{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_27514/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_27514","id":"gutenberg_27514","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/27514","summary":null,"tags":["Bible -- Influence","Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Christian biography"],"text":"Produced by David Wilson, David King, and the Online\nDistributed Proofreaders Team at https://www.pgdp.net. (This\nfile was produced from images generously made available\nby The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries.)\n\n\n\n\n\nA HANDFUL OF STARS\n\nTEXTS THAT HAVE MOVED GREAT MINDS\n\nBY\n\nF. W. BOREHAM\n\n\nTHE ABINGDON PRESS\nNEW YORK     CINCINNATI\n\nCopyright, 1922, by\nF. W. BOREHAM\n\nPrinted in the United States of America\n\nFirst Edition Printed March, 1922\nReprinted June, 1922\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\nI. William Penn's Text               9\n\nII. Robinson Crusoe's Text          21\n\nIII. James Chalmers' Text           33\n\nIV. Sydney Carton's Text            45\n\nV. Ebenezer Erskine's Text          57\n\nVI. Doctor Davidson's Text          69\n\nVII. Henry Martyn's Text            78\n\nVIII. Michael Trevanion's Text      90\n\nIX. Hudson Taylor's Text           102\n\nX. Rodney Steele's Text            113\n\nXI. Thomas Huxley's Text           125\n\nXII. Walter Petherick's Text       137\n\nXIII. Doctor Blund's Text          149\n\nXIV. Hedley Vicars' Text           160\n\nXV. Silas Wright's Text            172\n\nXVI. Michael Faraday's Text        182\n\nXVII. Janet Dempster's Text        193\n\nXVIII. Catherine Booth's Text      204\n\nXIX. Uncle Tom's Text              216\n\nXX. Andrew Bonar's Text            227\n\nXXI. Francis d'Assisi's Text       237\n\nXXII. Everybody's Text             250\n\n\n\n\nBY WAY OF INTRODUCTION\n\n\nIt is not good that a book should be alone: this is a companion volume\nto _A Bunch of Everlastings_. 'O God,' cried Caliban from the abyss,\n\n  O God, if you wish for our love,\n  Fling us _a handful of stars_!\n\nThe Height evidently accepted the challenge of the Depth. Heaven\nhungered for the love of Earth, and so the stars were thrown. I have\ngathered up a few, and, like children with their beads and berries, have\nthreaded them upon this string. It will be seen that they do not all\nbelong to the same constellation. Most of them shed their luster over\nthe stern realities of life: a few glittered in the firmament of\nfiction. It matters little. A great romance is a portrait of humanity,\npainted by a master-hand. When the novelist employs the majestic words\nof revelation to transfigure the lives of his characters, he does so\nbecause, in actual experience, he finds those selfsame words indelibly\nengraven upon the souls of men. And, after all, _Sydney Carton's Text_\nis really _Charles Dickens' Text_; _Robinson Crusoe's Text_ is _Daniel\nDefoe's Text_; the text that stands embedded in the pathos of _Uncle\nTom's Cabin_ is the text that Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe had enthroned\nwithin her heart. Moreover, to whatever group these splendid orbs\nbelong, their deathless radiance has been derived, in every case, from\nthe perennial Fountain of all Beauty and Brightness.\n\nFrank W. Boreham.\n\nArmadale, Melbourne, Australia.\n\n\n\n\nI\n\nWILLIAM PENN'S TEXT\n\n\nI\n\nThe Algonquin chiefs are gathered in solemn conclave. They make a wild\nand striking and picturesque group. They are assembled under the\nwide-spreading branches of a giant elm, not far from the banks of the\nDelaware. It is easy to see that something altogether unusual is afoot.\nRanging themselves in the form of a crescent, these men of scarred limbs\nand fierce visage fasten their eyes curiously upon a white man who,\nstanding against the bole of the elm, comes to them as white man never\ncame before. He is a young man of about eight and thirty, wearing about\nhis lithe and well-knit figure a sash of skyblue silk. He is tall,\nhandsome and of commanding presence. His movements are easy, agile and\nathletic; his manner is courtly, graceful and pleasing; his voice,\nwhilst deep and firm, is soft and agreeable; his face inspires instant\nconfidence. He has large lustrous eyes which seem to corroborate and\nconfirm every word that falls from his lips. These tattooed warriors\nread him through and through, as they have trained themselves to do, and\nthey feel that they can trust him. In his hand he holds a roll of\nparchment. For this young man in the skyblue sash is William Penn. He is\nmaking his famous treaty with the Indians. It is one of the most\nremarkable instruments ever completed. 'It is the only treaty,' Voltaire\ndeclares, 'that was ever made without an oath, and the only treaty that\nnever was broken.' By means of this treaty with the Indians, William\nPenn is beginning to realize the greatest aspiration of his life. For\nWilliam Penn has set his heart on being the Conqueror of the World!\n\n\nII\n\nStrangely enough, it was a Quaker who fired the young man's fancy with\nthis proud ambition. Thomas Loe was William Penn's good angel. There\nseemed to be no reason why their paths should cross, yet their paths\nwere always crossing. A subtle and inexplicable magnetism drew them\ntogether. Penn's father--Sir William Penn--was an admiral, owning an\nestate in Ireland. When William was but a small boy, Thomas Loe visited\nCork. The coming of the Quaker caused a mild sensation; nobody knew what\nto make of it. Moved largely by curiosity, the admiral invited the\nquaint preacher to visit him. He did so, and, before leaving, addressed\nthe assembled household. William was too young to understand, but he was\nstartled when, in the midst of the address, a colored servant wept\naloud. The boy turned in his astonishment to his father, only to notice\nthat tears were making their way down the bronzed cheeks of the admiral.\nThe incident filled him with wonder and perplexity. He never forgot it.\nIt left upon his mind an indelible impression of the intense reality of\nall things spiritual. As a schoolboy, he would wander in the forests\nthat so richly surrounded his Essex home, and give himself to rapt and\nsilent contemplation. On one occasion, he tells us, he 'was suddenly\nsurprised with an inward comfort.' It seemed to him as if a heavenly\nglory irradiated the room in which he was sitting. He felt that he could\nnever afterwards doubt the existence of God nor question the possibility\nof the soul's access to Him.\n\nIt was at Oxford that the boy's path crossed that of the Quaker for the\n_second_ time. When, as a lad of sixteen, William Penn went up to the\nUniversity, he found to his surprise that Oxford was the home of Thomas\nLoe. There the good man had already suffered imprisonment for conscience\nsake. The personality of the Quaker appealed to the reflective\ntemperament of the young student, whilst the good man's sufferings for\nhis convictions awoke his profoundest sympathies. To the horror of his\nfather, he ardently espoused the persecuted cause, involving himself in\nsuch disfavor with the authorities of the University that they\nperemptorily ordered his dismissal.\n\nBut it was the third crossing of the paths that most deeply and\npermanently affected the destinies of William Penn. Soon after his\nexpulsion from Oxford, he was appointed Victualler of the Squadron lying\noff Kinsale, and was authorized to reside at, and manage, his father's\nIrish estate. It was whilst he was thus engaged that Thomas Loe\nre-visited Cork. Penn, of course, attended the meetings. 'It was in\nthis way,' he tells us, 'that God, in His everlasting kindness, guided\nmy feet in the flower of my youth, when about two and twenty years of\nage. He visited me with a certain testimony of His eternal Word through\na Quaker named Thomas Loe.' The text at that memorable and historic\nservice, like a nail in a sure place, fastened itself upon the mind of\nthe young officer. Thomas Loe preached from the words: '_This is the\nvictory that overcometh the world, even our faith._'\n\n_The faith that overcomes!_\n\n_The faith by which a man may conquer the world!_\n\n_The faith that is itself a victory!_\n\n'_This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith!_'\n\nPenn was electrified. His whole being was stirred to its depths. 'The\nundying fires of enthusiasm at once blazed up within him,' one record\ndeclares. 'He was exceedingly reached and wept much,' the Quaker\nchronicle assures us. He renounced every hope that he had ever cherished\nin order that he might realize this one. This was in 1666--the year in\nwhich London was devoured by the flames.\n\n'Penn's conversion,' says Dr. Stoughton, 'was now completed. That\nconversion must not be regarded simply as a change of opinion. It\npenetrated his moral nature. It made him a new man. He rose into another\nsphere of spiritual life and consciousness.'\n\nIn his lecture on _Evangelist_, Dr. Alexander Whyte says that the first\nminister whose words were truly blessed of God for our awakening and\nconversion has always a place of his own in our hearts. Thomas Loe\ncertainly had a place peculiarly his own in the heart of William Penn.\nPenn was with him at the last.\n\n'Stand true to God!' cried the dying Quaker, as he clasped the hand of\nhis most notable convert. 'Stand faithful for God! There is no other\nway! This is the way in which the holy men of old all walked. Walk in it\nand thou shalt prosper! Live for God and He will be with you! I can say\nno more. The love of God overcomes my heart!'\n\n_The love that overcomes!_\n\n_The faith that overcomes!_\n\n'_This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith!_'\n\n\nIII\n\nWilliam Penn realized his dream. He became the Conqueror of the World.\nIndeed, he conquered not one world, but two. Or perhaps, after all, they\nwere merely two hemispheres of the selfsame world. One was the World\n_Within_; the other was the World _Without_; and, of the two, the\n_first_ is always the harder to conquer.\n\nThe victory that overcometh _the world_! What is _the world_? The\nPuritans talked much about _the world_; and Penn was the contemporary of\nthe Puritans. Cromwell died just as the admiral was preparing to send\nhis son to Oxford. Whilst at Cork, Penn sat listening to Thomas Loe's\nsermon on _the faith that overcometh the world_, John Milton was putting\nthe finishing touches to _Paradise Lost_, and John Bunyan was\nlanguishing in Bedford Gaol. Each of the three had something to say\nabout _the world_. To Cromwell it was, as he told his daughter,\n'whatever cooleth thine affection after Christ.' Bunyan gave his\ndefinition of _the world_ in his picture of Vanity Fair. Milton likened\n_the world_ to an obscuring mist--a fog that renders dim and indistinct\nthe great realities and vitalities of life. It is an atmosphere that\nchills the finest delicacies and sensibilities of the soul. It is too\nsubtle and too elusive to be judged by external appearances. In his fine\ntreatment of _the world_, Bishop Alexander cites, by way of\nillustration, still another of the contemporaries of William Penn. He\npaints a pair of companion pictures. He depicts a gay scene at the\nfrivolous and dissolute Court of Charles the Second; and, beside it, he\ndescribes a religious assembly of the same period. The _first_ gathering\nappears to be altogether worldly: the _second_ has nothing of _the\nworld_ about it. Yet, he says, Mary Godolphin lived her life at Court\nwithout being tainted by any shadow of worldliness, whilst many a man\nwent up to those solemn assemblies with _the world_ raging furiously\nwithin his soul!\n\nWilliam Penn saw _the world_ in his heart that day as he listened to\nThomas Loe; and, in order that he might overcome it, he embraced the\nfaith that the Quaker proclaimed. '_This is the victory that overcometh\nthe world, even our faith._' And by that faith he overcame _the world_.\nMany years afterwards he himself told the story.\n\n'The Lord first appeared to me,' he says, in his _Journal_, 'in the\ntwelfth year of my age, and He visited me at intervals afterwards and\ngave me divine impressions of Himself. He sustained me through the\ndarkness and debauchery of Oxford, through all my experiences in France,\nthrough the trials that arose from my father's harshness, and through\nthe terrors of the Great Plague. He gave me a deep sense of the vanity\nof the world and of the irreligiousness of the religions of it. The\nglory of the world often overtook me, and I was ever ready to give\nmyself up to it.' But, invariably, _the faith that overcometh the world_\nproved victorious. In his monumental _History of the United States_,\nBancroft says that, splendid as were the triumphs of Penn, his greatest\nconquest was the conquest of his own soul. Extraordinary as was the\ngreatness of his mind; remarkable, both for universality and precision,\nas were the vast conceptions of his genius; profound as was his\nscholarship, and astute as was his diplomacy; the historian is convinced\nthat, in the last resort, his greatest contribution to history is the\ndevelopment and influence of his impressive and robust character. 'He\nwas prepared for his work,' Bancroft says, 'by the severe discipline of\nlife; and love without dissimulation formed the basis of his being. The\nsentiment of cheerful humanity was irrepressibly strong in his bosom;\nbenevolence gushed prodigally from his ever overflowing heart; and when,\nin his late old age, his intellect was impaired and his reason\nprostrated, his sweetness of disposition rose serenely over the clouds\nof disease.' The winsomeness of his ways and the courtliness of his\nbearing survived for many months the collapse of his memory and the loss\nof his powers of speech.\n\nSuch was his faith's _first_ victory. It was the conquest of the world\n_within_.\n\n\nIV\n\n'_This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith._' It\nwas by his faith that he obtained his _second_ great triumph--his\nconquest of the world _without_. He disarmed nations by confiding in\nthem. He bound men to himself by trusting them. He vanquished men by\nbelieving in them. It was always by his faith that he overcame.\n\nWhen the admiral died, the nation was in his debt to the extent of\nsixteen thousand pounds. This amount--on its recovery--Sir William\nbequeathed to his son. In due time the matter was compounded, William\nPenn agreeing to accept an immense belt of virgin forest in North\nAmerica in full settlement of his claim. He resolved to establish a new\ncolony across the seas under happier conditions than any State had ever\nknown. It should be called Pennsylvania; it should be the land of\nfreedom; its capital should be named Philadelphia--the City of Brotherly\nLove. He was reminded that his first task would be to subdue the\nIndians. The savages, everybody said, must be conquered; and William\nPenn made up his mind to conquer them; but he determined to conquer them\nin his own way. '_This is the victory that overcometh the world, even\nour faith._' The Indians were accustomed to slaughter. They understood\nno language but the language of the tomahawk and the scalping-knife.\nEver since the white man had landed on American shores, the forests had\nresounded with the war-whoops of the tribesmen. One night a colonial\nsettlement had been raided by the red men: the next an Indian village\nhad been burned, and its inhabitants massacred by the outraged whites.\nThe Indians looked with hatred upon the smoke of the English\nsettlements; the settlers dreaded the forests which protected the\nambush, and secured the retreat of their murderous foes. William Penn\nconquered the Indians, and conquered them--according to his text--_by\nhis faith_. 'He will always be mentioned with honor,' Macaulay says, 'as\na founder of a colony who did not, in his dealings with a savage people,\nabuse the strength derived from civilization, and as a lawgiver who, in\nan age of persecution, made religious liberty the cornerstone of his\npolicy.'\n\nImmediately upon his arrival he called the Indians to meet him. They\ngathered under the great elm at Shakamaxon--a spot that is now marked by\na monument. He approached the chiefs unarmed; and they, in return, threw\naway their bows and arrows. Presents were exchanged and speeches made.\nPenn told the natives that he desired nothing but their friendship. He\nundertook that neither he nor any of his friends should ever do the\nslightest injury to the person or the property of an Indian; and they,\nin reply, bound themselves 'to live in love with Onas'--as they called\nhim--'and with the children of Onas, as long as the sun and the moon\nshall endure.' 'This treaty of peace and friendship was made,' as\nBancroft says, 'under the open sky, by the side of the Delaware, with\nthe sun and the river and the forest for witnesses. It was not confirmed\nby an oath; it was not ratified by signatures and seals; no written\nrecord of the conference can be found; and its terms and conditions had\nno abiding monument, but on the heart. _There_ they were written like\nthe law of God and were never forgotten. The simple sons of the\nwilderness, returning to their wigwams, kept the history of the covenant\nby strings of wampum, and, long afterwards, in their cabins, they would\ncount over the shells on a clean piece of bark and recall to their own\nmemory, and repeat to their children or to the stranger, the words of\nWilliam Penn.' The world laughed at the fantastic agreement; but the\nworld noticed, at the same time, that, whilst the neighboring colonies\nwere being drenched in blood and decimated by the barbarity of the\nMohicans and the Delawares, the hearths of Pennsylvania enjoyed an\nundisturbed repose. No drop of Quaker blood was ever shed by an Indian.\nSo complete was the victory of the faith of William Penn!\n\nNor was the conquest merely negative. When, after a few years, the\nQuakers began to swarm across the Atlantic to people the new settlement,\nthey were confronted by experiences such as await all pioneers, in young\ncolonies. There were times of stress and privation and hardship. The\nstern voice of necessity commanded even delicate women to undertake\ntasks for which their frames were far too frail. In that emergency the\nIndians came to the rescue. The red men worked for them, trapped for\nthem, hunted for them, and served them in a thousand ways. 'You are all\nthe children of Onas!' they said. Nothing delighted the Indians more\nthan to receive the great Onas as their guest. A feast was arranged in\nthe depths of the forest, bucks were killed, cakes were cooked, and the\nwhole tribe abandoned itself to festivity and rejoicing. And when, years\nafterwards, they heard that Onas was dead, they sent his widow a\ncharacteristic message of sympathy, accompanied by a present of\nbeautiful furs. 'These skins,' they said, 'are to protect you whilst\npassing through the thorny wilderness without your guide.' The story of\nthe founding of Pennsylvania is, as a classical writer finely says, 'one\nof the most beautiful incidents in the history of the age.' It was the\nvictory of faith--_the faith that overcometh the world_!\n\n\nV\n\n'_This is the Victory!_'\n\n'_The Victory that overcometh the World!_'\n\n_The World Within! The World Without!_\n\n'His character always triumphed,' says Bancroft. 'His name was fondly\ncherished as a household word in the cottages of the old world; and not\na tenant of a wigwam from the Susquehannah to the sea doubted his\nintegrity. His fame is as wide as the world: he is one of the few who\nhave gained abiding glory.'\n\n_The Conquest of the world!_\n\n'_Nobody doubted his integrity!_'\n\n'_He gained abiding glory!_'\n\n'_This is the Victory that overcometh the World, even our Faith!_'\n\n\n\n\nII\n\nROBINSON CRUSOE'S TEXT\n\n\nI\n\nDuring the years that Robinson Crusoe spent upon the island, his most\ndistinguished visitor was a text. Three times it came knocking at the\ndoor of his hut, and at the door of his heart. It came to him as his\n_doctor_ in the day of sore sickness; it came as his _minister_ when his\nsoul was in darkness and distress; and it came as his _deliverer_ in the\nhour of his most extreme peril.\n\nNine months after the shipwreck Crusoe was overtaken by a violent fever.\nHis situation filled him with alarm, for he had no one to advise him, no\none to help him, no one to care whether he lived or died. The prospect\nof death filled him with ungovernable terror.\n\n'Suddenly,' he says, 'it occurred to my thought that the Brazilians take\nno physic but tobacco for all their distempers, and I remembered that I\nhad a roll of tobacco in one of the chests that I had saved from the\nwreck. I went, directed by heaven no doubt; for in this chest I found a\ncure both for soul and body. I opened the chest and found the tobacco\nthat I was looking for; and I also found a Bible which, up to this time,\nI had found neither leisure nor inclination to look into. I took up the\nBible and began to read. Having opened the book casually, the first\nwords that occurred to me were these: \"_Call upon Me in the day of\ntrouble, and I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify Me._\" The words\nwere very apt to my case. They made a great impression upon me and I\nmused upon them very often. I left my lamp burning in the cave lest I\nshould want anything in the night, and went to bed. But before I lay\ndown I did what I never had done in all my life--I kneeled down and\nprayed. I asked God to fulfil the promise to me that if I called upon\nHim in the day of trouble He would deliver me.'\n\nThose who have been similarly situated know what such prayers are worth.\n'When the devil was sick the devil a saint would be.' Crusoe's prayer\nwas the child of his terror. He was prepared to snatch at anything which\nmight stand between him and a lonely death. When he called for\ndeliverance, he meant deliverance from sickness and solitude; but it was\nnot of _that_ deliverance that the text had come to speak. When,\ntherefore, the crisis had passed, the text repeated its visit. It came\nto him in time of health.\n\n'Now,' says Crusoe, 'I began to construe the words that I had\nread--\"_Call upon Me in the day of trouble, and I will deliver thee, and\nthou shalt glorify Me_\"--in a different sense from what I had done\nbefore. For then I had no notion of any deliverance but my deliverance\nfrom the captivity I was in. But now I learned to take it in another\nsense. Now I looked back upon my past life with such horror, and my sins\nappeared so dreadful, that my soul sought nothing of God but deliverance\nfrom the load of guilt that bore down all my comfort. As for my lonely\nlife, it was nothing. I did not so much as pray for deliverance from my\nsolitude; it was of no consideration in comparison with deliverance from\nmy sin.'\n\nThis _second_ visit of the text brought him, Crusoe tells us, a great\ndeal of comfort. So did the third. That _third_ memorable visit was paid\neleven years later. Everybody remembers the stirring story. 'It happened\none day, about noon,' Crusoe says. 'I was exceedingly surprised, on\ngoing towards my boat, to see the print of a man's naked foot on the\nshore. I stood like one thunderstruck, or as if I had seen a ghost. I\nexamined it again and again to make sure that it was not my fancy; and\nthen, confused with terror, I fled, like one pursued, to my\nfortification, scarcely feeling the ground I trod on, looking behind me\nat every two or three steps, and fancying every stump to be a man.' It\nwas on his arrival at his fortification that the text came to him the\nthird time.\n\n'Lying in my bed,' he says, 'filled with thoughts of my danger from the\nappearance of savages, my mind was greatly discomposed. Then, suddenly,\nthese words of Scripture came into my thoughts: \"_Call upon Me in the\nday of trouble, and I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify Me._\"\nUpon this, rising cheerfully out of my bed, I was guided and encouraged\nto pray earnestly to God for deliverance. It is impossible to express\nthe comfort this gave me. In answer, I thankfully laid down the Book and\nwas no more sad.'\n\nThese, then, were the three visits that the text paid to Crusoe on his\ndesolate island. '_Call upon Me in the day of trouble, and I will\ndeliver thee, and thou shalt glorify Me._'\n\nWhen the text came to him the _first_ time, he called for deliverance\nfrom _sickness_; and was in a few days well.\n\nWhen the text came to him the _second_ time, he called for deliverance\nfrom _sin_; and was led to a crucified and exalted Saviour.\n\nWhen the text came to him the _third_ time, he called for deliverance\nfrom _savages_; and the savages, so far from hurting a hair of his head,\nfurnished him with his man Friday, the staunchest, truest friend he ever\nhad.\n\n'_Call upon Me_,' said the text, not once, nor twice, but thrice. And,\nthree times over, Crusoe called, and each time was greatly and\nwonderfully delivered.\n\n\nII\n\n_Robinson Crusoe_ was written in 1719; exactly a century later _The\nMonastery_ was published. And, significantly enough, the text which\nshines with such luster in Daniel Defoe's masterpiece forms also the\npivot of Sir Walter Scott's weird story. Mary Avenel comes to the climax\nof her sorrows. She seems to have lost everything and everybody. Her\nlife is desolate; her grief is inconsolable. Her faithful attendant,\nTibbie, exhausts herself in futile attempts to compose and comfort the\nmind of her young mistress. Father Eustace does his best to console her;\nbut she feels that it is all words, words, words. All at once, however,\nshe comes upon her mother's Bible--the Bible that had passed through so\nmany strange experiences and had been so wonderfully preserved.\nRemembering that this little Book was her mother's constant stay and\nsolace--her counselor in time of perplexity and her comfort in the hour\nof grief--Mary seized it, Sir Walter says, with as much joy as her\nmelancholy situation permitted her to feel. Ignorant as she was of its\ncontents, she had nevertheless learned from infancy to hold the Volume\nin sacred veneration. On opening it, she found that, among the leaves,\nthere were texts neatly inscribed in her mother's handwriting. In Mary's\npresent state of mind, these passages, reaching her at a time so\ncritical and in a manner so touching, strangely affected her. She read\non one of these slips the consoling exhortation: '_Call upon Me in the\nday of trouble, and I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify Me._'\n'There are those,' Sir Walter says, 'to whom a sense of religion has\ncome in storm and tempest; there are those whom it has summoned amid\nscenes of revelry and idle vanity; there are those, too, who have heard\nits still small voice amid rural leisure and placid contentment. But\nperhaps the knowledge which causeth not to err is most frequently\nimpressed upon the mind during seasons of affliction; and tears are the\nsoftened showers which cause the seed of heaven to spring and take root\nin the human breast. At least, it was thus with Mary Avenel. She read\nthe words--\"_Call upon Me in the day of trouble, and I will deliver\nthee, and thou shalt glorify Me_\"--and her heart acquiesced in the\nconclusion: Surely this is the Word of God!'\n\nIn the case of Mary Avenel, the resultant deliverance was as dramatic as\nin the case of Robinson Crusoe. I turn a few pages of _The Monastery_,\nand I come upon this:\n\n'The joyful news that Halbert Glendinning--Mary's lover--still lived was\nquickly communicated through the sorrowing family. His mother wept and\nthanked heaven alternately. On Mary Avenel the impression was\ninconceivably deeper. She had newly learned to pray, and it seemed to\nher that her prayers had been instantly answered. She felt that the\ncompassion of heaven, which she had learned to implore in the very words\nof Scripture--\"_Call upon Me in the day of trouble, and I will deliver\nthee, and thou shalt glorify Me_\"--had descended upon her after a manner\nalmost miraculous, and recalled the dead from the grave at the sound of\nher lamentations.'\n\nI lay _this_, written by Sir Walter Scott, in 1819, beside _that_,\nwritten by Daniel Defoe in 1719. In the mouths of two such witnesses\nshall every word be established.\n\n\nIII\n\nWhat was it that led both Daniel Defoe and Sir Walter Scott to give the\ntext such prominence? What was it in the text that appealed so\nirresistibly to Robinson Crusoe and to Mary Avenel? The answer is\nfourfold.\n\n1. It was the _Charm of Companionship_. Robinson Crusoe fancied that he\nwas alone upon his island. Mary Avenel fancied that she was left\nfriendless and forsaken. They were both mistaken; and it was the text\nthat showed them their mistake. '_Call upon Me in the day of trouble,\nand I will deliver thee._' If such a Deliverer is at hand--so near as to\nbe within sound of their voices--how can Robinson Crusoe be solitary or\nMary Avenel forsaken?\n\n  Speak to Him, thou, for He hears; spirit with spirit can meet--\n  Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet!\n\nIf there be a shadow of truth in Robinson Crusoe's text, there is no\nsuch thing as loneliness for any of us!\n\n2. It was the _Ring of Certainty_. There is a strange and holy dogmatism\nabout the great evangelical promises. '_Call and I will deliver._' Other\nphysicians say: 'I will come and do my best.' The Great Physician says:\n'I will come and heal him.' _The Son of Man is come to seek and to save\nthat which is lost._ He did not embark upon a magnificent effort; He\ncame to do it.\n\n3. It was the _Claim of Monopoly_. 'Call upon _Me_ in the day of\ntrouble, and _I_ will deliver thee.' It suggests the utter absence of\nalternatives, of selection, of picking and choosing. In the straits of\nthe soul, the issues are wonderfully simple. There is none other Name\ngiven under heaven among men whereby we must be saved. It is _this_\nCompanion--or solitude; _this_ Deliverer--or captivity; _this_\nSaviour--or none.\n\n4. It was the _Absence of Technicality_. '_Call!_'--that is all. '_Call\nupon Me in the day of trouble, and I will deliver thee, and thou shalt\nglorify Me!_' _Call!_--as a little child calls for his mother.\n_Call!_--as a drowning man calls for help. _Call!_--as a frenzied woman\ncalls wildly for succor. There are great emergencies in which we do not\nfastidiously choose our words. It is not the mind but the heart that, at\nsuch moments, gives to the tongue its noblest eloquence. The prayer that\nmoves Omnipotence to pity, and summons all the hosts of heaven to help,\nis not the prayer of nicely rounded periods--Faultily faultless, icily\nregular, splendidly null--but the prayer of passionate entreaty. It is a\n_call_--a call such as a doctor receives at dead of night; a call such\nas the fireman receives when all the alarms are clanging; a call such as\nthe ships receive in mid-ocean, when, hurtling through the darkness and\nthe void, there comes the wireless message, 'S.O.S.' '_Call upon Me in\nthe day of trouble, and I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify\nMe._' Had the text demanded a tinge of technicality it would have been\nuseless to Robinson Crusoe; it would have mocked the simple soul of poor\nMary Avenel. But a call! Robinson Crusoe can call! Mary Avenel can call!\nAnybody can call! Wherefore, '_call_,' says the text, '_just call, and\nHe will deliver_!'\n\n\nIV\n\nBut I need not have resorted to fiction for a testimony to the value and\nefficacy of the text--striking and significant as that testimony is. I\nneed have summoned neither Daniel Defoe nor Sir Walter Scott. I could\nhave dispensed with both Robinson Crusoe and Mary Avenel. I could have\ncalled a King and Queen to bear all the witness that I wanted.\n\nKing Edward the Seventh!\n\nAnd Queen Alexandra!\n\nFor Robinson Crusoe's text is King Edward's text; and Mary Avenel's text\nis Queen Alexandra's text. There are men and women still living who\nremember those dark and dreadful days of December, 1871, when it seemed\nas if the life of King Edward--then Prince of Wales--hung by a single\nthread. Nobody thought of anything else; the whole world seemed to\nsurround that royal sickbed; the Empire was in a state of breathless\nsuspense. Sunday, the tenth of December, was set aside as a Day of\nSolemn Intercession, and the strained intensity of the public anxiety\nreflected itself in crowded but hushed congregations.\n\nAnd what was going on at the inner heart of things? Early that Sunday\nmorning, the Princess--afterwards Queen Alexandra--opened her Bible and\nwas greeted with these words: '_Call upon Me in the day of trouble, and\nI will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify Me._' A little later, just\nas the Vicar of Sandringham, the Rev. W. L. Onslow, was preparing to\nenter his pulpit, he received a note from the Princess. 'My husband\nbeing, thank God, somewhat better,' she wrote, 'I am coming to church. I\nmust leave, I fear, before the service is concluded, that I may watch by\nhis bedside. Can you not say a few words in prayer in the early part of\nthe service, that I may join with you in prayer for my husband before I\nreturn to him?' The congregation was deeply affected when the Princess\nappeared, and the rector, with trembling voice, said: 'The prayers of\nthe congregation are earnestly sought for His Royal Highness, the Prince\nof Wales, who is now most seriously ill.' This was on December the\ntenth. For the next few days the Prince hovered between life and death.\nThe crisis came on the fourteenth, which, ominously enough, was the\nanniversary of the death of the Prince Consort. But, whilst the\nsuperstitious shook their heads, the Princess clung desperately and\nbelievingly to the hope that the text had brought her. And that day, in\na way that was almost dramatic, the change came. Sir William Gull, the\nroyal physician, had done all that the highest human skill could\nsuggest; he felt that the issue was now in other hands than his. He was\ntaking a short walk up and down the terrace, when one of the nurses came\nrunning to him with pallid face and startled eyes. 'Oh, come, Sir\nWilliam,' she said, 'there is a change; the Prince is worse!' And, as\ndoctor and nurse hurried together to the sick room, she added bitterly,\n'I do not believe God answers prayer! Here is all England praying that\nhe may recover, and he's going to die!' But Sir William Gull's first\nglance at the Royal patient showed him that the change was for the\nbetter. From that moment there was a sure hope of the Prince's recovery,\nand, by Christmas Day, he was out of danger. Later on, when her\nhusband's restoration was complete, the Princess raised a monument to\nthe deliverance that she had experienced. She presented to the\nSandringham Church a brass lectern bearing this inscription: 'To the\nglory of God; a thank offering for His mercy; 14th December,\n1871.--Alexandra. _When_ _I was in trouble I called upon the Lord, and\nHe heard me._'\n\nNor is that quite the end of the story. Thirty years later, the Prince\nascended the throne. He was to have been crowned on June 26, 1902; but\nagain he was stricken down by serious illness. He recovered, however,\nand the Coronation took place on the ninth of August. Those familiar\nwith the Coronation Service noticed a striking innovation. The words:\n'_When I was in trouble, I called upon the Lord, and He heard me_,' were\nintroduced into one of the prayers. 'The words,' Archdeacon Wilberforce\nafterwards explained, 'were written by the King's own hand, and were\nused by the Archbishop at His Majesty's express command.'\n\n'_Call upon Me in the day of trouble, and I will deliver thee, and thou\nshalt glorify Me_,' says the text.\n\n'_When I was in trouble, I called upon the Lord, and He heard me_,' said\nKing Edward and Queen Alexandra.\n\n'I was in trouble through my _sickness_, and in trouble through my\n_sin_,' said Robinson Crusoe, 'and when I called upon the Lord, He heard\nand delivered me.'\n\nSo true is it that _whosoever shall call on the Name of the Lord, the\nsame shall be saved_.\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\nJAMES CHALMERS' TEXT\n\n\nI\n\nHe was 'a broth of a boy,' his biographer tells us. He lived chiefly on\nboots and boxes. Eager to know what lay beyond the ranges, he wore out\nmore boots than his poor parents found it easy to provide. Taunted by\nthe constant vision of the restless waters, he put out to sea in broken\nboxes and leaky barrels, that he might follow in the wake of the great\nnavigators. He was a born adventurer. Almost as soon as he first opened\nhis eyes and looked around him, he felt that the world was very wide and\nvowed that he would find its utmost edges. From his explorations of the\nhills and glens around his village home, he often returned too exhausted\neither to eat or sleep. From his ventures upon the ocean he was more\nthan once brought home on a plank, apparently drowned. 'The wind and the\nsea were his playmates,' we are told; 'he was as much at home in the\nwater as on the land; in fishing, sailing, climbing over the rocks, and\nwandering among the silent hills, he spent a free, careless, happy\nboyhood.' Every day had its own romance, its hairbreadth escape, its\nthrilling adventure.\n\nTherein lies the difference between a man and a beast. At just about the\ntime at which James Chalmers was born in Scotland, Captain Sturt led his\nfamous expedition into the hot and dusty heart of Australia. When he\nreached Cooper's Creek on the return journey, he found that he had more\nhorses than he would be able to feed; so he turned one of them out on\nthe banks of the creek and left it there. When Burke and Wills reached\nCooper's Creek twenty years later, the horse was still grazing\npeacefully on the side of the stream, and looked up at the explorers\nwith no more surprise or excitement than it would have shown if but\ntwenty hours had passed since it last saw human faces. It had found air\nto breathe and water to drink and grass to nibble; what did it care\nabout the world? But with man it is otherwise. He wants to know what is\non the other side of the hill, what is on the other side of the water,\nwhat is on the other side of the world! If he cannot go North, South,\nEast and West himself, he must at least have his newspaper; and the\nnewspaper brings all the ends of the earth every morning to his doorstep\nand his breakfast-table. This, I say, is the difference between a beast\nand a man; and James Chalmers--known in New Guinea as the most\nmagnificent specimen of humanity on the islands--was every inch _a man_.\n\n\nII\n\nBut his text! What was James Chalmers' text? When he was eighteen years\nof age, Scotland found herself in the throes of a great religious\nrevival. In the sweep of this historic movement, a couple of evangelists\nfrom the North of Ireland announce that they will conduct a series of\nevangelistic meetings at Inverary. But Chalmers and a band of daring\nyoung spirits under his leadership feel that this is an innovation which\nthey must strenuously resist. They agree to break up the meetings. A\nfriend, however, with much difficulty persuades Chalmers to attend the\nfirst meeting and judge for himself whether or not his project is a\nworthy one.\n\n'It was raining hard,' he says, in some autobiographical notes found\namong his treasures after the massacre, 'it was raining hard, but I\nstarted; and on arriving at the bottom of the stairs I listened whilst\nthey sang \"All people that on earth do dwell\" to the tune \"Old Hundred,\"\nand I thought I had never heard such singing before--so solemn, yet so\njoyful. I ascended the steps and entered. There was a large congregation\nand all intensely in earnest. The younger of the evangelists was the\nfirst to speak. He announced as his text the words: \"_The Spirit and the\nBride say, Come; and let him that heareth say, Come; and let him that is\nathirst come; and whosoever will, let him take the water of life\nfreely._\" He spoke directly to me. I felt it much; but at the close I\nhurried away back to town. I returned the Bible to the friend who,\nhaving persuaded me to go, had lent it to me, but I was too upset to\nspeak much to him.'\n\nOn the following Sunday night, he was, he says, 'pierced through and\nthrough, and felt lost beyond all hope of salvation.' On the Monday, the\nlocal minister, the Rev. Gilbert Meikle, who had exercised a deep\ninfluence over his early childhood, came to see him and assured him that\nthe blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, could cleanse him from all sin.\nThis timely visit convinced him that deliverance was at any rate\npossible. Gradually he came to feel that the voices to which he was\nlistening were, in reality, the Voice of God. 'Then,' he says, 'I\nbelieved unto salvation.'\n\n'_He felt that the voices to which he was listening were, in reality,\nthe Voice of God._' That is precisely what the text says. '_The Spirit\nand the Bride say, Come._' The Bride only says '_Come_' because the\nSpirit says '_Come_'; the Church only says '_Come_' because her Lord\nsays '_Come_'; the evangelists only said '_Come_' because the Voice\nDivine said '_Come_.' 'He felt that the voices to which he was listening\nwere, in reality, the Voice of God, and he believed unto salvation.'\n\n_The Spirit said, Come!_\n\n_The Bride said, Come!_\n\n_Let him that is athirst come!_\n\n'_I was athirst,_' says Chalmers, '_and I came!_'\n\nAnd thus a great text began, in a great soul, the manufacture of a great\nhistory.\n\n\nIII\n\nForty years later a thrill of horror electrified the world when the\ncables flashed from land to land the terrible tidings that James\nChalmers, the most picturesque and romantic figure in the religious life\nof his time, had been killed and eaten by the Fly River cannibals. It is\nthe evening of Easter Sunday. It has for years been the dream of his\nlife to navigate the Fly River and evangelize the villages along its\nbanks. And now he is actually doing it at last. 'He is away up the Fly\nRiver,' wrote Robert Louis Stevenson. 'It is a desperate venture, but he\nis quite a Livingstone card!' Stevenson thought Chalmers all gold. 'He\nis a rowdy, but he is a hero. You can't weary me of that fellow. He is\nas big as a house and far bigger than any church. He took me fairly by\nstorm for the most attractive, simple, brave and interesting man in the\nwhole Pacific.' 'I wonder,' Stevenson wrote to Mrs. Chalmers, 'I wonder\nif even _you_ know what it means to a man like _me_--a man fairly\ncritical, a man of the world--to meet one who represents the essential,\nand who is so free from the formal, from the grimace.' But I digress. As\nStevenson says, Mr. Chalmers is away up the Fly River, a desperate\nventure! But he is boisterously happy about it, and at sunset on this\nEaster Sunday evening they anchor off a populous settlement just round a\nbend of the river. The natives, coming off in their canoes, swarm onto\nthe vessel. With some difficulty, Mr. Chalmers persuades them to leave\nthe ship, promising them that he will himself visit them at daybreak.\nThe savages, bent on treachery and slaughter, pull ashore and quickly\ndispatch runners with messages to all the villages around. When, early\nnext morning, Mr. Chalmers lands, he is surprised at finding a vast\nassemblage gathered to receive him. He is accompanied by Mr.\nTomkins--his young colleague, not long out from England--and by a party\nof ten native Christians. They are told that a great feast has been\nprepared in their honor, and they are led to a large native house to\npartake of it. But, as he enters, Mr. Chalmers is felled from behind\nwith a stone club, stabbed with a cassowary dagger, and instantly\nbeheaded. Mr. Tomkins and the native Christians are similarly massacred.\nThe villages around are soon the scenes of horrible cannibal orgies. 'I\ncannot believe it!' exclaimed Dr. Parker from the pulpit of the City\nTemple, on the day on which the tragic news reached England, 'I cannot\nbelieve it! I do not want to believe it! Such a mystery of Providence\nmakes it hard for our strained faith to recover itself. Yet Jesus was\nmurdered. Paul was murdered. Many missionaries have been murdered. When\nI think of _that_ side of the case, I cannot but feel that our honored\nand noble-minded friend has joined a great assembly. James Chalmers was\none of the truly great missionaries of the world. He was, in all\nrespects, a noble and kingly character.' And so it was whispered from\nlip to lip that James Chalmers, the Greatheart of New Guinea, was dead,\ndead, dead; although John Oxenham denied it.\n\n  Greatheart is dead, they say!\n  Greatheart is dead, they say!\n      Nor dead, nor sleeping! He lives on! His name\n      Shall kindle many a heart to equal flame;\n      The fire he kindled shall burn on and on\n      Till all the darkness of the lands be gone,\n      And all the kingdoms of the earth be won,\n      And one!\n  A soul so fiery sweet can never die\n  But lives and loves and works through all eternity.\n\nYes, _lives_ and _loves_ and _works_! 'There will be much to do in\nheaven,' he wrote to an old comrade in one of the last letters he ever\npenned. 'I guess I shall have good mission work to do; great, brave work\nfor Christ! He will have to find it, for I can be nothing else than a\nmissionary!' And so, perchance, James Chalmers is a missionary still!\n\n\nIV\n\nNow, underlying this brave story of a noble life and a martyr-death is a\ngreat principle; and it is the principle that, if we look, we shall find\nembedded in the very heart of James Chalmers' text. No law of life is\nmore vital. Let us return to that evangelistic meeting held on that\ndrenching night at Inverary, and let us catch once more those matchless\ncadences that won the heart of Chalmers! '_The Spirit and the Bride say,\nCome; and let him that heareth say, Come; and let him that is athirst\ncome; and whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely._'\n\n'_Let him that is athirst come!_' 'I was athirst,' says Chalmers, 'so I\ncame!'\n\n'_Let him that heareth say, Come!_' James Chalmers _heard_; he felt that\nhe must _say_; that is the connecting link between the evangelistic\nmeeting at Inverary and the triumph and tragedy of New Guinea.\n\n'_Let him that heareth, say!_'--that is the principle embedded in the\ntext. The soul's exports must keep pace with the soul's imports. What I\nhave freely received, I must as freely give. The boons that have\ndescended to me from a remote ancestry I must pass on with interest to a\nremote posterity. The benedictions that my parents breathed on me must\nbe conferred by me upon my children. '_Let him that heareth, say!_' What\ncomes into the City of Mansoul at Ear Gate must go out again at Lip\nGate. The auditor of one day must become the orator of the next. It is a\nvery ancient principle. 'He that reads,' says the prophet, 'must run!'\n'He that sees must spread!' With those quick eyes of his, James Chalmers\nsaw this at a glance. He recognized that the kingdom of Christ could be\nestablished in no other way. He saw that the Gospel could have been\noffered him on no other terms. What, therefore, he had with such wonder\nheard, he began, with great delight, to proclaim. Almost at once he\naccepted a Sunday school class; the following year he began preaching in\nthose very villages through which, as a boy, his exploratory wanderings\nhad so often taken him; a year later he became a city missionary, that\nhe might pass on the message of the Spirit and the Bride to the teeming\npoor of Glasgow; and, twelve months later still, he entered college, in\norder to equip himself for service in the uttermost ends of the earth.\nHis boyish passion for books and boxes had been sanctified at last by\nhis consecration to a great heroic mission.\n\n\nV\n\n'_Let him that is athirst come!_' 'I was athirst,' says Chalmers, 'and I\ncame!'\n\n'_Let him that heareth say, Come!_' And Chalmers, having heard, said\n'Come!' and said it with effect. Dr. Lawes speaks of one hundred and\nthirty mission stations which he established at New Guinea. And look at\nthis! 'On the first Sabbath in every month not less than three thousand\nmen and women gather devotedly round the table of the Lord, reverently\ncommemorating the event which means so much to them and to all the\nworld. Many of them were known to Chalmers as savages in feathers and\nwar-paint. Now, clothed and in their right mind, the wild, savage look\nall gone, they form part of the Body of our Lord Jesus Christ and are\nmembers of His Church. Many of the pastors who preside at the Lord's\nTable bear on their breasts the tattoo marks that indicate that their\nspears had been imbrued with human blood. Now sixty-four of them, thanks\nto Mr. Chalmers' influence, are teachers, preachers and missionaries.'\nThey, too, having listened, proclaim; having received, give; having\nheard, say; having been auditors, have now become orators. They have\nread and therefore they run. Having believed with the heart, they\ntherefore confess with the mouth. This is not only a law of life; it is\nthe law of the life everlasting. It is only by loyalty to this golden\nrule, on the part of all who hear the Spirit and the Bride say Come,\nthat the kingdoms of this world can become the kingdoms of our God and\nof His Christ. It is the secret of world-conquest; and, besides it,\nthere is no other.\n\n\nVI\n\n'_The Spirit and the Bride say, Come; and let him that heareth say,\nCome; and let him that is athirst come; and whosoever will, let him take\nthe water of life freely._'\n\n'_Let him that is athirst come!_'\n\n'_Let him that heareth say, Come!_'\n\nI have somewhere read that, out in the solitudes of the great dusty\ndesert, when a caravan is in peril of perishing for want of water, they\ngive one camel its head and let him go. The fine instincts of the animal\nwill lead him unerringly to the refreshing spring. As soon as he is but\na speck on the horizon, one of the Arabs mounts his camel and sets off\nin the direction that the liberated animal has taken. When, in his turn,\nhe is scarcely distinguishable, another Arab mounts and follows. When\nthe loose camel discovers water, the first Arab turns and waves to the\nsecond; the second to the third, and so on, until all the members of the\nparty are gathered at the satisfying spring. As each man sees the\nbeckoning hand, he turns and beckons to the man behind him. He that\nsees, signals; he that hears, utters. It is the law of the life\neverlasting; it is the fundamental principle of James Chalmers' text and\nof James Chalmers' life.\n\n'_Let him that is athirst come!_' 'I was athirst,' says Chalmers, 'so I\ncame!'\n\n  I heard the voice of Jesus say,\n    'Behold, I freely give\n  The living water; thirsty one,\n    Stoop down, and drink, and live.'\n  I came to Jesus, and I drank\n    Of that life-giving stream;\n  My thirst was quenched, my soul revived,\n    And now I live in Him.\n\n'_And now I live in Him._' The life that James Chalmers lived in his\nLord was a life so winsome that he charmed all hearts, a life so\ncontagious that savages became saints beneath his magnetic influence. He\nhad heard, at Inverary, the Spirit and the Bride say, _Come!_ And he\nesteemed it a privilege beyond all price to be permitted to make the\nabodes of barbarism and the habitations of cruelty re-echo the matchless\nmusic of that mighty monosyllable.\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\nSYDNEY CARTON'S TEXT\n\n\nI\n\nMemory is the soul's best minister. Sydney Carton found it so. On the\ngreatest night of his life--the night on which he resolved to lay down\nhis life for his friend--a text swept suddenly into his mind, and, from\nthat moment, it seemed to be written everywhere. He was in Paris; the\nFrench Revolution was at its height; sixty-three shuddering victims had\nbeen borne that very day to the guillotine; each day's toll was heavier\nthan that of the day before; no man's life was safe. Among the prisoners\nawaiting death in the Conciergerie was Charles Darnay, the husband of\nher whom Sydney himself had loved with so much devotion but so little\nhope.\n\n'O Miss Manette,' he had said, on the only occasion on which he had\nrevealed his passion, 'when, in the days to come, you see your own\nbright beauty springing up anew at your feet, think now and then that\nthere is a man who would give his life to keep a life you love beside\nyou!'\n\nAnd now that hour had come. It happened that Charles Darnay and Sydney\nCarton were, in form and feature, extraordinarily alike. Darnay was\ndoomed to die on the guillotine: Carton was free. For the first time in\nhis wayward life, Sydney saw his course clearly before him. His years\nhad been spent aimlessly, but now he set his face like a flint towards a\ndefinite goal. He stepped out into the moonlight, not recklessly or\nnegligently, but 'with the settled manner of a tired man who had\nwandered and struggled and got lost, but who at length struck into his\nroad and saw its end.' He would find some way of taking Darnay's place\nin the gloomy prison; he would, by his substitution, restore her husband\nto Lucy's side; he would make his life sublime at its close. His career\nshould resemble a day that, fitful and overcast, ends at length in a\nglorious sunset. He would save his life by losing it!\n\nIt was at that great moment that memory exercised its sacred ministry\nupon the soul of Sydney Carton. As he paced the silent streets, dark\nwith heavy shadows, the moon and the clouds sailing high above him, he\nsuddenly recalled the solemn and beautiful words which he had heard read\nat his father's grave: '_I am the Resurrection and the Life; he that\nbelieveth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever\nliveth and believeth in Me shall never die._' Sydney did not ask himself\nwhy the words had rushed upon him at that hour, although, as Dickens\nsays, the reason was not far to seek. But he kept repeating them. And,\nwhen he stopped, the air seemed full of them. The great words were\nwritten across the houses on either side of him; he looked up, and they\nwere inscribed across the dark clouds and the clear sky; the very echoes\nof his footsteps reiterated them. When the sun rose, it seemed to strike\nthose words--the burden of the night--straight and warm to his heart in\nits long bright rays. Night and day were both saying the same thing. He\nheard it everywhere: he saw it in everything--\n\n'_I am the Resurrection and the Life; he that believeth in Me, though he\nwere dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in Me\nshall never die._'\n\nThat was Sydney Carton's text.\n\n\nII\n\nIt is a great thing--a very great thing--to be able to save those you\nlove by dying for them. I well remember sitting in my study at Hobart\none evening, when there came a ring at the bell. A moment later a man\nwhom I knew intimately was shown in. I had seen him a few weeks earlier,\nyet, as I looked upon him that night, I could scarcely believe it was\nthe same man. He seemed twenty years older; his hair was gray; his face\nfurrowed and his back bent. I was staggered at the change. He sat down\nand burst into tears.\n\n'Oh, my boy, my boy!' he sobbed.\n\nI let him take his time, and, when he had regained his self-possession,\nhe told me of his son's great sin and shame.\n\n'I have mentioned this to nobody,' he said, 'but I could keep it to\nmyself no longer. I knew that you would understand.'\n\nAnd then he broke down again. I can see him now as he sits there,\nrocking himself in his agony, and moaning:\n\n'If only I could have died for him! If only I could have died for him!'\n\nBut he couldn't! That was the torture of it! I remember how his\nheart-broken cry rang in my ears for days; and on the following Sunday\nthere was only one subject on which I could preach. '_And the king was\nmuch moved, and went up to the chamber over the gate and wept; and as he\nwent he cried: O my son Absalom! my son, my son Absalom! Would God I had\ndied for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!_'\n\nIt was the unutterable grief of David, and of my poor friend, that they\ncould not save those they loved by dying for them. It was the joy of\nSydney Carton that he could! He contrived to enter the Conciergerie;\nmade his way to Darnay's cell; changed clothes with him; hurried him\nforth; and then resigned himself to his fate. Later on, a fellow\nprisoner, a little seamstress, approached him. She had known Darnay and\nhad learned to trust him. She asked if she might ride with him to the\nscaffold.\n\n'I am not afraid,' she said, 'but I am little and weak, and, if you will\nlet me ride with you and hold your hand, it will give me courage!'\n\nAs the patient eyes were lifted to his face, he saw a sudden doubt in\nthem, and then astonishment. She had discovered that he was not Darnay.\n\n'Are you dying for him?' she whispered.\n\n'For him--and his wife and child. Hush! Yes!'\n\n'Oh, you will let me hold your brave hand, stranger?'\n\n'Hush! Yes, my poor sister; to the last!'\n\nNobody has ever read _A Tale of Two Cities_ without feeling that this\nwas the moment of Sydney Carton's supreme triumph.\n\n'It is,' he said--and they are the last words in the book--'it is a far,\nfar better thing that I do than I have ever done!'\n\nHe had never tasted a joy to be compared with this. He was able to save\nthose he loved by dying for them!\n\n_That_ is precisely the joy of the Cross! _That_ was the light that\nshone upon the Saviour's path through all the darkness of the world's\nfirst Easter. _That_ is why, when He took the bread and wine--the\nemblems of His body about to be broken and His blood about to be\nshed--He gave thanks. It is _that_--and that alone--that accounts for\nthe fact that He entered the Garden of Gethsemane with a song upon His\nlips. It was for the joy that was set before Him that He endured the\nCross, despising its shame!\n\n'Death!' He said. 'What of Death? _I am the Life_, not only of Myself,\nbut of all who place their hands in Mine!\n\n'The Grave! What of the Grave? _I am the Resurrection!_\n\n'_I am the Resurrection and the Life; he that believeth in Me, though he\nwere dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in Me\nshall never die._'\n\nHe felt that it was a great thing--a very great thing--to be able to\nsave those He loved by dying for them.\n\n\nIII\n\n'_I am the Resurrection!_'--those were the words that Sydney Carton saw\nwritten on land and on water, on earth and on sky, on the night on which\nhe made up his mind to die. '_I am the Resurrection!_' They were the\nwords that he had heard read beside his father's grave. They are the\nwords that we echo, in challenge and defiance, over _all_ our graves.\nThe rubric of the Church of England requires its ministers to greet the\ndead at the entrance to the churchyard with the words: '_I am the\nResurrection and the Life_;' and, following the same sure instinct, the\nministers of all the other Churches have adopted a very similar\npractice. The earth seems to be a garden of graves. We speak of those\nwho have passed from us as 'the great majority.' We appear to be\nconquered. But it is all an illusion.\n\n'O Grave!' we ask, in every burial service, 'where is thy victory?' And\nthe question answers itself. The victory does not exist. The struggle is\nnot yet ended. '_I am the Resurrection!_'\n\n'_I am the Life!_'--that is what all the echoes were saying as Sydney\nCarton, cherishing a great heroic purpose in his heart, paced the\ndeserted streets that night.\n\n'_I am the Life! I am the Life!_'\n\n'_He that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live!_'\n\n'_Whosoever believeth in Me shall never die!_'\n\nThat being so, what does death matter? 'O, death!' we cry, 'where is thy\nsting?' and once more the question answers itself.\n\n'_O Death, where is thy sting?_'--'_I am the Life!_'\n\n'_O Grave, where is thy victory?_'--'_I am the Resurrection!_'\n\n_The Life and the Resurrection!_ '_I am the Resurrection and the Life!_'\n\nThe text that he saw in every sight, and heard in every sound, made all\nthe difference to Sydney Carton. The end soon came, and this is how\nDickens tells the story.\n\nThe tumbrils arrive at the guillotine. The little seamstress is ordered\nto go first. 'They solemnly bless each other. The thin hand does not\ntremble as he releases it. Nothing worse than a sweet, bright constancy\nis in the patient face. She is gone. The knitting women, who count the\nfallen heads, murmur twenty-two. And then--\n\n'_I am the Resurrection and the Life; he that believeth in Me, though he\nwere dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in Me\nshall never die._'\n\nThey said of him about the city that night that it was the peacefullest\nman's face ever beheld there. Many added that he looked sublime and\nprophetic.\n\n_I am the Resurrection! O Grave, where is thy victory?_\n\n_I am the Life! O Death, where is thy sting?_\n\n\nIV\n\nBut there was more in Sydney Carton's experience than we have yet seen.\nIt happens that this great saying about _the Resurrection and the Life_\nis not only Sydney Carton's text; it is Frank Bullen's text; and Frank\nBullen's experience may help us to a deeper perception of Sydney\nCarton's. In his _With Christ at Sea_, Frank Bullen has a chapter\nentitled 'The Dawn.' It is the chapter in which he describes his\nconversion. He tells how, at a meeting held in a sail-loft at Port\nChalmers, in New Zealand, he was profoundly impressed. After the\nservice, a Christian worker--whom I myself knew well--engaged him in\nconversation. He opened a New Testament and read these words: '_I am\nthe_ _Resurrection and the Life; he that believeth in Me, though he were\ndead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall\nnever die._' The earnest little gentleman pointed out the insistence on\nfaith: the phrase '_believeth in Me_' occurs twice in the text: faith\nand life go together. Would Frank Bullen exercise that faith?\n\n'Every word spoken by the little man went right to my heart,' Mr. Bullen\nassures us, 'and, when he ceased, there was an appeal in his eyes that\nwas even more eloquent than his words. But beyond the words and the look\nwas the interpretation of them to me by some mysterious agency beyond my\ncomprehension. For, in a moment, the hidden mystery was made clear to\nme, and I said quietly, \"I see, sir; and I believe!\" \"Let us thank God!\"\nanswered the little man, and together we knelt down by the bench. There\nwas no extravagant joy, no glorious bursting into light and liberty,\nsuch as I have read about as happening on those occasions; it was the\nsatisfaction of having found one's way after long groping in darkness\nand misery--_the way that led to peace_.'\n\nNow the question is: did those words--the words that came with such\npower to Frank Bullen in the New Zealand sail-loft, and to Sydney Carton\nin the Paris streets--have the same effect upon both? Did they lead both\nof them to penitence and faith and peace? I think they did. Let us\nreturn to Sydney Carton as the sun is rising on that memorable morning\non which he sees the text everywhere. He leaves the streets in which he\nhas wandered by moonlight and walks beside a stream.\n\n'A trading-boat, with a sail of the softened color of a dead leaf,\nglided into his view, floated by him, and died away. As its silent track\nin the water disappeared, the prayer that had broken up out of his heart\nfor a merciful consideration of all his poor blindnesses and errors\nended in the words: \"_I am the Resurrection and the Life._\"'\n\n'_He that believeth in Me ... whosoever believeth in Me!_'--the\ninsistent demand for faith.\n\n'_He that believeth in Me!_'--Sydney Carton believed and found peace.\n\n'_He that believeth in Me!_'--Frank Bullen believed and found peace.\n\nPaul has a classical passage in which he shows that those who have\npassed through experiences such as these, have themselves '_risen with\nChrist into newness of life_.'\n\n_Risen with Christ!_ They have found _the Resurrection_!\n\n_Newness of life!_ They have found _the Life_!\n\nIn his _Death in the Desert_, Browning describes the attempts that were\nmade to revive the sinking man. It seemed quite hopeless. The most that\nhe would do was--\n\n  To smile a little, as a sleeper does,\n  If any dear one call him, touch his face--\n  And smiles and loves, but will not be disturbed.\n\nThen, all at once, the boy who had been assisting in these proceedings,\nmoved by some swift inspiration, sprang from his knees and proclaimed a\ntext: '_I am the Resurrection and the Life!_' As if by magic,\nconsciousness revisited the prostrate form; the man opened his eyes; sat\nup; stared about him; and then began to speak. A wondrous virtue seemed\nto lurk in the majestic words that the boy recited. By that virtue\nSydney Carton, Frank Bullen, and a host of others passed from death into\nlife everlasting.\n\n\nV\n\nI began by saying that it is a great thing--a very great thing--to be\nable to save those you love by dying for them.\n\nI close by stating the companion truth. It is a great thing--a very\ngreat thing--to have been died for.\n\nOn the last page of his book Dickens tells us what Sydney Carton would\nhave seen and said if, on the scaffold, it had been given him to read\nthe future.\n\n'I see,' he would have exclaimed, 'I see the lives for which I lay down\nmy life--peaceful, useful, prosperous and happy--in that England which I\nshall see no more. I see her with a child upon her bosom who bears my\nname. I see that I hold _a sanctuary_ in all their hearts, and in the\nhearts of their descendants, generations hence. I see her, an old woman,\nweeping for me on the anniversary of this day. I see her and her\nhusband, their course done, lying side by side in their last earthly\nbed; and I know that each was not more honored and held sacred in the\nother's soul than I was in the souls of both!'\n\n'I see that I hold _a sanctuary in all their hearts_!'--it is a lovely\nphrase.\n\nIt is a great thing--a very great thing--to have been died for!\n\nWherefore let each man be at some pains to build in his heart a\nsanctuary to Him who, for us men and for our salvation, laid down His\nlife with a song!\n\n\n\n\nV\n\nEBENEZER ERSKINE'S TEXT\n\n\nI\n\nIt is a lovely Sunday afternoon in the early summer of the year 1690.\nThe graceful and heathery path that winds its way along the banks of the\nTweed, from the stately ruins of Melrose to the crumbling gables of\nDryburgh, is in its glory. The wooded track by the waterside is\nluxuriating in bright sunshine, glowing colors and soft shadows. We are\ntraversing one of the most charming and romantic districts that even\nScotland can present. Here 'every field has its battle, every rivulet\nits song.' More than a century hence, this historic neighborhood is\ndestined to furnish the home, and fire the fancy, of Sir Walter Scott;\nand here, beneath the vaulted aisle of Dryburgh's ancient abbey, he will\nfind his last resting-place. But that time is not yet. Even now,\nhowever, in 1690, the hoary cloister is only a battered and\nweatherbeaten fragment. It is almost covered by the branches of the\ntrees that, planted right against the walls, have spread their limbs\nlike creepers over the mossy ruins, as though endeavoring to protect the\nvenerable pile. And here, sitting on a huge slab that has fallen from\nthe broken arch above, is a small boy of ten. His name is Ebenezer\nErskine; he is the son of the minister of Chirnside. Like his father, he\nwas born here at Dryburgh; and to-day the two are revisiting the\nneighborhood round which so many memories cluster. This morning the\nfather, the Rev. Henry Erskine, has been catechizing a group of children\nat the kirk. He selected the questions in the Shorter Catechism that\nrelate to the Ten Commandments; and the very first of the answers that\nhis father then taught him has made a profound impression on Ebenezer's\nmind. The forty-third question runs: '_What is the preface to the Ten\nCommandments?_' And the answer is: '_The preface to the Ten Commandments\nis in these words: \"I am the Lord thy God which have brought thee out of\nthe Land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage._\"' Other questions\nfollow, and they, with their attendant answers, have been duly\nmemorized. But they have failed to hold his thought. This one, however,\nrefuses to be shaken off. He has, quite involuntarily, repeated it to\nhimself a hundred times as he pushed his way through the heather to the\nmossy abbey. It sounds in his ears like a claim, a challenge, an\ninsistent and imperative demand.\n\n_I am the Lord!_\n\n_I am thy God!_\n\n_The Lord! Thy God!_\n\nIt is his first realization of the fact that he is not altogether his\nown.\n\n\nII\n\nEighteen years have passed. He is now the minister of the Portmoak\nparish. But it is a poor business. 'I began my ministry,' he says,\n'without much zeal, callously and mechanically, being swallowed up in\nunbelief and in rebellion against God.' He feels no enthusiasm for the\nBible; indeed, the New Testament positively wearies him. His sermons are\nlong and formal; he learns them by heart and repeats them\nparrot-fashion, taking care to look, not into the faces of his people,\nbut at a certain nail in the opposite wall. Happily for himself and for\nthe world, he has by this time married a wife to whom the truth is no\nstranger. For years, poor Mrs. Erskine has wept in secret over her\nhusband's unregenerate heart and unspiritual ministry. But now a\nterrible sickness lays her low. Her brain is fevered; she raves in her\ndelirium; her words are wild and passionate. Yet they are words that\nsmite her husband's conscience and pierce his very soul. 'At last,' so\nruns the diary, 'the Lord was pleased to calm her spirit and give her a\nsweet serenity of mind. This, I think, was the first time that ever I\nfelt the Lord touching my heart in a sensible manner. Her distress and\nher deliverance were blessed to me. Some few weeks after, she and I were\nsitting together in my study, and while we were conversing about the\nthings of God, the Lord was pleased to rend the veil and to give me a\nglimmering view of salvation which made my soul acquiesce in Christ as\nthe new and living way to glory.' The old text comes back to him.\n\n'_I am the Lord thy God!_'\n\n'_I am the Lord thy God!_'\n\nOnce more it sounds like a claim. And this time he yields. He makes his\nvow in writing. '_I offer myself up, soul and body, unto God the Father,\nSon and Holy Ghost. I flee for shelter to the blood of Jesus. I will\nlive to Him; I will die to Him. I take heaven and earth to witness that\nall I am and all I have are His._'\n\nThus, on August 26, 1708, Ebenezer Erskine makes his covenant. 'That\nnight,' he used to say, 'I got my head out of Time into Eternity!'\n\n\nIII\n\nTen more years have passed. It is now 1718; Ebenezer Erskine is\nthirty-eight. Filled with concern for the souls of his people at\nPortmoak, he preaches a sermon on the text that had played so great a\npart in bringing his own spirit out of bondage.\n\n'_I am the Lord thy God!_'\n\n'_I am the Lord thy God!_'\n\nAs he preaches, the memory of his own experience rushes back upon him.\nHis soul catches fire. He is one moment persuasive and the next\nperemptory. No sermon that he ever preached made a greater impression on\nhis congregation; and, when it was printed, it proved to be the most\neffective and fruitful of all his publications.\n\n\nIV\n\nFive and thirty further years have run their course. Mr. Erskine is now\nseventy-three. He has passed through the fires of persecution, and, in\ndays of tumult and unrest, has proved himself a leader whom the people\nhave delighted, at any cost, to follow. But his physical frame is\nexhausted. An illness overtakes him which, continuing for over a year,\nat last proves fatal. His elders drop in from time to time to read and\npray with him. To-day one of them, the senior member of the little band,\nis moved, in taking farewell of his dying minister, to ask a question of\nhim. After grasping the sick man's hand and moving towards the door, a\nsudden impulse seizes him and he returns to the bedside.\n\n'You have often given us good advice, Mr. Erskine,' he says, 'as to what\nwe should do with our souls in life and in death; may I ask what you are\nnow doing with your own?'\n\n'I am just doing with it,' the old man replies, 'what I did forty years\nago; I am resting it on that word, \"_I am the Lord thy God!_\"'\n\n\nV\n\nNow what was it, I wonder, that Ebenezer Erskine saw in this string of\nmonosyllables as he sat on the fallen slab beside the ruined abbey in\n1690, as he sat conversing with his convalescent wife in 1708, as he\npreached with such passion in 1718, and as he lay dying in 1753? What,\nto him, was the significance of that great sentence that, as the\ncatechism says, forms '_the preface to the Ten Commandments_'? Ebenezer\nErskine saw, underlying the words, two tremendous principles. They\nconvinced him that _the Center must always be greater than the\nCircumference_ and they convinced him that _the Positive must always be\ngreater than the Negative_.\n\n_The Center must always be greater than the Circumference_, for, without\nthe center, there can be no circumference. And there, in the very first\nword of this 'preface to the Ten Commandments,' stands the august center\naround which all the mandates revolve. '_I_ am the Lord thy God.' 'I\nhave many times essayed,' Luther tells us in his _Table-Talk_,\n'thoroughly to investigate the Ten Commandments; but at the very\noutset--\"_I am the Lord thy God_\"--I stuck fast. That single word \"_I_\"\nput me to a non-plus.' I am not surprised. The man who would enter this\nPalace of Ten Chambers will find God awaiting him on the threshold; and\nhe must make up his mind as to his relationship with Him before he can\npass on to investigate the interior of the edifice. In learning his\nShorter Catechism that Sunday morning at Dryburgh, Ebenezer Erskine,\nthen a boy of ten, had come face to face with God; and he felt that he\ndared not proceed to the _Circumference_ until his heart was in harmony\nwith the _Center_.\n\n\nVI\n\nHe felt, too, that the _Positive_ must precede the _Negative_. The\n_person_ of the most High must come before the _precepts_ of the Most\nHigh; the _Thou Shalts_ must come before the _Thou Shalt Nots_. The\nsuperstructure of a personal religion cannot be reared on a foundation\nof negatives. Life can only be constructed positively. The soul cannot\nflourish on a principle of subtraction; it can only prosper on a\nprinciple of addition. It is at this point that we perpetrate one of our\ncommonest blunders. Between Christmas Day and New Year's Day, we\ninvariably frame a variety of good resolutions; we register a number of\nexcellent resolves. But, for the most part, they come to nothing; and\nthey come to nothing because they are so largely negative. 'I will never\nagain do such-and-such a thing'; 'I will never again behave in\nsuch-and-such a way'; and so on. We have failed to discover the truth\nthat gripped the soul of Ebenezer Erskine that day at Dryburgh. He saw,\nas he repeated to himself his catechism, that the Ten Commandments\nconsist of three parts.\n\n  (1) _The Preface_--'_I am the Lord thy God!_'\n  (2) _The Precepts_--'_Thou shalt ..._'\n  (3) _The Prohibitions_--'_Thou shall not ..._'\n\nOur New Year's resolutions assume that we should put third things first.\nWe are wrong. As Ebenezer Erskine saw, we must put the _Person_ before\nthe _Precepts_, and the _Precepts_ before the _Prohibitions_. The\n_Center_ must come before the _Circumference_; the _Positive_ before the\n_Negative_.\n\nWhen, at the end of December, we pledge ourselves so desperately to do\ncertain things no more, we entirely forget that our worst offenses do\nnot consist in outraging the _Thou Shalt Nots_; our worst offenses\nconsist in violating the _Thou Shalts_. The revolt of the soul against\nthe divine _Prohibitions_ is as nothing compared with the revolt of the\nsoul against the divine _Precepts_; just as the revolt of the soul\nagainst the divine _Precepts_ is as nothing compared with the revolt of\nthe soul against the _Divine Person_. It is by a flash of real spiritual\ninsight that, in the General Confession in the Church of England Prayer\nBook, the clause, '_We have left undone those things which we ought to\nhave done_,' precedes the clause, '_And we have done those things which\nwe ought not to have done._' In his _Ecce Homo_, Sir John Seeley has\npointed out the radical difference between the villains of the parables\nand the villains that figure in all other literature. In the typical\nnovel the villain is a man who does what he ought not to do; in the\ntales that Jesus told the villain is a man who leaves undone what he\nought to have done. 'The sinner whom Christ denounces,' says Sir John,\n'is he who has done nothing; the priest and the Levite who passed by on\nthe other side; the rich man who allowed the beggar to lie unhelped at\nhis gate; the servant who hid in a napkin the talent intrusted to him;\nthe unprofitable hireling who did only what it was his duty to do.'\nChrist's villains are the men who sin against the _Person_ and the\n_Precepts_ of the Most High; he scarcely notices the men who violate the\n_Prohibitions_. Yet it is of the _Prohibitions_ that, when New Years\ncome, we think so much.\n\n      At vesper-tide,\n  One virtuous and pure in heart did pray,\n  'Since none I wronged in deed or word to-day,\n  From whom should I crave pardon? Master, say.'\n\n      A voice replied:\n  'From the sad child whose joy thou hast not planned;\n  The goaded beast whose friend thou didst not stand;\n  The rose that died for water from thy hand.'\n\nDuring a ministry of nearly thirty years, it has been my privilege and\nduty to deal with men and women of all kinds and conditions. I have\nattended hundreds of deathbeds. In reviewing those experiences to-day, I\ncannot remember a single case of a man who found it difficult to believe\nthat God could forgive those things that he ought not to have done and\nhad done; and I cannot recall a single case of a man who found it easy\nto believe that God could forgive those things that he ought to have\ndone but had left undone. It is our sins against the divine _Precepts_\nthat sting most venomously at the last:\n\n  'The sad, sad child whose joy thou hast not planned;\n  The goaded beast whose friend thou didst not stand;\n  The rose that died for water from thy hand!'\n\nEbenezer Erskine saw that day at Dryburgh that he must recognize the\ninspired order. He must bow first of all to the authority of the Divine\n_Person_; he must recognize the obligations involved in the Divine\n_Precepts_; and, after this, he must eschew those things that are\nforbidden by the Divine _Prohibitions_. That order he never forgot.\n\n\nVII\n\nGeorge Macdonald tells us how, when the Marquis of Lossie was dying, he\nsent post-haste for Mr. Graham, the devout schoolmaster. Mr. Graham knew\nhis man and went cautiously to work.\n\n'Are you satisfied with yourself my lord?'\n\n'No, by God!'\n\n'You would like to be better?'\n\n'Yes; but how is a poor devil to get out of this infernal scrape?'\n\n'Keep the commandments!'\n\n'That's it, of course; but there's no time!'\n\n'If there were but time to draw another breath, there would be time to\nbegin!'\n\n'How am I to begin? Which am I to begin with?'\n\n'There is one commandment which includes all the rest!'\n\n'Which is that?'\n\n'_Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved!_'\n\nWhat did the schoolmaster mean? He meant that the _Person_ must precede\nthe _Precepts_, as the _Precepts_ must precede the _Prohibitions_; he\nwas insisting on the divine order; that was all. And I feel confident\nthat _that_ was the burden of that powerful sermon that Ebenezer Erskine\npreached to his people at Portmoak in 1718. His last illness, as I have\nsaid, continued for twelve months. It was in its earlier stages that the\nold elder asked his question and received his minister's testimony\nconcerning the text. A year later Mr. Erskine referred to the words\nagain. On the morning of the first of June, he awoke from a brief sleep,\nand, seeing his daughter, Mrs. Fisher, sitting reading by his bedside,\nhe asked her the name of the book.\n\n'I am reading one of your own sermons, father!'\n\n'Which one?'\n\n'The one on \"_I am the Lord thy God!_\"'\n\n'Ah, lass,' he exclaimed, his face lighting up, as a wave of sacred\nmemories swept over him, 'that is the best sermon ever I preached!'\n\nA few minutes later he closed his eyes, slipped his hand under his\ncheek, composed himself on his pillow, and ceased to breathe. The noble\nspirit of Ebenezer Erskine was with God.\n\nEbenezer Erskine reminds me of his great predecessor, Samuel Rutherford.\nWhen Rutherford was staying for a while at the house of James Guthrie,\nthe maid was surprised at hearing a voice in his room. She had supposed\nhe was alone. Moved by curiosity, she crept to his door. She then\ndiscovered that Rutherford was in prayer. He walked up and down the\nroom, exclaiming, '_O Lord, make me to believe in Thee!_' Then, after a\npause, he moved to and fro again, crying, '_O Lord, make me to love\nThee!_' And, after a second rest, he rose again, praying, '_O Lord, make\nme to keep all Thy commandments!_' Rutherford, like Erskine a generation\nlater, had grasped the spiritual significance of the divine order.\n\n'_Make me to believe in Thee!_'--the commandment that, as the\nschoolmaster told the Marquis, includes all the commandments!\n\n'_Make me to love Thee!_'--for love, as Jesus told the rich young ruler,\nis the fulfilment of the whole law.\n\n'_Make me to obey all Thy commandments!_'\n\nThe man who learns the Ten Commandments at the school of Samuel\nRutherford or at the school of Ebenezer Erskine will see a shining path\nthat runs from Mount Sinai right up to the Cross and on through the\ngates of pearl into the City of God.\n\n\n\n\nVI\n\nDOCTOR DAVIDSON'S TEXT\n\n\nI\n\nThere are only two things worth mentioning in connection with Dr.\nDavidson, but they are both of them very beautiful. The one was his\nlife: the other was his death. Ian Maclaren tells us that the old doctor\nhad spent practically all his days as minister at Drumtochty. He was the\nfather of all the folk in the glen. He was consulted about everything.\nThree generations of young people had, in turn, confided to his\nsympathetic ear the story of their loves and hopes and fears; rich and\npoor had alike found in him a guide in the day of perplexity and a\ncomforter in the hour of sorrow. And now it is Christmas Day--the\ndoctor's last Christmas--and a Sunday. The doctor had preached as usual\nin the kirk; had trudged through the snow to greet with seasonable\nwishes and gifts one or two people who might be feeling lonely or\ndesolate; and now, the day's work done, was entertaining Drumsheugh at\nthe manse. All at once, he began to speak of his ministry, lamenting\nthat he had not done better for his people, and declaring that, if he\nwere spared, he intended to preach more frequently about the Lord Jesus\nChrist.\n\n'You and I, Drumsheugh, will have to go a long journey soon, and give an\naccount of our lives in Drumtochty. Perhaps we have done our best as men\ncan, and I think we have tried; but there are many things we might have\ndone otherwise, and some we ought not to have done at all. It seems to\nme now, the less we say in that day of the past, the better. We shall\nwish for mercy rather than justice, and'--here the doctor looked\nearnestly over his glasses at his elder--'we would be none the worse,\nDrumsheugh, of a Friend to say a good word for us both in the Great\nCourt!'\n\n'A've thocht that masel'--it was an agony for Drumsheugh to speak--'a've\nthocht that masel mair than aince. Weelum MacLure was ettlin' aifter the\nsame thing the nicht he slippit awa, and gin ony man cud hae stude on\nhis ain feet yonder, it was Weelum.'\n\nIt was the doctor's last conversation. When his old servant entered the\nroom next morning, he found his master sitting silent and cold in his\nchair.\n\n'We need a Friend in the Great Court!' said the doctor.\n\n'A've thocht that masel!' replied Drumsheugh.\n\n'Weelum MacLure was ettlin' after the same thing the nicht he slippit\nawa!'\n\n'_For there is one God, and one Mediator between God and men, the Man\nChrist Jesus._'\n\n\nII\n\nMy Bible contains two stories--one near its beginning and one near its\nend--which to-day I must lay side by side. The _first_ is the story of a\nman who feels that he is suffering more than his share of the slings and\narrows of outrageous fortune. He thinks of God as very high and very\nholy; too wise to err and too good to be unkind; yet he cannot shake\nfrom his mind the conviction that God has misunderstood him. And, in his\nagony, he cries out for one who can arbitrate between his tortured soul\nand the God who seems to be so angry with him. Oh, for one a little less\ndivine than God, yet a little less human than himself, who could act as\nan adjudicator, an umpire, a mediator between them! But neither the\nheavens above nor the earth beneath can produce one capable of ending\nthe painful controversy. 'There is no daysman who can come between us\nand lay his hand upon us both!'\n\n_A God!_\n\n_But no Mediator!_\n\nThat is the _first_ story.\n\nThe _second_ story, the story from the end of the Bible, is the story of\nan old minister whose life-work is finished. He writes, in a reminiscent\nvein, to a young minister who is just beginning; and earnestly refers to\nhis own ordination. 'Whereunto,' he asks, 'was I ordained a preacher and\nan apostle and a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and verity?' What is\nhis message? He answers his own question. It is this. '_For there is one\nGod, and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus._'\n\n_A God!_\n\n_And a Mediator!_\n\n_Job_ needed a Friend in the Great Court; but, alas, he could not find\none!\n\n_Paul_ tells Timothy that he was ordained for no other purpose than to\npoint men to Him who alone can intercede.\n\n\nIII\n\n'_One God--but no Mediator!_' cries Job.\n\n'_One God--and one Mediator!_' exclaims Paul.\n\nIn one respect these two thinkers, standing with a long, long file of\ncenturies between them, are in perfect agreement. They both feel that if\nthere is a God--and only one--no man living can afford to drift into\nalienation from Him. If there is _no_ God, I can live as I list and do\nas I please; I am answerable to nobody. If there are _many gods_, I can\noffend one or two of them without involving myself in uttermost disaster\nand despair. But if there is _one_ God, and only one, everything depends\nupon my relationship with Him. And if I am already estranged from Him,\nand if there be no Mediator by whose good offices a reconciliation may\nbe effected, then am I of all men most miserable.\n\n'_One God--but no Mediator!_' cried Job in despair.\n\n_'One God--and one Mediator!_' exclaims Paul, in delight.\n\n\nIV\n\n'_One God--and one Mediator!_'\n\nIt is the glory of our humanity that it needs both the one and the\nother. We need a God and cannot be happy till we find Him. The instinct\nof adoration is in our blood, and we are ill at ease until we can find\nOne at whose feet we can lay the tribute of our devotion. We need a\nMediator, too, and are at our best when we recognize and confess our\nneed of Him. It is, I say, the glory of a man that he can yearn for\nthese two things. The most faithful and intelligent of the beasts feel\nno desire for either the one or the other. We know how Dr. Davidson\ndied. I said that his conversation with Drumsheugh was his last. I was\nmistaken. His last conversation was with Skye, his dog. When John, the\nserving-man, paid his usual visit to the study before he went to bed,\nthe doctor did not hear him enter the room. He was holding converse with\nSkye, who was seated on a chair, looking very wise and deeply\ninterested.\n\n'Ye're a bonnie beastie, Skye,' exclaimed the doctor, 'for a' thing He\nmade is verra gude. Ye've been true and kind to your master, Skye, and\nye 'ill miss him if he leaves ye. Some day ye 'ill die also, and they\n'ill bury ye, and I doubt that 'ill be the end o' ye, Skye! Ye never\nheard o' God, Skye, or the Saviour, for ye're just a puir doggie; but\nyour master is minister of Drumtochty and--a sinner saved by grace!'\n\nThose were his last words. In the morning the doctor was still sitting\nin his big chair, and Skye was fondly licking a hand that would never\nagain caress him.\n\nSkye, the noblest dog in the world, had no sense of sin and no sense of\ngrace, no need of a God and no need of a Saviour!\n\nDr. Davidson, Skye's master, is a sinner saved by grace. And it is his\nsense of sin and his sense of grace, his need of a God and his need of a\nSaviour, that remove him by whole infinities from the faithful brute on\nthe chair. 'A sinner,' as our fathers used to sing:\n\n  A sinner is a sacred thing,\n  The Holy Ghost hath made him so.\n\nWhen the soul feels after God, and the heart cries out for a Saviour, it\nis proof positive of the divinity that dwells within us.\n\n\nV\n\n'_One God--but no Mediator!_' sighs Job.\n\n'_One God--and one Mediator!_' cries Paul.\n\nNone! One! The difference between _none_ and _one_ is a difference of\nmillions. _None_ means nothing, _one_ means everything. _None_ means\nfailure: _one_ means felicity. _None_ means despair: _one_ means\ndelight. _None_ means perdition: _one_ means paradise. The difference\nbetween '_no Mediator_' and '_one Mediator_' is a difference that can\nnever be worked out by arithmetic.\n\n'_One God_'--and only one!\n\n'_And one Mediator!_'--only one!\n\nBut one is enough. It is only in the small things of life that I long\nfor a selection; in the great things of life I only long for\nsatisfaction. When my appetite is sated, and food is almost a matter of\nindifference to me, I like to be invited to choose between this, that,\nand the other. But when I am starving, I do not hanker after a choice. I\ndo not want to choose. Put food before me, and I am content. If I am\ntaking a stroll for the mere pleasure of walking, I like to come to a\nplace where several roads meet, and to select the path that seems to be\nmost tempting. But if, weary and travelworn, I am struggling desperately\nhomewards, I do not want to have to choose my path. I dread the place\nwhere many roads meet--the place where I may go astray. My felicity lies\nin simplicity: I want but one road if that road leads home. Robinson\nCrusoe climbs the hills of his island solitude and shades his eyes with\nhis hand as he sweeps the watery horizon. He is looking for a sail.\n_One_ ship will do: he does not want a fleet. There is but _one_ way of\nsalvation for my storm-tossed soul: there is but _one_ Name given under\nheaven among men whereby we must be saved: '_there is one God and one\nMediator between God and Men_'--and _one_ is ample. The difference\nbetween '_no Mediator_' and '_one Mediator_' is a difference that has\nall eternity within it.\n\n\nVI\n\nBut it is time that we came to close quarters. There are two people in\nevery congregation with whom the minister finds it very difficult to\ndeal. There is the man upon whose conscience sin lies very heavily, and\nthere is the man upon whose soul it sits very lightly.\n\nThe _first_ of these two perplexing individuals is afraid to approach\nthe Mediator. He feels it to be a kind of presumption. It is difficult\nto argue with him. It is better to introduce him to Robert Murray\nMcCheyne. McCheyne had the same feeling. 'I am ashamed to go to Christ,'\nhe says. 'I feel, when I have sinned, that it would do no good to go. It\nseems to be making Christ a Minister of Sin to go straight from the\nswine-trough to the best robe.' But he came to see that there is no\nother way, and that all his plausible reasonings were but the folly of\nhis own beclouded heart. 'The weight of my sin,' he writes, 'should act\nlike the weight of a clock; the heavier it is, the faster it makes it\ngo!'\n\nAnd the _second_ of these difficult cases--the man upon whose conscience\nsin sits so lightly--I shall introduce to Dr. MacLure. As Drumsheugh\ntold Dr. Davidson on that snowy Christmas night, 'if ever there was a\nman who could have stood on his own feet in the Day of Judgment, it was\nWilliam MacLure.' Through all his long years in the glen, the old doctor\nhad simply lived for others. As long as he could cure his patients he\nwas content; and he was never happier than in handing the sick child\nback to its parents or in restoring the wife to the husband who had\ndespaired of her recovery. If ever there was a man who could have stood\non his own feet in the Day of Judgment, it was William MacLure. Yet when\nthe old doctor came to the end of his long journey, his soul was feeling\nafter the same thing--a Friend in the Great Court, an Intercessor, a\nMediator between God and men!\n\n'We have done our best,' said the old minister, in that last talk with\nhis elder, 'we have done our best, but the less we say about it the\nbetter. We need a Friend to say a good word for us in the Great Court.'\n\n'A've thocht that masel,' replied the agonized elder, 'mair than aince.\nWeelum MacLure was 'ettling aifter the same thing the nicht he slippit\nawa, an' gin ony man cud hae stude on his ain feet yonder, it was\nWeelum.'\n\nAnd for minister and elder and doctor--and me--'_there is one God and\none Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus_.'\n\n\n\n\nVII\n\nHENRY MARTYN'S TEXT\n\n\nI\n\nWith Henry Martyn the making of history became a habit, a habit so\ninveterate that not even death itself could break him of it. He only\nlived to be thirty-two; but he made vast quantities of history in that\nmeager handful of years. 'His,' says Sir James Stephen, 'is the one\nheroic name which adorns the annals of the English church from the days\nof Elizabeth to our own.' And Dr. George Smith, his biographer, boasts\nthat Martyn's life constitutes itself the priceless and perpetual\nheritage of all English-speaking Christendom, whilst the native churches\nof India, Arabia, Persia and Anatolia will treasure the thought of it\nthrough all time to come. Appropriately enough, Macaulay, who dedicated\nhis brilliant powers to the great task of worthily recording the history\nthat other men had made, composed the epitaph for that lonely Eastern\ntomb.\n\n  Here Martyn lies! In manhood's early bloom\n  The Christian hero found a Pagan tomb:\n  Religion, sorrowing o'er her favorite son,\n  Points to the glorious trophies which he won.\n  Eternal trophies, not with slaughter red,\n  Not stained with tears by hopeless captives shed;\n  But trophies of the Cross. For that dear Name\n  Through every form of danger, death and shame,\n  Onward he journeyed to a happier shore,\n  Where danger, death and shame are known no more.\n\nFor more than a hundred years the bones of Henry Martyn have reposed in\nthat far-off Oriental sepulcher; but, as though he had never heard of\nhis own decease, he goes on making history still. Henry Martyn died\nseven years before George Eliot was born, and they had very little in\ncommon. But, in the novel which Dr. Marcus Dods described as 'one of the\ngreatest religious books ever written,' George Eliot makes the spiritual\ncrisis in the experience of her storm-beaten and distracted heroine to\nturn on the perusal of the _Life of Henry Martyn_. When Janet Dempster,\nclad only in her thin nightdress, was driven at dead of night from her\nhusband's home, she took refuge with good old Mrs. Pettifer, and fell\ninto a stupor of utter misery and black despair. Nothing seemed to rouse\nher. It chanced, however, that Mrs. Pettifer was a subscriber of the\nPaddiford Lending Library. From that village treasure-trove she had\nborrowed the biography that was lying on the table when, like a hunted\ndeer, poor Janet took shelter in her home. After a day or two, Janet\npicked up the book, dipped into it, and at length 'became so arrested by\nthat pathetic missionary story that she could not leave it alone.' It\nbroke the spell of her stupor, gave her a new hold upon life, awoke her\ndormant energy, and moved her to renewed action.\n\n'I must go,' she said. 'I feel I must be doing something for someone; I\nmust not be a mere useless log any longer. I've been reading about that\nwonderful Henry Martyn wearing himself out for _other people_, and I sit\nthinking of nothing but _myself_! I must go! Good-bye!'\n\nAnd, like a frightened dove that, having been driven to shelter by a\nhawk, recovers from its terror and again takes wing, off she went! Janet\nDempster is all the more real because she is unreal. She is all the more\na substance because she is only a shadow. She is all the more symbolic\nand typical because she appears, not in history, but in fiction. If I\nhad found her in the realm of biography, I might have regarded hers as\nan isolated and exceptional case. But, since I have found her in the\nrealm of romance, I can only regard her--as her creator intended me to\nregard her--as a great representative character. She represents all\nthose thousands of people upon whom the heroic record of Henry Martyn's\nbrief career has acted as a stimulant and a tonic. She represents all\nthose thousands of people through whom Henry Martyn is making history.\n\n\nII\n\nThe Gospels tell of a certain man who was _borne of four_ to the feet of\nJesus. I know his name and I know the names of the four who brought him.\nThe man's name was Henry Martyn, and the quartet consisted of a father,\na sister, an author and a minister. Each had a hand in the gracious\nwork, and each in a different way. The father did his part accidentally,\nindirectly, unconsciously; the sister did her part designedly,\ndeliberately, and of set purpose. The author and the minister did their\nparts in the ordinary pursuit of their vocations; but the _author_ did\nhis part impersonally and indirectly, whilst the _minister_ did his part\npersonally and face to face. The author's shaft was from a bow drawn at\na venture; the minister's was carefully aimed. He set himself to win the\nyoung student in his congregation, and he lived to rejoice unfeignedly\nin his success. Let me introduce each of the four.\n\n_The Father bore his Corner._ Before Henry Martyn left England, he was\none of the most brilliant students in the country, Senior Wrangler of\nhis University, and the proud holder of scholarships and fellowships.\nBut, in his earlier days, he failed at one or two examinations, and, in\nhis mortification, heaped the blame upon his father. In one of these\nfits of passion, he bounced out of the elder man's presence--never to\nenter it again. Before he could return and express contrition, the\nfather suddenly died. Henry's remorse was pitiful to see. His heart was\nfilled with grief and his eyes swollen with tears. But that torrent of\ntears so cleansed those eyes that he was able to see, as he had never\nseen before, into the abysmal depths of his own heart. He was astonished\nat the baseness and depravity he found there. Years afterwards he writes\nwith emotion of the distressing discovery that he then made. 'I do not\nremember a time,' he says, 'in which the wickedness of my heart rose to\na greater height than it did then. The consummate selfishness and\nexquisite instability of my mind were displayed in rage, malice and\nenvy; in pride, vain-glory and contempt for all about me; and in the\nharsh language which I used to my sister and even to my father. Oh, what\nan example of patience and mildness was he! I love to think of his\nexcellent qualities; and it is the anguish of my heart that I could ever\nhave been base enough and wicked enough to have pained him. O my God,\nwhy is not my heart doubly-agonized at the remembrance of all my great\ntransgressions?' So poor John Martyn, lying silent in his grave, entered\ninto that felicity which, in one of her short poems, Miss Susan Best has\nso touchingly depicted. 'When I was laid in my coffin,' she makes a dead\nman say,\n\n  When I was laid in my coffin,\n    Quite done with Time and its fears,\n  My son came and stood beside me--\n    He hadn't been home for years;\n  And right on my face came dripping\n    The scald of his salty tears;\n  And I was glad to know his breast\n  Had turned at last to the old home nest,\n  That I said to myself in an underbreath:\n  'This is the recompense of death.'\n\n_The Sister bore her Corner._ In his letters to her he opens all his\nheart. He is sometimes angry with her because, when he expected her to\nshow delight in his academic triumphs, she only exhibits an earnest\nsolicitude for his spiritual well-being. But, in his better moments, he\nforgave her. 'What a blessing it is for me,' he writes to her in his\ntwentieth year, 'what a blessing it is for me that I have such a sister\nas you, who have been so instrumental in keeping me in the right way.'\nAnd, later on, he delights her by telling her that he 'has begun to\nattend more diligently to the words of the Saviour and to devour them\nwith delight.'\n\n_The Author bore his Corner._ It was just about a hundred years after\nthe birth of Philip Doddridge, and just about fifty years after his\ndeath, that his book, _The Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul_,\nfell into the hands of Henry Martyn. Twenty years earlier it had opened\nthe eyes of William Wilberforce and led him to repentance. Doddridge's\npowerful sentences fell upon the proud soul of Henry Martyn like the\nlashes of a scourge. He resented them; he writhed under their\ncondemnation; but they revealed to him the desperate need of his heart,\nand he could not shake from him the alarm which they excited.\n\n_The Minister bore his Corner._ No preacher in England was better fitted\nto appeal to the mind of Martyn, at this critical stage of his career,\nthan was the Rev. Charles Simeon, the Vicar of Trinity Church,\nCambridge. In his concern, the young collegian found himself strangely\nattracted to the services at Trinity; and he gradually acquired, as he\nconfessed to his sister, more knowledge in divine things. He made the\nacquaintance, and won the friendship, of Mr. Simeon, and confided in him\nwithout reserve. 'I now experienced,' he says, 'a real pleasure in\nreligion, being more deeply convinced of sin than before, more earnest\nin fleeing to Jesus for refuge, and more desirous for the renewal of my\nnature.' The profit was mutual. For, many years after Henry Martyn's\ndeparture and death, Mr. Simeon kept in his study a portrait of the\nyoung student, and he used to say that he could never look into that\nface but it seemed to say to him, 'Be earnest! Be earnest!'\n\nAnd so, to repeat the language of the Gospel, '_there came unto Jesus\none that was borne of four_,' and his name was Henry Martyn.\n\n\nIII\n\nI cannot discover that, up to this point, any one text had played a\nconspicuous part in precipitating the crisis which transfigured his\nlife. But, after this, I find one sentence repeatedly on his lips.\nDuring a journey a man is often too engrossed with the perplexities of\nthe immediate present to be able to review the path as a whole. But,\nwhen he looks back, he surveys the entire landscape in grateful\nretrospect, and is astonished at the multiplicity and variety of the\nperils that he has escaped. Henry Martyn had some such feeling. When, at\nthe age of twenty-two, he entered the ministry, he was amazed at the\ngreatness of the grace that had made such hallowed privileges and sacred\nduties possible to him. Even in his first sermon, we are told, he\npreached with a fervor of spirit and an earnestness of manner that\ndeeply impressed the congregation.\n\n  He preached as one who ne'er should preach again,\n  And as a dying man to dying men.\n\n'For,' he wrote, '_I am but a brand plucked from the burning_.'\n\nAgain, when the needs of the world pressed like an intolerable burden\nupon his spirit, the same thought decided his course. On the _one_ hand,\nhe saw a world lying in darkness and crying for the light. On the\n_other_ hand, he saw all those sweet and sacred ties that bound him to\nhis native land--his devoted people, his admiring friends, and, hardest\ntie of all to break, the lady whom he had fondly hoped to make his\nbride. Here, on the _one_ hand, stood comfort, popularity, success and\nlove! And here, on the _other_, stood cruel hardship, endless\ndifficulties, constant loneliness, and an early grave! 'But how,' he\nwrites, 'can I hesitate? _I am but a brand plucked from the burning!_'\n\n_A brand in peril of sharing the general destruction!_\n\n_A brand seen, and prized, and rescued!_\n\n_A brand at whose blaze other flames might be lit!_\n\n_A brand plucked from the burning!_\n\n\nIV\n\n'_Is not this a brand plucked from the burning?_'--it was John Wesley's\ntext. To the end of his days John Wesley preserved the picture of the\nfire at the old rectory, the fire from which he, as a child of six, was\nonly rescued in the nick of time. And, underneath the picture, John\nWesley had written with his own hand the words: '_Is not this a brand\nplucked from the burning?_'\n\n'_Is not this a brand plucked from the burning?_'--it was John\nFletcher's text. John Wesley thought John Fletcher, the Vicar of\nMadeley, the holiest man then living. 'I have known him intimately for\nthirty years,' says Mr. Wesley. 'In my eighty years I have met many\nexcellent men; but I have never met his equal, nor do I expect to find\nsuch another on this side of eternity.' From what source did that\nperennial stream of piety spring? 'When I saw that all my endeavors\navailed nothing,' says Mr. Fletcher, in describing his conversion, 'I\nalmost gave up hope. But, I thought, Christ died for _all_; therefore He\ndied for _me_. He died to pluck such sinners as I am _as brands from the\nburning_! I felt my helplessness and lay at the feet of Christ. I cried,\ncoldly, yet, I believe, sincerely, \"Save me, Lord, _as a brand snatched\nout of the fire_! Stretch forth Thine almighty arm and save Thy lost\ncreature by free, unmerited grace!\"'\n\n'_Is not this a brand plucked from the burning?_'--it was Thomas\nOlivers' text. Thomas Olivers was one of Wesley's veterans, the author\nof the well-known hymn, 'The God of Abraham praise.' He went one day to\nhear George Whitefield preach. The text was, '_Is not this a brand\nplucked from the burning?_' 'When the sermon began,' he says, 'I was\ncertainly a dreadful enemy to God and to all that is good, and one of\nthe most profligate and abandoned young men living; but, by the time it\nwas ended, I was become a new creature. For, in the first place, I was\ndeeply convinced of the great goodness of God towards me in all my life;\nparticularly in that He had given His Son to die for me. I had also a\nfar clearer view of all my sins, particularly my base ingratitude\ntowards Him. These discoveries quite broke my heart and caused showers\nof tears to trickle down my cheeks. I was likewise filled with an utter\nabhorrence of my evil ways, and was much ashamed that I had ever walked\nin them. And, as my heart was thus turned from all that is evil, so it\nwas powerfully inclined to all that is good. It is not easy to express\nwhat strong desires I felt for God and His service; and what resolutions\nI made to seek Him and serve Him in the future. In consequence of this,\nI broke off all my evil practices, and forsook all my wicked and foolish\ncompanions without delay. I gave myself up to God and His service with\nmy whole heart. Oh, what reason have I to say, \"_Is not this a brand\nplucked from the burning?_\"'\n\n'_Is not this a brand plucked from the burning?_'--it was Stephen\nGrellet's text. Writing of his conversion, he says that 'the awfulness\nof that day of God's visitation can never cease to be remembered by me\nwith peculiar gratitude as long as I possess my mental faculties. I am\n_as a brand plucked from the burning_; I have been rescued from the\nbrink of a horrible pit!'\n\n\nV\n\nAnd it was Henry Martyn's text! '_Is not this_,' he cried, as he entered\nthe ministry, and again as he entered the mission field, '_is not this a\nbrand plucked from the burning?_'\n\n_A brand that might have perished in the general destruction!_\n\n_A brand seen, and prized, and rescued!_\n\n_A brand at whose blaze other flames might be lit!_\n\n_A brand plucked from the burning!_\n\n'Oh, let me burn out for my God!' he cries, still thinking of the brand\nplucked from the flames. He plunges, like a blazing torch, into the\ndarkness of India, of Persia and of Turkey. He leaves the peoples whom\nhe has evangelized the Scriptures in their own tongues. Seven short\nyears after he left England, he dies all alone on a foreign strand. 'No\nkinsman is near to watch his last look or receive his last words. No\nfriend stands by his couch to whisper comforting words, to close his\neyes or wipe the death-sweat from his brow.' In the article of death, he\nis alone with his Lord. The brand plucked from the blaze has soon burned\nout. But what does it matter? At its ardent flame a thousand other\ntorches have been ignited; and the lands that sat so long in darkness\nhave welcomed the coming of a wondrous light!\n\n\n\n\nVIII\n\nMICHAEL TREVANION'S TEXT\n\n\nI\n\nMichael Trevanion misunderstood Paul: that was the trouble. Michael, so\nMark Rutherford tells us, was a Puritan of the Puritans, silent, stern,\nunbending. Between his wife and himself no sympathy existed. They had\ntwo children--a boy and a girl. The girl was in every way her mother's\nchild: the boy was the image of his father. Michael made a companion of\nhis son; took him into his own workshop; and promised himself that, come\nwhat might, Robert should grow up to walk in his father's footsteps. All\nwent well until Robert Trevanion met Susan Shipton. Susan was one of the\nbeauties of that Cornish village. She had--what were not common in\nCornwall--light flaxen hair, blue eyes, and a rosy face, somewhat\ninclined to be plump. The Shiptons lay completely outside Michael's\ncircle. They were mere formalists in religion, fond of pleasure; and\nSusan especially was much given to gaiety. She went to picnics and\ndances; rowed herself about the bay with her friends; and sauntered\nround the town with her father and mother on Sunday afternoons. She was\nfond of bathing, too, and was a good swimmer. Michael hardly knew how to\nput his objection in words, but he nevertheless had a horror of women\nwho could swim. It seemed to him an ungodly accomplishment. He did not\nbelieve for a moment that Paul would have sanctioned it. That settled it\nfor Michael. For Michael had unbounded faith in the judgment of Paul;\nand the tragedy of his life lay in the fact that, on one important\noccasion, he misunderstood his oracle.\n\nOne summer's morning, Robert saved Susan from drowning. She had\nforgotten the swirl of water caused by the rush of the river into the\nbay, and had swum into the danger zone. In three minutes Robert was at\nher side, had gripped her by the bathing dress at the back of her neck,\nand had brought her into safer water. From that moment the two were\noften together; and, one afternoon, Michael came suddenly upon them and\nguessed their secret. It nearly broke his heart. In Robert's attachment\nto Susan he saw--or thought he saw--the end of all his hopes. 'He\nremembered what his own married life had been; he always trusted that\nRobert would have a wife who would be a help to him, and he felt sure\nthat this girl Shipton, with her pretty face and blue eyes, had no\nbrains. To think that his boy should repeat the same inexplicable\nblunder, that he would never hear from his wife's lips one serious word!\nWhat would she be if trouble came upon him? She was not a child of God.\nHe did not know that she ever sought the Lord. She went to church once a\nday and read her prayers, and that was all. She was not one of the\nchosen; she might corrupt Robert and he might fall away and so commit\nthe sin against the Holy Ghost. He went to his room, and, shutting the\ndoor, wept bitter tears. 'O my son, Absalom,' he cried, 'my son, my son\nAbsalom! Would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!'\n\nIt was in these desperate straits that poor Michael consulted Paul--and\nmisunderstood him. It was a Sunday night. Michael picked up the Bible\nand turned to the Epistle to the Romans. It was his favorite epistle. He\nread the ninth chapter. The third verse startled him. '_I could wish\nthat myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen\naccording to the flesh._' Nobody need wonder that the words strangely\naffected him. In his _Table Talk_, Coleridge says that when he read this\npassage to a friend of his, a Jew at Ramsgate, the old man burst into\ntears. 'Any Jew of sensibility,' the poet adds, 'must be deeply\nimpressed by it.' Michael Trevanion read the throbbing words again. '_I\ncould wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my\nkinsmen according to the flesh._'\n\nHe laid down the Book. 'What did Paul mean? What _could_ he mean save\nthat he was willing to be damned to save those whom he loved? And why\nnot? Why should not a man be willing to be damned for others? Damnation!\nIt is awful, horrible. Millions of years, with no relief, with no light\nfrom the Most High, and in subjection to His enemy! \"And yet, if it is\nto save--if it is to save Robert,\" thought Michael, \"God give me\nstrength--I could endure it. Did not the Son Himself venture to risk the\nwrath of the Father that He might redeem man? What am I? What is my poor\nself?\" And Michael determined that night that neither his life in this\nworld nor in the next, if he could rescue his child, should be of any\naccount.'\n\nSo far Michael and Paul were of one mind. Now for the divergence! Now\nfor the misunderstanding! Michael questioned himself and his oracle\nfurther. 'What could Paul mean exactly? God could not curse him _if he\ndid no wrong_. He could only mean that he was willing _to sin_, and be\npunished, provided Israel might live. It was lawful then to _tell a lie\nor perpetrate any evil deed_ in order to protect his child.' Michael\ntherefore took his resolution. He hinted to Robert that Susan's history\nwas besmirched with shame. He left on his desk--where he knew Robert\nwould see it--a fragment of an old letter referring to the downfall of\nanother girl named Susan. Michael knew that he was telling and acting a\nlie, a terrible and unpardonable lie. He firmly believed that, in\ntelling that dreadful lie, he was damning his soul to all eternity. But\nin damning his own soul--so he thought--he was saving his son's. And\nthat, after all, was the lesson that Paul had taught him.\n\nThe rest of the story does not immediately concern us. Robert, on seeing\nthe documentary proof of Susan's shame, ran away from home. Michael,\noverwhelmed with wretchedness, attempted to drown himself in the swirl\nat the mouth of the river. Of what value was life to him, now that his\nsoul was everlastingly lost? He awoke to find himself on the bank, with\nSusan bending over him and kissing him. He soon discovered that there\nwas more sense in Susan's head, and more grace in her heart, than he had\nfor one moment imagined. He set out after his son; found him; and died\nin making his great and humiliating confession. He had meant well, but\nhe had misunderstood. He had misunderstood Paul.\n\n\nII\n\nMichael made two mistakes, and they were grave and tragic and fatal\nmistakes.\n\n_He thought that good fruit could be produced from an evil tree._ There\nare times when it looks possible. But it is always an illusion. When I\nsee Michael Trevanion in the hour of his great temptation, I wish I\ncould introduce him to Jeanie Deans. For, in _The Heart of Midlothian_,\nSir Walter Scott has outlined a very similar situation. Poor Jeanie was\ntempted to save her wayward sister by a lie. It was a very little lie, a\nmere glossing over of the truth. The slightest deviation from actual\nveracity, and her sister's life, which was dearer to her than her own,\nwould be saved from the scaffold, and her family honor would be\nvindicated. But Jeanie could not, and would not, believe that there\ncould be salvation in a lie. With her gentle heart reproaching her, but\nwith her conscience applauding her, she told the truth, the whole truth,\nand nothing but the truth. And then she set out for London. Along the\ngreat white road she trudged, until her feet were bleeding and her\nexhausted form could scarcely drag itself along the dreadful miles. But\non she pressed, until she saw the lights of London town; and still on,\novercoming every barrier, until she stood before the Queen. And then she\npleaded, as no mere advocate could plead, for Effie. With what passion,\nwhat entreaties, what tears did she besiege the throne! And, before the\ntempest of her grief and eloquence, the Queen yielded completely and\ngave her her sister's life. To Jeanie Deans and to Michael Trevanion\nthere came the same terrible ordeal; but Jeanie stood where Michael\nfell. That was the _first_ of his two mistakes.\n\nThe _second_ was that _he thought that spiritual results could be\nengineered_. He fancied that souls could be saved by wire-pulling.\n\n'Robert,' he said, on the day of his death and of his bitter confession,\n'Robert, I have sinned, although it was for the Lord's sake, and He has\nrebuked me. I thought to take upon myself the direction of His affairs;\nbut He is wiser than I. I believed I was sure of His will, but I was\nmistaken. He knows that what I did, I did for the love of your soul, my\nchild; but I was grievously wrong.'\n\n'The father,' says Mark Rutherford, 'humbled himself before the son, but\nin his humiliation became majestic; and, in after years, when he was\ndead and gone, there was no scene in the long intercourse with him which\nlived with a brighter and fairer light in the son's memory.'\n\n\nIII\n\nAnd so Michael Trevanion sinned and suffered for his sin! For my part, I\nhave no stones to cast at him. I would rather sit at his feet and learn\nthe golden lesson of his life. For love--and especially the love of an\nearnest man for another's soul--covers a multitude of sins. There come\nto all of us mountain moments, moments in which we stand on the higher\naltitudes and catch a glimpse of the unutterable preciousness of a human\nsoul. But we are disobedient to the heavenly vision. We are like\nAugustine Saint Clare in _Uncle Tom's Cabin_. He could never forget, he\nsaid, the words with which his mother impressed upon him the dignity and\nworth of the souls of the slaves. Those passionate sentences of hers\nseemed to have burnt themselves into his brain. 'I have looked into her\nface with solemn awe,' he told Miss Ophelia, 'when she pointed to the\nstars in the evening and said to me, \"See there, Auguste! the poorest,\nmeanest soul on our place will be living when all those stars are gone\nfor ever--will live as long as God lives!\"'\n\n'Then why don't you free your slaves?' asked Miss Ophelia, with a\nwoman's practical and incisive logic.\n\n'I'm not equal to that!' Saint Clare replied; and he confessed that,\nthrough having proved recreant to the ideals that had once so clearly\npresented themselves, he was not the man that he might have been.\n\n'I'm not equal to that!' said Augustine Saint Clare.\n\nBut Michael Trevanion _was_ equal to that--and to a great deal more. He\nsaw the value of his son's soul, and he was willing to be shut out of\nheaven for ever and ever if only Robert could be eternally saved! 'My\nwitness is above,' says Samuel Rutherford, in his _Second Letter to his\nParishioners_, 'my witness is above that your heaven would be two\nheavens to me, and the salvation of you all as two salvations to me. I\nwould agree to a suspension and a postponement of my heaven for many\nhundreds of years if ye could so be assured of a lodging in the Father's\nhouse.' Michael Trevanion's behavior--mistaken as it was--proved that he\nwas willing to make an even greater sacrifice if, by so doing, he could\ncompass the salvation of his son.\n\n\nIV\n\nIt is at this point that Michael Trevanion falls into line with the\ngreat masters. Since the apostolic days we have had two conspicuously\nsuccessful evangelists--John Wesley and Mr. Spurgeon. The secret of\ntheir success is so obvious that he who runs may read. I turn to my\nedition of John Wesley's _Journal_, and at the end I find a tribute like\nthis: 'The great purpose of his life was doing good. For this he\nrelinquished all honor and preferment; to this he dedicated all his\npowers of body and mind; at all times and in all places, in season and\nout of season, by gentleness, by terror, by argument, by persuasion, by\nreason, by interest, by every motive and every inducement, he strove,\nwith unwearied assiduity, to turn men from the error of their ways and\nawaken them to virtue and religion. To the bed of sickness or the couch\nof prosperity; to the prison or the hospital; to the house of mourning\nor the house of feasting, wherever there was a friend to serve or a soul\nto save, he readily repaired. He thought no office too humiliating, no\ncondescension too low, no undertaking too arduous, to reclaim the\nmeanest of God's offspring. _The souls of all men were equally precious\nin his sight and the value of an immortal creature beyond all\nestimation._'\n\nIn relation to Mr. Spurgeon, we cannot do better than place ourselves\nunder Mr. W. Y. Fullerton's direction. Mr. Fullerton knew Mr. Spurgeon\nintimately, and the standard biography of the great preacher is from his\npen. Mr. Fullerton devotes a good deal of his space to an inquiry as to\nthe sources of Mr. Spurgeon's power and authority. It is an elusive and\ndifficult question. It is admitted that there is scarcely one respect in\nwhich Mr. Spurgeon's powers were really transcendent. He had a fine\nvoice; but others had finer ones. He was eloquent; but others were no\nless so. He used to say that his success was due, not to his preaching\nof the Gospel, but to the Gospel that he preached. Obviously, however,\nthis is beside the mark, for he himself would not have been so\nuncharitable as to deny that others preached the same Gospel and yet met\nwith no corresponding success. The truth probably is that, although he\nattained to super-excellence at no point, he was really great at many.\nAnd, behind this extraordinary combination of remarkable, though not\ntranscendent, powers was an intense conviction, a deadly earnestness, a\nconsuming passion, that made second-rate qualities sublime. The most\nrevealing paragraph in the book occurs towards the end. It is a\nquotation from Mr. Spurgeon himself. 'Leaving home early in the\nmorning,' he says, 'I went to the vestry and sat there all day long,\nseeing those who had been brought to Christ by the preaching of the\nWord. Their stories were so interesting to me that the hours flew by\nwithout my noticing how fast they were going. I had seen numbers of\npersons during the day, one after the other; and I was so delighted with\nthe tales of divine mercy they had to tell me, and the wonders of grace\nGod wrought in them, that I did not notice how the time passed. At seven\no'clock we had our prayer meeting. I went in to it. After that came the\nchurch meeting. A little before ten I felt faint, and I began to think\nat what hour I had eaten my dinner, and I then for the first time\nremembered that _I had not had any_! I never thought of it. I never even\nfelt hungry, because God had made me so glad!' Mr. Spurgeon lived that\nhe might save men. He thought of nothing else. From his first sermon at\nWaterbeach to his last at Mentone, the conversion of sinners was the\ndream of all his days. That master-passion glorified the whole man, and\nthrew a grandeur about the common details of every day. He would\ncheerfully have thrown away his soul to save the souls of others.\n\nIt is along this road that the Church has always marched to her most\nsplendid triumphs. Why did the Roman Empire so swiftly capitulate to the\nclaims of Christ? Lecky discusses that question in his _History of\nEuropean Morals_. And he answers it by saying that the conquest was\nachieved by the new spirit which Christ had introduced. The idea of a\nSaviour who could weep at the sepulcher of His friend; and be touched by\na sense of His people's infirmities, was a novelty to that old pagan\nworld. And when the early Christians showed themselves willing to endure\nany suffering, or bear any loss, if, by so doing, they might win their\nfriends, their sincerity and devotion proved irresistible.\n\n\nV\n\nBut Michael Trevanion must lead us higher yet. For what Michael\nTrevanion learned from Paul, Paul himself had learned from an infinitely\ngreater. Let us trace it back!\n\n'Let me be damned to all eternity that my boy may be saved!' cries\nMichael Trevanion, sitting at the feet of Paul, but misunderstanding his\nteacher.\n\n'_I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my\nkinsmen according to the flesh_,' exclaims Paul, sitting at the feet of\nOne who not only _wished_ to be accursed, but _entered into_ the\nimpenetrable darkness of that dreadful anathema.\n\n'_My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?_' He cried from that depth\nof dereliction. 'In that awful hour,' said Rabbi Duncan, addressing his\nstudents, 'in that awful hour _He took our damnation, and He took it\nlovingly!_' When, with reverent hearts and bated breath, we peer down\ninto the fathomless deeps that such a saying opens to us, we catch a\nglimpse of the inexpressible value which heaven sets upon the souls of\nmen. And, when Michael Trevanion has led us to such inaccessible heights\nand to such unutterable depths as these, we can very well afford to say\nGood-bye to him.\n\n\n\n\nIX\n\nHUDSON TAYLOR'S TEXT\n\n\nI\n\nThe day on which James Hudson Taylor--then a boy in his teens--found\nhimself confronted by that tremendous text was, as he himself testified\nin old age, 'a day that he could never forget.' It is a day that China\ncan never forget; a day that the world can never forget. It was a\nholiday; everybody was away from home; and the boy found time hanging\nheavily upon his hands. In an aimless way he wandered, during the\nafternoon, into his father's library, and poked about among the shelves.\n'I tried,' he says, 'to find some book with which to while away the\nleaden hours. Nothing attracting me, I turned over a basket of pamphlets\nand selected from among them a tract that looked interesting. I knew\nthat it would have a story at the commencement and a moral at the close;\nbut I promised myself that I would enjoy the story and leave the rest.\nIt would be easy to put away the tract as soon as it should seem prosy.'\nHe scampers off to the stable-loft, throws himself on the hay, and\nplunges into the book. He is captivated by the narrative, and finds it\nimpossible to drop the book when the story comes to an end. He reads on\nand on. He is rewarded by one great golden word whose significance he\nhas never before discovered: '_The Finished Work of Christ!_' The theme\nentrances him; and at last he only rises from his bed in the soft hay\nthat he may kneel on the hard floor of the loft and surrender his young\nlife to the Saviour who had surrendered everything for him. If, he asked\nhimself, as he lay upon the hay, if the whole work was finished, and the\nwhole debt paid upon the Cross, what is there left for me to do? 'And\nthen,' he tells us, 'there dawned upon me the joyous conviction that\nthere was nothing in the world to be done but to fall upon my knees,\naccept the Saviour and praise Him for evermore.'\n\n'_It is finished!_'\n\n'_When Jesus, therefore, had received the vinegar he said, \"It is\nfinished!\" and He bowed His head and gave up the ghost._'\n\n'_Then there dawned upon me the joyous conviction that, since the whole\nwork was finished and the whole debt paid upon the Cross, there was\nnothing for me to do but to fall upon my knees, accept the Saviour and\npraise Him for evermore!_'\n\n\nII\n\n'_It is finished!_'\n\nIt is really only one word: the greatest word ever uttered; we must\nexamine it for a moment as a lapidary examines under a powerful glass a\nrare and costly gem.\n\nIt was a _farmer's_ word. When, into his herd, there was born an animal\nso beautiful and shapely that it seemed absolutely destitute of faults\nand defects, the farmer gazed upon the creature with proud, delighted\neyes. '_Tetelestai!_' he said, '_tetelestai!_'\n\nIt was an _artist's_ word. When the painter or the sculptor had put the\nlast finishing touches to the vivid landscape or the marble bust, he\nwould stand back a few feet to admire his masterpiece, and, seeing in it\nnothing that called for correction or improvement, would murmur fondly,\n'_Tetelestai! tetelestai!_'\n\nIt was a _priestly_ word. When some devout worshiper, overflowing with\ngratitude for mercies shown him, brought to the temple a lamb without\nspot or blemish, the pride of the whole flock, the priest, more\naccustomed to seeing the blind and defective animals led to the altar,\nwould look admiringly upon the pretty creature. '_Tetelestai!_' he would\nsay, '_tetelestai!_'\n\nAnd when, in the fullness of time, the Lamb of God offered Himself on\nthe altar of the ages, He rejoiced with a joy so triumphant that it bore\ndown all His anguish before it. The sacrifice was stainless, perfect,\nfinished! '_He cried with a loud voice Tetelestai! and gave up the\nghost._'\n\nThis divine self-satisfaction appears only twice, once in each\nTestament. When He completed the work of Creation, He looked upon it and\nsaid that it was very good; when He completed the work of Redemption He\ncried with a loud voice _Tetelestai_! It means exactly the same thing.\n\n\nIII\n\nThe joy of finishing and of finishing well! How passionately good men\nhave coveted for themselves that ecstasy! I think of those pathetic\nentries in Livingstone's journal. 'Oh, to finish my work!' he writes\nagain and again. He is haunted by the vision of the unseen waters, the\nfountains of the Nile. Will he live to discover them? 'Oh, to finish!'\nhe cries; 'if only I could finish my work!' I think of Henry Buckle, the\nauthor of the _History of Civilization_. He is overtaken by fever at\nNazareth and dies at Damascus. In his delirium he raves continually\nabout his book, his still unfinished book. 'Oh, to finish my book!' And\nwith the words 'My book! my book!' upon his burning lips, his spirit\nslips away. I think of Henry Martyn sitting amidst the delicious and\nfragrant shades of a Persian garden, weeping at having to leave the work\nthat he seemed to have only just begun. I think of Dor\u00e9 taking a sad\nfarewell of his unfinished _Vale of Tears_; of Dickens tearing himself\nfrom the manuscript that he knew would never be completed; of Macaulay\nlooking with wistful and longing eyes at the _History_ and _The Armada_\nthat must for ever stand as 'fragments'; and of a host besides. Life is\noften represented by a broken column in the church-yard. Men long, but\nlong in vain, for the priceless privilege of finishing their work.\n\n\nIV\n\nThe joy of finishing and of finishing well! There is no joy on earth\ncomparable to this. Who is there that has not read a dozen times the\nimmortal postscript that Gibbon added to his _Decline and Fall_? He\ndescribes the tumult of emotion with which, after twenty years of\nclosest application, he wrote the last line of the last chapter of the\nlast volume of his masterpiece. It was a glorious summer's night at\nLausanne. 'After laying down my pen,' he says, 'I took several turns in\na covered walk of acacias which commands a prospect of the country, the\nlake and the mountains. The air was temperate, the sky was serene, the\nsilver orb of the moon was reflected from the waters, and all nature was\nsilent.' It was the greatest moment of his life. We recall, too, the\nsimilar experience of Sir Archibald Alison. 'As I approached the closing\nsentence of my _History of the Empire_,' he says, 'I went up to Mrs.\nAlison to call her down to witness the conclusion, and she saw the last\nwords of the work written, and signed her name on the margin. It would\nbe affectation to conceal the deep emotion that I felt at this event.'\nOr think of the last hours of Venerable Bede. Living away back in the\nearly dawn of our English story--twelve centuries ago--the old man had\nset himself to translate the Gospel of John into our native speech.\nCuthbert, one of his young disciples, has bequeathed to us the touching\nrecord. As the work approached completion, he says, death drew on apace.\nThe aged scholar was racked with pain; sleep forsook him; he could\nscarcely breathe. The young man who wrote at his dictation implored him\nto desist. But he would not rest. They came at length to the final\nchapter; could he possibly live till it was done?\n\n'And now, dear master,' exclaimed the young scribe tremblingly, 'only\none sentence remains!' He read the words and the sinking man feebly\nrecited the English equivalents.\n\n'It is finished, dear master!' cried the youth excitedly.\n\n'Ay, _it is finished_!' echoed the dying saint; 'lift me up, place me at\nthat window of my cell at which I have so often prayed to God. Now glory\nbe to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost!' And, with these\ntriumphant words, the beautiful spirit passed to its rest and its\nreward.\n\n\nV\n\nIn his own narrative of his conversion, Hudson Taylor quotes James\nProctor's well-known hymn--the hymn that, in one of his essays, Froude\ncriticizes so severely:\n\n  Nothing either great or small,\n    Nothing, sinner, no;\n  Jesus did it, did it all,\n    Long, long ago.\n\n  '_It is Finished!_' yes, indeed,\n    Finished every jot;\n  Sinner, this is all you need;\n    Tell me, is it not?\n\n  Cast your deadly doing down,\n    Down at Jesus' feet;\n  Stand in Him, in Him alone,\n    Gloriously complete.\n\nFroude maintains that these verses are immoral. It is only by 'doing,'\nhe argues, that the work of the world can ever get done. And if you\ndescribe 'doing' as 'deadly' you set a premium upon indolence and lessen\nthe probabilities of attainment. The best answer to Froude's plausible\ncontention is the _Life of Hudson Taylor_. Hudson Taylor became\nconvinced, as a boy, that 'the whole work was finished and the whole\ndebt paid.' 'There is nothing for me to do,' he says, 'but to fall down\non my knees and accept the Saviour.' The chapter in his biography that\ntells of this spiritual crisis is entitled '_The Finished Work of\nChrist_,' and it is headed by the quotation:\n\n  Upon a life I did not live,\n    Upon a death I did not die,\n  Another's life, Another's death\n    I stake my whole eternity.\n\nAnd, as I have said, the very words that Froude so bitterly condemns are\nquoted by Hudson Taylor as a reflection of his own experience. And the\nresult? The result is that Hudson Taylor became one of the most\nprodigious toilers of all time. So far from his trust in '_the Finished\nWork of Christ_' inclining him to indolence, he felt that he must toil\nmost terribly to make so perfect a Saviour known to the whole wide\nworld. There lies on my desk a Birthday Book which I very highly value.\nIt was given me at the docks by Mr. Thomas Spurgeon as I was leaving\nEngland. If you open it at the twenty-first of May you will find these\nwords: '_\"Simply to Thy Cross I cling\" is but half of the Gospel. No one\nis really clinging to the Cross who is not at the same time faithfully\nfollowing Christ and doing whatsoever He commands_'; and against those\nwords of Dr. J. R. Miller's in my Birthday Book, you may see the\nautograph of _J. Hudson Taylor_. He was our guest at the Mosgiel Manse\nwhen he set his signature to those striking and significant sentences.\n\n\nVI\n\n'_We Build Like Giants; we Finish Like Jewelers!_'--so the old Egyptians\nwrote over the portals of their palaces and temples. I like to think\nthat the most gigantic task ever attempted on this planet--the work of\nthe world's redemption--was finished with a precision and a nicety that\nno jeweler could rival.\n\n'_It is finished!_' He cried from the Cross.\n\n'_Tetelestai! Tetelestai!_'\n\nWhen He looked upon His work in Creation and saw that it was good, He\nplaced it beyond the power of man to improve upon it.\n\n  To gild refin\u00e8d gold, to paint the lily,\n  To throw a perfume on the violet,\n  To smooth the ice, or add another hue\n  Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light\n  To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish,\n  Is wasteful and ridiculous excess.\n\nAnd, similarly, when He looked upon His work in Redemption and cried\ntriumphantly '_Tetelestai_,' He placed it beyond the power of any man to\nadd to it.\n\nThere are times when any addition is a subtraction. Some years ago,\nWhite House at Washington--the residence of the American Presidents--was\nin the hands of the painters and decorators. Two large entrance doors\nhad been painted to represent black walnut. The contractor ordered his\nmen to scrape and clean them in readiness for repainting, and they set\nto work. But when their knives penetrated to the solid timber, they\ndiscovered to their astonishment that it was heavy mahogany of a most\nexquisite natural grain! The work of that earlier decorator, so far from\nadding to the beauty of the timber, had only served to conceal its\nessential and inherent glory. It is easy enough to add to the wonders of\nCreation or of Redemption; but you can never add without subtracting.\n'_It is finished!_'\n\n\nVII\n\nMany years ago, Ebenezer Wooton, an earnest but eccentric evangelist,\nwas conducting a series of summer evening services on the village green\nat Lidford Brook. The last meeting had been held; the crowd was melting\nslowly away; and the evangelist was engaged in taking down the marquee.\nAll at once a young fellow approached him and asked, casually rather\nthan earnestly, 'Mr. Wooton, what must _I_ do to be saved?' The preacher\ntook the measure of his man.\n\n'Too late!' he said, in a matter of fact kind of way, glancing up from a\nsomewhat obstinate tent-peg with which he was struggling. 'Too late, my\nfriend, too late!' The young fellow was startled.\n\n'Oh, don't say that, Mr. Wooton!' he pleaded, a new note coming into his\nvoice. 'Surely it isn't too late just because the meetings are over?'\n\n'Yes, my friend,' exclaimed the evangelist, dropping the cord in his\nhand, straightening himself up, and looking right into the face of his\nquestioner, 'it's too late! You want to know what you must _do_ to be\nsaved, and I tell you that you're hundreds of years too late! The work\nof salvation is done, completed, _finished_! It was finished on the\nCross; Jesus said so with the last breath that He drew! What more do you\nwant?'\n\nAnd, then and there, it dawned upon the now earnest inquirer on the\nvillage green as, at about the same time, it dawned upon young Hudson\nTaylor in the hay-loft, that '_since the whole work was finished and the\nwhole debt paid upon the Cross, there was nothing for him to do but to\nfall upon his knees and accept the Saviour_.' And there, under the elms,\nthe sentinel stars witnessing the great transaction, he kneeled in glad\nthanksgiving and rested his soul for time and for eternity on '_the\nFinished Work of Christ_.'\n\n\nVIII\n\n'_The Finished Work of Christ!_'\n\n'_Tetelestai! Tetelestai!_'\n\n'_It is finished!_'\n\nIt is not a sigh of relief at having reached the end of things. It is\nthe unutterable joy of the artist who, putting the last touches to the\npicture that has engrossed him for so long, sees in it the realization\nof all his dreams and can nowhere find room for improvement. Only once\nin the world's history did a finishing touch bring a work to absolute\nperfection; and on that day of days a single flaw would have shattered\nthe hope of the ages.\n\n\n\n\nX\n\nRODNEY STEELE'S TEXT\n\n\nI\n\n'As soon,' Dr. Chalmers used to say, 'as soon as a man comes to\nunderstand that _GOD IS LOVE_, he is infallibly converted.' Mrs.\nFlorence L. Barclay wrote a book to show how Rodney Steele made that\nmomentous and transfiguring discovery. Rodney Steele--the hero of _The\nWall of Partition_--was a great traveler and a brilliant author. He had\nwandered through India, Africa, Australia, Egypt, China and Japan, and\nhad written a novel colored with the local tints of each of the\ncountries he had visited. He was tall, strong, handsome, bronzed by many\nsuns, and--largely as a result of his literary successes--immensely\nrich. But he was soured. Years ago he loved a beautiful girl. But an\nunscrupulous and designing woman had gained his sweetheart's confidence\nand had poisoned her heart by pouring into her ear the most abominable\nscandals concerning him. She had returned his letters; and he, in the\nvain hope of being able to forget, had abandoned himself to travel and\nto literature. But, on whatever seas he sailed, and on whatever shores\nhe wandered, he nursed in his heart a dreadful hate--a hate of the woman\nwho had so cruelly intervened. And, cherishing that hate, his heart\nbecame hard and bitter and sour. He lost faith in love, in womanhood, in\nGod, in everything. And his books reflected the cynicism of his soul.\nThis is Rodney Steele as the story opens. The boat-train moves into\nCharing Cross, and, after an absence of ten years, he finds himself once\nmore in London.\n\n\nII\n\nMany years ago, when our grandmothers were girls, they devoted their\nspare moments to the making of bookmarkers; and on the marker, in\ncolored silk, they embroidered the letters GOD IS LOVE. Dr. Handley\nMoule, Bishop of Durham, made effective use of such a bookmarker when he\nvisited West Stanley immediately after the terrible colliery disaster\nthere. He motored up to the scene of the catastrophe and addressed the\ncrowd at the pit's mouth. Many of those present were the relatives of\nthe entombed miners. 'It is very difficult,' he said, 'for us to\nunderstand why God should let such an awful disaster happen, but we know\nHim, and trust Him, and all will be right. I have at home,' the Bishop\ncontinued, 'an old bookmarker given me by my mother. It is worked in\nsilk, and, when I examine the wrong side of it, I see nothing but a\ntangle of threads crossed and recrossed. It looks like a big mistake.\nOne would think that someone had done it who did not know what she was\ndoing. But, when I turn it over and look at the right side, I see there,\nbeautifully embroidered, the letters GOD IS LOVE. We are looking at all\nthis to-day,' he concluded, 'from the wrong side. Some day we shall see\nit from another standpoint, and shall understand.' This all happened\nmany years ago; but quite recently some who were present declared that\nthey never forgot the story of the bookmarker and the comfort that it\nbrought.\n\nIt was a bookmarker of exactly the same kind, and bearing precisely the\nsame inscription, that brought the fragrance of roses into the dusty\nheart of Rodney Steele. Sitting alone in his Harley Street flat, he\nfound himself turning over the pages of a Bible that belonged to Mrs.\nJake, his housekeeper. Among those pages he found Mrs. Jake's marriage\n'lines,' a photograph of her husband in military uniform, some pressed\nflowers and--a perforated bookmarker! And on the bookmarker, in pink\nsilk, were embroidered the words: GOD IS LOVE. It reminded him of those\nfar-off days in which, as a little boy, he had delighted in the\npossession of his first box of paints. He had begged his mother to give\nhim something to color, and she had pricked out those very words on a\ncard and asked him to paint them for her.\n\n_God! Love!_\n\n_Love! God!_\n\n_God is Love!_\n\nSo said the bookmarker; but, he reflected sadly, _love_ had failed him\nlong ago, and of _God_ he had no knowledge at all.\n\n\nIII\n\nWhen those three tremendous words next confronted Rodney Steele, they\nwere worked, not in silk, but in stone! In a lower flat, in the same\nbuilding in Harley Street, there dwelt a Bishop's widow. Rodney got to\nknow her, to like her, and, at last, to confide in her. One afternoon\nthey were discussing the novel that all London was reading, _The Great\nDivide_. It was from his own pen, but he did not tell her so. Mrs.\nBellamy--the widow--confessed that, in spite of its brilliance, she did\nnot like it. It betrayed bitterness, a loss of ideals, a disbelief in\nlove; it was not uplifting.\n\n'It is life,' Rodney replied. 'Life tends to make a man lose faith in\nlove.'\n\nBut Mrs. Bellamy would not hear of it.\n\n'May I tell you,' she asked, 'the Bishop's way of meeting all\ndifficulties, sorrows and perplexities?'\n\n'Do tell me,' said Rodney.\n\n'He met them with three little words, each of one syllable. Yet that\nsentence holds the truth of greatest import to our poor world; and its\nright understanding readjusts our entire outlook upon life, and should\naffect all our dealings with our fellow men: GOD IS LOVE. In our first\nhome--a country parish in Surrey--three precious children were born to\nus--Griselda, Irene and little Launcelot. Scarlet fever and diphtheria\nbroke out in the village, a terrible epidemic, causing grief and anxiety\nin many homes. We were almost worn out with helping our poor\npeople--nursing, consoling, encouraging. Then, just as the epidemic\nappeared to be abating, it reached our own home. Our darlings were\nstricken suddenly. Mr. Steele, we lost all three in a fortnight! My\nlittle Lancy was the last to go. When he died in my arms I felt I could\nbear no more.\n\n'My husband led me out into the garden. It was a soft, sweet, summer\nnight. He took me in his arms and stood long in silence, looking up to\nthe quiet stars, while I sobbed upon his breast. At last he said, \"My\nwife, there is one rope to which we must cling steadfastly, in order to\nkeep our heads above water amid these overwhelming waves of sorrow. It\nhas three golden strands. It will not fail us. GOD--IS--LOVE.\"\n\n'The nursery was empty. There was no more patter of little feet; no\nchildren's merry voices shouted about the house. The three little graves\nin the churchyard bore the names Griselda, Irene and Launcelot; and on\neach we put the text, spelt out by the initials of our darlings' names:\nGOD IS LOVE. And in our own heart-life we experienced the great calm and\npeace of a faith which had come through the deepest depths of sorrow. We\nwere sustained by the certainty of the love of God.'\n\nRodney Steele was deeply touched and impressed. Here was one who had\nknown sorrow and had been sweetened by it. In her there was no trace of\nbitterness.\n\n'I don't know,' he said to himself, as he came away, 'I don't know as to\nthe truth of the Bishop's text; but, anyway, the Bishop's widow is love.\nShe lives what she believes, and that certainly makes a belief worth\nhaving.'\n\n'_God is love!_'--he had seen it worked in silk.\n\n'_God is love_'--he had seen it inscribed three times in stone.\n\n'_God is love!_'--he had seen it translated into actual life.\n\n'_God is love!_'--he was almost persuaded to believe it.\n\n\nIV\n\n_God is----!_\n\nIt is the oldest question in the universe, and the greatest. It has been\nasked a million million times, and it would not have been altogether\nstrange had we never discovered an answer. In Mr. H. G. Wells' story of\nthe men who invaded the moon, he describes a conversation between the\ntravelers and the Grand Lunar. The Grand Lunar asks them many questions\nabout the earth which they are unable to answer. 'What?' he exclaims,\n'knowing so little of _the earth_, do you attempt to explore _the\nmoon_?' We men know little enough of _ourselves_: it would have been no\ncause for astonishment had we been unable to define _God_. Men lost\nthemselves for ages in guess-work. They looked round about them; they\nsaw how grandly a million worlds revolve, and they noticed how\nexquisitely the mighty forces of the earth are governed. Then they made\ntheir guess.\n\n'_God is Power_,' they said, '_God is Power!_'\n\nThen, peering a little more deeply into the heart of things, they saw\nthat all these terrific forces are not only controlled, but harnessed to\nhigh ends. All things are working--they are working together--they are\nworking together for good! And thereupon men made their second guess.\n\n'_God is Wisdom_,' they said, '_God is Wisdom!_'\n\nThen, observing things still more closely, men began to see great\nethical principles underlying the laws of the universe. In the long run,\nevil suffers, and, in the long run, right is rewarded.\n\n'_God is Justice_,' they said, '_God is Justice!_'\n\nAnd so men made their guesses, and, as they guessed, they built. They\nerected temples, now to the God of Power, then to the God of Wisdom, and\nagain to the God of Justice. They had yet to learn that they were\nworshiping the part and not the whole; they were worshiping the rays and\nnot the Light Itself.\n\nThen Jesus came, and men understood. By His words and His deeds, by His\nlife and His death, He revealed the whole truth. God is Power and Wisdom\nand Justice--but He is more. In a European churchyard there stands a\nmonument erected by a poet to his wife. It bears the inscription:\n\n    She was----,\n    But words are wanting to say what!\n    Think what a wife should be\n    And she was that!\n\n  _God is----!_\n  _God is--what?_\n\n    He is----,\n    But words are wanting to say what!\n    Think what a God should be\n    And He is that!\n\nJesus filled in the age-long blank; He filled it in,\nnot in cold language, but in warm life. Many attempts\nhave been made to translate His definition\nfrom the terms of life into the terms of language.\nOnly once have those attempts been even approximately\nsuccessful. The words on the perforated\nbookmarker represent the best answer that human\nspeech has ever given to the question.\n\n_God is----_\n\n_God is--what?_\n\n_GOD--IS--LOVE!_\n\n\nV\n\nRodney Steele met again the girl--ripened now into the full glory of\nwomanhood--from whom he had been so cruelly separated. He felt that it\nwas too late to right the earlier wrong; and, in any case, his life was\ntoo embittered to offer her now. But he rejoiced in her friendship, and,\none day, opened his heart to her.\n\n'Madge,' he said, 'I am furious with Fate. Life is chaos. Shall I tell\nyou of what it reminds me? When I was last in Florence I was invited to\nthe dress rehearsal of \"Figli Di Re.\" I took my seat in the stalls of\nthe huge empty opera house. The members of the orchestra were all in\ntheir places. Pandemonium reigned! Each man was playing little snatches\nof the score before him, all in the same key, but with no attempt at\ntime, tune or order. The piping of the flute, the sighing of the fiddle,\nthe grunt of the double bass, the clear call of the cornet, the bray of\nthe trombones, all went on together. The confused hubbub of sound was\nindescribable. Suddenly a slim, alert figure leaped upon the estrade and\nstruck the desk sharply with a baton. It was the maestro! There was\ninstant silence. He looked to the right; looked to the left; raised his\nbaton; and lo! full, rich, sweet, melodious, blending in perfect\nharmony, sounded the opening chords of the overture!'\n\nRodney likened the jangling discords to the confusion of his own life.\nThere was in his soul a disappointed love, an implacable hate, and a\nmedley of other discords.\n\n'You are waiting for the Maestro, Roddie!' said Madge. 'His baton will\nreduce chaos to order with _a measure of three beats_.'\n\n'Three beats?'\n\n'Yes; three almighty beats: GOD--IS--LOVE!'\n\nHe shook his head.\n\n'I left off pricking texts when I was five, and gave up painting when I\nwas nine.'\n\n'It is not what you do to the texts, Rodney; it is what the texts do to\nyou!'\n\nHe left her, and, soon after, left London.\n\n\nVI\n\nYes, he left her, and he left London; but he could not leave the text.\nIt confronted him once more. He had taken refuge in a little fishing\nvillage on the East Coast. Up on the cliffs, among the corn-fields,\nflecked with their crimson poppies, he came upon a quaint old church. He\nstepped inside. In the porch was a painting of an old ruin--ivy-covered,\nuseless and desolate--standing out, jagged and roofless, against a\npurple sky. The picture bore a striking inscription:\n\n  The ruins of my soul repair\n  And make my heart a house of prayer.\n\n'_The ruins of my soul!_' Rodney thought of the discord within.\n\n'_Make my heart a house of prayer!_' Rodney thought of the maestro.\n\nHe passed out into the little graveyard on the very edge of the cliff.\nHe was amused at the quaint epitaphs. Then one tombstone, lying flat\nupon the ground, a tombstone which, in large capitals, called upon the\nreader to 'Prepare to meet thy God,' startled him. Again he thought of\nthe clashing discords of his soul.\n\n'Then, suddenly,' says Mrs. Barclay, 'the inspired Word did that which\nIt--and It alone--can do. It gripped Rodney and brought him face to face\nwith realities--past, present and future--in his own inner life. At\nonce, the Bishop's motto came into his mind; the three words his gentle\nmother used to draw that her little boy might paint them stood out\nclearly as the answer to all vague and restless questionings: GOD IS\nLOVE!'\n\n'_God is Love!_'\n\n'_Prepare to Meet thy God!_'\n\nHow could he, with his old hate in his heart, stand in the presence of a\nGod of Love?\n\nStanding there bareheaded, with one foot on the prone tombstone, Rodney\ngrappled with the passion that he had cherished through the years, and\nthus took his first step along the path of preparation.\n\n'I forgive the woman who came between us,' he said aloud. 'My God, I\nforgive her--as I hope to be forgiven!'\n\n'As soon as a man comes to understand that _GOD IS LOVE_,' said Dr.\nChalmers, 'he is infallibly converted.' That being so, Rodney Steele was\ninfallibly converted that day, and that day he entered into peace.\n\n\nVII\n\nWhen Robert Louis Stevenson settled at Samoa, the islands were ablaze\nwith tumult and strife. And, during those years of bitterness, Stevenson\ndid his utmost to bring the painful struggle to an end. He visited the\nchiefs in prison, lavished his kindnesses upon the islanders, and made\nhimself the friend of all. In the course of time the natives became\ndevotedly attached to the frail and delicate foreigner who looked as\nthough the first gust of wind would blow him away. His health required\nthat he should live away on the hill-top, and they pitied him as he\npainfully toiled up the stony slope. To show their affection for him,\nthey built a road right up to his house, in order to make the steep\nascent more easy. And they called that road Ala Loto Alofa--_The Road to\nthe Loving Heart_. They felt, as they toiled at their labor of\ngratitude, that they were not only conferring a boon on the white man,\nbut that they were making a beaten path from their own doors to the\nheart that loved them all.\n\n_God is Love_; and it is the glory of the everlasting Gospel that it\npoints the road by which the Father's wayward sons--in whichever of the\nfar countries they may have wandered--may find a way back to the\nFather's house, and home to the Loving Heart.\n\n\n\n\nXI\n\nTHOMAS HUXLEY'S TEXT\n\n\nI\n\nShe was a sermon-taster and was extremely sensitive to any kind of\nheresy. It is in his _Life of Donald John Martin_, a Presbyterian\nminister, that the Rev. Norman C. Macfarlane places her notable\nachievement on permanent record. He describes her as 'a stern lady who\nwas provokingly evangelical.' There came to the pulpit one Sabbath a\nminister whose soundness she doubted. He gave out as his text the words:\n'_What doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly, to love mercy,\nand to walk humbly with thy God?_' '_Weel, weel_,' this excellent woman\nexclaimed, as she turned to her friend beside her, '_weel, weel, if\nthere's one text in a' the Buik waur than anither, yon man is sure to\ntak' it!_'\n\n\nII\n\nShe thought that text the _worst_ in the Bible. Huxley thought it the\n_best_. Huxley was, as everybody knows, the Prince of Agnostics. We need\nnot stop to ask why. Nobody who has read the story of John Stuart Mill's\nboyhood will wonder that Mill was a skeptic. And nobody who has read the\nstory of Thomas Huxley's boyhood will wonder at his becoming an\nagnostic. As Edward Clodd, his biographer, says, 'his boyhood was a\ncheerless time. Reversing Matthew Arnold's sunnier memories:\n\n  No rigorous teachers seized his youth,\n  And purged its faith and tried its fire,\n  Shewed him the high, white star of truth,\n  There bade him gaze, and there aspire.\n\n'He told Charles Kingsley that he was \"kicked into the world, a boy\nwithout guide or training, or with worse than none\"; he \"had two years\nof a pandemonium of a school, and, after that, neither help nor sympathy\nin any intellectual direction till he reached manhood.\"' And, even then,\nas those familiar with his biography know, he had little enough.\n\nWhat would Huxley have been, I wonder, if the sympathy for which he\nhungered had been extended to him? If, instead of badgering him with\narguments and entangling him in controversy, Mr. Gladstone and Bishop\nWilberforce and others had honestly attempted to see things through his\nspectacles! Huxley was said to be as cold as ice and as inflexible as\nsteel; but I doubt it. In his life-story I find two incidents--one\nbelonging to his early manhood and one belonging to his age--which tell\na very different tale.\n\nThe _first_ is connected with the birth of his boy. It is the last night\nof the Old Year, and he is waiting to hear that he is a father. He\nspends the anxious hour in framing a resolution. In his diary he pledges\nhimself 'to smite all humbugs, however big; to give a nobler tone to\nscience; to set an example of abstinence from petty personal\ncontroversies and of toleration for everything but lying; to be\nindifferent as to whether the work is recognized as mine or not, so long\nas it is done. It is half-past ten at night. Waiting for my child. I\nseem to fancy it the pledge that all these things shall be.' And the\nnext entry runs:\n\n'_New Year's Day, 1859._ Born five minutes before twelve. Thank God!'\n\nMark that '_Thank God!_' and then note what follows. A year or two\nlater, when the child is snatched from him, he makes this entry and then\ncloses the journal for ever. He has no heart to keep a diary afterwards.\n\n'Our Noel, our firstborn, after being for nearly four years our delight\nand our joy, was carried off by scarlet fever in forty-eight hours. This\nday week he and I had a great romp together. On Friday his restless\nhead, with its bright blue eyes and tangled golden hair, tossed all day\nupon the pillow. On Saturday night I carried his cold, still body here\ninto my study. Here, too, on Sunday night, came his mother and I to that\nholy leavetaking. My boy is gone; but in a higher and better sense than\nwas in my mind when, four years ago, I wrote what stands above, I feel\nthat my fancy has been fulfilled. I say heartily and without\nbitterness--Amen, so let it be!'\n\n'_Thank God!_' exclaims our great Agnostic when the child is born.\n\n'_Amen!_' he says, submissively, when the little one is buried.\n\nThis is the _first_ of the two incidents. The _second_--which is no less\npathetic--is recorded by Dr. Douglas Adam. 'A friend of mine,' the\ndoctor says, 'was acting on a Royal Commission of which Professor Huxley\nwas a member, and one Sunday they were staying together in a little\ncountry town. \"I suppose you are going to church,\" said Huxley. \"Yes,\"\nreplied my friend. \"What if, instead, you stayed at home and talked to\nme of religion?\" \"No,\" was the reply, \"for I am not clever enough to\nrefute your arguments.\" \"But what if you simply told me your own\nexperience--what religion has done for you?\" My friend did not go to\nchurch that morning; he stayed at home and told Huxley the story of all\nthat Christ had been to him; and presently there were tears in the eyes\nof the great agnostic as he said, \"_I would give my right hand if I\ncould believe that!_\"'\n\nThis, if you please, is the man who was supposed to be as cold as ice\nand as inflexible as steel! This is the man for whom the Christians of\nhis time had nothing better than harsh judgments, freezing sarcasms and\nwindy arguments! How little we know of each other! How slow we are to\nunderstand!\n\n\nIII\n\nBut the text! It was in the course of his famous--and\nfurious--controversy with Mr. Gladstone that Huxley paid his homage to\nthe text. He was pleading for a better understanding between Religion\nand Science.\n\n'The antagonism between the two,' he said, 'appears to me to be purely\nfictitious. It is fabricated, on the one hand, by short-sighted\nreligious people, and, on the other hand, by short-sighted scientific\npeople.' And he declared that, whatever differences may arise between\nthe _exponents_ of Nature and the _exponents_ of the Bible, there can\nnever be any real antagonism between Science and Religion themselves.\n'In the eighth century before Christ,' he goes on to say, 'in the eighth\ncentury before Christ, in the heart of a world of idolatrous\npolytheists, the Hebrew prophets put forth a conception of religion\nwhich appears to me to be as wonderful an inspiration of genius as the\nart of Pheidias or the science of Aristotle. \"_What doth the Lord\nrequire of thee but to do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly\nwith thy God?_\" If any so-called religion takes away from this great\nsaying of Micah, I think it wantonly mutilates, while if it adds\nthereto, I think it obscures, the perfect ideal of religion.'\n\nAnd it was on the ground of their common admiration for this text--the\n_worst_ text in the world, the _best_ text in the world--that Mr.\nGladstone and Professor Huxley reached some kind of agreement. Not to be\noutdone by his antagonist, Mr. Gladstone raised his hat to the text.\n\n'I will not dispute,' he says, 'that in these words is contained the\ntrue ideal of discipline and attainment. Still, I cannot help being\nstruck with an impression that Mr. Huxley appears to cite these terms of\nMicah as if they reduced the work of religion from a difficult to an\neasy program. But look at them again. Examine them well. They are, in\ntruth, in Cowper's words:\n\n  Higher than the heights above,\n  Deeper than the depths beneath.\n\n_Do justly_, that is to say, extinguish self; _love mercy_, cut utterly\naway all the pride and wrath and all the cupidity that make this fair\nworld a wilderness; _walk humbly with thy God_, take his will and set it\nin the place where thine own was wont to rule. Pluck down the tyrant\nfrom his place; set up the true Master on His lawful throne.' In the\ntext--the _worst_ text in the Bible; the _best_ text in the Bible--Mr.\nGladstone and Professor Huxley find a trysting-place. We may therefore\nleave the argument at that point.\n\n\nIV\n\nThe words with which Huxley fell in love were addressed by the prophet\nto a desperate man--and that man a king--who was prepared to pay any\nprice and make any sacrifice if only, by so doing, he might win for\nhimself the favor of the Most High. '_Wherewith shall I come before the\nLord and bow myself before the high God?' he cries. 'Shall I come before\nHim with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be\npleased with thousands of rams or with ten thousands of rivers of oil?\nShall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for\nthe sin of my soul?_'\n\n'_My firstborn!_'--we have just witnessed a father's anguish on the\ndeath of his firstborn. But Balak, King of Moab, is prepared to lead his\nfirstborn to the sacrificial altar if, by so doing, he can secure the\nfavor of the Highest.\n\nAnd the answer of the prophet is that the love of God is not for sale.\nAnd, if it _were_ for sale, it could not be purchased by an act of\nimmolation in which heaven could find no pleasure at all. F. D. Maurice\npoints out, in one of his letters to R. H. Hutton, that the world has\ncherished two ideas of sacrifice. When a man discovers that his life is\nout of harmony with the divine Will, he may make a sacrifice by which he\nbrings his conduct into line with the heavenly ideal. That is the one\nview. The other is Balak's. Balak hopes, by offering his child upon the\naltar, to bring the divine pleasure into line with his unaltered life.\n'All light is in the one idea of sacrifice,' says Maurice, 'and all\ndarkness in the other. The idea of sacrifice, not as an act of obedience\nto the divine will, but as a means of changing that will, is the germ of\nevery dark superstition.'\n\nHeaven is not to be bought, the prophet told the king. '_He hath shewed\nthee, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of thee but to\ndo justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God?_'\n\n_Equity! Charity! Piety!_\n\n_Do something! Love something! Be something!_\n\n_Do justly! Love mercy! Walk humbly with thy God!_\n\nThese, and these alone, are the offerings in which heaven finds delight.\n\n\nV\n\nI cannot help feeling sorry for the lady in the Scottish church. She\nthinks that Balaam's brave reply to Balak is the worst text in the\nBible. And she is not alone. For, in his _Literature and Dogma_, Matthew\nArnold shows that she is the representative of a numerous and powerful\nclass. 'In our railway stations are hung up,' Matthew Arnold says,\n'sheets of Bible texts to catch the eye of the passer-by. And very\nprofitable admonitions to him they generally are. One, particularly, we\nhave all seen. It asks the prophet Micah's question: _Wherewith shall I\ncome before the Lord and bow myself before the high God?_ And it answers\nthat question with one short quotation from the New Testament: _With the\nprecious blood of Christ._' Matthew Arnold maintains that this is not\nhonest. By casting aside the prophet's answer, and substituting another,\nthe people who arranged the placard ally themselves with the lady in the\nScottish church. They evidently think Balaam's reply to Balak _the worst\ntext in the Bible_. But is it? Is it good, is it fair, is it honest to\nstrike out the real answer and to insert in its place an adopted one? I\nwish to ask the lady in the Scottish church--and the people who prepared\nthe placard--two pertinent questions.\n\nMy _first_ question is this. Is the deleted text--the worst text in the\nBible--true? That is extremely important. _Does_ God require that man\nshould do justly, love mercy and walk humbly with Himself? Is it not a\nfact that heaven _does_ insist on equity and charity and piety? Can\nthere, indeed, be any true religion without these things? Do they not\nrepresent the irreducible minimum? If this be so, is it not as well for\nthat Scottish minister to preach on that terrible text, after all? And,\nif this be so, would not the original answer to the question be the best\nanswer for the placard?\n\nMy _second_ question is this. Even from the standpoint of 'a stern lady\nwho is provokingly evangelical,' is it not well for the minister to\npreach on that objectionable text? The lady is anxious, and commendably\nanxious, that the pulpit of her church should sound forth the\nmagnificent verities of the Christian evangel. But will a man desire the\nsalvation which the New Testament reveals unless he has first recognized\nhis inability to meet heaven's just demands? In a notable fragment of\nautobiography, Paul declares that, but for the law, he would never have\nknown the meaning of sin. It was when he heard how much he owed to the\ndivine justice that he discovered the hopelessness of his bankruptcy. It\nwas when he listened to the _Thou shalts_ and the _Thou shalt nots_ that\nhe cried, 'O wretched man that I am: who shall deliver me?' It was Sinai\nthat drove him to Calvary. The law, with its stern, imperative demands,\nwas, he says, the schoolmaster that led him to Christ. The best way of\nshowing that a stick is crooked is to lay a straight one beside it. This\nbeing so, the lady in the Scottish church, and the compilers of Matthew\nArnold's placard, must consider whether, in the interests of that very\nevangelism for which they are so justly jealous, they can afford to\nsupersede the stately passages that make men feel their desperate need\nof a Saviour.\n\nThis, at any rate, is the way in which Micah used the story of the\nconversation between Balak and Balaam. By means of it he sought to\nreduce the people to despair. And then, when they had fallen upon their\nfaces and covered themselves with sackcloth, he made one of the noblest\nevangelical pronouncements that the Old Testament contains: '_He\npardoneth iniquity because He delighteth in mercy: Thou wilt cast all\ntheir sins into the depths of the sea_.' But the people would never have\nlistened hungrily to that glad golden word unless they had first\nrealized the sublimity of the divine demand and the incalculable extent\nof their shortcoming.\n\n\nVI\n\nWe each have a blind spot. We see truth fragmentarily. If only the\nexcellent lady in the Scottish church could have seen, in the minister's\ntext, what Huxley saw in it! But she didn't; and, because she was blind\nto its beauty, she called it '_the worst text in the Bible!_' And if\nonly Huxley could have grasped those precious truths that were so dear\nto her! But he never did. He could only shake his fine head sadly and\nsay, 'I do not know!' 'I would give my right hand,' he exclaims, 'if I\ncould believe that!' Mr. Clodd adorns the title-page of his _Life of\nHuxley_ with the words of Matthew Arnold: 'He saw life steadily and saw\nit whole.' That sad shake of the head, and that passionate but\nmelancholy exclamation about giving his right hand, prove that the\ntribute is not quite true. Huxley, as he himself more than half\nsuspected, missed the best.\n\nWhen Sir George Adam Smith, in his _Book of the Twelve Prophets_, comes\nto this great passage in Micah, he prints it in italics right across the\npage:\n\n_What doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly and to love mercy\nand to walk humbly with thy God?_\n\nThis, says Sir George, is the greatest saying of the Old Testament; and\nthere is only one other in the New which excels it:\n\n_Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give\nyou rest._\n\nHuxley had eyes for the _first_, but none for the _second_; the Scottish\nlady had eyes for the _second_, but none for the _first_; but they who\n'see life steadily and see it whole' will stand up to salute the majesty\nof both.\n\n\nVII\n\nIt is customary for the Presidents of the United States to select the\npassage which they shall kiss in taking the oath on assuming the\nresponsibilities of their great office. President Harding had no\nhesitation in making his choice. He turned to this great saying of\nMicah. '_What doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly and to love\nmercy and to walk humbly with thy God?_' The lady in the Scottish church\nwould frown and shake her head, but the President felt that, of all the\ntexts in the Bible, _that was the best_.\n\n\n\n\nXII\n\nWALTER PETHERICK'S TEXT\n\n\nI\n\nHe was born at Islington on the day on which Sir Walter Raleigh was\nexecuted; and his father named him after the gallant knight whom he\nhimself was so proud of having served. That was forty-seven years ago.\nHe is now a prosperous London merchant, living, at ordinary times, over\nhis warehouse, and delighting in the society of his four motherless\nchildren. At ordinary times! But these are not ordinary times. The\nplague is in the city! It appeared for the first time about two months\nago and has gradually increased in virulence ever since. Mr. Petherick\nhas therefore withdrawn with his two boys and his two girls to\nTwickenham. This morning--the morning of July 16, 1665--they all go\ntogether to the Parish Church. The riverside is in all its summer glory.\nThe brilliant sunshine seems to mock both the wretchedness so near at\nhand and the heavy anxiety that weighs upon their hearts. During the\nweek a solemn fast-day has been observed, and to-day, services of\nhumiliation and intercession are to be held in all the churches. Several\ntimes, during the past week or two, Mr. Petherick has visited the city.\nIt was a melancholy experience. Most of the shops were shut; poor\ncreatures who claimed that they themselves or their relatives were\ninfected by the pestilence cried for alms at every corner; and he had\npassed many houses on whose doors a red cross had been marked, and,\nunderneath, the words, 'Lord, have mercy upon us!' To-day that pathetic\nentreaty is to be offered in every sanctuary. All through the country,\nmen and women are pleading that the awful visitation may be stayed. At\nTwickenham the church soon fills, and the fervently murmured responses\ngive evidence of the depth and intensity of the universal emotion. Mr.\nPetherick never forgot the sermon that was preached in the old church\nthat July morning. At least, he never forgot the text. '_Although the\nfig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the\nlabor of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the\nflocks shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the\nstalls; yet I will rejoice in the Lord and I will joy in the God of my\nsalvation!_'\n\n_The fields barren! The stalls empty! The vineyards bare!_\n\n_I will rejoice! I will joy! I will joy! I will rejoice!_\n\nThe text reminded the Pethericks of the dazzling sunshine that, as they\ncame along, had seemed so unsympathetic. For here was a radiance equally\nincongruous! Here was faith shining like a solitary star on a dark\nnight! Here was joy, singing her song, like the nightingale, amidst the\ndeepest gloom! It was as though a merry peal of bells was being rung on\na day of public lamentation.\n\n\nII\n\n'The words took hold upon me mightily!' wrote Walter Petherick to a\nfriend in 1682. I do not wonder. Quite apart from their singular\napplication to his own case, they are full of nobility and grandeur.\nWhen, in 1782--exactly a century later--Benjamin Franklin was appointed\nAmerican Plenipotentiary at Paris, some of the brilliant French wits of\nthat period twitted him on his admiration for the Bible. He determined\nto test their knowledge of the Volume they professed to scorn. Entering\ntheir company one evening, he told them that he had been reading an\nancient poem, and that its stately beauty had greatly impressed him. At\ntheir request he took from his pocket a manuscript and proceeded to read\nit. It was received with exclamations of extravagant admiration.\n'Superb!' they cried. 'Who was the author? Where did Franklin discover\nit? How could copies be obtained?' He informed them, to their\nastonishment, that it was the third chapter of the prophecy of\nHabakkuk--the passage to which Mr. Petherick and his children listened\nthat sad but sunny morning at Twickenham.\n\nThe Petherick incident belongs to the _seventeenth_ century; the\nFranklin incident belongs to the _eighteenth_; and they remind me of one\nthat belongs to the _nineteenth_. Daniel Webster was one morning\ndiscussing with a number of eminent artists the subjects commonly chosen\nfor portrayal upon canvas. 'I have often wondered,' he said, 'that no\npainter has yet thought it worth his while to draw his inspiration from\none of the most sublime passages in any literature.' 'And what is that?'\nthey asked. 'Well,' he replied, 'what finer conception for a masterpiece\ncould any artist desire than the picture of the prophet Habakkuk sitting\nin the midst of utter ruin and desolation, singing, in spite of\neverything, faith's joyous and triumphant song?'\n\n\nIII\n\n_Suppose!_\n\nIt is a _Song of Suppositions_!\n\n'_Suppose_ the fig tree shall not blossom!'\n\n'_Suppose_ the vine shall bear no fruit!'\n\n'_Suppose_ the labor of the olive shall fail!'\n\n'_Suppose_ the fields shall yield no corn!'\n\n'_Suppose_ the flock shall be cut off from the fold!'\n\n'_Suppose_ there shall be no herd in the stalls!'\n\n'_Suppose! Suppose! Suppose!_'\n\nI very well remember a conversation I once had at Mosgiel with old\nJeanie McNab. Jeanie subsisted on a mixed diet of smiles and songs.\n\n'But, supposing, Jeanie----' I began one day.\n\n'Now don't you have anything to do with _supposings_,' she exclaimed. 'I\nknow them all. \"_Suppose_ I should lose my money!\" \"_Suppose_ I should\nlose my health!\" And all the rest. When those _supposings_ come knocking\nat your heart, you just slam the door, and bolt it, and don't let any of\nthem in!'\n\nIt was excellent advice; yet the prophet acted on a diametrically\nopposite principle. When the _supposings_ came knocking at his door, he\ncried 'Come in!' and in they came!\n\n'_Suppose_ the figs are barren!'\n\n'_Suppose_ the vines wither!'\n\n'_Suppose_ the olive fail!'\n\n'_Suppose_ the corn perish!'\n\n'_Suppose_ the sheep starve!'\n\n'_Suppose_ the cattle die!'\n\nThe prophet invites them all to come in. They jostle each other as they\nthrong his little room. He hears all that they have to say, and then he\nanswers them.\n\n'Whence came all these things?' he demands. 'Whence came the figs and\nthe vines and the olives, the corn and the flocks and the herds?' And,\nhaving asked this question, he himself proceeds to answer it.\n\n'_HE_ gave them!' he cries triumphantly, '_HE_ gave them! And if they\nperish, as you _suppose_, _He_ can as easily replace them! _Therefore\nwill I rejoice_ _in the Lord and will joy in the God of my salvation!_\nIt is a small thing to lose the _gifts_ as long as you possess the\n_Giver_; the supreme tragedy lies in losing the _Giver_ and retaining\nonly the _gifts_!'\n\nThere is no record as to what the preacher said that Sunday morning at\nTwickenham; but some such thoughts as these must have been suggested to\nthe eager minds of the Pethericks as they listened so attentively. 'The\nwords took hold upon me mightily!' the father confessed, in a letter to\na friend, long afterwards.\n\n\nIV\n\nThat evening a horror of great darkness fell upon the soul of Walter\nPetherick. He spent the sunset hours quietly with the young people, and,\nbefore they bade each other good-night, he read with them again the\npassage that had so impressed them in the morning. Then, left to\nhimself, Mr. Petherick put on his hat and took a stroll in the lane. It\nwas a perfect summer's evening, warm and star-lit; yet its peace failed\nto penetrate his tortured soul. A glow-worm twinkled in the grass under\nthe hedge, but no ray of light pierced the impenetrable gloom within. He\nreturned to his room, and, after sitting for a while at the open window,\nlooking down on the sluggish waters of the tranquil river, he threw\nhimself on his knees beside his bed. One by one he prayed for each of\nhis children. The red cross that he had seen on so many doors seemed to\nhave stamped itself upon the retina of his eye; it blazed before him\neven whilst the lids were closed in prayer.\n\n'Lord, have mercy on us!' said the legend under the cross.\n\n'Lord, have mercy on us!' cried Mr. Petherick over and over and over\nagain.\n\nHe thought of the morning's text, but it only mocked him, as the\nsunshine mocked him on his way to church.\n\n'I could not say it,' he moaned. 'If my children were snatched from\nme--my fine boys and my lovely girls--the treasures that _she_ left\nme--how could I _rejoice in the Lord and joy in the God of my\nsalvation_?'\n\nHe broke into a fresh outburst of supplication. Again he mentioned each\nof his children by name. 'Spare him; oh, spare him!' he cried; and, as\nhe thought of the girls, 'Spare her, O Lord; have pity, I beseech Thee!'\n\nHe wiped his face; it was damp with perspiration. He allowed his\nforehead to rest upon his folded arms; and then, bowed there in the\nsolitude of his room and in the stillness of the summer night, a strange\nthought took possession of him.\n\n\nV\n\nHe remembered to have prayed as fervently as this before--many, many\nyears ago. In those days--the days of his earliest religious\nexperiences--he had prayed, almost as earnestly as this, for his own\nspiritual prosperity, for the extension of Christ's Kingdom and for the\nenlightenment of the world. It seemed like a dream as he recalled it. He\nwas scarcely more than a boy in those days. The ardor and intensity of\nthat distant time had deserted him so gradually, and had vanished so\nimperceptibly, that he had never missed it until now. Love had come into\nhis life, irradiating and transfiguring everything. Love had led to\nmarriage; four happy children had brought added gladness to his home and\nfresh contentment to his heart; and he had abandoned himself without\nreserve to these domestic cares and comforts. The things that had so\ncompletely captivated his soul were all of them _good_ things--just as\nthe fig and the vine and the olive, the corn and the flocks and the\nherds were all of them _good_ things--but he had allowed them to elbow\nout the wealthiest things of all. The _good_ had become the enemy of the\n_best_. Before his heart had been gladdened by those treasures that were\nnow so dear to him, he had every day _rejoiced in the Lord and joyed in\nthe God of his salvation_. But not since! His enrichment had proved his\nimpoverishment! What was it that the preacher had said? 'It is a small\nthing to love the _gifts_ as long as you possess the _Giver_; the\nsupreme tragedy lies in losing the _Giver_ and retaining only the\n_gifts_.' And Walter Petherick felt that night that that supreme tragedy\nwas his.\n\nHe rose from his knees, reached for his Bible, and turned once more to\nthe chapter from which the minister had preached. '_O Lord_,' it began,\n'_revive Thy work in the midst of years!_' He himself was '_in the midst\nof years_.' The thought brought with it a sense of shame and a rush of\nthankfulness. He was _ashamed_ that he had permitted the years that had\ngone to filch so much from him. Like waves that strew treasures on the\nshore, and snatch treasures from the shore, he felt that the years had\nbrought much and taken much. Yet he felt grateful that he was still '_in\nthe midst of the years_'; it is better to discover life's loss at the\nhalfway house than to find it out at the end of the journey! He returned\nthe Bible to its place, and, as he did so, he closed his eyes and\nrepeated for himself the prophet's prayer.\n\n'_O Lord_,' he cried, '_revive Thy work in the midst of the years; in\nthe midst of the years make known; in wrath remember mercy!_'\n\nIt seemed as if the prayer had opened the gates of his soul to the peace\nof the night. As he looked again at the glistening river, he felt\nstrangely soothed and comforted. And, half an hour later, he was\nsleeping as restfully as any of his children.\n\n\nVI\n\nOnce more it is a Sunday evening, and once more we are at Twickenham.\nFor at Twickenham the family have now made their home; they never, after\nthe Plague Year, resided in the city. More than twelve months have\npassed. We last saw them on July 16, 1665; this is Sunday, September 2,\n1666. And this Sunday has been as eventful and as memorable as that.\nFor, just as the family were assembling at the breakfast table, Henry,\nthe elder of the two boys, burst into the room, exclaiming excitedly:\n\n'Father, the city is on fire!'\n\nIt was true! London was one great sea of flame! In the afternoon the\nfather and the two sons drove as far as the Borough; it was as near as\nthey could get to the raging conflagration. And what a sight confronted\nthem! Immense tongues of crimson shot up from the burning city and\nseemed to lick the very skies. When the clouds of smoke parted for a\nmoment, they saw towers falling, walls collapsing, chimneys tottering,\nwhilst the crash of roof after roof kept up a series of reports that\nresembled the firing of artillery. Every now and again a terrific\nexplosion rent the air, followed immediately by an eruption of flaming\ndebris that looked volcanic in its weird grandeur. London seemed to be\nin the grip of an angry demon that was bent on tearing it to fragments.\nThe fire exhibited a thousand fantastic forms; it blazed in every\nconceivable hue and color; it roared and shrieked and sputtered; it\nhissed and thundered and growled. A spectacle of such vivid beauty, yet\nof such awful horror, had never been seen in England before. And,\nsomewhere within the area swept by that red, red ocean of flame, was Mr.\nPetherick's warehouse containing all, or practically all, his earthly\npossessions!\n\nBut that Sunday night the soul of Walter Petherick knew no such anguish\nas it had known a year ago. He thought of the '_supposes_.' He read once\nmore the prophet's song of defiance and of triumph. He smiled to himself\nas he reflected that the flames could only take the _gifts_; they could\nnot rob him of the _Giver_. '_Therefore_,' he said to himself, '_I will\nrejoice in the Lord and joy in the God of my salvation_'; for 'it is a\nsmall thing to lose the _gifts_ as long as you possess the _Giver_; the\nsupreme tragedy lies in losing the _Giver_ and retaining only the\n_gifts_!' And that Sunday night, whilst London crackled and blazed, the\nsleep of Walter Petherick was once more like the sleep of a little\nchild.\n\n\nVII\n\nAgain it is a Sunday evening at Twickenham. Walter Petherick has been\ncelebrating his fiftieth birthday. Three years have passed since the\nGreat Plague and two since the Great Fire. In the presence of the young\npeople, he has poured out his heart in reverent gratitude for the\nmercies that have so richly crowned his days. And now, the soft autumn\nday, with its russet tints and its misty sunlight having closed, he is\nonce more alone in his room.\n\n'O Lord,' he prays, 'Thou hast been pleased by pestilence and by fire to\nredeem my soul from destruction. Thou didst threaten me with the loss of\nThy choicest _gifts_ that I might set my heart's affections once more\nupon their _Giver_. But the fig tree did not wither; the vines did not\nperish; the olive did not fail. The pestilence did not touch my\nchildren; the flames did not destroy my goods. Accept the thanks of Thy\nservant this day and help him, all his days, _to rejoice in the Lord and\nto joy in the God of his salvation_.'\n\nAnd the records show that Walter Petherick lived to enjoy long life,\nabounding wealth, great honors, and the clinging affection of his\nchildren's children. And ever in his heart he cherished a deep, deep\nsecret and sang a rapturous song. For he reveled, not only in the\n_gifts_, but in the _Giver_. He rejoiced in _the Lord_ and joyed in _the\nGod of his salvation_.\n\n\n\n\nXIII\n\nDOCTOR BLUND'S TEXT\n\n\nI\n\nThe doctor was the worst man in Bartown, and that was saying a good\ndeal. For Bartown had the reputation of being 'the wickedest little hole\nin all England.' It is Harold Begbie who, in _The Vigil_, tells its\nstory. Dr. Blund, he assures us, spent most of his time drinking gin and\nplaying billiards at 'The Angel.' In a professional point of view, only\none person in the little seaside town believed in him, and that was the\nbroken and bedraggled little woman whose whole life had been darkened by\nhis debauchery. Mrs. Blund was never tired of singing the doctor's\npraises. When she introduced him to a newcomer, and told of his wondrous\ncures and amazing skill, he listened like a man in a dream. 'Dr.\nBlund,'--so runs the story--'Dr. Blund was twitching with excess of\nalcohol, and only muttered and frowned as his wife talked of his powers.\nThe terrible old doctor, with his hairy, purple face and his sunken\neyes, seemed to think that his wife was doing him the most dreadful\ndis-service. It was wonderful that this little woman, instead of\nshrinking from exhibiting her husband, should have so pathetic a faith\nin the dreadful-looking rogue that she evidently fancied that he had but\nto be seen to be chosen as medical adviser.'\n\nThus the story opens. It could scarcely be expected that such a wreck\ncould hold together for long. Exactly half-way through the book I find\nMr. Rodwell, the young rector, standing at the street-corner talking to\nMr. Shorder, the wealthy manufacturer. They are interrupted. Mrs. Blund\ncomes hurrying breathlessly round the corner.\n\n'Mr. Rodwell,' she pants, 'please come at once! Dr. Blund! He's asking\nfor you! I've been to the vicarage, I've been everywhere, hunting for\nyou. Don't delay a moment, please!'\n\nRichard Rodwell was an earnest young clergyman, who had ideas of his own\nabout things; and the task to which he was now summoned was very little\nto his taste. He saw in Blund a man who had lived hideously and was now\nconcerned to avert his just punishment. He tried to believe that there\nwas some hope for such a wretch; but the attempt was not altogether\nsuccessful. He bent over the dying man and talked of mercy and\nrepentance and forgiveness. But the words did not come from his own\nsoul, and they did not comfort the soul of the man to whom they were\naddressed.\n\n'There's something else!' he gasped.\n\n'There is nothing outside the mercy of God,' replied the vicar.\n\n'It's in the Bible, what I mean,' returned the dying man.\n\n'What is it?' asked Rodwell soothingly.\n\n'It's a text, \"Except a man be _born again_----\" You know the words,\n_Born again_. What does that mean?'\n\nThe doctor, in his professional capacity, had often seen a child draw\nits first breath, and had been impressed by its utter pastlessness. It\nhad nothing to regret, nothing to forget. Everything was before it;\nnothing behind. And here was a text that seemed to promise such an\nexperience a second time! To be _born again_! What was it to be _born\nagain_? The dying doctor asked his insistent question repeatedly, but\nthe vicar was out of his depth. He floundered pitifully. At last the\ndoctor, to whom every moment was precious beyond all price, lost\npatience with the hesitating minister and changed the form of his\nquestion. Looking fixedly into his visitor's eyes, he exclaimed:\n\n'Tell me, have _you_ been _born again_?' Rodwell hung his head in\nsilence, and the voice from the bed went on.\n\n'Have you ever known in your life,' he asked, 'a moment when you felt\nthat a great change happened to you? Are you pretending? Have you ever\nbeen conscious of _a new birth_ in your soul?'\n\nThe vicar fenced with the question, but it was of no avail. The dying\nman raised himself suddenly on an elbow. 'You can't help me!' he cried\nangrily. He seized Rodwell's wrist and held it tightly, fiercely. As he\nspoke, the fingers tightened their grasp, and he bent Rodwell's hand\ndown to the bed, as it were for emphasis.\n\n'You don't know,' he cried. 'You're pretending. The words you say are\nwords for the living. I am a dying man. Have you the same message for\nthe living and the dying? Have I a lifetime before me in which to work\nout repentance? You can't help me! You don't know! You have never been\n_born again_!'\n\nSuch a rebuke smites a minister like the sudden coming of the Day of\nJudgment. After his conversion John Wesley wrote a terrible letter to\nhis old counselor, William Law. 'How will you answer to our common\nLord,' he asks, 'that you, sir, never led me into light? Why did I\nscarcely ever hear you name the _name of Christ_? Why did you never urge\nme to _faith in His blood_? I beseech you, sir, to consider whether the\ntrue reason of your never pressing this salvation upon me was not\nthis--_that you never had it yourself_!'\n\n'It was a terrible discovery to make,' says Mr. Begbie. 'To think that\nhe--Richard Rodwell, Vicar of Bartown--knew so little of the nature of\nGod that he could say no single word that had significance for this\ndying soul! He was dumb. The words on his lips were the words of the\nChurch. Out of his own heart, out of his own soul, out of his own\nexperience, he could say nothing.'\n\n'Forgive me,' he said, as he bent over the form on the bed, 'forgive me\nfor failing you. It is not Christ who has failed; it is I.' He turned to\ngo. The dying man opened his eyes and looked at Rodwell sadly and\ntragically.\n\n'Try to learn what those words mean,' he muttered. '_Born again!_ It's\nthe bad man's only chance.'\n\nThey parted, never to meet again; and from another minister's lips the\ndoctor learned the secret for which he craved.\n\n\nII\n\nIt is very difficult to excuse Mr. Rodwell, especially when we remember\nthat the words that the dying doctor found so captivating, and that he\nhimself found so perplexing, were originally intended to meet just such\ncases as that of Dr. Blund.\n\n'What is it to be _born again_? How can a man be _born again_?' asked\nthe voice from the bed.\n\n'How can a man _be born_ when he is old?' asked Nicodemus, as he heard\nthe Saviour's words uttered for the first time.\n\n'When he is old!' To Nicodemus, as to Dr. Blund, there was something\nsingularly attractive about the thought of babyhood, the thought of\npastlessness, the thought of beginning life all over again. But to the\naged ruler, as to the aged doctor, it was an insoluble enigma, an\ninscrutable mystery.\n\n'_How?_' asked Nicodemus of the Saviour. '_How_ can a man _be born_ when\nhe is old?'\n\n'_How?_' asked Dr. Blund of Mr. Rodwell. '_How_ can a man be _born\nagain_?'\n\nWe all feel that, unless the gospel can meet just such cases as these,\nwe might almost as well have no gospel at all. And yet we have also felt\nthe force of that persistent and penetrating _How?_\n\nDr. Blund is no frolic of Mr. Begbie's imagination. Dr. Blund is the\nrepresentative of all those--and their name is legion--who, in the\ncrisis of the soul's secret history, have turned towards the Saviour's\nstrange saying with the most intense wistfulness and yearning. Let me\ncite three instances--each as unlike the others as it could possibly\nbe--in order to show that all sorts and conditions of men have at some\ntime felt as Dr. Blund felt in those last hours of his. John Bunyan, the\ntinker of Bedford, was born in the _seventeenth_ century; the Duke of\nWellington, soldier and statesman, was born in the _eighteenth_ century;\nFrederick Charrington, the London brewer, was born in the _nineteenth_\ncentury. From a great cloud of available witnesses I select these three.\n\nAs to John Bunyan, the story of the beginnings of grace in the dreamer's\nsoul is familiar to us all, but it will do us no harm to hear it from\nhis own lips once again. 'Upon a day,' he says, 'the good providence of\nGod called me to Bedford, to work at my calling; and in one of the\nstreets of that town I came to where there were three or four poor women\nsitting in the sun talking about the things of God; and being now\nwilling to hear them discourse, I drew near to hear what they said; but\nI heard, yet understood not; they were far above, out of my reach; for\ntheir talk was about _a new birth_!'\n\n'_Their talk was about a new birth!_'\n\n'_Ye must be born again!_'\n\n'_I heard_,' says Bunyan, '_but I understood not!_'\n\n'At this,' he goes on to say, 'at this I felt my heart begin to shake,\nfor I saw that in all my thoughts about salvation, _the new birth_ did\nnever enter into my mind!'\n\nThus the soul of the sleeper awoke. He walked the streets of Bedford\nasking the old, old question, the question of Nicodemus, the question of\nDr. Blund, the question of us all. 'How can a man be _born again_? How\ncan a man be _born again_?'\n\nFrom John Bunyan to the Duke of Wellington seems a far cry. But the\ntransition may not be as drastic as it appears. Dr. W. H. Fitchett, who\nhas made a special study of the character and achievements of the great\nDuke, recently told the story of a remarkable and voluminous\ncorrespondence that took place between Wellington and a young lady named\nMiss Jenkins. To this earnest and devout girl, her faith was the biggest\nthing in life. She had but one passionate and quenchless desire: the\ndesire to share it with others. She sought for converts everywhere. A\nmurderer awaited execution in the local gaol. Miss Jenkins obtained\npermission to visit him. She entered the condemned cell, pleaded with\nhim, wept over him, won him to repentance, and the man went to the\nscaffold blessing her.\n\nThen, from the winning of the lowest, she turned to the winning of the\nhighest. She fastened her eyes upon the Duke of Wellington, the victor\nof Waterloo, the statesman of the hour, the most commanding figure in\nthe three kingdoms. Wellington was then sixty-five, a man covered with\nhonor and absorbed in public affairs. But, to Miss Jenkins, he was\nsimply a great worldly figure, and, in 1834, she wrote a letter--a\nletter winged by many prayers--warning him of the peril of living\nwithout a sure, deep consciousness of the forgiveness of sins, through\nthe redemption of Jesus Christ. Wellington's iron nature was strongly\nmoved. He replied by return of post, and thus inaugurated a\ncorrespondence in the course of which he wrote to Miss Jenkins no fewer\nthan three hundred and ninety letters. In the course of this amazing\ncorrespondence, Miss Jenkins begged for an interview, and it was\ngranted. Miss Jenkins took out her New Testament and read to the old\nwarrior these very words. '_Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a\nman be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God!_' 'Here,' says Dr.\nFitchett, in unfolding the story, 'here was a preacher of quite a new\ntype! A girl's lips were reciting Christ's tremendous words: \"_Ye must\nbe born again!_\" She was addressing them directly to him, and her\nuplifted finger was challenging him. Some long-dormant religious\nsensibilities awoke within him. The grace of the speaker, and the mystic\nquality of the thing spoken, arrested him.' To the end of his days the\nDuke firmly believed that, by means of this girl-prophet, God Himself\nspoke to his soul that day.\n\nMr. Frederick Charrington's story has been put on record by Guy Thorne.\nHe was the son of the great brewer, the heir to more than a million\npounds, and his time was very largely his own. He traveled and formed\nfriendships. One of his earliest friends was Lord Garvagh. They traveled\ntogether, and, when they parted, Lord Garvagh asked Charrington if he\nwould grant him one request. 'When you are quite alone,' his lordship\npleaded, 'I should like you to read slowly and carefully the third\nchapter of John's Gospel!' Later on, Charrington met William Rainsford,\nand the acquaintance ripened into intimacy. 'Do you know what I wish you\nwould do, Fred?' Rainsford said to him one day. 'I wish, when you are by\nyourself, that you would study the third chapter of the Gospel of John!'\n\n'This is a very curious thing,' Charrington said to himself. 'My old\nfriend, Lord Garvagh, and my new friend, Rainsford, both say exactly the\nsame thing; and they both profess to be saved.'\n\nThus doubly challenged, he read the chapter with the closest attention,\nand was arrested by the words: '_Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except\na man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God!_' 'As I read,' he\nsays, 'light came into my soul,' and he ever afterwards regarded that\nmoment as the turning-point of his whole life.\n\n\nIII\n\nNow, what did these men--these and a hundred thousand more--see in the\nstrange, mysterious words that Jesus spoke to the aged ruler twenty\ncenturies ago? That is the question, and the question is not a difficult\none to answer.\n\n_A new birth!_ To be _born again_! What can it mean? It can only mean\none thing. 'I wish,' somebody has sung----\n\n  I wish that there were some wonderful place\n    Called the Land of Beginning Again,\n  Where all our mistakes and all our heartaches\n      And all of our poor, selfish grief\n  Could be dropped, like a shabby old coat, at the door,\n    And never put on any more.\n\nThe words, if they mean anything, mean that there _is_ such a place. A\nman _may_ have a fresh start. In describing the greatest change that\ntook place in his life--the greatest change that can take place in any\nman's life--Frank Bullen says: 'I love that description of conversion as\nthe \"_new birth_.\" No other definition touches the truth of the process\nat all. So helpless, so utterly knowledgeless, possessing nothing but\nthe vague consciousness of life just begun!' Dr. Blund was thinking of\nthe babes whose first breath he had seen drawn. So innocent; so\npastless! Oh, to begin where they were beginning! Oh, to be _born\nagain_!'\n\nDr. Blund cannot begin where they were beginning. He cannot enjoy\nagain--at any rate in this world--the opportunities of growth and\ndevelopment that were theirs. But he can be _born again_! He can start\nafresh! Dr. Blund made that discovery on his deathbed, and, in talking\nof the dead doctor's experience, the young minister made the same\ndiscovery a day or two later. He felt his need; he turned in an agony of\nsupplication to the Saviour whom he had so often preached; and he, too,\nentered into the new life.\n\n'He made the great discovery,' Harold Begbie says. 'It had happened; the\nlonged-for event had come; he stood by himself, all by himself,\nconscious now of the heart; no longer satisfied either with his own\nintellect or the traditions of a church. The miracle had happened. He\nhad discovered the helplessness of humanity. He had discovered the need\nof the soul. He had begun at last to see into the heart of things.' He\nhad been _born again_!\n\nThere are two kinds of progress. There is the progress that moves away\nfrom infancy towards youth, towards maturity, towards age and\ndecrepitude. And there is a higher progress, a progress that moves\ntowards infancy. 'Except ye be converted and become as little children,'\nJesus said, 'ye shall not enter into the kingdom of God.' And the only\nway of becoming a little child once more is by being _born again_. It is\nthe glory of the gospel that it offers a man that chance.\n\n\n\n\nXIV\n\nHEDLEY VICARS' TEXT\n\n\nI\n\n'_Those words are the sheet-anchor of my soul!_' said Hedley Vicars, a\ngallant young Army officer, as he sat talking to his sweetheart in the\nhandsome drawing-room at Terling Place.\n\n'_Those words are more golden than gold!_' exclaimed Miss Frances Ridley\nHavergal, and she ordered that they should be inscribed upon her tomb.\n\n'_Those words did give a great ease to my spirit!_' John Bunyan tells\nus.\n\n'_Those words_,' said old Donald Menzies, the mystic of Drumtochty,\n'_those words fell upon me like a gleam from the Mercy-seat!_'\n\nWhat words? Let us return to Hedley Vicars! He was only twenty-eight\nwhen he fell, leading his regiment--the Ninety-seventh--in action before\nSebastopol. The enemy attacked suddenly under cover of the darkness.\n'The men of the Ninety-seventh behaved with the utmost gallantry and\ncoolness,' said Lord Raglan, in the historic dispatch that reached\nEngland on Good Friday, 1855. 'They were led by Captain Vicars, who,\nunfortunately, lost his life in the engagement; and I am assured that\nnothing could be more distinguished than the gallantry and good example\nwhich he set to the detachment under his command.' His biographer tells\nus that it was more than three years earlier--in November, 1851--that,\nwhilst awaiting in his room the return of a brother officer, he idly\nturned over the leaves of a Bible which lay on the table. The words,\n'_The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin_,'\ncaught his eyes and profoundly impressed his mind. 'If,' he said, as he\nclosed the sacred Volume, 'if this be true, I will henceforth live by\nthe grace of God as a man should live who has been redeemed by the blood\nof Jesus Christ.' That night he could scarcely sleep; the great words\nrepeated themselves again and again within his throbbing brain; they\nseemed too good to be true.\n\n'_All sin! All sin!_'\n\n'_Cleanseth from all sin!_'\n\n'_The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin._'\n\nHe never tired of telling of that wonderful experience. Miss Marsh, to\nwhom he was engaged to be married, says that, almost as soon as they\nwere first introduced to each other, 'he gave her an outline of the\nmanner in which God had worked the great change in his heart. With\nforceful simplicity he told the point of the story; how the words, \"_The\nblood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin_,\" became the\nsheet-anchor of his soul, adding, \"Thus was I born again of the Word of\nGod which liveth and abideth for ever!\"'\n\n\nII\n\nAway back in the infancy of the world I hear one of the earliest of the\nPatriarchs uttering a great and bitter cry. '_I have sinned!_' he cries;\n'_what shall I do?_' And, as I turn over the leaves of my Bible, I find\nthat question echoed again and again, generation after generation and\nage after age. Yet never once does it receive the slightest hint or\nsuggestion of an answer. And, depend upon it, if the Son of Man had\nnever come into the world, it would have echoed round the globe--still\nunanswered and unanswerable--until this day. 'O Plato, Plato!' cried\nSocrates, 'it may be that the gods can forgive sin, but, alas, I do not\nsee how!' Nor anybody else. Job's question fell back upon his face; the\nuniverse could give him no reply. It is very striking. And so, here at\nthe beginning of my Bible, I hear the first man's question; and, here at\nthe end of my Bible, I hear the last man's answer!\n\n'_What shall I do? What shall I do?_'\n\n'_I have sinned; what shall I do?_'\n\n'_The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin!_'\n\n\nIII\n\nThese two men--Job and John--present us, first with a _comparison_, and\nthen with a _contrast_. It is interesting to examine side by side their\nviews of the sin that represented so terrific a problem.\n\nJob thought of it as a _contaminating_ thing. He felt that his soul was\nsoiled. 'What shall I do?' he cries, 'what shall I do? If I bathe myself\nin snow water and wash my hands never so clean, yet shalt Thou plunge me\nin the ditch and mine own clothes shall abhor me!' Every day of his life\nhe thought he heard, morning and noon and night, the awful Voice of the\nMost High. 'Though thou wash thee with niter, and take thee much soap,\nyet thine iniquity is marked before Me, saith the Lord God.' He felt as\nMacbeth felt when advised to cleanse the stain from his guilty hands.\n\n  Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood\n  Clean from my hand! No, this my hand will rather\n  The multitudinous seas incarnadine,\n  Making the green one red!\n\nJob was like the old lama, in Rudyard Kipling's _Kim_, who, year after\nyear, wandered through cities and rice-fields, over the hills and across\nthe plains, always searching, but searching in vain, for the River, the\nRiver of the Arrow, the River that could cleanse from sin!\n\nJohn, on the other hand, thought of sin as a _condemning_ thing. The\ngreat word 'condemnation' occurs on almost every page of his writings.\nHe feels that every man's sin carries its own conviction. It is like\nfinger-print evidence; it speaks for itself; it needs no long procession\nof corroborating witnesses. There it is! It tells its own terrible tale,\nand there is no gainsaying it.\n\n\nIV\n\nAnd yet, looked at in another way, the thoughts of these two men stand\nin sharp and striking contrast, the one with the other. '_I have\nsinned_,' cried Job; '_what shall I do? What shall I do?_'\n\nBut there is no reply. In the course of the stupendous drama that bears\nhis name, Job scours sea and land, earth and sky, for some answer to the\nwild questionings of his soul. He climbs the summits of the loftiest\nmountains and thrids the labyrinth of the deepest mine; he calls to the\nheights of the heavens and to the depths of the sea. But there is no\nanswering voice, and he is left to nurse his dumb and piteous despair.\nEvery attempt that he makes to rid his soul of its defilement is like\nthe effort of a man who, in trying to remove the stain from his window,\nrubs on the wrong side of the glass.\n\nBut, in contrast with all this, John saw the Cross! How could he ever\nforget it? Had he not stood beside it, gazed into the thorn-crowned\nface, and received from those quivering lips their last sacred\nbequest--the charge of the Saviour's mother? And, all through the\neventful years that followed, John never tired of presenting the Cross\nas the only answer to the Patriarch's question. He may not have\nperfectly understood it--no man ever yet comprehended all its heights\nand sounded all its depths! But it is easier to accept it than to reject\nit. For, if I reject it, I am confronted by an enigma even more\nunanswerable than Job's.\n\n  Oh, why was He there as the Bearer of sin\n    If on Jesus my guilt was not laid?\n  Oh, why from His side flowed the sin-cleansing stream,\n    If His dying my debt has not paid?\n\nIf, that is to say, the Cross is not the divine answer to the mystery of\nall the ages, then who shall attempt to solve the dark, inscrutable,\nimpenetrable mystery of the Cross?\n\n\nV\n\nBut it is! Experience proves it! In the course of his dazzling\nApocalypse, John tells us that he saw a war being waged in heaven; and\nthe hosts of righteousness overcame their powerful and sinister foes by\nthe virtue of the blood of the Lamb. I do not know what he means--never\nexpect to know in this world. But I know that, in this life, something\nvery like it happens every day.\n\nMartin Luther says that, in one of his periods of depression at the\nWartburg, it seemed to him that he saw a hideous and malignant form\ninscribing the record of his own transgressions round the walls of his\nroom. There seemed to be no end to the list--sins of thought, sins of\nword, sins of deed, sins of omission, sins of commission, secret sins,\nopen sins--the pitiless scribe wrote on and on interminably. Whilst the\naccuser was thus occupied, Luther bowed his head and prayed. When he\nlooked up again, the writer had paused, and, turning, faced him.\n\n'Thou hast forgotten just one thing!' said Luther.\n\n'And that--?' asked his tormentor.\n\n'Take thy pen once more and write across it all: \"_The blood of Jesus\nChrist, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin!_\"' And, at the utterance of\nthose words, the spirit vanished and the walls were clean!\n\nIn his _Grace Abounding_, Bunyan tells us of a period in his life during\nwhich his soul seemed to be held in fetters of brass; and, every step he\ntook, he took to the sound of the clanking of chains. 'But about ten or\neleven o'clock on a certain day,' he says, 'as I was walking under a\nhedge (full of sorrow and guilt, God knows), suddenly this sentence\nrushed in upon me, \"_The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us\nfrom all sin._\" At this I made a stand in my spirit and began to\nconceive peace in my soul, and methought I saw as if the tempter did\nleer and steal away from me, as being ashamed of what he had done. At\nthe same time also I had my sin and the blood of Christ thus represented\nto me: that my sin, when compared to the blood of Christ, was no more to\nit than this little clod or stone is to the vast and wide field that\nhere I see. This gave me good encouragement.'\n\nNeither Martin Luther nor John Bunyan would object to my setting them in\nthe company of Donald Menzies. For, like them, Donald was at war with\nprincipalities and powers, with the rulers of the darkness of this\nworld, with spiritual wickedness in high places. In the lonely anguish\nof that grim struggle it seemed as though, at the last, the gates of\nhell must have prevailed against him.\n\n'Then,' he says, 'I heard a voice, oh, yes, as plain as you are hearing\nme: \"_The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin._\"\nIt was like a gleam from the Mercy-seat, but I waited to see whether\nSatan had any answer and my heart was standing still. But there was no\nword from him, not one word. Then I leaped to my feet and cried, \"Get\nthee behind me, Satan!\" And I looked round, and there was no one to be\nseen but Janet in her chair with the tears on her cheeks, and she was\nsaying, \"Thanks be to God which giveth us the victory through our Lord\nJesus Christ!\"'\n\n'_When I uttered those words,_' says Luther, '_the evil spirit vanished\nand the walls were clean!_'\n\n'_When I made a stand upon those words,_' says Bunyan, '_the tempter did\nsteal away from me and I entered into peace!_'\n\n'_When I heard those words,_' says Donald Menzies, '_I waited to see if\nSatan had any answer, but there was no word from him, not one word!_'\n\nThis, surely, is what the seer means when he says that he saw all the\nhosts of evil routed and scattered by the virtue of the blood of the\nLamb.\n\n\nVI\n\nDown at the library yesterday afternoon I spent an hour in glancing\nthrough the various volumes of Southey's _Commonplace Book_. And, among\na vast assortment of musty notes that are now of interest to nobody, I\ncame upon this: 'I have been reading of a man on the Malabar coast who\nhad inquired of many devotees and priests as to how he might make\natonement for his sins. At last he was directed to drive iron spikes,\nsufficiently blunted, through his sandals, and on these spikes he was to\nplace his naked feet and then walk a distance of five hundred miles. He\nundertook the journey, but loss of blood and exhaustion of body\ncompelled him to rest one day under the shade of a spreading tree. As he\nlay there, a missionary approached and began to preach the gospel. He\nannounced as his theme the words: \"_The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son,\ncleanseth us from all sin_.\" Whilst the evangelist still preached, the\nman sprang up, tore off his sandals, and cried aloud: \"That is what I\nwant! That is what I want!\" And he became a living witness to the fact\nthat the redeeming blood of Christ _does_ cleanse from human guilt.'\n\n'_That is what I want!_' cried Southey's pilgrim on the coast of\nMalabar.\n\n'_That is what I want!_' cried Luther in the Wartburg.\n\n'_That is what I want!_' cried Bunyan at Bedford.\n\n'_That is what I want!_' cried Donald Menzies at Drumtochty.\n\n'_That is what I want!_' exclaimed young Hedley Vicars, as his startled\neyes fell upon the tremendous words that seemed to leap from the Bible\non the table. '_The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from\nall sin._' 'That is what I want! That is what I want!'\n\nHedley Vicars appropriated the priceless gift held out to him, and his\nwhole life was transfigured in consequence. His life--and his death!\nFor, on that fatal night before Sebastopol, it was with Hedley Vicars as\nit was with the soldier with whom the poet has familiarized us.\nEverybody knows the story. Two men of God moved in the darkness across\nthe field on which, that day, a battle had been fought.\n\n            And now they stand\n  Beside a manly form, outstretched alone.\n  His helmet from his head had fallen. His hand\n  Still firmly grasped his keen but broken sword.\n  His face was white and cold, and, thinking he was gone,\n  They were just passing on, for time was precious,\n  When a faint sigh caught their attentive ears.\n  Life was still there, so bending down,\n  They whispered in his ears most earnestly,\n  Yet with that hush and gentleness with which\n  We ever speak to a departing soul--\n  '_Brother! the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son,\n  Cleanseth from every sin._'\n\n            The pale lips moved,\n  And gently whispered 'hush!' and then they closed,\n  And life again seemed gone.\n\n            But yet once more\n  They whispered those thrice blessed words, in hope\n  To point the parting soul to Christ and heaven--\n  '_Brother! the precious blood of Jesus Christ\n  Can cleanse from every sin._'\n\n            Again the pale lips moved,\n  All else was still and motionless, for Death\n  Already had his fatal work half done;\n  But gathering up his quickly failing strength,\n  The dying soldier--dying victor--said:\n  'Hush! for the angels call the muster roll!\n  I wait to hear my name!'\n\n            They spoke no more.\n  What need to speak again? for now full well\n  They knew on whom his dying hopes were fixed,\n  And what his prospects were. So, hushed and still,\n  They, kneeling, watched.\n\n            And presently a smile,\n  As of most thrilling and intense delight,\n  Played for a moment on the soldier's face,\n  And with his one last breath he whispered 'Here!'\n\n'_I have sinned! What shall I do?_' cries this despairing soul at the\nbeginning of my Bible.\n\n'_The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin!_'\nanswers the man who leaned upon the Saviour's breast and gazed full into\nthe thorn-crowned face of the Crucified.\n\n'_That is what I want!_' exclaims the man at Malabar, speaking, not for\nhimself alone, but for each and all of us.\n\n'_Those words are more golden than gold!_' says Miss Havergal, as she\norders them to be inscribed upon her tomb.\n\n'_They are like a gleam from the Mercy-seat!_' cries Donald Menzies.\n\n'_They are the sheet-anchor of my soul!_' Hedley Vicars tells his\nsweetheart. And he is a very wise man who, in the straits of his\nexperience, stakes his faith upon that which such witnesses have tested\nand have found sublimely true.\n\n\n\n\nXV\n\nSILAS WRIGHT'S TEXT\n\n\nI\n\nSilas Wright was deprived by sheer modesty of the honor of being\nPresident of the United States. His is one of the truly Homeric figures\nin American history. By downright purity of motive, transparency of\npurpose, and the devotion of commanding powers to the public good, he\nwon for himself the honor, the love and the unbounded confidence of all\nhis fellows. It used to be said of him that he was as honest as any man\nunder heaven _or in it_. He might have aspired to any office to which it\nwas in America's power to call him. Only his extreme humility, and his\ndread of impeding the promotion of his friends, kept him from rising to\na position in which his name would have taken its place with those of\nWashington and Lincoln. But he refused almost every honor. 'He refused\ncabinet appointments,' says Benton, in his _Thirty Years' View_. 'He\nrefused a seat on the bench of the Supreme Court of the United States;\nhe rejected instantly the nomination of 1844 for Vice-President; he\nrefused to be nominated for the Presidency. He spent as much time in\ndeclining office as others did in winning it. The offices he did accept\nwere thrust upon him. He was born great and above office and unwillingly\ndescended to it.' Whittier is very conservative in his choice of heroes.\nThose whom he commemorates in verse are not only great men, but good\nones. And Silas Wright is among them. 'Man of the millions,' he says, in\nthe lines that he penned on hearing of Mr. Wright's death:\n\n  Man of the millions, thou art lost too soon!\n  Portents at which the bravest stand aghast--\n  The birththroes of a Future, strange and vast,\n  Alarm the land; yet thou, so wise, and strong,\n  Suddenly summoned to the burial bed,\n  Lapped in its slumbers deep and ever long,\n  Hear'st not the tumult surging overhead.\n  Who now shall rally Freedom's scattered host?\n  Who wear the mantle of the leader lost?\n\nThe splendid personality of Silas Wright has been best revealed to us in\nIrving Bacheller's _The Light in the Clearing_. The book is partly\nhistory and partly commentary and partly fiction. Silas Wright, says\nIrving Bacheller, carried the candle of the Lord; and all the world\nrejoiced in its radiance.\n\n\nII\n\nBarton Baynes, the hero of the book--for whose actuality and historicity\nthe author vouches--is an orphan brought up on a farm by his Uncle\nPeabody and Aunt Deel. Getting into all sorts of scrapes, he makes up\nhis mind that he is too heavy a burden on the affectionate and\ngood-natured couple; and one night he runs away. Out in the darkness,\nhowever, he meets with strange adventures, loses his way, and at length\nfinds himself in the hands of Silas Wright, the Comptroller. The Senator\nfirst falls in love with the bright-faced, open-hearted, intelligent\nboy, and then takes him back to his uncle's farm. From that moment the\nfriendship between the two--the great man and the obscure country\nboy--grows apace. After a while the Senator visits the district to\ndeliver an address, and he spends the night at the farmhouse. It is a\ngreat occasion for Bart; and after supper an incident occurs that colors\nall his life and strikes the keynote of the book. As Barton approaches\nMr. Wright to say Good-night, the Senator says:\n\n'I shall be gone when you are up in the morning. It may be a long time\nbefore I see you; I shall leave something for you in a sealed envelope\nwith your name on it. You are not to open the envelope until you go away\nto school. I know how you will feel that first day. When night falls,\nyou will think of your aunt and uncle and be very lonely. When you go to\nyour room for the night I want you to sit down all by yourself and read\nwhat I shall write. They will be, I think, the most impressive words\never written. You will think them over, but you will not understand them\nfor a long time. Ask every wise man you meet to explain them to you, for\nall your happiness will depend upon your understanding of those few\nwords in the envelope.'\n\nThe words in the sealed envelope!\n\nWhat are the mysterious words in the envelope?\n\nAnd what if the sealed envelope contains a _text_?\n\n\nIII\n\nIn the morning, when Barton rose, the Senator was gone, and Aunt Deel\nhanded the boy the sealed envelope. It was addressed: 'Master Barton\nBaynes; to be opened when he leaves home to go to school.' That day soon\ncame. At the Canton Academy, under the care of the excellent Michael\nHacket, Bart felt terribly lonely, and, in accordance with the Senator's\ninstructions, he opened the note. And this is what he read:\n\n'Dear Bart, I want you to ask the wisest man you know to explain these\nwords to you. I suggest that you commit them to memory and think often\nof their meaning. They are from Job: \"_His bones are full of the sin of\nhis youth, which shall lie down with him in the dust._\" I believe that\nthey are the most impressive in all the literature I have read.--Silas\nWright.'\n\nBart soon learned to love and admire the schoolmaster; _he_ was the\nwisest man he knew; to _him_, therefore, he went for an explanation of\nthe words.\n\n'All true!' exclaimed Mr. Hacket, after reading the note. 'I have seen\nit sinking into the bones of the young, and I have seen it lying down\nwith the aged in the dust of their graves. Your body is like a sponge;\nit takes things in and holds them and feeds upon them. A part of every\napple that you eat sinks down into your blood and bones. You can't get\nit out. It's the same with the books that you read and the thoughts that\nyou enjoy. They go down into your bones and you can't get them out. _A\nman's bones are full of the sin of his youth, which lies down with him\nin the dust!_'\n\n\nIV\n\nBut the best exposition of the text is not Michael Hacket's, but Irving\nBacheller's. The whole book is a vivid and arresting and terrible\nforth-setting of the impressive words that Barton found in his sealed\nenvelope.\n\nAll through the book two dreadful characters move side by side--Benjamin\nGrimshaw and Silent Kate. Benjamin Grimshaw is rich and proud and\npitiless. Everybody is afraid of him. But Roving Kate is not afraid.\nIndeed, he seems to be more afraid of her. Wherever he is, she is there.\nShe is wild and bony and ragged. She is, or pretends to be, half\ndemented. She tells fortunes with strange antics and gesticulations,\nscrawling her prognostications upon stray slips of paper. But Benjamin\nGrimshaw is the main object of her attention. She hates him, and hates\nhim all the more terribly because she once loved him. For Roving Kate,\nthe Silent Woman, was once Kate Fullerton, Squire Fullerton's pretty\ndaughter. And Benjamin Grimshaw had loved her, and betrayed her, and\nspurned her, and married another. In the village cemetery you might have\nseen a tombstone bearing her name. Her father erected it to show that\nshe was dead _to him_ for ever. Poor Kate had never known her mother.\nAnd so, in the course of the story, Benjamin Grimshaw had two sons, only\none of whom he recognized. For Kate Fullerton was the mother of the\nother. And, in her shame and her anger and her hate, Kate resolved to\nfollow the father of her base-born child all the days of his life; and\nthere she stands--unkempt, repulsive, menacing--always near him, the\nliving embodiment of _the sin of his youth_.\n\nAmos Grimshaw, his petted and pampered son, comes to the gallows. He is\nconvicted of murder upon the highway. The father is in court when the\nJudge pronounces the awful sentence. And, of course, Roving Kate is\nthere. Ragged as ever, the Silent Woman is waiting for him as he comes\ndown the steps. She shoots out a bony finger at him, as, bowed and\nbroken, he passes into the street. He turns and strikes at her with his\ncane.\n\n'Go away from me,' he cries. 'Take her away, somebody! I can't stand it!\nShe's killing me! Take her away!'\n\nHis face turns purple and then livid. He reels and falls headlong. He is\ndead! Three days later they bury him. Roving Kate stands by the\ngraveside, strangely changed. She is decently dressed; her hair is\nneatly combed; the wild look has left her eyes. She looks like one whose\nback is relieved of a heavy burden. She scatters little red squares of\npaper into the grave, her lips moving silently. These are her last\ncurses. Barton Baynes and his schoolmaster, Mr. Hacket, are standing by.\n\n'_The scarlet sins of his youth are lying down with him in the dust_,'\nwhispers the master to his pupil as they walk away together.\n\n\nV\n\nThis is terrible enough--the thought of our sins surrounding our\ndeathbeds and lying down with us in our graves--but the book contains\nsomething more profound and terrible still!\n\nFor, in addition to the grave of Benjamin Grimshaw, from which we have\njust turned sadly away, there are two other graves in the book. The one\nis a felon's grave--the grave of Amos Grimshaw. And what sins are these\nthat are lying down with him in the dust? They are some of them his own;\nand they are some of them his father's; and they are some of them the\nsins of Roving Kate, the Silent Woman. Yes, they are some of them the\nwoman's sins. For when Amos was but an impressionable boy, Kate had\nsupplied him with literature by which she hoped to pollute and ruin him.\n\nOut of the deathless hatred that she bore to the father, she longed to\ndestroy the son, body and soul. She gave him tales that would inflame\nhis fancy and excite his baser instincts, tales that glorified robbery,\nmurder and villainy of every kind. If Amos Grimshaw had been a good\nman's son, and if ennobling influences had been brought to bear upon\nhim, he might have lived to old age and gone down at last to an honored\ngrave. But his father's example was always before him, and Kate's books\ndid their dreadful work only too well. He became a highway robber; he\nshot a stranger on a lonely road. It came out in evidence that the deed\nhad been perpetrated under circumstances identical with those described\nin one of the sensational stories found in the Grimshaw barn--the\nstories Kate had given him!\n\n'It's the same with the books you read,' the schoolmaster had said, when\nBart sought from him an explanation of the text in the sealed envelope;\n'they go down into your bones and you can't get them out.'\n\nAnd Kate's books had gone down into Amos Grimshaw's bones; and thus her\nsins and his father's sins lay down in the dust of the felon's grave and\nmingled with his own. No exposition of Silas Wright's text could be more\narresting or alarming than that. My sins may overflow from my grave and\nlie down in the dust with my children!\n\n\nVI\n\nAnd, on the very last page of _The Light in the Clearing_, we have an\neven more striking presentment of the same profound truth. For I said\nthat, in the book, there is yet one other grave. It is a lonely grave up\namong the hills--the grave of the stranger who was shot by Amos Grimshaw\nthat dark night; and this time it is old Kate who sits weeping beside\nit. For who was the stranger murdered upon the highway? It turns out to\nhave been _Kate's own son_!\n\n'It is very sorrowful,' she moans. 'He was trying to find me when he\ndied!'\n\nAnd so the murderer and the murdered were step-brothers! They were both\nthe sons of Benjamin Grimshaw!\n\nAnd, in this grave up among the hills, there lie down with poor murdered\nEnoch his own sins--whatever they may have been--and his father's\nsins--the sins that made him an outcast and a fugitive--and his mother's\nsins, the sins of the only being who loved him!\n\nYes, his mother's sins; for his mother's sins had slain him. In her\nhatred of Benjamin Grimshaw, she had moved Amos Grimshaw to become a\nmurderer, and he had murdered--_her own son!_\n\n'It is very sorrowful!' she moans.\n\nIt is indeed; sin is always sorrowful.\n\n\nVII\n\n'_Wherefore come now and let us reason together, saith the Lord; though\nyour sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be\nred like crimson, they shall be as wool._'\n\nIt is best to make an end of them, and to turn from them, once and for\nall, that they lie down at last neither with us nor with our children.\n\n\n\n\nXVI\n\nMICHAEL FARADAY'S TEXT\n\n\nI\n\nThe lecturer had vanished! A crowded gathering of distinguished\nscientists had been listening, spellbound, to the masterly expositions\nof Michael Faraday. For an hour he had held his brilliant audience\nenthralled as he had demonstrated the nature and properties of the\nmagnet. And he had brought his lecture to a close with an experiment so\nnovel, so bewildering and so triumphant that, for some time after he\nresumed his seat, the house rocked with enthusiastic applause. And then\nthe Prince of Wales--afterwards King Edward the Seventh--rose to propose\na motion of congratulation. The resolution, having been duly seconded,\nwas carried with renewed thunders of applause. But the uproar was\nsucceeded by a strange silence. The assembly waited for Faraday's reply;\nbut the lecturer had vanished! What had become of him? Only two or three\nof his more intimate friends were in the secret. They knew that the\ngreat chemist was something more than a great chemist; he was a great\nChristian. He was an elder of a little Sandemanian Church--a church that\nnever boasted more than twenty members. The hour at which Faraday\nconcluded his lecture was the hour of the week-night prayer-meeting.\nThat meeting he never neglected. And, under cover of the cheering and\napplause, the lecturer had slipped out of the crowded hall and hurried\noff to the little meeting-house where two or three had met together to\nrenew their fellowship with God.\n\nIn that one incident the man stands revealed. All the sublimities and\nall the simplicities of life met in his soul. The master of all the\nsciences, he kept in his breast the heart of a little child. Mr. Cosmo\nMonkhouse has well asked--\n\n  Was ever man so simple and so sage,\n    So crowned and yet so careless of a prize?\n    Great Faraday, who made the world so wise,\n  And loved the labor better than the wage!\n\n  And this, you say, is how he looked in age,\n    With that strong brow and these great humble eyes\n    That seem to look with reverent surprise\n  On all outside himself. Turn o'er the page,\n  Recording Angel, it is white as snow!\n    Ah, God, a fitting messenger was he\n  To show Thy mysteries to us below!\n    Child as he came has he returned to Thee!\n  Would he could come but once again to show\n    The wonder-deep of his simplicity!\n\nIn him the simplicities were always stronger than the sublimities; the\nchild outlived the sage. As he lay dying they tried to interview the\nprofessor, but it was the little child in him that answered them.\n\n'What are your speculations?' they inquired.\n\n'Speculations?' he asked, in wondering surprise. 'Speculations! I have\nnone! I am resting on certainties. _I know whom I have believed and am\npersuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him\nagainst that day!_' And, reveling like a little child in those cloudless\nsimplicities, his great soul passed away.\n\n\nII\n\nFaraday was a perpetual mystery. He baffled all his colleagues and\ncompanions. Nobody could understand how the most learned man of his time\ncould find in his faith those restful certainties on which he so calmly\nand securely reposed. They saw him pass from a meeting of the Royal\nSociety to sit at the feet of a certain local preacher who was notorious\nfor his illiteracy; and the spectacle filled them with bewilderment and\nwonder. Some suggested that he was, in an intellectual sense, living a\ndouble life. Tyndall said that, when Faraday opened the door of his\noratory, he shut that of his laboratory. He did nothing of the kind. He\nnever closed his eyes to any fragment of truth; he never divided his\nmind into watertight compartments; he never shrank from the approach of\na doubt. He saw life whole. His biography has been written a dozen\ntimes; and each writer views it from a new angle. But in one respect\nthey all agree. They agree that Michael Faraday was the most\ntransparently honest soul that the realm of science has ever known. He\nmoved for fifty years amidst the speculations of science whilst, in his\nsoul, the certainties that cannot be shaken were singing their deathless\nsong. Like a coastguard who, standing on some tall cliff, surveys the\nheaving waters, Faraday stood, with his feet upon the rock, looking out\nupon a restless sea of surmise and conjecture. In life, as in death, he\nrested his soul upon certainties. And if you will ask what those\ncertainties were, his biographers will tell you that they were three.\n\n1. _He trusted implicitly in the Father's love._ 'My faculties are\nslipping away day by day,' he wrote to his niece from his deathbed.\n'Happy is it for all of us that our true good lies not in them. As they\nebb, may they leave us as little children trusting in the Father of\nMercies and accepting His unspeakable gift.'\n\n2. _He trusted implicitly in the Redeeming Work of His Saviour._ 'The\nplan of salvation is so simple,' he wrote, 'that anyone can understand\nit--love to Christ springing from the love that He bears us, the love\nthat led Him to undertake our salvation.'\n\n3. _He trusted implicitly in the Written Word._ 'To complete this\npicture,' says Dr. Bence Jones, in bringing to a close his great\ntwo-volume biography, 'to complete this picture, I must add that\nFaraday's standard of duty was not founded upon any intuitive ideas of\nright and wrong, nor was it fashioned upon any outward experiences of\ntime and place; but it was formed entirely on what he held to be the\nrevelation of the will of God in the written Word, and throughout all\nhis life his faith led him to act up to the very letter of it.'\n\n'On these certainties,' he exclaimed, 'I stake everything! On these\ncertainties I rest my soul!' And, summing up the three in one, he added,\n'_For I am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed\nunto Him against that day_.'\n\nIt is wonderful how the universal heart aches for assurance, for\nconfidence, for finality, for certainty. Mr. Dan Crawford tells of a\ncannibal chief beside whose deathbed an African boy was reading\nselections from the Gospel of John. He was impressed by the frequent\nrecurrence of the words '_verily, verily_.'\n\n'What do they mean?' he asked.\n\n'They mean \"_certainly, certainly!_\"'\n\n'Then,' exclaimed the dying man, with a sigh of infinite relief, 'they\nshall be my pillow. I rest on them.'\n\nSage or savage, it is all the same. Bunyan's great night was the night\non which he found that same pillow. 'It was with joy that I told my\nwife, \"O, now I know, _I know_!\" That night was a good night to me! I\nnever had a better. I longed for the company of some of God's people,\nthat I might have imparted unto them what God had showed me. Christ was\na precious Christ to my soul that night; I could scarcely lie in my bed\nfor joy and peace and triumph through Christ!'\n\n'_Those words shall be my pillow!_' said the African chief.\n\n'_Those words shall be my pillow!_' said the English scientist.\n\n'_Those words shall be my pillow!_' cried John Bunyan.\n\n'_For I am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed\nunto Him against that day!_'\n\n\nIII\n\n'_He is able to keep!_' That was the sublime confidence that won the\nheart of John Newton. It came to him in the form of a dream on his\nvoyage home from Venice. I have told the story in full in _A Bunch of\nEverlastings_. 'It made,' he says, 'a very great impression upon me!'\nThe same thought made an indelible impression upon the mind of Faraday,\nand he clung tenaciously to it at the last. '_He is able to keep_'--as a\nshepherd keeps his sheep. '_He is able to keep_'--as a sentry keeps the\ngate. '_He is able to keep_'--as the pilgrims kept the golden vessels on\ntheir journey to Jerusalem, both counting and weighing them before they\nset out from Babylon and again on their arrival at the Holy City. '_He\nis able to keep_'--as a banker keeps the treasure confided to his\ncustody.\n\n'_I know whom I have believed_,' says the margin of the Revised Version,\n'_and I am persuaded that He is able to guard my deposit against that\nday_.'\n\n'_I know in whom my trust reposes_,' says Dr. Weymouth's translation,\n'_and I am confident that He has it in His power to keep what I have\nentrusted to Him safe until that day._'\n\n'_I know whom I have trusted_,' says Dr. Moffatt's version, '_and I am\ncertain that He is able to keep what I have put into His hands till the\nGreat Day._'\n\n_He will guard my treasure!_\n\n_He will honor my confidence!_\n\n_He will hold my deposit!_\n\n_I know! I know! I know!_\n\n\nIV\n\nFaraday's text is an ill-used text. It is frequently mis-quoted. It\noccurred one day in the course of a theological lesson over which Rabbi\nDuncan was presiding.\n\n'Repeat that passage!' said the Rabbi to the student who had just\nspoken.\n\n'_I know in whom I have_----'\n\n'My dear sir,' interrupted the Rabbi, 'you must never let even a\npreposition come between you and your Saviour!'\n\nAnd when Dr. Alexander, of Princeton, was dying, a friend endeavored to\nfortify his faith by reciting some of the most familiar passages and\npromises. Presently he ventured upon the words:\n\n'_I know in whom I have believed, and_----'\n\nBut the sick man raised his hand.\n\n'No, no,' exclaimed the dying Principal, 'it is not \"I know _in_ whom\"\nbut \"I know _whom_\"; I cannot have even the little word \"_in_\" between\nme and Christ. _I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is\nable to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day!_'\n\nJohn Oxenham has expressed the same thought with an accent and emphasis\nwell worthy of the theme:\n\n  Not What, but _Whom_, I do believe,\n  _That_, in my darkest hour of need,\n  Hath comfort that no mortal creed\n  To mortal man may give.\n\n  Not What but _Whom_.\n  For Christ is more than all the creeds,\n  And His full life of gentle deeds\n  Shall all the creeds outlive.\n\n  Not What I do believe, but _Whom_.\n  _Who_ walks beside me in the gloom?\n  _Who_ shares the burden wearisome?\n  _Who_ all the dim way doth illume,\n  And bids me look beyond the tomb\n          The larger life to live?\n\n  Not what I do believe,\n  But _Whom_!\n  Not What,\n  But _Whom_!\n\nIt was a Person, a Living and Divine Person, of whom Faraday was so\ncertain and on whom he rested so securely at the last.\n\n\nV\n\nIs there in all Scottish literature a more robust, more satisfying, or\nmore lovable character than _Donal Grant_? Readers of George Macdonald\nwill cherish the thought of Donal as long as they live. He was the child\nof the open air; his character was formed during long and lonely tramps\non the wide moor and among the rugged mountains; it was strengthened and\nsweetened by communion with sheep and dogs and cattle, with stars and\nwinds and stormy skies. He was disciplined by sharp suffering and bitter\ndisappointments. And he became to all who knew him a tower of strength,\na sure refuge, a strong city, and the shadow of a great rock in a weary\nland. As a shepherd-boy among the hills he learned to read his Greek\nTestament; and, later on, he became tutor at the Castle Graham. It was\nhis business in life to instruct little Davie, the younger son of Lord\nMorven; and he had his own way of doing it.\n\n'Davie,' he said one day, 'there is One who understands every boy, and\nunderstands each separate boy as well as if there were no other boy in\nthe whole world.'\n\n'Tell me who it is!' demanded Davie.\n\n'That is what I have to _teach_ you; mere _telling_ is not much use.\n_Telling_ is what makes people think they know when they do not, and\nmakes them foolish.'\n\n'Well, what is his name?'\n\n'I will not tell you that just yet; for then you would think that you\nknew Him when you knew next to nothing about Him. Look here! Look at\nthis book!' He pulled from his pocket a copy of Boethius. 'Look at the\nname on the back of it; it is the name of the man who wrote that book.'\n\nDavie spelled it out.\n\n'Now you know all about the book, don't you?'\n\n'No, sir, I don't know anything about it.'\n\n'Well, then, my father's name is Robert Grant; you know now what a good\nman he is!'\n\n'No, I don't!' replied Davie.\n\nAnd so Donal led Davie to see that to know _the name_ of Jesus, and to\nknow _about_ Jesus is not to know _Jesus_.\n\n'I know _Him_!' cried Faraday in triumph.\n\nGeorge Macdonald makes Faraday's text the master-passion of his hero's\nlife to the last. All through the adventures recorded in the book, Donal\nGrant behaves like a man who is very sure of God. '_I know Him_,' he\nseems to say. '_I know Him._' And the closing sentences of the story\ntell us that 'Donal is still a present power of heat and light in the\ntown of Auchars. He wears the same solemn look, the same hovering smile.\nThat look and that smile say to those who can read them, \"_I know whom I\nhave believed_.\" His life is hid with Christ in God; he has no anxiety\nabout anything; God is, and all is well.'\n\n\nVI\n\n'_I know whom I have believed._'\n\nPascal had the words engraved upon his seal; Canon Ainger left\ninstructions that they should be inscribed on his tomb at Darley Abbey;\nbut, like Donal Grant, Michael Faraday wove them into the very warp and\nwoof, the fiber and fabric of his daily life.\n\n'Speculations!' he cried in dismay, 'speculations! I have none! I am\nresting on certainties! _For I know whom I have believed and am\npersuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him\nagainst that day!_'\n\nHappy the heads that, in the soul's last straits, find themselves\npillowed serenely there!\n\n\n\n\nXVII\n\nJANET DEMPSTER'S TEXT\n\n\nI\n\nSitting here in my pleasaunce on the lawn, surrounded by a riot of\nhollyhocks, foxgloves, roses, geraniums, and other English flowers that\nshe described so vividly, and loved so well, I find myself celebrating\nin my own way the hundredth anniversary of the birth of George Eliot.\nLying open beside me on the garden-seat is a very well-worn copy of\n_Janet's Repentance_. It has been read many times, and must be read\nagain to-day. For even those who cannot go as far as Dr. Marcus Dods in\npronouncing it 'one of the greatest religious books ever written' will\nat least agree that in religious feeling, spiritual insight and\nevangelical intensity, it is among the most noble and most notable of\nour English classics. The pity of it is that, long before the book was\nwritten, its brilliant authoress had drifted away from that simple and\nmajestic faith which she so tenderly portrays. Indeed, I have sometimes\nfancied that she wrote of Janet with a great wistfulness in her heart.\nShe seems to have felt that if, in the straits of her soul, she had\nfound her storm-tossed spirit in communion with personalities like those\nby whom Janet was surrounded in the day of her distress, her spiritual\npilgrimage might have been a sunnier one. But she drifted. No other word\nwill describe the process. Some powerful but sensitive minds, like that\nof Goethe--with whose works she was so familiar--have been driven or\ntorn from their anchorage by some sudden and desolating calamity; but\nwith George Eliot it was quite otherwise. She was a gentle English girl,\nborn on a farm, and passionately attached to the quiet beauty of the\ncountryside. She delighted in the village green, the rectory garden, the\nfields waving with golden buttercups, and the shady woods in which the\nprimroses twinkled. She loved to watch the poppies tossing in the corn,\nthe wind sweeping over the red sea of clover, and the hyacinths nodding\non the banks of the silvery stream. The smell of the hay and the song of\nthe birds and the life of the fields were her ceaseless satisfaction and\nrefreshment. Perhaps, as she wandered about those winding lanes and\nlonely bridle-paths, she became too contemplative, too introspective,\ntoo much addicted to the analysis of frames and feelings. Perhaps,\ndwelling so exclusively on the abstract and the ideal, her fresh young\nspirit became unfitted for its rude impact with the actual and the real.\nPerhaps, too, she was unfortunate in respect of the particular specimens\nof the evangelical faith that came under her notice. Perhaps! At any\nrate, she came at length into daily contact with men and women, and her\ngirlish faith reeled under the shock. It is one of the most grievous\ntragedies of the spiritual realm that conscience often finds the sunny\nclimate of an ardent evangelism singularly enervating. The _emotional_\nside of one's nature luxuriates in an atmosphere in which the _ethical_\nside becomes languid and relaxed. A man must be very careful, as Mr.\nGladstone once incisively observed, to prevent his religion from\ndamaging his morality. The simpleminded people with whom this\nsharp-witted and fresh-spirited young Englishwoman met had not fortified\nthemselves against that insidious peril. One woman told a lie and the\noffense was sheeted home to her. '_Ah, well_,' she replied, in a\nnonchalant and easy way, '_I do not feel that I have grieved the Spirit\nmuch!_' George Eliot was horrified. She saw, to her disgust, that strong\nreligious feeling could consist with flagrant dishonor. Her finely\npoised and sensitive soul experienced a revolt and a rebound. She\nchanged none of her opinions, yet she changed the entire attitude of her\nmind; and, with the passage of time, the new attitude produced new\nideas. She had not quarreled with the faith of her childhood; she simply\nlost her love for it. Her anchor relinquished its hold, and, almost\nimperceptibly, she drifted. 'She glided out of the faith,' as Principal\nFairbairn so expressively puts it, 'as easily and as softly as if she\nhad been a ship obeying wind and tide, and her faith a sea that opened\nsilently before and closed noiselessly behind her.'\n\nWherefore let all those who name the name of Christ depart from\niniquity! For if, through any glaring inconsistency between my faith and\nmy behavior, I offend one of these little ones that believe in Him, it\nwere better, so the Master Himself declared, that a millstone were\nhanged about my neck and that I were cast into the depths of the sea.\n\n\nII\n\nNow, in the story that lies open on the garden-seat beside me, all the\ncharacters are very religious people. Yet they are divided sharply into\ntwo classes. There are the very religious people who are all the worse\nfor their religion, and there are the very religious people who are all\nthe better for it. Mr. Dempster is a very religious man. In the opening\nsentence of the story, the first sentence in the book, he acknowledges\nhis indebtedness to his Creator. He is a very religious man--and a\ndrunkard! Mr. Budd is also a very religious man. Indeed, he is warden at\nthe Parish Church. 'He is a small, sleek-headed bachelor of five and\nforty, whose scandalous life has long furnished his more moral neighbors\nwith an afterdinner joke.' But a very religious man is Mr. Budd! Mrs.\nLinnett is a very religious woman. She dotes on religious biography. 'On\ntaking up the biography of a celebrated preacher, she immediately turns\nto the end to see what he died of,' and she likes the book all the\nbetter if a sinister element enters into its composition. Mrs. Linnett\nis a very religious woman--and a gossip! We are introduced to a whole\ngroup of such characters--men and women who are very religious, but who\nare none the better for their religion.\n\nAnd, side by side with these unamiable figures, are a set of people,\nequally religious, whose characters are immeasurably sweetened and\nstrengthened by their religion. It is not that they profess another\nfaith, attend another church, or spend lives remote from the affairs\nwith which the others have to do. As George Eliot herself pointed out,\nwhen the publisher hesitated to commit himself to this manuscript, it\nwas not a case of one religion against another, or of one creed against\nanother, or of one church against another, or even of one minister\nagainst another. The members of this second group move in the same\nenvironment as do the members of the first; Sunday by Sunday they make\ntheir way to the self-same sanctuaries; yet every day they grow in\ngentleness, in thoughtfulness, in kindness, and in all those graces of\nbehavior that constitute the charm of lovable and helpful lives. In this\nattractive group we find Mr. Jerome, Mr. Tryan, and little Mrs.\nPettifer.\n\nIt is, of course, an old story, vividly and startlingly retold. The same\ncause will produce diametrically opposite effects. The sun that softens\nthe wax hardens the clay. The benefit that I derive from my religion,\nand the enjoyment that it affords me, must depend upon the response that\nI make to it. The rays of light that fade my coat add a warmer blush to\nthe petals of the rose. Why? My coat does not want the light and makes\nno response to it; the rose cannot bloom without the light and drinks in\nthe soft rays as the source of all its beauty. Under the influence of\nthe sunshine, the violets in the vase droop and become noisome; the\nliving lilies under my window unfold and assume an even statelier grace.\nIt is all a matter of response. Religion was always beating upon the\nlives of Mr. Dempster and Mr. Budd and Mrs. Linnett, as the sunlight\nbeats upon the coat and the cut-flowers. They did not open their hearts\nto it; they made no eager response to it; it was a thing that shone upon\nthe surface, and that was all. Their lives consequently wilted and\nshriveled and grew less beautiful. They were like violets made vile by\nthe very light that was designed to make them lovely. Mr. Tryan, Mr.\nJerome and Mrs. Pettifer, on the other hand, opened their hearts to the\nlove of God as the rose opens its petals to the light of the sun. Their\nreligion was a revelry to them. So far from its merely beating upon the\nsurface, as the sunlight beats upon the surface of the coat, it\nsaturated the very depths of their being. They were like the lilies\nunder my window; the rays that withered the violets in the vase only\nmake _them_ more graceful and more fair.\n\n\nIII\n\nHere, then, are the two groups; and the central scene of the story is\nthe transfer of the principal character from the one group to the other.\nJanet Dempster, the wife of Robert Dempster, is, like her husband, very\nreligious, but, like him, she is none the better for her religion. But\nmatters at home hurry to a climax. Dempster drinks more and more, and,\ndrinking, goes from bad to worse. He treats his wife, first with\ncoldness, and then with cruelty. At length comes the dreadful and\ndramatic scene that readers of the story will never erase from their\nmemories. In a fit of drunken savagery he burst into her room at\nmidnight. He drags her from her bed; pushes her down the stairs and\nalong the hall; and then, opening the front door, he hurls her by sheer\nbrute force out into the street. Here is George Eliot's picture: '_The\nstony street; the bitter north-east wind and darkness; and in the midst\nof them a tender woman thrust out from her husband's home in her thin\nnightdress, the harsh wind cutting her naked feet and driving her long\nhair away from her half-clad bosom, where the poor heart is crushed with\nanguish and despair._' It is in these desperate straits that religion\npresents itself to her view in an entirely fresh guise.\n\nIn her extremity, poor Janet thinks of little Mrs. Pettifer--a member of\nthat other group, the group that resembles the lilies under my window,\nthe group of kindly souls whose lives have been irradiated and\nbeautified by their faith. She taps at the cottage window; Mrs. Pettifer\nhastens to the door; and, as soon as that frightened little body can\nrecover from the first shock of her astonishment, she draws Janet into\nthe room and then into the warm bed. Having composed and soothed her,\nshe slips out of bed again, lights the fire and makes a cup of tea. In\n_this_ guise, religion presents itself to Janet!\n\nBut she needs more! A roof to shelter her, a fire to warm her and a\nfriend to caress and mother her--these are very welcome; but her heart\nis crying out with a yet deeper hunger. She feels that she, a poor weak\nwoman, is standing against a world that is too hard and too strong and\ntoo terrible for her. What can she do? Where can she go? Little Mrs.\nPettifer urges her to open her heart to Mr. Tryan, the minister; and to\nMr. Tryan she accordingly goes. And in Mr. Tryan she finds ready\nhelpfulness, warm sympathy, and a perfect understanding of her inmost\nneed. Her life, she feels, is but a tangled skein. To convince her that\nhe is no stranger to such conditions, Mr. Tryan tells her of his own\nstruggles and distresses. He has not stood aloof from the battle,\nlooking on; he has been in the thick of the fight--_and has been\nwounded_. She feels for him, and, in feeling for him, becomes conscious\nthat the healing of her own hurt has already begun. In _this_ guise,\nreligion presents itself to Janet Dempster!\n\nIn the person of Mrs. Pettifer and in the person of Mr. Tryan, religion\nbecame incarnate under the eyes of poor Janet. In the person of Mrs.\nPettifer and in the person of Mr. Tryan, '_the word became flesh_.'\n\nBut Janet still needs more! Mrs. Pettifer shelters and soothes her\n_body_; Mr. Tryan comforts and strengthens her _mind_; but her _soul_,\nher very _self_, what is she to do with _that_? She feels that she\ncannot trust _herself_ with _herself_. Is there no still greater\nincarnation of the faith?\n\nMrs. Pettifer is the _Incarnation Motherly_.\n\nMr. Tryan is the _Incarnation Ministerial_.\n\nBut, in her heart of hearts, there is still a deep and bitter cry. Mrs.\nPettifer can comfort; she cannot keep through all the days to come! Mr.\nTryan can counsel; he cannot guard from future sins and sorrows! To whom\ncan she commit herself? It is from Mr. Tryan's lips that the answer\ncomes. The words fall upon her broken spirit, as she herself tells us,\nlike rain upon the mown grass:\n\n    '_COME UNTO ME, ALL YE THAT LABOR AND ARE HEAVY-LADEN, AND I\n    WILL GIVE YOU REST!_'\n\nAnd once more the solution is an incarnation! When Janet's storm-beaten\n_body_ needed fire and food and shelter, religion became incarnate in\nthe person of Mrs. Pettifer. When Janet's distracted _mind_ needed\ncounsel and guidance, religion became incarnate in the person of Mr.\nTryan. But when Janet's sin-laden _soul_ cried out for a Saviour Who\ncould deliver her from the stains of the past, and keep her amidst the\nperils of the future, religion became incarnate in the Person of the Son\nof God!\n\n_The Incarnation Motherly!_\n\n_The Incarnation Ministerial!_\n\n_The Incarnation Mediatorial!_\n\n'_Come unto Me!_' the Saviour said. And Janet came! She was a changed\nwoman! '_A delicious hope_,' George Eliot tells us, '_the hope of\npurification and inward peace, had entered into Janet's soul, and made\nit spring-time there as well as in the outer world!_' '_She felt_,' we\nare told again, '_like a little child whose hand is firmly grasped by\nits father, as its frail limbs make their way over the rough ground: if\nit should stumble, the father will not let it go._' She had opened her\nheart to the living Lord as the living flowers open their petals to the\nglad sunlight; and He had become the strength of her life and her\nportion for ever. Temptation came, fierce and sudden and terrible; but\nHe was always there and always able to deliver.\n\n\nIV\n\nIn the correspondence with her publisher as to whether or not the\nmanuscript should be printed, George Eliot assures him that the\ncharacters are drawn from life. And, in the closing paragraph of the\nstory, she tells us that Janet--an old woman whose once-black hair is\nnow quite gray--is living still. But Mr. Tryan, she says, is dead; and\nshe describes the simple gravestone in Milby churchyard. '_But_,' she\nadds, '_there is another memorial of Edgar Tryan, which bears a fuller\nrecord; it is Janet Dempster, rescued from self-despair, strengthened\nwith Divine hopes, and now looking back on years of purity and helpful\nlabor. The man who has left such a memorial behind him must have been\none whose heart beat with true compassion and whose lips were moved by\nfervent faith._' It is the last sentence in the book; and every\nminister, as he closes the covers and lays it aside, will covet for\nhimself some such incarnate monument. Only as a preacher's preaching is\n'_made flesh_' in that way, will it be understood and appreciated by the\ngenerations following.\n\n\n\n\nXVIII\n\nCATHERINE BOOTH'S TEXT\n\n\nI\n\nWho that was in London on October 14, 1890, can forget the extraordinary\nscenes that marked the funeral of Catherine Booth? It was a day of\nuniversal grief. The whole nation mourned. For Mrs. Booth was one of the\nmost striking personalities, and one of the mightiest spiritual forces,\nof the nineteenth century. To the piety of a Saint Teresa she added the\npassion of a Josephine Butler, the purposefulness of an Elizabeth Fry,\nand the practical sagacity of a Frances Willard. The greatest in the\nland revered her, trusted her, consulted her, deferred to her. The\nletters that passed between Catherine Booth and Queen Victoria are among\nthe most remarkable documents in the literature of correspondence. Mr.\nGladstone attached the greatest weight to her judgment and convictions.\nBishop Lightfoot, one of the most distinguished scholars of his time,\nhas testified to the powerful influence which she exerted over him. And,\nwhilst the loftiest among men honored her, the lowliest loved her.\n\nSuch strong lives have their secrets. Mrs. Booth had hers. Her secret\nwas a text. As a child she learned it by heart; as a girl she pinned her\nfaith to the promise it enshrined; amidst the stress and strain of a\nstormy and eventful life she trusted it implicitly; and, with all the\ntenacity of her keen, clear intellect, she clung to it at the last. In\nthe standard _Life of Catherine Booth_--a huge work of a thousand\npages--four chapters are devoted to the scenes at the deathbed. And then\nwe read:\n\n'The lips moved as though desiring to speak. Unable, however, to do so,\nthe dying woman pointed to a wall-text, which had for a long time been\nplaced opposite to her, so that her eyes could rest upon it.\n\n  MY GRACE\n  IS\n  SUFFICIENT FOR THEE\n\nIt was taken down and placed near her on the bed. But it was no longer\nneeded. The promise had been completely fulfilled.'\n\n'That,' said a speaker at one of the great Memorial Meetings in London,\nsome of which were attended by many thousand people, 'that was her\ntext!' And, as so often happens, her text explains her character.\n\nFor, considered apart from the text, the character is an insoluble\nenigma. It is like a consequence without a cause. I was talking a week\nor two ago with an old man, who, in Australia's earlier days, did a good\ndeal of pioneering in the heart of the bush.\n\n'Once,' he told me, 'soon after I first came out, I really thought that\nI had reached the end of everything. I was hopelessly lost. My strength\nwas utterly exhausted. I had gone as far as I could go. The country\naround me was flat and dry; my thirst was a perfect agony; and my poor\ndog followed at my heels, her tongue hanging out, and her sides panting\npitifully. We had not seen water for several days. I sat down under a\ngreat gum-tree, hoping that an hour's rest would bring me fresh heart\nand new vigor. I must have fallen asleep. When I awoke, Fan was standing\nnear me, wagging her tail. She seemed contented and satisfied; her\ntongue no longer protruded. An hour or two later, I suddenly missed her;\nshe had vanished in the scrub. She was away about twenty minutes. I\ndetermined to watch her. Presently she set out again, and I followed.\nSurely enough, she had found a tiny spring in a slight hollow about half\na mile away; and by that spring we were saved.'\n\nI have seen something like this in a higher realm. I recall, for\nexample, Richard Cecil's story of his conversion. Richard Cecil--the\nfriend and biographer of John Newton--was one of the great evangelical\nforces of the _eighteenth_ century, as Catherine Booth was of the\n_nineteenth_. But, in his early days, Richard Cecil was a skeptic. He\ncalled himself an infidel, but he was honest in his infidelity. He could\nface facts; and the man who can look facts fairly in the face is not far\nfrom the kingdom of God. Richard Cecil was not, his skepticism\nnotwithstanding. 'I see,' he says, in telling us of the line of thought\nthat he pursued as he lay in bed one night, 'I see two unquestionable\nfacts.' And what were they? They both concerned his mother.\n\n'_First_, my mother is greatly afflicted in circumstances, body and\nmind; and I see that she cheerfully bears up under all her suffering by\nthe support that she derives from constantly retiring to her quiet room\nand her Bible.\n\n'_Second_, my mother has a secret spring of comfort of which I know\nnothing; while I, who give an unbounded loose to my appetites, and seek\npleasure by every means, seldom or never find it. If, however, there is\nany such secret in religion, why may I not attain to it as well as my\nmother? I will immediately seek it!'\n\nHe did; and those who are familiar with his life-story know of the\ntriumphant result of that quest. It was precisely so with Mrs. Booth.\nHer children knew that, like the bushman's collie, she found refreshment\nat some secret spring. Later on, she told them of the text and led them,\none by one, to the fountains of grace. '_My grace is sufficient for\nthee._' And when, at last, the avenues of speech and hearing were\nclosed, they hung the golden words before her clouding eyes. Again she\ngreeted them with rapture, and, with unwavering confidence, pointed her\nchildren to their deathless message.\n\n\nII\n\nIn his _Grace Abounding_, John Bunyan tells us that there was a period\nin his spiritual history when his soul was like a pair of scales. It\npartook of three phases. At one time the right-hand balance was down and\nthe left-hand empty and high; then for awhile they were exactly and\nevenly poised; and, at the last, the left-hand balance dropped and that\non the right-hand was swinging in the air.\n\nAt the _first_ of these stages he was being tormented about the\nunpardonable sin. He reminded himself that, for Esau, there was no place\nfor repentance; and he felt that there was none for him. The scale in\nwhich he laid his despair was heavily weighted; the scale in which he\nplaced his hope was empty!\n\nAnd the _second_ stage--the stage that leveled the balances? 'One\nmorning,' he says, 'as I was at prayer, and trembling with fear, lest\nthere should be no word of God to help me, that piece of a sentence\ndarted in upon me: _My grace is sufficient!_ At this I felt some stay as\nif there might yet be hope. About a fortnight before, I had been looking\nat this very scripture, but I then thought that it could bring me no\ncomfort, and I threw down the book in a pet. I thought that the grace\nwas not large enough for me! no, not large enough! But now it was as if\nthe arms of grace were so wide that they could enclose not only me but\nmany more besides. And so _this_ about the sufficiency of grace and\n_that_ about Esau finding no place for repentance would be like a pair\nof scales within my mind. Sometimes one end would be uppermost and\nsometimes again the other; according to which would be my peace or\ntrouble.'\n\nAnd the _third_ stage--the triumphant stage? Bunyan felt that the scales\nwere merely level because, in the balance that contained the hope, he\nhad thrown only four of the six words that make up the text. '_My grace\nis sufficient_'; he had no doubt about that, and it gave him\nencouragement. But '_for thee_'; he felt that, if only he could add\nthose words to the others, it would turn the scales completely. 'I had\nhope,' he says, 'yet because the \"_for thee_\" was left out, I was not\ncontented, but prayed to God for _that_ also. Wherefore, one day, when I\nwas in a meeting of God's people, full of sadness and terror, these\nwords did with great power suddenly break in upon me; _My grace is\nsufficient for thee, My grace is sufficient for thee, My grace is\nsufficient for thee_, three times together. And oh! methought that every\nword was a mighty word unto me; as _My_ and _grace_, and _sufficient_,\nand _for thee_; they were then, and sometimes are still, far bigger than\nall others. Then, at last, that about Esau finding no place for\nrepentance began to wax weak and withdraw and vanish, and this about the\nsufficiency of grace prevailed with peace and joy.' And so the issue was\nreversed; the scale that held the hope overweighed completely the scale\nthat held the despair.\n\nIf it were not that others have passed through an identically similar\nexperience, we should feel inclined to marvel at Bunyan's reluctance to\ncast into the balances the tail of the text: _My grace is\nsufficient--for thee!_ It seems strange, I say, that Bunyan should have\ngrasped with such confidence the _four_ words and then boggled at the\nother _two_. And yet it is always easier to believe that there is a\nSaviour for the world than to believe that there is a Saviour _for me_.\nIt is easy to believe that\n\n  There is grace enough for thousands\n    Of new worlds as great as this;\n  There is room for fresh creations\n    In that upper home of bliss;\n\nbut it is much harder to believe that there is grace and room _for me_.\nMartin Luther believed implicitly and preached confidently that Christ\ndied for all mankind, long before he could persuade himself that Christ\ndied for Martin Luther. John Wesley crossed the Atlantic that he might\nproclaim the forgiveness of sins to the Indians; but it was not until he\nwas verging upon middle life that he realized the possibility of the\nforgiveness of his own.\n\nIt is all very illogical, of course, and very absurd. If we can accept\nthe _four_ words, why not accept all _six_? If we credit the head of the\ntext, why cavil at the tail? Sometimes the absurdity of such irrational\nbehavior will break upon a man and set him laughing at his own\nstupidity. Mr. Spurgeon had some such experience. 'Gentlemen,' he said,\none Friday afternoon, in an address to his students, 'Gentlemen, there\nare many passages of Scripture which you will never understand until\nsome trying or singular experience shall interpret them to you. The\nother evening I was riding home after a heavy day's work; I was very\nwearied and sore depressed; and, swiftly and suddenly as a lightning\nflash, that text laid hold on me: _My grace is sufficient for thee!_ On\nreaching home, I looked it up in the original, and at last it came to me\nin this way. _MY grace is sufficient for THEE_! \"Why,\" I said to myself,\n\"I should think it is!\" and I burst out laughing. I never fully\nunderstood what the holy laughter of Abraham was like until then. It\nseemed to make unbelief so absurd. It was as though some little fish,\nbeing very thirsty, was troubled about drinking the river dry; and\nFather Thames said: \"Drink away, little fish, my stream is sufficient\nfor thee!\" Or as if a little mouse in the granaries of Egypt, after\nseven years of plenty, feared lest it should die of famine, and Joseph\nsaid: \"Cheer up, little mouse, my granaries are sufficient for thee!\"\nAgain I imagined a man away up yonder on the mountain saying to himself:\n\"I fear I shall exhaust all the oxygen in the atmosphere.\" But the earth\ncries: \"Breathe away, O man, and fill thy lungs; my atmosphere is\nsufficient for thee!\"' John Bunyan enjoyed a moment's merriment of the\nsame kind when he threw the last two words into the scale and saw his\ndespair dwindle into insignificance on the instant.\n\n\nIII\n\nSome such thought shines through the passage in which Paul tells us how\nthe great words came to him. He was irritated by his thorn; he prayed\nrepeatedly for its removal; but the only answer that he received was\nthis: _My grace is sufficient for thee!_ Grace sufficient for a thorn!\nIt is an almost ludicrous association of ideas!\n\nIt is so easy for Bunyan to believe that the divine grace is sufficient\nfor the wide, wide world; it is so difficult to realize that it is\nsufficient for him!\n\nIt is so easy for Wesley to believe in the forgiveness of sins: it is so\ndifficult for him to believe in the forgiveness of his own!\n\nIt is so easy for Paul to believe in the grace that is sufficient to\nredeem a fallen race: it is so difficult for him to believe in the grace\nthat can fortify him to endure his thorn!\n\nAnd yet, in a fine essay on _Great Principles and Small Duties_, Dr.\nJames Martineau has shown that it is the lowliest who most need the\nloftiest; it is the tiny thorn that calls for the most tremendous grace.\nThe gravest mistake ever made by educationalists is, he says, the\nmistake of supposing that those who know little are good enough to teach\nthose who know less. It is a tragedy, he declares, when the master is\nonly one stage ahead of his pupil. 'The ripest scholarship,' he\nmaintains, 'is alone qualified to instruct the most complete ignorance.'\nDr. Martineau goes on to show that a soul occupied with great ideas best\nperforms trivial duties. And, coming to the supreme example of his\nsubject, he points out that 'it was the peculiarity of the Saviour's\ngreatness, not that he stooped to the lowliest, but that, without\nstooping, he penetrated to the humblest wants. He not simply stepped\naside to look at the most ignominious sorrows, but went directly to\nthem, and lived wholly in them; scattered glorious miracles and sacred\ntruths along the hidden by-paths and in the mean recesses of existence;\nserving the mendicant and the widow, blessing the child, healing the\nleprosy of body and of soul, and kneeling to wash even the traitor's\nfeet.' Here is a strange and marvelous and beautiful law! The loftiest\nfor the lowliest! The greatest grace for the tiniest thorn!\n\nIs it any wonder that, this being so, Paul felt that his splinter\npositively shone? '_I will glory in it_,' he cried, '_that the power of\nChrist may be billetted upon me._' He feels that his soul is like some\nrural hamlet into which a powerful regiment has marched. Every bed and\nbarn is occupied by the soldiers. Who would not be irritated by a\nsplinter, he asks, if the irritation leads to such an inrush of divine\npower and grace? It is like the pain of the oyster that is healed by a\npearl.\n\nAnd so, with Paul as with Bunyan, the grace turns the scales. It is\nbetter to have the pain if it brings the pearl. It is better to have a\nthorn in the one balance if it brings such grace into the opposite\nbalance that one is better off _with_ the thorn than _without_ it.\nTherein lies life's deepest secret--the secret that Catherine Booth and\nJohn Bunyan learned from the lips that unfolded it to Paul. In _The\nMaster's Violin_, Myrtle Reed tells us the secret of the music that the\nold man's fingers wooed from the Cremona. You have but to look at the\nmaster, she says, and you will comprehend. 'There he stands, a stately\nfigure, gray and rugged, yet with a certain graciousness; simple,\nkindly, and yet austere; one who had accepted his sorrow, and, by some\nalchemy of the spirit, transmuted it into universal compassion, to\nspeak, through the Cremona, to all who could understand!'\n\n_That_ is the secret--the old musician's secret; Catherine Booth's\nsecret; Bunyan's secret; Paul's secret; the secret of all who have\nlearned the text _by heart_!\n\n_My grace is sufficient for thee_--the inrush of the grace turned Paul's\ntorturing splinter into a cause for life-long thankfulness!\n\n_My grace is sufficient for thee_--the inrush of the grace turned Mrs.\nBooth's fierce struggle into a ceaseless song!\n\n_My grace is sufficient for thee!_ To the man who like John Bunyan,\nstands weighing his gladnesses and sadnesses with that text in his mind,\nit will seem that the one scale is overflowing and the other empty. For\nit is the glory of the grace that it takes what sadnesses there are and\ntransmutes them into songs sublime.\n\n\n\n\nXIX\n\nUNCLE TOM'S TEXT\n\n\nI\n\nPoor old Uncle Tom has been stripped of everything. All that he counted\nprecious has vanished. He has been torn away from the old Kentucky home;\nhas been snatched away from the arms of old Aunt Chloe; has been sold\naway from children and kindred; and has fallen into the merciless hands\nof that vicious slave-dealer, Simon Legree. And now Uncle Tom is dying.\nHe lies in the dusty shed, his back all torn and lacerated by the cruel\nthongs. All through the night there steal to his side the other slaves\non the plantation, poor creatures who creep in to see the last of him,\nto bathe his wounds, to ask his pardon, or to kneel in prayer beside his\ntortured frame. With the morning light comes George Shelby, his old\nmaster, to redeem him.\n\n'Is it possible, is it possible?' he exclaims, kneeling down by the old\nslave. 'Uncle Tom, my poor, poor old friend!'\n\nBut Uncle Tom is too far gone. He only murmurs faintly to himself:\n\n  Jesus can make a dying bed\n  Feel soft as downy pillows are.\n\n'You shan't die; you mustn't die, nor think of it! I've come to buy you\nand take you home!' cries George, with impetuous vehemence.\n\n'Oh, Mas'r George, ye're too late. The Lord's bought me and is going to\ntake me home--and I long to go. Heaven is better than old Kentucky!'\n\nAt this moment the sudden flush of strength which the joy of meeting his\nyoung master had infused into the dying man gives way. A sudden sinking\nfalls upon him; he closes his eyes; and that mysterious and sublime\nchange passes over his face that suggests the approach of other worlds.\nHe begins to draw his breath with long, deep inspirations, and his broad\nchest rises and falls heavily. The expression of his face is that of a\nconqueror.\n\n'_Who_,' he murmurs, '_who--who--who shall separate us from the love of\nChrist?_' And, with that unanswerable challenge upon his quivering lips,\nhe falls into his last long sleep. Severed from all that is dear to him,\nthere is yet One heart from which nothing can separate him. And in that\nindissoluble tie he finds strong consolation at the last.\n\n\nII\n\nI was speaking the other day to a lady who had known Signor Alessandro\nGavazzi. 'When he was in England,' she told me, 'he used to come and\nstay at my father's home, and, to us girls, he seemed like a visitor\nfrom another world.' The life of Gavazzi is one of the stirring romances\nof the nineteenth century. Born at Bologna in 1809, he became, at the\nage of fifteen, a Barnabite monk. His eloquence, even in his teens, was\nso extraordinary that, at twenty, he was made Professor of Rhetoric in\nthe College of Naples. Some years afterward Pope Pius the Ninth sent him\non a special mission to Milan as Chaplain-General to the Patriotic\nLegion. A little later, however, a new light broke upon him. He left the\nchurch of his fathers and devoted his distinguished gifts to the work of\nevangelism. In connection with his conversion, a pathetic incident\noccurred. A superstitious Italian mother will sometimes hang a charm\naround her boy's neck to drive away malignant powers. When Gavazzi was\nbut a baby, his mother placed a locket on his breast, and he never moved\nwithout it. But when, in riper years, he found the Saviour, his mother's\ngift caused him great perplexity. As a charm he had no faith in it; he\nrelied entirely on the grace of his Lord to sustain and protect him. And\nyet, for his mother's sake, he felt that he should like to wear it. He\nsolved the problem by placing in the locket the words by which he had\nbeen led to Christ. When he died, an old man of eighty, the locket was\nfound next his skin. And, when they opened it, they read: '_Who shall\nseparate us from the love of Christ? I am persuaded that neither death,\nnor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things\npresent, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other\ncreature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in\nChrist Jesus our Lord._' Gavazzi's excommunication nearly broke his\nheart. He left Rome to wander in strange lands, the most frightful\nanathemas and maledictions ringing in his ears. He was an exile and an\noutcast, shuddering under the curse of the church that he had served so\ndevotedly and so long. Yet, after all, what did it matter? He had found\na love--the love of Christ--that he had never known before; and from\nthat all-compensating love no power in church or state, in heaven or\nearth, in time or in eternity, had power to tear him.\n\n\nIII\n\nOne is tempted to continue in this strain. It would be pleasant to speak\nof Hugh Kennedy, of Savonarola, and of others who found life and grace\nand inspiration in the text on which poor Uncle Tom pillowed his dying\nhead. The testimony of such witnesses is strangely fascinating; their\nname is legion; we may yet cite one or two of them before we close.\nMeanwhile, we must pay some attention to the words of which they speak\nso rapturously. And even to glance at them is to fall in love with them.\nThey are among the most stately, the most splendid, in all literature.\nMacaulay, who read everything, once found himself in Scotland on a fast\nday. It was a new experience for him, and he did not altogether enjoy\nit. 'The place,' he said, 'had all the appearance of a Puritan Sunday.\nEvery shop was shut and every church open. I heard the worst and longest\nsermon that I ever remember. Every sentence was repeated three or four\ntimes over, and nothing in any sentence deserved to be said once. I\nwithdrew my attention and read the Epistle to the Romans. I was much\nstruck by the eloquence and force of some passages, and made out the\nconnection and argument of some others which had formerly seemed to me\nunmeaning. I enjoyed the \"_Who shall separate us from the love of\nChrist?_\" I know few things finer.'\n\nThe words constitute themselves the greatest challenge ever uttered.\nPoets and painters have gloried in the conception of Ajax, on his lonely\nrock, defying all the gods that be. But what is _that_ compared with\n_this_? In the passage whose sublimities awoke the enthusiasm of\nMacaulay, and delivered him from insufferable boredom, Paul claims to\nhave reached the limits of finality, and he hurls defiance at all the\nforces of futurity.\n\n'_Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Death? Life? Angels?\nPrincipalities? Powers? Things Present? Things to Come? Height? Depth?\nAny fresh Creation? I am persuaded that none of them can separate us\nfrom the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord._'\n\n\nIV\n\nNeither death nor life can do it. Not death--nor even life. Both are\nformidable forces; and Paul knew which was the more dangerous of the\ntwo.\n\n  So he died for his faith. That is fine--\n    More than most of us do.\n  But, say, can you add to that line\n    That he lived for it, too?\n\nWhen Elizabeth came to the English throne, a number of men and women,\nwho were awaiting martyrdom under Mary, were liberated. Animated by the\nspirit of Ridley and Latimer, they would have kissed the faggots and\nembraced the stake. Yet, in the years that followed, some of them lapsed\ninto indifference, went the way of the world, and named the name of\nChrist no more. The ordeal of life proved more potent and more terrible\nthan the ordeal of a fiery death.\n\nBunyan had learned that lesson. When he was in the depths of his\ndespair, envying the beasts and birds about him, and tormenting himself\nwith visions of hell-fire, he went one day to hear a sermon on the love\nof Christ. To use his own words, his 'comforting time was come.' 'I\nbegan,' he says, 'to give place to the word which with power did over\nand over again make this joyful sound within my soul: \"_Who shall\nseparate me from the love of Christ?_\" And with that my heart was filled\nfull of comfort and hope, and I could believe that my sins would be\nforgiven me. Yea, I was so taken with the love and mercy of God that I\nremember that I could not tell how to contain till I got home; I thought\nI could have spoken of His love to the very crows that sat upon the\nploughed lands before me. Surely I will not forget this forty years\nhence?'\n\nForty years hence! Forty years hence Bunyan was sleeping in his quiet\ngrave in Bunhill Fields; and nobody who visits that familiar\nresting-place of his supposes for a moment that _death_ has separated\nhim from the love of Christ.\n\nBut _life_! Life is a far more dangerous foe. 'The tempter,' Bunyan\ntells us, 'would come upon me with such discouragements as these: \"You\nare very hot for mercy, but I will cool you. This frame shall not last.\nMany have been as hot as you for a spirit, but I have quenched their\nzeal.\" With this, several, who were fallen off, would be set before mine\neyes. Then I would be afraid that I should fall away, too, but, thought\nI, I will watch and take care. \"Though you do,\" said the tempter, \"I\nshall be too hard for you. I will cool you insensibly, by degrees, by\nlittle and little. Continual rocking will lull a crying child to sleep.\nI shall have you cold before long!\" These things,' Bunyan continues,\n'brought me into great straits. I feared that time would wear from my\nmind my sense of the evil of sin, of the worth of heaven, and of my need\nof the blood of Christ.' But at that critical moment a text came to his\nhelp--Uncle Tom's text, Signor Gavazzi's text. '_What shall separate us\nfrom the love of Christ? For I am persuaded that neither death, nor\nlife, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present,\nnor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall\nbe able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our\nLord._' 'That,' Bunyan says, 'was a good word to me.'\n\nDeath cannot do it!--that is good!\n\nLife cannot do it!--that is better!\n\n'And now I hoped,' says Bunyan, in concluding his narrative of this\nexperience, 'now I hoped that long life would not destroy me nor make me\nmiss of heaven.'\n\n\nV\n\nPaul dares the universe. He defies infinity. He summons, in pairs, all\nthe powers that be, and glories in their impotence to dissolve the\nsacred tie that binds him to his Lord.\n\nHe calls _Life and Death_ before him and dares them to do it!\n\nHe calls the _Powers of this World_ and the _Powers of Every Other_;\nnone of them, he says, can do it!\n\nHe calls the _Things of the Historic Present_ and the _Developments of\nthe Boundless Future_. Whatever changes may come with the pageant of the\nages, there is one dear relationship that nothing can ever affect!\n\nHe calls the _Things in the Heights_ and the _Things in the Depths_; but\nneither among angels nor devils can he discover any force that makes his\nfaith to falter!\n\nHe surveys _this Creation_ and he contemplates _the Possibility of\nOthers_; but it is with a smile of confidence and triumph.\n\n'_For I am persuaded_,' he says, '_that neither death, nor life, nor\nangels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things\nto come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to\nseparate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord._'\n\n\nVI\n\nThe covenanters knew the value of Uncle Tom's text. Among the heroic\nrecords of Scotland's terrible ordeal, nothing is more impressive or\naffecting than the desperate way in which persecuted men and women clung\nwith both hands to the golden hope enshrined in that majestic word. It\nwas in a Scottish kirk that Macaulay discovered its splendor; but even\nMacaulay failed to see in it all that _they_ saw.\n\nIt was a beautiful May morning when Major Windram rode into Wigton and\ndemanded the surrender, to him and his soldiers, of two women who had\nbeen convicted of attending a conventicle. One of them was Margaret\nWilson, a fair young girl of eighteen. She was condemned to be lashed to\na stake at low tide in such a way that the rising waters would slowly\noverwhelm her. In hope of shaking her fidelity, and saving her life, it\nwas ordained that her companion should be fastened to a stake a little\nfarther out. 'It may be,' said her persecutors, 'that, as Mistress\nMargaret watches the waves go over the widow before her, she will\nrelent!' The ruse, however, had the opposite effect. When Margaret saw\nthe fortitude with which the elder woman yielded her soul to the\nincoming tide, she began to sing a paraphrase of the twenty-fifth Psalm,\nand those on the beach took up the strain. The soldiers angrily silenced\nthem, and Margaret's mother, rushing into the waters, begged her to save\nher life by making the declaration that the authorities desired. But\ntantalized and tormented, she never flinched; and, as the waves lapped\nher face she was heard to repeat, again and again, the triumphant words:\n'_I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor\nprincipalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor\nheight, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us\nfrom the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord._'\n\nAs a representative of the _men_ of that stern time, we may cite John\nBruce. When that sturdy veteran, after a long life of faithful testimony\nand incessant suffering, lay dying, he beckoned his daughter to the\nchair beside his bed. He told her, in broken sentences and failing\nvoice, of the goodness and mercy that had followed him all the days of\nhis life; and then, pausing suddenly, he exclaimed: 'Hark, lass, the\nMaster calls! Fetch the Buik!' She brought the Bible to his side.\n'Turn,' he said, 'to the eighth of Romans and put my finger on these\nwords: \"_Who can separate us from the love of Christ? For I am persuaded\nthat neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor\npowers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth,\nnor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of\nGod which is in Christ Jesus our Lord._\" Now,' he continued, as soon as\nshe had found the place, 'put my finger on the words and hold it there!'\nAnd with his finger there, pointing even in death to the ground of all\nhis confidence, the old man passed away.\n\n\nVII\n\n'_Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?_' asked Uncle Tom, with\nhis last breath.\n\n'Massa George sat fixed with solemn awe,' says Mrs. Beecher Stowe, in\ncontinuing the story. 'It seemed to him that the place was holy; and as\nhe closed Tom's lifeless eyes, and rose to leave the dead, only one\nthought possessed him--What a thing it is to be a Christian!'\n\nIt is indeed!\n\n\n\n\nXX\n\nANDREW BONAR'S TEXT\n\n\nI\n\nIt is an old-fashioned Scottish kirk--and the Communion Sabbath.\nEverybody knows of the hush that brooded over a Scottish community a\ncentury ago whenever the Communion season came round. The entire\npopulation gave itself up to a period of holy awe and solemn gladness.\nAs the day drew near, nothing else was thought about or spoken of. At\nthe kirk itself, day after day was given up to preparatory exercises,\nfast-time sermons and the fencing of tables. In this old kirk, in which\nwe this morning find ourselves, all these preliminaries are past. The\nyoung people who are presenting themselves for the first time have been\nduly examined by the grave and somber elders, and, having survived that\nfiery and searching ordeal, have received their tokens. And now\neverything is ready. The great day has actually come. The snowy cloths\ndrape the pews; everything is in readiness for the solemn festival; the\npeople come from far and near. But I am not concerned with those who, on\nthis impressive and memorable occasion, throng around the table and\npartake of the sacred mysteries. For, at the back of the kirk, high up,\nis a cavernous and apparently empty old gallery, dark and dismal. Is it\nempty? What is that patch of paleness that I see up in the corner? Is it\na face? It is! It is the grave and eager face of a small boy; a face\noverspread with awe and wonder as he gazes upon the affecting and\nimpressive scene that is being enacted below. 'As a child,' said Dr.\nBonar, many years afterwards, when addressing the little people of his\nown congregation, 'as a child I used to love to creep up into that old\ngallery on Communion Sabbaths. How I trembled as I climbed up the\nstairs! And how I shuddered when the minister entered and began the\nservice! When I saw young people of my own acquaintance take the holy\nemblems for the first time, I wondered if, one great and beautiful day,\nI should myself be found among the communicants. But the thought always\ndied in the moment of its birth. For I found in my heart so much that\nmust keep me from the love of Christ. I thought, as I sat in the deep\nrecesses of that gloomy old gallery, that I must purge my soul of all\ndefilement, and cultivate all the graces of the faith, before I could\nhope for a place in the Kingdom of Christ or venture as a humble guest\nto His table. But oh, how I longed one day to be numbered among that\nhappy company! I thought no privilege on earth could compare with that.'\n\n\nII\n\nA couple of entries in his diary will complete our preparation for the\nrecord of the day that changed his life. He is a youth of nineteen,\nstaid and thoughtful, but full of life and merriment, and the popular\ncenter of a group of student friends.\n\n_May 3, 1829._--Great sorrow, because I am still out of Christ.\n\n_May 31, 1829._--My birthday is past and I am not born again.\n\nNot every day, I fancy, do such entries find their way into the\nconfidential journals of young people of nineteen.\n\n\nIII\n\nGod's flowers are all everlastings. The night may enfold them; the grass\nmay conceal them; the snows may entomb them; but they are always there.\nThey do not perish or fade. See how the principle works out in history!\nThere is no more remarkable revival of religion in our national story\nthan that represented by the Rise of the Puritans. The face of England\nwas changed; everything was made anew. Then came the Restoration.\nParadise was lost. Puritanism vanished as suddenly as it had arisen. But\nwas it dead? Professor James Stalker, in a Centennial Lecture on Robert\nMurray McCheyne--a name that stands imperishably associated with that of\nAndrew Bonar--says most emphatically that it was not. He shows how, like\na forest fire, the movement swept across Europe, returning at last to\nthe land in which it rose. When, with the Restoration, England relapsed\ninto folly, it passed over into Holland, preparing for us, among other\nthings, a new and better line of English kings. From Holland it passed\ninto Germany, and, by means of the Moravian Brethren, produced the most\namazing missionary movement of all time. From Germany it returned to\nEngland, giving us the Methodist Revival of the eighteenth century, a\nrevival which, according to Lecky, alone saved England from the horrors\nof an industrial revolution. And from England it swept into Scotland,\nand kindled there such a revival of religion as has left an indelible\nimpression upon Scottish life and character. It was in the sweep of that\nhistoric movement that the soul of Andrew Bonar was born.\n\n\nIV\n\n'It was in 1830,' he says, in a letter to his brother, written in his\neighty-third year, 'it was in 1830 that I found the Saviour, or rather,\nthat He found me, and laid me on His shoulders rejoicing.' And how did\nit all come about? It was a tranquil evening in the early autumn, and a\nSabbath. There is always something conducive to contemplation about an\nautumn evening. When, one of these days, one of our philosophers gives\nus a _Psychology of the Seasons_, I shall confidently expect to find\nthat the great majority of conversions take place in the autumn. At any\nrate, Andrew Bonar's did. As he looked out upon the world in the early\nmorning, he saw the shrubs in the garden below him, and the furze on the\nmoorland beyond, twinkling with the dew-drenched webs of innumerable\nspiders. In his walk to the church, and in a stroll across the fields in\nthe afternoon, the hush of the earth, broken only by the lowing of\ncattle, the bleating of sheep and the rustle of the leaves that had\nalready fallen, saturated his spirit. The world, he thought, had never\nlooked so beautiful. The forest was a riot of russet and gold. The\nhedge-rows were bronze and purple and saffron. The soft and misty\nsunlight only accentuated the amber tints that marked the dying fern. In\nthe evening, unable to shake off the pensive mood into which the day had\nthrown him, he reached down Guthrie's _Trial of a Saving Interest in\nChrist_, and gave himself to serious thought. Was it in the pages of\nGuthrie's searching volume that he came upon the text, or did he, later\non, lay down the book and take up his New Testament instead? I do not\nknow. But, however that may have been, one great and glowing thought\ntook complete possession of his soul. As the tide will sometimes rush\nsuddenly up the sands, filling up every hollow and bearing away all the\nseaweed and driftwood that has been lying there so long, so one surging\nand overmastering word poured itself suddenly in upon his mind, bearing\naway with it the doubts and apprehensions that had tormented him for\nyears. '_Of His fullness have we all received, and grace for grace._'\nThen and there, he says, he began to have a secret joyful hope that he\ndid really believe on the Lord Jesus. 'The fullness and freeness of the\ndivine grace filled my heart; I did nothing but receive!'\n\n'_Of His fullness have all we received!_'\n\n'_His fullness filled my heart!_'\n\n'_I did nothing but receive!_'\n\nForty-two years afterwards, at the age of sixty-two, he revisited that\nroom and tried to recapture the holy ecstasy with which, so many years\nearlier, he had 'first realized a found Saviour.'\n\n'_Grace for grace!_'\n\n\nV\n\n'_Of His fullness have all we received, and grace for grace!_'\n\nI know a fair Australian city that nestles serenely at the foot of a\ntall and massive mountain. Half way up the slopes is the city's\nreservoir. In a glorious and evergreen valley it has been hollowed out\nof the rugged mountain-side. The virgin bush surrounds it on every hand;\nat its western extremity a graceful waterfall comes pouring down from\nthe heights, mingling its silvery music with the songs of the birds\naround. It is the favorite haunt of gaily-colored kingfishers. Swallows\nskim hither and thither over its crystalline and placid surface; and, as\nif kissing their own reflections in the glass, they just touch the water\nas they flit across, creating circles that grow and grow until they\nreach the utmost edge. Like a giant who, conscious of his grandeur,\nloves to see his image in the mirror, the scarped and weather-beaten\nsummit gazes sternly down from above and sees his splendors reproduced,\nand even enhanced, in the limpid depths below. Often, on a hot day, have\nI resorted to this sylvan retreat. At this altitude, how deliciously\ncool is the air; how icy cold the water! It has come pouring down the\ncataract from the melting snows above! For, strangely enough, the winter\nrains and the summer suns conspire to keep it always full. Far down the\nmountain-side I see the city, shimmering in the noonday heat. I think of\nits population, hot, tired and thirsty. And then it pleases me to\nreflect that every house down there at the mountain's foot is in direct\ncommunication with this vast basin of shining water. The people have but\nto stretch forth their hands and replenish their vessels again and\nagain. This crystal reservoir far up the slopes is really a part of the\nfurniture of each of those homes. Have not I myself been down there in\nthe dust and heat on such a day as this? Have not I myself been parched\nand thirsty? And have I not thought wistfully of the reservoir far up\nthe slopes? And have I not taken my glass and filled it and quaffed with\nrelish the sweet and sparkling water? And have I not said to myself, as\nI thought of the familiar scene among the hills: 'Of its fullness have\nall we received, and water for water.'\n\n'_His fullness filled my heart!_'\n\n'_I did nothing but receive!_'\n\n'_Of His fullness have all we received, and grace for grace!_'\n\n\nVI\n\nYes, grace for grace! Grace for manhood following upon grace for youth!\nGrace for sickness following upon grace for health! Grace for sorrow\nfollowing upon grace for joy! Grace for age following upon grace for\nmaturity! Grace to die following upon grace to live! Of that fullness of\nwhich he first drank on that lovely autumn evening, he drank again and\nagain and again, always with fresh delight and satisfaction.\n\nTwenty-five years later, I find him saying that, 'if there is one thing\nfor which I praise the Lord more than another it is this: that He opened\nmy eyes to see that Christ pleases the Father to the full, and that\n_this_ is the ground of my acceptance.'\n\nFive years later still, he says that 'I have been many, many times\nunhappy for awhile, but have never seriously doubted my interest in the\nLord Jesus.'\n\nWhen he was fifty-four, his wife died, leaving him to bring up his young\nfamily as best he could. But '_grace for grace_.' A year or two later, I\nfind him rejoicing that 'to-night both Isabella and Marjory came home\nspeaking of their having been enabled to rest on Christ. What a joyful\ntime it has been! I think, too, the young servant has found Christ.\nBlessed Lord, I have asked Thee often to remember Thy promise, and \"when\nmother leaves thee, the Lord will take thee up.\" I have asked Thee to be\na mother to my motherless children, and now, indeed, Thou hast given me\nmy prayer. Praise, praise for evermore!'\n\nOn the fiftieth anniversary of that never-to-be-forgotten autumn\nevening, he records with gratitude the fact that, 'for fifty years the\nLord has kept me within sight of the Cross.'\n\nTen years later still, now an old man of eighty, he declares that his\nSaviour has never once left him in the darkness all these years.\n\nAnd, two years later, just before his death, he writes, 'it was\nsixty-two years ago that I found the Saviour, or, rather, that He found\nme; and I have never parted company with Him all these years. Christ the\nSaviour has been to me my true portion, my heaven begun; and my earnest\nprayer and desire for you and Mary and little Marjory will always be,\nthat you may each find, not only all I ever found in Christ, but a\nhundredfold more, every year!'\n\n_Grace for grace!_\n\n_Grace for the father and grace for the children!_\n\n_Grace for the old man just about to die, and grace for the little child\njust learning how to live!_\n\n'_Of His fullness have all we received, and grace for grace!_'\n\n\nVII\n\nYes, _grace for grace_! Grace for the pulpit and grace for the pew!'\nFor, through all these years, Andrew Bonar was a minister, and the text\nwas the keynote of all his utterances.\n\n_Fullness! Fullness! Fullness!_\n\n_Receive! Receive! Receive!_\n\n_Grace for grace! Grace for grace!_\n\n'_Of His fullness have all we received, and grace for grace!_'\n\nIn his study there hung a text of two words. He had had it specially\nprinted, for those two words expressed the abiding fullness on which he\nloved to dwell. '_Thou remainest!_' One day, we are told, a lady in\ngreat sorrow called to see him. But nothing that he said could comfort\nher. Then, suddenly, he saw a light come into her face. 'Say no more,'\nshe said, 'I have found what I need!' and she pointed to the text:\n'_Thou remainest!_'\n\nThat was it! Come what will, He abides! Go who may, He remains! Amidst\nall the chances and changes of life, He perennially satisfies. Like the\nthirsty toilers in the city, I draw and draw again, and am each time\nrefreshed and revived.\n\n'_His fullness fills my heart!_'\n\n'_I do nothing but receive!_'\n\n'_Of His fullness have all we received, and grace for grace!_'\n\n\n\n\nXXI\n\nFRANCIS D'ASSISI'S TEXT\n\n\nI\n\nOscar Wilde declares that, since Christ went to the cross, the world has\nproduced only one genuine Christian, and his name is Francis d'Assisi.\nCertainly he is the one saint whom all the churches have agreed to\ncanonize; the most vividly Christlike man who has ever submitted his\ncharacter to the scrutiny of public criticism. His life, as Green says\nin his _Short History of the English People_, his life falls like a\nstream of light athwart the darkness of the medi\u00e6val ages. Matthew\nArnold speaks of him as a figure of most magical potency and sweetness\nand charm. Francis called men back to Christ and brought Christ back to\nmen. 'All Europe woke with a start,' Sabatier affirms, 'and whatever was\nbest in humanity leaped to follow his footsteps.'\n\n\nII\n\nA blithe saint was Francis. He loved to laugh; he loved to sing; and he\nloved to hear the music of laughter and of song as it rippled from the\nlips of others. Every description that has come down to us lays stress\non the sunshine that played about his lofty forehead and open\ncountenance. The days came when, though still in the heyday of early\nmanhood, his handsome figure was gaunt and wasted; his fine face\nfurrowed with suffering and care; his virile strength exhausted by\nceaseless toil, wearisome journeyings, and exacting ministries of many\nkinds. But, emaciated and worn, his face never for a moment lost its\nradiance. He greeted life with a cheer and took leave of it with a\nsmile.\n\nHis youth was a frolic; his very sins were pleasant sins. His\nwinsomeness drew to him the noblest youths and fairest maidens of\nAssisi. The lithe and graceful figure of Francis, with his dark,\neloquent but sparkling eyes, his wealthy shock of jet black hair, his\nsoft, rich, sonorous voice and his gay but faultless attire, was the\nsoul and center of every youthful revel. He was, as Sir James Stephen\nsays, foremost in every feat of arms, first in every triumph of\nscholarship, and the gayest figure in every festival. 'The brightest\neyes in Assisi, dazzled by so many graces, and the most reverend brows\nthere, acknowledging such early wisdom, were alike bent with admiration\ntowards him; and all conspired to sustain his father's confidence that,\nin his person, the family name would rival the proudest and most\nsplendid in Italy's illustrious past.' His bewitching personality, his\nrollicking gaiety, his brooding thoughtfulness, his dauntless courage\nand his courtly ways swept all men off their feet; he had but to lead\nand they instinctively followed; he commanded and they unquestionably\nobeyed. He was nick-named _the Flower of Assisi_. He loved to be happy\nand to make others happy. 'Yet,' as one Roman Catholic biographer\nremarks, 'he did not yet know where true happiness was to be found.' He\nwas twenty-four when he made that sensational discovery. He found the\nsource of true happiness in the last place in the world in which he\nwould have thought of looking for it. He found it at the Cross! And, in\nperfect consistency with his youthful conduct, he spent the rest of his\ndays--he died at forty-four--in pointing men to the Crucified. As a\nyouth he had done his best to radiate laughter and song among all the\nyoung people of Assisi; it was therefore characteristic of him that,\nhaving discovered the fountain-head of all abiding satisfaction, he\nshould make it the supreme object of his maturer years to share his\nsublime secret with the whole wide world.\n\n\nIII\n\nLondon was a village in the time of Francis d'Assisi, and the baying of\nthe wolves was the only sound heard in the forests that then covered the\nsites of our great modern cities. Whilst King John was signing Magna\nCarta, Francis was at Rome seeking recognition for his brotherhood of\nfriars. It was the age of the Crusaders and the Troubadours. Yet, as I\nread the moving record of his great spiritual experience, I forget that\nI have invaded a period in which English history had scarcely begun.\nFrancis has his affinities in every land and in every age. Francis died\nfour hundred years before John Bunyan was born; yet, as I read Bunyan's\ndescription of Christian at the Cross, I seem to be perusing afresh the\nstory of the conversion of Francis. The language fits exactly. Strike\nout the word 'Christian,' and substitute the word 'Francis,' and the\npassage could be transferred bodily from the _Pilgrim's Progress_ to the\n_Life of Francis d'Assisi_.\n\nThe conversion of Francis occurred five hundred years before Dr. Watts\nwrote his noble hymn, '_When I survey the wondrous Cross_'; yet, without\nknowing the words, Francis sang that song in his heart over and over and\nover again.\n\nThe conversion of Francis was effected six hundred years before the\nconversion of Mr. Spurgeon. Yet that conversion in the ruined church of\nSt. Damian's in Italy is the very counterpart of that later conversion\nin the little chapel at Artillery Street, Colchester.\n\n'Look!' cried the preacher at Colchester, 'look to Jesus! Look to\nJesus!' 'I looked,' says Mr. Spurgeon; 'I looked and was saved!'\n\n'Francis looked to the Crucified,' says his biographer. 'It was a look\nof faith; a look of love; a look that had all his soul in it; a look\nwhich did not attempt to analyze, but which was content to receive. He\nlooked, and, looking, entered into life.'\n\nYou can take the sentences from the _Life of Francis_ and transfer them\nto the _Life of Spurgeon_, or vice versa, and they will fit their new\nenvironment with the most perfect historical accuracy.\n\n\nIV\n\nAs, with your face towards Spello, you follow the windings of the Via\nFrancesca, you will find the little church of St. Damian's on the slope\nof the hill outside the city walls. It is reached by a few minutes' walk\nover a stony path, shaded with olive-trees, amid odors of lavender and\nrosemary. 'Standing on the top of a hillock, the entire plain is visible\nthrough a curtain of cypresses and pines which seem to be trying to hide\nthe humble hermitage and set up an ideal barrier between it and the\nworld.' Francis was particularly fond of this wooded walk and of the\nsanctuary to which it led. In pensive moments, when it was more than\nusually evident to him that, with all his merriment, he had not yet\ndiscovered the fountain of true gladness, he turned his face this way.\n\nThe crucifix at St. Damian's--which is still preserved in the sacristy\nof Santa Chiara--has features peculiarly its own. It differs from other\nimages of the kind: 'In most of the sanctuaries of the twelfth century,\nthe Crucified One, frightfully lacerated, with bleeding wounds, appears\nto seek to inspire only grief and compunction; that of St. Damian, on\nthe contrary, has an expression of unutterable calm and gentleness;\ninstead of closing the eyelids in eternal surrender to the weight of\nsuffering, it looks down in self-forgetfulness, and its pure, clear gaze\nsays, not \"_See how I suffer!_\" but \"_Come unto Me!_\"'\n\nThat, at any rate, is what it said to Francis on that memorable day.\nWith an empty and a hungry heart he kneeled before it. 'O Lord Jesus,'\nhe cried, 'shed Thy light upon the darkness of my mind!' And then an\nextraordinary thing happened. The Saviour to whom he prayed was no\nlonger an inanimate image; but a living Person! 'An answer seemed to\ncome from the tender eyes that looked down on him from the Cross,' says\nCanon Adderley. 'Jesus heard his cry, and Francis accepted the dear Lord\nas his Saviour and Master. A real spiritual union took place between him\nand his Divine Lord. He took Him for better for worse, for richer for\npoorer, till death and after death, for ever.' 'This vision marks,'\nSabatier says, 'the final triumph of Francis. His union with Christ is\nconsummated; from this time he can exclaim with the mystics of every\nage, \"My beloved is mine and I am His.\" From that day the remembrance of\nthe Crucified One, the thought of the love which had triumphed in\nimmolating itself, became the very center of his religious life, the\nsoul of his soul. For the first time, Francis had been brought into\ndirect, personal, intimate contact with Jesus Christ.' 'It was,' Canon\nAdderley says again, 'no mere intellectual acceptance of a theological\nproposition, but an actual self-committal to the Person of Jesus; no\nmere sentimental feeling of pity for the sufferings of Christ, or of\ncomfort in the thought that, through those sufferings, he could secure a\nplace in a future heaven, but a real, brave assumption of the Cross, an\nentering into the fellowship of the Passion of Christ, a determination\nto suffer with Him and to spend and be spent in His service.'\n\nFrancis never forgot that moment. His whole soul overflowed with the\nintensity of his affection for his Saviour. To the end of his days he\ncould never think of the Cross without tears; yet he never knew whether\nthose tears were prompted by admiration, pity, or desire.\n\nWhen he arose and left the little sanctuary, he felt, as Bunyan's\npilgrim felt, that he had lost his load, and lost it for ever.\n\nBut he felt that he had assumed another. He had taken up the Cross. He\nhad devoted himself to its service. '_God forbid_,' he cried, '_that I\nshould glory save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the\nworld is crucified unto me and I unto the world._' When, five centuries\nlater, Isaac Watts surveyed the wondrous Cross on which the Prince of\nGlory died, his contemplation led to the same resolve:\n\n  Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast,\n    Save in the death of Christ my God!\n  All the vain things that charm me most,\n    I sacrifice them to His blood.\n\nAnd so, once more, without knowing the words, Francis sang in his soul\nthat song of consecration.\n\n'_I looked and looked and looked again!_' say Francis and Spurgeon, six\ncenturies apart.\n\n'_It was very surprising to me that the sight of the Cross should thus\nease me of my burden!_' say Francis and Bunyan, with four centuries\nbetween.\n\n'_Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast save in the death of Christ my\nGod!_' cry Francis and Isaac Watts, undivided by a chasm of five hundred\nyears.\n\nIn the presence of the Cross all the lands are united and all the ages\nseem as one.\n\n\nV\n\n'_God forbid that I should glory save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus\nChrist, by whom the world is crucified unto me and I unto the world._'\nIn the one cross Francis saw--as Paul did--three crucifixions.\n\nHe saw on the Cross _his Lord crucified for him_.\n\nHe saw on the Cross _the world crucified to him_.\n\nHe saw on the Cross _himself crucified to the world_.\n\nFrom that hour Francis knew nothing among men save Jesus Christ and Him\ncrucified. Laying aside the gay clothing of which he was so fond, he\ndonned a peasant's cloak and tied it at the waist with a piece of\ncord--the garb that afterwards became the habit of the Franciscan Order.\nHe then set out to initiate the greatest religious revival and the\ngreatest missionary movement of the medi\u00e6val ages--the enterprise that\npaved the way for the Renaissance and the Reformation. Beginning at his\nnative town, he journeyed through the classic cities of Italy, unfolding\nto all sorts and conditions of men the wonders of the Cross. Although\nthe hideous sight and loathsome smell of leprosy had always filled him\nwith unconquerable disgust, he gladly ministered to the lepers, in the\nhope that, by so doing, he might impart to them the infinite\nconsolations of the Cross. Worn as he soon became, he set out to tramp\nfrom land to land in order that he might proclaim through Europe and\nAsia the matchless message of the Cross. In his walks through the lonely\nwoods he loved to proclaim to the very birds the story of the Cross. It\nis another link with Bunyan. Bunyan felt that he should like to tell the\ncrows on the ploughed fields the story of his soul's salvation; but\nFrancis actually did it. He would sit down in the forest: wait until the\noaks and beeches and elms about him were filled with sparrows and\nfinches and wrens; and then tell of the dying love of Him who made them.\nAnd, as they flew away, he loved to fancy that they formed themselves\ninto a cross-shaped cloud above him, and that the songs that they sang\nwere the rapt expression of their adoring worship. In his long\njourneyings he was often compelled to subsist on roots and nuts and\nberries. Meeting a kindred spirit in the woods he one day suggested that\nthey should commune together. His companion looked about him in\nbewilderment. But Francis pointed to a rock. 'See!' he said, 'the rock\nshall be our altar; the berries shall be our bread; the water in the\nhollow of the rock shall be our wine!' It took very little to turn the\nthoughts of Francis to the Cross; he easily lifted his soul into\ncommunion with the Crucified. Whenever and wherever Francis opened his\nlips, the Cross was always his theme. 'He poured into my heart the\nsweetness of Christ!' said his most eminent convert, and thousands could\nhave said the same. Feeling the magnitude of his task and the meagerness\nof his powers, he called upon his converts to assist him, and sent them\nout, two by two, to tell of the ineffable grace of the Cross. In\nhumanness and common sense he founded his famous Order. His followers\nwere to respect domestic ties; they were to regard all work as\nhonorable, and to return an equivalent in labor for all that they\nreceived. They were to husband their own powers; to regard their bodies\nas sacred, and on no account to exhaust their energies in needless\nvigils and fastings. The grey friars soon became familiar figures in\nevery town in Europe. They endured every conceivable privation and dared\nevery form of danger in order that, like their founder, they might tell\nof the deathless love of the Cross.\n\nFrancis himself did not live long to lead them; but in death as in life\nhis eyes were on the Cross. Fifty of his disciples knelt around his bed\nat the last. He begged them to read to him the 19th chapter of John's\ngospel--the record of the Crucifixion. 'In living or in dying,' he said,\n'_God forbid that I should glory save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus\nChrist!_'\n\n\nVI\n\nFrancis d'Assisi and Matthew Arnold appear to have little or nothing in\ncommon. Francis was emotional, mystical, seraphic; Arnold was cultured,\ncold, and critical. Yet Francis threw an extraordinary spell over the\nscholarly mind of Arnold, and, dissimilar as were their lives, in death\nthey were not divided.\n\n'O my Lord Jesus,' prayed Francis, 'I beseech Thee, grant me _two_\ngraces before I die; the _first_, that I may feel in my soul and in my\nbody, as far as may be, the pain that Thou, sweet Lord, didst bear in\nthe hours of Thy most bitter passion; the _second_, that I may feel in\nmy heart, as far as may be, that exceeding love wherewith Thou, O Son of\nGod, didst willingly endure such agony for us sinners.'\n\nHis prayer was answered. As the sun was setting on a lovely autumn\nevening, he passed away, sharing the anguish, yet glorying in the\ntriumph of the Cross. The song of the birds to whom he had so often\npreached flooded the air with the melody he loved so well.\n\nOn another beautiful evening, nearly seven centuries later, Matthew\nArnold passed suddenly away. It was a Sunday, and he was spending it\nwith his brother-in-law at Liverpool. In the morning they went to Sefton\nPark Church. Dr. John Watson (Ian Maclaren) preached on _The Shadow of\nthe Cross_. He used an illustration borrowed from the records of the\nRiviera earthquake. In one village, he said, everything was overthrown\nbut the huge way-side crucifix, and to it the people, feeling the very\nground shuddering beneath their feet, rushed for shelter and protection.\nAfter the sermon, most of the members of the congregation remained for\nthe Communion; but Arnold went home. As he came down to lunch, a servant\nheard him singing softly:\n\n  When I survey the wondrous Cross\n    On which the Prince of Glory died,\n  My richest gain I count but loss,\n    And pour contempt on all my pride.\n\n  Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast,\n    Save in the death of Christ my God!\n  All the vain things that charm me most,\n    I sacrifice them to His blood.\n\nIn the afternoon he went for a walk with his relatives. He had, he told\nthem, seldom been so deeply impressed by a sermon as by Dr. Watson's. He\nparticularly mentioned the story of the Riviera crucifix. 'Yes,' he\nsaid, earnestly, 'the Cross remains, and, in the straits of the soul,\nmakes its ancient appeal.' An hour later his heart had ceased to beat.\n\n'_God forbid that I should glory save in the Cross!_' cried Francis.\n\n'_The Cross remains, and, in the straits of the soul, makes its ancient\nappeal!_' exclaims Matthew Arnold.\n\nFor the Cross, as Francis discovered that great day, is the true source\nof all abiding happiness; the Cross is the stairway that Jacob saw,\nleading up from earth to heaven; the Cross has a charm for men of every\nclime and every time; it is the boast of the redeemed; the rock of ages;\nthe hope of this world and the glory of the world to come.\n\n\n\n\nXXII\n\nEVERYBODY'S TEXT\n\n\nI\n\nCenturies seemed like seconds that day: they dwindled down to nothing.\nIt was a beautiful September morning: I was only a little boy: and, as a\ngreat treat, my father and mother had taken me to London to witness the\nerection of Cleopatra's Needle. The happenings of that eventful day live\nin my memory as vividly as though they had occurred but yesterday. I\nseem even now to be watching the great granite column, smothered with\nits maze of hieroglyphics, as it slowly ascends from the horizontal to\nthe perpendicular, like a giant waking and standing erect after his\nlong, long sleep. All the way up in the train we had been talking about\nthe wonderful thing I was so soon to see. My father had told me that it\nonce stood in front of the great temple at Heliopolis; that the Pharaohs\ndrove past it repeatedly on their way to and from the palace; and that,\nvery possibly, Moses, as a boy of my own age, sat on the steps at its\nbase learning the lessons that his tutor had prescribed. It seemed to\nbring Moses and me very near together. To think that he, too, had stood\nbeside this self-same obelisk and had puzzled over the weird\ninscriptions that looked so bewildering to me! And now Heliopolis, the\nCity of the Sun, has vanished! A single column tells the traveler where\nit stood! London is the world's metropolis to-day. And the monument,\nthat stood among the splendors of the _old_ world, is being re-erected\namidst the glories of the _new_!\n\nWill a time ever come, I wondered, when London will be as Heliopolis is?\nWill the Needle, in some future age, be erected in some new capital--in\nthe metropolis of To-morrow? Had you stood, three thousand years ago,\nwhere St. Paul's now stands, the only sound that you would have heard\ncoming up from the forests around would have been the baying of the\nwolves. Wild swine ranged undisturbed along the site of the Strand. But\nEgypt was in her glory, and the Needle stood in front of the temple!\nWhere, I wonder, will it stand in three thousand years' time? Some such\nthought must have occurred to the authorities who are presiding over its\nerection. For see, in the base of the obelisk a huge cavity yawns! What\nis to be placed within it? What greeting shall we send from the\n_Civilization-that-is_ to the _Civilization-that-is-to-be_? It is a\nstrange list upon which the officials have decided. It includes a set of\ncoins, some specimens of weights and measures, some children's toys, a\nLondon directory, a bundle of newspapers, the photographs of the twelve\nmost beautiful women of the period, a box of hairpins and other articles\nof feminine adornment, a razor, a parchment containing a translation of\nthe hieroglyphics on the obelisk itself--the hieroglyphics that so\npuzzled Moses and me--and last, but not least, _a text!_ Yes, a text;\nand a text, not in one language, but in every language known! The men\nwho tear down the obelisk from among the crumbling ruins of London may\nnot be able to decipher this language, or that, or the other. But surely\none of these ten score of tongues will have a meaning for them! And so,\nin the speech of these two hundred and fifteen peoples, these words are\nwritten out: FOR GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD THAT HE GAVE HIS ONLY BEGOTTEN\nSON THAT WHOSOEVER BELIEVETH IN HIM SHOULD NOT PERISH BUT HAVE\nEVERLASTING LIFE. _That_ is the greeting which the Twentieth Century\nsends to the Fiftieth! I do not know what those men--the men who rummage\namong the ruins of London--will make of the newspapers, the parchments,\nthe photographs and the hairpins. I suspect that the children's toys\nwill seem strangely familiar to them: a little girl's doll was found by\nthe arch\u00e6ologists among the ruins of Babylon: childhood keeps pretty\nmuch the same all through the ages. But the text! The text will seem to\nthose far-off people as fresh as the latest fiftieth-century sensation.\nThose stately cadences belong to no particular time and to no particular\nclime. Ages may come and go; empires may rise and fall; they will still\nspeak with fadeless charm to the hungry hearts of men. They are for the\nNations-that-were, for the Nations-that-are, and for the\nNations-yet-to-be. That Text is _EVERYBODY'S TEXT_.\n\n\nII\n\nFew things are more arresting than the way in which these tremendous\nwords have won the hearts of all kinds and conditions of men. I have\nbeen reading lately the lives of some of our most eminent evangelists\nand missionaries; and nothing has impressed me more than the conspicuous\npart that this text has played in their personal lives and public\nministries. Let me reach down a few of these volumes.\n\nHere is the _Life of Richard Weaver_. In the days immediately preceding\nhis conversion, Richard was a drunken and dissolute coal miner. It is a\nrough, almost repulsive, story. He tells us how, after his revels and\nfights, he would go home to his mother with bruised and bleeding face.\nShe always received him tenderly; bathed his wounds; helped him to bed;\nand then murmured in his ear the words that at last seemed inseparable\nfrom the sound of her voice: _God so loved the world that He gave His\nonly begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but\nhave everlasting life._ The words came back to him in the hour of his\ngreatest need. His soul was passing through deep waters. Filled with\nmisery and shame, and terrified lest he should have sinned beyond the\npossibility of salvation, he crept into a disused sand-pit. He was\nengaged to fight another man that day, but he was in death-grips with a\nmore terrible adversary. 'In that old sand-pit,' he says, 'I had a\nbattle with the devil; and I came off more than conqueror through Him\nthat loved me.' And it was the text that did it. As he agonized there in\nthe sand-pit, tormented by a thousand doubts, his mother's text all at\nonce spoke out bravely. It left no room for uncertainty. '_God so loved\nthe world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in\nHim should not perish, but have everlasting life._' 'I thought,' Richard\ntells us, 'that _whosoever_ meant _me_. What faith was, I could not\ntell; but I had heard that it was taking God at His word; and so I took\nGod at His word and trusted in the finished work of my Saviour. The\nhappiness I then enjoyed I cannot describe; my peace flowed as a river.'\n\nDuncan Matheson and Richard Weaver were contemporaries. They were born\nat about the same time; and, at about the same time they were converted.\nMatheson was Scottish; Weaver was English. Matheson was a stonemason;\nWeaver was a coal-miner; in due course both became evangelists. In some\nrespects they were as unlike each other as two men could possibly be: in\nother respects their lives are like sister ships; they seem exactly\nalike. Especially do they resemble each other in their earliest\nreligious experiences. We have heard Weaver's story: let us turn to\nMatheson's. Weaver, at the time of his conversion, was twenty-five:\nMatheson is twenty-two. He has been ill at ease for some time, and every\nsermon he has heard has only deepened his distress. On a sharp winter's\nmorning, with the frost sparkling on the shrubs and plants around him,\nhe is standing in his father's garden, when, suddenly, the words of\nRichard Weaver's text--Everybody's Text--take powerful hold upon his\nmind. 'I saw,' he says, 'that God loves me, for God loves all the world.\nI saw the proof of His love in the giving of His Son. I saw that\n_whosoever_ meant _me_, _even me_. My load was loosed from off my back.\nBunyan describes his pilgrim as giving three leaps for joy as his burden\nrolled into the open sepulchre. I could not contain myself for\ngladness.' The parallel is very striking.\n\n'_God loves me!_' _exclaims_ Richard Weaver, in surprise.\n\n'_I saw that God loves me!_' says Duncan Matheson.\n\n'_I thought that \"whosoever\" meant \"me\"_' says Weaver.\n\n'_I saw that \"whosoever\" meant \"me,\"_' says Matheson.\n\n'_The happiness I then enjoyed I cannot describe_,' says our English\ncoal-miner.\n\n'_I could not contain myself for gladness_,' says our Scottish\nstonemason.\n\nWe may dismiss the evangelists with that, and turn to the missionaries.\n\n\nIII\n\nLike Richard Weaver and Duncan Matheson, Frederick Arnot and Egerton R.\nYoung were contemporaries. I heard them both--Fred Arnot in Exeter Hall\nand Egerton Young in New Zealand. They lived and labored on opposite\nsides of the Atlantic. Fred Arnot gave himself to the fierce Barotses of\nCentral Africa; Egerton Young set himself to win the Red Men of the\nNorth American woods and prairies.\n\nArnot's life is one of the most pathetic romances that even Africa has\ngiven to the world. He made the wildest men love him. Sir Francis de\nWinton declares that Arnot made the name of Englishman fragrant amidst\nthe vilest habitations of cruelty. 'He lived a life of great hardship,'\nsays Sir Ralph Williams; 'I have seen many missionaries under varied\ncircumstances, but such an absolutely forlorn man, existing on from day\nto day, almost homeless, without any of the appliances that make life\nbearable, I have never seen.' And the secret of this great unselfish\nlife? The secret was the text. He was only six when he heard\nLivingstone. He at once vowed that he, too, would go to Africa. When his\nfriends asked how he would get there, he replied that, if that were all,\nhe would swim. But nobody knew better than he did that the real\nobstacles that stood between himself and a life like Livingstone's were\nnot physical but spiritual. He could not lead Africa into the kingdom of\nChrist unless he had first entered that kingdom himself. As a boy of\nten, he found himself lying awake at two o'clock one morning, repeating\na text. He went over it again and again and again. _God so loved the\nworld that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him\nshould not perish but have everlasting life._ 'This,' says Sir William\nRobertson Nicoll, 'was Arnot's lifelong creed, and he worked in its\nspirit.' 'This,' he says himself, 'was my first and chief message.' He\ncould imagine none greater.\n\nExactly so was it with Egerton Young. He tells us, for example, of the\nway in which he invaded the Nelson River district and opened work among\npeople who had never before heard the gospel. He is surrounded by two\nhundred and fifty or three hundred wild Indians. 'I read aloud,' he\nsays, 'those sublime words: _For God so loved the world that He gave His\nonly begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but\nhave everlasting life._ They listened with the most rapt attention\nwhilst for four hours I talked to them of the truths of this glorious\nverse. When I had finished, every eye turned towards the principal\nchief. He rose, and, coming near me, delivered one of the most thrilling\naddresses I have ever heard. Years have passed away since that hour, and\nyet the memory of that tall, straight, impassioned Indian is as vivid as\never. His actions were many, but all were graceful. His voice was\nparticularly fine and full of pathos, for he spoke from the heart.'\n\n'\"Missionary,\" exclaimed the stately old chief, \"I have not, for a long\ntime, believed in our religion. I hear God in the thunder, in the\ntempest and in the storm: I see His power in the lightning that shivers\nthe tree: I see His goodness in giving us the moose, the reindeer, the\nbeaver, and the bear. I see His loving-kindness in sending us, when the\nsouth winds blow, the ducks and geese; and when the snow and ice melt\naway, and our lakes and rivers are open again, I see how He fills them\nwith fish. I have watched all this for years, and I have felt that the\nGreat Spirit, so kind and watchful and loving, could not be pleased by\nthe beating of the conjurer's drum or the shaking of the rattle of the\nmedicine man. And so I have had no religion. But what you have just said\nfills my heart and satisfies its longings. I am so glad you have come\nwith this wonderful story. Stay as long as you can!\"'\n\nOther chiefs followed in similar strains; and each such statement was\nwelcomed by the assembled Indians with vigorous applause. The message of\nthe text was the very word that they had all been waiting for.\n\nFred Arnot found that it was what _Africa_ was waiting for!\n\nEgerton Young found that it was what _America_ was waiting for!\n\nIt is the word that _all the world_ is waiting for!\n\nFor that text is _Everybody's Text_!\n\n\nIV\n\nA pair of evangelists--Weaver and Matheson!\n\nA pair of missionaries--Arnot and Young!\n\nI have one other pair of witnesses waiting to testify that this text is\n_Everybody's Text_. Martin Luther and Lord Cairns have very little in\ncommon. One was German; the other was English. One was born in the\nfifteenth century; the other in the nineteenth. One was a monk; the\nother was Lord Chancellor. But they had _this_ in common, that they had\nto die. And when they came to die, they turned their faces in the same\ndirection. Lord Cairns, with his parting breath, quietly but clearly\nrepeated the words of _Everybody's Text_. _God so loved the world that\nHe gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not\nperish but have everlasting life._\n\nDuring his last illness, Luther was troubled with severe headaches.\nSomeone recommended to him an expensive medicine. Luther smiled.\n\n'No,' he said, 'my best prescription for head and heart is that _God so\nloved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever\nbelieveth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life_.'\n\nA fortnight before he passed away, he repeated the text with evident\necstasy, and added, 'What Spartan saying can be compared with this\nwonderful brevity? It is a Bible in itself!' And in his dying moments he\nagain repeated the words, thrice over, in Latin.\n\n'They are the best prescription for headache and heartache!' said\nLuther.\n\nThere were headaches and heartaches in the world three thousand years\nago, when Cleopatra's Needle stood beside the Temple at Heliopolis!\n\nThere will be headaches and heartaches in the world centuries hence,\nwhen the obelisk is rescued from among the ruins of London!\n\nThere were headaches and heartaches among those Barotse tribes to whom\nFred Arnot went!\n\nThere were headaches and heartaches among those tattooed braves to whom\nEgerton Young carried the message!\n\nThere are headaches and heartaches in England, as the Lord Chancellor\nknew!\n\nThere are headaches and heartaches in Germany, as Luther found!\n\nAnd, because there are headaches and heartaches for everybody, this is\n_Everybody's Text_. There is, as Luther said, nothing like it.\n\n\nV\n\nWhen Sir Harry Lauder was here in Melbourne, he had just sustained the\nloss of his only son. His boy had fallen at the front. And, with this in\nmind, Sir Harry told a beautiful and touching story. 'A man came to my\ndressing-room in a New York theater,' he said, 'and told of an\nexperience that had recently befallen him. In American towns, any\nhousehold that had given a son to the war was entitled to place a star\non the window-pane. Well, a few nights before he came to see me, this\nman was walking down a certain avenue in New York accompanied by his wee\nboy. The lad became very interested in the lighted windows of the\nhouses, and clapped his hands when he saw the star. As they passed house\nafter house, he would say, \"Oh, look, Daddy, there's another house that\nhas given a son to the war! And there's another! There's one with two\nstars! And look! there's a house with no star at all!\" At last they came\nto a break in the houses. Through the gap could be seen the evening star\nshining brightly in the sky. The little fellow caught his breath. \"Oh,\nlook, Daddy,\" he cried, \"God must have given _His_ Son, for He has got a\nstar in _His_ window.\"'\n\n'He has, indeed!' said Sir Harry Lauder, in repeating the story.\n\nBut it took the clear eyes of a little child to discover that the very\nstars are repeating _Everybody's Text_. The heavens themselves are\ntelling of the love that gave a Saviour to die for the sins of the\nworld.","title":"A Handful of Stars: Texts That Have Moved Great Minds","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":58910}