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+Project Gutenberg's The world's great sermons, Volume 8, by Grenville Kleiser
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The world's great sermons, Volume 8
+       Talmage to Knox Little
+
+Author: Grenville Kleiser
+
+Release Date: March 24, 2004 [EBook #11693]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORLD'S GREAT SERMONS VOL. 8 ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE WORLD'S GREAT SERMONS
+
+
+GRENVILLE KLEISER
+
+Formerly of Yale Divinity School Faculty; Author of "How to Speak in
+Public," Etc.
+
+With Assistance from Many of the Foremost Living Preachers and Other
+Theologians
+
+
+INTRODUCTION BY LEWIS O. BRASTOW, D.D.
+
+Professor Emeritus of Practical Theology in Yale University
+
+
+VOLUME VIII TALMAGE TO KNOX LITTLE
+
+1908
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+VOLUME VIII.
+
+
+  TALMAGE (1832-1901).
+  A Bloody Monster
+
+  SPURGEON (1834-1892).
+  Songs in the Night
+
+  POTTER (1834-1908)
+  Memorial Discourse on Phillips Brooks
+
+  ABBOTT (Born in 1835).
+  The Divinity in Humanity
+
+  BROOKS (1835-1893).
+  The Pride of Life
+
+  GLADDEST (Born in 1836).
+  The Prince of Life
+
+  CLIFFORD (Born in 1836).
+  The Forgiveness of Sins
+
+  MOODY (1837-1899).
+  What Think Ye of Christ?
+
+  FOWLER (1837-1908).
+  The Spirit of Christ
+
+  WHYTE (Born in 1837).
+  Experience
+
+  WATKINSON (Born in 1838).
+  The Transfigured Sackcloth
+
+  LORIMER (1838-1904).
+  The Fall of Satan
+
+  LITTLE (Born in 1839).
+  Thirst Satisfied
+
+
+
+
+TALMAGE
+
+A BLOODY MONSTER
+
+BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+
+Thomas De Witt Talmage was born at Bound Brook, N.J., in 1832. For
+many years he preached to large and enthusiastic congregations at the
+Brooklyn Tabernacle. At one time six hundred newspapers regularly
+printed his sermons. He was a man of great vitality, optimistic by
+nature, and particularly popular with young people. His voice
+was rather high and unmusical, but his distinct enunciation and
+earnestness of manner gave a peculiar attraction to his pulpit
+oratory. His rhetoric has been criticized for floridness and
+sensationalism, but his word pictures held multitudes of people
+spellbound as in the presence of a master. He died in 1901.
+
+
+
+
+TALMAGE
+
+1832--1901
+
+A BLOODY MONSTER[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Copyright, 1900, by Louis Klopsch, and reprinted by
+permission.]
+
+_It is my son's coat; an evil beast hath devoured him._--Gen. xxxvii.,
+33.
+
+
+Joseph's brethren dipt their brother's coat in goat's blood, and then
+brought the dabbled garment to their father, cheating him with the
+idea that a ferocious animal had slain him, and thus hiding their
+infamous behavior. But there is no deception about that which we hold
+up to your observation to-day. A monster such as never ranged African
+thicket or Hindustan jungle hath tracked this land, and with bloody
+maw hath strewn the continent with the mangled carcasses of whole
+generations; and there are tens of thousands of fathers and mothers
+who could hold up the garment of their slain boy, truthfully
+exclaiming, "It is my son's coat; an evil beast hath devoured him."
+There has, in all ages and climes, been a tendency to the improper use
+of stimulants. Noah took to strong drink. By this vice, Alexander the
+Conqueror was conquered. The Romans at their feasts fell off their
+seats with intoxication. Four hundred millions of our race are
+opium-eaters. India, Turkey, and China have groaned with the
+desolation; and by it have been quenched such lights as Halley and De
+Quincey. One hundred millions are the victims of the betelnut, which
+has specially blasted the East Indies. Three hundred millions chew
+hashish, and Persia, Brazil, and Africa suffer the delirium. The
+Tartars employ murowa; the Mexicans, the agave; the people at Guarapo,
+an intoxicating product taken from sugarcane; while a great multitude,
+that no man can number, are the votaries of alcohol. To it they bow.
+Under it they are trampled. In its trenches they fall. On its ghastly
+holocaust they burn. Could the muster-roll of this great army be
+called, and could they come up from the dead, what eye could endure
+the reeking, festering putrefaction? What heart could endure the
+groan of agony? Drunkenness! Does it not jingle the burglar's
+key? Does it not whet the assassin's knife? Does it not cock the
+highwayman's pistol? Does it not wave the incendiary's torch? Has it
+not sent the physician reeling into the sick-room; and the minister
+with his tongue thick into the pulpit? Did not an exquisite poet, from
+the very top of his fame, fall a gibbering sot, into the gutter, on
+his way to be married to one of the fairest daughters of New England,
+and at the very hour the bride was decking herself for the altar; and
+did he not die of delirium tremens, almost unattended, in a hospital?
+Tamerlane asked for one hundred and sixty thousand skulls with which
+to build a pyramid to his own honor. He got the skulls, and built the
+pyramid. But if the bones of all those who have fallen as a prey to
+dissipation could be piled up, it would make a vaster pyramid. Who
+will gird himself for the journey and try with me to scale this
+mountain of the dead--going up miles high on human carcasses to find
+still other peaks far above, mountain above mountain white with the
+bleached bones of drunkards?
+
+The Sabbath has been sacrificed to the rum traffic. To many of our
+people, the best day of the week is the worst. Bakers must keep their
+shops closed on the Sabbath. It is dangerous to have loaves of bread
+going out on Sunday. The shoe store is closed: severe penalty will
+attack the man who sells boots on the Sabbath. But down with the
+window-shutters of the grog-shops. Our laws shall confer particular
+honor upon the rum-traffickers. All other trades must stand aside for
+these. Let our citizens who have disgraced themselves by trading in
+clothing and hosiery and hardware and lumber and coal take off their
+hats to the rum-seller, elected to particular honor. It is unsafe for
+any other class of men to be allowed license for Sunday work. But
+swing out your signs, and open your doors, O ye traffickers in the
+peace of families and in the souls of immortal men. Let the corks fly
+and the beer foam and the rum go tearing down the half-consumed throat
+of the inebriate. God does not see! Does He? Judgment will never come!
+Will it?
+
+It may be that God is determined to let drunkenness triumph, and the
+husbands and sons of thousands of our best families be destroyed by
+this vice, in order that our people, amazed and indignant, may rise up
+and demand the extermination of this municipal crime. There is a way
+of driving down the hoops of a barrel so tight that they break. We
+have, in this country, at various times, tried to regulate this evil
+by a tax on whisky. You might as well try to regulate the Asiatic
+cholera or the smallpox by taxation. The men who distil liquors are,
+for the most part, unscrupulous; and the higher the tax, the more
+inducement to illicit distillation. Oh! the folly of trying to
+restrain an evil by government tariff! If every gallon of whisky
+made--if every flask of wine produced, should be taxed a thousand
+dollars, it would not be enough to pay for the tears it has wrung from
+the eyes of widows and orphans, nor for the blood it has dashed on
+the Christian Church, nor for the catastrophe of the millions it has
+destroyed for ever.
+
+I sketch two houses in one street. The first is bright as home can be.
+The father comes at nightfall, and the children run out to meet him.
+Bountiful evening meal! Gratulation and sympathy and laughter! Music
+in the parlor! Fine pictures on the wall! Costly books on the table!
+Well-clad household! Plenty of everything to make home happy!
+
+House the second! Piano sold, yesterday by the sheriff! Wife's furs at
+pawnbroker's shop! Clock gone! Daughter's jewelry sold to get flour!
+Carpets gone off the floor! Daughters in faded and patched dresses!
+Wife sewing for the stores! Little child with an ugly wound on her
+face, struck by an angry blow! Deep shadow of wretchedness falling in
+every room! Doorbell rings! Little children hide! Daughters turn pale!
+Wife holds her breath! Blundering step in the hall! Door opens! Fiend,
+brandishing his fist, cries, "Out! out! What are you doing here?" Did
+I call this house second? No; it is the same house. Rum transformed
+it. Rum embruted the man. Rum sold the shawl. Rum tore up the carpets.
+Rum shook his fist. Rum desolated the hearth. Rum changed that
+paradise into a hell.
+
+I sketch two men that you know very well. The first graduated from one
+of our literary institutions. His father, mother, brothers and sisters
+were present to see him graduate. They heard the applauding thunders
+that greeted his speech. They saw the bouquets tossed to his feet.
+They saw the degree conferred and the diploma given. He never looked
+so well. Everybody said, "What a noble brow! What a fine eye! What
+graceful manners! What brilliant prospects!"
+
+Man the second: Lies in the station-house. The doctor has just been
+sent for to bind up the gashes received in a fight. His hair is matted
+and makes him look like a wild beast. His lip is bloody and cut. Who
+is this battered and bruised wretch that was picked up by the police
+and carried in drunk and foul and bleeding? Did I call him man the
+second? He is man the first! Rum transformed him. Rum destroyed his
+prospects. Rum disappointed parental expectation. Rum withered those
+garlands of commencement day. Rum cut his lip. Rum dashed out his
+manhood. Rum, accurst rum!
+
+This foul thing gives one swing to its scythe, and our best merchants
+fall; their stores are sold, and they sink into dishonored graves.
+Again it swings its scythe, and some of our physicians fall into
+suffering that their wisest prescriptions cannot cure. Again it swings
+its scythe, and ministers of the gospel fall from the heights of
+Zion, with long resounding crash of ruin and shame. Some of your own
+households have already been shaken. Perhaps you can hardly admit it;
+but where was your son last night? Where was he Friday night? Where
+was he Thursday night? Wednesday night? Tuesday night? Monday night?
+Nay, have not some of you in your own bodies felt the power of this
+habit? You think that you could stop? Are you sure you could? Go on
+a little further, and I am sure you cannot. I think, if some of you
+should try to break away, you would find a chain on the right wrist,
+and one on the left; one on the right foot, and another on the left.
+This serpent does not begin to hurt until it has wound 'round and
+'round. Then it begins to tighten and strangle and crush until the
+bones crack and the blood trickles and the eyes start from their
+sockets, and the mangled wretch cries. "O God! O God! help! help!" But
+it is too late; and not even the fires of we can melt the chain when
+once it is fully fastened.
+
+I have shown you the evil beast. The question is, who will hunt him
+down, and how shall we shoot him? I answer, first, by getting our
+children right on this subject. Let them grow up with an utter
+aversion to strong drink. Take care how you administer it even as
+medicine. If you must give it to them and you find that they have a
+natural love for it, as some have, put in a glass of it some horrid
+stuff, and make it utterly nauseous. Teach, them, as faithfully as
+you do the truths of the Bible, that rum is a fiend. Take them to the
+almshouse, and show them the wreck and ruin it works. Walk with them
+into the homes that have been scourged by it. If a drunkard hath
+fallen into a ditch, take them right up where they can see his face,
+bruised, savage, and swollen, and say, "Look, my son. Rum did that!"
+Looking out of your window at some one who, intoxicated to madness,
+goes through the street, brandishing his fist, blaspheming God, a
+howling, defying, shouting, reeling, raving, and foaming maniac, say
+to your son, "Look; that man was once a child like you." As you go by
+the grog-shop let them know that that is the place where men are slain
+and their wives made paupers and their children slaves. Hold out to
+your children warnings, all rewards, all counsels, lest in afterdays
+they break your heart and curse your gray hairs. A man laughed at my
+father for his scrupulous temperance principles, and said: "I am more
+liberal than you. I always give my children the sugar in the glass
+after we have been taking a drink." Three of his sons have died
+drunkards, and the fourth is imbecile through intemperate habits.
+
+Again, we will grapple this evil by voting only for sober men. How
+many men are there who can rise above the feelings of partizanship,
+and demand that our officials shall be sober men? I maintain that the
+question of sobriety is higher than the question of availability; and
+that, however eminent a man's services may be, if he have habits of
+intoxication, he is unfit for any office in the gift of a Christian
+people. Our laws will be no better than the men who make them. Spend a
+few days at Harrisburg or Albany or Washington and you will find
+out why, upon these subjects, it is impossible to get righteous
+enactments.
+
+Again, we will war upon this evil by organized societies. The friends
+of the rum traffic have banded together; annually issue their
+circulars; raise fabulous sums of money to advance their interests;
+and by grips, passwords, signs, and strategems, set at defiance public
+morals. Let us confront them with organizations just as secret,
+and, if need be, with grips and pass-words and signs, maintain our
+position. There is no need that our beneficent societies tell all
+their plans. I am in favor of all lawful strategy in the carrying on
+of this conflict. I wish to God we could lay under the wine-casks a
+train which, once ignited, would shake the earth with the explosion of
+this monstrous iniquity!
+
+Again, we will try the power of the pledge. There are thousands of men
+who have been saved by putting their names to such a document. I know
+it is laughed at; but there are some men who, having once promised a
+thing, do it. "Some have broken the pledge." Yes; they were liars. But
+all men are not liars. I do not say that it is the duty of all persons
+to make such signature; but I do say that it would be the salvation
+of many of you. The glorious work of Theobald Mathew can never be
+estimated. At this hand four millions of people took the pledge, and
+multitudes in Ireland, England, Scotland, and America, have kept
+it till this day. The pledge signed has been to thousands the
+proclamation of emancipation.
+
+Again, we expect great things from asylums for inebriates. They have
+already done a glorious work. I think that we are coming at last to
+treat inebriation as it ought to be treated, namely, as an awful
+disease, self-inflicted, to be sure, but nevertheless a disease. Once
+fastened upon a man, sermons will not cure him, temperance lectures
+will not eradicate it; religious tracts will not remove it; the Gospel
+of Christ will not arrest it. Once under the power of this awful
+thirst, the man is bound to go on; and, if the foaming glass were on
+the other side of perdition, he would wade through the fires of
+hell to get it. A young man in prison had such a strong thirst for
+intoxicating liquors that he had cut off his hand at the wrist, called
+for a bowl of brandy in order to stop the bleeding, thrust his wrist
+into the bowl, and then drank the contents. Stand not, when the thirst
+is on him, between a man and his cups. Clear the track for him. Away
+with the children! he would tread their life out. Away with the wife!
+he would dash her to death. Away with the cross! he would run it down.
+Away with the Bible! he would tear it up for the winds. Away with
+heaven! he considers it worthless as a straw. "Give me the drink!
+Give it to me! Tho the hands of blood pass up the bowl, and the soul
+trembles over the pit--the drink! Give it to me! Tho it be pale with
+tears; tho the froth of everlasting anguish float on the foam--give it
+to me! I drink to my wife's wo to my children's rags; to my eternal
+banishment from God and hope and heaven! Give it to me! the drink!"
+
+Again, we will contend against these evils by trying to persuade
+the respectable classes of society to the banishment of alcoholic
+beverages. You who move in elegant and refined associations; you
+who drink the best liquors; you who never drink until you lose your
+balance, let us look at each other in the face on this subject. You
+have, under God, in your power the redemption of this land from
+drunkenness. Empty your cellars and wine-closets of the beverage, and
+then come out and give us your hand, your vote, your prayers, your
+sympathies. Do that, and I will promise three things: first, that you
+will find unspeakable happiness in having done your duty; secondly,
+you will probably save somebody--perhaps your own child; thirdly,
+you will not, in your last hour, have a regret that you made
+the sacrifice, if sacrifice it be. As long as you make drinking
+respectable, drinking customs will prevail, and the plowshare of
+death, drawn by terrible disasters, will go on turning up this whole
+continent, from end to end, with the long, deep, awful furrow of
+drunkards' graves.
+
+This rum fiend would like to go and hang up a skeleton in your
+beautiful house, so that, when you opened the front door to go in, you
+would see it in the hall; and when you sat at your table you would see
+it hanging from the wall; and, when you opened your bedroom you would
+find it stretched upon your pillow; and, waking at night, you would
+feel its cold hand passing over your face and pinching at your heart.
+There is no home so beautiful but it may be devastated by the awful
+curse. It throws its jargon into the sweetest harmony. What was it
+that silenced Sheridan, the English orator, and shattered the golden
+scepter with which he swayed parliaments and courts? What foul sprite
+turned the sweet rhythm of Robert Burns into a tuneless babble? What
+was it that swamped the noble spirit of one of the heroes of the last
+war, until, in a drunken fit, he reeled from the deck of a Western
+steamer, and was drowned. There was one whose voice we all loved to
+hear. He was one of the most classic orators of the century. People
+wondered why a man of so pure a heart and so excellent a life should
+have such a sad countenance always. They knew not that his wife was a
+sot.
+
+I call upon those who are guilty of these indulgences to quit the path
+of death! Oh! what a change it would make in your home! Do you see how
+everything there is being desolated? Would you not like to bring back
+joy to your wife's heart, and have your children come out to meet you
+with as much confidence as once they showed? Would you not like to
+rekindle the home-lights that long ago were extinguished? It is not
+too late to change. It may not entirely obliterate from your soul the
+memory of wasted years and a ruined reputation, nor smooth out from
+your anxious brow the wrinkles which trouble has plowed. It may not
+call back unkind words uttered or rough deeds done; for perhaps in
+those awful moments you struck her! It may not take from your memory
+the bitter thoughts connected with some little grave. But it is not
+too late to save yourself, and secure for God and your family the
+remainder of your fast-going life.
+
+But perhaps you have not utterly gone astray. I may address one who
+may not have quite made up his mind. Let your better nature speak out.
+You take one side or other in war against drunkenness. Have you the
+courage to put your foot down right, and say to your companions and
+friends, "I will never drink intoxicating liquor in all my life; nor
+will I countenance the habit in others"? Have nothing to do with
+strong drink. It has turned the earth into a place of skulls, and has
+stood opening the gate to a lost world to let in its victims; until
+now the door swings no more upon its hinges, but, day and night,
+stands wide open to let in the agonized procession of doomed men.
+
+Do I address one whose regular work in life is to administer to
+this appetite? For God's sake get out of that business! If a we be
+pronounced upon the man who gives his neighbor drink, how many woes
+must be hanging over the man who does this every day and every hour of
+the day!
+
+Do not think that because human government may license you that
+therefore God licenses you. I am surprized to hear men say that they
+respect the "original package" decision by which the Supreme Court
+of the United States allows rum to be taken into States like Kansas,
+which decided against the sale of intoxicants. I have no respect for
+a wrong decision, I care not who makes it; the three judges of the
+Supreme Court who gave minority report against that decision were
+right, and the chief justice was wrong. The right of a State to defend
+itself against the rum traffic will yet be demonstrated, the Supreme
+Court notwithstanding. Higher than the judicial bench at Washington is
+the throne of the Lord God Almighty. No enactment, national, State, or
+municipal, can give you the right to carry on a business whose effect
+is destruction.
+
+God knows better than you do yourself the number of drinks you have
+poured down. You keep a list; but a more accurate list has been kept
+than yours. You may call it Burgundy, Bourbon, cognac, Heidsieck, sour
+mash, or beer. God calls it "strong-drink." Whether you sell it in low
+oyster-cellar or behind the polished counter of a first-class hotel,
+the divine curse is upon you. I tell you plainly that you will meet
+your customers one day when there will be no counter between you. When
+your work is done on earth, and you enter the reward of your business,
+all the souls of the men whom you have destroyed will crowd around
+you, and pour their bitterness into your cup. They will show you their
+wounds and say, "You made them"; and point to their unquenchable
+thirst and say, "You kindled it"; and rattle their chain and say, "You
+forged it." Then their united groans will smite your ear; and with the
+hands out of which you once picked the sixpences and the dimes they
+will push you off the verge of great precipices; while rolling up from
+beneath, and breaking away among the crags of death, will thunder, "Wo
+to him that giveth his neighbor drink!"
+
+
+
+
+SPURGEON
+
+SONGS IN THE NIGHT
+
+BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+
+Charles Haddon Spurgeon was born at Kelvedon, Essex, England, in 1834.
+He was one of the most powerful and popular preachers of his time,
+and his extraordinary force of character and wonderful enthusiasm
+attracted vast audiences. His voice was unusually powerful, clear and
+melodious, and he used it with consummate skill. In the preparation of
+his sermons he meditated much but wrote not a word, so that he was
+in the truest sense a purely extemporaneous speaker. Sincerity,
+intensity, imagination and humor, he had in preeminent degree, and
+an English style that has been described as "a long bright river of
+silver speech which unwound, evenly and endlessly, like a ribbon
+from a revolving spool that could fill itself as fast as it emptied
+itself." Thirty-eight volumes of his sermons were issued in his
+lifetime and are still in increasing demand. Dr. Robertson Nicoll
+says: "Our children will think more of these sermons than we do; and
+as I get older I read them more and more." He died in 1892.
+
+
+
+
+SPURGEON
+
+1834--1892
+
+SONGS IN THE NIGHT
+
+_But none saith, Where is God my maker, who giveth songs in the
+night_?--Job xxxv., 10.
+
+
+Elihu was a wise man, exceeding wise, tho not as wise as the all-wise
+Jehovah, who sees light in the clouds, and finds order in confusion;
+hence Elihu, being much puzzled at beholding Job thus afflicted, cast
+about him to find the cause of it, and he very wisely hit upon one of
+the most likely reasons, altho it did not happen to be the right one
+in Job's case. He said within himself--"Surely, if men be tried and
+troubled exceedingly, it is because, while they think about their
+troubles and distress themselves about their fears, they do not say,
+'Where is God my maker, who giveth songs in the night?'" Elihu's
+reason was right in the majority of cases. The great cause of the
+Christian's distress, the reason of the depths of sorrow into which
+many believers are plunged, is this--that while they are looking
+about, on the right hand and on the left, to see how they may escape
+their troubles, they forget to look to the hills whence all real help
+cometh; they do not say, "Where is God my maker, who giveth songs in
+the night?" We shall, however, leave that inquiry, and dwell upon
+those sweet words, "God my maker, who giveth songs in the night."
+
+The world hath its night. It seemeth necessary that it should have
+one. The sun shineth by day, and men go forth to their labors; but
+they grow weary, and nightfall cometh on, like a sweet boon from
+heaven. The darkness draweth the curtains, and shutteth out the light,
+which might prevent our eyes from slumber; while the sweet, calm
+stillness of the night permits us to rest upon the lap of ease, and
+there forget awhile our cares, until the morning sun appeareth, and
+an angel puts his hand upon the curtain, and undraws it once again,
+touches our eyelids, and bids us rise, and proceed to the labors of
+the day. Night is one of the greatest blessings men enjoy; we have
+many reasons to thank God for it. Yet night is to many a gloomy
+season. There is "the pestilence that walketh in darkness"; there
+is "the terror by night"; there is the dread of robbers and of fell
+disease, with all those fears that the timorous know, when they have
+no light wherewith they can discern objects. It is then they fancy
+that spiritual creatures walk the earth; tho, if they knew rightly,
+they would find it to be true, that
+
+  "Millions of spiritual creatures walk this earth,
+  Unseen, both when we sleep and when we wake,"
+
+and that at all times they are round about us--not more by night than
+by day. Night is the season of terror and alarm to most men. Yet even
+night hath its songs. Have you never stood by the seaside at night,
+and heard the pebbles sing, and the waves chant God's glories? Or have
+you never risen from your couch, and thrown up the window of your
+chamber, and listened there? Listened to what? Silence--save now and
+then a murmuring sound, which seems sweet music then. And have you not
+fancied that you heard the harp of God playing in heaven? Did you not
+conceive, that yon stars, that those eyes of God, looking down on you,
+were also mouths of song--that every star was singing God's glory,
+singing, as it shone, its mighty Maker, and His lawful, well-deserved
+praise? Night hath its songs. We need not much poetry in our spirit,
+to catch the song of night, and hear the spheres as they chant praises
+which are loud to the heart, tho they be silent to the ear--the
+praises of the mighty God, who bears up the unpillared arch of heaven,
+and moves the stars in their courses....
+
+If we are going to sing of the things of yesterday, let us begin with
+what God did for us in past times. My beloved brethren, you will find
+it a sweet subject for song at times, to begin to sing of electing
+love and covenanted mercies. When thou thyself art low, it is well to
+sing of the fountain-head of mercy; of that blest decree wherein thou
+wast ordained to eternal life, and of that glorious Man who undertook
+thy redemption; of that solemn covenant signed, and sealed, and
+ratified, in all things ordered well; of that everlasting love which,
+ere the hoary mountains were begotten, or ere the aged hills were
+children, chose thee, loved thee firmly, loved thee fast, loved thee
+well, loved thee eternally. I tell thee, believer, if thou canst go
+back to the years of eternity; if thou canst in thy mind run back
+to that period, or ere the everlasting hills were fashioned, or the
+fountains of the great deep scooped out, and if thou canst see thy
+God inscribing thy name in His eternal book; if thou canst see in His
+loving heart eternal thoughts of love to thee, thou wilt find this a
+charming means of giving thee songs in the night. No songs like those
+which come from electing love; no sonnets like those that are dictated
+by meditations on discriminating mercy. Some, indeed, cannot sing of
+election: the Lord open their mouths a little wider! Some there are
+that are afraid of the very term; but we only despise men who are
+afraid of what they believe, afraid of what God has taught them in His
+Bible. No, in our darker hours it is our joy to sing:
+
+  "Sons we are through God's election,
+    Who in Jesus Christ believe;
+  By eternal destination,
+    Sovereign grace we now receive.
+  Lord, thy favor,
+    Shall both grace and glory give."
+
+Think, Christian, of the yesterday, I say, and thou wilt get a song
+in the night. But if thou hast not a voice tuned to so high a key as
+that, let me suggest some other mercies thou mayest sing of; and they
+are the mercies thou hast experienced. What! man, canst thou not sing
+a little of that blest hour when Jesus met thee; when, a blind slave,
+thou wast sporting with death, and He saw thee, and said: "Come, poor
+slave, come with me"? Canst thou not sing of that rapturous moment
+when He snapt thy fetters, dashed thy chains to the earth, and said:
+"I am the Breaker; I came to break thy chains, and set thee free"?
+What tho thou art ever so gloomy now, canst thou forget that happy
+morning, when in the house of God thy voice was loud, almost as a
+seraph's voice, in praise? for thou couldst sing: "I am forgiven; I am
+forgiven":
+
+  "A monument of grace,
+  A sinner saved by blood."
+
+Go back, man; sing of that moment, and then thou wilt have a song in
+the night? Or if thou hast almost forgotten that, then sure thou hast
+some precious milestone along the road of life that is not quite grown
+over with moss, on which thou canst read some happy inspiration of His
+mercy toward thee! What! didst thou never have a sickness like that
+which thou art suffering now, and did He not raise thee up from that?
+Wast thou never poor before, and did He not supply thy wants? Wast
+thou never in straits before, and did He not deliver thee? Come, man!
+I beseech thee, go to the river of thine experience, and pull up a few
+bulrushes, and weave them into an ark, wherein thy infant faith may
+float safely on the stream. I bid thee not forget what God hath done.
+What! hast thou buried thine own diary? I beseech thee, man, turn over
+the book of thy remembrance. Canst thou not see some sweet hill Mizar?
+Canst thou not think of some blest hour when the Lord met with thee at
+Hermon? Hast thou never been on the Delectable Mountains? Hast thou
+never been fetched from the den of lions? Hast thou never escaped the
+jaw of the lion and the paw of the bear? Nay, O man, I know thou hast;
+go back, then, a little way, and take the mercies of yesterday; and
+tho it is dark now, light up the lamps of yesterday, and they shall
+glitter through the darkness, and thou shalt find that God hath given
+thee a song in the night.
+
+But I think, beloved, there is never so dark a night, but there is
+something to sing about, even concerning that night; for there is one
+thing I am sure we can sing about, let the night be ever so dark, and
+that is, "It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, and
+because His compassions fail not." If we cannot sing very loud, yet we
+can sing a little low tune, something like this--"He hath not dealt
+with us after our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities."
+
+"Oh!" says one, "I do not know where to get my dinner from to-morrow.
+I am a poor wretch." So you may be, my dear friend; but you are not so
+poor as you deserve to be. Do not be mightily offended about that; if
+you are, you are no child of God; for the child of God acknowledges
+that he has no right to the least of God's mercies, but that they come
+through the channel of grace alone. As long as I am out of hell, I
+have no right to grumble; and if I were in hell I should have no right
+to complain, for I feel, when convinced of sin, that never creature
+deserved to go there more than I do. We have no cause to murmur;
+we can lift up our hands, and say, "Night! thou art dark, but thou
+mightst have been darker. I am poor, but, if I could not have been
+poorer, I might have been sick. I am poor and sick--well, I have some
+friend left, my lot cannot be so bad, but it might have been worse."
+And therefore, Christian, you will always have one thing to sing
+about--"Lord, I thank Thee, it is not all darkness!" Besides,
+Christian, however dark the night is, there is always a star or moon.
+There is scarce ever a night that we have, but there are just one or
+two little lamps burning up there. However dark it may be, I think you
+may find some little comfort, some little joy, some little mercy left,
+and some little promise to cheer thy spirit. The stars are not put
+out, are they? Nay, if thou canst not see them, they are there; but
+methinks one or two must be shining on thee; therefore give God a song
+in the night. If thou hast only one star, bless God for that one,
+perhaps He will make it two; and if thou hast only two stars, bless
+God for the two stars, and perhaps He will make them four. Try, then,
+if thou canst not find a song in the night.
+
+But, beloved, there is another thing of which we can sing yet more
+sweetly; and that is, we can sing of the day that is to come. I am
+preaching to-night for the poor weavers of Spitalfields. Perhaps there
+are not to be found a class of men in London who are suffering
+a darker night than they are; for while many classes have been
+befriended and defended, there are few who speak up for them, and (if
+I am rightly informed) they are generally ground down within an inch
+of their lives. I suppose that their masters intend that their bread
+shall be very sweet, on the principle, that the nearer the ground, the
+sweeter the grass; for I should think that no people have their grass
+so near the ground as the weavers of Spitalfields. In an inquiry by
+the House of Commons last week, it was given in evidence that their
+average wages amount to seven or eight shillings a week; and that
+they have to furnish themselves with a room, and work at expensive
+articles, which my friends and ladies are wearing now, and which they
+buy as cheaply as possible; but perhaps they do not know that they are
+made with the blood and bones and marrow of the Spitalfields weavers,
+who, many of them, work for less than man ought to have to subsist
+upon. Some of them waited upon me the other day; I was exceedingly
+pleased with one of them. He said, "Well, sir, it is very hard, but I
+hope there is better times coming for us." "Well, my friend," I said,
+"I am afraid you cannot hope for much better times, unless the Lord
+Jesus Christ comes a second time." "That is just what we hope for,"
+said he. "We do not see there is any chance of deliverance, unless the
+Lord Jesus Christ comes to establish His kingdom upon the earth; and
+then He will judge the opprest, and break the oppressors in pieces
+with an iron rod, and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel." I
+was glad my friend had got a song in the night, and was singing about
+the morning that was coming. Often do I cheer myself with the thought
+of the coming of the Lord. We preach now, perhaps, with little
+success; "the kingdoms of this world" are not "become the kingdoms of
+our Lord and of his Christ"; we send out missionaries; they are for
+the most part unsuccessful. We are laboring, but we do not see the
+fruits of our labors. Well, what then? Try a little while; we shall
+not always labor in vain, or spend our strength for naught. A day is
+coming, and now is, when every minister of Christ shall speak with
+unction, when all the servants of God shall preach with power, and
+when colossal systems of heathenism shall be scattered to the winds.
+The shout shall be heard, "Alleluia! Alleluia! the Lord God Omnipotent
+reigneth." For that day do I look; it is to the bright horizon of that
+second coming that I turn my eyes. My anxious expectation is, that the
+sweet Sun of righteousness will arise with healing beneath His wings,
+that the opprest shall be righted, that despotisms shall be cut down,
+that liberty shall be established, that peace shall be made lasting,
+and that the glorious liberty of the gospel shall be extended
+throughout the known world. Christian! if thou art in a night, think
+of the morrow; cheer up thy heart with the thought of the coming of
+thy Lord.
+
+There is another sweet to-morrow of which we hope to sing in the
+night. Soon, beloved, you and I shall lie on our dying bed, and we
+shall want a song in the night then; and I do not know where we shall
+get it, if we do not get it from the to-morrow. Kneeling by the bed of
+an apparently dying saint, last night, I said, "Well, sister, He has
+been precious to you; you can rejoice in His covenant mercies, and His
+past loving-kindnesses." She put out her hand, and said, "Ah! sir, do
+not talk about them now; I want the sinner's Savior as much now as
+ever; it is not a saint's I want; it is still a sinner's Savior that
+I am in need of, for I am a sinner still." I found that I could not
+comfort her with the past; so I reminded her of the golden streets, of
+the gates of pearl, of the walls of jasper, of the harps of gold, of
+the songs of bliss; and then her eyes glistened; she said, "Yes, I
+shall be there soon; I shall meet them by-and-by;" and then she
+seemed so glad! Ah! believer, you may always cheer yourself with that
+thought. Thy head may be crowned with thorny troubles now, but it
+shall wear a starry crown directly; thy hand may be filled with
+cares--it shall grasp a harp soon, a harp full of music. Thy garments
+may be soiled with dust now; they shall be white by-and-by. Wait a
+little longer. Ah! beloved, how despicable our troubles and trials
+will seem when we look back upon them! Looking at them here in the
+prospect, they seem immense; but when we get to heaven, we shall then,
+
+  "With transporting joys recount
+  The labors of our feet."
+
+Our trials will seem to us nothing at all. We shall talk to one
+another about them in heaven, and find all the more to converse
+about, according as we have suffered more here below. Let us go on,
+therefore; and if the night be ever so dark, remember there is not a
+night that shall not have a morning; and that morning is to come by
+and by.
+
+And now I want to tell you, very briefly, what are the excellences of
+songs in the night above all other songs.
+
+In the first place, when you hear a man singing a song in the night--I
+mean in the night of trouble--you may be quite sure it is a hearty
+one. Many of you sang very prettily just now, didn't you? I wonder
+whether you would sing very prettily, if there was a stake or two in
+Smithfield for all of you who dared to do it? If you sang under pain
+and penalty, that would show your heart to be in your song. We can all
+sing very nicely indeed when everybody else sings. It is the easiest
+thing in the world to open your mouth, and let the words come out; but
+when the devil puts his hand over your mouth, can you sing then? Can
+you say, "Tho he slay me, yet will I trust in him"? That is hearty
+singing; that is real song that springs up in the night. The
+nightingale singeth most sweetly because she singeth in the night. We
+know a poet has said that, if she sang by day, she might be thought to
+sing no more sweetly than the wren. It is the stillness of the night
+that makes her song sweet. And so doth a Christian's song become sweet
+and hearty, because it is in the night.
+
+Again: the songs we sing in the night will be lasting. Many songs we
+hear our fellow-creatures singing in the streets will not do to sing
+by-and-by; I guess they will sing a different kind of tune soon. They
+can sing nowadays any rollicking, drinking songs; but they will not
+sing them when they come to die; they are not exactly the songs with
+which to cross Jordan's billows. It will not do to sing one of those
+light songs when death and you are having the last tug. It will not do
+to enter heaven singing one of those unchaste, unholy sonnets. No; but
+the Christian who can sing in the night will not have to leave off
+his song; he may keep on singing it forever. He may put his foot in
+Jordan's stream, and continue his melody; he may wade through it, and
+keep on singing still, and land himself safe in heaven; and when he is
+there, there need not be a gap in his strain, but in a nobler, sweeter
+strain he may still continue singing His power to save. There are a
+great many of you that think Christian people are a very miserable
+set, don't you? You say, "Let me sing my song." Ay, but, my dear
+friends, we like to sing a song that will last; we don't like your
+songs; they are all froth, like bubbles on the beaker, and they will
+soon die away and be lost. Give me a song that will last; give me one
+that will not melt. Oh, give me not the dreamster's gold! he hoards it
+up, and says, "I'm rich"; and when he waketh, his gold is gone. But
+give me songs in the night, for they are songs I sing forever.
+
+Again: the songs we warble in the night are those that show we have
+real faith in. God. Many men have just enough faith to trust God as
+far as they can see Him, and they always sing as far as they can see
+providence go right; but true faith can sing when its possessors
+cannot see. It can take hold of God when they cannot discern Him.
+
+Songs in the night, too, prove that we have true courage. Many sing by
+day who are silent by night; they are afraid of thieves and robbers;
+but the Christian who sings in the night proves himself to be a
+courageous character. It is the bold Christian who can sing God's
+sonnets in the darkness.
+
+He who can sing songs in the night, too, proves that he has true love
+to Christ. It is not love to Christ to praise Him while everybody else
+praises Him; to walk arm in arm with Him when He has the crown on
+His head is no great deed, I wot; to walk with Christ in rags is
+something. To believe in Christ when He is shrouded in darkness, to
+stick hard and fast by the Savior when all men speak ill of Him and
+forsake Him--that is true faith. He who singeth a song to Christ in
+the night, singeth the best song in all the world; for He singeth from
+the heart.
+
+I am afraid of wearying you; therefore I shall not dwell on the
+excellences of night songs, but just, in the last place, show you
+their use.
+
+It is very useful to sing in the night of our troubles, first, because
+it will cheer ourselves. When you were boys living in the country, and
+had some distance to go alone at night, don't you remember how you
+whistled and sang to keep your courage up? Well, what we do in the
+natural world we ought to do in the spiritual. There is nothing like
+singing to keep your spirits alive. When we have been in trouble,
+we have often thought ourselves to be well-nigh overwhelmed with
+difficulty; and we have said, "Let us have a song." We have begun to
+sing; and Martin Luther says, "The devil cannot bear singing." That is
+about the truth; he does not like music. It was so in Saul's days: an
+evil spirit rested on Saul; but when David played on his harp, the
+evil spirit went away from him. This is usually the case: if we can
+begin to sing we shall remove our fears. I like to hear servants
+sometimes humming a tune at their work; I love to hear a plowman in
+the country singing as he goes along with his horses. Why not? You say
+he has no time to praise God; but he can sing a song--surely he can
+sing a Psalm, it will take no more time. Singing is the best thing to
+purge ourselves of evil thoughts. Keep your mouth full of songs, and
+you will often keep your heart full of praises; keep on singing as
+long as you can; you will find it a good method of driving away your
+fears.
+
+Sing, again, for another reason: because it will cheer your
+companions. If any of them are in the valley and in the darkness with
+you, it will be a great help to comfort them. John Bunyan tells us,
+that as Christian was going through the valley he found it a dreadful
+dark place, and terrible demons and goblins were all about him, and
+poor Christian thought he must perish for certain; but just when his
+doubts were the strongest, he heard a sweet voice; he listened to it,
+and he heard a man in front of him saying, "Yea, when I pass through
+the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil." Now, that man
+did not know who was near him, but he was unwittingly singing to cheer
+a man behind. Christian, when you are in trouble, sing; you do not
+know who is near you. Sing, perhaps you will get a companion by it.
+Sing! perhaps there will be many a heart cheered by your song. There
+is some broken spirit, it may be, that will be bound up by your
+sonnets. Sing! there is some poor distrest brother, perhaps, shut up
+in the Castle of Despair, who, like King Richard, will hear your song
+inside the walls, and sing to you again, and you may be the means of
+getting him a ransom. Sing, Christian, wherever you go; try, if you
+can, to wash your face every morning in a bath of praise. When you go
+down from your chamber, never go to look on man till you have first
+looked on your God; and when you have looked on Him, seek to come down
+with a face beaming with joy; carry a smile, for you will cheer up
+many a poor way-worn pilgrim by it.
+
+One more reason; and I know it will be a good one for you. Try and
+sing in the night, Christian, for that is one of the best arguments in
+all the world in favor of your religion. Our divines nowadays spend a
+great deal of time in trying to prove Christianity against those who
+disbelieve it. I should like to have seen Paul trying that! Elymas the
+sorcerer withstood him: how did our friend Paul treat him? He said,
+"Oh, full of all subtlety and all mischief, thou child of the devil,
+thou enemy of the righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the
+right ways of the Lord?" That is about the politeness such men ought
+to have who deny God's truth. "We start with this assumption: we will
+prove that the Bible is God's word, but we are not going to prove
+God's word. If you do not like to believe it, we will shake hands, and
+bid you good-by; we will not argue with you. The gospel has gained
+little by discussion. The greatest piece of folly on earth has been
+to send a man round the country, to follow another up who has been
+lecturing on infidelity just to make himself notorious.
+
+Why, let them lecture on; this is a free country; why should we
+follow them about? The truth will win the day. Christianity need not
+wish for controversy; it is strong enough for it, if it wishes it; but
+that is not God's way.
+
+God's direction is, "Preach, teach, dogmatize." Do not stand
+disputing; claim a divine mission; tell men that God says it, and
+there leave it. Say to them, "He that believeth shall be saved, and he
+that believeth not shall be damned"; and when you have done that,
+you have done enough. For what reason should our missionaries stand
+disputing with Brahmins? Why should they be wasting their time
+by attempting to refute first this dogma, and then another, of
+heathenism? Why not just go and say, "The God whom ye ignorantly
+worship, I declare unto you; believe me, and you will be saved;
+believe me not, and the Bible says you are lost." And then, having
+thus asserted God's word, say, "I leave it, I declare it unto you; it
+is a thing for you to believe, not a thing for you to reason about."
+
+Religion is not a thing merely for your intellect; a thing to prove
+your own talent upon, by making a syllogism on it; it is a thing that
+demands your faith. As a messenger of heaven, I demand that faith; if
+you do not choose to give it, on your own head be the doom, if there
+be such, if there be not, you are prepared to risk it. But I have done
+my duty; I have told you the truth; that is enough, and there I leave
+it. Oh, Christian, instead of disputing, let me tell thee how to prove
+your religion. Live it out!
+
+Live it out! Give the external as well as the internal evidence; give
+the external evidence of your own life. You are sick; there is your
+neighbor who laughs at religion; let him come into your house. When
+he was sick, he said, "Oh, send for the doctor"; and there he was
+fretting, and fuming, and whining, and making all manner of noises.
+When you are sick, send for him, tell him that you are resigned to the
+Lord's will; that you will kiss the chastening rod; that you will take
+the cup, and drink it, because your Father gives it.
+
+You do not need to make a boast of this, or it will lose all its
+power; but do it because you cannot help doing it. Your neighbor will
+say, "There is something in that." And when you come to the borders of
+the grave--he was there once, and you heard how he shrieked, and how
+frightened he was--give him your hand, and say to him, "Ah! I have a
+Christ that will do to die by; I have a religion that will make me
+sing in the night." Let me hear how you can sing, "Victory, victory,
+victory!" through Him that loved you. I tell you, we may preach fifty
+thousand sermons to prove the gospel, but we shall not prove it half
+so well as you will through singing in the night. Keep a cheerful
+frame; keep a happy heart; keep a contented spirit; keep your eye up,
+and your heart aloft, and you prove Christianity better than all the
+Butlers, and all the wise men that ever lived. Give them the analogy
+of a holy life, and then you will prove religion to them; give them,
+the evidence of internal piety, developed externally, and you will
+give the best possible proof of Christianity.
+
+
+
+
+POTTER
+
+MEMORIAL DISCOURSE ON PHILLIPS BROOKS
+
+BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+
+Henry Codman Potter was born at Schenectady, New York, in 1834, and
+was graduated from the Theological Seminary of Virginia in 1857. He
+was appointed rector of Grace Protestant Episcopal Church, New York,
+in 1868, and was coadjutor to his uncle, Horatio Potter, from 1883
+to 1887, when he was made Bishop of the Diocese of New York. He won
+considerable distinction as a clear-cut and eloquent speaker. He
+dealt in pulpit and on platform, with many public questions, such as
+temperance, capital and labor, civic righteousness, and the purifying
+of East Side slum life. He advocated personal freedom, and invariably
+spoke with authority. He was particularly happy as an after-dinner
+speaker. He died in 1908.
+
+
+
+
+POTTER
+
+1834--1908
+
+MEMORIAL DISCOURSE ON PHILLIPS BROOKS[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Reprinted by permission of Bishop Henry C. Potter and The
+Century Company, publishers of "The Scholar and the State."]
+
+_It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the
+words I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life_.--John
+vi., 63.
+
+
+He who stops over-long in the mere mechanism of religion is verily
+missing that for which religion stands. Here, indeed, it must be owned
+is, if not our greatest danger, one of the greatest. All life is full
+of that strange want of intellectual and moral perspective which fails
+to see how secondary, after all, are means to ends; and how he only
+has truly apprehended the office of religion who has learned, when
+undertaking in any wise to present it or represent it, to hold fast
+to that which is the one central thought and fact of all: "It is the
+spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I
+speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life."
+
+And this brings me--in how real and vivid a way I am sure you must
+feel as keenly as I--face to face with him of whom I am set to speak
+to-day.
+
+Never before in the history, not only of our communion, but of any or
+all communions, has the departure of a religious teacher been more
+widely noted and deplored than in the case of him of whom this
+Commonwealth and this diocese have been bereaved. Never before,
+surely, in case of any man whom we can recall, has the sense of loss
+and bereavement been more distinctly a personal one,--extending to
+multitudes in two hemispheres who did not know him, who had never seen
+or heard him, and yet to whom he had revealed himself in such real and
+helpful ways.
+
+It has followed, inevitably, from this, that that strong tide of
+profound feeling has found expression in many and most unusual
+forms, and it will be among the most interesting tasks of the future
+biographer of the late Bishop of Massachusetts to take note of these
+various memorials and to trace in them the secret of his unique power
+and influence.
+
+But just because they have, so many of them, in such remarkable
+variety and from sources so diverse, been written or spoken, and no
+less because a memoir of Phillips Brooks is already undertaken by
+hands preeminently designated for that purpose, I may wisely here
+confine myself to another and very different task. I shall not
+attempt, therefore, even the merest outline of a biographical review.
+I shall not undertake to analyze, nor, save incidentally, even to
+refer to, the influences and inheritances that wrought in the mind
+and upon the life of your late friend and teacher. I shall still less
+attempt to discover the open secret of his rare and unique charm and
+attractiveness as a man; and I shall least of all endeavor to forecast
+the place which history will give to him among the leaders and
+builders of our age. Brief as was his ministry in his higher office,
+and to our view all too soon ended, I shall be content to speak of him
+as a bishop,--of his divine right, as I profoundly believe, to a place
+in the episcopate, and of the preeminent value of his distinctive and
+incomparable witness to the highest aim and purpose of that office.
+
+And first of all let me say a word in regard to the way in which he
+came to it. When chosen to the episcopate of this diocese, your late
+bishop had already, at least once, as we all know, declined the
+office. It was well known to those who knew him best that, as he had
+viewed it for a large part of his ministry, it was a work for which
+he had no especial sympathy either as to its tasks, or, as he had
+understood them, its opportunities.
+
+But the time undoubtedly came when, as to this, he modified his
+earlier opinions; and the time came too, as I am most glad to think,
+when he was led to feel that if he were called to such an office he
+might find in it an opportunity for widening his own sympathies and
+for estimating more justly those with whom previously he had believed
+himself to have little in common.
+
+It was the inevitable condition of his strong and deep convictions
+that he should not always or easily understand or make due allowance
+for men of different opinions. It was--God and you will bear me
+witness that this is true!--one of the noblest characteristics of his
+fifteen months' episcopate that, as a bishop, men's rightful liberty
+of opinion found in him not only a large and generous tolerance, but
+a most beautiful and gracious acceptance. He seized, instantly and
+easily, that which will be forever the highest conception of the
+episcopate in its relations whether to the clergy or the laity, its
+paternal and fraternal character; and his "sweet reasonableness," both
+as a father and as a brother, shone through all that he was and did.
+
+For one, I greatly love to remember this,--that when the time came he
+himself, with the simple naturalness which marked all that he did,
+was brought to reconsider his earlier attitude toward the episcopal
+office, and to express with characteristic candor his readiness to
+take up its work if he should be chosen to it; he turned to his new,
+and to him most strange, task with a supreme desire to do it in a
+loving and whole-hearted way, and to make it helpful to every man,
+woman, and child with whom he came in contact. What could have been
+more like him than that, in that last address which he delivered to
+the choir-boys at Newton, he should have said to them, "When you meet
+me let me know that you know me." Another might easily have been
+misunderstood in asking those whom he might by chance encounter to
+salute him; but he knew, and the boys knew, what he had in mind,--how
+he and they were all striving to serve one Master, and how each--he
+most surely as much as they--was to gain strength and cheer from
+mutual recognition in the spirit of a common brotherhood.
+
+And thus it was always; and this it was that allied itself so
+naturally to that which was his never-ceasing endeavor--to lift all
+men everywhere to that which was, with him, the highest conception of
+his office, whether as a preacher or as a bishop,--the conception of
+God as a Father, and of the brotherhood of all men as mutually related
+in Him.
+
+In an address which he delivered during the last General Convention
+in Baltimore to the students of Johns Hopkins University, he spoke
+substantially these words:
+
+    "In trying to win a man to a better life, show him not the
+    evil but the nobleness of his nature. Lead him to enthusiastic
+    contemplations of humanity;"
+
+in its perfection, and when he asks, 'Why, if this is so, do not I
+have this life?'--then project on the background of his enthusiasm his
+own life; say to him, 'Because you are a liar, because you blind your
+soul with licentiousness, shame is born,--but not a shame of despair.
+It is soon changed to joy. Christianity becomes an opportunity, a high
+privilege, the means of attaining to the most exalted ideal--and the
+only means.'
+
+"Herein must lie all real power; herein lay Christ's power, that he
+appreciated the beauty and richness of humanity, that it is very near
+the Infinite, very near to God. These two facts--we are the children
+of God, and God is our Father--make us look very differently at
+ourselves, very differently at our neighbors, very differently at God.
+We should be surprized, not at our good deeds, but at our bad ones.
+We should expect good as more likely to occur than evil; we should
+believe that our best moments are our truest. I was once talking with
+an acquaintance about whose religious position I knew nothing, and he
+exprest a very hopeful opinion in regard to a matter about which I was
+myself very doubtful.
+
+"'Why, I said to him, 'You are an optimist.'
+
+"'Of course I am an optimist,' he replied, because I am a Christian.'
+
+"I felt that as a reproof. The Christian must be an optimist."
+
+Men and brethren, I set these words over against those of his Master
+with which I began, and the two in essence are one. "The words that I
+speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life." There is a life
+nobler and diviner than any that we have dreamed of. To the poorest
+and meanest of us, as to the best and most richly-dowered, it is alike
+open. To turn toward it, to reach up after it, to believe in its
+ever-recurring nearness, and to glorify God in attaining to it, this
+is the calling of a human soul.
+
+Now then, what, I ask you, is all the rest of religion worth in
+comparison with this?--not what is it worth in itself, but what is its
+place relatively to this? This, I maintain, is the supreme question
+for the episcopate, as it ought to be the supreme question with the
+ministry of any and every order. And therefore it is, I affirm, that,
+in bringing into the episcopate with such unique vividness and power
+this conception of his office, your bishop rendered to his order and
+to the Church of God everywhere a service so transcendent. A most
+gifted and sympathetic observer of our departed brother's character
+and influence has said of him, contrasting him with the power of
+institution, "His life will always suggest the importance of the
+influence of the individual man as compared with institutional
+Christianity."
+
+In one sense, undoubtedly, this is true; but I should prefer to say
+that his life-work will always show the large and helpful influence of
+a great soul upon institutional Christianity. It is a superficial
+and unphilosophical temperament that disparages institutions; for
+institutions are only another name for that organized force and life
+by which God rules the world. But it is undoubtedly and profoundly
+true that you no sooner have an institution, whether in society, in
+politics, or in religion, than you are threatened with the danger
+that the institution may first exaggerate itself and then harden
+and stiffen into a machine; and that in the realm of religion,
+preeminently, those whose office it should be to quicken and infuse it
+with new life should themselves come at last to "worship the net and
+the drag." And just here you find in the history of religion in all
+ages the place of the prophet and the seer. He is to pierce through
+the fabric of the visible structure to that soul of things for which
+it stands. When, in Isaiah, the Holy Ghost commands the prophet, "Lift
+up thy voice with strength; lift it up, be not afraid: say unto the
+cities of Judah, Behold your God!" it is not alone, you see, his voice
+that lie is to lift up. No, no! It is the vision of the unseen and
+divine. "Say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God!"
+
+Over and over again that voice breaks in upon the slumbrous torpor of
+Israel and smites the dead souls of priests and people alike. Now
+it is a Balaam, now it is an Elijah, a David, an Isaiah, a John the
+Baptist, a Paul the Apostle, a Peter the Hermit, a Savonarola, a Huss,
+a Whitefield, a Wesley, a Frederick Maurice, a Frederick Robertson, a
+Phillips Brooks.
+
+Do not mistake me. I do not say that there were not many others. But
+these names are typical, and that for which they stand cannot easily
+be mistaken. I affirm without qualification that, in that gift of
+vision and of exaltation for which they stand, they stand for the
+highest and the best,--that one thing for which the Church of God most
+of all stands, and of which so long as it is the Church Militant
+it will most of all stand in need: to know that the end of all its
+mechanisms and ministries is to impart life, and that nothing which
+obscures or loses sight of the eternal source of life can regenerate
+or quicken;--to teach men to cry out, with St. Augustine, "_Fecisti
+nos ad te, Domine, et inquietum est cor nostrum donec requiescat in
+te_": Thou hast made us for Thyself, O Lord, and our heart is unquiet
+until its rests in Thee,--this however, as any one may be tempted to
+fence and juggle with the fact, is the truth on which all the rest
+depends.
+
+Unfortunately it is a truth which there is much in the tasks and
+engagements of the episcopate to obscure. A bishop is preeminently,
+at any rate in the popular conception of him, an administrator; and
+howsoever wide of the mark this popular conception may be from the
+essential idea of the office, it must be owned that there is much in
+a bishop's work in our day to limit his activities, and therefore his
+influence, within such a sphere.
+
+To recognize his prophetic office as giving expression to that mission
+of the Holy Ghost of which he is preeminently the representative, to
+illustrate it upon a wider instead of a narrower field, to recognize
+and seize the greater opportunities for its exercise, to be indeed
+"a leader and commander" to the people, not by means of the petty
+mechanisms of officialism, but by the strong, strenuous, and unwearied
+proclamation of the truth; under all conditions to make the occasion
+somehow a stepping-stone to that mount of vision from which men may
+see God and righteousness and become sensible of the nearness of both
+to themselves,--this, I think you will agree with me, is no unworthy
+use of the loftiest calling and the loftiest gifts.
+
+And such a use was his. A bishop-elect, walking with him one day in
+the country, was speaking, with not unnatural shrinking and hesitancy,
+of the new work toward which he was soon to turn his face, and said
+among other things, "I have a great dread, in the Episcopate, of
+perfunctoriness. In the administration, especially, of confirmation,
+it seems almost impossible, in connection with its constant
+repetition, to avoid it."
+
+He was silent a moment, and then said, "I do not think that it need be
+so. The office indeed is the same. But every class is different; and
+then--think what it is to them! It seems to me that that thought can
+never cease to move one."
+
+What a clear insight the answer gave to his own ministry. One turns
+back to his first sermon, that evening when, with his fellow-student
+in Virginia, he walked across the fields to the log-cabin where, not
+yet in holy orders, he preached it, and where afterward he ministered
+with such swiftly increasing power to a handful of negro servants.
+"It was an utter failure," he said afterward. Yes, perhaps; but all
+through the failure he struggled to give expression to that of which
+his soul was full; and I do not doubt that even then they who heard
+him somehow understood him. We pass from those first words to the
+last,--those of which I spoke a moment ago,--the address to the
+choir-boys at Newton,--was there ever such, an address to choir-boys
+before? He knew little or nothing about the science of music, and with
+characteristic candor he at once said so. But he passed quickly from
+the music to those incomparable words of which the music was the mere
+vehicle and vesture. He bade the lads to whom he spoke think of
+those who, long ago and all the ages down, had sung that matchless
+Psalter,--of the boys and men of other times, and what it had meant to
+them. And then, as he looked into their fresh young faces and saw the
+long vista of life stretching out before them, he bade them think of
+that larger and fuller meaning which was to come into those Psalms of
+David, when he,--was there some prophetic sense of how soon with him
+the end would be?--when he and such as he had passed away,--what new
+doors were to open, what deeper meanings were to be discerned, what
+nobler opportunities were to dawn, as the years hastened swiftly on
+toward their august and glorious consummation! How it all lifts us
+up as we read it, and how like it was to that "one sermon" which he
+forever preached!
+
+And in saying so I do not forget what that was which some men said was
+missing in it. His, they tell us--who hold some dry and formalized
+statement of the truth so close to the eye that it obscures all larger
+vision of it,--his, they tell us, was an "invertebrate theology." Of
+what he was and spoke, such a criticism is as if one said of the wind,
+that divinely appointed symbol of the Holy Ghost, "it has no spine nor
+ribs."
+
+A spine and ribs are very necessary things; but we bury them as so
+much chalk and lime when once the breath has gone out of them! In the
+beginning we read, "And the Lord God breathed into his nostrils the
+breath of life, and man became a living soul."
+
+And all along since then there have been messengers of God into whom
+the same divine breath has been, as it were, without measure breathed,
+and who have been the quickeners and inspirers of their fellows.
+Nothing less than this can explain that wholly exceptional and yet
+consistent influence which he whom we mourn gave forth. It was not
+confined or limited by merely personal or physical conditions, but
+breathed with equal and quickening power through all that he taught
+and wrote. There were multitudes who never saw or heard him, but by
+whom nevertheless he was as intimately known and understood as if he
+had been their daily companion.
+
+Never was there an instance which more truly fulfilled the saying,
+"The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life."
+They reached down to the inmost need of empty and aching hearts and
+answered it. They spoke to that in the most sin-stained and wayward
+soul which is, after all, the image of the invisible God,--spoke
+to it, touched it, constrained it. "What has this fine-bred Boston
+scholar," plain men asked, when he bade him come to us and preach in
+our Trinity--"what has such an one to say to the business men of Wall
+Street?" But when he came, straightway every man found out that he had
+indeed something to say to him,--a word of power, a word of hope, a
+word of enduring joy and strength!
+
+A kindred thinker of large vision and rare insight, New England born
+and nurtured like himself, speaking of him not long after his death,
+said:
+
+    "There are three forms pertaining to the Christian truths: they
+    are true as facts, they are true as doctrines intellectually
+    apprehended, they are true as spiritual experiences to be
+    realized. Bishop Brooks struck directly for the last. In the
+    spirit he found the truth; and only as he could get it into a
+    spiritual form did he conceive it to have power.
+
+    "It was because he assumed the facts as true in the main, refusing
+    to insist on petty accuracy, and passed by doctrinal forms
+    concerning which there might be great divergence of opinion, and
+    carried his thought on into the world of spirit, that he won so
+    great a hearing and such conviction of belief. For it is the
+    spirit that gives common standing-ground; it says substantially
+    the same thing in all men. Speak as a spirit to the spiritual
+    nature of men, and they will respond, because in the spirit they
+    draw near to their common source and to the world to which all
+    belong.
+
+    "It was because he dealt with this common factor of the human and
+    the divine nature that he was too positive and practical. In the
+    spirit it is all yea and amen; there is no negative; in the New
+    Jerusalem there is no night. We can describe this feature of his
+    ministry by words from, one of his own sermons: 'It has always
+    been through men of belief, not unbelief, that power from God has
+    poured into man. It is not the discriminating critic, but he whose
+    beating, throbbing life offers itself a channel for the divine
+    force,--he is the man through, whom the world grows rich, and whom
+    it remembers, remembers with perpetual thanksgiving.'"
+
+And shall not you who are here to-day thank God that such a man was,
+tho for so brief a space, your bishop? Some there were, you remember,
+who thought that those greater spiritual gifts of his would unfit him
+for the business of practical affairs. "A bishop's daily round," they
+said, "his endless correspondence, his hurried journeyings, his weight
+of anxious cares, the misadventures of other men, ever returning to
+plague him,--how can he bring himself to stoop and deal with these?"
+
+But as in so much else that was transcendent in him, how little here,
+too, his critics understood him! No more pathetic proof of this has
+come to light than in that testimony of one among you who, as his
+private secretary, stood in closest and most intimate relations
+to him. What a story that is which he has given to us of a great
+soul--faithful always in the greatest? Yes, but no less faithful in
+the least. There seems a strange, almost grotesque impossibility in
+the thought that such an one should ever have come to be regarded as
+"a stickler for the canons."
+
+But we look a little deeper than the surface, and all that is
+incongruous straightway disappears. His was the realm of a divine
+order,--his was the office of his Lord's servant. God had called him.
+He had put him where he was. He had set his Church to be His witness
+in the world, and in it, all His children, the greatest with the
+least, to walk in ways of reverent appointment. Those ways might irk
+and cramp him sometimes. They did: he might speak of them with sharp
+impatience and seeming disesteem sometimes. He did that too, now and
+then,--for he was human like the rest of us! But mark you this, my
+brothers, for, in an age which, under one figment or another,
+whether of more ancient or more modern license, is an age of much
+self-will,--we shall do well to remember it,--his was a life of
+orderly and consistent obedience to rule. He kept to the Church's
+plain and stately ways: kept to them and prized them too.
+
+But all the while he held his soul wide open to the vision of his
+Lord! Up out of a routine that seemed to others that did not know or
+could not understand him, and who vouchsafed to him much condescending
+compassion for a bondage which he never felt, and of which in vain
+they strove to persuade him to complain,--up out of the narrower round
+in which so faithfully he walked, from time to time he climbed, and
+came back bathed in a heavenly light, with lips aglow with heavenly
+fire. The Spirit had spoken to him, and so he spoke to us. "The flesh
+profiteth nothing: it is the spirit that quickeneth. The words that I
+speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life."
+
+And so we thank God not alone for his message, but that it was given
+to him to speak it as a bishop in the Church of God. We thank God that
+in a generation that so greatly needs to cry, as our _Te Deum_ teaches
+us, "Govern us and lift us up!" he was given to the Church not alone
+to rule but to uplift.
+
+What bishop is there who may not wisely seek to be like him by drawing
+forever on those fires of the Holy Ghost that set his lips aflame?
+Nay, what soul among us all is there that may not wisely seek to
+ascend up into that upper realm in which he walked, and by whose
+mighty airs his soul was filled? Unto the almighty and ever-living God
+we yield most high praise and hearty thanks for the wonderful grace
+and virtue declared in all His saints who have been the chosen vessels
+of His grace and the lights of the world in their several generations;
+but here and to-day especially for his servant, Phillips Brooks, some
+time of this Commonwealth and this diocese, true prophet, true priest,
+true bishop, to the glory of God the Father.
+
+
+
+
+ABBOTT
+
+THE DIVINITY IN HUMANITY
+
+BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+
+Lyman Abbott was born at Roxbury, Mass., in 1835. As successor to
+Henry Ward Beecher, at Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, he ministered with
+great spiritual power until 1898, when he resigned his pastorate to
+devote his entire time to _The Outlook_, of which he was, and still
+is, the editor. Dr. Abbott's conception of the minister's work is
+briefly summed up in his own words:
+
+"Whenever a minister forgets the splendid message of pardon, peace and
+power based on faith in Jesus Christ as God manifest in the flesh,
+whenever for this message he substitutes literary lectures, critical
+essays, sociological disquisitions, theological controversies, or even
+ethical interpretations of the universal conscience, whenever, in
+other words, he ceases to be a Christian preacher and becomes a lyceum
+or seminary lecturer, he divests himself of that which in all ages of
+the world has been the power of the Christian ministry, and will be
+its power so long as men have sins to be forgiven, temptations to
+conquer, and sorrows to be assuaged."
+
+
+
+
+ABBOTT
+
+BORN IN 1835
+
+THE DIVINITY IN HUMANITY
+
+_Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, ye are
+gods? If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and
+the scripture cannot be broken; say ye of him, whom the Father hath
+sanctified, and sent into the world, thou blasphemest; because I said,
+I am the Son of God_?--John X., 34-36.
+
+
+The context and argument is this: Jesus Christ has declared that He
+will give unto His sheep eternal life; and that no one can pluck them
+out of His hand, because He and His Father are one; and the Father
+who gives these sheep to His care and keeping is greater than all the
+forces that are leagued against them. Thereat the Jews took up stones
+against Him, saying: "Being a man thou makest thyself equal with God."
+And Christ answers with our text. He refers them back to the Old
+Testament, which, He says, declares of the judges of Israel, of the
+men to whom the inspiration of God came, that they are divine. "Why,
+then," He says, "do you accuse Me of blasphemy because I claim
+divinity?" It is impossible to consider this a mere play upon the
+word; that Christ uses the word God in one sense in one paragraph
+and in another sense in the paragraph immediately following. It is
+impossible to conceive that this is a kind of sacred pun. No, no; the
+argument is clear and unmistakable. According to your Old Testament
+scripture, He says, the men in whom and to whom and through whom the
+power and grace of God are manifested are themselves the partakers
+of the divine nature. If that is so, if the men of the olden
+times, patriarchs and prophets, through whom the divine nature was
+manifested--if they are divine, do not accuse me of blasphemy because
+I claim for Myself divinity. If in this message, on the one hand,
+Christ claims kinship with God, on the other He lifts the whole of
+humanity up with Him and makes the claim for them. The religion of the
+Old Testament and the New Testament, the religion of Christianity and
+of Judaism, is a religion of faith in God. But it is not less truly a
+religion of faith in man, and of faith in man because man is a child
+of God. And the one faith would be utterly useless without the other.
+For faith in God is effective because it is accompanied with faith in
+man as the child of God.
+
+And in this faith in man is the inspiration of all human progress.
+_Faith_ in man, I say. Faith sees something which the eye does not
+see. Faith sees something which the reason does not perceive. Faith
+is not irrational, but it perceives a transcendent truth, over beyond
+that which the sense perceives. Faith is always intermixed with hope
+and with a great expectation, either with a hope because it sees
+something which is not yet but will be, or else with a hope because it
+sees something which is not yet seen but will be seen. Faith in a man
+is not a belief that man is to-day a great, noble character, but it is
+a perception in man of dormant possibilities of greatness and nobility
+which time and God will develop. It is only the man who has faith in
+man who can really interpret man. It is faith in man that gives us all
+true human insight. The difference between a photograph and a portrait
+is this: the photograph gives the outward feature, and stops there;
+and most of us, when we stand in a photograph saloon to have our
+picture taken, hide our soul away. The artist sees the soul behind the
+man, knows him, understands something of his nature, and paints the
+soul that looks out through the eyes. He sees in the man something
+which the sun does not exhibit, and makes that something shine on
+the canvas. The artist in literature sees an ideal humanity, and
+interprets it. Realism in literature does not portray the real man.
+Anthony Trollope pictures the Englishman as he is to-day, and society
+as any man may take it with a kodak; but Dickens gives Toby Veck and
+Tiny Tim; George Eliot, Adam Bede and Dinah Morris. Men say that no
+such boy ever lived as MacDonald has portrayed in Sir Gibbie. In every
+street Arab is a possible Sir Gibbie; and MacDonald has seen the
+possible and shown us what Christianity may make out of a street
+Arab. In this perception of a possible in man lies the spirit of all
+progress in science. The man of practical science laughs at the notion
+of an iron railway on which steam cars shall travel faster than
+English coaches. But the man of faith in men, who believes that it is
+in the power of men to dominate the powers of nature, builds the road.
+The man of practical science laughs at the notion that we can reach up
+our hands into the clouds and draw down the lightning. But Franklin
+does it. The man of faith is sometimes mistaken, but he is always
+experimenting, because he always believes that man to-morrow will
+be more than man is to-day or was yesterday. And all progress in
+civilization has its secret in this great faith in man as a being
+that has a mastery, not yet interpreted, not yet understood, not yet
+comprehended in its fulness, over all the powers of nature.
+
+Now, is there any ground or basis for this faith in man? Have we a
+right to believe that man is more than he seems to be, as we can see
+him in the street to-day? Have we a right to build our institutions
+and fabrics on this belief? Have we a right to think that man can
+govern himself, or must we go back and say with Carlyle and Ruskin
+and Voltaire that the great body of men are incompetent to govern
+themselves, and a few wise rulers must govern them? Have we a right to
+believe that all the progress that has thus far been made in
+science is but an augury of progress far greater, reaching into the
+illimitable? Have we a right to say that these portraits of a possible
+humanity, this Portia, this Toby Veck, this Tiny Tim, this ideal man
+and woman, are real men and real women in possibility, if not in
+the actualities of life? Or are we to think of them as simply
+phantasmagoria hung up for the delectation of a passing moment? The
+Bible makes answer to that question,--the Bible preeminently, but
+the great poets and the great prophets of all religions; the Bible,
+because the poets and the prophets of the Bible transcend the poets
+and the prophets of all other religions. And that declaration is that
+man is made in the image of God, and that God dwells in man and
+is coming to the manifestation of Himself in growing, developing,
+redeemed humanity. Our Bible starts out with the declaration that God
+made man in His own image. The poets take the idea up. MacDonald tells
+us in that beautiful poem of his, that the babe came through the blue
+sky and got the blue of his eyes as he came; Wordsworth, that the
+child's imaginings are the recollected glory of a heavenly home; and
+the author of the first chapter of Genesis, that God breathed his own
+breath into the nostrils of man and made him in the image of God. All
+fancy, all imaginings? But, my dear friends, there is a truth in fancy
+as well as in science. We need not believe that this aspiration that
+shows itself in the pure mind of a little child is a trailing glory
+that he has brought with him from some pre-existent state. We need not
+think that it is physiological fact that the sky colored the eyes of
+the babe as the babe came through. Nor need we suppose that man was
+a clay image into which God breathed a physical breath, so animating
+him. But beyond all this imagery is the vision of the poet. God in
+man; a divine life throbbing in humanity; man the offspring of God;
+man coming forth from the eternal and going forth into the eternal.
+
+This is the starting-point of the Bible. Starting with this, it goes
+on with declaration after declaration based on this fundamental
+doctrine that man and God in their essential moral attributes have the
+same nature. It is human experience which is used to interpret divine
+experience. According to pagan thought, God speaks to men through
+movements of the stars, through all external phenomena, through even
+entrails of animals. Seldom so in the Bible, save as when the wise men
+followed the star, and then that they might come to a divine humanity.
+In the Old Testament God speaks in human experience, through human
+experience, about human experience, to typify and interpret and
+explain Himself. God is like a shepherd that shepherds his flock.
+God is like a king that rules in justice. He is like the father that
+provides for his children. He is like the mother that comforts the
+weeping child. All the experiences of humanity are taken in turn and
+attributed to God. The hopes, the fears, the sorrows, the joys, the
+very things which we call faults in men--so strong and courageous are
+the old prophets in this fundamental faith of theirs that man and God
+are alike--the very things we call faults in men are attributed to the
+Almighty. He is declared to hate, to be wrathful, to be angry, to be
+jealous; because, at the root, every fault is a virtue set amiss; and
+the very faults of men have in them something that interprets the
+power and will of God, as the very faults of a boy interpret the
+virtues of his father. All through the Old Testament God manifests
+Himself through human experience. He speaks in the hearts of men; He
+dwells in the experience of men; He interprets Himself through the
+life of men; and, finally, when this one selected nation which has a
+genius for spiritual truth has been so far educated that there is no
+danger that it will go back and worship man, that it will become a
+mere hero-worshiper, when it has been so far educated that there is no
+danger of that, then Jesus Christ comes into the world--God manifests
+Himself in human life.
+
+Who, then, is Jesus Christ? Let John tell us. The Oriental world was
+puzzled about the question of the origin of evil. They said, in brief,
+a good God cannot make a bad world. Out of a good God, therefore,
+there have emanated other gods, and out of these gods other gods,
+until at last there came to be imperfect gods or bad gods. And the
+world was made, some of them said, partly by a good god and partly by
+a bad one; and others by an imperfect god who was an emanation of the
+perfect one. Of these emanations one was Life, another was Light,
+another was the Word. And John, writing in the age of Oriental
+philosophy, uses the phraseology of Oriental philosophy in order that
+he might tell mankind who and what Jesus Christ is. "In the beginning
+was the Word, and the Word was God." God never was an abstraction;
+from the very beginning He was a speaking God, a living God, a
+manifesting God, a forth-putting God. "The same was in the beginning
+with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not
+anything made that was made. And this Word became flesh and dwelt
+among us (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten
+of the Father), full of grace and truth." Let me put this into
+modern language. What is it but this? From eternity God has been a
+manifesting God. When the fulness of time came, God, that He might
+manifest Himself to His children, came into a human life and dwelt
+in a human life. He that had spoken here through one prophet, there
+through another prophet; He that had sent one message in this
+direction and another in that; He that had spoken through signs and
+tokens, as the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews says, in divers
+manners and in fragmentary utterances--when the fulness of time had
+come, He spoke in one perfect human life, taking entire possession of
+it and making it His own, that He might manifest Himself in terms of
+human experience to humanity. Or turn to Paul and let me read you this
+declaration; "Let this mind be in you which was also in Jesus Christ;
+who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with
+God, but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of
+a servant, and was made in the likeness of man, and being found in
+fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death,
+even the death of the cross." What is this, again, but the same
+declaration? God desiring to show Himself to humanity, entered into
+one human life, became subject to human conditions, shared the
+weakness, the wants, the ignorance of humanity, entered into and was
+identified with one human life.
+
+Do I say, then, that Jesus Christ was a man like other men? No. But I
+do say that in their essential qualities God and man are identical,
+and God entered into humanity that He might show to humanity what He
+is. I do say, not that Jesus Christ was a man like other men, but that
+other men may become like Jesus Christ. I hold a bulb in my one hand
+and a tulip in my other. Will any man say to me, this beautiful flower
+with all its rich coloring is like this bulb? Oh, no! But let the
+sun of God shine long enough on this bulb, put it where it belongs,
+subject it to the conditions of life, and this bulb will become like
+this flower. Man is made in the image of God. All that is in man
+that is not in God's image does not belong to man's nature. Natural
+depravity? There is no natural depravity. Depravity is unnatural.
+Depravity is contra-natural. It is against the whole law of man's
+being. It is never wrong for any creature God has made to act out the
+nature which God endowed him with. It is not wicked for a tiger to be
+ravening. It is not wicked for a snake to be sinuous. It is wicked for
+man to be ravening or sinuous, because it is against the divine nature
+that God has put in man. He made man for better things.
+
+God made man in His own image, God coming through successive stages,
+manifesting Himself in successive relations of Himself in human
+experience, God at last disclosing Himself in one pure, sinless,
+typical man in order that man through that humanity might know who and
+what God is--and is that the end? Oh, no! That is the beginning,
+only the beginning. For what did God come in Christ? Simply to show
+Himself? Here is a hospital--all manner of sick; the paralytic, the
+fever-stricken, the consumptive. Is it good news to these hospital
+bedridden ones if an athlete come in and show them his life, his
+muscles, the purity of his lungs, the health of his constitution, and
+then goes out? But if he comes in and says, "My friends, if you will
+follow my directions I will put into you consumptive ones some of the
+strength of my lungs, into you fever-stricken ones some of the purity
+of my blood; into you paralytic ones some of the sinew and muscle
+I possess--you can become like me," then there is good news in the
+message. If God came into the world simply to tell us what God is and
+what the ideal of humanity is, the gospel would be the saddest message
+that could be conceived, as delivered to the human race. It would add
+gloom to the gloom, darkness to the darkness, chains to the chains,
+despair to despair. He comes not merely to show divinity to us, but to
+impart divinity to us; rather, to evolve the latent divinity which He
+first implanted in us. As God has entered into Christ, He will enter
+into me. Christ says to me: As I am patient, you can become patient;
+as I am strong, you can become strong; as I am pure, you can become
+pure; as I am the Son of God, you can become the Son of God. Therefore
+His message is the gospel that it is.
+
+Christ is not a man like other men. I can find in the biography of
+Jesus no trace of sin. In every other biography, oh, how many traces!
+There is no trace of repentance. The Hebrew Psalmist laments his
+iniquity. Paul confesses himself to be the chief of sinners. Luther,
+Calvin, Melanchthon, Edwards--go where I will, in the biography of
+all the saints there are signs of sin and iniquity. Never a trace of
+repentance or confession in Christ. In all others we see a struggle
+after God. "My heart panteth after thee, as the hart panteth after
+water-brooks." "I count not myself to have attained, but, forgetting
+those things that are behind, I press forward toward the mark." Never
+in the written biography of Christ a trace of that aspiration after
+something not yet reached. On the contrary, a great peace and a great
+possession. He says: I have come full of life. I have come to give
+life. This sinless Christ comes that He may give to us that which
+He Himself possesses; that He may take the sin out of our lives and
+sorrow out of our hearts, and for the yearning desire give a great,
+great peace. I have come, He says, that you might have life. How much,
+Lord and Master? Life more abundantly. What kind of life, Lord and
+Master? Eternal life. Has He come with that great life of His to give
+a little and then stop? Nay, to give all to every one that every one
+will take.
+
+I marvel to find Christian men denying that Christ is the type and
+manifestation and revelation of the possible divinity in universal
+humanity. It is written all over the Bible. What says Christ Himself?
+I have come that you might have life, and that you might have it more
+abundantly. As the Father has sent Me into the world, even so I send
+you into the world. You shall be My disciples. You shall learn of Me.
+You shall be My followers, and tread where I have trod. You shall take
+up My cross, and suffer as I have suffered. The secret of My life
+shall be the secret of your life. Ye shall be in Me. I will abide with
+you. Ye shall be as a branch grafted on the vine, drawing the same
+life as I have, as out of My very veins. As the Father was in Me, so
+I and My Father will come and abide in you. He breathes upon the
+disciples and tells them to receive the Spirit that was in Him; and in
+His last prayer He prays that they may share His glory, that they may
+be one with the Father, as He is one with the Father. Paul takes up
+the same refrain and repeats it over and over again. Righteousness in
+man is the righteousness of God, God's own righteousness coming out
+of God's heart into human hearts. Ye shall be partakers of the divine
+nature. Ye shall be joint heirs with the Lord Jesus Christ, inheriting
+all that Christ inherited from His Father. Ye shall have the same
+spirit that was in Christ. Metaphor and trope and figure are exhausted
+in the endeavor of the apostle to set forth this sublime truth. Christ
+is the servant of God. We are the servants of God. He is the Son of
+God. We are the sons of God. He is the light of the world. We are
+the lights of the world. He is a priest forever. We are priests
+perpetually serving in His temple. He is the one eternal sacrifice. We
+are to present our bodies a living sacrifice before God. He is dead.
+We are to die with Him. He has risen. We are to rise with Him. Already
+we sit in the heavenly place with Christ Jesus. We are changed from
+glory to glory into His image. We are predestined to be conformed to
+that image. We are bid to pray that we may be rooted and grounded in
+Christ, and that with Him, we may be filled with all the fulness of
+God.
+
+Do I say, then, that I am equal to Christ? Or that I shall ever become
+equal to Christ? No! Let me try to make this plain to the child, and
+then the rest will perhaps understand it. Here is a great man. He is
+a great statesman. He is a great poet. He is a great orator. He is a
+great philosopher. He is a great general. He is Bismarck and Gladstone
+and Dante and Napoleon and Raphael and Plato all combined in one.
+And he has children, and this boy is a statesman, and this boy is a
+general, and this boy is an orator, and this boy is a poet, and this
+boy is an artist. No one of them comprizes all the genius that was in
+his father, but each one has one quality of that father, and all the
+boys together reflect their father's nature. No, I shall never be
+equal to Christ. But according to the measure of my own capacity,
+I may reflect even here and now something of Christ and be really
+Christ-like.
+
+Christ is my Master. I acknowledge no other Master than Him. I wish to
+follow where He leads. I gladly believe whatever He says. And I have
+no other ambition--oh, I wish it were true that I never had any other
+ambition!--than to be like Him. But He is my Master because He bids me
+follow where He leads, because He gives what I can take, because He
+promised what He will yet fulfil. I believe in the divinity of our
+Lord Jesus Christ. It is the center of my faith, as He is the center
+and source of my life. But I do not believe in the medieval formula
+that Jesus Christ is God and man mysteriously joined together, because
+to believe that would be to leave me both without an ideal of man
+which I might follow, and without a manifestation of God to which I
+might cling. In my country home two Christians quarreled. An atheist
+went to them and said to one of them, "Your Christ said, 'Forgive
+all your enemies and love one another.'" "Yes," he said, "Christ was
+divine. He could. I cannot." But there was nothing of moral virtue
+that God wrought in Christ that He cannot work in you and me if we
+give Him time enough. And, on the other hand, this separation of "God"
+and "man" in Christ denies the real manifestation of God to man.
+Jesus called His disciples to watch while He wrestled with agony in
+Gethsemane, and Dean Alford, speaking on Gethsemane, says this was the
+manifestation in Christ of human weakness. No! no! A thousand times,
+No! It is the glorious manifestation of that sympathy in God which
+wants the sympathy of the feeblest of His followers, as the mother
+wants the sympathy and love of the babe on her lap. "Beloved, now are
+we the sons of God; and it doth not yet appear what we shall be. Only
+we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is." There are two
+things we do not know. Genius is always a mystery, spiritual genius
+the greatest mystery of genius, and Christ the greatest mystery of
+all. We do not know what we shall be, any more than one who never had
+seen a garden could guess what the mold would be when the spring had
+finished its work. Those are two things we do not know. But there are
+two things we do know. We shall be like Him, and when we are like Him,
+we shall see Him as He is. We shall be like no imagination of Him, no
+deteriorated or imperfect conception of Him; but when we come to see
+Him in all the regal splendor of His character, with all the love, all
+the justice, all the purity, all the divine glory which is adumbrated
+and shadowed here because our eyes could not look upon it and still
+live--when we come to see Him in all the glory of that divine
+character, we shall be like Him--_we shall be like Him_.
+
+
+
+
+BROOKS
+
+THE PRIDE OF LIFE
+
+BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+
+Phillips Brooks was born at Boston, Mass., in 1835, graduated at
+Harvard in 1855 and studied theology at the P.E. Seminary, Alexandria,
+Va. He was elected rector of the Church of the Advent, Philadelphia,
+in 1859, and three years later to that of Holy Trinity in the same
+city. In 1869 he became rector of Trinity Church, Boston, and was
+consecrated Bishop of Massachusetts in 1891. He died in 1893. He was
+in every sense a large man, large in simplicity and sympathy, large in
+spiritual culture. In his lectures to the students at Yale he spoke of
+the preparation for the ministry as being nothing less than the making
+of a man. Said he:
+
+"It cannot be the mere training to certain tricks. It cannot be even
+the furnishing with abundant knowledge. It must be nothing less than
+the kneading and tempering of a man's whole nature till it becomes of
+such a consistency and quality as to be capable of transmission. This
+is the largeness of the preacher's culture." Doctor Brastow describes
+him thus: "The physical equipment was symbol of his soul; and the
+rush of his speech was typical of those mental, moral, and spiritual
+energies that were fused into unity and came forth in a stream of
+fiery intensity."
+
+
+
+
+BROOKS
+
+1835--1893
+
+THE PRIDE OF LIFE[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Published for the first time by the kind permission of
+William G. Brooks.]
+
+_The pride of life_.--1 John ii., 16.
+
+
+John is giving his disciples the old warning not to love the world,
+that world which then and always is pressing on men's eyes and ears
+and hearts with all its loveliness and claiming to be loved. "Love not
+the world, neither the things that are in the world.... For all that
+is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and
+the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world."
+
+What is the pride of life? Pride is one of those words which hover in
+the middle region between virtue and vice. The materials which under
+one set of circumstances and in one kind of character make up an
+honorable self-respect, seem so often to be precisely the same as
+those which under another set of circumstances and in another kind of
+character make up arrogance and self-conceit. This last is the tone
+evidently in which John speaks. So it is with most moral minglings.
+All character is personal, determined by some force that blends the
+qualities into a special personality. The same apparent qualities
+unite into the most various results. It is like the delicate
+manufacture of mosaics. The skilful workers of Rome or Venice put in
+the same ingredients in nature and amount, and the composition comes
+out at one time dull and muddy and at another time perfectly clear and
+lustrous. Some subtle difference in the mixture of the constituents
+or in the condition of the atmosphere or in the heat of the furnace
+alters the whole result. So out of life we may say in its various
+minglings there come various products in character, either humility or
+thankfulness or contentment or self-respect, from some failure of the
+qualities to meet in perfect union, from some fault in the shape or
+misregulation of the temperature of the human furnace in which they
+are fused, this degenerate and confused result of pride which yet
+is often so near to, that we can see how it was only some slightest
+cause, some stray and unguarded draft across the surface that hindered
+it from being, one of the clear and lustrous combinations of the same
+material. But that fact makes it no better. The muddy glass is no more
+useful because it is made of the same components as the clear glass.
+There is nothing still to be done with it but to throw it away.
+
+What then is the pride of life which is bad, which "is not of the
+Father, but is of the world"? Life itself we know is of the Father. In
+whatever sense we take that much-meaning word, life is God's gift. The
+mere physical being, if that be life, is the creation of His mighty
+word. The continuance, the prolongation of the vital function, if
+that be life, that too is the result of His never-sleeping care. The
+surrounding circumstances, the scenery of our experience, if that be
+life, is also of His arranging. The spiritual vitality, all the higher
+powers as we call them, of thought and feeling and conscience, if they
+be life, no hand but His strung and tuned their manifold and subtle
+cords. Everywhere there is no life but what He gives. It is not of the
+world. In no sense does any creative power of being issue either from
+the material earth, or from the social system, or from the mass of
+conventional laws and standards, each of which is sometimes, in
+different uses of the word, characterized as "the world." They may all
+influence and change and give character to life, but none of them can
+create it.
+
+And perhaps this brings us to what we want. The world may give a
+certain character or shape to life, even altho it cannot create it.
+Now pride is a certain character or shape of life. It is a term of
+description not of the material of life but of a particular result of
+that material fused into a particular furnace. In general the shape of
+life which pride describes may be otherwise characterized as
+arrogant self-reliance or self-sufficiency. We may reach more minute
+definitions of it before we are done, but this seems to make the
+meaning plain when it is said that the pride of life is not of the
+Father, but of the world. Life comes from God. It is the world's
+influence that shapes that life, which has no moral character in
+itself, into arrogance and self-sufficiency, makes it up into pride
+instead of into humility, and so leaves as the result the pride of
+life. The pride of life, then, is God's gift which means dependence
+changed and distorted into independence, revolt and disobedience.
+
+Most necessary is it that in all we say we should keep clear in mind
+that the first gift is God's. The substance of life is His. All evil
+is misuse, otherwise repentance must be cursed with misanthropy and
+hopelessness instead of being as it always ought to be, the very
+birthplace of hope, the spring of a new life from the worn-out failure
+of an old, back into the possibility of life that is older still, as
+old as man's first creation.
+
+Let us see where the pride of life shows itself. First of all
+doubtless in the mere exuberance of animal strength. To be well and
+strong, full of spirit and physical vitality, this is beyond all doubt
+one of the most precious gifts of God. We never can forget the large
+strong physical strain with which our Bible opens, the torrent of
+health and full life that seems to pour down to us out of those early
+days when the world was young, when the giants made the earth shake
+under their mighty tread and the patriarchs outlived the forests with
+their green old years. The fulness of physical vitality is of God, to
+be accepted as His benefaction, to be cultivated and cared for with
+the reverence that His gifts demand. And round the mere physical life
+group a whole circle of tastes and enjoyments and exercises which
+belong with the sensuous more than with the intellectual or moral part
+of us, and whose full life seems to be dependent upon the fulness of
+physical being, the mere perception of beauty, the love of comfort,
+the delight in enterprise and adventure and prowess. The sum of all
+these is what we call full physical life. It is what gives youth its
+most generous charm and makes it always poetic with its suggested
+powers and unaccomplished possibilities.
+
+But yet this mere fulness of life as we all know has its dangers. Mere
+health is overbearing by its very nature. There is a lack of sympathy
+in it. Not knowing suffering itself, it is not respectful of suffering
+in others. It is not careful of inflicting suffering. The full blood
+sings of nothing but itself. It is careless of others. It is careless
+of God, not malignantly cruel, nor deliberately atheistic, but selfish
+with a sort of self-absorption which is often, very gracious in its
+forms and infidel with a mere forgetfulness of God. Who of us does not
+know, and who of us, wavering between his standards and his feelings,
+has not very often found it hard to tell just how he ought to value
+the enthusiastic and arrogant self-sufficiency of healthy youth?
+
+It is this, I take it, that is described here as "the pride of life."
+Wherever there is eager and full-blooded youth there it appears. It
+breaks out in the wild and purposeless mob of lower city life, in the
+impatience and insubordination of the country boy who longs to be free
+from his father's farm, in the crude skepticism of college students'
+first discussions of religion. It is jealous of slight, of insult,
+of the least suspicion of restraint or leading. It belongs to strong
+young nations as well as to strong young men. By it they flaunt
+defiance in the face of the world and are afraid of the imputation of
+prudence. It is what you can see in the faces of any group of eager
+young men as you pass them on the street. Sometimes it makes them
+attractive and sometimes it makes them detestable. It turns the noble
+youth into a hero and the mean youth into a bully. A fine nature it
+leads into the most exquisite tastes and encircles it with art and
+music. A coarse nature it plunges into the vilest debauchery and vice.
+In good fortune it makes the temper carelessly benignant. In bad
+fortune it makes the temper recklessly defiant. It works these very
+different effects but is always the one same spirit still,--the pride
+of life. The gift of life which came from God, taken possession of by
+the world and tamed into self-sufficiency, a thing not of the Father,
+but of the world, who does not know in himself, or see in somebody
+he watches, something of this pure pride in life? Just to live is so
+attractive that the higher ends and responsibilities of living drift
+away out of sight. This instinctive almost physical selfishness is the
+philosophy of more than we think both of the good and of the bad that
+is in young people.
+
+I have seen too much of it to undervalue the sweet and sober piety of
+old age. There is a beauty in it that is all its own. A softness and
+tenderness and patience and repose in the western sky that the bolder
+glories of the east where the morning breaks never can attain. Many
+and many of the best men we have known have been old men, but no one
+looks at men's progress without feeling that a great deal of what
+passes for growth in goodness as men grow old is in reality only the
+deadening of the pride of life from the dying-down of the life itself.
+Many and many a man who passes for a sober, conscientious, religious
+sort of man at fifty, if you put back into his cooled blood the hot
+life he had at twenty-five would be the same reckless, profligate,
+arrogant sinner that he was then. It is the life, not the pride, that
+he has lost. Many and many a man thinks that he has saved his house
+from conflagration because he, sees no flame, when really the flame
+is hidden only because the house is burnt down and the fire is still
+lurking among the ashes, hunting out any little prey that is left and
+hungrily waiting for more fuel to light up the darkness again. One
+thing at least is true, that the goodness of old age in what we may
+call its passive forms, humility, submission, patience, faith, is
+necessarily far more hard to recognize and be sure of than the same
+goodness in a younger man. What you call piety may be only deadness.
+
+And young men are often pointed just to this old age as the golden
+time when they will be religious as they cannot be now. They look to
+it themselves. "You are full of the pride of life," men say to them;
+"Ah, wait! By and by the life will flag. The senses will grow dull,
+the tastes will stupefy, the enterprise will flicker out, and the days
+come in which your soul will say 'I have no pleasure in them.' Just
+wait for that! Then your pride will go too, and then you will need and
+seek your God." It is a poor taunt and a poorer warning. If you have
+nothing better to say to make men use their powers rightly than to
+tell them that they will lose their powers some day, the answer will
+always be, "Well, I will wait until that losing day comes before
+I worry." If you tell a young man that his life is short, the old
+bacchanalian answer is the first one, "Live while we live." You must
+somehow get hold of that, you must persuade him that the true life now
+is the holy life, that life, this same life that he prizes, ought to
+breed humility and faith, not arrogance and pride, or else you
+must expect to talk to the winds. It surely is important that the
+conversion of the pride of life must come not by the putting-out of
+life but by making it a source of humility instead of pride.
+The humbleness of life. How can it come? By clearer and deeper
+truthfulness to let us see what the real facts of the case are, that
+is all; but that is very hard, so hard that it can be brought about by
+no other than the Almighty Holy Ghost. Let me see that this physical
+life of mine, having no true character of its own, is made to be a
+great machinery for simply conducting the knowledge and the love of
+God into my life; let all my study of the exquisite adaptations of
+the physical organs for their work be sanctified with this idea, this
+ever-pervading consciousness that eye and ear and hand are doors for
+the knowledge and the love of Him to enter by, and that all their
+marvelous mechanism is only the perfecting of hinges and bolt that He
+may enter more impressively and lovingly and entirely; let me learn
+that every bright taste or fine instinct or noble appetite is a ray of
+sunlight, not the sun, is the projection into my life of some force
+above, outside of me, which I can find only by climbing back along the
+ray that is projected, up to it; let me see all animal life a
+study and preparation for this final life of man, sensations and
+perceptions, growing clearer and clearer as we rise in the scale until
+in man they are fit to convey this knowledge which man alone can have,
+the knowledge of God; let me see this, and I must be ashamed to make
+that life a thing of pride which might be the seat of such an exalted
+and exalting dependence and humility. I am unwilling that those
+well-built cisterns which ought to be so full of God should hold
+nothing but myself, as if one crept into his aqueduct and closed it up
+where the water came into it from the fountain and lived in it for a
+house and found it very dry.
+
+We see clearly enough what the change is that is needed. It is
+to substitute for self-consciousness as the result of life the
+ever-abiding consciousness of God. Do you ask how it shall be done?
+Ah, my dear friends, that is the very miracle of the gospel. I can
+tell you only this about it, which the Lord has told us all before:
+"Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." The
+kingdom of God, that region of life in which God is the life's King.
+And again: "If any man love me he will keep my words and my Father
+will love him and we will come unto him and make our abode with him."
+"We will come to him!" That is what we want, for that is the source of
+all humility, the coming of God into us, and the condition is love and
+obedience, the spiritual and the active forms of faith. That is all we
+can say. And that is enough, for in that this at least is clear, that
+such a conversion is a work that God has undertaken to do for us, that
+He asks of us nothing but submission to His willing helpfulness, and
+that being a transformation of life, it may, nay it must, be done
+while life is in possession, it can be done best when life is in its
+fullest. We have not to wait till movement is slow and color is dull.
+We are not tempted to make a vacancy and call it piety; but when man's
+life is so full that it tempts him daily to self-consciousness and
+pride, then let him open it wide to the consciousness of God and
+ennoble it with the full dignity of that humility whose first
+condition is the presence of God in the soul that He built for His own
+inhabiting.
+
+There is a condition possible where the life shall flow with God as
+fully and freely as it ordinarily flows with self, where the greater
+volume it acquires, it only bears the more of Him; where every joy
+delights in Him, and every power depends on Him, and the whole man
+lives in Him and knows it. It is not a constant effort. It is the
+spontaneous direction of the whole nature. It is the new condition
+of the Christian who has been exalted from the human pride into the
+divine humility of life, out of self to God.
+
+But I suggested at the outset that the word life was used in various
+meanings, and in connection with one or two of them I should like to
+develop a little what is meant by this phrase the "pride of
+life." Life sometimes familiarly signifies what we otherwise call
+circumstances. A man is said to "get on in life," not with reference
+to his growing older or growing healthier, but as he grows more rich,
+more prosperous. The pride of life in this sense would be the pride
+of success, which we see wherever men are struggling in this world of
+competition. Look at the young merchant who is making a living. Things
+go well with him. He rises from stratum to stratum of that commercial
+system whose geology is the ever-eluding study of the toilers of the
+street. He grows rich. His store begins to spread with the pressure of
+new enterprises. His house begins to blossom into the rich bloom
+of luxury. He is greeted with a new respect. He is courted with an
+eagerness he never knew before. Friends gather about him. His word has
+weight. His name means money. He is successful. What is the result?
+Those facts in themselves signify nothing, let us remember, but
+material capable of being made into one thing or another wholly its
+opposite. These are the gift of the Father, every one of them, all
+that profusion of life. But there is a possible effect of them all in
+character, a pride, which is not of the Father, but of the world. With
+a morbid sympathy the man assimilates all that is poor and mean and
+worldly out of his prosperity, and rejects, because he has no affinity
+for it, all that is good and sweet and heavenly. He is chilled and
+narrowed and embittered. All the old sweetness and humility fade out
+of his nature. Need I tell you of it? Our streets are full of the
+pride of life. Its types only, its outer types flash in the splendid
+carriages and blaze in the fronts of gaudy houses and sweep the floors
+of drawing-rooms and the aisles of churches. Those types, the mere
+outward trappings of success, are not wherein the badness lies. The
+reality is in the hard hearts and selfish tempers and undocile minds
+which, in the splendor or the squalidness of wealth, show the sad ruin
+of self-sufficient success, the pride of life.
+
+The pride of life kills out the life itself. Is there a sadder picture
+than you have in the life of a man, old or young, to whom God has
+sent prosperity, who by his own act then turns that prosperity into a
+failure by being proud of it? Christ Himself has told us how it is.
+The life is more than meat. He has no tolerance for this little
+meaning of a word that He made so large. The life is more than meat.
+Yes, life is meat and man, and to lose the best manhood to get the
+meat, to lose the soul to save the body, to fail of heaven above you
+and before you that you may own the ground under your feet, that is
+not success but failure. "In all time of our prosperity, Good Lord
+deliver us!" May God help you who are prosperous.
+
+I would speak again of what is called intellectual life, the life of
+thought. It is "of the Father," indeed. We picture to ourselves
+the pure joy of God in thought. Free from so many of our cumbrous
+processes, free from the limitations of slow-moving time, free from
+all imperfection, with an instantaneous thought as is His being, the
+intellect that is the center of all reason revolves in its unfathomed
+majesty. And man thinks too. God makes him think. God gives him powers
+to think with, and then, as when you pour for your child a stream of
+water out of your cisterns upon the wheels of the machinery that you
+have first built for him, God gives man thoughts to exercise his power
+of thinking upon. Can anything be more humble? The power was from God,
+the thoughts by which the power moves were God's thoughts first. "Oh,
+God, I think Thy thoughts after Thee," cried John Kepler, when he
+caught sight of the great law of planetary motion. But mere thought,
+self-satisfied, seeking no unity in God, owning no dependence,
+boasting of itself, counting it hardship that it cannot know all where
+it knows so much, this is the pride of thought, and this is not of the
+Father, but is of the world. How arrogant it is! How it is jealous of
+dictation, how it chafes under a hand that presses it down and a voice
+that says to it, "Wait! what thou knowest not now thou shall; know
+hereafter." How carefully it limits its kind of evidence, shutting out
+everything that sounds like personal communication, revelation, in its
+impatient independence; how studiously it orphans itself. And then
+how, in some moods, orphaned by its arrogance, it suddenly becomes
+intensely cognizant of its orphanage, and the child's hunger for a
+Father takes possession of its heart and it is dreary and miserable!
+
+I always know, when I speak thus of types of men, that you will think
+that I am talking of those types in their extreme specimens. I am
+not speaking to-day of the miracles of physical vitality, nor of the
+over-successful men with their colossal fortunes, nor of the mighty
+thinkers only. We all have our certain share in these various kinds of
+life, and each of us may make his little share a seed of pride. We
+are strangely ingenious here. We have an easy faculty of persuading
+ourselves that ours is best of everything and growing arrogant,
+unfilial and worldly over it. I speak to the men confident in their
+youth and health, to the merchants strong in their business credit,
+to the thoughtful brains at work over their problems of settling the
+universe for themselves. I warn them all against the pride of life. I
+would try to show them all that the same material which is capable of
+being made into pride is capable also of being made into humility. I
+would tell them therefore that they have not to be made old or sick or
+poor or stupid before they can be made humble, that the best humility,
+as well as the hardest, is that which can come to them here, right in
+the midst of their strength and wealth and study!
+
+Do you ask how that can be? It is time that I tried to tell you, tried
+to tell how one may be full of life and yet be free from the pride of
+life. That question must somehow be answered, or else the world will
+be condemned to choose forever between an arrogant prosperity and a
+salvation by misery, distress and disaster, by death. What do we need
+for the salvation of a prosperous life? The answer in one word is
+consecration. Consecration, that is what we need. There have been men
+in whom life seemed complete who have yet walked very humbly. They had
+no pride of life. And why? Because always before them and above them
+there stood some great principle, some idea, some duty to which
+their life belonged, not to themselves. All work is modest, all idle
+self-contemplation is vain. And what the young man needs with his
+vague aspirations and conceits is to make himself the servant of some
+worthy purpose. And what the merchant needs with his growing business
+is to count himself the steward of some worthy Master. And what the
+student needs with his active mind is to trace the footsteps of the
+God of wisdom in the path he walks and to count the reaching nearer to
+Him, the true prize and object of all thinking. Consecration! We are
+proud of life because we do so little with it. It is as if the bearer
+of dispatches sat down calmly and boasted of the well-made box in
+which they had been given to him, and never bore them to their
+destination. Life is force, to be transmitted and delivered to a
+purpose and an end. It loses its true nature and sweetness, it
+corrupts into pride, when it is robbed of its true purpose and
+cherished only for itself.
+
+We can find our example of the consecrated man wherever we see true
+lives lived in history or about us now, in the Bible or in common
+life. Moses, David, Paul! But why look at the poor, imperfect copies
+when in our Lord Himself we have the consummate human life clothed in
+the wondrous humility of His appointed work. The life of lives! and
+yet was ever any life so utterly free from the tawdry pride that makes
+our poor achievements so wretched and unsatisfying. You say He cut
+Himself off from all that men are proud of. Not so. He gave up house
+and home, but he carried about with Him always the devotion of the
+people, the mystery of unknown power and the consciousness of great
+work and influence, the very things that have always seduced the best
+men most and in their highest labors made them proud. You say He was
+divine and so could not be humble. Yes, but He was profoundly human
+also, and humility is not subserviency or meanness. It is a grace not
+unworthy of, nay, necessary to, even the perfect humanity. But one
+thing stands out always: His was the consecrated life. It was all
+given to its purpose. "He was called Jesus because he should save his
+people from their sins." "Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's
+business?" "Behold we go up to Jerusalem and the Son of Man shall be
+betrayed." "To this end was I born and for this cause came I into the
+world, that I should bear witness unto the truth." Everywhere the
+consecration, a life appointed to an end, the face set to Jerusalem,
+the hands and feet waiting for the cross! Meanwhile it was the fullest
+life, but lived so high that the "pride of life" lay all below under
+His feet and out of sight.
+
+And our life must be consecrated even as His was. What shall the
+consecration be? Far be it from me to undervalue the exaltation into
+humility that comes to a man when he consecrates himself to any great
+and noble cause. I believe that it helps to save any man from pride
+when he gives himself to his family or his country or his fellow men,
+to truth, to liberty, to purity, to anything outside of and above
+himself, but there is a consecration higher and fuller and more saving
+than any such can be. We go back to the Cross. Jesus is dying there
+for us. He dies and we are saved. What then? When a soul "knows its
+full salvation" and sees it all bought by, all wrapt up in, that
+Redeemer, then in the outburst of a grateful love, he gives himself
+to the Redeemer Christ. There is no hesitation, no keeping back of
+anything. He is all offered up to Christ; and then to serve that
+Christ, to follow Him, to do His will, to enter into Him, that is
+the one great object of the whole consecrated life, and in that
+consecration, the straining of the life toward that One Object, the
+"pride of life" is swept down and drowned. Not merely the life then,
+but the use of the life, comes from the Father. It is not of the
+world. The soul is saved!
+
+The salvation of the Cross! Its center is the forgiveness of sins
+which the cross alone made possible; but is not its issue here, in the
+lifting of the soul above the pride of life and consecrating it in the
+profoundest gratitude to "Him who redeemed us and washed us from
+sins in His own blood"? What humility! What self-forgetfulness! What
+unworldliness! What utter childhood to the Father!
+
+My friends, my people, would you be saved, saved from your sins, saved
+from yourselves, saved from the pride of life? You must be His that
+you may not be your own! He died for you that you might not henceforth
+live to yourself but unto Him. You must be consecrated to your Savior.
+If there is one soul in my church to-day who is weary and dissatisfied
+with his self-slavery, I offer him Jesus for Savior, for Master! If
+any man thirst let him come unto Him and drink. Turn unto Him and be
+ye saved! You can, you must! His service is life, life in its fullest
+because life in humility. Outside of His gospel and His service there
+is the pride of life, and the pride of life is death.
+
+
+
+
+GLADDEN
+
+THE PRINCE OF LIFE
+
+BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+
+Washington Gladden, Congregational divine, was born at Pottsgrove,
+Pa., in 1836. After graduating at Williams College he was ordained
+pastor, and occupied pulpits in Brooklyn, Morrisania, N.Y., and
+Springfield, Mass., until 1882, when he assumed charge of the First
+Congregational Church of Columbus, Ohio. He has also occupied
+editorial positions, and has published many books on social and civil
+reform and the practical application of Christian truth to popular and
+common life. His style, whether he is writing or speaking, combines
+vigor with grace.
+
+
+
+
+GLADDEN
+
+BORN IN 1836
+
+THE PRINCE OF LIFE[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: From Mr. Gladden's "The New Idolatry." By permission of
+The McClure Co. Copyright, 1906, by McClure, Phillips & Co.]
+
+_And killed the prince of life, whom God hath raised from the
+dead._--Acts iii., 15.
+
+
+This is the phrase with which Peter, in his great speech in the temple
+porch, describes the Master whose disciple he had been for three years,
+whose death he had witnessed on Calvary, and to whose resurrection from
+the dead he is now bearing witness. "The prince of life!" It is one of
+the many great titles conferred upon the Lord by those who loved Him.
+Reverence and devotion fell from their lips in lyrical cadences whenever
+they spoke of Him, and they wreathed for Him garlands of words with
+which they loved to deck His memory. He was "the Prophet of the
+Highest"; He was "the Great High Priest"; He was "the Shepherd of the
+Sheep"; He was "the Captain of Salvation"; He was "the First Born of
+Many Brethren"; He was "Redeemer," "Reconciler," "Savior." Gratitude and
+affection shaped many a tender phrase in which to describe Him, but
+there is none, perhaps, more luminous or more comprehensive than this
+with which the impulsive Peter, facing the men who had put Him to death,
+gave utterance to his loyalty. Its pertinence is confirmed by the word
+of Jesus Himself, in one of the sayings in which He described His
+mission: "I am come that ye might have life, and that ye might have it
+abundantly." Author and Giver of life He was, and what He gave He gave
+with princely munificence--freely, unstintedly.
+
+The phrase seems to be one on which we may fitly dwell to-day, since
+the day of the year which commemorates His birth occurs on the day of
+the week which celebrates His resurrection. Both events proclaim Him
+the Prince of Life. In the one He is the Bringer of new life, in
+the other He is the Victor over death; and thus He becomes, in the
+impassioned confessions of the apostle, the Alpha and the Omega, the
+Author and the Finisher of Faith, the First and the Last and the
+Living One.
+
+Those who are familiar with the New Testament narration do not need to
+have their attention called to the constant ministry of this Son of
+Man to the vital needs of men. The impartation of life seems to
+have been His main business. Somehow it came to be believed by the
+multitude, at the very beginning of His public ministry, that He
+possest some power of communicating life. The wonderful works ascribed
+to Him are nearly all of this character. The healing of the sick, the
+cleansing of the lepers, all resulted from the reenforcement of the
+vital energies of the sufferers. When He laid His hand upon men, new
+life seemed to speed through their veins. We have known some who
+seemed to have, in some imperfect way, this quickening touch. It is
+a physiological fact that warm blood from the veins of a thoroughly
+healthy person, transfused through the veins of one who is emaciated
+or exhausted, quickens the wavering pulse and brings life to the
+dying. It may be that through the nerve tissues, as well as through
+the veins, the same vitalizing force may be communicated, and that
+those who are in perfect health, both of body and of mind, may have
+the power of imparting life to those who are in need of it. The
+miracles of healing ascribed to Jesus must have been miracles in the
+literal sense; they were wonders, marvels--for that is what the word
+miracle means; that they were interruptions or violations of natural
+law is never intimated in the New Testament; they may have been purely
+natural occurrences, taking place under the operation of natural
+laws with which we are not familiar. We are far from knowing all the
+secrets of this wonderful universe; the time may come when these words
+of Jesus will have larger meaning than we have ever given them: "If ye
+abide in me, the works that I do shall ye do also, and greater works
+than these shall ye do, because I go unto my Father."
+
+The fact to be noted is, however, that the people with whom Jesus was
+brought into contact were made aware in many ways of the impartation
+of His Life to them. "Of His fulness," said John, "we all received,
+and grace for grace." There seemed to be in Him a plenitude of
+vitality, from which health and vigor flowed into the lives of those
+who came near to Him. Nor does this seem to have been any mere
+physical magnetism; there is no intimation that His physical
+endowments were exceptional; the restoring and invigorating influence
+oftener flowed from a deeper source. The physical renewal came as the
+result of a spiritual quickening. He reached the body through the
+soul. The order was, first, "Thy sins be forgiven thee"; then, "Arise
+and walk." If the spirit is thoroughly alive, the body more quickly
+recovers its lost vigor. And it was mainly in giving peace to troubled
+consciences and rest to weary souls that He conferred upon those who
+received Him the great boon of life.
+
+Thus Jesus proved Himself "the Prince of Life." In the early ages of
+the Church the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, came to be described as
+"the Lord and Giver of Life"; but that was because He was believed to
+be the Continuator of the work of Jesus--the spiritual Christ.
+
+There seems to be in this conception a great and beautiful revelation
+of the essential nature of Christianity. There are many ways of
+conceiving of this, but I am not sure that any one of them is more
+significant than that which we are now considering. Those words of
+Jesus to which I have before referred are wonderful words when we come
+to think upon them. They occur in that discourse in which He describes
+Himself first as the Good Shepherd, and contrasts Himself with the
+thieves and robbers who have been ravaging the flock. "The thief
+cometh not," He says, "but that he may steal and kill and destroy; I
+came that they may have life, and may have it abundantly," Have we
+not here the great fundamental distinction between men--the line that
+separates the evil from the good, the just from the unjust, the sheep
+from the goats--that distinction which Jesus marks so clearly in His
+parable of judgment, and which must never, in our interpretations or
+philosophizings, be blotted or blurred? Some are life-givers; some are
+life-destroyers. "The thief cometh not but that he may steal and
+kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and may have it
+abundantly."
+
+I do not suppose that Jesus meant in this to declare that there is a
+large class of persons whose entire purpose it is to steal and kill
+and destroy; probably there are none so malevolent that they do not
+cherish some kindly impulses and perform some generous deeds. It is a
+distinction between acts, or perhaps between tendencies of character,
+that He is making. He speaks in the concrete, as He always does; but
+He expects us to make the proper application of His words. The fact to
+which He guides our thought is this--that there are ways of living,
+forms of conduct, which are predatory and destructive of life, and
+other ways that tend to make life increase and abound. When Jesus
+contrasts His own conduct, as one who gives life and gives it
+abundantly, with the thieves and robbers who kill and destroy, we must
+interpret the conduct of those whom He describes as destructive of
+life--as tending to the diminution of life. Indeed, it is a very deep
+and awful truth that all our social action tends in one or other of
+these directions. Life, in its proper relation, is the one supreme and
+central good; the life of the body is the supreme good of the body;
+the life of the spirit is the supreme good of the spirit. And you can
+rightly estimate any act or habit or tendency of human conduct only by
+determining whether it increases and invigorates the life of men, body
+and spirit, or whether it reduces or diminishes their life. Good men
+are adding to the life of those with whom they have to do; evil men
+are debilitating and depleting the life of those with whom they have
+to do.
+
+Even in our economic relations the final effect of all our conduct
+upon those with whom we deal is to replenish or diminish their life.
+The wage question is at bottom a question of more or less life for the
+wage-worker. Starvation wages are wages by which the hold upon life
+of the wage-earner and his wife and children is weakened. Systems of
+industry are good in proportion as they enlarge and invigorate the
+life of the whole population; evil in proportion as they lessen and
+weaken its life. So all industrial and national policies are to be
+judged by the amount of life which they produce and maintain--life of
+the body and of the spirit. Those strong words of John Ruskin are the
+everlasting truth:
+
+"There is no wealth but life--life including all its powers of love,
+of joy and of admiration. That country is the richest which nourishes
+the greatest number of noble and happy human beings; that man is
+richest who, having perfected the functions of his own life to the
+utmost, has also the widest helpful influence, both personal and by
+means of his possessions, over the lives of others,"
+
+We have here, as you see, the Christian conception--the very word of
+the Prince of Life, of Him who came that we might have life, and that
+we might have it abundantly. And when His kingdom has come, this will
+be the end for which wealth is sought and used in every nation.
+
+It is possible to use wealth so that it shall be productive of life;
+so that the entire administration of it shall tend to the enlargement
+and enrichment of the life of men; so that the labor which it employs
+shall obtain an increasing share of the goods which it produces; so
+that all the conditions under which that labor is performed shall be
+favorable to health and life and happiness; so that the spiritual
+life, also, of all who are employed shall be nourished by inspiring
+them with good-will and kindness, with the confidence in man which
+helps us to have faith in God. Such an administration of wealth is
+perhaps the very best testimony to the reality of the truth of the
+Christian religion which it is possible to bear in this day and
+generation. One who handles capital with this clear purpose can do
+more to establish in the earth the kingdom of heaven than any minister
+or missionary can do.
+
+But it is possible to use wealth in the opposite way, so that it shall
+be destructive rather than productive of life. A man may manage his
+industry in such a way that the last possible penny shall be taken
+from wages and added to profit; in such a way that the health of his
+employees shall be impaired and their happiness blighted and their
+hope taken, away. He may do this while maintaining an outwardly
+religious behavior and giving large sums to philanthropy. But such
+a handling of wealth does more to make infidels than any heretical
+teacher or lecturer ever did or can do.
+
+The fact needs to be noted that all the predatory schemes by which
+capital is successfully inflated and nefariously manipulated, and the
+community is thus burdened, are deadly attacks upon the life of the
+people. They filch away the earnings of the laboring classes. They
+increase the cost of rent and transportation and all the necessaries
+of life. They extort from the people contributions for which no
+equivalent has been given, of commodity or service. Thus the burden of
+toil is increased and the reward of industry is lessened for all who
+work; the surplus out of which life would be replenished is consumed,
+and the amount of life in the nation at large is lessened. Every one
+of those schemes of frenzied finance about which we are reading
+in these days is a gigantic bloodsucker, with ten million minute
+tentacles which it stealthily fastens upon the people who do the
+world's work, and each one of the victims must give up a little of his
+life for the aggrandizement of our financial Titans. When such schemes
+flourish, by which men's gains are suddenly swollen to enormous
+proportions, somebody must be paying for it, and life is always the
+final payment. It all comes out of the life of the people who are
+producing the world's wealth. The plethora of the few is the depletion
+of the millions. In every great aggregation of workers, the faces of
+the underfed are a little paler and the pulses of the children beat a
+little less joyously, and the feet are hastened on that journey to
+the tomb--all because of those who come to steal and to kill and to
+destroy.
+
+Such is the contrast between beneficent business and maleficent
+business. The good business employs men, feeds them, clothes them,
+shelters them, generously distributes among them the goods that
+nourish life; the bad business contrives to levy tribute on the
+resources out of which they are fed and clad and nourished, and thus
+enriches itself by impoverishing the life of the multitude.
+
+And I suppose that we should all find, whether we are engaged in what
+is called business or not, that the work which we are doing, the way
+in which we are spending our time and gaining our income, is tending
+either to the enlargement and increase of the life of those with whom
+we have to do or to the impoverishment and destruction of their life;
+and that this is the final test by which we must be judged--are we
+producers of life or destroyers of life? Is there more of life in the
+world--more of physical and spiritual life--because of what we are and
+what we do, or is the physical and spiritual vitality of men lessened
+by what we are and what we do? Are we helping men to be stronger and
+sounder in body and mind and soul for the work of life, or are we
+making them feebler in muscle and will and moral stamina?
+
+When Jesus Christ came into the world the civilization prevailing--if
+such it could be called--was under the dominion of those who came
+to steal and to kill and to destroy. Rome was the world, and the
+civilization of Rome, with all its splendor, was at bottom a predatory
+civilization. It overran all its neighbors that it might subjugate and
+despoil them; its whole social system was based on a slavery in which
+the enslaved were merely chattels; the life of its ruling class was
+fed by the literal devouring of the lives of subject classes. Of
+course, this civilization was decadent. That terrible decline and fall
+which Gibbon has pictured was in full progress. It was in the midst of
+this awful scene that Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea. Can anyone
+doubt that His heart was full of divine compassion for those who were
+trampled on and preyed upon by the cruel and the strong, for those
+whose lives were consumed by the avarice and greed of their fellows?
+What did He mean when, at the beginning of His ministry in the synagog
+where He had always worshiped, He took in his hand the roll of the
+prophet Isaiah and read therefrom: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
+because he hath anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor; he
+hath sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight
+to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to proclaim the
+acceptable year of the Lord"--adding as He sat down, under the gaze of
+the congregation, "To-day hath this scripture been fulfilled in your
+ears"? What could He have meant but this, that it was His mission to
+change the entire current and tendency of human life; to put an end to
+the plunderers and devourers; to chain the wolfish passion in human
+hearts which prompts men to steal and to kill and to destroy; to
+inspire them with His own divine compassion; to give life and to give
+it abundantly? And is it not true that so far as men do receive of His
+fulness, so far as they are brought under the control of His spirit,
+they do cease to be destroyers and devourers of the bodies and souls
+of their fellows, and become helpers, saviors, life-bringers? And is
+not this included in His meaning when He says: "I am come that they
+may have life, and that they may have it abundantly"?
+
+To-day, then, we hail Him as Prince of Life, the glorious Giver to men
+of the one supreme and crowning good. And the manner of the giving is
+not hard to understand. He gives life by kindling in our hearts the
+flame of sacred love. Love is life. Love to God and man brings the
+soul into unity with itself; it is obeying its own organic law, and
+obedience to its law brings to any organism life and health and
+peace. If the spirit of Christ has become the ruling principle of our
+conduct, then we have entered into life, and it is a life that knows
+no term; it is the immortal life. If the spirit of Christ has entered
+into our lives, then in all our relations with others life is
+increased; we are by nature givers of good; out of our lives are
+forever flowing healing, restoring, saving, vitalizing influences; and
+when all the members of the society in which we move have received
+this spirit and manifest it, there are none to bite and devour, to
+hurt and destroy; the predatory creatures have ceased their ravages,
+and the world rejoices in the plenitude of life which He came to
+bring.
+
+We hail Him, then, to-day, as the Lord and Giver of life. We desire to
+share with Him the unspeakable gift, and to share it, as best we may,
+with all our fellow men. What we freely receive from Him, we would
+freely give. What the whole world needs to-day is life, more life,
+fuller life, larger life. We spend all our energies in heaping up the
+means of life, and never really begin to live; our strength is wasted,
+our health is broken, our intellects are impoverished, our affections
+are withered, our peace is destroyed in our mad devotion to that
+which is only an adjunct or appendage of life. Oh, if we could only
+understand how good a thing it is to live, just to live, truly and
+freely and largely and nobly, to live the life that is life indeed!
+
+Shall we not draw to this Prince of Life and take from Him the gift
+that He came to bring? Is not this the one thing needful? We are
+reading and hearing much in these days of the simple life. What is it
+but the life into which they are led who take the yoke of this Master
+upon them and learn of Him? It is a most cheering omen that this
+little book of Pastor Wagner's is falling into so many hands and
+littering its ingenuous and persuasive plea before so many minds
+and in so many homes. If we heed it, it must bring us back to the
+simplicity of Christ. Pastor Wagner is only preaching over again the
+Sermon on the Mount; it is nothing but the teaching of Jesus brought
+down to this day and applied to the conditions of our complex
+civilization. It is the true teaching; none of us can doubt it. And I
+wish that we could all begin the new year with the earnest purpose to
+put ourselves under the leadership of the Prince of Life. I know that
+we should find His yoke easy and His burden light, and that there
+would be rest for our souls in the paths into which He would lead us.
+We should know, if we shared His life, that we were really living; and
+we should know also that we wore helping others to live; that we were
+doing what we could to put an end to the ravages of the destroyers and
+the devourers, and to fill the earth with the abundance of peace.
+
+Is not this, fellow men, the right way to live? Does not all that is
+deepest and divinest in you consent to this way of life into which
+Jesus Christ is calling us, as the right way, the royal way, the
+blessed way? Choose it, then, with all the energy of your volition,
+and walk in it with a glad heart and a hope that maketh not ashamed.
+
+
+
+
+CLIFFORD
+
+THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS
+
+BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+
+John Clifford, Baptist divine, was born at Lawley, Derbyshire,
+in 1836. He was educated at the Baptist College, Nottingham, and
+University College, London. He has had much editorial as well as
+ministerial experience and has published a number of works upon
+religious, educational and social questions. The Rev. William Durban,
+the editor, writing from London of John Clifford in the _Homiletic
+Review_, styles him "the renowned Baptist preacher, undoubtedly the
+most conspicuous figure in his own denomination." He speaks of "the
+profundity of thought," "simplicity and beauty of diction," the
+"compactness of argument" and "instructive expository character" of
+this preacher's discourses.
+
+
+
+
+CLIFFORD
+
+BORN IN 1836
+
+THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS
+
+_I believe in the forgiveness of sins_.--Apostles' Creed.
+
+
+This is the first note of personal experience in the Apostles' Creed.
+We here come into the society of men like John Bunyan and go with
+them through the wicket-gate of repentance, through the Slough of
+Despond, getting out on the right side of it, reaching at length the
+cross, to find the burden fall from our backs as we look upon Him who
+died for us; and then we travel on our way until we come to the River
+of Death and cross it, discovering that it is not so deep after all,
+and that on the other side is the fulness of the life everlasting.
+
+It is a new note, and it is a little surprizing--is it not?--to most
+students of this creed that we should have to travel through so many
+clauses before we reach it. It scarcely seems to be in keeping with
+the spirit and temper of the early Christian Church that we should
+have all this analysis of thought, this statement of the facts of
+Christian revelation, this testimony as to the power of the Holy
+Spirit, before we get any utterance as to that individual faith by
+which the Christian Church has been created, and owing to which there
+has been the helpful and inspiring fellowship of the saints.
+
+I say it is a new note, but it is fundamental. When the Creed does
+touch the inward life, it goes straight to that which is central--to
+that which is preeminently evangelical. Without the doctrine of the
+forgiveness of sins you could have no good news for a sinful world;
+but with the assertion of this faith as the actual faith of the man,
+you have possibilities of service, the upspringing of altruism, the
+conquest of self, the enthronement of Christ, the advancement of
+humanity after the likeness of Jesus Christ.
+
+A note it is which is not only fundamental but most musical,
+harmonious and gladdening. In the ancient Psalms we hear it
+oft--"Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me bless his
+holy name, who forgiveth all thine iniquities, who healeth all thy
+diseases." It recurs in the prophets: "I, the Lord, am he that
+blotteth out thy sins; yea, tho they be as a thick cloud, I will blot
+them out." It is the highest note reached by the singers of the Old
+Testament; but it comes to us with greater resonance and sweetness
+from the lips of the men who have stood in the presence of Jesus
+Christ, and who are able to say, as they look into the faces of their
+fellows: "Be it known unto you that through this man is preached unto
+you the forgiveness of sins from which you could not have been freed
+by the law of Moses." With emphasis, with, strength, with fulness of
+conviction, with gladdening rapture, these men proclaimed their faith
+in the forgiveness of sins, and tho the Creed of the churches travels
+slowly after the faith of the early Church, its last note sounds out
+a note of triumph: "I believe in the forgiveness of sins, the
+resurrection of the body, and life everlasting."
+
+It is the crown of the whole Creed. It is the flowering of the truths
+that are contained in the Creed. Let a man understand God, and let him
+have such a vision of the Eternal as Job had, and he is constrained to
+say, "I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes." He desires first
+and chiefly to know that the true relation between the human spirit
+and God which has been broken by sin has at length been rearranged,
+and that sin is no longer an obstacle to the soul's converse with a
+holy God, but that the ideal relation of the human spirit with the
+divine spirit is reestablished by the proclamation of forgiveness.
+For, as you know, pardon is not the extinguishing of a man's past;
+that cannot be done. What has been done by us of good or evil abides,
+it endures; not God Himself can extinguish the deeds of the past. What
+forgiveness does is this: it rearranges the relations between the
+spirit of man and our Father, so that the sins of the past are no
+longer an obstacle to us in our speech with Him, our trust in Him--our
+using the energies of God for the accomplishment of His purposes. It
+is the restoration of the human spirit to right relations with God.
+Forgiveness of sins conies, therefore, at the very start of a right
+life. It is the beginning. All else in the spiritual life succeeds
+upon this.
+
+I know there is a theory among us, and I am prepared to endorse it,
+that, if we are trained by godly parents in godly homes, we may grow
+into the spiritual life, pass into it, as it were, by stages which it
+is impossible for us to register. We are largely unconscious of
+these spiritual ascents; they are being made by the gracious use
+of influences that are in our environment, that reach us through
+sanctified folk, and we travel on from strength to strength, and,
+then, perchance, in our young manhood or womanhood, there comes a
+crisis of revelation, and we discover that we are in such relations
+with God our Father, Redeemer, and Renewer as fill us with peace,
+create hope and conscious strength. But I assure you that in addition
+to this experience there will come, it may be early, it may be late,
+some moment in the life when there is discovered to the individual
+spirit making that ascent a sense of the awful heinousness of sin; and
+tho we may not have such a unique experience of evil as the Apostle
+Paul had, and become so conscious of it as to feel, as it were, that
+it is a dead body that we have to carry about with us as we go through
+life, interfering with the very motions of our spirit; yet we do
+approximate to it, and it is through these approximations to
+the Apostle Paul that we are lifted to the heights of spiritual
+achievement, and are qualified for sympathy with a sin-stricken world,
+and inspired by and nourished in a passionate enthusiasm to serve that
+world by bringing it into right relations with God.
+
+When, therefore, a man says, "I believe in God the Father Almighty,
+maker of heaven and earth," he is asserting that which, being turned
+to its full and true use, carries him to this goal, "I believe in the
+forgiveness of sins." For a full and true doctrine of God can only
+be heartily welcomed when it is associated with the message of the
+forgiveness of sins. Otherwise the visions of the eternal Power may
+start in us the cry of Peter: "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man,
+O Lord," When a man asserts his faith in Jesus Christ, God's only Son,
+our Lord, who was crucified, who suffered under Pontius Pilate, who
+died on the cross; he is himself asserting his faith in the great
+purpose for which God sent His Son; even to take away the sin of
+the world, to make an end of iniquity, to bring in an everlasting
+righteousness; and so out of that faith he prepared for the response
+which the soul makes to the workings of the Spirit, the Holy Ghost
+within him, and he is able to say from his own knowledge of what God
+has been to him, "I believe in the forgiveness of sins."
+
+Friends, you have said this again and again, some of you hundreds of
+times. You have asserted it week by week. What did you mean by it?
+What exactly was the thought in your heart as the words passed over
+your lips, "I believe in the forgiveness of sins"? Was it simply the
+recognition of a universal amnesty for a world of rebels? Was it
+merely the assertion of your confidence in the goodness of God
+irrespective of His holiness? Or when you uttered that faith of yours,
+did it mean that you were able to say, "My sins, which were many,
+are all forgiven. My sins are forgiven, not may be--that pardon is a
+glorious possibility only--but are forgiven, not will be forgiven at
+some future time. I am now at peace with God through faith, in our
+Lord Jesus Christ"? Could you say that? Was that what it meant; or was
+it simply the repetition of a phrase which has been handed down to
+you by your predecessors, and which you took up as part of an ordered
+service, without putting the slightest fiber of your soul into it?
+
+Depend upon it, the mere recitation of a creed will not bring you
+God's peace, it will not open your heart to the access of His infinite
+calm. It will not secure you that emancipation from evil which will
+mean immediate dedication of yourself to work for the emancipation
+of the world. You must know of yourself, of your own heart and
+consciousness, that God has forgiven you. And if you do get that
+consciousness, that moment of your life will be marked indelibly upon
+the tablet of your memory. The dint will go so deeply into your nature
+that it will be impossible for you to forget it. Speaking for myself,
+I can at this moment see the whole surroundings of the place and time
+when to me there came the glad tidings, "God has forgiven you." "God
+was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not reckoning unto
+men their trespasses."
+
+Do you believe in the forgiveness of sins? Then preach it. Tell it
+to other people. Let your neighbors know about it. I do not mean
+by preaching at the street corners, but by getting into such close
+affectionate touch, with your friends as that you shall be able to
+persuade them to disinter the thoughts of their own hearts, and show
+the sorrows that are there--sorrows produced by sin. For, believe me,
+behind all the bright seeming of human countenances there is a subtle
+bitterness gnawing constantly at the heart, consequent upon the
+consciousness of failure--the sense of having broken the law of God. I
+know that hundreds of people go into the church and tell God that they
+are miserable sinners. They do that in a crowd; it is saying nothing.
+They no more think of saying it in such a way as to place themselves
+apart from their fellows than they would of saying: "I am a thief!"
+
+Do you believe in the forgiveness of sins? What, then, are you going
+to do with your faith?
+
+Prove your faith by your works. Every time you ask God for forgiveness
+you should feel yourself pledged to a most strenuous and resolute
+fight with the sin you ask God to forgive. The acceptance of pardon
+pledges you to the pursuit of holiness, and yet we have to keep on
+with this doctrine, because it is not only the very beginning of the
+Christian life, but also the continuous need of that life.
+
+We have to say night by night, "Forgive the ill that I this day have
+done." And if we say it as we ought, as really believing that God
+forgives us, so that we may not lose heart, may never encourage
+despair of final victory, we shall get up next morning resolved to
+make a fiercer fight than ever with the evil that sent us on our knees
+last night. Do you believe in the forgiveness of sins? Let the joy of
+it come to you, and as your own heart overflows with the fulness of
+that joy, declare unto others God's salvation, and teach transgressors
+His way. Do you believe in the forgiveness of sins? Then find in that
+faith an impact to obedience to the law of Jesus: "Be ye perfect even
+as your Father in heaven is perfect"; and do not forget that He who
+begins the good work in you with His pardon will carry it on to the
+day of Jesus Christ; so that you may add the last words of the
+Creed: "I believe in the resurrection from the dead and in the life
+everlasting."
+
+It is not altogether a good sign that we have pushed eternity out of
+our modern thought. Confronted as man is every moment by a sense of
+the fragility and the brevity of human life, it is not surprizing
+that we should welcome everybody who comes with a message concerning
+eternity.
+
+Is there not, in truth, beauty in the old Anglo-Saxon story of the
+bird that shot in at one open window of the large assembly hall and
+out at another, where were gathered together a great company of thanes
+and vassals; and when the missionary was asked to speak to them
+concerning God and His salvation, the thane who was presiding rose
+and said, recalling the bird's speedy flight from side to side of
+the hall, "Such is our life, and if this man can tell us anything
+concerning the place to which we are going, let him stand up and be
+heard." Brothers, a few days may carry us into eternity. "Boast not
+thyself of to-morrow, thou knowest not what a day may bring forth."
+Strong, hopeful, rich in promise of service is to-day; to-morrow
+friends may be weeping, kith and kin full of sorrow for our
+departure. This life does not end all; we are going to an eternity of
+blessedness, to progress without limit, to an assimilation with God
+that shall know no sudden break or failure, but shall be perfect, even
+as He is perfect.
+
+
+
+
+MOODY
+
+WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST?
+
+BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+
+Dwight Lyman Moody, the evangelist, was born at Northfield,
+Massachusetts, in 1837, and died in 1899. As a business man he brought
+to his evangelistic work exceptional tact, initiative, and executive
+ability, but the main source of his power lay in his knowledge of the
+Bible, his constant companion. In preaching he largely disregarded
+form, and thought little of the sermon as such. His one overwhelming
+and undeviating purpose was to lead men to Christ. His speaking was in
+a kind of monotone, but his straightforward plainness never failed to
+be effective. He usually held the Bible in his hand while speaking,
+so that there was little of gesture. His great sympathetic nature is
+spoken of by Henry Drummond in these words:
+
+"If eloquence is measured by its effect upon an audience, and not by
+its balanced sentences and cumulative periods, then this is eloquence
+of the highest sort. In sheer persuasiveness Mr. Moody has few equals,
+and rugged as his preaching may seem to some, there is in it a pathos
+of a quality which few orators have ever reached, and an appealing
+tenderness which not only wholly redeems it, but raises it, not
+unseldom, almost to sublimity."
+
+
+
+
+MOODY
+
+1837--1899
+
+WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST?[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: By permission of the Fleming H. Revell Company, owners of
+copyright.]
+
+_What think ye of Christ_?--Matt, xxii., 42.
+
+
+I suppose there is no one here who has not thought more or less about
+Christ. You have heard about Him, and read about Him, and heard men
+preach about Him. For eighteen hundred years men have been talking
+about Him and thinking about Him; and some have their minds made up
+about who He is, and doubtless some have not. And altho all these
+years have rolled away, this question comes up, addresst to each of
+us, to-day, "What think ye of Christ?"
+
+I do not know why it should not be thought a proper question for one
+man to put to another. If I were to ask you what you think of any of
+your prominent men, you would already have your mind made up about
+him. If I were to ask you what you thought of your noble queen, you
+would speak right out and tell me your opinion in a minute.
+
+If I were to ask about your prime minister, you would tell me freely
+what you had for or against him. And why should not people make up
+their minds about the Lord Jesus Christ, and take their stand for or
+against Him? If you think well of Him, why not speak well of Him and
+range yourselves on His side? And if you think ill of Him, and believe
+Him to be an impostor, and that He did not die to save the world, why
+not lift up your voice and say you are against Him? It would be a
+happy day for Christianity if men would just take sides--if we could
+know positively who is really for Him and who is against Him.
+
+It is of very little importance what the world thinks of any one else.
+The queen and the statesman, the peers and the princes, must soon be
+gone. Yes; it matters little, comparatively, what we think of them.
+Their lives can only interest a few; but every living soul on the face
+of the earth is concerned with this Man. The question for the world
+is, "What think ye of Christ?"
+
+I do not ask you what you think of the Established Church, or of the
+Presbyterians, or the Baptists, or the Roman Catholics; I do not ask
+you what you think of this minister or that, of this doctrine or that;
+but I want to ask you what you think of the living person of Christ?
+
+I should like to ask, Was He really the Son of God--the great God-Man?
+Did He leave heaven and come down to this world for a purpose? Was it
+really to seek and to save? I should like to begin with the manger,
+and to follow Him up through the thirty-three years He was here upon
+earth. I should ask you what you think of His coming into this world
+and being born in a manger when it might have been a palace; why He
+left the grandeur and the glory of heaven, and the royal retinue of
+angels; why He passed by palaces and crowns and dominion and came down
+here alone.
+
+I should like to ask you what you think of Him as a teacher. He spake
+as never man spake. I should like to take Him up as a preacher. I
+should like to bring you to that mountain-side, that we might listen
+to the words as they fall from His gentle lips. Talk about the
+preachers of the present day! I would rather a thousand times be five
+minutes at the feet of Christ than listen a lifetime to all the wise
+men in the world. He used just to hang truth upon anything. Yonder is
+a sower, a fox, a bird, and He just gathers the truth around them, so
+that you cannot see a fox, a sower, or a bird, without thinking what
+Jesus said. Yonder is a lily of the valley; you cannot see it without
+thinking of His words, "They toil not, neither do they spin."
+
+He makes the little sparrow chirping in the air preach to us. How
+fresh those wonderful sermons are, how they live to-day! How we love
+to tell them to our children, how the children love to hear! "Tell me
+a story about Jesus," how often we hear it; how the little ones love
+His sermons! No story-book in the world will ever interest them like
+the stories that He told. And yet how profound He was; how He puzzled
+the wise men; how the scribes and the Pharisees would never fathom
+Him! Oh, do you not think He was a wonderful preacher?
+
+I should like to ask you what you think of Him as a physician. A man
+would soon have a reputation as a doctor if he could cure as Christ
+did. No case was ever brought to Him but what He was a match for. He
+had but to speak the word, and disease fled before Him. Here comes a
+man covered with leprosy.
+
+"Lord, if thou wilt thou canst make me clean," he cried.
+
+"I will," says the Great Physician, and in an instant the leprosy is
+gone. The world has hospitals for incurable diseases; but there were
+no incurable diseases with Him.
+
+Now, see Him in the little home at Bethany, binding up the wounded
+hearts of Martha and Mary, and tell me what you think of Him as
+a comforter. He is a husband to the widow and a father to the
+fatherless. The weary may find a resting-place upon that breast, and
+the friendless may reckon Him their friend. He never varies. He never
+fails, He never dies. His sympathy is ever fresh, His love is ever
+free. Oh, widow and orphans, oh, sorrowing and mourning, will you not
+thank God for Christ the comforter?
+
+But these are not the points I wish to take up. Let us go to those who
+knew Christ, and ask what they thought of Him. If you want to find out
+what a man is nowadays, you inquire about him from those who know him
+best. I do not wish to be partial; we will go to His enemies, and to
+His friends. We will ask them, What think ye of Christ? We will ask
+His friends and His enemies. If we only went to those who liked Him,
+you would say:
+
+"Oh, he is so blind; he thinks so much of the man that he can't see
+His faults. You can't get anything out of him unless it be in His
+favor; it is a one-sided affair altogether."
+
+So we shall go in the first place to His enemies, to those who hated
+Him, persecuted Him, curst and slew Him. I shall put you in the
+jury-box, and call upon them to tell us what they think of Him.
+
+First, among the witnesses, let us call upon the Pharisees. We
+know how they hated Him. Let us put a few questions to them. "Come,
+Pharisees, tell us what you have against the Son of God, What do you
+think of Christ?" Hear what they say! "This man receiveth sinners."
+What an argument to bring against Him! Why, it is the very thing that
+makes us love Him. It is the glory of the gospel. He receives sinners.
+If He had not, what would have become of us? Have you nothing more
+to bring against Him than this? Why, it is one of the greatest
+compliments that was ever paid Him. Once more: when He was hanging on
+the tree, you had this to say to Him, "He saved others, but He could
+not save Himself and save us too." So He laid down His own life for
+yours and mine. Yes, Pharisees, you have told the truth for once in
+your lives! He saved others. He died for others. He was a ransom for
+many; so it is quite true what you think of Him--He saved others,
+Himself He cannot save.
+
+Now, let us call upon Caiaphas. Let him stand up here in his flowing
+robes; let us ask him for his evidence. "Caiaphas, you were chief
+priest when Christ was tried; you were president of the Sanhedrin; you
+were in the council-chamber when they found Him guilty; you yourself
+condemned Him. Tell us; what did the witnesses say? On what grounds
+did you judge Him? What testimony was brought against Him?" "He hath
+spoken blasphemy," says Caiaphas. "He said, 'Hereafter you shall see
+the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the
+clouds of heaven.' When I heard that, I found Him guilty of blasphemy;
+I rent my mantle and condemned Him to death." Yes, all that they had
+against Him was that He was the Son of God; and they slew Him for the
+promise of His coming for His bride!
+
+Now let us summon Pilate. Let him enter the witness-box.
+
+"Pilate, this man was brought before you; you examined Him; you talked
+with Him face to face; what think you of Christ?"
+
+"I find no fault in him," says Pilate. "He said he was the King of
+the Jews [just as He wrote it over the cross]; but I find no fault in
+him." Such is the testimony of the man who examined Him! And, as He
+stands there, the center of a Jewish mob, there comes along a man
+elbowing his way in haste. He rushes up to Pilate, and, thrusting out
+his hand, gives him a message. He tears it open; his face turns pale
+as he reads--"Have thou nothing to do with this just man, for I have
+suffered many things this day in a dream because of him." It is from
+Pilate's wife--her testimony to Christ. You want to know what His
+enemies thought of Him? You want to know what a heathen, thought?
+Well, here it is, "no fault in him"; and the wife of a heathen, "this
+just man."
+
+And now, look--in comes Judas. He ought to make a good witness. Let us
+address him. "Come, tell us, Judas, what think ye of Christ? You
+knew the Master well; you sold Him for thirty pieces of silver; you
+betrayed Him with a kiss; you saw Him perform those miracles; you were
+with Him in Jerusalem. In Bethany, when He summoned up Lazarus, you
+were there. What think you of Him?" I can see him as he comes into the
+presence of the chief priests; I can hear the money ring as he dashes
+it upon the table, "I have betrayed innocent blood!" Here is the man
+who betrayed Him, and this is what he thinks of Him! Yes, those who
+were guilty of His death put their testimony on record that He was an
+innocent man.
+
+Let us take the centurion who was present at the execution. He had
+charge of the Roman soldiers. He told them to make Him carry His
+cross; he had given orders for the nails to be driven into His feet
+and hands, for the spear to be thrust in His side. Let the centurion
+come forward. "Centurion, you had charge of the executioners; you saw
+that the order for His death was carried out; you saw Him die; you
+heard Him speak upon the cross. Tell us, what think you of Christ?"
+Hark! Look at him; he is smiting his breast as he cries, "Truly, this
+was the son of God!"
+
+I might go to the thief upon the cross, and ask what he thought of
+Him. At first he railed upon Him and reviled Him. But then he thought
+better of it: "This man hath done nothing amiss," he says.
+
+I might go further. I might summon the very devils themselves and ask
+them for their testimony. Have they anything to say of Him? Why, the
+very devils called Him the Son of God! In Mark we have the unclean
+spirit crying, "Jesus, thou Son of the most high God." Men say, "Oh,
+I believe Christ to be the Son of God, and because I believe it
+intellectually I shall be saved." I tell you the devils did that. And
+they did more than that, they trembled.
+
+Let us bring in His friends. We want you to hear their evidence. Let
+us call that prince of preachers. Let us hear the forerunner; none
+ever preached like this man--this man who drew all Jerusalem and all
+Judea into the wilderness to hear him; this man who burst upon the
+nations like the flash of a meteor. Let John the Baptist come with his
+leathern girdle and his hairy coat, and let him tell us what he thinks
+of Christ. His words, tho they were echoed in the wilderness of
+Palestine, are written in the Book forever, "Behold the Lamb of God
+which taketh away the sin of the world!" This is what John the Baptist
+thought of him. "I bear record that He is the Son of God." No wonder
+he drew all Jerusalem and Judea to him, because he preached Christ.
+And whenever men preach Christ, they are sure to have plenty of
+followers.
+
+Let us bring in Peter, who was with Him on the mount of
+transfiguration, who was with Him the night He was betrayed. Come,
+Peter, tell us what you think of Christ. Stand in this witness-box and
+testify of Him. You denied Him once. You said, with a curse, you did
+not know Him. Was it true, Peter? Don't you know Him? "Know Him!" I
+can imagine Peter saying: "It was a lie I told then. I did know
+Him." Afterward I can hear him charging home their guilt upon these
+Jerusalem sinners. He calls Him "both Lord and Christ." Such was the
+testimony on the day of Pentecost. "God had made that same Jesus
+both Lord and Christ." And tradition tells us that when they came to
+execute Peter he felt he was not worthy to die in the way his Master
+died, and he requested to be crucified with the head downward. So much
+did Peter think of Him!
+
+Now let us hear from the beloved disciple John. He knew more about
+Christ than any other man. He had laid his head on his Savior's bosom.
+He had heard the throbbing of that loving heart. Look into his Gospel
+if you wish to know what he thought of Him.
+
+Matthew writes of Him as the royal king come from His throne. Mark
+writes of Him as the servant, and Luke of the Son of Man. John takes
+up his pen, and, with one stroke, forever settles the question of
+Unitarianism. He goes right back before the time of Adam. "In the
+beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was
+God." Look into Revelation. He calls him "the bright and the morning
+star." So John thought well of Him--because he knew Him well.
+
+We might bring in Thomas, the doubting disciple. You doubted Him,
+Thomas? You would not believe He had risen, and you put your fingers
+into the wound in His side. What do you think of Him?
+
+"My Lord and my God!" says Thomas.
+
+Then go over to Decapolis and you will find Christ has been there
+casting out devils. Let us call the men of that country and ask what
+they think of Him. "He hath done all things well," they say.
+
+But we have other witnesses to bring in. Take the persecuting Saul,
+once one of the worst of his enemies. Breathing out threatenings he
+meets Him. "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?" says Christ. He
+might have added, "What have I done to you? Have I injured you in any
+way? Did I not come to bless you? Why do you treat Me thus, Saul?" And
+then Saul asks, "Who art thou, Lord?"
+
+"I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom thou persecutest." You see, He was not
+ashamed of His name, altho He had been in heaven; "I am Jesus of
+Nazareth." What a change did that one interview make to Saul! A few
+years afterward we hear him say, "I have suffered the loss of all
+things, and do count them but dross that I may win Christ." Such a
+testimony to the Savior!
+
+But I shall go still further. I shall go away from earth into the
+other world. I shall summon the angels and ask what they think of
+Christ. They saw Him in the bosom of the Father before the world was.
+Before the dawn of creation, before the morning stars sang together,
+He was there. They saw Him leave the throne and come down to the
+manger. What a scene for them to witness! Ask these heavenly beings
+what they thought of Him then. For once they are permitted to speak;
+for once the silence of heaven is broken. Listen to their song on the
+plains of Bethlehem, "Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy,
+which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day, in the
+city of David, a Savior, which is Christ the Lord." He leaves the
+throne to save the world. Is it a wonder the angels thought well of
+Him?
+
+Then there are the redeemed saints--they that see Him face to
+face. Here on earth He was never known, no one seemed really to be
+acquainted with Him; but He was known in that world where He had been
+from the foundation. What do they think of Him there? If we could hear
+from heaven we should hear a shout which would glorify and magnify His
+name. We are told that when John was in the Spirit on the Lord's Day,
+and being caught up, he heard a shout around him, ten thousand times
+ten thousand, and thousands and thousands of voices, "Worthy is the
+Lamb that was slain, to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and
+strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing!" Yes, He is worthy of
+all this. Heaven cannot speak too well of Him. Oh, that earth would
+take up the echo and join with heaven in singing, "Worthy to receive
+power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and
+blessing!"
+
+But there is still another witness, a higher still. Some think that
+the God of the Old Testament is the Christ of the New. But when Jesus
+came out to Jordan, baptized by John, there came a voice from heaven.
+God the Father spoke. It was His testimony to Christ: "This is my
+beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." Ah, yes! God the Father
+thinks well of the Son. And if God is well pleased with Him, so ought
+we to be. If the sinner and God are well pleased with Christ, then the
+sinner and God can meet. The moment you say, as the Father said, "I am
+well pleased with Him," and accept Him, you are wedded to God. Will
+you not believe the testimony? Will you not believe this witness, this
+last of all, the Lord of hosts, the King of kings himself? Once more
+he repeats it, so that all may know it. With Peter and James and John,
+on the mount of transfiguration, He cries again, "This is my beloved
+Son; hear him." And that voice went echoing and reechoing through
+Palestine, through all the earth from sea to sea; yes, that voice is
+echoing still, Hear Him! Hear Him!
+
+My friend will you hear Him to-day? Hark! what is He saying to you?
+"Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give
+you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me; for I am meek and
+lowly in heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke
+is easy, and my burden is light." Will you not think well of such a
+Savior? Will you not believe in Him? Will you not trust in Him with
+all your heart and mind? Will you not live for Him? If He laid down
+His life for us, is it not the least we can do to lay down ours for
+Him? If He bore the cross and died on it for me, ought I not to be
+willing to take it up for Him? Oh, have we not reason to think well of
+Him? Do you think it is right and noble to lift up your voice against
+such a Savior? Do you think it is just to cry, "Crucify Him! crucify
+Him!" Oh, may God help all of us to glorify the Father, by thinking
+well of His only-begotten Son.
+
+
+
+
+FOWLER
+
+THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST
+
+BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+
+Charles H. Fowler, Methodist Episcopal divine, was born 1837 in
+Burford, Ontario, Canada, was educated at Syracuse University and the
+Garrett Biblical Institute, Evanston, Ill. He was ordained in 1861
+and after filling pastorates in many places was made president of
+the Northwestern University in 1872, but vacated this post to become
+editor of the _Christian Advocate_; four years later he was appointed
+missionary secretary and in 1884 was elected bishop. He was well-known
+as an able preacher and administrator. He died in 1908.
+
+
+
+
+FOWLER
+
+1837--1908
+
+THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST
+
+_Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of
+his_.--Rom. viii., 9.
+
+
+I read that with the conviction that it is one of the most searching
+passages that can be found in the Book of God. It takes hold of the
+question of our salvation as a very substantial and thorough question.
+It removes indefinitely, almost infinitely, from this problem of our
+destiny, all shadow of uncertainty or of doubt. It brings us squarely
+to the facts in our character. On the force of this Scripture we are
+borne up on to a platform where we stand with our hearts uncovered and
+naked before the eye of God.
+
+This means that the saint must be great in the arduous greatness of
+things achieved; that there is no chance for sainthood by any fixt,
+imputed plan, but that our real selves shall test and make our real
+future.
+
+I never read this Scripture in the presence of a Christian
+congregation without feeling that I have in some way chopped down
+through every heart with a great broadaxe. There is no whitewashing
+this passage: "If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none
+of his." Not, "He will do tolerably well, but not quite as well as he
+might do"; not that he will get on after a fashion, and have quite a
+respectable entrance into the city of the great King, tho he may not
+push quite as far toward the front as he might have done if he had had
+the Spirit of the Lord Jesus. Not that at all; but, if any man have
+not the Spirit of Christ, there is not the remotest shadow of a chance
+for him: "he is none of his."
+
+And so I put this at you, asking you, on account of the great fact
+that you are going hence, to so apply this critical test to your
+hearts and lives that you may see and feel your need, and that you may
+take hold on the great supply, and have that actual transformation of
+character that will justify you in believing that you have the Spirit
+of Christ.
+
+The success of the missionary cause turns upon exactly the spirit of
+this text. I have no faith in the final triumph, of the missionary
+cause based upon any other ground than that of the honest, deep-down
+conviction of the people of God that the Lord God of Heaven wants this
+work done. I am here as a believer in a supernatural gospel--not with
+philosophy that may be framed out of the human life of Jesus, but with
+a religion that is based upon the supernatural life of the divine
+Christ. And I appeal to you on this subject of missions as to a
+company of men who believe in the divine authority of the Book of God;
+who believe in a blood atonement; who believe in salvation by faith
+only; who believe in the pardon of sin and in the regeneration of your
+natures; who believe in the power of the Holy Ghost; who believe, in
+short, in the sum and substance of an old-fashioned orthodoxy. And I
+put this cause upon you as such believers, knowing that, if such
+is your position, you have at least the large part of the argument
+wrought into the very fiber of your being, by which you cannot stop
+short of the conviction that what you have need of for your salvation
+other people will need for their salvation. You know that you need a
+divine Redeemer; you know that you need the divine pardoning of your
+sins; you know that you need the supernatural and divine cleansing of
+your hearts; you know that you need the divine, unbreakable promises;
+you know that you need this Word, and the way to salvation set forth
+in this Book of God, by which you know that there is none other name
+given under heaven among men, whereby we must be saved. And so I
+come to you as to those who have had some experience in supernatural
+matters, with the cause based upon this Book of God, asking that your
+experience may be made possible for the multitudes beyond, who have
+not yet had this opportunity.
+
+Let us take some of the simpler and plainer things in this question,
+that we may come up to it without any hesitation. Now, I do not need
+to go into the question as to what God will do with the heathen. I
+don't know what He will do with them. I know as much about it as you
+do, or anybody else, because I know what the Book says about it. God
+knows better about this than I do, and will find a way that I cannot
+dream of. But, because the words are not uttered by divine authority,
+I dare not stand here and utter any word of hope for any man beyond
+the gospel committed to me to preach. This I know: That if the heathen
+have the Spirit of the Lord Jesus, whether they ever saw the Lord
+Jesus or not, they are of His. And this I know: That if this
+congregation have not the spirit of the Lord Jesus, tho it may have
+seen Him, they are not of His. And this I know: That He will save a
+Jew and a Gentile on the same terms; that He will do no better for the
+Gentile than He will for the Jew, and no better for the Jew than for
+the Gentile. And if there was no other name given under heaven among
+men by which an ancient Jew or an ancient Gentile might be saved, that
+is true to-day. The Lord Jesus thought that these people needed the
+gospel, and that they needed it so much that He actually came and
+submitted Himself unto death that they might have the gospel. And
+God seems so thoroughly to believe that they need the gospel that He
+actually gives His only-begotten Son to die, that they may have the
+gospel. He treats the case just exactly as if He thought, at least,
+that they do really need this divine Redeemer. He has done, in every
+step and process of this great work of world-saving, just exactly as
+He would have done had He absolutely thought and believed that they
+needed a divine Redeemer.
+
+And then I understand another thing out of the Book: That the very
+last and supreme utterance of the Master on earth grew out of His
+conviction that we should do exactly this thing. And see how He comes
+up to it, little by little! He does not rush suddenly upon it--He does
+not, upon any truth. It is not in the divine plan to flash upon us
+in anything. Truths grow; moral ideas grow. They come into the race
+little, and hardly able to stand at all; we can barely find them
+beneath us in the lower strata of our being. But they struggle into
+power and strength until they fill the field of vision. Nearly every
+great truth of Old and New Testament Scripture is to be found in
+the Book of Genesis. In Genesis you will find the principle of the
+atonement; you will find the division of animals into clean and
+unclean, foreshadowing sacrifice; you will find the principle of the
+acceptance of offerings that came out of the flock, and the rejection
+of the offerings out of the field; you will find the pardon of sin and
+the giving of covenants--all the essential parts of the New Testament
+growing with their roots away back in Genesis. There is the first
+declaration of the coming of this wondrous Redeemer. It was so dim and
+uncertain that it was hard to tell what it meant; somehow, somewhere,
+some time, "the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head." It
+was so dim that our first great mother, when she had gotten her first
+son, cried out in her joy, "I have gotten a man from the Lord!" She
+thought she had the Redeemer, but she had only a murderer. It was
+many a century before the Redeemer would come. The truth was unfolded
+little by little; a little brighter it shone on the altars of the
+patriarchs; it was unfolded a little more in the visions of the
+prophets; was exemplified in the ceremonials of the temple; and in the
+fullness of time it came with the Master and His disciples and the
+outpouring of the Holy Ghost.
+
+And then see, when the Master comes, how He takes hold of us, knowing
+that we are but little, and that we have to be lifted up and enlarged
+before we can take in these great truths! He says: "I have more to
+tell you: you cannot bear it to-day; I will tell you to-morrow." And
+so He gives lesson and instruction, and parable and illustration, all
+through. His life, teaching these disciples, chosen on account of
+their particular adaptation for the reception of His truth; walking
+with them day by day, trying to lift their thought toward the
+spiritual and the eternal; teaching them that it is not His plan to
+put them on His right hand and His left, and trying to lift them up
+toward a spiritual and eternal kingdom. So He keeps on all the time,
+lifting them out of their littleness, saying to them later: "You shall
+be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in Judea, and in Samaria, and in the
+uttermost parts of the earth." They did not know what to make of that.
+He was lifting them out of their narrowness. And so He pushes on still
+further with them, lifting them up, until, in the supreme hour of His
+earthly history--after His agony, after the cross, after He had broken
+asunder the bars of the sepulcher, after He had risen, and been
+declared to be the Son of God by the resurrection from the dead--He
+hovers over the Church, coming down to speak to them by the sea-side
+and mountain-side; appearing to them suddenly, vanishing as quickly;
+offering His hands to their touch, showing His body to their vision,
+yet all the time lifting them up, until He brought them to the thought
+and gave to the Church the idea of His ubiquity, saying: "Lo! I am
+with you alway, even unto the end of the world"; and they appreciated
+the feeling that He was within hand-reach, and that this was a
+spiritual kingdom, and that they could take hold upon the great
+spiritual forces. And thus He lifted them up and prepared them for
+His great truth, until at last, in the supreme moment of His earthly
+history, we see Him yonder on the summit of the mount--the earth
+beneath Him, the angels gathered above Him--with His hands spread out
+over His followers, with the summit of Olivet receding beneath His
+feet. He cries out to them: "All power is given unto me in heaven and
+in earth. Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in
+the name of the Father, and the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; teaching
+them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and lo!
+I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." And the
+unspeakable glory took Him out of their sight.
+
+That is the supreme utterance of the Master after many a century of
+preparation, opening our hearts, bringing us to this great truth, and
+that this one thing He wants done is His final charge to believers: Go
+everywhere; teach, preach, baptize, agonize, give, sacrifice--out to
+the very ends of the earth. And lo! I am with you alway, and you shall
+lack no good thing. Surely, there can be no doubt that the Master, at
+least, thinks that these people have a great need for this gospel.
+
+There are some who have an idea that salvation is to be the sum and
+substance of what we are. Well, I think that way myself: that, if you
+find heaven on the other side of death, you will take it over with
+you; if there is any condition of peace, you will take that condition
+of peace with you. Death will be no more than going over a seam in
+this carpet. The moment after death will differ from the moment before
+death in your essential character no more than any two consecutive
+moments in your life. If you are a mean, narrow, selfish, ugly, cross
+man the moment before death, you will be a mean, narrow, selfish,
+ugly, cross man the moment after death. If you find a good character
+over yonder, you will take it over with you. If you have a good
+character to take over with you, you will have it in the Lord Jesus
+Christ here. If you live on that basis, I think this is pretty safe
+that those millions out yonder in the darkness, plunged in ignorance
+and superstition, knowing nothing about morality and nothing about
+heaven--those millions want a chance, that the same law that governs
+our lives will govern theirs. I surround my boy with the best possible
+opportunities; I watch every book that comes in his hands; I watch
+every playmate that I possibly can that comes in his path; I see to
+it, as my highest business on this footstool--higher than my call to
+this pulpit--that that boy has a fair chance for heaven. If I push him
+out into the alley to herd with criminals, and be dandled in the lap
+of vice, and be familiar with all corruption, I have no moral right to
+expect to meet him in heaven. But if I multiply advantages about him,
+give him the best possible books and surroundings, make him at home
+with the Lord Jesus, so that he talks about his salvation and life
+eternal as he does about matters in the home, I have a good right to
+expect that the King will give me His eternal peace.
+
+Now, I think that the law that holds over my boy holds over all boys
+in China and Japan and Hindustan; that, just in proportion as we
+multiply the light and the favorable circumstances about them, then in
+that proportion we increase their fair chance for heaven. I think it
+is sound in philosophy. I believe that, just in proportion as we act
+by it, we will be safe.
+
+Now, they are plunged in darkness. They know nothing about our way
+of salvation, nothing about the pardon of sin, nothing about purity,
+nothing about righteousness, nothing about heaven. We want to multiply
+their chances to rid themselves of sin, and to take hold upon life,
+and make their way in the path of peace. And the Master seems to so
+think it that He says: "Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations." And
+if they will believe it, as I read, they will be saved. "But how can
+they believe if they have not heard? And how can they hear without a
+preacher? And how can they preach except they be sent?" So the Master
+says, Go, send quick, everywhere. That I take to be the teaching of
+the Book concerning their needs.
+
+But there is another side of it, and that is the side that swings in
+under the passage I have read this morning, and that is our side of
+it, our relation to the cause: "If any man have not the Spirit of the
+Lord Jesus, he is none of his."
+
+Now, what is the spirit of Christ? I will tell you: He came not to be
+ministered unto. Please remember that. Not to see how much He could
+gather into His own bosom out of the lives of others. Not to be
+ministered unto; not to be petted, and dandled, and lifted along and
+fed all the way, with no burden and no care and no work--not that. He
+came, not to be ministered unto, but to minister; to pour out of His
+life into the lives of others; to see what He could do to make others
+blest; and "to give his life a ransom for many." Not merely to give
+the little pittance that He could spare and not know it any more than
+one would miss the farthing with which he would buy his ride on the
+street car, but to give His life a ransom for many. And if any man
+have not that spirit, he is none of His.
+
+Now I preach you a doctrine of salvation by faith only, and I put the
+emphasis on the word only. That is exactly what I need as a sinner: I
+want some sort of release from my past transgressions that will give
+me a new start. I have gotten behind; I am borrowing money to
+pay interest with, and I see no way out. I must have a spiritual
+bankruptcy law. Somebody must come in to my relief, or I am
+everlastingly undone. And so I preach this blest doctrine of the
+Book of God: "By grace are ye saved, through faith, and that not of
+yourselves: it (the salvation) is the gift of God." I take salvation
+as a divine gift, and take it with a glad heart. It gives me a new
+chance; it unhinges my present struggle for heaven from the past
+transgressions of my life, and gives me an open door to heaven that I
+could not reach on any other platform. And so I preach this doctrine
+to sinners, knowing that it is exactly what they need.
+
+There is another part of it that covers the question of our pardon;
+that takes all my past sins and wipes them out; that gives me a new
+chance for righteousness. Now mind: That pardon, that new life, that
+new chance works out all the time necessarily from my finger-ends; it
+shows itself in my life, absolutely, as certainly as it is there; and
+if I cannot find the fruit of it in the fruits of the Spirit, in the
+interest in God's cause, in patience and teachableness, in gentleness
+and love, I have the absolute demonstration that I have not the thing
+itself. Saved by faith, kept alive, kept saved by work, in work, by
+grace in work. Let me touch that theology just a little. If you
+are pardoned, you are pardoned by the Lord in a second, through
+faith--when you believe, that is. Pardon is an operation in God's mind
+concerning myself; you cannot pardon yourself. God pardons. If we are
+pardoned He can do it in a second, when we believe.
+
+The next step in the case is, that there is not anything in the Book
+of God that gives us any ground to believe that in that same faith, or
+believing, or pardon, we will be instantly lifted up into the stature
+of a man in Christ Jesus. What I mean to say is this: That there is
+not one word in this Book that will justify any man in believing that
+he may be brought by any process to the stature of a man in Christ
+Jesus in a minute. But some good brother will say: "Oh! now I am just
+a little afraid that you are striking against that blest old Methodist
+doctrine of sanctification." No, I am not. I haven't said anything
+about sanctification. But I will. If you are sanctified, or cleansed,
+that is God's work, through faith, and He can do it in a second. Now,
+understand me definitely, you cannot cleanse yourself. God cleanses
+you through faith in the cleansing blood of His Son. It is His work.
+You cannot grow into it. You can grow in it, but if you don't grow in
+it you may know you are not in it--you are in something else. But you
+can grow in it, because it is God's work, and He will do it when you
+believe. But what of that? What are you after you are cleansed? I will
+tell you. You are a clean baby: that is all. You are not a man in
+Christ Jesus; you are only a babe--cleansed, indeed, and greatly
+improved by the process, too, but you are not matured. Do not miss,
+now, the broad distinction between purity and maturity. You are
+purified, through faith, in a second; you are matured through many a
+struggle and many a year. God cannot make a twenty-one-year-old saint
+in one second less than twenty-one years. There is no platform marked
+over with faith upon which a man may step and be lifted up into the
+perfect stature of a man in Christ Jesus in a minute. It is not the
+teaching of the Book. But all the year, loving, and giving, and
+fighting, and praying, and walking in righteousness, you will mature
+characters, and by and by you will grow into the manhood in Christ
+Jesus that is set before us in the gospel. Now, if you come in here
+and tell me that there is a baby over yonder in the next square, that
+is three weeks old, and can talk Greek and Latin, and Spanish and
+Italian, and solve all the problems in mathematics, I will tell you
+that that is a monstrosity, and you don't want that kind of babies in
+your house: they will turn you out in a few days. So, if you come
+in here and tell me that you have, down in your prayer-meeting, a
+spiritual baby three or four weeks old, that can teach all the old
+saints, and can tell them all about God, and heaven, and faith, and
+theology, and all about everything in the Church, I will tell you
+that that is a monstrosity. And you don't want that kind in your
+prayer-meeting; they will turn you out before a great while. St. Paul
+says: "Ye are born babes, and ye are fed on milk"; and the trouble
+with too many of us is that we keep on that diet when we ought to be
+eating meat. The Master says: "First the blade, then the ear; after
+that, the full corn in the ear." So I am free to say that God's plan
+of making saints is to give them the divine germ--if you please, the
+supernatural principle; or, as our scientists would say, with proper
+environments, "That have the divine initial impulse," but as our
+fathers would have said, "They got through at the altar"; born of God,
+and then cleansed of God in the true process of education and faith,
+they matured at the harvest. God gives us the start and the cleansing,
+and we have to do all the rest of it. He will give us opportunity for
+growth by loading and goading us, by setting on our track every sort
+of force to test us--to "polish us," as the old Hebrew word means.
+When Abraham was tested he was "polished." He will put us on such
+lines that, if we stand true to our convictions and walk according to
+the light we have, He will bring us on to manhood.
+
+See how wonderfully the Word of God fits down upon this? Take that
+remarkable passage that, to me, is as beautiful as anything can be,
+where He says: "Come unto Me, all ye that labor"--I know what
+that means in the struggle under sin--"all ye that labor and are
+heavy-laden, and I will give"--I will give: it is mine. You cannot
+earn it: you cannot buy it; you cannot find it; you cannot dig it out.
+It is mine--"I will give you rest"--the blest pardon that only God can
+give. Then, in the very next second and breath, He says: "Take my yoke
+upon you"--that means work--"and learn of me"--that is more work--and,
+"For I am meek and lowly of heart, and ye shall find"--that is yours;
+I do not give that to you; that is not mine to give; that is yours.
+"Ye shall find rest to your souls." That is the rest that comes from
+the crystallization of the character in righteousness; that comes from
+the habit of believing, and the habit of obeying, and the habit of
+praying; from the habit of righteousness, until the old saint is ready
+for any struggle, and never expects to be turned aside. That, I take
+it, is God's plan of building up saints, and for fitting them for the
+rest that is in God, that abides.
+
+
+
+
+WHYTE
+
+EXPERIENCE
+
+BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+
+Alexander Whyte, senior minister of St. George's Free Church,
+Edinburgh, was born at Kirriemuir (Thrums), Scotland, in 1837. He was
+educated at Aberdeen University (M.A., 1862), and at New College,
+Edinburgh (1862-66), and after being assistant minister of Free
+St. John's, Glasgow, from 1866 to 1870, became at first assistant
+minister, and later (1873) minister, of Free St. George's, Edinburgh,
+a position which be still retains, having had there an uninterrupted
+success. He is the author of a number of biographies, his most recent
+work being "An Appreciation of Newman."
+
+
+
+
+WHYTE
+
+BORN IN 1837
+
+EXPERIENCE
+
+_And patience; experience; and experience, hope_.--Romans v., 4.
+
+
+The deeper we search into the Holy Scriptures the more experimental
+matter do we discover in that divine Book. Both in the Old Testament
+and in the New Testament the spiritual experiences of godly men form a
+large part of the sacred record. And it gives a very fresh and a very
+impressive interest to many parts of the heavenly Book when we see how
+much of its contents are made up of God's ways with His people as well
+as of their ways with Him. In other words, when we see how much of
+purely experimental matter is gathered up into the Word of God. In a
+brilliant treatise published the other year, entitled, "The Gospel in
+the Gospels," the author applies this experimental test even to our
+Lord's teaching and preaching. Writing of the beatitudes in our Lord's
+Sermon on the Mount that fresh and penetrating writer says: "When our
+Savior speaks to us concerning what constitutes our true blessedness
+He is simply describing His own experience. The beatitudes are not the
+immediate revelation of His Godhead, they are much more the impressive
+testimony of His manhood. He knew the truth of what He was saying
+because He had verified it all in Himself for thirty experimental
+years." Now if that is so demonstrably true of so many of our Lord's
+contributions to Holy Scripture, in the nature of things, how much
+more must it be true of the experimental contributions that David and
+Paul have made to the same sacred record. And we ourselves are but
+imitating them in their great experimental methods when we give our
+very closest attention to personal and spiritual religion, both
+in ourselves and in all our predecessors and in all our own
+contemporaries in the life of grace in all lands and in all languages.
+
+Now by far the deepest and by far the most personal experience of
+every spiritually minded man is his experience of his own inward
+sinfulness. The sinfulness of his sin; the malignity of his sin; the
+ungodliness and the inhumanity of his sin; the dominion that his sin
+still has over him; the simply indescribable evil of his sin in every
+way: all that is a matter, not of any man's doctrine and authority;
+all that is the personal experience and the scientific certainty, as
+we say, of every spiritually minded man; every man, that is, who takes
+any true observation of what goes on in his own heart. The simply
+unspeakable sinfulness of our own hearts is not the doctrine of David,
+and of Christ, and of Paul, and of Luther, and of Calvin, and of
+Bunyan, and of Edwards, and of Shepard only. It is their universal
+doctrine, indeed, it could not be otherwise; but it is also the
+every-day experience and the every-day agony of every man among
+ourselves whose eyes are open upon his own heart.
+
+And then, if you are that spiritually enlightened man, from the day
+when you begin to have that heart-sore experience of yourself you
+will begin to search for and to discover those great passages of Holy
+Scripture that contain the recorded experiences of men like yourself.
+"I am but dust and ashes," said the first father of all penitent and
+believing and praying men. "I am vile," sobs Job. "Behold, I am vile,
+and I will lay my hand upon my mouth. I have heard of thee by the
+hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor
+myself and repent in dust and ashes." And David has scarcely heart or
+a pen for anything else. "There is no soundness in my flesh because of
+thine anger; neither is there any rest in my bones because of my sin.
+My loins are filled with a loathsome disease. For, behold, I was
+shapen in iniquity." And Daniel, the most blameless of men and a man
+greatly beloved in heaven and on earth: "I was left alone and
+there remained no strength in me: for my comeliness was turned to
+corruption, and I retained no strength." And every truly spiritually
+minded man has Paul's great experimental passage by heart; that great
+experimental and autobiographic passage which has kept so many of
+God's most experienced saints from absolute despair, as so many of
+them have testified. Yes! There were experimental minds long before
+Bacon and there was a great experimental literature long before the
+Essays and the "Advancement" and the "_Instauratio Magna_."
+
+And then among many other alterations of intellectual insight and
+spiritual taste that will come to you with your open eyes, there will
+be your new taste, not only for your Bible, but also for spiritual
+and experimental preaching. The spiritual preachers of our day are
+constantly being blamed for not tuning their pulpits to the new themes
+of our so progressive day. Scientific themes are prest upon them
+and critical themes and social themes and such like. But your new
+experience of your own sinfulness and of God's salvation: your new
+need and your new taste for spiritual and experimental truth will not
+lead you to join in that stupid demand. As intelligent men you will
+know where to find all the new themes of your new day and you will be
+diligent students of them all, so far as your duty lies that way, and
+so far as your ability and your opportunity go; but not on the Lord's
+Day and not in His house of prayer and praise. The more inward, and
+the more spiritual, and the more experimental, your own religion
+becomes, the more will you value inward, and spiritual, and
+experimental preaching. And the more will you resent the intrusion
+into the evangelical pulpit of those secular matters that so much
+absorb unspiritual men. There is another equally impertinent advice
+that our preachers are continually having thrust upon them from the
+same secular quarter. And that is that they ought entirely to drop
+the old language of the Scriptures, and the creeds, and the classical
+preachers, and ought to substitute for it the scientific and the
+journalistic jargon of the passing day. But with your ever-deepening
+knowledge of yourselves and with the disciplined and refined taste
+that will accompany such knowledge you will rather demand of your
+preachers more and more depth of spiritual preaching and more and more
+purity of spiritual style. And then more and more your estimates of
+preaching and your appreciations of preachers will have real insight
+and real value and real weight with us. "The natural man receiveth
+not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness to him:
+neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." But
+he that is spiritual discerneth spiritual things and spiritual persons
+and he has the true authority to speak and to write about them.
+
+And then, for all doubting and skeptically disposed persons among
+you, your own experience of your evil heart, if you will receive that
+experience and will seriously attend to it, that will prove to you
+the true apologetic for the theism of the Holy Scriptures and for the
+soul-saving faith of Jesus Christ. What is it about which you are
+in such debate and doubt? Is it about the most fundamental of
+all facts--the existence, and the nature, and the grace, and the
+government of Almighty God? Well, if you are really in earnest to know
+the truth, take this way of it: this way that has brought light and
+peace of mind to so many men. Turn away at once and forever from all
+your unbecoming debates about your Maker and Preserver and turn to
+what is beyond all debate, your own experience of yourselves. There is
+nothing else of which you can be so sure and certain as of the sin and
+the misery of your own evil hearts, your own evil hearts so full
+of self-seeking, and envy, and malice, and pride, and hatred, and
+revenge, and lust. And on the other hand, there is nothing of which
+you can be so convinced as that love, and humility, and meekness,
+and purity, and benevolence, and brotherly kindness, are your true
+happiness, or would be, if you could only attain to all these
+beatitudes. Well, Jesus Christ has attained to them all. And Jesus
+Christ came into this world at first, and He still comes into it by
+His Word and by His Spirit in order that you may attain to all His
+goodness and all His truth and may thus escape forever from all your
+own ignorance and evil. As William Law, the prince of apologists,
+has it: "Atheism is not the denial of a first omnipotent cause. Real
+atheism is not that at all. Real atheism is purely and solely nothing
+else but the disowning, and the forsaking, and the renouncing of the
+goodness, and the virtue, and the benevolence and the meekness, of
+the divine nature: that divine nature which has made itself so
+experimental and so self-evident in us all. And as this experimental
+and self-evident knowledge is the only sure knowledge you can have of
+God; even so, it is such a knowledge that cannot be doubted or
+debated away. For it is as sure and as self-evident as is your own
+experience." And so is it through all the succeeding doctrines of
+grace and truth: The incarnation of the divine Son: His life, His
+death, His resurrection, and His intercession: and then your own life
+of faith, and prayer, and holy obedience: and then your death, "dear
+in God's sight." Beginning with this continually experienced need of
+God, all these things will follow, with an intellectual, and a moral,
+and a spiritual demonstration, that will soon place them beyond all
+debate or doubt to you. Only know thyself and admit the knowledge:
+and all else will follow as sure as the morning sun follows the dark
+midnight.
+
+And then in all these ways, you will attain to a religious experience
+of your own, that will be wholly and exclusively your own. It will not
+be David's experience, nor Paul's, nor Luther's, nor Bunyan's; much as
+you will study their experiences, comparing them all with your own. As
+you go deeper and ever deeper, into your own spiritual experience,
+you will gradually gather a select and an invaluable library of such
+experiences, and you will less and less read anything else with very
+much interest or delight. But your own unwritten experience will, all
+the time, be your own, and in your own spiritual experience you will
+have no exact fellow. For your tribulations, which work in you your
+experience,--as the text has it,--your tribulations are such that in
+all your experimental reading in the Bible, in spiritual biography, in
+spiritual autobiography, you have never met the like of them. Either
+the writers have been afraid to speak out the whole truth about their
+tribulations; or, what is far more likely, they had no tribulations
+for a moment to match with yours. There has not been another so weak
+and so evil heart as yours since weak and evil hearts began to be;
+nor an evil life quite like yours; nor surrounding circumstances
+so cross-bearing as yours; nor a sinner, beset with all manner of
+temptations and trials, behind and before, like you. So much are you
+alone that, if your fifty-first Psalm, or your seventh of the Romans,
+or your "Confessions," or your "Private Devotions," or your "Grace
+Abounding," could ever venture to be all honestly and wholly written
+and published, your name would, far and away, eclipse them all. You do
+not know what a singular and what an original and what an unheard-of
+experience your experience is destined to be; if only you do not break
+down under it; as you must not and will not do.
+
+Begin, then, to make some new experiments upon a new life of faith,
+and of the obedience of faith. And begin to-day. If in anything you
+have been following a false and an unphilosophical and an unscriptural
+way of life, leave that wrong and evil way at once. Be true Baconians,
+at once, as all the true men of science will tell you to be. "If we
+were religious men like you," they will all say to you, "we would do,
+and at once, what you are now being told to do. We would not debate,
+or doubt, but we would make experiment, and would follow out the
+experience": so all the scientifically minded men will say to you.
+Come away then, and make some new experiments from this morning. For
+one thing, make a new experiment on secret prayer. And then come forth
+from your place of secret prayer and make immediate experiment on more
+love, and more patience, and more consideration for other men,
+and, especially, for the men of your own household. Be more
+generous-minded, and more open-handed, as God has been so
+generous-minded, and so open-handed toward you: if that has indeed
+been so. Make experiment upon the poor and the needy and help them
+according to your ability and opportunity and watch the result of the
+experiment upon yourself; and so on, as your awakened conscience, and
+as the regenerate part of your own heart, will prompt you and will
+encourage you to do.
+
+Make such experiments as these and see if a new peace of conscience
+and a new happiness of heart does not begin to come to you, according
+to that great experimental psalm,--"Oh, that my people had hearkened
+unto me, and Israel had walked in my ways! I should soon have subdued
+their enemies, and turned my hand against their adversaries. He should
+have fed them also with the finest of the wheat: and with honey out of
+the rock should I have satisfied thee."
+
+
+
+
+WATKINSON
+
+THE TRANSFIGURED SACKCLOTH
+
+BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+
+William L. Watkinson, Wesleyan minister, was born at Hull, 1838, was
+educated privately and rose to eminence as a preacher and writer.
+The Rev. William Durban calls him "The classic preacher of British
+Methodism." "He ranks," says Dr. Durban, "with Dr. Dallinger and the
+Rev. Thomas Gunn Selby as the three most learned and refined of living
+preachers in the English Methodist pulpit. Dr. Watkinson is famous for
+the glittering illustrations which adorn his style. These are for the
+most part gathered from biography, the classics, and science, and
+of late years Dr. Watkinson has become more and more addicted to
+spiritualizing the aspects of modern scientific discovery. Dr.
+Watkinson never reads his utterances from a manuscript. Nor does
+he preach memoriter, as far as the language of his addresses is
+concerned. They are always carefully thought out and are never
+characterized by florid diction. His simple, strong Anglo-Saxon
+endears him to the people, for he is never guilty of an obscure
+sentence. He is in the habit of saying, 'I have always been aware that
+I have no power of voice for declamation, and therefore I can only
+hope for success in the pulpit by originality of thought.'" He was
+president of the Wesleyan Conference, 1897-1898, and editor of the
+_Wesleyan Church_, 1893-1890. He has published several volumes of
+sermons.
+
+
+
+
+WATKINSON
+
+BORN IN 1838
+
+THE TRANSFIGURED SACKCLOTH[1]
+
+[Footnote: Printed by permission of B.P. Button & Company from "The
+Transfigured Sackcloth and Other Sermons," by W.L. Watkinson.]
+
+_For none might enter into the king's gate clothed with
+sackcloth_.--Esther iv., 2.
+
+
+The sign of affliction was thus excluded from the Persian court in
+order that royalty might not be discomposed. The monarch was to see
+bright raiment, flowers, pageantry, smiling faces only; to hear
+only the voices of singing men and singing women; no smatch of the
+abounding wormwood of life was to touch his lip, no glimpse of its we
+to disturb his serenity. The master of an empire spreading from India
+to Ethiopia was not to be annoyed by a passing shadow of mortality.
+Now, this disposition to place an interdict on disagreeable and
+painful things still survives. Men of all ranks and conditions
+ingeniously hide from themselves the dark facts of life--putting these
+aside, ignoring, disguising, forgetting, denying them. Revelation,
+however, lends no sanction to this habit of passing by the tragedy
+of life with averted face; and in this discourse we wish to show the
+entire reasonableness of revelation in its frank recognition of the
+dark aspects of existence. Christianity is sometimes scouted as "the
+religion of sorrow," and many amongst us are ready to avow that the
+Persian forbidding the sackcloth is more to their taste than the
+Egyptian or the Christian dragging the corpse through the banquet; but
+we confidently contend that the recognition by Christ of the morbid
+phases of human life is altogether wise and gracious.
+
+I. We consider, first, the recognition by revelation of sin. Sackcloth
+is the outward and visible sign of sin, guilt, and misery. How men
+shut their eyes to this most terrible reality--coolly ignoring,
+skilfully veiling, emphatically denying it! "The heart from the moment
+of its first beat instinctively longs for the beautiful...." We strive
+for the right and the true: it is circumstance that thrusts wrong
+upon us. What is popularly called sin these philosophers call error,
+accident, inexperience, indecision, misdirection, imperfection,
+disharmony; but they will not allow the presence in the human heart of
+a malign force which asserts itself against God, and against the
+order of His universe. That principle which is darkness in the mind,
+perverseness in the will, idolatry in the affections, "every passion's
+wild excess, anger, lust, and pride,"--the existence of any such
+principle they absolutely and scornfully deny. There is no evil in the
+universe, all is good, and where everything is good human nature is
+still the best. A single substance comprises all that is, and no place
+is left for that profoundly decisive and destructive element called
+sin; all that we have to do is to descant on the marvelous loveliness
+of the world, the serene harmony of the universe, man's love of the
+true, the beautiful, and the good. Intellectual masters like Emerson
+and Renan. ignore conscience; they refuse to acknowledge the
+selfishness, the baseness, the cruelty of society; they are deaf to
+the groans of creation; they smile, and expect us to smile, whilst
+they clap a purple patch of rhetoric on the running sores of humanity.
+No sackcloth must pass their gate, and no craftsman of Ind ever wove
+gossamer half so delicate and delightful as the verbal veil with which
+these literary artists attempt to conceal the leprosy of our nature.
+
+And men generally are willing to dupe themselves touching the fact
+and power of sin; they are strongly disinclined to look directly and
+honestly at that inner confusion of which we are all more or less
+conscious. We willingly acknowledge our transgression of the higher
+law, that we do the things we ought not to do, and leave undone the
+things that we ought to do; we have an unpleasant feeling that all is
+not right, nay, indeed, that something is seriously wrong; but we do
+not unshrinkingly acquaint ourselves with the malady of the spirit as
+we should at once acquaint ourselves with any malady hinting itself in
+the flesh. The sackcloth must not mar our shallow happiness. Great is
+the power of self-deception, but in no other direction do we permit
+ourselves to be more profoundly cheated than we do in this. In the
+vision of beautiful things we forget the troubles of conscience,
+as the first sinners hid themselves amid the leaves and flowers of
+Paradise; in fashion and splendor we forget our guilty sorrow, as
+medieval mourners sometimes concealed their cerements with raiment of
+purple and gold; in the noises of the world we become oblivious of the
+interior discords, as soldiers forget their wounds amid the stir and
+trumpets of the battle. With a busy life, a gay life, we manage to
+forget the skeleton of the heart, rarely permitting ourselves to look
+upon the ominous specter which some way or other has entrenched itself
+within us, and which is the bane of our existence.
+
+Nevertheless, sin thrusts itself upon our attention. The greatest
+thinkers in all ages have been constrained to recognize its presence
+and power. The creeds of all nations declare the fact that men
+everywhere feel the bitter working and intolerable burden of
+conscience. And, however we may strive to forget our personal
+sinfulness, the cry is ever being wrung from us in the deepest moments
+of life, "O wretched man that I am! who can deliver me from the body
+of this death?" The sense of sin has persisted through changing
+generations; it is the burden of experience and philosophy, and
+the genius of the race has exhausted itself in devising schemes of
+salvation.
+
+Aeschylus, Dante, Shakespeare, knew of truth, justice, purity, and
+love, of the supreme and eternal law of righteousness; they knew that
+man alone of all this lower creation is subject to this transcendental
+rule; they knew also that the violation of this highest law lay at the
+root of the world's mysterious and complex suffering--in other words,
+that sin was the secret of the tragedy of life. The beasts are happy
+because they are beasts; they do not lie awake in the dark weeping
+over their sins, because they have no sins to weep over; they do not
+discuss their duty to God, they do it; whilst, on the contrary, men
+are unhappy because being subject to the highest law of all, and
+competent to fulfil that law in its utmost requirements, they have
+consciously fallen short of it, wilfully contradicted it. We cannot
+accept the coat of many colors, whatever the flatterers may say; the
+sackcloth is ours, and it eats our spirit like fire.
+
+Most fully does Christ recognize the great catastrophe. Some modern
+theologians may dismiss sin as "a mysterious incident" in the
+development of humanity, as a grain of sand that has unluckily blown
+into the eye, as a thorn that has accidentally pierced our heel,
+but the greatest of ethical teachers regarded sin as a profound
+contradiction of that eternal will which is altogether wise and good.
+More than any other teacher Jesus Christ emphasized the actuality and
+awfulness of sin; more than any other has He intensified the world's
+consciousness of sin. He never attempted to relieve us of the
+sackcloth by asserting our comparative innocence; He never attempted
+to work into that melancholy robe one thread of color, to relieve it
+with one solitary spangle of rhetoric. Sin was the burden of the life
+of Christ because it is the burden of our life. Christ has done more
+than insisted on the reality, the odiousness, the ominousness, of
+sin--He has laid bare its principle and essence. The New Testament
+discovers to us the mystery of iniquity as ungodliness; its inmost
+essence being unbelief in God's truth, the denial of His justice,
+the rejection of His love, the violation of His law. The South Sea
+islanders have a singular tradition to account for the existence of
+the dew. The legend relates that in the beginning the earth touched
+the sky, that being the golden age when all was beautiful and glad;
+then some dreadful tragedy occurred, the primal unity was broken up,
+the earth and the sky were torn asunder as we see them now, and the
+dewdrops of the morning are the tears that nature sheds over the sad
+divorce. This wild fable is a metaphor of the truth; the beginning of
+all evil lies in the alienation of the spirit of man from God, in the
+divorce of earth from heaven; here is the final reason why the face
+of humanity is wet with tears. How vividly Christ taught that all our
+fear and we arise out of this false relation of our spirit to the
+living God! Above and beyond all, Christ recognizes the sackcloth that
+He may take it away. In the anguish of his soul Job cried, "I
+have sinned; what shall I do unto thee, O thou Preserver of men?"
+Christianity is God's full and final answer to that appeal. In Christ
+we have the revelation of God's ceaseless, immeasurable, eternal love.
+In Him we have the satisfaction of God's sovereign justice. Our own
+awakened conscience feels the difficulty of absolution; it demands
+that sin shall not be lightly passed over; it wearies itself to find
+an availing sacrifice and atonement. "Behold the Lamb of God, that
+taketh away the sin of the world!" In Him, too, we have that grace
+which brings us into accord with the mind and government of God.
+Christ reveals to us the divine ideal life; He awakens in us a passion
+for that life; He leads us into the power and privilege, the liberty
+and gladness, of that life. He fills our imagination with the vision
+of His own divine loveliness; He refreshes our will from founts of
+unfathomable power; He fills us with courage and hope; He crowns us
+with victory. "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself,
+not imputing their trespasses unto them." Sin is ungodliness; Christ
+makes us to see light in God's light, fills us with His love, attunes
+our spirit to the infinite music of His perfection. Instead of
+shutting out the signs of wo, Christ followed an infinitely deeper
+philosophy; He arrayed Himself in the sackcloth, becoming sin for us
+who knew no sin, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
+We have redemption in His blood, even the forgiveness of sins; he
+established us in a true relation to the holy God; He restores in
+us the image of God; He fills us with the peace of God that passeth
+understanding.
+
+Not in the spirit of a barren cynicism does Christ lay bare the
+ghastly wound of our nature, but as a noble physician who can purge
+the mortal virus which destroys us. He has done this for thousands; He
+is doing it now; in these very moments He can give sweet release to
+all who are burdened and beaten by the dire confusion of nature.
+Sin is a reality; absolution, sanctification, peace, are not less
+realities. Christ's gate is not shut to the penitent, neither does
+He send him empty away. We go to Him in sackcloth, but we leave His
+presence in purity's robe of snow, in honor's stainless purple, in the
+heavenly blue of the holiness of truth. The Spirit of the Lord God is
+upon Him, that He may give to the mourners in Zion beauty for ashes,
+the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of
+heaviness.
+
+II. We consider the recognition by revelation of sorrow. Sackcloth is
+the raiment of sorrow, and as such it was interdicted by the Persian
+monarch. We still follow the insane course, minimizing, despising,
+masking, denying suffering. Society sometimes attempts this. The
+affluent entrench themselves within belts of beauty and fashion,
+excluding the sights and sounds of a suffering world. "Ye that put far
+away the evil day, and cause the seat of violence to come near; that
+lie upon beds of ivory, and stretch themselves upon their couches, and
+eat the lambs out of the flock, and the calves out of the midst of the
+stall, that chant to the sound of the viol, and invent to themselves
+instruments of music, like David; that drink wine in bowls, and anoint
+themselves with the chief ointments: but they are not grieved for the
+affliction of Joseph." So do opulent and selfish men still seek "to
+hide their heart in a nest of roses." Literature sometimes follows
+the same cue. Goethe made it one of the rules of his life to avoid
+everything that could suggest painful ideas, and the taint of his
+egotism is on a considerable class of current literature which
+serenely ignores the morbid aspects of life. Art has yielded to the
+same temptation. The artist has felt that he was concerned only with
+strength, beauty, and grace; that he had nothing to do with weakness,
+agony, wretchedness, and death. Why should sorrow find perpetual
+remembrance in art? Pain will tear our bodies, but we will have no
+wrinkles on our statues; suffering will rend our heart, but we will
+have no shadows on our pictures. None clothed in sackcloth might enter
+the gate that is called Beautiful.
+
+Most of us are inclined to the sorry trick of gilding over painful
+things. We resolutely put from us sober signs, serious thoughts, and
+sometimes are really angry with those who exhibit life as it is,
+and who urge us to seek reconciliation with it. When the physician
+prescribed blisters to Marie Bashkirtseff to check her consumptive
+tendency, the vain, cynical girl wrote, "I will put on as many
+blisters as thee like. I shall be able to hide the mark by bodices
+brimmed with flowers and lace and tulle, and a thousand other
+delightful things that are worn, without being required; it may even
+look pretty. Ah! I am comforted." Yes, by a thousand artifices do we
+dissemble our ugly scars, sometimes even pressing our deep misfortunes
+into the service of our pride. Many of the fashions and the diversions
+of the world much sought after have little positive attractiveness,
+but the real secret of their power is found in the fact that they
+hide disagreeable things, and render men for a while oblivious of the
+mystery and weight of an unintelligible world.
+
+Nevertheless suffering is a stern fact that will not long permit us to
+sleep. Some have taught the unreality of pain, but the logic of life
+has spoiled their plausible philosophizing. A man may carry many
+hallucinations with him to the grave, but a belief in the unreality of
+pain is hardly likely to be one of them. The laughing philosopher is
+quite invincible on his midsummer's day, but ere long fatality makes
+him sad. There is no screen to shut off permanently the spectacle of
+suffering. When Marie Antoinette passed to her bridal in Paris, the
+halt, the lame, and the blind were sedulously kept out of her way,
+lest their appearance should mar the joyousness of her reception; but,
+ere long, the poor queen had a very close view of misery's children,
+and she drank to the dregs the cup of life's bitterness. Reason as we
+may, suppress the disagreeable truths of life as we may, suffering
+will find us out, and pierce us to the heart. Indeed, despite our
+dissimulations, we know that life is not a matter of lutes, doves, and
+sunflowers, and at last we have little patience with those who thus
+seek to represent it. We will not have the philosophy which ignores
+suffering; witness the popularity of Schopenhauer. We resent the art
+which ignores sorrow. True art has no pleasure in sin and suffering,
+in torture, horror, and death; but on its palette must lie the sober
+colorings of human life, and so to-day the most popular picture of the
+world is the "Angelus" of Millet. We will not have the literature that
+ignores suffering. "Humanity will look upon nothing else but its old
+sufferings. It loves to see and touch its wounds, even at the risk of
+reopening them. We are not satisfied with poetry unless we find tears
+in it." We will not have the theology which ignores sin and suffering.
+The preacher who confines his discourses to pleasant themes has a
+meager following; the people swiftly and logically conclude that if
+life is as flowery as the discourse, the preacher is superfluous.
+Foolish we may often be, yet we cannot accept this Gethsemane for a
+garden of the gods; the most wilful lotus-eater must perforce see the
+streaming tears, the stain of blood, the shadow of death. Nature in
+the full swing of her pageantry soon forgets the wild shriek of the
+bird in the red talons of the hawk, and all other sad and tragic
+things, but humanity is compelled to note the blood and tears which
+flow everywhere, and to lay these things to heart.
+
+Christ giveth us the noblest example of suffering. So far from
+shutting His gate on the sackcloth, once more He adopted it,
+and showed how it might become a robe of glory. He Himself was
+preeminently a Man of sorrows; He exhausted all forms of suffering;
+touching life at every point, at every point He bled; and in Him we
+learn how to sustain our burden and to triumph throughout all the
+tragedy. In His absolute rectitude, in His confidence in His Father,
+in His hours of prayer, in His self-sacrificing regard for His
+fellow-sufferers, in His charity, and patience, we see how the
+heaviest cross may be borne in the spirit of victory. We learn from
+Him how divine grace can mysteriously make the sufferer equal to the
+bitterest martyrdom; not putting to our lips some anodyne cup to
+paralyze life, but giving us conquest through the strength and
+bravery of reason in its noblest mood, through faith in its sublimest
+exercise, through a love that many waters cannot quench nor the
+floods drown. Poison is said to be extracted from the rattlesnake for
+medicinal purposes; but infinitely more wonderful is the fact that the
+suffering which comes out of sin counterworks sin, and brings to pass
+the transfiguration of the sufferer.
+
+Christ teaches us how, under the redemptive government of God,
+suffering has become a subtle and magnificent process for the full
+and final perfecting of human character. Science tells us how the
+bird-music, which is one of nature's foremost charms, has risen out of
+the bird's cry of distress in the morning of time; how originally the
+music of field and forest was nothing more than an exclamation caused
+by the bird's bodily pain and fear, and how through the ages the
+primal note of anguish has been evolved and differentiated until it
+has risen into the ecstasy of the lark, melted into the silver note of
+the dove, swelled into the rapture of the nightingale, unfolded into
+the vast and varied music of the sky and the summer. So Christ shows
+us that out of the personal sorrow which now rends the believer's
+heart he shall arise in moral and infinite perfection; that out of the
+cry of anguish wrung from us by the present distress shall spring the
+supreme music of the future.
+
+The Persian monarch forbidding sackcloth had forgotten that
+consolation is a royal prerogative; but the King of kings has not
+forgotten this, and very sweet and availing is His sovereign sympathy.
+Scherer recommends "amusement as a comfortable deceit by which we
+avoid a permanent _tête-à-tête_ with realities that are too heavy for
+us." Is there not a more excellent way than this? Let us carry our
+sorrows to Christ, and we shall find that in Him they have lost their
+sting. It is a clumsy mistake to call Christianity a religion of
+sorrow--it is a religion _for_ sorrow. Christ finds us stricken and
+afflicted, and His words go down to the depths of our sorrowful heart,
+healing, strengthening, rejoicing with joy unspeakable. He finds us
+in sackcloth; He clothes us with singing-robes, and crowns us with
+everlasting joy.
+
+III. We consider the recognition by revelation of death. We have,
+again, adroit ways of shutting the gate upon that sackcloth which is
+the sign of death. A recent writer allows that Shakespeare, Raleigh,
+Bacon, and all the Elizabethans shuddered at the horror and mystery
+of death; the sunniest spirits of the English Renaissance quailed to
+think of it. He then goes on to observe that there was something in
+this fear of the child's vast and unreasoned dread of darkness and
+mystery, and such a way of viewing death has become obsolete through
+the scientific and philosophic developments of the later centuries.
+Walt Whitman also tells us "that nothing can happen more beautiful
+than death," and he has exprest the humanist view of mortality in
+a hymn which his admirers regard as the high-water mark of modern
+poetry. But will this rhapsody bear thinking about? Is death
+"delicate, lovely and soothing," "delicious," coming to us with
+"serenades"? Does death "lave us in a flood of bliss"? Does "the body
+gratefully nestle close to death"? Do we go forth to meet death "with
+dances and chants of fullest welcome"? It is vain to attempt to hide
+the direst fact of all under plausible metaphors and rhetorical
+artifice. It is in defiance of all history that man so write. It is in
+contradiction of the universal instinct. It is mockery to the dying.
+It is an outrage upon the mourners. The Elizabethan masters were far
+truer to the fact; so is the modern skeptic who shrinks at "the black
+and horrible grave." Men never speak of delicious blindness, of
+delicious dumbness, of delicious deafness, of delicious paralysis; and
+death is all these disasters in one, all these disasters without hope.
+No, no, the morgue is the last place that lends itself to decoration.
+Death is the crowning evil, the absolute bankruptcy, the final defeat,
+the endless exile. Let us not shut our eyes to this. The skeptic
+often tells us that he will have no "make-believe." Let us have no
+"make-believe" about death. Let us candidly apprehend death for all
+that it is of mystery and bitterness, and reconcile ourselves to it,
+if reconciliation be possible. If we are foolish enough to shut the
+gate on the thought of death, by no stratagem can we shut the gate
+upon death itself.
+
+Without evasion or euphony Christ recognizes the somber mystery. The
+fact, the power, the terror of death are displayed by Him without
+reserve or softening. And He goes to the root of the dire and dismal
+matter. He shows us that death as we know it is an unnatural thing,
+that it is the fruit of disobedience, and by giving us purity and
+peace He gives us eternal life. The words of Luther, so full of power,
+were called "half-battles"; but the words of Christ in their depth and
+majesty are complete battles, in which sin, suffering, and death
+are finally routed. He attempts no logical proof of immortality; He
+supplies no chemical formula for the resurrection; He demonstrates
+immortality by raising us from the death of sin to the life of
+righteousness, by filling our soul with infinite aspirations and
+delights. Here is the proof supreme of immortality. "Verily, verily, I
+say unto you, he that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do
+also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto
+my Father." The moral works are the greater works. Wonderful is the
+stilling of the sea, the healing of the blind, the raising of the
+dead, but the moral miracles of our Lord express a still diviner power
+and carry with them a more absolute demonstration. If, therefore, we
+have known the power of Christ delivering our soul from the blindness,
+the paralysis, the death of sin, lifting it above the dust and causing
+it to exult in the liberties and delights of the heavenlies, why
+should we think it a thing incredible that God should raise the
+dead? If He has wrought the greater, He will not fail with the less.
+Christianity opens our eyes to splendid visions, makes us heirs of
+mighty hopes, and for all its prospects and promises it demands our
+confidence on the ground of its present magnificent and undeniable
+moral achievements. Its predictions are credible in the light of its
+spiritual efficacy. "And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because
+of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the
+Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that
+raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies
+by his Spirit that dwelleth in you," Being one with Christ in the
+power of purity, we are one with Him in the power of an endless
+life. Death has its temporary conquest, but grace reigning through
+righteousness shall finally purge the last taint of mortality. Not
+through the scientific and philosophic developments of later centuries
+has the somber way of viewing death become obsolete; Christ bringing
+life and immortality to life has brought about the great change in the
+point of view from which we regard death, the point of view which
+is full of consolation and hope. In Christ alone the crowning evil
+becomes a coronation of glory; the absolute bankruptcy, the condition
+of an incorruptible inheritance; the final defeat, an everlasting
+victory; the endless exile, home, home at last. Once more, by boldly
+adopting the sackcloth Christ has changed it into a robe of light.
+"That through death he might destroy him that had the power of death,
+that is, the devil"
+
+We cannot escape the evils of life; they are inevitable and
+inexorable. We may hide from our eyes the signs and sights of
+mourning; but in royal splendor our hearts will still bleed; wearing
+wreaths of roses, our heads will still ache. A preacher who complains
+that Christianity is "the religion of sorrow" goes on to predict
+that the woes of the world are fast coming to an end, and then the
+sorrowful religion of Jesus Christ will give place to some purer
+faith. "Through the chinks we can see the light. The condition of man
+becomes more comfortable, more easy; the hope of man is more visible;
+the endeavor of man is more often crowned with success; the attempt
+to solve the darkest life-problems is not desperate as it was. The
+reformer meets with fewer rebuffs; the philanthropist does not despair
+as he did. The light is dawning. The great teachers of knowledge
+multiply, bear their burdens more and more steadily; the traditions
+of truth and knowledge are becoming established in the intellectual
+world. It is so; and those of us who have caught a vision of the
+better times coming through reason, through knowledge, through manly
+and womanly endeavor, have caught a sight of a Christendom passing
+away, of a religion of sorrow declining, of a gospel preached for the
+poor no longer useful to a world that is mastering its own problems of
+poverty and lifting itself out of disabling misery into wealth without
+angelic assistance. This is our consolation; and while we admit,
+clearly and frankly, the real power of the popular faith, we also see
+the pillars on which a new faith rests, which shall be a faith, not
+of sorrow, but of joy." Now, the deepest sorrow of the race is not
+physical, neither is it bound up with material and social conditions.
+As the Scotch say, "The king sighs as often as the peasant"; and this
+proverb anticipates the fact that those who participate in the richest
+civilization that will ever flower will sigh as men sigh now. When the
+problem of poverty is mastered, when disease is extirpated, when a
+period is put to all disorganization of industry and misgovernment,
+social and political, it will be found by the emancipated and enriched
+community what is now found by opulent individuals and privileged
+classes, that the secret of our discontent is internal and mysterious,
+that it springs from the ungodliness, the egotism, the sensuality,
+which theology calls sin. But whatever the future may reveal, all the
+sorrows of life are upon us here and now; we cannot deny them, we
+have constantly to struggle with them, we are often overwhelmed by
+irreparable misfortune. Esther "sent raiment to clothe Mordecai, and
+to take his sackcloth from him; but he received it not." In vain do
+men offer us robes of beauty, chiding us for wearing the color of the
+night; we cannot be deceived by flattering words; we must give place
+to all the sad thoughts of our mortality until haply we find a
+salvation that goes to the root of our suffering, that dries up the
+fount of our tears.
+
+In a very different spirit and for very different ends do men
+contemplate the dark side of human life. The cynic expatiates on
+painful things--the blot on life's beauty, the shadow on its glory,
+the pitiful ending of its brave shows--only to gibe and mock. The
+realist lingers in the dissecting chamber for very delight in
+revolting themes. The pessimist enlarges on the power of melancholy
+that lie may justify despair. The poet touches the pathetic string
+that he may flutter the heart. Fiction dramatizes the tragic sentiment
+for the sake of literary effect. Cultured wickedness drinks wine
+out of a skull, that by sharp contrast it may heighten its sensuous
+delight; whilst estheticism dallies with the sad experiences of life
+to the end of intellectual pleasure, as in ornamental gardening, dead
+leaves are left on ferns and palms in the service of the picturesque.
+But Christianity gives such large recognition to the pathetic element
+of life, not that it may mock with the cynic, or trifle with the
+artist; not because with the realist it has a ghoulish delight in
+horror, or because with the refined sensualist it cunningly aims to
+give poignancy to pleasure by the memory of pain; but because it
+divines the secret of our mighty misfortune, and brings with it the
+sovereign antidote. The critics declare that Rubens had an absolute
+delight in representing pain, and they refer us to that artist's
+picture of the "Brazen Serpent" in the National Gallery. The canvas is
+full of the pain, the fever, the contortions of the wounded and dying;
+the writhing, gasping crowd is everything, and the supreme instrument
+of cure, the brazen serpent itself, is small and obscure, no
+conspicuous feature whatever of the picture. The manner of the great
+artist is so far out of keeping with the spirit of the gospel.
+Revelation brings out broadly and impressively the darkness of the
+world, the malady of life, the terror of death, only that it may
+evermore make conspicuous the uplifted Cross, which, once seen, is
+death to ever vice, a consolation in every sorrow, a victory over
+every fear.
+
+
+
+LORIMER
+
+THE FALL OF SATAN
+
+BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+
+George C. Lorimer was born at Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1838. He was
+brought up by his stepfather who was associated with the theater,
+and in this relation he received a dramatic education and had some
+experience on the stage. In 1855 he came to the United States, where
+he joined the Baptist Church and abandoned the theatrical profession.
+Later he studied for the Baptist ministry, being ordained in 1859. He
+died in 1904. His direct and dramatic, pulpit style brought him into
+great popularity in Boston, Chicago, and New York. At Tremont Temple,
+Boston, he frequently spoke to overflowing congregations. He is the
+author of several well-known books, from one of which the sermon here
+given is taken as indicating his familiarity with and liking for
+dramatic literature. His pulpit manner always retained a flavor of
+dramatic style that contributed to his popularity.
+
+
+
+
+LORIMER
+
+1838--1904
+
+THE FALL OF SATAN[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Copyright, 1882, by "The Homiletic Monthly," New York.]
+
+_I beheld Satan, as lightning, fall from heaven_.--Luke x., 18.
+
+
+Whether the "glorious darkness" denoted by the name Satan is an actual
+personage or a maleficent influence, is of secondary moment as far
+as the aim and moral of this discourse are concerned. If the ominous
+title applies to an abstraction, and if the event so vividly
+introduced is but a dramatical representation of some phase in the
+mystery of iniquity, the spiritual inferences are just what they would
+be were the words respectively descriptive of an angel of sin, and of
+his utter and terrible overthrow. I shall not, therefore, tax your
+patience with discussions on these points, but shall assume as true
+that literal reading of the text which has commended itself to the
+ripest among our evangelical scholars.
+
+The Scriptures obscurely hint at a catastrophe in heaven among
+immortal intelligences, by which many of them were smitten down from
+their radiant emerald thrones. Their communications on the subject
+are not specific and unambiguous, and neither can they escape the
+suspicion of being designedly figurative; intended, probably, as much
+to veil as to reveal. One of the clearest statements is made by Jude,
+where he says: "And the angels which kept not their first estate, but
+left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains,
+under darkness, unto the judgment of the great day"; and Peter, in
+like manner, speaks of God sparing not the angels that sinned, "but
+cast them down to hell"; and yet these comparatively lucid passages
+suggest a world of mist and shadow, which becomes filled with strange
+images when we confront the picture, presented by John, of war in
+heaven, with Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon, "that
+old serpent called the devil." Back of them there doubtless lies a
+history whose tragic significance is not easily measured. The sad,
+imperishable annals of our race prove that sin is a contingency
+of freedom. Wherever creatures are endowed with moral liberty,
+transgression is impliedly possible. It is, consequently, inherently
+probable that celestial beings, as well as man, may have revolted from
+the law of their Maker; and a fall accomplished among the inhabitants
+of heaven should no more surprize us than the fall of mortals on
+earth. Perhaps, after all, there is as much truth as poetry in
+Milton's conception of the rebellion, and of the fearful defeat that
+overtook its leader:--
+
+                   "Him the almighty Power
+  Hurled headlong flaming from the ethereal sky,
+  With hideous ruin and combustion, down
+  To bottomless perdition: there to dwell
+  In adamantine chains and penal fire,
+  Who durst defy the Omnipotent to arms."
+
+An apostle, admonishing a novice, bids him beware of pride, "lest he
+fall into the condemnation of the devil." Here presumptuous arrogance
+and haughtiness of spirit are specified as the root and source of the
+great transgression. Shakespeare takes up this thought:--
+
+  "Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition.
+  By that sin fell the angels: how can man, then,
+  The image of his Maker, hope to win by't?"
+
+And Milton repeats it in the magnificent lines:--
+
+                      "What time his pride
+  Had cast him out of heaven, with all his host
+  Of rebel angels; by whose aid, aspiring
+  To set himself in glory above his peers,
+  He trusted to have equalled the Most High,
+  If He opposed; and, with ambitious aim,
+  Against the throne and monarchy of God
+  Raised impious war in heaven, and battle proud,
+  With vain attempt."
+
+Our Savior, also, sanctions this idea in the text. Joining His
+disciples again, after their brief separation, He finds them elated
+and exultant. They rejoiced, and, apparently, not with modesty, that
+devils were subject unto them, and that they could exorcize them at
+their pleasure. While they acknowledged that their power was due to
+the influence of His name, they evidently thought more of
+themselves than of Him. They were given to unseemly glorifying and
+self-satisfaction, and were met by the Master's words--half warning,
+half rebuke--"I beheld Satan, as lightning, fall from heaven." He thus
+identifies their pride with that evil spirit which led to angelic
+ruin, and seeks to banish it from their hearts: "Rejoice not that the
+demons are subject unto you, but, rather, rejoice because your names
+are written in heaven." Rejoice not on account of privilege and
+power, but on account of grace; for the memory of grace must promote
+humility, as it will recall the guilt of which it is the remedy.
+
+We have, here, a lesson for all ages and for all classes of society--a
+lesson continually enforced by Scripture, and illustrated by history.
+It deals with the insanity of pride and the senselessness of
+egotism. It reminds us, by repeated examples, of the temptations to
+self-inflation, and of the perils which assail its indulgence. "Ye
+shall be as gods," was the smiling, sarcastic allurement which
+beguiled our first parents to their ruin. They thought that before
+them rose an eminence which the foot of creaturehood had never
+trodden; that from its height the adventurous climber would rival
+Deity in the sweep of his knowledge and the depth of his joy. Elated
+and dazzled by the prospect, they dared tread through sin to its
+attainment, vainly dreaming that wrong-doing would lead to a purer
+paradise and to a loftier throne. One step, and only one, in the
+gratification of their desires, converted their enchanting mountain
+into a yawning gulf, and in its horrid wastes of darkness and of
+sorrow their high-blown pride was shamed and smothered. The haughty
+king walked on the terrace heights of Babylon, and, beneath the calm
+splendor of an Assyrian sky, voiced the complacent feeling which
+dulled his sense of dependence upon God--as the perfumes of the East
+lull into waking-slumber the faculties of the soul. Thus ran his
+self-glorifying soliloquy: "Is not this great Babylon that I have
+built for the house of the kingdom by the might of my power, and for
+the honor of my majesty?" Alas for the weakness of the royal egotist!
+In an hour his boasting was at an end, and, reduced by the chastening
+judgment of the Almighty to the level of the brute creation, he was
+compelled to learn that "those who walk in pride the King of heaven
+is able to abase." Similar the lesson taught us by the overthrow
+of Belshazzar when, congratulating himself on the stability of his
+throne, and in his excess of arrogance, he insulted the sacred vessels
+which his father had plundered from the temple at Jerusalem. I say
+taught us, for the foolhardy braggart was past learning anything
+himself. Like the yet more silly Herod, who drank in the adulation of
+the mob as he sat shimmering in his silver robe and slimed his speech
+from his serpent-tongue, he was too inflated and bloated with vanity
+to be corrected by wholesome discipline. Both of these rulers were too
+self-satisfied to be reproved, and God's exterminating indignation
+overtook them. Like empty bubbles, nothing could be done with them,
+and hence the breath of the Almighty burst and dispersed their
+glittering worthlessness. Pope John XXI., according to Dean Milman, is
+another conspicuous monument of this folly. "Contemplating," writes
+the historian, "with too much pride the work of his own hands"--the
+splendid palace of Viterbo--"at that instant the avenging roof came
+down, on his head." And Shakespeare has immortalized the pathetic doom
+which awaits the proud man, who, confident in his own importance and
+in the magnitude of his destiny, is swallowed up in schemes and plans
+for his personal aggrandizement and power. Wolsey goes too far in his
+self-seeking, is betrayed by his excess of statecraft, and, being
+publicly disgraced, laments, when too late, his selfish folly:--
+
+                             "I have ventured,
+  Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders,
+  These many summers on a sea of glory,
+  But far beyond my depth: my high-blown pride
+  At length broke under me; and now has left me,
+  Weary, and old with service, to the mercy
+  Of a rude stream, that must forever hide me."
+
+It is not difficult to discern the fatal effects of this spirit in
+the lives of the great and mighty; but we are frequently blind to its
+pernicious influence on the lowly and weak. We do not realize, as we
+ought, that the differences between men lie mainly in their position,
+not in their experiences and dangers. The leaders of society are
+merely actors, exhibiting on the public stage of history what is
+common to mankind at large. However insignificant we may be, and
+however obscure our station, our inner life is not far removed from
+that of the exalted personages who draw to themselves the attention of
+the world. The poorest man has his ambitions, his struggles and his
+reverses; and the first may take as deep a hold upon his heart, and
+the second call forth as much cunning or wisdom to confront, and the
+last as much bitterness to endure, as are found in the vicissitudes
+of a Richelieu or a Napoleon. The peasant's daughter, in her narrow
+circle, feels as keenly the disappointment of her hopes, and mourns as
+intensely the betrayal of her confidence, or the rude ending of her
+day-dreams, as either queen or princess, as either Katharine of
+England or Josephine of France. We do wrong to separate, as widely as
+we do in our thoughts, ranks and conditions of society. The palace and
+the hovel are nearer to each other than we usually think; and what
+passes beneath the fretted ceiling of the one, and the thatched roof
+of the other, is divided by the shadowy line of mere externalities.
+And so it happens that the fall of an angel may be pertinent to the
+state of a fisherman-disciple, and the fall of a prime minister or
+ruler have its message of warning for the tradesman and mechanic.
+
+Indeed, it will generally be found that the failures of life, and the
+worse than failures, are mainly due to the same cause which emptied
+heavenly thrones of their angelic occupants. What is it, let me ask,
+that comes into clearer prominence as the Washington tragedy[1] is
+being investigated and scrutinized? Is it not that a diseased egotism,
+or perhaps it would be more correct to say, a stalwart egotism, robbed
+this country of its ruler, committed "most sacrilegious murder," and
+"broke ope"
+
+  "The Lord's anointed temple, and stole thence
+  The life o' the building."
+
+[Footnote 1: The assassination of President Garfield.]
+
+Like bloody Macbeth, who greedily drank in the prognostications of the
+weird sisters, tho he feared that the "supernatural soliciting" could
+not be good, because they pandered to his monstrous self-infatuation,
+Guiteau, having wrought himself up through many years of
+self-complacency, claims to have believed that the divine Being had
+chosen him to do a deed which has filled the earth with horror. Thus
+the growth of self-conceit into mammoth proportions tends to obscure
+the rights of others, and to darken with its gigantic shadow the
+light of conscience. If we are to admit the prisoner's story, as the
+expression of his real condition prior to the assassination, we look
+on one so intoxicated with the sense of his own importance that he
+would "spurn the sea, if it could roar at him," and hesitate not to
+perform any deed of darkness that would render him more conspicuous.
+Others, less heinous offenders than this garrulous murderer, have,
+from similar weakness, wrought indescribable mischief to themselves.
+The man, for instance, who frets against providence because his
+standing is not higher and his influence greater, has evidently
+a better opinion of his deservings than is wholesome for him. He
+imagines he is being wronged by the Creator--that his merits are not
+recognized as they should be--never, for a moment, remembering that,
+as a sinner, he has no claims on the extraordinary bounty of his
+heavenly Father. From murmuring he easily glides into open rebellion,
+and from whispered reproaches to loud denunciations. There are people
+in every community whose pride leads them into shameful transactions.
+They would not condescend to mingle with their social inferiors, but
+they will subsist on the earnings of their friends, and consider it no
+disgrace to borrow money which they have no intention of returning.
+Their vanity, at times, commits them to extravagances which they have
+no means of supporting. They ought to have carriages and horses,
+mansions and pictures, with all the luxuries of affluence--at least
+so they think--and, being destitute of the resources requisite to
+maintain such state, they become adepts in those arts which qualify
+for the penitentiary. Others have such confidence in the strength of
+their virtue, such commanding arrogance of integrity, that, like a
+captain who underestimates the force of an enemy and overrates his
+own, they neglect to place a picket-guard on the outskirts of their
+moral camp, and in such an hour as they think not they are surprized
+and lost. Even possessors of religion are not always clear of this
+folly, or safe from its perils. They "think more highly of themselves
+than they ought to think"; they come to regard themselves as specially
+favored of heaven; they talk of the Almighty in a free and easy
+manner, and of Jesus Christ as tho He were not the Judge at all. When
+they pray, it is with a familiarity bordering on irreverence, and
+when they deal with sacred themes it is with a lightness that breeds
+contempt. When they recount the marvels which they have wrought in
+the name of Christ, it is hardly-possible for them to hide their
+self-complacency; for, while they profess to give Him the glory, the
+manner of their speech shows that they are taking it to themselves.
+They are like the disciples, who were as proud of their prowess in
+casting out devils as children are with their beautiful toys, and
+they are as much in need of the Savior's warning: "I beheld Satan, as
+lightning, fall from heaven." And because they have failed to give
+heed unto it, they have oftentimes followed the Evil One in his
+downward course, and in a moment have made shipwreck of their faith.
+
+  "As sails, full spread, and bellying with the wind,
+  Drop, suddenly collapsed, if the mast split;
+  So to the ground down dropped the cruel fiend";
+
+and earthward have the unsaintly saints of God as swiftly sped, when
+they have fostered the pride which changed angels into demons.
+
+"How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!" What
+more pitiable spectacle than the ruin of an angel! We have seen the
+forsaken halls of time-worn and dilapidated castles, have stood in
+the unroofed palaces of ancient princes, and have gazed on the
+moss-covered and ivy-decked towers of perishing churches, and the
+sight of them has tilled our hearts with melancholy, as we thought
+of what had been, and of the changes that had swept over the fair,
+valiant and pious throngs whose laughter, bravery and prayers once
+made these scenes so gay and vocal. All is hushed now, and the silence
+is broken only by the hoot and screech of the owl, or by the rustle of
+the nightbat's leathern wing. But how much sadder is the form of the
+mighty spirit, who once sat regnant among the sons of light, emptied
+of his innocence, filled with foul, creeping, venomous thoughts and
+feelings, uncrowned, dethroned only with malignity and throned in
+evil! The Bible calls him the prince and the god of this world; and
+everywhere we are surrounded with evidences of his despotic sway.
+Unlike earthly rulers, whose exhausted natures exact repose, he
+is ever sleepless, and his plotting never ends. Enter his somber
+presence-chamber, and commotion, bustle, activity will confront and
+amaze you. He is continually sending his emissaries forth in every
+direction. The perpetual wranglings, ceaseless distractions,
+irreconcilable contradictions, disquieting doubts, discouraging
+outlooks, inharmonious and jangling opinions, unaccountable delusions,
+clashing and crashing dissonances, cruel hatreds, bitter enmities and
+stormful convulsions, which so largely enter and deface the course of
+human history, proceed mainly from his influence. We know that "the
+heart of a lost angel is in the earth," and as we know its throbbings
+carry misery and despair to millions of our fellow-beings, we can
+surmise the intensity of we wherewith it afflicts himself. Mrs.
+Browning's Adam thus addresses Lucifer:--
+
+                          "The prodigy
+  Of thy vast brows and melancholy eyes,
+  Which comprehend the heights of some great fall.
+  I think that thou hast one day worn a crown
+  Under the eyes of God."
+
+But now the vast brow must wear a heavier gloom, and the eyes betray a
+deeper sorrow, as in his ruin he has sought to bury the hopes and joys
+of a weaker race. How different his dealings with the race from those
+which mark the ministry of Christ! Immortal hate on the one side of
+humanity; immortal love on the other; both struggling for supremacy.
+One sweeping across the soul with pinions of dark doubts and fears;
+the other, with the strong wing of hope and fair anticipations. One
+seeking to plunge the earth-spirit into the abysmal depths of eternal
+darkness; the other seeking to bear it to the apex of light, where
+reigns eternal day. And of the two, Christ alone is called "the
+blest." In the agony and anguish of His sufferings He yet can exclaim,
+"My joy I leave with thee"; and in the lowest vale of His shame can
+calmly discourse on peace. The reason? Do you ask the question? It
+is found in His goodness. He is good, and seeks the good of all; and
+goodness crowns His lacerated brow with joy. This Satan sacrificed
+in his fall; this he antagonizes with, in his dreary career, and so
+remains in the eyes of all ages the monument of melancholy gloom.
+Thus, also, is it with man, whose haughtiness thrusts him into evil.
+He is morose and wretched, crusht beneath a burden of we, which weighs
+the eyelids down with weariness and the heart with care, and
+which constrains him to curse the hour of his birth. Next to the
+grief-crowned angel, there is no more pitiable object in all God's
+fair creation than a human soul tumbled by its own besotted pride into
+sin and shame. "How is the gold become dim! how is the most fine gold
+changed!" aye, changed to dross, which the foot spurns, and which the
+whirlwind scatters to the midnight region of eternity.
+
+In view of these reflections, we can understand the stress laid by the
+inspired writers on the grace of humility. We are exhorted to be like
+Jesus, who was meek and lowly in heart; and we are commanded to esteem
+others better than ourselves. These admonitions are not designed to
+cultivate a servile or an abject spirit, but to promote a wholesome
+sense of our own limitations, weaknesses and dependence. They would
+foster such a state of mind as will receive instruction, as will lean
+on the Almighty, and recognize the worthiness and rights of all. Just
+as the flower has to pass its season entombed in the darkness of its
+calyx before it spreads forth its radiant colors and breathes its
+perfume, so the soul must veil itself in the consciousness of its own
+ignorance and sinfulness before it will be able to expand in true
+greatness, or shed around it the aroma of pure goodness. Crossing the
+prairies recently between this city and St. Louis, I noticed that the
+trees were nearly all bowed in the direction of the northeast. As our
+strongest winds blow from that quarter, it was natural to inquire why
+they were not bent to the southwest. The explanation given was, that
+the south winds prevail in the time of sap, when the trees are supple
+with life and heavy with foliage, and consequently, that they yield
+before them. But when the winter comes they are hard and firm, rigid
+and stiff, and even the fury of the tempest affects them not. Thus
+is it with human souls. When humility fills the heart, when its
+gentleness renders susceptible its thoughts and feelings, the softest
+breath of God's Spirit can bend it earthward to help the needy, and
+downward to supplicate and welcome heaven's grace. But when it is
+frozen through and through with pride, it coldly resists the overtures
+of mercy, and in its deadness is apathetic even, to the storm of
+wrath. Nothing remains but for the wild hurricane to uproot it and
+level it to the ground. Such is the moral of my brief discourse. God
+grant we may have the wisdom of humility to receive it!
+
+
+
+
+KNOX LITTLE
+
+THIRST SATISFIED
+
+BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+
+William John Knox Little, English preacher, was born 1839 and educated
+at Cambridge University. He has filled many parochial cures, and in
+1881 was appointed canon of Worcester, and sub-dean in 1902. He also
+holds the vicarage of Hoar Cross (1885). He is of high repute as a
+preacher and is in much request all over England. He belongs to the
+High Church school and has printed, besides his sermons, many works of
+educational character, such as the "Treasury of Meditation," "Manual
+of Devotion for Lent," and "Confirmation and Holy Communion."
+
+
+
+
+KNOX LITTLE
+
+BORN IN 1839
+
+THIRST SATISFIED[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Reprinted by permission of Hodder & Stoughton, London.]
+
+_My soul is athirst for God, for the living God; when shall I come and
+appear before the presence of God?_--Psalm xlii., 2.
+
+
+The verse, dear friends, which I have read to you for a text is one
+of those verses which justify in the highest degree the action of the
+Christian Church in selecting the Hebrew Psalter as, in fact, her
+prayer-book. There are many passages, as you will feel with me, in the
+Hebrew psalter that express in a very high degree the wants of the
+human soul; but perhaps there is no passage more telling, more
+touching, more searching, more expressive than that solemn and that
+exalted sentiment which is spoken in the text, "My soul is athirst
+for God, for the living God; when shall I come and appear before the
+presence of God?" The passage is a justification, then, of the action
+of the Christian Church. People sometimes ask why in the daily
+service, why on Sundays, you rehearse the Psalms, which have about
+them so much that is incomprehensible, so much that requires
+explanation; why there are those tremendous denunciations of enemies,
+why there are those prayers that seem at first sight to touch
+wants that we modern people scarcely know; but if you want a real
+justification and a handy answer you may fall back upon the general
+texture of the psalter as exprest by such solemn words as those of the
+text. If you would find any document, any volume that will speak your
+thoughts best about and towards eternity, you cannot select a better
+than the Hebrew psalter, for the general tone and temper of its
+teaching is the cry of the soul for God.
+
+And then there is another thought upon the threshold of such a subject
+that demands our attention. This verse of the text, being a sort of
+example or representative verse of the psalter, expresses to us--does
+it not?--the attitude and the mission of the Christian Church. The
+attitude. For what is the position, dear friends, of the Christian
+Church? What are the struggles of Christian souls except, in the midst
+of a world that is quite complicated with difficulties, in the midst
+of a world that is overwhelmed with sorrow, in the midst of a time of
+severe temptation, to constantly rise and gaze high above the thought
+of evil, and gaze towards the sun of brightness, and cry for God? And
+what is the mission of the Christian Church? Is it not to help men and
+women in their struggle and their sorrow to forget at least at times
+their pettinesses and degradation to rise to better standards and
+loftier ideals, and cry for God? And if that be the mission of the
+Christian Church, then I hold--and that is my point this morning--that
+that is the justification of such noble efforts as have been made in
+your church to enable so great, so sinful a city as London to have at
+least moments of relaxation from its world-wide weariness, moments of
+pause in the pursuit of its sin, and to call it back from that
+which is overpowering tho transient--to ask it to pass them in the
+ministrations of religion. What is the object of such a church as
+this? Why, buried among your buildings, in the midst of this great,
+powerful, sinful city,--why has it a mission for eternity? Why is
+it good that you should do your best? Why is it praiseworthy and
+beautiful that your rector and churchwardens should have exerted
+themselves to the utmost to make this church what it ought to be?
+Why? Because there is not a man or woman in London, not one in this
+bustling crowd, not one in this confusion of commerce, not one in this
+sink of sin, but might say "Yes"--ought to say, and must ultimately
+feel, and should now be taught to realize that the soul has one
+satisfaction, one only--"My soul is athirst for God, for the living
+God." Well, if that be so, can we be wrong, dear friends, can we waste
+our time, if we ask ourselves this morning something quite practical
+about this thirst of the soul?
+
+And, first of all, I submit that in such a verse as this, and in such
+a work as this, we are face to face with one of those great governed
+contrasts that are found throughout Scripture and throughout human
+life. I may say, _par parenthèse_, that that is one of the great
+proofs of sacred Scripture. When your shallow thinker, when your wild
+and profound philosopher, kicks the sacred Book with the toe of his
+boot, and denounces it because he does not like the measure of Noah's
+Ark or the exact activity of Jonah's whale, the moment you begin
+to think beneath those mere sharpnesses of speech and those mere
+quicknesses of the thought, you say this: "There may be this or that
+about the surface of Scripture which I do not and cannot explain, and
+cannot entirely understand; but at least there is no book--no, not
+excepting Milton; no, not even excepting Dante; no, for us English
+people, making no reserve for Shakespeare--there is no book that,
+after all, expresses that deep, inner, serious fact of my being, of
+my soul, of myself; the fact that lives when our facts are dying; the
+fact that persists in asserting itself when the noise of the world is
+still; the fact that does not care about daylight only, but comes up
+in the dark; the fact that whispers low when I am in the crowd, but
+speaks loud in the darkest night, when the clock is ticking on the
+stairs, and conscience has stalked out and stood before me, asserting
+facts that I cannot contradict--there is no look that can speak that
+fact of facts, that thirst, that longing, that desolation, that
+desire, that hope, that activity, that possibility of supreme
+contention and final victory, there is nothing like the Bible that
+does that." And so wise men, while they admit difficulties, thoughtful
+men, while they do not controvert the fact that that which is divine
+needs larger explanation, fall back upon such great governed truths as
+that text to support the Bible. The Bible says, asserts, determines,
+and insists upon the truth which the Church is insisting upon, which
+you and I, in our better moments, emphasize and say "Amen" to--the
+soul is athirst for God. The Bible brings home the great contrast that
+is present to us all.
+
+Let us dwell, that we may realize this thirst of the soul, upon the
+contrast. There are, at least, four forms of attraction which are
+presented, as I suppose, to your soul, certainly to mine. First of
+all, there is the attraction of natural beauty. If you stand on a fair
+August afternoon on the terrace, for instance, at Berne, or on the
+heights of Chaumont; if you gaze at the distant Alps, crowned with
+snow which was generated in winter, but which takes the brightness and
+glory of diamonds in the summer sun; if, coming from the noise and
+heat of England, you first gaze at that line of strange pointed
+mountains crowned with that whiteness, struck with the sunlight, you
+are moved by natural beauty. If you stand in America on the upper
+reaches of the St. Lawrence, and watch the river as it hurries to its
+destiny at Niagara; if you see the tossing water writhing almost like
+living creatures anticipating a dreadful destiny and passing over the
+fall; or if, rising out of what is tragic in nature, you come to what
+is homely--if, for instance, you see the chestnut woods of spring with
+an inspiration of quiet joy, or if you see the elms at Worcester or
+Hereford in our common England in the autumn time with an inspiration
+of sorrow; wherever you turn with eye or head, with a feeling in your
+heart, a thought in your mind, nature demands her recognition; and you
+London men, in the toil of your struggle, in the noise of your work,
+in the dust of your confusion of life, when you get your holiday in
+spring or autumn,--unless, indeed, you have passed into the mere
+condition of brutes,--while you still keep the hearts of men, you feel
+there is something in the apostles of culture, in the teachers of
+esthetics, in persons who say that beauty is everything to satisfy the
+soul. Nature, you say--and you say it justly--says, "Beauty." You
+find a delight as you gaze upon nature. Yes, dear friends, you are
+stimulated, you are delighted, you are consoled; there is one thing
+which you are not--you are not satisfied.
+
+Or, quite possibly, you turn to that which seems to English natures
+more practical and less poetical--you turn to the attraction of
+activity. You say the poets, or the preachers, or the dreamers may
+gaze upon nature; but Englishmen have something else to do--we have to
+work. You look at the result of activity, and it is splendid. Imagine,
+picture for a moment, political achievement; picture to yourselves the
+power not only of a mind, but of a personality, of a character
+which can attract vast millions who have never gazed upon the human
+expression in the human face--can attract them to great love or to
+great hatred, can mold the destinies of an empire, can change the
+current of the time--think of such men as Richelieu or Cavour, or more
+modern instances, and you understand what is the greatness and the
+power of the attraction of political activity. Or, to come nearer
+home, go into your London city, and watch the working of your London
+mart. What have you before you there? The activity of the hearts and
+minds of Englishmen, sending out the force of the life that is in them
+from the heart that is beating in those tremendous centers to the
+distances that are only stopt by the most distant frontiers of the
+world. Your sayings and thoughts are quoted throughout the markets of
+Europe--yes, throughout the markets of other continents; your actions
+and decisions make the difference between the decisions and the
+actions of men that you have never seen, that you shall never see. The
+Medici were a power in Florence, first as bankers, then as governors.
+There are men in London who have power throughout the world, not only
+in Florence, not as profest governors, but as practical governors
+through the activity of commercial instinct. Certainly, it seems to me
+quite possible that there may be minds carried away by such a great
+activity; but that great activity I submit to your deeper, quieter
+English Sunday thought--that activity will stimulate, will delight,
+will attract, will intoxicate; one thing it will not do--I am bold to
+say it will never satisfy.
+
+And if I may take another instance for a moment, there is this pure
+intellect, bidding good-by to the political arena, to the commercial
+strife, saying farewell to the dreams of beauty, and falling back
+upon the cells of the brain, traversing the corridors of thought, and
+entering first here and there into that labyrinth of instinct, or
+association, or accumulative learning. Certainly, there is a power of
+a delight that the world can never realize outside the region of the
+brain. If that needs proof you have only, dear friends, to meditate
+upon such lives as Newton, or Shakespeare, or Kepler, or if you turn
+to the region of meditative thought, to such lives as our own George
+Eliot--yes, there is that in the mere exercise of intellect which
+is intoxicating, which is consoling even to the highest degree. But
+intellect, after all, finds its frontier. I may say of it what I
+have said of the esthetic sentiment, what I have said of the active
+sentiment in man: it attracts, it delights--what is more, I think
+it even consoles; but the one thing I find about it that to me is
+perfectly appalling is that it does not satisfy.
+
+There are many of you perhaps to-day who will demand that I should
+take my fourth instance, and will ask that that at least may do its
+duty. Will it? There is the region of the affections--that region
+wherein we stray in early spring days as pickers of the spring-flowers
+of our opening life, where suns are always glorious and sunsets only
+speak of brighter dawn, where poetry is in all ordinary conversation
+and hope springs to higher heights from hour to hour, where Mays
+are always Mays and Junes are always Junes, where flowers are ever
+bursting, and there seems no end to our nosegays, no limit to our
+imaginations, no fetter to our fancies, no restraint to our desires.
+There is the world, the vast, powerful world, of the passions,
+purified by exhaustive cultivation into what we call the affections
+of a higher life. By them we deal with our fellow-creatures; by them,
+when we are young, we form great friendships; by them, as we grow
+older, we form around us certain associations that we intend to
+support us as life goes off. We have all known it. There is the
+friend, there is the sweetheart, there is the wife, there is the
+child, there are the dear expressions of the strong heart that after
+all beats in Englishmen. But as life goes on, first in one object and
+then by anticipation and terror perhaps in others, we watch those who
+have been dear to us pass in dim procession to the grave, and we find,
+after all, that in the world of affections that old strange law that
+pervades one branch of the contrast prevails; it can stimulate, it can
+support, it can console, it can delight, it can lead to delirium
+at moments, but it does not satisfy. And, my brothers and sisters,
+because you and I are born not for a moment, but for infinite moments;
+not for the struggle of time, but for the great platform and career of
+eternity--because that is so, never, never, never, if we are true to
+ourselves, shall we pause in the midst of our mortal pilgrimage until
+we find, and grasp, and embrace, and love that which satisfies. When
+you awaken up a young heart to that truth, then that heart, as I hold
+it, is on the path of conversion. When amidst the struggle of sin you
+have determined the soul to strive after that truth, then that soul is
+in progress of solid conversion and final perfectibility. But, at any
+rate, all human nature joins that cry of the Christian, and the Bible
+speaks of it as it always does--its ultimate truth expressing what we
+need. No; there are many things given, there are many attractions to
+draw; they will stimulate, they will help, they will console, they
+will give pleasure; there is one thing that satisfies the immortal,
+there is one life that meets your need: "My soul is athirst for God,
+for the living God; when shall I come to appear before the presence of
+God?"
+
+Why, dear friends, why is it that these things do not satisfy? There
+lies a city in the Volscian Hills, fair and beautiful, climbing in its
+peaks and pinnacles up little ledges of the rocks, and down into the
+depths of the valleys. And if you wander some two days from Rome, and
+gaze upon those mountains, historic in their memories and splendid in
+their beauty, you are struck by the tenderness and the attraction of
+that city. It is a city of flowers. The flowers stream up its streets
+in grave procession; they climb up the pillars of churches, embracing
+them and holding on with arms of deep affection; they laugh in the
+sunshine, they weep in the shadow, they are shrouded in the clouds of
+night, but they blaze again in the blaze of the morning. There is
+the dim funereal ivy, there is the brightness and glow of the purple
+convolvulus, there is the wild-rose clustering round the windows. They
+are lying asleep on the doorsteps, they gather themselves into
+knots as if to gossip and to talk in the language of flowers by the
+doorways--utterly beautiful! You look at the city with wonder and
+astonishment--with desire. How wonderful, you say, that church tower
+covered with its flowers; that altar covered with flowers not gathered
+and placed in vases, but with Nature's own hand arranging an offering
+to the living God. These streets that sound no footfall of an angry
+multitude, but that listen to the footfall of a quiet nature--yes,
+it is beautiful in the early morning. But stay there until the later
+afternoon, when the fog begins to gather; stay there until night-time,
+when the miasma begins to rise; stay there until morning, and you
+are in danger of destruction from poison. It is a land of flowery
+expression; but it is not a land of real life.
+
+My friends, the activity of man, the poetic faculty of man, all the
+gifts and all the capacities of man--they are beautiful, they are
+touching, they are attractive; but if they are all, if they express
+all that you have to offer, and all that is in you to feel, then they
+are hollow, or they-are poisonous, and like that city of flowers. Why?
+Because there is in you and me a soul that lies behind our thought,
+altho there is more than feeling there--a soul that supports our will,
+and is more than our volition. It thinks, but is not thought; it
+feels, but is not feeling; it wills, but is not volition. There
+is something deeper in man than his esthetic desire or his active
+practise, something deeper beneath us all than anything that finds
+expression, certainly than anything that finds satisfaction. There is
+the self; there is myself, yourself; there is that strange, mysterious
+life of loneliness which stands, and thinks, and judges, and
+appraises. When, by divine grace, we escape from the voice of the
+crowd, and from the cry of custom, from the delirium of desire, that
+poor lonely self within us pleads to us in a cry like the call of
+the starveling crying to the rich man that passes by, "Oh, will you
+gratify desire? Oh, will you gratify pleasure? Oh, will you stimulate
+activity, and will you leave me alone? I, yourself, your very self,
+the foundation of your life, the permanent expression of your
+immortality--I must be satisfied, and being infinite and immortal, I
+know but one satisfaction: 'My soul is athirst for God, for the living
+God; when shall I come, and appear before the presence of God?'"
+
+If that be true, or if it be approximately true, dear friends, let us
+ask ourselves this morning these questions. Let us be quite practical.
+What do you mean, you may say for a moment, by the thirst for God? I
+remember long ago in Paris, in conversation with one whom I deem
+one of the greatest modern statesmen, tho not one of the most
+successful--I remember, when a mere boy, talking to that thoughtful
+man just at the moment when he was standing amidst the ruins of his
+activity, and gazing with the placid spirit with which a good man
+gazes when he feels that he has done his duty, tho the world can see
+that he has failed--I remember talking to him on such questions as
+these, and what he said, among other things, was this: "In dealing
+with mankind and in dealing with yourself you must rise by degrees,
+you must advance from point to point; there is a point of achievement,
+but you cannot reach the point of achievement unless you have gone
+up the ladder of progress." I follow his advice. What do we mean by
+thirsting for God? My friends, on the lower round of that ladder, I
+mean thirsting for and desiring moral truth. I mean that the soul
+within you is thirsting and imploring for the satisfaction of its
+moral instincts. Turn for an instant to the ten commandments; they are
+trite, they are ordinary, they are placed before you in the east end
+of your church, after the old custom of your practical, unaesthetic,
+and undreaming England. Ask what they mean. Turn to the second table.
+You are to reverence your father and mother. Why? Because they are
+the instruments of life that God gives. You are to reverence life in
+others in the sixth commandment. Why? Because life is the deepest
+mystery that God can possibly exhibit to you. In the seventh
+commandment--I scarcely like to say, but yet it is wise to repeat, it
+is necessary to assert it--we are to remember, you and I, when we
+are young, when we are active, when we are passionate, the great
+responsibility of man; you are not to trifle with that awful mystery,
+the transmission of life, life which unites itself with eternal love.
+You are to remember respect for property, for that which divine
+providence has placed by wise laws in the hands of others. You are to
+remember that the best of properties is a good character. Finally, in
+the tenth commandment, you are not to forget that divine providence
+guides you, and you are not to murmur and be angry when He guides you
+who knows the best for you, and when you have done your best. And
+rising from the second table and coming to the first, you are not to
+forget that there is one object for every soul, as the text asserts.
+You are not to forget that a jealousy may be created, ought to be
+created, if you put anything before God. You are not to grudge God the
+restraint of speech, and--thank God, still it is possible to appeal to
+the wise instincts of England--you are not to grudge on your Sunday
+the gift of your time. These are the outlines of the grave moral law
+that runs deep into the heart of the Christian; and I answer, the
+thirst for God means the thirst within me to fulfil that grave moral
+law.
+
+But, my friends, pause for a moment. After all, that would only be a
+skeleton. After all, simply to draw out the outlines of a picture is
+not the work of an artist. Suppose you ask a master in music, "How am
+I to produce the real result of stately sound?" He will tell you about
+the common cord; he will tell you about the result of its changes and
+its affinities, and will speak of those results as harmony; or he will
+tell you about the gamut of sounds--sounds found in the wind upon the
+mountains, found in the surging sea, found in the voice of childhood,
+found in the whisper of your dreams--sound that is everywhere, sound
+that wanders up and down this wild, wild universe. He will tell you
+all that, and explain how in proper steps, in wise modulations, that
+is melody, as the union of sounds is harmony. Is that enough? Would
+that produce "The Last Judgment" of Spohr, that made you dissolve in
+tears? Would that produce the chorus of Handel that made you almost
+rise and march in majesty? Would that fill you with deep thoughts in
+Beethoven, or fire you into joy in Mendelssohn? Oh, no! You have your
+skeleton, but you have not one thing, the deepest; genius has to touch
+with its fire the fact that is before you; you want the mystery of
+life. And then suppose you turn to an artist and ask him to guide you
+in painting, and he talks to you about light and shadow, about the
+laying of the color, about the drawing of lines, about the exact
+expression of the distant and the present, of the foreground and the
+background, and having learned it all, you produce what seems an
+abortion; you ask yourself, "What is the meaning of this?" Is this
+enough to make you quiver, in Dresden, before the San Sisto, carried
+away by those divine eyes of the "Mother of Eternity," or rent with
+sorrow before the solemn eyes of the Child? Is this enough to fill you
+with tears of delight when you enter the Sistine Chapel and see St.
+John as he kneels with his unshed tears about the dead Christ? What is
+there wanting in the touch of your artist? There is wanting genius;
+there is wanting life. Or to take one instance more. You ask somebody
+to teach you sculpture, to tell you how to make yourself master in the
+treatment of stone. He will tell you wise things about the plastic
+material that you have to mold with thumb and finger, and then about
+the use of the chisel and the hammer to produce the result in the
+stone, following the treatment of that plastic material. But when you
+have learned it all, can you really believe that you will produce the
+effect of that majestic manhood that you see in the David of Angelo
+in the Piazza of Florence, or that wise, determined progress that is
+exprest in Donatello's St. George? What is the difference between your
+failure and the results of those men? Genius--life. And when you turn
+to the moral law, and when you ask yourself, "How can I learn to
+be athirst for God?" the preachers say, "Accept the moral law; act
+exactly in distinct duty to your parents; say, 'Corban, it is a gift
+by whatsoever thou mayest be profited thereby'; do your duty strictly
+to the letter and nothing more; be conservative about your property;
+restrain yourself from desire of change; do not stimulate and do not
+satisfy your passions beyond what is exactly exprest in the moral
+law." But then, if you speak the truth, you say, "And in the end what
+am I? Why, after all, most commonplace, and, in truth, most sinful."
+What is the difference? This difference: there wants here the touch of
+genius; there wants the touch of life divine, grace that illuminates
+the moral law; there wants, my friends, the enthusiasm for goodness,
+the science of sciences, the art of arts, the delight and the desire
+of doing right because it is right, the great and splendid spirit that
+belongs to all of us; and yet it is the highest when the thirst of
+your soul is real. Certainly it is to know God's guidance in law; but
+what is law? It is to grasp that atmosphere of life and reality which
+comes out of the moral law to those who seek it in a living person
+first--the desire of goodness, the desire, the love, the enthusiasm,
+the ambition, cost what it may, of doing right because it is
+right. Oh, my friends, I submit--and I submit it without fear of
+contradiction--that is an ambition worthy of Englishmen. Certainly
+we are not dreamers; certainly God has given us practical activity;
+certainly, whatever we misunderstand, this we can understand, the
+thirst of the soul for God is the thirst to love goodness because it
+is right.
+
+And then hastily to conclude, I would say that that thirst is exprest,
+that that thirst is satisfied, not only in moral law and in its
+atmosphere, but in one thing more that I think we can all understand.
+When we read the New Testament, so simple, so straightforward, so
+true, so beautiful, with some difficulties, but no difficulties that a
+true heart can find insuperable--when we read the New Testament we are
+brought face to face with the teachings of Christ. And there is this,
+my friends, more about these teachings, that if you are to follow them
+out you have not time enough in time; the teachings of our Master
+demand eternity--there is something about them infinite, so simple, so
+beautiful, and yet we feel that we are insufficient to fulfil them in
+this sphere of time. If my soul is athirst for God, it is athirst for
+the fulfilment of those great, splendid, practical teachings which
+remind me that I am to begin to learn my lesson in this narrow school,
+but that I shall fulfil my achievement in that great land beyond the
+grave. Is that enough? No; no, when the heart is lonely; no, when the
+sun is setting; no, when the clouds are gathering round us; no, when
+the storm is coming up. It is useless for the preacher, if he tries to
+be real, to talk about law, or the result of law, or the splendor of
+teaching; if we know the human heart in its width and its activity, if
+it is to find satisfaction it must find it in a personal life. You
+may say you cannot know God. That is the ordinary answer of the human
+sinning heart, which in modern times calls itself agnostic. Know God!
+Well, of course it is truly said that it is by mere license of speech
+when you talk of knowledge about human perceptions--it is wisely said.
+You perceive a fact, my friend; you must perceive it in itself, and as
+it is, and by an intellect that can infallibly state that it is so
+and in that manner. Knowledge like that is impossible, I grant; but
+between that scientific knowledge and utter unbelief there are shades,
+first of all of assent that shuts out doubt, and at last, at the other
+pole, of a doubt that almost shuts out assent. Between the two there
+are activities of life, and if you are to say, "I cannot know the
+personal God with scientific knowledge," I grant it; but you cannot
+know anything, not only in theology, but in politics, or social life,
+or moral conduct, or conduct that is not moral--you can know nothing,
+you can never act at all, because all our action is not on knowledge,
+but on belief, and therefore when we turn to a personal life that is
+not perceived by the activity of the senses we only demand that you
+are to accept that which it is possible to accept in any sphere of
+activity, and which you do accept. It is possible for you, according
+to the laws of your being, to accept a personal Christ. "But," you
+say--and I must remind you of it as I close--"a personal Christ,
+but still clothed in human lineaments, a personal Christ who is
+mysterious--how can you accept that?" How can you not? My friends, the
+human intellect is so framed that it acts habitually upon ideas that
+are true yet indistinct. You act on space, you act on time, you have
+infinity, you have in your mouth the word "cause." What do you know
+exactly about infinity, or space, or time, or cause? The human
+intellect, it is truly said, first by the greatest of the fathers,
+then repeated by modern thinkers--the human intellect is so great,
+first, that it can take exact ideas, and then, because it is infinite,
+that it can act instantly upon ideas that are real but indistinct.
+Christ--yes, first He is indistinct yet most real--real because He
+entered into history, real because He exprest the idea that is in the
+brain and heart of us all; indistinct because these little twenty
+centuries have separated us from His actual historic life; but a fact
+to those who seek Him, because His power is to make Himself an inward
+gift to the human soul, because His activity is such that He meets us
+on the altar of His sacred sacrament, that He meets us in the divine
+Word to express His thoughts, that He meets us in consolation, that He
+meets us in absolution, in moments of sorrow and of prayer. Oh, you
+are not driven to a distant infinity! Oh, you are not asked to rest
+upon a shadow I Oh, you are not besought to play the dreamer or
+the sentimentalist, when you think about God! Oh, you are asked to
+remember that fair, sweet vision--the vision of a Man so devoid of
+vulgarity, that whilst He loved the people He did not despise the
+great--the vision of a Man so strong that He could face a multitude,
+so tender that He could raise the lost woman, so gentle that the
+little children gathered their arms about His neck; the vision of
+a Man at home with fishermen, and at home with the high-born, with
+thoughts so deep that they permeate modern Christendom, with thoughts
+so simple that they taught truth to ancient Galilee; the vision of a
+Man who encouraged youth, the One on whom we rest, by whom we hang, in
+whom we hope, who sympathizes with all our best desires, who does not
+denounce us, but only intercedes and pities; the Man who never places
+Himself upon a Pharisaic pedestal, but feels with the child, with the
+boy, with the man, with the woman,--the Man of men, the crown of our
+humanity, the God in Man, the Man in God, the power of the sacraments,
+the force of prayer, the sweet, dear Friend who never misunderstands
+us, never forsakes us, never is hard upon us. My friends, it is your
+privilege, it is mine, beyond the privilege of the psalmist, to know
+in the gospel, to know in the Church, Christ, God exprest in humanity.
+Is your soul athirst for the highest? You may find it if you could
+come in repentance, if you come in desire, if you come in quiet
+determination to do your duty; you may find it satisfied--yes, now
+satisfied--in Christ.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The world's great sermons, Volume 8
+by Grenville Kleiser
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORLD'S GREAT SERMONS VOL. 8 ***
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+Project Gutenberg's The world's great sermons, Volume 8, by Grenville Kleiser
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The world's great sermons, Volume 8
+       Talmage to Knox Little
+
+Author: Grenville Kleiser
+
+Release Date: March 24, 2004 [EBook #11693]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORLD'S GREAT SERMONS VOL. 8 ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE WORLD'S GREAT SERMONS
+
+
+GRENVILLE KLEISER
+
+Formerly of Yale Divinity School Faculty; Author of "How to Speak in
+Public," Etc.
+
+With Assistance from Many of the Foremost Living Preachers and Other
+Theologians
+
+
+INTRODUCTION BY LEWIS O. BRASTOW, D.D.
+
+Professor Emeritus of Practical Theology in Yale University
+
+
+VOLUME VIII TALMAGE TO KNOX LITTLE
+
+1908
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+VOLUME VIII.
+
+
+  TALMAGE (1832-1901).
+  A Bloody Monster
+
+  SPURGEON (1834-1892).
+  Songs in the Night
+
+  POTTER (1834-1908)
+  Memorial Discourse on Phillips Brooks
+
+  ABBOTT (Born in 1835).
+  The Divinity in Humanity
+
+  BROOKS (1835-1893).
+  The Pride of Life
+
+  GLADDEST (Born in 1836).
+  The Prince of Life
+
+  CLIFFORD (Born in 1836).
+  The Forgiveness of Sins
+
+  MOODY (1837-1899).
+  What Think Ye of Christ?
+
+  FOWLER (1837-1908).
+  The Spirit of Christ
+
+  WHYTE (Born in 1837).
+  Experience
+
+  WATKINSON (Born in 1838).
+  The Transfigured Sackcloth
+
+  LORIMER (1838-1904).
+  The Fall of Satan
+
+  LITTLE (Born in 1839).
+  Thirst Satisfied
+
+
+
+
+TALMAGE
+
+A BLOODY MONSTER
+
+BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+
+Thomas De Witt Talmage was born at Bound Brook, N.J., in 1832. For
+many years he preached to large and enthusiastic congregations at the
+Brooklyn Tabernacle. At one time six hundred newspapers regularly
+printed his sermons. He was a man of great vitality, optimistic by
+nature, and particularly popular with young people. His voice
+was rather high and unmusical, but his distinct enunciation and
+earnestness of manner gave a peculiar attraction to his pulpit
+oratory. His rhetoric has been criticized for floridness and
+sensationalism, but his word pictures held multitudes of people
+spellbound as in the presence of a master. He died in 1901.
+
+
+
+
+TALMAGE
+
+1832--1901
+
+A BLOODY MONSTER[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Copyright, 1900, by Louis Klopsch, and reprinted by
+permission.]
+
+_It is my son's coat; an evil beast hath devoured him._--Gen. xxxvii.,
+33.
+
+
+Joseph's brethren dipt their brother's coat in goat's blood, and then
+brought the dabbled garment to their father, cheating him with the
+idea that a ferocious animal had slain him, and thus hiding their
+infamous behavior. But there is no deception about that which we hold
+up to your observation to-day. A monster such as never ranged African
+thicket or Hindustan jungle hath tracked this land, and with bloody
+maw hath strewn the continent with the mangled carcasses of whole
+generations; and there are tens of thousands of fathers and mothers
+who could hold up the garment of their slain boy, truthfully
+exclaiming, "It is my son's coat; an evil beast hath devoured him."
+There has, in all ages and climes, been a tendency to the improper use
+of stimulants. Noah took to strong drink. By this vice, Alexander the
+Conqueror was conquered. The Romans at their feasts fell off their
+seats with intoxication. Four hundred millions of our race are
+opium-eaters. India, Turkey, and China have groaned with the
+desolation; and by it have been quenched such lights as Halley and De
+Quincey. One hundred millions are the victims of the betelnut, which
+has specially blasted the East Indies. Three hundred millions chew
+hashish, and Persia, Brazil, and Africa suffer the delirium. The
+Tartars employ murowa; the Mexicans, the agave; the people at Guarapo,
+an intoxicating product taken from sugarcane; while a great multitude,
+that no man can number, are the votaries of alcohol. To it they bow.
+Under it they are trampled. In its trenches they fall. On its ghastly
+holocaust they burn. Could the muster-roll of this great army be
+called, and could they come up from the dead, what eye could endure
+the reeking, festering putrefaction? What heart could endure the
+groan of agony? Drunkenness! Does it not jingle the burglar's
+key? Does it not whet the assassin's knife? Does it not cock the
+highwayman's pistol? Does it not wave the incendiary's torch? Has it
+not sent the physician reeling into the sick-room; and the minister
+with his tongue thick into the pulpit? Did not an exquisite poet, from
+the very top of his fame, fall a gibbering sot, into the gutter, on
+his way to be married to one of the fairest daughters of New England,
+and at the very hour the bride was decking herself for the altar; and
+did he not die of delirium tremens, almost unattended, in a hospital?
+Tamerlane asked for one hundred and sixty thousand skulls with which
+to build a pyramid to his own honor. He got the skulls, and built the
+pyramid. But if the bones of all those who have fallen as a prey to
+dissipation could be piled up, it would make a vaster pyramid. Who
+will gird himself for the journey and try with me to scale this
+mountain of the dead--going up miles high on human carcasses to find
+still other peaks far above, mountain above mountain white with the
+bleached bones of drunkards?
+
+The Sabbath has been sacrificed to the rum traffic. To many of our
+people, the best day of the week is the worst. Bakers must keep their
+shops closed on the Sabbath. It is dangerous to have loaves of bread
+going out on Sunday. The shoe store is closed: severe penalty will
+attack the man who sells boots on the Sabbath. But down with the
+window-shutters of the grog-shops. Our laws shall confer particular
+honor upon the rum-traffickers. All other trades must stand aside for
+these. Let our citizens who have disgraced themselves by trading in
+clothing and hosiery and hardware and lumber and coal take off their
+hats to the rum-seller, elected to particular honor. It is unsafe for
+any other class of men to be allowed license for Sunday work. But
+swing out your signs, and open your doors, O ye traffickers in the
+peace of families and in the souls of immortal men. Let the corks fly
+and the beer foam and the rum go tearing down the half-consumed throat
+of the inebriate. God does not see! Does He? Judgment will never come!
+Will it?
+
+It may be that God is determined to let drunkenness triumph, and the
+husbands and sons of thousands of our best families be destroyed by
+this vice, in order that our people, amazed and indignant, may rise up
+and demand the extermination of this municipal crime. There is a way
+of driving down the hoops of a barrel so tight that they break. We
+have, in this country, at various times, tried to regulate this evil
+by a tax on whisky. You might as well try to regulate the Asiatic
+cholera or the smallpox by taxation. The men who distil liquors are,
+for the most part, unscrupulous; and the higher the tax, the more
+inducement to illicit distillation. Oh! the folly of trying to
+restrain an evil by government tariff! If every gallon of whisky
+made--if every flask of wine produced, should be taxed a thousand
+dollars, it would not be enough to pay for the tears it has wrung from
+the eyes of widows and orphans, nor for the blood it has dashed on
+the Christian Church, nor for the catastrophe of the millions it has
+destroyed for ever.
+
+I sketch two houses in one street. The first is bright as home can be.
+The father comes at nightfall, and the children run out to meet him.
+Bountiful evening meal! Gratulation and sympathy and laughter! Music
+in the parlor! Fine pictures on the wall! Costly books on the table!
+Well-clad household! Plenty of everything to make home happy!
+
+House the second! Piano sold, yesterday by the sheriff! Wife's furs at
+pawnbroker's shop! Clock gone! Daughter's jewelry sold to get flour!
+Carpets gone off the floor! Daughters in faded and patched dresses!
+Wife sewing for the stores! Little child with an ugly wound on her
+face, struck by an angry blow! Deep shadow of wretchedness falling in
+every room! Doorbell rings! Little children hide! Daughters turn pale!
+Wife holds her breath! Blundering step in the hall! Door opens! Fiend,
+brandishing his fist, cries, "Out! out! What are you doing here?" Did
+I call this house second? No; it is the same house. Rum transformed
+it. Rum embruted the man. Rum sold the shawl. Rum tore up the carpets.
+Rum shook his fist. Rum desolated the hearth. Rum changed that
+paradise into a hell.
+
+I sketch two men that you know very well. The first graduated from one
+of our literary institutions. His father, mother, brothers and sisters
+were present to see him graduate. They heard the applauding thunders
+that greeted his speech. They saw the bouquets tossed to his feet.
+They saw the degree conferred and the diploma given. He never looked
+so well. Everybody said, "What a noble brow! What a fine eye! What
+graceful manners! What brilliant prospects!"
+
+Man the second: Lies in the station-house. The doctor has just been
+sent for to bind up the gashes received in a fight. His hair is matted
+and makes him look like a wild beast. His lip is bloody and cut. Who
+is this battered and bruised wretch that was picked up by the police
+and carried in drunk and foul and bleeding? Did I call him man the
+second? He is man the first! Rum transformed him. Rum destroyed his
+prospects. Rum disappointed parental expectation. Rum withered those
+garlands of commencement day. Rum cut his lip. Rum dashed out his
+manhood. Rum, accurst rum!
+
+This foul thing gives one swing to its scythe, and our best merchants
+fall; their stores are sold, and they sink into dishonored graves.
+Again it swings its scythe, and some of our physicians fall into
+suffering that their wisest prescriptions cannot cure. Again it swings
+its scythe, and ministers of the gospel fall from the heights of
+Zion, with long resounding crash of ruin and shame. Some of your own
+households have already been shaken. Perhaps you can hardly admit it;
+but where was your son last night? Where was he Friday night? Where
+was he Thursday night? Wednesday night? Tuesday night? Monday night?
+Nay, have not some of you in your own bodies felt the power of this
+habit? You think that you could stop? Are you sure you could? Go on
+a little further, and I am sure you cannot. I think, if some of you
+should try to break away, you would find a chain on the right wrist,
+and one on the left; one on the right foot, and another on the left.
+This serpent does not begin to hurt until it has wound 'round and
+'round. Then it begins to tighten and strangle and crush until the
+bones crack and the blood trickles and the eyes start from their
+sockets, and the mangled wretch cries. "O God! O God! help! help!" But
+it is too late; and not even the fires of we can melt the chain when
+once it is fully fastened.
+
+I have shown you the evil beast. The question is, who will hunt him
+down, and how shall we shoot him? I answer, first, by getting our
+children right on this subject. Let them grow up with an utter
+aversion to strong drink. Take care how you administer it even as
+medicine. If you must give it to them and you find that they have a
+natural love for it, as some have, put in a glass of it some horrid
+stuff, and make it utterly nauseous. Teach, them, as faithfully as
+you do the truths of the Bible, that rum is a fiend. Take them to the
+almshouse, and show them the wreck and ruin it works. Walk with them
+into the homes that have been scourged by it. If a drunkard hath
+fallen into a ditch, take them right up where they can see his face,
+bruised, savage, and swollen, and say, "Look, my son. Rum did that!"
+Looking out of your window at some one who, intoxicated to madness,
+goes through the street, brandishing his fist, blaspheming God, a
+howling, defying, shouting, reeling, raving, and foaming maniac, say
+to your son, "Look; that man was once a child like you." As you go by
+the grog-shop let them know that that is the place where men are slain
+and their wives made paupers and their children slaves. Hold out to
+your children warnings, all rewards, all counsels, lest in afterdays
+they break your heart and curse your gray hairs. A man laughed at my
+father for his scrupulous temperance principles, and said: "I am more
+liberal than you. I always give my children the sugar in the glass
+after we have been taking a drink." Three of his sons have died
+drunkards, and the fourth is imbecile through intemperate habits.
+
+Again, we will grapple this evil by voting only for sober men. How
+many men are there who can rise above the feelings of partizanship,
+and demand that our officials shall be sober men? I maintain that the
+question of sobriety is higher than the question of availability; and
+that, however eminent a man's services may be, if he have habits of
+intoxication, he is unfit for any office in the gift of a Christian
+people. Our laws will be no better than the men who make them. Spend a
+few days at Harrisburg or Albany or Washington and you will find
+out why, upon these subjects, it is impossible to get righteous
+enactments.
+
+Again, we will war upon this evil by organized societies. The friends
+of the rum traffic have banded together; annually issue their
+circulars; raise fabulous sums of money to advance their interests;
+and by grips, passwords, signs, and strategems, set at defiance public
+morals. Let us confront them with organizations just as secret,
+and, if need be, with grips and pass-words and signs, maintain our
+position. There is no need that our beneficent societies tell all
+their plans. I am in favor of all lawful strategy in the carrying on
+of this conflict. I wish to God we could lay under the wine-casks a
+train which, once ignited, would shake the earth with the explosion of
+this monstrous iniquity!
+
+Again, we will try the power of the pledge. There are thousands of men
+who have been saved by putting their names to such a document. I know
+it is laughed at; but there are some men who, having once promised a
+thing, do it. "Some have broken the pledge." Yes; they were liars. But
+all men are not liars. I do not say that it is the duty of all persons
+to make such signature; but I do say that it would be the salvation
+of many of you. The glorious work of Theobald Mathew can never be
+estimated. At this hand four millions of people took the pledge, and
+multitudes in Ireland, England, Scotland, and America, have kept
+it till this day. The pledge signed has been to thousands the
+proclamation of emancipation.
+
+Again, we expect great things from asylums for inebriates. They have
+already done a glorious work. I think that we are coming at last to
+treat inebriation as it ought to be treated, namely, as an awful
+disease, self-inflicted, to be sure, but nevertheless a disease. Once
+fastened upon a man, sermons will not cure him, temperance lectures
+will not eradicate it; religious tracts will not remove it; the Gospel
+of Christ will not arrest it. Once under the power of this awful
+thirst, the man is bound to go on; and, if the foaming glass were on
+the other side of perdition, he would wade through the fires of
+hell to get it. A young man in prison had such a strong thirst for
+intoxicating liquors that he had cut off his hand at the wrist, called
+for a bowl of brandy in order to stop the bleeding, thrust his wrist
+into the bowl, and then drank the contents. Stand not, when the thirst
+is on him, between a man and his cups. Clear the track for him. Away
+with the children! he would tread their life out. Away with the wife!
+he would dash her to death. Away with the cross! he would run it down.
+Away with the Bible! he would tear it up for the winds. Away with
+heaven! he considers it worthless as a straw. "Give me the drink!
+Give it to me! Tho the hands of blood pass up the bowl, and the soul
+trembles over the pit--the drink! Give it to me! Tho it be pale with
+tears; tho the froth of everlasting anguish float on the foam--give it
+to me! I drink to my wife's wo to my children's rags; to my eternal
+banishment from God and hope and heaven! Give it to me! the drink!"
+
+Again, we will contend against these evils by trying to persuade
+the respectable classes of society to the banishment of alcoholic
+beverages. You who move in elegant and refined associations; you
+who drink the best liquors; you who never drink until you lose your
+balance, let us look at each other in the face on this subject. You
+have, under God, in your power the redemption of this land from
+drunkenness. Empty your cellars and wine-closets of the beverage, and
+then come out and give us your hand, your vote, your prayers, your
+sympathies. Do that, and I will promise three things: first, that you
+will find unspeakable happiness in having done your duty; secondly,
+you will probably save somebody--perhaps your own child; thirdly,
+you will not, in your last hour, have a regret that you made
+the sacrifice, if sacrifice it be. As long as you make drinking
+respectable, drinking customs will prevail, and the plowshare of
+death, drawn by terrible disasters, will go on turning up this whole
+continent, from end to end, with the long, deep, awful furrow of
+drunkards' graves.
+
+This rum fiend would like to go and hang up a skeleton in your
+beautiful house, so that, when you opened the front door to go in, you
+would see it in the hall; and when you sat at your table you would see
+it hanging from the wall; and, when you opened your bedroom you would
+find it stretched upon your pillow; and, waking at night, you would
+feel its cold hand passing over your face and pinching at your heart.
+There is no home so beautiful but it may be devastated by the awful
+curse. It throws its jargon into the sweetest harmony. What was it
+that silenced Sheridan, the English orator, and shattered the golden
+scepter with which he swayed parliaments and courts? What foul sprite
+turned the sweet rhythm of Robert Burns into a tuneless babble? What
+was it that swamped the noble spirit of one of the heroes of the last
+war, until, in a drunken fit, he reeled from the deck of a Western
+steamer, and was drowned. There was one whose voice we all loved to
+hear. He was one of the most classic orators of the century. People
+wondered why a man of so pure a heart and so excellent a life should
+have such a sad countenance always. They knew not that his wife was a
+sot.
+
+I call upon those who are guilty of these indulgences to quit the path
+of death! Oh! what a change it would make in your home! Do you see how
+everything there is being desolated? Would you not like to bring back
+joy to your wife's heart, and have your children come out to meet you
+with as much confidence as once they showed? Would you not like to
+rekindle the home-lights that long ago were extinguished? It is not
+too late to change. It may not entirely obliterate from your soul the
+memory of wasted years and a ruined reputation, nor smooth out from
+your anxious brow the wrinkles which trouble has plowed. It may not
+call back unkind words uttered or rough deeds done; for perhaps in
+those awful moments you struck her! It may not take from your memory
+the bitter thoughts connected with some little grave. But it is not
+too late to save yourself, and secure for God and your family the
+remainder of your fast-going life.
+
+But perhaps you have not utterly gone astray. I may address one who
+may not have quite made up his mind. Let your better nature speak out.
+You take one side or other in war against drunkenness. Have you the
+courage to put your foot down right, and say to your companions and
+friends, "I will never drink intoxicating liquor in all my life; nor
+will I countenance the habit in others"? Have nothing to do with
+strong drink. It has turned the earth into a place of skulls, and has
+stood opening the gate to a lost world to let in its victims; until
+now the door swings no more upon its hinges, but, day and night,
+stands wide open to let in the agonized procession of doomed men.
+
+Do I address one whose regular work in life is to administer to
+this appetite? For God's sake get out of that business! If a we be
+pronounced upon the man who gives his neighbor drink, how many woes
+must be hanging over the man who does this every day and every hour of
+the day!
+
+Do not think that because human government may license you that
+therefore God licenses you. I am surprized to hear men say that they
+respect the "original package" decision by which the Supreme Court
+of the United States allows rum to be taken into States like Kansas,
+which decided against the sale of intoxicants. I have no respect for
+a wrong decision, I care not who makes it; the three judges of the
+Supreme Court who gave minority report against that decision were
+right, and the chief justice was wrong. The right of a State to defend
+itself against the rum traffic will yet be demonstrated, the Supreme
+Court notwithstanding. Higher than the judicial bench at Washington is
+the throne of the Lord God Almighty. No enactment, national, State, or
+municipal, can give you the right to carry on a business whose effect
+is destruction.
+
+God knows better than you do yourself the number of drinks you have
+poured down. You keep a list; but a more accurate list has been kept
+than yours. You may call it Burgundy, Bourbon, cognac, Heidsieck, sour
+mash, or beer. God calls it "strong-drink." Whether you sell it in low
+oyster-cellar or behind the polished counter of a first-class hotel,
+the divine curse is upon you. I tell you plainly that you will meet
+your customers one day when there will be no counter between you. When
+your work is done on earth, and you enter the reward of your business,
+all the souls of the men whom you have destroyed will crowd around
+you, and pour their bitterness into your cup. They will show you their
+wounds and say, "You made them"; and point to their unquenchable
+thirst and say, "You kindled it"; and rattle their chain and say, "You
+forged it." Then their united groans will smite your ear; and with the
+hands out of which you once picked the sixpences and the dimes they
+will push you off the verge of great precipices; while rolling up from
+beneath, and breaking away among the crags of death, will thunder, "Wo
+to him that giveth his neighbor drink!"
+
+
+
+
+SPURGEON
+
+SONGS IN THE NIGHT
+
+BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+
+Charles Haddon Spurgeon was born at Kelvedon, Essex, England, in 1834.
+He was one of the most powerful and popular preachers of his time,
+and his extraordinary force of character and wonderful enthusiasm
+attracted vast audiences. His voice was unusually powerful, clear and
+melodious, and he used it with consummate skill. In the preparation of
+his sermons he meditated much but wrote not a word, so that he was
+in the truest sense a purely extemporaneous speaker. Sincerity,
+intensity, imagination and humor, he had in preeminent degree, and
+an English style that has been described as "a long bright river of
+silver speech which unwound, evenly and endlessly, like a ribbon
+from a revolving spool that could fill itself as fast as it emptied
+itself." Thirty-eight volumes of his sermons were issued in his
+lifetime and are still in increasing demand. Dr. Robertson Nicoll
+says: "Our children will think more of these sermons than we do; and
+as I get older I read them more and more." He died in 1892.
+
+
+
+
+SPURGEON
+
+1834--1892
+
+SONGS IN THE NIGHT
+
+_But none saith, Where is God my maker, who giveth songs in the
+night_?--Job xxxv., 10.
+
+
+Elihu was a wise man, exceeding wise, tho not as wise as the all-wise
+Jehovah, who sees light in the clouds, and finds order in confusion;
+hence Elihu, being much puzzled at beholding Job thus afflicted, cast
+about him to find the cause of it, and he very wisely hit upon one of
+the most likely reasons, altho it did not happen to be the right one
+in Job's case. He said within himself--"Surely, if men be tried and
+troubled exceedingly, it is because, while they think about their
+troubles and distress themselves about their fears, they do not say,
+'Where is God my maker, who giveth songs in the night?'" Elihu's
+reason was right in the majority of cases. The great cause of the
+Christian's distress, the reason of the depths of sorrow into which
+many believers are plunged, is this--that while they are looking
+about, on the right hand and on the left, to see how they may escape
+their troubles, they forget to look to the hills whence all real help
+cometh; they do not say, "Where is God my maker, who giveth songs in
+the night?" We shall, however, leave that inquiry, and dwell upon
+those sweet words, "God my maker, who giveth songs in the night."
+
+The world hath its night. It seemeth necessary that it should have
+one. The sun shineth by day, and men go forth to their labors; but
+they grow weary, and nightfall cometh on, like a sweet boon from
+heaven. The darkness draweth the curtains, and shutteth out the light,
+which might prevent our eyes from slumber; while the sweet, calm
+stillness of the night permits us to rest upon the lap of ease, and
+there forget awhile our cares, until the morning sun appeareth, and
+an angel puts his hand upon the curtain, and undraws it once again,
+touches our eyelids, and bids us rise, and proceed to the labors of
+the day. Night is one of the greatest blessings men enjoy; we have
+many reasons to thank God for it. Yet night is to many a gloomy
+season. There is "the pestilence that walketh in darkness"; there
+is "the terror by night"; there is the dread of robbers and of fell
+disease, with all those fears that the timorous know, when they have
+no light wherewith they can discern objects. It is then they fancy
+that spiritual creatures walk the earth; tho, if they knew rightly,
+they would find it to be true, that
+
+  "Millions of spiritual creatures walk this earth,
+  Unseen, both when we sleep and when we wake,"
+
+and that at all times they are round about us--not more by night than
+by day. Night is the season of terror and alarm to most men. Yet even
+night hath its songs. Have you never stood by the seaside at night,
+and heard the pebbles sing, and the waves chant God's glories? Or have
+you never risen from your couch, and thrown up the window of your
+chamber, and listened there? Listened to what? Silence--save now and
+then a murmuring sound, which seems sweet music then. And have you not
+fancied that you heard the harp of God playing in heaven? Did you not
+conceive, that yon stars, that those eyes of God, looking down on you,
+were also mouths of song--that every star was singing God's glory,
+singing, as it shone, its mighty Maker, and His lawful, well-deserved
+praise? Night hath its songs. We need not much poetry in our spirit,
+to catch the song of night, and hear the spheres as they chant praises
+which are loud to the heart, tho they be silent to the ear--the
+praises of the mighty God, who bears up the unpillared arch of heaven,
+and moves the stars in their courses....
+
+If we are going to sing of the things of yesterday, let us begin with
+what God did for us in past times. My beloved brethren, you will find
+it a sweet subject for song at times, to begin to sing of electing
+love and covenanted mercies. When thou thyself art low, it is well to
+sing of the fountain-head of mercy; of that blest decree wherein thou
+wast ordained to eternal life, and of that glorious Man who undertook
+thy redemption; of that solemn covenant signed, and sealed, and
+ratified, in all things ordered well; of that everlasting love which,
+ere the hoary mountains were begotten, or ere the aged hills were
+children, chose thee, loved thee firmly, loved thee fast, loved thee
+well, loved thee eternally. I tell thee, believer, if thou canst go
+back to the years of eternity; if thou canst in thy mind run back
+to that period, or ere the everlasting hills were fashioned, or the
+fountains of the great deep scooped out, and if thou canst see thy
+God inscribing thy name in His eternal book; if thou canst see in His
+loving heart eternal thoughts of love to thee, thou wilt find this a
+charming means of giving thee songs in the night. No songs like those
+which come from electing love; no sonnets like those that are dictated
+by meditations on discriminating mercy. Some, indeed, cannot sing of
+election: the Lord open their mouths a little wider! Some there are
+that are afraid of the very term; but we only despise men who are
+afraid of what they believe, afraid of what God has taught them in His
+Bible. No, in our darker hours it is our joy to sing:
+
+  "Sons we are through God's election,
+    Who in Jesus Christ believe;
+  By eternal destination,
+    Sovereign grace we now receive.
+  Lord, thy favor,
+    Shall both grace and glory give."
+
+Think, Christian, of the yesterday, I say, and thou wilt get a song
+in the night. But if thou hast not a voice tuned to so high a key as
+that, let me suggest some other mercies thou mayest sing of; and they
+are the mercies thou hast experienced. What! man, canst thou not sing
+a little of that blest hour when Jesus met thee; when, a blind slave,
+thou wast sporting with death, and He saw thee, and said: "Come, poor
+slave, come with me"? Canst thou not sing of that rapturous moment
+when He snapt thy fetters, dashed thy chains to the earth, and said:
+"I am the Breaker; I came to break thy chains, and set thee free"?
+What tho thou art ever so gloomy now, canst thou forget that happy
+morning, when in the house of God thy voice was loud, almost as a
+seraph's voice, in praise? for thou couldst sing: "I am forgiven; I am
+forgiven":
+
+  "A monument of grace,
+  A sinner saved by blood."
+
+Go back, man; sing of that moment, and then thou wilt have a song in
+the night? Or if thou hast almost forgotten that, then sure thou hast
+some precious milestone along the road of life that is not quite grown
+over with moss, on which thou canst read some happy inspiration of His
+mercy toward thee! What! didst thou never have a sickness like that
+which thou art suffering now, and did He not raise thee up from that?
+Wast thou never poor before, and did He not supply thy wants? Wast
+thou never in straits before, and did He not deliver thee? Come, man!
+I beseech thee, go to the river of thine experience, and pull up a few
+bulrushes, and weave them into an ark, wherein thy infant faith may
+float safely on the stream. I bid thee not forget what God hath done.
+What! hast thou buried thine own diary? I beseech thee, man, turn over
+the book of thy remembrance. Canst thou not see some sweet hill Mizar?
+Canst thou not think of some blest hour when the Lord met with thee at
+Hermon? Hast thou never been on the Delectable Mountains? Hast thou
+never been fetched from the den of lions? Hast thou never escaped the
+jaw of the lion and the paw of the bear? Nay, O man, I know thou hast;
+go back, then, a little way, and take the mercies of yesterday; and
+tho it is dark now, light up the lamps of yesterday, and they shall
+glitter through the darkness, and thou shalt find that God hath given
+thee a song in the night.
+
+But I think, beloved, there is never so dark a night, but there is
+something to sing about, even concerning that night; for there is one
+thing I am sure we can sing about, let the night be ever so dark, and
+that is, "It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, and
+because His compassions fail not." If we cannot sing very loud, yet we
+can sing a little low tune, something like this--"He hath not dealt
+with us after our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities."
+
+"Oh!" says one, "I do not know where to get my dinner from to-morrow.
+I am a poor wretch." So you may be, my dear friend; but you are not so
+poor as you deserve to be. Do not be mightily offended about that; if
+you are, you are no child of God; for the child of God acknowledges
+that he has no right to the least of God's mercies, but that they come
+through the channel of grace alone. As long as I am out of hell, I
+have no right to grumble; and if I were in hell I should have no right
+to complain, for I feel, when convinced of sin, that never creature
+deserved to go there more than I do. We have no cause to murmur;
+we can lift up our hands, and say, "Night! thou art dark, but thou
+mightst have been darker. I am poor, but, if I could not have been
+poorer, I might have been sick. I am poor and sick--well, I have some
+friend left, my lot cannot be so bad, but it might have been worse."
+And therefore, Christian, you will always have one thing to sing
+about--"Lord, I thank Thee, it is not all darkness!" Besides,
+Christian, however dark the night is, there is always a star or moon.
+There is scarce ever a night that we have, but there are just one or
+two little lamps burning up there. However dark it may be, I think you
+may find some little comfort, some little joy, some little mercy left,
+and some little promise to cheer thy spirit. The stars are not put
+out, are they? Nay, if thou canst not see them, they are there; but
+methinks one or two must be shining on thee; therefore give God a song
+in the night. If thou hast only one star, bless God for that one,
+perhaps He will make it two; and if thou hast only two stars, bless
+God for the two stars, and perhaps He will make them four. Try, then,
+if thou canst not find a song in the night.
+
+But, beloved, there is another thing of which we can sing yet more
+sweetly; and that is, we can sing of the day that is to come. I am
+preaching to-night for the poor weavers of Spitalfields. Perhaps there
+are not to be found a class of men in London who are suffering
+a darker night than they are; for while many classes have been
+befriended and defended, there are few who speak up for them, and (if
+I am rightly informed) they are generally ground down within an inch
+of their lives. I suppose that their masters intend that their bread
+shall be very sweet, on the principle, that the nearer the ground, the
+sweeter the grass; for I should think that no people have their grass
+so near the ground as the weavers of Spitalfields. In an inquiry by
+the House of Commons last week, it was given in evidence that their
+average wages amount to seven or eight shillings a week; and that
+they have to furnish themselves with a room, and work at expensive
+articles, which my friends and ladies are wearing now, and which they
+buy as cheaply as possible; but perhaps they do not know that they are
+made with the blood and bones and marrow of the Spitalfields weavers,
+who, many of them, work for less than man ought to have to subsist
+upon. Some of them waited upon me the other day; I was exceedingly
+pleased with one of them. He said, "Well, sir, it is very hard, but I
+hope there is better times coming for us." "Well, my friend," I said,
+"I am afraid you cannot hope for much better times, unless the Lord
+Jesus Christ comes a second time." "That is just what we hope for,"
+said he. "We do not see there is any chance of deliverance, unless the
+Lord Jesus Christ comes to establish His kingdom upon the earth; and
+then He will judge the opprest, and break the oppressors in pieces
+with an iron rod, and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel." I
+was glad my friend had got a song in the night, and was singing about
+the morning that was coming. Often do I cheer myself with the thought
+of the coming of the Lord. We preach now, perhaps, with little
+success; "the kingdoms of this world" are not "become the kingdoms of
+our Lord and of his Christ"; we send out missionaries; they are for
+the most part unsuccessful. We are laboring, but we do not see the
+fruits of our labors. Well, what then? Try a little while; we shall
+not always labor in vain, or spend our strength for naught. A day is
+coming, and now is, when every minister of Christ shall speak with
+unction, when all the servants of God shall preach with power, and
+when colossal systems of heathenism shall be scattered to the winds.
+The shout shall be heard, "Alleluia! Alleluia! the Lord God Omnipotent
+reigneth." For that day do I look; it is to the bright horizon of that
+second coming that I turn my eyes. My anxious expectation is, that the
+sweet Sun of righteousness will arise with healing beneath His wings,
+that the opprest shall be righted, that despotisms shall be cut down,
+that liberty shall be established, that peace shall be made lasting,
+and that the glorious liberty of the gospel shall be extended
+throughout the known world. Christian! if thou art in a night, think
+of the morrow; cheer up thy heart with the thought of the coming of
+thy Lord.
+
+There is another sweet to-morrow of which we hope to sing in the
+night. Soon, beloved, you and I shall lie on our dying bed, and we
+shall want a song in the night then; and I do not know where we shall
+get it, if we do not get it from the to-morrow. Kneeling by the bed of
+an apparently dying saint, last night, I said, "Well, sister, He has
+been precious to you; you can rejoice in His covenant mercies, and His
+past loving-kindnesses." She put out her hand, and said, "Ah! sir, do
+not talk about them now; I want the sinner's Savior as much now as
+ever; it is not a saint's I want; it is still a sinner's Savior that
+I am in need of, for I am a sinner still." I found that I could not
+comfort her with the past; so I reminded her of the golden streets, of
+the gates of pearl, of the walls of jasper, of the harps of gold, of
+the songs of bliss; and then her eyes glistened; she said, "Yes, I
+shall be there soon; I shall meet them by-and-by;" and then she
+seemed so glad! Ah! believer, you may always cheer yourself with that
+thought. Thy head may be crowned with thorny troubles now, but it
+shall wear a starry crown directly; thy hand may be filled with
+cares--it shall grasp a harp soon, a harp full of music. Thy garments
+may be soiled with dust now; they shall be white by-and-by. Wait a
+little longer. Ah! beloved, how despicable our troubles and trials
+will seem when we look back upon them! Looking at them here in the
+prospect, they seem immense; but when we get to heaven, we shall then,
+
+  "With transporting joys recount
+  The labors of our feet."
+
+Our trials will seem to us nothing at all. We shall talk to one
+another about them in heaven, and find all the more to converse
+about, according as we have suffered more here below. Let us go on,
+therefore; and if the night be ever so dark, remember there is not a
+night that shall not have a morning; and that morning is to come by
+and by.
+
+And now I want to tell you, very briefly, what are the excellences of
+songs in the night above all other songs.
+
+In the first place, when you hear a man singing a song in the night--I
+mean in the night of trouble--you may be quite sure it is a hearty
+one. Many of you sang very prettily just now, didn't you? I wonder
+whether you would sing very prettily, if there was a stake or two in
+Smithfield for all of you who dared to do it? If you sang under pain
+and penalty, that would show your heart to be in your song. We can all
+sing very nicely indeed when everybody else sings. It is the easiest
+thing in the world to open your mouth, and let the words come out; but
+when the devil puts his hand over your mouth, can you sing then? Can
+you say, "Tho he slay me, yet will I trust in him"? That is hearty
+singing; that is real song that springs up in the night. The
+nightingale singeth most sweetly because she singeth in the night. We
+know a poet has said that, if she sang by day, she might be thought to
+sing no more sweetly than the wren. It is the stillness of the night
+that makes her song sweet. And so doth a Christian's song become sweet
+and hearty, because it is in the night.
+
+Again: the songs we sing in the night will be lasting. Many songs we
+hear our fellow-creatures singing in the streets will not do to sing
+by-and-by; I guess they will sing a different kind of tune soon. They
+can sing nowadays any rollicking, drinking songs; but they will not
+sing them when they come to die; they are not exactly the songs with
+which to cross Jordan's billows. It will not do to sing one of those
+light songs when death and you are having the last tug. It will not do
+to enter heaven singing one of those unchaste, unholy sonnets. No; but
+the Christian who can sing in the night will not have to leave off
+his song; he may keep on singing it forever. He may put his foot in
+Jordan's stream, and continue his melody; he may wade through it, and
+keep on singing still, and land himself safe in heaven; and when he is
+there, there need not be a gap in his strain, but in a nobler, sweeter
+strain he may still continue singing His power to save. There are a
+great many of you that think Christian people are a very miserable
+set, don't you? You say, "Let me sing my song." Ay, but, my dear
+friends, we like to sing a song that will last; we don't like your
+songs; they are all froth, like bubbles on the beaker, and they will
+soon die away and be lost. Give me a song that will last; give me one
+that will not melt. Oh, give me not the dreamster's gold! he hoards it
+up, and says, "I'm rich"; and when he waketh, his gold is gone. But
+give me songs in the night, for they are songs I sing forever.
+
+Again: the songs we warble in the night are those that show we have
+real faith in. God. Many men have just enough faith to trust God as
+far as they can see Him, and they always sing as far as they can see
+providence go right; but true faith can sing when its possessors
+cannot see. It can take hold of God when they cannot discern Him.
+
+Songs in the night, too, prove that we have true courage. Many sing by
+day who are silent by night; they are afraid of thieves and robbers;
+but the Christian who sings in the night proves himself to be a
+courageous character. It is the bold Christian who can sing God's
+sonnets in the darkness.
+
+He who can sing songs in the night, too, proves that he has true love
+to Christ. It is not love to Christ to praise Him while everybody else
+praises Him; to walk arm in arm with Him when He has the crown on
+His head is no great deed, I wot; to walk with Christ in rags is
+something. To believe in Christ when He is shrouded in darkness, to
+stick hard and fast by the Savior when all men speak ill of Him and
+forsake Him--that is true faith. He who singeth a song to Christ in
+the night, singeth the best song in all the world; for He singeth from
+the heart.
+
+I am afraid of wearying you; therefore I shall not dwell on the
+excellences of night songs, but just, in the last place, show you
+their use.
+
+It is very useful to sing in the night of our troubles, first, because
+it will cheer ourselves. When you were boys living in the country, and
+had some distance to go alone at night, don't you remember how you
+whistled and sang to keep your courage up? Well, what we do in the
+natural world we ought to do in the spiritual. There is nothing like
+singing to keep your spirits alive. When we have been in trouble,
+we have often thought ourselves to be well-nigh overwhelmed with
+difficulty; and we have said, "Let us have a song." We have begun to
+sing; and Martin Luther says, "The devil cannot bear singing." That is
+about the truth; he does not like music. It was so in Saul's days: an
+evil spirit rested on Saul; but when David played on his harp, the
+evil spirit went away from him. This is usually the case: if we can
+begin to sing we shall remove our fears. I like to hear servants
+sometimes humming a tune at their work; I love to hear a plowman in
+the country singing as he goes along with his horses. Why not? You say
+he has no time to praise God; but he can sing a song--surely he can
+sing a Psalm, it will take no more time. Singing is the best thing to
+purge ourselves of evil thoughts. Keep your mouth full of songs, and
+you will often keep your heart full of praises; keep on singing as
+long as you can; you will find it a good method of driving away your
+fears.
+
+Sing, again, for another reason: because it will cheer your
+companions. If any of them are in the valley and in the darkness with
+you, it will be a great help to comfort them. John Bunyan tells us,
+that as Christian was going through the valley he found it a dreadful
+dark place, and terrible demons and goblins were all about him, and
+poor Christian thought he must perish for certain; but just when his
+doubts were the strongest, he heard a sweet voice; he listened to it,
+and he heard a man in front of him saying, "Yea, when I pass through
+the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil." Now, that man
+did not know who was near him, but he was unwittingly singing to cheer
+a man behind. Christian, when you are in trouble, sing; you do not
+know who is near you. Sing, perhaps you will get a companion by it.
+Sing! perhaps there will be many a heart cheered by your song. There
+is some broken spirit, it may be, that will be bound up by your
+sonnets. Sing! there is some poor distrest brother, perhaps, shut up
+in the Castle of Despair, who, like King Richard, will hear your song
+inside the walls, and sing to you again, and you may be the means of
+getting him a ransom. Sing, Christian, wherever you go; try, if you
+can, to wash your face every morning in a bath of praise. When you go
+down from your chamber, never go to look on man till you have first
+looked on your God; and when you have looked on Him, seek to come down
+with a face beaming with joy; carry a smile, for you will cheer up
+many a poor way-worn pilgrim by it.
+
+One more reason; and I know it will be a good one for you. Try and
+sing in the night, Christian, for that is one of the best arguments in
+all the world in favor of your religion. Our divines nowadays spend a
+great deal of time in trying to prove Christianity against those who
+disbelieve it. I should like to have seen Paul trying that! Elymas the
+sorcerer withstood him: how did our friend Paul treat him? He said,
+"Oh, full of all subtlety and all mischief, thou child of the devil,
+thou enemy of the righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the
+right ways of the Lord?" That is about the politeness such men ought
+to have who deny God's truth. "We start with this assumption: we will
+prove that the Bible is God's word, but we are not going to prove
+God's word. If you do not like to believe it, we will shake hands, and
+bid you good-by; we will not argue with you. The gospel has gained
+little by discussion. The greatest piece of folly on earth has been
+to send a man round the country, to follow another up who has been
+lecturing on infidelity just to make himself notorious.
+
+Why, let them lecture on; this is a free country; why should we
+follow them about? The truth will win the day. Christianity need not
+wish for controversy; it is strong enough for it, if it wishes it; but
+that is not God's way.
+
+God's direction is, "Preach, teach, dogmatize." Do not stand
+disputing; claim a divine mission; tell men that God says it, and
+there leave it. Say to them, "He that believeth shall be saved, and he
+that believeth not shall be damned"; and when you have done that,
+you have done enough. For what reason should our missionaries stand
+disputing with Brahmins? Why should they be wasting their time
+by attempting to refute first this dogma, and then another, of
+heathenism? Why not just go and say, "The God whom ye ignorantly
+worship, I declare unto you; believe me, and you will be saved;
+believe me not, and the Bible says you are lost." And then, having
+thus asserted God's word, say, "I leave it, I declare it unto you; it
+is a thing for you to believe, not a thing for you to reason about."
+
+Religion is not a thing merely for your intellect; a thing to prove
+your own talent upon, by making a syllogism on it; it is a thing that
+demands your faith. As a messenger of heaven, I demand that faith; if
+you do not choose to give it, on your own head be the doom, if there
+be such, if there be not, you are prepared to risk it. But I have done
+my duty; I have told you the truth; that is enough, and there I leave
+it. Oh, Christian, instead of disputing, let me tell thee how to prove
+your religion. Live it out!
+
+Live it out! Give the external as well as the internal evidence; give
+the external evidence of your own life. You are sick; there is your
+neighbor who laughs at religion; let him come into your house. When
+he was sick, he said, "Oh, send for the doctor"; and there he was
+fretting, and fuming, and whining, and making all manner of noises.
+When you are sick, send for him, tell him that you are resigned to the
+Lord's will; that you will kiss the chastening rod; that you will take
+the cup, and drink it, because your Father gives it.
+
+You do not need to make a boast of this, or it will lose all its
+power; but do it because you cannot help doing it. Your neighbor will
+say, "There is something in that." And when you come to the borders of
+the grave--he was there once, and you heard how he shrieked, and how
+frightened he was--give him your hand, and say to him, "Ah! I have a
+Christ that will do to die by; I have a religion that will make me
+sing in the night." Let me hear how you can sing, "Victory, victory,
+victory!" through Him that loved you. I tell you, we may preach fifty
+thousand sermons to prove the gospel, but we shall not prove it half
+so well as you will through singing in the night. Keep a cheerful
+frame; keep a happy heart; keep a contented spirit; keep your eye up,
+and your heart aloft, and you prove Christianity better than all the
+Butlers, and all the wise men that ever lived. Give them the analogy
+of a holy life, and then you will prove religion to them; give them,
+the evidence of internal piety, developed externally, and you will
+give the best possible proof of Christianity.
+
+
+
+
+POTTER
+
+MEMORIAL DISCOURSE ON PHILLIPS BROOKS
+
+BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+
+Henry Codman Potter was born at Schenectady, New York, in 1834, and
+was graduated from the Theological Seminary of Virginia in 1857. He
+was appointed rector of Grace Protestant Episcopal Church, New York,
+in 1868, and was coadjutor to his uncle, Horatio Potter, from 1883
+to 1887, when he was made Bishop of the Diocese of New York. He won
+considerable distinction as a clear-cut and eloquent speaker. He
+dealt in pulpit and on platform, with many public questions, such as
+temperance, capital and labor, civic righteousness, and the purifying
+of East Side slum life. He advocated personal freedom, and invariably
+spoke with authority. He was particularly happy as an after-dinner
+speaker. He died in 1908.
+
+
+
+
+POTTER
+
+1834--1908
+
+MEMORIAL DISCOURSE ON PHILLIPS BROOKS[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Reprinted by permission of Bishop Henry C. Potter and The
+Century Company, publishers of "The Scholar and the State."]
+
+_It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the
+words I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life_.--John
+vi., 63.
+
+
+He who stops over-long in the mere mechanism of religion is verily
+missing that for which religion stands. Here, indeed, it must be owned
+is, if not our greatest danger, one of the greatest. All life is full
+of that strange want of intellectual and moral perspective which fails
+to see how secondary, after all, are means to ends; and how he only
+has truly apprehended the office of religion who has learned, when
+undertaking in any wise to present it or represent it, to hold fast
+to that which is the one central thought and fact of all: "It is the
+spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I
+speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life."
+
+And this brings me--in how real and vivid a way I am sure you must
+feel as keenly as I--face to face with him of whom I am set to speak
+to-day.
+
+Never before in the history, not only of our communion, but of any or
+all communions, has the departure of a religious teacher been more
+widely noted and deplored than in the case of him of whom this
+Commonwealth and this diocese have been bereaved. Never before,
+surely, in case of any man whom we can recall, has the sense of loss
+and bereavement been more distinctly a personal one,--extending to
+multitudes in two hemispheres who did not know him, who had never seen
+or heard him, and yet to whom he had revealed himself in such real and
+helpful ways.
+
+It has followed, inevitably, from this, that that strong tide of
+profound feeling has found expression in many and most unusual
+forms, and it will be among the most interesting tasks of the future
+biographer of the late Bishop of Massachusetts to take note of these
+various memorials and to trace in them the secret of his unique power
+and influence.
+
+But just because they have, so many of them, in such remarkable
+variety and from sources so diverse, been written or spoken, and no
+less because a memoir of Phillips Brooks is already undertaken by
+hands preeminently designated for that purpose, I may wisely here
+confine myself to another and very different task. I shall not
+attempt, therefore, even the merest outline of a biographical review.
+I shall not undertake to analyze, nor, save incidentally, even to
+refer to, the influences and inheritances that wrought in the mind
+and upon the life of your late friend and teacher. I shall still less
+attempt to discover the open secret of his rare and unique charm and
+attractiveness as a man; and I shall least of all endeavor to forecast
+the place which history will give to him among the leaders and
+builders of our age. Brief as was his ministry in his higher office,
+and to our view all too soon ended, I shall be content to speak of him
+as a bishop,--of his divine right, as I profoundly believe, to a place
+in the episcopate, and of the preeminent value of his distinctive and
+incomparable witness to the highest aim and purpose of that office.
+
+And first of all let me say a word in regard to the way in which he
+came to it. When chosen to the episcopate of this diocese, your late
+bishop had already, at least once, as we all know, declined the
+office. It was well known to those who knew him best that, as he had
+viewed it for a large part of his ministry, it was a work for which
+he had no especial sympathy either as to its tasks, or, as he had
+understood them, its opportunities.
+
+But the time undoubtedly came when, as to this, he modified his
+earlier opinions; and the time came too, as I am most glad to think,
+when he was led to feel that if he were called to such an office he
+might find in it an opportunity for widening his own sympathies and
+for estimating more justly those with whom previously he had believed
+himself to have little in common.
+
+It was the inevitable condition of his strong and deep convictions
+that he should not always or easily understand or make due allowance
+for men of different opinions. It was--God and you will bear me
+witness that this is true!--one of the noblest characteristics of his
+fifteen months' episcopate that, as a bishop, men's rightful liberty
+of opinion found in him not only a large and generous tolerance, but
+a most beautiful and gracious acceptance. He seized, instantly and
+easily, that which will be forever the highest conception of the
+episcopate in its relations whether to the clergy or the laity, its
+paternal and fraternal character; and his "sweet reasonableness," both
+as a father and as a brother, shone through all that he was and did.
+
+For one, I greatly love to remember this,--that when the time came he
+himself, with the simple naturalness which marked all that he did,
+was brought to reconsider his earlier attitude toward the episcopal
+office, and to express with characteristic candor his readiness to
+take up its work if he should be chosen to it; he turned to his new,
+and to him most strange, task with a supreme desire to do it in a
+loving and whole-hearted way, and to make it helpful to every man,
+woman, and child with whom he came in contact. What could have been
+more like him than that, in that last address which he delivered to
+the choir-boys at Newton, he should have said to them, "When you meet
+me let me know that you know me." Another might easily have been
+misunderstood in asking those whom he might by chance encounter to
+salute him; but he knew, and the boys knew, what he had in mind,--how
+he and they were all striving to serve one Master, and how each--he
+most surely as much as they--was to gain strength and cheer from
+mutual recognition in the spirit of a common brotherhood.
+
+And thus it was always; and this it was that allied itself so
+naturally to that which was his never-ceasing endeavor--to lift all
+men everywhere to that which was, with him, the highest conception of
+his office, whether as a preacher or as a bishop,--the conception of
+God as a Father, and of the brotherhood of all men as mutually related
+in Him.
+
+In an address which he delivered during the last General Convention
+in Baltimore to the students of Johns Hopkins University, he spoke
+substantially these words:
+
+    "In trying to win a man to a better life, show him not the
+    evil but the nobleness of his nature. Lead him to enthusiastic
+    contemplations of humanity;"
+
+in its perfection, and when he asks, 'Why, if this is so, do not I
+have this life?'--then project on the background of his enthusiasm his
+own life; say to him, 'Because you are a liar, because you blind your
+soul with licentiousness, shame is born,--but not a shame of despair.
+It is soon changed to joy. Christianity becomes an opportunity, a high
+privilege, the means of attaining to the most exalted ideal--and the
+only means.'
+
+"Herein must lie all real power; herein lay Christ's power, that he
+appreciated the beauty and richness of humanity, that it is very near
+the Infinite, very near to God. These two facts--we are the children
+of God, and God is our Father--make us look very differently at
+ourselves, very differently at our neighbors, very differently at God.
+We should be surprized, not at our good deeds, but at our bad ones.
+We should expect good as more likely to occur than evil; we should
+believe that our best moments are our truest. I was once talking with
+an acquaintance about whose religious position I knew nothing, and he
+exprest a very hopeful opinion in regard to a matter about which I was
+myself very doubtful.
+
+"'Why, I said to him, 'You are an optimist.'
+
+"'Of course I am an optimist,' he replied, because I am a Christian.'
+
+"I felt that as a reproof. The Christian must be an optimist."
+
+Men and brethren, I set these words over against those of his Master
+with which I began, and the two in essence are one. "The words that I
+speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life." There is a life
+nobler and diviner than any that we have dreamed of. To the poorest
+and meanest of us, as to the best and most richly-dowered, it is alike
+open. To turn toward it, to reach up after it, to believe in its
+ever-recurring nearness, and to glorify God in attaining to it, this
+is the calling of a human soul.
+
+Now then, what, I ask you, is all the rest of religion worth in
+comparison with this?--not what is it worth in itself, but what is its
+place relatively to this? This, I maintain, is the supreme question
+for the episcopate, as it ought to be the supreme question with the
+ministry of any and every order. And therefore it is, I affirm, that,
+in bringing into the episcopate with such unique vividness and power
+this conception of his office, your bishop rendered to his order and
+to the Church of God everywhere a service so transcendent. A most
+gifted and sympathetic observer of our departed brother's character
+and influence has said of him, contrasting him with the power of
+institution, "His life will always suggest the importance of the
+influence of the individual man as compared with institutional
+Christianity."
+
+In one sense, undoubtedly, this is true; but I should prefer to say
+that his life-work will always show the large and helpful influence of
+a great soul upon institutional Christianity. It is a superficial
+and unphilosophical temperament that disparages institutions; for
+institutions are only another name for that organized force and life
+by which God rules the world. But it is undoubtedly and profoundly
+true that you no sooner have an institution, whether in society, in
+politics, or in religion, than you are threatened with the danger
+that the institution may first exaggerate itself and then harden
+and stiffen into a machine; and that in the realm of religion,
+preeminently, those whose office it should be to quicken and infuse it
+with new life should themselves come at last to "worship the net and
+the drag." And just here you find in the history of religion in all
+ages the place of the prophet and the seer. He is to pierce through
+the fabric of the visible structure to that soul of things for which
+it stands. When, in Isaiah, the Holy Ghost commands the prophet, "Lift
+up thy voice with strength; lift it up, be not afraid: say unto the
+cities of Judah, Behold your God!" it is not alone, you see, his voice
+that lie is to lift up. No, no! It is the vision of the unseen and
+divine. "Say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God!"
+
+Over and over again that voice breaks in upon the slumbrous torpor of
+Israel and smites the dead souls of priests and people alike. Now
+it is a Balaam, now it is an Elijah, a David, an Isaiah, a John the
+Baptist, a Paul the Apostle, a Peter the Hermit, a Savonarola, a Huss,
+a Whitefield, a Wesley, a Frederick Maurice, a Frederick Robertson, a
+Phillips Brooks.
+
+Do not mistake me. I do not say that there were not many others. But
+these names are typical, and that for which they stand cannot easily
+be mistaken. I affirm without qualification that, in that gift of
+vision and of exaltation for which they stand, they stand for the
+highest and the best,--that one thing for which the Church of God most
+of all stands, and of which so long as it is the Church Militant
+it will most of all stand in need: to know that the end of all its
+mechanisms and ministries is to impart life, and that nothing which
+obscures or loses sight of the eternal source of life can regenerate
+or quicken;--to teach men to cry out, with St. Augustine, "_Fecisti
+nos ad te, Domine, et inquietum est cor nostrum donec requiescat in
+te_": Thou hast made us for Thyself, O Lord, and our heart is unquiet
+until its rests in Thee,--this however, as any one may be tempted to
+fence and juggle with the fact, is the truth on which all the rest
+depends.
+
+Unfortunately it is a truth which there is much in the tasks and
+engagements of the episcopate to obscure. A bishop is preeminently,
+at any rate in the popular conception of him, an administrator; and
+howsoever wide of the mark this popular conception may be from the
+essential idea of the office, it must be owned that there is much in
+a bishop's work in our day to limit his activities, and therefore his
+influence, within such a sphere.
+
+To recognize his prophetic office as giving expression to that mission
+of the Holy Ghost of which he is preeminently the representative, to
+illustrate it upon a wider instead of a narrower field, to recognize
+and seize the greater opportunities for its exercise, to be indeed
+"a leader and commander" to the people, not by means of the petty
+mechanisms of officialism, but by the strong, strenuous, and unwearied
+proclamation of the truth; under all conditions to make the occasion
+somehow a stepping-stone to that mount of vision from which men may
+see God and righteousness and become sensible of the nearness of both
+to themselves,--this, I think you will agree with me, is no unworthy
+use of the loftiest calling and the loftiest gifts.
+
+And such a use was his. A bishop-elect, walking with him one day in
+the country, was speaking, with not unnatural shrinking and hesitancy,
+of the new work toward which he was soon to turn his face, and said
+among other things, "I have a great dread, in the Episcopate, of
+perfunctoriness. In the administration, especially, of confirmation,
+it seems almost impossible, in connection with its constant
+repetition, to avoid it."
+
+He was silent a moment, and then said, "I do not think that it need be
+so. The office indeed is the same. But every class is different; and
+then--think what it is to them! It seems to me that that thought can
+never cease to move one."
+
+What a clear insight the answer gave to his own ministry. One turns
+back to his first sermon, that evening when, with his fellow-student
+in Virginia, he walked across the fields to the log-cabin where, not
+yet in holy orders, he preached it, and where afterward he ministered
+with such swiftly increasing power to a handful of negro servants.
+"It was an utter failure," he said afterward. Yes, perhaps; but all
+through the failure he struggled to give expression to that of which
+his soul was full; and I do not doubt that even then they who heard
+him somehow understood him. We pass from those first words to the
+last,--those of which I spoke a moment ago,--the address to the
+choir-boys at Newton,--was there ever such, an address to choir-boys
+before? He knew little or nothing about the science of music, and with
+characteristic candor he at once said so. But he passed quickly from
+the music to those incomparable words of which the music was the mere
+vehicle and vesture. He bade the lads to whom he spoke think of
+those who, long ago and all the ages down, had sung that matchless
+Psalter,--of the boys and men of other times, and what it had meant to
+them. And then, as he looked into their fresh young faces and saw the
+long vista of life stretching out before them, he bade them think of
+that larger and fuller meaning which was to come into those Psalms of
+David, when he,--was there some prophetic sense of how soon with him
+the end would be?--when he and such as he had passed away,--what new
+doors were to open, what deeper meanings were to be discerned, what
+nobler opportunities were to dawn, as the years hastened swiftly on
+toward their august and glorious consummation! How it all lifts us
+up as we read it, and how like it was to that "one sermon" which he
+forever preached!
+
+And in saying so I do not forget what that was which some men said was
+missing in it. His, they tell us--who hold some dry and formalized
+statement of the truth so close to the eye that it obscures all larger
+vision of it,--his, they tell us, was an "invertebrate theology." Of
+what he was and spoke, such a criticism is as if one said of the wind,
+that divinely appointed symbol of the Holy Ghost, "it has no spine nor
+ribs."
+
+A spine and ribs are very necessary things; but we bury them as so
+much chalk and lime when once the breath has gone out of them! In the
+beginning we read, "And the Lord God breathed into his nostrils the
+breath of life, and man became a living soul."
+
+And all along since then there have been messengers of God into whom
+the same divine breath has been, as it were, without measure breathed,
+and who have been the quickeners and inspirers of their fellows.
+Nothing less than this can explain that wholly exceptional and yet
+consistent influence which he whom we mourn gave forth. It was not
+confined or limited by merely personal or physical conditions, but
+breathed with equal and quickening power through all that he taught
+and wrote. There were multitudes who never saw or heard him, but by
+whom nevertheless he was as intimately known and understood as if he
+had been their daily companion.
+
+Never was there an instance which more truly fulfilled the saying,
+"The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life."
+They reached down to the inmost need of empty and aching hearts and
+answered it. They spoke to that in the most sin-stained and wayward
+soul which is, after all, the image of the invisible God,--spoke
+to it, touched it, constrained it. "What has this fine-bred Boston
+scholar," plain men asked, when he bade him come to us and preach in
+our Trinity--"what has such an one to say to the business men of Wall
+Street?" But when he came, straightway every man found out that he had
+indeed something to say to him,--a word of power, a word of hope, a
+word of enduring joy and strength!
+
+A kindred thinker of large vision and rare insight, New England born
+and nurtured like himself, speaking of him not long after his death,
+said:
+
+    "There are three forms pertaining to the Christian truths: they
+    are true as facts, they are true as doctrines intellectually
+    apprehended, they are true as spiritual experiences to be
+    realized. Bishop Brooks struck directly for the last. In the
+    spirit he found the truth; and only as he could get it into a
+    spiritual form did he conceive it to have power.
+
+    "It was because he assumed the facts as true in the main, refusing
+    to insist on petty accuracy, and passed by doctrinal forms
+    concerning which there might be great divergence of opinion, and
+    carried his thought on into the world of spirit, that he won so
+    great a hearing and such conviction of belief. For it is the
+    spirit that gives common standing-ground; it says substantially
+    the same thing in all men. Speak as a spirit to the spiritual
+    nature of men, and they will respond, because in the spirit they
+    draw near to their common source and to the world to which all
+    belong.
+
+    "It was because he dealt with this common factor of the human and
+    the divine nature that he was too positive and practical. In the
+    spirit it is all yea and amen; there is no negative; in the New
+    Jerusalem there is no night. We can describe this feature of his
+    ministry by words from, one of his own sermons: 'It has always
+    been through men of belief, not unbelief, that power from God has
+    poured into man. It is not the discriminating critic, but he whose
+    beating, throbbing life offers itself a channel for the divine
+    force,--he is the man through, whom the world grows rich, and whom
+    it remembers, remembers with perpetual thanksgiving.'"
+
+And shall not you who are here to-day thank God that such a man was,
+tho for so brief a space, your bishop? Some there were, you remember,
+who thought that those greater spiritual gifts of his would unfit him
+for the business of practical affairs. "A bishop's daily round," they
+said, "his endless correspondence, his hurried journeyings, his weight
+of anxious cares, the misadventures of other men, ever returning to
+plague him,--how can he bring himself to stoop and deal with these?"
+
+But as in so much else that was transcendent in him, how little here,
+too, his critics understood him! No more pathetic proof of this has
+come to light than in that testimony of one among you who, as his
+private secretary, stood in closest and most intimate relations
+to him. What a story that is which he has given to us of a great
+soul--faithful always in the greatest? Yes, but no less faithful in
+the least. There seems a strange, almost grotesque impossibility in
+the thought that such an one should ever have come to be regarded as
+"a stickler for the canons."
+
+But we look a little deeper than the surface, and all that is
+incongruous straightway disappears. His was the realm of a divine
+order,--his was the office of his Lord's servant. God had called him.
+He had put him where he was. He had set his Church to be His witness
+in the world, and in it, all His children, the greatest with the
+least, to walk in ways of reverent appointment. Those ways might irk
+and cramp him sometimes. They did: he might speak of them with sharp
+impatience and seeming disesteem sometimes. He did that too, now and
+then,--for he was human like the rest of us! But mark you this, my
+brothers, for, in an age which, under one figment or another,
+whether of more ancient or more modern license, is an age of much
+self-will,--we shall do well to remember it,--his was a life of
+orderly and consistent obedience to rule. He kept to the Church's
+plain and stately ways: kept to them and prized them too.
+
+But all the while he held his soul wide open to the vision of his
+Lord! Up out of a routine that seemed to others that did not know or
+could not understand him, and who vouchsafed to him much condescending
+compassion for a bondage which he never felt, and of which in vain
+they strove to persuade him to complain,--up out of the narrower round
+in which so faithfully he walked, from time to time he climbed, and
+came back bathed in a heavenly light, with lips aglow with heavenly
+fire. The Spirit had spoken to him, and so he spoke to us. "The flesh
+profiteth nothing: it is the spirit that quickeneth. The words that I
+speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life."
+
+And so we thank God not alone for his message, but that it was given
+to him to speak it as a bishop in the Church of God. We thank God that
+in a generation that so greatly needs to cry, as our _Te Deum_ teaches
+us, "Govern us and lift us up!" he was given to the Church not alone
+to rule but to uplift.
+
+What bishop is there who may not wisely seek to be like him by drawing
+forever on those fires of the Holy Ghost that set his lips aflame?
+Nay, what soul among us all is there that may not wisely seek to
+ascend up into that upper realm in which he walked, and by whose
+mighty airs his soul was filled? Unto the almighty and ever-living God
+we yield most high praise and hearty thanks for the wonderful grace
+and virtue declared in all His saints who have been the chosen vessels
+of His grace and the lights of the world in their several generations;
+but here and to-day especially for his servant, Phillips Brooks, some
+time of this Commonwealth and this diocese, true prophet, true priest,
+true bishop, to the glory of God the Father.
+
+
+
+
+ABBOTT
+
+THE DIVINITY IN HUMANITY
+
+BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+
+Lyman Abbott was born at Roxbury, Mass., in 1835. As successor to
+Henry Ward Beecher, at Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, he ministered with
+great spiritual power until 1898, when he resigned his pastorate to
+devote his entire time to _The Outlook_, of which he was, and still
+is, the editor. Dr. Abbott's conception of the minister's work is
+briefly summed up in his own words:
+
+"Whenever a minister forgets the splendid message of pardon, peace and
+power based on faith in Jesus Christ as God manifest in the flesh,
+whenever for this message he substitutes literary lectures, critical
+essays, sociological disquisitions, theological controversies, or even
+ethical interpretations of the universal conscience, whenever, in
+other words, he ceases to be a Christian preacher and becomes a lyceum
+or seminary lecturer, he divests himself of that which in all ages of
+the world has been the power of the Christian ministry, and will be
+its power so long as men have sins to be forgiven, temptations to
+conquer, and sorrows to be assuaged."
+
+
+
+
+ABBOTT
+
+BORN IN 1835
+
+THE DIVINITY IN HUMANITY
+
+_Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, ye are
+gods? If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and
+the scripture cannot be broken; say ye of him, whom the Father hath
+sanctified, and sent into the world, thou blasphemest; because I said,
+I am the Son of God_?--John X., 34-36.
+
+
+The context and argument is this: Jesus Christ has declared that He
+will give unto His sheep eternal life; and that no one can pluck them
+out of His hand, because He and His Father are one; and the Father
+who gives these sheep to His care and keeping is greater than all the
+forces that are leagued against them. Thereat the Jews took up stones
+against Him, saying: "Being a man thou makest thyself equal with God."
+And Christ answers with our text. He refers them back to the Old
+Testament, which, He says, declares of the judges of Israel, of the
+men to whom the inspiration of God came, that they are divine. "Why,
+then," He says, "do you accuse Me of blasphemy because I claim
+divinity?" It is impossible to consider this a mere play upon the
+word; that Christ uses the word God in one sense in one paragraph
+and in another sense in the paragraph immediately following. It is
+impossible to conceive that this is a kind of sacred pun. No, no; the
+argument is clear and unmistakable. According to your Old Testament
+scripture, He says, the men in whom and to whom and through whom the
+power and grace of God are manifested are themselves the partakers
+of the divine nature. If that is so, if the men of the olden
+times, patriarchs and prophets, through whom the divine nature was
+manifested--if they are divine, do not accuse me of blasphemy because
+I claim for Myself divinity. If in this message, on the one hand,
+Christ claims kinship with God, on the other He lifts the whole of
+humanity up with Him and makes the claim for them. The religion of the
+Old Testament and the New Testament, the religion of Christianity and
+of Judaism, is a religion of faith in God. But it is not less truly a
+religion of faith in man, and of faith in man because man is a child
+of God. And the one faith would be utterly useless without the other.
+For faith in God is effective because it is accompanied with faith in
+man as the child of God.
+
+And in this faith in man is the inspiration of all human progress.
+_Faith_ in man, I say. Faith sees something which the eye does not
+see. Faith sees something which the reason does not perceive. Faith
+is not irrational, but it perceives a transcendent truth, over beyond
+that which the sense perceives. Faith is always intermixed with hope
+and with a great expectation, either with a hope because it sees
+something which is not yet but will be, or else with a hope because it
+sees something which is not yet seen but will be seen. Faith in a man
+is not a belief that man is to-day a great, noble character, but it is
+a perception in man of dormant possibilities of greatness and nobility
+which time and God will develop. It is only the man who has faith in
+man who can really interpret man. It is faith in man that gives us all
+true human insight. The difference between a photograph and a portrait
+is this: the photograph gives the outward feature, and stops there;
+and most of us, when we stand in a photograph saloon to have our
+picture taken, hide our soul away. The artist sees the soul behind the
+man, knows him, understands something of his nature, and paints the
+soul that looks out through the eyes. He sees in the man something
+which the sun does not exhibit, and makes that something shine on
+the canvas. The artist in literature sees an ideal humanity, and
+interprets it. Realism in literature does not portray the real man.
+Anthony Trollope pictures the Englishman as he is to-day, and society
+as any man may take it with a kodak; but Dickens gives Toby Veck and
+Tiny Tim; George Eliot, Adam Bede and Dinah Morris. Men say that no
+such boy ever lived as MacDonald has portrayed in Sir Gibbie. In every
+street Arab is a possible Sir Gibbie; and MacDonald has seen the
+possible and shown us what Christianity may make out of a street
+Arab. In this perception of a possible in man lies the spirit of all
+progress in science. The man of practical science laughs at the notion
+of an iron railway on which steam cars shall travel faster than
+English coaches. But the man of faith in men, who believes that it is
+in the power of men to dominate the powers of nature, builds the road.
+The man of practical science laughs at the notion that we can reach up
+our hands into the clouds and draw down the lightning. But Franklin
+does it. The man of faith is sometimes mistaken, but he is always
+experimenting, because he always believes that man to-morrow will
+be more than man is to-day or was yesterday. And all progress in
+civilization has its secret in this great faith in man as a being
+that has a mastery, not yet interpreted, not yet understood, not yet
+comprehended in its fulness, over all the powers of nature.
+
+Now, is there any ground or basis for this faith in man? Have we a
+right to believe that man is more than he seems to be, as we can see
+him in the street to-day? Have we a right to build our institutions
+and fabrics on this belief? Have we a right to think that man can
+govern himself, or must we go back and say with Carlyle and Ruskin
+and Voltaire that the great body of men are incompetent to govern
+themselves, and a few wise rulers must govern them? Have we a right to
+believe that all the progress that has thus far been made in
+science is but an augury of progress far greater, reaching into the
+illimitable? Have we a right to say that these portraits of a possible
+humanity, this Portia, this Toby Veck, this Tiny Tim, this ideal man
+and woman, are real men and real women in possibility, if not in
+the actualities of life? Or are we to think of them as simply
+phantasmagoria hung up for the delectation of a passing moment? The
+Bible makes answer to that question,--the Bible preeminently, but
+the great poets and the great prophets of all religions; the Bible,
+because the poets and the prophets of the Bible transcend the poets
+and the prophets of all other religions. And that declaration is that
+man is made in the image of God, and that God dwells in man and
+is coming to the manifestation of Himself in growing, developing,
+redeemed humanity. Our Bible starts out with the declaration that God
+made man in His own image. The poets take the idea up. MacDonald tells
+us in that beautiful poem of his, that the babe came through the blue
+sky and got the blue of his eyes as he came; Wordsworth, that the
+child's imaginings are the recollected glory of a heavenly home; and
+the author of the first chapter of Genesis, that God breathed his own
+breath into the nostrils of man and made him in the image of God. All
+fancy, all imaginings? But, my dear friends, there is a truth in fancy
+as well as in science. We need not believe that this aspiration that
+shows itself in the pure mind of a little child is a trailing glory
+that he has brought with him from some pre-existent state. We need not
+think that it is physiological fact that the sky colored the eyes of
+the babe as the babe came through. Nor need we suppose that man was
+a clay image into which God breathed a physical breath, so animating
+him. But beyond all this imagery is the vision of the poet. God in
+man; a divine life throbbing in humanity; man the offspring of God;
+man coming forth from the eternal and going forth into the eternal.
+
+This is the starting-point of the Bible. Starting with this, it goes
+on with declaration after declaration based on this fundamental
+doctrine that man and God in their essential moral attributes have the
+same nature. It is human experience which is used to interpret divine
+experience. According to pagan thought, God speaks to men through
+movements of the stars, through all external phenomena, through even
+entrails of animals. Seldom so in the Bible, save as when the wise men
+followed the star, and then that they might come to a divine humanity.
+In the Old Testament God speaks in human experience, through human
+experience, about human experience, to typify and interpret and
+explain Himself. God is like a shepherd that shepherds his flock.
+God is like a king that rules in justice. He is like the father that
+provides for his children. He is like the mother that comforts the
+weeping child. All the experiences of humanity are taken in turn and
+attributed to God. The hopes, the fears, the sorrows, the joys, the
+very things which we call faults in men--so strong and courageous are
+the old prophets in this fundamental faith of theirs that man and God
+are alike--the very things we call faults in men are attributed to the
+Almighty. He is declared to hate, to be wrathful, to be angry, to be
+jealous; because, at the root, every fault is a virtue set amiss; and
+the very faults of men have in them something that interprets the
+power and will of God, as the very faults of a boy interpret the
+virtues of his father. All through the Old Testament God manifests
+Himself through human experience. He speaks in the hearts of men; He
+dwells in the experience of men; He interprets Himself through the
+life of men; and, finally, when this one selected nation which has a
+genius for spiritual truth has been so far educated that there is no
+danger that it will go back and worship man, that it will become a
+mere hero-worshiper, when it has been so far educated that there is no
+danger of that, then Jesus Christ comes into the world--God manifests
+Himself in human life.
+
+Who, then, is Jesus Christ? Let John tell us. The Oriental world was
+puzzled about the question of the origin of evil. They said, in brief,
+a good God cannot make a bad world. Out of a good God, therefore,
+there have emanated other gods, and out of these gods other gods,
+until at last there came to be imperfect gods or bad gods. And the
+world was made, some of them said, partly by a good god and partly by
+a bad one; and others by an imperfect god who was an emanation of the
+perfect one. Of these emanations one was Life, another was Light,
+another was the Word. And John, writing in the age of Oriental
+philosophy, uses the phraseology of Oriental philosophy in order that
+he might tell mankind who and what Jesus Christ is. "In the beginning
+was the Word, and the Word was God." God never was an abstraction;
+from the very beginning He was a speaking God, a living God, a
+manifesting God, a forth-putting God. "The same was in the beginning
+with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not
+anything made that was made. And this Word became flesh and dwelt
+among us (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten
+of the Father), full of grace and truth." Let me put this into
+modern language. What is it but this? From eternity God has been a
+manifesting God. When the fulness of time came, God, that He might
+manifest Himself to His children, came into a human life and dwelt
+in a human life. He that had spoken here through one prophet, there
+through another prophet; He that had sent one message in this
+direction and another in that; He that had spoken through signs and
+tokens, as the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews says, in divers
+manners and in fragmentary utterances--when the fulness of time had
+come, He spoke in one perfect human life, taking entire possession of
+it and making it His own, that He might manifest Himself in terms of
+human experience to humanity. Or turn to Paul and let me read you this
+declaration; "Let this mind be in you which was also in Jesus Christ;
+who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with
+God, but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of
+a servant, and was made in the likeness of man, and being found in
+fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death,
+even the death of the cross." What is this, again, but the same
+declaration? God desiring to show Himself to humanity, entered into
+one human life, became subject to human conditions, shared the
+weakness, the wants, the ignorance of humanity, entered into and was
+identified with one human life.
+
+Do I say, then, that Jesus Christ was a man like other men? No. But I
+do say that in their essential qualities God and man are identical,
+and God entered into humanity that He might show to humanity what He
+is. I do say, not that Jesus Christ was a man like other men, but that
+other men may become like Jesus Christ. I hold a bulb in my one hand
+and a tulip in my other. Will any man say to me, this beautiful flower
+with all its rich coloring is like this bulb? Oh, no! But let the
+sun of God shine long enough on this bulb, put it where it belongs,
+subject it to the conditions of life, and this bulb will become like
+this flower. Man is made in the image of God. All that is in man
+that is not in God's image does not belong to man's nature. Natural
+depravity? There is no natural depravity. Depravity is unnatural.
+Depravity is contra-natural. It is against the whole law of man's
+being. It is never wrong for any creature God has made to act out the
+nature which God endowed him with. It is not wicked for a tiger to be
+ravening. It is not wicked for a snake to be sinuous. It is wicked for
+man to be ravening or sinuous, because it is against the divine nature
+that God has put in man. He made man for better things.
+
+God made man in His own image, God coming through successive stages,
+manifesting Himself in successive relations of Himself in human
+experience, God at last disclosing Himself in one pure, sinless,
+typical man in order that man through that humanity might know who and
+what God is--and is that the end? Oh, no! That is the beginning,
+only the beginning. For what did God come in Christ? Simply to show
+Himself? Here is a hospital--all manner of sick; the paralytic, the
+fever-stricken, the consumptive. Is it good news to these hospital
+bedridden ones if an athlete come in and show them his life, his
+muscles, the purity of his lungs, the health of his constitution, and
+then goes out? But if he comes in and says, "My friends, if you will
+follow my directions I will put into you consumptive ones some of the
+strength of my lungs, into you fever-stricken ones some of the purity
+of my blood; into you paralytic ones some of the sinew and muscle
+I possess--you can become like me," then there is good news in the
+message. If God came into the world simply to tell us what God is and
+what the ideal of humanity is, the gospel would be the saddest message
+that could be conceived, as delivered to the human race. It would add
+gloom to the gloom, darkness to the darkness, chains to the chains,
+despair to despair. He comes not merely to show divinity to us, but to
+impart divinity to us; rather, to evolve the latent divinity which He
+first implanted in us. As God has entered into Christ, He will enter
+into me. Christ says to me: As I am patient, you can become patient;
+as I am strong, you can become strong; as I am pure, you can become
+pure; as I am the Son of God, you can become the Son of God. Therefore
+His message is the gospel that it is.
+
+Christ is not a man like other men. I can find in the biography of
+Jesus no trace of sin. In every other biography, oh, how many traces!
+There is no trace of repentance. The Hebrew Psalmist laments his
+iniquity. Paul confesses himself to be the chief of sinners. Luther,
+Calvin, Melanchthon, Edwards--go where I will, in the biography of
+all the saints there are signs of sin and iniquity. Never a trace of
+repentance or confession in Christ. In all others we see a struggle
+after God. "My heart panteth after thee, as the hart panteth after
+water-brooks." "I count not myself to have attained, but, forgetting
+those things that are behind, I press forward toward the mark." Never
+in the written biography of Christ a trace of that aspiration after
+something not yet reached. On the contrary, a great peace and a great
+possession. He says: I have come full of life. I have come to give
+life. This sinless Christ comes that He may give to us that which
+He Himself possesses; that He may take the sin out of our lives and
+sorrow out of our hearts, and for the yearning desire give a great,
+great peace. I have come, He says, that you might have life. How much,
+Lord and Master? Life more abundantly. What kind of life, Lord and
+Master? Eternal life. Has He come with that great life of His to give
+a little and then stop? Nay, to give all to every one that every one
+will take.
+
+I marvel to find Christian men denying that Christ is the type and
+manifestation and revelation of the possible divinity in universal
+humanity. It is written all over the Bible. What says Christ Himself?
+I have come that you might have life, and that you might have it more
+abundantly. As the Father has sent Me into the world, even so I send
+you into the world. You shall be My disciples. You shall learn of Me.
+You shall be My followers, and tread where I have trod. You shall take
+up My cross, and suffer as I have suffered. The secret of My life
+shall be the secret of your life. Ye shall be in Me. I will abide with
+you. Ye shall be as a branch grafted on the vine, drawing the same
+life as I have, as out of My very veins. As the Father was in Me, so
+I and My Father will come and abide in you. He breathes upon the
+disciples and tells them to receive the Spirit that was in Him; and in
+His last prayer He prays that they may share His glory, that they may
+be one with the Father, as He is one with the Father. Paul takes up
+the same refrain and repeats it over and over again. Righteousness in
+man is the righteousness of God, God's own righteousness coming out
+of God's heart into human hearts. Ye shall be partakers of the divine
+nature. Ye shall be joint heirs with the Lord Jesus Christ, inheriting
+all that Christ inherited from His Father. Ye shall have the same
+spirit that was in Christ. Metaphor and trope and figure are exhausted
+in the endeavor of the apostle to set forth this sublime truth. Christ
+is the servant of God. We are the servants of God. He is the Son of
+God. We are the sons of God. He is the light of the world. We are
+the lights of the world. He is a priest forever. We are priests
+perpetually serving in His temple. He is the one eternal sacrifice. We
+are to present our bodies a living sacrifice before God. He is dead.
+We are to die with Him. He has risen. We are to rise with Him. Already
+we sit in the heavenly place with Christ Jesus. We are changed from
+glory to glory into His image. We are predestined to be conformed to
+that image. We are bid to pray that we may be rooted and grounded in
+Christ, and that with Him, we may be filled with all the fulness of
+God.
+
+Do I say, then, that I am equal to Christ? Or that I shall ever become
+equal to Christ? No! Let me try to make this plain to the child, and
+then the rest will perhaps understand it. Here is a great man. He is
+a great statesman. He is a great poet. He is a great orator. He is a
+great philosopher. He is a great general. He is Bismarck and Gladstone
+and Dante and Napoleon and Raphael and Plato all combined in one.
+And he has children, and this boy is a statesman, and this boy is a
+general, and this boy is an orator, and this boy is a poet, and this
+boy is an artist. No one of them comprizes all the genius that was in
+his father, but each one has one quality of that father, and all the
+boys together reflect their father's nature. No, I shall never be
+equal to Christ. But according to the measure of my own capacity,
+I may reflect even here and now something of Christ and be really
+Christ-like.
+
+Christ is my Master. I acknowledge no other Master than Him. I wish to
+follow where He leads. I gladly believe whatever He says. And I have
+no other ambition--oh, I wish it were true that I never had any other
+ambition!--than to be like Him. But He is my Master because He bids me
+follow where He leads, because He gives what I can take, because He
+promised what He will yet fulfil. I believe in the divinity of our
+Lord Jesus Christ. It is the center of my faith, as He is the center
+and source of my life. But I do not believe in the medieval formula
+that Jesus Christ is God and man mysteriously joined together, because
+to believe that would be to leave me both without an ideal of man
+which I might follow, and without a manifestation of God to which I
+might cling. In my country home two Christians quarreled. An atheist
+went to them and said to one of them, "Your Christ said, 'Forgive
+all your enemies and love one another.'" "Yes," he said, "Christ was
+divine. He could. I cannot." But there was nothing of moral virtue
+that God wrought in Christ that He cannot work in you and me if we
+give Him time enough. And, on the other hand, this separation of "God"
+and "man" in Christ denies the real manifestation of God to man.
+Jesus called His disciples to watch while He wrestled with agony in
+Gethsemane, and Dean Alford, speaking on Gethsemane, says this was the
+manifestation in Christ of human weakness. No! no! A thousand times,
+No! It is the glorious manifestation of that sympathy in God which
+wants the sympathy of the feeblest of His followers, as the mother
+wants the sympathy and love of the babe on her lap. "Beloved, now are
+we the sons of God; and it doth not yet appear what we shall be. Only
+we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is." There are two
+things we do not know. Genius is always a mystery, spiritual genius
+the greatest mystery of genius, and Christ the greatest mystery of
+all. We do not know what we shall be, any more than one who never had
+seen a garden could guess what the mold would be when the spring had
+finished its work. Those are two things we do not know. But there are
+two things we do know. We shall be like Him, and when we are like Him,
+we shall see Him as He is. We shall be like no imagination of Him, no
+deteriorated or imperfect conception of Him; but when we come to see
+Him in all the regal splendor of His character, with all the love, all
+the justice, all the purity, all the divine glory which is adumbrated
+and shadowed here because our eyes could not look upon it and still
+live--when we come to see Him in all the glory of that divine
+character, we shall be like Him--_we shall be like Him_.
+
+
+
+
+BROOKS
+
+THE PRIDE OF LIFE
+
+BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+
+Phillips Brooks was born at Boston, Mass., in 1835, graduated at
+Harvard in 1855 and studied theology at the P.E. Seminary, Alexandria,
+Va. He was elected rector of the Church of the Advent, Philadelphia,
+in 1859, and three years later to that of Holy Trinity in the same
+city. In 1869 he became rector of Trinity Church, Boston, and was
+consecrated Bishop of Massachusetts in 1891. He died in 1893. He was
+in every sense a large man, large in simplicity and sympathy, large in
+spiritual culture. In his lectures to the students at Yale he spoke of
+the preparation for the ministry as being nothing less than the making
+of a man. Said he:
+
+"It cannot be the mere training to certain tricks. It cannot be even
+the furnishing with abundant knowledge. It must be nothing less than
+the kneading and tempering of a man's whole nature till it becomes of
+such a consistency and quality as to be capable of transmission. This
+is the largeness of the preacher's culture." Doctor Brastow describes
+him thus: "The physical equipment was symbol of his soul; and the
+rush of his speech was typical of those mental, moral, and spiritual
+energies that were fused into unity and came forth in a stream of
+fiery intensity."
+
+
+
+
+BROOKS
+
+1835--1893
+
+THE PRIDE OF LIFE[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Published for the first time by the kind permission of
+William G. Brooks.]
+
+_The pride of life_.--1 John ii., 16.
+
+
+John is giving his disciples the old warning not to love the world,
+that world which then and always is pressing on men's eyes and ears
+and hearts with all its loveliness and claiming to be loved. "Love not
+the world, neither the things that are in the world.... For all that
+is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and
+the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world."
+
+What is the pride of life? Pride is one of those words which hover in
+the middle region between virtue and vice. The materials which under
+one set of circumstances and in one kind of character make up an
+honorable self-respect, seem so often to be precisely the same as
+those which under another set of circumstances and in another kind of
+character make up arrogance and self-conceit. This last is the tone
+evidently in which John speaks. So it is with most moral minglings.
+All character is personal, determined by some force that blends the
+qualities into a special personality. The same apparent qualities
+unite into the most various results. It is like the delicate
+manufacture of mosaics. The skilful workers of Rome or Venice put in
+the same ingredients in nature and amount, and the composition comes
+out at one time dull and muddy and at another time perfectly clear and
+lustrous. Some subtle difference in the mixture of the constituents
+or in the condition of the atmosphere or in the heat of the furnace
+alters the whole result. So out of life we may say in its various
+minglings there come various products in character, either humility or
+thankfulness or contentment or self-respect, from some failure of the
+qualities to meet in perfect union, from some fault in the shape or
+misregulation of the temperature of the human furnace in which they
+are fused, this degenerate and confused result of pride which yet
+is often so near to, that we can see how it was only some slightest
+cause, some stray and unguarded draft across the surface that hindered
+it from being, one of the clear and lustrous combinations of the same
+material. But that fact makes it no better. The muddy glass is no more
+useful because it is made of the same components as the clear glass.
+There is nothing still to be done with it but to throw it away.
+
+What then is the pride of life which is bad, which "is not of the
+Father, but is of the world"? Life itself we know is of the Father. In
+whatever sense we take that much-meaning word, life is God's gift. The
+mere physical being, if that be life, is the creation of His mighty
+word. The continuance, the prolongation of the vital function, if
+that be life, that too is the result of His never-sleeping care. The
+surrounding circumstances, the scenery of our experience, if that be
+life, is also of His arranging. The spiritual vitality, all the higher
+powers as we call them, of thought and feeling and conscience, if they
+be life, no hand but His strung and tuned their manifold and subtle
+cords. Everywhere there is no life but what He gives. It is not of the
+world. In no sense does any creative power of being issue either from
+the material earth, or from the social system, or from the mass of
+conventional laws and standards, each of which is sometimes, in
+different uses of the word, characterized as "the world." They may all
+influence and change and give character to life, but none of them can
+create it.
+
+And perhaps this brings us to what we want. The world may give a
+certain character or shape to life, even altho it cannot create it.
+Now pride is a certain character or shape of life. It is a term of
+description not of the material of life but of a particular result of
+that material fused into a particular furnace. In general the shape of
+life which pride describes may be otherwise characterized as
+arrogant self-reliance or self-sufficiency. We may reach more minute
+definitions of it before we are done, but this seems to make the
+meaning plain when it is said that the pride of life is not of the
+Father, but of the world. Life comes from God. It is the world's
+influence that shapes that life, which has no moral character in
+itself, into arrogance and self-sufficiency, makes it up into pride
+instead of into humility, and so leaves as the result the pride of
+life. The pride of life, then, is God's gift which means dependence
+changed and distorted into independence, revolt and disobedience.
+
+Most necessary is it that in all we say we should keep clear in mind
+that the first gift is God's. The substance of life is His. All evil
+is misuse, otherwise repentance must be cursed with misanthropy and
+hopelessness instead of being as it always ought to be, the very
+birthplace of hope, the spring of a new life from the worn-out failure
+of an old, back into the possibility of life that is older still, as
+old as man's first creation.
+
+Let us see where the pride of life shows itself. First of all
+doubtless in the mere exuberance of animal strength. To be well and
+strong, full of spirit and physical vitality, this is beyond all doubt
+one of the most precious gifts of God. We never can forget the large
+strong physical strain with which our Bible opens, the torrent of
+health and full life that seems to pour down to us out of those early
+days when the world was young, when the giants made the earth shake
+under their mighty tread and the patriarchs outlived the forests with
+their green old years. The fulness of physical vitality is of God, to
+be accepted as His benefaction, to be cultivated and cared for with
+the reverence that His gifts demand. And round the mere physical life
+group a whole circle of tastes and enjoyments and exercises which
+belong with the sensuous more than with the intellectual or moral part
+of us, and whose full life seems to be dependent upon the fulness of
+physical being, the mere perception of beauty, the love of comfort,
+the delight in enterprise and adventure and prowess. The sum of all
+these is what we call full physical life. It is what gives youth its
+most generous charm and makes it always poetic with its suggested
+powers and unaccomplished possibilities.
+
+But yet this mere fulness of life as we all know has its dangers. Mere
+health is overbearing by its very nature. There is a lack of sympathy
+in it. Not knowing suffering itself, it is not respectful of suffering
+in others. It is not careful of inflicting suffering. The full blood
+sings of nothing but itself. It is careless of others. It is careless
+of God, not malignantly cruel, nor deliberately atheistic, but selfish
+with a sort of self-absorption which is often, very gracious in its
+forms and infidel with a mere forgetfulness of God. Who of us does not
+know, and who of us, wavering between his standards and his feelings,
+has not very often found it hard to tell just how he ought to value
+the enthusiastic and arrogant self-sufficiency of healthy youth?
+
+It is this, I take it, that is described here as "the pride of life."
+Wherever there is eager and full-blooded youth there it appears. It
+breaks out in the wild and purposeless mob of lower city life, in the
+impatience and insubordination of the country boy who longs to be free
+from his father's farm, in the crude skepticism of college students'
+first discussions of religion. It is jealous of slight, of insult,
+of the least suspicion of restraint or leading. It belongs to strong
+young nations as well as to strong young men. By it they flaunt
+defiance in the face of the world and are afraid of the imputation of
+prudence. It is what you can see in the faces of any group of eager
+young men as you pass them on the street. Sometimes it makes them
+attractive and sometimes it makes them detestable. It turns the noble
+youth into a hero and the mean youth into a bully. A fine nature it
+leads into the most exquisite tastes and encircles it with art and
+music. A coarse nature it plunges into the vilest debauchery and vice.
+In good fortune it makes the temper carelessly benignant. In bad
+fortune it makes the temper recklessly defiant. It works these very
+different effects but is always the one same spirit still,--the pride
+of life. The gift of life which came from God, taken possession of by
+the world and tamed into self-sufficiency, a thing not of the Father,
+but of the world, who does not know in himself, or see in somebody
+he watches, something of this pure pride in life? Just to live is so
+attractive that the higher ends and responsibilities of living drift
+away out of sight. This instinctive almost physical selfishness is the
+philosophy of more than we think both of the good and of the bad that
+is in young people.
+
+I have seen too much of it to undervalue the sweet and sober piety of
+old age. There is a beauty in it that is all its own. A softness and
+tenderness and patience and repose in the western sky that the bolder
+glories of the east where the morning breaks never can attain. Many
+and many of the best men we have known have been old men, but no one
+looks at men's progress without feeling that a great deal of what
+passes for growth in goodness as men grow old is in reality only the
+deadening of the pride of life from the dying-down of the life itself.
+Many and many a man who passes for a sober, conscientious, religious
+sort of man at fifty, if you put back into his cooled blood the hot
+life he had at twenty-five would be the same reckless, profligate,
+arrogant sinner that he was then. It is the life, not the pride, that
+he has lost. Many and many a man thinks that he has saved his house
+from conflagration because he, sees no flame, when really the flame
+is hidden only because the house is burnt down and the fire is still
+lurking among the ashes, hunting out any little prey that is left and
+hungrily waiting for more fuel to light up the darkness again. One
+thing at least is true, that the goodness of old age in what we may
+call its passive forms, humility, submission, patience, faith, is
+necessarily far more hard to recognize and be sure of than the same
+goodness in a younger man. What you call piety may be only deadness.
+
+And young men are often pointed just to this old age as the golden
+time when they will be religious as they cannot be now. They look to
+it themselves. "You are full of the pride of life," men say to them;
+"Ah, wait! By and by the life will flag. The senses will grow dull,
+the tastes will stupefy, the enterprise will flicker out, and the days
+come in which your soul will say 'I have no pleasure in them.' Just
+wait for that! Then your pride will go too, and then you will need and
+seek your God." It is a poor taunt and a poorer warning. If you have
+nothing better to say to make men use their powers rightly than to
+tell them that they will lose their powers some day, the answer will
+always be, "Well, I will wait until that losing day comes before
+I worry." If you tell a young man that his life is short, the old
+bacchanalian answer is the first one, "Live while we live." You must
+somehow get hold of that, you must persuade him that the true life now
+is the holy life, that life, this same life that he prizes, ought to
+breed humility and faith, not arrogance and pride, or else you
+must expect to talk to the winds. It surely is important that the
+conversion of the pride of life must come not by the putting-out of
+life but by making it a source of humility instead of pride.
+The humbleness of life. How can it come? By clearer and deeper
+truthfulness to let us see what the real facts of the case are, that
+is all; but that is very hard, so hard that it can be brought about by
+no other than the Almighty Holy Ghost. Let me see that this physical
+life of mine, having no true character of its own, is made to be a
+great machinery for simply conducting the knowledge and the love of
+God into my life; let all my study of the exquisite adaptations of
+the physical organs for their work be sanctified with this idea, this
+ever-pervading consciousness that eye and ear and hand are doors for
+the knowledge and the love of Him to enter by, and that all their
+marvelous mechanism is only the perfecting of hinges and bolt that He
+may enter more impressively and lovingly and entirely; let me learn
+that every bright taste or fine instinct or noble appetite is a ray of
+sunlight, not the sun, is the projection into my life of some force
+above, outside of me, which I can find only by climbing back along the
+ray that is projected, up to it; let me see all animal life a
+study and preparation for this final life of man, sensations and
+perceptions, growing clearer and clearer as we rise in the scale until
+in man they are fit to convey this knowledge which man alone can have,
+the knowledge of God; let me see this, and I must be ashamed to make
+that life a thing of pride which might be the seat of such an exalted
+and exalting dependence and humility. I am unwilling that those
+well-built cisterns which ought to be so full of God should hold
+nothing but myself, as if one crept into his aqueduct and closed it up
+where the water came into it from the fountain and lived in it for a
+house and found it very dry.
+
+We see clearly enough what the change is that is needed. It is
+to substitute for self-consciousness as the result of life the
+ever-abiding consciousness of God. Do you ask how it shall be done?
+Ah, my dear friends, that is the very miracle of the gospel. I can
+tell you only this about it, which the Lord has told us all before:
+"Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." The
+kingdom of God, that region of life in which God is the life's King.
+And again: "If any man love me he will keep my words and my Father
+will love him and we will come unto him and make our abode with him."
+"We will come to him!" That is what we want, for that is the source of
+all humility, the coming of God into us, and the condition is love and
+obedience, the spiritual and the active forms of faith. That is all we
+can say. And that is enough, for in that this at least is clear, that
+such a conversion is a work that God has undertaken to do for us, that
+He asks of us nothing but submission to His willing helpfulness, and
+that being a transformation of life, it may, nay it must, be done
+while life is in possession, it can be done best when life is in its
+fullest. We have not to wait till movement is slow and color is dull.
+We are not tempted to make a vacancy and call it piety; but when man's
+life is so full that it tempts him daily to self-consciousness and
+pride, then let him open it wide to the consciousness of God and
+ennoble it with the full dignity of that humility whose first
+condition is the presence of God in the soul that He built for His own
+inhabiting.
+
+There is a condition possible where the life shall flow with God as
+fully and freely as it ordinarily flows with self, where the greater
+volume it acquires, it only bears the more of Him; where every joy
+delights in Him, and every power depends on Him, and the whole man
+lives in Him and knows it. It is not a constant effort. It is the
+spontaneous direction of the whole nature. It is the new condition
+of the Christian who has been exalted from the human pride into the
+divine humility of life, out of self to God.
+
+But I suggested at the outset that the word life was used in various
+meanings, and in connection with one or two of them I should like to
+develop a little what is meant by this phrase the "pride of
+life." Life sometimes familiarly signifies what we otherwise call
+circumstances. A man is said to "get on in life," not with reference
+to his growing older or growing healthier, but as he grows more rich,
+more prosperous. The pride of life in this sense would be the pride
+of success, which we see wherever men are struggling in this world of
+competition. Look at the young merchant who is making a living. Things
+go well with him. He rises from stratum to stratum of that commercial
+system whose geology is the ever-eluding study of the toilers of the
+street. He grows rich. His store begins to spread with the pressure of
+new enterprises. His house begins to blossom into the rich bloom
+of luxury. He is greeted with a new respect. He is courted with an
+eagerness he never knew before. Friends gather about him. His word has
+weight. His name means money. He is successful. What is the result?
+Those facts in themselves signify nothing, let us remember, but
+material capable of being made into one thing or another wholly its
+opposite. These are the gift of the Father, every one of them, all
+that profusion of life. But there is a possible effect of them all in
+character, a pride, which is not of the Father, but of the world. With
+a morbid sympathy the man assimilates all that is poor and mean and
+worldly out of his prosperity, and rejects, because he has no affinity
+for it, all that is good and sweet and heavenly. He is chilled and
+narrowed and embittered. All the old sweetness and humility fade out
+of his nature. Need I tell you of it? Our streets are full of the
+pride of life. Its types only, its outer types flash in the splendid
+carriages and blaze in the fronts of gaudy houses and sweep the floors
+of drawing-rooms and the aisles of churches. Those types, the mere
+outward trappings of success, are not wherein the badness lies. The
+reality is in the hard hearts and selfish tempers and undocile minds
+which, in the splendor or the squalidness of wealth, show the sad ruin
+of self-sufficient success, the pride of life.
+
+The pride of life kills out the life itself. Is there a sadder picture
+than you have in the life of a man, old or young, to whom God has
+sent prosperity, who by his own act then turns that prosperity into a
+failure by being proud of it? Christ Himself has told us how it is.
+The life is more than meat. He has no tolerance for this little
+meaning of a word that He made so large. The life is more than meat.
+Yes, life is meat and man, and to lose the best manhood to get the
+meat, to lose the soul to save the body, to fail of heaven above you
+and before you that you may own the ground under your feet, that is
+not success but failure. "In all time of our prosperity, Good Lord
+deliver us!" May God help you who are prosperous.
+
+I would speak again of what is called intellectual life, the life of
+thought. It is "of the Father," indeed. We picture to ourselves
+the pure joy of God in thought. Free from so many of our cumbrous
+processes, free from the limitations of slow-moving time, free from
+all imperfection, with an instantaneous thought as is His being, the
+intellect that is the center of all reason revolves in its unfathomed
+majesty. And man thinks too. God makes him think. God gives him powers
+to think with, and then, as when you pour for your child a stream of
+water out of your cisterns upon the wheels of the machinery that you
+have first built for him, God gives man thoughts to exercise his power
+of thinking upon. Can anything be more humble? The power was from God,
+the thoughts by which the power moves were God's thoughts first. "Oh,
+God, I think Thy thoughts after Thee," cried John Kepler, when he
+caught sight of the great law of planetary motion. But mere thought,
+self-satisfied, seeking no unity in God, owning no dependence,
+boasting of itself, counting it hardship that it cannot know all where
+it knows so much, this is the pride of thought, and this is not of the
+Father, but is of the world. How arrogant it is! How it is jealous of
+dictation, how it chafes under a hand that presses it down and a voice
+that says to it, "Wait! what thou knowest not now thou shall; know
+hereafter." How carefully it limits its kind of evidence, shutting out
+everything that sounds like personal communication, revelation, in its
+impatient independence; how studiously it orphans itself. And then
+how, in some moods, orphaned by its arrogance, it suddenly becomes
+intensely cognizant of its orphanage, and the child's hunger for a
+Father takes possession of its heart and it is dreary and miserable!
+
+I always know, when I speak thus of types of men, that you will think
+that I am talking of those types in their extreme specimens. I am
+not speaking to-day of the miracles of physical vitality, nor of the
+over-successful men with their colossal fortunes, nor of the mighty
+thinkers only. We all have our certain share in these various kinds of
+life, and each of us may make his little share a seed of pride. We
+are strangely ingenious here. We have an easy faculty of persuading
+ourselves that ours is best of everything and growing arrogant,
+unfilial and worldly over it. I speak to the men confident in their
+youth and health, to the merchants strong in their business credit,
+to the thoughtful brains at work over their problems of settling the
+universe for themselves. I warn them all against the pride of life. I
+would try to show them all that the same material which is capable of
+being made into pride is capable also of being made into humility. I
+would tell them therefore that they have not to be made old or sick or
+poor or stupid before they can be made humble, that the best humility,
+as well as the hardest, is that which can come to them here, right in
+the midst of their strength and wealth and study!
+
+Do you ask how that can be? It is time that I tried to tell you, tried
+to tell how one may be full of life and yet be free from the pride of
+life. That question must somehow be answered, or else the world will
+be condemned to choose forever between an arrogant prosperity and a
+salvation by misery, distress and disaster, by death. What do we need
+for the salvation of a prosperous life? The answer in one word is
+consecration. Consecration, that is what we need. There have been men
+in whom life seemed complete who have yet walked very humbly. They had
+no pride of life. And why? Because always before them and above them
+there stood some great principle, some idea, some duty to which
+their life belonged, not to themselves. All work is modest, all idle
+self-contemplation is vain. And what the young man needs with his
+vague aspirations and conceits is to make himself the servant of some
+worthy purpose. And what the merchant needs with his growing business
+is to count himself the steward of some worthy Master. And what the
+student needs with his active mind is to trace the footsteps of the
+God of wisdom in the path he walks and to count the reaching nearer to
+Him, the true prize and object of all thinking. Consecration! We are
+proud of life because we do so little with it. It is as if the bearer
+of dispatches sat down calmly and boasted of the well-made box in
+which they had been given to him, and never bore them to their
+destination. Life is force, to be transmitted and delivered to a
+purpose and an end. It loses its true nature and sweetness, it
+corrupts into pride, when it is robbed of its true purpose and
+cherished only for itself.
+
+We can find our example of the consecrated man wherever we see true
+lives lived in history or about us now, in the Bible or in common
+life. Moses, David, Paul! But why look at the poor, imperfect copies
+when in our Lord Himself we have the consummate human life clothed in
+the wondrous humility of His appointed work. The life of lives! and
+yet was ever any life so utterly free from the tawdry pride that makes
+our poor achievements so wretched and unsatisfying. You say He cut
+Himself off from all that men are proud of. Not so. He gave up house
+and home, but he carried about with Him always the devotion of the
+people, the mystery of unknown power and the consciousness of great
+work and influence, the very things that have always seduced the best
+men most and in their highest labors made them proud. You say He was
+divine and so could not be humble. Yes, but He was profoundly human
+also, and humility is not subserviency or meanness. It is a grace not
+unworthy of, nay, necessary to, even the perfect humanity. But one
+thing stands out always: His was the consecrated life. It was all
+given to its purpose. "He was called Jesus because he should save his
+people from their sins." "Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's
+business?" "Behold we go up to Jerusalem and the Son of Man shall be
+betrayed." "To this end was I born and for this cause came I into the
+world, that I should bear witness unto the truth." Everywhere the
+consecration, a life appointed to an end, the face set to Jerusalem,
+the hands and feet waiting for the cross! Meanwhile it was the fullest
+life, but lived so high that the "pride of life" lay all below under
+His feet and out of sight.
+
+And our life must be consecrated even as His was. What shall the
+consecration be? Far be it from me to undervalue the exaltation into
+humility that comes to a man when he consecrates himself to any great
+and noble cause. I believe that it helps to save any man from pride
+when he gives himself to his family or his country or his fellow men,
+to truth, to liberty, to purity, to anything outside of and above
+himself, but there is a consecration higher and fuller and more saving
+than any such can be. We go back to the Cross. Jesus is dying there
+for us. He dies and we are saved. What then? When a soul "knows its
+full salvation" and sees it all bought by, all wrapt up in, that
+Redeemer, then in the outburst of a grateful love, he gives himself
+to the Redeemer Christ. There is no hesitation, no keeping back of
+anything. He is all offered up to Christ; and then to serve that
+Christ, to follow Him, to do His will, to enter into Him, that is
+the one great object of the whole consecrated life, and in that
+consecration, the straining of the life toward that One Object, the
+"pride of life" is swept down and drowned. Not merely the life then,
+but the use of the life, comes from the Father. It is not of the
+world. The soul is saved!
+
+The salvation of the Cross! Its center is the forgiveness of sins
+which the cross alone made possible; but is not its issue here, in the
+lifting of the soul above the pride of life and consecrating it in the
+profoundest gratitude to "Him who redeemed us and washed us from
+sins in His own blood"? What humility! What self-forgetfulness! What
+unworldliness! What utter childhood to the Father!
+
+My friends, my people, would you be saved, saved from your sins, saved
+from yourselves, saved from the pride of life? You must be His that
+you may not be your own! He died for you that you might not henceforth
+live to yourself but unto Him. You must be consecrated to your Savior.
+If there is one soul in my church to-day who is weary and dissatisfied
+with his self-slavery, I offer him Jesus for Savior, for Master! If
+any man thirst let him come unto Him and drink. Turn unto Him and be
+ye saved! You can, you must! His service is life, life in its fullest
+because life in humility. Outside of His gospel and His service there
+is the pride of life, and the pride of life is death.
+
+
+
+
+GLADDEN
+
+THE PRINCE OF LIFE
+
+BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+
+Washington Gladden, Congregational divine, was born at Pottsgrove,
+Pa., in 1836. After graduating at Williams College he was ordained
+pastor, and occupied pulpits in Brooklyn, Morrisania, N.Y., and
+Springfield, Mass., until 1882, when he assumed charge of the First
+Congregational Church of Columbus, Ohio. He has also occupied
+editorial positions, and has published many books on social and civil
+reform and the practical application of Christian truth to popular and
+common life. His style, whether he is writing or speaking, combines
+vigor with grace.
+
+
+
+
+GLADDEN
+
+BORN IN 1836
+
+THE PRINCE OF LIFE[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: From Mr. Gladden's "The New Idolatry." By permission of
+The McClure Co. Copyright, 1906, by McClure, Phillips & Co.]
+
+_And killed the prince of life, whom God hath raised from the
+dead._--Acts iii., 15.
+
+
+This is the phrase with which Peter, in his great speech in the temple
+porch, describes the Master whose disciple he had been for three years,
+whose death he had witnessed on Calvary, and to whose resurrection from
+the dead he is now bearing witness. "The prince of life!" It is one of
+the many great titles conferred upon the Lord by those who loved Him.
+Reverence and devotion fell from their lips in lyrical cadences whenever
+they spoke of Him, and they wreathed for Him garlands of words with
+which they loved to deck His memory. He was "the Prophet of the
+Highest"; He was "the Great High Priest"; He was "the Shepherd of the
+Sheep"; He was "the Captain of Salvation"; He was "the First Born of
+Many Brethren"; He was "Redeemer," "Reconciler," "Savior." Gratitude and
+affection shaped many a tender phrase in which to describe Him, but
+there is none, perhaps, more luminous or more comprehensive than this
+with which the impulsive Peter, facing the men who had put Him to death,
+gave utterance to his loyalty. Its pertinence is confirmed by the word
+of Jesus Himself, in one of the sayings in which He described His
+mission: "I am come that ye might have life, and that ye might have it
+abundantly." Author and Giver of life He was, and what He gave He gave
+with princely munificence--freely, unstintedly.
+
+The phrase seems to be one on which we may fitly dwell to-day, since
+the day of the year which commemorates His birth occurs on the day of
+the week which celebrates His resurrection. Both events proclaim Him
+the Prince of Life. In the one He is the Bringer of new life, in
+the other He is the Victor over death; and thus He becomes, in the
+impassioned confessions of the apostle, the Alpha and the Omega, the
+Author and the Finisher of Faith, the First and the Last and the
+Living One.
+
+Those who are familiar with the New Testament narration do not need to
+have their attention called to the constant ministry of this Son of
+Man to the vital needs of men. The impartation of life seems to
+have been His main business. Somehow it came to be believed by the
+multitude, at the very beginning of His public ministry, that He
+possest some power of communicating life. The wonderful works ascribed
+to Him are nearly all of this character. The healing of the sick, the
+cleansing of the lepers, all resulted from the reenforcement of the
+vital energies of the sufferers. When He laid His hand upon men, new
+life seemed to speed through their veins. We have known some who
+seemed to have, in some imperfect way, this quickening touch. It is
+a physiological fact that warm blood from the veins of a thoroughly
+healthy person, transfused through the veins of one who is emaciated
+or exhausted, quickens the wavering pulse and brings life to the
+dying. It may be that through the nerve tissues, as well as through
+the veins, the same vitalizing force may be communicated, and that
+those who are in perfect health, both of body and of mind, may have
+the power of imparting life to those who are in need of it. The
+miracles of healing ascribed to Jesus must have been miracles in the
+literal sense; they were wonders, marvels--for that is what the word
+miracle means; that they were interruptions or violations of natural
+law is never intimated in the New Testament; they may have been purely
+natural occurrences, taking place under the operation of natural
+laws with which we are not familiar. We are far from knowing all the
+secrets of this wonderful universe; the time may come when these words
+of Jesus will have larger meaning than we have ever given them: "If ye
+abide in me, the works that I do shall ye do also, and greater works
+than these shall ye do, because I go unto my Father."
+
+The fact to be noted is, however, that the people with whom Jesus was
+brought into contact were made aware in many ways of the impartation
+of His Life to them. "Of His fulness," said John, "we all received,
+and grace for grace." There seemed to be in Him a plenitude of
+vitality, from which health and vigor flowed into the lives of those
+who came near to Him. Nor does this seem to have been any mere
+physical magnetism; there is no intimation that His physical
+endowments were exceptional; the restoring and invigorating influence
+oftener flowed from a deeper source. The physical renewal came as the
+result of a spiritual quickening. He reached the body through the
+soul. The order was, first, "Thy sins be forgiven thee"; then, "Arise
+and walk." If the spirit is thoroughly alive, the body more quickly
+recovers its lost vigor. And it was mainly in giving peace to troubled
+consciences and rest to weary souls that He conferred upon those who
+received Him the great boon of life.
+
+Thus Jesus proved Himself "the Prince of Life." In the early ages of
+the Church the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, came to be described as
+"the Lord and Giver of Life"; but that was because He was believed to
+be the Continuator of the work of Jesus--the spiritual Christ.
+
+There seems to be in this conception a great and beautiful revelation
+of the essential nature of Christianity. There are many ways of
+conceiving of this, but I am not sure that any one of them is more
+significant than that which we are now considering. Those words of
+Jesus to which I have before referred are wonderful words when we come
+to think upon them. They occur in that discourse in which He describes
+Himself first as the Good Shepherd, and contrasts Himself with the
+thieves and robbers who have been ravaging the flock. "The thief
+cometh not," He says, "but that he may steal and kill and destroy; I
+came that they may have life, and may have it abundantly," Have we
+not here the great fundamental distinction between men--the line that
+separates the evil from the good, the just from the unjust, the sheep
+from the goats--that distinction which Jesus marks so clearly in His
+parable of judgment, and which must never, in our interpretations or
+philosophizings, be blotted or blurred? Some are life-givers; some are
+life-destroyers. "The thief cometh not but that he may steal and
+kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and may have it
+abundantly."
+
+I do not suppose that Jesus meant in this to declare that there is a
+large class of persons whose entire purpose it is to steal and kill
+and destroy; probably there are none so malevolent that they do not
+cherish some kindly impulses and perform some generous deeds. It is a
+distinction between acts, or perhaps between tendencies of character,
+that He is making. He speaks in the concrete, as He always does; but
+He expects us to make the proper application of His words. The fact to
+which He guides our thought is this--that there are ways of living,
+forms of conduct, which are predatory and destructive of life, and
+other ways that tend to make life increase and abound. When Jesus
+contrasts His own conduct, as one who gives life and gives it
+abundantly, with the thieves and robbers who kill and destroy, we must
+interpret the conduct of those whom He describes as destructive of
+life--as tending to the diminution of life. Indeed, it is a very deep
+and awful truth that all our social action tends in one or other of
+these directions. Life, in its proper relation, is the one supreme and
+central good; the life of the body is the supreme good of the body;
+the life of the spirit is the supreme good of the spirit. And you can
+rightly estimate any act or habit or tendency of human conduct only by
+determining whether it increases and invigorates the life of men, body
+and spirit, or whether it reduces or diminishes their life. Good men
+are adding to the life of those with whom they have to do; evil men
+are debilitating and depleting the life of those with whom they have
+to do.
+
+Even in our economic relations the final effect of all our conduct
+upon those with whom we deal is to replenish or diminish their life.
+The wage question is at bottom a question of more or less life for the
+wage-worker. Starvation wages are wages by which the hold upon life
+of the wage-earner and his wife and children is weakened. Systems of
+industry are good in proportion as they enlarge and invigorate the
+life of the whole population; evil in proportion as they lessen and
+weaken its life. So all industrial and national policies are to be
+judged by the amount of life which they produce and maintain--life of
+the body and of the spirit. Those strong words of John Ruskin are the
+everlasting truth:
+
+"There is no wealth but life--life including all its powers of love,
+of joy and of admiration. That country is the richest which nourishes
+the greatest number of noble and happy human beings; that man is
+richest who, having perfected the functions of his own life to the
+utmost, has also the widest helpful influence, both personal and by
+means of his possessions, over the lives of others,"
+
+We have here, as you see, the Christian conception--the very word of
+the Prince of Life, of Him who came that we might have life, and that
+we might have it abundantly. And when His kingdom has come, this will
+be the end for which wealth is sought and used in every nation.
+
+It is possible to use wealth so that it shall be productive of life;
+so that the entire administration of it shall tend to the enlargement
+and enrichment of the life of men; so that the labor which it employs
+shall obtain an increasing share of the goods which it produces; so
+that all the conditions under which that labor is performed shall be
+favorable to health and life and happiness; so that the spiritual
+life, also, of all who are employed shall be nourished by inspiring
+them with good-will and kindness, with the confidence in man which
+helps us to have faith in God. Such an administration of wealth is
+perhaps the very best testimony to the reality of the truth of the
+Christian religion which it is possible to bear in this day and
+generation. One who handles capital with this clear purpose can do
+more to establish in the earth the kingdom of heaven than any minister
+or missionary can do.
+
+But it is possible to use wealth in the opposite way, so that it shall
+be destructive rather than productive of life. A man may manage his
+industry in such a way that the last possible penny shall be taken
+from wages and added to profit; in such a way that the health of his
+employees shall be impaired and their happiness blighted and their
+hope taken, away. He may do this while maintaining an outwardly
+religious behavior and giving large sums to philanthropy. But such
+a handling of wealth does more to make infidels than any heretical
+teacher or lecturer ever did or can do.
+
+The fact needs to be noted that all the predatory schemes by which
+capital is successfully inflated and nefariously manipulated, and the
+community is thus burdened, are deadly attacks upon the life of the
+people. They filch away the earnings of the laboring classes. They
+increase the cost of rent and transportation and all the necessaries
+of life. They extort from the people contributions for which no
+equivalent has been given, of commodity or service. Thus the burden of
+toil is increased and the reward of industry is lessened for all who
+work; the surplus out of which life would be replenished is consumed,
+and the amount of life in the nation at large is lessened. Every one
+of those schemes of frenzied finance about which we are reading
+in these days is a gigantic bloodsucker, with ten million minute
+tentacles which it stealthily fastens upon the people who do the
+world's work, and each one of the victims must give up a little of his
+life for the aggrandizement of our financial Titans. When such schemes
+flourish, by which men's gains are suddenly swollen to enormous
+proportions, somebody must be paying for it, and life is always the
+final payment. It all comes out of the life of the people who are
+producing the world's wealth. The plethora of the few is the depletion
+of the millions. In every great aggregation of workers, the faces of
+the underfed are a little paler and the pulses of the children beat a
+little less joyously, and the feet are hastened on that journey to
+the tomb--all because of those who come to steal and to kill and to
+destroy.
+
+Such is the contrast between beneficent business and maleficent
+business. The good business employs men, feeds them, clothes them,
+shelters them, generously distributes among them the goods that
+nourish life; the bad business contrives to levy tribute on the
+resources out of which they are fed and clad and nourished, and thus
+enriches itself by impoverishing the life of the multitude.
+
+And I suppose that we should all find, whether we are engaged in what
+is called business or not, that the work which we are doing, the way
+in which we are spending our time and gaining our income, is tending
+either to the enlargement and increase of the life of those with whom
+we have to do or to the impoverishment and destruction of their life;
+and that this is the final test by which we must be judged--are we
+producers of life or destroyers of life? Is there more of life in the
+world--more of physical and spiritual life--because of what we are and
+what we do, or is the physical and spiritual vitality of men lessened
+by what we are and what we do? Are we helping men to be stronger and
+sounder in body and mind and soul for the work of life, or are we
+making them feebler in muscle and will and moral stamina?
+
+When Jesus Christ came into the world the civilization prevailing--if
+such it could be called--was under the dominion of those who came
+to steal and to kill and to destroy. Rome was the world, and the
+civilization of Rome, with all its splendor, was at bottom a predatory
+civilization. It overran all its neighbors that it might subjugate and
+despoil them; its whole social system was based on a slavery in which
+the enslaved were merely chattels; the life of its ruling class was
+fed by the literal devouring of the lives of subject classes. Of
+course, this civilization was decadent. That terrible decline and fall
+which Gibbon has pictured was in full progress. It was in the midst of
+this awful scene that Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea. Can anyone
+doubt that His heart was full of divine compassion for those who were
+trampled on and preyed upon by the cruel and the strong, for those
+whose lives were consumed by the avarice and greed of their fellows?
+What did He mean when, at the beginning of His ministry in the synagog
+where He had always worshiped, He took in his hand the roll of the
+prophet Isaiah and read therefrom: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
+because he hath anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor; he
+hath sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight
+to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to proclaim the
+acceptable year of the Lord"--adding as He sat down, under the gaze of
+the congregation, "To-day hath this scripture been fulfilled in your
+ears"? What could He have meant but this, that it was His mission to
+change the entire current and tendency of human life; to put an end to
+the plunderers and devourers; to chain the wolfish passion in human
+hearts which prompts men to steal and to kill and to destroy; to
+inspire them with His own divine compassion; to give life and to give
+it abundantly? And is it not true that so far as men do receive of His
+fulness, so far as they are brought under the control of His spirit,
+they do cease to be destroyers and devourers of the bodies and souls
+of their fellows, and become helpers, saviors, life-bringers? And is
+not this included in His meaning when He says: "I am come that they
+may have life, and that they may have it abundantly"?
+
+To-day, then, we hail Him as Prince of Life, the glorious Giver to men
+of the one supreme and crowning good. And the manner of the giving is
+not hard to understand. He gives life by kindling in our hearts the
+flame of sacred love. Love is life. Love to God and man brings the
+soul into unity with itself; it is obeying its own organic law, and
+obedience to its law brings to any organism life and health and
+peace. If the spirit of Christ has become the ruling principle of our
+conduct, then we have entered into life, and it is a life that knows
+no term; it is the immortal life. If the spirit of Christ has entered
+into our lives, then in all our relations with others life is
+increased; we are by nature givers of good; out of our lives are
+forever flowing healing, restoring, saving, vitalizing influences; and
+when all the members of the society in which we move have received
+this spirit and manifest it, there are none to bite and devour, to
+hurt and destroy; the predatory creatures have ceased their ravages,
+and the world rejoices in the plenitude of life which He came to
+bring.
+
+We hail Him, then, to-day, as the Lord and Giver of life. We desire to
+share with Him the unspeakable gift, and to share it, as best we may,
+with all our fellow men. What we freely receive from Him, we would
+freely give. What the whole world needs to-day is life, more life,
+fuller life, larger life. We spend all our energies in heaping up the
+means of life, and never really begin to live; our strength is wasted,
+our health is broken, our intellects are impoverished, our affections
+are withered, our peace is destroyed in our mad devotion to that
+which is only an adjunct or appendage of life. Oh, if we could only
+understand how good a thing it is to live, just to live, truly and
+freely and largely and nobly, to live the life that is life indeed!
+
+Shall we not draw to this Prince of Life and take from Him the gift
+that He came to bring? Is not this the one thing needful? We are
+reading and hearing much in these days of the simple life. What is it
+but the life into which they are led who take the yoke of this Master
+upon them and learn of Him? It is a most cheering omen that this
+little book of Pastor Wagner's is falling into so many hands and
+littering its ingenuous and persuasive plea before so many minds
+and in so many homes. If we heed it, it must bring us back to the
+simplicity of Christ. Pastor Wagner is only preaching over again the
+Sermon on the Mount; it is nothing but the teaching of Jesus brought
+down to this day and applied to the conditions of our complex
+civilization. It is the true teaching; none of us can doubt it. And I
+wish that we could all begin the new year with the earnest purpose to
+put ourselves under the leadership of the Prince of Life. I know that
+we should find His yoke easy and His burden light, and that there
+would be rest for our souls in the paths into which He would lead us.
+We should know, if we shared His life, that we were really living; and
+we should know also that we wore helping others to live; that we were
+doing what we could to put an end to the ravages of the destroyers and
+the devourers, and to fill the earth with the abundance of peace.
+
+Is not this, fellow men, the right way to live? Does not all that is
+deepest and divinest in you consent to this way of life into which
+Jesus Christ is calling us, as the right way, the royal way, the
+blessed way? Choose it, then, with all the energy of your volition,
+and walk in it with a glad heart and a hope that maketh not ashamed.
+
+
+
+
+CLIFFORD
+
+THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS
+
+BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+
+John Clifford, Baptist divine, was born at Lawley, Derbyshire,
+in 1836. He was educated at the Baptist College, Nottingham, and
+University College, London. He has had much editorial as well as
+ministerial experience and has published a number of works upon
+religious, educational and social questions. The Rev. William Durban,
+the editor, writing from London of John Clifford in the _Homiletic
+Review_, styles him "the renowned Baptist preacher, undoubtedly the
+most conspicuous figure in his own denomination." He speaks of "the
+profundity of thought," "simplicity and beauty of diction," the
+"compactness of argument" and "instructive expository character" of
+this preacher's discourses.
+
+
+
+
+CLIFFORD
+
+BORN IN 1836
+
+THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS
+
+_I believe in the forgiveness of sins_.--Apostles' Creed.
+
+
+This is the first note of personal experience in the Apostles' Creed.
+We here come into the society of men like John Bunyan and go with
+them through the wicket-gate of repentance, through the Slough of
+Despond, getting out on the right side of it, reaching at length the
+cross, to find the burden fall from our backs as we look upon Him who
+died for us; and then we travel on our way until we come to the River
+of Death and cross it, discovering that it is not so deep after all,
+and that on the other side is the fulness of the life everlasting.
+
+It is a new note, and it is a little surprizing--is it not?--to most
+students of this creed that we should have to travel through so many
+clauses before we reach it. It scarcely seems to be in keeping with
+the spirit and temper of the early Christian Church that we should
+have all this analysis of thought, this statement of the facts of
+Christian revelation, this testimony as to the power of the Holy
+Spirit, before we get any utterance as to that individual faith by
+which the Christian Church has been created, and owing to which there
+has been the helpful and inspiring fellowship of the saints.
+
+I say it is a new note, but it is fundamental. When the Creed does
+touch the inward life, it goes straight to that which is central--to
+that which is preeminently evangelical. Without the doctrine of the
+forgiveness of sins you could have no good news for a sinful world;
+but with the assertion of this faith as the actual faith of the man,
+you have possibilities of service, the upspringing of altruism, the
+conquest of self, the enthronement of Christ, the advancement of
+humanity after the likeness of Jesus Christ.
+
+A note it is which is not only fundamental but most musical,
+harmonious and gladdening. In the ancient Psalms we hear it
+oft--"Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me bless his
+holy name, who forgiveth all thine iniquities, who healeth all thy
+diseases." It recurs in the prophets: "I, the Lord, am he that
+blotteth out thy sins; yea, tho they be as a thick cloud, I will blot
+them out." It is the highest note reached by the singers of the Old
+Testament; but it comes to us with greater resonance and sweetness
+from the lips of the men who have stood in the presence of Jesus
+Christ, and who are able to say, as they look into the faces of their
+fellows: "Be it known unto you that through this man is preached unto
+you the forgiveness of sins from which you could not have been freed
+by the law of Moses." With emphasis, with, strength, with fulness of
+conviction, with gladdening rapture, these men proclaimed their faith
+in the forgiveness of sins, and tho the Creed of the churches travels
+slowly after the faith of the early Church, its last note sounds out
+a note of triumph: "I believe in the forgiveness of sins, the
+resurrection of the body, and life everlasting."
+
+It is the crown of the whole Creed. It is the flowering of the truths
+that are contained in the Creed. Let a man understand God, and let him
+have such a vision of the Eternal as Job had, and he is constrained to
+say, "I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes." He desires first
+and chiefly to know that the true relation between the human spirit
+and God which has been broken by sin has at length been rearranged,
+and that sin is no longer an obstacle to the soul's converse with a
+holy God, but that the ideal relation of the human spirit with the
+divine spirit is reestablished by the proclamation of forgiveness.
+For, as you know, pardon is not the extinguishing of a man's past;
+that cannot be done. What has been done by us of good or evil abides,
+it endures; not God Himself can extinguish the deeds of the past. What
+forgiveness does is this: it rearranges the relations between the
+spirit of man and our Father, so that the sins of the past are no
+longer an obstacle to us in our speech with Him, our trust in Him--our
+using the energies of God for the accomplishment of His purposes. It
+is the restoration of the human spirit to right relations with God.
+Forgiveness of sins conies, therefore, at the very start of a right
+life. It is the beginning. All else in the spiritual life succeeds
+upon this.
+
+I know there is a theory among us, and I am prepared to endorse it,
+that, if we are trained by godly parents in godly homes, we may grow
+into the spiritual life, pass into it, as it were, by stages which it
+is impossible for us to register. We are largely unconscious of
+these spiritual ascents; they are being made by the gracious use
+of influences that are in our environment, that reach us through
+sanctified folk, and we travel on from strength to strength, and,
+then, perchance, in our young manhood or womanhood, there comes a
+crisis of revelation, and we discover that we are in such relations
+with God our Father, Redeemer, and Renewer as fill us with peace,
+create hope and conscious strength. But I assure you that in addition
+to this experience there will come, it may be early, it may be late,
+some moment in the life when there is discovered to the individual
+spirit making that ascent a sense of the awful heinousness of sin; and
+tho we may not have such a unique experience of evil as the Apostle
+Paul had, and become so conscious of it as to feel, as it were, that
+it is a dead body that we have to carry about with us as we go through
+life, interfering with the very motions of our spirit; yet we do
+approximate to it, and it is through these approximations to
+the Apostle Paul that we are lifted to the heights of spiritual
+achievement, and are qualified for sympathy with a sin-stricken world,
+and inspired by and nourished in a passionate enthusiasm to serve that
+world by bringing it into right relations with God.
+
+When, therefore, a man says, "I believe in God the Father Almighty,
+maker of heaven and earth," he is asserting that which, being turned
+to its full and true use, carries him to this goal, "I believe in the
+forgiveness of sins." For a full and true doctrine of God can only
+be heartily welcomed when it is associated with the message of the
+forgiveness of sins. Otherwise the visions of the eternal Power may
+start in us the cry of Peter: "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man,
+O Lord," When a man asserts his faith in Jesus Christ, God's only Son,
+our Lord, who was crucified, who suffered under Pontius Pilate, who
+died on the cross; he is himself asserting his faith in the great
+purpose for which God sent His Son; even to take away the sin of
+the world, to make an end of iniquity, to bring in an everlasting
+righteousness; and so out of that faith he prepared for the response
+which the soul makes to the workings of the Spirit, the Holy Ghost
+within him, and he is able to say from his own knowledge of what God
+has been to him, "I believe in the forgiveness of sins."
+
+Friends, you have said this again and again, some of you hundreds of
+times. You have asserted it week by week. What did you mean by it?
+What exactly was the thought in your heart as the words passed over
+your lips, "I believe in the forgiveness of sins"? Was it simply the
+recognition of a universal amnesty for a world of rebels? Was it
+merely the assertion of your confidence in the goodness of God
+irrespective of His holiness? Or when you uttered that faith of yours,
+did it mean that you were able to say, "My sins, which were many,
+are all forgiven. My sins are forgiven, not may be--that pardon is a
+glorious possibility only--but are forgiven, not will be forgiven at
+some future time. I am now at peace with God through faith, in our
+Lord Jesus Christ"? Could you say that? Was that what it meant; or was
+it simply the repetition of a phrase which has been handed down to
+you by your predecessors, and which you took up as part of an ordered
+service, without putting the slightest fiber of your soul into it?
+
+Depend upon it, the mere recitation of a creed will not bring you
+God's peace, it will not open your heart to the access of His infinite
+calm. It will not secure you that emancipation from evil which will
+mean immediate dedication of yourself to work for the emancipation
+of the world. You must know of yourself, of your own heart and
+consciousness, that God has forgiven you. And if you do get that
+consciousness, that moment of your life will be marked indelibly upon
+the tablet of your memory. The dint will go so deeply into your nature
+that it will be impossible for you to forget it. Speaking for myself,
+I can at this moment see the whole surroundings of the place and time
+when to me there came the glad tidings, "God has forgiven you." "God
+was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not reckoning unto
+men their trespasses."
+
+Do you believe in the forgiveness of sins? Then preach it. Tell it
+to other people. Let your neighbors know about it. I do not mean
+by preaching at the street corners, but by getting into such close
+affectionate touch, with your friends as that you shall be able to
+persuade them to disinter the thoughts of their own hearts, and show
+the sorrows that are there--sorrows produced by sin. For, believe me,
+behind all the bright seeming of human countenances there is a subtle
+bitterness gnawing constantly at the heart, consequent upon the
+consciousness of failure--the sense of having broken the law of God. I
+know that hundreds of people go into the church and tell God that they
+are miserable sinners. They do that in a crowd; it is saying nothing.
+They no more think of saying it in such a way as to place themselves
+apart from their fellows than they would of saying: "I am a thief!"
+
+Do you believe in the forgiveness of sins? What, then, are you going
+to do with your faith?
+
+Prove your faith by your works. Every time you ask God for forgiveness
+you should feel yourself pledged to a most strenuous and resolute
+fight with the sin you ask God to forgive. The acceptance of pardon
+pledges you to the pursuit of holiness, and yet we have to keep on
+with this doctrine, because it is not only the very beginning of the
+Christian life, but also the continuous need of that life.
+
+We have to say night by night, "Forgive the ill that I this day have
+done." And if we say it as we ought, as really believing that God
+forgives us, so that we may not lose heart, may never encourage
+despair of final victory, we shall get up next morning resolved to
+make a fiercer fight than ever with the evil that sent us on our knees
+last night. Do you believe in the forgiveness of sins? Let the joy of
+it come to you, and as your own heart overflows with the fulness of
+that joy, declare unto others God's salvation, and teach transgressors
+His way. Do you believe in the forgiveness of sins? Then find in that
+faith an impact to obedience to the law of Jesus: "Be ye perfect even
+as your Father in heaven is perfect"; and do not forget that He who
+begins the good work in you with His pardon will carry it on to the
+day of Jesus Christ; so that you may add the last words of the
+Creed: "I believe in the resurrection from the dead and in the life
+everlasting."
+
+It is not altogether a good sign that we have pushed eternity out of
+our modern thought. Confronted as man is every moment by a sense of
+the fragility and the brevity of human life, it is not surprizing
+that we should welcome everybody who comes with a message concerning
+eternity.
+
+Is there not, in truth, beauty in the old Anglo-Saxon story of the
+bird that shot in at one open window of the large assembly hall and
+out at another, where were gathered together a great company of thanes
+and vassals; and when the missionary was asked to speak to them
+concerning God and His salvation, the thane who was presiding rose
+and said, recalling the bird's speedy flight from side to side of
+the hall, "Such is our life, and if this man can tell us anything
+concerning the place to which we are going, let him stand up and be
+heard." Brothers, a few days may carry us into eternity. "Boast not
+thyself of to-morrow, thou knowest not what a day may bring forth."
+Strong, hopeful, rich in promise of service is to-day; to-morrow
+friends may be weeping, kith and kin full of sorrow for our
+departure. This life does not end all; we are going to an eternity of
+blessedness, to progress without limit, to an assimilation with God
+that shall know no sudden break or failure, but shall be perfect, even
+as He is perfect.
+
+
+
+
+MOODY
+
+WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST?
+
+BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+
+Dwight Lyman Moody, the evangelist, was born at Northfield,
+Massachusetts, in 1837, and died in 1899. As a business man he brought
+to his evangelistic work exceptional tact, initiative, and executive
+ability, but the main source of his power lay in his knowledge of the
+Bible, his constant companion. In preaching he largely disregarded
+form, and thought little of the sermon as such. His one overwhelming
+and undeviating purpose was to lead men to Christ. His speaking was in
+a kind of monotone, but his straightforward plainness never failed to
+be effective. He usually held the Bible in his hand while speaking,
+so that there was little of gesture. His great sympathetic nature is
+spoken of by Henry Drummond in these words:
+
+"If eloquence is measured by its effect upon an audience, and not by
+its balanced sentences and cumulative periods, then this is eloquence
+of the highest sort. In sheer persuasiveness Mr. Moody has few equals,
+and rugged as his preaching may seem to some, there is in it a pathos
+of a quality which few orators have ever reached, and an appealing
+tenderness which not only wholly redeems it, but raises it, not
+unseldom, almost to sublimity."
+
+
+
+
+MOODY
+
+1837--1899
+
+WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST?[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: By permission of the Fleming H. Revell Company, owners of
+copyright.]
+
+_What think ye of Christ_?--Matt, xxii., 42.
+
+
+I suppose there is no one here who has not thought more or less about
+Christ. You have heard about Him, and read about Him, and heard men
+preach about Him. For eighteen hundred years men have been talking
+about Him and thinking about Him; and some have their minds made up
+about who He is, and doubtless some have not. And altho all these
+years have rolled away, this question comes up, addresst to each of
+us, to-day, "What think ye of Christ?"
+
+I do not know why it should not be thought a proper question for one
+man to put to another. If I were to ask you what you think of any of
+your prominent men, you would already have your mind made up about
+him. If I were to ask you what you thought of your noble queen, you
+would speak right out and tell me your opinion in a minute.
+
+If I were to ask about your prime minister, you would tell me freely
+what you had for or against him. And why should not people make up
+their minds about the Lord Jesus Christ, and take their stand for or
+against Him? If you think well of Him, why not speak well of Him and
+range yourselves on His side? And if you think ill of Him, and believe
+Him to be an impostor, and that He did not die to save the world, why
+not lift up your voice and say you are against Him? It would be a
+happy day for Christianity if men would just take sides--if we could
+know positively who is really for Him and who is against Him.
+
+It is of very little importance what the world thinks of any one else.
+The queen and the statesman, the peers and the princes, must soon be
+gone. Yes; it matters little, comparatively, what we think of them.
+Their lives can only interest a few; but every living soul on the face
+of the earth is concerned with this Man. The question for the world
+is, "What think ye of Christ?"
+
+I do not ask you what you think of the Established Church, or of the
+Presbyterians, or the Baptists, or the Roman Catholics; I do not ask
+you what you think of this minister or that, of this doctrine or that;
+but I want to ask you what you think of the living person of Christ?
+
+I should like to ask, Was He really the Son of God--the great God-Man?
+Did He leave heaven and come down to this world for a purpose? Was it
+really to seek and to save? I should like to begin with the manger,
+and to follow Him up through the thirty-three years He was here upon
+earth. I should ask you what you think of His coming into this world
+and being born in a manger when it might have been a palace; why He
+left the grandeur and the glory of heaven, and the royal retinue of
+angels; why He passed by palaces and crowns and dominion and came down
+here alone.
+
+I should like to ask you what you think of Him as a teacher. He spake
+as never man spake. I should like to take Him up as a preacher. I
+should like to bring you to that mountain-side, that we might listen
+to the words as they fall from His gentle lips. Talk about the
+preachers of the present day! I would rather a thousand times be five
+minutes at the feet of Christ than listen a lifetime to all the wise
+men in the world. He used just to hang truth upon anything. Yonder is
+a sower, a fox, a bird, and He just gathers the truth around them, so
+that you cannot see a fox, a sower, or a bird, without thinking what
+Jesus said. Yonder is a lily of the valley; you cannot see it without
+thinking of His words, "They toil not, neither do they spin."
+
+He makes the little sparrow chirping in the air preach to us. How
+fresh those wonderful sermons are, how they live to-day! How we love
+to tell them to our children, how the children love to hear! "Tell me
+a story about Jesus," how often we hear it; how the little ones love
+His sermons! No story-book in the world will ever interest them like
+the stories that He told. And yet how profound He was; how He puzzled
+the wise men; how the scribes and the Pharisees would never fathom
+Him! Oh, do you not think He was a wonderful preacher?
+
+I should like to ask you what you think of Him as a physician. A man
+would soon have a reputation as a doctor if he could cure as Christ
+did. No case was ever brought to Him but what He was a match for. He
+had but to speak the word, and disease fled before Him. Here comes a
+man covered with leprosy.
+
+"Lord, if thou wilt thou canst make me clean," he cried.
+
+"I will," says the Great Physician, and in an instant the leprosy is
+gone. The world has hospitals for incurable diseases; but there were
+no incurable diseases with Him.
+
+Now, see Him in the little home at Bethany, binding up the wounded
+hearts of Martha and Mary, and tell me what you think of Him as
+a comforter. He is a husband to the widow and a father to the
+fatherless. The weary may find a resting-place upon that breast, and
+the friendless may reckon Him their friend. He never varies. He never
+fails, He never dies. His sympathy is ever fresh, His love is ever
+free. Oh, widow and orphans, oh, sorrowing and mourning, will you not
+thank God for Christ the comforter?
+
+But these are not the points I wish to take up. Let us go to those who
+knew Christ, and ask what they thought of Him. If you want to find out
+what a man is nowadays, you inquire about him from those who know him
+best. I do not wish to be partial; we will go to His enemies, and to
+His friends. We will ask them, What think ye of Christ? We will ask
+His friends and His enemies. If we only went to those who liked Him,
+you would say:
+
+"Oh, he is so blind; he thinks so much of the man that he can't see
+His faults. You can't get anything out of him unless it be in His
+favor; it is a one-sided affair altogether."
+
+So we shall go in the first place to His enemies, to those who hated
+Him, persecuted Him, curst and slew Him. I shall put you in the
+jury-box, and call upon them to tell us what they think of Him.
+
+First, among the witnesses, let us call upon the Pharisees. We
+know how they hated Him. Let us put a few questions to them. "Come,
+Pharisees, tell us what you have against the Son of God, What do you
+think of Christ?" Hear what they say! "This man receiveth sinners."
+What an argument to bring against Him! Why, it is the very thing that
+makes us love Him. It is the glory of the gospel. He receives sinners.
+If He had not, what would have become of us? Have you nothing more
+to bring against Him than this? Why, it is one of the greatest
+compliments that was ever paid Him. Once more: when He was hanging on
+the tree, you had this to say to Him, "He saved others, but He could
+not save Himself and save us too." So He laid down His own life for
+yours and mine. Yes, Pharisees, you have told the truth for once in
+your lives! He saved others. He died for others. He was a ransom for
+many; so it is quite true what you think of Him--He saved others,
+Himself He cannot save.
+
+Now, let us call upon Caiaphas. Let him stand up here in his flowing
+robes; let us ask him for his evidence. "Caiaphas, you were chief
+priest when Christ was tried; you were president of the Sanhedrin; you
+were in the council-chamber when they found Him guilty; you yourself
+condemned Him. Tell us; what did the witnesses say? On what grounds
+did you judge Him? What testimony was brought against Him?" "He hath
+spoken blasphemy," says Caiaphas. "He said, 'Hereafter you shall see
+the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the
+clouds of heaven.' When I heard that, I found Him guilty of blasphemy;
+I rent my mantle and condemned Him to death." Yes, all that they had
+against Him was that He was the Son of God; and they slew Him for the
+promise of His coming for His bride!
+
+Now let us summon Pilate. Let him enter the witness-box.
+
+"Pilate, this man was brought before you; you examined Him; you talked
+with Him face to face; what think you of Christ?"
+
+"I find no fault in him," says Pilate. "He said he was the King of
+the Jews [just as He wrote it over the cross]; but I find no fault in
+him." Such is the testimony of the man who examined Him! And, as He
+stands there, the center of a Jewish mob, there comes along a man
+elbowing his way in haste. He rushes up to Pilate, and, thrusting out
+his hand, gives him a message. He tears it open; his face turns pale
+as he reads--"Have thou nothing to do with this just man, for I have
+suffered many things this day in a dream because of him." It is from
+Pilate's wife--her testimony to Christ. You want to know what His
+enemies thought of Him? You want to know what a heathen, thought?
+Well, here it is, "no fault in him"; and the wife of a heathen, "this
+just man."
+
+And now, look--in comes Judas. He ought to make a good witness. Let us
+address him. "Come, tell us, Judas, what think ye of Christ? You
+knew the Master well; you sold Him for thirty pieces of silver; you
+betrayed Him with a kiss; you saw Him perform those miracles; you were
+with Him in Jerusalem. In Bethany, when He summoned up Lazarus, you
+were there. What think you of Him?" I can see him as he comes into the
+presence of the chief priests; I can hear the money ring as he dashes
+it upon the table, "I have betrayed innocent blood!" Here is the man
+who betrayed Him, and this is what he thinks of Him! Yes, those who
+were guilty of His death put their testimony on record that He was an
+innocent man.
+
+Let us take the centurion who was present at the execution. He had
+charge of the Roman soldiers. He told them to make Him carry His
+cross; he had given orders for the nails to be driven into His feet
+and hands, for the spear to be thrust in His side. Let the centurion
+come forward. "Centurion, you had charge of the executioners; you saw
+that the order for His death was carried out; you saw Him die; you
+heard Him speak upon the cross. Tell us, what think you of Christ?"
+Hark! Look at him; he is smiting his breast as he cries, "Truly, this
+was the son of God!"
+
+I might go to the thief upon the cross, and ask what he thought of
+Him. At first he railed upon Him and reviled Him. But then he thought
+better of it: "This man hath done nothing amiss," he says.
+
+I might go further. I might summon the very devils themselves and ask
+them for their testimony. Have they anything to say of Him? Why, the
+very devils called Him the Son of God! In Mark we have the unclean
+spirit crying, "Jesus, thou Son of the most high God." Men say, "Oh,
+I believe Christ to be the Son of God, and because I believe it
+intellectually I shall be saved." I tell you the devils did that. And
+they did more than that, they trembled.
+
+Let us bring in His friends. We want you to hear their evidence. Let
+us call that prince of preachers. Let us hear the forerunner; none
+ever preached like this man--this man who drew all Jerusalem and all
+Judea into the wilderness to hear him; this man who burst upon the
+nations like the flash of a meteor. Let John the Baptist come with his
+leathern girdle and his hairy coat, and let him tell us what he thinks
+of Christ. His words, tho they were echoed in the wilderness of
+Palestine, are written in the Book forever, "Behold the Lamb of God
+which taketh away the sin of the world!" This is what John the Baptist
+thought of him. "I bear record that He is the Son of God." No wonder
+he drew all Jerusalem and Judea to him, because he preached Christ.
+And whenever men preach Christ, they are sure to have plenty of
+followers.
+
+Let us bring in Peter, who was with Him on the mount of
+transfiguration, who was with Him the night He was betrayed. Come,
+Peter, tell us what you think of Christ. Stand in this witness-box and
+testify of Him. You denied Him once. You said, with a curse, you did
+not know Him. Was it true, Peter? Don't you know Him? "Know Him!" I
+can imagine Peter saying: "It was a lie I told then. I did know
+Him." Afterward I can hear him charging home their guilt upon these
+Jerusalem sinners. He calls Him "both Lord and Christ." Such was the
+testimony on the day of Pentecost. "God had made that same Jesus
+both Lord and Christ." And tradition tells us that when they came to
+execute Peter he felt he was not worthy to die in the way his Master
+died, and he requested to be crucified with the head downward. So much
+did Peter think of Him!
+
+Now let us hear from the beloved disciple John. He knew more about
+Christ than any other man. He had laid his head on his Savior's bosom.
+He had heard the throbbing of that loving heart. Look into his Gospel
+if you wish to know what he thought of Him.
+
+Matthew writes of Him as the royal king come from His throne. Mark
+writes of Him as the servant, and Luke of the Son of Man. John takes
+up his pen, and, with one stroke, forever settles the question of
+Unitarianism. He goes right back before the time of Adam. "In the
+beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was
+God." Look into Revelation. He calls him "the bright and the morning
+star." So John thought well of Him--because he knew Him well.
+
+We might bring in Thomas, the doubting disciple. You doubted Him,
+Thomas? You would not believe He had risen, and you put your fingers
+into the wound in His side. What do you think of Him?
+
+"My Lord and my God!" says Thomas.
+
+Then go over to Decapolis and you will find Christ has been there
+casting out devils. Let us call the men of that country and ask what
+they think of Him. "He hath done all things well," they say.
+
+But we have other witnesses to bring in. Take the persecuting Saul,
+once one of the worst of his enemies. Breathing out threatenings he
+meets Him. "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?" says Christ. He
+might have added, "What have I done to you? Have I injured you in any
+way? Did I not come to bless you? Why do you treat Me thus, Saul?" And
+then Saul asks, "Who art thou, Lord?"
+
+"I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom thou persecutest." You see, He was not
+ashamed of His name, altho He had been in heaven; "I am Jesus of
+Nazareth." What a change did that one interview make to Saul! A few
+years afterward we hear him say, "I have suffered the loss of all
+things, and do count them but dross that I may win Christ." Such a
+testimony to the Savior!
+
+But I shall go still further. I shall go away from earth into the
+other world. I shall summon the angels and ask what they think of
+Christ. They saw Him in the bosom of the Father before the world was.
+Before the dawn of creation, before the morning stars sang together,
+He was there. They saw Him leave the throne and come down to the
+manger. What a scene for them to witness! Ask these heavenly beings
+what they thought of Him then. For once they are permitted to speak;
+for once the silence of heaven is broken. Listen to their song on the
+plains of Bethlehem, "Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy,
+which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day, in the
+city of David, a Savior, which is Christ the Lord." He leaves the
+throne to save the world. Is it a wonder the angels thought well of
+Him?
+
+Then there are the redeemed saints--they that see Him face to
+face. Here on earth He was never known, no one seemed really to be
+acquainted with Him; but He was known in that world where He had been
+from the foundation. What do they think of Him there? If we could hear
+from heaven we should hear a shout which would glorify and magnify His
+name. We are told that when John was in the Spirit on the Lord's Day,
+and being caught up, he heard a shout around him, ten thousand times
+ten thousand, and thousands and thousands of voices, "Worthy is the
+Lamb that was slain, to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and
+strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing!" Yes, He is worthy of
+all this. Heaven cannot speak too well of Him. Oh, that earth would
+take up the echo and join with heaven in singing, "Worthy to receive
+power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and
+blessing!"
+
+But there is still another witness, a higher still. Some think that
+the God of the Old Testament is the Christ of the New. But when Jesus
+came out to Jordan, baptized by John, there came a voice from heaven.
+God the Father spoke. It was His testimony to Christ: "This is my
+beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." Ah, yes! God the Father
+thinks well of the Son. And if God is well pleased with Him, so ought
+we to be. If the sinner and God are well pleased with Christ, then the
+sinner and God can meet. The moment you say, as the Father said, "I am
+well pleased with Him," and accept Him, you are wedded to God. Will
+you not believe the testimony? Will you not believe this witness, this
+last of all, the Lord of hosts, the King of kings himself? Once more
+he repeats it, so that all may know it. With Peter and James and John,
+on the mount of transfiguration, He cries again, "This is my beloved
+Son; hear him." And that voice went echoing and reechoing through
+Palestine, through all the earth from sea to sea; yes, that voice is
+echoing still, Hear Him! Hear Him!
+
+My friend will you hear Him to-day? Hark! what is He saying to you?
+"Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give
+you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me; for I am meek and
+lowly in heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke
+is easy, and my burden is light." Will you not think well of such a
+Savior? Will you not believe in Him? Will you not trust in Him with
+all your heart and mind? Will you not live for Him? If He laid down
+His life for us, is it not the least we can do to lay down ours for
+Him? If He bore the cross and died on it for me, ought I not to be
+willing to take it up for Him? Oh, have we not reason to think well of
+Him? Do you think it is right and noble to lift up your voice against
+such a Savior? Do you think it is just to cry, "Crucify Him! crucify
+Him!" Oh, may God help all of us to glorify the Father, by thinking
+well of His only-begotten Son.
+
+
+
+
+FOWLER
+
+THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST
+
+BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+
+Charles H. Fowler, Methodist Episcopal divine, was born 1837 in
+Burford, Ontario, Canada, was educated at Syracuse University and the
+Garrett Biblical Institute, Evanston, Ill. He was ordained in 1861
+and after filling pastorates in many places was made president of
+the Northwestern University in 1872, but vacated this post to become
+editor of the _Christian Advocate_; four years later he was appointed
+missionary secretary and in 1884 was elected bishop. He was well-known
+as an able preacher and administrator. He died in 1908.
+
+
+
+
+FOWLER
+
+1837--1908
+
+THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST
+
+_Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of
+his_.--Rom. viii., 9.
+
+
+I read that with the conviction that it is one of the most searching
+passages that can be found in the Book of God. It takes hold of the
+question of our salvation as a very substantial and thorough question.
+It removes indefinitely, almost infinitely, from this problem of our
+destiny, all shadow of uncertainty or of doubt. It brings us squarely
+to the facts in our character. On the force of this Scripture we are
+borne up on to a platform where we stand with our hearts uncovered and
+naked before the eye of God.
+
+This means that the saint must be great in the arduous greatness of
+things achieved; that there is no chance for sainthood by any fixt,
+imputed plan, but that our real selves shall test and make our real
+future.
+
+I never read this Scripture in the presence of a Christian
+congregation without feeling that I have in some way chopped down
+through every heart with a great broadaxe. There is no whitewashing
+this passage: "If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none
+of his." Not, "He will do tolerably well, but not quite as well as he
+might do"; not that he will get on after a fashion, and have quite a
+respectable entrance into the city of the great King, tho he may not
+push quite as far toward the front as he might have done if he had had
+the Spirit of the Lord Jesus. Not that at all; but, if any man have
+not the Spirit of Christ, there is not the remotest shadow of a chance
+for him: "he is none of his."
+
+And so I put this at you, asking you, on account of the great fact
+that you are going hence, to so apply this critical test to your
+hearts and lives that you may see and feel your need, and that you may
+take hold on the great supply, and have that actual transformation of
+character that will justify you in believing that you have the Spirit
+of Christ.
+
+The success of the missionary cause turns upon exactly the spirit of
+this text. I have no faith in the final triumph, of the missionary
+cause based upon any other ground than that of the honest, deep-down
+conviction of the people of God that the Lord God of Heaven wants this
+work done. I am here as a believer in a supernatural gospel--not with
+philosophy that may be framed out of the human life of Jesus, but with
+a religion that is based upon the supernatural life of the divine
+Christ. And I appeal to you on this subject of missions as to a
+company of men who believe in the divine authority of the Book of God;
+who believe in a blood atonement; who believe in salvation by faith
+only; who believe in the pardon of sin and in the regeneration of your
+natures; who believe in the power of the Holy Ghost; who believe, in
+short, in the sum and substance of an old-fashioned orthodoxy. And I
+put this cause upon you as such believers, knowing that, if such
+is your position, you have at least the large part of the argument
+wrought into the very fiber of your being, by which you cannot stop
+short of the conviction that what you have need of for your salvation
+other people will need for their salvation. You know that you need a
+divine Redeemer; you know that you need the divine pardoning of your
+sins; you know that you need the supernatural and divine cleansing of
+your hearts; you know that you need the divine, unbreakable promises;
+you know that you need this Word, and the way to salvation set forth
+in this Book of God, by which you know that there is none other name
+given under heaven among men, whereby we must be saved. And so I
+come to you as to those who have had some experience in supernatural
+matters, with the cause based upon this Book of God, asking that your
+experience may be made possible for the multitudes beyond, who have
+not yet had this opportunity.
+
+Let us take some of the simpler and plainer things in this question,
+that we may come up to it without any hesitation. Now, I do not need
+to go into the question as to what God will do with the heathen. I
+don't know what He will do with them. I know as much about it as you
+do, or anybody else, because I know what the Book says about it. God
+knows better about this than I do, and will find a way that I cannot
+dream of. But, because the words are not uttered by divine authority,
+I dare not stand here and utter any word of hope for any man beyond
+the gospel committed to me to preach. This I know: That if the heathen
+have the Spirit of the Lord Jesus, whether they ever saw the Lord
+Jesus or not, they are of His. And this I know: That if this
+congregation have not the spirit of the Lord Jesus, tho it may have
+seen Him, they are not of His. And this I know: That He will save a
+Jew and a Gentile on the same terms; that He will do no better for the
+Gentile than He will for the Jew, and no better for the Jew than for
+the Gentile. And if there was no other name given under heaven among
+men by which an ancient Jew or an ancient Gentile might be saved, that
+is true to-day. The Lord Jesus thought that these people needed the
+gospel, and that they needed it so much that He actually came and
+submitted Himself unto death that they might have the gospel. And
+God seems so thoroughly to believe that they need the gospel that He
+actually gives His only-begotten Son to die, that they may have the
+gospel. He treats the case just exactly as if He thought, at least,
+that they do really need this divine Redeemer. He has done, in every
+step and process of this great work of world-saving, just exactly as
+He would have done had He absolutely thought and believed that they
+needed a divine Redeemer.
+
+And then I understand another thing out of the Book: That the very
+last and supreme utterance of the Master on earth grew out of His
+conviction that we should do exactly this thing. And see how He comes
+up to it, little by little! He does not rush suddenly upon it--He does
+not, upon any truth. It is not in the divine plan to flash upon us
+in anything. Truths grow; moral ideas grow. They come into the race
+little, and hardly able to stand at all; we can barely find them
+beneath us in the lower strata of our being. But they struggle into
+power and strength until they fill the field of vision. Nearly every
+great truth of Old and New Testament Scripture is to be found in
+the Book of Genesis. In Genesis you will find the principle of the
+atonement; you will find the division of animals into clean and
+unclean, foreshadowing sacrifice; you will find the principle of the
+acceptance of offerings that came out of the flock, and the rejection
+of the offerings out of the field; you will find the pardon of sin and
+the giving of covenants--all the essential parts of the New Testament
+growing with their roots away back in Genesis. There is the first
+declaration of the coming of this wondrous Redeemer. It was so dim and
+uncertain that it was hard to tell what it meant; somehow, somewhere,
+some time, "the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head." It
+was so dim that our first great mother, when she had gotten her first
+son, cried out in her joy, "I have gotten a man from the Lord!" She
+thought she had the Redeemer, but she had only a murderer. It was
+many a century before the Redeemer would come. The truth was unfolded
+little by little; a little brighter it shone on the altars of the
+patriarchs; it was unfolded a little more in the visions of the
+prophets; was exemplified in the ceremonials of the temple; and in the
+fullness of time it came with the Master and His disciples and the
+outpouring of the Holy Ghost.
+
+And then see, when the Master comes, how He takes hold of us, knowing
+that we are but little, and that we have to be lifted up and enlarged
+before we can take in these great truths! He says: "I have more to
+tell you: you cannot bear it to-day; I will tell you to-morrow." And
+so He gives lesson and instruction, and parable and illustration, all
+through. His life, teaching these disciples, chosen on account of
+their particular adaptation for the reception of His truth; walking
+with them day by day, trying to lift their thought toward the
+spiritual and the eternal; teaching them that it is not His plan to
+put them on His right hand and His left, and trying to lift them up
+toward a spiritual and eternal kingdom. So He keeps on all the time,
+lifting them out of their littleness, saying to them later: "You shall
+be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in Judea, and in Samaria, and in the
+uttermost parts of the earth." They did not know what to make of that.
+He was lifting them out of their narrowness. And so He pushes on still
+further with them, lifting them up, until, in the supreme hour of His
+earthly history--after His agony, after the cross, after He had broken
+asunder the bars of the sepulcher, after He had risen, and been
+declared to be the Son of God by the resurrection from the dead--He
+hovers over the Church, coming down to speak to them by the sea-side
+and mountain-side; appearing to them suddenly, vanishing as quickly;
+offering His hands to their touch, showing His body to their vision,
+yet all the time lifting them up, until He brought them to the thought
+and gave to the Church the idea of His ubiquity, saying: "Lo! I am
+with you alway, even unto the end of the world"; and they appreciated
+the feeling that He was within hand-reach, and that this was a
+spiritual kingdom, and that they could take hold upon the great
+spiritual forces. And thus He lifted them up and prepared them for
+His great truth, until at last, in the supreme moment of His earthly
+history, we see Him yonder on the summit of the mount--the earth
+beneath Him, the angels gathered above Him--with His hands spread out
+over His followers, with the summit of Olivet receding beneath His
+feet. He cries out to them: "All power is given unto me in heaven and
+in earth. Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in
+the name of the Father, and the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; teaching
+them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and lo!
+I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." And the
+unspeakable glory took Him out of their sight.
+
+That is the supreme utterance of the Master after many a century of
+preparation, opening our hearts, bringing us to this great truth, and
+that this one thing He wants done is His final charge to believers: Go
+everywhere; teach, preach, baptize, agonize, give, sacrifice--out to
+the very ends of the earth. And lo! I am with you alway, and you shall
+lack no good thing. Surely, there can be no doubt that the Master, at
+least, thinks that these people have a great need for this gospel.
+
+There are some who have an idea that salvation is to be the sum and
+substance of what we are. Well, I think that way myself: that, if you
+find heaven on the other side of death, you will take it over with
+you; if there is any condition of peace, you will take that condition
+of peace with you. Death will be no more than going over a seam in
+this carpet. The moment after death will differ from the moment before
+death in your essential character no more than any two consecutive
+moments in your life. If you are a mean, narrow, selfish, ugly, cross
+man the moment before death, you will be a mean, narrow, selfish,
+ugly, cross man the moment after death. If you find a good character
+over yonder, you will take it over with you. If you have a good
+character to take over with you, you will have it in the Lord Jesus
+Christ here. If you live on that basis, I think this is pretty safe
+that those millions out yonder in the darkness, plunged in ignorance
+and superstition, knowing nothing about morality and nothing about
+heaven--those millions want a chance, that the same law that governs
+our lives will govern theirs. I surround my boy with the best possible
+opportunities; I watch every book that comes in his hands; I watch
+every playmate that I possibly can that comes in his path; I see to
+it, as my highest business on this footstool--higher than my call to
+this pulpit--that that boy has a fair chance for heaven. If I push him
+out into the alley to herd with criminals, and be dandled in the lap
+of vice, and be familiar with all corruption, I have no moral right to
+expect to meet him in heaven. But if I multiply advantages about him,
+give him the best possible books and surroundings, make him at home
+with the Lord Jesus, so that he talks about his salvation and life
+eternal as he does about matters in the home, I have a good right to
+expect that the King will give me His eternal peace.
+
+Now, I think that the law that holds over my boy holds over all boys
+in China and Japan and Hindustan; that, just in proportion as we
+multiply the light and the favorable circumstances about them, then in
+that proportion we increase their fair chance for heaven. I think it
+is sound in philosophy. I believe that, just in proportion as we act
+by it, we will be safe.
+
+Now, they are plunged in darkness. They know nothing about our way
+of salvation, nothing about the pardon of sin, nothing about purity,
+nothing about righteousness, nothing about heaven. We want to multiply
+their chances to rid themselves of sin, and to take hold upon life,
+and make their way in the path of peace. And the Master seems to so
+think it that He says: "Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations." And
+if they will believe it, as I read, they will be saved. "But how can
+they believe if they have not heard? And how can they hear without a
+preacher? And how can they preach except they be sent?" So the Master
+says, Go, send quick, everywhere. That I take to be the teaching of
+the Book concerning their needs.
+
+But there is another side of it, and that is the side that swings in
+under the passage I have read this morning, and that is our side of
+it, our relation to the cause: "If any man have not the Spirit of the
+Lord Jesus, he is none of his."
+
+Now, what is the spirit of Christ? I will tell you: He came not to be
+ministered unto. Please remember that. Not to see how much He could
+gather into His own bosom out of the lives of others. Not to be
+ministered unto; not to be petted, and dandled, and lifted along and
+fed all the way, with no burden and no care and no work--not that. He
+came, not to be ministered unto, but to minister; to pour out of His
+life into the lives of others; to see what He could do to make others
+blest; and "to give his life a ransom for many." Not merely to give
+the little pittance that He could spare and not know it any more than
+one would miss the farthing with which he would buy his ride on the
+street car, but to give His life a ransom for many. And if any man
+have not that spirit, he is none of His.
+
+Now I preach you a doctrine of salvation by faith only, and I put the
+emphasis on the word only. That is exactly what I need as a sinner: I
+want some sort of release from my past transgressions that will give
+me a new start. I have gotten behind; I am borrowing money to
+pay interest with, and I see no way out. I must have a spiritual
+bankruptcy law. Somebody must come in to my relief, or I am
+everlastingly undone. And so I preach this blest doctrine of the
+Book of God: "By grace are ye saved, through faith, and that not of
+yourselves: it (the salvation) is the gift of God." I take salvation
+as a divine gift, and take it with a glad heart. It gives me a new
+chance; it unhinges my present struggle for heaven from the past
+transgressions of my life, and gives me an open door to heaven that I
+could not reach on any other platform. And so I preach this doctrine
+to sinners, knowing that it is exactly what they need.
+
+There is another part of it that covers the question of our pardon;
+that takes all my past sins and wipes them out; that gives me a new
+chance for righteousness. Now mind: That pardon, that new life, that
+new chance works out all the time necessarily from my finger-ends; it
+shows itself in my life, absolutely, as certainly as it is there; and
+if I cannot find the fruit of it in the fruits of the Spirit, in the
+interest in God's cause, in patience and teachableness, in gentleness
+and love, I have the absolute demonstration that I have not the thing
+itself. Saved by faith, kept alive, kept saved by work, in work, by
+grace in work. Let me touch that theology just a little. If you
+are pardoned, you are pardoned by the Lord in a second, through
+faith--when you believe, that is. Pardon is an operation in God's mind
+concerning myself; you cannot pardon yourself. God pardons. If we are
+pardoned He can do it in a second, when we believe.
+
+The next step in the case is, that there is not anything in the Book
+of God that gives us any ground to believe that in that same faith, or
+believing, or pardon, we will be instantly lifted up into the stature
+of a man in Christ Jesus. What I mean to say is this: That there is
+not one word in this Book that will justify any man in believing that
+he may be brought by any process to the stature of a man in Christ
+Jesus in a minute. But some good brother will say: "Oh! now I am just
+a little afraid that you are striking against that blest old Methodist
+doctrine of sanctification." No, I am not. I haven't said anything
+about sanctification. But I will. If you are sanctified, or cleansed,
+that is God's work, through faith, and He can do it in a second. Now,
+understand me definitely, you cannot cleanse yourself. God cleanses
+you through faith in the cleansing blood of His Son. It is His work.
+You cannot grow into it. You can grow in it, but if you don't grow in
+it you may know you are not in it--you are in something else. But you
+can grow in it, because it is God's work, and He will do it when you
+believe. But what of that? What are you after you are cleansed? I will
+tell you. You are a clean baby: that is all. You are not a man in
+Christ Jesus; you are only a babe--cleansed, indeed, and greatly
+improved by the process, too, but you are not matured. Do not miss,
+now, the broad distinction between purity and maturity. You are
+purified, through faith, in a second; you are matured through many a
+struggle and many a year. God cannot make a twenty-one-year-old saint
+in one second less than twenty-one years. There is no platform marked
+over with faith upon which a man may step and be lifted up into the
+perfect stature of a man in Christ Jesus in a minute. It is not the
+teaching of the Book. But all the year, loving, and giving, and
+fighting, and praying, and walking in righteousness, you will mature
+characters, and by and by you will grow into the manhood in Christ
+Jesus that is set before us in the gospel. Now, if you come in here
+and tell me that there is a baby over yonder in the next square, that
+is three weeks old, and can talk Greek and Latin, and Spanish and
+Italian, and solve all the problems in mathematics, I will tell you
+that that is a monstrosity, and you don't want that kind of babies in
+your house: they will turn you out in a few days. So, if you come
+in here and tell me that you have, down in your prayer-meeting, a
+spiritual baby three or four weeks old, that can teach all the old
+saints, and can tell them all about God, and heaven, and faith, and
+theology, and all about everything in the Church, I will tell you
+that that is a monstrosity. And you don't want that kind in your
+prayer-meeting; they will turn you out before a great while. St. Paul
+says: "Ye are born babes, and ye are fed on milk"; and the trouble
+with too many of us is that we keep on that diet when we ought to be
+eating meat. The Master says: "First the blade, then the ear; after
+that, the full corn in the ear." So I am free to say that God's plan
+of making saints is to give them the divine germ--if you please, the
+supernatural principle; or, as our scientists would say, with proper
+environments, "That have the divine initial impulse," but as our
+fathers would have said, "They got through at the altar"; born of God,
+and then cleansed of God in the true process of education and faith,
+they matured at the harvest. God gives us the start and the cleansing,
+and we have to do all the rest of it. He will give us opportunity for
+growth by loading and goading us, by setting on our track every sort
+of force to test us--to "polish us," as the old Hebrew word means.
+When Abraham was tested he was "polished." He will put us on such
+lines that, if we stand true to our convictions and walk according to
+the light we have, He will bring us on to manhood.
+
+See how wonderfully the Word of God fits down upon this? Take that
+remarkable passage that, to me, is as beautiful as anything can be,
+where He says: "Come unto Me, all ye that labor"--I know what
+that means in the struggle under sin--"all ye that labor and are
+heavy-laden, and I will give"--I will give: it is mine. You cannot
+earn it: you cannot buy it; you cannot find it; you cannot dig it out.
+It is mine--"I will give you rest"--the blest pardon that only God can
+give. Then, in the very next second and breath, He says: "Take my yoke
+upon you"--that means work--"and learn of me"--that is more work--and,
+"For I am meek and lowly of heart, and ye shall find"--that is yours;
+I do not give that to you; that is not mine to give; that is yours.
+"Ye shall find rest to your souls." That is the rest that comes from
+the crystallization of the character in righteousness; that comes from
+the habit of believing, and the habit of obeying, and the habit of
+praying; from the habit of righteousness, until the old saint is ready
+for any struggle, and never expects to be turned aside. That, I take
+it, is God's plan of building up saints, and for fitting them for the
+rest that is in God, that abides.
+
+
+
+
+WHYTE
+
+EXPERIENCE
+
+BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+
+Alexander Whyte, senior minister of St. George's Free Church,
+Edinburgh, was born at Kirriemuir (Thrums), Scotland, in 1837. He was
+educated at Aberdeen University (M.A., 1862), and at New College,
+Edinburgh (1862-66), and after being assistant minister of Free
+St. John's, Glasgow, from 1866 to 1870, became at first assistant
+minister, and later (1873) minister, of Free St. George's, Edinburgh,
+a position which be still retains, having had there an uninterrupted
+success. He is the author of a number of biographies, his most recent
+work being "An Appreciation of Newman."
+
+
+
+
+WHYTE
+
+BORN IN 1837
+
+EXPERIENCE
+
+_And patience; experience; and experience, hope_.--Romans v., 4.
+
+
+The deeper we search into the Holy Scriptures the more experimental
+matter do we discover in that divine Book. Both in the Old Testament
+and in the New Testament the spiritual experiences of godly men form a
+large part of the sacred record. And it gives a very fresh and a very
+impressive interest to many parts of the heavenly Book when we see how
+much of its contents are made up of God's ways with His people as well
+as of their ways with Him. In other words, when we see how much of
+purely experimental matter is gathered up into the Word of God. In a
+brilliant treatise published the other year, entitled, "The Gospel in
+the Gospels," the author applies this experimental test even to our
+Lord's teaching and preaching. Writing of the beatitudes in our Lord's
+Sermon on the Mount that fresh and penetrating writer says: "When our
+Savior speaks to us concerning what constitutes our true blessedness
+He is simply describing His own experience. The beatitudes are not the
+immediate revelation of His Godhead, they are much more the impressive
+testimony of His manhood. He knew the truth of what He was saying
+because He had verified it all in Himself for thirty experimental
+years." Now if that is so demonstrably true of so many of our Lord's
+contributions to Holy Scripture, in the nature of things, how much
+more must it be true of the experimental contributions that David and
+Paul have made to the same sacred record. And we ourselves are but
+imitating them in their great experimental methods when we give our
+very closest attention to personal and spiritual religion, both
+in ourselves and in all our predecessors and in all our own
+contemporaries in the life of grace in all lands and in all languages.
+
+Now by far the deepest and by far the most personal experience of
+every spiritually minded man is his experience of his own inward
+sinfulness. The sinfulness of his sin; the malignity of his sin; the
+ungodliness and the inhumanity of his sin; the dominion that his sin
+still has over him; the simply indescribable evil of his sin in every
+way: all that is a matter, not of any man's doctrine and authority;
+all that is the personal experience and the scientific certainty, as
+we say, of every spiritually minded man; every man, that is, who takes
+any true observation of what goes on in his own heart. The simply
+unspeakable sinfulness of our own hearts is not the doctrine of David,
+and of Christ, and of Paul, and of Luther, and of Calvin, and of
+Bunyan, and of Edwards, and of Shepard only. It is their universal
+doctrine, indeed, it could not be otherwise; but it is also the
+every-day experience and the every-day agony of every man among
+ourselves whose eyes are open upon his own heart.
+
+And then, if you are that spiritually enlightened man, from the day
+when you begin to have that heart-sore experience of yourself you
+will begin to search for and to discover those great passages of Holy
+Scripture that contain the recorded experiences of men like yourself.
+"I am but dust and ashes," said the first father of all penitent and
+believing and praying men. "I am vile," sobs Job. "Behold, I am vile,
+and I will lay my hand upon my mouth. I have heard of thee by the
+hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor
+myself and repent in dust and ashes." And David has scarcely heart or
+a pen for anything else. "There is no soundness in my flesh because of
+thine anger; neither is there any rest in my bones because of my sin.
+My loins are filled with a loathsome disease. For, behold, I was
+shapen in iniquity." And Daniel, the most blameless of men and a man
+greatly beloved in heaven and on earth: "I was left alone and
+there remained no strength in me: for my comeliness was turned to
+corruption, and I retained no strength." And every truly spiritually
+minded man has Paul's great experimental passage by heart; that great
+experimental and autobiographic passage which has kept so many of
+God's most experienced saints from absolute despair, as so many of
+them have testified. Yes! There were experimental minds long before
+Bacon and there was a great experimental literature long before the
+Essays and the "Advancement" and the "_Instauratio Magna_."
+
+And then among many other alterations of intellectual insight and
+spiritual taste that will come to you with your open eyes, there will
+be your new taste, not only for your Bible, but also for spiritual
+and experimental preaching. The spiritual preachers of our day are
+constantly being blamed for not tuning their pulpits to the new themes
+of our so progressive day. Scientific themes are prest upon them
+and critical themes and social themes and such like. But your new
+experience of your own sinfulness and of God's salvation: your new
+need and your new taste for spiritual and experimental truth will not
+lead you to join in that stupid demand. As intelligent men you will
+know where to find all the new themes of your new day and you will be
+diligent students of them all, so far as your duty lies that way, and
+so far as your ability and your opportunity go; but not on the Lord's
+Day and not in His house of prayer and praise. The more inward, and
+the more spiritual, and the more experimental, your own religion
+becomes, the more will you value inward, and spiritual, and
+experimental preaching. And the more will you resent the intrusion
+into the evangelical pulpit of those secular matters that so much
+absorb unspiritual men. There is another equally impertinent advice
+that our preachers are continually having thrust upon them from the
+same secular quarter. And that is that they ought entirely to drop
+the old language of the Scriptures, and the creeds, and the classical
+preachers, and ought to substitute for it the scientific and the
+journalistic jargon of the passing day. But with your ever-deepening
+knowledge of yourselves and with the disciplined and refined taste
+that will accompany such knowledge you will rather demand of your
+preachers more and more depth of spiritual preaching and more and more
+purity of spiritual style. And then more and more your estimates of
+preaching and your appreciations of preachers will have real insight
+and real value and real weight with us. "The natural man receiveth
+not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness to him:
+neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." But
+he that is spiritual discerneth spiritual things and spiritual persons
+and he has the true authority to speak and to write about them.
+
+And then, for all doubting and skeptically disposed persons among
+you, your own experience of your evil heart, if you will receive that
+experience and will seriously attend to it, that will prove to you
+the true apologetic for the theism of the Holy Scriptures and for the
+soul-saving faith of Jesus Christ. What is it about which you are
+in such debate and doubt? Is it about the most fundamental of
+all facts--the existence, and the nature, and the grace, and the
+government of Almighty God? Well, if you are really in earnest to know
+the truth, take this way of it: this way that has brought light and
+peace of mind to so many men. Turn away at once and forever from all
+your unbecoming debates about your Maker and Preserver and turn to
+what is beyond all debate, your own experience of yourselves. There is
+nothing else of which you can be so sure and certain as of the sin and
+the misery of your own evil hearts, your own evil hearts so full
+of self-seeking, and envy, and malice, and pride, and hatred, and
+revenge, and lust. And on the other hand, there is nothing of which
+you can be so convinced as that love, and humility, and meekness,
+and purity, and benevolence, and brotherly kindness, are your true
+happiness, or would be, if you could only attain to all these
+beatitudes. Well, Jesus Christ has attained to them all. And Jesus
+Christ came into this world at first, and He still comes into it by
+His Word and by His Spirit in order that you may attain to all His
+goodness and all His truth and may thus escape forever from all your
+own ignorance and evil. As William Law, the prince of apologists,
+has it: "Atheism is not the denial of a first omnipotent cause. Real
+atheism is not that at all. Real atheism is purely and solely nothing
+else but the disowning, and the forsaking, and the renouncing of the
+goodness, and the virtue, and the benevolence and the meekness, of
+the divine nature: that divine nature which has made itself so
+experimental and so self-evident in us all. And as this experimental
+and self-evident knowledge is the only sure knowledge you can have of
+God; even so, it is such a knowledge that cannot be doubted or
+debated away. For it is as sure and as self-evident as is your own
+experience." And so is it through all the succeeding doctrines of
+grace and truth: The incarnation of the divine Son: His life, His
+death, His resurrection, and His intercession: and then your own life
+of faith, and prayer, and holy obedience: and then your death, "dear
+in God's sight." Beginning with this continually experienced need of
+God, all these things will follow, with an intellectual, and a moral,
+and a spiritual demonstration, that will soon place them beyond all
+debate or doubt to you. Only know thyself and admit the knowledge:
+and all else will follow as sure as the morning sun follows the dark
+midnight.
+
+And then in all these ways, you will attain to a religious experience
+of your own, that will be wholly and exclusively your own. It will not
+be David's experience, nor Paul's, nor Luther's, nor Bunyan's; much as
+you will study their experiences, comparing them all with your own. As
+you go deeper and ever deeper, into your own spiritual experience,
+you will gradually gather a select and an invaluable library of such
+experiences, and you will less and less read anything else with very
+much interest or delight. But your own unwritten experience will, all
+the time, be your own, and in your own spiritual experience you will
+have no exact fellow. For your tribulations, which work in you your
+experience,--as the text has it,--your tribulations are such that in
+all your experimental reading in the Bible, in spiritual biography, in
+spiritual autobiography, you have never met the like of them. Either
+the writers have been afraid to speak out the whole truth about their
+tribulations; or, what is far more likely, they had no tribulations
+for a moment to match with yours. There has not been another so weak
+and so evil heart as yours since weak and evil hearts began to be;
+nor an evil life quite like yours; nor surrounding circumstances
+so cross-bearing as yours; nor a sinner, beset with all manner of
+temptations and trials, behind and before, like you. So much are you
+alone that, if your fifty-first Psalm, or your seventh of the Romans,
+or your "Confessions," or your "Private Devotions," or your "Grace
+Abounding," could ever venture to be all honestly and wholly written
+and published, your name would, far and away, eclipse them all. You do
+not know what a singular and what an original and what an unheard-of
+experience your experience is destined to be; if only you do not break
+down under it; as you must not and will not do.
+
+Begin, then, to make some new experiments upon a new life of faith,
+and of the obedience of faith. And begin to-day. If in anything you
+have been following a false and an unphilosophical and an unscriptural
+way of life, leave that wrong and evil way at once. Be true Baconians,
+at once, as all the true men of science will tell you to be. "If we
+were religious men like you," they will all say to you, "we would do,
+and at once, what you are now being told to do. We would not debate,
+or doubt, but we would make experiment, and would follow out the
+experience": so all the scientifically minded men will say to you.
+Come away then, and make some new experiments from this morning. For
+one thing, make a new experiment on secret prayer. And then come forth
+from your place of secret prayer and make immediate experiment on more
+love, and more patience, and more consideration for other men,
+and, especially, for the men of your own household. Be more
+generous-minded, and more open-handed, as God has been so
+generous-minded, and so open-handed toward you: if that has indeed
+been so. Make experiment upon the poor and the needy and help them
+according to your ability and opportunity and watch the result of the
+experiment upon yourself; and so on, as your awakened conscience, and
+as the regenerate part of your own heart, will prompt you and will
+encourage you to do.
+
+Make such experiments as these and see if a new peace of conscience
+and a new happiness of heart does not begin to come to you, according
+to that great experimental psalm,--"Oh, that my people had hearkened
+unto me, and Israel had walked in my ways! I should soon have subdued
+their enemies, and turned my hand against their adversaries. He should
+have fed them also with the finest of the wheat: and with honey out of
+the rock should I have satisfied thee."
+
+
+
+
+WATKINSON
+
+THE TRANSFIGURED SACKCLOTH
+
+BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+
+William L. Watkinson, Wesleyan minister, was born at Hull, 1838, was
+educated privately and rose to eminence as a preacher and writer.
+The Rev. William Durban calls him "The classic preacher of British
+Methodism." "He ranks," says Dr. Durban, "with Dr. Dallinger and the
+Rev. Thomas Gunn Selby as the three most learned and refined of living
+preachers in the English Methodist pulpit. Dr. Watkinson is famous for
+the glittering illustrations which adorn his style. These are for the
+most part gathered from biography, the classics, and science, and
+of late years Dr. Watkinson has become more and more addicted to
+spiritualizing the aspects of modern scientific discovery. Dr.
+Watkinson never reads his utterances from a manuscript. Nor does
+he preach memoriter, as far as the language of his addresses is
+concerned. They are always carefully thought out and are never
+characterized by florid diction. His simple, strong Anglo-Saxon
+endears him to the people, for he is never guilty of an obscure
+sentence. He is in the habit of saying, 'I have always been aware that
+I have no power of voice for declamation, and therefore I can only
+hope for success in the pulpit by originality of thought.'" He was
+president of the Wesleyan Conference, 1897-1898, and editor of the
+_Wesleyan Church_, 1893-1890. He has published several volumes of
+sermons.
+
+
+
+
+WATKINSON
+
+BORN IN 1838
+
+THE TRANSFIGURED SACKCLOTH[1]
+
+[Footnote: Printed by permission of B.P. Button & Company from "The
+Transfigured Sackcloth and Other Sermons," by W.L. Watkinson.]
+
+_For none might enter into the king's gate clothed with
+sackcloth_.--Esther iv., 2.
+
+
+The sign of affliction was thus excluded from the Persian court in
+order that royalty might not be discomposed. The monarch was to see
+bright raiment, flowers, pageantry, smiling faces only; to hear
+only the voices of singing men and singing women; no smatch of the
+abounding wormwood of life was to touch his lip, no glimpse of its we
+to disturb his serenity. The master of an empire spreading from India
+to Ethiopia was not to be annoyed by a passing shadow of mortality.
+Now, this disposition to place an interdict on disagreeable and
+painful things still survives. Men of all ranks and conditions
+ingeniously hide from themselves the dark facts of life--putting these
+aside, ignoring, disguising, forgetting, denying them. Revelation,
+however, lends no sanction to this habit of passing by the tragedy
+of life with averted face; and in this discourse we wish to show the
+entire reasonableness of revelation in its frank recognition of the
+dark aspects of existence. Christianity is sometimes scouted as "the
+religion of sorrow," and many amongst us are ready to avow that the
+Persian forbidding the sackcloth is more to their taste than the
+Egyptian or the Christian dragging the corpse through the banquet; but
+we confidently contend that the recognition by Christ of the morbid
+phases of human life is altogether wise and gracious.
+
+I. We consider, first, the recognition by revelation of sin. Sackcloth
+is the outward and visible sign of sin, guilt, and misery. How men
+shut their eyes to this most terrible reality--coolly ignoring,
+skilfully veiling, emphatically denying it! "The heart from the moment
+of its first beat instinctively longs for the beautiful...." We strive
+for the right and the true: it is circumstance that thrusts wrong
+upon us. What is popularly called sin these philosophers call error,
+accident, inexperience, indecision, misdirection, imperfection,
+disharmony; but they will not allow the presence in the human heart of
+a malign force which asserts itself against God, and against the
+order of His universe. That principle which is darkness in the mind,
+perverseness in the will, idolatry in the affections, "every passion's
+wild excess, anger, lust, and pride,"--the existence of any such
+principle they absolutely and scornfully deny. There is no evil in the
+universe, all is good, and where everything is good human nature is
+still the best. A single substance comprises all that is, and no place
+is left for that profoundly decisive and destructive element called
+sin; all that we have to do is to descant on the marvelous loveliness
+of the world, the serene harmony of the universe, man's love of the
+true, the beautiful, and the good. Intellectual masters like Emerson
+and Renan. ignore conscience; they refuse to acknowledge the
+selfishness, the baseness, the cruelty of society; they are deaf to
+the groans of creation; they smile, and expect us to smile, whilst
+they clap a purple patch of rhetoric on the running sores of humanity.
+No sackcloth must pass their gate, and no craftsman of Ind ever wove
+gossamer half so delicate and delightful as the verbal veil with which
+these literary artists attempt to conceal the leprosy of our nature.
+
+And men generally are willing to dupe themselves touching the fact
+and power of sin; they are strongly disinclined to look directly and
+honestly at that inner confusion of which we are all more or less
+conscious. We willingly acknowledge our transgression of the higher
+law, that we do the things we ought not to do, and leave undone the
+things that we ought to do; we have an unpleasant feeling that all is
+not right, nay, indeed, that something is seriously wrong; but we do
+not unshrinkingly acquaint ourselves with the malady of the spirit as
+we should at once acquaint ourselves with any malady hinting itself in
+the flesh. The sackcloth must not mar our shallow happiness. Great is
+the power of self-deception, but in no other direction do we permit
+ourselves to be more profoundly cheated than we do in this. In the
+vision of beautiful things we forget the troubles of conscience,
+as the first sinners hid themselves amid the leaves and flowers of
+Paradise; in fashion and splendor we forget our guilty sorrow, as
+medieval mourners sometimes concealed their cerements with raiment of
+purple and gold; in the noises of the world we become oblivious of the
+interior discords, as soldiers forget their wounds amid the stir and
+trumpets of the battle. With a busy life, a gay life, we manage to
+forget the skeleton of the heart, rarely permitting ourselves to look
+upon the ominous specter which some way or other has entrenched itself
+within us, and which is the bane of our existence.
+
+Nevertheless, sin thrusts itself upon our attention. The greatest
+thinkers in all ages have been constrained to recognize its presence
+and power. The creeds of all nations declare the fact that men
+everywhere feel the bitter working and intolerable burden of
+conscience. And, however we may strive to forget our personal
+sinfulness, the cry is ever being wrung from us in the deepest moments
+of life, "O wretched man that I am! who can deliver me from the body
+of this death?" The sense of sin has persisted through changing
+generations; it is the burden of experience and philosophy, and
+the genius of the race has exhausted itself in devising schemes of
+salvation.
+
+Aeschylus, Dante, Shakespeare, knew of truth, justice, purity, and
+love, of the supreme and eternal law of righteousness; they knew that
+man alone of all this lower creation is subject to this transcendental
+rule; they knew also that the violation of this highest law lay at the
+root of the world's mysterious and complex suffering--in other words,
+that sin was the secret of the tragedy of life. The beasts are happy
+because they are beasts; they do not lie awake in the dark weeping
+over their sins, because they have no sins to weep over; they do not
+discuss their duty to God, they do it; whilst, on the contrary, men
+are unhappy because being subject to the highest law of all, and
+competent to fulfil that law in its utmost requirements, they have
+consciously fallen short of it, wilfully contradicted it. We cannot
+accept the coat of many colors, whatever the flatterers may say; the
+sackcloth is ours, and it eats our spirit like fire.
+
+Most fully does Christ recognize the great catastrophe. Some modern
+theologians may dismiss sin as "a mysterious incident" in the
+development of humanity, as a grain of sand that has unluckily blown
+into the eye, as a thorn that has accidentally pierced our heel,
+but the greatest of ethical teachers regarded sin as a profound
+contradiction of that eternal will which is altogether wise and good.
+More than any other teacher Jesus Christ emphasized the actuality and
+awfulness of sin; more than any other has He intensified the world's
+consciousness of sin. He never attempted to relieve us of the
+sackcloth by asserting our comparative innocence; He never attempted
+to work into that melancholy robe one thread of color, to relieve it
+with one solitary spangle of rhetoric. Sin was the burden of the life
+of Christ because it is the burden of our life. Christ has done more
+than insisted on the reality, the odiousness, the ominousness, of
+sin--He has laid bare its principle and essence. The New Testament
+discovers to us the mystery of iniquity as ungodliness; its inmost
+essence being unbelief in God's truth, the denial of His justice,
+the rejection of His love, the violation of His law. The South Sea
+islanders have a singular tradition to account for the existence of
+the dew. The legend relates that in the beginning the earth touched
+the sky, that being the golden age when all was beautiful and glad;
+then some dreadful tragedy occurred, the primal unity was broken up,
+the earth and the sky were torn asunder as we see them now, and the
+dewdrops of the morning are the tears that nature sheds over the sad
+divorce. This wild fable is a metaphor of the truth; the beginning of
+all evil lies in the alienation of the spirit of man from God, in the
+divorce of earth from heaven; here is the final reason why the face
+of humanity is wet with tears. How vividly Christ taught that all our
+fear and we arise out of this false relation of our spirit to the
+living God! Above and beyond all, Christ recognizes the sackcloth that
+He may take it away. In the anguish of his soul Job cried, "I
+have sinned; what shall I do unto thee, O thou Preserver of men?"
+Christianity is God's full and final answer to that appeal. In Christ
+we have the revelation of God's ceaseless, immeasurable, eternal love.
+In Him we have the satisfaction of God's sovereign justice. Our own
+awakened conscience feels the difficulty of absolution; it demands
+that sin shall not be lightly passed over; it wearies itself to find
+an availing sacrifice and atonement. "Behold the Lamb of God, that
+taketh away the sin of the world!" In Him, too, we have that grace
+which brings us into accord with the mind and government of God.
+Christ reveals to us the divine ideal life; He awakens in us a passion
+for that life; He leads us into the power and privilege, the liberty
+and gladness, of that life. He fills our imagination with the vision
+of His own divine loveliness; He refreshes our will from founts of
+unfathomable power; He fills us with courage and hope; He crowns us
+with victory. "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself,
+not imputing their trespasses unto them." Sin is ungodliness; Christ
+makes us to see light in God's light, fills us with His love, attunes
+our spirit to the infinite music of His perfection. Instead of
+shutting out the signs of wo, Christ followed an infinitely deeper
+philosophy; He arrayed Himself in the sackcloth, becoming sin for us
+who knew no sin, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
+We have redemption in His blood, even the forgiveness of sins; he
+established us in a true relation to the holy God; He restores in
+us the image of God; He fills us with the peace of God that passeth
+understanding.
+
+Not in the spirit of a barren cynicism does Christ lay bare the
+ghastly wound of our nature, but as a noble physician who can purge
+the mortal virus which destroys us. He has done this for thousands; He
+is doing it now; in these very moments He can give sweet release to
+all who are burdened and beaten by the dire confusion of nature.
+Sin is a reality; absolution, sanctification, peace, are not less
+realities. Christ's gate is not shut to the penitent, neither does
+He send him empty away. We go to Him in sackcloth, but we leave His
+presence in purity's robe of snow, in honor's stainless purple, in the
+heavenly blue of the holiness of truth. The Spirit of the Lord God is
+upon Him, that He may give to the mourners in Zion beauty for ashes,
+the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of
+heaviness.
+
+II. We consider the recognition by revelation of sorrow. Sackcloth is
+the raiment of sorrow, and as such it was interdicted by the Persian
+monarch. We still follow the insane course, minimizing, despising,
+masking, denying suffering. Society sometimes attempts this. The
+affluent entrench themselves within belts of beauty and fashion,
+excluding the sights and sounds of a suffering world. "Ye that put far
+away the evil day, and cause the seat of violence to come near; that
+lie upon beds of ivory, and stretch themselves upon their couches, and
+eat the lambs out of the flock, and the calves out of the midst of the
+stall, that chant to the sound of the viol, and invent to themselves
+instruments of music, like David; that drink wine in bowls, and anoint
+themselves with the chief ointments: but they are not grieved for the
+affliction of Joseph." So do opulent and selfish men still seek "to
+hide their heart in a nest of roses." Literature sometimes follows
+the same cue. Goethe made it one of the rules of his life to avoid
+everything that could suggest painful ideas, and the taint of his
+egotism is on a considerable class of current literature which
+serenely ignores the morbid aspects of life. Art has yielded to the
+same temptation. The artist has felt that he was concerned only with
+strength, beauty, and grace; that he had nothing to do with weakness,
+agony, wretchedness, and death. Why should sorrow find perpetual
+remembrance in art? Pain will tear our bodies, but we will have no
+wrinkles on our statues; suffering will rend our heart, but we will
+have no shadows on our pictures. None clothed in sackcloth might enter
+the gate that is called Beautiful.
+
+Most of us are inclined to the sorry trick of gilding over painful
+things. We resolutely put from us sober signs, serious thoughts, and
+sometimes are really angry with those who exhibit life as it is,
+and who urge us to seek reconciliation with it. When the physician
+prescribed blisters to Marie Bashkirtseff to check her consumptive
+tendency, the vain, cynical girl wrote, "I will put on as many
+blisters as thee like. I shall be able to hide the mark by bodices
+brimmed with flowers and lace and tulle, and a thousand other
+delightful things that are worn, without being required; it may even
+look pretty. Ah! I am comforted." Yes, by a thousand artifices do we
+dissemble our ugly scars, sometimes even pressing our deep misfortunes
+into the service of our pride. Many of the fashions and the diversions
+of the world much sought after have little positive attractiveness,
+but the real secret of their power is found in the fact that they
+hide disagreeable things, and render men for a while oblivious of the
+mystery and weight of an unintelligible world.
+
+Nevertheless suffering is a stern fact that will not long permit us to
+sleep. Some have taught the unreality of pain, but the logic of life
+has spoiled their plausible philosophizing. A man may carry many
+hallucinations with him to the grave, but a belief in the unreality of
+pain is hardly likely to be one of them. The laughing philosopher is
+quite invincible on his midsummer's day, but ere long fatality makes
+him sad. There is no screen to shut off permanently the spectacle of
+suffering. When Marie Antoinette passed to her bridal in Paris, the
+halt, the lame, and the blind were sedulously kept out of her way,
+lest their appearance should mar the joyousness of her reception; but,
+ere long, the poor queen had a very close view of misery's children,
+and she drank to the dregs the cup of life's bitterness. Reason as we
+may, suppress the disagreeable truths of life as we may, suffering
+will find us out, and pierce us to the heart. Indeed, despite our
+dissimulations, we know that life is not a matter of lutes, doves, and
+sunflowers, and at last we have little patience with those who thus
+seek to represent it. We will not have the philosophy which ignores
+suffering; witness the popularity of Schopenhauer. We resent the art
+which ignores sorrow. True art has no pleasure in sin and suffering,
+in torture, horror, and death; but on its palette must lie the sober
+colorings of human life, and so to-day the most popular picture of the
+world is the "Angelus" of Millet. We will not have the literature that
+ignores suffering. "Humanity will look upon nothing else but its old
+sufferings. It loves to see and touch its wounds, even at the risk of
+reopening them. We are not satisfied with poetry unless we find tears
+in it." We will not have the theology which ignores sin and suffering.
+The preacher who confines his discourses to pleasant themes has a
+meager following; the people swiftly and logically conclude that if
+life is as flowery as the discourse, the preacher is superfluous.
+Foolish we may often be, yet we cannot accept this Gethsemane for a
+garden of the gods; the most wilful lotus-eater must perforce see the
+streaming tears, the stain of blood, the shadow of death. Nature in
+the full swing of her pageantry soon forgets the wild shriek of the
+bird in the red talons of the hawk, and all other sad and tragic
+things, but humanity is compelled to note the blood and tears which
+flow everywhere, and to lay these things to heart.
+
+Christ giveth us the noblest example of suffering. So far from
+shutting His gate on the sackcloth, once more He adopted it,
+and showed how it might become a robe of glory. He Himself was
+preeminently a Man of sorrows; He exhausted all forms of suffering;
+touching life at every point, at every point He bled; and in Him we
+learn how to sustain our burden and to triumph throughout all the
+tragedy. In His absolute rectitude, in His confidence in His Father,
+in His hours of prayer, in His self-sacrificing regard for His
+fellow-sufferers, in His charity, and patience, we see how the
+heaviest cross may be borne in the spirit of victory. We learn from
+Him how divine grace can mysteriously make the sufferer equal to the
+bitterest martyrdom; not putting to our lips some anodyne cup to
+paralyze life, but giving us conquest through the strength and
+bravery of reason in its noblest mood, through faith in its sublimest
+exercise, through a love that many waters cannot quench nor the
+floods drown. Poison is said to be extracted from the rattlesnake for
+medicinal purposes; but infinitely more wonderful is the fact that the
+suffering which comes out of sin counterworks sin, and brings to pass
+the transfiguration of the sufferer.
+
+Christ teaches us how, under the redemptive government of God,
+suffering has become a subtle and magnificent process for the full
+and final perfecting of human character. Science tells us how the
+bird-music, which is one of nature's foremost charms, has risen out of
+the bird's cry of distress in the morning of time; how originally the
+music of field and forest was nothing more than an exclamation caused
+by the bird's bodily pain and fear, and how through the ages the
+primal note of anguish has been evolved and differentiated until it
+has risen into the ecstasy of the lark, melted into the silver note of
+the dove, swelled into the rapture of the nightingale, unfolded into
+the vast and varied music of the sky and the summer. So Christ shows
+us that out of the personal sorrow which now rends the believer's
+heart he shall arise in moral and infinite perfection; that out of the
+cry of anguish wrung from us by the present distress shall spring the
+supreme music of the future.
+
+The Persian monarch forbidding sackcloth had forgotten that
+consolation is a royal prerogative; but the King of kings has not
+forgotten this, and very sweet and availing is His sovereign sympathy.
+Scherer recommends "amusement as a comfortable deceit by which we
+avoid a permanent _tete-a-tete_ with realities that are too heavy for
+us." Is there not a more excellent way than this? Let us carry our
+sorrows to Christ, and we shall find that in Him they have lost their
+sting. It is a clumsy mistake to call Christianity a religion of
+sorrow--it is a religion _for_ sorrow. Christ finds us stricken and
+afflicted, and His words go down to the depths of our sorrowful heart,
+healing, strengthening, rejoicing with joy unspeakable. He finds us
+in sackcloth; He clothes us with singing-robes, and crowns us with
+everlasting joy.
+
+III. We consider the recognition by revelation of death. We have,
+again, adroit ways of shutting the gate upon that sackcloth which is
+the sign of death. A recent writer allows that Shakespeare, Raleigh,
+Bacon, and all the Elizabethans shuddered at the horror and mystery
+of death; the sunniest spirits of the English Renaissance quailed to
+think of it. He then goes on to observe that there was something in
+this fear of the child's vast and unreasoned dread of darkness and
+mystery, and such a way of viewing death has become obsolete through
+the scientific and philosophic developments of the later centuries.
+Walt Whitman also tells us "that nothing can happen more beautiful
+than death," and he has exprest the humanist view of mortality in
+a hymn which his admirers regard as the high-water mark of modern
+poetry. But will this rhapsody bear thinking about? Is death
+"delicate, lovely and soothing," "delicious," coming to us with
+"serenades"? Does death "lave us in a flood of bliss"? Does "the body
+gratefully nestle close to death"? Do we go forth to meet death "with
+dances and chants of fullest welcome"? It is vain to attempt to hide
+the direst fact of all under plausible metaphors and rhetorical
+artifice. It is in defiance of all history that man so write. It is in
+contradiction of the universal instinct. It is mockery to the dying.
+It is an outrage upon the mourners. The Elizabethan masters were far
+truer to the fact; so is the modern skeptic who shrinks at "the black
+and horrible grave." Men never speak of delicious blindness, of
+delicious dumbness, of delicious deafness, of delicious paralysis; and
+death is all these disasters in one, all these disasters without hope.
+No, no, the morgue is the last place that lends itself to decoration.
+Death is the crowning evil, the absolute bankruptcy, the final defeat,
+the endless exile. Let us not shut our eyes to this. The skeptic
+often tells us that he will have no "make-believe." Let us have no
+"make-believe" about death. Let us candidly apprehend death for all
+that it is of mystery and bitterness, and reconcile ourselves to it,
+if reconciliation be possible. If we are foolish enough to shut the
+gate on the thought of death, by no stratagem can we shut the gate
+upon death itself.
+
+Without evasion or euphony Christ recognizes the somber mystery. The
+fact, the power, the terror of death are displayed by Him without
+reserve or softening. And He goes to the root of the dire and dismal
+matter. He shows us that death as we know it is an unnatural thing,
+that it is the fruit of disobedience, and by giving us purity and
+peace He gives us eternal life. The words of Luther, so full of power,
+were called "half-battles"; but the words of Christ in their depth and
+majesty are complete battles, in which sin, suffering, and death
+are finally routed. He attempts no logical proof of immortality; He
+supplies no chemical formula for the resurrection; He demonstrates
+immortality by raising us from the death of sin to the life of
+righteousness, by filling our soul with infinite aspirations and
+delights. Here is the proof supreme of immortality. "Verily, verily, I
+say unto you, he that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do
+also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto
+my Father." The moral works are the greater works. Wonderful is the
+stilling of the sea, the healing of the blind, the raising of the
+dead, but the moral miracles of our Lord express a still diviner power
+and carry with them a more absolute demonstration. If, therefore, we
+have known the power of Christ delivering our soul from the blindness,
+the paralysis, the death of sin, lifting it above the dust and causing
+it to exult in the liberties and delights of the heavenlies, why
+should we think it a thing incredible that God should raise the
+dead? If He has wrought the greater, He will not fail with the less.
+Christianity opens our eyes to splendid visions, makes us heirs of
+mighty hopes, and for all its prospects and promises it demands our
+confidence on the ground of its present magnificent and undeniable
+moral achievements. Its predictions are credible in the light of its
+spiritual efficacy. "And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because
+of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the
+Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that
+raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies
+by his Spirit that dwelleth in you," Being one with Christ in the
+power of purity, we are one with Him in the power of an endless
+life. Death has its temporary conquest, but grace reigning through
+righteousness shall finally purge the last taint of mortality. Not
+through the scientific and philosophic developments of later centuries
+has the somber way of viewing death become obsolete; Christ bringing
+life and immortality to life has brought about the great change in the
+point of view from which we regard death, the point of view which
+is full of consolation and hope. In Christ alone the crowning evil
+becomes a coronation of glory; the absolute bankruptcy, the condition
+of an incorruptible inheritance; the final defeat, an everlasting
+victory; the endless exile, home, home at last. Once more, by boldly
+adopting the sackcloth Christ has changed it into a robe of light.
+"That through death he might destroy him that had the power of death,
+that is, the devil"
+
+We cannot escape the evils of life; they are inevitable and
+inexorable. We may hide from our eyes the signs and sights of
+mourning; but in royal splendor our hearts will still bleed; wearing
+wreaths of roses, our heads will still ache. A preacher who complains
+that Christianity is "the religion of sorrow" goes on to predict
+that the woes of the world are fast coming to an end, and then the
+sorrowful religion of Jesus Christ will give place to some purer
+faith. "Through the chinks we can see the light. The condition of man
+becomes more comfortable, more easy; the hope of man is more visible;
+the endeavor of man is more often crowned with success; the attempt
+to solve the darkest life-problems is not desperate as it was. The
+reformer meets with fewer rebuffs; the philanthropist does not despair
+as he did. The light is dawning. The great teachers of knowledge
+multiply, bear their burdens more and more steadily; the traditions
+of truth and knowledge are becoming established in the intellectual
+world. It is so; and those of us who have caught a vision of the
+better times coming through reason, through knowledge, through manly
+and womanly endeavor, have caught a sight of a Christendom passing
+away, of a religion of sorrow declining, of a gospel preached for the
+poor no longer useful to a world that is mastering its own problems of
+poverty and lifting itself out of disabling misery into wealth without
+angelic assistance. This is our consolation; and while we admit,
+clearly and frankly, the real power of the popular faith, we also see
+the pillars on which a new faith rests, which shall be a faith, not
+of sorrow, but of joy." Now, the deepest sorrow of the race is not
+physical, neither is it bound up with material and social conditions.
+As the Scotch say, "The king sighs as often as the peasant"; and this
+proverb anticipates the fact that those who participate in the richest
+civilization that will ever flower will sigh as men sigh now. When the
+problem of poverty is mastered, when disease is extirpated, when a
+period is put to all disorganization of industry and misgovernment,
+social and political, it will be found by the emancipated and enriched
+community what is now found by opulent individuals and privileged
+classes, that the secret of our discontent is internal and mysterious,
+that it springs from the ungodliness, the egotism, the sensuality,
+which theology calls sin. But whatever the future may reveal, all the
+sorrows of life are upon us here and now; we cannot deny them, we
+have constantly to struggle with them, we are often overwhelmed by
+irreparable misfortune. Esther "sent raiment to clothe Mordecai, and
+to take his sackcloth from him; but he received it not." In vain do
+men offer us robes of beauty, chiding us for wearing the color of the
+night; we cannot be deceived by flattering words; we must give place
+to all the sad thoughts of our mortality until haply we find a
+salvation that goes to the root of our suffering, that dries up the
+fount of our tears.
+
+In a very different spirit and for very different ends do men
+contemplate the dark side of human life. The cynic expatiates on
+painful things--the blot on life's beauty, the shadow on its glory,
+the pitiful ending of its brave shows--only to gibe and mock. The
+realist lingers in the dissecting chamber for very delight in
+revolting themes. The pessimist enlarges on the power of melancholy
+that lie may justify despair. The poet touches the pathetic string
+that he may flutter the heart. Fiction dramatizes the tragic sentiment
+for the sake of literary effect. Cultured wickedness drinks wine
+out of a skull, that by sharp contrast it may heighten its sensuous
+delight; whilst estheticism dallies with the sad experiences of life
+to the end of intellectual pleasure, as in ornamental gardening, dead
+leaves are left on ferns and palms in the service of the picturesque.
+But Christianity gives such large recognition to the pathetic element
+of life, not that it may mock with the cynic, or trifle with the
+artist; not because with the realist it has a ghoulish delight in
+horror, or because with the refined sensualist it cunningly aims to
+give poignancy to pleasure by the memory of pain; but because it
+divines the secret of our mighty misfortune, and brings with it the
+sovereign antidote. The critics declare that Rubens had an absolute
+delight in representing pain, and they refer us to that artist's
+picture of the "Brazen Serpent" in the National Gallery. The canvas is
+full of the pain, the fever, the contortions of the wounded and dying;
+the writhing, gasping crowd is everything, and the supreme instrument
+of cure, the brazen serpent itself, is small and obscure, no
+conspicuous feature whatever of the picture. The manner of the great
+artist is so far out of keeping with the spirit of the gospel.
+Revelation brings out broadly and impressively the darkness of the
+world, the malady of life, the terror of death, only that it may
+evermore make conspicuous the uplifted Cross, which, once seen, is
+death to ever vice, a consolation in every sorrow, a victory over
+every fear.
+
+
+
+LORIMER
+
+THE FALL OF SATAN
+
+BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+
+George C. Lorimer was born at Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1838. He was
+brought up by his stepfather who was associated with the theater,
+and in this relation he received a dramatic education and had some
+experience on the stage. In 1855 he came to the United States, where
+he joined the Baptist Church and abandoned the theatrical profession.
+Later he studied for the Baptist ministry, being ordained in 1859. He
+died in 1904. His direct and dramatic, pulpit style brought him into
+great popularity in Boston, Chicago, and New York. At Tremont Temple,
+Boston, he frequently spoke to overflowing congregations. He is the
+author of several well-known books, from one of which the sermon here
+given is taken as indicating his familiarity with and liking for
+dramatic literature. His pulpit manner always retained a flavor of
+dramatic style that contributed to his popularity.
+
+
+
+
+LORIMER
+
+1838--1904
+
+THE FALL OF SATAN[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Copyright, 1882, by "The Homiletic Monthly," New York.]
+
+_I beheld Satan, as lightning, fall from heaven_.--Luke x., 18.
+
+
+Whether the "glorious darkness" denoted by the name Satan is an actual
+personage or a maleficent influence, is of secondary moment as far
+as the aim and moral of this discourse are concerned. If the ominous
+title applies to an abstraction, and if the event so vividly
+introduced is but a dramatical representation of some phase in the
+mystery of iniquity, the spiritual inferences are just what they would
+be were the words respectively descriptive of an angel of sin, and of
+his utter and terrible overthrow. I shall not, therefore, tax your
+patience with discussions on these points, but shall assume as true
+that literal reading of the text which has commended itself to the
+ripest among our evangelical scholars.
+
+The Scriptures obscurely hint at a catastrophe in heaven among
+immortal intelligences, by which many of them were smitten down from
+their radiant emerald thrones. Their communications on the subject
+are not specific and unambiguous, and neither can they escape the
+suspicion of being designedly figurative; intended, probably, as much
+to veil as to reveal. One of the clearest statements is made by Jude,
+where he says: "And the angels which kept not their first estate, but
+left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains,
+under darkness, unto the judgment of the great day"; and Peter, in
+like manner, speaks of God sparing not the angels that sinned, "but
+cast them down to hell"; and yet these comparatively lucid passages
+suggest a world of mist and shadow, which becomes filled with strange
+images when we confront the picture, presented by John, of war in
+heaven, with Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon, "that
+old serpent called the devil." Back of them there doubtless lies a
+history whose tragic significance is not easily measured. The sad,
+imperishable annals of our race prove that sin is a contingency
+of freedom. Wherever creatures are endowed with moral liberty,
+transgression is impliedly possible. It is, consequently, inherently
+probable that celestial beings, as well as man, may have revolted from
+the law of their Maker; and a fall accomplished among the inhabitants
+of heaven should no more surprize us than the fall of mortals on
+earth. Perhaps, after all, there is as much truth as poetry in
+Milton's conception of the rebellion, and of the fearful defeat that
+overtook its leader:--
+
+                   "Him the almighty Power
+  Hurled headlong flaming from the ethereal sky,
+  With hideous ruin and combustion, down
+  To bottomless perdition: there to dwell
+  In adamantine chains and penal fire,
+  Who durst defy the Omnipotent to arms."
+
+An apostle, admonishing a novice, bids him beware of pride, "lest he
+fall into the condemnation of the devil." Here presumptuous arrogance
+and haughtiness of spirit are specified as the root and source of the
+great transgression. Shakespeare takes up this thought:--
+
+  "Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition.
+  By that sin fell the angels: how can man, then,
+  The image of his Maker, hope to win by't?"
+
+And Milton repeats it in the magnificent lines:--
+
+                      "What time his pride
+  Had cast him out of heaven, with all his host
+  Of rebel angels; by whose aid, aspiring
+  To set himself in glory above his peers,
+  He trusted to have equalled the Most High,
+  If He opposed; and, with ambitious aim,
+  Against the throne and monarchy of God
+  Raised impious war in heaven, and battle proud,
+  With vain attempt."
+
+Our Savior, also, sanctions this idea in the text. Joining His
+disciples again, after their brief separation, He finds them elated
+and exultant. They rejoiced, and, apparently, not with modesty, that
+devils were subject unto them, and that they could exorcize them at
+their pleasure. While they acknowledged that their power was due to
+the influence of His name, they evidently thought more of
+themselves than of Him. They were given to unseemly glorifying and
+self-satisfaction, and were met by the Master's words--half warning,
+half rebuke--"I beheld Satan, as lightning, fall from heaven." He thus
+identifies their pride with that evil spirit which led to angelic
+ruin, and seeks to banish it from their hearts: "Rejoice not that the
+demons are subject unto you, but, rather, rejoice because your names
+are written in heaven." Rejoice not on account of privilege and
+power, but on account of grace; for the memory of grace must promote
+humility, as it will recall the guilt of which it is the remedy.
+
+We have, here, a lesson for all ages and for all classes of society--a
+lesson continually enforced by Scripture, and illustrated by history.
+It deals with the insanity of pride and the senselessness of
+egotism. It reminds us, by repeated examples, of the temptations to
+self-inflation, and of the perils which assail its indulgence. "Ye
+shall be as gods," was the smiling, sarcastic allurement which
+beguiled our first parents to their ruin. They thought that before
+them rose an eminence which the foot of creaturehood had never
+trodden; that from its height the adventurous climber would rival
+Deity in the sweep of his knowledge and the depth of his joy. Elated
+and dazzled by the prospect, they dared tread through sin to its
+attainment, vainly dreaming that wrong-doing would lead to a purer
+paradise and to a loftier throne. One step, and only one, in the
+gratification of their desires, converted their enchanting mountain
+into a yawning gulf, and in its horrid wastes of darkness and of
+sorrow their high-blown pride was shamed and smothered. The haughty
+king walked on the terrace heights of Babylon, and, beneath the calm
+splendor of an Assyrian sky, voiced the complacent feeling which
+dulled his sense of dependence upon God--as the perfumes of the East
+lull into waking-slumber the faculties of the soul. Thus ran his
+self-glorifying soliloquy: "Is not this great Babylon that I have
+built for the house of the kingdom by the might of my power, and for
+the honor of my majesty?" Alas for the weakness of the royal egotist!
+In an hour his boasting was at an end, and, reduced by the chastening
+judgment of the Almighty to the level of the brute creation, he was
+compelled to learn that "those who walk in pride the King of heaven
+is able to abase." Similar the lesson taught us by the overthrow
+of Belshazzar when, congratulating himself on the stability of his
+throne, and in his excess of arrogance, he insulted the sacred vessels
+which his father had plundered from the temple at Jerusalem. I say
+taught us, for the foolhardy braggart was past learning anything
+himself. Like the yet more silly Herod, who drank in the adulation of
+the mob as he sat shimmering in his silver robe and slimed his speech
+from his serpent-tongue, he was too inflated and bloated with vanity
+to be corrected by wholesome discipline. Both of these rulers were too
+self-satisfied to be reproved, and God's exterminating indignation
+overtook them. Like empty bubbles, nothing could be done with them,
+and hence the breath of the Almighty burst and dispersed their
+glittering worthlessness. Pope John XXI., according to Dean Milman, is
+another conspicuous monument of this folly. "Contemplating," writes
+the historian, "with too much pride the work of his own hands"--the
+splendid palace of Viterbo--"at that instant the avenging roof came
+down, on his head." And Shakespeare has immortalized the pathetic doom
+which awaits the proud man, who, confident in his own importance and
+in the magnitude of his destiny, is swallowed up in schemes and plans
+for his personal aggrandizement and power. Wolsey goes too far in his
+self-seeking, is betrayed by his excess of statecraft, and, being
+publicly disgraced, laments, when too late, his selfish folly:--
+
+                             "I have ventured,
+  Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders,
+  These many summers on a sea of glory,
+  But far beyond my depth: my high-blown pride
+  At length broke under me; and now has left me,
+  Weary, and old with service, to the mercy
+  Of a rude stream, that must forever hide me."
+
+It is not difficult to discern the fatal effects of this spirit in
+the lives of the great and mighty; but we are frequently blind to its
+pernicious influence on the lowly and weak. We do not realize, as we
+ought, that the differences between men lie mainly in their position,
+not in their experiences and dangers. The leaders of society are
+merely actors, exhibiting on the public stage of history what is
+common to mankind at large. However insignificant we may be, and
+however obscure our station, our inner life is not far removed from
+that of the exalted personages who draw to themselves the attention of
+the world. The poorest man has his ambitions, his struggles and his
+reverses; and the first may take as deep a hold upon his heart, and
+the second call forth as much cunning or wisdom to confront, and the
+last as much bitterness to endure, as are found in the vicissitudes
+of a Richelieu or a Napoleon. The peasant's daughter, in her narrow
+circle, feels as keenly the disappointment of her hopes, and mourns as
+intensely the betrayal of her confidence, or the rude ending of her
+day-dreams, as either queen or princess, as either Katharine of
+England or Josephine of France. We do wrong to separate, as widely as
+we do in our thoughts, ranks and conditions of society. The palace and
+the hovel are nearer to each other than we usually think; and what
+passes beneath the fretted ceiling of the one, and the thatched roof
+of the other, is divided by the shadowy line of mere externalities.
+And so it happens that the fall of an angel may be pertinent to the
+state of a fisherman-disciple, and the fall of a prime minister or
+ruler have its message of warning for the tradesman and mechanic.
+
+Indeed, it will generally be found that the failures of life, and the
+worse than failures, are mainly due to the same cause which emptied
+heavenly thrones of their angelic occupants. What is it, let me ask,
+that comes into clearer prominence as the Washington tragedy[1] is
+being investigated and scrutinized? Is it not that a diseased egotism,
+or perhaps it would be more correct to say, a stalwart egotism, robbed
+this country of its ruler, committed "most sacrilegious murder," and
+"broke ope"
+
+  "The Lord's anointed temple, and stole thence
+  The life o' the building."
+
+[Footnote 1: The assassination of President Garfield.]
+
+Like bloody Macbeth, who greedily drank in the prognostications of the
+weird sisters, tho he feared that the "supernatural soliciting" could
+not be good, because they pandered to his monstrous self-infatuation,
+Guiteau, having wrought himself up through many years of
+self-complacency, claims to have believed that the divine Being had
+chosen him to do a deed which has filled the earth with horror. Thus
+the growth of self-conceit into mammoth proportions tends to obscure
+the rights of others, and to darken with its gigantic shadow the
+light of conscience. If we are to admit the prisoner's story, as the
+expression of his real condition prior to the assassination, we look
+on one so intoxicated with the sense of his own importance that he
+would "spurn the sea, if it could roar at him," and hesitate not to
+perform any deed of darkness that would render him more conspicuous.
+Others, less heinous offenders than this garrulous murderer, have,
+from similar weakness, wrought indescribable mischief to themselves.
+The man, for instance, who frets against providence because his
+standing is not higher and his influence greater, has evidently
+a better opinion of his deservings than is wholesome for him. He
+imagines he is being wronged by the Creator--that his merits are not
+recognized as they should be--never, for a moment, remembering that,
+as a sinner, he has no claims on the extraordinary bounty of his
+heavenly Father. From murmuring he easily glides into open rebellion,
+and from whispered reproaches to loud denunciations. There are people
+in every community whose pride leads them into shameful transactions.
+They would not condescend to mingle with their social inferiors, but
+they will subsist on the earnings of their friends, and consider it no
+disgrace to borrow money which they have no intention of returning.
+Their vanity, at times, commits them to extravagances which they have
+no means of supporting. They ought to have carriages and horses,
+mansions and pictures, with all the luxuries of affluence--at least
+so they think--and, being destitute of the resources requisite to
+maintain such state, they become adepts in those arts which qualify
+for the penitentiary. Others have such confidence in the strength of
+their virtue, such commanding arrogance of integrity, that, like a
+captain who underestimates the force of an enemy and overrates his
+own, they neglect to place a picket-guard on the outskirts of their
+moral camp, and in such an hour as they think not they are surprized
+and lost. Even possessors of religion are not always clear of this
+folly, or safe from its perils. They "think more highly of themselves
+than they ought to think"; they come to regard themselves as specially
+favored of heaven; they talk of the Almighty in a free and easy
+manner, and of Jesus Christ as tho He were not the Judge at all. When
+they pray, it is with a familiarity bordering on irreverence, and
+when they deal with sacred themes it is with a lightness that breeds
+contempt. When they recount the marvels which they have wrought in
+the name of Christ, it is hardly-possible for them to hide their
+self-complacency; for, while they profess to give Him the glory, the
+manner of their speech shows that they are taking it to themselves.
+They are like the disciples, who were as proud of their prowess in
+casting out devils as children are with their beautiful toys, and
+they are as much in need of the Savior's warning: "I beheld Satan, as
+lightning, fall from heaven." And because they have failed to give
+heed unto it, they have oftentimes followed the Evil One in his
+downward course, and in a moment have made shipwreck of their faith.
+
+  "As sails, full spread, and bellying with the wind,
+  Drop, suddenly collapsed, if the mast split;
+  So to the ground down dropped the cruel fiend";
+
+and earthward have the unsaintly saints of God as swiftly sped, when
+they have fostered the pride which changed angels into demons.
+
+"How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!" What
+more pitiable spectacle than the ruin of an angel! We have seen the
+forsaken halls of time-worn and dilapidated castles, have stood in
+the unroofed palaces of ancient princes, and have gazed on the
+moss-covered and ivy-decked towers of perishing churches, and the
+sight of them has tilled our hearts with melancholy, as we thought
+of what had been, and of the changes that had swept over the fair,
+valiant and pious throngs whose laughter, bravery and prayers once
+made these scenes so gay and vocal. All is hushed now, and the silence
+is broken only by the hoot and screech of the owl, or by the rustle of
+the nightbat's leathern wing. But how much sadder is the form of the
+mighty spirit, who once sat regnant among the sons of light, emptied
+of his innocence, filled with foul, creeping, venomous thoughts and
+feelings, uncrowned, dethroned only with malignity and throned in
+evil! The Bible calls him the prince and the god of this world; and
+everywhere we are surrounded with evidences of his despotic sway.
+Unlike earthly rulers, whose exhausted natures exact repose, he
+is ever sleepless, and his plotting never ends. Enter his somber
+presence-chamber, and commotion, bustle, activity will confront and
+amaze you. He is continually sending his emissaries forth in every
+direction. The perpetual wranglings, ceaseless distractions,
+irreconcilable contradictions, disquieting doubts, discouraging
+outlooks, inharmonious and jangling opinions, unaccountable delusions,
+clashing and crashing dissonances, cruel hatreds, bitter enmities and
+stormful convulsions, which so largely enter and deface the course of
+human history, proceed mainly from his influence. We know that "the
+heart of a lost angel is in the earth," and as we know its throbbings
+carry misery and despair to millions of our fellow-beings, we can
+surmise the intensity of we wherewith it afflicts himself. Mrs.
+Browning's Adam thus addresses Lucifer:--
+
+                          "The prodigy
+  Of thy vast brows and melancholy eyes,
+  Which comprehend the heights of some great fall.
+  I think that thou hast one day worn a crown
+  Under the eyes of God."
+
+But now the vast brow must wear a heavier gloom, and the eyes betray a
+deeper sorrow, as in his ruin he has sought to bury the hopes and joys
+of a weaker race. How different his dealings with the race from those
+which mark the ministry of Christ! Immortal hate on the one side of
+humanity; immortal love on the other; both struggling for supremacy.
+One sweeping across the soul with pinions of dark doubts and fears;
+the other, with the strong wing of hope and fair anticipations. One
+seeking to plunge the earth-spirit into the abysmal depths of eternal
+darkness; the other seeking to bear it to the apex of light, where
+reigns eternal day. And of the two, Christ alone is called "the
+blest." In the agony and anguish of His sufferings He yet can exclaim,
+"My joy I leave with thee"; and in the lowest vale of His shame can
+calmly discourse on peace. The reason? Do you ask the question? It
+is found in His goodness. He is good, and seeks the good of all; and
+goodness crowns His lacerated brow with joy. This Satan sacrificed
+in his fall; this he antagonizes with, in his dreary career, and so
+remains in the eyes of all ages the monument of melancholy gloom.
+Thus, also, is it with man, whose haughtiness thrusts him into evil.
+He is morose and wretched, crusht beneath a burden of we, which weighs
+the eyelids down with weariness and the heart with care, and
+which constrains him to curse the hour of his birth. Next to the
+grief-crowned angel, there is no more pitiable object in all God's
+fair creation than a human soul tumbled by its own besotted pride into
+sin and shame. "How is the gold become dim! how is the most fine gold
+changed!" aye, changed to dross, which the foot spurns, and which the
+whirlwind scatters to the midnight region of eternity.
+
+In view of these reflections, we can understand the stress laid by the
+inspired writers on the grace of humility. We are exhorted to be like
+Jesus, who was meek and lowly in heart; and we are commanded to esteem
+others better than ourselves. These admonitions are not designed to
+cultivate a servile or an abject spirit, but to promote a wholesome
+sense of our own limitations, weaknesses and dependence. They would
+foster such a state of mind as will receive instruction, as will lean
+on the Almighty, and recognize the worthiness and rights of all. Just
+as the flower has to pass its season entombed in the darkness of its
+calyx before it spreads forth its radiant colors and breathes its
+perfume, so the soul must veil itself in the consciousness of its own
+ignorance and sinfulness before it will be able to expand in true
+greatness, or shed around it the aroma of pure goodness. Crossing the
+prairies recently between this city and St. Louis, I noticed that the
+trees were nearly all bowed in the direction of the northeast. As our
+strongest winds blow from that quarter, it was natural to inquire why
+they were not bent to the southwest. The explanation given was, that
+the south winds prevail in the time of sap, when the trees are supple
+with life and heavy with foliage, and consequently, that they yield
+before them. But when the winter comes they are hard and firm, rigid
+and stiff, and even the fury of the tempest affects them not. Thus
+is it with human souls. When humility fills the heart, when its
+gentleness renders susceptible its thoughts and feelings, the softest
+breath of God's Spirit can bend it earthward to help the needy, and
+downward to supplicate and welcome heaven's grace. But when it is
+frozen through and through with pride, it coldly resists the overtures
+of mercy, and in its deadness is apathetic even, to the storm of
+wrath. Nothing remains but for the wild hurricane to uproot it and
+level it to the ground. Such is the moral of my brief discourse. God
+grant we may have the wisdom of humility to receive it!
+
+
+
+
+KNOX LITTLE
+
+THIRST SATISFIED
+
+BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
+
+
+William John Knox Little, English preacher, was born 1839 and educated
+at Cambridge University. He has filled many parochial cures, and in
+1881 was appointed canon of Worcester, and sub-dean in 1902. He also
+holds the vicarage of Hoar Cross (1885). He is of high repute as a
+preacher and is in much request all over England. He belongs to the
+High Church school and has printed, besides his sermons, many works of
+educational character, such as the "Treasury of Meditation," "Manual
+of Devotion for Lent," and "Confirmation and Holy Communion."
+
+
+
+
+KNOX LITTLE
+
+BORN IN 1839
+
+THIRST SATISFIED[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Reprinted by permission of Hodder & Stoughton, London.]
+
+_My soul is athirst for God, for the living God; when shall I come and
+appear before the presence of God?_--Psalm xlii., 2.
+
+
+The verse, dear friends, which I have read to you for a text is one
+of those verses which justify in the highest degree the action of the
+Christian Church in selecting the Hebrew Psalter as, in fact, her
+prayer-book. There are many passages, as you will feel with me, in the
+Hebrew psalter that express in a very high degree the wants of the
+human soul; but perhaps there is no passage more telling, more
+touching, more searching, more expressive than that solemn and that
+exalted sentiment which is spoken in the text, "My soul is athirst
+for God, for the living God; when shall I come and appear before the
+presence of God?" The passage is a justification, then, of the action
+of the Christian Church. People sometimes ask why in the daily
+service, why on Sundays, you rehearse the Psalms, which have about
+them so much that is incomprehensible, so much that requires
+explanation; why there are those tremendous denunciations of enemies,
+why there are those prayers that seem at first sight to touch
+wants that we modern people scarcely know; but if you want a real
+justification and a handy answer you may fall back upon the general
+texture of the psalter as exprest by such solemn words as those of the
+text. If you would find any document, any volume that will speak your
+thoughts best about and towards eternity, you cannot select a better
+than the Hebrew psalter, for the general tone and temper of its
+teaching is the cry of the soul for God.
+
+And then there is another thought upon the threshold of such a subject
+that demands our attention. This verse of the text, being a sort of
+example or representative verse of the psalter, expresses to us--does
+it not?--the attitude and the mission of the Christian Church. The
+attitude. For what is the position, dear friends, of the Christian
+Church? What are the struggles of Christian souls except, in the midst
+of a world that is quite complicated with difficulties, in the midst
+of a world that is overwhelmed with sorrow, in the midst of a time of
+severe temptation, to constantly rise and gaze high above the thought
+of evil, and gaze towards the sun of brightness, and cry for God? And
+what is the mission of the Christian Church? Is it not to help men and
+women in their struggle and their sorrow to forget at least at times
+their pettinesses and degradation to rise to better standards and
+loftier ideals, and cry for God? And if that be the mission of the
+Christian Church, then I hold--and that is my point this morning--that
+that is the justification of such noble efforts as have been made in
+your church to enable so great, so sinful a city as London to have at
+least moments of relaxation from its world-wide weariness, moments of
+pause in the pursuit of its sin, and to call it back from that
+which is overpowering tho transient--to ask it to pass them in the
+ministrations of religion. What is the object of such a church as
+this? Why, buried among your buildings, in the midst of this great,
+powerful, sinful city,--why has it a mission for eternity? Why is
+it good that you should do your best? Why is it praiseworthy and
+beautiful that your rector and churchwardens should have exerted
+themselves to the utmost to make this church what it ought to be?
+Why? Because there is not a man or woman in London, not one in this
+bustling crowd, not one in this confusion of commerce, not one in this
+sink of sin, but might say "Yes"--ought to say, and must ultimately
+feel, and should now be taught to realize that the soul has one
+satisfaction, one only--"My soul is athirst for God, for the living
+God." Well, if that be so, can we be wrong, dear friends, can we waste
+our time, if we ask ourselves this morning something quite practical
+about this thirst of the soul?
+
+And, first of all, I submit that in such a verse as this, and in such
+a work as this, we are face to face with one of those great governed
+contrasts that are found throughout Scripture and throughout human
+life. I may say, _par parenthese_, that that is one of the great
+proofs of sacred Scripture. When your shallow thinker, when your wild
+and profound philosopher, kicks the sacred Book with the toe of his
+boot, and denounces it because he does not like the measure of Noah's
+Ark or the exact activity of Jonah's whale, the moment you begin
+to think beneath those mere sharpnesses of speech and those mere
+quicknesses of the thought, you say this: "There may be this or that
+about the surface of Scripture which I do not and cannot explain, and
+cannot entirely understand; but at least there is no book--no, not
+excepting Milton; no, not even excepting Dante; no, for us English
+people, making no reserve for Shakespeare--there is no book that,
+after all, expresses that deep, inner, serious fact of my being, of
+my soul, of myself; the fact that lives when our facts are dying; the
+fact that persists in asserting itself when the noise of the world is
+still; the fact that does not care about daylight only, but comes up
+in the dark; the fact that whispers low when I am in the crowd, but
+speaks loud in the darkest night, when the clock is ticking on the
+stairs, and conscience has stalked out and stood before me, asserting
+facts that I cannot contradict--there is no look that can speak that
+fact of facts, that thirst, that longing, that desolation, that
+desire, that hope, that activity, that possibility of supreme
+contention and final victory, there is nothing like the Bible that
+does that." And so wise men, while they admit difficulties, thoughtful
+men, while they do not controvert the fact that that which is divine
+needs larger explanation, fall back upon such great governed truths as
+that text to support the Bible. The Bible says, asserts, determines,
+and insists upon the truth which the Church is insisting upon, which
+you and I, in our better moments, emphasize and say "Amen" to--the
+soul is athirst for God. The Bible brings home the great contrast that
+is present to us all.
+
+Let us dwell, that we may realize this thirst of the soul, upon the
+contrast. There are, at least, four forms of attraction which are
+presented, as I suppose, to your soul, certainly to mine. First of
+all, there is the attraction of natural beauty. If you stand on a fair
+August afternoon on the terrace, for instance, at Berne, or on the
+heights of Chaumont; if you gaze at the distant Alps, crowned with
+snow which was generated in winter, but which takes the brightness and
+glory of diamonds in the summer sun; if, coming from the noise and
+heat of England, you first gaze at that line of strange pointed
+mountains crowned with that whiteness, struck with the sunlight, you
+are moved by natural beauty. If you stand in America on the upper
+reaches of the St. Lawrence, and watch the river as it hurries to its
+destiny at Niagara; if you see the tossing water writhing almost like
+living creatures anticipating a dreadful destiny and passing over the
+fall; or if, rising out of what is tragic in nature, you come to what
+is homely--if, for instance, you see the chestnut woods of spring with
+an inspiration of quiet joy, or if you see the elms at Worcester or
+Hereford in our common England in the autumn time with an inspiration
+of sorrow; wherever you turn with eye or head, with a feeling in your
+heart, a thought in your mind, nature demands her recognition; and you
+London men, in the toil of your struggle, in the noise of your work,
+in the dust of your confusion of life, when you get your holiday in
+spring or autumn,--unless, indeed, you have passed into the mere
+condition of brutes,--while you still keep the hearts of men, you feel
+there is something in the apostles of culture, in the teachers of
+esthetics, in persons who say that beauty is everything to satisfy the
+soul. Nature, you say--and you say it justly--says, "Beauty." You
+find a delight as you gaze upon nature. Yes, dear friends, you are
+stimulated, you are delighted, you are consoled; there is one thing
+which you are not--you are not satisfied.
+
+Or, quite possibly, you turn to that which seems to English natures
+more practical and less poetical--you turn to the attraction of
+activity. You say the poets, or the preachers, or the dreamers may
+gaze upon nature; but Englishmen have something else to do--we have to
+work. You look at the result of activity, and it is splendid. Imagine,
+picture for a moment, political achievement; picture to yourselves the
+power not only of a mind, but of a personality, of a character
+which can attract vast millions who have never gazed upon the human
+expression in the human face--can attract them to great love or to
+great hatred, can mold the destinies of an empire, can change the
+current of the time--think of such men as Richelieu or Cavour, or more
+modern instances, and you understand what is the greatness and the
+power of the attraction of political activity. Or, to come nearer
+home, go into your London city, and watch the working of your London
+mart. What have you before you there? The activity of the hearts and
+minds of Englishmen, sending out the force of the life that is in them
+from the heart that is beating in those tremendous centers to the
+distances that are only stopt by the most distant frontiers of the
+world. Your sayings and thoughts are quoted throughout the markets of
+Europe--yes, throughout the markets of other continents; your actions
+and decisions make the difference between the decisions and the
+actions of men that you have never seen, that you shall never see. The
+Medici were a power in Florence, first as bankers, then as governors.
+There are men in London who have power throughout the world, not only
+in Florence, not as profest governors, but as practical governors
+through the activity of commercial instinct. Certainly, it seems to me
+quite possible that there may be minds carried away by such a great
+activity; but that great activity I submit to your deeper, quieter
+English Sunday thought--that activity will stimulate, will delight,
+will attract, will intoxicate; one thing it will not do--I am bold to
+say it will never satisfy.
+
+And if I may take another instance for a moment, there is this pure
+intellect, bidding good-by to the political arena, to the commercial
+strife, saying farewell to the dreams of beauty, and falling back
+upon the cells of the brain, traversing the corridors of thought, and
+entering first here and there into that labyrinth of instinct, or
+association, or accumulative learning. Certainly, there is a power of
+a delight that the world can never realize outside the region of the
+brain. If that needs proof you have only, dear friends, to meditate
+upon such lives as Newton, or Shakespeare, or Kepler, or if you turn
+to the region of meditative thought, to such lives as our own George
+Eliot--yes, there is that in the mere exercise of intellect which
+is intoxicating, which is consoling even to the highest degree. But
+intellect, after all, finds its frontier. I may say of it what I
+have said of the esthetic sentiment, what I have said of the active
+sentiment in man: it attracts, it delights--what is more, I think
+it even consoles; but the one thing I find about it that to me is
+perfectly appalling is that it does not satisfy.
+
+There are many of you perhaps to-day who will demand that I should
+take my fourth instance, and will ask that that at least may do its
+duty. Will it? There is the region of the affections--that region
+wherein we stray in early spring days as pickers of the spring-flowers
+of our opening life, where suns are always glorious and sunsets only
+speak of brighter dawn, where poetry is in all ordinary conversation
+and hope springs to higher heights from hour to hour, where Mays
+are always Mays and Junes are always Junes, where flowers are ever
+bursting, and there seems no end to our nosegays, no limit to our
+imaginations, no fetter to our fancies, no restraint to our desires.
+There is the world, the vast, powerful world, of the passions,
+purified by exhaustive cultivation into what we call the affections
+of a higher life. By them we deal with our fellow-creatures; by them,
+when we are young, we form great friendships; by them, as we grow
+older, we form around us certain associations that we intend to
+support us as life goes off. We have all known it. There is the
+friend, there is the sweetheart, there is the wife, there is the
+child, there are the dear expressions of the strong heart that after
+all beats in Englishmen. But as life goes on, first in one object and
+then by anticipation and terror perhaps in others, we watch those who
+have been dear to us pass in dim procession to the grave, and we find,
+after all, that in the world of affections that old strange law that
+pervades one branch of the contrast prevails; it can stimulate, it can
+support, it can console, it can delight, it can lead to delirium
+at moments, but it does not satisfy. And, my brothers and sisters,
+because you and I are born not for a moment, but for infinite moments;
+not for the struggle of time, but for the great platform and career of
+eternity--because that is so, never, never, never, if we are true to
+ourselves, shall we pause in the midst of our mortal pilgrimage until
+we find, and grasp, and embrace, and love that which satisfies. When
+you awaken up a young heart to that truth, then that heart, as I hold
+it, is on the path of conversion. When amidst the struggle of sin you
+have determined the soul to strive after that truth, then that soul is
+in progress of solid conversion and final perfectibility. But, at any
+rate, all human nature joins that cry of the Christian, and the Bible
+speaks of it as it always does--its ultimate truth expressing what we
+need. No; there are many things given, there are many attractions to
+draw; they will stimulate, they will help, they will console, they
+will give pleasure; there is one thing that satisfies the immortal,
+there is one life that meets your need: "My soul is athirst for God,
+for the living God; when shall I come to appear before the presence of
+God?"
+
+Why, dear friends, why is it that these things do not satisfy? There
+lies a city in the Volscian Hills, fair and beautiful, climbing in its
+peaks and pinnacles up little ledges of the rocks, and down into the
+depths of the valleys. And if you wander some two days from Rome, and
+gaze upon those mountains, historic in their memories and splendid in
+their beauty, you are struck by the tenderness and the attraction of
+that city. It is a city of flowers. The flowers stream up its streets
+in grave procession; they climb up the pillars of churches, embracing
+them and holding on with arms of deep affection; they laugh in the
+sunshine, they weep in the shadow, they are shrouded in the clouds of
+night, but they blaze again in the blaze of the morning. There is
+the dim funereal ivy, there is the brightness and glow of the purple
+convolvulus, there is the wild-rose clustering round the windows. They
+are lying asleep on the doorsteps, they gather themselves into
+knots as if to gossip and to talk in the language of flowers by the
+doorways--utterly beautiful! You look at the city with wonder and
+astonishment--with desire. How wonderful, you say, that church tower
+covered with its flowers; that altar covered with flowers not gathered
+and placed in vases, but with Nature's own hand arranging an offering
+to the living God. These streets that sound no footfall of an angry
+multitude, but that listen to the footfall of a quiet nature--yes,
+it is beautiful in the early morning. But stay there until the later
+afternoon, when the fog begins to gather; stay there until night-time,
+when the miasma begins to rise; stay there until morning, and you
+are in danger of destruction from poison. It is a land of flowery
+expression; but it is not a land of real life.
+
+My friends, the activity of man, the poetic faculty of man, all the
+gifts and all the capacities of man--they are beautiful, they are
+touching, they are attractive; but if they are all, if they express
+all that you have to offer, and all that is in you to feel, then they
+are hollow, or they-are poisonous, and like that city of flowers. Why?
+Because there is in you and me a soul that lies behind our thought,
+altho there is more than feeling there--a soul that supports our will,
+and is more than our volition. It thinks, but is not thought; it
+feels, but is not feeling; it wills, but is not volition. There
+is something deeper in man than his esthetic desire or his active
+practise, something deeper beneath us all than anything that finds
+expression, certainly than anything that finds satisfaction. There is
+the self; there is myself, yourself; there is that strange, mysterious
+life of loneliness which stands, and thinks, and judges, and
+appraises. When, by divine grace, we escape from the voice of the
+crowd, and from the cry of custom, from the delirium of desire, that
+poor lonely self within us pleads to us in a cry like the call of
+the starveling crying to the rich man that passes by, "Oh, will you
+gratify desire? Oh, will you gratify pleasure? Oh, will you stimulate
+activity, and will you leave me alone? I, yourself, your very self,
+the foundation of your life, the permanent expression of your
+immortality--I must be satisfied, and being infinite and immortal, I
+know but one satisfaction: 'My soul is athirst for God, for the living
+God; when shall I come, and appear before the presence of God?'"
+
+If that be true, or if it be approximately true, dear friends, let us
+ask ourselves this morning these questions. Let us be quite practical.
+What do you mean, you may say for a moment, by the thirst for God? I
+remember long ago in Paris, in conversation with one whom I deem
+one of the greatest modern statesmen, tho not one of the most
+successful--I remember, when a mere boy, talking to that thoughtful
+man just at the moment when he was standing amidst the ruins of his
+activity, and gazing with the placid spirit with which a good man
+gazes when he feels that he has done his duty, tho the world can see
+that he has failed--I remember talking to him on such questions as
+these, and what he said, among other things, was this: "In dealing
+with mankind and in dealing with yourself you must rise by degrees,
+you must advance from point to point; there is a point of achievement,
+but you cannot reach the point of achievement unless you have gone
+up the ladder of progress." I follow his advice. What do we mean by
+thirsting for God? My friends, on the lower round of that ladder, I
+mean thirsting for and desiring moral truth. I mean that the soul
+within you is thirsting and imploring for the satisfaction of its
+moral instincts. Turn for an instant to the ten commandments; they are
+trite, they are ordinary, they are placed before you in the east end
+of your church, after the old custom of your practical, unaesthetic,
+and undreaming England. Ask what they mean. Turn to the second table.
+You are to reverence your father and mother. Why? Because they are
+the instruments of life that God gives. You are to reverence life in
+others in the sixth commandment. Why? Because life is the deepest
+mystery that God can possibly exhibit to you. In the seventh
+commandment--I scarcely like to say, but yet it is wise to repeat, it
+is necessary to assert it--we are to remember, you and I, when we
+are young, when we are active, when we are passionate, the great
+responsibility of man; you are not to trifle with that awful mystery,
+the transmission of life, life which unites itself with eternal love.
+You are to remember respect for property, for that which divine
+providence has placed by wise laws in the hands of others. You are to
+remember that the best of properties is a good character. Finally, in
+the tenth commandment, you are not to forget that divine providence
+guides you, and you are not to murmur and be angry when He guides you
+who knows the best for you, and when you have done your best. And
+rising from the second table and coming to the first, you are not to
+forget that there is one object for every soul, as the text asserts.
+You are not to forget that a jealousy may be created, ought to be
+created, if you put anything before God. You are not to grudge God the
+restraint of speech, and--thank God, still it is possible to appeal to
+the wise instincts of England--you are not to grudge on your Sunday
+the gift of your time. These are the outlines of the grave moral law
+that runs deep into the heart of the Christian; and I answer, the
+thirst for God means the thirst within me to fulfil that grave moral
+law.
+
+But, my friends, pause for a moment. After all, that would only be a
+skeleton. After all, simply to draw out the outlines of a picture is
+not the work of an artist. Suppose you ask a master in music, "How am
+I to produce the real result of stately sound?" He will tell you about
+the common cord; he will tell you about the result of its changes and
+its affinities, and will speak of those results as harmony; or he will
+tell you about the gamut of sounds--sounds found in the wind upon the
+mountains, found in the surging sea, found in the voice of childhood,
+found in the whisper of your dreams--sound that is everywhere, sound
+that wanders up and down this wild, wild universe. He will tell you
+all that, and explain how in proper steps, in wise modulations, that
+is melody, as the union of sounds is harmony. Is that enough? Would
+that produce "The Last Judgment" of Spohr, that made you dissolve in
+tears? Would that produce the chorus of Handel that made you almost
+rise and march in majesty? Would that fill you with deep thoughts in
+Beethoven, or fire you into joy in Mendelssohn? Oh, no! You have your
+skeleton, but you have not one thing, the deepest; genius has to touch
+with its fire the fact that is before you; you want the mystery of
+life. And then suppose you turn to an artist and ask him to guide you
+in painting, and he talks to you about light and shadow, about the
+laying of the color, about the drawing of lines, about the exact
+expression of the distant and the present, of the foreground and the
+background, and having learned it all, you produce what seems an
+abortion; you ask yourself, "What is the meaning of this?" Is this
+enough to make you quiver, in Dresden, before the San Sisto, carried
+away by those divine eyes of the "Mother of Eternity," or rent with
+sorrow before the solemn eyes of the Child? Is this enough to fill you
+with tears of delight when you enter the Sistine Chapel and see St.
+John as he kneels with his unshed tears about the dead Christ? What is
+there wanting in the touch of your artist? There is wanting genius;
+there is wanting life. Or to take one instance more. You ask somebody
+to teach you sculpture, to tell you how to make yourself master in the
+treatment of stone. He will tell you wise things about the plastic
+material that you have to mold with thumb and finger, and then about
+the use of the chisel and the hammer to produce the result in the
+stone, following the treatment of that plastic material. But when you
+have learned it all, can you really believe that you will produce the
+effect of that majestic manhood that you see in the David of Angelo
+in the Piazza of Florence, or that wise, determined progress that is
+exprest in Donatello's St. George? What is the difference between your
+failure and the results of those men? Genius--life. And when you turn
+to the moral law, and when you ask yourself, "How can I learn to
+be athirst for God?" the preachers say, "Accept the moral law; act
+exactly in distinct duty to your parents; say, 'Corban, it is a gift
+by whatsoever thou mayest be profited thereby'; do your duty strictly
+to the letter and nothing more; be conservative about your property;
+restrain yourself from desire of change; do not stimulate and do not
+satisfy your passions beyond what is exactly exprest in the moral
+law." But then, if you speak the truth, you say, "And in the end what
+am I? Why, after all, most commonplace, and, in truth, most sinful."
+What is the difference? This difference: there wants here the touch of
+genius; there wants the touch of life divine, grace that illuminates
+the moral law; there wants, my friends, the enthusiasm for goodness,
+the science of sciences, the art of arts, the delight and the desire
+of doing right because it is right, the great and splendid spirit that
+belongs to all of us; and yet it is the highest when the thirst of
+your soul is real. Certainly it is to know God's guidance in law; but
+what is law? It is to grasp that atmosphere of life and reality which
+comes out of the moral law to those who seek it in a living person
+first--the desire of goodness, the desire, the love, the enthusiasm,
+the ambition, cost what it may, of doing right because it is
+right. Oh, my friends, I submit--and I submit it without fear of
+contradiction--that is an ambition worthy of Englishmen. Certainly
+we are not dreamers; certainly God has given us practical activity;
+certainly, whatever we misunderstand, this we can understand, the
+thirst of the soul for God is the thirst to love goodness because it
+is right.
+
+And then hastily to conclude, I would say that that thirst is exprest,
+that that thirst is satisfied, not only in moral law and in its
+atmosphere, but in one thing more that I think we can all understand.
+When we read the New Testament, so simple, so straightforward, so
+true, so beautiful, with some difficulties, but no difficulties that a
+true heart can find insuperable--when we read the New Testament we are
+brought face to face with the teachings of Christ. And there is this,
+my friends, more about these teachings, that if you are to follow them
+out you have not time enough in time; the teachings of our Master
+demand eternity--there is something about them infinite, so simple, so
+beautiful, and yet we feel that we are insufficient to fulfil them in
+this sphere of time. If my soul is athirst for God, it is athirst for
+the fulfilment of those great, splendid, practical teachings which
+remind me that I am to begin to learn my lesson in this narrow school,
+but that I shall fulfil my achievement in that great land beyond the
+grave. Is that enough? No; no, when the heart is lonely; no, when the
+sun is setting; no, when the clouds are gathering round us; no, when
+the storm is coming up. It is useless for the preacher, if he tries to
+be real, to talk about law, or the result of law, or the splendor of
+teaching; if we know the human heart in its width and its activity, if
+it is to find satisfaction it must find it in a personal life. You
+may say you cannot know God. That is the ordinary answer of the human
+sinning heart, which in modern times calls itself agnostic. Know God!
+Well, of course it is truly said that it is by mere license of speech
+when you talk of knowledge about human perceptions--it is wisely said.
+You perceive a fact, my friend; you must perceive it in itself, and as
+it is, and by an intellect that can infallibly state that it is so
+and in that manner. Knowledge like that is impossible, I grant; but
+between that scientific knowledge and utter unbelief there are shades,
+first of all of assent that shuts out doubt, and at last, at the other
+pole, of a doubt that almost shuts out assent. Between the two there
+are activities of life, and if you are to say, "I cannot know the
+personal God with scientific knowledge," I grant it; but you cannot
+know anything, not only in theology, but in politics, or social life,
+or moral conduct, or conduct that is not moral--you can know nothing,
+you can never act at all, because all our action is not on knowledge,
+but on belief, and therefore when we turn to a personal life that is
+not perceived by the activity of the senses we only demand that you
+are to accept that which it is possible to accept in any sphere of
+activity, and which you do accept. It is possible for you, according
+to the laws of your being, to accept a personal Christ. "But," you
+say--and I must remind you of it as I close--"a personal Christ,
+but still clothed in human lineaments, a personal Christ who is
+mysterious--how can you accept that?" How can you not? My friends, the
+human intellect is so framed that it acts habitually upon ideas that
+are true yet indistinct. You act on space, you act on time, you have
+infinity, you have in your mouth the word "cause." What do you know
+exactly about infinity, or space, or time, or cause? The human
+intellect, it is truly said, first by the greatest of the fathers,
+then repeated by modern thinkers--the human intellect is so great,
+first, that it can take exact ideas, and then, because it is infinite,
+that it can act instantly upon ideas that are real but indistinct.
+Christ--yes, first He is indistinct yet most real--real because He
+entered into history, real because He exprest the idea that is in the
+brain and heart of us all; indistinct because these little twenty
+centuries have separated us from His actual historic life; but a fact
+to those who seek Him, because His power is to make Himself an inward
+gift to the human soul, because His activity is such that He meets us
+on the altar of His sacred sacrament, that He meets us in the divine
+Word to express His thoughts, that He meets us in consolation, that He
+meets us in absolution, in moments of sorrow and of prayer. Oh, you
+are not driven to a distant infinity! Oh, you are not asked to rest
+upon a shadow I Oh, you are not besought to play the dreamer or
+the sentimentalist, when you think about God! Oh, you are asked to
+remember that fair, sweet vision--the vision of a Man so devoid of
+vulgarity, that whilst He loved the people He did not despise the
+great--the vision of a Man so strong that He could face a multitude,
+so tender that He could raise the lost woman, so gentle that the
+little children gathered their arms about His neck; the vision of
+a Man at home with fishermen, and at home with the high-born, with
+thoughts so deep that they permeate modern Christendom, with thoughts
+so simple that they taught truth to ancient Galilee; the vision of a
+Man who encouraged youth, the One on whom we rest, by whom we hang, in
+whom we hope, who sympathizes with all our best desires, who does not
+denounce us, but only intercedes and pities; the Man who never places
+Himself upon a Pharisaic pedestal, but feels with the child, with the
+boy, with the man, with the woman,--the Man of men, the crown of our
+humanity, the God in Man, the Man in God, the power of the sacraments,
+the force of prayer, the sweet, dear Friend who never misunderstands
+us, never forsakes us, never is hard upon us. My friends, it is your
+privilege, it is mine, beyond the privilege of the psalmist, to know
+in the gospel, to know in the Church, Christ, God exprest in humanity.
+Is your soul athirst for the highest? You may find it if you could
+come in repentance, if you come in desire, if you come in quiet
+determination to do your duty; you may find it satisfied--yes, now
+satisfied--in Christ.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The world's great sermons, Volume 8
+by Grenville Kleiser
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