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WILLIAM WYE SMITH> ."• • • ••• BOSTON AND CHIGA^: •• • ..'•/ •• » -• • • •^7-^^6-6 Copyrig ht, 188 7, by Congregational ScNR^^^Bi-Z^K^sPuBUSHiNG Society. •«. •-.• s , , 'ft » - («» • »•• EJf^ifrotyped and Printed By I \\» Stanley &» Ufker*, 171 Devonshire Street, Boston, Mass. PREFACE. The short cjMipters in jthis volume were mostly writ- ten for the young; but I have found that what is suitable for young persons is generally interesting also to those who are older. A few of the pieces have appeared in The Sunday-school Times, Philadelphia, and in the Sunday-school periodicals of Mr. David C. Cook, Chicago ; and are reproduced here with the per- mission of the publishers of those papers. The author hopes his little book may be serviceable to those beginning to follow the footprints of the Master^ and to those who are not unwilling to receive counsel from an older pilgrim. WILLIAM WYE SMITH. Newmarket,. Ontario, 1886. CONTENTS. PAOB The Print of his Shoe i The Likeness of Christ 8 Assurance 12 Indifference iS Christ's Robe 18 The City Lieth Four-square 22 The Jubilee 26 My Will, Which is Myself 3' The Conscience . 35 Acted Parables -39 Reading Between the Lines 42 Enlisting with Christ 47 Crossing the Red Sea 49 Christ Alive $2 One Thing or the Other 54 Thinking in Right Order 56 Justification and Holiness 58 vi CONTENTS. ■*■ FAGB Born from Above 6i The Far-reaching Nature of God's Law .... 63 The Three-fold Aspect of God's Covenant . . .69 Good Sayings of Bad Men 71 Dividing our Time • 74 Helpers in Prayer , , yy Working from Within 80 Sowing and Reaping 82 Jesus on the Cross ........... 84 Christ as a Yoke-fellow 89 Jesus in the Old Testament 92 Providence '95 The Secret Marriage 98 One Rule loi What Did He Do? 104 Not all Sin Seen at Once 106 Giving God Reasons 109 The End of Sin ...» .111 Conviction through Evidence 113 Only One Among the Rest . . . . . . . .115 The Sinner a Covenant-breaker 119 Value of First Impressions . 122 The Purpose of Prophecy 124 CONTENTS. vH PAOK It is Finished ! 127 Religion for Use 1 29 Some One Thing 131 Not only Objecting, but Proposing 134 Tribulation 138 In the Treasury 140 *• The Lord is my Shepherd" 142 Daily Bread . 144 Among the Standing Grain 147 What Can We Know About Heaven? . . . '150 Memorials 156 ■L_ THE PRINT OF HIS SHOE. " T HAVE loved to hear my Lord spoken A of," said Mr. Standfast, one of Bunyan's pilgrims, "and wherever I have seen the print of his shoe in the earth, there I have coveted to set my foot too." And our one great aim, our one motto and principle all through life, ought to be : " To follow Christ ; to please God." A life without an aim is a life frittered away and wasted. And no aim is worthy of having that perishes with the life spent in pursuing it. Our life will never rise unless it has something above itself to rise to. " But how can I find the print of his shoe ? How can I know exactly what pleases him ? " You have his Word. God has given us all that he saw to be necessary and best in the Bible. You will find there, either in general principles or in specific advice and THE PRINT OF HIS SHOE. direction, what the character and acts of a Christian are and should be. And you will find the same in examples given; the best example of all being Christ himself. " But then there are so many circum- stances in which I am placed, where I have no example of Christ. I do not know whether he ever was in such circumstances or not." Let me see : you are a school-boy of eleven or twelve. Are there any good boys in your school } " Oh, the boys are all good. At least, they are all pretty fair.*' But try to fix upon one who tries to please God ; who imitates Christ as far as he can. "Well, there's Willie Roberts. I think he is about as sure for heaven as any body I know. Yes, I believe Will tries to be like Christ." It would be easy, would it not, for you to suppose what Willie Roberts would do in THE PRINT OF HIS SHOE. circumstances in which you find yourself, but which you never saw him in ? " Yes, I think so. Now if a fellow wanted to fight Will, I could just think beforehand how he would act. Or if he got an insulting note from somebody, or some one asked him for help in some distress, I think I know just what he would do." You know how your friend would act in any possible circumstances. If you were equally acquainted with Christ, would you not know how he would speak and act } And would it not be a good exercise for your imagination to dwell on Christ morfe, and judge from his character what he would do and say in any given case ^ And you your- self do the same. Wouldn't that be follow- ing Christ ••* Would n't that be discovering the print of his shoe, that .you niight set your foot there too } Do you think that Jesus went to school at your age, as you do ? " I don't know. Probably they had n*t any schools like ours, in Nazareth." f 4 T//E PRINT OF HIS SHOE. You are right : we can not tell. But we may be certain he mingled with other boys and had at times to stand provocation and injustice. Now, if he were at your school, he would be something like Willie Roberts, only better and more perfect. " But is it right to talk about Christ that way } to make him so common-like, and bring him right in among us } " Why, yes. And it is putting Christ so far away from their every-day life that is the trouble with most people in the world. Piety for a death-bed ; religion for the inside of churches ; Bible-reading for Sunday ; every thing else for self and for this world only. I once spoke to an old farmer about his drinking — a man who was very pious on Sunday, and who would have been vexed to be considered any thing else than a Christian. He said he had a long distance to haul his crop of wheat for sale in winter, and found it absolutely necessary to call at a half-way tavern and drink something. I said to him THE PRINT OF HIS SHOE. that Christ went about from place to place, preaching, when he was upon earth, and was very kind and familiar, and talked to people on the way. Now if he should overtake. Jesus on the road, and he going to the same market-town, what would he do with him ? Why, he would ask him to ride, and give him a good seat on his sleigh, on his bags of wheat. But what would he do when he came to his half-way house ? Would he leave Jesus sitting on the load of wheat in the wintry wind, while he himself went into the bar-room for his whisky.? Or would he take him into the bar with him } He interrupted me at this point, and said he " did n't think it was right to talk about our Lord in that way." But he would not answer my question. My dear boy, we need to find Christ's tracks every day in the week. We want to have him with us every-where and at all times. And if it would degrade Christ to be with us and to do as we do, then we are degrading ourselves by going where THE PRINT OF HIS SHOE. Christ would not go, and doing what Christ would not do. Now that is one very good way of finding "the prints of Christ's shoe in the earth." And the habit of thinking, " What would Christ do if he were in my place .^" or "What would Christ say if he were here "i " — this habit will soon become so strong and fixed that even in dangers and difficulties suddenly arising, the mind will decide at once : " If Christ were in my place he would do so and so " ; or, " If Christ were here he would speak thus." And don't forget, religion is like every thing else : it becomes easier and more per- fect as you practice it. The soldier learns to march. The step, at first, is too long or too short for him and it is very wearisome always keeping step with the others. But after a time he drops into the confirmed habit ; you can tell him by his march, as you see him all alone on the street. And he can't bear now to walk with any body without keeping step with him. And our THE PRINT OF HIS SHOE, renewed nature becomes our only nature. And we are unhappy if for ever so short a time we feel that we have left Christ's foot- prints. The pilgrim was right who coveted to set his foot wherever Christ had left " the PRINT OF HIS SHOE. n !»i I i il I THE LIKENESS OF CHRIST. "OHOW me," says the worldling, "a man O who exhibits in his character and con- duct a perfect likeness of Jesus Christ, and then I '11 believe that there is something else than hypocrisy among professors." My dear friend, you are too exacting. Your own sons do not show all your characteristics, though each of them shows something of the father. All the world and a great deal more would not equal God ; and it takes all the world and a great deal more to image Christ. Yet every Christian, if he zs a Christian, shows some feature of Christ. We look at some masterpiece of ancient sculpture, and we say : " There is the perfec- tion of the human figure." But the statue is not the likeness of any one man who ever lived. We may imagine Phidias or Praxite- les loitering around the Olympic or Isthmian 8 THE LIKENESS OF CHRIST. games, taking observations. There the poise of a head would attract him, and draw forth his ready pencil to trace it on some little tablet ; there the outline of a bust ; there a leg ; here a hand ; elsewhere, and in detail, the various features of the face — one having the perfection of form in one feature, another in another; till at last, by combining all these in one ideal form, he produced what we all recognize as a perfect representation of a perfect human figure. So with the likeness of Christ among men. You can not find it, or any thing nearly approaching it, in any one man or any one circle of men. But pick out the likeness of Christ among Christians, feature by feature, and there is more of the likeness of the great Master than we imagine. The sister of a little boy had died. It was before the age of photographs, and no like- ness remained of the lost dear one but in the fond memories of her friends. The little brother was inconsolable. ri lO THE PRINT OF HIS SHOE, " Could n't somebody paint a picture of sister? " But the parents reasoned : " But you have no little picture or any thing to show the painter. How could he tell what your sister looked like ? " " I could tell him," said the boy. At last, to gratify and console the little fellow, he was sent to Boston on a visit to friends, and authorized to make the attempt to find a painter who could produce the like- ness of a girl he had never seen and of whom no likeness remained. He went to one painter and then to another. But they shook their heads. At last one, younger perhaps and more enthusiastic, said to the boy : — " Come with me where we can see many pictures of people, and point out one that looks like your sister." They went to a gallery of portraits. " That is like her eyes," he said, pointing to one. " Her hair was like that," he again exclaimed. " Her mouth was like that. THE LIKENESS OF CHRIST, II That is her forehead." And thus, feature after feature, he pointed out the likeness of his dead sister. And the painter, by combin- ing all these in one, made a portrait that all her friends said was a perfect image of the loved and lost one. Are we hypocrites because we each can show but some one feature of our blessed Lord ? It: ASSURANCE. OUR salvation depends on the meritorious work of Christ, and his truth in telling us of it. But I can not judge of Christ's truth by looking into my own heart. I may find whether I believe him ; but his worthiness to be believed is to me a matter of evidence, not of feeling. There is a serious mistake made here by many who have no assurance, because they are not considering " the record that God gave of his Son," but only their own feelings. I have to cross a bridge. I have heard many conflicting reports about it. I have seen some who had utterly refused to trust themselves on it, while others assert they have gone over it. I am in sight of it, and my trouble increases. Shall I sit down and ask myself : ** Am I bold enough to go over it ? Shall I risk it ? " and stay there till sa ASSURANCE, 13 I get my feelings wrought up to the pitch of rushing over it ? No ! I have taken up the wrong question. The only sensible question I ought to ask and answer is : ** Is the l^ridge safe ? Is it strong enough ? " I shall not get these answers out of my feelings. I shall get them out of the right use of my senses and my judgment. I see people passing safely over it. Now that is evi- dence the bridge is strong enough to bear others. I cautiously and carefully examine the foundations and the superstructure ; and the evidence of my eyes pronounces it good. I get acquainted with the builder of it, and find he is a skillful and an honorable man. I take evidence as to dates, and I find it has not lasted yet nearly as long as it is intended to last. On every point and at every turn I find satisfactory evidence. Now I walk over with perfect confidence. I had, in fact, for- gotten to think about my feelings. My feel- ings had to follow my judgment ; and my judgment was satisfied. I I \i # .fi H T//E PRINT OF Ills SHOE. So about Christ. If you think he is not a safe Saviour, examine his credentials ; test his character ; listen to those who have been saved by him ; find out what his work is and how he does it. As said an old man in Scotland, who had been converted in his old age and was now dying : " You see, I *11 tell you how it is : he says it, and I just believe it ; and that *s all there is about it ! " This is assurance. God says he will save me if I trust Christ. I do trust him (I surely know that much about myself), and I know he will keep his word. That is the " assurance of faith," and it is the only kind of assurance the Bible offers me. The modern " Master, we would see a sign from thee," is to look for visions and trances and wondrous ecstatic feelings, and to rely on these. INDIFFERENCE. PEOPLE often wish they had " more con- viction of sin." Jesus says the Holy Spirit " will convict the world in respect of sin " (Revision), and they wonder why the Spirit is in some way neglecting his duty with them. "If the Holy Spirit would only convict us of sin ! " We are " so cold and indifferent." You are quite cold and indifferent, you say ? ** Yes, perfectly cold and dead ; frozen up. Oh, if I could only be thawed out ! " Now, if the Holy Spirit began to work with you, as just now you wished he would, where do you think he would begin ? " Why, he would begin to make me mourn over my sins, to weep and pray, and lead me to accept Christ's pardon and grace." He would not, probably, do all these things i6 THE PRINT OF HIS SHOE. at once. He would give you one lesson and insist on your learning that before he gave you another. Is not that what you would do with a scholar you were teaching } " Yes." Well, he has given you o«e important lesson — that you are this moment guilty of a great sin. God has done so much for you, and yet you have no gratitude for him. Christ has died for your sins and yet you do not trust him. Christ loves you, and yet you refuse to love him. He is warm toward you, and yet you are cold toward him. Your coldness and indifference is your sin. The Holy Spirit convinces you of that. Go to Christ with your sin, confess it , forsake it, and be pardoned for it. Now if, in respect to this life there is something very important told you, you don't stop to think of your feelings about it. Feelings are not consulted in the matter. It is a matter of its being false or being true. If it is true, you will rejoice ; if not, you will INDIFFERENCE. 17 not. And you seek for the evidences. But the evidences are not in you ; they are in the facts. Just so in spiritual things. The Bible professes to have good news for you. Your anxiety should not be about your feelings, but about the evidences of truth in the news. If Christ has died for you, believe it and rejoice. And if you do not seem to be sure about that fact, for the sake of your eternal interest and for the sake of Christ himself, whose honor is involved, investigate its truth at once. 1? I if 4 n I v. I CHRIST'S ROBE. A SOLDIER might still be a soldier, though he had no uniform given him, but was dressed like a citizen, and every soldier according to his own fancy. But a Christian can not be a useful and accepted Christian without Christ's robe. There are many advantages in having soldiers in a distinctive garb. They are known to be soldiers. Each one is known to belong to such and such a regiment or arm of the service; and the men themselves feel that their uniform is an authority and a protection. So ** putting on Christ," that is, becoming a professed Christian, is a great advantage to the believer. It reminds him of what he is and it encourages others. But the principal sense in which it is to be understood, is our taking Christ for our moral character in which to stand before God. i8 r>3 ii CHRISrS ROBE. 19 Justification is an acquittal from guilt. Paul says : " By whom ye have now received the atonement ; " that is, putting on Christ for our justification. It is an acceptance of us as righteous. Now we have no good- ness or righteousness of our own; it is all Christ's. And when God looks at us he wants to see if we have Christ's righteous- ness, just as a commander looks at a man, and knows by his having on the uniform that he is one of his soldiers. So God knows Christ's robe wherever he sees it. It may be on my unworthy shoulders, but if it is Christ's robe, and I am wearing it, I am accepted for the sake of him who has given me the robe to wear. Hear a little parable. There was a beauti- ful city, and a good king reigned there, and all the people in it were very happy. But it was pure as well as happy, and it was happy because it was pure. And the law of the city was that no one who was unworthy should come in there. Outside one of the gates 20 THE PRINT OF HIS SHOE. a poor man sat on a stone. He often could see in a little, when the gate was opened ; but he was afraid to try to go in, for he knew he was not worthy. The prince, the king's son, took a walk out and saw this poor man sitting, and spoke kindly to him. He asked him if he would like to go in. He said. Yes, only he was not worthy ; and so it was against the law for him to go in. "Well," said the prince, "I am worthy, and any body I take in will be accepted and considered as worthy, if he is in my company. So come with me." So the poor man got up, and the prince put his arm around him and flung one corner of his princely robe over the man's shoulders, so that the one robe covered them both ; and thus they went towards the gate. And when the keepers of the gate saw them coming, they sent word to the king that "the prince was coming, and he had with him a man who was not worthy." And the king gave orders to " admit both the prince CHRISTS ROBE. 21 and any man the prince had with him ; for his worthiness made the other worthy." We need not be afraid that God will fail to recognize the robe of Christ wherever he sees it. Jacob knew Joseph's coat when it came home to him dabbled in blood. " It is my son's coat ! " he cried. The father of Lord William Russell knew the headless body of his son, it is said, as he stood by his coflfin, and said : " I would not give my dead son for the living son of any man in Chris- tendom." After Richard Cameron had fallen at Ayrs-moss, and his head and hands, before they were nailed up over the gates of Edin- burgh, were brought in to his old father, who was in prison for conscience' sake, — with a purpose thus to add to his misery, — and he was asked if he knew whose they were, he took them tenderly in his hands and said : " They are my dear son's. God has been very mer- ciful to me and mine." And if it is thus with human fathers, will God see his Son's robe on us, and not know it and not accept it } THE CITY LIETH FOUR-SQUARE. PROBABLY the principal idea to be gathered from the city's lying four- square is the perfection and symmetry of its plan. It all existed in God's thought from eternity, perfect and holy, and need- ing no additions or "improvements" like cities of man's building. And the three gates on every side may remind us of the sanctuary in the wilderness in the center of the camp, with three tribes encamped on each side of it — an ancient suggestion of heaven ; for Dr. Binney was right when he said that " all Old Testament facts were doctrines ; " and all nations and people of the earth may equally come into it and on the same terms. But perhaps for a moment we might put a finer point upon it still, and say that you may come to God from all the various sides 83 THE CITY LIETH FOUR-SQUARE. . 23 of human experience and feeling. You may come in at the east gates, with the morning sun upon you, in all the fresh and joyous feelings of a consecrated youth. And happy are they who thus come. What a pity to give the best of our youth to the world, when it might have been given to God ! It is a mistake and a loss which we find, all our life, can never be fully repaired. Or you may come in at the south gates, led by the fervid warmth of your emotions. Mary, she of the alabaster box, came thus. Many people do thus enter by the south gates ; more than by the north. Our warm emotions were given us for the very purpose that they should rise up toward God, as the fire ascends towards the sun. And if we begin to be so full of love to God that we can not keep away from him, we shall be glad that the south gates are so invitingly near and so easy of access. Or you may enter by the north gates, cool and intellectual, compelled to believe by the 24 THE PRINT OF HIS SHOE. h \% i It ■; ;■ overwhelming evidence presented that " Jesus is the Christ." Some men who thus come to God are very strong in faith. As the Holy Spirit, working through their reason, has compelled them to believe, so nothing short of overturning their reason can loosen their hold on Christ. Or you may enter by the sunset gates, turning back, as it were, almost, but not quite, too late : your whole life a long day of wan- dering, but getting home at last. The whole path in error ; the last turning only right. How touching is the testimony of some who have thus come to God in old age ! How anxious to make the most of the time that is left, and to warn others to avoid their mistake, and to come in on the eastern side, as the worshipers entered the temple of old. But thanks be to God, the street from every gate leads to the dazzling center — the throne of God ! There is the same salvation, the same mercy, and the same grace, come when you will. Only, it is present rebellion and THE CITY LIETH FOUR-SQUARE. 25 present sin not to come at once ; and there is eternal danger in the delay. The east gates would not have been opened if it had been none of your duty to enter thereby ; and to pass by them is to run the risk of never entering the City at all. THE JUBILEE. WHETHER it was every forty -nine years or every fifty years did not so much matter to the poor Hebrew, a§ to know that it was sure to come at the right time. I think, however, it was every forty-nin:^ years. Every seven years came the Sabbatic year, the year of rest ; and every seven Sabbatic years brought round the great Sabbatic year, the Jubilee. The land all went back to the old proprie- tors ; and it taught the people that the land was God's. This family or that family might have it for their " inheritance ; *' but after all, they only "occupied" it under the great Proprietor. How a pious Hebrew would think : " My ancestor had this little farm given to him by Joshua, hundreds of years ago. God has restored it to me, and will give it to my children after me. The earth is Jeho- 86 THE JUBILEE. 27 vah's, and the fullness thereof.*' When William Rufus of England was found dead in New Forest, we read in history that a woodman named Purkis took the body in his cart to Winchester. And Henry I gave him, as a reward, two acres of ground where his cottage stood in the forest. And a very dear friend of mine, the Rev. George Purkis, tells me that small estate of two acres has been for eight hundred years in the family, and is in the family still. He himself is a direct descendant of the old woodman, and a near relative of the present owner. Christ says : " The meek shall inherit the earth ; " not inherit the world, the globe, but the land^ the " soil," the portions of their fathers before them. " They shall not be rooted out of the soil." And the bondmen were all set free. Many a time it would happen that a man would get so much ** behind " that he saw no possible way of getting out of debt and still preserve his liberty. Think of the poor widow who 28 THE PRINT OF JUS SHOE. \\ , came to Elisha: "Thy servant, my husband, is dead. And thou knowest thy servant did fear the Lord. And the creditor is come to take unto him my two sons to be bondmen." Thus it must often have been in old times. But how they would count the years, then the months, then the days, till the year of Jubilee came in ! The Roman law had far less mercy than the Hebrew law. The third of the twelve tables of the Roman law provided that if a man was sued for debt before a judge, he should have thirty days to make up the money. If he did not, or could not, the cred- itor could throw him into prison for sixty days. He must, however, give him one pound of flour daily to live on. And during this period of sixty days, proclamation must be made on two several market-days, stating the circumstances ; so that, if he had any friends they might come forward and release him. At the end of the sixty days, if no one appeared to pay his debt, he was handed over THE JUBILEE. 29 I) to the creditor, who could either kill him or make him a slave. It was a terrible thing, in those days, to be in debt and have nothing to pay. Just the position, exactly, the sinner is in with respect to his sins in the matter of God's broken law. Now, not all the bondmen would be equally miserable. Some would be well fed, and only moderate work exacted from them. We might speak to such a slave and say : — " You have good food and are well lodged and kindly treated. Why can't you be con- tent t " " Oh," he would say, "I am a slave. I must live and die away from my family and my home." And so the poor slave of Satan can not be content, however "well off" he may seem to be. When God made the soul he put a spark of heavenly patriotism in it ; and it never ** can sing the Lord's song in a strange land." And on behalf of every enslaved sinner we thank God for that. The sinner will do it for himself when he is converted. 3° THE PRINT OF HIS SHOE. And notice, too, that the year of Jubilee began on the day of atonement. First par- don, and then blessing ; first the atonement for sin, and then freedom from sin. " If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed." It was all a beautifully acted parable, or object lesson, to teach God's ways of dealing with poor sinners, and so wisely arranged that it conferred a great incidental blessing in the meantime. MY WILL, WHICH IS MYSELF. MY will is myself. And when I com- plain that my will is opposed to God, it simply means, if I take its true meaning, that I make myself God's enemy. My will is not something distinct from myself, but the inner principle, the soul, the mind. The will is the ego: tha»: which constitutes my personality. But my feelings or emotions are not myself. They belong to me — as my clothes belong to me — but they are not I. My will is myself ; and I can and ought to control myself. But I can not always control my feelings and emotions. Especially are they rebellious when I would claim them all and fully for Christ and his service. What, then, shall I do } Shall I sit down and wait, as others do, "till I can feel more deeply".? or "till I get my feelings all right".? Let me answer by an illustration : — 3« 32 THE PRINT OF HIS SHOE, A city had rebelled against a good and paternal king. He came to besiege it. It had a citadel (so thought) which commanded and dominated the city. Whoever possessed the citadel held the city. The commander of this city and fortress determined to sur- render. He treated with the king. One morning the royal standard was seen floating over the citadel. The royal troops were in possession. The king was there and was just issuing a proclamation of amnesty or pardon. The citizens were furious: "They had been betrayed ! " The rabble was de- termined to " carry on the war.** The king does not reproach the commander for not having taken counsel of the citizens, or for not winning over the rabble to his views be- fore surrendering the fortress. "I knew I could not bring the rabble over," said the late commander to the king, " and so I took no counsel with them. I could surrender the fortress, and that I did. Thou must put down the rabble ! " A year later we visit the MY WIJ.Ly WHICH IS MYSELF. 33 city, and all is quiet. The unruly populace is loyal and peaceable. They found that when the citadel was given up, it was in vain to think of further resistance. That citadel is my soul, my inner self, my will. I can not bring my feelings (the ** rabble") into subjection; but Christ can. I can, however, surrender to him the cita- del, the soul ; and he will bring my feelings and emotions into complete subjection. Bet- ter than any possible control of mine, For Christ to come And make his home In the poor dwelling of my soul! Try it, dear friend, try it ! Give Christ your will. And when you surrender your will, which is surrendering yourself, — with- out first waiting to get your feelings, your emotions, all right, — your emotions will, of necessity, soon follow. We have all often done what we did not feel inclined to do; and have done it just because it was right 34 THE PRINT OF HIS SHOE. and proper to do it ; and we soon found that we began to like it better as we continued it. The will must rule the emotions, not the emotions control the will. "Give me thine heart ! " that is the command. THE CONSCIENCE. THE conscience is God's consul in the soul. I see a foreign flag flying in one of our cities, and I learn that the foreign consul lives there. That house is, by the unwritten law of nations, a part of the foreign country. No legal process from our courts runs there. The consul came from his own country and is amenable only to his own coun- try's laws. Man's soul was originally an ema- nation from God, and that department of its action that we call conscience seems to be the only part of it that still retains a memory of the lost communion of Eden. In Brock's Life of Havelock we are told of a former British " resident " in Cashmere. The people were very unfriendly and suspi- cious and, as if to bring trouble to a crisis, the rajah died, and several of his wives deter- mined to obtain heaven by being burned 35 36 THE PRINT OF HIS SHOE. alive upon their husband's funeral pile. The treaty with the British was such that the consent of the resident must first be ob- tained before the suttee could take place ; and the already exasperated populace was ready to break out into violence and murder, if that consent were even delayed. The resident had no troops and was sick in bed ; he had no helper but God. He calmly expostulated with the deputation that waited on him ; told them that even in their own most an- cient religious books such practices were condemned ; that they would offend the Brit- ish government, whom it was their interest to please ; and that the thing was wrong of itself. And then, like Luther at the Diet of Worms, he was ready to say : " God help me ! I can do no more ! *' But the resident was not murdered, the populace did not break out, and the women were not burned. God was there. Conscience is that resident in the liomaii. of the soul. We have not two spiritual enti- THE CONSCIENCE. 37 ties within us — the soul and the conscience. We have but one immaterial part, which we call variously the soul, the spirit, or the mind. And the conscience is but the soul in one department of its action. I see an elderly gentleman walking the street and attending to ordinary matters of business. To-day he is but a citizen. Yesterday, however, he was a judge. I saw him in court hearing and deciding causes. To-mor- row he is announced to preside at a meeting of learned men, and will for the time be a philosopher. But it is the same man in a'' these different positions. So with my soul : it is the same, but variously engaged. When my soul becomes an historian and recalls the past, I call it memory ; when it becomes a seer and peers into the western sky, where the evening clouds of this life are golden with a reflected radiance, — from whence, I can not see, — I call it hope ; when my soul is stirred up to think of others rather than myself, — to see with others' eyes and feel with 38 THE PRINT OF HIS SHOE, Others' hearts and live with others' lives, — I call it love. And when the soul becomes a judge and sits in review upon its own actions, and bound, as every good judge is, by the law, and not by consanguinity to the offender, we call it conscience. ,— I pies a ions, If the uder, JCX ACTED PARABLES. WITHOUT a parable spake he not to them," we are told of Christ. And again : " When he was alone, he expounded all things to his disciples." But Jesus some- times taught by acted parables, as well as spoken parables. Probably we are to take that as an acted parable (Mark 8), where Jesus led the blind man out of the town and restored his sight gradually. And the curs- ing of the barren fig-tree was an acted para- ble to teach faith. And I have no doubt that Christ repeated his parables over and over again, as occasion required. I know that Moody repeated anec- dotes in America, and afterwards the same in Edinburgh ; then in London, and then in America again. And by that time people were reading them in a book, somebody hav- ing gathered them from his oral utterances. 39 40 THE PRINT OF HIS SHOE. % ¥•■■ And some one might say : " Ah, I heard him give that anecdote ; but there was more of it — a sequel, which is not given here. I like it better as I heard it." And yet the stenog- rapher was perfectly correct who reported it. He reported it as he heard it ; and the other man remembered it as he heard it. This will explain most of the alleged discre- pancies in the Gospels. The parable of the marriage supper has in Matthew a sequel which is wanting in Luke. Why is it necessary for us to decide that Jesus used this parable only once, or always gave it exactly the same.^ In Matthew's sequel, which may be called " The Sifting of the Guests," there is a deep lesson for us as to the way we come to God. We can not come on any ground personal to ourseb'es ; it must be wholly on the ground of Christ's worthiness : we must have on the " weddin*]: garment." The first part of the parable shows how men wickedly put off obeying and coming to God ; and also, how the poorest, the ACTED PARABLES. 41 most despised, and the most unlikely are bidden and exhorted to come. Sometimes there would be more need for the one part of the parable, and sometimes for the other ; for I have iio doubt it was often repeated. Having repeated in a meeting an anec dote of a man who went to Perth to do some work for the Lord, in the hearing of a minis- ter now deceased, this brother called out to me in another meeting ; " Tell us about the man who went to Perth ; '* and I gave it again. So it comes to pass with every public teacher. And we may learn this too : that Jesus would not only have us understand his para- bles, spoken and acted, but he gives them to us as examples of what can be done by illus- trative teaching ; and we have the liberty, and by experience find the advantage, of making parables and bringing forward illus- trations on every hand. READING BETWEEN THE LINES. (( WHAT does that mean, papa?" said little Edwin. " I can't see any thing between the lines but white paper." ** It means," said his father, "that you must understand what the words are written for. Now, intelligent children will often know the meaning of the words well enough, and yet not know why the author wrote the words. Knowing that may be said to be reading * between the lines.' Or, sometimes there is a deeper, further meaning than ap- pears on the surface : there is something you have to gather which is not spoken, and that is reading 'between the lines.' " "Our lesson next Sunday is the parable of the sower. Now, is there any thing * be- tween the lines there ' ? " " Why, our Lord tells you himself what it all means." 4a READING BET WE FN THE LINES. 43 said '* Oh, yes, I know ; but that was maybe for the Jews, or the people in old times. But if Jesus were speaking it now, or explaining it right in our Bible class, I wonder what he would say ! " " Well, suppose I Iry to read between the lines of that parable. Suppose the blessed Master were sitting here and telling us what the parable meant ; perhaps he would say something like this : — "THE PARABLE OF THE SOWER." "A preacher went out to preach, and as he preached, some of his good words reached a number of boys ; but they were thinking about their fun and paid no attention ; and when they got home, they could n't remember where the text nor the reading was, nor what the preacher had been saying. And so the preaching did them no good. "And some of his words reached som^ other boys, and they thought they would try and be good and religious, and would 44 THE PRINT OF IIIS SHOE. pray and love Jesus just as the preacher ad- vised. But when, after two or three days, the other boys found out they would not bluster and fight, and use bad words and do mischief at night, they began to mock them, and call them names, and work spiteful tricks on them. And the boys who thought they would try to be good got angry, and seemed ashamed to be caught * being good,* and in less than two weeks were just as bad as any of the other boys. They left off trying to follow Jesus just because somebody laughed at them. "And some of the preacher's words fell among the men and women who were very full of business and cares. And the men said : * We must attend to our souls,' and the women said : * It is of more importance to be saved than to be fashionable.' And the preacher thought there was going to be a great revival and many converts ; for they began to come to the prayer-meetings, and some of them took pews in the church, and READING BETWEEN THE LINES. 45 a few became members of the church. But the men said : * A man can't do business on Christian principles;' and the women said : * It was impossible to be in society, and take care of one's house and family, and be religious too.' And their religion all seemed to fade out, though they did not all give up their pews. And when the preacher died, he said he hoped he should meet some of them in heaven ; but he was not quite sure.' ** And some of the preacher's words fell on the ears of some boys and girls and men and women who were sick of sin, and tired of being enemies of God. And they took his advice and went that very day to Christ in prayer, and said to him : * O Lord Jesus ! We don't want to love sin any more. We want to be thine. From this hour we will be thy willing servants forever. We give ourselves away to thee. Save us ! ' And people soon found out that they were Christians. At first some tried to laugh at them ; but they remembered that people laughed and mocked 46 THE PRINT OF HIS SHOE. at Christ and he did not get angry at it. And some of them went away as missionaries ; and still more of them did good missionary work at home and in their families. And all of them gained wisdom, though few of them gained fame. And when their neighbors who had mocked at them got sick, they sent for these Christian friends to come and pray with them. And when they died, the world around them said they were good men and women — the salt of the earth. And some did more than others ; but all did something for Christ.'* ENLISTING WITH CHRIST. ^NCE in talking with an old soldier O^'f ^sked him the circumstances of h.s ^ ,,ic,ment. I said : ,.„ the recruiting "^^"'frory'u could you properly officer got hoUof^ you. J^.^^,,,. -rOh^^Telaid^'-I suppose when I took the shiUing and was sworn m.^^^ ^^^^ ^^^ "That IS It, 1 T" the articles of war ; enlisted ; y^/^J^f L^wS have been r'TbaS iuTtelfme. Did you , know brought bacK. tidier' s duties?" any thing, as yet of a sol _^ ^^^^^^ " Why, no, he rephed. ^^^ ^ of the drill, or any th "S ^^^^^ ^^ ^egin raw recruit; but now ^tw^^^^^^^ -;;;t'ro?-vt^:^-term:;;:h: with the Christian soldier. The mome 47 48 THE PRINT OF HIS SHOE. 11. ! I' surrenders his soul to Christ and believes and trusts him, he is a Christian. He has enlisted. It is true he does not know how to pray connectedly, or to read the Script- ures with understanding, or to help others, or to combat the enemy, or a hundred other things a Christian oug^t to do ; he does not know the drill yet. Still, he is a soldier, and he is going to learn the whole duty of a Christian soldier, and to begin at once. But, meanwhile, he is one of the army. He has been sworn in ; his name is down on the books ; and the Great Commander recognizes him as his." . CROSSING THE RED SEA. I HAVE much sympathy with those who are sometimes sneered at as '* finding something spiritual in every pin of the tab- ernacle ; " for I believe with Paul that these were all "ensamples" of heavenly things. Take the passage of the Red Sea and the desert journey. The crossing of the Red Sea completely cut off the Israelites from their former life and from the land of their bondage. Through all their generations it was looked back upon as the crisis and be- ginning of their affairs as a nation. They were before that but a host of fugitives ; now they were a migratory nation. And they were not out of Egypt till they did cross the Red Sea. Their faces were desert -wise, but they were not yet free in the desert. They still trod the soil of the land of their 49 « I 50 THE PRINT OF HIS SHOE, i I ! captivity. Once the crossing, and all that was changed. How like the Christian experience ! The poor sinner may have been turning his back upon his sins, and endeavoring to escape from them ; but he is not safe, nor in circum- stances to sing his song of deliverance, till he stands on the farther shore of the sea and sees Christ's blood between him and his former life. That is his Red Sea. Nor was it before the Israelites crossed the Red Sea, but after it, that they were led to Sinai to learn God's law. And he who would learn the will of his Father in heaven must first cross the Red Sea ; must first put Christ's blood between him and his former life : then he will be prepared to learn and love God's law. When Mr. Legality would have Christian go to Mount Sinai first, before ever he had entered the gate of repentance, the poor seeker after peace was well-nigh overwhelmed with the lightnings and the earthquakes. God has but one glori- CROSSING THE RED SEA. 51 ous path to Canaan : the Red Sea first, then the law at Sinai, the desert journey, the Jordan, the Land of Promise ! Are you sure you have crossed the Red Sea ? If you have not, how are you going to get to Canaan ? J lit ill hi- if I CHRIST ALIVE. THE first Sunday I ever spent in Eng- land was at Walthamstow, a few miles north of London. The good minister in whose house I was to pass the Sabbath was called out of the room on the Saturday evening, to see some one, and left me to amuse myself with books and magazines for half an hour. When he returned he excused himself for leaving me so long, saying I would forgive him when he told me all about it. It seemed a gentleman in the neighborhood had been in Italy a few years before, and brought back with him an Italian body-servant. This man had duties to attend to on Sunday mornings, but was always present at public worship in the afternoons. ** You will have him in your congregation to-morrow afternoon," said my friend ; for I was to take his-place in the afternoon, while he should go CHRIST ALIVE. 53 out to preach under one of the few trees now remaining in Epping Forest to the throngs of Sabbath-idlers who came down from London. The Italian had been thoughtful, and had finally begun to indulge a hope in Christ Jesus. He had come to the minister on that Saturday night, and in his broken English told him his tale. " In my countree," said he, " in my Italic, the priests always show us Jesus dying ; Jesus on the cross ; Jesus in the grave. You show me Jesus ^/m'; Jesus love me; Jesus think of me ; Jesus in heaven. And I love Jesus, and I thought I would come and tell you I love that Jesus who is alive." It is even so. While our sins are atoned for by his sufferings and death, let us remem- ber that Christ's death is always connected with his resurrection ; the pledge of our rising from the grave ; the evidence of the Father's acceptance of his substitution. He lives that he may love us, and we need, as the Italian did, a living Christ, to love us and think of us and reign over us. ONE THING OR THE OTHER. s( n 11 WE can not be two contradictory things at once. We can not be the inti- mates and bosom friends of bad mer and be good men ourselves. We can not be sepa- rate from Christ and yet be acknowledged by him as his. We can not pass by the Lord Jesus Christ, as he hangs on the cross, and join the mocking crowd that wagged their heads and reviled him, without shutting ourselves out, at the same time, from meeting him in paradise. We can not despise God's mercy without at the same time daring and provoking God's wrath. But, on the other hand, we can not seek God's mercy without at the same time putting away all trust in ourselves. We can not hold on to Christ without letting go every false hope. We can not sincerely seek 54 ONE THING OR THE OTHER. 55 pardon without hating sin. We shall not seek God without finding him. We shall not find God without at the same time find- ing peace, happiness, and heaven. a;i ■1 I I I i: !' I THINKING IN RIGHT ORDER. IN the Old Testament prophecies, the threatenings are sure to end with a sweet promise. And the Holy Spirit, who thus taught the prophets, teaches us in the same way still. It is easy for us to say : " I am a great sinner ; I shall surely perish ! " Just as David mistakenly said : " I shall now perish one day by the hand of Saul." And when we read in the Word of a great Saviour it is still easy for us to say : " Yes, a great Saviour, but then I am a great sinner." The order of the facts in the Spirit's teach- ing is quite different. The Spirit reverses the order : " You are a great sinner, but you have a great Saviour." Where there is an element of hope and an element of despair, it makes a great difference which comes last. Don't let us look for the fading of the light and the 56 THINKING IN RIGHT ORDER. 57 e I »» coming of the darkness ; but ralher believe that " the darkness is past, and the true light now shineth." **0 Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself; but in me is thine help." d ir Lt >» JUSTIFICATION AND HOLINESS. i S' I I KNOW not where I could lay hold of a sharper or clearer illustration of the rela- tion between justification and holiness than the enlisting and drilling of a soldier. We will imagine him a veteran of twenty or thirty years' service. We ask him : " Are you drilled.!^" He evidently feels that is a ques- tion not to be answered in a monosyllable. He takes off his foraging cap, strokes his gray moustache, and says : " Well, I thought so once. I wrote to my mother, a couple of months after I enlisted, that I had got all the drill ; but I don't think so now. There are a hundred things in gunnery, tactics, fortifi- cations, military engineering, and the like, that you would not understand if I should tell you, that I am only beginning to know something about. No ; I am not drilled, but I am in process oi being drilled." ?8 JUSTIFICATION AND HOLINESS. 59 '* Well, are you enlisted ? " " Oh, yes. I am enlisted all I can be. That was a thing that was begun and ended on the very day I was sworn into the force." So with Christ's soldier. His enlisting is complete. His justification is a finished grace. He "took the oath" when he ac- cepted Christ ; and Christ accepted him and justified hira. But, " Is he holy } Is he sanc- tified } " He thought so, perhaps, for a few weeks after his conversion. "There was a time," said good old Bishop Latimer, "we thought w^ could drive the devil out of Eng- land by the ringing of holy bells and such like foolery. And Satan did seem to think it good sport, and did hide himself. But when the Word came to be plainly taught and plainly read, Satan did see it was no child's play, and came out, and did rage and fight." And as long as the young convert thinks he has got all, and there is nothing more to attain, Satan is content to hide him- self and let him alone. 6o THE PRINT OF HIS SHOE. But holiness or sanctilication is not a place, but a way. A way or road is to travel on, not to live on. Isaiah says (35 : 8) : "And an highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called The way of holiness." That is the road, dear Christian pilgrim, you are to travel in — the "way of holiness." As far as "sanctified" means "separated," and it often has largely this meaning in the New Testament, a Christian may say, " Yes, I am sanctified." But as we generally use it, to mean holiness, sinlessness, perfection, we say, as the soldier said about his "drill": " No ; we are not sanctified, but we are in process of being sanctified." )lace, on, d an d it That are As and ^J"ew BORN FROM ABOVE. SUCH is the alternative translation of the "born again" of the third chapter of John. The change is so great and thorough that only a new birth can fitly image it. From being an heir of hell, to be made a child of God. On this winter morning the snow is lying thick and soft around and over the landscape. It fell yesterday ; it is very pure and very white. But it may become soiled. Day by day impurities will gather in and upon the snow. It is no longer beautiful to look upon. It becomes filthy. Can it ever be cleansed, made white and pure again } Not by wash- ing it, nor by sweeping or dusting. It can only be made pure again by being melted, and exhaled, and rising as invisible mist into the upper air, and gathered into clouds, and 6i ■ 'I I' in ; '.V -1 fl I, I ■ 62 T//£ PRINT OF HIS SHOE. softly sent down again pure once more — "born from above!" So is the soul, beneath the power of God, drawn upward, purified, and born again, or from above. 1 4, f re — God, 1, or ■'I THE FAR-REACHING NATURE OF GOD'S LAW. WHEN I was a child I knew that hatred was a sin, and I wondered why there was not a commandment which said : " Thou shalt not hate." And I knew that telling lies was sin, and I thought there should have been a commandment against lying. I did not know how far-reaching and all-embracing are the commandments we have. There is not a sin but is aimed at and denounced in one or other of the ten. God looks over this awful world of sin. He divides sins, just as we divide languages, into certain classes or sets. He takes ten great classes, or nations, or languages, or tribes of sins, and denounces them all. Now each of these tribes or nations of sins has a king, a chief. So the Almighty declares war against the king or chief. As in the 63 ,'ii II ii Vi f I 64 T//£ PRINT OF HIS SHOE. Crimean war the queen of Great Britain declared war against " the emperor of all the Russias," yet the war was really against the whole Russian nation, so God declares war against the king of each nation of sins by name ; but the conflict is with the whole tribe or na- tion of which he is head. Take hatred for an instance, and look at the fifth chapter of Matthew for an exposition of the sixth com- mandment. The very warning that the rab- bis gave about murder Jesus transfers to him who hates his fellow-man. And John says : " Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer. " The fact is, the nation is hatred, the king of that nation is murder, and the declaration of war is leveled against the king by name, but includes, as every declaration of war does, the whole nation. And so with my other early difficulty about lying. The most flagrant kind of lying we could imagine is to swear away the life of an innocent man and testify against him of crimes he never committed. But the nation NATURE OF GOD'S LA IV. 65 is a very large one ; all falsehood, prevarica- tion, and concealment of truth are found there ; but the king of that tribe is perjury, and the command makes special mention of him. Another of my early cogitations was on the relation of the first and second com- mandments. I thought they had overlapped and interlaced each other and were indeed but one and the same command, but divided into two for convenience of remembering, or for some other reason. But it is not so. The sin denounced in the first command- ment is atheism and unbelief, and a turn- ing away from God. The sin forbidden in the second is the idolatry of ritualism and forms taking the place of real worship. And it would be difficult or impossible to explain to a child who every day sees images adored, in what way that very thing is not a break- ing of the commandment against images. This was Aaron's sin in the desert. He " made a proclamation, and said, To-morrow 66 THE PRINT OF HIS SHOE. is a feast to the Lord." And he had the golden calf all ready for the occasion. It was an " improved " way of worshiping God. The sacred ox or calf was a symbol of power, and they imagined they could have a better idea of God's power by having this figure before them. A little friendless orphan boy, sick in a hospital in India in the time of the dreadful mutiny, said, when spoken to about Jesus Christ : ** I think I could pray to him better if I had a little image of him to look at." The poor little fellow had been left largely to the care of heathen servants, and knew little of the true God. And that is the very feeling to which a corrupt form of Christianity panders. But we as a people and as Protestants are by no means free of blame in this matter. We break the first commandment when we put God out of our lives, and his thought out of our hearts, and live only for money or position or influence, or fame or selfish indulgence. Wc have then ** some other god NATURE OF GOD'S LAV/. 67 :he It ' before him." And we break the second com- mandment when, not being so gross as to set up a calf in the desert, or burn in- cense to Nehushtan (2 Kings 18 : 4), all the worship we give to God is to put on our best clothes and go to church, or drop a coin into the collection. If that is all the honor and worship we give to God, we might just as well put those clothes on a pole and make an idol of them, or bow the knee before the goddess portrayed on the coin. Depend upon it, God does not twice fulmi- nate a declaration of war against the same hostile king. Once is enough. The king of the nation of sins in the first commandment is atheism — denial of God. The king in the second commandment is idolatry ; the nation is ritualism, serving God in vain ways of our own, instead of serving him in spirit and in truth. Now the worst degree of putting God out of our lives is to deny his existence altogether. We may not go so far as that ; we may be merely careless of spiritual things, :M? !! 68 THE PRINT OF HIS SHOE. yet we break God's first commandment. We may not go so far as to set up idols and images in our homes and in our churches ; yet if all our worship is mere outward for- mality, the religion of a Pharisee, we break the second commandment. And if our better appreciation of the far- reaching nature of God's law drives us closer and quicker to Jesus Christ, the great Law- keeper and our great Advocate, then bless God for his Ten Commandments, and for the fact that they are so comprehensive that every sin it is possible for man to commit is included in one or? other of the ten nations or languages into which God divides them. 1( a <( s ( 1 ( mcl is; tor- jak ar- ser iw- ;iSS ;he lat is or THE THREE-FOLD ASPECT OF GOD'S COVENANT. WHEN Christ sets us free from condem- nation and gives us the rules of his household for our guidance, we shall find they are the same Ten Commandments we used to look at and tremble. If we believe Christ, we are saved already; we do not require a law "that will save us; " we have a Saviour that saves us. But we want to know what is Christ's will, that we may do it ; and he says in sweetest accents, ** If ye love me, keep my commandments ; " and he gives us the ten "words" that were spoken at Sinai, but he calls them now by a different name : it is " Christ's law ** now, our rule of life. The fact is, the Decalogue comes to us in a two-fold character, just as Christ comes to us. Believe Christ, and you shall live ; he will be to you a. savor of life unto life. Re- 69 ^o THE PRINT OF HIS SHOE, ject Christ, and you shall die ; he will be unto you a savor of death unto death. So with the commandments. Take them as the rule of your Christian life, and you will find that Christ's- fulfilling of that law is put to your account, and you are blessed by them. Take them as a covenant of works, and you are at once condemned by them. " So the law was our pedagogue, to bring us unto Christ ! " Just as the confidential slave, the "pedagogue" who superintended the education of the children, could not teach them many of the branches himself, but was responsible that the children were led or carried to the teacher or professor, where they could get the proper lessons, so the law can not save us of itself, but it takes us to Christ, who can save us. \.-im. GOOD SAYINGS OF BAD MEN. THE wise man will not refuse wisdom, come from where it will. In the case of one good and holy, the words he utters come to us with a force and dignity utterly wanting in the case of a suspicious charac- ter ; and yet the latter may give us a thought or a principle that will do us good all our lives. We have numerous examples of this in the Scriptures. Some of our choice say- ings may be traced to unworthy men. We do not often repeat the false philosophy of Cain, when he insolently and wickedly asked, ** Am I my brother's keeper ? " though I have heard it urged in all seriousness by opponents of the temperance movement. But we do, as poor sinners, often feel like crying out, with that unhappy man, " My punishment is greater than I can bear ! " A saying of Ba- laam's — crooked, disobedient, and unprinci- 71 72 THE PRINT OF HIS SHOE. pled as he was — lingers in our memories as a strain of sweet music: "Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his ! " Unhappy man ! he lived among the wicked, and his death was like his life. Perhaps no character in the Scriptures is more despicable than Ahab. Yet we adopt one of his sayings for its truth and for its beauty. The king of Syria had sent insolent and oppressive demands, and when Ahab demurred, the Syrian threatened him ; and Ahab sent back this message : '* Let not him that girdeth on his harness boast himself as he that putteth it off." When we use the proverb, "All that a man hath will he give for his life," we are quoting Satan himself. Again, we have in the case of Nebuchadnezzar the utmost worldly sagacity with the most brutal tyranny and selfishness. Yet we repeat the question concerning the Most High, and weave it into our prayers : " None can stay his hand, or GOOD SAYINGS OF BAD MEN. 73 as he Id d ce is ot ts It Lb d n IS say unto him, What doest thou ? " Nor can we avoid feeling daily the importance of the question asked by the unprincipled procurator of Judaea, when the Lord Jesus stood before him: "What is truth?" Thus we may learn, even from bad men, and may profitably employ some of their utter- ances; remembering always that a man's words are often better than the man himself ; and that with a bad man there may be some part of the field of character not so utterly given over to weeds and briers as the rest. DIVIDING OUR TIME. MANY a young convert is troubled over this question : " How much time must I give to religion, and how much may I use for the world ? " He would, with his present feelings, give all his waking hours to God ; but he has ducies and necessities that compel him to spend many hours every day in work or business, and he seems to himself thus robbing God. Now the question he asks nobody can an- swer except by saying, " Give God all your time." And it seems to him, when his friends tell him that, that they are mocking him ; and when the Scriptures tell him the same, that it is a riddle he can not solve. Let us have a Socratic conversation upon this matter. ** Does God appoint us any work — actual bodily labor -- to do .? " 74 DIVIDING OUR TIME. 75 " Yes. >> "Then is there any sin in doing what God appoints ? " "No." "Then we have reached the conclusion that all labor is not sin. Is God always pres- ent with his children } " "Yes." " Then if you are a child of God, will God be always present with you ? " "Yes." " In your hours of labor, as well as in your hours of worship } " " It must be." "And is he not always pleased when we do what he commands us .^" "Yes." "Then, when we are enjoined always to have the Lord with us, and when God prom- ises to be always with us, must it not follow that we do not need to divide our time between God and the world, but have God with us all the time } If we can make him, as it 76 THE PRINT OF HIS SHOE, were, the senior partner in our business, or the overseer of our labor, shall we not feel that we must do honest business and do reliable work ? Then we need not and must not toil so as to unfit ourselves for converse v/ith him who goes with us to our daily du- ties and is greatly interested in our worldly affairs." Thus, if we set rigb^^'- about it, we do not need to divide our time : we can give it all to God. HELPERS IN PRAYER. WHY was it, when Christians many a time might have escaped molestation and persecution, if they ha ' only kept at home and dropped all their meetings for awhile, they would meet together for prayer, and thus got themselves into danger ? Just because they needed and wished the help thai came through each other's prayers. They could pray alone, but that was not enough ; they must pray together, and thus help one another, and bear each other's burdens. The great helper is the Holy Spirit. But his help is not so often in direct suggestions to the mind as through some of his children. He has n: ore interests than mine to consider, and his sendin?^ riie help in the more indirect way, by a hum< n brother, answers a double purpose : it leaves a -blessing with the brother who gives a blessin'^ to me. 77 78 THE PRINT OF HIS SHOE, Our f«)vmer mercies are great helpers for us. lh;jre are many things we ought to for- ge:, — sjns and rebellions and hard thoughts of Q'Q