I go away\";\nbecause by going away He could really be nearer to us than He would\nhave been if He had stayed here. It would be geographically and\nphysically impossible for most of us to be influenced by His person\nhad He remained. And so our communion with Him is a spiritual\ncompanionship; but not different from most companionships, which, when\nyou press them down to the roots, you will find to be essentially\nspiritual.\n\nAll friendship, all love, human and Divine, is purely spiritual. It\nwas after He was risen that He influenced even the disciples most.\nHence, in reflecting the character of Christ, it is no real obstacle\nthat we may never have been in visible contact with Himself.\n\nThere lived once a young girl whose perfect grace of character was the\nwonder of those who knew her. She wore on her neck a gold locket which\nno one was ever allowed to open. One day, in a moment of unusual\nconfidence, one of her companions was allowed to touch its spring and\nlearn its secret. She saw written these words--\n\n\"_Whom having not seen I love_.\"\n\nThat was the secret of her beautiful life. She had been changed into\nthe Same Image.\n\nNow this is not imitation, but a much deeper thing. Mark this\ndistinction, for the difference in the process, as well as in the\nresult, may be as great as that between a photograph secured by the\ninfallible pencil of the sun, and the rude outline from a school-boy's\nchalk. Imitation is mechanical, reflection organic. The one is\noccasional, the other habitual. In the one case, man comes to God and\nimitates him; in the other, God comes to man and imprints Himself upon\nhim. It is quite true that there is an imitation of Christ which\namounts to reflection. But Paul's term includes all that the other\nholds, and is open to no mistake.\n\nWhat, then, is the practical lesson? It is obvious. \"Make Christ your\nmost constant companion\"--this is what it practically means for us. Be\nmore under His influence than under any other influence. Ten minutes\nspent in His society every day, ay, two minutes if it be face to face,\nand heart to heart, will make the whole day different. Every character\nhas an inward spring,--let Christ be it. Every action has a\nkey-note,--let Christ set it.\n\nYesterday you got a certain letter. You sat down and wrote a reply\nwhich almost scorched the paper. You picked the cruelest adjectives\nyou knew and sent it forth, without a pang to do its ruthless work.\nYou did that because your life was set in the wrong key. You began the\nday with the mirror placed at the wrong angle.\n\nTomorrow at day-break, turn it towards Him, and even to your enemy the\nfashion of your countenance will be changed. Whatever you then do, one\nthing you will find you could not do--you could not write that letter.\nYour first impulse may be the same, your judgment may be unchanged,\nbut if you try it the ink will dry on your pen, and you will rise from\nyour desk an unavenged, but a greater and more Christian man.\nThroughout the whole day your actions, down to the last detail, will\ndo homage to that early vision.\n\nYesterday you thought mostly about yourself. Today the poor will meet\nyou, and you will feed them. The helpless, the tempted, the sad, will\nthrong about you, and each you will befriend. Where were all these\npeople yesterday? Where they are today, but you did not see them. It\nis in reflected light that the poor are seen. But your soul today is\n\n          NOT AT THE ORDINARY ANGLE.\n\n\"Things which are not seen\" are visible. For a few short hours you\nlive the Eternal Life. The eternal life, the life of faith, is simply\nthe life of a higher vision. Faith is an attitude--a mirror set at the\nright angle.\n\nWhen tomorrow is over, and in the evening you review it, you will\nwonder how you did it. You will not be conscious that you strove for\nanything, or imitated anything, or crucified anything. You will be\nconscious of Christ; that He was with you, that without compulsion you\nwere yet compelled; that without force, or noise, or proclamation, the\nrevolution was accomplished. You do not congratulate yourself as one\nwho has done a mighty deed, or achieved a personal success, or stored\nup a fund of \"Christian experience\" to ensure the same result again.\nWhat you are conscious of is \"the glory of the Lord.\" And what the\nworld is conscious of, if the result be a true one, is also \"the glory\nof the Lord.\" In looking at a mirror one does not see the mirror, or\nthink of it, but only of what it reflects. For a mirror never calls\nthe attention to itself--except when there are flaws in it.\n\nLet me say a word or two more about the effects which necessarily must\nfollow from this contact, or fellowship, with Christ. I need not quote\nthe texts upon the subject--the texts about abiding in Christ. \"He\nthat abideth in Him sinneth not.\" You cannot sin when you are standing\nin front of Christ. You simply cannot do it. Again: \"If ye abide in\nMe, and My words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall\nbe done unto you.\" Think of that! That is another inevitable\nconsequence. And there is yet another: \"He that abideth in Me, the\nsame bringeth forth much fruit.\" Sinlessness--answered prayer--much\nfruit.\n\nBut in addition to these things, see how many of the highest Christian\nvirtues and experiences necessarily flow from the assumption of that\nattitude toward Christ. For instance, the moment you assume that\nrelation to Christ you begin to know what the _child-spirit_ is. You\nstand before Christ, and He becomes your Teacher, and you\ninstinctively become docile. Then you learn also to become\n_charitable_ and _tolerant_; because you are learning of Him, and He\nis \"meek and lowly in heart,\" and you catch that spirit. That is a bit\nof His character being reflected into yours. Instead of being critical\nand self-asserting, you become humble and have the mind of a little\nchild.\n\nI think, further, the only way of learning what _faith_ is is to know\nChrist and be in His company. You hear sermons about the nine\ndifferent kinds of faith--distinctions drawn between the right kind of\nfaith and the wrong--and sermons telling you how to get faith. So far\nas I can see, there is\n\n          ONLY ONE WAY\n\nin which faith is got, and it is the same in the religious world as it\nis in the world of men and women. I learn to trust you, my brother,\njust as I get to know you, and neither more nor less; and you get to\ntrust me just as you get to know me. I do not trust you as a stranger,\nbut as I come into contact with you, and watch you, and live with you,\nI find out that you are trustworthy, and I come to trust myself to\nyou, and to lean upon you. But I do not do that to a stranger.\n\nThe way to trust Christ is to know Christ. You cannot help trusting\nHim then. You are changed. By knowing Him faith is begotten in you, as\ncause and effect. To trust Him without knowing Him as thousands do, is\nnot faith, but credulity. I believe a great deal of prayer for faith\nis thrown away. What we should pray for is that we may be able to\nfulfill the condition, and when we have fulfilled the condition, the\nfaith necessarily follows. The way, therefore, to increase our faith\nis to increase our intimacy with Christ. We trust Him more and more\nthe better we know Him.\n\nAnd then another immediate effect of this way of sanctifying the\ncharacter is the tranquillity that it brings over the Christian life.\nHow disturbed and distressed and anxious Christian people are about\ntheir growth in grace! Now, the moment you give that over into\nChrist's care--the moment you see that you are _being_ changed--that\nanxiety passes away. You see that it must follow by an inevitable\nprocess and by a natural law if you fulfill the simple condition; so\nthat peace is the reward of that life and fellowship with Christ.\n\nMany other things follow. A man's usefulness depends to a large extent\nupon his fellowship with Christ. That is obvious. Only Christ can\ninfluence the world; but all that the world sees of Christ is what it\nsees of you and me. Christ said: \"The world seeth Me no more, but ye\nsee Me.\" You see Him, and standing in front of Him reflect Him, and\nthe world sees the reflection. It cannot see Him. So that a\nChristian's usefulness depends solely upon that relationship.\n\nNow, I have only pointed out a few of the things that follow from the\nstanding before Christ--from the abiding in Christ. You will find, if\nyou run over the texts about abiding in Christ, many other things will\nsuggest themselves in the same relations. Almost everything in\nChristian experience and character follows, and follows necessarily,\nfrom standing before Christ and reflecting his character. But the\nsupreme consummation is that we are changed into _the same image_,\n\"even as by the Lord the Spirit.\" That is to say, that in some way,\nunknown to us, but possibly not more mysterious than the doctrine of\npersonal influence, we are changed into the image of Christ.\n\nThis method cannot fail. I am not setting before you an opinion or a\ntheory, but this is\n\n          A CERTAINLY SUCCESSFUL MEANS\n\nof sanctification. \"We all, with unveiled face, reflecting in a mirror\nthe glory of Christ (the character of Christ) assuredly--without any\nmiscarriage--without any possibility of miscarriage--are changed into\nthe same image.\" It is an immense thing to be anchored in some great\nprinciple like that. Emerson says: \"The hero is the man who is\nimmovably centered.\" Get immovably centered in that doctrine of\nsanctification. Do not be carried away by the hundred and one theories\nof sanctification that are floating about in religious literature of\nthe country at the present time; but go to the bottom of the thing for\nyourself, and see the _rationale_ of it for yourself, and you will\ncome to see that it is a matter of cause and effect, and that if you\nwill fulfill the condition laid down by Christ, the effect must follow\nby a natural law.\n\nWhat a prospect! To be changed into the same image. Think of that!\nThat is what we are here for. That is what we are elected for. Not to\nbe saved, in the common acceptation, but \"whom He did foreknow He also\ndid predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son.\" Not merely\nto be saved, but _to be conformed to the image of His Son_. Conserve\nthat principle. And as we must spend time in cultivating our earthly\nfriendships if we are to have their blessings, so we must\n\n          SPEND TIME\n\nin cultivating the fellowship and companionship of Christ. And there\nis nothing so much worth taking into our lives as a profounder sense\nof what is to be had by living in communion with Christ, and by\ngetting nearer to Him. It will matter much if we take away with us\nsome of the thoughts about theology, and some of the new light that\nhas been shed upon the text of Scripture; it will matter infinitely\nmore if our fellowship with the Lord Jesus become a little closer, and\nour theory of holy living a little more rational. And then as we go\nforth, men will take knowledge of us, that we have been with Jesus,\nand as we reflect Him upon them, they will begin to be changed into\nthe same image.\n\nIt seems to me the preaching is of infinitely smaller account than the\nlife which mirrors Christ. That is bound to tell; without speech or\nlanguage--like the voices of the stars. It throws out its impressions\non every side. The one simple thing we have to do is to be there--in\nthe right relation; to go through life hand in hand with Him; to have\nHim in the room with us, and keeping us company wherever we go; to\ndepend upon Him and lean upon Him, and so have His life reflected in\nthe fullness of its beauty and perfection into ours.\n\n\nIII. THE FIRST EXPERIMENT.\n\nThen you reduce religion to a common Friendship? A common\nFriendship--who talks of a _common_ Friendship? There is no such thing\nin the world.\n\nOn earth no word is more sublime. Friendship is the nearest thing we\nknow to what religion is. God is love. And to make religion akin to\nFriendship is simply to give it the highest expression conceivable by\nman. But if by demurring to \"a common friendship\" is meant a protest\nagainst the greatest and the holiest in religion being spoken of in\nintelligible terms, then I am afraid the objection is all too real.\nMen always look for a mystery when one talks of sanctification, some\nmystery apart from that which must ever be mysterious wherever Spirit\nworks. It is thought some peculiar secret lies behind it, some occult\nexperience which only the initiated know. Thousands of persons go to\nchurch every Sunday hoping to solve this mystery. At meetings, at\nconferences, many a time they have reached what they thought was the\nvery brink of it, but somehow no further revelation came. Poring over\nreligious books, how often were they not within a paragraph of it; the\nnext page, the next sentence, would discover all, and they would be\nborne on a flowing tide forever. But nothing happened. The next\nsentence and the next page were read, and still it eluded them; and\nthough the promise of its coming kept faithfully up to the end, the\nlast chapter found them still pursuing.\n\nWhy did nothing happen? Because there was nothing to happen--nothing\nof the kind they were looking for. Why did it elude them? Because\nthere was no \"it.\" When shall we learn that the pursuit of holiness is\nsimply\n\n          THE PURSUIT OF CHRIST?\n\nWhen shall we substitute for the \"it\" of a fictitious aspiration, the\napproach to a Living Friend? Sanctity is in character and not in\nmoods; Divinity in our own plain calm humanity, and in no mystic\nrapture of the soul.\n\nAnd yet there are others who, for exactly a contrary reason, will find\nscant satisfaction here. Their complaint is not that a religion\nexpressed in terms of Friendship is too homely, but that it is still\ntoo mystical. To \"abide\" in Christ, to \"make Christ our most constant\ncompanion,\" is to them the purest mysticism. They want something\nabsolutely tangible and absolutely direct. These are not the poetical\nsouls who seek a sign, a mysticism in excess, but the prosaic natures\nwhose want is mathematical definition in details. Yet it is perhaps\nnot possible to reduce this problem to much more rigid elements. The\nbeauty of Friendship is its infinity. One can never evacuate life of\nmysticism. Home is full of it, love is full of it, religion is full of\nit. Why stumble at that in the relation of man to Christ which is\nnatural in the relation of man to man?\n\nIf any one cannot conceive or realize a mystical relation with Christ,\nperhaps all that can be done is to help him to step on to it by still\nplainer analogies from common life. How do I know Shakspere or Dante?\nBy communing with their words and thoughts. Many men know Dante better\nthan their own fathers. He influences them more. As a spiritual\npresence he is more near to them, as a spiritual force more real. Is\nthere any reason why a greater than Shakspere or Dante, who also\nwalked this earth, who left great words behind Him, who has greater\nworks everywhere in the world now, should not also instruct, inspire\nand mould the characters of men? I do not limit Christ's influence to\nthis: it is this, and it is more. But Christ, so far from resenting\nor discouraging this relation of Friendship, Himself proposed it.\n\"Abide in me\" was almost His last word to the world. And He partly met\nthe difficulty of those who feel its intangibleness by adding the\npractical clause, \"If ye abide in Me, _and My words abide in you_.\"\n\nBegin with His words. Words can scarcely ever be long impersonal.\nChrist himself was a Word, a word made Flesh. Make His words flesh; do\nthem, live them, and you must live Christ. \"_He that keepeth My\nCommandments_, he it is that loveth Me.\" Obey Him and you must love\nHim. Abide in Him, and you must obey Him. _Cultivate_ His Friendship.\nLive after Christ, in His Spirit, as in His Presence, and it is\ndifficult to think what more you can do. Take this at least as a first\nlesson, as introduction.\n\nIf you cannot at once and always feel the play of His life upon yours,\nwatch for it also indirectly. \"The whole earth is full of the\ncharacter of the Lord.\" Christ is the Light of the world, and much of\nhis Light is reflected from things in the world--even from clouds.\nSunlight is stored in every leaf, from leaf through coal, and it\ncomforts us thence when days are dark and we cannot see the sun.\nChrist shines through men, through books, through history, through\nnature, music, art. Look for Him there. \"Every day one should either\nlook at a beautiful picture, or hear beautiful music, or read a\nbeautiful poem.\" The real danger of mysticism is not making it broad\nenough.\n\nDo not think that nothing is happening because you do not see yourself\ngrow, or hear the whir of the machinery. All great things grow\nnoiselessly. You can see a mushroom grow, but never a child. Paul said\nfor the comforting of all slowly perfecting souls that they grew\n\"from character to character.\" \"The inward man,\" he says elsewhere,\n\"is renewed from day to day.\" All thorough work is slow; all true\ndevelopment by minute, slight and insensible metamorphoses. The higher\nthe structure, moreover, the slower the progress. As the biologist\nruns his eye over the long Ascent of Life, he sees the lowest forms of\nanimals develop in an hour; the next above these reach maturity in a\nday; those higher still take weeks or months to perfect; but the few\nat the top demand the long experiment of years. If a child and an ape\nare born on the same day, the last will be in full possession of its\nfaculties and doing the active work of life before the child has left\nits cradle. Life is the cradle of eternity. As the man is to the\nanimal in the slowness of his evolution, so is the spiritual man to\nthe natural man. Foundations which have to bear the weight of an\neternal life must be surely laid. Character is to wear forever; who\nwill wonder or grudge that it cannot be developed in a day?\n\nTo await the growing of a soul, nevertheless, is an almost Divine act\nof faith. How pardonable, surely, the impatience of deformity with\nitself, of a consciously despicable character standing before Christ,\nwondering, yearning, hungering to be like that! Yet must one trust the\nprocess fearlessly and without misgiving. \"The Lord the Spirit\" will\ndo His part. The tempting expedient is, in haste for abrupt or visible\nprogress, to try some method less spiritual, or to defeat the end by\nwatching for effects instead of keeping the eye on the Cause. A\nphotograph prints from the negative only while exposed to the sun.\nWhile the artist is looking to see how it is getting on he simply\nstops the getting on. Whatever of wise supervision the soul may need,\nit is certain it can never be over-exposed, or that, being exposed,\nanything else in the world can improve the result or quicken it. The\ncreation of a new heart, the renewing of a right spirit, is an\nomnipotent work of God. Leave it to the Creator. \"He which hath begun\na good work in you will perfect it unto that day.\"\n\nNo man, nevertheless, who feels the worth and solemnity of what is at\nstake will be careless as to his progress. To become\n\n          LIKE CHRIST\n\nis the only thing in the world worth caring for, the thing before\nwhich every ambition of man is folly, and all lower achievement vain.\n\nThose only who make this quest the supreme desire and passion of their\nlives can ever begin to hope to reach it. If, therefore, it has seemed\nup to this point as if all depended on passivity, let me now assert,\nwith conviction more intense, that all depends on activity. A religion\nof effortless adoration may be a religion for an angel, but never for\na man. Not in the contemplative, but in the active, lies true hope;\nnot in rapture, but in reality, lies true life; not in the realm of\nideals, but among tangible things, is man's sanctification wrought.\nResolution, effort, pain, self-crucifixion, agony--all the things\nalready dismissed as futile in themselves, must now be restored to\noffice, and a tenfold responsibility laid upon them. For what is their\noffice? Nothing less than to move the vast inertia of the soul, and\nplace it, and keep it where the spiritual forces will act upon it. It\nis to rally the forces of the will, and keep the surface of the mirror\nbright and ever in position. It is to uncover the face which is to\nlook at Christ, and draw down the veil when unhallowed sights are\nnear.\n\nYou have, perhaps, gone with an astronomer to watch him photograph the\nspectrum of a star. As you enter the dark vault of the observatory you\nsaw him begin by lighting a candle. To see the star with? No; but to\nadjust the instrument to see the star with. It was the star that was\ngoing to take the photograph; it was, also, the astronomer. For a long\ntime he worked in the dimness, screwing tubes and polishing lenses and\nadjusting reflectors, and only after much labor the finely focused\ninstrument was brought to bear. Then he blew out the light, and left\nthe star to do its work upon the plate alone.\n\nThe day's task for the Christian is to bring his instrument to bear.\nHaving done that he may blow out his candle. All the evidences of\nChristianity which have brought him there, all aids to Faith, all acts\nof worship, all the leverages of the Church, all Prayer and\nMeditation, all girding of the Will--these lesser processes, these\ncandle-light activities for that supreme hour, may be set aside. But,\nremember, it is but for an hour. The wise man will be he who quickest\nlights his candle, the wisest he who never lets it out. Tomorrow, the\nnext moment, he, a poor, darkened, blurred soul, may need it again to\nfocus the Image better, to take a mote off the lens, to clear the\nmirror from a breath with which the world has dulled it.\n\nNo readjustment is ever required on behalf of the Star. That is one\ngreat fixed point in this shifting universe. But _the world moves_.\nAnd each day, each hour, demands a further motion and readjustment for\nthe soul. A telescope in an observatory follows a star by clockwork,\nbut the clockwork of the soul is called _the Will_. Hence, while the\nsoul in passivity reflects the Image of the Lord, the Will in intense\nactivity holds the mirror in position lest the drifting motion of the\nworld bear it beyond the line of vision. To \"follow Christ\" is largely\nto keep the soul in such position as will allow for the motion of the\nearth. And this calculated counteracting of the movements of the\nworld, this holding of the mirror exactly opposite to the Mirrored,\nthis steadying of the faculties unerringly through cloud and\nearthquake, fire and sword, is the stupendous co-operating labor of\nthe Will. It is all man's work. It is all Christ's work. In practice\nit is both; in theory it is both. But the wise man will say in\npractice, \"It depends upon myself.\"\n\nIn the Gallerie des Beaux Arts in Paris there stands a famous statue.\nIt was the last work of a great genius, who, like many a genius, was\nvery poor and lived in a garret, which served as a studio and\nsleeping-room alike. When the statue was all but finished, one\nmidnight a sudden frost fell upon Paris. The sculptor lay awake in the\nfireless room and thought of the still moist clay, thought how the\nwater would freeze in the pores and destroy in an hour the dream of\nhis life. So the old man rose from his couch and heaped the\nbed-clothes reverently round his work. In the morning when the\nneighbors entered the room the sculptor was dead, but the statue was\nsaved!\n\nThe Image of Christ that is forming within us--that is life's one\ncharge. Let every project stand aside for that. The spirit of God who\nbrooded upon the waters thousands of years ago, is busy now creating\nmen, within these commonplace lives of ours, in the image of God.\n\"Till Christ be formed,\" no man's work is finished, no religion\ncrowned, no life has fulfilled its end. Is the infinite task begun?\nWhen, how, are we to be different? Time cannot change men. Death\ncannot change men. Christ can. Wherefore _put on Christ_.\n\n\n\n\nDEALING WITH DOUBT.\n\n\nThere is a subject which I think workers amongst young men cannot\nafford to keep out of sight--I mean the subject of \"Doubt.\" We are\nforced to face that subject. We have no choice. I would rather let it\nalone; but every day of my life I meet men who doubt, and I am quite\nsure that most Christian workers among men have innumerable interviews\nevery year with men who raise skeptical difficulties about religion.\n\nNow it becomes a matter of great practical importance that we should\nknow how to deal wisely with these. Upon the whole, I think these are\nthe best men in the country. I speak of my own country. I speak of the\nuniversities with which I am familiar, and I say that the men who are\nperplexed,--the men who come to you with serious and honest\ndifficulties,--are the best men. They are men of intellectual honesty,\nand cannot allow themselves to be put to rest by words, or phrases, or\ntraditions, or theologies, but who must get to the bottom of things\nfor themselves. And if I am not mistaken,\n\n          CHRIST WAS VERY FOND\n\nof these men. The outsiders always interested Him, and touched Him.\nThe orthodox people--the Pharisees--He was much less interested in. He\nwent with publicans and sinners--with people who were in revolt\nagainst the respectability, intellectual and religious, of the day.\nAnd following Him, we are entitled to give sympathetic consideration\nto those whom He loved and took trouble with.\n\nFirst, let me speak for a moment or two about\n\n          THE ORIGIN OF DOUBT.\n\nIn the first place, _we are born questioners_. Look at the wonderment\nof a little child in its eyes before it can speak. The child's great\nword when it begins to speak is, \"Why?\" Every child is full of every\nkind of question, about every kind of thing, that moves, and shines,\nand changes, in the little world in which it lives.\n\nThat is the incipient doubt in the nature of man. Respect doubt for\nits origin. It is an inevitable thing. It is not a thing to be\ncrushed. It is a part of man as God made him. Heresy is truth in the\nmaking, and doubt is the prelude of knowledge.\n\nSecondly: _The world is a Sphinx._ It is a vast riddle--an\nunfathomable mystery; and on every side there is temptation to\nquestioning. In every leaf, in every cell of every leaf, there are a\nhundred problems. There are ten good years of a man's life in\ninvestigating what is in a leaf, and there are five good years more in\ninvestigating the things that are in the things that are in the leaf.\nGod has planned the world to incite men to intellectual activity.\n\nThirdly: _The instrument with which we attempt to investigate truth is\nimpaired._ Some say it fell, and the glass is broken. Some say\nprejudice, heredity, or sin, have spoiled its sight, and have blinded\nour eyes and deadened our ears. In any case the instruments with\nwhich we work upon truth, even in the strongest men, are feeble and\ninadequate to their tremendous task.\n\nAnd in the fourth place, _all religious truths are doubtable_. There\nis no absolute truth for any one of them. Even that fundamental\ntruth--the existence of a God--no man can prove by reason. The\nordinary proof for the existence of God involves either an assumption,\nargument in a circle, or a contradiction. The impression of God is\nkept up by experience, not by logic. And hence, when the experimental\nreligion of a man, of a community, or of a nation wanes, religion\nwanes--their idea of God grows indistinct, and that man, community or\nnation becomes infidel.\n\nBear in mind, then, that all religious truths are doubtable--even\nthose which we hold most strongly.\n\nWhat does this brief account of the origin of doubt teach us? It\nteaches us\n\n          GREAT INTELLECTUAL HUMILITY.\n\nIt teaches us sympathy and toleration with all men who venture upon\nthe ocean of truth to find out a path through it for themselves. Do\nyou sometimes feel yourself thinking unkind things about your\nfellow-students who have intellectual difficulty? I know how hard it\nis always to feel sympathy and toleration for them; but we must\naddress ourselves to that most carefully and most religiously. If my\nbrother is shortsighted I must not abuse him or speak against him; I\nmust pity him, and if possible try to improve his sight, or to make\nthings that he is to look at so bright that he cannot help seeing. But\nnever let us think evil of men who do not see as we do. From the\nbottom of our hearts let us pity them, and let us take them by the\nhand and spend time and thought over them, and try to lead them to the\ntrue light.\n\nWhat has been\n\n          THE CHURCH'S TREATMENT OF DOUBT\n\nin the past? It has been very simple. \"There is a heretic. Burn him!\"\nThat is all. \"There is a man who has gone off the road. Bring him back\nand torture him!\"\n\nWe have got past that physically; have we got past it morally? What\ndoes the modern Church say to a man who is skeptical? Not \"Burn him!\"\nbut \"Brand him!\" \"Brand him!\"--call him a bad name. And in many\ncountries at the present time, a man who is branded as a heretic is\ndespised, tabooed and put out of religious society, much more than if\nhe had gone wrong in morals. I think I am speaking within the facts\nwhen I say that a man who is unsound is looked upon in many\ncommunities with more suspicion and with more pious horror than a man\nwho now and then gets drunk. \"Burn him!\" \"Brand him!\" \"Excommunicate\nhim!\" That has been the Church's treatment of doubt, and that is\nperhaps to some extent the treatment which we ourselves are inclined\nto give to the men who cannot see the truths of Christianity as we see\nthem.\n\nContrast\n\n          CHRIST'S TREATMENT\n\nof doubt. I have spoken already of His strange partiality for the\noutsiders--for the scattered heretics up and down the country; of the\ncare with which He loved to deal with them, and of the respect in\nwhich He held their intellectual difficulties. Christ never failed to\ndistinguish between doubt and unbelief. Doubt is \"_can't believe_\";\nunbelief is \"_won't believe_.\" Doubt is honesty; unbelief is\nobstinacy. Doubt is looking for light; unbelief is content with\ndarkness. Loving darkness rather than light--that is what Christ\nattacked, and attacked unsparingly. But for the intellectual\nquestioning of Thomas, and Philip, and Nicodemus, and the many others\nwho came to Him to have their great problems solved, He was respectful\nand generous and tolerant.\n\nAnd how did He meet their doubts? The Church, as I have said, says,\n\"Brand him!\" Christ said, \"Teach him.\" He destroyed by fulfilling.\nWhen Thomas came to Him and denied His very resurrection, and stood\nbefore Him waiting for the scathing words and lashing for his\nunbelief, they never came. They never came! Christ gave him\nfacts--facts! No man can go around facts. Christ said, \"Behold My\nhands and My feet.\" The great god of science at the present time is a\nfact. It works with facts. Its cry is, \"Give me facts. Found anything\nyou like upon facts and we will believe it.\" The spirit of Christ was\nthe scientific spirit. He founded His religion upon facts; and He\nasked all men to found their religion upon facts.\n\nNow, get up the facts of Christianity, and take men to the facts.\nTheologies--and I am not speaking disrespectfully of theology;\ntheology is as scientific a thing as any other science of facts--but\ntheologies are\n\n          HUMAN VERSIONS\n\nof Divine truths, and hence the varieties of the versions and the\ninconsistencies of them. I would allow a man to select whichever\nversion of this truth he liked _afterwards_; but I would ask him to\nbegin with no version, but go back to the facts and base his Christian\nlife upon these.\n\nThat is the great lesson of the New Testament way of looking at\ndoubt--of Christ's treatment of doubt. It is not \"Brand him!\"--but\nlovingly, wisely and tenderly to teach him. Faith is never opposed to\nreason in the New Testament; it is opposed to sight. You will find\nthat a principle worth thinking over. _Faith is never opposed to\nreason in the New Testament, but to sight._\n\nWith these principles in mind as to the origin of doubt, and as to\nChrist's treatment of it, how are we ourselves to deal with those who\nare in intellectual difficulty?\n\nIn the first place, I think _we must make all the concessions to them\nthat we conscientiously can_.\n\nWhen a doubter first encounters you, he pours out a deluge of abuse of\nchurches, and ministers, and creeds, and Christians. Nine-tenths of\nwhat he says is probably true. Make concessions. Agree with him. It\ndoes him good to unburden himself of these things. He has been\ncherishing them for years--laying them up against Christians, against\nthe Church, and against Christianity; and now he is startled to find\nthe first Christian with whom he has talked over the thing almost\nentirely agrees with him. We are, of course, not responsible for\neverything that is said in the name of Christianity; but a man does\nnot give up medicine because there are quack doctors, and no man has a\nright to give up his Christianity because there are spurious or\ninconsistent Christians. Then, as I already said, creeds are human\nversions of Divine truths; and we do not ask a man to accept all the\ncreeds, any more than we ask him to accept all the Christians. We ask\nhim to accept Christ, and the facts about Christ and the words of\nChrist. You will find the battle is half won when you have endorsed\nthe man's objections, and possibly added a great many more to the\ncharges which he has against ourselves. These men are\n\n          IN REVOLT\n\nagainst the kind of religion which we exhibit to the world--against\nthe cant that is taught in the name of Christianity. And if the men\nthat have never seen the real thing--if you could show them that, they\nwould receive it as eagerly as you do. They are merely in revolt\nagainst the imperfections and inconsistencies of those who represent\nChrist to the world.\n\nSecond: _Beg them to set aside, by an act of will, all unsolved\nproblems_: such as the problem of the origin of evil, the problem of\nthe Trinity, the problem of the relation of human will and\npredestination, and so on--problems which have been investigated for\nthousands of years without result--ask them to set those problems\naside as insoluble. In the meantime, just as a man who is studying\nmathematics may be asked to set aside the problem of squaring the\ncircle, let him go on with what can be done, and what has been done,\nand leave out of sight the impossible.\n\nYou will find that will relieve the skeptic's mind of a great deal of\n\n          UNNECESSARY CARGO\n\nthat has been in his way.\n\nThirdly: _Talking about difficulties, as a rule, only aggravates\nthem._\n\nEntire satisfaction to the intellect is unattainable about any of the\ngreater problems, and if you try to get to the bottom of them by\nargument, there is no bottom there; and therefore you make the matter\nworse. But I would say what is known, and what can be honestly and\nphilosophically and scientifically said about one or two of the\ndifficulties that the doubter raises, just to show him that you can do\nit--to show him that you are not a fool--that you are not merely\ngroping in the dark yourself, but you have found whatever basis is\npossible. But I would not go around all the doctrines. I would simply\ndo that with one or two; because the moment you cut off one, a hundred\nother heads will grow in its place. It would be a pity if all these\nproblems could be solved. The joy of the intellectual life would be\nlargely gone. I would not rob a man of his problems, nor would I have\nanother man rob me of my problems. They are the delight of life, and\nthe whole intellectual world would be stale and unprofitable if we\nknew everything.\n\nFourthly--and this is the great point: _Turn away from the reason and\ngo into the man's moral life._\n\nI don't mean, go into his moral life and see if the man is living in\nconscious sin, which is the great blinder of the eyes--I am speaking\nnow of honest doubt; but open a new door into\n\n          THE PRACTICAL SIDE OF MAN'S NATURE.\n\nEntreat him not to postpone life and his life's usefulness until he\nhas settled the problems of the universe. Tell him those problems will\nnever all be settled; that his life will be done before he has begun\nto settle them; and ask him what he is doing with his life meantime.\nCharge him with wasting his life and his usefulness; and invite him to\ndeal with the moral and practical difficulties of the world, and leave\nthe intellectual difficulties as he goes along. To spend time upon\nthese is proving the less important before the more important; and, as\nthe French say, \"The good is the enemy of the best.\" It is a good\nthing to think; it is a better thing to work--it is a better thing to\ndo good. And you have him there, you see. He can't get beyond that.\nYou have to tell him, in fact, that there are two organs of knowledge:\nthe one reason, the other obedience. And now tell him, as he has tried\nthe first and found the little in it, just for a moment or two to join\nyou in trying the second. And when he asks whom he is to obey, you\ntell him there is but One, and lead him to the great historical figure\nwho calls all men to Him: the one perfect life--the one Savior of\nmankind--the one Light of the world. Ask him to begin to\n\n          OBEY CHRIST;\n\nand, doing His will, he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of\nGod.\n\nThat, I think, is about the only thing you can do with a man: to get\nhim into practical contact with the needs of the world, and to let him\nlose his intellectual difficulties meantime. Don't ask him to give\nthem up altogether. Tell him to solve them afterward one by one if he\ncan, but meantime to give his life to Christ and his time to the\nkingdom of God. You fetch him completely around when you do that. You\nhave taken him away from the false side of his nature, and to the\npractical and moral side of his nature; and for the first time in his\nlife, perhaps, he puts things in their true place. He puts his nature\nin the relations in which it ought to be, and he then only begins to\nlive. And by obedience he will soon become a learner and pupil for\nhimself, and Christ will teach him things, and he will find whatever\nproblems are solvable gradually solved as he goes along the path of\npractical duty.\n\nNow, let me, in closing, give an instance of how to deal with specific\npoints.\n\nThe question of miracles is thrown at my head every second day:\n\n\"What do you say to a man when he says to you, 'Why do you believe in\nmiracles?'\"\n\nI say, \"Because I have seen them.\"\n\nHe asks, \"When?\"\n\nI say, \"Yesterday.\"\n\n\"Where?\"\n\n\"Down such-and-such a street I saw a man who was a drunkard redeemed\nby the power of an unseen Christ and saved from sin. That is a\nmiracle.\"\n\nThe best apologetic for Christianity is a Christian. That is a fact\nwhich the man cannot get over. There are fifty other arguments for\nmiracles, but none so good as that you have seen them. Perhaps you are\none yourself. But take a man and show him a miracle with his own eyes.\nThen he will believe.\n\n\n\n       *       *       *       *       *","title":"The Greatest Thing In the World and Other Addresses","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":32997}