{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_33296/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_33296","id":"gutenberg_33296","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/33296","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Parenthood & Family Relations","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Men in the Bible"],"text":"Produced by Al Haines\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nFive Young Men\n\n  Messages of Yesterday for\n  the Young Men of To-day\n\n\n\nBy\n\nCHARLES REYNOLDS BROWN\n\n_Dean of the School of Religion, Yale University_\n\n\n\n\nNEW YORK CHICAGO TORONTO\n\nFleming H. Revell Company\n\nLONDON AND EDINBURGH\n\n\n\n\nCopyright, 1917, by\n\nFLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY\n\n\n\n  New York: 158 Fifth Avenue\n  Chicago: 17 North Wabash Ave.\n  London: 21 Paternoster Square\n  Edinburgh: 75 Princes Street\n\n\n\n\n_To the Young Men_\n\n_of Yale_\n\n  _Whose friendship I have highly\n  valued and in whose future\n  I feel the warmest interest_\n\n\n\n\nPreface\n\nThese addresses were given in the United Church on the Green, New\nHaven, Connecticut, on the Sunday evenings of Lent.  The audiences were\nmade up largely of men, many of them Yale students.  I have brought the\naddresses together in this little book with the hope that they may have\na certain value in their appeal to a wider audience of young men who in\nschool and college, in their homes and in business life, are making\nthose determinations which will decide the issue for them in those\nexacting years which are before us.\n\nIt has been given to us to live through one of the great crises of the\nworld's history.  In these days the hearts of men are being tried as by\nfire.  If it is \"wood, hay and stubble\" that we are putting into our\npersonal moral structures, into the purposes and methods which rule our\nindustrial life and into our national temper and fiber, then we may\nexpect to see our work destroyed.  The only qualities which will stand\nthe test are those qualities which are symbolized by \"gold, silver and\nprecious stones.\"\n\nC. R. B.\n\n_Yale University._\n\n\n\n\nContents\n\n   I.  THE YOUNG MAN WHO WAS A FAVOURITE SON\n  II.  THE YOUNG MAN WHO WAS AN ATHLETE\n III.  THE YOUNG MAN WHO BECAME KING\n  IV.  THE YOUNG MAN WHO WAS BORN TO THE PURPLE\n   V.  THE YOUNG MAN WHO CHANGED THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD\n\n\n\n\nI\n\nThe Young Man Who Was a Favourite Son\n\nWhich would you say is the harder to bear, adversity or prosperity?  I\nam not sure.  If I were a betting man I would not know on which horse\nto put my money.\n\nThe Bible says, \"The destruction of the poor is their poverty.\"  The\nnarrowness and the meagreness of their lives, the lack of access to the\nhighest interests seems to drive them oftentimes into the coarser forms\nof indulgence which are their undoing.  The Bible also says, \"It is\neasier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich\nman to enter the Kingdom of God.\"  The millionaire who strives to be\nthoroughly Christian in all his attitudes and actions, in the secret\ndesires which rule his own soul and in the relations he sustains to his\nfellow men by reason of his wealth has a hard task.  In every great\ncity you will find the sons of millionaires falling down or flinging\nthemselves away in thoughtless dissipation where the sons of toil are\nstanding up and making good.\n\nHere, for example, was a young man who was born on the sunny side of\nthe street.  He was the son of a rich man, and the favourite son.  He\nwas handsome--\"It came to pass that Joseph was a goodly person and well\nfavoured.\"  He was habitually well dressed--\"His father gave him a coat\nof many colours,\" which there in the Orient marked him as a young man\nof style.  He had a vivid imagination and was a good talker.  He was a\nyoung man of parts and his story was so interesting to those early\nHebrews that here in the Book of Genesis thirteen full chapters are\ngiven to his personal history.\n\nLet me notice three points in his career--first, his early\nunpopularity.  You do not have to know Hebrew to understand why he was\nnot as popular as Santa Claus.  He was his father's favourite, which is\na heavy load for any child to bear.  He lived in a family where there\nwere four sets of children.  His father had married two wives, Rachel\nwho was handsome because he loved her, and Leah who was \"tender-eyed,\"\nthe Scripture says, because she was the daughter of his employer at\nthat time and it was good business.  There were also children who had\nbeen born to the two housemaids, according to the easy customs of that\nfar-off time and place.  Joseph was the son of Rachel, the favourite\nwife, and her favourite son.  He wore the signs of this parental\npopularity in the gay coat of many colours.  It was almost inevitable\nthat he should become vain and overbearing.\n\nHe was also a talebearer.  He looked down with unconcealed contempt\nupon his half-brothers who were the sons of the housemaids.  \"When\nJoseph was with the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah he brought unto his\nfather their evil report.\"\n\nThe tattler in the school and the squealer on the street come in,\njustly perhaps, for the contempt of their fellows.  And whatever\nallowance may be made for exceptional situations, the instinct which\nbrands the talebearer as mean is mainly wholesome.  It was One who knew\nwhat was in man who said, \"Why beholdest thou the mote in thy brother's\neye and considerest not the beam in thine own eye?  Judge not that ye\nbe not judged.\"  It is well for every man to sweep his own dooryard\nfirst before he begins to peddle stories as to the condition of his\nneighbour's dooryard.\n\nThis young man also had his full share of that conceit which thinks\nquite as highly of itself as it ought to think.  He had his daydreams,\nand this was well.  I would not give a fig for the young fellow who\ndoes not see ahead of him masses of possible achievement in his\nparticular line as high as the Sierras, if not quite so solid.  But\nJoseph was soft and callow enough to tell his day-dreams to his fellows\nbefore he had done anything to indicate that those dreams might come\ntrue.\n\nHe told his brothers that he would be the tallest sheaf in the field\nand that they as lesser sheaves would come and make obeisance before\nhim.  He went still further and included his elders and betters in that\ngeneral bowing down.  He said, \"Behold the sun and moon and the eleven\nstars made obeisance to me.\"  He saw himself as the centre of the whole\nsolar system and the rest of his family revolving about him as minor\nsatellites.  This day-dream of the ambitious young man was too much\neven for his indulgent father.  \"And Jacob rebuked him for his dream.\"\n\nThere you have all the necessary ingredients for a family explosion.\nWhen any young man is a favourite son, and a talebearer, and is filled\nto the eyes with self-conceit, he has in him the sulphur, the\nsaltpeter, and the charcoal which enter into the composition of that\nsort of gunpowder which is liable to blow him up.  You do not wonder\nthat his brothers hated him.  You are not surprised that when they saw\nhim coming across the fields at Dothan they said with a sneer, \"Behold,\nthe dreamer cometh!\"\n\nWe might naturally expect that they would conspire against him.  They\nproposed to see whether or not this conceited young tattler would\nbecome the tallest sheaf in the field and the centre of the whole solar\nsystem there in little Canaan.  He had himself to thank for getting in\nwrong with his associates.  He was not showing the qualities which make\nfor peace and joy and advancement.\n\nBut in the second place he was sent early in life to the school of\nadversity.  The place where he \"prepared\" was not much like \"The Hill\"\nor Hotchkiss; it bore no resemblance whatever to Andover or Exeter.  He\ntook all the grades in the commonest of all common schools.  He was\nunder the tuition of struggle and difficulty.  He was a Freshman, then\na Sophomore, a Junior and a Senior in the University of Experience,\nwhere the college colours are always \"black and blue\" because the\nlessons are learned by hard knocks.  He learned obedience by the things\nthat he suffered.  He had the conceit taken out of him by being knocked\ndown.  He knew the meaning of the word \"discipline,\" so that he could\nhave spelled it and parsed it forward and backwards and crosswise.\n\nHe was tried in these three ways: first, by being sold as a slave boy\ninto Egypt.  His father sent him out to Dothan to see how his brothers\nwere faring with their flocks.  When they saw him coming across the\nplain they said, \"Behold the dreamer!  Let us cast him into a pit and\nsee what will become of his dreams.\"\n\nHis brothers seized him and threw him into a deep well, where there was\nno water, intending to let him die in that horrible way.  But when a\ncompany of Ishmaelites came along on their way to Egypt, a happier\nthought struck those men.  Judah, who was always a thrifty soul, said,\n\"What profit is it if we slay our brother and conceal his blood?\"\nThere is no money in murder.  \"Let us sell him to the Ishmaelites.\"\n\nHere was the proverbial instinct, an eye for the main chance, already\non its feet and doing business in the very childhood of that race,\nwhich has enjoyed such marked success in commercial pursuits.  \"Let us\nsell him and let not our hand be upon him, for\"--here emerges Mr.\nPecksniff, who is much older than the time of Dickens--\"for he is our\nbrother and our flesh.\"  His argument was plausible and the men drew\nJoseph out of the pit and sold him to the Ishmaelites who carried him\ndown into Egypt.  Now the hands of the ten men were not stained with\ninnocent blood and they were also twenty pieces of silver to the good.\n\nHow human and how modern were the mental processes of those crafty men!\nThe man who decides to coin his brother's life into money instead of\nkilling him with an axe has chosen so much milder a form of wrong-doing\nthat he feels almost virtuous.  \"Let us not slay our brother\"--that has\nan atrocious sound.  It smacks of the doings of gunmen.  Let not our\nhand be upon him for he is our flesh!\n\n\"But let us sell him\"--this is so much more humane!  Let us burn out\nhis energy swiftly in the long hard hours of the steel mill to make our\nprofits large.  When he is exhausted before his time we can scrap him,\nflinging him aside to make room for a fresh hand.  Let us set the pace\nin the factory so sharp that the man in middle life cannot hold it--he\nwill be compelled to drop out and tramp the streets in search of a job,\nwhile some younger man takes up his work.  Let us keep the wages of the\nworking girl so near the danger line that unless she is splendidly\nfortified with moral stamina she may be tempted after she has sold her\ndays to greed to add to her income by selling her nights to shame.\n\nLet not our hands be stained by the murder of our own flesh and\nblood--let us sell them in these more delicate and refined ways to\nincrease the toll of profits!  The voice of Judah is still heard in the\nland.  There on the plains of Dothan this favourite son fell into the\nhands of greed and was sold as a slave boy into the land of Egypt.\n\nHe was also tested by the accusations of an evil-minded woman.  When\nthe Ishmaelites disposed of him in Egypt he was purchased by Potiphar,\nan officer in Pharaoh's guard.  He was made a house servant.  He showed\nhimself diligent and faithful and was advanced until he was the\noverseer of Potiphar's whole establishment.\n\nHe was a handsome young Hebrew, his complexion being much fairer than\nthat of the dark-skinned Egyptians.  He attracted the attention and won\nthe admiration of Potiphar's wife, who was an evil-minded, faithless\ncreature.  As Joseph went about the house in the discharge of his\nduties she approached him repeatedly with her solicitations to evil.\n\nHe did not look her in the eye, as Billy Sunday suggests in his brisk\nway, and say, \"Nothing doing.\"  He said something infinitely better\nthan that--\"There is none greater in this house than I.  My master hath\nkept back nothing from me but thee.  How then can I do this great\nwickedness and sin against God.\"\n\nHe was not one of those men who do in Rome as the Romans do, who do in\nNew York as Broadway does, even though that may mean a less wholesome\ntype of conduct than they are accustomed to put up in their home towns.\nHe was a man of principle wherever he was placed.  How can I sin\nagainst God!\n\nHeaven be praised for men of principle and for men who are not afraid!\nA well-to-do Harvard student in one of the dormitories was shaving one\nmorning when a wretched woman of the street slipped into his room\nthrough the door which he had left ajar.  She shut the door and with\nher back against it said to him, \"Give me fifty dollars instantly or I\nwill scream for help.\"  He looked around at her and said, \"Yell\naway\"--and went on with his shaving.  He knew that his own life was\nclean.  He had lived as a man of integrity and he felt that his\nstatement would be taken anywhere against hers, because it was worth\none hundred cents on the dollar.  And she knew it--so she slunk out\nlike a whipped cur.  If he had compromised with her or had given her a\ndollar, he might have been in for endless trouble and disgrace.\n\nBut Joseph was not in Cambridge--he was in Egypt.  He was not a\nwell-known Harvard student--he was only a slave boy there in the house\nof his master.  When this woman whom he had repulsed made her ugly,\nlying accusation against him she was believed and he was thrown into\nprison.\n\nWhat indeed has now become of his dreams!  He was a stranger in a\nstrange land.  He was a slave who had been jailed on an ugly charge.\nHe must have felt that he was a long way from becoming the tallest\nsheaf in the field or the brightest star in the sky.\n\nHe was also tested by the ingratitude of those whom he had befriended.\nWhile he was in jail he did not for one hour give up his hope of\nadvancement.  He kept right on, attending the school of those\ninstructors whose names are printed in the catalogue as Professor\nAdversity, Professor Difficulty and Doctor Discipline.  He found them\nmost capable teachers.  They did not teach him much of that which is\nfound in text-books, but they were teaching him to be a man, which\nafter all is the main object of all education.\n\nWhen Joseph was knocked down he did not wait for some Red Cross nurse\nto come with \"first aid to the injured.\"  He got right up and was there\non the mat ready for the next round.  And the young fellow with that\nsort of stuff in him learns, I care not how soft, callow and conceited\nhe may have been in his \"prep. school\" days.\n\nHe was in prison, but since nothing better offered he would show\nhimself the best prisoner behind those bars.  He bore the false\naccusation of that lying woman without a word of recrimination lest he\nshould injure the honour of his master, who had befriended him when he\nwas in his employ.  He spent his days not in laziness nor in vice, not\nin repining and dejection.  He bore himself with such a thoughtful,\nunselfish spirit that he won the favour of the warden and was made a\nkind of overseer among the prisoners of his ward.\n\nHe won the regard and confidence of his fellow prisoners by his\nsympathetic interest in their welfare.  When they were perplexed they\ncame to him.  The butler and the baker from Pharaoh's household were\nimprisoned for some fault, and when they dreamed Joseph interpreted to\nthem their dreams in skillful fashion.  And when the butler was\npardoned out a few days later, according to Joseph's prediction, he\npromised to remember his friend when once more he stood in Pharaoh's\npresence.\n\nBut after the manner of many he forgot all about his fellow prisoner in\nthe joy of his own release.  Joseph still lingered in jail.  How\nsharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless friend!  There\nin the jail he drank to the dregs the cup of ingratitude.\n\nBut read on, read on!  The Lord has not let His voice fall yet.  This\nis not a period--it is only a comma or semicolon.  The mills of the\ngods grind slow, but they grind; and to every man who merits it a good\ngrist comes at last.  Read on!\n\nThere came a night when Pharaoh dreamed.  The monarch saw seven fat\ncows come up out of the River Nile, which was the source of all\nfertility there in the Delta.  Then he saw seven lean cows come up out\nof the river and they ate up the seven fat cows and yet remained as\nlean and hungry as they had been before.  In the morning Pharaoh called\nfor his wise men and his magicians, but they could make nothing of it.\n\nThen the chief butler remembered his fault.  He remembered Joseph who\nhad interpreted his own dream in yonder prison.  He told Pharaoh of\nthat strange experience, and the monarch promptly sent for this gifted\nyoung Hebrew.  \"Seest thou a man diligent in his business he shall\nstand before kings.\"  Joseph had shown himself diligent in his business\nas a servant in the house of Potiphar, and as a prisoner he had made\nhimself useful to the warden of the jail.  Now he is summoned to stand\nbefore the ruler of all the land of Egypt.\n\nHe is the same man in name as when he walked across the fields of\nDothan with his heart full of conceit, but how much he has learned!\nHis coat of many colours has been replaced by the dull gray of the\nprison garb.  He has acquired new moods and new methods and a finer\nquality of manhood.  When Pharaoh called upon him to interpret his\nstrange dream, Joseph replied modestly, \"It is not in me.\nInterpretations belong to God.  And God shall give Pharaoh an answer of\npeace.\"  It was in this mood of reverent, expectant awe that he\nundertook the interpretation of the monarch's dream.\n\nHow character ripens in adversity!  Wheat ripens best under smiling,\nsunny skies, but the rigorous winter of hardship and struggle is\ndemanded for the maturing of those fine qualities of mind and heart\nwhich make up character at its best.  Men have found by experience that\nit is impossible to produce apples of the choicest flavour where there\nis no frost.  I am quite sure that the best type of human excellence\ncannot be secured without frost.  \"He is testing me,\" Job said, when\nall those troubles fell upon him; \"He knows the way that I take and\nwhen He has tried me I shall come forth as gold.\"\n\nHere was a young man who in early life had been a spoiled child, a\nconceited prig, a talebearer among his fellows, but in the hard school\nof adversity he had learned to labour and to wait.  He could now endure\nas seeing One who is invisible.\n\nThe law of gravitation never forgets anything, never overlooks\nanything.  It matters not whether it is a pound of feathers or a ton of\nlead or a planet, the power of gravitation is right there attending to\nbusiness.  If a man falls out of a fifth story window in New York, in\nConstantinople, or in Calcutta, the law of gravitation is there and the\nman gets hurt.  The moral order never forgets anything, never overlooks\nanything.  What men sow, they reap, though the harvest be long delayed.\nIf they sow to the flesh, sometime, somewhere they go out with bruised\nhands and bleeding hearts to reap corruption.  When they sow to the\nspirit they will in the same inevitable way reap life eternal.  Here at\nlast the man of purpose and of faith is reaping the results of\ndiscipline bravely met and nobly borne.\n\nThis young man owed his ultimate success to the fact that he was a man\nof vision.  There is a certain fascination in the story of any life\nwhich rises from obscurity to eminence.  Whether the path lies from the\nlog cabin of a rail splitter to the White House, from the lowly work of\nthe lanyard to the head of victorious armies, or from a pit on the\nplains of Dothan to a palace on the banks of the Nile, there is\nsomething in the human heart which responds to the unfolding of such a\nlife-story.\n\nThe Hebrews were happy in relating how men of their race had made their\nway up to places of honour at alien courts through the sheer force of\ntheir own personal ability.  Here was Joseph coming up out of the\nprison house to the right hand of Pharaoh!  Here was Daniel preferred\nabove the other presidents and princes at the court of Darius!  Here\nwas Benjamin Disraeli belonging to a race formerly disfranchised in\nEngland becoming at last Prime Minister of Her Most Christian Majesty\nQueen Victoria!  Let every man who looks down upon some lowly life\nbeware lest he despise what God has blessed!\n\nHere was a young man who had vision!  He saw things.  He did not merely\n\"look,\" as would some dog that bays the moon.  When he walked across\nthe plains of Dothan his mind was not altogether upon wool and\nmutton--he was already dreaming of high achievement in his future\nyears.  When he was thrown into the pit and sold into slavery his brain\nwas busy with the stars.  When he faced temptation he saw it all with\nthe eye of faith--how could he do this great wickedness and sin against\nGod.  And when he was confronted with a problem confessedly too hard\nfor him he lifted up his eyes to the hills from whence cometh help.\n\"It is not in me.  The interpretation of life belongs to God.\"\n\nHe was only seventeen years old when he walked across the fields that\nday to the place where his brothers kept their flocks.  Now he was\nthirty.  He had increased in stature, in wisdom and in favour with God\nand man.  It had taken thirteen long years to add those cubits to his\nheight, but they had been well spent.  The Almighty takes His time in\nworking out His finer effects.  The spoiled child, the censorious\ntalebearer, the callow, conceited youth must be wrought upon by the\nbeat and play of human life.  When any man has vision and faith there\nis a divinity which shapes his ends, rough-hewn though they be by\ndoting fathers and envious brothers, by false accusers, and by\nungrateful companions.  When a man is faced right, all things, no\nmatter what shape they bear, will ultimately work together for his good.\n\n\"A man in whom the spirit of God is\"--that was Pharaoh's verdict when\nJoseph had skillfully interpreted his dream, indicating that the seven\nfat cows coming up out of the Nile meant seven years of plenty in the\nland of Egypt, and that the seven lean cows following them and\ndevouring them meant seven years of famine, which would tax the\nresources of Pharaoh's empire in feeding the hungry people.  And when\nthe monarch had listened to the wise words, had sensed the humane\nspirit of this young Hebrew, and had seen the look of faith upon his\nface, he felt that no other man would be so competent to become High\nCommissioner of the Food Supply there in the land of Egypt.  Thus\nJoseph was set in a place of authority at Pharaoh's right hand.\n\nHis dreams are coming true!  He had framed his first anticipations out\nof sheaves.  Then his mind began to be busy with the stars.  He was\ndestined to have a part in preserving the life of his own Hebrew race\nand a part in that moral movement which would outlast the stars\nthemselves.  Through all those long hard years which lay between the\npit of Dothan and the palace of Pharaoh, he was sustained by that\nvision of things divine which shone perpetually in his sky.\n\n\"A man in whom the spirit of God is\"--here is the ultimate reason for\nevery splendid advance!  Here is the ultimate reason why any man is\nable to rise from those lower levels where wool and mutton are the main\nconsiderations to those higher levels where he becomes a trusted\nimplement in the hand of God for a service that will endure.\n\nThe young man was a man of faith.  He had faith in God.  He had faith\nin his fellows, as he showed when he generously forgave the brothers\nwho had wronged him, having them as ruler of Egypt utterly in his\npower.  He had faith in himself because the spirit of God dwelt in his\nheart.  And it matters not whether it is Egypt or Connecticut, the\neighteenth century before Christ or the twentieth century after Christ,\nit is \"by faith\" that men work righteousness and obtain promises, wax\nvaliant in fight and beat back the armies of aliens.\n\nIn the long run the world belongs to the idealist.  The ultimate\nshaping of its life is in the hands of the men who walk the busy\nstreets and dusty lanes with their feet on the ground but with their\nheads and their hearts among the stars.  The men of vision and faith\nsometimes lose a skirmish; now and then they are defeated in a battle;\nbut when the war is fought through to a finish they are on the winning\nside.\n\nHere in this company there may be many a favourite son.  You are\ninexpressibly dear to the hearts of those parents.  Their thoughts,\ntheir prayers and their efforts are all reaching out for the best\nthings for you.  They do not know and you do not know what hard tests\nmay lie ahead.  You too may be sent for thirteen long years to the\nschool of adversity, but if the spirit of God is in your heart, if you\nhave faith, a vital and personal faith in Jesus Christ, if you have\ncaught the vision of what life may be made to mean at its best, then it\nlies within your power also to achieve.\n\n\n\n\nII\n\nThe Young Man Who Was an Athlete\n\nWhat a roomy place the Bible is!  It is not filled up with model men\nand women.  It is not filled up with nice little boys and girls, all\nneat and sweet, good enough to be angels right off with no alterations.\nIt is peopled with imperfect, blundering folk like ourselves.\n\nSome of these samples of human life are offered to us for our\nimitation, and some by way of warning.  The wide variety exhibited\nshows how God can use and bless the better elements in many a life\nwhere the wheat and the tares grow together until the harvest.  The\ndivine purpose shows an amazing measure of hospitality.  \"The love of\nGod is broader than the measure of man's mind.\"\n\nWe come for example to the eleventh chapter of Hebrews.  It is the roll\ncall of men of faith.  \"By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent\nsacrifice than Cain.\"  By faith Enoch was translated that he should not\nsee death because he walked with God.  By faith Noah built an ark for\nthe saving of his house.  By faith Abraham went out to found a nation\nin which all the nations of the earth should be blessed, not knowing\nwhither he went.  \"By faith Moses chose rather to suffer affliction\nwith the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season.\"\n\n\"And what shall I say more,\" the author remarks in passing.  \"Time\nwould fail me to tell of all the men who by faith subdued kingdoms and\nwrought righteousness, obtained promises and put to flight the armies\nof evil, Gideon and Barak, Samson and Jephthah.\"\n\nSamson!  The very presence of his name in this catalogue of moral\nheroes all but takes away one's breath.  What does this big husky\nfellow, this wild, fun-loving chap have to do with the working out of\nthe divine purpose for the race?  We are as much surprised as we would\nbe if we had found Jack Johnson undertaking to preach the Gospel, or\nJohn L. Sullivan trying to be elected as a professor in Princeton\nTheological Seminary.  Samson as a hero of the faith!  Surely this is\n\"Saul among the prophets.\"  We will be interested in studying the life\nof this young man who had the build and the mood of an athlete.\n\nHe had in his youth the strength and promise of a mighty man.  He\ncaught a young lion and seizing it by its jaws ripped it apart as an\nordinary man would have rent a kid.  He caught up the jaw-bone of an\nass and slew heaps and heaps of his enemies in personal combat.  He\ncarried off the gates of a city and hid them on the top of a hill as if\nhe had been celebrating Hallowe'en.  He would have been the making of\nany football team.  If he had furnished the forward thrust of a flying\nwedge it would have gone through any line that might have stood in its\nway.\n\nIt would not be easy to draw a hard and fast line here between the\nprose and the poetry of these narratives.  Something of history and a\ngreat deal of folk-lore undoubtedly are blended in these stirring\ntales.  There are many passages in the earlier portions of the Bible\nwhich have more value for the history of ideas than for the history of\nactual occurrence.  They are full of truth though they may not always\nconform to sober fact.  They are parables rather than records.\n\nBut we may be sure that this interesting young giant had something more\nthan mere physical prowess.  He had in him some of the elements of\ngenuine leadership else he would not have been regarded as a judge and\na leader in Israel, raised up for a great work.  The people would never\nhave woven these stories about his name nor enrolled him among the\nmoral heroes of their race had he not possessed some of the elements of\nreal strength.  He had in him the sense of power--it is a quality which\nall men covet and all women adore.\n\nHe had a keen sense of the joy of living.  We are glad that the element\nof humour was not left out of the Bible.  It would not have been so\nhuman, so complete, so unmistakably \"the Book of Books\" had this been\nlacking.  I am sure that the Almighty has a sense of humour.  He must\nhave or He never would have created pelicans and monkeys.  \"He that\nsitteth in the heavens shall laugh,\" we read--and He must have laughed\nwhen He made these curious creatures.  He was willing to give this\nfun-loving Samson a place on the roster of the Army of the Lord.\n\nSamson stands out on the pages of Scripture as a big, overgrown,\nrollicking boy looking upon life as one huge joke.  His major study was\nto turn the laugh on the dull-witted, slow-going Philistines.  He tore\nthe young lion and when a swarm of bees had made honey in the carcass\nSamson made this riddle,--\"Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of\nthe strong came forth sweetness.\"  He propounded his riddle to the\nPhilistines and made them a bet that they could not guess it.  And when\nthey wheedled the answer to the riddle out of Samson's wife he retorted\nupon them in coarse fashion, \"If ye had not plowed with my heifer, ye\nwould not have guessed my riddle.\"\n\nHe carried off the gates of the city of Gaza and hid them.  He caught\nfoxes and tied firebrands to their tails and then turned them loose in\nthe ripe wheat fields of the Philistines, roaring aloud over the havoc\nthey made.  He slew his enemies with the jaw-bone of an ass and then\nmade a clever pun (which the Hebrew reveals) upon the name of his\nhomely weapon.\n\nHe was the joker of the pack.  Time and again in the days of his power\nhe was able to take the trick.  When he came to die that element of\ngrim humour was still in his heart.  He had lost his strength because\nhe had slept for a night with his head in the lap of his enemy.  His\nfoes had put out his eyes and had made him to grind as a slave in one\nof their mills.  Now he was brought as a kind of paid jester to one of\ntheir feasts to make fun for the party.\n\nThere in the house of his foes, holding fast to a door-post he prayed\nin grim fashion that his former strength might for a moment be renewed,\n\"that he might be avenged upon his enemies for the loss _of one of his\ntwo eyes_.\"  He would leave the rest of the account to be settled\nlater.  When he had them roaring with laughter at some of his sallies,\nhe pulled down the house upon their heads and killed them all,\nperishing himself in the disaster.  He was full of humour and had a\ndeep sense of the joy of living.\n\nHe was a strange mixture of good and evil.  Here was a blend of\nweakness and of strength!  Here was the baser metal mingled as an\nunworthy alloy with much that was fine gold.  \"Samson got the laugh on\nthe Philistine men,\" as William R. Richards said once in Battell\nChapel, \"but their sisters avenged themselves on him by making a slave,\na tool, and a fool of him.  This old writer tells his story straight on\nwithout stopping to moralize.  But where can you find a better sermon\non the need of personal purity?  Of the two forms of sin which\nespecially assail young men, Samson might guard us from one by way of\nexample, and from the other by way of warning.  Touching no wine, for\nhe was a Nazarite from his birth, he excelled in strength.  But placing\nhis head in the lap of a false woman whose name was Delilah, there came\nto him weakness, blindness, the prison house, and the grave.\"\n\nHe refused the cup which cheers and also inebriates, but he gave his\nheart and his strength to that alluring enemy of the divine purpose who\nruined him.  Where a young man is a physical weakling, then if his mind\nis dull and his heart mean, he is at least all of a piece.  He is\nconsistent in his make-up.  Where his body is strong as was the body of\nthis young giant, revealing in every movement of it that joy and vigour\nwhich come with abundance of life, then if his mental and moral life\nare weak and thin, there is something tragic in that walking lie.  The\noutward man promises so much, but the inward man is a wail of\ndisappointment.\n\n\"The Philistines took him,\" is the terse comment of the writer upon\nSamson's unhappy career.  But his sins had already taken him captive.\nHe had become the bond servant of his own passions.  He was already a\nslave through his lack of self-control.\n\n\"The wages of sin is death\"--if you doubt it read through to the end\nthe story of any man who is headed wrong and keeps going in that\ndirection.  You will find the word \"Death\" written over against his\nname in five capital letters.  Read the story of this young man who in\nhis youth was so \"strong and sunny,\" as his name in the original has\nit.  When you read on you presently find him dead in his eyes, as he\ngropes his way about the prison house in the land of the Philistines.\nHe is dead in his muscles as he weakly turns the wheels of a mill,\nwhich was the work commonly assigned to women in those rude tribes.  He\nis dead in reputation--the fool and the jester brought in to make sport\nat the table of his captors!  He is dead in his soul for he is unaware\nthat the Lord has departed from him.  The wages of sin is death.\nWhether pay day comes the following Saturday night or at the end of the\nyear, or in the final outcome, in every case the sorry result will be\nthe same.\n\nWe are compelled to say that Samson's life was a tragedy because he\nfailed at these three points.  He never learned to take life seriously.\nThe joker is not the best card in the pack, except by an arbitrary\nrule--and in all the better games at cards, the joker is thrown out.\nWhen all is said and done, life is serious business.  The humour, the\namusement, the recreation are only the sauce on the table to give an\nadded zest and relish--they are not the roast beef and potatoes.  You\ncannot live on them nor by them.  The man who laughs and laughs loudly\nand laughs at everything will have the laugh turned on him.  The very\nfact that he has never brought his life under the power of a serious,\ndefinite, compelling purpose will cause him to be left far in the rear\nby those men who waken up early to the fact that the world is not to be\ntaken as a joke.\n\nThere was a certain joy no doubt in carrying off the gates of Gaza.  I\ncan recall certain episodes on the evening of the thirty-first of\nOctober when the carrying off of the gates of some neighbour seemed to\nme to fill the cup of life to the brim.  There is a certain joy in\ngetting a cow up into the pulpit of the College Chapel or into the\nbelfry of some church on a dark night--the young fellow who has never\nhelped to solve that problem in physics has missed something.  There is\na time to read the paper we call \"Life,\" and to see some man on the\nstage who can be as funny as William Collier.  Where all these are the\ndiversions of a mind devoted to serious ends, where they are only the\nby-product of human interest, they have a rightful place in our regime.\n\nBut their lines are soon spoken, and the stage must be cleared for\nthose who have something of more moment to tell.  \"How much do you\nreally care?\" the world is asking.  \"How ready are you to think\nintently upon something which has no more fun in it than a page of\nfigures or an array of unyielding facts?  How far are you ready to bend\nall the best energies of body, brain and heart to the gaining of some\nworthy end?  How completely have you set your heart upon that which is\nvital?\"  Your answer to these questions will in large measure tell the\nstory of your future achievement.\n\nThis young man failed because he had not acquired the habit of\npersistence.  His big deeds were all done in a hurry, and they were\nsoon over.  He carried off the gates of the city in ten minutes.  He\ntore the young lion apart in an instant.  He slaughtered the\nPhilistines with the jaw-bone of an ass in less time than I am taking\nin telling it.  He tied torches to the tails of the foxes and let them\nloose in the wheat fields in a careless half hour of thoughtless sport.\nYou do not find the man binding up a lifetime of effort into a moral\nunit by an all-inclusive and dominant intention.  He was never ready to\nwork and to keep on working until achievement of a worthy sort should\ncrown his effort.\n\nYou cannot drive a long nail in to the head by hammering around all\nover the board.  You must hit the nail on the head and keep on hitting\nit on the head until you have sent it home.  You cannot sink the shaft\nof a mine by digging all around over the mountainside.  You must dig in\none place and keep on digging in one place persistently until you have\nsunk your shaft to the vein of ore.  You cannot build a life that is\nworthy to be the life of a child of God unless you gird yourself for\nthat persistent effort which lies between you and the goal upon which\nyou have set your heart.  It cannot be done in an hour, or in a day, or\nin a year.  The hard task of presenting to Him a life which will bear\nHis own eye and win His approval will mortgage the best strength of all\nyour best years.\n\nYou may have the body of an athlete.  You may have a mind with splendid\ncapacity in it for real achievement.  You may have a heart which reacts\nas promptly as gunpowder when a spark of genuine aspiration is applied\nto it.  You may have all these--I hope you have--but unless you have\nlearned the high art of staying by, of holding on, of keeping at it no\nmatter what comes, you are doomed to defeat.\n\nHow often you see a young man of generous impulse, of kindly\ndisposition, like Esau, faltering and failing as the years come and go\nuntil at last he is little better than a vagabond upon the face of the\nearth.  How often you find a man of purpose and persistence, like\nJacob, with many an unfortunate trait in him, with a heavy moral\nhandicap to overcome, finally winning out by the sheer force of his\nspiritual tenacity.  \"Be thou faithful unto death,\" the promise has it,\n\"and I will give thee the crown of life.\"  The crown is held in reserve\nfor those who persist clear through to the end.\n\nThis young man failed because he lacked the favour of God.  In the\nearly stages of his career we read of a divine element in his life.\n\"The woman bare a son and called his name Samson, and the Lord blessed\nhim.  And the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him\" for those\ndeeds of valour.\n\nHowever we may interpret these expressions the fact is plain that so\nlong as he kept his life clean and true he had the sense of divine\nreinforcement making him equal to the tasks which fell to his lot.\nThen there came a time when by his own actions he forfeited all this.\nHe became as weak as a rag in the face of temptation, in the presence\nof duty, in some great opportunity for valiant effort which opened\nbefore him.  And he did not realize how weak he was until he went down\nin defeat.  \"He wist not that the Lord had departed from him.\"\n\nThe spirit of self-indulgence, I care not whether it goes straight for\nthe coarse sins of the flesh or moves in more refined ways towards the\nlife of selfish ease and barren culture, will take the iron out of a\nman's blood.  It will take the vim out of his muscles, the power to\nhold fast out of his will.\n\nThe man who saves his life for his own personal gratification will soon\nfind that he has no life to save.  That which makes life life is gone.\nIt is the habit of self-control, the spirit of self-surrender to the\nwill of God, the purpose of self-dedication to the highest ends in\nsight, which puts power into the thrust of each man's effort.\n\nThe circular letter which Lord Kitchener, head of the War Office, sent\nto every British soldier when the English troops were ordered to the\nContinent reads like a classic:\n\n\n\"You are ordered abroad as a soldier of the King.  The honour of the\nBritish Army depends upon your individual conduct.  You have a task to\nperform which will need courage, energy, and patience.  Be on your\nguard against excesses.  You will find temptation both in women and in\nwine.  Resist both and do your duty bravely.  Fear God.  Honour the\nKing.\n\n\"(Signed) KITCHENER.\"\n\n\nHang those great words up in your mind!  Hang the picture of that\nstrong, stern, brave man in your heart that you too may wear the cross\nof honour.\n\nIf it is good for men to be sober and clean in war time, why not at all\ntimes?  Have we not sore need of these same qualities in the more\nexacting pursuits of peace?  Every man who is worthy of the name of man\nis set to guard some sacred interest, though he carries neither gun nor\nsword.\n\nHere is the everlasting fight being waged three hundred and sixty-five\ndays in the year--and it is waged year in and year out for there is no\ndischarge in that war--against hunger and cold, against disease and\ndeath, against poverty and crime!  Why not have men at their best in\nthe mill and in the mine, on the farm and in the factory, in the\ncounting-room and in the places of trade?  The armies which are sent\nforth to save, to feed, and to clothe men's lives, no less than the\narmies of bloodshed have need of the same high discipline.  They, too,\nare crippled and broken, they are driven back and hurled to defeat by\nthose moral foes which march under the banner of self-indulgence.\n\nHere is an evil traffic which flaunts its wares in our faces in every\ncity block where the forces of righteousness have not risen in strength\nto cast it out.  But we have fallen upon times when the economic forces\nare lining up solidly with the verdict of medical science and the power\nof religion in a relentless opposition to the use of alcohol as a\nbeverage.  In these days the man who thinks more of his job than he\ndoes of his grog has the floor.\n\nThe wise railroad managers know full well that a tippler in the cab of\nan engine or at the flagman's post means sooner or later a frightful\naccident with loss of property and life.  The owners of intricate and\ndelicate machinery in the great factories know that placing in control\nmen whose brains have been clogged and drugged with liquor is as\nfoolish as throwing sand into the ball bearings.  \"Safety First\" means\n\"Sober First.\"  The taxpayers are becoming no less insistent--they have\nlearned that the open saloon means added crime and poverty where they\nmust foot the bills.  Decent people have grown tired of cleaning up the\nmuss and the dirt occasioned by the rum sellers.  The moral forces of\nthe community recognize the fact that the liquor business allies itself\nopenly with immoralities of every sort.  The people are saying in state\nafter state, in country after country, \"Time's up!  You have failed to\nshow your right to be!  You will have to go.\"  The habit of indulgence\nin that which robs men of strength, of intelligence, of conscience,\nfinds every good man's hand against it.\n\nWe read in this strange story that Samson's strength was in his hair.\nWhen his locks were cut away by the fair and false hand of evil he was\nas weak as a woman.\n\nHow much of sober history and how much of poetic allegory there may be\nin these glowing statements it is not easy to say.  But the moral\ncontent of this record is clear.  When those slender and delicate lines\nof contact which, as he believed according to his vow as a Nazarite,\nbound him in loyalty to the source of all strength, were broken, then\nhis splendid prowess was no more.  \"It is that little half-inch rim of\nthe tree where the sap runs up to the sun that makes the tree alive or\ndead.\"  However you phrase it in the clearer light of this twentieth\ncentury of ours, guard with all diligence those lines of communication\nbetween your own inner life and the life of God.  Maintain within\nyourself that faith and hope and love which will bring to you your own\nfull measure of strength and joy.\n\nThe dull, sad picture of this defeated man is not wholly unrelieved by\nany brighter touch.  When he was shorn of his strength, robbed of his\nhonour, stained in the quality of his manhood, we read, \"Howbeit the\nhair of his head began to grow again after he was shorn.\"\n\nIt was only a gleam of hope, but it was a gleam.  It was a far-off\npromise of that divine redemptive process which has become the basis of\nour trust.  His claim upon the divine favour and his hold upon the\nsources of strength were not utterly forfeited by his acts of\nevil-doing.  His hair began to grow again and a hope of moral recovery\nwas begotten in his heart.  \"If we say we have no sin we deceive\nourselves; but if we confess our sins He is faithful and just to\nforgive us and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.\"\n\nLet me close with this plain, straight word of appeal as strong as I\ncan make it!  You need God in your life.  You need Him not as a\nphilosophical belief touching the origin and ground of all finite\nexistence; not as a mere dogma to be written at the head of your\nConfession of Faith; not as a name to be introduced into some liturgy\nwhich you may occasionally employ.  You need God as a present, personal\nand profound experience.  To know Him is to live, and to live well.\n\nIt was Phillips Brooks who said once to an audience of Harvard men,\n\"Here is the last great certainty, be sure of God!  By simple, loving\nworship, by continual obedience, by keeping yourself pure even as He is\npure, creep close to Him, keep close to Him, and in the end nothing can\noverthrow you.\"\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\nThe Young Man Who Became King\n\nIn some wise way when the door of opportunity opens upon a trying\nsituation there comes forth a man of sufficient size to perform the\ntask.  When the time is ripe for the Protestant Reformation Martin\nLuther is ready and walks in.  When the day arrives for Napoleon\nBonaparte to be sent to St. Helena and the peace of Europe restored,\nthe Duke of Wellington, representing British tenacity, is ready.  When\nthe hour has struck for American slavery to be destroyed by words and\nlaws and grape-shot, William Lloyd Garrison and Abraham Lincoln and\nUlysses S. Grant are ready.  Back of every emergency God waits.  He has\nHis great right hand full of men and when the fullness of time is come\nHe brings upon the scene His own appointed man.\n\nHere in a very old book is the story of the greatest king that Israel\never had!  The House of Tudor in England, the House of Hohenzollern in\nGermany or the late House of the Romanoffs in Russia, never had such a\nhold upon the popular imagination and affection as did \"the house and\nlineage of David\" upon the hearts of the Hebrews.  The One who was to\nbe born \"King of kings and Lord of lords\" to reign forever and ever was\nto come from \"the house and lineage of David.\"\n\nBut how was this country boy with rough hands and all the marks of toil\nupon him to become king?  He was no Crown Prince--Jonathan was the\neldest son of the reigning monarch.  He was neither the eldest nor the\nfavourite son of any man.  He was the youngest son of a farmer named\nJesse and because he seemed less promising than his older brothers he\nhad been given the care of the sheep.  Anybody with eyes in his head\nand feet to walk about can watch sheep.  The boy did not seem at first\nglance to have his foot on the ladder nor to possess the elements of\nroyalty.\n\nHe became king because he had these five qualities: First of all he\nshowed fidelity in the ordinary duties of every-day life.  Here is the\nsumming up of his method--\"And David behaved himself wisely in all his\nways and the Lord was with him.\"  If a bunch of sheep became his field\nof opportunity he would do his work in such fashion that no one could\ndo it better.  He would lead them in green pastures and by still waters\nso that they should not want.  His rod and his staff would protect\nthem.  He would learn the use of sling and stone so that \"he could\nsling,\" as the record says, \"at a hair's breadth and not miss.\"  If a\nwolf or a bear should attack his flock, he would be able to drive them\noff.\n\nThe simple ordinary duties which belong to keeping sheep or to getting\none's lessons at school, to meeting one's obligations in some modest\nposition in office or store, or in doing one's best in a factory or on\na farm, become a kind of dress rehearsal for the larger duties which\nlie ahead.  If a man knows his lines and can take his part effectively\nupon the narrower stage of action he is in line for promotion to a more\nimportant role.  You will find whole regiments of young fellows who\ndrag along, scamping their work and slighting those opportunities which\nare right at hand.  They are saving up their energies to do something\nsplendidly effective week after next.  But week after next never comes\nto such men.  It is always to-day, and to-day in their eyes seems ever\nsmall.\n\nIf those men were already on the quarterdeck as captains of great ocean\nliners; if they were already bank presidents sitting in handsome\noffices of their own; if they were already journalists of the first\nrank writing editorials for metropolitan dailies, they would do what\ntheir hands and their minds found to do with their might.  But in this\nday of small things they feel that fidelity and skill would be thrown\naway.  They have mixed up the words of the promise--they think it\nreads, \"You have been unfaithful over a few things, I will make thee\nruler over everything.\"  When a man is going up-stairs he must put his\nfoot first on the step which is at the bottom and then take the other\nsteps in order.  The same rule holds in the great business of living a\nman's life and doing a man's work in the world.\n\nThe young man who was to become king showed courage and high resolve in\nthe face of danger.  There came a day when the Israelites and the\nPhilistines were lined up in battle array on the opposite sides of a\nvalley.  The Philistines had their champion fighter in the person of a\nhuge fellow named Goliath.  His armour weighed one hundred and fifty\npounds.  His spear was like a weaver's beam.  He stood roaring out his\ndefiance against the armies of Israel, \"Choose you a man!  Let him come\ndown to me and fight.  If he kills me, we will be your servants.  If I\nprevail against him then ye shall be our servants.\"\n\nAfter the manner of the Iliad he stood ready to let the issue of the\ncampaign turn upon the result of a solitary combat between himself and\nany Israelite they might put up against him.  Saul, the king of Israel,\nhad offered to enrich with great wealth the man who would fight that\nhuge Philistine.  He had promised to give him the hand of his own\ndaughter, the fair young princess, in marriage, and to make his\nfather's house forever free in Israel.  But no Israelite had dared to\nfight the terrible Goliath.\n\nThen David appeared upon the scene.  He had been sent down by his\nfather with ten loaves of fresh bread, with ten cheeses and a supply of\nparched corn for his brothers who were at the front.  He saw this huge\nGoliath stalking up and down the picket lines between the armies.  He\ncried out in his resentment at the apparent cowardice of his own\ncountrymen, \"Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy\nthe armies of the living God!\"  David was informed that even the\npromise of high reward offered by the king had not induced an Israelite\nto face the Philistine.\n\nThen spoke out the voice of faith from the heart of unstained youth!\n\"Let no man's heart fail because of him--thy servant will go and fight\nthis Philistine.\"  The king remonstrated with him.  He pointed out the\nfolly of sending an untrained youth to meet the disciplined man of war.\nBut David insisted that his rough experiences with the lions and the\nbears which attacked his flock had furnished him the necessary\ntraining.  The king then offered him his own armour, which would\nnaturally be the best suit of armour in the camp, that the stripling\nmight in some measure be protected.  But after trying on this suit of\nmail David put it aside.  \"I cannot go with these,\" he said, \"for I\nhave not proved them.\"  He refused the conventional modes of defense,\nrelying upon those weapons which had been tested by experience.  He\ntook his sling and five smooth stones from the brook and announced that\nhe was ready for the combat.\n\nIt seemed a contest most unequal when the principals were put forth\nwith the Israelites and the Philistines ranged up on either side of the\nvalley to watch the outcome.  Goliath was enraged when he saw the boy\nthey had sent against him.  \"Am I a dog?\" he said.  And then he cursed\nDavid by all his gods and threatened to feed his flesh to the beasts of\nthe field before an hour had passed.  Like many a modern combatant\nGoliath was mighty with his mouth.  His tongue was like a weaver's beam.\n\nThe young man was not disturbed.  His weapons were taken from the\narmoury of experience, and his courage came from the same reliable\nsource.  \"The Lord who delivered me out of the paws of the lion and the\nbear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.\"  The moral\ntriumphs of those early years when a boy keeps his life clean and\nstrong become the earnest of the larger victories he is set to win in\nhis mature manhood.  The growing boy who disdains to lie or to cheat,\nto stain his life with dirt or to show himself a coward, will know how\nto bear himself when the harder tests of middle life assail him.\n\nThe young man's religious faith contributed to his courage.  It was\nmoral strength pitted against brute force.  It was the scornful\nself-confidence which trusted in a coat of brass and a huge spear\nmeasuring itself against the spirit of faith which became the source of\na finer form of valour.  \"Thou comest to me with sword and spear,\"\nDavid cried, as he saw his foe advancing.  \"I come to thee in the name\nof the Lord of Hosts whom thou hast defied.\"  His trust in God kept his\nnerves steady so that he was still able in the presence of that roaring\ngiant to sling stones at a hair's breadth and not miss.  His moral\npassion as he went forth to lift that reproach from the banner of his\nnation gave strength to his right arm.\n\nThe huge Philistine came on, brandishing his spear and roaring out his\nwrath.  David saw the unprotected spot below the visor of the man's\nhelmet.  He took one of his five smooth stones and slung it with such\nforce and precision as to strike Goliath full in the forehead, knocking\nhim senseless.  He then ran forward and took the huge sword of his\nenemy and cut off his head holding it aloft as a trophy of his courage.\nWhen the Philistines saw their champion fall they fled in terror and\nthe Israelites pursuing them won a notable victory.\n\nHow splendid is the quality of moral courage!  How kingly is the man\nwho can face all manner of danger undaunted because he knows that his\nheart is right and his cause is just!  He deserves to be crowned.  The\nbattle is the Lord's in the last analysis and He saveth not alone with\nsword and spear.\n\nThere are sentiments and principles which become deep-rooted in a\nnation's life mightier by far than the heaviest battalions.  There are\nhabits of thought and long-cherished convictions which constitute a\nmore reliable form of defense than all the ramparts and battlements\ndevised by strategists.  A nation of Davids will in the final outcome\noutmatch any nation of Goliaths with all their swords and spears.  And\nin one's personal life the clear conscience and the heart of faith will\nbring any man off from any field where he may be sent more than\nconqueror through Him who loves us.\n\nThis young man showed also a fine capacity for friendship with men.\n\"His soul was knit with the soul of Jonathan and he loved him as he\nloved his own soul.\"  The fine friendship of a man for a man, or the\ngracious affection which a woman feels for a woman who is indeed her\nfriend, becomes a noble form of human relationship.  Those ties where\nthe charm and power of the sex-impulse has no place have in them a\nworld of moral worth.\n\nIt is easy for any man to fall in love with some beautiful woman--it is\nas easy as rolling off a log, and ever so much more delightful.  It is\neasy for any man to inhale the sweet incense which arises from the\ndevotion of some affectionate woman's heart.  But where a man loves a\nman in an unsullied, unselfish friendship until his soul is knit with\nthe soul of that man in an interlacing and interlocking of interest,\nthen you have that harder, rarer form of human relationship which is\nrich with promise.\n\nThe young chap who is never quite happy with his fellows, who must\nalways have some adoring young woman present in order to be content, is\nnot quite all there.  He is a \"softy.\"  He is lath and plaster where\nthere should be quartered oak.  He has sentiment than principle; he has\nless muscle and more fat than go to the make-up of a virile manhood.\nThe very absence of the glamour and mystery which enters into all\nattachments between those of opposite sex clears the air for the\nmanifestation of some of those fine forms of fidelity and devotion\nwhich belong to friendship at its best.\n\nHere the friendship was the more notable when we recall how the two men\nwere placed.  Jonathan was the eldest son of the king, the heir to the\nthrone, the natural successor of Saul.  But David by his military\nprowess had come to be highly esteemed.  When he returned victorious\nfrom his wars against the enemies of Israel the proud and happy women\nhad sung in the streets, \"Saul has slain his thousands, but David has\nslain his tens of thousands.\"  And David had been privately anointed by\nSamuel the prophet as a worthy candidate for the throne of Israel.\n\nJonathan, as the Crown Prince, had the least to gain and the most to\nlose by protecting the life and ministering to the well-being of this\nfriend who might one day aspire to the throne.  He made his affection a\nthing resplendent by its sheer unselfishness.  He saw that David might\nincrease while he would decrease, yet even so the sky of his affection\nwas unclouded by a single touch of jealousy.  How great is that love\nwhich envieth not.\n\nAnd David in turn made his own adequate response to this magnanimous\ninterest.  He showed himself in his whole bearing a man worthy of the\nfriendship of a prince of the blood.  Heaven be praised for men who can\nfind joy and satisfaction in the friendship of their fellows.\n\nThe young man who was destined to become king was generous to his\nenemies.  Saul stood head and shoulders above his fellows, physically\nspeaking, but in his mental and moral stature he was less than\nknee-high to the man who followed him upon the throne.  When he heard\nthe women singing David's praises, \"Saul was very wroth--the saying\ndispleased him and he eyed David from that day forward.\"\n\nWhen the king saw the fine friendship between his own son Jonathan and\nthe rising David his heart became as bitter as gall.  \"Thou son of a\nperverse, rebellious woman,\" he cried to the Crown Prince, \"thou hast\nchosen this son of Jesse to thine own confusion.\"  And when David\nincreased year after year in stature, in wisdom, and in favour with God\nand men, Saul tried repeatedly to kill him.  His soul cried out, \"Let\nme feed fat the ancient grudge I bear him.\"\n\nIt is not easy for any man, especially a young man with hot, red blood\nin his veins and the sense of injustice rankling in his heart, to stand\nup in the face of hatred and malice and keep sweet about it.  \"Love\nyour enemies.  Bless them who curse you.  Do good to them that hate\nyou.  Pray for those who despitefully use you.\"  If you are struck upon\nthe cheek take a second blow upon the other cheek rather than strike\nback in resentment.  If a man compels you unjustly to go a mile with\nhim, go two miles rather than seek to be avenged.  Take the rules of\naction constantly from within, from the best instincts of your own\nheart rather than have them furnished to you by the evil behaviour of\nwrong-doers.  Allow no man's meanness to master you--allow rather your\nown nobility to overcome that evil with good.\n\nHow easy it is to say it, but to do it--aye, there is the rub!  It is\nso divinely hard to put these fine principles into practice.  The soft\nanswer may turn away wrath, but the hot retort comes more readily to\nthe lips.  The humane return of good for evil points the way of\nspiritual advance, but the desire to pay every man back in his own coin\nwith a tip thrown in for good measure is often more natural.  The more\nhonour then to the man who has learned that greater is he that ruleth\nhis own spirit than he that taketh a city.\n\nWhen David had Saul within his power he refused to strike.  There were\nmonths when the young man was hunted through the hills of Judea by the\nhirelings of the wicked king, as if he had been a mad dog.  There came\na night when Saul was sleeping in his barricade of wagons.  He had\naround him the three thousand soldiers whom he had led into the\nmountains in his mad effort to capture David.  The young man had been\npursued until he had felt that there was only a step between him and\ndeath.\n\nThat very night, accompanied only by his armour-bearer, David stole\nunder cover of the darkness into Saul's camp.  He presently stood in\nthe tent of the sleeping giant.  Here was his enemy lying helpless at\nhis feet!  His armour-bearer, knowing the history of that enmity,\nwhispered, \"Let me smite him with one blow to the earth!  I will not\nsmite the second time.\"  One blow in the dark would suffice to end that\nmurderous career.\n\nAnd it ought to be remembered that this was in a day when \"an eye for\nan eye and a tooth for a tooth\" was the law of the land.  It was\nesteemed the law of God.  The atmosphere was not one of\nforbearance--the popular heroes were men like Samson and Gideon, women\nlike Deborah and Jael, who did not hesitate to strike down their foes.\n\"Let me smite him,\" came the whisper in the dark.  \"One blow will\nsuffice.\"\n\nBut peace hath her victories no less than war.  Mercy has its trophies\nno less than force.  Here was a man who would not avenge himself--he\nwould give place unto wrath knowing that vengeance belongs to God.  He\nwas ready to make the bold adventure of undertaking to overcome evil\nwith good.\n\nDavid would not strike his enemy even though that enemy had been in hot\npursuit of him.  \"Destroy him not,\" he whispered to his\ncompanion-in-arms as he felt him clutching the sword which hung at his\nside.  David's greatest victory was not over Goliath, the Philistine\ngiant--it was over himself, over that spirit of revenge which might so\neasily have ruled his heart in that dark, hard hour.\n\nHe had in splendid measure the quality of mercy which the poet sings.\n\n  \"The quality of mercy is not strain'd,\n  It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven\n  Upon the place beneath.  It is twice blest;\n  It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.\n  'Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes\n  The throned monarch better than his crown;\n  We do pray for mercy,\n  And that same prayer doth teach us all to render\n  The deeds of mercy.\"\n\n\nWe are discovering those qualities which entitled this young man to be\ncrowned as king.\n\nFinally, he was a man of genuine piety.  We read in one place that he\nwas \"a man after God's own heart.\"  The statement has been a puzzle to\nmany an honest mind.  This man who in his later years dipped his hands\nin the blood of his foes and fell on one occasion into the grossest sin\nwith an attractive woman, this fellow a man after God's own heart!\n\nHe was not an angel.  As we go up and down through history we find men\nand not angels.  We find men with mud on their boots, with blisters on\ntheir hands, and with scars on their souls.  George Washington owned\nslaves.  John Calvin burned Servetus at the stake.  Peter the Apostle\ndenied his Lord three times in a single night--he denied with an oath.\nIf you are looking for moral perfection you will have to look somewhere\nelse than on this earth.\n\nDavid was a man after God's own heart, not because he never did wrong,\nbut because when he fell down he got up again.  He got up again faced\ntowards God and not away from Him, faced away from the evil which had\nthrown him down and not towards a further advance in wrong-doing.  \"The\nwise make of their moral failures ladders by which they climb towards\nHeaven.  The foolish make of their moral failures graves wherein they\nbury all their highest hopes.\"\n\nWhen Oscar Wilde was imprisoned in Reading gaol for his own wretched\nwrongdoing he wrote that strangely human document, \"De Profundis.\"  It\nwas a message \"out of the depths.\"  In that book he used this striking\nsentence which I have never forgotten since the first time I read it,\n\"The highest moment in a man's career may be the hour when he kneels in\nthe dust and beats upon his breast and tells all the sins of his life.\"\n\n\"God be merciful to me, a sinner.\"  \"Have mercy upon me, O God.\nAgainst Thee have I sinned.  Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity and\ncleanse me from my sin.\"  This is all that any honest man can say in\nthe presence of his Maker, and when he does say it honestly he is on\nhis way to the divine favour.\n\nDavid was a man of faith and of prayer; he was a man of deep, sweet\nfeeling and of spiritual longing.  In all his better moments when he\nwas truly himself his heart hungered after righteousness and his soul\nwas athirst for the living God.  A man of that moral mood and build is\nmuch more after God's own heart, even though he may upon occasion be\nbetrayed by the fervour of his nature into wrong-doing, than is the\ncoldly correct man who has never felt enough of warm-hearted devotion\nto anything to raise the spiritual temperature a single degree.\n\nI do not know how many of these Psalms came from the lips or the pen of\nDavid.  No one knows--not many in all probability.  But I know that\nthese words represent experiences which were David's beyond a\nperadventure.  \"The Lord is my rock and my fortress, my deliverer and\nmy saviour.  In my distress I called upon Him and He heard me.  He drew\nme out of many waters and He brought me forth into a large place.\nSurely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I\nshall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.\"\n\nHe came to the throne at the age of thirty, and he reigned over Israel\nfor forty years.  His name was handed down in human history as that of\nthe greatest king that Israel ever had.  He never could have done it\nbut for the fact that he had in his heart faith and hope and love\ntowards God and towards his fellow men.  He was a man of deep and\ngenuine piety.\n\nWhen William IV of England passed away there was a young girl of\nsixteen named Victoria who was spending the night in Kensington Palace.\nWord was suddenly brought to her that the King was dead and that she\nwas Queen of England.  She immediately fell upon her knees imploring\ndivine help and guidance in the discharge of the high duties which had\nbeen thrust upon her.  May it not be that this was one secret of her\nbeneficent reign which lasted for more than sixty years?  The rulers\nwho begin the ascent of their thrones upon their knees rise high\nbecause their eyes are upon that Great White Throne which is the final\nseat of all authority and of all blessing.\n\nHere then were the leading traits in that young man who became king!\nIn his early life when he was nothing but a shepherd boy he showed\nfidelity in the ordinary duties of every-day life.  He showed courage\nand high resolve in the presence of danger.  He had a fine capacity for\njoyous and enduring friendship with his brother men.  He was\ngreat-hearted and magnanimous to his foes, even when he had them\nutterly in his power.  He was a man of simple, genuine faith in the\nliving God.\n\nWhether you are living in Palestine or in Connecticut, in the tenth\ncentury before Christ or in the twentieth century after, are not these\nthe qualities which are sure to be crowned?  Are not these the traits\nwhich make any man kingly in his bearing and in the whole content of\nhis inner life?\n\nSet your hearts upon those traits and make them your own!  Fight the\ngood fight!  Keep your faith!  Finish your course with honour and you\nwill find at the end of it laid up for you a crown of righteousness,\nwhich God gives to every man who serves Him aright.\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\nThe Young Man Who Was Born to the Purple\n\n\"In the year that King Uzziah died\"--it was more than a date, it was an\nexperience!  The king had been a wise and good ruler.  He had served\nhis country well for fifty-two long years.  He showed an interest in\nthe welfare of his people--\"He loved husbandry and dug wells for them\nin the desert.\"  He caused vineyards to be planted on the slopes of\nCarmel and he increased the herds of cattle which grazed in the\nlowlands.  He fortified his capital by building towers at the valley\ngate and at the turning of the wall in Jerusalem.\n\nHis reign was beneficent, but now he was dead, and this warm-hearted\nyoung patriot felt that his heart was overwhelmed.  He and his fellow\ncitizens must now plan for the future of their county without the\nguidance and inspiration of this great king.\n\nBut \"In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord.\"  There came\nsomething more than a personal experience of disappointment.  There\ncame the emergence of a new and higher form of faith.  This young man\nsaw the earthly majesty of this wise and good king go down in utter\ndefeat.  In some strange way the king contracted leprosy.  During all\nthe closing years of his reign he suffered from the crawling inroads of\nthat loathsome disease.  By the stern requirements of the Jewish law he\nwas banished from his own capital.  He was compelled to live outside\nthe city and to reign by deputy.  He finally died a lingering and\nhorrible death.\n\nAnd in that dread hour the young man saw the heavenly majesty of the\nKing of kings resplendent and enduring.  \"In the year that King Uzziah\ndied I saw the Lord, high and lifted up, sitting upon His throne and\nHis glory filled the temple.\"  The spirit of hero-worship was passing\nover into religious faith.\n\nLet me study with you the effect of this crisis in the life of his\nnation upon this young man who was born to the purple.  He possessed\nall those advantages which go with wealth, social position, and\neducation.  We have here no rough man of the hills like Elijah, the\nTishbite, rudely dressed and rude in speech.  We have here no man with\nthe smell of the fields in his garments like Amos, the herdsman of\nTekoa.\n\nIsaiah belonged to the fortunate class.  He lived on Fifth Avenue.  He\nhad an assured social position which gave him ready access to the court\nand to the presence of the king.  He was familiar with the customs and\nthe costumes of fashionable society, as we find in that chapter where\nhe openly rebukes the showy extravagance of the idle rich.  He was well\neducated--he had that literary skill which comes only to those who are\nwell trained.  In all the Old Testament you will find nothing finer\nthan the sweep and finish of some of this young prophet's public\nutterances.  He was one to whom five talents had been given where other\nmen were struggling along with one apiece.  He therefore owed to\nsociety what might be called the debt of privilege.  It is a fixed\ncharge upon the lives of those who sit above the salt.  It has a right\nto insist upon full payment.  \"To whom much is given, of him will much\nbe required.\"\n\nIt is for every man to ask himself: \"How much do I eat up in my\ngenerous mode of life?  How much in food and dress, in housing and\nfurnishing, in motor cars and yachts, in travel and in recreation?  How\nmuch do I consume in those provisions which I make for a wider culture\nthrough books, pictures, music and the like?\"  What is your average\nintake of this world's good things?  That measure of consumption will\nindicate the measure of your responsibility.  If you are born to the\npurple and fare sumptuously in all these ways then the world has a\nright to demand that you shall render back in corresponding measure\nthat useful service which is your plain duty.\n\nIn that effective cartoon which Jesus drew of the Rich Man and Lazarus,\nit was the unpaid debt of privilege which brought about the loss of a\nsoul.  Jesus showed the two men in this world, one of them living in a\npalace, clothed with purple and fine linen, faring sumptuously every\nday; the other in rags dying at the Rich Man's gate, hungry and full of\nsores.  Then Jesus showed the two men in the next world, Lazarus the\nbeggar now in Abraham's bosom, and the son of good fortune enduring\ntorment.\n\nThere is no hint that the Rich Man had gained a penny of his wealth\nwrongfully; no charge of lying or theft, of murder or adultery is laid\nat his door.  He was damned not by the wicked things he had done, but\nfor the lack of that generous and humane service which he had left\nundone.  His sin was that of selfish indifference.  The way to\nperdition is paved with moral neglect.  The debt of privilege can no\nmore be escaped than death or taxes.  To whom much is given, of him\nwill much be required.  And a full sense of that responsibility was\nbrought home to this well-endowed young man in the year the great king\ndied.\n\nThe fortunate young man stood out in the open confessing his sense of\nmoral need.  There in the place of worship in that high and serious\nmood which followed upon the death of the king, he caught a fresh\nvision of God.  \"I saw the Lord high and lifted up, sitting upon His\nthrone.  I saw Him surrounded with the winged seraphs.  And one of them\ncried to another, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts!  The whole\nearth is full of His glory.\"\n\nThe very sight of the unstained purity of Him \"unto whom all hearts are\nopen, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid,\" brought\nthis young man to his knees.  He knelt in the dust and beat upon his\nbreast and told the sins of his life.  \"Woe is me, I am undone.  I am a\nman of unclean lips.  I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.\nAnd mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.\"\n\nThe man who has no sense of sin has little sense of any sort.  If we\nsay we have no sin, we deceive ourselves or else we lie.  Where is the\nman who can stand up in the presence of those who know him and say,\n\"Every deed that I have done was done in honour and integrity.  Every\nword that has fallen from my lips has been spoken in truth and in\nkindliness.  Every desire which I have harboured in my soul has been\none upon which the eye of my Maker might rest with approval.\"\n\nCan you say that?  I am frank to confess that I cannot.  I have done\nwrong.  I feel my need of the divine mercy.  I want forgiveness,\ncleansing and renewal.  And every man who is honest enough to look\nhimself in the face, without flinching, will be moved to make the same\nconfession.  It is up out of those moments of contrition when men are\nhumbled and broken before God that the spiritual impulses come which\nare to beat back the forces of evil and make this earth at last as fair\nas the sky.\n\nI care not what the man's outward station may be--he may live on the\nAvenue or he may live in the slums; he may be clothed in purple or he\nmay be dressed in rags; he wear a Phi Beta Kappa key or he may be so\nuntaught that he has to make his mark when he signs a mortgage--in any\nevent here is a prayer which will fit his lips--it fits every pair of\nlips: \"God be merciful to me, a sinner.\"\n\nIn that one brief sentence we have the four main terms of religious\nexperience.  \"God,\" the object of religion, the ground of all finite\nexistence, the basis of all our hope!  \"Me,\" the human soul, the\nsubject of religion, the field where the work of religion is to be\nwrought out!  \"Sin,\" the obstacle to religion, the source of all our\nmoral failure, the cause of our alienation from God!  And \"mercy,\" the\nagent of religion, the form of energy which accomplishes our recovery!\nGod be merciful to me, a sinner.\n\nThis young man of good fortune stood up in the temple in the presence\nof his fellows making his open confession of moral need.  \"Woe is me\nfor I am undone.  I am a man of unclean lips.\"\n\nIn that very hour when this honest confession came from his lips his\nlife was cleansed by the direct action of the divine spirit.  He saw\none of the winged seraphs flying towards him through the open spaces of\nHeaven.  The angel took a live coal from the altar and laid it upon the\nlips of this young man.  He cried out as he did it, saying, \"Thine\niniquity is taken away.  Thy sin is purged.\"  Isaiah was no more a man\nof unclean lips--he could now speak with that Lord whose name is Holy\nas friend speaks with friend.\n\nWe have this profound moral experience dressed up in those grand,\nOriental robes which were dear to the people of that region.  But when\nyou strip away the silk, the lace, and the feathers of Eastern imagery,\nand get down to the bare, warm truth, this is what you find--a man\nwhose sense of moral lack had prompted that open confession, cleansed\nin that high hour by the direct action of the divine spirit upon his\nsoul.\n\nHere is that which is basic and fundamental in all religious life!  I\nwonder if we have not been tempted in recent years to obscure this\nvital experience.  We have held those two big words, \"Heredity\" and\n\"Environment,\" so close to our eyes as to blind us, oftentimes, to the\nlarger vision of that which is superhuman in earthly experience.\n\nIt is possible for the inner life of a man to be so wrought upon by the\naction of the spirit of God that the corrupt nature is cleansed, the\nweak nature is made strong, the selfish disposition is transformed into\nbenign love.\n\nIt matters little how you go about it, if you go with sincere faith.\nYou may seek for that renewal through the regenerating influence of the\nSacraments dear to the heart of the Romanist and the High Churchman.\nIf you find it there, it will be because Christ is within the\nSacrament.  You may seek for it in those profound emotional reactions\nwhich come at the Methodist mourners' bench.  If you find it there, it\nwill be because the spirit of Christ was operating through those\nfeelings.  You may find it as you make an about face, turning away from\nthat which is evil and making Christian duty your supreme choice in the\nquiet of your own room.  If you find it there, it will be because\nChrist was present in those movements of your inner life.  The woman\nwas healed in the Gospel story by touching the hem of Christ's garment\nbecause Christ was within that garment.\n\nIf any man will seek for moral renewal at the hands of God he will\nfind.  If he will knock at any one of these doors it will open.  Here\nis the Gospel as it stands recorded on the pages of the Old\nTestament--\"The spirit of the Lord shall come upon thee and thou shall\nbe turned into another man.\"  Here is the same Gospel as it stands\nrecorded on the pages of the New Testament--\"If any man is in Christ he\nis a new creature.  Old things are passed away and all things are\nbecome new.\"\n\nIn the joy of moral renewal this well-born, well-reared, well-trained\nyoung man gave himself in eager consecration to the highest he saw.  \"I\nheard the voice of the Lord say, Whom shall I send?  Who will go for\nus?  Then said I, Here am I, send me.\"\n\nHis nation, now robbed of its great king by the hand of disease, was\nfacing a crisis.  The national church to which he belonged was steeped\nin formalism and insincerity.  The divine voice was uttering a\nheartfelt lament over the unfaithfulness of the chosen people.  \"Israel\ndoth not know!  My people do not think.  The whole head is sick and the\nwhole heart is faint.\"\n\nThere was a loud cry for men of large build with wise heads and sound\nhearts to furnish moral leadership.  And in the face of that demand\nthis son of good fortune did not allow the divine spirit to go out into\nthe highways and hedges in order to compel some sort of man, any sort\nof man, to come in that the ranks might be filled.  He answered to his\nname with a clear-cut consecration of himself.  \"Here am I, send me.\"\n\nWhen war comes to any country, there are rich men who give money,\nmillions of it, that the war chest may be full.  There are great\nmanufacturers who promptly place their plants at the disposal of the\ngovernment for the making of munitions.  There are ship owners who turn\nover their vessels to the Navy that they may be sent to do business in\nthe great waters of national defense.  There are wise men who think\nhard upon the problems of finance and statecraft that they may provide\nthat counsel which is more precious than rubies.  All this is in the\nhighest degree praiseworthy.\n\nBut the only men who give what Lincoln called at Gettysburg \"the last\nfull measure of devotion\" are the men who give themselves.  These men\ndo not go on horseback nor in automobiles.  They walk.  They eat the\nhardtack.  They sleep on the ground.  They dig the trenches and fight\nin them.  They march out at the word of command to be shot at.  They\nkeep right on doing those plain things until the war is ended and\nvictory achieved.  These are the men who awaken our warmest feeling of\nadmiration and gratitude.  \"Here am I, send me\"--nothing can take the\nplace of that!\n\nIn that sterner war where there is no discharge, in that age-long,\nworld-wide fight against the evils of earth this same sound principle\nholds.  Money is needed; counsel is needed; organization and\nadministrative ability are needed.  The bringing in of that kingdom\nwhich is not meat and drink, nor shot and shell, but righteousness and\npeace and joy in the divine spirit, requires all these fine forms of\neffort.  But nothing can ever take the place of that personal\nconsecration of each man's own soul to the service of the living God.\n\nIn that high hour when Isaiah saw the God of things as they are, high\nand lifted up, sitting on His throne, he did not say, \"Here are any\nnumber of fine people, send them.  Here is a man who could perform the\ntask better than I--send him.\"  He said what every man must say who\nmeans to stand right in the Day of Judgment, \"Here am I, send me.\"\n\nHe was the son of good fortune, and his life was bright and rich with\nmany an advantage.  But this did not prompt him to claim any sort of\nexemption from the call for volunteers.  His vision of the awful\ndifference between the earthly majesty of that king who sank so swiftly\ninto a leper's grave and the heavenly majesty which rose above it\nsovereign and eternal, made him feel that nothing would suffice but the\ngift of himself.\n\nWhat shall it profit a man, this man, that man, any man, to gain the\nlargest measure of earthly success you may choose to name, if in the\nprocess he loses himself, his real self, his best self, his enduring\nself?  What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world, but feels\nwithin himself a capacity for higher things unrealized?  In the great\noutcome nothing really matters save the devotion of the personal life\nto the highest ends.\n\nIn the year 1840 near the city of Louvain a child was born, who came of\ngood stuff.  He was educated for a business career, and there in\nprosperous little Belgium the outlook at that time for wealth, for\nsocial position, and for a life of joy was very bright.  But at the age\nof eighteen this boy offered himself for the priesthood of the Roman\nCatholic Church.  He joined the Society of the Sacred Heart.  He went\nout to the Hawaiian Islands as a missionary and was ordained as a\npriest in the city of Honolulu.\n\nHe was at once impressed with the sad condition of the leper settlement\non the island of Molokai.  He resolved to give his life to those poor,\ndiseased, horror-stricken people.  He knew that to live among them\nwould mean banishment from his ordinary associations and the loss of\nall possible preferment in the church.  He knew that he might himself\ncontract that terrible disease and suffer a lingering, painful,\nfrightful death.  \"No matter,\" he cried, \"I am going.\"  And he went.\n\nHe not only preached to those lepers the Gospel of the Son of God and\nministered to them in spiritual things--his own labours and his appeals\nto the Hawaiian government secured for them better dwellings, an\nimproved water supply, and a more generous provisioning of the unhappy\nsettlement.  For five years he worked alone, but for the occasional\nassistance of a priest who came to the colony for a single day.  He\nfinally succumbed to the dread disease of leprosy and in his\nforty-ninth year died a martyr to humane devotion.  His name was Father\nDamien, and he shed fresh luster upon the Christian ministry.\n\nThe young man who was born to the purple, called now to be a prophet of\nGod, seized upon the vital elements of religion and uttered them with\npower.  \"What does it mean to be religious?\" men were asking.  Some of\nthe dull, blind priests of that day were saying, \"It means sacrifice\nand burnt offering.  It means the careful and showy observance of the\nforms of worship.\"  Israel did not know; the people did not think.\n\nThen this young prophet gave them the word of God with an edge on it.\nHe showed them the folly of all those outward signs of devotion apart\nfrom the inward spirit of righteousness.  \"To what purpose is the\nmultitude of your sacrifices?  Who hath required this at your hands?\nWhen you spread forth your hands I will hide my eyes.  When you make\nmany prayers I will not hear.  Your hands are full of blood.  Wash you,\nmake you clean.  Put away the evil of your doings.  Cease to do evil,\nlearn to do well.  Then though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be\nwhite as snow.\"\n\n\"Salvation by righteousness--this is the message of the Old Testament,\"\nMatthew Arnold used to say.  \"Righteousness through Jesus Christ,\" this\nis the message of the New Testament!  And this nineteenth century man\nof letters was but echoing the words which fell from the lips of those\nprophets in the eighth century before Christ.\n\n\"Wherewith shall I come before the Lord?\" said Micah.  \"Will the Lord\nbe pleased with a thousand rams or with ten thousand rivers of oil?  He\nhath showed thee, O man, what is good, and what doth the Lord require\nof thee but to do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy\nGod.\"\n\n\"Seek justice,\" Isaiah said; \"relieve the oppressed, judge the\nfatherless, plead for the widow.  If ye be willing and obedient ye\nshall eat the good of the land.  If ye refuse and rebel ye shall be\ndevoured.\"  This was the heart of his message.  It was the call of God\nto personal righteousness.\n\nHe represents the Almighty as sitting upon the throne of the universe,\nsummoning His people into friendly conference with Him.  \"Come now, let\nus reason together, saith the Lord.\"  Religion is not a thing of magic.\nThere is no sleight-of-hand or hocus-pocus in the benefits it seeks to\nconfer.  Religion is rational and moral.  It is a reasoned form of\nintercourse between an intelligent and moral being who is finite and\nthe Intelligent and Moral Being who is Infinite.  Its benefits are to\nbe realized in that direct impress of the spirit of God upon the soul\nof the man who has made an intelligent and honest approach to his Maker.\n\nThe young prophet saw his country threatened with disaster from both\nsides.  He saw upon the south the selfish and cruel designs of Egypt.\nHe saw the encroachments of mighty Assyria from the north.  He saw the\nmadness of those Israelites who thought they could combine wickedness\nand worship, the observance of religious forms with lives of moral\nunconcern.  And in that hour the truths he lifted before them were \"The\nmajesty and authority of God, the everlasting obligation of personal\nrighteousness, the certainty of the ultimate triumph of God's Kingdom\nover the wrath of man.\"  These were the mighty truths by which he\nsought to inspire the hearts of men to do their duty, come what might.\n\nHave we not great need at this very hour of just such men!  It has been\ngiven to you and to me to live through one of the great, searching\ncrises of human history.  The world has never seen a struggle so\ngigantic.  We have been patient for more than two years with a certain\nnation across the sea--patient clear up to the border of what has\nseemed to some of our neighbours like a lazy acquiescence in\nlawlessness.  We have seen that nation referring contemptuously to her\nown treaties as mere scraps of paper, and then openly disregarding her\nsolemn obligations.\n\nWe saw the outrage perpetrated upon Belgium, an outrage which men who\nknow their histories better than I know mine are saying will go down as\nthe greatest crime in the annals of the race.  We saw the drowning of\nhundreds of helpless women and children in the sinking of the\n_Lusitania_ without warning and in flat defiance of international law.\nWe saw the judicial murder of women like Edith Cavell and of men like\nCaptain Fryatt.  We have seen the Zeppelins engaged in the dastardly\nbusiness of hurling down bombs upon unfortified towns for the killing\nof old women and little children--heretofore when decent nations have\ngone to war men have fought with men.  We have seen thousands of\nhelpless Armenians butchered by the Moslem allies of that so-called\nChristian power,--it is all but universally believed, with its own\nconnivance and under its direction.  We have witnessed a frightful\nrecord of brutality and outrage, investigated and established by the\ncompetent testimony of such men as James Bryce and Cardinal Mercier.\nWe have seen the sinking of hospital ships loaded with wounded men and\nthe sinking of relief ships carrying provisions to the famine-stricken\nchildren of Belgium, no matter what flag they flew, or what cargo they\nbore.\n\nWe have had our own rights as a neutral trampled upon by that\ngovernment with the arrogant assumption that her necessities knew no\nlaw.  And now to crown it all we have detected the official\nrepresentatives of that country with protests of friendship upon their\nfalse lips actually plotting with Mexico and seeking to extend that\nplot to Japan with the unholy purpose of destroying the peace between\nthis country and its neighbours.\n\nThe men of our country who have red blood in their veins and the sense\nof justice in their hearts are saying, \"How long, O Lord, how long!\"\nWar is a terrible thing and no honest man ever speaks lightly of war.\nBut there are things which are worse than war.  The loss of all\ncapacity for moral indignation is worse.  The easy, lazy, cowardly\nacquiescence in lawlessness and crime is worse.  The loss of the\nreadiness to sacrifice one's very life, if need be, for those ends\nwhich are just and right, is infinitely worse.\n\nThere are interests which are worth fighting for and, if need be, they\nare worth dying for.  The sanctity of womanhood and the safety of\nlittle children, the security of those interests which are essential to\nhuman well-being and the protection of our homes, the honour and\nintegrity of our country, and the maintenance of those majestic\nprinciples of righteousness which underlie all social advance--these\nends are worth dying for.  If these high ends can be secured by\npersuasion and moral appeal, well and good.  But if they cannot, if\ntheir very existence is threatened by lawlessness and hate, then let\nmen of sound mind and honest heart stand ready to do battle for the\nright.\n\nIn these hours of stress which have come upon our country, we have need\nof men who possess the necessary moral courage to stand forth and meet\nthe crisis.  There is a loud call everywhere for those who are prepared\nto face duty without flinching.  It is for every man to say touching\nhis own measure of ability, \"Here am I, send me.\"\n\nIf the cause of democracy is not to fail in those hard years which will\ncome at the close of this war, there is need not only of wise and\nhonest leaders--there is need of ranks upon ranks of plain men who are\nready to give their best strength to the service of that government\nwhich is \"of the people, for the people, and by the people.\"\n\n\n  \"O beautiful, my country, ours once more,\n  What were our lives without thee;\n  What all our lives to save thee.\n  We reck not what we give thee,\n  We will not dare to doubt thee,\n  But ask whatever else and we will dare.\"\n\n\n\n\nV\n\nThe Young Man Who Changed the History of the World\n\nWhy do you write it 1917?  \"April 1, 1917,\" that was the way you wrote\nit this afternoon in your letter to her.\n\nThere was a time when it was not so.  The Hebrews were dating their\ncalendars from what they supposed to have been the period of the\ncreation.  The Romans reckoned their time from the founding of the city\non the seven hills.  The Greeks reckoned their time from the first\nOlympic games.\n\nBut to-day if you meet a Hebrew, or an Italian, or a Greek in any part\nof the world and ask him, \"What year is it?\" he will reply instantly,\n\"Nineteen seventeen.\"  It is just that long since a certain Child was\nborn in Bethlehem of Judea.\n\nHow strange it is, when you come to think of it, that the birth of a\nchild in an out-of-the-way village in Palestine should change the\ncalendars of the world!  We find in this commonplace fact a prophecy of\nHis radical transforming power in every department of life.  He was\ndestined to take the moral government of the race upon His shoulder as\nnone other ever has.  He was to alter the flow of the spiritual\ncurrents in human society and ultimately to change the history of the\nworld.\n\nHe did it all while He was still a young man.  He was only thirty-three\nyears old when they put Him to death upon the Cross.  He had used\nthirty of those thirty-three years in quiet preparation for the great\ntasks which were to come.  No wonder the three years of which we know\nso much were mighty when we think of the thirty years of preparation\nstanding behind them!  Ten years of training and discipline for one of\npublic action!  Ten days of study and devotion for one day of healing,\nredemptive effort!  Ten hours of silence and prayer before God for one\nhour of speech in the ears of men!\n\nHe did it all in His youth and when He died at the age of thirty-three\nHe did not look down and say, \"I have failed because My life is cut off\nall too soon.\"  He looked up and said, \"I have finished the work which\nThou gavest Me to do.\"\n\nHow marvellous was the life of this young man who changed the history\nof the world!  If we could get away from the idea that He is a\nstained-glass window or a marble statue or a lovely story in a book\nwhich most men seldom read--if we could only  see Him as He was, the\nWord made flesh, real, warm, alive, our hearts would leap.\n\nHe was born in the manger of a stable.  He grew up in a carpenter's\nhome and in a carpenter's shop.  He never saw the inside of a college,\nyet somehow He learned to think straight and to speak as never man\nspake.  He lived with the birds and the flowers, the trees, the hills\nand the stars.  He thought deeply upon the interests and needs of men\nuntil He knew what was in man and needed not that any should tell\nHim--He told them.  He looked up with pure eyes and a pure heart until\nHe saw God.  Therefore, when He spoke His word was with power; and when\nHe lived His life was with power; and when He stretched forth His hand,\nHis touch had healing in it.\n\nHis mind was exceedingly broad.  He had never been outside the borders\nof His own little country, which is about the size of the State of New\nHampshire.  He had never seen the mighty cities in Egypt to the south\nof Him, nor Antioch in Syria to the north.  He had never looked upon\nAthens nor upon Rome.  The man who thinks Broadway, New York, is the\ncenter of the solar system would have called Him provincial.  His feet\nknew nothing save the narrow streets of Jerusalem and the still\nnarrower lanes of Galilee.\n\nYet He moved about with a dream of world-wide empire in His head and\nthe vision of a Kingdom Everlasting in His heart.  \"I, if I be lifted\nup, will draw all men unto Me.\"  When He sent forth His disciples to do\nthe work He had taught them to do, this is the way their commission\nread: \"Go into all the world.  Make disciples of all nations.  Baptize\neverybody into My name and the name of the Father.\"  He had\ncourage--think of His standing there, a young peasant in little\nPalestine, talking about a world-wide empire over which He would rule\nby His own unseen spirit!\n\nHe found little in His environment to add strength to His hope.  He\nlived under a government which was tyrannical and corrupt.  The Jewish\nChurch to which He belonged was formal and lifeless.  He faced a\nsociety which was ruled by men like Herod, and by women like the\nshameless wife of Herod, who cut off a poor man's head for telling her\nthe truth about herself.  He saw the religious leaders of His day\nstraining at gnats of difficulty in their formal worship and then\nswallowing camels of moral fault in their every-day conduct.  The\nsituation might well have frightened the boldest heart.  It never\nfrightened Him.  \"The spirit of the Lord is upon Me,\" He said at the\nbeginning of His ministry, \"because He hath anointed Me to preach good\ntidings to the poor; He hath sent Me to bind up the broken-hearted, to\npreach deliverance to the captive, and to set at liberty them that are\nbruised.\"  And when He came to the close of His ministry, He said,\n\"Behold, I make all things new, a new heaven and a new earth, wherein\ndwelleth righteousness.\"  He was undaunted.\n\nHe was an optimist.  By that I do not mean one of those silly,\nshort-sighted individuals who goes about saying, \"Look always on the\nbright side.\"  Jesus looked at both sides.  He went about with His eyes\nopen.  He saw everything.  He saw the struggle and the sorrow of human\nlife and felt it as if it had been all His own.  He looked upon the\ntired, sad, sin-stained face of the race.  He knew it as He knew His\nown face, and He saw the heart of pain which had made it so.  He was no\nschoolboy shouting himself hoarse in a thoughtless enthusiasm which had\nnever tested its strength against the graver difficulties of life.  He\nsaw it all, felt it all, understood it all, yet He lived and died in a\ngreat, sweet, serene hope for the race.  You cannot find one hateful,\ncynical or despairing word falling from His lips.\n\nHe stood once where the shadow of the Cross was already drawing a black\nline across His path.  He had twelve disciples to whom for the past two\nyears He had given the best part of His time, His thought and His love.\nOne of them had already betrayed Him, bargaining away his poor measure\nof loyalty for thirty pieces of silver.  In the next hour another\ndisciple would deny Him three times over with an oath.  Another would\ndoubt Him straight in the face of all those pledges of genuineness\nwhich they had received at first hand.  And when the hour of trial\nstruck His disciples would all show themselves cowards and quitters.\n\nEven so, this young man did not despair.  \"Be of good cheer,\" He cried.\n\"I have overcome the world.\"  He was speaking in anticipation, but He\nwas so sure of it that He used the past tense as of a thing\naccomplished.  \"I have overcome the world.\"  He had kindled a fire\nwhich would never go out.  He had lodged a bit of yeast in the heart of\nthe race which would finally leaven the whole lump.  He had saturated a\nfew men with His ideas and spirit, and they would set in motion a\nprocess which one day would cause every knee to bow before Him and\nevery tongue to confess that He is Lord.\n\nHe was to change the history of the world--how did He go about it?  In\nthe first place He changed men's thoughts about God.  Men are\ninfluenced by their environment--they are transformed by the renewing\nof their minds.  They are moulded by the thoughts they think and the\ndesires they cherish.  As a man thinketh in his heart touching the\nthings that matter, so he becomes.\n\nThis is true as regards all our prevailing habits of mind, but the\npotency of right thought is to be found at its best when we come to a\nman's thought of God.  How shall we think about ultimate reality?  What\nis behind all these changing, passing phenomena?  Who is back of it\nall?  Is anybody?  If so, is he wise or blind?  Is he good or evil or\nmorally indifferent?  Does he mean anything by it all, or is he only an\nunreasoning, purposeless force?  You cannot ask yourself or your\nfellows a more important question than this--\"How shall we think about\nGod?\"\n\nMen had been filling their minds with all sorts of wild and foolish\nguesses about God.  This young man placed upon the lips of the race and\nwithin its heart that great word \"Father.\"  \"When ye pray say, 'Our\nFather.'\"  Begin with those words on your lips, with that thought in\nyour mind and with the filial spirit in your heart.  When you worship\n\"Worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father seeketh such\nto worship Him.\"  When you would turn away from the evil of your life\nsay, \"I will arise and go to my Father.\"  When you want assurance say,\n\"No man can pluck me out of my Father's hand.\"  When you come to die\nsay, \"Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit.\"  Death is the act of\na tired child falling back into the arms of his Father.  He showed us\nthe Father and it sufficed us.\n\nThis great truth was the heart of this young man's message to the\nrace--God is our Father.  God combines the strength and the tenderness,\nthe authority and the devotion, the responsible control and the\ncapacity for self-sacrifice which belong to fatherhood at its best.\nTake the highest you have ever seen in fatherhood and raise it to the\n_nth_ power, and then trust that, for that is God.\n\nHow many of you believe that?  It is the easiest thing in the world to\nsay, \"I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and earth,\"\nbut do you really believe it?  Are you striving to live it?  If God is\nyour Father, then you are His children, heirs of God, joint heirs with\nJesus Christ!  Your interests are His interests.  Your life and His\nlife, your destiny and His destiny, are not things apart--they are all\none.\n\nIn the light of that great overarching, underlying, interpenetrating\ntruth, there is no duty more commanding, no privilege more resplendent\nthan that of living daily and hourly in the filial spirit before Him.\nWhen a man really believes that, he goes about saying by word and by\ndeed, \"I am not alone, the Father is with me.  I come not to do my own\nwill, but the will of Him who sent me.  I must be about my Father's\nbusiness.\"  When that great sublime truth is set within the heart of\nthe race, as it was set within the heart of this young man, it changes\nthe history of the world.\n\nHe also changed men's thoughts about goodness.  What does it mean to be\ngood?  When may we call any man good?  There were men who felt that\nbeing good meant obeying the law, keeping the rules, ordering one's\nlife in accordance with the endless specifications outlined in the\nSacred Books.  If a man could get through the day without having gotten\noff the path for an inch, then he might be esteemed good.  And the race\ngroaned under the burdens which this system had bound upon the\nconsciences of men.  It was all outward, formal, mechanical, impossible.\n\nJesus set Himself against that whole conception and method of goodness.\n\"Except your righteousness exceeds that,\" He said to the men of His\nday, \"you will not in any wise enter the Kingdom of Heaven.\"  Goodness\nmust be inward, vital, spontaneous.  A good tree brings forth good\nfruit.  It cannot otherwise.  It does it as naturally as a bird sings.\nTherefore, make the tree good and let the fruit come as it will--it\nwill be all right.  A good man out of the good treasure of his heart\nbrings forth good deeds.  He does it spontaneously.  Therefore, make\nthe heart right and let the man do as he pleases.  Love God with an\nhonest heart and love your neighbours as well as yourself, and then do\nas you like.  Love works no ill, either Godward or manward; therefore,\nlove is the fulfilling of all law.  Here is the great underlying\nprinciple of all righteousness to which all our ethical considerations\nmust be adjusted.  As men rise from the practice of keeping outward\nrules into the more exacting but more joyous liberty of the spirit,\nthey become genuinely good.\n\nIn the third place Jesus put within our reach a power which would\nchange our hearts.  If you are made as I am, and as I have found\nhundreds of other men, you feel oftentimes that your life is weak and\nthin and mean.  You do not love God with an honest heart and strive to\nbe what He would have you.  You do not love your neighbours as you\nought, and give expression to that love in unselfish action.  You lag\nback when you ought to be forging ahead.  You lie down where you ought\nto climb.  You muddle along in a dull, commonplace way when your\naspirations and your high resolves should be mounting up with wings\nlike eagles.\n\nWhen you are frankly honest with yourself you say, as I have said to\nmyself, and as Paul said before us, \"The good that I would I do not,\nand the evil that I would not, that I do.  O wretched man that I am,\nwho shall deliver me!\"\n\nHere was One who knew that men are weak and thin and mean, yet He\nbelieved that every one of them through faith in Him could have a life\nstrong and rich and fine, He actually believed that men who have bumped\ntheir way clear down to the bottom of the moral stairs could climb up\nagain.  He believed that the woman of the street, whom the bigots of\nthat day were ready to stone, could \"go and sin no more,\" her sins\nforgiven because she loved much.\n\nThe publicans and harlots would go into the Kingdom--they would go in,\nJesus said, ahead of some of those respectable, cold-hearted Pharisees\nwho were scandalized at such talk.  He knew the capacity for moral\nrenewal which lies in waiting in every heart, and He knew His own power\nto call that capacity into effective action.  \"I am the door,\" He said,\n\"to newness of life.  By Me if any man enter in, he shall be saved.  He\nshall go in and out and find pasture.\"  Security, liberty, sustenance,\nthey would all be his!\n\nMy mind goes back to a man in one of my former parishes.  He kept a\nlittle store, but he neglected his business in order to get drunk.  The\nwolf was often at his door.  He had a good wife and two lovely\ndaughters, but he had broken their hearts by his evil ways.  He would\nbecome so intoxicated that he would not know his own name nor the\nstreet he lived on.  When he was coming out of such debauches he would\ngo about dirty, blear-eyed, trembling, asking every man he met to give\nhim money to get another drink.\n\nThen there came a day when that man's heredity was not changed, his\nenvironment was not changed, but his heart was changed.  He put his\nfaith in the Lord Jesus Christ and was turned into another man.  He\nbecame at once sober, reliable, industrious, affectionate, aspiring.\nHe put a smile on his wife's face which is there yet.  He began to take\ncare of his store and of his family.  He became an honoured and useful\ncitizen, chosen to positions of trust by his fellow men.  He has now\ngone to his reward, but if he hears what I am saying he would tell you\nthat it is all true.  He would tell you also that he owed this change\nto the transforming power of the Son of God, the Saviour of men.\n\nHow the world changes and for the better!  When Jesus Christ was here\nthey said of Him, \"He receiveth sinners and eateth with them.\"  They\nsaid it with a sneer.  When William Booth, the head of the Salvation\nArmy, did the same thing they said of him, \"He receiveth sinners,\" but\nthey regarded it as the glory of his life.  The first century saw the\nSon of Man scorned and spat upon for receiving sinners and eating with\nthem.  The twentieth century saw William Booth received at court by\nKing Edward VII and honoured with a degree from Oxford University for\nreceiving sinners.  The world moves; there is sunrise everywhere and\nthe promise of a brighter day!  And this great change has been wrought\nby the One who brought upon the earth a finer form of spiritual energy\nto renew the hearts of men.\n\nAnd finally this young man set in the sky of human aspiration a fixed\nstar of hope.  You cannot change the world by scolding it.  You cannot\nchange the world by petting it.  You must set before its eyes a vision\nof God and in its heart a passion for goodness, and in its will a form\nof strength that will not accept defeat, and in its sky a star of hope.\n\n  \"Strong Son of God, Immortal Love\n    Whom we that have not seen Thy face\n    By faith and faith alone embrace\n  Believing where we cannot prove.\"\n\n\nJesus Christ has done that for us all--\"Believing where we cannot\nprove!\"  He has taught us how to hope and to trust and in that sign to\nconquer.\n\nHe tasted the whole human situation for every man.  He was tempted in\nall points like as we are, and tried by those ordeals which culminated\non Calvary.  \"In this world,\" He said, \"ye shall have tribulation.\" The\nword He used means literally \"pressure.\"  Life is not all music and\nrefreshments.  Every honest life must be lived under pressure.  It is\ncompelled to do its work under the steady weight of duty, obligation,\nresponsibility.  It is compelled to fight a good fight in order to keep\nits faith and finish its course.\n\nIn the end that is the making of any life.  Steam does all its work\nunder pressure.  Turn it loose in the air to go where it will and it\nbecomes useless.  In this world we must live under pressure.  But Jesus\nbade men face it all undaunted and radiant.  He planted in their lives\nan eternal hope, \"Be of good cheer.  I have overcome--you can.\"\n\nHe knew that His own purposes were entirely right--\"I do always those\nthings that please the Father.\"  He knew that He was strongly\nentrenched in the love and confidence of those who knew Him best.  He\nknew that the great moral order was on His side and that He could\nafford to wait for results.  In that high confidence He moved ahead as\nserene as the sun shining in its strength.  \"Be of good cheer,\" He\ncried, when He stood within a hundred yards of Calvary.\n\nHis victory was not meant to be exceptional, it was meant to be\nrepresentative.  It was to be shared and repeated by all those who walk\nin fellowship with Him.  How much it means when a man is making his way\nthrough some dark forest or climbing some stiff mountainside to find\nthe faintest sort of a trail.  \"Other men have passed this way,\" he\ncries, \"and what men have done, men can do again.\"\n\nHere is a trail of spiritual victory, reaching on and up through all\nmanner of untoward situations!  His own patient, bleeding feet marked\nit out and thousands of His faithful followers have traversed it in\ntheir turn.  \"Who can separate us from the love of Christ?  Can\ntribulation or distress or persecution or famine, or peril or sword?\nNay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who\nloved us.  For I am persuaded that neither life nor death nor angels,\nnor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come,\nnor height nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate\nus from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.\"\n\nWhen the long, hard, dark days come it means everything to a man to\nknow that there is that within him which cannot go down in final\ndefeat.  His real life, his best life, his enduring life, is hid with\nChrist in God, and that life will yet have its way.\n\nThe earth is another place when it is seen to have a sky above it.\nThis earthly life is another thing when it is seen to have a heaven\nabove it and beyond it.  We are saved by hope, by the hope of life\nabundant, life enduring, life eternal, which shines on and on, no\nmatter how earth's clouds may come and go.\n\nWhen all else seems to fail we look up and hear this young man say,\n\"Let not your heart be troubled.  Believe in God, believe also in Me.\nIn My Father's house are many mansions.  If it were not so I would have\ntold you.  I go to prepare a place for you that where I am there ye may\nbe.  Be of good cheer, I have overcome and by My grace you will.\"\n\nHere then is my case!  Here is my own tribute of loyalty and affection\nfor that young man who changed the history of the world.  He did it by\nchanging men's thoughts about God--\"To us there is but one God, the\nFather.\"  He did it by changing men's conception of goodness--to be\ngood is to be like Him, simple, genuine, spontaneous, in our love and\npractice of the right life.  He did it by changing the hearts of men\nfrom within--\"If any man is in Christ he is a new creature.\"  He did it\nby setting in our human sky a fixed star of hope to shine on until the\nday dawns and the shadows flee away.\n\nIn the face of it all how can any man of sense and conscience do less\nthan follow Him and act with Him until His will is done on earth as it\nis done in Heaven!\n\n  \"If Jesus Christ is a man\n    And only a man, I say\n  That of all mankind I cleave to Him\n    And to Him will I cleave alway.\n\n  \"If Jesus Christ be God\n    And the only God, I swear\n  I will follow Him through Heaven and Hell,\n    The earth, the sea, the air.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n_Printed in the United States of America_\n\n\n\n\nBIOGRAPHY AND REMINISCENCES\n\n\nJAMES M. LUDLOW, P.P., Litt.D.\n\n_Author of \"The Captain of the Janizaries,\" \"Deborah,\" etc._\n\n\nAlong the Friendly Way\n\nReminiscences and Impressions.  Frontispiece, 12mo, cloth, net\n\nDr. Ludlow has observed keenly, and thought wisely and deeply; he has\nread extensively, traveled widely, and rubbed elbows and wits with men\ngreat and little of many nations and under varying conditions.  He is\nthe \"full man\" of which the philosopher speaks.  And all these\nintellectual and spiritual riches garnered from many harvests he\nspreads before the reader in a style that is remarkable for its\nfelicity of phrasing, the color of its varied imagery, and its humor,\nwarmth, and human sympathy.\n\n\nHERBERT H. GOWEN, F. R. G. S.\n\nThe Napoleon of the Pacific: Kamehameha the Great\n\nIllustrated, 12mo, cloth, net\n\nThe history of the great chieftain who, in the closing years of the\neighteenth century, effected the union of the eight islands of the\nHawaiian Archipelago and welded them into a kingdom.  Both student and\ngeneral reader will find THE NAPOLEON OF THE PACIFIC a richly, stored\nmine of deeply interesting information, extremely difficult to come at\nin any other form.\n\n\nCLARA E. LAUGHLIN\n\nFoch the Man\n\n_New Revised and Enlarged Edition with Additional Illustrations.  Net_\n\nW. B. McCormick in the _N. Y. Sun_ says: \"Miss Laughlin has let nothing\nescape her that will throw light on the development of his character.\nA revelation of the man who at sixty-seven put the crowning touch to\nthe complete defeat of Germany's military pretensions.\"\n\n\nFREDERICK LYNCH, P.P.\n\nThe One Great Society\n\nA Book of Recollections.  12mo, cloth, net\n\nRecords of some personal reminiscences and recollections of the author,\nwho, as preacher, editor and prominent member of one or two\ninternational organizations, has met many of the world's prominent men\nin the fields of divinity, philanthropy, literature and reform.\n\n\n\nTHE NEW WORLD ORDER\n\n\nPROF. A. T. ROBERTSON, P.P., LL.D.\n\nThe New Citizenship\n\nThe Christian Facing a New World Order.  Net\n\n\"Characterized by the thoroughgoing, wide-reaching scholarship for\nwhich Professor Robertson is internationally noted, but also by his\nfine common sense, felicity of diction and strength and beauty of\nstyle.  It is a book for busy laymen and book-reading women, as well as\nfor preachers.\"--_Baptist World_.\n\n\nGEORGE WOOD ANDERSON\n\nProblem--or Opportunity?\n\nWhich is it the Church is Now Facing.  12mo, cloth, net\n\nMr. Anderson, an evangelist, has seen service with the American boys on\nthe battle-front, and impelled by his vivid experiences oversea,\naddresses himself afresh to the problems and opportunities now facing\nthe Christian church.  A plea for a more devoted working and\napplication of the program Christ laid out for His followers, to the\nclamant needs of humanity at large.\n\n\nC. B. WILLIAMS, Ph.D., P.P.\n\nCitizens of Two Worlds\n\n12mo, cloth, net\n\n\"A volume of addresses growing out of the spirit of this new age of\ndemocracy and brotherhood, which speaks to the hearts of struggling men\nand women who want to solve the age's economic and social problems by\nfollowing the teachings of the Nazarene.  Sermons which show how to\nreach up to heaven for the dynamic and inspiration to reach down to\nearth and help its needy millions.\"--_Christian Work_.\n\n\nWILLIAM C. SCHAEFFER, P.P.\n\nThe Greater Task\n\nStudies in Social Service.  Cloth, net\n\n\"This author believes that the kingdom of God is coming; that it has\ncome; that it will continue to come in ever greater and greater power\nand glory.  He writes with force and illumination, and brings home with\ngreat effectiveness, both to the individual and the Church, the sense\nof duty and the broad scope of obligation and opportunity in the\npresent crisis.  A book of real leadership and merit.\"--_Christian\nGuardian_.","title":"Five Young Men: Messages of Yesterday for the Young Men of To-day","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":21570}