THE 
 
 GREAT ELECTION 
 
 »v 
 
 Rev. professor CAMPBELL, LL.D. 
 
 {Published by request.) 
 
 
 
 
THE 
 
 GREAT ELECTION 
 
.>VrL 
 
/ 
 
 THE 
 
 Great Election 
 
 Rev. professor CAMPBELL, LL.D. 
 
 (Published by request.) 
 
 ^® •♦I^ ©♦ 
 
 MONTREAL : 
 PRINTED BY JOHN LOVELL dr* SON. 
 
 1894. 
 

 Entered according to Act of Parliament of Canada, in the 
 year one thousand eight hundred and ninety-four, by 
 John Campbell, LL.D., in the office of the Minister 
 of Agriculture at Ottawa. . ^ 
 
 ■f- 
 

 ...* 
 
 This discourse was prepared without any 
 view to publication, and was preached to a 
 congregation to whom I had the privilege to 
 minister during the temporary absence of their 
 pastor. Some who heard it, thinking it cal- 
 culated to do good in awakening thought upon 
 a great subject, have urged its publication, 
 and I willingly place my manuscript in their 
 hands, with the prayer that God's blessing 
 may follow all of His truth that it contains. 
 
 ^f rJ-M JOHN CAMPBELL. 
 Cote St. Antoine, February, 1894. 
 
V ^Z*.'" 
 
 <^' -it.' '.'■,>' 
 
THE GREAT ELECTION. 
 
 ^^Now is the judgment of this zvorldr — 
 John xii. 31. 
 
 Tt was an eventful day for Jerusalem — as it 
 X yet will be for all the world — when Jesus 
 came down from Olivet amid the waving 
 palm branches of the multitude and the 
 Hosannas of the children whom He loved. 
 He who had raised Lazarus from the dead 
 was, for the moment, the people's idol, and 
 the envious Pharisees, gnashing their teeth 
 at one another in the impotence of their 
 malignity, hissed the railing : " Perceive ye how 
 ye prevail nothing ? behold the world is gone 
 after Him ! " They saw the royal state, they 
 heard the acclamations ; they hated both in 
 their secret souls, and even gathered courage 
 to protest against them to Him whom 
 they honoured, because they only wished, 
 hardly dared hope, for the outcome : 
 
 " Ride on, ride on, in majesty. 
 In lowly pomp ride on to die."" 
 
THE GREAT ELECTION. 
 
 Was fame, was reputation anything to the 
 Christ ? He was a man, and where is the man 
 or woman on this earth to whom the goodwill 
 of his fellows is nothing ? As people leave the 
 retirement of home and launvch into public 
 life to get themselves a name, so He came to 
 this earth in order to be known. He lived in 
 the eye of the world such a life as might be 
 appreciated by the good, and even by all in 
 whose hearts dwelt a single spark of divine 
 goodness. And, at last, He was lifted up, so 
 that He might draw all men unto Him. He 
 came to His own to be received, although 
 they received Him not. His delights had been 
 from the beginning with the sons of men, 
 in whose mortal dress He talked with Adam, 
 and walked with Enoch, and sat in Abraham's 
 tent, ages before He was born a little child 
 in Bethlehem's stable. Our Celtic and 
 Germanic ancestors gladly died even in the 
 springtide of life, when assured that their 
 fame would survive them and succeeding gen- 
 erations would keep their memory green. So, 
 to win the world's most glorious and lasting 
 fame and the chiefest homage of our humanity, 
 the name of which is Love, Christ gave Him- 
 self up to death for us all. 
 
 You are a man of note in your own town. 
 
THE GREAT ELECTION. 
 
 respected and honoured as you deserve to be ; 
 the very dogs know you. But God has given 
 you a heart that is more than town-wide, has 
 enriched your mind with wisdom that may 
 bless a nation, has endowed you with know- 
 ledge that is calculated to benefit the world. 
 You chafe within your narrow bounds ; you 
 would be Shelley's sky-lark out in the open of 
 field and sky, , , , ^, ^ ?. ; ; 
 
 ■ ;:„',** Like a poet hidden ' ■::,.:-'-'''^'--'''-^.'^:^''' 
 
 .... In the depth of thought, '^^ " "y—O'iy"' ; /V 
 Singing songs unbidden, •*; |"^^''' ^ !/ '"'^f-:. 
 
 Till the world is wrought 
 • ^. To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not." 
 
 You send your winged arrow of truth out 
 into the air, and hear someday that it has 
 fallen, not with wounding, but with blessing, 
 into a friendly heart. Recognition comes ; 
 a foreign stamp is on the letter that makes 
 you glad, a strange language embalms your 
 name in the journal of a distant land. Your 
 heart is all aglow, and you proudly say : " The 
 world knows me ; I belong to the world at 
 large." If you are a true man or woman, the 
 mere fame will be little to you, since fame and 
 notoriety are often convertible terms, but you 
 will rejoice because your message has been 
 spread abroad, and the benefit given you to 
 
S THE GREAT ELECTION. 
 
 convey has been appreciated. Such a true man 
 was Jesus Christ. 
 
 There were certain Greeks among them 
 that came up to worship at the feast. These 
 were not Greek-speaking Jews or Hellenists, 
 who used the Septuagint in their synagogues, 
 but genuine Greeks from the great North- 
 west, colonists of the western cities of Asia 
 Minor, or, it may be, natives of that won- 
 drous little land which had known the valour 
 of Leonidas and Miltiades, the wisdom of 
 Socrates, the eloquence of Demosthenes. Who 
 they were we cannot tell. Not Epaenetus 
 nor Stephanas, the first fruits of Achaia to 
 Christ, nor Andronicus and Junia who were 
 Paul's kinsmen and in Christ before him, but 
 Greeks, and nothing more, save that they were 
 Gentile converts to the Jewish faith. They 
 came, representatives of the world's learning 
 and culture, to the humble teacher whose 
 glorious mission was to preach the gospel to 
 the poor, and whom the common people 
 heard gladly. As, from the sunrising, the 
 Persian Magi had come to the cradle with 
 their offerings of gold and frankincense 
 and myrrh, so, into the midst of the multi- 
 tude, whose inconstant voice was soon to 
 make His sepulchre, came these Greeks 
 
THE GREA T ELECmN. 
 
 from the sunsetting. They found a disciple 
 with a Greek name, Philip, and told him their 
 desire, and he communicdted it to his Greek- 
 named friend Andrew, and they together 
 related to their Lord the simple but courteous 
 request: "Sir, we would see Jesus." ' x' ':^ 
 When Jesus heard these words, the effect 
 was marvellous. On many a former occasion, 
 the despised and rejected of men, the man of 
 sorrows, had experienced great upliftings of 
 soul. It was thus when the seventy returned 
 with joy from their mission, when He beheld 
 Satan as lightning fall from heaven, and 
 exclaimed, " I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of 
 Heaven and earth, that Thou hast hid these 
 things from the wise and prudent and hast 
 revealed them unto babes." So, now He says: 
 " The hour is come that the Son of man should 
 be glorified ; " and then He prays : " Father, 
 glorify Thy name." The prayer of the rapt 
 spirit is speedily answered, and that by a 
 voice, a miraculous voice from out the dumb, 
 blue heavens, a voice the multitude takes for 
 thunder, but which He clearly hears saying : 
 " I have both glorified it, and will glorify it 
 again." Some, with more open ear than the 
 multitude, thought that an angel ;;^spake to 
 Him, and for their sake He bore testimony to 
 
lo THE GREA T ELECTION. 
 
 the heavenly response. Then Jesus said : 
 " Now is the judgment of this world." 
 
 The word judgment used in a religious 
 sense carries the mind almost inevitably to 
 the Last Day and the Great White Throne, 
 when God shall judge the world in righteous- 
 ness by that man whom He hath ordained. 
 The judge in glory seated is the Divine Elector 
 who chooses to everlasting life, the Sovereign 
 Ruler of the universe, and Absolute Disposer 
 of all events in time and eternity. The 
 judgment day is among the most awe- 
 inspiring of the representations of God, the 
 popular conception of which is founded 
 on truth, but is very far from being all the 
 truth or all true. The absolute sovereignty of 
 God in election, in providence, in calling and 
 in judgment, not simply as a matter of right, 
 but as one ol fact, was a doctrine of the 
 Jewish Church, and has been reaffirmed 
 repeatedly from the days of St. Augustine till 
 now. In conformity with such a view, we de- 
 voutly read the words, " The Lord reigneth," 
 and sing our hymn, "The Lord is King." 
 In our text the judgment is one present, 
 not future ; it is not the judgment of man by 
 God, but the world's judgment between Christ 
 and Antichrist. The statement of Jesus arises 
 
THE GREAT ELECTION. " 
 
 out of the free choice of the Greeks, not 
 unled by the Spirit of God, expressed in the 
 simple and apparently little meaning words : 
 *' Sir, we would see Jesus," v :>r-^^,A,r '. xs 
 
 We know that all our hairs are numbered 
 and that not a sparrow falls to the ground, 
 without our Father. We believe that all 
 things work together for the good of God's 
 people, and " that, somehow, good will be the 
 final goal of ill," yet, a little while ago, we 
 prayed, and meant what we prayed, " Thy 
 kingdom come." God's kingdom has not 
 come yet, nor is His name hallowed, nor 
 is His- will done, as they should be done and 
 hallowed. The moral and the physical order 
 of our world are largely out of harmony with 
 the order of heaven or the kingdom of God, 
 as testify the prophets from Genesis to 
 Revelation, and the whole creation that 
 groans in concert. We who read our Bibles 
 know very well how this evil state of things 
 has come about. It is from no change in the 
 nature of the unchangeable God ; it is from 
 no usurpation by an inferior power of the 
 domain of the Almighty. It is the work of 
 democracy, of the electors of our race, to 
 whom God gave dominion absolute and un- 
 controlled over the earth and all its creatures, 
 
12 THE GREAT ELECTION, 
 
 and who handed that earth over to the powers 
 of evil. That God is still present with man, 
 hghting everyone that cometh into the 
 world, restraining the powers of wrath, expos- 
 tulating with His rebellious children through 
 His inspired messengers, and in Christ offer- 
 ing Himself to their suffrages, is salvation 
 begun. When salvation shall be completed, 
 sin will end, and with sin all physical evil in 
 the realm of the saved. Then, and not till 
 then, will the Kingdom of God have come. 
 
 In the words of our blessed Saviour there 
 is presented to our view a world that judges. 
 What is a world that judges? It is one to 
 which are given both the right and ability to 
 judge or choose. It is a republic or an elec- 
 tive monarchy, to use the language of political 
 science. Its judgment is an election ; its 
 individual judges are the free and independent 
 electors who make choice of their own rulers, 
 in accordance with the majority of suffrages. 
 Sacred history sanctions by more than one 
 example this democratic choice. Our first 
 parents in the days of the world's infancy 
 were offered their choice between life and 
 death. Joshua said to Israel : *' Choose ye this 
 day whom ye will serve." Elijah came unto 
 all the people of a later Israel, and said : " How 
 
THE GREAT ELECTION. 13 
 
 long halt ye between two opinions ? If the 
 Lord be God, follow Him ; but if Baal, then 
 follow him." And the people answered him 
 not a word. But the people did answer with 
 a shout that filled hell with glee and darkened 
 the face of heaven, when Pilate called for 
 their election. " Not this man, but Barabbas ! " 
 was their cry ; and Barabbas, a robber and 
 a murderer, was the type of the prince of this 
 world, the ruler of its darkness, the spirit that 
 now works in the children of disobedience, 
 the free choice of the world's majority. 
 
 In civic and national government, elections 
 come on at certain periods or at certain grave 
 crises, and long agitations generally lead up 
 to them. A corrupt government has imposed 
 upon the electors burdens grievous to be 
 borne, has defrauded them of their rights, has 
 disgraced them before the world. Tired of 
 the yoke, disgusted with evil rule, the better 
 minded and more hopeful voters make choice 
 of candidates who will oppose corruption 
 and promise better measures of government. 
 Something of this kind we have recently seen. 
 Why should it not be universal and reach to 
 the ends of the earth } Why should it not 
 rise above mere external reforms and matters 
 of expenditure into the great sphere of man's 
 
14 THE GREAT ELECTION. 
 
 spiritual, moral and physical well-being ? 
 Why should its conflict be limited to flesh 
 and blood, when the arch transgre'ssors are 
 principalities and powers, the rulers of the 
 darkness of this world, spirits of wickedness in 
 high places ? If the Jews had known who 
 Jesus was, they would not have crucified the 
 Lord of Glory. Did this sin-stricken, long 
 sufl"ering world only know what great things 
 depend upon the election of Christ, its un- 
 animous cry would be, "Thy Kingdom 
 come ! " But it takes a long time to educate 
 the people, so that they may reject the evil 
 and choose the good ; long and wise agitation 
 to arouse slaves from their lethargy, and get 
 the word out of them that Israel denied to 
 Elijah. Yet, thank God, the world is learn- 
 ing. It had begun to learn with these Greeks. 
 Representatives of the Gentile world that lay 
 groaning in the hopelessness and under the 
 corruptions of Paganism, they had already 
 come half way to the faith of Moses and the 
 Prophets, and now desired to go all the way 
 to Christ. They were a self-appointed depu- 
 tation from the great western world of their 
 day, saying to the Son of the Father : "You 
 are our choice." They were the grain of 
 mustard seed, of which that Christ had 
 
THE GREA T ELECTION. 15 
 
 spoken, yet to be a tree on vhose branches 
 the birds of Paradise should si.ig ; the little 
 leaven, that the Church Bride took and hid in 
 three measures of meal, yet to pervade the 
 whole great baking of the marriage supper's 
 bread ; the little circle of the child-thrown 
 pebble that, because it was cast into the ocean, 
 goes on growing, even through storm and 
 tempest, till it shall touch the farthest shore ; 
 the quiet voice that shall never cease till it 
 fill all earth with prayer and all heaven with 
 praise. Therefore Jesus said : "Now is the 
 judgment of this world.". . , .,, 
 
 The new choice of this world means the 
 overthrow of the old government. Hence it 
 is that our Lord immediately adds the words 
 to which creeds and theological systems have 
 paid little or no attention, and which many 
 who call themselves theologians and believers 
 in Christ sneer at or explain away, " Now 
 shall the prince of this world be cast out.'' 
 He is our ruler, under the restraining hand of 
 the one God, and yet neither the orld nor 
 the Church knows it or appears to want to 
 know it. They call him original sin, abstract 
 evil, a necessity of evolution, God's providence, 
 natural law ; and are ignorant of the fact that 
 it was he himself, the father of lies, who told 
 
I6 THE GREAT ELECTION. 
 
 them these falsehoods in their hearts before 
 they spoke them forth in partly meaningless 
 and wholly God-dishonouring words. It is not 
 an uncommon feature of modern literature, 
 that authors, aspiring more towards origin- 
 ality than truth, whitewash the characters of 
 men in the past, notorious for their weakness 
 or their crimes. Christ never belittled the 
 Evil One, who contended with Him from the 
 beginning of His ministry till His death ; who 
 robbed Him of one disciple and tempted Him 
 through another ; concerning whom He said : 
 "I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear." 
 His disciples, Paul and Peter, John, Jude, 
 and even James, do not belittle the great 
 adversary of the human race. Michael the 
 archangel contended with him, St. Anthony 
 wrestled with his temptations, and Martin 
 Luther expended his inkhorn on the fiend ; 
 but the world is like Southey, who could never 
 think of the devil without laughing, because, 
 like some of the minor plague spots of the 
 world, he disguises himself as a mountebank ; 
 but he is a mountebank with a dagger that 
 surely kills. The Church and the world have 
 whitewashed Satan, who is a harmless person- 
 ality compared with those who oppose their 
 theological or philosophical preconceptions ; 
 
THE GREAT ELECTION. 1 7 
 
 and, like a poet not deficient in earnest 
 thought, " they whistle the devil to make them 
 sport, for they know that sin is vain." Sin 
 and Satan are vain. That is true to Godward.. 
 Their adverse waves may beat upon God's 
 throne only to increase its effulgence ; but 
 those waves bear upon their crested tops 
 the suffering bodies, the lost souls of our 
 brethren and God's wayward children. Peter 
 knew him well, and said :" Your adversary, 
 the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, 
 seeking whom he may devour, whom resist, 
 steadfast in the faith." What has theology 
 done to resist the devil } Little or nothing* 
 The Church of England, and even the Church 
 of Rome, to its credit, renounces him and all his 
 works. The Lord Jesus Christ, who knew, 
 called him the prince of this world, and we 
 thank God that Ke said : " Now shall the 
 prince of this world be cast out: " 
 
 In thus speaking, Christ told of a future 
 that is still a future ; the prince is not cast out^ 
 The world's judgment has been given, the 
 judgment of thinking men, of the world's best 
 and wisest ; but this judgment has been in 
 great part inoperative. The rhob rules, the 
 majority keeps the prince in power. Viewed 
 as a whole, the world groans under the same 
 
l8 THE GREAT ELECTION 
 
 tyranny as that which oppressed it in the days 
 of the Son of Man. Yet in outward authority, 
 the power of the Evil One has suffered dim- 
 inution. Despotism in very many lands has 
 given place to free institutions, not alwayr 
 successful, but useful as educational factors 
 Barbarism is rare ; slavery is almost abolished ; 
 persecution is weak ; intemperance and similar 
 evils are unfashionable. Science has in many 
 cases proved itself religion's true handmaid in 
 relieving human suffering and in ministering 
 to human comfort. Christian activity has 
 reached every land, and works of benevolence 
 are the glory of the age. The clear-eyed 
 observer sees no room for pessimism. Since 
 sin entered the world, no former days have 
 been better than these. The judgment of 
 these Greeks has not been all inoperative. 
 Like the sword and brand of Hercules, it has 
 cutoff many a head of the Hydra and seared 
 the necks from which some sprang ; but many 
 have grown again in different forms, and, 
 though contracted, the monster's life is as 
 active as ever. 
 
 The prince reigns, we know full well, for sin, 
 sorrow and death reign. The works of the 
 devil, which Christ came to destroy, are 
 manifest in every life, in every land. The 
 
THE GREAT ELECT JOy. 19 
 
 world has been judging, is judging now, but 
 without intelligence, and thus without hope^ 
 so far as this side of eternity is concerned. 
 There are many who say in their hearts : " Not ' ^ 
 this man, but Barabbas." Few would sell 
 their souls to the Evil One, or desire his 
 companionship, when revealed in all his 
 hideous moral and physical deformity. He 
 knows this well, and the serpent is too subtle v, 
 thus to manifest himself. It is an angel of "^ 
 light that the eyes blinded by the God of 
 this world behold. And yet I do not know, 
 I am loth to think it, that there are worldly 
 shrewd men so short-sighted as to be ready 
 to fall down and worship him, in whatever 
 guise he might choose to appear, if he would 
 only give them a portion of the kingdoms 
 of the world and the glory of them. These are 
 the selfish, who have never risen in thought 
 to the more enlightened plane of self-love, 
 whose selfishness is the germ out of which 
 robbery and murder and other deadly blos- 
 soms expand. As the pleasure-loving nobles 
 of France, when the claims of Henry of Na- 
 varre were discussed, cried, "Give us anarchy 
 and all sorts of evils rather than a Huguenot 
 king," so the friends of Barabbas, void of 
 public spirit, blind to future destiny, in the 
 
ao THE GREAT ELECTION. 
 
 true spirit of beasts that perish, crave a ruler 
 who will indulge them in lusts and angry 
 passions, and in the acquisition of ill-gotten 
 gain. These are the pillars of Satan's throne ; 
 and yet in times past such men's hearts have 
 been changed and their vote has been gained 
 for the King of Kings. 
 
 Compared with the Barabbas men, who 
 draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin 
 as it A^ere with a cart rope, they are many 
 who shout ostentatiously: "We have no king 
 but Caesar." What did the Jew care for 
 Caesar ? Did he love him ? I trow not. But 
 Caesar was the visible one in power, he was 
 strong ; it had became a habit to respect him 
 and pay him tribute. Such are the moralists 
 who corrupt the world by saying " Whatever 
 is is right." It is false: whatever is is more 
 wrong than right. They urge submission to 
 the fixed lav/s of nature, a nature red in tooth 
 and claw, careless, remorseless, a nature of 
 bitter cold and scorching heat, dealing death 
 in windy tempests on land and sea, scattering 
 disease abroad in the air we breathe and 
 the water we drink, with pain and oft with 
 agony severing the bonds between soul and 
 body of more than thirty millions of God's 
 children in a single year. It is Caesar, you 
 
THE GKEAT ELECTION. 21 
 
 say, just as the Mahommedan says Kismet, 
 It is fate. Yes, it is Caesar, but his name is 
 Nero, and his victims are martyrs whose 
 blood will yet be required. Is a murder any 
 less a murder because you cannot see the 
 hand that inflicts it ? It is the work of Bar- 
 abbas all the same. Christ submitted to no 
 laws of nature ; His submission was to His 
 Father's will and to sinful man. He cast the 
 devils out ; He rebuked the winds and waves, 
 and they obeyed him ; He healed those whom 
 Satan had stricken with disease ; He snatched 
 the dead from the grasp of him that has the 
 power of death, that last enemy. He even 
 told His disciples that they, participating in 
 His sovereignty over the Caesar of the 
 natural world, should go unharmed from fire 
 and poison and venomous beasts. Men are 
 content to go on calmly living under the 
 sway of this persecuting Caesar, without hope 
 in this life ; and the habit of expediency thus 
 formed follows them into all their activities, 
 so that we have a half-hearted world, a 
 world that has not learned to breast the 
 blows of circumstance and grapple with its 
 evil star. Such are they in Church and 
 State ai:d busy world who say : " We have no 
 king but Caesar. " 
 
22 THE GREAT ELECTION. 
 
 A third class of electors is in the Church, 
 the Jeremiahs who sigh and cry over present 
 evils that would be unbearable were it not 
 for hope. Their song is: c,6>;; 
 
 ,„;, '* Tell me, my secret soul, ■ ''^ , ^ 
 
 7 ■ \ -1 .; O tell me, Hope and Faith, . ' 
 ; >i< t; V ^ :-, Is there no resting place • ;■ 
 
 '''-'y^-'^'iy'^i^^'S^ From sorrow, sin and death ? >.?-'\^ , 
 ' vv* Is there no refuge calm V 
 
 Where mortals may be blest, ^ 
 Where grief may find a balm 
 And weariness a rest ? " 
 
 Faith, hope and love, best boons to mortals 
 given, wave their bright wings, and whisper: 
 " Yes, in Heaven ! " That is what the secret 
 soul told the victim of persecution in ancient 
 days ; what it told the negro slave till a few 
 years ago ; what it tells the sufferer from 
 Oriental misgovernment to-day. Keep your 
 good hope of heaven by all means ; but is the 
 prince to have his own way here while you 
 are hoping } The weak, almost hopeless, 
 socialists revolt against Russia's tyranny. 
 They judge the evil government, they con- 
 demn it, they fight against it, while the 
 Church, groaning under a tyranny beyond 
 the power of man to exercise, under cruelties 
 beyond his ingenuity to devise and inflict, 
 simply turns its eyes upward and waits for 
 Heaven ! Truly, in many resp<.cts, Christ 
 
THE GREAT ELECTION, 23 
 
 has come in vain ; and His religion, meant to 
 deliver the whole man, body as well as soul, 
 has been turned into psychology and moral 
 philosophy. : <. .iU' v-a^ ::# 
 
 Listen to the joyful news : " Now shall the 
 prince of this world be cast out." Christ 
 beheld him as lightning fall from heaven. 
 The prophecy is true ; but mark this, it 
 follows upon the judgment of this world. 
 He can only fall by the power that raised 
 him and made him prince. That power is 
 the world's vote, the world's vote for Christ. 
 Some generation is yet to arise, more 
 thoughtful, more regardful of its best interests, 
 more public-spirited, more hopeful, filled 
 with a truer knowledge of what God is and of 
 a larger faith in Him, a brave generation not 
 afraid to face the powers of evil in all their 
 living individuality and potentiality, and 
 that generation is going to gain the plebiscite 
 of the entire earth for Jesus Christ. Then 
 shall Satan be cast out, and He shall come 
 whose right it is to reign. Not by any coup 
 de main from Heaven shall deliverance come 
 to sluggards and cowards, but by the active 
 reception of the everlasting gospel carried by 
 the Church's strong angels to the ends of the 
 earth. When is this valiant generation to 
 
24 THE GREAT ELECTION. 
 
 come ? With what measure of shame and 
 confusion of face shall we behold it, having 
 so little part and lot in the momentous 
 matter? "' 
 
 The saints shall judge the world, and evil 
 angels first of all. It has taken a long time, 
 this evolution of even a saint into a judge. 
 He can carp at and criticize the sayings and 
 doings of his fellow-judges, but he is too 
 small a creature to judge the unseen world 
 of evil. After the experience of six thousand 
 years of expression, and after nigh on two 
 thousand years learning in Christ's school, 
 it is high time that he possessed his soul o^ 
 the evidence and showed himself a man in 
 decision. Therefore we must agitate and bring 
 conviction home. Read your papers, consult 
 history, look round about you, recall your 
 home memories. Spiritual wickedness and 
 moral evil you are hearing of continually, and 
 know all about them. While, far from neglect- 
 in^ these, we want a gospel that a child can 
 understand, an election platform on which 
 the most unenlightened savage can give an 
 intelligent vote. You blame a corporation 
 for a level crossing and open gate where a 
 man was killed. What shall be done to the 
 unseen corporation, beyond man's present 
 
THE GREAT ELECTION. 25 
 
 power to control, that swept thousands to 
 their death on the high seas, and will do so 
 again and again ? Fierce was the indignation 
 during the American war against a medical 
 man, who was supposed to have shipped 
 infected clothing to crowded ports in the 
 Northern States. But where is the indig- 
 nation against the fiendish ingenuity and 
 diabolical power that takes some harmless 
 creation of God, and, transmuting it into a 
 germ of death, therewith pollutes the atmo- 
 sphere and defies the activity of science to 
 check its career of massacre ? A brute of a 
 human being ill-treats a child, and all hands 
 are raised in horror, but in your own saddened 
 homes you have seen little ones tortured 
 for days and dying in agony, and, may God 
 forgive you, you have said : "The Lord's will 
 be done ! " Jesus Christ never used such Ian-- 
 guage in face of human suffering and death, 
 and the petition of the Lord's Prayer, "Thy 
 will be done on earth as it is in Heaven," 
 means nothing of the kind, for sickness and 
 death do not pertain to heaven. 
 
 Bring the matter home. In ancient Per- 
 sian days the tyrant Zohak ruled the people 
 of Iran with a rod of iron, after they had 
 accepted him as their king. The hideous- 
 
THE GREAT ELECTION. 
 
 serpents, which had risen from his shoulders 
 by the kiss of Eblis, threatened his brain, 
 and would only be quieted by the presenta- 
 tion to their fangs of two warm human heads 
 a day. Quietly at first, and afterwards more 
 publicly, the subjects of the tyrant were 
 kidnappei, and their yet palpitating brains 
 given to the reptiles. Soon there was but 
 one household in which there was not at least 
 ■one vacant place, and still the besotted people 
 endured the tyranny. Rejoicing in his im- 
 munity, Gavah, the smith, went to the palace 
 'On matters of business. In the dim court- 
 yard he stumbled over two headless trunks ; 
 he bent down and recognized them, they 
 were the bodies of his young sons. Back to 
 the forge he went, with tears in his eyes and 
 fierce resolution in his heart. High on a pole 
 he reared his leather apron, and round it as a 
 rallying point called his bereaved fellow-sub- 
 jects to arms. As all had suffered from Zohak's 
 barbarous cruelty, all joined in the hoarse 
 cry, " Down with the tyrant ! " and, an irresist- 
 ible army, they hurled him from his throne. 
 Press it home, I say again. Where, through- 
 out the wide earth, is there a home that, in 
 some form or another, has not suffered from 
 the tyrant's power } The evil and the bit- 
 
THE GREAT ELECTION. 
 
 27 
 
 terness of many forms of sin to which he 
 tempts the soul thousands may be slow to 
 understand, but all can understand and ap- 
 preciate his scourge of disease, his stroke- 
 of death. On the other hand stands the 
 Prince of Life ; ask the world's vote for Him.. 
 "We would see Jesus " is the judgment of 
 this world. Soon after, our Lord said : " A lit- 
 tle while, and ye shall not see me ; and again, 
 a little while, and ye shall see me. " The world 
 wants to see its Saviour ; the gospel-taught 
 world believes that it shall see Him. The world 
 does not appreciate all the beauties of His 
 holy character, does not understand the mys- 
 tery of redemption through His blood, but 
 still it wants to see Him. There are the hun» 
 gering and thirsting, not yet after righteous- 
 ness, but for daily food, that would gladly hail 
 Him who fed the thousands of Jews and Gen- 
 tiles from a lad's little store of loaves and fish- 
 es. There are those lunatic and sore vexed in 
 our asylums, waiting for Him who casts out ' 
 devils by His word of power. There are palsied, 
 impotent, bowed down, and lame, whom more 
 than four are eager to carry into the presence 
 of the Son of man, who can forgive sins and 
 bid them take up their beds and walk beside. 
 There are nineteenth century centurions who 
 
.28 THE GREAT ELECTION. 
 
 would come to Him for their servants, and 
 many a blind Bartimaeus longing for open 
 eyes, and lepers who say : " Thou canst 
 make us clean." Oh yes, and rulers of the 
 synagogue there are whose little daughters 
 have just breathed their last, and widows with 
 sad eyes whose only sons are being carried 
 forth on the bier, and modern sisters of Laza- 
 rus that say : " Lord, if Thou hadst been here^ 
 our brother had not died." y^-'&'^l 
 
 ' « O world, so full of doleful noises ; •■.'-; "'' 
 
 ^^ • - ' O men, with wailing in your voices ; " i ^^^ v 
 
 their cry fills the earth, and strives to rend 
 the heavens. It is all one cry, and that cry 
 is the judgment of this world : " We would 
 see Jesus ! " And you shall see Him, for He 
 is coming the second time without sin unto 
 salvation. Even so, Lord Jesus, come quickly, 
 we pray ; but this saint's call must be the 
 world's call or judgment to bring about the 
 second advent. . 
 
 Now is the judgment of this world, said 
 Jesus. Now } Would God it were ! Then there 
 should be bread enough in our Father's house, 
 and to spare. Then all struggles between 
 capital and labour would cease ; the soldier 
 would beat his sword into a ploughshare, the 
 lawyer burn his briefs, the doctor cast physic 
 
THE GREAT ELECTION. 29 
 
 to the dogs, and the minister's commission to 
 teach his fellows to know the Lord be replaced 
 by one more necessary to the new order of 
 things. The tears would be wiped away from 
 all faces ; there would be no more crying nor 
 any pain, nor would any of the world's inhab- 
 itants be able to say "I am sick." No tempest 
 would devastate the land, nor storm wind 
 sweep the sea. None should hurt or destroy 
 in all God's holy mountain. And, better 
 than all, there should be no more curse, curse 
 of the soil or curse of the climate, curse of 
 vegetable or animal nature, curse of man or 
 curse of devil. This, and more than tongue 
 can tell or imagination paint, will be true even 
 of this earth when we can truly say : *' Now 
 is the judgment of this world to see Jesus." 
 
 Judges of this world, voters for Christ, what 
 is your ballot } It is no voice, no pledge, no 
 card ; it is yourself, your life, your activities 
 for Christ. " Choose this day," cried Gari- 
 baldi and the patriot king to the heirs of the 
 Romans of old, "choose between Austrian 
 domination and a united Italy." They res- 
 ponded with a hundre'd thousand throats : 
 " Long live Italia ! O Garibaldi, O patriot king, 
 we come ! " Then they donned the red shirt 
 of war, and, rifle in hand, fell in for the life 
 
30 THE GREA T ELECTION, 
 
 'I II ■ III I II . I I- ■■. ■ ri ■ . ■ ^ I. .11 ■ 11^ 
 
 and death struggle that ended in liberty. So 
 must we clothe ourselves in the red raiment of 
 self-sacrifice, and swell the armies of the war- 
 rior electors, whose mission is to set the crown 
 of victory on Jesus' brows, and whose patient 
 valour shall yet wrest this once fair world from 
 its tyrant prince. Like the Christ, we must 
 be lifted up in the eyes of others, for, only 
 as we are lifted up, can we draw recruits from 
 the ends of the earth who shall follow in the 
 train of His blood-red banner ; lifted up by 
 labour, lifted up by sacrifice, lifted up by 
 hatred and contumely and persecution from 
 without, but, above all, lifted up by Christ- 
 like character as those who love their fellow- 
 men. 
 
 How long our election contest may last, 
 who, save God, in heaven or on earth, can 
 tell ? Let us toil and agitate in hope. It may 
 be that you and I even in this life will be of 
 the great multitude, whose voice shall be as 
 of many waters and mighty thunderings, to 
 cry, " Alleluia, for the Lord God omnipotent 
 reigneth ! " 
 
,'*• I t.Tf''-- , rf* "-*- 
 
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