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Gbat, Printer and St&reotyper^ H and 18 Jkotfb St, lire-Pnof BaUdtngg. r'^ MEN'S EXCUSES (^ ■' POR NOT BECOMING CHRISTIANS.^ ►♦•- " And they all with one consent, began to make excuse." — Lukb 14 : 18. After announcing the aboye as the text for his discourse, Mr. Bbkcber read the parable in which it occurs, as follows : " And when one of them that sat at meat with him heard these things, be said unto him : Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingd(Mn of Qod. Then said he unto him : A certain man made a great supper, and bade many: and sent his senr- ant at supper time, to say to them that were bidden : Come^ for all things are now ready. And they all with one consent began to make excuse. The first said unto him : 'I have bought a piece of ground, and I must needs go and see it: I pray thee have me excused.* And another said : ' I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to prove them: I pray thee have me excused.' And another said: 'I have married a wife : and therefore I can not come.' So that servant came, and showed his lord these thinga Then the master of the house being angry, sud to his servant : ' Go out quickly mto the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in hither the poor, and the maimed, and the halt, and the blind. And the servant said : ' Lord, it is done as thou hast commanded, and yet there is room.' " Christ had been teaching many of the more eminent virtues which be- longed to his kingdom and to his calling. There were some, also, who imapned, in hearing him, that there was a millennium close at hand ; that that kingdom, which was to be decorated and adorned with resplendent instances of men who were to exhibit such sterling virtues as he had been descanting on — ^humilitj, kindness, sympathy, hospitality, magnanimity — was soon to be established. To those who supposed that, in the kingdom which they thought he had come to establish, men would evince just these qualities, he said : " Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God." Christ speaks, then, a parable to this effect : That moral excellencies are exceedingly attractive to men that hear about them, but that they are apt to be repulsive to men who are called to practise them; and that, in reference to those very things which led to this admiration of his own kingdom, when men were called to take up such virtues, they would find reason not so * Preached b Plymoath Ohoroh, Brooklyn, May 88, 18G8. much for admiring the yirtues as for excusing themselves. He therefore spoke this parable. In the twenty-second chapter of Matthew, the same parable is giren ; and there it is stated that it was a king who made a feast on the occasion of his son's marriage. This heightens the picture, because there was then not only a reason of respect for going to the feast, but a reason of allegiance ; and in staying away, there was not merely disrespect, but disobedience. There are tiiree excuses given in the parable, although there is but one spirit at the bottom of them. They amount only to this : that each man preferred his self-interest to his duty ; he preferred to please himself rather than to please his liege-lord. The excuse alleged in each case did not cover the ground at all. There jjras not a justifying reason in either. There was nothing in the circumstances mentioned by any one of these men, that made it impracticable for him to attend the summons of his sovereign. His ground would not sink from under his feet while he was paying this duty to his king. His five yoke of oxen would not stray away or be lost by his wait- ing. He had married a wife, and there was no danger that he would get rid of her so soon. These were mere pretenses. The reason was, in each case, that the men did not wish to go ; and these excuses were, therefore, mere pretenses, that covered that unwillingness. What is meant by an excuse? It is treason given for disobedience, or delinquency, in some duiy. It implies, always, an obligation, an unftilflll- ment, and some reason which the person supposes will justify or palliate this delinquency or disobedience. There is no virtue, therefore, in an excuse, unless it has power to release a man from a foregoing obligation, or to palli- ate the non-fulfillment of such an obligation. There are maiiy duties which are relative — that is, they depend very much upon circumstances. The services and kindnesses which we owe to each other, change— the obligation varies with our situation. What do parents owe to their children ? They owe love. But the conduct that lov$ reijuites varies with each of their children, and with the parents' own condition. The relations of men throughout society stand on definite principles ; but the application of these principles varies through a long scale. So that a man may disappoint ex- pectations, and even agreements, and yet not be altogether without excuse. For sickness, calamity, the constant incursion of other duties and burdens, the weakness of a man in foreseeing what is to happen, and thereby pro- mising what he can not perform, and hundreds of such things, may be valid excuses for the non-performance of those duties which are relative between num and man. But there are other obligations that are not movable, from which men can not recede excusably. No man can excuse himself if he fail in the duty of patriotism as a citizen. In some special developments of this dufy, he may do a certain thing or fiiil to do it ; but as to the general temper and spirit of patriotism, there can be no excuse for the want of it There are no such things as excuses for the want of honor. What honor requires a man to be, or to do, may vary with circumstances ; but for a lack of the central and / - M \¥^ % essential spirit there is ne excuse. There is no excvsing a man for want of truth, for want of fidelity. There is no excusing a man in any respect in which the obligation includes fiindamental qualities essential to his moral being, or his honorable estate. No excuse in moral' things can ever ayail, when it relates to the liiglier forms of obligation— those which stand in a man's own nature, and in his relations to God and to eternity. What is the spirit which usually grows up in men who are given to ex- cesses ? The habit of finding reasons for not doing right, is a habit that grows very rapidly and very insidiously. It enfeebtesthe motives to right conduct, and leads men to seek rather how to avofd than how to perform duty. A man who has taught himself early to excuse delinquency in duties, has lost moral feeling just in the proportion in which he has gained a facility of justifying himself There never was a proverb truer than this, that " A man who is good at excuses is good for nothing else." For, though there are excuses which justify men, yet the spirit of self-excusation is always a mean one. Excuses for moral delmquency are usually essentially false. They are pretenses. They do not state the truth. They are rather statements made to conceal the truth. They are devised merely to make a good show, and either to deceive other eyes or to blind our own. The excuses which we make to ourselves are often eminently deceptive ; the excuses which we make to others are still more glaringly so. Nothing is more common than "that wrong is committed, on one ground, and that then the mind begins to search some plausible excuse for it^ on another, alleging this last as the primal and moving cause of the act. So that men's excuses are acting, all the while, to produce delinquency or wrong, by the very fact of trumping up an excuse to make the show &ir. Excuses for moral delinquency are, therefore, usually processes of self- deception. At first they may not be : but at length, a man who tries to deceive himself comes into that state in which he can do nothing else but deceive himself. A man can put out his eyes, inwardly, so that at last he will not see that a lie is a lie, and a truth is a truth. Deceit maybe known to be so, at first ; it then becomes less and less noticeable ; and finally the mind is falsified, and lives without finuikness^ openness, truth, or purity. I ' think that one of the most terrible spectacles in the world is to see a man that has destroyed the power of moral judgment in respect to his own action, his own moral state, his own moral character. The number of such persons is not small ; it is growing more and more ; and what is more re- markable, they are found more frequently in the Church, and within the sound of preaching, than out of it, and in rounds of wickedness. On that very account, Christ declared that, " The publicans and harlots shall enter the kingdom of God before you." A man who is an open sinner, and carries his scars on the outside, does not pretend to disguise it It is bad, bad ; he knows it is bad ; he does not deny that it is bad. Without plausibilities or cunningly-devised excuses, he sets before himself just what he is, and says : " I am a drunkard ; I am a liar ; I am a dissipated man; I don't pre- 8 tend to be • Christian.*^ But a man that has been brought up in the Church, as it were ; a man who has had his conscience pressed and pressed again and again; who is forever trying to find out some way of excusing himself for not being what he knows he ought to be, comes at last to thai state in which he entirely confuses his moral sense. And nothing is more common than that men may bo in that state, with a certain kind of exterior morality, making them noticeably good in exterior matters, while they haye actually lost the power of moral discrimination in respect to their own real inward habits. They become hardened. It is said of such persons, that theur conscience is " seared as with a hot iron.*' They are calloused. The spirit of excusing one's self is a spirit much to be dreaded. There is some^ng very noble in openness and frankness, even when exercised by bad men. A bold bad man always attracts interest When a man does wrong, and says, " Yes, I know it is wrong," there is something com- mendiable in him. We feel ashamed, sometimes, to think that we admire any thing in a bad man ; but there is something in frankness, and in truth- speaking, and especially in truth-speaking when the truth which a man tells is to his own harm, that we can not help admiring. On the other hand, there is something essentially mean and detestable in a man who is always passing off a kind of small coin of lies — ^living wrong, feeling wrong, doing wrong, and yet perpetually imposing upon himself and other persons by excuses. Making excuses is a very mean business. It is like the manufac- ture of bogus money — ^the issuing of fidse bills. Let us look a little in detail at some of the excuses usually made by men for not accepting the lifo which Christ proposes to every human being. There are excuses founded upon a variety of doubts respecting the truth of the Scriptures. Let me say, that I admit, in the beginning, the possi' bility of doubts in respect to much that belongs to the external form, and to tiie historical connections of Scripture. The Bible is a library of books that has had an experience most marvellous. The Scripture contoins something almost of the history of the entire human race from the begin- ning of the world. But that which makes the Bible is not its dates ; not its exact literary form ; not its precise historical accuracy. We have the testimony of Christ as to what it is that makes the Bible, when he was talking of the two great. commandments, and said : ** Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all tiiy soul, and with all thy strength ; and thy neighbor as thyselC On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." In other words, the whole Bible is nothing but just thi& This is the marrow of it This is its essential spirit It is the revelation of man's obligation to love Ck)d, and to love his fellow-men, and to evolve his whole life and character upon the basis of that principle. Now, I say, in respect to the great mass of men purporting to be doubt- ers of Scripture, they do not doubt the Scripture at all ; and that this is not the reason why they do not become Christians. I do not say that they may not doubt Genesis ; that the/ do not set aside the Mosiac books ; that they do not find a world of amusement in the old, ungular stories of prophetic '% i ■V, n ■■ ! . ; times ; that they eftn not find fimtastio things in Scripture, snd nuuny things which excite a smile, especially if they are a litUe ignorant But I say that their diflBcuIties and troubles about the form of Scripture, are not th* rea- $on» why they do not become Christians. It is the power, the substance of Scripture, that they do not like. It is the insidious reflisal of the life and conduct which Scripture inculcates, that makes them turn round and attack the Bible itself, and the authority of the whole system of Ohristianity. Self-seeking and self-pleasing, in all their forms, constitute their integral life. This is the motive power with them. When they open the word of God, the declaration is. If a man does not lose his life, he shall not sare it. They find that if they would sare their life, they must yield it up. They find that no man who is not converted into this essential element of love, who is not bom again— out of old personality, out of old pride, out of old self sense of falling in one^s sleep! It is reproduced in the experience of per^ sons who enter their Christiui life, ss they enter upon a strange Joj in a dream, and who, when the stimulating causes of their excited feelings are removed, giro way, and seem to themselres to be helplessly iklling into the abyss of despair. If persons in such circumstances are unwisely treated, it may be their utter destruction. I have known persons to be driven crazy from such a cause. I have known others, who fell into a state of fixed and settled me- lancholy, which was not eradicated in all the rest of their lives. Very great care should be taken, in the first place, to prevent such intense excitement; but where there has already been over-taxation, corresponding information and instruction should be given. Direction should be given, not that they should have a cumulation of conscience ; not that they should sing more, and pray more, and go to meeting more, and in this way win back their lost joy; but that they should have what they most need — rest. 1 would say to them, if from stimulating religious exercises you have already over- tasked your energies, you have gone beyond what nature can bear ; these are the signals and tokens that you have transcended the limits of propriety. You now need rest, quietness, fresh air, wholesome food, recreation, and the removal of such acute and intense excitements, moral though they be ; and to persons in such circumstances, such excitements are more moral than religious. If persons, without sufficient strength or stamina to bear great excite- ments, find themselves swinging from their high joys, and visions, and ec- stasy, into lower and less happy moods ; if, fiirther, they settle down through these, into states of feeling still lower, in which it seems as if darkness and night were gathering round them ; if their old experiences are gone, and their yearnings for them do not bring them back ; if, though they are will' ing to take up any cross, and to bear any burden, could only the old joy be restored, and the old emotions fill their hearts once more, these do not, nevertheless, return, and their hearts that cry out to be filled, are yet empty — if this is the condition in which men find themselves, against their will and wish, and in spite of their forced religious exercises and devotions, it is very plain that they are suffering fi:>om too great excitement, and that the remedy which they need is repose. They have overtaxed themselves, and they should be instructed to undo this mischief; and when it is undone there will usually be no further trouble — ^till the next time, when they over, tax themselves again, and bring the old difficulty back once more. 8. Persons of a timid nature, whose religious life has either by education, or from something in themselves, tinned upon conscience, or in whom their religious life is of the type of conscience rather than of love, or trust, or hope — are peculiarly liable to discouragement and weariness. For con- science, when it is the controlling element, is exacting and exhaustive, even though it be applied merely to external moralities. But, stOl more, when it is applied to the inner realm of the mind — to thought, to feeling, to mo- tive, to the ideal of inward Christian life — conscience becomes excessively i S4 deipotio, and beats down hope. No nun if so often wearied and discou- raged, as one whose life is set to the key-note of conscience — and not to lore, or trust, or hope. 4. Great' (^soouragement befklls men who hare a religion without any social element to corroborate it So far am I Arom thinking that meditation and solitary exercises are indispensable to religion, that it is almost a mi- racle that men in such circumstances are good. I can conceive, now and then a nature with force and resource enough to be good in a cloister or a cave ; but usually speaking, I think a man's piety is mouldy, poor, and mean, who is shut up flrom the social element of religion. When, there- fore, men are converted, and are brought into the Church, it is to the last degree important, that they should be surrounded with friends, and should experience the genial stimulus of social life. When they have no friends around them, or when they arc obliged to abandon their old associates, and find no new ones in their places ; when, in some measure, they are attempt- ing to live a kind of secret and undisclosed religion — it is almost morally certain, that such persons will be liable to great despondency and discou- ragement Therefore, I think that, among the earliest things which a per- son ought to find, who is beginning a Christian life, should be some confi- dential friends, of like mind with himself, to whom he may speak of his conflicts, his troubles, his temptations ; and with whom he can hold pleas- urable and intimate fellowship, such as he does not with his ordinary acquaintances in the world. There is in every man this necessity of social life ; and the more there is of it in him, the more indispensable it will al- ways bo that this element should exist in his religion. There are men who were generous, large, cheerful, and happy before they came into the Church* but who, after they were in, grew lean, pinched, poor, and unhappy. They were genial and attractive before, but afterwards no body else seemed to want their socieiy, and they seemed to want no body else's. Whatever they may have b«!en before their church connection, they contrived after- wards to drop the social element out of their life ; and their character, taken as a whole, has less symmetry now than before. It does violence to the design of God, and to the symmetrical development of the character of man, to take away any part of hunutn nature. When a man begins a Christian life, his passions are not to run riot, or be allowed to do what they please; yet the man who puts out the fires of passion, because he has become a Christian, only weakens and not profits himself. God gave them to man for good uses. They are to be regulated, controlled, but not destroyed. I would as soon think of putting out the fires of a steamer on the Ocean, for the sake of making a good voyage to Liverpool, as to put out the passions of my own nature for the sake of mak- ing a good voyage to heaven. The passions were meant to give men force, and to add juice and power to the soul. No man can afford to put out his mere passional nature, still less can he afford to put out the social and the imaginative dement. To become a Christian, does not mean that you are to creep into a convent 4 25 -I. \\ box, or to b« screwed up like a nuui in a liring coffin. That is not piet^. To become a Obristian, ig to bring the whole nature out more powerftilly than ever before, to take all the fiusulties that God gave you originally, and which have been going to waste or perversion, and so to bring them under the dominion of God, that there shall not be a loss of any part of your na- ture, but that all your powers shall work together in accordance with the divine plan, being all controlled and guided by the superior element of spi- ritual love. The mischief of doing away with the social element is very great, and wo are very liable to it in cities. Young men who find themselves, on coming here from the country, in undesirable companionships, coming, as they fre- quently do, with a religious education, only to forget their Bible, and re- maining here for years, making only such friends as they would not acknow- ledge at home — when at length they are touched by the Spirit of God and begin to live a Christian life, and when, in doing it, they leave off their wicked associates, ought immediately to see to it that they find new and good friends to itike the place of the old and bad. It is right to break off from wicked associates. If they are plague-struck, and you would not take it, you must keep clear of them. If they offer you temptations to drinking, to gambling, or to any thing vicious and wicked, it is, of course, best that you should break company with them, and no longer remain their associates. But if a man has no friend to take the place of these — if there are no brothers, no sisters, no family (blessed be the family ! for I never feel so sure about young converts, as when I find out that they are living in the Christian families of their parents, or of their relatives or friends)— he should set about, as soon as possible, finding proper Christian associates and confidents. Sometimes I ask a man who has newly become a Christian : " Have you any associates in the Church f" "None." " Do you know any body in the city." ** Nobody ; except that I am in the store of a Christian merchant." Ah I yes t In the same store with a Christian merchant I That sounds very well ; but after all, a Christian merchant is apt to be only a merchant. The clerk is to have so much a month, or so much a year, and the Christian merchant pays this, and that is all He does not hire him with a perquisite of visiting his family I He does not undertake to be a father to him. No ! That don't belong to a Christian merchant ! He does not undertake to look after his clerks in any such way ! He may have eighteen, twenty, twenty- five young men in his employ, every one of whom had praying £ftthers and mothers, and whom he knows to be touched in the direction of a religious life ; yet it is not his business to talk to them on such subjects, nor to give them his own society— else it would have been in the bargain I The young man is in the store of a Christian merchant ; but that does him no good. He is obliged to say : " I have no companionship." He is thus compelled to begin his Christian life without staff or stay. It is very 26 important, I repeat, that wheu men become Christians, they should find company. This is a necessity -of, human nature. Among Christians thero should be fellowship. I suppon^llut this was the reason why churches were ordained. When you turn from thtp;world, to go toward heaven, you should walk together ; you should hold each other up : you should know each other ; you should love each other ; the social element should surround you, and should work itself into a religious element. 6. Many persons are brought into great discouragement and uncertainty as to what they shall do, because they have mistaken the full purport of religion. Instead of '* breaking oflf sins by righteousness," they have sim- ply *' broken oflf their sins." They were very wicked men, who supposed that by ceasing to be wicked, they thereby became good. No, not at all ! This can not be ! Suppose a man has a gnarly old apple tree in his orchard — ^very wide- spread and rank in its growth — ^with every apple so sour as scarcely to need fermentation to make it vinegar ! He says : "■ Now I am going to have bet- tor fruit than this." And he takes his saw, in the spring, and cuts ofif one branch here, and another there, until there is nothing left but the trunk. *' There," he says, " I have now got a good fruit tree." He is now rid of his sour fruit ; but he has not yet got the sweet He must now graft the tree with some choice variety that he may select. If he makes no adequate provision for this, there will be side-shoots, or water- sprouts ; and tiiere will be the same fruit-buds, and the same sour apples over again. Some men think they have become Christians because they do not grow any more sour fruit ; because they have simply broken off their old wicked courses — ^because they do not ride out of town anymore on Sundays — ^because they do not drink any more — ^because they do not gamble any more — ^because they have left oflf swearing, and bad company — ^because they do not lie and cheat — any more than is necessary in this wicked world ! But men, to be Christians, must be more than this ! Simply omitting their wrong coiurses is not enough. " Cease to do evil — learn to do welV^ This is the command. It is not single, but double. It is not simply to break oflf sin, but to break oflf sin by righteousness. It is not only to cease to do wrong, but to begin to do right. If a man has bc^n wicked, the way for him most eflfectually to break ofif his wickedness, is to enter now upon a life of positive goodness. If a man has been very active in wickedness, he ought, for his own safety, after his conversion, to be proportionately active in goodness. It will not do for him to say: ^ " I was headlong and precipitate in evil ; I will be slow rnd cautious in good." On the contrary, a wicked man of great force of character ought, after he is converted, to exert all that force of character for good. He should be just as ambitious and active now as he was before, only, of courue, in another direction. A man who ran express along the way of wickedness, ought not to creep along the way of goodnesa If I seo a man who has simply broken ^ 1 *: « * d off his evil habits, I say to myself, it is very do^btful if that man will hold out. But if he has not only broken off the bad, but taken on the good in their place, he is then in the fair way of success. If he has gone with all sail set for Satan, and then, veering around, goes with all sail set for Christ, it is right to expect that such a man will succeed. But a fat sinner should not make a lean Christian ! The same is true of persons who have not been very bad, in the sense of outbreaking wickedness, but who have great fullness of nature, and activity of feeling. I meet, in social life, persons of whom I think — ^though I may not say it in words to them — somewhat in this manner : With the large- ness with which you love — ^with the much that there is in your mind and your imagination — ^with the eagerness of your will-power — with the fertility of your pride — with your prevailing sense of self — with all these, you can never be a happy Christian unless you are an eminent one. I always know that such persons will fall into embarrassments, doubts, disappointments, and, ultimately, into discouragements. I know not a few, recently intro- duced into this church, who are now in this pass. They are going through a fermentation. What the matter is, they do not know. Persons of a full, large nature, when they attempt to be Christians by serving Christ as little as possible, will necessarily go through pain and signal discipline of expe- rience, before they will come to peace; and they never will come to it, till their whole soul is yielded up to the Lord Jesus Christ, and they are just as active for good, as they have hitherto been for selfishness. 6. The neglect to consolidate religious feelings into habits is frequently an occasion of discouragement, because it leaves men subject to all the fluc- tuations of feeling. Feeling, by its very nature, rises and fiiJls, comes and goes. Emotions are like the leaves of a tree. Every flourishing tree must have both its solid parts, and its movable and tender parts. The leaf is not made merely for its beauty, nor for the shade which it casts gratefully down, at mid-day, in summer. Graceful and delicate as it seems, every leaf is a laboratory. On its surface, the crude sap, exposed to light and warmth, is changed to organizable matter ; and that liquid current which ascended the interior of the trunk, when leaf-touched, descends upon its exterior sur- face, depositing solid matter, all the way down to the root again. Thus those tender leaves, which any child may crush in his hand, which the rude winds may easily blow away, are silently and constantly building stronger in every branch, and stouter in every fibre of the trunk, that solid frame of the tree, which time can scarcely wear out, and winds and storms beat upon in vain ! They are taking away from the movable and fragile part of the tree, to add to the firm and immovable part Now, feeling is like a leaf. It should organize habits. It should consolidate transient tendencies into abiding and enduring experiences. It should take what at first are fluctuat- ing emotions, and turn them into settled habits. That is only a miserable type of Christian life, which comes and goes with moods and feelings. But in this way, mary Christians fight the same battles over and over again, year after year, and, thus at the end of forty years, find that they are 38 straggling with the same tendencies and temptations which they encoun- tered at the beginning I They go, year after year, the same round of weari- some and discouraging temptations, either weakly yielding to them, or else contending against them with doubtful battle. On the other hand, a Christ- ian whose fluctuating feelings are brought to crystallize into settled habits, will gain new victories as he gains new strength, day by day ! 7. Many men are convicted of sin less deeply at the beginning of their Christian life, than long after their conversion ; and this not only alarms but seriously discourages them. They do not feel as they once did, nor as they expected they always would. As their conception of duty is being raised, they find that their self-complacency is being disturbed. Such per- sons, sometimes, instead of becoming happier, as they should, become less happy. In certain natures (which I shall not now stop to analyze) the introduc- tion of a new and higher standard into the mind, throws all the feelings out of balance, and makes an unexpectedly great resistance. In many persons, while they are living by the average standard of morality that exists in the community, their nature seems to be tranquil, and they get along very well, and with very little trouble. But, when they introduce a higher standard, and undertake to live by that, they immediately arouse within themselves elements of rebellion, surprising to them and to all who know them. Some Christians rise from the lower grounds of experience, by an easy and natural progress, happy in the beginning, and happy at each spiral which they make in their upward flight Like the sky-lark, some notes they murmur on the ground, but their song really begins only when, with out-spread wing, in circles growing wider and higher, they reach up far above the hearing of men ! But there are others who, like timid forest birds, driven out by the hunter, seem never so much lost as when they are far up above all covert or thicket, in the open and unobstructed space. Their fears chase them as hawks, nor have they one note till they can hide darkling again in the green thicket In regard to all these instances — ^and there are others which might be mentioned, if time would permit — let me say, first, that, simply because you have experienced difficulties which you did not expect, or because you are faint and discouraged, you must not allow yourselves to go back. It is not a question of mere accomplishment, to be determined by your own volition. If a man proposes to make a tour of the continent of Europe, and on reach- ing London or Paris, prefers, for some reason, to turn back instead of going further, he may do it, without either losing character or incurring reproach. His own pleasure determines what he shall do — whether to go one way or the other — ^whether to come home from Florence or go on to Rome — whether to come home from Rome or go on to the East But when a man begins his journey toward heaven, it is not optional with him, at any point of the way, to turn back. It is his duty to go on I It is a question not only of honor, but of safety, to continue. Being a Christian is not the same as making money, of which a man can make more or less, as he chooses, and then stop 29 N —although ho does not usually wish to stop. To be a Christian is to begin and not stop ; it is to put the hand to the plough, and not look back. If a man is called, in the providence of God, to begin a Christian life, in which he succeeds very well for a time, but afterwards finds clouds and darkness gathering about him, he must think only of going on, and never for a mo- ment of going back. To return would be perilous, as well as disgraceflil. If he droops and is weary in the piursuit of the right, and turns aside from the search, he is giving way to what will inevitably lead him, by and by, into still greater doubt, difficulty, and discouragement If you give up try- ing now, trusting in your Christian hope to lift you, by and by, out of the marsh, upon solid ground, you will never be lifted out The condition of your final triumph is that you are willing to struggle all the time that may be required to win it If you find it hard now to bring your heart into obedience to Christ, what will be your later experience, when your diffi- culties will be greater and greater, and your strength to overcome them less and less ? It never will be so easy again, as now, to persevere in the Christ- ian life. To conform to the Christian requisition will be harder and harder, the longer you put it off. The earliest months of campaigning, of studying, of learning a trade, are the most difficult months. From this point onward the way grows smoother and easier. And in like manner, in beginning a Christian life, the chief difficulties are at the threshold. There is a remarkable contrast in this respect, between right and wrong- doing — ^between virtue and vice : to do right is harder at first, than it ever will be afterwards ; it grows easier and easier to the end. To do wron^ involves few difficulties at first, but more and more every day, until its end is destruction. Pleasure invites us to flowery paths only for the first part of the journey ; all the rest of the way it grows less and less beantifbl, and more and more dangerous. Virtue calls us, for the first few steps, over a stony road, which grows less and less rugged, and more and more easy to the end. Men enter wrong courses through the gate of sweet blandishments, but as they go on, they find that all the promises, at the beginning, were false and deceitful. The "narrow way" is entered through the "strait gate," but the path is the path of the just, and is as a shining light that shines brighter and brighter unto the perfect day I The beginning of the one is fiiir, but its end is death. The beginning of the other is less comely, but its end is eternal life. The early steps of a Christian life are the most rugged. The tasks of a Christian are never so severe and forbidding as at the first The farther end of the Christian life is the easier. We begin a worldly life by going down a slope, whose first descent is easy ; but as 80<»i as we are in the valley, behold ! mountains rise up on either side. We begin the Christian life by going up hill, and with hard climbing ; but by and by we come to the level plams and table lands at the top, where the way is easy, where the air is pure, and where we are lifted up high above the dust, and noise, and conflict of the lower life. Take courage, then, in the thought that your work is harder now than it 30 ' ever will be again ; that the more vigorously you begin, the more success- fully you will finish ; that the more severe your discipline is at first, the easier will your trials be at last ; that the heavier your burdens are now, the stronger you will be to bear them by and by, and the lighter they will be to bear. He who is willing to take the hardest way at first, will, in that very choice, find for himself the easiest way in the end I If it be any encouragement to know that those who have been tasked as you, tempted as you, tried as you, discouraged as you, wearied as you, faint as you, have nevertheless persevered unto victory — take that encouragement, and go on in your way rejoicing ! If any of you have been tempted to swerve, cease your faint-heartedness, and remember that nothing strange has be&Uen you 1 You are suffering only such temptations as have befall- en all God's children, and you may be sure that he will not suffer you to be tempted more than you are able to bear I I suppose that there is not one saint who now stands elate and jubilant in heaven, who could not narrate experience equivalent to yours. It would be different in form, but the same in substance. It would show the same necessity of toils and burdens, of discipline and trial, of struggle and conflict 1 It may not be a great comfort to know that they who went before you were embarrassed and per- plexed ; but it is a comfort to know that your difBculties and embarrass- ments are not because you are not a Christian, and that they are incident to all Christian life ! When men come to swollen streams, which they must needs foru, they look with troubled face upon the wide and rapid water ; and it is a great comfort to see firesh hoof-marks along the bank, which show that other travellers have recently.crossed that way. They drive down to the water's edge, but still dreading to venture in, look at the foam and the anger of the torrent, fearful that sudden freshets, loosed from the moiuitain side, may have over-swollen it. since its passage by those who are ahead. They hear the sound of voices on the other side, of men whom they can not see, in that dense forest, yet who have just gone over the river, and are not yet out of hailing distance. The tremulous men at the brink call out : " Ho ! stran- gers, is the river passable f " And as the sound dies away among the forest trees, the salute is answered, as with an echo : " We have just crossed t All safe I — Co^iie on !" At this summons, they step in, but in a moment the water grows deeper, and the roar of the flood is more fearful I Every man among them is bewildered. The stoutest heart quails. The water is already pattering around the flanks of the horses, and is getting deeper and deeper every moment The foremost rider looks around almost as if he would go back I Ah I my fkiend, you can not go back now t It is perilous to turn round in a ford. It is as easy to go all the way over to the other side, as to go back firom where you started ! They begin to be more alarmed ; but the men already over, who have come back again to the bank to see how those who are following them may fare, smile to see the fear that is written upon their troubled faces. The water is above the saddles, and is careering over the horses* backs. Every man now says to himself: " It is swim or drown ; 81 I must go through or go under." But the foremost man has passed the centre of the channel, where the water begins to lick the backs of the horses less and less, and to subside along the ribs down toward the stir- rups ! He shouts out to the rest : " Ho ! I am past the channel ! Gome on 1" The worst will soon be over. In all the rest of his passage, be is rising, at every step, higher and higher out of the flood, and is coming nearer and nearer the opposite bank. The rest that are behind, take new hope, and plunge into the channel as though they had at first feared no dan- ger, and all reach in safety the other shore ! Christian I standing in fear by the side of the flood, fearing to enter in, and cross to the other shore, others who have gone before are standing on those distant shores, and calling out to you to " take courage and plunge into the wave t" The voices of friends are calling on the other side : " Come over, come over 1" The voices of companions, the voices of children who have passed safely through ; the voices of parents long gone over ; the voice of the loved and lost — ^lost on this side but saved on the other — are calling out across the stream : " Come over ! come over !" Angels and shining ones stand with them on the bank, and mingle their voices with these, saying and beckoning I " Come over ! come over !" The testimony of all who have tried the stream is but one unanimous voice : " We came over safe ! We came over safe 1" O Christian! faint not, but follow aftei:! A little more fording, and you shall find that the waters, instead of growing deeper, will grow less deep ; and you will rise out of the flood and stand safe upon the other shore I Do not be discouraged, therefore, because you are not yet landed. Do not faint because you are yet in the struggle. You shall by and by be across the channel and over the stream, and stand victorious on the other side 1 May God grant to every one of you the victory through Christ, our hope and our Redeemer I Amen !