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Les diagrammes suivants iliustient la mdthodo. by errata led to snt jne pelure, apon d 32X 1 2 3 4 5 6 Frar^cis E. Clerk iiu^MiiUiiuUti.;... I , uiiiUihUMtiU>m.4miliUUMitU.L:!uKtililUlH.uiiaiU.t,.»~uUiUiu4iltiiil>i^ \!' X t r"" "" " """ MM r'-^adrS'a^Sit'wacMEiP^^^s^^^^-^^^^^^i*^^ ^^ ^^ r J Old Lanterns for Present Paths 'i<>\ By Francis E. Clark, D. D. President of the United Society of Christian Endeavor ^a "^^ United Society of Christian Endeavor Boston and Clucago L y REV. FRANCIS V.. CLARK, D. D. wu.*i£^;fc-fc^-s»i=tj»aua.'(i:Aai!i.4--ifVi--.-.iii- .■.*.' .';i "■t)y'*v:i*>*J''3v.,>''ffCT' ic^^^ih>^ "i) ' Old Lajitcrn. lor ^ K Present Patiis ^^ ^ ;r ,1 ■. I ! •' ..'^ I I IV () I /.I ^il ^'i !a; ''^' '-a ■' , Xii... f i: .. n^^2::^^'^:,ir^'^^^,J0^''^^ J r 21224 I I.ibrHry of Cor cir«4H Two Copies Rtan'to JUL 171900 CopytigM antiy SFCXm> COPY. OrlivCMd tn ORDER OIVtSlON, JUL 18 1900 Copyright, 1900, by the United Society of Christian Endeavor i r 21224 f Cor ciresh S RtCTIVtl) 7 1900 ',M antiy [>COPY. WV»r\ 10 OLD LAMEIiMi FUR VRKSENT PATHS. Christians. Let us consider his modest youth and intrepid manhood a little more at length. The Modest Youth. The very first thing that we know about Jeremiah jjredisposes us in his favor. He was a modest youth, lie shrank from puolicity. He distrusted his own powers. When the word of the Lord came to him, conveying the tremendous news that he had been " ordained a prophet unto the nations," Jeremiah cried out in dismay, "Ah, Lord God ! behold 1 cannot sjjeak ; for I am a child." Alost great and strong characters whom God signally uses are at their base modest, shrink- ing, sensitive. Perhaps we should find that all men who have been most useful were at first self-distrustful, could we but know their early struggles. Surely it was so with Moses, David, Elijah, John the Baptist. The early days of many a modern hero — Cromwell, "Wash- ington, Grant — reveal the same characteristic. God seems to have little use for the brag- giirt. Time and circumstance soon prick the bubble of self-conceit. " Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit? Tiiere is more hope of a fool than of him." All iiistory is a comment on the truth of this proverb. Jeremiah possessed the first requisite of real *». AN OLD PROPHET'S MESSAGE. 11 greatness. He was modest and humble. He did not think of himself more highly than he ought to think. He was the very one whom God could " set over the nations." He could be made " a defenced city, and an iron pillar, and brazen walls against the whole lanil." O young man, young woman, you who have used your shrinking, modest disposition as an excuse for not doing special and earnest serv- ice; you who have stutfed your ears with the wax of bashfulness when God has spoken ; you who have said with Moses, "Send by whom thou wilt send, by any one but me," know you that this ' ery disposition which you have urged as your excuse is your qualiiication. If yours is a genuine, and not a false, hypo- critical, modesty, it is the foundation mortar in which may be embedded the "iron pillar" and "brazen wall" of the "defenced city." Do not longer envy your companion his as- surance and confidence and unblushing sang froid. It is more likely that God has given to you the stirring message, the important life- work, than to him. If necessary, the Lord can put forth his hand and touch thy mouth as he did Jeremiah's, and say unto thee, " Behold I have put my word in thy mouth." Use not thy bashful modesty as a stone of stumbling ; use it as a stepping-stone to a large ^-^ l-> OLD LANTERXS FOR PRESEST PATHS. and noble life. Speak tlie stumbling, hesitat- ing word that (iod gives thee to speaic. It is his word. Do the unaccustomed act from which thou dost shrink, though thou dost it with awkward and bungling lingers, if it is for liis sake. The modest man tl\at yet dares to speak for God and do the right has always been God's chosen man. The Intrepid Man. The shrinking child develops into the in- trepid man. His life vvi*s passeil amid stress and storm, lie was t/ie unpopular man of his time. lie was always foreboding evil. Cab- sand ra-like, he was seldom believed. His pre- dictions were not immediately fulfilled, and between the date of the prophecy and its ful- filment people had time to jeer and scoff and berate the seer. Jeremiah's own neighbors and kindred hated him. In the little village of Anathoth, three nules north of Jerusalem, where he was born and where his early life was sj)en<" he discov- ered a plot against his life which was barely frustrated. But this did not turn him from his mission or silence his message. He lived under at least four kings whose hopes and wishes were thwarted by his proph- AN OLD PliorilET'S MESSAGE. 13 ecies. But lie was never imizzletl. False prophets on every side predicteil prosperity, and uttered smooth sayings wiiich pleased the princes and nobles; and Jeremiah saw the way to royal favor and worldly happiness made very plain ; but he never s])ake with ly- ing lips the message which (iod gave him not. Patriotism seemed to demand that with the clamorous false prophets he should incite the people to an alliance with Egyi)t rather than advise them, as he constantly did, to submit to the yoke of Babylon. But for the latter course he had the " thus saith the Lord," and not for the former ; and he never hesitated as to hia message. Perhaps the period most trying to his faith and courage occurred during the reign cf Zedekiah, a well-meaning, but v,'eak and vacil- lating, prince, whom Nebuchadnezzar had placed upon the throne, causing him at the same time to take an oath of allegiance to Babylon in the name of Jehovah. In an evil day, however, Zedekiah listened to false counsellors, repudiated his allegiance to Babylon, and sought alliance with Egypt. Jerusalem was besieged. The armies of Egypt came to her defence. At first it seemed that the allied forces would conquer. The armies 14 OLD LANTEliXS FOR PRESENT PATHS. of Nebuchadnezzar withdrew for a littlOj and the siege wa? raised. Then in tlio midst of tlie general rejoicing Jeremiah was denounced as a croaker, a false prophet, a traitor to his country. "Thou fallest away to the Chal- deans," they said. By a personal enemy he was apprehended, beaten, bastinadoed, and thi'ust into a noisome dungeon. But the king, Zedekiuli, was more tender- hearted, and brought him out of his miry prison-house, and asked anxiously, "Is there any word from the Lord ? " Here, from a worldly point of view, was Jeremiah's chance. A single " smooth " proph- ecy, and all would have been well. Many a bold man, whoso spirit has been broken by the scourge and the prison-house has recanted under similar circumstances. Not so Jere- miah. " Is there any word from the Lord ? " "There is," answered the uncompromising prophet. " Thou shalt be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon." O brave, strong, modest, undaunted spirit 1 may we learn thy secret of uncompromising, unswerving allegiance to the Lord of hosts. May we dare to be Jeremiahs. May we dare to stand alone against a hostile world, if need be, the Lord our only fortress and high tower. ^m ■\ ,''**S*' ^ts2^^ .^gii^ ^^^^rfl II. THT5 SECRET OF NATIONAL DISASTER. HE burden of Jeremiah's long wail of woe is the sin of the people of Israel, which brought disaster and destruc- tion in its train. There are lifty-two chapters in the book that bears his name, and the burden of almost every one is summed up in the twenty -fifth verse of the Dfth chapter: " Your iniquities have turned away these things [prosperity and abundant harvests], and your sins have withholden good from you." It is the old, old message, that needs ever to be reiterated. Noah, Nathan, Isaiah, Jere- miah, Ezekiel, John the Baptist, and in later days Luther, Savonarola, Wilberforce, Park- hurst, have taken up the same message, and in many tongues, in many lands, have summoned the people to awake to righteousness. Thank God for the host of young reformers, unknown to fame and the newspapers, but not unknown to God, whom the recent good- citizenship movement has aroused from lelh- 15 T lo OLD LANTEHMi t'OK VUKSEUT PATHS. argy, and wlmse l)urning dcsiro it is to niake Amorica a people wliuso Cuvl is ttio Lord. All these will lind in .loreiiiiaLi und liig book studies of supremo interest. Uore, then, is Jeroniiaii's message condensed into a sentence : " Your sins have withholden yood from vou.'" All history is but a commentary on this verse. A nation is not permanently prosper- ous because of the vast extent of her fertile acres, i)ecause of her genial climate or inex- haustil)le resources. If this were so, stunly, mountainous Switzerland, ice-clad Norway, fog-enveloped England, rock-bound, sterile ]\Iassachusetts, would have but a small place in the family of states. There is another element that enters in to make a nation strong or weak, powerful or puny. Wo may say it is the only element, be- cause it is O'ad. There is a God of nations, and upon every page of history since time be- gan is stamped this legend: " Your sins have withholden good fror.i you." Jeremiah's prophecy is one of the greatest of treatises on good citizenship, because in every line it recognizes this tremendous truth. Read it ihrough with this for the key-thouglit, and its treasures are unlocked. O youthful citizen, it is no less true to-day than in the THE SEVlillT OF RATIOS AL DlSASTElt. 17 days of the prophet of Anathoth. There is hut one ultimute source of national disaster, and that is national sin. When combating the evils engendered by national greed and pride and debauchery and oppression, you are light- ing for your nation's life. God is not upon the side of the strongest battalions. All history brands as a lie ihis monstrous piece of cynicism. God is on the side of righteousness and justice and purity. The bacillus of every national disease that ever decimated a people is the same. The source of every national disaster can always be spelled with three letters, — s-.-n. "Your Bins have withholden good from you." —^ ilirViilit»ii^«i