{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_20578/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_20578","id":"gutenberg_20578","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/20578","summary":null,"tags":["Bible -- Biography","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Christianity","Sermons, American -- 20th century"],"text":"Produced by Al Haines\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSERMONS ON BIBLICAL CHARACTERS\n\n\nBY\n\nREV. CLOVIS G. CHAPPELL, D.D.\n\n\n\nRICHARD R. SMITH, INC.\n\nNEW YORK\n\n1930\n\n\n\n\nCOPYRIGHT, 1922,\n\nBY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY\n\n\nSERMONS ON BIBLICAL CHARACTERS. II\n\n\nPRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n    I  THE MISSING MAN--THOMAS\n   II  THE GREAT REFUSAL--JONAH\n  III  THE ROMANCE OF FAITH--PETER\n   IV  LOVE'S LONGING--PAUL\n    V  GOING VISITING--JONATHAN\n   VI  THE WOMAN OF THE SHATTERED ROMANCES--THE WOMAN OF SYCHAR\n  VII  A GOOD MAN--BARNABAS\n VIII  THE INQUEST--PHARAOH\n   IX  A SON OF SHAME--JEPHTHAH\n    X  A CASE OF BLUES--ELIJAH\n   XI  THE SUPREME QUESTION--THE PHILIPPIAN JAILER\n  XII  THE MOTHER-IN-LAW--NAOMI\n XIII  CONFESSIONS OF A FAILURE--THE BUSY MAN\n  XIV  A MOTHER'S REWARD--JOCHEBED\n   XV  A GOOD MAN'S HELL--MANASSEH\n  XVI  A SHREWD FOOL--THE RICH FARMER\n\n\n\n\nSERMONS ON BIBLICAL CHARACTERS\n\n\nI\n\nTHE MISSING MAN--THOMAS\n\n_John 20:24_\n\n\"Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when\nJesus came.\"  Did you notice the name of this man who was missing?  Who\nwas it when the little company met after the crucifixion that was not\nthere?  There was a man expected who failed to come.  Who was this man?\nWhen the little company gathered in the upper room behind shut doors\nthere was one chair that was vacant.  Who should have occupied that\nchair?\n\nWell, in the first place, it was not Judas.  He was missing.  He was\nnot there, it is true, but he was not expected.  Judas had already\nbetrayed his Lord.  Judas had already been whipped and scourged by his\nremorse of conscience clean out of the world.  Judas had gone to his\nown place in the great Unseen Country.  Judas was not there, but he was\nnot expected to be there.\n\nWho was the missing man?  It was not Pilate.  We no more expected\nPilate than we expected Judas.  Pilate had had his chance at Jesus.\nPilate had had an opportunity of knowing, of befriending Him, of\nserving Him.  But Pilate had allowed his own interests to get the\nbetter of his conscience.  Pilate had chosen the friendship of Caesar\nand had spurned the friendship of the King Eternal.  So we did not\nexpect Pilate to be present in this little company of the friends of\nJesus who met on the resurrection side of the cross.  Who was the\nmissing man?  It was not Caiaphas.  He, too, had stood in the presence\nof Jesus, but his envy had made him blind.  And he shouted \"Blasphemy!\"\nso loud that he drowned the voice of his conscience and the gentle\nwhisperings of the Spirit of God.  No, it was not Caiaphas, nor any of\nthe indifferent or hostile crowd that we miss in this meeting.\n\nThen, who was this missing man?  And we read the text again and we find\nhis name was Thomas.  That is a very familiar name.  Oh, yes; we\nremember Thomas quite well.  It was Thomas who was missing.  Now,\nThomas was expected, for he was a member of the little band of\ndisciples.  He was one of the Twelve.  He belonged to the Inner Circle.\nHis fellow Christians had a right therefore to expect him.  Yet Thomas\nwas not with them.\n\nIt is a sad day ever for any congregation when its own membership begin\nto absent themselves from its services.  It is a sad day for any\ncongregation when those who compose it can be counted on to be there at\nthe social function, there at the place of business, but cannot be\ncounted on when the interests of the Kingdom are at stake and when the\nSon of God goes forth to war.  Believe me, no community ever loses\nrespect for a congregation till that congregation loses respect for\nitself.\n\nAnd did you notice when it was that Thomas was absent?  \"Thomas was not\nwith them when Jesus came.\"  What an unfortunate time to be away!  What\na great calamity to have missed that service of all others!  There was\nthe little despondent, despairing company of ten meeting behind closed\ndoors.  They were sorrow-burdened and fear-filled.  But Jesus came, and\nThomas, the saddest and bitterest man of them all, was not there.\n\nOf course he would have gone if he had had any idea what a wonderful\nservice it was going to be.  If he had even dreamed that Jesus would be\nthere, of course he would not have missed it; but he expected the\nmeeting to be a very dull affair.  He felt confident that whoever else\nwas there that there would be no Christ.  He expected that Peter and\nJames and John and the rest would meet there and talk of a glorious\npast that had gone forever.  He would have said, \"Yes, I know what they\nwill say.  They will tell how Jesus called them at the beginning.  They\nwill tell how they forsook all to follow Him.  They will tell of the\ngreat dreams that they dreamed, of the high hopes that they cherished.\nThey will tell of all the glad, radiant days that have 'dropped into\nthe sunset.'  But they will have nothing to say to relieve the\nbitterness of to-day or to fling a bow of hope upon the black skies of\nto-morrow.  So I will not go to the meeting to-day.\"\n\nBut the meeting was not dull.  The meeting was not sad.  The meeting\nwas not a lament for a glory that was passed, for a glad day that had\nslipped behind them forever more.  It was a service that thrilled with\npresent joys.  It was a meeting that made the future to glow with\nglorious possibilities.  It was wonderful, because Jesus came.  He came\nthen, and He comes still.  Wherever hungry hearts come together who\nyearn for Him and make Him welcome, there comes the blessed Christ to\nstand in the midst.  And therefore I would not absent myself from the\nmeeting together of the people of God.  I would not because I want to\nbe there when Jesus comes, when the King comes in to see the guests.\n\n\"Thomas was not with them when Jesus came.\"  I wonder why it was that\nThomas was missing.  I wonder how it came about that he, the neediest\nman among the apostles, was not there to receive the inspiration and\nthe uplift that came from this service.  Why was he not there?\n\nIt was not, I am sure, because he was indifferent.  There are many\nto-day who have separated themselves from the services of the church,\nfrom the fellowship of the saints, because of a deadening indifference.\nThey have become absorbed in a thousand other matters till they have\nbecome doubly uninterested in the things of the church and in the\naffairs of the Kingdom.\n\nThomas was not missing because he had found satisfaction elsewhere.\nThomas was not satisfied.  Thomas was not happy.  I doubt if there was\na sadder man in all Jerusalem than Thomas.  I doubt if there was a more\nwretched man in the wide world at that time than was Thomas.  Thomas\nhad not turned aside from Jesus to satisfy his soul on husks.  He had\nnot left Christ because his needs had been met and his thirst satisfied\nat some other fountain.\n\nWhy was Thomas missing?  He was missing because he had lost hope.  He\nbelieved that Christ was dead.  He believed that the cause for which he\nhad stood was lost and lost forever more.  He believed that right was\nforever defeated; that wrong was forever enthroned.  Over his head was\na blackened sky.  For him there was not one single ray of light nor one\nsingle gleam of hope.\n\nIf I had met Thomas on the streets of Jerusalem on that day and said,\n\"Thomas, I saw your friends going together to the Upper Room.  Aren't\nyou going?  Jesus might come while they are there,\" Thomas would have\nanswered, \"No, I'm not going.  Jesus will not be there.  He is dead.\nDon't you know if I thought I would see Him I would go?  Don't you know\nthat I loved Him and love Him still better than life, but Jesus is\ndead.  Dead!  Dead!\n\n\"I was in the garden when Judas kissed Him.  I saw them lead Him away.\nI saw the soldiers scourge Him.  I saw Him crowned with the crown of\nthorns.  I was out on Calvary when the black night came on at midday\nand I heard that wild, bitter cry.  Oh!  I will hear it forever more:\n'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?'  I saw His head bowed and\nI saw the brute of a soldier thrust the spear into His side.  Don't\ntalk to me about seeing Jesus again.  Jesus is dead.\"\n\nThe very bitterness of the sorrow of Thomas had driven him to despair.\nHe found it hard to believe always.  Here he found it impossible.  Now,\nthere are some folks who are sweetened by sorrow and made better.\nThere are others that are made bitter and morose and despairful.  I\nheard a man cry one day, an awful cry \"Oh, I could curse God,\" he said,\n\"if I knew there was a God, for letting little Mary die!\"  For Thomas\neverything had collapsed.  There was not a star in his sky.  There was\nnot a horizon in his life in which he might hope for a dawn.  So that\nhe, the neediest man of them all, was not there when Jesus came.\n\nAnd now, will you see what he missed.  Truly, the man was right who did\nnot wonder what people suffered, but wondered at what they missed.  And\njust see what this man Thomas missed by not being in the little meeting\namong the ten.  First, he missed the privilege of seeing Jesus.  He\nmissed the privilege of seeing Him who had throttled Death and hell and\nthe grave and had brought life and immortality to light through the\nGospel.  He missed seeing Him, one vision of whose face would have\nchanged his sobbing into singing and his night into marvelous day.\n\nHe missed seeing Jesus, and failing to see Him, he missed the glorious\ncertainty of the after life.  It is Christ, my friends, that makes\nHeaven and the eternal life sure for us.  It is He who enables men to\ngo down into the great silence without a doubt and without a fear.  It\nis He who makes us absolutely confident that there is a Home of the\nSoul, that--\n\n  \"There is a land of pure delight\n    Where saints immortal reign.\"\n\nHaving seen Him once dead and alive forever more, we have no slightest\ndoubt of the truth of His promise that, because He lives we shall live\nalso.\n\nBy staying away that day Thomas missed the thrill of a great joy.  Had\nhe been there he might have seen the Lord.  This is not a possibility\nin every service, possibly, but it ought to be.  It is a possibility in\nevery successful service.  I heard of a preacher once who thought that\nwhat his congregation wanted was beautiful epigrams.  He thought that\nthey were more hungry for bejeweled verbiage than for the Bread of\nLife.  He thought they were thirsting more for a stream of eloquence\nthan for the Water of Life.  But he was mistaken.  And once he came\ninto the pulpit to find a card lying before him on which was written\nthis word: \"Sir, we would know Jesus.\"\n\nAt first it angered him a bit and then it made him think.  And then it\nsent him to his knees.  And then it sent him into the pulpit with a new\nmessage.  And one day he came again into his pulpit to find a second\ncard before him.  Picking it up, he read these words: \"Then were the\ndisciples glad when they saw the Lord.\"  Of course they were.  Their\ngladness was the gladness of the ten that met in the Upper Room.  Their\ngladness was the gladness that might have been experienced by Thomas.\nIt was intended for him, for he was the saddest and most wretched man\nin Jerusalem.  But Thomas was not there.\n\nThomas missed also the gift of peace.  Jesus said to those present,\n\"Peace be unto you.\"  And how Thomas needed that gift!  Thomas was in a\nfever of restlessness and wretchedness.  He was whipped by a veritable\ntempest of doubt and utter unbelief.  And all the while he might have\nhad the peace that passeth understanding.  He might have had the vision\nof Him who stood then, and still stands, the central figure of the\nages, saying, \"Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and\nI will give you rest.\"  Those present that day were blessed with the\ngift of peace.  They had \"fervor without fever.\"  They had motion\nwithout friction.  But Thomas missed it because \"he was not with them\nwhen Jesus came.\"\n\nThe disciples who were there were re-commissioned that day.  Jesus said\nto them, \"As the Father hath sent me, even so send I you.\"  With His\ndeath everything seemed at an end.  The great program that He had given\nthem seemed to have lapsed forever.  A man said a few years ago, \"Life\ndoesn't seem worth living since I found that Christianity is not true.\"\nIt was so with these men.  They were men without a goal.  But Jesus\ncame and recommissioned them, laid upon them again the high task of\nconquering the world.  And Thomas missed that great blessing because he\nwas not there.\n\nLast of all, Jesus breathed upon them and said, \"Receive ye the Holy\nGhost.\"  These men were not only recommissioned.  They received the\nHoly Ghost.  \"He breathed on them.\"  How close they came to Him that\nday!  How their hearts were warmed!  How their hopes were revived!  \"He\nbreathed on them and said, Receive ye the Holy Ghost.\"  And poor Thomas\nmissed also this benediction because he was not with them when Jesus\ncame.\n\nIt may be that you were once active in the church.  It may be that you\nwere once a live and enthusiastic Christian.  But little by little you\nhave slipped back.  You have moved to strange places.  Your life has\nbeen thrown in great cities.  And you have missed the fellowships of\nyesterday out of your life.  It may be that to-day you are no longer\nfound regularly among the worshipers in God's House.  You are missing\nsomething.  Don't deceive yourself.  As the saints of God meet together\nJesus still manifests Himself.  And seeing Him, there comes to us a new\njoy and peace, a new sense of the purpose and worthfulness of life.\nSeeing Him there comes to us a new power for battle and for conquest.\n\nBut if we have missed Him, whatever else we have won, we have missed\nabout all that is worth while.  Oh, there is one thing of which I am\nabsolutely sure, and that is that if I have Jesus, if His presence is a\ngladsome reality to my heart, nothing else matters much.  But if I miss\nHim everything goes wrong and everything is disappointing.  Darius is\nin the palace and Daniel in the den of lions, but there is restlessness\nand wretchedness in the palace and peace and joy in the lions' den.  It\nis the presence of God that makes the difference.\n\nThomas, because he missed receiving, also missed the privilege of\ngiving.  When the other disciples came from that meeting, how radiant\nwere their faces!  What a spring they had in their step!  What joy\nbringers they were!  What a marvelously thrilling story they had to\ntell!  Freely had they received and freely did they give.\n\nBut Thomas.  He had received nothing, therefore he had nothing to give.\nHe was a disappointment to his Master.  For a whole week he went\ndoubting Him, mistrusting Him, when it was his privilege to have walked\ninto His fellowship and been as sure of His reality and of His nearness\nas he was of his own existence.\n\nIn the second place, he missed the privilege of helping his fellow\ndisciples.  What an encouragement he might have been to them!  How it\nwould have strengthened the faith of those Christians who had not yet\nseen the vision of their risen Lord to have seen the light even upon\nthe gloomy face of Thomas!  But Thomas missed the privilege of giving.\nI cannot rob myself without robbing you.  I cannot starve myself\nspiritually without helping to starve you.  I cannot sin alone.  If I\ndo that which lowers my spiritual vitality, by that very act I help to\nlower yours also.  \"Thomas was not with them when Jesus came,\" and he\nmissed a double blessing, the privilege of receiving and the privilege\nof giving.\n\nBut Thomas, in spite of his failure, succeeded in the end.  Tradition\ntells us that he died a martyr for his love and devotion to his Lord.\nHow was he saved?  How was he brought to the joy and usefulness that\nare born of certainty?  Thomas, you know, was a doubter.  A very\nthoroughgoing doubter he was.  How then, in spite of his doubts, did he\nfind his way into the fulness of the Light?\n\nFirst, Thomas was not proud of his doubts.  He did not look upon them\nas blessings or as treasures.  There is a type of doubter to-day who\ndoes.  I have heard men speak of \"my doubts\" as if they were very\npriceless things.  But no man is of necessity the richer for his\ndoubts.  I know that doubt may become a doorway to a larger faith.\nStill, I repeat, no man is of necessity the richer for them.  For\ninstance, no man is the richer because of his social doubts.  The man\nwho does not believe in his fellow man is poor indeed.  The man who has\ndoubts about the inmates of his home suffers something of the pangs of\nhell.  And the man who doubts God can hardly consider himself the\npossessor of a prize to be coveted.  Thomas doubted, but he was not\nproud of his doubts.\n\nThomas was not only not proud of his doubts, but was thoroughly\nwretched on account of them.  And being thoroughly wretched because of\nthem, he was willing to be set right.  He wanted to believe.  It seems\nto me that any man would.  Thomas was eager to be made sure that the\nChrist he loved was really alive.  He yearned for certainty.\n\nThomas was not only willing, but Thomas was reasonable.  When he sought\nto be sure of Jesus he put himself in the best possible position to\nlearn the truth.  When he wanted to be made sure of Christ he did not\nseek knowledge at the hands of the enemies of Christ.  He did not ask\ninformation of those who were confessed strangers to Christ.  So often\nwe do.  We get in the grip of doubt and straightway we turn from the\nfellowship of those who know the Lord to the fellowship of those who\nconfessedly do not know Him.  We read those books that strengthen our\ndoubts rather than those that strengthen our faith.  But Thomas was\nwiser.\n\n\"Thomas, we have seen the Lord.\"  That is what Peter and James and John\nand the rest said to Thomas after this wonderful service that Thomas\nmissed.  And what was the answer of this doubter?  Did his face light\nup as he said, \"I am glad to hear it\"?  Not a bit of it.  He said,\n\"Except I see in His hand the print of the nails and put my finger into\nthe print of the nails and thrust my hand into His side I will not\nbelieve.\"  And what Thomas meant by this answer was simply this: \"There\nis nothing that you can say or do that will make me believe at all.  I\nsimply cannot believe and cannot be made to believe that Jesus has\nrisen.\"\n\nNow I do not think that his fellow disciples argued With him.  Really\nit would have done no good.  They simply left him to his own thoughts.\nAnd I fancy that those thoughts ran something after this fashion: \"What\nthey say is not true.  They are mistaken.  Of course they are.  They\nmust be.  And yet they certainly believe in the truth of what they say.\nGod grant that they are right.  There is nothing that I would not give\nto know.\"\n\nThen what did this honest and earnest doubter do?  Listen!  \"And after\neight days again the disciples were within and Thomas with them.\"  Yes,\nThomas is a doubter.  But he is an honest and hungry-hearted doubter.\nHe is willing to give himself every opportunity to know the truth.  He\nsays, \"I will turn my face toward the east.  Then if there is a dawn I\nwill see it.\"  And what happened?  The dawning came.  The sun rose,\n\"even the Son of righteousness with healing in His wings.\"  \"Then came\nJesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be\nunto you.  Then saith He to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger and behold\nmy hands, and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side; and be\nnot faithless, but believing.  And Thomas answered and said unto Him,\nMy Lord and my God.\"\n\nThomas became absolutely certain.  It is my firm conviction that that\nsame certainty is your privilege and mine.  I believe that Jesus spoke\nthe simple truth when He said, \"If any man is willing to do His will,\nhe shall know.\"  However little you may believe at this present moment,\nif you will be loyal to what you do believe, if you will follow the\nlight that you have, it will bring you into the brightness of the day.\n\nYou remember how Horace Bushnell, while a student at Yale, felt that he\nwas in the way of a great revival that was sweeping through the\nUniversity.  He did not want to stand in the way of this revival and\nyet he was an unbeliever.  He did not feel that he could come out on\nthe side of Jesus Christ for he did not believe in Christ.  \"What then\ndo you believe?\" a voice within him seemed to ask.  \"I believe there is\nan absolute difference between right and wrong,\" was the answer.  \"Have\nyou ever put yourself on the side of the right to follow it regardless\nof consequences?\" was the next question.  \"I have not,\" was the answer,\n\"but I will.\"  So Horace Bushnell kneeled there in his room and\ndedicated himself to the service of the right.  And what was the\nresult?  After he had been a preacher of the Gospel in Hartford,\nConnecticut, for forty-seven years he said, \"Better than I know any man\nin Hartford I know Jesus Christ.\"\n\nWhen I was a lad I was overtaken by darkness while some eight or ten\nmiles from home.  The night was intensely black, so much so that I lost\nmy way absolutely.  I found myself after some hours in a dense forest.\nI made up my mind to dismount from my horse and sleep on the ground, as\nI saw no chance of finding my way home.\n\nBut I had no sooner dismounted than the lightning began to flash and\nthe thunder to roar and I was warned of an approaching storm.  A little\nlater the storm burst upon me.  And I mounted and rode on through the\ndark, not knowing whither I went.  At last, far past midnight, I saw a\nspeck of light in the distance.  That light did not look at all like a\nsunrise.  It was as small as a needle point.  And yet I followed it\nbecause it was all I could see on the black bosom of the darkness.  A\nlittle later I found that that light was shining from a window in my\nown home.  A little later still I found my anxious mother behind that\nlight waiting for the home-coming of her boy.\n\nNow, I did not have much light to begin with.  It was pathetically\nmeager.  But as I followed it it led me home.  Thomas had but little.\nBushnell had but little.  But they were willing to be true to the light\nthat they had.  And being true to it, they found the fullness of the\nlight.  For it was true then as it is true to-day, \"if any man is\nwilling to do His will, he shall know.\"\n\n\n\n\nII\n\nTHE GREAT REFUSAL--JONAH\n\n_Jonah 1:1-3_\n\nThere is doubtless not another book in the literature of the world that\nhas suffered more at the hands of men than the book of Jonah.  It has\nbeen tortured by its enemies and wounded in the house of its friends.\nWe have been so prone to give our attention to the non-essential in the\nbook rather than the essential.  We have had such keen eyes for the\nseemingly ridiculous and the bizarre.  For this reason it has come to\npass that you can hardly mention the name of Jonah to a modern audience\nwithout provoking a smile.  Thus Jonah, coming to us as an evangelist,\nis mistaken by many for a clown.\n\nNow this is a calamity.  It is a calamity in the first place because\nthe book of Jonah is one of the gems of literature.  There is not\nanother book in the Old Testament that is more fragrant with the breath\nof inspiration.  There is not another book more radiant with the light\nof the divine love.  It is a wonderful gospel in itself.  Therefore it\nis a great pity that we have turned from its winsome wealth to give\nourselves to the unedifying task of measuring the size of a fish's\nthroat.\n\nDid you ever hear of the hungry men that were invited to a feast?  When\nthey came within the banquet hall they found the table spread with the\nviands of a king.  But the table was a bit out of the ordinary.\nTherefore, there arose a discussion over the material out of which it\nwas made.  These guests began heated arguments also over the method of\nits carpentry.  And they argued so long and learnedly and well that the\nfood went utterly to waste and they went away more hungry than when\nthey had come.\n\nThere is a story of a prince who loved a beautiful peasant girl.  In\nspite of his royal blood he determined to marry her.  To seal his\npledge of marriage he sent her a wonderful engagement ring.  It was a\ngem so marvelous that it was said the stars shut their eyes in its\npresence and even the sun acknowledged it as a rival.  But the girl was\nmore interested in the beautiful box in which it was packed than she\nwas in the ring.  And when the prince came he was humiliated and\ndisappointed to find her wearing the box tied upon her finger while the\njewel had been neglected and forgotten and utterly lost.\n\nNow there is real jewelry here.  Let us forget the rather queer casket\nin which this jewel comes while we examine the treasure.  \"The word of\nthe Lord came unto Jonah the son of Ammittai, saying, Arise, go to\nNineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for its wickedness has\ncome up before me.\"  \"The word of the Lord came unto Jonah.\"  There is\nnothing crude about that statement.  There is nothing in that to excite\nour ridicule.  That is one of the blessed and thrilling truths of the\nages.  To this man Jonah, living some time, somewhere, God spoke.  To\nthis man God made known His will and holy purpose.\n\nAnd God is speaking still.  The word of God is coming to men and women\nto-day.  There is not a single soul listening to me at this moment but\nwhat at some time in your life there has come a definite and sure word\nfrom God.  You have felt the impress of His Spirit upon your own\nspirit.  You have felt the touch of His hand on yours.  You have seen\nHis finger pointing to the road in which you ought to walk and to the\ntask that He was calling upon you to perform.\n\nHow this word came to Jonah we do not know, nor do we need to know.  It\nmay have come to him through the consciousness of another's need.  It\nmay have come to him through a study of the Word.  It may have come to\nhim through the call of a friend.  How it came is not the essential\nthing.  The one thing essential and fundamental is this, that the word\ndid come.  That is the essential thing in your case and in mine.  God\ndoes speak to us.  God does move upon us.  God does call us, command\nus.  God does stir us up.  \"The word of the Lord came unto Jonah,\" and\nit comes this very moment to you and to me.\n\nWhat was it that the Lord said to Jonah?  He gave him a strange and\nunwelcome command.  He said, \"Arise and go to Nineveh, that great city,\nand cry against it, for its wickedness has come up before me.\"  It was\nhard for Jonah to believe that he had heard aright.  Was it possible\nthat Nineveh was a great city in spite of the fact that it was a\nheathen city?  Was it possible that Nineveh grieved God because of its\nwickedness?  Could it be possible that God really loved Nineveh, though\nit was outside the covenant?  Jonah did not want to believe this, but\nhe had to believe it.  He had to realize that\n\n  \"The love of God is wider than the measure of man's mind\n  And the heart of the Eternal is most wonderfully kind.\"\n\n\nJonah did not want to undertake this mission.  His objection, however,\ndid not grow out of the fear that Nineveh would refuse to repent.  His\nreluctance was not born of the conviction that there was nothing in the\npeople of Nineveh to which his message would appeal.  I know we are\noften hampered by that conviction.  We feel that it is absolutely\nuseless to preach to some folks.  There is no use in trying to\nchristianize Africa.  There is no use even in trying to christianize\nsome of our next door neighbors.  We so often forget that there is in\nevery man an insatiable hunger and an unquenchable thirst that none but\nGod can satisfy.\n\nBut to Jonah this call was unwelcome because he feared that Nineveh\nmight repent.  And that he did not want Nineveh to do.  Jonah believed\nthat God was the God of Israel only.  He believed that God blessed\nIsrael in two ways.  First, He blessed her by giving her gifts\nspiritual and temporal.  And He blessed her, in the second place, by\nsending calamities upon her enemies.  An abundant harvest in Israel was\na blessing from the Lord.  A famine in Nineveh was also a blessing from\nthe Lord.  Jonah was firmly convinced that the prosperity of a nation\nother than his own meant calamity to Israel.\n\nIt is a pity that this selfish belief did not perish with Jonah.  But\nwhen we face the facts we know that it did not.  It is a very human\ntrait in us to feel that another's advancement is in some way a blow to\nourselves.  It is equally a human trait to feel that another's downfall\nand disgrace in some way adds a bit of luster to our own crowns.  Of\ncourse, nothing could be more utterly false, but in spite of this fact\nwe cling to that faith through all the passing centuries.\n\nOn the whole this duty, then, that God had put upon Jonah was so\ndistasteful that he made up his mind that whatever it might cost him he\nwould not obey.  Therefore, we read that he \"rose up to flee unto\nTarshish from the presence of the Lord.\"  Ordered to Nineveh he sets\nout for Tarshish.  There were two cities on his map and only two.\nThere was Nineveh, the city to which he might go in the fellowship of\nGod and within the circle of the will of God.  There was also Tarshish,\nthe city that lay at the end of the rebel's road, the city whose\nstreets, if ever he walked them at all, he would walk without the\nfellowship of the God whom he had disobeyed.\n\nAnd there are just two cities on your map.  The Nineveh of obedience\nand the Tarshish of disobedience.  You are going to Nineveh or to\nTarshish.  I do not claim to know where your Nineveh is.  It may be a\ndistant city.  It may be a city across the seas whose streets you will\ncrimson with the blood of your sacrifice.  It may be a city as near to\nyou as the home in which you live, as the child that nestles in your\narms.  But wherever it is, if you walk its streets you will walk them\nin the joy of the divine fellowship.\n\nOn the other hand, you may go to Tarshish.  Tarshish is the city of\n\"Have-Your-Own-Way.\"  It is the city of \"Do-As-You-Please.\"  It is the\ncity of \"Take-it-Easy.\"  It is the city with no garden called\nGethsemane without its gates and no rugged hill called Calvary\noverlooks its walls.  It is a city without a cross and yet it is a city\nwhere people seldom sing and often sob.  It is a city where nobody\nlooks joyously into God's face and calls Him Father.\n\nI met Jonah that day on the wharf.  He looked like he had passed\nthrough a terrible spell of sickness.  His cheeks were hollow.  His\neyes were red with sleeplessness.  He had a haggard, worn, hounded look\nabout him.  \"Are you on the way home, Jonah?\"  And he shook his head\nand said, \"No.  I am going to Tarshish.\"  Tarshish was the most far\naway place of which the Jew had any conception.  \"Tarshish!\" I say in\nastonishment.  \"What are you going to do over at Tarshish?\"  \"Oh,\" he\nsaid, \"I hadn't thought about that.  I do not know what the future has\nin store for me.  What I am trying to do is to get away from God.\"\n\"And Jonah arose to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.\"\n\nI wonder why the text did not say \"And Jonah arose to flee unto\nTarshish from the presence of his duty\" instead of \"from the presence\nof the Lord.\"  The writer of this story had real spiritual insight.  He\nwas far clearer in his thinking than many of us.  He knew that to flee\nfrom duty was to flee from God.  Whenever you make up your mind to\nrefuse to go where God wants you to go and to do what God wants you to\ndo, you must make up your mind at the same time to renounce the\nfriendship of God.  You cannot walk with Him and at the same time be in\nrebellion against Him.  God has no possible way of entering into\nfellowship with the soul that is disobedient to His will.  Believe me,\nit is absolutely useless, it is mere mockery, to say \"Lord, Lord\" and\nthen refuse to do the things that He commands you to do.\n\nNow, when Jonah saw the spaces of water growing wider between him and\nthe shore a kind of deadly calm came upon him.  A man with his mind\nmade up to do wrong is far more at rest than the man whose mind is not\nmade up at all.  So when Jonah had fully decided that he would rebel\nagainst God and give up all claim to God, a dreadful restfulness came\nto his troubled spirit.  He went down into the sides of the ship and\nwent fast asleep.  The days before had been troubled days.  The nights\nhad been restless nights.  But the battle was over now, even though it\nhad been lost, and he was able at last to sleep.\n\nThis period marks, I am sure, the period of greatest danger in the life\nof Jonah.  Jonah had been a rebel before, but he had been a restless\nrebel.  He had been disobedient before, but his disobedience had\ntortured him.  It had put strands of gray into his hair and wrinkles\nupon his brow.  But now he is not only in rebellion, but he is content\nto be so.  He is not only without God, but he is, in a measure,\nsatisfied to be without Him.  No greater danger can come to any man\nthan that.  As long as your sin breaks your heart, as long as your\ndisobedience makes you lie awake nights and wet your pillow in tears\nthere is hope for you.  But when you become contented with your\nwickedness, when you come to believe that it is the best possible for\nyou, then you are in danger indeed.\n\nNow, I am fully convinced that Jonah's danger is the danger of a great\nmany, both in the Church and out.  You who are listening to me at this\nmoment are kindly and cultured men and women.  You are full of good\nwill toward the Church.  You love it and desire its prosperity.  Yet\nmany of you are doing practically nothing to make its desired\nprosperity a reality.  One of the most discouraging features about the\nChurch to-day is the large number of utterly useless people within its\nfold.  And these are not only useless, but saddest of all, they are\ncontent with their uselessness.  They seem to feel that it is God's\nbest for them; that it is all that God expects or has a right to expect.\n\nDid you ever make out your religious program and look at it?  What does\ndiscipleship cost you?  What is involved in your allegiance to the\nLord?  Coming to church once or twice a month on Sunday mornings and\nmaking a small contribution.  Only this and nothing more.  The Sunday\nSchool is not your burden.  The prayer meeting is not your burden.\nVisiting the new members that have recently come into our Church and\ninto the Kingdom and need your help is not your responsibility.\nHelping by your presence and by your prayers to give spiritual fervor\nto all the services, is not your responsibility.  Yours is to make your\nway up to the doors of the House of Many Mansions by and by without\never having made one single costly sacrifice in order to follow the\nLord.\n\nAre you running away from your duty this morning?  You know what it is.\nAt least you may know it.  This is a needy world.  This is a needy\nChurch.  It has an opportunity to touch the uttermost parts of the\nearth if it is spiritually alive and spiritually mighty.  Are you\nmaking your contribution?  Are you accepting your responsibility or\nhave you turned your back upon it for no other reason than just this,\nthat it is too much trouble?  If that is true of me and if that is true\nof you, may the Lord wake us up this morning and give us to see our\ndeadly danger.\n\nSo Jonah turned his back on his duty and turned his back on God.  He\ntook ship for Tarshish and went to sleep.  Surely his situation is\ncritical indeed.  But though he has forgotten God, God in His mercy has\nnot forgotten him.  God still loves Jonah, still longs for him and\nstill hopes for him.  And so in mercy He sends a storm after him.  That\nwas dangerous cargo that that ship had on board.  It had better have\nhad gasoline or T N T than a rebellious prophet.\n\nIt was in mercy, I say, that the Lord sent the storm after Jonah.\nCoverdale translates it, \"The Lord hurled a storm into the sea.\"  Let\nus thank God for the storms that rouse us, that wake us up, that keep\nus from sleeping our way into the pit.  May the Lord send us any kind\nof storm rather than allow us to fling ourselves eternally away from\nHis presence.  I am so glad God will never allow a man to go\ncomfortably and peacefully to eternal death.  He never allows any man\nto be lost until He has done His best to save him.\n\nI read some years ago of a New England farmer who was driving to town\non a cold winter's day.  He overtook a woman on the way who was walking\nand carrying a baby in her arms.  He took her up on the seat beside\nhim.  The cold became more bitter.  He noticed after a while that the\nwoman replied to his questions drowsily.  A little later he saw that\nshe was asleep.  Ho knew that unless awakened she would sleep the sleep\nof death.  So he did what at first seemed a cruel thing.  He sprang\nfrom the wagon, dragged her out into the snow and took the child from\nher clinging arms.  With the child he sprang into the wagon and started\nhis team down the road at a trot.  The woman roused herself and began\nto totter feebly forward.  A little later she quickened her pace.  At\nlast she broke into a run.  And as she caught up with the wagon a\nlittle later and the farmer put the baby back into her arms, life had\ncome back to the mother.  A temporal loss was a blessing to this woman.\nLet us thank God for any losses that may come to us that will keep us\nfrom sleeping our way to ruin.\n\nSo Jonah was down in the sides of the boat asleep.  Meanwhile the\ntempest was raging.  Meanwhile the fear-filled crew was rubbing elbows\nwith death.  Then a hand is clapped on Jonah's shoulder and he is being\ngiven a vigorous shaking and a voice is calling to him.  And though it\nis a heathen voice it is full of rebuke.  \"What meanest thou, O\nsleeper?  How is it that you can sleep amidst all the agony, amidst all\nthe danger that is about us?  When the situation is as it is, how is it\nthat you are not on your knees?  Else and call upon thy God.\"\n\nI wish through this message that I might take some of you who are\nsleeping so soundly and peacefully and shake you awake.  I wish that\nGod might speak through my voice to my heart and yours and say to us,\n\"What meanest thou, O sleeper?  What do you mean by sitting idly and\nstupidly in the House of God Sunday after Sunday and never doing\nanything?  What do you mean by having children growing up about you and\nnot being enough interested in their spiritual welfare to even have a\nfamily altar?  How is it that amidst the tremendous issues of moral\nlife and moral death that you can be as complacent and as undisturbed\nas the dead?  Why in the name of all that is reasonable will you\ncontinue to 'lie like huge stones across the mouth of the sepulcher\nwhere God is trying to raise some Lazarus from the dead?'\"\n\nThat shake and that message got Jonah awake.  He sprang out of his\nberth and rushed upon the deck.  And the sight that met him there made\na new man out of him.  It changed him from a provincial Jew into a\nworld citizen and a missionary.  What did he realize as he looked into\nthe pallid faces of those death threatened men about him?  He forgot\nall about their being heathen.  He only remembered that they were one\nwith himself in their common danger and their common need.  They were\nall threatened with death.  They all needed somebody to save.  And, men\nand women, that is true still.  We folks differ in many respects, but\nwe are all alike in this: We have all sinned and we all need a Savior.\n\nHe not only saw that they were one in their needs but that they were\nalso one in their hopes.  He realized what we have been so long in\nrealizing, and that is the oneness of the race.  He came to know, even\nin that distant day, that since we are one body, one member could not\nsuffer without all members suffering with it.  He faced the fact that\nhis own wicked rebellion against God had not only brought wretchedness\nupon himself, but that it was bringing it upon all that sailed with\nhim.  No man ever flees from duty without incalculable hurt, not only\nto himself, but to others as well.\n\nBut, thank God, the reverse is also true.  If my disobedience hurts my\nobedience helps.  If my sin carries a curse my righteousness brings a\nblessing.  Here is another vessel lashed by a tempest.  But the\npreacher on board this time is on good terms with his God.  Therefore\nhe puts one hand into the hand of his Lord and with the other he saves\nthe whole company of two hundred and seventy-six souls that sail with\nhim.  \"Be of good cheer: for there shall be no loss of any man's life\namong you, but of the ship.  For there stood by me this night the angel\nof God, whose I am, and whom I serve, Saying, Fear not, Paul; thou must\nbe brought before Caesar: and, lo, God hath given thee all them that\nsail with thee.\"\n\n\"How may the sea become calm for us,\" is the question.  Jonah does not\noffer an easy suggestion.  \"Cast me overboard,\" is the reply.  The man\nwho a few days ago despised the heathen is now ready to die for them.\nThat shows that God had made him a new man.  I know he backslides a bit\nlater, but he comes out all right in the end.\n\nAnd, my brethren, God has no other method for stilling seas than that\nemployed by Jonah.  When the tempest of this world's sin was to be\nstilled there was no cheaper way than for Christ to allow himself to be\nthrown overboard.  When Livingstone wanted to still the tempest of\nAfrica he did not undertake the task from long distance.  He allowed\nhimself to be thrown overboard.  And that is the price you and I have\nto pay for real service.  \"Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground\nand die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.\"\n\nSo Jonah was cast into the sea.  But by losing his life he found it.  A\nfriend of mine told recently of an experience of his in dealing with a\nBritish soldier in India.  This soldier was seeking salvation.  They\nprayed together.  But as they were about to separate, the soldier was\nnot satisfied.  He staggered against the wall and prayed after this\nfashion: \"Lord, my sins are many.  I am unworthy of thy salvation.  I\nam unworthy of a vision of thy face.  But if there is any place that\nyou want some man to die for you I would count it as a great favor if\nyou would let me be that man.\"  \"And then suddenly,\" said my friend,\n\"the light came into his face and he was conscious of the presence of\nChrist.\"\n\nIf you will do this to-day, stop running from God and turn and walk\nwith Him, you will find that Nineveh is not a city of restlessness and\nwretchedness.  But you will find that it is a city rich in fellowship\nwith God and in the blessed experience of that peace that passeth all\nunderstanding.  Which way are you going to travel from this hour?  Out\nof that door you will go in a moment facing toward Nineveh or toward\nTarshish.  Which way will you face?  May God grant that every step you\ntake from this hour may be toward Nineveh.\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\nTHE ROMANCE OF FAITH--PETER\n\n_Matthew 14:28_\n\n\"Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water.\"  I could not\ntell you how many times I have read this fascinating story.  I have\nturned to it again and again.  But in spite of its familiarity it\nalways grips me.  I can never read it thoughtfully without a thrill.  I\ncan never expose my soul to the vital truth of it without being helped\nand made a little bit more hopeful and I trust a little bit better.\n\nLook at the picture.  Here is a little ship in the midst of a storm at\nsea.  A dozen men are manning the oars, battling with the tempest,\nfighting through the long hours of the night with the storm-whipped\nsea, fisticuffing with death, and yet getting nowhere.  It has been\nlong hours since they left the shore.  It is now three o'clock in the\nmorning, but they have made very little progress.\n\nI have a fancy that they have become very tired and very discouraged.\nAnd more than once has one said to the other, \"I wish the Master were\nhere.  If He were here He would know what to do.\"  And then, to add to\ntheir terror, they suddenly see their master walking from wave to wave\ntoward them across the sea.  But he is not recognized.  They take him\nfor a ghost and they cry out in fear.\n\nThis is not an altogether unique experience.  Many times Jesus comes to\nus in a way that makes us rather dread than welcome His approach.\nSometimes He comes with demands for the giving up of certain sins or\ncertain pleasures that we do not wish to give up.  Sometimes He asks us\nfor services that we do not wish to render.  He demands surrenders that\nwe do not at all desire to make.  Sometimes He comes to us in the guise\nof a great disappointment.  He comes in the garb of a heartache that\nwets our faces with tears.\n\nThe disciples, I say, were at first afraid.  But Jesus calmed their\nfears by saying, \"It is I.  Be not afraid.\"  The Bible seems to have\nbeen written in large measure just to still the fears of our timid\nhearts.  Over and over again is that message directed to us, \"Fear\nnot.\"  And at once fear was driven from these hearts.  And in the place\nof fear came, to one at least, a glorious and buoyant faith.\n\n\"Lord, if it be thou,\" shouted Peter, \"bid me come to thee on the\nwater.\"  You see the effect the presence of Christ had upon Peter.  As\nsoon as he recognized Jesus he ceased to fear and began to hope.  As\nsoon as he realized the presence of Christ he gave up doubt and despair\nand began to believe.  The presence of Christ always makes for faith.\nPeter was gripped by a firm conviction that now that Christ had come\nimpossibilities were transmuted into possibilities.\n\n\"Bid me come to thee on the water.\"  Peter had no disposition to climb\nout of that boat before Jesus came.  He had no desire to undertake this\nseemingly mad task while Christ was yonder on the mountain side and the\nlittle boat was being battered by the storm.  But Christ had begotten\nwithin him a beautiful and seemingly utterly reckless faith.  That\nwhich a moment ago was an impossibility is now altogether capable of\nbeing accomplished.\n\nChrist always inspires such faith in the hearts of those who really\nknow Him.  In such faith He takes the keenest delight.  There is\nnothing that so pleases Him as the most daring and reckless and\nromantic faith.  He is never so joyed as when men trust Him with mad\nabandon.  Never once did He praise a prudent and conservative faith.\nAll His encomiums are for those who trust Him with a romantic\nrecklessness.\n\nDid you happen to meet the woman with the issue of blood as she set out\nto see Jesus?  Well, it is good that you did not or you would have done\nyour best to have discouraged her.  Of course you would and so would I.\n\"Sarah,\" I would have said, \"are you going to ask Jesus to help you?\nAre you going to seek him out and fall on your face before Him in\nprayer?\"  \"No,\" she would have answered, \"I am not going to pray.  I am\nnot going to ask the Master to do anything for me at all.  I am simply\ngoing to slip up behind Him when the crowd is thronging Him, and touch\nHis garment.  I have a shamefaced disease.  I want as little attention\nas possible.  Hence I am not going to say a single word to Jesus.\"\n\nThen, I would have answered with conviction, \"You will never be cured.\nThe Master has made no promise that He will honor a mad faith like\nyours.  When did He say He would heal if you merely slipped up in a mob\nand touched the fringe of His garment?\"  But I was not there to throw\ndashes of cold water upon the fire.  She went on her reckless way.  And\nwonder of wonders, she was healed.\n\n\"Lord, bid me come,\" said Peter.  And what was the reply of Jesus?  Did\nHe say, \"Peter, I am astonished at you.  Why do you want to do this\nfoolish and insane and impossible thing?  Don't you know that the storm\nis against you?  Don't you know that the law of gravitation is against\nyou?  Don't you know that the whole experience of the race is against\nyou?  You have been about the sea all your life.  When did you ever see\nanybody walk on the waves?  Why do you request, then, to do this absurd\nand ridiculous and impossible thing?\"\n\nBut Jesus did not say that.  I never read where He told a single\ntrusting heart that his request was impossible.  I do read where He\nsaid the very opposite.  He said, \"All things are possible to him that\nbelieveth.\"  He makes all things possible.  That is what he is for.  He\never attacks men at the point of their impossibilities.  He calls on\nthe selfish man to love his neighbor as himself.  He calls on the\nparalytics to rise and walk.  And never does He have a rebuke for the\nman who dares to fling himself blindly upon His power.\n\nAnd instead of rebuking Peter He approved him.  He encouraged him.  He\nset His sanction upon his request.  He said to him, \"Come.\"  I am sure\nif you or I had been there we would have wanted Him to have said far\nmore.  We would have wanted Him to explain to us how He would hold us\nand enable us to walk.  But the invitation, \"Come,\" that one word was\nenough for Peter.\n\n\"Come,\" said Jesus.  What would you have done under those\ncircumstances?  What would I?  I suppose I know.  I would have said,\n\"Lord, I'd like to.  I wish I could.  I've always wanted to do\nsomething magnificent.  It has occurred to me again and again as I have\nread the record of thy dealings with thy saints that the Christian life\nis not to be a dull and drab and unromantic thing.  I have felt a\nthousand times that the faith of the saints ought to have far more of\nbuoyancy and enthusiasm and daring and romantic adventure in it than it\nhas.  So since you have bid me come, Lord, I'd like to come.  I'll\nthink it over.  Who knows but that I may try it some day?\"\n\nBut Peter was made out of more heroic stuff.  The spirit of adventure\nhad not died within him.  His faith is full of the finest romance.\n\"Come,\" said Jesus and immediately I see Peter drop his oar and begin\nto climb down out of the boat to go to Jesus.\n\nSome of the commentators are very hard on Peter for his boldness and\nseeming foolhardiness here.  But I am frank to say that I like Peter\nhere very much.  I suppose most of the critics would have sat very\nstill in the boat.  I shouldn't wonder if they would not have put a\nrestraining hand upon Peter.  In fact, it would not surprise me if some\nof his fellow disciples did not do that very thing.  I can imagine that\nAndrew might have gripped him and said, \"Peter, sit where you are.  You\ncan hardly stay on top of the water now.\"  And Thomas would have said,\n\"Man, are you mad?  Nobody ever walked on the water before.\"  But Peter\nsaid, \"By the help of Christ I will.\"  And with the \"storm light in his\nface\" and the spray in his hair and with faith in Christ in his heart\nhe pushes the boat from under his feet.\n\nThere is something great about that.  There may be much base alloy in\nPeter, but there is something fine in him also.  He is to be admired if\nhe never takes a step.  He is worthy of praise if he sinks into the sea\nas a piece of lead.  At least he has dreamed of doing the supernatural.\nAt least he has dared in the presence of Christ to undertake what\nothers were afraid to undertake.  He has ventured to stake his life on\nthe power of Christ to make good His promise.  If he fails utterly he\nis still worthy of respect.  It is better to make a thousand failures\nthan to be too cowardly to ever undertake anything.\n\nSo he steps out upon a stormy sea.  It does look a bit mad, doesn't it?\nAnd yet it only looks mad because of our blindness and dullness and\nstupid unbelief.  What did Peter have under him when he was in the\nship?  Upon what were his fellow disciples trusting to keep them from\nthe bottom of the sea?  Just two or three planks, that is all.  Upon\nwhat was Peter trusting?  He was trusting upon the sure word of God.\nWhen he let himself down from the side of the boat at Christ's\ninvitation he did not drop into the sea.  He dropped into God's arms.\nHe dropped into the arms of Him who holds every sea in the hollow of\nHis hand.  He dropped into the arms of Him whose power kindled every\nsun and flung every world into space.  Before Peter can sink he must\nbreak God's arm.  And mad as seemed his act Peter was never so safe in\nhis life.  Pile upon him, if you will, all the mountain systems of all\nthe worlds and he will never sink low enough to wet his sandals if he\nkeeps his feet planted upon the promise of Christ.\n\nJesus said, \"Come.\"  Peter did the same that you and I may do.  He\nresponded in the affirmative.  He said, \"Yes, Lord,\" and made the\nventure.  And what happened?  Let me read it to you.  \"He walked on the\nwater to go to Jesus.\"  He did what was humanly impossible.  He\naccomplished what was absolutely beyond the reach of any human being\nexcept for the power of Christ.  He walked.  It must have been a\nthrilling experience.  It was a joy to himself.  It was a joy to his\nMaster.  It was a benediction to his fellows.  I can see the terror in\ntheir faces give way to wonderment and gladness as they say, \"Well,\nwell, well!  He is doing it after all.\"\n\nYes, Peter walked.  Let us not let any subsequent failure blind us to\nthis blessed fact.  I know that he did not walk far.  I know, too, that\nthat was his own fault.  It was not the fault of his Lord.  Peter might\nhave walked the whole distance but for one fatal mistake.  He might\nhave won a complete triumph but for one tragic loss.\n\nWhat happened to Peter?  \"He saw the wind boisterous.\"  What does this\nmean?  It means that Peter ceased giving his attention and his\nconfidence to Christ.  He fixed upon the difficulties.  In other words,\nhe lost his faith.  He came to believe in his hindrances more than in\nhis help.  He believed in Christ a great deal, but he believed more in\nwaves and wind and lightning and thunder.  He believed in Jesus, but he\nbelieved more in weakness and death.  Looking at the wind he stepped\nright off God's promise and it wasn't a second till he was up to his\nneck in the raging water.\n\nThere was absolutely no failure possible so long as he stood firm upon\nthe promise of Christ.  \"Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy\nladen,\" Jesus is saying to you that are troubled and sin burdened.\nThat means that you can come.  That means that He is eager for you to\ncome.  And however far you have gone from God and however stiff may be\nthe tempest that blows about you, if you get this promise under your\nfeet all the storms that hell can let loose against a human soul will\nleave you unshaken.  But you must keep a firm stand on the promise.\n\nIf you are here with some great yearning in your heart, some special\nprayer for usefulness or for deliverance from a peculiar temptation,\nlay hold on God's Word and cling to it and you will never be put to\nconfusion.  A saintly old friend of mine told me on one occasion about\npraying for his child.  And he said he got the assurance that his baby\nwas going to recover.  She was suffering from membranous croup.  That\nvery night he was awakened by the mother and the nurse.  And he heard\nthe mother say to the nurse, \"Is she dead?\"  And he turned and went to\nsleep with never a question and never a doubt.  He refused to look at\nthe waves.\n\nPeter got too interested and too absorbed in difficulties.  It is so\neasy to do that.  Peter took counsel of his fears.  I have done the\nsame and you have done the same a thousand times over.  We are not\ngoing to be harsh and critical with him.  By so doing we would be too\nhard upon ourselves.  But this I say: It is a great calamity.  It is a\ngreat shame.  Oh, that we might get upon the higher ground of the\npsalmist who said, \"Wherefore will we not fear though the earth be\nremoved and though the mountains be cast into the midst of the sea.\"\n\nBut looking at the boisterous wind and taking counsel of our\nfears,--these are not the only things that work our ruin.  We might be\npersuaded, and often are, to take our eyes off Christ as much by our\nadvantages as by our disadvantages.  Had Peter said within himself,\n\"The law of gravitation is not so invariable as I thought,\" or \"I am a\nmuch superior man to what I dreamed I was.\"  If Peter had fixed his\nconfidence in self or in circumstances he would have gone down just the\nsame.  Anything that turns our eyes away from a steadfast gaze of faith\nupon Christ spells disaster.\n\nWhat happened to Peter when he began to look at the boisterous wind?\nYou know.  He began to sink.  Peter sinking right in the presence of\nChrist,--that is pathetic.  He can help nobody now.  He could not have\nsaved his own child if he had been there.  Unbelievers seated smugly in\nthe boat said, \"Ah!  I thought so.  I knew something like that would\nhappen.\"  I do not know that Peter would ever have noticed the\nboisterous wind unless somebody had called his attention to it.  I can\nimagine Thomas might have shouted to Peter and said, \"Look out, Peter.\nThere comes a tremendous wave.\"  Anyway, Peter is sinking.\n\nDid you ever have that experience?  Do you know what it is to feel that\nsoul sickening sensation that comes to one who is sinking?  Do you know\nwhat it means to be losing your grip on God, losing your power in\nprayer, losing your grip of things spiritual?  Did you ever sink?  Are\nyou sinking to-day?  I think I know something of the experience of\nPeter.  I have an idea that you know something of it.\n\nYoung man, away from home for the first time, are you sinking?  Little\nby little are you giving up your faith?  Little by little are you\nflinging away the fine ideals that were the strength of your earlier\nyears?  Young woman, are you sinking?  Business man, cumbered with many\ncares, living your life in the thick of the fight, are you keeping\nstraight and clean or are you losing your vision?  Are you sinking?\nWhat was the matter with Lot in Sodom?  He led a sinking life.  That\nwas it and it cost him every one that was dear to him.  It will prove\nexpensive to you.  Oh, Christian worker, you will not count as long as\nyou are living a defeated and failing and sinking life.\n\nBut even in his failure Peter has a message for us.  In his defeat he\nis his own straightforward, sincere and honest self.  When Peter\nrealized that he was sinking he did not try to conceal the matter.  He\ndid not say, \"I'll fight it out in my own strength.\"  He threw himself\nat once on the infinite strength of Christ.  He prayed.  That was a\nwise thing.  That was a big and manly thing.  Peter prayed.  Have you\nforgotten the art?\n\nAnd listen to that prayer.  It was white hot with earnestness.  \"Lord,\nsave me.\"  It is short, too.  Notice that.  When you do not want\nanything, when you have no burden, when you are careless and\nindifferent and listless, you can get down on your knees and pour out\nwhole hogsheads of mere words.  When you are spiritually asleep and\nmorally stupid you can utter platitudes in the form of prayer\nendlessly.  But when the sword of genuine conviction has passed through\nyour soul, when you are doing business in great waters, then you fling\naside your platitudinous petitions and call out in solemn earnestness\nfor help.\n\nThat prayer was a confession.  It was a confession of failure, a\nconfession of defeat.  It was also a confession of need.  Some men\nwould have been too proud to have made it.  What a terrible thing is\npride, that damning pride that makes us unwilling to confess our sin\neven to God.  \"For he that covereth his sin shall not prosper.\"  But\n\"if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins\nand to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.\"\n\nPeter was different.  That was his salvation.  He blurted out the whole\npitiful story and threw himself on the mercy of Jesus.  And what\nhappened?  That which always happens when men thus pray.  \"Immediately\nJesus stretched forth His hand and caught him.\"  And Peter, who had\nwalked and had sunk, rose and walked again.  And so may you and so may\nevery single sinking and floundering and failing soul here.  All you\nneed to do is pray as Peter prayed and to believe as Peter believed.\n\nAnd now, my brethren, do you not agree that we need more of the faith\nthat made Peter undertake his mad enterprise?  Isn't the tragedy of the\nChurch to-day just this, that the average Christian is not walking by\nfaith, but by sight?  That is the reason we have so little of that high\nspirit of daring that marked the early Church.  That is the reason that\nlife for many of us is so dull and prosaic.  What we need is faith.\nFor faith is not a tame and spineless thing that dares nothing.  Real\nfaith dares something, something big and brawny, beyond the human.\nHence it brings into life the thrill of finest romance.\n\n\"Come,\" said Jesus, and Peter gave an instant obedience.  May you and I\nbe as wise.  For our Lord is inviting us just as He invited Peter.  Are\nyou thirsty?  He says, \"Come to me and drink.\"  Are you hungry?  He\nsays, \"Come and dine.\"  Are you tired and burdened?  He says, \"Come and\nI will give you rest.\"  Are you eager to be of service?  He says,\n\"Come,--and out of your inner life shall flow rivers of living water.\"\nBrethren, all our needs are met in Him.  He is our sufficiency.  He is\nsummoning us even now to venture upon Him.  \"Will you make the venture?\n\n  \"Out of my shameful failure and loss,\n    Jesus, I come, Jesus, I come;\n  Into the glorious gain of Thy cross,\n    Jesus, I come to Thee;\n  Out of the depths of ruin untold,\n  Into the peace of Thy sheltering fold,\n  Ever hereafter Thy face to behold,\n    Jesus, I come to Thee.\"\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\nLOVE'S LONGING--PAUL\n\n_Philippians 3:10_\n\n\"That I may know . . . the fellowship of His sufferings.\"  Weymouth\ngives this translation: \"I long to share His sufferings.\"  Paul is here\nleading us into the very innermost sanctuary of his heart.  He is\nrevealing to us the supreme passion of his life.  He is letting us know\nwhat is his one great ambition.  \"I long,\" he says.  And knowing what a\nmighty man he was we lean eagerly forward that we may hear the word\nthat comes from his lips.  For we are keen to know what is the dearest\ndesire of this brave heart.\n\nAnd as we listen this is the perplexing word that comes to us: \"I long\nto share in His sufferings.\"  How startlingly strange that longing is.\nWe are half ready to wonder if we have heard aright.  And when we\nrealize that we have, we instinctively think of the words of the Roman\ngovernor, Festus: \"Paul, thou art beside thyself.  Much learning doth\nmake thee mad.\"  We wonder if Festus was not right after all.  Isn't\nPaul a bit insane?\n\n\"I long to share in His suffering.\"  It sounds like madness to many of\nus because it is so foreign to our own deepest desires.  Had Paul said,\n\"I long for a place of honor; I long that my presence should elicit the\napplause of the world and call forth the crowns of the world\"; had he\nsaid this, we could easily have understood him.  Had he expressed a\nlonging for a place in the hall of fame, had he said, \"My one desire is\nthat the world shall keep sacred my memory,\" he would have been easily\nunderstood by us.  We would have said \"This is very natural and very\nhuman.\"  But that is not what he says.  This is his strange language:\n\"I long to share in Christ's sufferings.\"\n\nHad Paul said that he longed to escape pain and anguish and sorrow we\nmight also have understood him.  Had he said, \"I long to escape the\npenalty of sin even though I live in sin,\" many of us could have\nappreciated this desire.  For there are always those who, while they do\nnot yearn especially for deliverance from sin, do yearn to be saved\nfrom its penalty.  They do not desire to be saved from the sowing of\ntares, but they want to be saved from the reaping of the harvest.  They\ndo not pray for deliverance from the broad road, but they desire that\nthis broad road terminate at the gate of Heaven instead of at the gate\nof destruction.  Had this man said that he desired to escape hell\neverybody could have sympathized with him.  But that is not his desire.\n\nWhat he said was entirely different.  \"I long,\" he says, \"to share in\nthe sufferings of Christ; I long to weep as He wept; I long to\nsympathize as He sympathized; I long to travel life by His road; I long\nto pass through His Gethsemane and to climb His Calvary and to share in\nmy finite way in His Cross.\"  It is an amazing desire.  What is its\nsecret?\n\nWhy could Paul truly say such a word as this?  In the first place, he\ncould not say it because it was natural for him.  There had been a time\nwhen he had given utterance to such a statement it would have been\ngrossly false.  When Paul rode out from Jerusalem on his way to\nDamascus, for instance, he longed for anything else more than he longed\nto share in the sufferings of Christ.  It required a marvelous change.\nIt required an absolute transformation to bring Paul to the place where\nhe was able to give utterance to this high and heroic sentiment.  He\nwas not possessed of such a longing by nature.\n\nNor did Paul long to share in the sufferings of Christ because he\nlooked upon these sufferings as trivial.  Few men have ever understood\nthe sufferings of Christ as did Paul.  He had an appreciation of their\nintensity and of their bitterness far beyond most other men.  He\nunderstood as few have ever understood the physical agonies of the\nCross.  Paul was a great physical sufferer himself.\n\nBut he knew what we sometimes forget, that infinitely the deepest pain\nof Jesus was not physical.  Had there been nothing involved in His\ncrucifixion but physical agony then we are forced to acknowledge that\nmany of His followers have endured the same kind of pain with a\nfortitude to which He was a stranger.  His agony was from another\nsource.  He suffered because He was made \"to be sin for us, who knew no\nsin.\"  He suffered in that \"he was wounded for our transgressions and\nbruised for our iniquities.\"  It was this fact that wrung from Him that\nbitterest of all cries, \"My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?\"\n\nNor did Paul possess this desire because he longed for pain in itself.\nPaul was not a calloused soul.  Few men have ever been more sensitive\nto pain.  He had no more fondness for being shipwrecked than you and I\nhave.  He had no more pleasure in being stoned, in being publicly\nwhipped, in being thrown into dark dungeons and stenchful prison cells\nthan you and I have.  He no more delighted in being ridiculed and\nostracized than you and I would delight in these things.  Paul took no\nmore pleasure in hunger and cold, in peril and nakedness, in agony and\ntears than you and I would take in them.\n\nYet we find him longing to share in the sufferings of Christ.  Why did\nhe long for this strange privilege?  There are two reasons.  He longed\nto share in Christ's sufferings, first, because he genuinely and\npassionately loved Christ.  If you have ever at any time truly loved\nanybody you will be able to understand this longing of Saint Paul.  It\nis the nature of love to always seek either to spare or to share the\npain of the loved one.\n\nOne of the sweetest stories in our American literature, I think, is\nthat of \"The Wife\" told by Washington Irving.  You remember it.  It has\nbeen re-enacted a thousand times over.  A man of wealth has lost his\nfortune.  He is heart-broken over it, not on his own account but on\naccount of his wife.  She has been tenderly nurtured.  He is sure that\npoverty will break her heart.  But he has to tell her.  The lovely home\nin the city must be given up.  They must move to a cottage in the\ncountry.  He enters upon the hard ordeal.  It is his Gethsemane.  But\nto his utter amazement he finds his wife more joyous, more genuinely\nhappy in the midst of this trying experience than he has ever known her\nto be before.  What is the secret?  She is in love with her husband and\nloving him, it is her keenest joy to be able to share his sorrow with\nhim.\n\nThe wife of the southern poet, Sidney Lanier, was just such a one as\nIrving's heroine.  You will recall what a long hard fight Lanier had\nwith sickness and poverty and what a tower of strength through it all\nwas the gentle and tender woman who loved him.\n\n  \"In the heart of the Hills of Life, I know\n  Two springs that with unbroken flow\n  Forever pour their lucent streams\n  Into my soul's far Lake of Dreams.\n\n  Not larger than two eyes, they lie,\n  Beneath the many-changing sky\n  And mirror all of life and time,\n  --Serene and dainty pantomime.\n\n  Shot through with lights of stars and dawns,\n  And shadowed sweet by ferns and fawns,\n  --Thus heaven and earth together vie\n  Their shining depth to sanctify.\n\n  Always when the large Form of Love\n  Is hid by storms that rage above,\n  I gaze in my two springs and see\n  Love in his very verity.\n\n      *      *      *      *\n\n  O Love, O Wife, thine eyes are they,\n  --My springs from out whose shining gray\n  Issue the sweet celestial streams\n  That feed my life's bright Lake of Dreams.\n\n  Oval and large and passion-pure\n  And gray and wise and honor-sure;\n  Soft as a dying violet-breath\n  Yet calmly unafraid of death.\n\n      *      *      *      *\n\n  Dear eyes, dear eyes and rare complete--\n  Being heavenly-sweet and earthly-sweet,\n  --I marvel that God made you mine,\n  For when He frowns, 'tis then ye shine!\"\n\nNow, what was there in the seeming frown of God to make the eyes of\nlove shine?  It was just this: they were alight with the joy that comes\nwhen love is privileged to share the pain of the beloved.\n\nI heard a grizzled old soldier who was an officer in the Civil War tell\nof a raw recruit who came into his regiment.  This recruit was awkward\nand uncouth and unattractive.  He seemed to be little more than an\nincarnate blunder.  He would stumble and fall down over his own musket.\nNaturally he was the butt of many jokes.  He was the laughing stock of\nall his comrades.  But this officer said that he tried to befriend him.\nBut if the uncouth fellow appreciated his efforts to help him he never\nsaid so.  He seemed as awkward in expressing himself as he was in all\nother respects.\n\n\"One night,\" said this officer, \"we were sleeping without tents and it\nwas bitter cold.  I shivered under my blanket till I went to sleep.\nWhen I waked in the morning, however, I was warm.  Then I noticed, to\nmy astonishment, that I was sleeping under two blankets instead of one.\nI looked about me for an explanation.  A little way off was this gawky,\ngreen, uncouth soldier striding back and forth with the snow pelting\nhim in the face.  He was waving his thin arms as he walked to keep from\nfreezing to death.  That soldier died a few days later.  He died from\nthe exposure of that night.  But a smile was on his face as I sat\nbeside him.\"  Now, why did the soldier smile?  You know.  He was\nrejoicing that he was able to spare and to share the suffering of his\nfriend.\n\n\"I long to share in His sufferings.\"  That is the language of love.  To\none who does not know love it will forever be a mystery.  But to the\nlover it is easily comprehensible.  Any real mother can understand it.\nDown in Tennessee a few years ago a mother was out riding with her\nlittle boy.  The horse took fright and ran away.  The buggy was\nwrecked.  The mother escaped without injury.  But the little lad was so\ncrippled that he was never able to sit up again.\n\nNow, before this tragic accident the mother of this little wounded boy\nhad been very active in the life of her Church and community.  But with\nthe coming of this great sorrow she had to give up all outside work.\nShe gave herself instead night and day to the nursing of her boy.  At\ntimes she would hold the little fellow in her arms for almost the whole\nnight through.  At last, after three years, the angel of release came\nand the patient sufferer went home.  And there were those in the\ncommunity who said, \"I know that his mother will grieve.  Yet his\nhome-going must be a bit of a relief.\"\n\nBut what said the mother when the minister went to see her?  She met\nthe preacher at the door and as love's sweet rain ran down her face she\ndid not say anything about being relieved at all.  But this is what she\nsaid: \"Oh, Brother, my little boy is gone and I can't get to do\nanything for him any more.\"  Why, it was the grief of her heart that\nthe little fellow had gone out beyond the reach of her hand where she\ncould no longer have the joy of offering herself a living sacrifice\nupon the altar of his need.  She longed to continually share in his\nsuffering.\n\nSo Paul wanted to share in the sufferings of Christ because he loved\nChrist.  Then he wanted to share in the sufferings of Christ, in the\nsecond place, because he knew that suffering was involved in being like\nChrist.  You may suffer and yet be un-Christlike, but no man can be\nChristlike and fail to suffer.  If you ever, by the grace of God,\nbecome a partaker of the divine nature you must also inevitably become\na partaker of His sufferings.\n\nTo be Christlike is to suffer for the very simple reason that Christ\ncannot be what He is and fail to suffer in and for a world like ours.\nWhat is the nature of Christ?  Christ is like God.  Christ is God.  \"He\nthat hath seen me hath seen the Father.\"  But what is God?  There are\nmany definitions.  There is only one all comprehensive and all\ninclusive definition.  That is that sentence of pure gold that fell\nfrom the lips of the apostle that leaned upon the bosom of his Lord.\n\"What is God?\" I ask this man who had such a wonderful knowledge of\nHim.  And he answers, \"God is love.\"\n\nNow since God is love He must suffer.  He cannot look upon the lost and\nruined of this world without grief.  He cannot behold the tragic\nquarrel of man with Himself without taking it to heart.  There is\nnothing more true nor, in the deepest sense, more reasonable than this\ntender sentence: \"In all their afflictions He was afflicted.\"  Our\nafflictions must afflict Him because \"His nature and His name is love.\"\n\nJ. Wilbur Chapman tells how he one night explored the slums of New York\nwith Sam Hadley.  About one o'clock in the morning they separated to go\nto their own homes.  Dr. Chapman said he had not gone far before he\nheard Mr. Hadley saying, \"Oh!  Oh!  Oh!\"  And he looked back to see his\nfriend wringing his hands in deepest agony.  He hurried to his side\nthinking that he had been taken suddenly ill.  \"What is the matter?\" he\nasked.  And the great mission worker turned his pain-pinched face back\ntoward the slums out of which they had come and said, \"Oh, the sin!\nOh, the heartache!  Oh, the wretchedness!  It will break my heart.  It\nhas broken my heart.\"\n\nNow, just as Christ cannot be Christ and not suffer in a world like\nours, so He cannot be Himself and fail to make a sacrificial effort to\nsave this world.  What says the gem of the Gospel?  \"God so loved the\nworld that He gave.\"  What was the song that abidingly made Paul's\nheart to pulsate with heavenly hallelujahs?  Just this: \"He loved me\nand gave Himself for me.\"  Love grieves.  It does more.  It serves.\nLove beholds the city and weeps over it.  But it is not satisfied with\nthat.  It also goes to the Cross for that city over which it weeps.\nSam Hadley wrings his hands in grief over the wretched in New York's\nslums, but he does more.  He goes to their rescue.\n\nSo when Paul said, \"I long to share His sufferings\" he meant, \"I long\nto be, in the truest sense, like Him.  I long to see the world through\nHis eyes.  I long to feel toward men as Christ feels toward them.  I\nlong to sacrifice for them in my finite way as He sacrificed for them.\"\nAnd what was the outcome of this longing?  There are some ambitions\nthat God cannot gratify.  To do so would only mean our impoverishment\nand our ruin.  But such is not the case here.  God graciously granted\nthe satisfying of this longing of Saint Paul.\n\nListen to the testimony to the truth of that fact from his own lips.\n\"I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live.  Yet not I, but\nChrist liveth in me.\"  Again he says, \"For to me to live is Christ.\"\nThat is, \"For to me to live is to reproduce Christ.  For to me to live\nis for Christ to live over again in me.\"  In a most profound and vital\nsense he has come to share in the divine nature.\n\nHaving come to share in the divine nature he is privileged also to\nshare in His sufferings.  His ministry is a daily dying.  He is a man\nof great heaviness and continual sorrow.  The secret of his pain is\nthis: \"I fill up that which is behind of the sufferings of Christ in my\nbody.\"  In sharing thus his Master's sufferings he shared with him in\nHis work of bringing salvation to men.  To-day we could better spare\nmany a nation than we could spare this one single man.\n\nAnd now we are going to gather about this altar where we shall remember\ntogether the suffering love of Jesus Christ.  As we take the bread and\nwine we are going to be reminded of the broken body and shed blood of\nour Lord.  And I trust that as we think upon His love and upon His\nsacrifice for ourselves we shall come to be possessed with the holy\nlonging of this great apostle.  May we too be able to say, \"I long to\nshare in His suffering.\"  This high longing is possible for every one\nof us through the riches of His grace.  And it is possible in no other\nway.  Therefore, let us gather round this table with this song within\nour hearts:\n\n  \"Thy nature, gracious Lord, impart;\n    Come quickly from above,\n  Write thy new name upon my heart,\n    Thy new, best name of Love.\"\n\n\n\n\nV\n\nGOING VISITING--JONATHAN\n\n_I Samuel 23:16_\n\n\"And Jonathan, Saul's son, arose and went to David into the wood and\nstrengthened his hand in God.\"  \"Going visiting\" is a very commonplace\noccurrence.  Oftentimes the visits we make are thoroughly trivial and\nunimportant.  But there are other times when our visits take on a\nprofound significance.  There are times when they mark a crisis.  There\nare times when they set in motion influences that tell on the entire\nfuture of those whom we visit.  There are times when they mean the\nmaking or the marring of a human soul.\n\nNow, this visit about which we are to study to-day is no ordinary\nvisit.  I think it is one of the most beautiful stories to be found in\nliterature.  This visit was made many centuries ago.  It was made in an\nobscure corner of the earth, and yet it has never been forgotten.  It\nnever will be.  The Inspirer of the Word saw in it too much of worth\nand winsomeness to allow it to slip out of the memories of men.  It is\nremembered to-day, not because Jonathan left his calling card on\nDavid's center table.  It is remembered because the visit was so\nblessedly beautiful.\n\nIt is a great privilege that God has given us in allowing us to visit\neach other.  We can help so much by it if we will.  Wasn't that a\nlovely visit that the old school master made to Marget that time in\n\"Beside the Bonny Briar Bush\" when he came to tell her that she had a\n\"laddie of parts\"?  And wasn't it still more beautiful when he came\nlater, rugged old Scotchman that he was, to burst into tears of wild\njoy over the good news he brought her that her son had won first prize\nin the great university?\n\nWasn't that a lovely series of visits that a kindly old man made to the\nroom of the little laddie who had swept the street crossing before he\nhad been crippled in the discharge of his duty?  A city missionary went\nin to see him and asked him if he had had anybody to visit him.  \"Oh,\nyes,\" was the answer.  \"A good man comes every day and talks to me, and\nsometimes he reads the Bible to me and prays.\"  \"What is his name?\"\nasked the missionary.  And the little fellow studied a moment and said,\n\"I think he said his name was Gladstone.\"  England's grand old man\nappears to us in many a charming role, but in none is he more manly and\ncommanding than in this of visiting a little crippled waif in a London\nattic.\n\nFlorence Nightingale was a lovely visitor.  Do you recall that\nexquisite bit of poetry in conduct on the field of Crimea?  A soldier\nwas to go through a painful operation.  An anaesthetic could not be\nadministered and the doctor said the patient could not endure the\noperation.  \"Yes, I can,\" said the patient, \"under one condition: if\nyou will get the 'Angel of the Crimea' to hold my hand.\"  And she came\nout to the little hospital at the front and held his hand.  Glorious\nvisit.  No wonder the man went through the operation without a tremor.\n\nBut the visit of our text,--to me it is more wonderful still.  The\ntruth of the matter is, I know of but one other visit that ever took\nplace that is finer and more beautiful.  You know what visit that was.\nIt was the visit that One made to a manger in Bethlehem nineteen\ncenturies ago.  That was a visit that remade the world.  It was so\nwonderful that a star pointed it out with finger of silver, and our\ndiscordant old earth was serenaded with the music of that land of\neternal melody.  But aside from that one visit, I think this the most\nbeautiful one ever recorded.\n\nWhat is the secret of its beauty?  First, it was beautiful in its\ncourageous loyalty.  You know who Jonathan was.  He was the King's son.\nHe was popular, handsome and courageous.  So lithe, athletic and\ngraceful he was that they called him \"the gazelle.\"  He was a prince.\nHe was heir-apparent to the throne of Israel.\n\nAnd you know, also, who David was.  He was at that time in disgrace.\nHe was under the frown of the King.  He was being hunted from one\nrefuge to another like a wild beast.  To be his friend was to be the\nenemy of the King.  To smile upon him was to meet the frown of the King.\n\nBut notwithstanding the fact that these men were so far apart, one a\nfavorite prince and the other an outcast peasant, yet we find the\nprince visiting the peasant.  You say they were friends.  Yes, that is\ntrue, deeply true.  But their friendship had started in other days.\nWhen David and Jonathan first met they met under altogether different\ncircumstances.  You know when Jonathan first saw David.  It was when\nDavid returned from his fight with Goliath, with the bloody head of the\ngiant in his hand.  He met him amidst the hurrahs and the wild\nenthusiasm of the people.  He met him on one of the great red letter\ndays of David's life, when he sprang suddenly from obscurity to be a\nnational hero.\n\nIt does not seem so surprising, therefore, when we read that on this\nday \"the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David.\"  David was\ncourageous.  David had shown himself a hero.  David was a favorite with\nthe King and a favorite with the people.  It took no great effort to\nlove him then.  It took no great courage to be his friend.  But all is\nchanged now.  The King no longer loves him, but hates him and seeks his\nlife.  The sun of his popularity has gone into eclipse.  We wonder if\nJonathan's friendship will stand the test.\n\nAnd again we turn and read the text: \"And Jonathan, Saul's son, arose\nand went to David into the wood and strengthened his hand in God.\"\nWhat beautiful loyalty.  What fine fidelity.  How blessed is David in\nthe friendship of a man who can love him in the sunshine and who can\nlove him no less in the midst of the shadows.  How blessed he is in the\nfriendship of one who can stand by him when many lips praise him and\nwho can also stand by him when many abuse him, and many criticise him\nand many lift their hands against him.  Truly this man loves David for\nhimself alone.\n\nSecond, this visit is beautiful because of its fine and costly\nsympathy.  Jonathan really sympathized with David in his trials and his\ndifficulties.  He did not express that sympathy in any cheap and\ndistant way.  He might have sent David word that if he needed anything\njust to let him know.  He might have dispatched a servant to comfort\nDavid in his sore trials.  But he did not try to express his sympathy\nat long distance.  He went to David.  He came to handclasp with the man\nthat he wished to help.\n\nNow, I am perfectly aware of the fact that much of our sympathy must be\nexpressed at a distance.  For instance, we cannot all go to the foreign\nfield.  We must express our interest in those who have not had our\nopportunities by our gifts.  Much of the service we render in our own\nland must be rendered in the same way.  But when that is said, the fact\nstill remains that there is nothing that will take the place of our\nhand-to-hand dealing with those who need us.  We cannot perform all our\ncharities by proxy.  We must come in personal contact with those whom\nwe would help.\n\nThere is one poem I think that we have a bit overworked:\n\n  \"Let me live in my house by the side of the road,\n  Where the race of men go by.\n  They are good, they are bad, they are weak, they are strong,\n  Wise, foolish--and so am I.\n  So why should I sit in the scorner's seat,\n  Or hurl the cynic's ban?\n  Let me live in my house by the side of the road,\n  And be a friend to man.\n\n  \"I see from my house by the side of the road,\n  By the side of the highway of life,\n  The men that press on with the ardor of hope,\n  And the men who are faint in the strife.\n  But I turn not away from their smiles nor their tears,\n  Both parts of an infinite plan.\n  Let me live in my house by the side of the road,\n  And be a friend to man.\n\n  \"I know there are brook gladdened meadows ahead,\n  And mountains of wearisome height.\n  And the road passes on through the long afternoon,\n  And stretches away to the night.\n  But still I rejoice when the travelers rejoice,\n  And weep with the strangers that moan,\n  Nor live in my house by the side of the road,\n  Like one who dwells alone.\"\n\n\nNow that is good, but after all,--\n\n  \"It's only a half truth the poet has sung\n  Of the house by the side of the way.\n  Our Master had neither a house nor a home,\n  But He walked with the crowd day by day.\n  I think when I read of the poet's desire\n  That a house by the road would be good,\n  But service is found in its tenderest form\n  As we walk with the crowd in the road.\n\n  \"So I say let me walk with the men in the road,\n  Let me seek out the burdens that crush;\n  Let me speak a kind word of good cheer to the weak\n  Who are falling behind in the rush.\n  There are wounds to be healed, there are breaks we must mend,\n  There are cups of cold water to give,\n  And the man in the road by the side of his friend,\n  Is the man who has learned how to give.\n\n  \"Then tell me no more of the house by the road,\n  There is only one place I can live.\n  It is there where the men are toiling along,\n  Who are needing the help I can give.\n  'Tis pleasant to dwell in the house by the road,\n  And be a friend, as the poet has said,\n  But the Master is bidding us, Bear ye their load,\n  Your rest waiteth yonder ahead.\n\n  \"So I can not remain in the house by the road,\n  And watch as the toilers pass on,\n  Their faces beclouded with pain and with shame,\n  So burdened, their strength nearly gone.\n  I will go to their side, I will speak in good cheer,\n  I will help them to carry their load.\n  And I'll smile at the man in the house by the way,\n  While I walk with the crowd in the road.\n\n  \"Out there in the road that runs by the house\n  Where the poet is singing his song,\n  I'll walk and I'll work midst the heat of the day,\n  And I'll help falling brothers along.\n  Too busy to dwell in the house by the way,\n  Too happy for such an abode,\n  And my glad heart will sing to the Master of all,\n  Who is helping me serve in the road.\"\n\n\nAnd the beauty and glory of this lovely visit that Prince Jonathan made\nto David, the outcast, was that he walked with him in the road.  He did\nnot dwell in his princely palace and send him some money.  He did not\nallow him, as Dives allowed Lazarus, to gather up the crumbs.  He went\nto him.  And because he went to him he helped him.  Oh, heart, that is\nthe secret of the salvation wrought by our Lord.  He came to us.  Had\nHe merely come for the day and gone back to Heaven at night, He would\nnever have saved us.  He came into personal contact with us.  That is\nhow He lifts us.\n\nThis visit was beautiful, in the third place, because of its high and\nholy purpose.  I see Jonathan as he is turning his face toward the\nforest where David is hiding.  I say to him, \"Prince Jonathan, you are\ngoing down to see David, I understand.  Why are you going?\"  This is\nhis answer: \"I am going down to strengthen his hand in God.  You know\nDavid has had a hard time recently.  He has been sorely tried.  He has\nbeen bitterly disappointed.  He has passed through one great sorrow\nafter another.  I am afraid his faith is going to be destroyed.  I am\nafraid he will lose his grip of God unless I go to see him and help him\nand strengthen his hand in the Lord.  And that is why I am going.\"\n\nAnd so Jonathan hurries on.  And the angels must have crowded the\nwindows of heaven to behold him as he walked upon this glorious errand.\nI would go a bit out of my way any time to get to see a man who is\ngoing to see his friend, not to ask for help, but going for the one big\npurpose of making the man whom he is to visit a little stronger, a\nlittle better, a little more loyal to his Lord.\n\nAnd not only did Jonathan go for that purpose, but he succeeded in it.\nWhen he left David, he left him a stronger man.  I do not know what he\nsaid to him.  That is not recorded.  I do not know that he quoted\nscripture to him or even prayed with him.  He may have.  He may not\nhave.  It is not absolutely necessary to have prayer always in order to\nstrengthen our friend in the Lord.  Sometimes all we need to do is just\nto talk to him and let him talk, and convince him that we sympathize\nwith him, that we are interested in him.  And having done that, somehow\nhe comes more and more to believe in God's interest.\n\nBut whatever Jonathan said, David was stronger and better and braver\nafter he had gone.  I think I can hear him as he looks after the\nretreating figure going through the forest.  And what he is saying to\nhimself is this, \"Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me,\nbless His holy name.\"  And I think when the books are balanced in\nHeaven that Jonathan will get quite a bit of credit for David's\nexquisite music.  There are terrible clashes in his songs.  \"He that\ndid eat of my bread hath lifted up his heel against me.\"  Jonathan did\nnot inspire that.  But there is many a blessed passage that might never\nhave been written but for the loyal and loving and constant friendship\nof Prince Jonathan.\n\nAnd last of all, this visit was beautiful in its self-forgetfulness.\nIts beauty reached its climax here.  Just think of the circumstances.\nSamuel, the prophet, has declared that David is to be king.  But in\neverybody's mind, the throne by right belongs to Jonathan.  David is in\nperplexity.  He is on the point of losing his faith.  If he loses it he\nnever will be king.  This will give Jonathan his chance.\n\nNow, why, I wonder, didn't Jonathan feel about this matter as many of\nus would?  Why did he not hold aloof and say, \"If David fails and loses\nhis chance it is no fault of mine.  If he fails it will only mean that\nhe will not take away the throne that by right belongs to me.\"  No\nattitude would have been more human than this.  I do not know how many\nnights Jonathan spent in prayer to be delivered from the bondage of his\nselfishness.  But I do know this, that he was delivered.\n\nAnd I want you to watch him as he goes down into this forest to see\nDavid to-day to strengthen his hand in God.  I said we do not know his\nconversation with David.  We do know a bit of it, and that is this,\nthat he encouraged David to believe God, to believe this one particular\npromise at least, that God was going to see to it that David was king.\nAnd when you see Jonathan going thus into the woods he is going for the\ndeliberate purpose of taking the crown off his own brow and putting it\nupon the brow of another.  He is abdicating the throne in behalf of\nthis outcast friend of his who is hiding here in the forest.\n\nYou will doubtless agree, therefore, that this old world has not been\nblessed with many visits so beautiful as this.  Watch this Prince as he\ngoes into the wood.  His stride is like that of another:\n\n  \"Into the woods my Master went,\n  Clean forspent, forspent;\n  Into the woods my Master came,\n  Forspent with love and shame.\n  But the olive trees were not blind to Him,\n  And the little gray leaves were kind to Him,\n  And the thorn tree had a mind to Him,\n  When into the woods He came.\n\n  \"Out of the woods my Master went,\n  And He was well content;\n  Out of the woods my Master came,\n  Content with death and shame.\n  When death and shame would woo Him last,\n  From under the trees they drew Him last,\n  'Twas on a tree they slew him--last\n  When out of the woods He came.\"\n\n\nYes, Jonathan went into the woods to uncrown himself! to empty himself\nfor his friend!  Truly \"the spirit and mind was in him that was also in\nChrist Jesus, who being in the form of God thought it not a thing to be\nclung to to be equal with God, but emptied Himself and became obedient\nunto death, even the death of the cross.\"\n\nBut the \"practical\" man stands aside and looks on and says, \"Jonathan,\nyou have made a great mistake.  You never wore a crown and you never\nwielded a scepter.  You took your opportunity for earthly greatness and\nthrew it away.  It was a great mistake.\"  And we take the words of\nJudas and say, \"Why this waste?\"\n\nBut after all, was it a mistake?  He lost his crown, but he won his\nfriend.  He helped banish the discord and increased the melody of the\nworld.  He threw aside his scepter of temporal power to lay hold on an\neternal scepter.  He threw aside the crown that he might have worn for\na day to lay hold on a crown that will last forever more.\n\nIf ever I get to Heaven I expect to give particular attention to the\nVisitors' Gallery.  I think there is going to be an especial place, a\nvery choice place in Heaven for the visitors.  Not, you will\nunderstand, for those who are visiting Heaven, but those who were good\nat visiting here.  For mark you, the Lord has spoken of a special\nreward that He is going to give to those of whom He could say, \"Ye\nvisited me.\"  And about the handsomest, the loveliest face I expect to\nfind among the immortal and blood-washed visitors is the face of this\nman Jonathan.\n\nAnd now, will you hear this closing word?  Jonathan uncrowned himself\nfor his friend.  And he won his friend and he won an immortal crown.\nBut there was another who gave up infinitely more than Jonathan.  And\nHe came to you and me when we were in an infinitely worse plight than\nthat in which David was.  He came to us when we were dead in trespasses\nand in sin.  And what He says to us this morning is this, \"I have\ncalled you friends.  Ye are my friends.\"\n\nThe Prince who did that for us was not the son of Saul, but the Son of\nGod.  Through His renunciation He was crowned.  By His stooping He was\nforever elevated.  \"Wherefore God has highly exalted Him and given Him\na name that is above every name.\"  But what I ask is this: Have you\nresponded to His friendship as David responded to that of Jonathan?  He\nhas been a friend to you.  Have you, will you be a friend to Him?  That\nis what He is seeking.  That is what He is longing for to-day as for\nnothing else in earth or Heaven.\n\nYou know why He came.  You know why He is here now.  Why did Jonathan\nvisit David in the gloomy wood that day and uncrown himself for him?\nIt was just this reason: It was because he loved him.  Again and again\nthe story had said that Jonathan loved David as his own soul.  I\nthought it was a mere hyperbole at first.  I thought it might be a kind\nof poetic way of putting it, but it was only sober truth.  And David\nspoke sober truth in that noble and manly lamentation when he said,\n\"Thy love was wonderful to me, passing the love of women.\"\n\nAnd it is love that seeks you and me to-day.  It is a love that longs\nto gain our friendship.  It is a love that had been told to us, but at\nlast was shown to us in the death of the cross.  And we know it is\ntrue.  David responded to the love that was shown him.  He did not\ndisappoint his friend.  May the Lord save you and me from disappointing\nour Friend.  \"For He is a Friend that sticketh closer than a brother.\"\n\n\n\n\nVI\n\nTHE WOMAN OF THE SHATTERED ROMANCES--THE WOMAN OF SYCHAR\n\n_John 4:4-26_\n\nLook, will you, at this picture.  There sits a man in the strength and\nbuoyancy of young manhood.  He is only thirty or thereabouts.  About\nhim is the atmosphere of vigor and vitality that belong to the\nspring-time of life.  But to-day he is a bit tired.  There is a droop\nin his shoulders.  His feet and sandals are dusty.  His garment is\ntravel stained.  He has been journeying all the morning on foot.  And\nnow at the noon hour he is resting.\n\nThe place of his resting is an old well curb.  The well is one that was\ndigged by hands that have been dust long centuries.  This traveller is\nvery thirsty.  But he has no means of drawing the water, so he sits\nupon the well curb and waits.  His friends who are journeying with him\nhave gone into the city to buy food.  Soon they will return and then\nthey will eat and drink together.\n\nAs he looks along the road that leads into the city he sees somebody\ncoming.  That somebody is not one of his disciples.  It is a woman.  As\nshe comes closer he sees that she is clad in the cheap and soiled\nfinery of her class.  At once he knows her for what she is.  He reads\nthe dark story of her sinful life.  He understands the whole fetid and\nfilthy past through which she has journeyed as through the stenchful\nmud of a swamp.\n\nAs she approaches the well she glares at the Stranger seated upon the\ncurb with bold and unsympathetic gaze.  She knows his nationality at\nonce.  And all her racial resentment is alive and active.\n\nA bit to her surprise the Stranger greets her with a request for a\nfavor.  \"Give me a drink,\" he says.  Christ was thirsty.  He wanted a\ndraught from Jacob's well.  But far more He wanted a draught from this\nwoman's heart.  She was a slattern, an outcast.  She was lower, in the\nestimation of the average Jew, than a street dog.  Yet this weary\nChrist desired the gift of her burnt out and impoverished affections.\nSo He says, \"Give me to drink.\"\n\nThere is no scorn in the tone, and yet the woman is not in the least\nsoftened by it.  She rather glories in the fact that she has Him at a\ndisadvantage.  \"Oh, yes,\" she doubtless says to herself, \"you Jews with\nyour high-handed pride, you Jews with your bitter contempt for us\nSamaritans--you never have any use for us except when you need us.\"\n\"How is it,\" she says, \"that you being a Jew ask drink of me who am a\nwoman of Samaria?  You don't mean that you would take a drink at the\nhand of an unclean thing like me, do you?\"\n\nBut this charming Stranger does not answer her as she had expected.  He\nmakes no apology for His request.  Nor does He show the least bit of\nresentment or contempt.  He does not answer scorn with scorn, but\nrather answers with a surprising tenderness: \"If thou knewest the gift\nof God and who it is that saith unto thee, Give me to drink, thou\nwouldest have asked of Him and He would have given thee living water.\"\n\nMark what the Master says.  It is one of those abidingly tragic\n\"ifs\"--\"If thou knewest.\"  \"The trouble with you,\" He says, \"is that\nyou do not know the marvelous opportunity with which you now stand face\nto face.  Your trouble is that you are unaware of how near you are to\nthe Fountain of Eternal Life.  You do not realize how near your soiled\nfingers are to clasping wealth that is wealth forever more.\"\n\n\"If thou knewest\"--if you only knew how He could still the fitful fever\nof your heart.  If you only knew the message of courage and hope and\nsalvation that He could speak through your lips, you would not be so\nlistless and so careless and so indifferent as the preacher is trying\nto preach.  If you knew the burdens that are ahead of you--if you knew\nthe dark and lonely places where you will sorely need a friend, you\nwould not lightly ignore the friendship and abiding companionship that\nis offered you in Christ Jesus, our Lord.\n\n\"If thou knewest.\"  Do you not hear the cadences of tenderness in the\nvoice of our Lord?  Do you not get a glimpse of some bit of the\ninfinite compassion that looks out from those eternal eyes?  \"If you\nonly knew the gift of God, if you only knew who I am, instead of my\nhaving to beg you, instead of my having to stand at the door and\nknock--you would be knocking.  You would be asking of me.\"\n\nNow, isn't that a rather amazing thing for Christ to say about this\nfallen woman?  There she stands in her shame.  Once, no doubt, she was\nbeautiful.  There is a charm about her still in spite of the fact that\nshe is a woman of many a shattered romance.  Five times she has been\nmarried, but the marriage relationship has had little sacredness for\nher.  Her orange blossoms have been dipped in pitch and to-day she is\nliving in open sin.\n\nWho would ever have expected any marked change in this woman?  Who\nwould ever have dreamed that underneath this cheap and tarnished dress\nthere beat a hungry heart?  Who would ever have thought that this\noutcast heathen had moments when she looked wistfully toward the\nheights and longed for a better life?  I suppose nobody would ever have\nthought of it but the kindly Stranger who now sat upon the well curb\ntalking to her.  He knew that in spite of her wasted years, in spite of\nher tarnished past, in spite of the fact that the foul breath of\npassion had blown her about the streets as a filthy rag--there still\nwas that within her that hungered and thirsted for goodness and for God.\n\nAnd, my friend, you may assume that that thirst belongs to every man.\nThere is not one that is not stirred by it.  It belongs to the best of\nmankind.  It belongs to the elect company of white souled men and women\nthat have climbed far up the hills toward God.  It belongs to the great\nsaints like David who cries, \"My soul thirsteth for God, for the living\nGod,\" who sobs out in his intensity of longing, \"As the hart panteth\nafter the water brook, so panteth my soul after thee, O God.\"\n\nAnd thank God it does not belong to the saints alone.  It belongs also\nto the sinners.  It does not belong simply to those who have climbed\ntoward the heights, but also to those who have dipped toward the lowest\ndepths.  About the only difference between the saint and the sinner in\nthis respect is that the saint knows what he is thirsting for.  He\nknows who it is that can satisfy the deepest longings of his soul, and\nthe sinner does not know.  But both of them are thirsting for the\nliving God.\n\nJesus Christ knew men and women.  He knew the human heart, and knowing\nman at his deepest, He knew what we sometimes forget.  He knew that in\nevery man, however low, however degraded he may be--that in every\nwoman, however soiled and stained she may be, there is an insatiable\nlonging for God.  They do not always realize that for which they are\nthirsting.  But I am absolutely sure that Augustine was right when he\nsaid that \"God has made us for Himself and we never find rest till we\nrest in Him.\"  Every human soul that is in the Far Country is in want,\nis hungry for the Bread of Life and thirsty for the Water of Life.\n\nDo you remember what the Greeks said to Andrew that day at Jerusalem?\n\"'Sir, we would see Jesus.'  We would have a vision of the face of\nGod's Son.\"  And this is a universal longing.  It is a thirst that has\nburned in the heart of man from the beginning of human history.  It is\nolder than the pyramids.  It is a cry that is the very mother of\nreligion.\n\nAs we sit by our Lord and see this unclean woman coming with her\nearthenware pot upon her shoulder we would fain warn Him.  We would\nwhisper in His ear, \"Look, Master, yonder comes a degraded woman,\nyonder comes that creature that in all the centuries has been the most\nloathed and the most despised and who has been regarded as the most\nhopeless.  Yonder comes an outcast.\"  But Jesus said, \"You see and know\nonly in part.  Your knowledge is surface knowledge.  You do not know\nher in the deepest depths of her soiled soul.  Yonder comes one, who in\nspite of her sin longs to be good and pure and holy.  Yonder comes an\nimmortal soul with immortal hungers and thirsts.  Yonder comes a\npossible child of mine that longs ignorantly but passionately for the\nunder-girding of the Everlasting Arms.\"\n\nAnd believe me, my friends, when I tell you that this longing is\nuniversal.  You have feared to speak to that acquaintance of yours who\nseems so flippant, who seems so utterly indifferent to everything that\npartakes of the nature of religion.  But that is not the deepest fact\nabout him.  Whoever he is and wherever he is, there are times when he\nis restless and heartsick and homesick.  There are times when he is\nliterally parched with thirst for those fountains that make glad the\ncity of God.  Dare to speak to him as if he wanted Jesus Christ.  For\nhe does want Him, though he may not know it and may be little conscious\nof it.\n\n\"If thou knewest the gift of God . . . thou wouldest have asked of\nHim.\"  That was absolutely and literally true, though I seriously doubt\nif the woman herself would have believed it of herself.  If you knew\nthe gift of God, if you knew what God could do for you, how much he\ncould mean to your wasted and burnt out affections--you would ask Him.\nYou would seek for Him.  You would change this well curb into an altar\nof prayer.  You would change this noon-tide glare into an inner temple,\ninto a holy of holies where the soul and God would meet and understand\neach other.\n\nThis reply of the Stranger awakens the interest of the woman while at\nthe same time it mystifies and bewilders her.  He is evidently sincere,\nand yet what can He mean?  And in puzzled wonderment she asks Him,\n\"Whence then hast thou living water?  You have nothing to draw with and\nthe well is deep.  Are you greater than our father Jacob who gave us\nthe well and drank thereof himself and his sons and his cattle?  Jacob\nwas a great prince, a man of power with God and man.  Do you know a\nsecret that he did not know?  Can you do what he could not do?\"\n\nAnd this winsome Stranger does not hesitate to say that He can.  Will\nyou listen to the claim that He makes to this woman.  No other teacher\nhowever great and however egotistical ever made such a claim before or\nsince.  \"Yes,\" He replies, \"I am greater than your father Jacob.  I am\ngreater because I can give a gift that is infinitely beyond his.\n'Every one that drinketh of this water shall thirst again, but\nwhosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never\nthirst.  But the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of\nwater springing up into everlasting life.'\"\n\nDid you notice here the two-fold declaration of the Master?  He said in\nthe first place that this old well would not satisfy permanently.  And\nwhat is true of that well is true of all wells that have ever been\ndigged by human hands.  What is wrong with them?  For one thing, they\nnever satisfy.  They never slake our thirst.  To drink from them is\nlike drinking sea water--we become only the more parched and thirsty as\nwe drink.\n\nDo you remember \"The Ancient Mariner\"?  He is on a ship in the ocean\nand he is parched and dying with thirst.  What is the matter?  Has the\nsea gone dry?  No--\n\n  \"Water, water everywhere\n  And all the boards did shrink;\n  Water, water everywhere,\n  Nor any drop to drink.\"\n\nThere is water, but it is not water that will satisfy.\n\nAnd so men have digged their wells.  They have been real wells.  They\nhad held real water of a kind, but it has been water that was utterly\npowerless to slake the thirst of the soul.  Here is a man who has\ndigged a well of wealth.  Treasure is bubbling up about him like the\nwaters of a fountain.  He is rich beyond his hopes, but is he\nsatisfied?  Listen!  \"Soul, thou hast much good laid up for many days,\neat, drink and be merry.\"  But his soul has no appetite for that kind\nof bread.  His soul has no thirst for that brackish and bitter water.\nIt is hungry and thirsty for the living God, and nothing else can\nsatisfy.\n\nHere is another who has made the same tragic blunder.\n\n  \"I'm an alien--I'm an alien to the faith my mother taught me;\n    I'm an alien to the God that heard my mother when she cried;\n  I'm a stranger to the comfort that my 'Now I lay me' brought me,\n    To the Everlasting Arms that held my father when he died.\n  I have spent a life-time seeking things I spurned\n           when I had found them;\n    I have fought and been rewarded in full many a winning cause;\n  But I'd yield them all--fame, fortune and the pleasures\n           that surround them;\n    For a little of the faith that made my mother what she was.\n\n  \"When the great world came and called me I deserted all to follow,\n    Never knowing, in my dazedness, I had slipped my hand from His--\n  Never noting, in my blindness, that the bauble fame was hollow,\n    That the gold of wealth was tinsel, as I since have learned it is--\n  I have spent a life-time seeking things I've spurned when\n           I have found them;\n    I have fought and been rewarded in full many a petty cause,\n  But I'd take them all--fame, fortune and the pleasures\n           that surround them,\n    And exchange them for the faith that made my mother what she was.\"\n\n\nHere is one who has dug a well of fame, but he cannot count up twelve\nhappy days.  And though he has drunk draughts that might have quenched\nthe thirst of millions, he is dying of thirst because there is no more\nto drink.\n\n  \"Oh, could I feel as once I felt,\n  And be what I have been,\n  And weep as I could once have wept\n  O'er many a vanished scene.\n\n  \"As springs in deserts found seem sweet,\n  All brackish though they be;\n  So midst the withered waste of life\n  Those tears would flow to me.\"\n\n\n\"Oh, what is fame to a woman,\" said another.  \"Like the apples of the\nDead Sea, fair to the sight and ashes to the touch.\"  Here is another\nand he has digged wells of wealth and fame and power and pleasure.  He\nseems afloat upon a very sea in which all the streams of human power\nand glory and wisdom mingle.  He tastes them all only to dash the cup\nfrom his lips in loathing and disgust as he cries, \"Vanity of vanities!\nAll is vanity and vexation of spirit.\"\n\nAnd so Jesus says to this woman, \"This well can never permanently\nsatisfy you.  No well of this world can.  But if you are only willing,\nI can give you a well that will satisfy.  I can impart that which will\nmeet every single need and every single longing of your soul.\"  What a\nclaim is this!  How marvelous, how amazing!  And yet this tired young\nman, sitting here by the well, makes this high claim, and through the\ncenturies He has made it good.\n\n\"I can give you,\" says He, \"a well that will satisfy you now.  I can\ntouch the hot fever of your life into restfulness now.  I can satisfy\nthe intensest hunger of your starved soul even now.  And not only can I\ndo this for the present, but I can satisfy for all eternity.  I can\ngive you a fountain that will never run dry.  I can bless your life\nwith a springtime where the trees will never shed their leaves and the\npetals of the rose will never shatter upon the grass.\"\n\n\"If you will allow me, I will give you that which will enrich and\nsatisfy your life to-day and to-morrow and through all the eternal\nto-morrow.\"  In all world feasts there comes a time when we have to\nsay, \"There is no wine.\"  There comes a time when the zest is gone,\nwhen the wreaths are withered.  There comes a time when joy lies\ncoffined and we have left to us only the dust and ashes of burnt out\nhopes.  But Christ satisfies now and ever more.  And this He does in\nspite of all circumstances and in the presence of all difficulties.\nFor His is not an external fountain to which we have to journey again\nand again and from which we may be cut off by the forces of the enemy.\nHis is a fountain within.  It is that which makes us independent of our\nfoes and even, when need be, of our friends.  Dr. Jowett tells how he\nvisited an old, ruined castle in England and found far in the inner\nprecincts of that castle a gurgling and living spring.\n\nWhat a treasure it was to the man who lived in that castle!  His\nenemies might besiege him and shut him in, but they could never cut off\nhis water supply.  No foes however great were able to overcome him by\nstarvation for water because he had a fountain within.  There was\nwithin the castle a well of water springing up, and he was independent\nof all outside sources.\n\nNow, when Jesus had told this woman of the wonderful gift that He had\nthe power of imparting it is not at all strange that she answered,\n\"Sir, give me this water that I thirst not, neither come all the way\nhere to draw.\"  And that is just what Jesus desires above all else to\ndo for her.  But there is one something in the way.  Before Christ can\nimpart His saving and satisfying gift the woman must be brought face to\nface with her need.  She must be made to face her own sin eye to eye\nand to hate it and confess it.  She must be willing to turn from it to\nHim who is able to cleanse from all sin by the washing of His blood.\n\nAnd how tactfully does Christ bring her face to face with her past!\nNothing could be more tenderly delicate than His touch here.  \"Go call\nthy husband,\" He says.  \"I have no husband,\" is the ready response.\nAnd then He compliments her.\n\nIf you are to be successful as a soul winner, if you are to be\nsuccessful as a worker anywhere--it is fine to have an eye for that\nwhich is praiseworthy.  There is something commendable about everybody\nif we only seek for it and find it.  A disreputable dog came to our\nhouse the other day.  My wife looked at him and said, \"What a horrible\nlooking dog!\"  But our small boy looked at him with a different eye and\nfound something good about him and remarked that he could wag his tail\nwell.\n\nThere was not much in this woman to compliment.  But Jesus picked out\none thing that was commendable.  He complimented her on the fact that\nshe had told Him the truth.  He said, \"You have been honest in this.\nYou have no husband.  You have had five husbands, but the man that thou\nnow hast is not thy husband.  In that saidst thou truly.\"  And now the\nwoman stands looking her soiled and stained past eye to eye.  She does\nnot like it.  She would like to get away from it.  She wants to start a\ntheological discussion.  She is ready to launch out into an argument\nover the proper place to worship God.  But Christ holds her face to\nface with her sin till she loathes it, and utters that deepest cry of\nher inner nature, the longing for the coming of the Messiah.  And then\nit is that Christ made the first disclosure of Himself that He ever\nmade in this world.  He seems to lift the veil from the face of the\ninfinite as He says, \"I that speak unto thee am He.\"\n\nAnd this woman has found the Living Water.  She forgot her old thirst.\nShe forgot the errand that brought her to the well.  She left the empty\nwater pot by the curbstone and bounded away like a happy child into the\ncity.  She is under the compelling power of a marvelous discovery.  She\nhas a story infinitely too good to keep.  And in spite of the fact that\nher past had been a shameful and sordid past--she would not let it\nclose her lips.  She gave her testimony, and as a result we read these\nwords, \"Many believed because of the saying of the woman.\"\n\nHeart, this woman never had your chance and mine.  She was placed in a\nbad setting.  She wasted the best years of her life.  She never found\nJesus till the sweetest and freshest years of her life had been\nsquandered in sin.  She only met him in the last lingering days of\nautumn or maybe in the winter time of life.  Though she met Him so\nlate, when she stood in His presence a little later in glory she had\nher hands full of sheaves.\n\nYou have had a great chance.  Is there anybody that believes because of\nwhat you have said?  Has any life been transfigured and transformed by\nthe story that you have told?  Will you not give a little more\nearnestness and a little more thought and a little more prayer and a\nlittle more effort to the doing of this work that Jesus Christ did not\nthink was beneath Himself as the King of Heaven and the Savior of the\nworld?\n\nAnd if you have never found the fountain that satisfies, if you know\nnothing of the spring that flows within--will you not claim that\nblessed treasure now?  Will you not do so, first of all, because of\nyour own needs?  Then will you not do so not only because of your own\nneeds but because of the needs of those about you?  You are thirsty men\nand women, and this is a thirsty world.  You need God and God needs\nyou.  Will you give Him a chance at you?\n\nRemember that this well of water is not to be yours on the basis of\nmerit.  It is not to be bought.  It is not to be earned.  It is not\nfound in the pathway of the scholar or of the rich or of the great or\nof the gifted.  It is God's gift.  If you want wages serve the devil,\nfor \"the wages of sin is death.\"  \"But the gift of God is eternal life\nthrough Jesus Christ, our Lord.\"\n\nIn oriental cities, where water is often scarce, water carriers go\nthrough the streets selling water at so much per drink.  And their cry\nis this: \"The gift of God, who will buy?  Who will buy?\"  And sometimes\na man will buy the whole supply, and then allow the water carrier to\ngive it away.  And as he goes back down the street, he no longer says,\n\"The gift of God, who will buy?\" but \"The gift of God, who will take?\nThe gift of God, who will take?\"  That is my message to you: \"The gift\nof God, who will take?\"  It is yours for the taking.  May God help you\nto take it now.\n\n\n\n\nVII\n\nA GOOD MAN--BARNABAS\n\n_Acts 11:24_\n\nThis is the text: \"He was a good man.\"  Doubtless you think me daring\nto the point of rashness to undertake to interest and edify a modern\ncongregation by talking about a virtue so prosaic as goodness.  \"He was\na good man.\"  We do not thrill when we hear that.  It is not a word\nthat quickens our pulse beat.  We do not sit up and lean forward.  We\nrather relax and stifle a yawn and look at our watches and wonder how\nsoon it will be over.  We are interested in clever men, in men of\ngenius.  We are interested in bad men, in courageous men, in poor men\nand rich men, but good men--our interest lags here, nods, drowses, goes\nto sleep.\n\nThe truth of the matter is that the word \"good\" is a bit like the poor\nfellow that went down from Jerusalem to Jericho.  It has fallen among\nthieves that have stripped it of its raiment and have wounded it and\ndeparted, leaving it half dead.  It is a word that has a hospital odor\nabout it.  It savors of plasters and poultices and invalid chairs.  Its\nright hand has no cunning.  Its tongue has no fire.  Its cheeks are\ncorpse-like in their paleness.  It seems to be in the last stages of\nconsumption.  If people say we are handsome or cultured we are\ndelighted, but who is complimented by being called good?\n\nWhat has wrecked this word?  What is the secret of its weakness and\nutter insipidity?  Answer: bad company.  The Book says, \"The companion\nof fools shall be destroyed.\"  And this word is an example of the truth\nof that statement.  It has been forced to rub elbows with bad company\ntill it has come into utter disrepute.\n\nIts evil companions have been of two classes.  First, it has been made\nto associate with the gentleman about town whose greatest merit was\nthat he would smoke a cigar with you, if you would furnish the cigar,\nor take a drink with you, if you would furnish the liquor.  He also\ngraced a dress suit, even though it were a rented one with the rent\nunpaid.  And he looked well in pumps.  He was a graceful dancer and\ngood at poker.  He also was very skilled in never having a job.  And\nhis friends all said that \"he was a good fellow.\"  And, of course,\nbeing forced to keep company with said fellow was enough to ruin the\nreputation of the word forever more.\n\nBut as if that were not enough calamity to befall any innocent and\ninoffensive word, it was forced into another association that was but\nlittle less disreputable.  There was an individual--sometimes a man,\nsometimes a woman--who did not swear, nor lie, nor steal, nor dip\nsnuff; whose conduct was as immaculate as that of a wax figure in a\nshow window; who never made a mistake, nor did he ever make anything\nelse.  He was as aggressive as a crawfish and as magnetic as a mummy.\nHe was \"faultily faultless, icily regular, splendidly null.\"  And one\nday we felt called upon to clothe this colorless insipidity, this\nincarnate nonentity, with some sort of an adjective, and so we threw\naround its scrawny shoulders this once glorious robe \"good.\"  We said,\n\"Yes, he isn't much account, it is true, but he is a good fellow.\"  And\nthe garment fit him as the coat of Goliath would fit a pigmy.  But\nlittle by little the once great cloak seemed to draw up and to come to\nfit the figure of the dwarf.\n\nThus the word \"good\" lost its reputation, fell, as many words and many\nfolks do fall, through bad company.  But let me remind you that, in\nspite of popular misconception, \"good\" is not after all a weak word.\nIt is a strong, brawny, masculine word.  It has the shoulders of a\nSamson.  It has the lifting power of a Hercules.  And the reason God\nemployed it here to describe this man Barnabas was not because He had\nto say something about him and could not find anything else decent to\nsay.  It was not a word to cover up the deformity of uselessness or the\nglaring defect of a moral minus sign.  He used the word because there\nwas none other that would fitly describe the fine and heroic man of\nwhom He was speaking.  It means here all that \"Christian\" means.\n\n\"He was a good man.\"  That was what God said about him.  That was how\nhe looked when seen through \"the microscope of Calvary.\"  He had\nmatriculated in God's school, and after faithful and patient study, his\nMaster gave him a degree.  And what was that degree?  Barnabas, the\ngenius?  No.  Barnabas, the gifted?  No.  It was a higher degree than\neither of these.  It was the highest degree that Heaven itself can\nconfer.  He gave him the degree of \"good.\"  Barnabas, the good.  \"For\nhe was a good man.\"\n\nNow, why did God call him good?  Or, in other words, what are the\ncharacteristics that go to make up a good man?  When is a man good in\nthe sight of \"Him who sees things clearly and sees them whole?\"  In\nwhat branches must a man show himself proficient in order to receive\nthis degree?  I ask these questions with the hope that some of us who\nare here to-day may want to matriculate in God's school to receive the\nhigh degree that was conferred upon Barnabas.\n\nThe first branch in which Barnabas showed himself proficient in his\npreparation for this degree was the branch of Christian Stewardship.\nAnd I make bold to say that no man will ever receive the degree that\nBarnabas received who is not proficient in the grace of stewardship.\n\nHere is the story.  Barnabas is in Jerusalem at the time of Pentecost.\nThe Church is in the early spring-time of its power.  Many Jews, both\nhome-born and foreign-born, have been brought into the fold.  They have\nthereby broken with their kindred, and many of them are without any\nmeans of support.  Then Barnabas comes forward.  He is a wealthy land\nowner.  He sells his land and puts every dollar of it upon the altar of\nhis Lord, for the saving of the church in its hour of crisis.\n\nWhat does this mean?  It means that when Barnabas became a Christian,\nthat when he gave himself to Christ, he gave his money also.  Now,\nstewardship for you may not mean that you, as Barnabas, sell what you\nhave and give it all away.  God does not call upon all men to do that,\nbut what He does do is to call upon every man to put both himself and\nhis money at His disposal.  He calls upon every man to recognize God,\nand not himself, as the owner.  That is the first step in Christian\nStewardship: that God owns all; He owns me; He owns my home; He owns my\nchildren; He owns my property.  I have called your attention before to\nthe fact that the modern idea of ownership is pagan.  The Christian\nidea is this: that God is the absolute owner of all things.\n\nI am sure that we are as ready as was Barnabas to acknowledge this\nfact.  We nod our heads and agree, but a truth like this demands\nsomething more than simply a nod of the head.  If God owns everything,\nthen I am to acknowledge that ownership.  How was God's ownership\nacknowledged throughout all the Old Testament days?  By the devoting of\na tenth to His service.  That was required of the rich and of the poor.\nNo man was exempt.  Christ never at any time set that law aside.  I do\nnot see how any man dare do less than that to-day.  The Jews, without\none thousandth part of our light, were cursed because of their failure\nto do this very thing.  Since when has it come to pass that the greater\nthe light the less the responsibility?\n\nThere is nothing more needed to-day than a Christian attitude toward\nmoney.  There has been a reaction from the altruism that prevailed\nduring the war, and the world is more money mad than ever before.  And\nmen are making money as scarcely ever before, and the man who is making\nmoney is the man who stands in the position of a peculiar danger.  For\nthe men who can rapidly accumulate money and at the same time be loyal\nto Jesus Christ are few indeed.\n\nWhile I was in Dallas the other day I talked to a friend who was a man\nof wealth.  He said without enthusiasm, \"I have made more money this\nyear than I ever made before.\"  And then I questioned him regarding his\nwork in the Church.  At one time he had been the teacher of a very\nlarge class of boys.  He told me that he had given up his Sunday School\nwork, that he had given up all his religious work.  Then I said, \"If\nyou had a thermometer for registering happiness, I suppose your\nthermometer would register lower to-day than at any other time since\nyou came into the Church.\"  And with sadness he acknowledged that such\nwas the case.\n\nYes, Barnabas was sound in the doctrine of stewardship.  And I am fully\npersuaded that the man who is genuinely Christian in his attitude\ntoward money will be Christian in every other relationship of life.\nAnd I am likewise fully persuaded that the man who fails here, who\nfalls short of the standard of goodness here, will fall short\neverywhere.  A man may be a liberal man and fail to be a good man, but\nno man can be a good man and at the same time be a gripping, grasping,\ncovetous man.  It is an utter impossibility.  Barnabas got a degree in\ngoodness, and the first course he mastered was a course in Christian\nStewardship.\n\nSecond, Barnabas was proficient in that difficult branch that we call\nfaith.  He had acquired faith till he was full of it.  Faith in God?\nYes, he had faith in God.  That lies back of all that he did and all\nthat he became.  But the faith that shows itself most in his life, as\nwe see it, is his faith in men.  How he did believe in folks!\nConfidence in men is an essential to true goodness.  I do not believe\nthat any cynic was ever a really good man.  I know we sometimes pride\nourselves on being hard to fool.  We congratulate ourselves at times on\nbeing able to see more through a key-hole than other folks can see\nthrough a wide-open door.  We boast of our ability to read character\nand to see behind the scenes and to detect sham where other folks\ndreamed there was sincerity.  And I am not arguing for blindness or\nstupidity, but what I do say is this: that the really good men are the\nmen who believe in their fellows.\n\nYou have met the man who says that every fellow has his price.  But\nwhenever you hear a man say that you may know that there is at least\none man who does have his price, and that is the man who is making the\nstatement.  You can compromise till you come to persuade yourself that\ncompromise is the law of life.  You can play with honesty till you come\nto believe in the dishonesty of the whole world.  And the man without\nconfidence in his brother is a man who personally knows that he himself\nwould not do to trust.\n\nBarnabas believed in men.  One of the greatest enemies that the Church\never had returned one day from a tour of persecution in Damascus.  He\ndeclared that he had been converted on the way, but nobody in Jerusalem\nbelieved him.  Yes, there was one glorious exception.  That exception\nwas Barnabas.  He believed in Paul, staked his reputation, his life,\nhis Church, which was dearer to him than his life,--he staked all these\nupon his faith in Paul's sincerity.  But for that, Paul might have been\nlost to the Church.\n\nAnd here is another instance: Paul and Barnabas are on their first\nmissionary tour.  With them is a young man named Mark.  He has been\ntenderly nurtured.  He finds the missionary life harder than he\nexpected.  He proves a coward and goes home.  Years after, when the\nfaces of Paul and Barnabas are again set to the battle front, Mark once\nmore offers his service.  But Paul will not accept him.  He knows that\nthe mission field is no place for parlor soldiers.  And so he flatly\nrefuses to allow him to become a part of the army of invasion.\n\nBut Barnabas,--somehow he cannot bring himself to give him up.  He\nbelieves that even if a man failed once he may succeed at a second\ntrial.  He believes that a coward may become a hero, that a deserter\nmay yet become a trusted and faithful soldier.  And so he stands by\nJohn Mark even at the great price of parting company with Paul.  And\nhis confidence was gloriously justified, as our confidence so often is.\nWho wrote the second Gospel--one of the choicest pieces of literature\nin the world?  It was written by John Mark, the deserter.\n\nThen years later, when bitter days of persecution have come, Paul is in\nprison.  He especially needs men about him now on whose loyal courage\nand devotion he can count absolutely.  For whom does he now ask?\nListen!  \"Take Mark and bring him with thee, for he is profitable to me\nfor the ministry.\"  Mark has come back.  He has been saved to Christ\nand to the Church.  And the one to whom we are mainly indebted for his\nsalvation is none other than the good man Barnabas.  And Barnabas won\nbecause of his sturdy, persistent faith.\n\nNow to some this virtue may seem a bit of a weakness, but if weakness,\nhow like it is to the weakness of Christ Himself!  For certainly one of\nthe most marvelous characteristics of Jesus is His faith in men.  How\nJesus could expect that the poor slattern who was dragged into His\npresence taken in adultery could be utterly different from that hour, I\ndo not know.  I certainly would not have expected it of her, but He\ndid.  And I hear Him saying to her, \"Go and sin no more.\"  How Jesus\ncould expect that twelve faulty, unlearned, self-seeking men, such as\nHis disciples were, would ever be the means of remaking the world, I\ncannot for a moment see.  They failed Him in His hour of supremest\nneed.  They slept in the garden and ran like frightened sheep when He\nwas arrested.  And yet, knowing their cowardice and their weakness, He\ntumbles the responsibility of world conquest upon their frail shoulders\nwith the declaration that \"the gates of hell should not prevail against\nthem.\"  Certainly the wildest faith that was ever exercised is the\nfaith that God exercises in men.  And the faith of this man Barnabas\nwas a quality born of a goodness that was close akin to the goodness of\nGod.\n\nThat is the way, I think, that this man got his name.  You know they\ndid not always call him Barnabas.  The folks over in Cypress knew him\nas Joses.  They named him Barnabas because that was the word that best\ndescribed him.  It was a verbal picture of the man.  What does it mean?\nA son of consolation.  Isn't that fine?  James and John were called the\nsons of thunder.  That speaks of power, might, dash, the lightning's\nflash, the thunder's crash.  There is storm wrapped up in their\npersonalities.  But Barnabas is the peaceful sunset after the storm.\nHe is the light at eventide.  He is a son of consolation.\n\nNow, if there is anything finer than that I do not know just what that\nsomething might be.  To be incarnated encouragement, embodied comfort,\nflesh and blood consolation,--it would be hard to find a better\nvocation than that.  This man had the tongue of the learned that he\nmight be able to speak a word in season to him that was weary.  He\ndelivered men from the bondage of their self-despisings, from the\nburden of their self-contempt.  He brought hope where there had been\ndespair and turned the westward gaze toward the east.  He pointed out\nthe streaks of dawn that were lighting the sky.  He made men hear the\nbird's song within the voiceless egg and to catch the perfume of\nflowers under the snow.  He was a son of consolation.  \"Be pitiful,\"\nsays Dr. Watson, \"for every man is having a hard time.\"  There are some\nfolks who depress us.  There are some wet blanket personalities who\nstifle us.  And there are others like Barnabas who refresh us, and when\nthey come and knock at our doors we pass out of the stuffy atmosphere\nof a mental prison into a flower garden where the air is fresh and\nsweet with perfume and musical with the morning song of birds.\n\nThird, this man was thoroughly missionary.  He had taken a course in\nGod's doctrine of evangelism.  He believed that the Gospel was for all\nmankind.  Some Christians of that day were trying to keep it a Jewish\nsect.  When they heard that folks were actually being converted down in\nAntioch there seems to have been not the least bit of joy in the fact.\nBut under the leadership of the Spirit they sent Barnabas to\ninvestigate.  He came and saw the same light in their faces down in\nAntioch that was in the faces of those who were Spirit-baptized up in\nJerusalem.  And the story says that when he saw the work of the Lord he\nwas glad.  And not only was he glad, but he threw himself at once into\nthe work of evangelizing that foreign city.\n\nThen he did another big thing.  Seeing the great opportunity that was\nthere, he went and sought Paul out over at Tarsus and brought him over\nas his helper.  And it was there as they labored together and\nministered to the Lord and fasted that the Holy Ghost said, \"Separate\nme Barnabas and Saul, for the work whereunto I have called them.\"  And\nthey went forth as the world's first foreign missionaries.  An army has\ngone forth since that day,--the choicest spirits that this world has\never seen.  And those who have gone have consecrated the soil of every\ncontinent by their prayers, their tears and their sacrifices.  Their\nashes rest to-day upon every shore and the songs of the redeemed are\nsung to-day under every sky because they have labored.  Who was the\nvanguard of that great army whose going forth was as the going forth of\nthe morning?  The vanguard was made up of two men.  One of them was\nPaul, the other Barnabas, a man not marvelously clever, not greatly\ngifted.  His supreme merit was just this, that in a real and genuine\nsense he was a good man, full of faith.\n\nAnd last of all, Barnabas was a spiritual man.  The inspired writer\nsays that he was full of the Holy Ghost.  And that implied, of course,\nthat Barnabas was a man fully given up to God,  There can be no deep\nspirituality apart from that.  Our surrender is the condition of our\nbeing full of the Spirit.  \"For we are His witnesses of these things,\nas is also the Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to them that obey Him.\"\n\nSo you can readily see why Barnabas has a right to the fine compliment\nthat is paid him here by the writer of the Acts.  Barnabas was generous\nwith his possessions.  He had the Christian attitude toward money.\nBarnabas was generous in his judgments.  He had a brother's attitude\ntoward his fellows.  He was thoroughly missionary.  He made Christ's\nprogram for world conquest his own.  He was profoundly and genuinely\nspiritual.  And because of these fine qualities one who knew him well\nsaid of him, \"He was a good man.\"\n\nNow, there are compliments more flashy than being called good.  There\nare encomiums that are much fuller of glitter, but in spite of that, I\nam convinced that nothing greater or better could possibly be said\nabout any one of us living to-day or any one that ever has lived than\njust this that is written about Barnabas: \"He was a good man.\"  I had\nrather my boy would be able to say that about me when he stands by my\ngrave, sunken and grass-grown, than to say anything else in all the\nworld.\n\nBrother, let us covet goodness.  Let us seek that rare treasure.  For\nthere is nothing better or finer or more beautiful or more useful.\n\"Goodness.\"  It is the fairest flower that can ever bloom in your soul\ngarden.  It is the sweetest music that even God's skilled fingers will\never be able to win from your thousand stringed heart harp.  It is the\nvirtue in those we love that grips us tightest and holds us longest.\nAnd wonderful to say, it is within reach of every one of us.\n\nThere are certain fine things that you and I can never possess.  We\nknow that.  Genius, greatness,--they are high and forbidding mountain\npeaks.  Their sides are rugged and precipitous.  They have pulled iron\nhoods of snow and ice upon their brows.  But goodness,--that is a peak\nthat may be scaled by the tender feet of little children and by the\ntottering feet of old age.  It may be scaled by the reluctant feet of\nthose in life's prosaic middle passage.  Let us address ourselves then\nto this high task.  Let us matriculate this morning in God's school for\nthis degree, the degree of \"goodness.\"  And one day it may be written\nof us as it was written of Barnabas, \"He was a good man.\"\n\n\n\n\nVIII\n\nTHE INQUEST--PHARAOH\n\n_Exodus 14:30 and 9:16_\n\nIn Exodus 14:19 we read these words: \"And Israel saw the Egyptians dead\nupon the seashore.\"  It is rather a ghastly and grewsome sight.  There\nthey lie, the soldiers of the once proud army of Egypt.  They are in\nall sorts of positions, these dead men.  Some have their heads pillowed\npeacefully upon their arms as if in sleep.  Others have their hard\nfaces half buried in the sand.  Others still lie prone upon their backs\nwith bits of seaweed in their hair and their sightless eyes staring in\nterror at nothing.\n\nThey are very much alike, these corpses.  But here is one that is\ndifferent.  Look at the rich costume in which it is dressed.  Look at\nits bejewelled fingers.  There is no crown upon its brow.  There is no\nsceptre in that nerveless hand.  Yet it is easy to guess that this\ncorpse, this \"pocket that death has turned inside out and emptied\" was\nonce a king.  Yes, this is the body of Pharaoh, the one time ruler of\nEgypt.  But here he lies to-day among the meanest of his soldiers.  He\nis sprawled in unkingly fashion upon his face as if the sea had spit\nhim out in sheer nausea and disgust.\n\nAnd now comes the big question that we want to consider.  How came this\nfamous Egyptian here?  He was once a king, you remember.  He was ruler\nover the proudest nation in the world.  And here we find him dead.  He\ndied away from home.  He died a violent death.  Let us hold an inquest\nover him for a moment and see how he came to die.  He did not leave\nEgypt and march into the Red Sea for that purpose.  He never intended\nthat life should end thus.  Nor is he here because his enemy Israel has\nproven stronger than himself.  What is the cause?  And the question is\nanswered by the voice of God.  We read it in Exodus 9:16, \"For this\ncause have I raised thee up that I might show forth my power in thee.\"\n\nWill you notice what this strange text says.  Without the least\nequivocation it says that God raised this man Pharaoh up that He might\nshow forth His power in him.  And that purpose He accomplished.  This\nghastly piece of royal rottenness has not been thrown upon this shore\nby the hand of man.  As we look at him we see in him a monument of the\npower of God.  And strange to say, he is not a monument of God's power\nto save and to keep and to utilize, but of God's power to thwart and to\ndisappoint and to wreck and to utterly destroy.  And in his destruction\nGod tells us that He has achieved His purpose.\n\nYou will agree with me that this is an amazing statement.  The teaching\nseems to be that God has raised this man up that He might glorify\nHimself by making a complete and utter wreck of him.  I wonder if that\ncan be true.  We agree, I suppose, all of us who believe the Bible,\nthat God has a plan for every life.  All nature tells of a planning\nGod.  All revelation teaches it also.  We have the message direct from\nthe lips of the Lord, \"As my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.\"\n\nBut in admitting that God plans every life, can we believe that He\nplans for some to go wrong and for others to go right?  Can we believe\nthat He plans for one to become a Judas and the other a St. John?  Is\nit the purpose of God that one shall develop into a Moses and the other\nright at his side shall grow up into a miserable and distorted wreck\nthat we call Pharaoh?  In other words, is Judas as much a part of the\nplan of God as John?  If so we are of all men most miserable because we\nhave a wicked God.\n\nBut we know that such is not the case.  God never planned that any man\nshould go wrong.  He is not willing that any should perish, but that\nall should come to repentance.  He is the eternal lover.  He loved\nMoses, but He loved Pharaoh no less.  And Judas was as dear to God's\nheart as John.  And whatever failure they made of their lives, and\nwhatever failure you and I make of our lives, we do not make because\nGod forces us to do so.  In whatever way we go wrong, we do not do so\nbecause God planned that we should.  We do it because of our own\nwillfulness and wicked rebellion against God.\n\nIn other words, though God plans your life and mine, He cannot in the\nvery nature of things, force us to enter into His plan.  You who are\nfathers and mothers realize that.  Many parents have made beautiful\nplans for their children only to have those plans despised.  Our\nchildren are not ourselves.  They have independent wills.  They have\nthe capacity for entering into our purposes for them and thus bringing\nus joy unspeakable.  They have also the capacity for despising those\npurposes and breaking our hearts.\n\nHow, then, do we explain this strange text, \"For this cause have I\nraised thee up that I might show forth my power in thee\"?  Because it\nis a fact that this death in the Red Sea was not an accidental death.\nIt is a fact that this corpse here upon the beach is not here by mere\nchance.  This king was flung here by the power of a disappointed and\ngrieved and rejected God.  He lies here dead upon the shore according\nto the deliberate plan and purpose of God.  But while this is true, we\nneed to keep this big fact in mind: Though Pharaoh lies here according\nto the purpose of God, this was not God's first and highest purpose for\nhim.  But Pharaoh resisted and rejected every noble and worthy purpose\nthat God had in his life.  By his own rebellion he made it impossible\nfor God to realize any purpose in him at all save the last and the\nworst.\n\nDo you remember that story in Jeremiah?  One day the word of the Lord\ncame unto the prophet Jeremiah saying, \"Arise and go down to the\nPotter's house and there I will cause thee to hear my word.\"  And\nJeremiah went down and heard the message.  Arrived within the Potter's\nhouse, three objects at once drew his attention.  There was a man\nworking, the Potter.  There was the instrument with which he worked,\nthe wheel.  And there was the substance upon which he worked, the clay.\nIn the Potter's hand the clay was misshapen and unsightly.  The cup was\nnot yet finished in the Potter's hand.  But there was a place where it\nwas finished, and that was in the mind of the Potter.  The Potter could\nalready see the finished product.  He was trying to make the cup\naccording to the ideal that he had in his mind.\n\nBut we read that the cup was marred in the making.  That is, there was\nsomething in the clay that resisted the Potter.  Now, what did he do\nwith the marred cup?  We would have expected him to throw it away, but\nhe did not.  He made it again.  What a gospel that is for failing and\nsinning men like ourselves.  How glorious that, when we resist God's\npurpose and all but wreck ourselves, He will make us again.  Truly we\nwould be a hopeless race but for the fact that we have a mighty God who\nis able to remake us even when we have rebelled against Him and have\nthwarted His blessed plans for us.\n\nHe made it again.  Yes, but notice this.  He made it again \"another\nvessel.\"  He changed his plan for this latter vessel.  He realized that\nhe could not make it according to the fine ideal that was in his mind\nfor the first vessel.  That one refused to realize the best, therefore\nhe made it into another vessel.  He sought to make it realize the\nsecond best.\n\nThere is a truth here of tremendous importance that we are prone to\nforget, and that truth is this, that having rejected and resisted God\nfor days and months and years, God cannot make of us what He could have\nmade if we had entered into His plans from the beginning.  If you\nreject God's best for you, then He tries to get you to realize His\nsecond best.  If you reject this, then He seeks to bring you to the\nnext best.  But remember this, God cannot, in the very nature of\nthings, make as much out of a fraction of a life as He can out of the\nwhole of a life.\n\nNow, suppose, the clay upon which the Potter was working had been\nmarred again.  Again he would have undertaken to have made it into\nanother vessel.  But all the while that clay would have been becoming\nless and less plastic.  All the while it would have been becoming more\nand more difficult for the Potter to shape it according to his purpose.\n\nThus the time would inevitably come when it would no longer be capable\nof being shaped by his hand at all.  Then what would be the result?\nStep outside the Potter's house and you are in the Potter's field.\nAbout you lie broken crockery and shattered earthenware.  Why is it\nthere?  Not because the Potter made vessels for the stupid purpose of\nbreaking them to pieces.  They are there because there was something in\nthe clay that so resisted the hand of the Potter that he was able to\nmake nothing of them but these shattered and misshapen and broken\nwrecks.\n\nNow this is the story of Pharaoh, king of Egypt.  God had a noble\npurpose in this man's life to begin with.  He gave him every\nopportunity.  He brought to bear all that infinite love and mercy could\nbring to bear to get Pharaoh to be a good man.  The reason Pharaoh\nended as he did end was not because God did not love him and did not do\nHis infinite best to save Him.  It was because Pharaoh resisted and\nresisted, rebelled and rebelled till at last he threw himself a corpse\nupon this distant seashore.  And the message we hear from his clammy\nlips this night is this, \"Look at me and see what a terrible thing it\nis to rebel against God.  Behold me and see the tragic failure of the\nman that persistently throws himself in wicked madness against the\nbosses of the buckler of the Lord Almighty.\"\n\nLook now how hard God tried to make something of Pharaoh.  In the first\nplace, He gave to him a great and faithful minister.  Pharaoh had the\nprivilege of knowing Moses.  He had an opportunity of hearing about the\ngreatest individual that the world has ever seen.  He threw himself\naway, did Pharaoh.  He chose God's worst instead of God's best, but he\ndid not do it because he did not know better.  Neither are you wasting\nyour life because you do not know better.  If you have not had a\nteacher great as Moses, you have yet been faithfully warned, and in\nyour sin you are without excuse.\n\nGod gave Pharaoh a chance to cooperate with Him, to help Him in saving\nIsrael and making her into a great nation.  Moses' first word to\nPharaoh was this, \"The God of Israel saith, Let my people go.\"  Now,\nPharaoh's answer to this demand was haughty enough.  He answers, \"Who\nis the God of Israel?  I do not know him.\"  And he didn't, though he\nmight have known Him.  But God did not throw him away after this one\nchance.  On the contrary, He gave him ample opportunity to know Him.\n\nWith this end in view God brought His infinite energies into play.\nWonder after wonder He worked in the presence of Pharaoh by the hand of\nMoses.  At first these wonders were imitated by the magicians.  These\nfakes, by their cunning, made it easy, at least for a while, for\nPharaoh to resist God.  They helped the King to close his royal eyes to\nthe truth.  They helped him to start with decision on his course of\nrebellion.\n\nBut the magicians were soon outdone.  Moses began to perform wonders\nthat they could not imitate.  And they themselves were forced to\nbelieve in the presence and might and reality of God.  And they who had\nhelped their king to go wrong, turned to him with this acknowledgment\non their lips, \"It is the finger of God.\"  But it is easier to lead a\nman astray than it is to lead him back.  It is easier for you, by your\ngodless and worldly life, to lead your children to despise Christ and\nthe Church than it is to lead them back after they have gone astray.\nPharaoh listened to the magicians when they counseled him to do wrong,\nbut he turned a deaf ear to them when they counseled him to do right.\n\nThen followed that series of plagues upon Egypt that were always\npreceded and always followed by this demand of God spoken through the\nlips of Moses, \"Let my people go that they may serve me.\"  You see what\nGod was demanding of Pharaoh.  It is the same that He demands of you\nand me, obedience--that is all.  He is commanding us to surrender\nourselves to Him, to enter into His purpose.  And the one thing that\nGod wanted was the one thing that Pharaoh did not want.  But he was\nbecoming afraid and so he proposed to compromise.\n\nIn his fright he tells Moses that he will obey.  He will let the people\ngo.  That is, he said, \"I will let part of them go.  I will let the men\ngo.  Leave the children here.\"  Pharaoh knew that just so long as he\nkept the children in Egypt, just so long would Israel remain in\nbondage.  And the devil knows to-day just so long as our homes remain\nunchristianized, just so long will the world remain unchristianized.\nWe will never bring in the Kingdom by simply seeking to save an adult\ngeneration.  We must give God a chance at the children or the cause of\nrighteousness is going to be defeated.  But if we will save the child,\nwe will surely save the world.\n\nThen Pharaoh offered a second compromise.  He said, \"I will let you and\nthe children go, but you must leave your cattle and your sheep.  You\nmust leave all your flocks and your herds.\"  That is, you may go into\nCanaan if you must, but leave your business in Egypt.  And the devil\nto-day is perfectly willing that you and I be just as pious and\nprayerful as we want to be on Sunday, provided we forget all about such\nthings on Monday.  He is willing for you to be devoutly religious if\nyou will only confine your religion to the church.  But a religion that\ndoes not permeate and purify and uplift and sanctify business and\nbusiness relations is not the religion of Jesus Christ.\n\nAnd then Pharaoh offered a third compromise.  He said, \"I will let the\npeople go, but they must not go far.\"  Why was that?  For the very\nhuman reason that he wanted the privilege of getting them back.  He\nsaid, for instance, \"I will obey God, but I do not want to promise to\nmake my obedience permanent.\"  You have seen plenty of instances of\nthat.  Here is a man who has decided to be a Christian, but he won't\njoin the church.  He wants to see how he gets along first.  Such a man\nis already making provision for going back.  \"Take up thy bed,\" said\nthe Master to the paralyzed man whom He had healed.  He ever wants us\nto make a complete break with the past.\n\nBut the plagues grow worse.  Pharaoh is becoming more and more\nfrightened.  While the scare is on he promises again and again that he\nwill obey the Lord unconditionally.  There was a terrible storm, you\nremember.  The hail stones fell like shrapnel and the lightning dropped\nfrom the clouds and fairly played along the earth, and terror gripped\nthe King's heart.  And he sends for Moses.  When Moses comes he tells\nhim, all atremble, \"I have sinned this time.  I will let the people\ngo.\"  But when the storm ceases and the sun shines out he is quite\nashamed of his weakness.  He is so ashamed that he forgets altogether\nthe promise that he made when the fear of death was upon him.\n\nThis is a side of human nature that is a bit disgusting, yet we dare\nnot shut our eyes to it.  There are scores listening to me at this very\nmoment who have acted for all the world as Pharaoh acted.  And you have\ndone so with all the light that he had and far more.  I do not know of\na man that is in greater danger of being ultimately lost than that man\nwho never cares for religion except when he is scared.  Because the\ntruth of the matter is that a man of that kind does not care for\ngoodness or for God at all.  Not even in his moments of most abject\nterror does he want to be truly saved.  He simply wants to escape the\nresults of his sin.  He does not want to pay the penalty for wrong\ndoing.  He wants to defeat the ends of justice.  He is not interested\nin being good and pure and true.  He is simply interested in keeping\nout of hell.\n\nHow patient God was with Pharaoh.  We are amazed at it till we think\nhow infinitely patient He has been with ourselves.  By storm, by black\nnight, by adversity after adversity, God is doing His best to fight\nPharaoh back from the Bed Sea.  He is doing all He can to turn him away\nfrom committing suicide in body and suicide in soul.  But Pharaoh, as\nsome of ourselves, seemed absolutely greedy for damnation.  He seemed\ncompletely bent on working out his own utter destruction.\n\nAfter the king had broken one vow after another and lied and lied and\nlied again, God brought the last dark providence into his life.  He\nmade one final effort to save him from his ruin.  Pharaoh was called to\nkneel by the coffin of his first born.  And his hard heart seemed\nsoftened at last.  By the grave of the Crown Prince he made a solemn\nvow that he would obey God.  And he set about putting the vow into\nexecution at once.  And the children of Israel were not only allowed to\ngo, but they were hurried out of Egypt.\n\nAt last, at last, we say, with what infinite expense the man is brought\nto obey.  But would you believe it the grass had not yet grown green\nupon the grave of his boy till he forgot his vow and turned back to the\nold life again.  Oh, what a grip sin gets on us.  Oh, how blind we\nbecome if we persistently refuse to follow the light.  So Pharaoh\nbrushed his tears out of his eyes, gathered his army and set out after\nthe departing children of Israel.\n\nI see the bustle and hurry of the setting out.  I see the look of hate\non the king's face as he comes within sight of his one time slaves.  He\nlaughs a mirthless laugh as he sees their predicament.  They are shut\nin on either side.  The sea is in front and he and his army in the\nrear.  What a sweet revenge he is going to have.\n\nBut look.  Something has happened.  There is a path through the sea.\nThese hunted slaves are marching in.  But it doesn't matter.  Wherever\nIsrael can go, the Egyptians can go.  So he and his army march in\nbehind.  They keep the Israelites in sight.  Now in the distance they\nsee that the last Israelite has reached dry land.\n\nAnd then there is a great shriek that is quickly choked.  The waters\nhave come together again.  The sea waves roar about these struggling\nsoldiers like liquid hate.  The King is forgotten.  His men are madly\ntrying to save themselves.  A jeweled hand flashes in the light for a\nmoment.  There is an oath, a cry for help, a gulp, and silence.  And\nthe hungry sea has its prey.\n\nPharaoh, why are you here?  And if those dead lips could speak he would\nsay, \"I am here because I persistently refused to obey God.  He offered\nme the best and I spurned it and spurned it again till at last He threw\nme here.  He did it because I made it impossible for Him to do anything\nelse.\"  And as I look at this wreck I think how different the story\nmight have ended.  This man might have had a part in the making of a\ngreat people.  He might have been associated with Moses in giving to\nthe world a new nation.  He might even now be in the fellowship of\nMoses among the tall sons of the morning.  For the difference between\nthis man and the great man Moses is not in the fact that God purposed\nevil for the one and good for the other.  It is in this, that one was\nobedient unto the heavenly vision, that one could say, \"The grace that\nwas bestowed upon me was not in vain,\" and the other resisted and kept\nresisting till he ran by every blockade that God could put in his path\nand plunged headlong into destruction.\n\n\n\n\nIX\n\nA SON OF SHAME--JEPHTHAH\n\n_Judges 11:35_\n\n\"I have opened my mouth unto the Lord and I cannot go back.\"  I like\nthese big words.  There is a ring of sterling strength in them.  They\nhave a robust masculinity that grips my heart.  They are not the words\nof a weakling.  They have absolutely no savor of softness or moral\nflabbiness.  They are not cheap.  They are high priced words.  They are\nwords made costly by a plentiful baptism of tragedy.  They are words\nliterally soaked in blood and tears.\n\nThis man Jephthah has made a vow.  And now the hour is upon him in\nwhich it is his duty to make the vow good.  His vow involves far more\nthan he ever expected.  But that fact does not cause him to be untrue.\nHe has given his promise.  Pay day has come.  His promise involves\nmeasureless sacrifice.  To keep it is to put out every star in his sky.\nIt is to pluck up every flower in his garden.  It is to change life's\nmusic into discord.  It is to take from him the one he loves far better\nthan he loves his own life.  But even though the price is big, he will\nnot refuse to pay it.  Even though his promise is hard, he will keep\nit.  \"I have opened my mouth unto the Lord and I cannot go back.\"\n\nJephthah has had many hard things said about him.  He has been wronged\nsince before he was born.  I do not think that justice has been done to\nhis memory.  Frankly, I think he is one of the most heroic souls of Old\nTestament history.  It is true that he would not fully measure up to\nall our modern ideals, but remember this, he lived in the morning of\nhuman history.  He lived when the light was dim.  And he was true to\nthe light that he had.  He was true with a rugged fidelity that will\ncause him to rise up in the day of judgment and condemn many of us.\n\nJephthah, I say, has been greatly wronged.  He never had a fair chance.\nHe was wronged in his very birth.  He was the son of a father who was\nunfaithful to his marriage vows.  Jephthah was a child of shame.  His\nfather had chosen to sacrifice upon the wayside altar.  His father had\nhad his fling.  He had sown his wild oats, and of necessity there was a\nharvest.  His father suffered, but sad to say, he was not the only\nsufferer.\n\nHow we need to be reminded again and again that no man ever sins alone.\nNo man ever walks from the path of virtue without he walks upon bruised\nand bleeding feet.  He himself suffers, but what is sadder still, he\ncauses somebody else to suffer.  I cannot go to hell alone.  I cannot\nplunge out into the dark without involving another soul, at least in\nsome measure, in my tragedy.  This father sinned.  It meant suffering\nfor him.  It also meant suffering for one who was altogether blameless.\nIt meant suffering for his boy.\n\nNot only did Jephthah have as part of his life tragedy an unclean\nfather, but he had an unclean mother as well.  Jephthah's mother was\nnot one of those unfortunate souls, more sinned against than sinning,\nwho had made one false step for the sake of the man she loved.  She was\na professional outcast.  She was a woman who made it her business day\nby day to sell herself over the counters of iniquity.  She was one of\nthose whose feet in all ages take hold on hell.\n\nSo Jephthah had a bad chance.  He was the fragment of a home that never\nwas.  He had no father that dared to own him.  And the first eyes into\nwhich he looked were the eyes of an unclean woman.  And the first lips\nthat kissed him were lips soiled and stained by years of sinful living.\nPoor little baby.  Poor little foundling.  Poor little outcast.  How\nmuch he missed.\n\nWhat are the most precious memories in your life to-night?  What are\nthe scenes to which you look back with deepest love and tenderness?  I\nknow.  They are the scenes of your childhood's home.\n\n  \"How dear to my heart are the scenes of my childhood,\n    When fond recollection, presents them to view;\n  The orchard, the meadow, the deep tangled wildwood,\n    And every loved spot that my infancy knew.\"\n\nBut the secret of the fascination of those dear scenes is this, that we\nsaw them by the glow of the light of love.  We think tenderly of our\nearly homes because they were presided over by a father and mother who\nknew God.  And the one cord that has failed to snap between us and a\ngood life is the cord that ties us still to the faith of our fathers\nand our mothers.\n\nBut Jephthah missed all this.  His father was unfaithful.  His mother\nwas an unclean woman.  There were no tender and holy associations that\nmade it easy for him to be good.  There were no memories to come in\nafter years and whisper old half forgotten prayers.  There were no fond\nrecollections to lay their hands upon him with angelic tenderness and\nlead him away from his City of Destruction.  He was a child of sin, a\nchild of blackness and of night, a child bereft of the inspiration of a\ngood mother's life and the sweet uplift of a pious home.\n\nAnd not only was this man wronged in what he missed, he was equally\nwronged in what he suffered.  Early he was branded with a shame not his\nown.  I know of few places where society has been so unjust and unkind\nas it has in its condemnation of those innocent ones who are the\nvictims of another's sin.  We forget that every child comes into the\nworld with the Father's kiss upon its clean soul regardless of the\ncircumstances of its birth.  We forget also that that child is no more\nto blame for those circumstances than it is to be blamed for the\ncurrents of the sea or for the darkness of the night.\n\nBut Jephthah was blamed.  Ugly names were flung at him before he was\nold enough to know their dark and sinister meaning.  He was forbidden\nto go to the big house of his father before he knew why he was not\nallowed to go.  He was excluded from the games of those more\nfortunately born than he, when he could no more understand why he was\nexcluded than he could keep back the bitter tears of childish\ndisappointment.  I can see him as he watches his half brothers and\nsisters play in the distance, and his little heart is lonely and he is\nhungry for a playmate.  And the gate is shut in his face, the gate of a\nshame not his own.\n\nBy and by youthhood comes, and early manhood.  The parental estate is\nto be divided.  Jephthah is disinherited.  He is driven from among his\npeople.  He is forced to flee for his life.  And he goes to take refuge\nin Tob with its mountain fastnesses and with its rude heathens who are\nless unkind than those kinsmen of his who claim to be worshippers of\nJehovah.\n\nSo we have here the material out of which this young man is called on\nto build a life.  He has no parentage.  He has no kindred.  He has no\nfriends.  Nobody believes in him.  Everybody expects him to go wrong.\nIt seems even at times as if everybody wanted him to go wrong.  They\nsaid, \"Oh, yes, I know him.  I used to know his mother.  She died in\nthe gutter.  You can't expect anything of him.\"\n\nAnd it is not at all difficult to go down when everybody expects you to\ngo down.  It is a great thing to have somebody to trust you.  That is a\ntremendous help.  As long as you feel that there is somebody who counts\non you, who believes in you, you are not without an anchor.  I read the\nother day of a little newsboy who was given a quarter that he might get\nchange.  And on his way back he was run over and crushed by an auto.\nAnd the last word he said was, \"Be sure and hunt him up and give him\nback the change.  He trusted me.\"  But here is a young fellow exiled,\nrobbed, persecuted and mistrusted.  And out of this charred and ugly\nmaterial he is called upon to build a life.\n\nAnd what is the result?  Well, he refused to surrender.  He said, \"If\nnobody else will believe in me I will believe in myself.  Since nobody\nelse will help me, I will help myself.  If I am to be robbed of my\ninheritance I will make a way of my own.\"  And so he set to work.  He\ndid not spend his time hunting up his neighbors to tell them of his\nmisfortunes.  He did not put in his time boasting of what he would do\nif he were as well off as his half brothers down in Israel.  He went to\nwork to build his fortune in the here and now.  And little by little he\nwon.\n\nAnd then one day a runner came to him in the field and said, \"Jephthah,\nyou have company at your house.\"  And the man looked up in surprise and\nsaid, \"Company!  Who is it?\"  \"A committee of elders from Israel.\"  And\nJephthah is astonished.  He is filled with wonder.  He is trying to\nguess why they came.  And with the problem unsolved he goes to meet his\nguests.\n\nThese elders greet him like a long lost son.  They tell him how they\nrejoice in his prosperity.  They informed him how they had always known\nthat he would make good.  They let him know that they would never have\nsent him out of Israel if they had had their way about it.  And then at\nlast they gather courage to tell him their errand.  And they say,\n\"Israel is being besieged by the Ammonites and we want you to come and\nbe the commander-in-chief of our armies.\"\n\nWell, now that was a shock.  Here was a young fellow who began with\nnothing, and worse than nothing.  But instead of whining, instead of\nquitting, instead of complaining that he had no chance, instead of\nputting in his time wishing that he was somewhere else, he did his duty\nwhere he was.  And folks found it out and came to kneel at his feet and\nask him for help.  And I am not saying, young man, that every man gets\nhis just deserts, but I do say that in the overwhelming majority of\ncases, if a man is really any account, sooner or later somebody will\nfind it out.  It may be true that\n\n  \"Full many a gem of purest ray serene\n    The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear.\n  Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,\n    And waste its sweetness on the desert air.\"\n\nBut I doubt if any gem of real human worth ever lies permanently\nconcealed.  I seriously question if any radiant flower of human\ncharacter ever wastes its sweetness on the desert air.  Learn to do\nsomething that the world needs to have done and men will make a path to\nyour door even if you live in a desert.\n\nThey came and asked Jephthah for help.  It is a humiliating experience.\nNow, I suppose those half brothers of Jephthah's down in Israel, those\nfellows who had scorned him in his childhood, those fellows who had\nrobbed him of his share in the estate,--I suppose they did some loud\ntalking about the general being a kinsman of theirs.  Oh, they are very\nmuch like we are.  We seldom boast of our relationship to an outcast,\nbut if we are one hundred and first cousin to somebody who is prominent\nwe are mighty apt to go about telling it.\n\nJephthah heard their request and promised to help them.  I think that\nwas fine of him.  It would have been so easy for him to have said, \"Oh,\nyes, you kicked me out when I was a little helpless waif.  When I\nneeded help you would not give it.  When I needed help you laughed at\nmy childish tears.  Now you need help, I will laugh at you.\"  But there\nwas nothing of revenge in him.  Wronged as he had been, he would not\nnurse his wrongs.  He would not allow his bitter treatment to make him\nbitter.\n\nI wish we all were so wise.  You were injured years ago by somebody.\nThat somebody perchance was in the church.  And so you have never had\nany use for the church since.  You have never had any use much for\nanybody since.  You have been snarling and snapping.  Do you remember\nMiss Harrisham in \"Great Expectations\"?  She was to be married.  All\narrangements were made.  The wedding cake was on the table.  But at\ntwenty minutes to nine a cruel note came telling her that the groom was\nnot coming.  Therefore, the clocks were all stopped at twenty minutes\nto nine.  The cake stood upon the table till it rotted.  The blinds\nremained drawn and no sunlight was ever allowed in the house again.\nAnd life for her stopped at twenty minutes to nine.  One disappointment\nwrecked her, embittered her, made her throw her life away.  But\nJephthah refused to be embittered.\n\nHe consented to go.  But before he undertook the campaign he stood\nbeside the altar of God.  This man had lived for years among heathens,\nbut they had not heathenized him.  He still stood true by the altar.\nCircumstances were against him, but religion is not simply for the easy\nsituations in which we find ourselves.  Your test, as one has said, is\nnot how good you can be if you have a devoted saint on either side of\nyou down at the office.  Your test is what your religion can do for you\nin the midst of a godless crowd.  Daniel's God was tested not in the\npleasant situations of his early home life.  The test was among his\nfoes.  It is amidst the horrors of a lion's den that the king's\nquestion echoes, \"Oh, Daniel, servant of the living God, is thy God\nwhom thou servest continually, able to deliver thee?\"\n\nJephthah went to battle from the altar of prayer.  As he went he made a\nvow.  It is the vow for which he has been most severely criticized.  It\nis a vow that has caused his name among some to be branded with shame.\nHe vowed that if God would give him the victory he would offer to Him\nwhatever first came out of the door of his house to meet him on his\nreturn.  It was a rash vow, I am ready to admit.  Yet rash as it was, I\ndo not find it in my heart to be severely critical of him.  I rather\njoin with Dr. Peck in my admiration.  You know what is the matter with\na great many of us smug church members?  We are so prudent.  We have\nsuch admirable possession of all our faculties.  We are in danger of\ndying of self-control.  This man in the white heat of his enthusiasm\nmade a solemn pledge to the Lord of that which was destined to be\ninfinitely the most precious thing in his life.  But some of us in our\nprudence will not even make a pledge of a few dollars.  We say we do\nnot know how well we will be fixed next week or next month or next year.\n\nYou have heard of the man who subscribed $50 and refused to pay it,\nsaying that he was too religious that day to look after his own\ninterests.  Some of us never get that religious.  But all the encomiums\nthroughout the Word of God are uttered upon those who are utterly rash\nin their giving.  The widow foolishly gave away all that she had.  And\nMary squandered a whole box of ointment when a few drops would have\nbeen amply sufficient.  But it was their mad recklessness that made\nthem immortal.\n\nJephthah made his vow and went to battle.  He went confidently.  He\nwent believing that inasmuch as he had put himself and what he had at\nGod's disposal, that God would put Himself at his disposal.  And God\ndid not disappoint him.  He won the fight.  And now the victorious army\nis marching home.  The soldiers are rejoicing.  But there is a strange\ntenseness and anxiety in the general's face that the soldiers do not\nunderstand.  Nobody understands but God and Jephthah.  At last they\nround the bend in the road and the general comes in sight of his own\nhome.  And then suddenly his bronze face goes deadly pale.  He reels\nupon his horse.  For out from the door of his home has come a lovely\ngirl with dark hair and sunny face, and she is singing a song of\nwelcome.\n\nFather and daughter come face to face.  The girl is perplexed, and the\ngeneral strains her hard to his heart.  He is father and mother to her\nat once, and she is all he has.  And the cup is bitter almost beyond\nthe drinking.  And he says, \"Alas, my daughter, you have brought me\nvery low.\"  And he tells her his story.  And the girl with sweet\nresignation understands, and the great sacrifice is made.\n\nJephthah was a hard man, you say.  Do not judge him in the light of the\ntwentieth century.  Judge him in the light of the day in which he\nlived.  And remember this, that he had the manhood to keep his promise.\nRemember that he had the sturdy courage to pay his vow.  \"I have opened\nmy mouth unto the Lord, and I cannot go back.\"  Oh, the world is saved\nby the \"cannot\" men, by the men who have big impossibilities in their\nsouls.  Joseph says as he faces the temptation of his life, \"I cannot\ndo it.\"  The apostles ordered to keep silent, say, \"We cannot.\"  And\nJephthah with breaking heart and tear-wet face, tempted to break his\nvow, says, \"I cannot go back.\"\n\nOh, I know what we would probably have done.  We would have said to\nourselves, \"Nobody knows that I made that vow anyway, nobody but God.\nI made it in the secrecy of my own heart.  I never breathed a word into\nany human ear.  If I go back on it, it will not matter so much.  It is\nsimply a promise that I made to God.\"  This man had not told his vow.\nIt was a secret between himself and his Lord.  He was not driven to the\nperformance of it by public opinion.  He was not urged to it, as flabby\nHerod, \"for the sake of those that sat with him.\"  He was urged to it\nby his own unstained conscience and his sterling manhood.\n\nOr he might have said, \"I made the vow, it's true, but I made it under\npressure.  A great danger was threatening and a man is not to be held\nresponsible for a vow he makes in the presence of danger.\"  Did you\never get frightened when a storm was on and promise God things, and\nthen go back on it?  Of course you have.  We have been false to one\nanother, some of us.  How many of us have been false to God!  How far\nis this old hero ahead of ourselves!\n\nThink of the vows that you have made as members of the church.  You\nhave not even fulfilled the vow you made to your groceryman.  Some of\nyou have not paid for the clothes that you have on, and never will.\nSome of you have made pledges to the church and have forgotten them.\nAnd just because the church won't sue you, you are going to break the\npromise that you have made, not simply to men, but to God.\n\nAnd what have you done with your church vows?  You have promised to\nrenounce the devil and all his works, the vain pomp and glory of the\nworld.  Have you kept your vow?  You have promised to obediently keep\nGod's holy will and commandments.  Have you been honest with God in\nthis matter?  You have promised to be subject to the rules of the\nchurch and to attend upon its services, and some of you have trampled\non those rules flagrantly, openly, knowingly.  And remember that when\nyou took that vow it was not a pledge that you made to me.  You opened\nyour mouth that day unto the Lord.\n\nAnd you that are here outside the church, may the lord help you to pay\nyour vows unto the Most High.  For there is hardly a single one of you\nbut that at some time has opened your mouth unto the Lord.  What about\nthat promise you made to God when you were sick?  I do not say you made\nit into any human ear, but you breathed it in prayer into His ear.\nWhat about the promise you made to God by the coffin of your baby?\nWhat about the promise of consecration you made by the bedside of your\ndying mother?  May the Lord help us to make this day a pay day.  May\nthe Lord give us the courage to say, \"I have opened my mouth unto the\nLord, and I cannot go back.\"\n\n\n\n\nX\n\nA CASE OF BLUES--ELIJAH\n\n_1 Kings 19:4_\n\nOne day you were reading in the New Testament and you came to that\nsurprising word from James: \"Elijah was a man subject to like passions\nas we are.\"  And if you were reading thoughtfully you stared at that\nsentence in wide-eyed amazement.  And then in your heart you said, \"It\nisn't true.  Elijah's story doesn't read a bit like mine.\"\n\nThen you thought of how he came and put his finger in Ahab's face and\nmade that face go white.  You thought of how he carried Heaven's key in\nhis pocket for three years and six months.  You thought of his lifting\nthe dead boy into life; of his victory on Carmel; of his quiet walk to\nthe little station beyond the Jordan where the Heavenly Limited met him\nand took him home.  And again you felt like saying that James was\naltogether mistaken.\n\nTo fortify yourself more fully you reread his story.  Then you came to\nthis passage and you read it with a gasp: \"And he came and sat down\nunder a juniper tree,\" etc.  And down by the print of your foot you saw\nthe big footprint of the old prophet and you said, \"After all, we are\nvery much alike.  After all, he got in the dumps, fretted and broke his\nheart with the blues, even as I.\"\n\nNow, what was the matter with Elijah?  He was not a natural and\ndeliberate pessimist.  There are some folks that are, you know.  There\nare some people who study to be pessimistic.  They are the\n\"self-appointed inspectors of warts and carbuncles, the self-elected\nsupervisors of sewers and street gutters.\"  They pride themselves on\nbeing guides to the Slough of Despond and on holding a pass key to the\ncave of Giant Despair.\n\nOne such woman, being asked how she felt, said, \"I feel good to-day.\nBut I always feel the worst when I feel the best because I know how bad\nI am going to feel when I get to feeling bad again.\"  Two buckets went\nto a well one day.  One sobbed and said, \"Oh, me! it breaks my heart to\nthink that however full we go away from the well, we always come back\nempty.\"  And its companion laughed outright and said, \"Why, I was\ncongratulating myself on the fact that however empty we come to the\nwell, we always go away full.\"\n\nOne morning when the world was brimming with spring, two little girls\nran out into a garden where the dewdrops and the sunlight and God had\nwrought the miracle of a hundred full-blown roses.  They looked at the\nlovely scene and one went back and said tearfully, \"Oh, mother, the\nroses are blooming, but there is a thorn for every rose.\"  The other\nlooked and went back singing and said, \"Mother, the roses are blooming\nand there is a rose for every thorn.\"\n\nNo, this man was not a deliberate pessimist.  Had he been his name and\nmemory would have rotted long ago, for the men that bless us are the\nhopeful men, the forward-looking men.  I read of a man who was put in\njail during the Boer War simply because he was always prophesying\ndisaster.  He was a discourager.  He refused to see anything hopeful.\nAnd a man of that kind ought to be in jail because he is as harmful as\na man with the small-pox.  \"He who steals my purse steals trash, but he\nwho filcheth from me\" my sunny outlook, my expectation of the dawn of a\nto-morrow, \"takes that which not enriches him, but makes me poor\nindeed.\"\n\nWhat was the matter with Elijah?  Well, in the first place, he was\ntired.  He was utterly spent.  He had just passed through a very trying\nand exacting ordeal.  We can well imagine that the days just preceding\nthe test upon Carmel were toilsome days and the nights were sleepless\nnights.  Then came the great day of contest and victory.  There was, of\ncourse, no rest that day.  And, in the exhilaration of victory, you\nknow how he ran before the chariot of Ahab from Carmel to Jezreel, a\ndistance of seventeen miles.\n\nArrived there, he got a message from Jezebel threatening his life.  He\nhad expected, of course, that the men who had shouted \"The Lord He is\nGod\" would stand by him.  But they did not.  He had expected that even\nJezebel would be afraid to lift her voice in defense of the old\ndefeated heathenism of the past.  But here again he was much mistaken.\nIn fact, instead of tamely acknowledging defeat she sends him this\nword: \"So let the gods do to me, and more also, if I make not thy life\nas the life of one of them by to-morrow about this time.\"\n\nJezebel's threat totally upset the prophet's sense of victory.  He came\nto feel that he had not won after all.  For the first time he gave way\nto fear.  Cowardice rushed upon him and drove him, without rest, down\nthe road that led into the wilderness.  The terminus of this road was,\nquite naturally, the juniper tree.\n\nSo one source of his discouragement, one secret of his being in the\nblues, was that he was utterly tired.  It is hard indeed for a man to\nbe hopeful when his nerves are on edge.  It is hard for him to keep out\nof the blues when he is completely exhausted.  As a tired body yields\nat such times far more readily to physical disease, so does it yield\nmore readily to the exquisite torture of discouragement and depression.\n\nA second reason for his collapse was a lost sense of the divine\nfellowship.  Up to this time Elijah's every step had been ordered of\nthe Lord.  He had a sense of the Divine Presence that was continuous.\nBut Jezebel's threat had made him believe that he must look out for\nhimself.  So he took his case into his own hands.  And that is the road\nthat must always lead to the juniper tree.\n\nSuch a collapse is next to impossible as long as we keep on intimate\nterms with God.  Yonder is man named Paul on a ship that is going to\npieces.  The sea \"curls its lips and lies in wait with lifted teeth as\nif to bite.\"  The sailors' faces are ghastly with hunger and panic.\nBut while despair grips every other heart and while death laughs with\nhollow laughter amidst the popping timbers of this wrecking ship, this\nman steadies himself and shouts, \"Be of good cheer.\"  What is the\nsecret of his cheer?  \"There stood by me this night the angel of God\nwhose I am.\"  He was saved by an intimate and personal sense of the\nDivine Presence.  Elijah had lost this sense of the Divine.  Hence the\ndeep, dark night of utter discouragement was upon him.\n\nThus utterly wearied and his old intimacy with the Lord gone, the worst\nnaturally followed.  All his hopes seemed to fall about him.  There\ncame to him a heart-breaking sense of personal failure.  He sobbed out\nthe complaint: \"I am no better than my fathers.  They allowed Israel to\ndrift into idolatry.  I have not been able to bring it back.  I have\naccomplished nothing.  I toiled long and hard, dreaming that at the end\nI would clasp the warm, radiant hand of success and victory, but in\nreality I only clasp the skeleton hand of failure.\"\n\nHave you ever had a feeling that you were of no account and never would\nbe; that in spite of all that God had done for you, you were a failure?\nThere are few things more fraught with heartache and bitterness and\ndiscouragement than that.  That is something that makes you want to sob\nand give over the fight utterly.  And there are a lot of folks that\nallow themselves to come to that dismal conviction.  They work, and\nnobody seems to appreciate it.  They toil, and nobody compliments them.\nThen they decide that they do not amount to anything, and they feel\nlike giving over the fight.\n\nI read the other day a fascinating essay from Frank Boreham.  In this\nessay the author spoke of a certain discouraged friend of his.  He\ndeclared it his purpose to help this friend by sending him a present.\nAnd the strange present that he was going to send him was an onion.\nYes, he was going to wrap this onion in lovely tissue paper and put it\nin a beautiful candy box and tie it with pink ribbon and post it to his\nfriend at once.\n\nNow, why send him an onion?  Well, for the simple reason that though an\nonion is one of the most valuable of all vegetables, though it is the\nfinest of relishes, though it has added piquancy to a thousand feasts,\nyet nobody praises the onion.  Of course you know the author is right\nhere.  You may have read some great poetry in your time, poems on\ndaffodils, violets, roses, daisies.  Even you have known a great poet\nwho could write about a louse and a field mouse, but where do you find\na poem about an onion?  What orator waxes eloquent in its praise?  What\nbride ever carries a bouquet of onions as a bridal bouquet?\n\nThis is true, of course, but why is it true?  Not because the onion is\nuseless.  The real reason is because it is so strong.  It is harder to\ngrow sentimental over great strong things,--though tears have been shed\nover onions, as our essayist has pointed out.  There are some we\npraise, you know, because we think that they need it to keep them\ngoing.  They are weak.  There are others we do not praise because they\nare so strong, or because, being strong, we expect strong things of\nthem.  The football hero receives an ovation when he makes a touchdown,\nbut no greater than the baby receives when it takes its first step.\nThere was more noise in the former case, but only because there was a\nlarger crowd of spectators.  So it is not wise to conclude that because\nnobody is praising you, you are of no account in the world.\n\nNot only did Elijah for the moment lose faith in himself, but he lost\nfaith in others as well.  He thought there was not a good man in all\nIsrael.  And if you want a short cut to wretchedness, get to a place\nwhere you do not believe in anybody.  Some people seem to cultivate\nthis disposition as if it were an asset.  It is not an asset.  It is\nthe worst possible liability.  If you want to make a hell for yourself\nin the here and now, cultivate the habit of seeing a selfish motive\nback of every seemingly unselfish act.  School yourself to believe that\nall men and all women have their price.  Say not in haste, but\ndeliberately, that \"All men are liars.\"\n\nThat is the leading characteristic of the devil.  \"Hast thou considered\nmy servant, Job,\" the Lord asked, \"that there is none like him?\"\n\"Yes,\" replied the devil, \"I have considered him.  I know him through\nand through.  I know him better than you do.  He is deceiving you.  He\nis putting it over on you.  You think he loves you for yourself,--I\nknow that he loves you simply, because you are feeding him bonbons.\nLet me touch him and he will curse you to your face.\"  That is the\ndevil's habit.  That is what makes him such a success as a devil.\n\nIf you do not believe in people no wonder you are miserable.  If you do\nnot believe that a fluctuating Simon can be changed into a rock; if you\ndo not believe that a Magdalene can, through the grace of God, become a\nherald of the resurrection; if you do not believe that this world of\nmen is a salvable world; then it is not to be wondered at that you are\nblue.  If you do not believe in the honesty and goodness and purity of\nat least a few, I do not see how you can be in any other place than a\nveritable perdition.\n\nThere are bad men, vicious men, godless men, but they are not all so.\nDo not believe that they are.\n\n  \"There are loyal hearts, there are spirits brave;\n  There are souls that are good and true,\n  Then give the world the best you have\n  And the best will come back to you.\n\n  \"Give love, and love to your heart will flow\n  And strength for your utmost need.\n  Give faith and a score of hearts will show\n  Their faith in your worldly deed.\n\n  \"Give truth and truth will be paid in kind,\n  And honor will honor meet;\n  And a smile that is sweet is sure to find\n  A smile that is just as sweet.\n\n  \"For life is the mirror of king and slave;\n  It's just what we are and do.\n  Then give the world the best you have\n  And the best will come back to you.\"\n\n\nBut if you frown at the world the world is going to frown at you, and\nif you mistrust it, it will mistrust you.  I used to stand as a boy on\nthe river bank on my father's farm and shout at the great rugged cliff\nacross the silver Buffalo River.  If I spoke kindly to the grim old\ncliff, its answer would be in the same kindly tone.  If there was\nharshness and menace in my voice, it came back the same way.  And life\nis a big echo.  It speaks to us in the tone of our own voice.  It gives\nus the faith or the unbelief that we ourselves give.\n\nAnd with faith in self gone and also faith in men, it is not to be\nwondered at that Elijah requested for himself that he might die.  But\nthough he made this request, it is not the real sentiment of his heart.\nIt is not the real Elijah speaking.  A man ought never to make an\nimportant decision when he is in the blues.  He is not himself any more\nthan is a man under the influence of drink.  Elijah is not himself\nhere.  How do we know?  He really doesn't mean what he is saying.  How\ndo we know that?\n\nWell, he is requesting for himself here that he, might die.  Now, if he\nwas really in earnest about dying, Jezebel would have attended to that\nfor him without any prayer on his part, if he had just stayed round\nJezreel for a while.  The truth of the matter is that the love of life\nis strong in him.  The truth of the matter also is that he still\nbelieves somewhat in himself and in God and in men.  He is just in the\nblues now and is not saying what he really believes when he is at his\nbest.\n\nWhen you get in the dumps and fret and fume and wish you were dead,\njust stop right there and tell yourself that you are a liar.  You do\nnot wish anything of the kind.  I heard of a man once who was always\nthreatening to commit suicide.  He had a good friend who was a pious\nman and who was grieved by such threats.  But he heard them till he\nknew they meant nothing, so one day he stepped into this man's room at\nthe hotel, laid an ugly looking revolver down on the dresser and said,\n\"John, old man, you have been threatening to take your own life for\nsome time.  I do not want you to do it.  It is murder and you will have\nno chance to repent.  I love you as I love myself.  For this reason I\nhave decided to kill you.  I will live long enough to repent.  So get\nover there at the table and make your will.\"  And the man's face went\nwhite and he wanted to wait till to-morrow.\n\nHow did God cure this man who was in the blues?  First, He used a very\ncommonplace remedy.  He put him to sleep.  He let him rest.  Rest is a\nvery religious thing for a tired man.  Now, a man who has overworked\nhimself needs to rest from his work.  A lot of blue people need rest\nfrom idleness.  One big reason they are blue is because they have\nnothing else to do.  God gave this man a rest.  That was the first step.\n\nIn the second place, He showed him his sin.  He showed him where he was\nwrong and brought him to repentance and thus restored the old\nrelationship of the past.  He asked him this question: \"What doest thou\nhere, Elijah?\"  The emphasis is on the \"doest.\"  Elijah must have\nblushed at that question.  And he said, \"Oh, I am whining.  I am\ncomplaining.  I am trying to keep books, to add up a few columns of\nfigures and test by that as to whether I am a success or a failure.\"\n\nNow, what the Lord wanted Elijah to learn is just what He wants you and\nme to learn, that our job in this world is not bookkeeping.  It is not\nfor us to try to sum up the amount of good we have done.  It is not for\nus to test whether we have succeeded or whether we have failed.  The\ntruth of the matter is that we are not always competent to tell the\ndifference between success and failure.  There are some seeming\nsuccesses that in reality are failures and there are some of the\nsupreme failures that have turned out to be the most glorious successes.\n\nThe greatest failure in the eyes of men that was ever made, was the\nfailure on Calvary, and yet it came to pass that the world's darkest\nnight was in reality the mother of its brightest day; that its grimmest\ndesert became its sweetest flower garden.  Do not break your heart and\ntear your hair keeping books.\n\nOne of the sanest things I ever heard was spoken by an able preacher\nwho came one day to preach in my town.  There was almost nobody out to\nhear him.  And he preached a wonderful sermon and closed with this most\nsensible word: \"I don't know what I have accomplished by coming to this\ntown.  I only know that I have come with God in my heart and have done\nmy best.  I am not keeping books.  God is doing that.  Some day on the\nother side of the River I am going to take down my book and look at\nit,--God will let me,--and I am going to see just what I accomplished\nwhen I came to your town.\"  That is sensible and that is religious.\n\nAnd so the Lord was saying to Elijah: \"It is not your business to keep\nbooks.  You do not know how to keep them, in the first place.  You\nadded up a column of figures and got zero.  I added it up and got\n7,000.  Yes, there are 7,000 that have not bowed the knee to Baal.  You\nhave been a help.  You have been an inspiration.  You have not been a\nfailure, because you have walked with me.\"  God doesn't fail and the\nman who walks with him will not fail.  He may not accomplish his\nambition.  He may not realize many of the great hopes of his life, but\nif he lives in the secret place of the Most High his life will never be\na failure.\n\nI read not long ago of a young woman who consecrated her life to God\nfor mission work in India.  She was ready for the great enterprise, but\njust before she was to set sail for that far country, her mother was\ntaken sick with a lingering disease.  She had to stay and nurse her for\nsome three years.  Then the Angel of Release came and the mother went\nhome.\n\nPreparations were made a second time for her setting out to India.  But\nfrom a little home in the distant west there came a call for help.  A\nwidowed sister of this would-be missionary was sick and there were\nthree little children to be cared for.  She went to her sister's\nbedside.  In a short time the sister died and the three little orphans\nwere left on her hands, and the one big hope of her life had to be\ngiven up.  It seemed strange.  It seemed hard.  Yet she remained true\nto the task that lay nearest.  At last all three children were able to\nlook after themselves.  But by that time she herself was too old to go\nto her loved mission field.\n\nThen one day one of those orphans for whom she had given up her life's\ndream put her arms around her neck and told her that she was going to\nbe a missionary and that the field that she had chosen was India.  And\nin later days the other two told the same story.  So they all three\nwent away to India to which she had so longed to go.  And as they\npassed out to the land of her love and her prayers this heroic soul\nknew that she had not failed.  And so God's call to Elijah, to you and\nto me is to leave off our heart-breaking bookkeeping, to put our hands\nin His and to resume the journey.  And as we go we shall in some way\nshake off our discouragement as a hampering garment and we shall find\nourselves in the sunlight once more.  And we shall come to know for\nourselves that \"Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is\nstayed on Thee.\"\n\n\n\n\nXI\n\nTHE SUPREME QUESTION--THE PHILIPPIAN JAILER\n\n_Acts 16:30, 31_\n\n\"What must I do to be saved?\"  That question was asked by a startled\njailer.  He was amidst strange and perplexing happenings.  He had just\nseen wonderful sights.  He was being shaken by unfamiliar terrors.  For\nthese terrors he sought relief and so he asked this infinitely wise\nquestion: \"What must I do to be saved?\"\n\nBut this jailer is not the only man that has ever asked that question.\nHe is not the first man that asked it.  This is a universal question.\nMen of all times and of all climes have asked and sought an answer to\nthis question.  The cultured Greeks tried to answer it by building\naltars to many gods.  Then realizing that they had missed it, they\nsought further by building an altar to \"the Unknown God.\"  It was in an\neffort to answer this question that children were once sacrificed to\nthe fire god, Moloch.  And it is the struggle to answer the same\nquestion that causes the Indian mother to-day to cast her baby into the\nGanges and to come home with empty arms and with an empty heart.\n\nI heard a missionary from the heart of Africa say some years ago that\nhe used to live among the savage tribes of the far interior.  They were\npeople of the lowest type.  They wore no shred of clothing.  But in\ntheir wild and barbarous religious dances they would swing round and\nround till they frothed at the mouth and fell down rigid.  It was their\nway, said the missionary, of asking the supreme question: \"What must I\ndo to be saved?\"\n\nThis was a dramatic moment in this jailer's life.  It was a moment big\nwith blessing.  Look at the picture.  Two strange preachers have come\nto this Roman city of Philippi.  Their preaching has brought them into\nconflict with the authorities.  They are drawn before the magistrates.\nTheir clothing is torn from them and they are severely beaten.\n\nIt seems that this would have been shame enough and pain enough, but it\nwas not.  They were then turned over to a callous and cruel Roman\njailer with the order that he should keep them fast.  So he threw them\ninto the inner dungeon and made their feet fast in the stocks.  The\nplace was foul and cold and dark.  Their backs were lacerated and\nbleeding.  And this wag their reward for seeking to bring to men the\nunsearchable riches of Christ.\n\nNow it was dark enough for these two.  But they did not lose heart.\nFirst they prayed.  I can imagine they prayed secretly and then they\nprayed aloud.  And those people in prison heard the voice of prayer for\npossibly the first time in their lives.  Now, real prayer always makes\nthings different.  It brings us a consciousness of God.  And so as\nthese men prayed their hearts grew warm and joyous till by and by\nprayer gives place to praise and they begin to sing.\n\nI have wondered what these people sang that night.  It might have been\nthe Twenty-third Psalm.  Or they might have sung, \"I will bless the\nLord at all times.  His praise shall continually be in my mouth.  My\nsoul shall make her boast in the Lord.  The humble shall hear thereof\nand be glad.\"  Or the Thirty-seventh Psalm would have sounded well in\nthe darkness of that hideous dungeon,--\"Fret not thyself because of\nevil doers, neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity.\nFor they shall soon be cut down like the grass and wither as the green\nherb.\"  But I think the most likely of all is the Forty-sixth: \"God is\nour refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.  Therefore\nwill we not fear though the earth be removed and though the mountains\nbe carried into the midst of the sea.\"\n\nWhatever they sang it was great singing.  I think the angels opened the\nwindows when they heard it.  I think it made the very heart of our Lord\nglad.  What a surprise it was to those in that gloomy old prison.  They\nhad heard the walls ring with groans and shrieks.  They had heard\nbitter oaths in the night, but songs with the lilt of an irrepressible\njoy in them--they had never heard anything like that before.\n\nNow as the melody rang through the gloomy cells something else\nhappened.  The old building seemed to be shaking with the very power of\nthe music.  An earthquake was on and God took this petty prison in His\nhand and shook it as a dicer might shake his dice box, and all its\ndoors were thrown open and the fetters were shaken from the feet of\nthose that were bound.  And the old jailer is shaken out of his\ncomplacency and out of his bed and a great terror grips him.\n\nI can see him as he picks himself up and looks about him in dismay.\nThe doors are open.  He is sure that the prisoners are gone.  He knows\nthat his life will be to pay.  He will not face the shame of it.  He\nwill inflict justice upon himself.  He draws his sword and prepares to\nthrust it through him, but Paul's eyes were upon him, and knowing his\npurpose he shouts at him, \"We are all here, Jailer.  Do thyself no\nharm.\"\n\nThere is love in that cry, tenderness in it, longing in it that the\njailer could not understand.  Neither could he fail to realize the\nmight of it.  It touches him deeply.  He is gripped by another terror,\nthe terror that has come through the presence of these strange men who\nhave brought the things of eternity to seem real to him.  And urged on\nby that new terror he rushes to these men of bleeding backs and\ntattered garments and throws himself at their feet with this great\nquestion in his heart and upon his lips, \"Sirs, what must I to do be\nsaved?\"\n\nNow, I am aware of the fact that this jailer was a heathen and I am not\naccusing him at all of being a great theologian.  I do not know how\nlearned he was.  I do not know whether he could read or write or not.\nI do not know whether he was widely traveled or not.  He may have never\nbeen beyond the precincts of his own city.  But what I do know is this,\nthat he asked the biggest question that ever fell from human lips.\nThere can be no greater.  It was the greatest for him.  It is the\ngreatest for you.  It is the greatest for me.  \"What must I do to be\nsaved?\"  There is no question quite so big as that.\n\nAnd I am wondering now if it is a big question to you.  Remember, it is\nnot: What must I do to be decent?  It is not: What must I do to be\nrespectable?  These things are all right, but they are not supreme.  It\nis not: What must I do to get rich?  Millions of us are asking that\nquestion as if it were the one question of eternal importance.  But you\nknow that it is not.  It is not: What must I do to be beautiful?  Some\nof us are asking that question too, and some of us, I am sorry to say,\nare missing the answer to it very much.  But that is not the big\nquestion.  The supreme question is: \"What must I do to be saved?\"\n\nWhat is implied in this question when it is asked intelligently?  There\nis implied first of all that there is an absolute difference between\nbeing saved and lost.  There is implied in it that there are two\nclasses of people, not the cultured and the uncultured, not the learned\nand the unlearned.  They are the saved and the lost.  They are those\nthat have life and those that do not have life.\n\nI am perfectly aware that we of to-day do not like such dogmatic\ndivisions.  But I call your attention to the fact that they are the\ndivisions that are made in the New Testament.  They are the divisions\nthat Jesus made.  He puts folks into two classes, and only two.  There\nwere two gates, one was broad and the other narrow.  There were two\nfoundations on which a man might build, one was of sand and the other\nof rock.  Mark you, He did not divide men into the perfect and the\nimperfect, but into those that had life and those that did not have it.\nAnd it was He that said, \"He that hath the Son hath life, and he that\nhath not the Son hath not life.\"  So this question, if it means\nanything, means that there is such a thing as being saved and there is\nsuch a thing as being lost.  That fact is recognized throughout the\nentire Bible.\n\nThis question implies, in the second place, a consciousness of being\nlost.  \"What must I do to be saved?\"  When this man asked that question\nthere were many things about which he was uncertain.  He was uncertain\nas to how he was to get out of his darkness.  He was uncertain as to\nhow he was to be saved, but of one thing he was sure--he was dead sure\nthat he was lost.  He did not try to dodge that fact.  He did not shut\nhis eyes to it.  He did not try in any way to deny it.\n\nAnd, if you are here without God I hope you will not deny it.  For if\nyou have not taken Jesus Christ as your personal Savior you are lost.\nThen the best thing you can do, the first step to be taken in the\ndirection of getting saved, is to realize your lostness.  A man will\nnot send for the physician unless he believes himself sick.  He will\nnot try to learn unless he realizes his ignorance.  Neither will he\nturn to God for salvation unless he realizes that he is lost.  Oh, it\nis a good day for a man when he gets a square look at himself.  It is a\ngreat day when he has a glimpse of himself as God sees him.  It is a\ngreat hour when, conscious of his guilt, he bows himself in the\npresence of Him who alone can save and says, \"God, be merciful unto me\na sinner.\"\n\nThis question implies, in the third place, not only that the man is\nlost who asked it, but that there is a possibility of his being saved.\n\"What must I do to be saved?\"--and here was a man conscious of being\nlost, conscious of being sin scarred and stained and guilty, yet he\nbelieves, and he is right in believing, that salvation is possible for\nhim.  He believes that even he can be saved unto the uttermost.  There\nis such a thing as salvation and it is possible for me, even me, to lay\nhold of it.\n\nAnd you too must realize that, otherwise it will do you no good to\nrealize the fact that you are a sinner.  It is not enough to know\nyourself lost.  You must also believe that you may be saved.  It is not\nenough to realize that you are weak: you must believe that is possible\nfor you to be strong.  You must believe that even a fluctuating Simon\ncan be made into a rock.  You must believe in the power of God to\nremake men, otherwise for you the question is only a question of black\ndespair.\n\nThis question implies, in the fourth place, a willingness to be saved.\n\"What must I do to be saved?\"  This man is not asking this question to\ngather material for a future argument.  He is no speculator.  He is no\ntrifler.  He is not even asking it because he is intellectually\ncurious.  He is not simply asking that he may know the conditions of\nsalvation.  He is asking with the earnest purpose in his heart to meet\nthose conditions.\n\nThis question implies, in the fifth place, that while salvation is a\npossibility for you, you must do something in order to obtain it.\n\"What must I do to be saved?\"  What sort of an answer would you expect\nto a question like that?  What did the apostle say?  Did he say, \"Do\nnothing.  Let the matter alone.  Forget it.  Drift?\"  That is what many\nof us are doing.  No, sir, he said nothing of the kind.  He told this\nman to do something.  And this man knew, as you and I know, that if we\nare ever saved we have got to do something in order to get saved.\n\nI say every one of us knows that, and yet too few of us act as if it\nwere really true.  We seem to think that salvation is something that we\nare going to stumble upon by accident.  We seem to think it is\nsomething that we are going to receive with absolutely no effort on our\nown part.  We act as if we thought it might be slipped into our pockets\nwhile we sleep or dropped into our coffins when we die.  Ask the\nquestion intelligently, heart,--\"What must I do to be saved?\"  Then you\nwill realize that you must do something.\n\nThis question implies, in the first place, that the conditions of\nsalvation are not optional, that it is not up to you and it is not up\nto me to decide just what we will do in order to be saved.  You can\naccept salvation or you can refuse it.  You can meet the conditions or\nyou can refuse to meet them.  But one thing you cannot do.  You cannot\ndecide upon the terms upon which you will surrender.  If you are saved\nat all you must surrender unconditionally.\n\nSo the question is, \"What _must_ I do to be saved?\"  It is not, What is\nthe expedient thing or what is the respectable thing or what is the\npopular thing to do in order to find salvation?  The conditions are not\nof your choosing and they are not of mine.  God has made them and you\nand I dare not change them.  Therefore, if you are ever saved there is\nnot something simply that you ought to do, but there is something that\nyou absolutely must do.\n\nLast of all, this question implies that salvation is an individual\nmatter.  \"What must _I_ do?\"  It is not a question of what must God do.\nHe has made full provision for the salvation of the whole world.  It is\nnot what must the Church do.  It is not what must the preacher do.  It\nis not what must this man that is beside me and this man that is behind\nme or in front of me do.  The question comes to my own heart--\"What\nmust _I_ do?\"\n\n\"What must I do to be saved?\"  You must do something, but there are\nmany things that we are doing that will not save us.  If you expect to\nbe saved, in the first place, do not depend on your own goodness.  \"All\nyour righteousnesses are but as filthy rags.\"  Do not count on your own\ndecency.  No man was ever saved that way.  I challenge you to find one\nsingle one.  I was holding a meeting some years ago and I met a young\nfellow who told me he was good enough without Jesus Christ.  Of course\nhe was not saved.  A man who says that virtually tells Christ that He\nhas misunderstood his case altogether and that Calvary was a wasted\ntragedy so far as he himself is personally concerned.\n\nNeither will you be saved trusting in the other man's badness.  I know\nwhat some of you are saying to yourselves as I preach.  You are telling\nyourselves one of the oldest lies that was ever told.  You are saying,\n\"I would be a Christian but there are so many hypocrites in the\nChurch.\"  How many men give that as a reason, but it is no man's\nreason.  And I never knew one man to be saved by it.  Believe me, the\nshortcomings and the sins of my brother are mighty poor things to\ndepend on for my own personal salvation.\n\nAgain, you will not be saved by seeking an easy way.  You will never\nwin by catering to your own pride and cowardice.  I was conducting a\nrevival in a Texas city some years ago.  At the close of one of the\nservices a young lady came forward to shake hands with the preacher.\nAs she did so she said, \"I am going to become a Christian.\"  I\ncongratulated her upon her decision, but she answered, \"Oh, I do not\nmean right now.  I mean I am going to be very soon.\"\n\n\"You see,\" she continued, \"it is like this: I am going in a few days to\nvisit some of my relatives that live way back in the country.  There is\ngoing to be a revival nearby.  It will be easy for me to make the\ndecision there because nobody knows me.  But here it is different.\nEverybody knows me here and I simply haven't the courage to come out\nand take an open stand for Jesus Christ.\"  She went into the country as\nshe planned but she was not saved.  Of course not.  Nobody ever found\nsalvation by catering to his own cowardice and pride and seeking an\neasy way.\n\n\"What must I do to be saved?\"  There is an answer to this question.  It\nis an answer that is absolutely dependable.  There is nothing in all\nthe world of which I am more sure than I am of the correctness of the\nanswer to this question.  I am as sure of it as I am of my own\nexistence.  I am as sure of it as I am of the fact of God.\n\nI wonder if you are interested to know the answer.  Remember that it is\nthe answer to your supreme question.  It is the answer to the most\nimportant question that was ever asked.  It is the most important that\nyou will ever be called to act upon in this world.  Does the prospect\nof an answer quicken your heartbeat?  Does it shake you out of your\nlethargy into intensest interest?  It ought to if it does not.  For the\nanswer that I give is not the answer of a mere speculator or dreamer.\nIt is the answer of inspiration and it is an answer whose truth has\nbeen tested by the personal experience of countless millions.  \"What\nmust I do to be saved?\"  Answer: \"Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and\nthou shalt be saved.\"\n\nWhat is it to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ?  It is to believe that\nJesus Christ can do what He claims to do and what He has promised to do\nand to depend on Him to do it.  Mr. Moody tells us how that he was in\nhis cellar one day when he looked up and saw his little girl making an\neffort to see him.  She could not because it was dark in the cellar.\n\"Jump,\" said Mr. Moody, \"Daddy will catch you.\"  And instantly the\nlittle girl jumped.  Now, that was faith.  That was believing on her\nfather.  So the jailer believed on the Lord Jesus Christ.  He depended\nupon Him then and there for salvation.\n\nAnd what happened?  He was saved.  That very moment Christ came into\nthe man's heart and he became a new creation.  He became possessed of a\nnew joy.  He became possessed of a new tenderness.\n\nDid you notice what he did?  He took water and washed the stripes of\nthe preachers.  Paul and Silas were bleeding when they came to the\nprison but the jailer did not care.  But now that he had found Christ\nhe has already begun to be a partaker of the divine nature.  A new love\nhas come to him.  He has become tender where he was cruel before.  Even\nso does the power of Jesus Christ make men over.\n\nNow, this question: do you want to be saved?  If you do you can be.\nIt's the surest thing in all the world.  It is as sure as the fact that\nnight follows day.  It is more sure than the fact that if you sow wheat\nyou will reap it, that if you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ you\nshall be saved.  Test the matter now and you will know the blessed fact\nin your own experience.\n\n\n\n\nXII\n\nTHE MOTHER-IN-LAW--NAOMI\n\nIt is thoroughly refreshing to come upon this exquisite bit of\nliterature called \"Ruth.\"  It follows, as you know, immediately after\nthe bloodstained stories we read in Judges.  It shows that while there\nwas war and confusion and hate there was also friendship and love and\nromance.  It is a bit of exquisite beauty elbowed on either side by\nugliness.  This delightful story comes to us like a glad surprise.  It\nis like finding a spring bubbling up in the desert.  It is like\nplucking roses amidst ice bergs.  It is like finding a violet in the\nvery crater of a volcano.\n\nI hope you have read the Book of Ruth and are familiar with it.  If you\nhaven't you have slighted one of the sweetest and tenderest stories\never told.  If you haven't you have neglected about the most delicate\nand winsome idyl to be found in ancient or modern literature.  I have\nread some good literature, first and last.  I have read poetry that\nlifted the heart and \"set the soul to dreaming.\"  I have read prose\nstrong as granite and songful as a mountain brook.  But I confess to\nyou, if I wanted to find a finer piece of literature than the book of\nRuth, I would be at a great loss to know where to search.\n\nThe author sets you down at once amidst strange scenery.  And the\ncharacters, while genuinely human, are also full of the witchery of\nromance and poetry.\n\nHere is the story.  The rains have failed in the Bethlehem country and\nthe harvests have been exceedingly meager.  A certain little family\ncomposed of husband, wife and two children, is having a hard fight to\nkeep the wolf from the door.  Elimelech, the husband, can find no work\nand Naomi, the wife and mother, \"kneads hunger in an empty bread tray,\"\nand goes through the daily torture of being asked for bread that she is\nnot able to supply.\n\nThen one dark day the husband comes home utterly discouraged.  He takes\nup the discussion where it was left off the day before.  \"Yes,\" he\nsays, \"there is nothing else to do.  There is no bread in the land.\nThere has been rain in Moab.  We can go there.  I do not know how they\nwill receive us, but at any rate, they can only kill us and that is\nbetter than starvation.\"\n\nAnd Naomi's sad face becomes a shade sadder and she says, \"The will of\nthe Lord be done.  But I had so hoped that we might be able to remain\nin the land of our fathers.  You see, my dear, it is not of myself that\nI am thinking.  We have two boys.  We do not want to rear them in Moab.\nMoab, I know, is not far off physically, but it is a long way morally.\nIf we go there we may lose our children.  The time may even come when\nthey will break the law of Moses and marry among the Moabites.\"\n\nBut, hard as it was for her to consent, at last she was driven into it\nby sheer starvation.  And we see the pathetic little family scourged by\nhollow-eyed hunger from the land of their fathers into the land of the\nheathen Moabites.  Just what their reception was there we are not told.\nHowever, I am quite sure that they were received more kindly than they\nhad expected.  Their want and their own kindness seemed to have opened\nthe hearts of the strangers among whom they went to live.  Certain it\nis that the husband and father was able to find sufficient work to keep\nfrom actual starvation.  By and by times grew better.  The pinch of\npoverty let up, and they began to feel somewhat at home in the land of\ntheir adoption.\n\nBut the boys were playing with the children of the Moabites.  Of course\nthey were.  All children are alike.  They know no barriers of kindred,\nof class or of religion.  A child is the true democrat.  Sad to say, we\nsoon train him out of this.  But he is a thorough democrat by nature.\nHe plays as gladly with the son of a scrub woman as with the son of a\nqueen.  He lavishes his love as freely upon a pickaninny as upon a\nprince.  So these Jewish boys were playing with the heathen children.\n\nThen a few years went by and the pious father and mother came to\nrealize with horror that their two boys were actually in love with two\nMoabitish girls.  Not only did they love them, but they even wanted to\nmarry them.  This was a calamity indeed.  I can hear the protests of\nthe father and mother.  They warn them of the danger of such marriages.\nThey plead the law of Moses.  But all in vain.  And we are not\nsurprised.  You might as well get in front of Niagara Falls and say\n\"Boo!\" and expect it to flow back the other way, as to try to reason\nwith the average young fellow who is in love.  Both boys married\nMoabitish women.\n\nAnd then what did this wise and godly father and mother do?  They did\nnot do what is so usual in cases of an unwelcome marriage.  Our boy or\nour girl makes what seems to us a foolish and ruinous marriage.  Then\nwhat do we do?  We declare that we will never speak to them again, that\nthey shall never darken our doors.  And we thereby help on a disaster\nthat might never have come.  Naomi and her husband had better sense.\nThey took the wives of their two sons, heathens though they were, into\ntheir home and into their hearts.  They felt sure that that was the one\nway that promised a remedy.\n\nThen one day disaster came to the little home of the strangers.  The\nhusband and father died, and Naomi was left with the whole\nresponsibility of the family upon her lone shoulders.  Her\ndaughters-in-law had seen her in her joy.  They marked her also in her\nsorrow.  They were impressed, no doubt, by her calmness and her\nstrength.  She walked with the sure and quiet step of one who felt\nunderneath her and round about her the Everlasting Arm.\n\nThen the final disaster came.  Both the boys died.  Naomi was not only\na widow, but she was childless.  There were now no bonds that held her\nlonger from the land of her fathers.  She decides, therefore, to\nreturn.  Her two daughters-in-law are to accompany her as far as the\nborder of Moab.  There they are to bid her farewell and then go each\nher own way.  They make the journey, these three women, to the borders\nof Moab.  Here Orpah tells Naomi good-bye.  She parts from her with\nreal grief and regret, for she loves her genuinely.  I think I can hear\nher sobbing as she takes her lone way back to her own people.\n\nThen it is Ruth's time to say good-bye.  I see her as she flings her\narms about the neck of Naomi and there she clings.  \"There, there,\"\nsays the older woman, \"you must be gone now.  Your sister is going.\nShe will turn the bend of the road in a minute.  Go after her and God\ngrant that you may find rest each in the house of her husband.\"\n\nBut Ruth clings only the tighter.  And then she makes a confession.  It\nis a confession of love.  And nothing finer in point of tenderness and\nbeauty was ever uttered by human lips.  I hope you are not too old to\nthrill over a love story.  John Ridd's devotion to Lorna Doone still\nstirs my heart.  And there is the confession of a heroine in another\nstory that we can never forget.  \"Tell him I never nursed a thought\nthat was not his; that daily and nightly on his wandering way pour a\nwoman's tears.  Tell him that even now I'd rather work for him, beg\nwith him, walk by his side as an outcast, live on the light of one kind\nsmile from him, than wear the crown that Bourbon lost.\"\n\nThat is a beautiful confession.  It is made by a woman to a man.  But\nthis was made by a woman to a woman.  And strangest of all, it was made\nby a daughter-in-law to a mother-in-law.  Ruth has this distinction, if\nnone other, that she loved her mother-in-law.  Her mother-in-law, mind\nyou, that creature who has been the butt of evil jokes in all\nlanguages; the one who has proved the dynamite for the wrecking of not\na few homes.  This confession is the confession of a daughter-in-law to\na mother-in-law.\n\nIt is the confession of youth to age.  It is spring-time clinging to\nwinter.  It is June flinging its arms in a passionate tenderness around\nthe neck of November.  \"It is time you were going,\" said Naomi.  And\nRuth's arms clung all the closer and this exquisite bit of poetry fell\nfrom her lips, \"Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from\nfollowing after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou\nlodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people and thy God my\nGod: where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the Lord\ndo so to me, and more also, if aught but death part thee and me.\"\n\nYou cannot beat that.  No confession of love has ever surpassed it.\nBut it is more than a confession of love.  It is also a confession of\nfaith.  It is the declaration of a strong woman's choice.  As Ruth\nclings to the woman she loves she announces her decision, a decision to\nwhich she remained true through all the future years.  \"Thy people\nshall be my people and thy God my God.\"\n\nAnd the people of the little village of Bethlehem had something\ninteresting to talk about a few days later.  Two strange women had come\ntheir way, women who were poverty-stricken and homeless.  One of them\nwas a Jewess.  The other was a Gentile.  Neither of them was welcome.\nNaomi had lost her place in the life of the community.  Ruth, the\nMoabitess had never had any place.\n\nThe days that immediately followed their arrival were sad and bitter\ndays.  But the younger woman, with a fine courage, refuses to be a\nburden.  Instead, she will be the support of the mother of her dead\nhusband.  So she takes upon herself the menial task of a gleaner.  It\nis harvest time and she goes out into the fields to glean.\n\nNow, it happens in the good providence of God, that the field in which\nshe went to glean belonged to a very rich and prosperous man named\nBoaz.  And to that very field where Ruth was gleaning Boaz came that\nday.  He was a young, vigorous, and positive man.  He was accustomed to\ncommand.  There was a dignity about him that made him seem older than\nhis years.  Everybody respected him.  He was just and generous and\nreligious.\n\nNo sooner was he among the workers than his attention was attracted by\nthe winsome young stranger from Moab.  I do not know why he should\nnotice her at once, but I have a fancy that Ruth was attractive, that\nshe had personality and charm.  I feel confident that she had that\nsuperior beauty that is born of superior character.  Anyway, the great\nlandlord saw her and was interested.  And he spoke kindly to her, and\nwhen Ruth got home that evening she had an interesting story to tell.\n\nAnd Naomi--wasn't she interested?  I can see the flush of her face and\nthe sparkle of her eye across the centuries.  She is a woman, too,\nevery ounce of her.  And being a woman, she is by instinct and by\nnature a match maker.  She guesses at once what is going on in the\nhearts of these two young people.  And she sets about with delicate\ngood sense to help them to understand each other.  By her wise advice\nthings turn out just as they ought to turn out, and . . . \"they lived\nhappy ever after.\"\n\nWho is the heroine of this exquisite story?  I know that first place is\ngiven to Ruth.  And I am in no sense disposed to try to put her in an\ninferior position.  She cannot be honored too highly.  She is so\nabsolutely lovable.  But I am going to give first place to Naomi.  I do\nnot do this because she is more winsome than Ruth.  I do it because she\naccounts for Ruth.  If it had not have been for Naomi, Ruth would have\nlived and died a heathen in the land of Moab.\n\nNow, what are some of the lessons that we learn from the beautiful life\nof this ancient woman, Naomi?  Were we privileged to sit down beside\nher in the Father's house to-day, she could teach us many wonderful\nlessons.  But one truth she would impress upon us would be this: that\nlife's greatest losses may, through the grace of God, become its\nrichest gains.  She would tell you then of the black despair of those\ndays when she was being driven from her home by the cruel hand of\npoverty.  She would not hesitate to say that it was very difficult for\nher to keep up faith in God in those dark days.  \"But the Lord was\nsending me then to find Ruth.  You know He had to have her.  The world\ncould not keep house without her at all.  Yet I would never have found\nher but for my terrible poverty.\"\n\nThen, I think she would tell how she was beginning to feel at home in\nMoab.  \"My life was taking root in that foreign soil.  I was about\nmaking up my mind to live my life there.  Then death came.  One by one\nI buried my loved ones till not one of my own flesh and blood was left.\nThen it was that I resolved to come back home.  It was my bitter loss\nthat sent me back.  I would never have come back but for that.  And had\nI not come back the marriage of Ruth with its blessed outcome would\nnever have been possible.\"\n\nThis woman learned the fine art of capitalizing her calamities.  In the\nmidst of all her poverty and heartache she kept firm her faith in God.\nAnd she came thus to realize the sufficiency of His grace.  She came to\nknow, even in that distant day, the truth of Paul's great word, \"All\nthings work together for good to them that love God.\"  There are times,\nI know, that it is hard for us to believe this, just as there were\ntimes when it was hard for Naomi to believe it.  But there came a day\nwhen she was privileged to know the truth of it in her own experience.\nAnd if you cling to your faith you, too, will come to know, if not\nhere, then by and by.\n\nThen we learn from Naomi, as another has pointed out, the power for\nblessing that may be in one consecrated life.  Naomi was a very hidden\nand obscure woman.  Had you walked by her side as, hunger driven, she\nleft her native land, she would not have told you anything of the great\ndestiny that was ahead.  She never dreamed of enriching the world as\nshe did.  It never occurred to her that she was to be one of the great\nlight bringers of all the centuries.  And yet such was to be the case.\nThe world simply could not get on without Naomi.  It could not for the\nsimple reason that Naomi led Ruth into the knowledge of God and into\nthe fellowship of the people of God.\n\n\"Thy people shall be my people and thy God my God.\"  That is Ruth's\nconfession of faith.  How did she come to make it?  How did this lovely\nheathen ever come to fall in love with Naomi's people?  She had never\neven seen them.  She made up her mind, however, that they were the\npeople, of all others, that were most worth knowing.  She made up her\nmind that they must be very winsome and very lovable people.  How did\nshe come to that conclusion?  Answer: By association with her\nmother-in-law.  That is also how she came to fall in love with God.\nShe was led to the realization of the charm of Him through the\nGod-possessed personality of Naomi.\n\nSo it was Naomi who won Ruth to God.  It was Naomi who made possible\nRuth's successful marriage.  Then one day the sweet angel of suffering\ncame to the home where the one-time-stranger lived and Ruth held her\nfirst-born in her arms.  And the years went by and there was another\nchild born among the Judean hills and the sunshine was tangled in his\nhair and countless songs were pent up in his heart.  And he so sang and\nbattled and sinned and repented that everybody loved him and we thank\nGod still for David.  And David was Ruth's grandbaby.\n\nThen other years went by and there was a burst of light upon those\nJudean hills.  And there was music from a choir that came from that\ncountry where everybody sings.  \"There were shepherds abiding in the\nfields, keeping watch over their flocks by night.  And the angel of the\nLord came upon them and the glory of the Lord shone round about them\nand they were sore afraid.  And the angel said, 'Fear not, ye, for\nbehold, I bring you glad tidings of great joy which shall be to all the\npeople; for there is born unto you this day, in the city of David, a\nSavior who is Christ the Lord.'\"  And that Savior was another one of\nRuth's grandbabies.\n\nBut in the purpose of God, neither David nor David's Greater Son would\nhave been possible without Naomi.  And so one woman remaining true to\nGod became a roadway along which the Almighty walked to the\naccomplishment of His great purpose, even the salvation of the world.\n\n\n\n\nXIII\n\nCONFESSIONS OF A FAILURE--THE BUSY MAN\n\n_1 Kings 20:40_\n\nIn 1 Kings 20:40 you will find the text.  \"As thy servant was busy here\nand there, he was gone.\"  This is part of a parable that was spoken by\na certain prophet to King Ahab.  This prophet was seeking to rebuke the\nking for his leniency in dealing with Benhadad, whom he had overcome in\nbattle.  It is not our purpose, however, to discuss this parable in\nrelation to its context.  We are going to consider it altogether apart\nfrom its surroundings.  We will rather study it as it is related to\nourselves.  Here then, is the story of this man's failure from his own\nlips.  \"Thy servant went out into the midst of the battle; and, behold,\na man turned aside and brought a man unto me, and said, Keep this man:\nif by any means he be missing, then shall thy life be for his life, or\nelse thou shalt pay a talent of silver.  And as thy servant was busy\nhere and there, he was gone.\"\n\nI imagine I meet this soldier immediately after he has been put in\ncharge of his important captive.  He walks with the purposeful stride\nof one who knows his task and who is setting seriously about doing it.\nHe seems to appreciate the honor that has been conferred upon him.  He\nseems also to have a sense of the serious responsibilities involved.\nAnd when he takes his position before the cell of his prisoner he\nwatches with all diligence.\n\nBut when I pass his way again next day I am greatly shocked.  My\nsoldier is no longer on guard.  Another had taken his place.  And when\nI look about for the important prisoner that has been captured at the\nprice of blood and conflict he is no longer to be seen.  Upon inquiry I\nfind that he has escaped.  In his place, bowed down with shame and\ndressed in chains, is the man who yesterday was a guardsman.\n\nI cannot pass him by without a question.  \"How did this come about?\" I\nask.  \"Were you surprised and overcome?  Did your fellow soldiers allow\na strong company to break through their lines and to overpower you and\ntake your prisoner from you?  Did a strong hand strike you down from\nbehind in the dark?  How is it that your prisoner had escaped?\"\n\nAnd the man, without being able to look me in the eye, answers, \"No, he\ndid not escape because I was overpowered.  He did not escape because I\nwas surprised.  He escaped because I was too busy to watch him.\"  \"Too\nbusy,\" I answer in amazement, \"too busy doing what?  What task did you\nfind more important than saving your country and saving your own home\nand saving your own honor?\"  \"Oh, no task in particular,\" he answers.\n\"I was just busy here and there.\"  That is his confession.  \"As thy\nservant was busy here and there, he was gone.\"\n\nAnd the man is sentenced to death.  And we must admit that the sentence\nis just.  Not that he has committed any aggressive crime.  He has not\ncut anybody's throat.  He has not stabbed anybody in the back.  He has\nnot stolen anything.  He is not being punished for what he has done.\nHe is being punished for what he has failed to do.\n\nAnd that kind of sin, let me warn you, is just as dangerous and just as\nkilling as positive and aggressive sin.  How foolish are they who think\nthey are pious simply because they do no wrong.  How absurd it is to\nget it into your minds that a man is a Christian by virtue of what he\ndoes not do instead of by virtue of what he does.  Now, I know that\nthere are certain sins that are damaging and damning, but in order to\nbe lost now and ever more it is not necessary to be guilty of any of\nthem.  All that is necessary is that you do what this man did, and that\nis fail in your duty.\n\nThis is what our Lord taught us again and again.  What was wrong with\nthe fig tree that He cursed it?  It was not loaded with poison.  It\nsimply had nothing but leaves.  What charge is brought against Dives?\nNo charge at all.  We are simply made to see him neglect the man at his\ngate who needed his help.  He does not drive the man away.  He simply\nlets him alone.  And over his neglected duty he stumbles out into a\nChristless eternity.  What was wrong with the five foolish virgins?  It\nwas not that they had water in their lamps.  It was simply the fact\nthat they had no oil.  What was the matter with those to whom the judge\nsaid, \"Depart from me\"?  Only this, they had failed in their duty.  The\ncharge is, \"Inasmuch as ye did it not.\"\n\nSo this man failed in his duty.  That is what wrecked him.  Why did he\nfail?  First, he did not fail through ignorance.  He did not fail\nbecause he did not know his duty.  He understood perfectly what he was\nto do.  He understood also the great importance of his doing it.  He\nknew it was a life and death business with him.  I know that he failed.\nHe failed miserably.  He failed to his own ruin.  But it was not\nbecause of his ignorance.  And that is not the secret of your failure.\nWe need to know more, all of us, but our greatest need in the moral\nrealm is not for more knowledge.  Our greatest need is the will to live\nup to what we already know.  The reason you are selfish, the reason you\nare unclean, the reason you are godless is not because you do not know\nbetter.  You have known better through all these years.  It is because\nyou are unwilling to do better.\n\nThere is not a man here that does not know enough to do his duty.  It\nmay be that you do not know the exact niche that the Lord wants you to\nfill.  It may be that you do not know the exact task to which He is\ncalling you.  But you do know this, you know that there is an absolute\ndifference between right and wrong, and that you ought to be enlisted\non the side of the right.  You know that it is your part to help and\nnot to hinder, to bless and not to curse, to lift up and not to drag\ndown.\n\nAnd while you may not know your particular task, yet it is your\nprivilege to know even that.  I am confident that God has a particular\ntask for every single soul of us.  And I am equally confident that He\nwill let us know what that task is if we will only make it possible for\nHim to do so.  He tells us how we may know.  \"In all thy ways\nacknowledge Him and He shall direct thy path.\"\n\nThere are many misfits in the world, and you know a misfit is the\ncheapest and most useless thing known.  If you want a cheap suit of\nclothes go to the misfit establishment.  I remember when I was a young\nfellow just getting grown I decided to quit wearing the crude\nhand-me-down suits such as I could purchase at the village store.  I\ndecided that I must have a genuine tailored suit.\n\nSo with this idea in mind I wrote for the catalogue of Montgomery Ward\n& Company.  I might have used Sears Roebuck, but I liked Montgomery\nWard better.  I found the suit I wanted, read his directions, took my\nown measure and ordered the suit.  In due time it came.  And I pledge\nyou my word that you might have tried that suit on every form of man\nand beast that the whole Roman Empire could furnish and it would not\nhave fit a single one of them.  The legs of the pants were large enough\nto keep house in.  They would have made admirable wheat sacks, but as\ntrousers they were a failure.  To me the suit was worthless because it\nwas a misfit.\n\nAnd there are many men just as worthless to-day.  But they need not\nhave been so.  If they did not know their task they might have known\nit.  They did not fail, as this man did not fail, through ignorance.\n\nSecond, this man did not fail for lack of ability.  If he could have\nsaid that he was overpowered, if he could have told that superior\nnumbers came upon him and took his prisoner in spite of himself we\ncould have pardoned him.  Or if he could have shown us a scarred breast\nand a face that had been hacked by a sword, and said, \"I won these\nwounds trying to keep my prisoner,\" we would have respected him.  We\nwould have sympathized with him.  But he had no scars to show.  He had\nmade no fight at all.  Therefore he could not say, \"I failed, 'tis\ntrue, but I could not help it.\"  Neither can you say that.  No man here\nis failing for lack of ability.\n\nNow, I do not mean by that that you can do anything that you want to\ndo.  When I was a boy people used to come to our school and tell us\nsuch rubbish as that.  But it is all false.  Suppose I were to take a\nnotion to be a great painter, not one after the fashion of the ordinary\nsixteen year old girl of to-day, but a painter like Turner.  Why, I\nmight work at it a thousand years and never accomplish anything.\n\nSuppose some of you were to take a notion to be great singers.  Is\nthere any use for me to tell you that if you persist you will succeed?\nNot a bit of it.  You might succeed in ruining the nerves of your\nteacher.  You might easily make those who hear you practise \"want to\ngnaw a file and flee into the wilderness.\"  But you would never learn\nto sing.  There is no hope for some of us till we get to Heaven.\n\nNo, we cannot do anything that we might want to do.  But we can do\nsomething infinitely better.  We can do everything that God wants us to\ndo.  I cannot do your task, and you cannot do mine.  I am glad that\nthat is true.  I am glad that we all do not have the same aptitudes.  I\nam glad that we all cannot do successfully the same things.  I am glad\nthat we do not all have the same tastes.  But while that is so, every\nman has the ability, through grace, to perform the task to which he is\ncalled.\n\nIn the third place, this man did not fail because of idleness.  He did\nnot fail because he was lazy.  Of course idleness will wreck anybody.\nLaziness is a deadly sin unless it is overcome.  I know something about\nit because I have had to fight it all my life.  But this man was not an\nidler.  This man was a worker.  He failed, but he did not fail because\nhe refused to put his hand to any task or to bend his back under any\nload.\n\nWhy then did this man fail?  Not from ignorance, not from inability,\nnot from idleness.  He was busy.  That is his word about himself.  And\nnobody denies it.  \"As thy servant was busy here and there, he was\ngone.\"  What, I repeat, was the secret of his failure?  Just this, that\nthough he was busy, he was not busy at his own task.  He was simply\nbusy here and there.  He was one of those unfortunate souls that has so\nmany things to do and so many engagements to keep and so many functions\nto attend and so many burdens to carry that he cannot do his own duty.\n\nDo you know of anybody like that?  \"Did you keep your prisoner?\" I ask.\n\"No, I was too busy.\"  \"Busy at what, in Heaven's name!  Do you know of\nanything more important than obeying the orders of your king?  Do you\nknow of anything more important than helping to save your nation?  Do\nyou know of anything of more importance than saving your own life, your\nown honor, your own soul.\"\n\nYou can see his trouble.  He allowed the secondary to so absorb him\nthat he neglected the primary.  Those things that he was working at\nhere and there, those unnamed tasks that he was performing, there is no\nhint that they were vicious things.  I am sure that they were\naltogether harmless.  They may have been altogether good and useful.\nBut the trouble with that good was that it robbed him of the privilege\nof doing the best.  The trouble with the Prodigal in the Far Country\nwas not simply the fact that he was in a hog pen.  He might have been\nin a palace and been quite as bad off.  It was the fact that he was\nmissing the privilege of being in his Father's house.\n\nThe sin that I fear most for many of you is not the sin of vicious\nwrong-doing.  It is the sin of this man, the sin of choosing the second\nbest.  I read recently of an insane man who spent all his time in an\nendeavor to sew two pieces of cloth together.  But the thread he used\nhad no knot in the end of it.  So nothing was ever accomplished.  Now,\nthere is no harm in such sewing.  But the tragedy of it is that if we\nspend all our time doing such trivial things we rob ourselves of the\nprivilege of doing something better.  And that is just the trouble of\nmuch of our life to-day.  Many of us are engaged in a great, stressful,\nstraining life of trivialities.  Some of these are not especially\nharmful.  But the calamity of it all is that they so absorb us that we\nhave no time left for the highest.\n\nDown in Tennessee near where I used to live a house was burned one day.\nThe mother was out at the well doing the week's washing.  The flames\nwere not discovered till they were well under way.  Of course when they\nwere discovered the woman was seized with terror.  She rushed into the\nhouse and brought out a feather bed and a few quilts.  But in her\nmadness she forgot her own baby and the child was burned to death.\nNow, I submit to you that there was absolutely no harm in saving a\nfeather bed.  There was no harm in saving a few old quilts.  The\ntragedy was that in the absorption of saving all these half worthless\nthings she lost the primary.  In her interest in the good she became\nutterly blind to the best.\n\nI wonder if that is not your folly.  You are busy here and there.  You\ngo to work six days in the week.  You are passionately in earnest about\namusing yourself.  You do a thousand and one decent and respectable\nthings.  But while you are busy here and there the peace of God slips\nout of your life.  While you are busy here and there you neglect the\nSunday School and the Church.  While you are busy here and there you\nlose your interest in the Word of God and you forget \"the secret\nstairway that leads into the Upper Room.\"  \"Busy here and there\" you\nlose the sense of God out of your life.  \"Busy here and there\" you\nallow the altar in your home to fall down.  \"Busy here and there\" you\nallow your sons and daughters to stumble over that broken down altar\ninto lives of Christless indifference.\n\nOh, men and women, there is but one remedy for us if we would avoid the\nrock upon which this condemned guardsman wrecked himself.  We must put\nfirst things first.  Let us listen once more to the voice of the sanest\nman that ever lived.  This is His message: \"Seek ye first the kingdom\nof God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto\nyou.\"  If you fail to do this, however noble may be the task at which\nyou toil, life for you will end in tragedy.  If you do this, however\nmean and obscure may be your task, life for you will end in eternal joy\nand victory.\n\n\n\n\nXIV\n\nA MOTHER'S REWARD--JOCHEBED\n\n_Exodus 2:9_\n\n\"Take this child away and nurse him for me and I will give thee thy\nwages.\"  This text refers to one of the big events of human history.\nThis is one of the most stupendous happenings that was ever recorded.\nI doubt if there was ever a battle fought that was so far reaching in\nits influence.  I doubt if all the fifteen decisive battles of the\nworld taken together were of greater importance than this event that\ntook place here on the banks of the Nile.\n\nIt is a simple story.  An Egyptian princess, with her attendants, has\ncome to the riverside for a bath.  To her amazement she discovers a\nstrange vessel lying at anchor upon the waters of the river.  Her\ncuriosity is aroused.  When the vessel is brought to land its cargo is\ndiscovered.  And what a cargo it is.  It is so wonderful, it is so\namazingly great that we marvel that any ship should be large enough to\nhold it.  We are amazed that any sea should be vast enough to float\nsuch a vessel.\n\nWhat was this cargo?  It was a baby, a baby boy.  He is waving dimpled\nhands and kicking chubby feet, and he is crying.  And the vessel upon\nwhich he sails becomes a battleship.  He at once begins to lay siege to\nthe heart of the princess.  He pelts her with his tears.  He pierces\nher through and through with his winsome weakness.  He cannonades her\nwith his lovely helplessness till she capitulates and gathers him in\nher arms.  And this princess is no wicked woman, I am sure of that.\nShe had a mother heart.  I think I can hear her across the centuries\ntalking to this little waif.  She hugs him close.  \"Yes, yes,\" she\nsaid.  \"You shall be my baby.  The big, old soldiers shan't have you.\nThey shan't kill mother's little boy.\"  And she loved him as her own.\n\nNow, two bright eyes had been witnessing this wonderful scene.  There\nwas a little girl hidden nearby and she watched all that happened.  And\nwhen she saw the princess take her little baby brother to her heart she\nunderstood.  She felt sure at once that the baby was safe.  And a glad\nand daring thought took possession of her and she hurried from her\nplace of hiding and approached the princess.  And this is her word, \"My\nlady, may I get a nurse for your baby?\"\n\nAnd the princess did not despise the little girl.  I feel perfectly\nconfident that the spirit of God was moving upon the heart of this\nprincess.  She listened to the child and accepted her services.  And I\ncan see that little girl as with flying feet she hurries to her mother\nwith the good news.  \"Mother, they have found Little Brother, but they\nare not going to kill him.  The Princess found him and I told her that\nI would get somebody to nurse him for her.  Come, and we may have him\nfor our own again.\"\n\nNow, I take it that it was an important event when the Princess decided\nthat the child was to live.  The death sentence had gone out against\nhim.  You know that.  The death sentence had been pronounced against\nevery son of the Hebrews.  But an even more important event took place\nwhen the Princess decided who should be the baby's nurse.  When she\ndecided who should have the training of the child, then she decided\nwhat the child was to be.  Suppose, for instance, she had determined to\ntrain him herself, she would have made him like herself.  Moses would\nhave become a heathen in spite of the blood in his veins.  He was\ndestined to be a genius, but his genius might have been very far from\nbeing the helpful something that it was.  Wrongly trained it might have\nbeen as brilliant as the lightning's flash, but also as destructive.\n\nBut this woman chose, all unwittingly, it is true, to give her baby to\nbe nursed by his own mother.  And this Jewish woman was not a heathen.\nShe was a faithful servant of the Lord.  I can see her as she hurries\ndown to the banks of the Nile.  And as she goes there's a wonderful\nlight in her eyes.  And her lips are moving, and she is saying,\n\"Blessed be the God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Israel, who has\nheard the prayer of His servant and who has granted the desire of her\nheart.\"\n\nAnd I love to look again upon this scene.  The Egyptian princess is\nhanding over the precious little bundle of immortality into the arms of\na Jewish slave.  And that Jewish slave is hugging her own child to her\nhungry heart.  And the princess is talking to her proudly, haughtily,\nas becomes her rank, \"Take this child away and nurse him for me and I\nwill give thee thy wages.\"  And away goes this mother, the happiest\nmother, I think, in all the world.\n\nNow, had you met this mother with her child so wonderfully restored to\nher and had asked her whose was the child and for whom she was nursing\nit, I wonder what she would have said.  I know what the attendants of\nthe princess thought.  I know what they would have said.  They would\nhave said that she was nursing the child for the Princess.  They would\nhave said that the Princess was her employer.  They would have said\nthat Moses was the Princess's baby.  But this mother never thought of\nit in any such way.  She laughed in the secret depths of her heart at\nthe idea of her being employed by the Princess.  Who was her employer?\nI know what she thought.  She believed that God was.  She had a pious\nfancy that God was speaking through the lips of that Princess and that\nHe was saying, \"Take the child and nurse him for me and I will give\nthee thy wages.\"  She thought her child was God's child.  Therefore,\nshe believed that it was to God, and not to the Egyptian Princess, that\nshe was to account at the last for the way in which she trained and\nplayed the mother's part by her boy.\n\nYes, I feel confident that this mother believed that God was her real\nemployer.  She believed that she was His minister.  She believed that\nshe had been chosen for the task that was now engaging her.  And she\nwas right in her belief.  When God, who had great plans for Moses,\nsought for some one who was to make it possible for Him to realize His\nplans, whom did He choose?  To whom did He commit this precious\ntreasure, from whose life such infinite blessings should come to the\nworld?  He did not commit him to a heathen.  He did not commit him to a\nmere hired servant.  He committed him to his mother.  When God wants to\ntrain a child for the achieving of the best and the highest in life He\nsends him to school to a godly mother.\n\nNow, when God chose the mother of Moses for his nurse and his teacher\nHe made a wise choice.  The choice was wise, in the first place,\nbecause this mother of Moses was eager for her task.  She was a willing\nmother.  Whatever glad days may have come in her life history, I am\nsure no gladder time ever came than that time when she realized that to\nher was going to be given the matchless privilege of mothering her own\nchild.  I know there are some mothers who do not agree with her.  I\nknow there are some that look upon the responsibilities of motherhood\nas building a kind of prison, but not so this immortal mother.  She\nlooked upon her duty as her highest privilege.  She entered upon her\ntask with an eagerness born of a quenchless love.\n\nThe choice was fortunate, in the second place, because she was a woman\nof faith.  In the letter to the Hebrews we read that Moses was bidden\nby faith.  Both the father and the mother of Moses were pious people.\nThey were people of consecration, of devotion to God, of faith in God.\nIt is true they were slaves.  It is true they had a poor chance.  It is\ntrue they lived in a dark day when the light was dim, but they lived up\nto their light.  And their home was a pious home and its breath was\nsweet and fragrant with the breath of prayer.\n\nAnd I have little hope for the rearing of a great Christian leader in\nany other type of home.  I have no hope of rearing a new and better\ncivilization in any other type of home.  Our national life is\ndiscordant and hate-torn to-day.  We are living in a time of intense\nbitterness and selfishness and sordid greed.  But what civilization is\nto-day, the home life of yesterday has made it.  And what civilization\nwill be to-morrow the home life of to-day will make it.  If we do not\nhave Christian homes, believe me, we will never have a Christian\ncivilization.\n\n\"I know Abraham,\" God said, \"that he will command his children and his\nhousehold after him.\"  And there are two remarkable assertions made of\nAbraham in this text.  First, He said, \"I know that Abraham will\ncommand; I know Abraham will control his own household.  I know that\nAbraham will control his children.\"  And God considered that as highly\nimportant.  Of course we are too wise to agree with Him to-day.  We\nbelieve it best to let our children run wild and do largely as they\nplease.  We believe that Solomon was an old fogey when he spoke of\n\"sparing the rod and spoiling the child.\"  And I am not here this\nmorning to tell you just how you are to control your child.  But what I\ndo say is that you cannot commit a greater blunder than to fail to\ncontrol it.  A child is better unborn than untrained.\n\nThen God said of Abraham next, not only that he would command his\nchildren and his household, but that he would command them after him.\nHe would not only exercise the right kind of authority, but he would\nexert the right kind of influence.  He would set the right kind of\nexample.  He knew that Abraham would be in some measure what he desired\nhis children to be, that by authority and by right living he would\nChristianize his own home.\n\nAnd so when God wanted to raise up a man Moses who was to remake the\nworld, He put him in a pious home.  He gave him a godly father and\nmother.  And the dominant influence in the life of Moses was his\nmother.  No woman ever did a greater work.  But it was a work that she\naccomplished not because of her high social standing.  Nor was it\naccomplished because of her great culture.  It was accomplished because\nof her great faith.\n\nAnd while I am not in any sense a pessimist, I cannot but tremble in\nsome measure for the future because of the decay of home religion.  And\nthis decay, while traceable in some measure to the madness for money\nand pleasure among men, is traceable even more to this same madness\namong women.  The woman of to-day is in a state of transition.  She has\nnot yet fully found herself.  There has come to her a new sense of\nfreedom, and this freedom has not made her better.  She has become in\nconsiderable measure an imitator of man.  And sad to say, she imitates\nhis vices instead of his virtues.  She often patterns after what is\nworst in him instead of what is best.\n\nI am told that in the Woman's Club of this city the handsomest room in\nthe building is the smoking room.  Now, a woman has a right to smoke.\nWho says that she has not?  A woman has a right to swear, and that\nright she is exercising with growing frequency.  I am not going to deny\nher right to do that.  But what I do say is this, that I have\nabsolutely no hope for the rearing of a right generation at the hands\nof a flippant cigarette-smoking mother.  The child of such a mother is,\nin my candid opinion, half damned in its birth.  Remember, the mother\nof Moses was a pious mother.  If she had not been I am persuaded that\nthe Moses who has been one of the supreme makers of history, might\nnever have been known.\n\nNow, what was this woman's task?  Hear it.  I take these words as\nembodying not the will of the princess, but the will of God, \"Take this\nchild and nurse him for me and I will give thee thy wages.\"  This\nmother was not to govern the world.  She was not to lecture in the\ninterest of suffrage.  I have nothing to say against the woman who does\nso.  She was not to be the center of a social set.  She was not to turn\nher child over to some colored woman while she went gadding about to\nevery sort of club.  She had just one supreme job.  She had one highest\nand holiest of all tasks.  It was for that cause that she came into the\nworld.  She was to train her child for God.  And whoever we are and\nwhatever may be our abilities, we can have no higher task than this.\nThe training of a child to-day is the biggest big job under the stars.\nHe is the center of all our hopes and possibilities.\n\nDid you ever read the story of the \"Little Palace Beautiful\"?  In the\nLittle Palace Beautiful there are four rooms.  The first is a room\ncalled Fancy.  In this room looking out toward the south sleeps a\nlittle child, a beautiful baby.  It is the Child-that-Never-Was.  It\nwas longed for, hoped for, dreamed of, but it never came.  In the west\nroom looking out toward the sunset, the room called Memory, is the\nChild-that-Was.  Here sleeps the little fellow that came and stayed\njust long enough to gather up all our heart's love and then he went\naway.  In the room toward the north, the room of Experience, is the\nChild-that-Is.  He is the little fellow that now plays in your home in\nyour Sunday School class.  And in the room looking out toward the\nsunrise, the room called Hope, is the Child-that-Is-to-Be.\n\nNow, we are interested in all four of these children, but our interest\nin the four is to be expressed in our care for just one, and that is\nthe Child-that-Is.  We think tenderly of the Child-that-Never-Was.  We\nthink sadly of the Child-that-Was.  But we bring the love that we might\nhave given and did give, to lavish it upon the Child-that-Is.  We think\nhopefully of the Child-that-Is-to-Be, but we realize that all his\npossibilities are locked in the Child-that-Is.  And so the world's\nfuture salvation is in our cradles, in our homes and in our nurseries\nto-day.  To train our Children for God is the highest of all high tasks.\n\nAnd notice that this woman was to receive wages for her work.  What\nwere her wages?  I suppose the princess sent down a little coin at the\nend of each week, but do you think that is all the pay that this mother\ngot?  I feel confident that she never counted this as pay at all.  But\nshe received her reward, she received her wages.  And they were wages\nthat were rich in worth beyond all our fondest dreams.  First, there\nwas given unto her the fine privilege of loving.  And Paul, who knew\nwhat was priceless, Paul, who knew what was of supreme value, said that\nlove was the soul's finest treasure.  And he meant not the privilege of\nbeing loved, as fine as that is, but the higher privilege of loving.\nAnd it has been given by the grace of God to the mothers of men to be\nthe world's greatest lovers.\n\n  \"If I were hanged on the highest hill,\n    Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine!\n  I know whose love would follow me still,\n    Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine!\n\n  \"If I were drowned in the deepest sea,\n    Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine!\n  I know whose tears would come down to me,\n    Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine!\n\n  \"If I were damned of body and soul,\n    I know whose prayers would make me whole,\n  Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine!\"\n\n\nTo her was given, in the second place, the fine reward of\nself-sacrifice.  She had the privilege of giving.  She had the\nprivilege of offering her life a willing sacrifice upon the altar of\nher home.  It is blessed to receive, but it is more blessed to give.\nAnd the rewards of motherhood are the highest rewards because she is\nthe most godlike giver that this world knows.\n\nThen, she was rewarded, in the third place, by the making of a great\nlife.  She became the mother of a good man.  Her faith became his\nfaith.  \"By faith Moses was hidden.\"  That was by his mother's faith.\nBut in the next verse we read this, \"By faith Moses, when he was come\nto years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter.\"  That\nwas by his own faith.  Where did he get that rare jewel?  He got it\nfrom the training of his mother.  He saw it in her life.  It looked out\nfrom her eyes.  It spoke through her lips.  He drank it in as he lay in\nher arms.\n\n\"When I call to remembrance the unfeigned faith that is in thee, which\ndwelt first in thy grandmother Lois and in thy mother Eunice, and I am\npersuaded is in thee also.\"  Oh, if you are here a man of faith, a\nwoman of faith, the chances are you secured that precious treasure at\nthe hands of a God-loving and a God-trusting mother.\n\nSo this despised slave woman, this mother has this to her credit, that\nshe mothered and trained one of the greatest men that ever set foot on\nthis earth.  She took a little boy named Moses to her heart and trained\nhim for God.  She had him for a little while.  Then he went away to the\nbig University.  But he stood true.  She speaks to him as she holds him\nclose in the twilight.  She says, \"Laddie, do not forget how God has\nwatched over you.  One day when death was suspended above your baby\nhead by a thread, one day when your life was frailer than a gossamer\nthread, I took a queer little basket and lined it with pitch, and also\nwith faith and with prayer.  And I put you afloat, and God preserved\nyou and sent you back into these arms.  And I carried you and cared for\nyou.  And now when you are grown you won't forget.  You won't prove\ndisloyal to your mother and you won't forget your mother's God.\"\n\nAnd Moses did not forget.  And one day the little laddie who had once\nbeen carried about in the arms of a slave mother, was a big\nbroad-shouldered man.  And he had a big broad-shouldered faith, and he\ntrusted in a big broad-shouldered God.  And in the strength of that\nfaith, and in the might of that God he lifted an enslaved people in his\narms and carried them clean across the wilderness.  And he made\npossible an Isaiah and a Jeremiah and a David.  And he made possible\nthe birth of Jesus Christ.  And he became the blesser and enricher of\nall the nations of the earth.  And this mother, whose name is not well\nknown in the annals of men, but whose name is known in Heaven to-day,\nhad the rich reward of knowing that she mothered a man who fathered a\nnation and blessed a world.\n\nOh, it is a blessed reward, the reward of success in the high\nenterprise of motherhood.  I know of no joy that can come to a father's\nor a mother's heart that is comparable to the joy that their own\nchildren can give them.  I have seen sweet-faced mothers look upon\ntheir children when there was enough joy in those faces to have raised\nthe temperature of Heaven.\n\nBut while it is true that none can bring us so much joy, it is also\ntrue that none can so utterly break our hearts.  To see disease take\nour children in hand and wreck their bodies is painful, but it is as\njoy in comparison to seeing sin steal the moral rose from their cheek\nand the sparkle of innocence and purity from their eyes.  But the\ndeepest of all damning griefs is that grief that comes to us when we\nrealize that we failed, and that their ruin is due to sin and\nunfaithfulness in ourselves.\n\nDo you hear the wild outcry from that broken-hearted king named David?\nThere he stands upon the wall and looks away across the wistful plain.\nA lone runner is coming.  He knows he is a messenger from the\nbattlefield.  \"Good tidings,\" he shouts.  But the king has no ear for\ngood tidings.  His one question is this, \"Is the young man Absalom\nsafe?\"  And the runner does not rightly answer his question.  Then the\nsecond messenger comes with the news of his son's death.  And there is\nno more pathetic cry in literature than that that breaks from the lips\nof this pathetic king.  \"O my son Absalom, O Absalom, my son, my son!\"\nHe is sobbing over his lost boy.  But there is an added pang to his\ngrief.  It is the awful pang that comes from the torturing fear that he\nhimself is in large measure responsible for the loss of his boy.  And\nthere is no more bitter agony than that.\n\nOh, men and women, let us who are fathers and mothers spare ourselves\nDavid's terrible agony.  Let us spare our children Absalom's tragic\nruin.  Let us give ourselves the joys of this old time mother.  While\nour children are about us, may we hear the very voice of God speaking\nto us on their behalf, saying: \"Take this child and train it for me and\nI will give thee thy wages.\"  And wages we shall receive just as surely\nas did this mother of Moses.  We will be privileged to love, to give,\nto bless.  And God Himself can give no richer reward than that.\n\n\n\n\nXV\n\nA GOOD MAN'S HELL--MANASSEH\n\n_Jeremiah 15:4_\n\n\"And I will cause them to be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth\nbecause of Manasseh.\"  The prophet of the Lord is here fixing the\nresponsibility for the downfall of Jerusalem.  He says that the wreck\nwas due in an especial sense to one man.  He makes it very plain that\nit was one man's hands that had planted the infernal bomb that was\ndestined in later years to blast the foundation from under the nation.\n\"I will cause them to be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth\nbecause of Manasseh.\"\n\nHad a jury at that day been impanelled to try this man Manasseh I do\nnot know whether they would have found him guilty or not.  Possibly\nthey would.  It is also possible that they would not.  Had they failed\nto have done so it would have been because they did not know the facts;\nthey were not entirely familiar with all the evidence in the case.  But\nwhen God sought the man upon whose shoulders rested the chief\nresponsibility for the wreck of the nation, He fixed on this man.  When\nManasseh stood on trial before Him, charged with the terrible crime of\nblasting a kingdom, he was found guilty.\n\nIt was a startling verdict.  It is all the more startling when we\nrealize that Manasseh in the last years of his life was a good man.  It\nwas only his earlier years that were spent in sin.  In his old age he\nwas a saint.  In the last years of his reign he knew God and did all\nthat he could to undo the evils of an ill-spent yesterday.  But in\nspite of the saintliness of the eventide, in spite of his winter-time\ngoodness, the full influence of his life was not a blessing but a\ncurse.  It did not make for upbuilding.  It made for terrible downfall\nand ruin.\n\nTake a glance at his life's story.  It is full of interest.  Every\nyoung heart in the world should make a study of the life of this man.\nHow it gives the lie to many of our false and easy conceptions of sin.\nHow urgent it presses home the truth that the only salvation that can\nmean the most is the salvation that grips us from life's earliest\nmoment to its very last.\n\nManasseh came to the throne when he was only twelve years of age.  He\nhad not been long in his position of influence and power till he turned\nutterly away from the Lord and began to wallow in every form of sin.\nThere was no dirty idolatry that he did not practise.  There was no\nfalse belief to which he did not seem willing to give hospitality.\nThere was scarcely any form of evil of which he was not guilty.\n\nAnd his career of godlessness was all the more inexcusable because of\nthe good opportunities that he had.  He was the son of a great and good\nfather.  His father was Hezekiah.  And Hezekiah was one of the best\nkings that Judah ever had.  He was a man of spiritual power.  He was a\nman who served as saving salt to his kingdom throughout his entire\nreign.  When the Assyrians hung like a threatening storm cloud over his\nweak little nation, it was the compelling might of his prayer that\nstood as a wall between them and their enemy.  So, Manasseh was the son\nof a great saint.\n\nAnd mark me, it is no small privilege to be the child of a godly father\nor of a saintly mother.  If God granted to you to open your baby eyes\nto look into other eyes that were \"homes of silent prayer,\" if He sent\nyou to grow up in a home where the family altar and the saintly life\nmade Christ real, then He has given you an opportunity unspeakably\ngreat.  And as great as is your opportunity, just so great is your\nresponsibility.  How hard must be the sentence upon that boy or that\ngirl who breaks away from such saving and sanctifying influences to go\ninto the far country.\n\nNot only was the guilt of Manasseh intensified by the fact that he had\na saintly father.  It was intensified further by the fact that he was\nrepeatedly warned.  Though he turned his back on God and though he gave\nhimself up to a perfect orgy of wrong doing, God did not forget him and\ndid not give him up.  He sent to him messenger after messenger to bring\nhome his guilt and to invite him back to the pardon and peace of his\nFather's presence.  But seemingly the more he was warned the deeper he\nplunged into sin.\n\nAnd you who are in sin, you are even more guilty than he, because to\nyou God has sent warning after warning, rebuke after rebuke.  God has\ngiven you calls and invitations without number.  He has called you\nthrough your conscience.  He has called you through your wretchedness\nand restlessness and hunger of heart.  He has called you through your\nlonging for usefulness.  He has called you through your sorrow and your\npain and your losses.  He has called you through ten thousand mercies.\nOh, believe me, our need to-night is not so much for more light as it\nis for courage to live up to the light we have.\n\nNot only was Manasseh guilty because he sinned in spite of the help of\na godly father and in spite of repeated warnings.  His guilt was\ndeepened yet more because he knew that he did not sin alone.  When he\nwent away from God he carried a kingdom with him.  The reign of\nHezekiah had been a righteous reign.  With the coming of Manasseh to\nthe throne there was a violent reaction, akin to that that followed\nupon the restoration of Charles II to the throne of England.  You know\nhow that when Charles came to the throne the court life was changed\ninto a brothel.  Charles lived in open and notorious adultery, and the\nrottenness of the throne led to the rottenness of the kingdom.  Such\nwas the case here.  Manasseh not only fell but he drew a kingdom after\nhim.\n\nIt is profoundly true that no man ever sins alone.  Your influence will\nnot be so wide as that of Manasseh, yet however obscure your life may\nbe this is true, that it will set in motion influences that will\nliterally outlast the world.  I have control over my own action before\nit is done, but after it is done I seek to control it in vain.  If it\nis a fiendish act it laughs its devilish and derisive laughter in my\nface and says, \"Control me if you can.\"\n\nNow, there came a time when this great sinner began to pay the penalty\nfor his sin.  Retribution slipped in by the guards at the door one day\nand took the king rudely by the shoulder.  It shook him and shook him\nso roughly that his crown fell from his head and his sceptre dropped\nfrom his hand.  Then it dragged him from his throne and dressed him in\nchains and sent him a captive into a foreign country.\n\nRetribution, suffering for sin, does not always come as it came to this\nking.  It does not always come at once but come it does.  That is as\nsure as the fact of God.  There are some shallow souls that fancy that\nbecause sin does not pay off every Saturday night that it does not pay\nat all.  But to hold such views is to spit in the face of a most open\nand palpable fact.  Manasseh had a fancy that he was a much freer man\nthan his father had been, far more broad-minded, but he waked one day,\nas every man wakes sooner or later, to discover that sin did not mean\nfreedom, that it only meant slavery.\n\nNow, what effect did this degradation and shame and suffering have on\nthe king?  Suffering has very opposite influences on different types of\ncharacter.  Sometimes it hardens us, it makes us only the more bitter\nand rebellious.  But suffering did not have that effect on Manasseh.\nIt made him think, and it is a tremendously good day when God can get a\nman to think.  He thought, I dare say, of his saintly father.  He\nthought of his father's God.  This story is another evidence of how all\nbut impossible it is for a child to break finally away from the saving\ninfluence of a truly good father or truly good mother.\n\nThis experience not only made him think but it sent him to his knees in\nan agony of prayer.  He came to hate the sin that had been the ruin of\nhim.  He asked God for forgiveness.  And God did forgive him.  Truly,\n\"though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.\"  No\nman ever goes so far away from God, no man ever lives in sin so long\nbut that if he will return to God, God will receive him and will give\nhim abundant pardon.\n\nNot only did God save this man.  He brought him again to his throne.\nAnd he who had once been a captive in a strange land wore his crown\nonce more.  And for the remaining years of his life he was a devout\nfollower of the Lord.  He did his best to undo the evils of the earlier\nyears of his reign.  He tore down the altars to false gods that he had\nbuilded.  He tried to bring his people back to the new and saving faith\nthat he had found.  His conversion was genuine and lasting.\n\nBut what was the result?  He did not succeed.  He found that it was\neasier to lead folks astray than it was to bring them back after he had\nled them astray.  He was a good man.  He knew God.  But this was his\nhell, that he had to stand in utter helplessness and see his nation\ntotter to its ruin because of the sins that he had committed.  He was\nnot even able to save his own home.  His boy became a godless idolater,\nas he himself had been during the best years of his life.\n\nSo we are brought face to face with this fact.  Repentance will bring\nus salvation whenever we repent, but there is one thing that repentance\ncannot do.  It cannot save us from the consequences of our sin.  Go out\ninto the field of life and sow tares for half a century, if you dare.\nEven then God will forgive you if you will come in repentance to Him,\nbut there is one thing that God will not do and cannot do.  He cannot\nchange the tares that you have sown into wheat.  I may be exceedingly\nsorry for my wrong sowing, I will be, but the seed will grow none the\nless.\n\nDid it ever occur to you how many faces the Prodigal missed on his way\nback home?  Many a splendid young fellow that caroused with him as he\nwent into the far country did not enjoy the fatted calf with him when\nhe came back to the peace and plenty of his Father's house.  Some of\nthem had gone into eternity and others had gone beyond his influence\nforever more.\n\nWhile I was in Huntington a few weeks ago, the pastor for whom I was\npreaching told me of a young friend of his who carried his little baby\nin to see a noted eye specialist.  The child's eyes were very bad.  The\nphysician examined them and shook his head.  \"Her eyes will never get\nbetter,\" he said, \"but will get worse.  She will be blind before she is\ngrown.\"  And the father's face went white and he said, \"Doctor, you\nknow my youth wasn't what it ought to have been.  Can that be the\ncause?\"  And the doctor said, \"You needn't to have told me.  Certainly\nit is the cause.\"  And it was a broken-hearted man that left that\noffice that day.  And it was a broken-hearted and praying and penitent\nman that kissed his child to sleep that night.  Oh, God will forgive\nhim, but there is one thing that that forgiveness will not include and\nthat is daylight for his little girl.\n\n\"I will cause them to be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth\nbecause of Manasseh.\"  And Manasseh is good and pure and blood-washed,\nbut the influences that he set in motion have gone beyond his reach\nforever more.  What a fearful fact is this!  I am talking to young men\nand women and you have your lives before you.  You may give them to\nsin, and you may be saved at the last moment.  That is a possibility,\nthough it is a slight one.  But such a salvation may mean the wrecking\nof many another life.  The only safe way is to repent before you waste\nyour life.  Repent before you sin.\n\nDo you remember Esau's pathetic story?  He sold his birthright for one\nmess of lentils.  Nor was he at all displeased with his bargain.  At\nleast that was true for a little while, but there came a time when he\nwas sorry.  There came a time when his foolish bartering broke his\nheart.  And the story says that he found no place for repentance though\nhe sought it diligently and with tears.\n\nThat does not mean, of course, that God refused to forgive Esau.  The\nmoment we turn in penitent surrender to our Lord He will save us and\ngive us an abundant pardon, however far we may have gone into sin.  God\nforgave him when he repented, but there was one thing that his\nrepentance could not do.  It could not undo the past.  It could not put\nhim again in the light of the morning of life.  It could not place in\nhis hands the opportunities of yesterday.  The good that he might have\ndone and the service that he might have rendered and the crowns that he\nmight have won had passed beyond the reach of his hand forever.\nRepentance saved his soul but it did not save his life.\n\nAnd what a startling chapter is the story of the sin of David.  David\nwas a whole-hearted man.  He never did anything by halves.  When he\nsinned he sinned with a horrible abandon.  Few men have dirtier pages\nin their life's history than that of David's sin against the house of\nUriah.  But as his sin was whole-hearted so also was his repentance.\nWe can hear his heart-broken cry for pardon across the centuries: \"Have\nmercy upon me, O God, according to thy loving kindness.  According unto\nthe multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions.  Wash\nme from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin; for I acknowledge my\ntransgression and my sin is ever before me.\"  It is the heart-broken\ncry of the penitent who has not one good word to say for himself.  And\nGod heard his prayer and washed him and made him whiter than snow.\n\nBut beyond that God with all His love and tenderness could not go.  He\ncould not save David from the consequences of his sin.  His bloody and\nlustful deed became possessed of a power beyond his control.  \"Down!\"\nhe cries to it in helpless horror.  But it will not down.  \"Then where\nare you going?\" he asks, all a-tremble with dread.  And the fiendish\ndeed answers, \"I am going to steal the purity of your daughter Tamar.\nI am going to make your son Ammon into a rapist.  I am going to make\nyour handsome boy Absalom into a murderer.\"\n\nWhen I was a boy there was a family living neighbors to us, all of whom\nwere outside the Church.  But when the children were almost all grown\nand the father was an old man he became a Christian.  But instead of\nbeing influential in bringing his children to Christ they seemed only\nto be ashamed of him.  He did not seem to have the slightest power to\ninfluence a single one of them for good.  I would not say that he was\nnot saved, I think he was, but I think his years spent in sin cost him\nthe salvation of his children.\n\nE. J. Bulgin said that he was holding a meeting some years ago in a\ncity in Kentucky.  A girl was converted in his meeting.  She was in the\nearly bloom of young womanhood.  She belonged to a wealthy and\nprominent family.  Her mother was not a Christian.  The girl wanted to\njoin the Church and the mother objected.  The preacher went to see the\nmother and prayed with her and plead with her.  She said she wanted her\ndaughter to have her coming out dance soon and therefore she should not\njoin the Church.  And the preacher left that home with a heavy heart.\n\nThree years later he was holding a meeting in a neighboring town.  A\nlong distance call came asking him if he would not come and conduct the\nfuneral of Nellie, the girl who had not been allowed to join the\nChurch.  He went.  The undertaker said that it was a request of the\nmother that the preacher ride with her and her other daughter to the\ncemetery.  The journey was made in silence.  The remains were being\nlowered when the mother ordered the undertaker to open the coffin\nagain.  All the crowd was requested to stand back.  They moved some\nfifty feet away.  Then leaning on the preacher's arm the mother showed\nhim her daughter.  And lying upon her breast was a little armful of\nshame.\n\nThat was all.  The grave was filled and on the way back home the\npenitent and heart-broken mother found Christ.  She said to her\ndaughter, \"Mary, I have found Jesus.  I have found the salvation that I\nrejected three years ago.\"  And Mary answered, \"No, Mother, you have\nfound salvation, it is true.  But it is not the salvation that was\noffered to you three years ago.  Your salvation then would have\nincluded the salvation of Nellie.  Now it means only the salvation of\nyourself.\"\n\nHeart, you may be saved at another time.  Many a father is saved after\nhe has wrecked his boys.  This mother was saved after she had destroyed\nher daughter.  Manasseh was saved after he had ruined his kingdom.  But\nI submit to you that it is not the largest salvation.  It is a\nsalvation that may yet leave you with a burning hell in your own heart,\nthe hell of the memory of evil you can never undo, and wrongs you can\nnever right, and of lost men and women, led away from God by your\ninfluence that you can never lead back again.\n\nTherefore, because of these startling and palpable facts, I come to you\nwith this oft-repeated word of our Lord upon my lips: \"Now is the\naccepted time.  To-day is the day of salvation.\"  Seek not to make\nreligion into a fire escape.  Give God your life now and in so doing\nyou will both save yourself and those who are influenced by you.\n\"Therefore, choose you this day whom you will serve.\"\n\n\n\n\nXVI\n\nA SHREWD FOOL--THE RICH FARMER\n\n_Luke 12:16-21_\n\n\"And he spake a parable unto them, saying, The ground of a certain rich\nman brought forth plentifully: and he thought within himself, saying,\nWhat shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits?  And\nhe said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns and build greater\nand there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods.  And I will say to\nmy soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine\nease, eat, drink, and be merry.  But God said unto him, Thou fool, this\nnight thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things\nbe, which thou hast provided?  So is he that layeth up treasure for\nhimself, and is not rich toward God.\"\n\nI count with confidence on your interest in this sermon.  You will be\ninterested, in the first place, because the picture that our Lord has\ngiven us in this wonderful story is the picture of a real man.  This\nfarmer is no wax figure.  He is no bloodless nonentity.  He is\naltogether human stuff.  And we are interested in real folks.\n\nThen we are interested in this man, in the second place, because he is\nsuccessful.  We are naturally interested in the people who make good.\nIf you go out on the street to-morrow and start to tell your friends\nhow you failed, the chances are that they will turn their backs upon\nyou to listen to the man, with triumph in his face and victory in his\nvoice, who is telling how he succeeded.  We are great success\nworshippers.  And the man who wins the prizes of life interests us very\nkeenly.\n\nBut there is a shock for us in the story.  The Master calls our shrewd\nhero a fool.  \"Thou fool.\"  That is a harsh and jarring word.  It\ninsults us.  It shakes its fist in our faces.  It cuts us like a whip.\nIt offends us.  We do not like the ugly name in the least.\n\n\"Thou fool.\"  Our Master frowns upon our using such language at all.\nHe will not trust us with such a sharp sword.  He will not suffer us to\nhurl such a thunderbolt.  He forbids us, under a terrible penalty, to\ncall our brother a fool.  And yet He calls this keen and successful\nfarmer a fool.  And He doesn't do so lightly and flippantly, but there\nseems to ring through it scorn and indignation--positive anger, anger\nthat is all the more terrible because it is the anger of love.\n\nWhy did the Master call this man a fool?  He did not get the idea from\nthe man himself.  This well-to-do farmer would never have spoken of\nhimself in that way.  He regarded himself as altogether fit and\nmentally well furnished.  Nor did the Master get His idea from the\nman's neighbors.  They looked upon this man with admiration.  There may\nhave been a bit of envy mingled with their admiration, but they\ncertainly did not regard him as a fool.  They no more did so than we\nregard the man that is like him as a fool to-day.\n\nWhy then did the Master label him with this ugly name?  It was not\nbecause he had a prejudice against him.  Jesus was no soured\nmisanthrope.  He was no snarling cynic.  He did not resent a man just\nbecause he had made a success.  He was not an I. W. W. growling over\nreal or fancied wrongs.  No, the reason that Jesus called him a fool is\nbecause no other name would exactly fit him.\n\nIt is well, however, that the Master labeled this picture.  Had He not\ndone so you and I might have been tempted to put the wrong label on it.\nWe might have labeled it \"The Wise Man,\" or some such fine name.  But\nhad we done so it would have been a colossal blunder.  Had we done so I\nam persuaded that the very fiends would have howled with derisive\nlaughter.  For when we see this man as he really is, when we see him\nthrough the eyes of Him who sees things clearly, then we realize that\nthere is only one name that will exactly fit him.  Then we know that\nthat one name is the short ugly one by which he is called--\"Fool.\"\n\nBut why is he a fool?  In what does his foolishness consist?  Certainly\nit does not consist in the fact that he has made a success.  He is not\na fool simply because he is rich.  The Bible is a tremendously\nreasonable book.  It is the very climax of sanity.  It is the acme of\ngood common sense.  It never rails against rich men simply because they\nare rich.  It no more does that than it lauds poor men because they are\npoor.  It frankly recognizes the danger incident to the possession of\nriches.  It makes plain the fact that the rich man is a greatly tempted\nman.  But never is he condemned simply because he is rich.\n\nThe truth of the matter is that riches in themselves are counted\nneither good nor bad, neither moral nor immoral.  The Bible recognizes\nmoney as a real force.  What is done with this force depends upon the\none who controls it.  Money is condensed energy.  It is pent-up power.\nIt is lassoed lightning.  It is a Niagara that I can hold in my hand\nand put into my pocket.  It is a present day Aladdin's lamp.  If I\npossess this lamp a million genii stand ready to do my bidding.\nWhatever service I demand, that will they do, whether that service look\ntoward the making of men or the wrecking of men.\n\nIn case I live for self they are able to assist me in all my selfish\nenterprises.  They can provide a winter palace in the city and a summer\npalace in the mountains or down by the sea.  They can adorn my walls\nwith the choicest of paintings.  They can put the finest of carpets\nupon my floors.  They can make possible tours abroad and private boxes\nat the theatre.  They can search the treasure houses of the world and\nbring to me their rarest jewels.  They can give me a place among the\nselect four hundred, with whole columns about myself in the society\npage of the Metropolitan Daily.\n\nEven this is not all.  If I, their master, am so minded, these powerful\ngenii will defeat for me the ends of justice.  They will override the\nconstitution.  They will enable me to put a stain upon the very flag of\nmy own country.  They will make it possible for me at times to\ndisregard the rights of others.  When occasion demands they may even\npurchase at my desire the honor of manhood and the virtue of womanhood.\n\nOn the other hand, if I am a good man, I may set these genii to the\ndoing of tasks great and worthwhile.  I may command them to give\nclothing to the naked and food to the hungry.  I can order them to\nbuild better schools for the education of the world.  I can compel them\nto build better churches for the worship of God.  I can send them with\na chance in their hands for the unfortunate and the handicapped.  I can\nmake it impossible for one to say of that bright lad:--\n\n  \"But knowledge to his eyes her ample scroll,\n    Rich with the spoils of time, did ne'er unroll.\n  Chill penury suppressed his noble rage,\n    And froze the genial current of the soul.\"\n\n\nIn fact there is no high task that man is called upon to perform but\nthat these mighty genii can be of assistance.  They can help \"to heal\nthe broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and\nrecovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are\nbruised.\"  They can even make their master friends who will one day\nreceive him into everlasting habitations.\n\n  \"Dug from the mountain side, washed in the glen,\n    Servant am I of the Master of men.\n  Earn me, I bless you; steal me, I curse you;\n    Grip me and hold me, a fiend shall possess you.\n  Lie for me, die for me, covet me, take me,\n    Angel or devil, I am what you make me.\"\n\n\nNor was this man a fool because he had accumulated his money\ndishonestly.  The man who does accumulate money dishonestly is a fool.\nSo says the prophet Jeremiah and every clear thinking man must agree\nwith him.  There is a way of getting money that makes money a curse\nrather than a blessing.  There is a way of getting money that makes the\nvery eagle upon it to turn vulture to tear at your heart.\n\nBut this man had not made his money after that fashion.  He had never\nrun a saloon nor a gambling house nor a sweatshop.  There is no hint\nthat he had failed to pay an adequate wage to his laborers.  James\ncalls upon the rich men of his day to weep and howl because they were\nguilty in this respect.  But no such charge as this is laid against\nthis man.  Nor had he robbed the widow or the fatherless.  \"An orphan's\ncurse will drag to hell a spirit from on high,\" but no such curse was\non this man.\n\nHow had he made his money?  He had made it in a way that is considered\nthe most honest and upright that is possible.  He had made his money\nfarming.  Listen: \"The ground of a certain rich man brought forth\nplentifully.\"  The ground.  It smacks of cleanliness, honesty,\nuprightness.\n\n\"The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully.\"  And when\nI read that I am back on the old farm again.  As I read it there comes\nbefore me a vision of my boyhood's home.  I see the old white house\nunder the hill.  I see the sturdy apple trees in front of it and the\nforest of beech, oak and chestnut stretching away in the distance back\nof it.  I can hear the lowing of the cattle and the neighing of the\nhorses and the crowing of the cock in the barnyard.  I can hear the\ncall of the bob white to his mate, and the song of the catbird in the\nthicket at the end of the row.  I can feel the caress of the fresh\nupturned sod upon my bare feet.  I can catch the fragrance of the new\nmown hay.  I can see myself coming home in the gloaming \"as the day\nfades into golden and then into gray and then into deep blue of the\nnight sky with its myriad of stars that blossom at twilight's early\nhour like lilies on the tomb of day.\"  And when I come home I come to a\nnight of restful sleep because I have come from a clean day's work.\nNo, this man was not a fool because he had gotten his money\ndishonestly.  He had made it honestly, every dollar of it.\n\nNor was he a fool because he set about thoughtfully to save what he had\nmade.  The Bible sets no premium upon wastefulness.  God lets us know\nthat to waste anything of value is not only foolish but wicked.  What\nwas the sin of the Prodigal Son?  It was this, that he \"wasted his\nsubstance with riotous living.\"  He spent his treasure without getting\nany adequate return.\n\nThat is the tragedy of a great number of us.  I do not charge you with\noutrageous and disgraceful wickedness.  But it is true that you are not\ninvesting your life in the highest possible way.  You are squandering\nyourself on things of secondary value.  And to you God is speaking as\nhe spoke centuries ago: \"Wherefore do you spend your money for that\nwhich is not meat and your labor for that which satisfieth not?\"  You\nhave no right to waste yourself and you have just as little right to\nwaste your money which represents a part of yourself.\n\nNo, the foolishness of this man was not in the fact that he sought to\nsave what he had made.  That is right.  That is sensible.  To do\notherwise is at once wicked and little.  Big things do not waste.  This\nis a big world on which we live but it has never lost one single drop\nof water nor one single grain of sand since God flung it into space.\nAnd even Jesus Christ himself, the Lord of the universe, commanded His\ndisciples after He had fed the multitude, to gather up the fragments\nthat nothing be lost.\n\nWhy then, I repeat, does Christ call this man a fool?  His foolishness\nlay fundamentally in the fact that he was a practical atheist.  He had\nabsolutely no sense of God.  He lived as if the fact of God were an\nabsolute lie.  I do not think for a moment that he claimed to be an\natheist.  I have no doubt that he was altogether orthodox.  I have no\ndoubt that he went to the synagogue or to the temple every Sabbath day.\nBut practically he was an utter atheist.  And what is true of him is\nequally true of many another man who stands up every Sunday in Church\nto recite his creed.\n\nHow do we know that he is an atheist?  We know it by hearing him think.\nListen: \"He thought within himself.\"  Now then we are going to get to\nsee this man as he really is.  You can't always tell what a man is by\nthe way he looks.  He may look like the flower, but be the serpent\nunder it.  He may smile and smile, as Hamlet tells us, and be a\nvillain.  You can't always tell what he is by what he says.  He may\nspeak high sentiments to which his heart is a stranger.  Nor can you\ntell him by what he does.  He may \"do his alms\" simply to be seen of\nmen.  But if you can get in behind the scenes and see him think, then\nyou will know him.  Tell me, man, what you think within yourself and I\nwill tell you what you are.  For, \"As a man thinketh in his heart, so\nis he.\"\n\nNow, what did this man think?  \"He thought within himself, saying, What\nshall _I_ do for _I_ have no room where to bestow _My_ goods and _My_\nfruits?  And he said, This will _I_ do.  _I_ will pull down _My_ barns\nand build greater, and there will _I_ bestow all _My_ goods and _My_\nfruits.\"  Now we see him.  When he thought, he had not one single\nthought of God.  God was as completely ignored as if He had no\nexistence at all.  This was the very fountain source of his\nfoolishness.  He reckoned without God, and the man who reckons without\nGod is a fool.\n\nLook now how this fatal foolishness casts its blight over his entire\ncharacter.  Reckoning without God, of course, he has no sense of Divine\nownership.  Quite naturally, therefore, he thinks because he possesses\na farm, he owns a farm.  Possession and ownership mean exactly the same\nthing to a man who begins by ignoring God.  When you hear this man talk\nyou find that the only pronouns he has in his vocabulary are \"I,\" \"My\"\nand \"Mine.\"  He knows only the grammar of atheism.  He is acquainted\nonly with the vocabulary of the fool.  \"His\" and \"Ours\" and \"Yours\" are\nnot found in the fool's vocabulary.\n\nFaith, on the other hand, makes large use of the word \"His.\"  It\nrecognizes the fact that \"the earth is the Lord's and the fullness\nthereof.\"  It believes in the big truth: \"Ye are not your own.  You are\nbought with a price.\"  Faith, taking God into consideration, wisely\nreckons that you are His and that all that you possess is His.  It does\nnot concede to you the ownership of anything.  And for any man anywhere\nto-day to claim that because he possesses a farm or a bank or a brain,\nthat, therefore, he owns it is to talk not the language of a wise man\nbut the language of a fool.\n\nThis farmer's reckoning without God not only led him to confuse\npossession and ownership.  It also robbed him of his gratitude.  Crops\nwere abundant.  The farmer has prospered wonderfully.  But leaving God\nout of his thinking there is no one for this farmer to thank for his\nsuccess but himself.  He never thought of taking hold of his sluggish\nsoul and shaking it into wakefulness with this wise word, \"Bless the\nLord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits.\"  He did not concede\nthe Lord any part in it.\n\nThere are many men just like him to-day.  I was pastor in a small town\nsome years ago.  There was in that town only one rich man.  He had made\nthe money that he possessed, and they called him a self-made man.  One\nday a certain preacher, not myself, went to him to ask him for a\ndonation for some charity.  He began by reminding this man of wealth\nhow the Lord had blessed him.  And what was the reply?  It was about\nthe meanest I ever heard.  He said, \"I know the Lord has blessed me,\nbut I was there.\"\n\n\"I was there.\"  And what he meant by that was that in reality the Lord\nhad had nothing to do with it.  \"I did it all myself.  In fact, if the\nLord hadn't made the world I would.  So there is not a thing for which\nI ought to be thankful.\"  Now, the man who has no gratitude is a fool.\nHe is a fool because the right sort of thinking always leads to\nthanking.  The only kind of thinking that does not do so is the\nthinking of the practical atheist, and the practical atheist is a fool.\n\nThen this farmer had no sense of obligation.  This, too, is a natural\noutcome of his reckoning without God.  Here is a man who is looking out\non this same world upon which the farmer is looking, and he says, \"I am\na debtor both to the Greek and to the barbarian, both to the wise and\nto the unwise.\"  The reason Paul says that is because he believes in\nGod.  God has blessed him and saved him with a wonderful salvation.\nBecause of that fact he feels himself under infinite obligation to\npreach the Gospel that has saved himself.  But this man, this fool, has\nonly himself to thank for his prosperity.  Therefore he has a right to\nuse his wealth as he pleases.  The man who has no sense of obligation,\nthe man who tells you that he has a right to do as he pleases with his\npossessions is proclaiming to you not a new rule of ethics.  He is\nsimply telling you in unmistakable language that he is a fool.\n\nThis man showed himself a fool, last of all, by the confidence that he\nplaced in things.  Ignoring God he sought to find a substitute for God\nin abundant crops.  He undertook to treat his soul as he would treat\nhis sheep and his goats.  Here he was, an immortal man.  Here he was,\ndestined to live when this old world has been a wreck for billions of\nyears.  And what provision does he make for himself?  The same that he\nmakes for his horses and his oxen and his asses.  Of course, as one has\npointed out, it was not foolish for him to make some provision for the\nfew years he might live here.  He was a fool for refusing to make\nprovision for the eternity that he must live.\n\n\"Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many days.  Eat, drink and be\nmerry.\"  Did ever you hear words that were more stamped with moral\nidiocy?  You can see from them that his soul has not fared well up to\nthis time.  You can easily tell from these words that his moral nature\nhas been starved and stunted.  We can easily tell that all his gettings\nhave not satisfied him in the past.  And yet he is vainly expecting\nsatisfaction in the future.  Now it is obvious that the man who forgets\nGod, who turns aside to the worship of things, plays the fool.\n\nSo you see why the Master calls this shrewd farmer a fool.  He began by\nreckoning without God.  He virtually said in his heart, \"There is no\nGod.\"  He went wrong in the very center of his nature.  This put the\nblight of moral imbecility on his whole life.  He turned to his\npossessions and sought to satisfy his soul with them.  He received them\nwithout gratitude and held them without any sense of obligation, for he\nthought to possess was to own.\n\nNow the Master, lest we should pull our skirts about us and thank God\nthat we are not as this man, forces the truth home upon our own hearts.\n\"So,\" He says, \"is he that layeth up treasure for himself and is not\nrich toward God.\"  That is, just the same kind of fool and just as big\na fool is that man to-day who reckons without God and lives only for\nhimself.  If you are living your life in selfishness, however\nrespectable that selfishness may be, you are just the same kind of fool\nand just as great a fool as is this rich man of the story.\n\nNow the tragedy of this story, I take it, is that the foolishness of\nthis farmer was self-chosen.  His riches might have been a blessing to\nhim here and a blessing through all eternity.  In spite of the fact\nthat he was rich in this world's goods he might also have been, in the\ntruest sense, rich toward God.  In fact, he might have been richer\ntoward God with his wealth than without it.  With it he might have\nexercised a far larger usefulness than he could have done without it.\nBut he chose to ignore God and to rob himself and thus brand himself a\nfool now and evermore.\n\nDon't forget that you and I may make the same tragic wreck of our\nlives.  The only way to avoid doing so is to go right where this man\nwent wrong.  There is a sure road to spiritual enrichment.  \"Though he\nwere rich, yet for our sakes he became poor that we, through his\npoverty, might be rich.\"  This wealth is no fabled bag of gold at the\nend of the rainbow.  I can so direct you to this treasure that you will\nbe sure to find it.  This is the road: \"Yield yourselves unto God.\"\nThat is your first duty.  That is your highest wisdom.  Recognize God\nas owner of yourself.  Recognize God as the owner of all that you have.\nGive all to Him and He will give all to you.  \"For He that spared not\nHis own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall He not with him\nalso freely give us all things.\"  To have that treasure is to be rich\nforever more.  To be thus rich is to be eternally wise.\n\n\n\n\nTHE END","title":"Sermons on Biblical Characters","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":56974}