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1 2 3

FOOTHOLDS FOR FAITH'S

FEET

IN SONG AND STORY.

ILLUSTRATIVE LECTURES.

REV. W. H. W. BOYLE, B.A.

Late of Knox Church, St. Thotnas, Ont.

TORONTO:
WILLIAM BRIGGS,

WESLEY BUILDINGS.

Montreal : C. W. Coates. Halifax : S. F. Huestis.

Entirid, according to Act of the Parliament of Canada, in the year one thousand
eight hundred and ninety-one, by William Baioos, Book Steward of the
Methodist Boole and Publishing House, Toronto, at the Department of
ARrioulture.

THE KIND AND CHRISTIAN PEOPLE OF THE
TWO CONGREGATIONS,

DUMFRIES STREET CHURCH, PARIS,

AND

KNOX CHURCH, ST. THOMAS;

TO WHOM IT WAS MY GREAT PRIVILEGE TO MINISTER IN
SPIRITUAL THINGS FOR

FOUR AND TWO YEARS RESPECTIVELY,

THIS LITTLE BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY
DEDICATED.

YOURS IN THE LOVE OF THE LQRD JESUS,

W. H. W. BOYLE.

COLORADO SPRINGS, U.S.,
Dec. asth, 1891.

, ■ , ■ i

f [ ...

* ,

.' ■:

f' \ ' i '

CONTENTS.

I'AGG.

THE SOUL'S SURE REFUGE ii

(CHARLES WESLEY.)

THE SOUL'S GREAT ROCK . ... . . 31

(AUGUSTUS M. TOPLADY.)

GOD IN CREATION 49 ^

, (JOSEPH ADDISON.)

GOD IN PROVIDENCE ........ 67 •^

(WILLIAM COWPER.)

GOD IN REDEMPTION . . . . . . . 85

(ROBERT M. M'CHEYNE.)

PREVAILING GRACE ... . ... .107

(PHILIP DODDRIDGE.)

INTRbDUCTION.

The following illustrative lectures were delivered in
a Sabbath evening course, under the name of
" Hymns and Hymn-writers." The object sought in
the preparation of such a course was two-fold :
First, to have my people become better acquainted
with the subjects, the suggesting incidents and doc-
trines of the most popular hymns, in order to give an
intelligent rendering of them in the service of praise ;
"Sing ye praises with the understanding." Psalm
47 : 7. Second, in giving a succinct history of the
authors of those hymns, to present before the minds,
especially of young Christians, fit models for their
study and imitation in the lives of men who were
bright reflections of the character of Jesus ; just as
the ancient Romans were wont to place busts of
celebrated men in the vestibules of their homes, that so
their children, learning the history of their lives, might
be led to emulate their virtues.

The first five lectures of the course were delivered
in Paris and St. Thomas. They were received in
both places with evident favor, and to my knowledge
were instrumental, under the blessing of God, in the
awakening, quickening and comforting of souls,

INTRODUCTION.

They were by no means intended for publication
at the time they were written; but circumstances
having completely changed, the putting of these six
lectures into book form ma; be deemed justifiable.
Being forced to relinquish the work which had grown
increasingly interesting to me, and having lost the
use of my voice for ablic service by continued ill-
health, I ray in this way still be able to continue my
work of ministry. I trust my feeble efforts may be
worthy of some degree of acceptation, and that some
sentences from these pages may be owned and blessed
of God to the salvation and strengthening of precious
souls.

I must acknowledge my indebtedness to several
writers for facts relating to the lives of the Hymn-
writers and incidents associated with the history of
the hymns, but chiefly to the author of "English
Hymns." The first lecture of the course was delivered,
as it now appears, in St. Thomas, on the Centenary of
the death of Charles Wesley ; the sixth was the last
discourse delivered by me, on the evening of June
22nd, 1890, a few days before my sudden prostration.

With an earnest desire to be still used by Him,
"whose I am, and whom I serve."

Yours in Christ,

W. H. W. B.

■f

Jesus^ Lover of my soul.

Let me to Thy bosom fly y
While the nearer waters roll.
While the tempest still is high.

Hide me, O my Saviour, hide.

Till the storm of life is past;
Safe into the haven guide j

receive my soul at last !

Other refuge have I none;

Hangs my helpless soul on Thee;
Leave, ah ! leave me not alone ;

Still support and comfort me.

All my trust on Thee is stayed.
All my help from Thee I bring;

Cover my defenceless head

With the shadow of Thy wing.

Thou, O Christ, art all I want;
■ More than all in Thee I find:
Raise the fallen, cheer the faint.
Heal the sick, and lead the blind.

Just and holy is Thy name;

1 am all unrighteousness ;
False and full of sin I am :

Thou art full of truth and grace.

Plenteous grace with Thee is found,
Grace to cover all my sin;

Let the healing streams abound;
Make and keep jne pure within.

Thou of life the fountain art.
Freely let me take of Thee;

Spring Thou up within my heart.
Rise to all eternity.

■''^'^.

THE SOUL'S SURE REFUGE.

'' And a man shall be as an hiding-place from the wind,
and a covert from the tempest." — Isaiah xxxii. 2.

" Jesus, Lover of my soul,
Let me to Thy bosom fly. "

HYMNOLOGY is said to be the truest theo-
logy, because it is the expression of the
heart that has met with Qod. In philosophical
treatises on questions pertaining to theology,
such as : the existence and character of God, or,
the nature and immortality of the soul, the
whole is apt to resolve itself into a form of
argument or definition, with the strength of
appeal to the reason and intellect, rather than to
the affections and heart. But in ^ rder to the
assurance of a genuine religion, both must be
searcued. While the mind is enlightened and
convinced by truth, the heart must be touched,
enlarged, and chastened by love.

Hymnology effects this. It deals not so much
with principles, as with principles transformed

FOOTHOLDS FOR FAITH'S FEET.

by practice. It is Scripture re-spoken in the
language of the adoring worshipper. It is the
skeleton of doctrine breathed upon by the Spirit
of Qod, and made to throb in the being and
beauty of a living thing.

Let Miriam, the prophetess, but stand safe
upon the shores of "Egypt's dark sea," with
timbrel and dulcimer in hand, to lead Israel's
daughters in songs of deliverance, and she will
awaken the melody of abounding gratitude to
God in the hearts of the emancipated people.

Let the princely David but touch his harp to
make music fit for his wonderful heart-songs,
and all the people will say amen. He v/ill play
the enchanter's part over the dark heart of Saul
the king, and beguile his moments into forget-
fulness of evil. He will light up the fire on the
altar of Israel's devotions, and send down the
music of his prayers to be re-prayed in the be-
lieving life of every age.

Let the captive people who sit by the streams
of Babel, but lift their harps from the willows,
and PS the breath of springtime gives the pro-
mise of nature's resurrection, so a chord will thrill
through their aching, home-sick hearts, and turn
them back to the Qod of Zion with affection and
hope.

Let the attendant angels come down with the

THE SOULS SURE REFUGE.

sonnets of Paradise, to proclaim over Bethlehem's
plains the glory of the incarnate deity — the
Child of Mary and the manger, and those morn-
ing-songs of salvation shall roll down through
the ages, until the loud amen of earth's great
song of Christ-redemption shall lift up and blend
with the hallelujahs of Heaven.

Let dear old Simeon but hold in his em-
brace the " Consolation of Israel," then his soul
will " depart in peace," for he has seen the hope
of Israel's salvation; but the sympathetic quaver
of his grand benedictus still thrills within our
hearts, when nineteen centuries have passed
away.

Let Paul and Silas but forget their sufferings
in the prison-stocks of Philippi, as they think
of Him who " endured the cross " on Calvary,
and the lonely dungeon will at once be trans-
formed into a sanctuary, jubilant with redeeming
praises.

Yes, the throbbing pulse of this blessed book
before me, is the pulse of praise from beginning
to end, from the shout of the " sons of God " at
the daydawn of creation, until the beatific
visions of Patmos were ushered in with ascrip-
tions of praise, " Unto Him that loved us, and
washed us from our sins in His]own blood."

The very heart of devotion here, for praise is

FOOTHOtDS FOR FAITH S FEfiT.

ever mixed with prayer ; the heart of devotion
hereafter, for all will praise — the angel-ladder
between earth and heaven, upon which worship
ascends from man to God, and upon which
blessing returns from God to man. Everything
sings. This great, wide universe is rich in
rhapsodies of praise, if our faculties were but
quick enough to catch up the strain.

'* In reason's ear they all rejoice,
And utter forth a glorious voice ;
Forever singing as they shine,
The hand that made us is Divine."

When our hearts well forth in the songs of
to-night, we are only keeping time with the
baton-beat of God ; and if immortal man would
not piaise Him, whom the angels delight to
worship, the very stones would cry out.

No book of sacred song would be considered

perfect without the hymn of this evening's

study : —

" Jesus, Lover of my «oul,
Let me to Thy bosom fly. "

Charles Wesley, the author of this wonderful
hymn, was born at Epworth, in Lincolnshire,
England, in the year 1708. His father was a
minister once, of the Episcopalian order, but
later in life, having adopted certain views of the

THE SOULS SURE REFUGE.

Nonconformists, he forfeited his living, and
sooner than do violence to his conscientious con-
victions, he wrought, like Paul, with his own
hands for his earthly bread, while he earnestly
sought to break the bread of eternal life unto
others.

Charles was the youngest child of the family,
and early in life gave unmistakable evidence of
remarkable cleverness and originality. While
still a youth, a wealthy namesake in Ireland
proposed to adopt him as his son, and make him
heir of all he possessed, but Charles declined.
The person who was chosen in his stead became
an Earl, and was also the grandfather of the
famous Duke of Wellington ; while this poor
lad, the seventeenth child of a debt-oppressed
parsonage, was spared for a better life, and a
career of wider usefulness. " All things work
together for good to them that love God, to
them who are the called according to His pur-
pose."

Charles we.s educated for the ministry in
Oxford and Westminster. In the former place,
he and his brother John, and a few class-mates
who joined them, were nick-named "Methodists,"
from the fact that they did not conform to cus-
tomary and established usages in conducting
their services. They believed that in all devo-

FOOTHOLDS FOR FAITH's FEET.

tion, spirit without form is better than form
without spirit. They practised what they be-
lieved, and according to promise, the Spirit gave
life. The blessing came, and one of the grandest
miracles of modern Christianity is " Methodism."

After his ordination he accompanied his bro-
ther John as a missionary to a colony in Georgia,
but soon afterwards returned to England. It
was about this time, according to his own
testimony, that he received the " witness of
spiritual adoption," while listening to the sin-
cere experience of a poor mechanic, whom he
declares, " knew nothing but Jesus." At once
he joined his brother in the great evangelistic
work upon which he had entered, and preached,
in the face of bitter opposition and persecution,
with whole-souled fervor and earnestness, the
simple and yet sublime story of a great salvation.

But whatever his other gifts and graces may
have been, it is as the most gifted and volumin-
ous of English hymn-writers that his fame
and influence still live. His facility for the ex-
pression of spiritual ideas was truly wonderful,
and the range of his thought was very wide.
Within four years, from 1768 until 1772, he
placed before the Methodist Episcopal Confer-
ence, thirteen volumes of sacred poetry, contain-
ing altogether 6,000 pages, and from that time

THE SOULS SURE REFUGE.

until the close of his life, new productions were
continually appearing. He wrote everywhere ;
in the stage coach while travelling ; on horyeback,
and even in the hour of death, when no longer
able to articulate distinctly, he composed a
hymn. He sang the doctrines of his creed into
the hearts of believers, and thus he was able to
make, in the words of his gifted and sainted
brother, " all the world his parish."

This love of music and poetry was born with
the Wesleys. Their father before them had
gained considerable notoriety as the authoi of a
volume ]of hymns, the best known of which is
entitled, "Behold, the Saviour of Mankind."
Their mother was a woman o^ remarkable piety
and strength of character. The following is re-
lated in the writings of John concerning her
death : " As we stood together by her bedside,
with the awful realization that we were losing a
mother, she calmly said, ' Children, as soon as
your mother is released, sing a psalm of praise ;'
and with broken accents we fulfilled her request
in the words of a hymn which Charles had
written for this very use."

Nearly every condition and experience of
spiritual life is provided for in the productions
of his pen, and these he celebrated with a rich-
ness of diction and a splendor of coloring, which

FOOTHOLDS FOR FAITHS FEET.

have rarely if ever been surpassed. Some one
writes of him : " As might be expected his finer
pieces are sometimes found in too high a key of
ecstasy or agony ; yet his intensely sincere and
earnest spirit, his intellectual strength and acute-
ness, his unmistakably high culture, and match-
less spontaneity of his eloquence, place him easily
at the head of British sacred lyrists."

Upon a tablet in Westminster Abbey three
names are associated : Isaac Watts, John Wesley
and his brother Charles, and beneath them is
written the threefold inscription, which fitly
represents the sentiments of the lives it com-
memorates : " The best of all is God is with us."
"I look upon all this world as my parish." "God
buries His workmen, but carries on His work."

Charles Wesley was one evening sitting by his
opened window, which overloolced the sea on the
south-west coast of England. A tremendous
storm was raginjj on the ocean. The billows
were running mountains high and hurling their
strength upon the shore. The elements above,
as the lightning flashed and thunder pealed,
combined with the elementfj below to complete a
picture of wrathful nature. The spiritual per-
ception of Wesley was wide awake. He heard
God's voice in the thunder ; in the storm he be-
held His omnipotence ; the lightning betokened

THE soul's sure REFUGE.

the gleam of righteous judgment ; and in the
surging waves, as they wearily sighed to the
shore, he heard the groaning of a creation that
waited for deliverance, and the solo of a weary
soul, tired of earthly dissatisfaction and seeking
for rest. He was about to close his window and
retire, when a little bird, driven, by the in-blow-
ing tempest, flew through the window and
nestled affrighted on his bosom. Meditation had
already (juickencd the energies of his spirit,
and the suggestion was enough. The touching
incident presented to his ready mind some beau-
tiful imagery, and grasping his pen, with an in-
spiration which seemed borrowed from the very
minstrelsy of heaven, he wrote these matchless
lines, which " have yielded the marching song
for millions on their way to glory" :

" Jesus, Lover of my soul,
Let me to Thy bosom fly."

This at first view is the language of a heart
that is broken ; the outcry of a soul that is
struggling for life; the note of a half-despair
whiwi melts away into symphonies of hope. It
is the language of a soul who realizes the misery
of sin and is seeking for salvation from it ; who

FOOTHOLDS FOR FAITHS FEET.

has realized the utter hel pi eisuness of self and the
need of a Saviour.

" Other refugo have I none,
Hangs my helpless soul on Thee."

It is Lot arisinfj from wrath-doomed Sodom and
reaching Zoar. It is the first-born of Israel with
blood upon the lintels and door-posts, as the
angel of death went by. It is the opened way
through the sea, for the rescue of God's people,
as the hosts of Pharaoh came up behind. It is
the cry of the penitent publican pleading from
the dust, " God be merciful to me a sinner." It
is blind Bartimseus sitting bewildered by the
way side, and craving for sight at the touch of
Jesus. It is the despairing woman pressing
through the throng, and stealing virtue from the
hem of the Saviour's garment. It is the weary,
ship-wrecked mariners of life everywhere, drift-
ing too and fro on some boisterous Galilee and
crying out : " Master, save us, or we perish."
It is in short, the look of a contrite soul to Christ
crucified.

. It is all this, but it is more. It is the sav-
ing realization that Jesus does love the soul of
the sinner; that He did come down from the
purity of heaven to the defilements of earth,
with a purpose of love on His pitying heart ;

,"«•

THE SOULS SURE REFUGE.

that He did go out on the trackless mountains
of a guilty world to seel: for wanderers ; that
He did in self-sacrificing love " lay down His
life for the sheep." It is just this thought that
brings Him so near to us. We can come to Him
as a kinsman in the flesh, who is our Saviour ;
we can feel that the infinite One is our own.

When Martin Luther was laboring under deep
conviction of sin, he reasoned thus with a faith-
ful friend, who was seeking to lead him to the
only source of help and comfort. " My guilt is
so very great that I do not believe Christ can
save me." " That is well," replied his friend; "if
thou wert only the semblance of a sinner, then
Jesus would only be to thee the semblance of a
Saviour, but if thou feel est thyself to be a real
sinner, then rejoice that Jesus is to thee a real
Saviour." Luther recognized the force of the
argument, and from that very hour experienced
the blessedness of that rest, which Wesley after-
wards described :

" All ray trust on Thee is stayed,
All my help from Thee I bring."

" If Thou wilt," said a poor leper to Him one
day, "Thou canst make me cl^ean." Of His
power to save him the leper seemed to be in no
doubt, but likely, considering his own unworthi-

FOOTHOLDS FOR FAITH S FEET.

ness, he was not so sure that the Siviour was
willing. But sooner would he have us doubt
His existence than doubt His willingness to help
and save. Not more willingly, ungrudgingly,
gladly, did He give Himself to the cross of
shame eighteen hundred years ago, than He
gives Himself to-night to all who are waiting to
receive Him. " Does Jesus love me, then ? " said
an ungodly stranger 'who hud stepped into
Exeter Hall, London, while the hymn was being
sung. " If that be really so," he continued, " I
will tiy to the refuge ; if He is any sinner's
Saviour, He is mine."

Not only this. He is a Saviour for every kind
of sinner, and so our hymn expresses it :

" Thou, O Christ, art all I want,
More than all in Thee I find ;
Raise the fallen, <ileer the faint,
Heal the sick, and lead the blind."

A fountain over-flowing, a sympathy unwearying,
a treasury unfailing, a physician unfallible, an
unchangeable friend, we find in Hir.i. Are we
afflicted, disconsolate, bereaved ? Then He stood
by the side of the widow of Nain, with His tears
falling fast for her sorrows, with His almighti-
ness giving back to her bosom, a son. ,

THE SOULS SURE liEh'UG^. S8

" The healing of His soainless ilreHH.
Is by our becU of pain ;
We touclj Him in life's throni? and press,
And we are whole again."

Are we tempted, do the insidious wiles of evil
steal in upon us, until our souls lie trembling in
an almost defeat ? Then call mountain -top and
desert to witness of His conflict with and victory
over the angriest assaults of sin and turn for
succor to His all-suflicient grace. Does the
world seem cold and forbidding and friendless ?
Then it never frowned on anyone, more than on
Jesu.s. There is not a rugged place in all this
wilderness journey where we cannot find the
print of His wounded feet. He had not where
to lay His blessed head, who Was the Creator
of worlds. A borrowed manger to be born in ;
a borrowed home to live in ; a borrowed colt to
ride upon ; and a place, when His work was
done, in a borrowed grave.

Does the heart ever throb in an unexpressed
sorrow until it almost breaks for relief ? Then
that throb is felt in the heart of Him who
prayed in the mountain at midnight, and knelt
in Gethsemane alone. Do we not feel like sing-
ing over and over again, as we think of His
availableness, of His ability to meet our every

<».

FOOTHOLDS FOR FAITH S FEET.

need, of His willingness to do so, of our own
weakness and want and waywardness :

" Leave, ah ! leave me not alone ;
Still support and comfort me."

" One of the most blessed days of my life,"
said the saintly Duffield, " when after my harp
had long been silent I could sing again. A new
song was put in ray mouth, and before I was
aware, I was singing, ' Jesus, lover of my soul.'
If there is anything in Christian experience of
joy or sorrow, of affliction or prosperity, of life
or death, that hymn," he adds, " is the hymn of
the ages."

" I would rather have w ritten that hymn of
Wesley's," said Henry Ward Beecher, after a
reference to his father's death, " than to have the
fame of all the kings that ever reigned on earth.
It is more gloriou'?. There is more power in it.
I would rather be the author of that hymn than
possess all the gold of a Rothschild. All earthly
treasures must perish and be lost, but that
hymn shall go on singing, until the last trump
brings forth the angel-band, and then I think it
will mount up on some lip to the very presence
of God."

There are thousands of such testimonies as
these, and eternity alone will be able to reveal

THE soul's sure REFUGE.

how many souls have been helped heavenward
by its comforting words. Two things it declares,
and they bind the believer with golden chains to
the throne of God. Jesus Christ our sufficiency
here, and our portion forevti".

" Plenteous grace with Thee is found,
Grace to cover all my sin ;
Let the healing streams abound,
Make and keep me pure within. "

As Matthew Henry puts it: "All believers
receive of Christ's fulness. The greatest saints
cannot live without Him; the weakest saints may
live by Him." A saving grace, to lift us from
the pit ; a sustaining grace, to keep us from the
evil; and an abounding grace, which shall one
day break forth into glory.

" Thoa of life the fountain art,
Freely let me take of Thee ;
Spring Thou up within my heart,
Rise to all eternity."

Oh, blessed fact, that however we may change
our places, we shall never change the object of
our loftiest affections; that whatever we lose,
we can never lose that which we have learned
to esteem " better than life." As the dove never
rested until it returned to the ark ; as the star
never stopped until it stood over Bethlehem ; as

FOOTHOLDS b'OR KAlTIi S FEET.

the needle of the compass never ceases to vibrate
until it points to the magnet, so immortal man
finds no rest for his soul, no answer to its ask-
ings, no satisfaction to its deep-felt wants, until
he rests in Jesus. When a surgeon was probing
for a fatal bullet in a wound, which lay over the
heart of a French soldier at Waterloo, the vet-
eran exclaimed, " a little deeper, surgeon, and
you will tind the Emperor; he has my heart."
So the love of all loves in the believer's soul is
love for Jesus. He has our hearts.

" When all other spells have lost their magic ;
when no name of old endearment, when no voice
of long-watching tenderness can disperse the
lethargy of death, then the message of eternal
peace, the swift heart-throbs of heaven-born de-
sire, the divine communings with a better land,
are felt within the soul, and the name " which is
above every name," pronounced by one who
knows it, will kindle the last animation in the
eye of death." Charles Trumbell White, a well-
known philanthropist of New York, when
visiting in Bellevue Hospital one evening, was
asked to visit an English sailor in one of the
wards. When he reached the man he was ap-
parently unconscious, but stooping down he re-
peated, to what seemed to be the " dull, cold ear
of death," the words of this hymn, and departe(i

I :

THE soul's sure TlEFUOE.

without obtaining a response. But at midnight
the sailor seemed suddenly to arouse, sat up in
his cot, and with a clearly audible voice repeated
verse after verse of the hymn, until he came to
the last. With faltering accents he spake the
words :

" Thou uf life the fountain art,
Freely let me take of Thee ; "

then slowly sank back and immediately expired.
The attendants were amazed, and the meaning
of that strange experience will remain shrouded
in mystery until all is made clear in the light of
eternity.

" Jesus, lover of my soul," and the soul that
casts anchor in this haven will never disappoint
its possessor. " Other refuge have I none," and
when the storms of death and the judgment
come we shall need none other. " Thou of life
the fountain art," and stooping down at its liv-
ing waters we have felt already the thrill of
immortal blessedness.

With all its beauty it is a song of time. We
shall scarcely sing it when we rest at home. No
refuge will be needed, where no tempests. of
temptation ever assail, where no billows of
affliction ever roll. No healer will be needed
where sickness never enters ; no grace will be

FOOTHOLDS FOR FAITH's FEET.

sought for, where defilement is not known. But
let it sing on as the prayer of our lives. Let it
sing on till the world has heard it, and then,
when the last great billow shall arise on the
sea of time, and the chilly Ijlast of death shall
sweep us in from the toilsome voyage to the
eternal shore, as the storm-wearied biVd found
refuge on the bosom of Wesley, our world-
wearied souls shall surely find rest on the bosom
of Jesus — eternal rest.

Rock of Ages, cleft for me.

Let me hide myself in Thee;

Let the 7uater and the blood,

From Thy riven side which flowed,

Be of sin the double cure,

Cleanse me from its guilt and power.

Not the labors of my hands
Can fulfil Thy law's demands;
Could my zeal no respite know.
Could my tears for everfloiu.
All for sin could not atone;
Thou must save, and Thou alone.

Nothing in my hand 1 bring;
Simply to Thy cross I cling;
Naked, come to Thee for dress ;
Helpless, look to Thee for grace ;
Foul, I to the fountain fly :
Wash ?ne. Saviour, or I die.

While I draw this fleeting breath.
When my eyelids close in death.
When I soar through tracts unknown.

See Thee on Thy judgment-throne ;

Rock of Ages, cleft for mc^

Let me hide myself in Thee.

THE SOUL'S GREAT ROCK.

"For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed
them : and that Rock waa Christ." — I Corinthians x. 4.

" Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in thee."

A LIVING and dying hymn for the holiest
believer in the world," was the strange
title of an hymn which appeared in the March
number of the Gospel Magazine, 1776. It was
written over a fictitious signature, and the
author for some time remained unknown.
Everybody sang it with the voice or with the
understanding, and soon it became, as it since
has remained, one of the most popular hymns in
the English language. It soon lost the title
prefixed by its author, though it lost not the
character indicated in it, and has since been
familiarly known as the "Rock of Ages."

»Sometimes a hymn becomes disassociated from
its author. The production is enshrined in a
thousand hearts, while its producer is forgotten.

FOOTHOLDS FOR FAITH S FEET.

"Nearer mv God to Thee," "Jerusalem the
Golden," and " He Leadeth Me," are popular
hymns with the worshipping world. They are
sacred in the home as well as in the sanctuary,
and yet how few of those who are familiar with
these hymns are familiar with their authors. It
is said that in the eighteenth century all Europe '
was carolling the songs of an unknown writer,
who, when he was discovered, proved to be a
miserable leper, who carried a bell as he passed
along the streets, to warn people of his approach.

On the other hand there are many hymns
which call up with their mention the names of
their authors. Charles Wesley and his "Jesus,
Lover of My Soul ; " Thomas Moore and his
" Come Ye Disconsolate;" Philip Doddridge and
his " Happy Day ; " Reginald Heber and his
" Missionary Hymn," stand forever closely asso-
ciated. But above all others in this respect is
the hymn of our study, and so long as the
" Rock of Ages " remains immortal as the hymn-
prayer of the world, it will render immortal at
the same time the name and memory of Augustus
Montague Toplady.

Born at Farnham, Surrey, England, in the
year 1740, the subject of this brief memoir was
the second son of Major Richard Toplady, who
fell at the siege of Cartagena, in Spain, a few

THE SOULS GREAT ROCK.

years after his son was born. The only child of
a widowed mother, he gave evidence very early
in life of an order of intellect much above the
average. Catherine Bate was a woman of ex-
cellent judgment and exceptional abilities, and
she devoted her life to the moulding and develop-
ment of this interesting character. This devo-
tion was richly recompensed, for the impress and
example of a godly mother very soon became
apparent in the life of her child.

When Toplady was sixteen years of age, and
residing with his mother in Ireland, through
mere curiosity he attended in a neighboring
village a service conducted by a plain evangeli-
cal preacher, who discoursed from this lext,
found in the second chapter of Ephesians, "Ye
who sometime were far off, are made nigh by
the blood of Christ." As the preacher described,
in simple but earnest words, the departure of
the sinner from God, the terrible result of that
departure, and the reality of salvation through
the sacrifice of Christ, the tender conscience of
the youth was awakened. He trembled under
the power of the convicting Spirit, and that very
day found refuge at the cross. " By the grace
of God, under the ministry of that dear mes-
senger of truth," writes Toplady in after years,
" that day was for me the day of decision.
3

FOOTHOLDS FOR FAITH S FEET.

Strange," he adds, "that I, who had been so
greatly privileged with the means of grace,
should be brought to a knowledge of salvation,
amidst a handful of God's people, met together
in a barn, and under the ministry of one who
could scarcely write his name. Surely the ex-
cellency of such power must be of God ; it can
not be of man."

Soon after his conversion he commenced his
studies for the Gospel ministry, and was ordained
to the Episcopal priesthood in Trinity Church,
Dublin, at the early age of twenty- two. In his
subscription to the articles of the Church, he
wrote his signature four different times, to ex-
press his devout assent to the principles in them.
Soon after he removed to a living in the shire
of Somerset, England, but was after some years
transferred to London, where he remained dur-
ing the rest of his life.

His talents as a preacher were truly remark-
able. His voice, it is said, pealed forth with such
commanding solemnity that apathy was impos-
sible. Devotion and sanctity seemed to emanate
from his ethereal countenance, as the balm of the
Gospel flowed forth from his lips to the hearts
and consciences of men. Importunate exhorta-
tion followed close upon convincing argument,
and the prayer he breathed seemed a very con-

THE soul's great ROCK.

verse with God. As he remarks himself, after
preaching, " I was all on fire for God, and the
fire, I verilj^ believed, leaped forth from heart to
heart. Never once has the Lord disappointed
my hopes, when He has said to my soul, ' I will
be with thee.' "

Like his divine Master his spirit was " meek
and lowly," and his aim, he tells us, was always
this, " to merit the highest and be content with
the lowest." His fervent piety at times devel-
oped into spells of rapturous devotion. He
actually " walked with God " along the lofty
plain of heavenly-mindedness, but not without
those fluctuations of faith iind feeling so often
characteristic of such a temperament ; nor could
he have written that beautiful hymn, so boun-
teous with spiritual pathos and comfort :

" Your harps, ye trembling saints,
Down from the willows take ; "

had his own harp not sometimes been hung upon
the willows of grief. " Here let me leave it on
thankful record for my comfort and support in
future times of trial and desertion, should it
please God to send them, that I never was lower
in the valley than last night, and never higher
on the mount than to-day." And this he wrote
of a terrible depression which weighed upon his

.S6

FOOTHOLDS FOR FAITHS FEET.

soul, on one Saturday evening while preparing
for the duties of the Sabbath. ' The Lord cast
me down, but did not forsake me," he adds, "and
never will."

" Soon shall our doubts and foars,
Suliside at His control ;
His loving-kindness shall break through
The midnight of the soul."

Naturally of a frail constitution, it was pain-
fully evident to his friends that his earthly ser-
vice would not be long. Consumption set in, and
its insidious work was (quickened by close and
excessive study. He was indomitable in spirit
through all, and several times was found in the
pulpit when only able to announce his text and
retire. At the age of thirty-eight his last ser-
mon was preached from 2 Peter i. 13, 14: "I
think it meet, as long as I am in this tabernacle,
to stir you up by putting you in remembrance ;
knowing that shortly I must put off this my
tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath
shewed me." And Toplady was ready.

" It seemed to those who waited on his minis-
try," his biographer tells u.s, " that already he
was divested of the body and participant in the
happiness of the Church triumphant." " The
consolations of God are so abundant," he said.

THE SOULS GREAT HOCK.

during the time of his lingering sicknesa, " that
He leaves nie nothing to pray for. My prayers
are all converted into praise. 1 enjoy a heaven
already in ray heart." When told as he neared
the end that his pulse beat feebler and feebler,
he cheerfully replied, "Why, that is a good sign ;
sickness is no affliction ; pain is no curse ; death
is no dissolution ; and, blessed be God, if my
pulse beats feebler and feebler, my heart every
hour beats stronger for glory." Again and
again he called for the eighth chapter of Romans
at the thirty-third verse : " Who shall separate
us from the love of Christ," etc., and when it
was read, lie would joyfully exclaim, " I find
that as the bottles of Heaven are emptied they
fill up again ; my soul is clasped to God with a
golden chain ; the sky of my soul is cloudless,
cloudless ; come, Lord Jesus, come quickly."

About an hour before his death he rallied a
little, and his physicians spoke encouragingly of
his prospects for longer life. " No, no," said the
exulting saint, " I shall die, for no mortal could
endure such manifestations of God's glory and
live." Shortly afterwards, whilst repeating a
hymn of his own composition :

" Deathless principle arise,
Jesus calls thee to the skies,"

he peacefully slept.

FOOTHOLDS FOR FAITH's FEET.

His life was a bright reflection of Christ's.
God's chariot of lire came down to translate
him, and the heritage he left is ours. The
mantle he dropped, was caught up by the world
and handed down with a thrill of holy inspira-
tion to its successive generations, as they march
on singing in the spirit of the immortal Toplady :

" Rock of Ages, cleft for mo,
Let me hide myself in Thee."

Never, we may safely say, was a hymn more
popular; and never more deservedly so. "It
has," as Dr. John Ker remarks of the twenty-
third Psalm, " like some gentle stream a length-
ened history, where it sparkles and flows in the
open daylight, and its history would be longer
still, could we only follow it to its quiet resting-
places in hidden hearts, which only the day of
God will declare."

It has already been translated into more than
half the written languages of the earth. It
sweeps with majestic chord through the lofty
arches of England's Westminster. It warms
up the Esquimaux heart among the snow-huts
of Greenland. Its echoes ascend from the Hot-
tentot's hovel amid the forests of Africa. Blown
onward by the zephyrs of Christianity's morn-

T* *

THE SOUl/s GREAT ROCK.

ing, its refrain is whispered over the temples of
idolatry, like the siren song which presages
their destruction. Yea, up from the broad sanc-
tuary of this world's true worship, it rises and
blends with songs of Heaven.

Gladstone has caught up its sentiment and has
lived its spirit at the helm of the state. He
has translated its lines into time-honored Latin,
and now it is heard among the vespers of
Rome.

A missionary tells us of a New Zealander
chief, whose grandfather massacred the first
messenger of the Gospel to his island shores,
whose forefathers, a century ago, launched their
canoes over the bodies of human sacrifices to
propitiate the favor of the gods they worshipped.
Transformed to-day by the elevating influences
of the Gospel, the chief now leads forth his
tribe through the streets of their native city in
religious processions, marching to the melody of
their favorite hymn :

" Rock of Ages, cleft for uie,
Let me hide myself in Thee."

Dr. Pomeroy remarks, "That when visiting
Consi^antinople, he went to worship in an
Arminian church. Many of tlie worshippers,
wliile offering praise, were affected to tears, and

FOOTHOLDS FOR FAITH S FEET.

enquiring the reason, he found it was this : the
people were singing, with remarkable fervor, a
Turkish translation of these heaven-inspired
lines, which told them so plainly of the wonders
of salvation."

It is pre-eminently a song of the home. Its
influence has purified, as with the sunlight of
Heaven, miserable garrets long desecrated and
darkened by evil ; and within those homes,
whose roofs are like to the overshadowing
wings of a Cherubim, whose air is purity, whose
communion is love, no other words are so
entwined with their tenderest memories as the
words of this hymn. It has mingled its notes
in the mother's lullaby, as she prayed by the
cradle that her child might be saved. It has
kindled animation in the eye of the grandsire,
when the days of his pilgrimage were almost
ended.

Ever-blessed song ! it comes to the Christian
heart like a melody of heaven, a stray note from
the sonnets of paradise. It sings on forever.
We cannot forget it. It hovers over life in per-
petual benediction. It is rich with comfort in
the hour of death. And why ? We discover
the secret in that great reality of all realities,
that Jesus Christ is the rock of the soul. " The
same yesterday, to-day and forever," — the

THE soul's great ROCK.

always-abiding and ever-accessible refuge of
the sinner.

" Rock of Ages, cle"*; for me."

The same figure frequently appears in the
imagery of Scripture, and illustrates, if it does
not in many instances typify, the same great
truth. There is Moses on the mountain-top with
God, hidden from the gleam of His ineffable holi-
ness and receiving blessing in "the cleft of a
rock." There is starving Israel around the " rock
of Horeb" in the barren desert, while water bursts
forth from its flinty bosom, at the touch of faith.
There is penitent David lifted up from the " miry
clay " of iniquity and rejoicing with his feet on
" a rock. " There is the sorrow-depressed be-
liever of every age, with his prayer finding voice
in the words of inspiration : " What time mj
heart is overwhelmed, lead me to the rock that
is higher than I."

They all have meaning, for they point to a
ix ality : " The shadow of a great rock in a weary
I mJ ," an Eddystone light-tower for the storm-
tossed mariner ; a refuge-place for benighted
travellers on the Alpine steeps of life, the smitten
heart ui' the Lord of Calvary pouring itself forth
with double virtue in atoning efficacy and sanc-
tifying power.

FOOTHOLDS FOR FAITH S FEET.

"Let the water and the Wood,

From Thy wounded side th;it flowed,
Be of sin the double cure,
Cleanse me from its guilt and power."

There is omnipotence to save, but there is help-
lessness elinoring to omnipotence. There is in-
finite mercy at the cross, and there is misery
lleeing for mere}' There is the pleading sinner's
"Let me," and ti c Is the tender Saviour's,
" Come."

And this rock of ours is the only rock ! Trust
in the " general forbearance " of God ; trust in
the " time enough yet ;" trust in morality ; trust
in a death-bed repentance ? No, these are not
rocks at all, but shifting sand which the storms
of death and judgment shall prove to be fatally
insufficient. They are sinking to-night beneath
the feet of those who are trusting them. There
is no other refuge but Jesus. He is the Gibral-
tar of the soul.

Not so much by obedience at Sinai, as by faith
at Calvary ; not so *Tiuch by a well-kept creed,
as by a Christ-kept heart ; not so much place in an
earthly sanctuary, as by a low place at the feet
of Jesus, is this rest realized, this refuge found.
What means yonder decrepid form in a Chinese
pit ? Let the missionary answer : She is a
woman of eighty years, who has toiled through

THE SOTTl's great HOCK.

her weary widowhood to gain higher life for her
soul, by digging that pit, which is twenty-five
feet deep and fifteen feet square ; because she is
taught that by that slavish penance, even with
the heathen curse of widowhood upon her, she
pleases the gods. But the strain of the Gospel
has told her of Jesus, and she stands forth now
in the liberty of His salvation to sing with an
emphasis which we may never understand, who
have not experienced the bondage from which
she has been delivered :

" Not the labor of iny hands'
Can fulfil the law's demands ;
Could my zeal no respite know,
Could my tears forever flow,
All for sin could not atone ;
Thou must save, and Thou alone."

An aged saint was once asked, what was the
Gospel she believed, and how she believed it? Her
answer was this, with the profoundest of truths
in its very simplicity : ";God is well satisfied
with His Son, that^p the Gospel I believe ; I am
well satisfied with Him too, and that is how I
believe it." She had searched the heart of the
doctrines of Christianity; the work of salva-
tion is accepted in heaven, the boon of salva-

FOOTHOLDS FOR FAITH S FEET.

tion is extended to earth, and " whosoever will
may come " to the rock which was cleft for
sinners.

Behind the pulpit in the Chapel of Faith,
Mamedorf, Switzerland, a large figure which
represents Christ on the cross .is to be seen. In-
.scribed beneath the figure is the German word
Ich, the English I. Through the Ich is drawn
a deep cancelling mark, and side by side with
this is written the German Er, the English He,
and the teaching is plain : " I am crucified with
Christ ; nevertheless I live ; yet not I, but
Christ liveth in me : and the life which I now
live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of
God, who loved me and gave Himself for me."
" With His stripes we are healed." Would you
learn the meaning of the cancelled I ? Then it is
only this from a sinner on his knees :

' ' Nothing in my hands I bring,
Simply to the cross I cling ;
Naked, come to Thee for dress ;
Helpless, look to Thee for grace ;
Foul, I to the fountain fly :
Wash me, Saviour, or I die."

It is the all and everything of Christ, brought
down and given for the sinner's nothing. His
gold for our dross ; His robe of spotless righteous-

THE SOUL S GREAT ROCK.

ness for our rags ; His precious eyesalve for our
blindness ; His very life that we may live.

Jesus, a shelter from the storms of life, its
sins, its uncertainties, its sorrows. A shelter
which no storm can ever destroy is this, " Rock
of Ages." " Cling close to the rock, Johnnie; cling
close to the rock," said a little girl with remark-
able presence of mind to her younger brother,
when caught in a tunnel by a hurrying train.
She had placed him in a niche on one side of the
track, and clinging to the rock on the other side,
as the train went thundering by, her clear voice
rang out on the ears of the passengers in thrill-
ing accents, " Cling close to the rock, Johnnie ;
cling close to the rock." The life was saved, the
brakes were applied, the story was learned while
tears filled many an eye, and the train moved on.
But the sequel remains to be told. A few
stations farther on the way, an aged father is
parting with his son, who is leaving the quiet
country home for life in the city. The possi-
bilities of temptation and fall and ruin rise up
in that father's mind, and with his Christian
heart lifted up in faith unto the Christian's God,
he grasped his boy by the hand, and with a
voice all trembling in tender emotion, said,
" Robert, my child, cling close to the rock ; cling
close to the rock."

FOOTHOLDS FOR FAITHS FEET.

Jesus, a shelter in the solemn hour of death.
" People talk of looking back on a well-spent
life," said Rowland Hill on his death-bed. " I
look up at this solemn moment to Him who gave
His life to redeem me from sin, and only there
dare a sinner look."

The first, and I may say my only pastor, the
Rev. James Cameron, of Chatsworth, Ontario, a
man far above the average in sterling ability
and Christ-like disposition; a man to whom I owe
the deepest debt of gratitude that heart can feel
for influence and instruction in early life, was
accustomed to say : " It is natural for us to recoil
at the thought of death ; though, indeed, there is
nothing for the Christian to fear. It is a fear-
f ul wrench that separates the immortal soul from
the mortal body." And yet, when one beautiful
summer evening the sun was touching the hori-
zon, and his loved ones standing around his bed,
were painfully conscious that the hour of his
departure had come, he requested his daughter
to sing the hymn, which had been his favorite all
through life, this "Rock of Ages." With remark-
ablecomposure his daughtersang verse after verse,
until she came to the last, and as she softly sang
it, the saintly and beloved minister of Chats-
worth closed his eyes on earthly scenes, and fell
asleep in Jesus, as quietly and calmly as had the

THE SOULS GREAT ROCK.

life of day gone out at that moment in the west.
Death had no sting for him, for he knew death's
Conqueror, and ere the last note of earth's love-
song had fallen on his ear, he had caught up the
music of the "new song" of heaven. He has
joined in it, and our thought of it is sweeter be-
cause he has.

It is ours still to sing the old song. Let us
sing it often and earnestly.

" Rock of Ages, cleft for nie,
Let me hide myself in Thee."

The spacious Jirmament on high,,
With all the blue ethereal sky,
And spangled heavens., a shining frame ,
Their great Original proclaim.

The unwearied sun, from- day to day.
Does His Creator's power display.
And publishes to every land
The work of an Almighty hand.

Soon as the evening shades prevail,
The moon takes up the wondrous tale.
And nightly to the listening earth
Repeats the story of her birth :

While all the stars that round her burn.
And all the planets in their turn.
Confirm the tidings as they roll.
And spread the truth from pole to pole.

What though in solemn silence all
Move round the dark terrestrial ball ?
What though no real voice, nor sound.
Amidst their radiant orbs be found ?

In reasoiis ear they all rejoice.
And utter forth a glorious voice;
Forever singing as they shine,
" The Hand that made us is divineP

GOD IN CREATION.

■

" The heavens declare the glory of God ; and the firma-
ment sheweth His handy-work. "—Psalm xix. 1.

" And spangled heavens, a shining frame,
Their great Original proclaim."

^ OD, as He is revealed in His work of Crea-
^^-^ tion, in His work of Providence, and in
His crowning work of Redemption, is the great
primary doctrine lying at the foundation of every
true system of theology. It is indeed the sum
and substance of theology— the mighty trunk of
truth growing up in its three great divisions, to
which all relative spiritual teachings stand in
the relation of inherent and dependent branches.
God the Creator, and we the creature; God
the Sovereign, and we the subjects; God the
Redeemer, and we the redeemed, are well de-
fined parts of a harmonious whole, and when we
speak of one relationship in words of praise, we
magnify the others. When Addison wrote his
hymn of " Creation," he acknowledged the exist-

FOOTHOLDS FOU FAITH'S FEEt.

ence of an over- ruling Providence ; and when
Cowper wrotehis beautiful hymn of "Providence,"
his thoupfhts soared sublimely to the work that
redeemed. Each work has its place in the
Divine economy, and hence the importance of a
separate treatment.

To-night we shall seek to find with Addison,
in a brief study of his exalted theme, a proof of
the existence and a revelation of the nature and
attributes of Him, who, by the word of His power,
created all things, visible and invisible. "Who*
stretched out the heavens like a curtain."

Joseph Addison was born in Wiltshire, Eng-
land, in the year 1672, during the period of a
moral and religious transition, which immedi-
ately preceded the accession of William III. to
the throne of England. He was a child of the
rectory ; his father, the Rev. Lancelot Addison,
being rector of Milstun, and afterwards Dean of
Lichfield, where the poet was brought up. His
mother was a sister of the Bishop of Bristol, and
a woman of great piety. So that the atmos-
phere which surrounded the poet in his youth,
was in every way congenial to the growth of
that reverent and devotional spirit, which we
find maintained through all the changes of his
after life. Another of the many living commen-
tiaries on the words of wisdom : " Train up a

GOD IN CREATION.

child in the way he shall go, and when he is old
he will not depart from it."

In early manhood he gained the favor of
Pope and Dryden, and afterwards worked his
way to the court of royalty. He was educated
at London and Cambridge. Then he travelled
extensively on the Continent, with the object of
perfecting his literaiy attainments. Upon his
return he suddenly became famous by the writ-
ing of " The Campaign." This was a poem of
five hundred lines, in which he celebrated for
the nation the deeds of Marlborougli who was
then the hero of Blenheim, and commanding
general in the war with France.

In personal character Addison was greatly
esteemed, and being possessed of exceptional
gifts, he was speedily raised to the highest poli-
tical positions in the gift of his country. In
these connections he became the principal con-
tributor to the famous Spectator; "without
doubt," someone says, "the most elegant and
popular miscellany in English literature." A
man of powerful convictions, lie fearlessly ex-
posed the popular evils of his time, and did
much to lay the firm foundation of high-toned
journalism.

His contributions to various periodicals were
numerous, and always exhibited a pure morality

FOOTHOLDS FOR FAITH S FEET.

^-4

as well as a predisposition to the lo£tier-»]»ii?itttal.
One of his papers on " Special periods for devo-
tion," gives evidence of the current of his think-
ing. In it he makes this statement : " That the
wisest of men of all ages and countries were
renowned for piety and virtue ; so that the most
eminent for learning have likewise been the
most eminent for their adherence to the prin-
ciples of revealed religion. They have gener-
ally been men whose hopes were filled with im-
mortality, and bright with the prospect of future
rewards."

The picture of huuian life with its ambitions,
uncertainties, and disappointments, which he so
beautifully draws in the allegory known as
" The vision of Mirza," bears testimony to the
fact that his own life was not exempt from com-
mon anxieties, and that he was a close observer
of the lives of others. It is interesting to know
that the careful reading of this allegory made
the earliest spiritual impressions on ihe mind
and heart of Robert Burns, whose own career
supplied such a forcible illustration of the lesson
it imparts.

Equally famous with the " Vision of Mirza,"
are his beautiful meditations among the tombs
of Westminster Ai)bey. Every line of this well-

GOD IN CREATION.

known mosaic bears the stamp of a master-mind,
who has voiced the sentiments, and forethought
the reflection of all others, who have visited that
famous sanctuary-sepulchre of London. " When
I look upon the tombs of the great," he writes,
"every emotion of envy dies within me; when I
read the epitaphs of the beautiful, every inor-
dinate desire goes out ; when T meet with the grief
of parents upon a tombstone, my heart melts
with compassion ; when I see the tombs of par-
ents themselves, I consider the vanity of grieving
for those who must quickly follow ; when I see
kings lying side by side with those who have
deposed them; when I consider rival wits placed
!*ide by side, and the holy men that divided the
world with their contests and disputes ; I reflect
with sorrow and astonishment on the little
competitions, factions and debates of mankind.
When I read the several dates on the tombs of
some that died yesterday, and some six hundred
years ago, I consider that great day when we,
all of us, shall be contemporaries and make our
appearance together."

Several hymns are traced to his authorship,
among which is that admirable P^alm of the
adoring and grateful heart, found in the hymn-
collections of every people :

54 FOOTHOLDS FOR FAITH's FEET.

" When all Thy mercies, () my (ioil,
My rising soul surveys,
'rraiisportod with the view, I'm lust
Jn wonder, love iind praise.''

Another hyinn of his, perhaps not so orenerally
known, is rendered famous by the circumstances
under which it was written, and remains a
memorial of remarkable faith. When journey-
ing through Europe.. Addison embarked at Mar-
seilles for a trip on the Mediterranean. A storm
arose oH' the shore of Italy, which grew so vio-
lent that all was given up for lost. The captain
and sailors in fear and de^jpair, were confessing
their sins to a Capuchin monk, who happened to
be on board on his way to Rome. While all
were in a state of consternation, Addison sat in
the cabin, as calm and composed, in the assur-
ance of Divine protection, as Paul the Apostle
was sixteen centuries before on the shores of
Melita, not far distant. It was there he ex-
pressed the musing of his soul in the lines since
familiarly known as " The Traveller's Hymn."

" How are Thy ^servants blest, O Lord !
How sure is their defence !
Eternal WJsdom is their guide,
Their help, Omnipotence.

*' When by the dreadful tempest borne
High on the broken wave,

CJOD IN CRKATION. OH

Tliey know Thou art not slow to hear.
Nor impotent to save.

" Our life, whilst Thou preservest life,
A sacrifice shall be ;
And death, when death shall be our lot,
Shall join our souls to Thee.''

So was it for Addison in life, and of death his
words were a joyful prophecy. " Having served
his generation according to the will of God," at
the early age of forty-seven he was carried off
by the hand of insatiable disease. He breathed
his last words strong in the assurance of life
eternal, cheerfully remarking to his stepson, who
stood by his side, in one of those short, weighty
sentences, by which the great in life are made
greater in death, " Behold how a Christian can
die." His remains were conveyed in a resting
place of honor within the Jerusalen. ( hamber of
that world-famed Abbey, wherein he so grandly
mused on the theme of immortal greatness and
mortal man. And among the tablets erected
to the memory of the renowned in that magnifi-
cent " Valhalla," there is found, in the poet's
corner of the Eastern Transept, one upon which
the figurative genii are brought out in beautiful
relief, and above this the inscription, " Joseph
Addison." And I believe that name is written
on the more enduring marble of God's great

FOOTHOLDS FOR FAITH*S FEET.

book of appi'oval, as the hymn of his life keeps
it fresh in the memory of all times.

By one who had visited the scene, the old
Cathedral-close at Lichfield, in the vicinity of
which the youthful Addison delighted to wander,
is thus described : " It was evening when, for the
first time, we entered that sacrfd enclosure.
The sun had gone down and the outer world was
growing dim, but everything visible offered an
introduction to the invisible. Here was the
"Dean's walk," an overshaded avenue which
opened towards a neighboring hill, standing in
clear, bold outline against the twilight sky. On
the summit arose the tower of St. Chad, from
which, tradition tell us, the angels used to sing.
The stars of heaven were reflected in the mirror
of the pool at its base, when a thrilling harmony
came trembling from the chancel, as the choir
refrained their to-morrow's henedictus. Just then
the rising moon threw her light above the horizon
and gave to the picture its inspiring touch."

It was here the muse of the spirit awakened
the responsive chord of Addison's being, which
sang to the world his inimitable psalm :

" The spacious firmament on high,
With all the blue ethereal sky,
And spangled heavens, a shining frame,
Their great Original proclaim."

GOD IN CREATION.

To the untutored Hottentot of Africa, who
looks up to the expanse of a tropical sky, the re-
flection is the same as it is to the Christian philo-
sopher who looks out to-night to call the stars by
their names. With a different signification to
each it may be, but with the same conclusion —
" There is a creative God." " The heavens de-
clare the glory of God, and the firmament
showeth His handy work" — is a pen-picture
drawn by the Psalmist of Israel in ages past,
and it exactly expresses the reverent sentiment
of to-day. The material universe proclaims the
existence of a God.

It cannot, we grant, proyide absolute proof of
such an existence, but the order and design
which is everywhere discoverable in it, give
evidence of the presence and plan of a superior
being. In a musical instrument, when we ob-
serve a number of strings producing harmony,
we conclude that a skilful musician has attuned
them. When we see ten thousand men mar-
shalled under different colors, yet acting in
orderly concert, we naturally infer the presence
of a commander whose order they obey. When
we see the twenty-six letters of the alphabet so
arranged into words and sentences as to make a
book, which expresses a continuation of thought,
we infer the existence of a composer who set

FOOTHOLDS FOR FAITH .S FEET.

them. In no one of these cases would the
arrangement be attributed to chance or accident,
and chance cannot have place in either the crea-
tion or orderly relation of worlds. Everything
about us, as well as above us, argues the abso-
lutely necessary existence of a first cause. Such
a first cause must, in proportion to the order and
magnitude of the work performed, have intelli-
gence to plan as well as power to execute. And
this intelligence and power we believe must
reside in a personal being whom we call God.
" No life without preceding life " is a formula
of science everywhere admitted, and back of all
material beginnings there was certainly a begin-
ning which was not material. In the first verse
of Genesis we read, " In a beginning God created
the heavens and the earth ; " but in the first
verse of John we read, " In the beginning was
the Word, and the Word was with God, and the
Word was God."

One evening when Napoleon Bonaparte was
on his voyage from Egypt, a group of his officers
were conversing on the quarter-deck about the
existence of a God. It was a calm, cloudless,
brilliant night, and " the heaven's the work of
God's fingers," canopied them gloriously. As
officer after officer presented the arguments of
athiestic thought, and flippantly asserted, "There

GOD IN CREATION.

is no God," Napoleon suddenly stopped before
thera, and in those tones of authority that always
commanded attention, said, " Gentlemen, your
arguments are all very fine, but tell me, who
made those worlds ? "

1 1

" In the sun of the noonday, the star of the night,
In the storm cloud of darkness, the rainbow of light,
Turn where you may, from the sky to the sod,
Where can ye gaze that ye find not a God ? "

Granted the existence, the material universe ex-
hibits the power of God.

Have you ever stood by the ocean and watched
the great billow rush on and on to throw itself
thundering on the shore, and did you ever fancy
you could stay its course and hurl it back to the
depths whence it came ? Did you ever stand
beneath the leaden, lowering sky, and watch the
lightning leap and flash athwart the gloom, and
did you ever think you could grasp its bolt and
change its fiery path ? We speak of the power
of light and heat and electricity, of science and
law and empire, yet these are but faint per-
missions of His energy, who shot these myriad
worlds along their, orbits and bade them march
on for ever. " He doeth according to His will in
the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants
of earth."

FOOTHOLDS FOR FAITHS FEET.

We borrow an illustration from the confessions
of Augustine : " 1 asked the earth, and it said,
' I am not He.' I asked the sea, and the depths
replied, 'We are not thy God.' I asked the
breezes, and they whispered in surprise, ' We
are not thy God.' I asked the heavens, the sun
and the moon and the stars, and they replied,
' Neither are we the God whom thou seekest.'
Then I turned myself to all and said, ye have
declared to me of my God, that ye are not He,
tell me, I pray you, somewhat about Him, and,
with a united voice that rolled on and on in
eternal testimony, they exclaimed, * He made us
all ! '"

" The unwearied sun from day to day
Does his Creator's power display,
And publishes to every land
The work of an almighty hand."

The material universe exhibits the vAsdom of
God. It is possible for the mind to conceive of
power impelling to action or motion, and yet
operating blindly, without seeking or attaining
an end, but when we behold in the universe a
systematized plan, with end and purpose desig-
nated, with order and regularity everywhere
observed, we come at once to the natural con-
clusion, that the being of infinite power is a
being of infinite wisdom.

( 1

GOD IN CREATION.

Astronomers inform us that beyond or outside
the system of which our sun is the centre, by
the aid of powerful telescopes, nearly one hun-
dred millions of stars have been discovered in
fixed locations, each of which is supposed to be
the centre of a system vastly more extensive
than our own. All these, it is conjectured,
revolve in regular orbit around some central
sphere, which is the centre of all attractive or
centripetal energy ; and, it is added, that some
of them are so distant from our earth, that,
although shining since the dawn of creation, their
light has not reached us yet, though travelling
at the rate of nearly 200,000 miles a second.

There never was a time when there was no
time ; and space admits of no measurement
whatever. " Imagine," says John Locke, the
philosopher, " some being reaching the very con-
fines of space and stretching out his hand where
space is not, and in the very act he creates it ;
for space is measured by the objects in it."

The finite mind is completely lost in such
a contemplation, and yet the Almighty can
marsh all these worlds into order as a general
marshal Is his battalions. " He telleth the num-
ber of the stars, He calleth them all by name."
As the writer of the Book of Job sublimely put
it four thousand years ago, with marvellous

FOOTHOLDS FOR FAITH S FEET.

scientific exactness in his statements: "Canst
thou bind the sweet influences of the Pleiades or
loose the bands of Orion ? Canst thou bring
forth Mazzaroth in his season ? or canst thou
guide Arcturus with his sons ? " " Day unto
day uttereth speech," writes the Psalmist, " and
night unto night sheweth knowledge. There is
no speech nor language, their voice is not heard."
And Bishop Home, with a vivid conception of
poetic imagery, remarks, "The day and the
night, like the two parts of a responding choir,
chant forth alternately the praises of God."

In the earliest works on Astronomy the stars
are represented as singing aloud in their courses
the marvels of divine wisdom. And old Pytha-
goras, who had traversed the mazes of the vast
unknown, ages before Leverrier and Herschell,
remarks: "The relation of the celestial bodies
one to another, is so delicately adjusted as to
cause by their motion sweet and harmonious
sounds." To these sounds he gave the name,
" The music of the spheres." " The music," he
adds, " fills the universe evervwhere, but is of
too elevated a character to be heard or appreci-
ated by dull-eared mortals." David, however,
heard it in his life's inner sanctuary, and his
soul responded in Psalm. Addison, tco, lived
close to the beating heart of nature ; he caught

GOD IN CREATION.

up the sentiment of universal praise, and rolled
it onwards :

" In reason's ear they all rejoice,
And utter forth a glorious voice ;
Forever singing as they shine,
The hand that made us is Divine."

And, lastly, the material universe beautifully
illustrates the faithfulness of (iod. " In them
hath He set a tabernacle for the sun, which
is as a bridegroom cominfi; out of his cham-
ber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a
race." Never once has God's messengers of light
to our world forgotten to rise. Thousands of
years drift swiftly away, but the bells God has
swung in the tower of the centuries beat out
to-day the accurate time.

" Twenty minutes after five," said one profes-
sor of Astronomy to another in the observatory
of Harvard College, " a certain star will cross the
line of vision." He had ascertained that fact
from a little book of astronomical tables which
lay on his desk. The one professor lay prone
upon his back, gazing upon the heavens through
the great brass tube. The other stood near by
with his eye on a chronometer clock, and hold-
ing a small tack hammer in his hand. All was
stillness as the moments fleeted by, when two
distinct sounds within the same fraction of a

FOOTHOLDS FOR FAITH'S FEET.

second broke the impressive silence " The star! "
exclaimed the observer, and at the very same
moment the other tapped his hammer on the
desk. That table had been based on calcula-
tions a thousand years old, a,nd yet at twenty
minutes after five, simultaneous with the click of
the hammer, there marched up through the hea-
vens, millions of miles away, one of God's stars,
keeping his covenant of eternal fidelity, and
rolling on silently in its appointed orbit.

Oh, there is no wrinkle on the brow of eter-
nity ! The heavens may be rolled up as a
parchment, the elements of the earth may melt
with fervent heat, but " the Word of God
abideth forever."

I muse again on that galaxy of worlds,
moulded and garnished by an almighty hand,
and return to a thought of self. " The atom of an
atom world," a single breathing in the infinite
life, and the words of the Psalmist come to re-
membrance : " What is man, that Thou art mind-
ful of him ? And the son of man, that Thou
visitest him ? " when a new thought steals in
upon my soul, my Father made them all ; He
controls them all ; He is before them all. He has
His lofty thoughts that pierce beyond the stars,
but He has His lowly thoughts, that bend down
to paint the lily, and He thinks of me. He thinks

aOD IN CREATION.

of you. An atom still of an atom world, but a
creature redeemed. I know of a wisdom which
is wiser than that which designed these worlds.
I know of a power that is mightier than that
which gave them their motion. I know of a
faithfulness truer than that which holds them in
their orbits. The same wisdom, the same power,
the same faithfulness, but in grander exercise.
It is the wisdom that designed a creature's sal-
vation ; a power that brought Jesus Christ to
the Cross, and proclaims to the uttermost, " omni-
potent to save," and it is the faithfulness that
says to the Christian heart, " I will never leave
thee, I will never forsake thee."

A single thread on the lens of a telescope will
shut out the sun from the observer, and a single
sin on the lens of the soul may shut out the light
of salvation. But, blessed be God, "the blood of
Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin."
We may not know much about the heavens above,
but if we know the Christ, the "Sun of Right-
eousness," we have a heaven within us." " The
heavens declare the glory of God," and the study is
ennobling ; but here is the glory that excelleth.

" A God in nature is a God above me ; a God
in providence is a God beyond me ; but a God in
Christ is a God for me, a God irithjjiei, Hv i'jr'y

God. ^vjNloiv

pPLLe^

God moves in a mysterious luay,
His wonders to perform;

He plants His footsteps in the sea.
And rides upon the sto; m.

Deep in unfathomable mines

Of never-failing skill.
He treasures up His bright designs.

And works His sovereign will.

Ye fearful saints., fresh courage take
The clouds ye so much dread

Arc big with mercy ^ and shall break
In blessings on your head.

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense.
But trust Him for His grace;

Behind a frowning provi ience
He hides a smiling face.

His purposes will ripen fast.

Unfolding evety hour;
The bud may have a bitter taste.

But sweet will be the flower.

Blind unbelief is sure to err.
And scan His tuork in vain ;

God is His o%vn interpreter.,
And He will make it plain.

GOD IN PROVIDENCE.

" What I do thou kuowest not now, but thou shalt
know hereafter" — John xiii. 17.

"God is His own interpreter,
And He will make it plain."

WILLIAM COWPER was born into this
world amid the throes of moral and
spiritual revolution. It was a world in its spirit
very averse to him, yet sorely in need of him.
True spirituality, the spring of Miltonic grandeur
and Puritanical power in the 17th century, was
now almost extinct. The Church had become
degraded into a mere tool of political forces. So-
ciety was severed into higher and lower, by lines
of distinction so sharply drawn as to preclude
all possibility of sympathy or brotherhood,
Christianity, with its modern representatives of
the overbearing Pharisee and the down-trodden
publican, had forgotten the fact that its Lord
and Master had supped with the poor and cen-
sured the rich, and hence the hostility with

FOOTHOLDS FOR FAITHS FEET.

which the so-called " upper classes " received the
doctrines of dissenting religion when they came.

Into such a world was the poet born, on the
loth day of November, 1731. But a change was
at hand. Good men were sorely needed, and God
provided them. John Howard, the philanthro-
pist, was a few years old when Cowper was born ;
John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, was
past twenty-eight ; and George Whitfield, " the
prince of preachers," whose spells of oratory
afterwards electrified both Europe and America,
was seventeen.

William Cowper, like Addison, was a child of
the rectory. His father was chaplain to King
George the Second. His mother was a woman
of tender sympathies and deep devotion, a char-
acter which she in a large degree transmitted to
her offspring. She died when her son was only
six, and seldom has a child lost more in a mother.
Fifty years after her death the poet writes : " I
think of her with love and tenderness each day
of my life, and every creature which his any
affinity to my mother is dear to me." "A mother-
worshipping child goes seldom far astray," is a
proverb which holds good, with countless illus-
trations, in the life of to-day.

The religious inclinations of Cowper were
clearly ])ronounced in early life. His spiiit was

( '

GOD IN PnOVIDENCE.

reverent and his convictions deep. After an un-
eventful course through school and college, he
was admitted to the bar in the Inner Temple at
the age of twenty-three. He became a promi-
nent member of the " Nonsense Club," which
was composed of the leading literary characters
of his day, and in this connection the genius of
the poet was quickly recognized.

Discontentment with his associations and
manner of life, led him to abandon the practice
of law and devote himself entirely to literary
pursuits. His life so far had not been openly ir-
religious, neither was it particularly religious. He
had felt the pangs of spiritual conviction, and he
had more than once been driven to his knees in
earnest prayerfulness as he returned from the
unrelished, unsatisfactory pleasures of the " Non-
sense Club ;" but he was not yet converted. The
Spirit of God was leading the way to the sunlit
heights of realized religion, but, as has often
been the experience of the most ardent seekers,
leading the way through the toilsome valley of
soul-tribulation to reach those heights.

Once the poet determined to seek the retire-
ment of a monastary, and give himself entirely to
spiritual devotions ; but, dissuaded by his friends,
he relinquished the idea.

Shortly afterwards the brooding shadows of

FOOTHOLDS FOR FAITH's FEET.

spiritual nii^ht were lifted from his soul, and the
sweet light of salvation came streaming in. This
long-sought experience he himself describes in
these words : " The happy period which was to
shake ofi" my fetters and afford me a clear dis-
covery of the free mercy of God in Jesus Christ,
had now arrived. In the garden where I sat, I
had Hung my Bible away in utter despair of
finding salvation, when something constrained
me to open it again. I did so, and singularly
enough the first verse I encountered, was the
message to my soul of life eternal. Immediately
I received strength to believe. I saw the suf-
ficiency of an offered Christ, my pardon in His
blood, my acceptance in His righteousness, and
unless the Almighty arm had been under me, I
should have been overwhelmed with abounding
joy." God had caused His light " to shine out of
darkness," and the truth of Herbert's couplet in
this happy instance, as in many others, is forci-
bly illustrated :

" A verse may find him when a sermon flies,
And turn delight into a sacrifice."

The converted life became one of deepest con-
secration ; and retiring to the quiet retreat of
Olney, where the famous collection of Olney
hymns were afterwards written, he gave him-

GOD IX PROVIDENCE,

self up entirely to spiritual exercises. He be-
came a Nonconformist, and threw the weight
of his influence into the reformation movement
of Wesley and VVhittield. By means of his
hymns he became widely known. His longinj^
de.sire for fellowship with God is the leading
feature of many of his compositions. His spirit
was unfalteringly onward, and his expression is
that of one who looks by faith on the open face
of God.

" Hark, my soul, it is the Lord ;
'Tis thy Saviour, hear His word ;
Jesus speaks, and speaks to thee,
Say, poor sinner, lovest thou Me."

More familiar still, perhaps, is that ardent
prayer, which in some of its expressions, lends us
an index to the darker experiences of his Chris-
tian life.

" O f or a closer walk with God,
A calm and heavenly frame ;
A light to shine upon the road,
That leads me to the Lamb,"

The spiritual sky of him who has done so
much to roll away the darkness from the sky of
others was gradually overclouded. Of nervous
temperament, and naturally weak constitution,
the throne of intellect tottered to almost ruin,

MMi

HHilllll

FOOTHOLDS FOR FAITH's FEET.

and the closing years of this blissful life went
out in shadows. Conscious of the trial which
mysteriously awaited him, he sang out his
Christ-like resignation in these wonderful words :

" 'Tis my happiness below,

Not to live without the cross ;
But the Saviour's power to know.
Sanctifying every loss.

" Trials must and will befall,

But with trembling faith to see
Love inscribed upon them all ;
This is happiness to me."

Gladdening beams of brightness alternated
with the darkness, and in one of such moments
he whispered with that calmness which charac-
terizes the trustful life in its stormiest days :

" Sometimes a light surprises
The Christian as he sings ;
It is the Lord who rises
With healing in His wings.

" When comforts are declining,
He grants the soul again
A season of clear-shining,
To cheer it after rain. "

Never, never amid the deepest solitudes of
his weary life did his faith lose its grip on the
merit of Jesus. He sang as he himself realized,

GOD IN PROVlDENCK.

when he wrote these words for that grand, sweet
song of the adoring soul :

' ' There is a fountain filled with blood,
Drawn from Immanuel's veins ;
And sinners, phmged beneath that flood.
Lose all their guilty stains. "

At three-score and ten he laid down the harp,
whose chords had made music for the pilgrims
of earth, and rose up to realize the fulness of
truth in his own rejoicing prophecy :

" Then in a nobler, sweeter song,
I'll sing Thy power to save,
When this poor lisping, stammering tongue
Lies silent in the grave."

Had William Cowper written but one hymn, it
would have rendered him immortal. It is the
"Hymn of Providence," which we study to-
night, and certain it is, though we cannot unveil
the mystery which darkens the experiences of
this sainted character, had William Cowper not
been afflicted, he could not have written these ad-
mirable lines :

" God moves in a mysterious way,
His wonders to perform."

It comes to us, like the Psalms of David, in-
vested with the sacredness of a real experience,

FOOTHOLDS FOR FA1TH*S FEET

and the suggesting incident was briefly this :
In one of those morbid depressions of spirit to
which he was subject, Cowper supposed that the
Lord demanded of him, because of his sins, an
atoning sacrifice ; and laboring under this singu-
lar delusion, he engaged a haekman to drive him
to the river Ouse, fully determining to end hia
life. While on his way, an intensely thick mist
gathered over the scene, the driver lost his bear-
ings, and, as if guided by the impulse of the
Divine Spirit, arrived at the very spot from
which thev had started two hours before. Cow-
per regarded the whole circumstance, as indeed
it truly was, a merciful interposition of Divine
Providence ; and completely overcome by a sense
of God's protecting care, he lifted his pen and
wrote this hymn.

The words find sufficient illustration in the
life we have reviewed ; but a general study of
the dealings of God with men may prove both
interesting and instructive.

The book of Providence is not so easily read
as the book of nature, and the reason is evident
to the enquiring mind — unlike creation it is not
a finished work. Take a stranger to a building
where an architect is in the midst of his plans,
with walls half built, with arches half sprung,
and what appears all order to the architect,

«^

GOD IN PROVIDENCE.

tvhose plan is before him, appears to the stranger
simply confusion. And so stands wonderinj^
man amid that j^igantic scheme of universal
providence which God began in this world six
thousand years ago, and may not finish for ages
to come —

" Deep in mifathoniable mines
Of nevev-fiiilinir skill."

Turn with me to the page of kidovfj, and
mystery challenges us at every step.

But if we carefully look along the stream of
the centuries, we see that evolving events mark
God's purpose plain. I see Egypt, Assyria,
Greece and Rome, rising in succession into pre-
eminence and power. I mark their decline ; but
not before, in the providence of God, they had
prepared a way for the march of Christianity and
the marvellous conquests of the Gospel. I see
Charles Martel on the bloody field of Tours beat
back the tide of Mohammedan invasion, that so,
in the providence of God, Europe might be saved
from the degrading sway of the Koran and the
Cresent. I see bleeding nations arising from
the issues of the thirty years' war, with the
dominant power of the Papacy broken, and the
foundation laid of Germanic Protestantism. I
see the Puritans, driven by intolerance from

FOOTHOLDS FOR FAITHS FEET.

English homes, to work the miracle of a great
nation on this western continent :

" Guided by hands they did not sec,
By voices called, to them unknown ;
Strange opening doors of circumstance,
Small happenings that were never chance ;
God's daily, hourly providence,
Led in His way and not their own."

I read between the lines of this world's great
volume, and everywhere to see, that high above
the ruin of thrones and the crash of empires,
" God reigneth."

" He plants His footsteps on the sea,
And rides upon the storm. "

So, also, do we find it in the history of the
Church. The index finger of a directing provi-
dence is ever pointing upwards. Abraham was
mysteriously called out of Haran, that Ood
might have a separated people to maintain the
principles of true religion, and convey to the
world this special revelation of truth through
the volume of the Book. While Pharaoh was
building his treasure cities and filling them with
corn, he was unconsciously working his own
ruin; and while infant Israel was tottering on
the brink of a yawning gulf, the child Moses
was born to be her deliverer. The star appeared

GOD IN PROVIDENCE.

over the Eastern plain to lead the way to the
manger of Jiethlehem, just when the world was
led to expect it. The blood of the martyred
saints in pagan Rome was "the seed of the
Church ; " and the imperishable seed of Chris-
tian faith was carried and planted wherever the
eagles of her imperial sway fluttered in victory.
From the ashes of Wycklifl'e, of England ; Huss,
of Bohemia, and Jerome, of Prague, sprang up
the phdinix of resurrection life which breathed
over the dry bones of European apostacy and
made them live — all this in the providence of
God, though mystery attended it — and Britain
in turn became the receptacle of reformation
principles, as well as the great centre of benevo-
lent and missionary effort ; so that wherever the
flag of the Anglo-Saxon is planted, his religion
must follow to the ends of the earth.

" He treasures up His bright designs,
And works His sovereign will."

So, also, do we recognize the providence of
God in the changeful events of individual lives.
There is nothing too great for His sovereignty,
and there is nothing too small for His notice,
who holds in His hands the helm of the universe
and seeth a sparrow fall to the ground. The
I)rovidence, who stoops to paint each flower and

FOOTHOLDS FOR FAITH'S FEET.

I t

form each leaf, who throws open the golden
gates of day and casts around a weary world the
restful mantle of alternate night, will not forget
an immortal soul. " My life is but a single
thread," said the devout Evans, " but that
thread is held in a Father's hand." The very
same God who caused a well of water to spring
up in the desert for dying Hagar ; who let down
a ladder with angels of comfort to benighted
Jacob ; who brought Joseph from the pit and
the prison to a place in the palaces of Pharaoh ;
who delivered Daniel from the mouth of the
lions ; who saved .shipwrecked Paul on the
pieces of his ves.sel, is your God and my God in
this church to-night, and the very hairs of your
head are numbered by Him."

There is, indeed, much in Providence that is
perplexing and unexplained ; but can we not
trust the as.surance He gives, " What I do thou
knowest not now, but thou shalt know here-
after. " An old writer says, " God's biddings
are always God's enablings ;" and a new writer
on Christian ethics adds, " So we may be quite
sure the path of obedience is the path of possi-
bility, that all-sufficient grace runs parallel with
every commandment of the Lord, whether it be
to endure trial or to witness for Christ." It is
just this strengthening confidence in the wisdom

GOD IN PROVIDENCE.

of all God's dealinjifs with us, that uiakes the
Christian superior to earthly crosses and earthly
conditions. It is the trustint^ of the pillar, that
leads by day and shines out upon the black wall
at nipht with this promise written, " Certainly,
I will be with thee," that keeps the pilgrim
of to-day facing Zionward. It is Whittier,
I think, who has written that beautiful line
of trust :

" I know not where His islands lift
Their froncled palms in air :
I only know I cannot drift
Beyond His love and care. "

Of the tapestry weaver it is said : " He works
on the wrong side evermore, but works for the
right side ever." He does hi.* duty, faithfully
keeping the shuttle moving true to the perfor-
ated pattern before him ; but he only sees the
tangled side of the web until it is taken from
the loom; and all things will come right in the
end for those who keep true to the great pattern
of a perfect life, and perform the duty lying
nearest to them.

" The years of man are nature's loom,
Let down from the place of the sun ;
Wherein we are weaving al way,
'Till the mystic web is done.

80 FOOTHOLDS FOR FAITH's FEET.

" Sometimes blindly, but weaving surely,
Each for himself the fate ;
We may not see how the right side looks,
We must often weave and wait."

Certain it is, there is mystery in altliction, mys-
tery in creature broken-heartedness, mystery in
the pang of earthly separations, mystery in the
removal of those most loved and those most
useful by the hand of death. But is there not
mystery all around us — in the growth of a blade
of grass, in the constant march of the blazing
sun, in the processes of man's thought ? .Was
there not mystery when the sun was withdrawn
and nature revolted at the awful spectacle of
a dying Christ on the cross of Calvary ? But
was there not mystery explained, shadows lifted,
darkness fleeing away forever as the sepulchre
of Joseph yielded sway to a King, as immortal
life went throbbing again along the arteries of
a dying world and a voice proclaimed for man-
kind to hoar, " The Lord indeed is risen ? "
'* What once I deemed crosses, misfortunes, and
even judgments," writes the noted Christian,
Sir T. Brown, "since now I have inquired
farther into their visible effects, appear to me
only as the secret and dissembled favors of His
affection."

|:. «

GOD IN PHOVIDENCE.

•V :

" Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust Him for His gr<ace ;
Behind a frowning Providence
He liides a smiling face.

The devoted Thierney wus one day much
perplexed over questions of God's mysterious
providence. Involved in a labyrinth of doubt,
he Accidentally entered a ribbon factory where
countless wheels were revolvinj? in intricate
movement, but each with its place and its office
in the vast machinery. Thierney was informed
that all these movements were connected with
a centre, in which there was a chest that was
always kept locked. Anxious to fully understand
the entire principles of the machine, he asked
permission to see within, but received this reply,
" The master has the key." Like the light of a
revelation from heaven, it fell upon his soul, and
all was clear. " What need I more ?" he said ;
" the Master has the key."

" His purposes will ripen fast,
Unfolding every hour ;
The bud may have a bitter taste,
But sweet will be the flower."

There is mystery in death, but if you and I
are living as we ought, we need not fear it. The
secret of the Christian's victory lies in this : We
6

FOOTHOLDS FOR FAITHS FEET.

meet our last enemy as an already conquered
foe, and not as one who is yet to be conquered.
" Keep the life pure and be always ready," is the
sententious advice of a good and great man.

Sir Colin Campbell being appointed to the
command of the army in India, he was asked by
the Governmeut when he could be ready to start.
He sent a despatch in reply that surprised the
world, "1 am ready to-night." Brothers immor-
tal, there is a warfare lying just before us, and
it " knows no discharge." Each mortal creature
is appointed to it by the decree of heaven. It
is the warfare of death. And should God's
angel come here with His summons to go forth,
can we say with Campbell, " I am ready to-night
— can we ? "

The eternal future is clear in Christ. Keep-
ing close to Him we shall reach that land where
mystery is ended, where the problems of life
reach explanation, where sorrow never enters,
where death never comes.

''I

;-.f

■' r"

/ once was a stranger to grace and to God,
I knew not my danger, and felt not my load;
Though friends spoke in rapture of Christ on the tree,
'•'' Jehovah Tsidkenu; " Hwas nothing to me.

Like tears from the daughters of Zion that roll,
I wept when the waters went over His soul ;
Yet thought not that uiy sins had nailed to the tree,
^^ Jehovah Tsidkenu j'^ 'twas nothing to me.

When free grace awoke me, by light from on high.
Then legal fears shook me, I trembled to die;
No refuge, no safety in self could I see —
'■^Jehovah Tsidkenu " tny Saviour must be.

My terrors all vanished before the sweet name;
My i;uilty fears banished, with boldness I came
To drink at the fountain, life-giving and free;
'■^Jehovah Tsidkenu " is all things to me.

Even treading the valley, the shadow of death,
This watchword shall rally my faltering breath;
For if from life's fever my God set me free,
^'■Jehovah Tsidkenu " my death-song shall be.

Jehovah Tsidkenu! my treasure and boast,
Jehovah Tsidkenu ! J nier can be lost;
In Thee I shall conquer by flood and by field,
My cable, my anchor, my breastplate and shield/

r;.

GOD IN REDEMPTION.

" For He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew
no sin ; that we might be made the righteousness of God
in Him."— 2 Cor. v. 21.

"Jehovah Tsidkenu, was nothing to me."
" Jehovah Tsidkenu, my Saviour must be,"
" Jehovah Tsidkenu, is all things to me."

Within the compass of this single hymn we
discover the extremes of spiritual experience ; we
mark the passage of a soul from sin to salva-
tion, from self to God, from grace to glory. All
through the ages, from righteous Abel to the
latest saint who has swept through the opened
gate of heaven, this miracle of life has been
working. The theatre of its operations is here
on earth, but its end is in heaven. The exercise
of faith that finds mercy is here, but its grandest
realizations are hereafter. The stream of com-
munion which we bathe in to-night must deepen
and widen as it nears the ocean. Companion-
ship with Jesus in the life that is, is only a pre-

^■H

FOOTHOLDS FOR FAITH's FEET.

paratory step to the bearing of His likeness,
when " we shall see Him as He is," in the life
that is to come.

So, for the child of God the maturity of life is
not to be estimated by length of days, but rather
by the character of faith and the degree of holi-
ness which that life attains.

" 'Ti8 not the number of the lines
On life's fast filling page ;
'Tis not the pulses added throb,
Which constitute their age.

" Some souls are serfs among the free,

While others nobly thrive ;
They stand even where their fathers stood.

Dead, even while they live.

" Others, all spirit, heart and sense ;

Theirs the mysterious power,
To live in thrills of joy or woe,

A twelve-month in an hour."

And if a shining life climb quickly up the sky
1w reach its zenith soon, it is all of grace. We
trace the potter's hand in moulded clay, and
when we lift a human life before the human
gaze, we magnify the name of Him who makes
all life sublime. All merit — Christ's; all glory —
His ; and, out from the ranks of the redeemed in
heaven, no voice is lifted in a richer ascription

GOD IN REDEMPTION.

of praise than the voice of him who placed the
words of this hymn on our lips, and exemplified
its meaning in his remarkable life.

Robert Murray McCheyne was born in the
city of Edinburgh, in the year 1813. He was
the youngest son in the family, and early in life
gave evidence of a deeply sympathetic nature,
as well of intellectual endowments of high
order. At the age of five, he studied as a choice
recreation the Greek alphabet. At the age of
nine he entered the high school, and by honest
application to his work maintained high excell-
ence in all his classes. When only thirteen he
carried oflT high honors in poetic composition.
His university course w^as completed at the age
of eighteen, and was particularly distinguished
by the position he held as a student of Moral
Philosophy. He was also adjudged the prize
for a striking poem on the Covenanters ; the
presentation being made by Professor Wilson,
familiarly known as " Christopher North."

His mental faculties were fast developing, and
according to the design of his parents, he looked
forward to the study of Theology. But so far
no evidence was given that the light of salvation
had fallen on his soul. He made no pretentions
to a religious life, only in so far as a strict con-
formity to the ordinary habits of worship were

FOOTHOLDS FOR FAITH's FEET.

concerned. He afterwards said of this period
of his life, " I cherished a pure morality, but
lived the Pharisee at heart." The natural
vivacity of McCheyne, which fitted him so
admirably for public life, only needed to be
touched and chastened in order to make him a
mighty instrument in the hands of God for the
salvation of others; and the chastening was
sent. An elder brother, whose character is
described as " reflecting the light of divine
grace with sure and solemn loveliness," was
deeply attached to Robert, as indeed Robert was
to him. He earnestly prayed that Robert might
be savingly influenced by the truth while yet
he lived ; and his prayer was answered. The
voice of peace was spoken from a cloud : for
standing soon after at the bedside of that
brother, in whose countenance the light of
reflected glory was already beaming, and from
whose lips the " Thy will be done " of Jesus
was resignodly spoken, young McCheyne learned
the worth and reality of religion when most it
is needed, and that very morning found refuge
at the cross.

A twelvemonth later finds these words of
confession written in his diary : " On this morn-
ing last year came the first overwhelming blow
to my worldliness, how blessed to me, Thou

GOD IN REDEMPTION.

God only knowest, who has made it so." His
course for the ministry commenced in his nine-
teenth year, and subjected to the temptation of
being popular in society, he humbly records the
struggles he was called to endure in striving for
the mastery over self and worldliness. In one
place he writes : " There is not one trait in my
life to-day that is worth remembering, and yet
these twenty-four hours are to be accounted
for." In another place we find him recording,
after having read the life of Henry Martyn,
" Would that I could imitate him ; giving up all
for the love of Christ. And yet what hinders ?
Lord purify my life and help me to be wholly
Thine."

God heard his prayer, and opened the way.
With several of his class-mates he engaged in
the work of preaching the Gospel to the poor
of the city, and with this practical training' in
the study of men, he was privileged to sit in the
halls of learning at the feet of such teachers as
Welsh and Chalmers. The youth was becoming
a man. He realized himself standing on the
threshold of public ministry, and his purpose
became elevated. " Oh that Christ would count
me faithful," he writes, " that a dispensation of
the Gospel might be committed to me." About
this time he composed that hymn, which gives

FOOTHOLDS FOR FAITHS FEET.

evidence of the deepening experiences of a man
who is spiritually- minded above his fellows :

" When this passing world is done,
When has set yon glaring sun,
When I stand with Christ in glory,
Looking o'er life's finished story ;
Then, Lord, shall •! fully know —
Not till then — how much I owe.''

" Oh blessed fact," he writes, " the wealth of
worlds would not make up for that saying, were
it lost ! " — " If any man sin, we have an advocate
with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous."
On the evening of the day when his college life
was ended, he wrote in his diary : " My last
appearance here ; life itself is vanishing fast ;
what thou doest, do quickly."

Licensed at the age of twenty -two, at Annan,
in Dumfrieshire, the same age as that at which
Toplady commenced his ministry, he was soon after
called to Larbert, as assistant minister to Andrew
Bruce. His gifts were immediately recognized,
much good was accomplished by his earnest
ministry, and soon after he was called to St.
Mary's, Dundee. He was a bold and forcible
preacher, openly denouncing what he considered
evil, but withal there was a tone of tender affec-
tion in every sentence he uttered. He always

;■.

GOD IN REDEMPTION.

. k

spoke from the pulpit in the spirit of one who
was weighed down with the vastness of the
responsibility resting upon him. His motto was
this : " Enlarge my heart, Lord, and I shall
preach ; " and on the back of the manuscripts
upon which his sermons were written such
expressions as these were found : " Master,
help." *• Send showers of blessing." " Give the
Spirit and take the glory."

His efforts at Dundee were richly successful
in the winning of souls. His labors were inces-
sant, for he found the city " given over to idola-
try." His only recreation was found in change
of employment, from studying to visiting ; and
this continued strain soon told disastrously on
his naturally weak constitution. He was forced
to leave Dundee two years after his settlement,
without, however, resigning his charge, and it
was during this time that he visited Palestine
on a mission of enquiry to the Jews, in company
with Dr. Andrew Bonar and Dr. Somerville. His
health was greatly restored by the journey, and
he returned to Scotland in about a year, to find
that during his absence a glorious revival was
granted to his parish, under the earnest minis-
trations of the Rev. W. C. Burns, who afterwards
became a missionary to China.

McChejne was lovingly welcomed by his peo-

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FOOTHOLDS FOR FAITH S FEET.

pie, and among his first words to them were
these : " If the Lord be pleased to give me a
crown from among you, I do promise here in His
sight, that I will cast it at His feet, saying,
'Worthy is the Lamb that is slain to receive
the dominion, and the honor, and the glory;'
your heaven would be two heavens for me." The
revival spirit spread from Dundee, and McCheyne
was everywhere engaged. For some time he
preached more abroad than at home, and always
with saving effect. Often exhausted, he was heard
to say, " A soldier of the cross must needs endure
hardness." He loved the pulpit, and always es-
teemed it a privilege to preach. He justified his
busy life by saying : " The oil of the lamp in the
temple burned away in giving light, and so ought
we."

Such peculiar sanctity seemed to attach to his
person, that those who heard him preach felt as
though they were lifted into the immediate
presence of God. It is also related that the
savor of his holiness seemed to abide in the
homes where he visited for months after his de-
parture. He was wont to say, " There are diffi-
culties, I know, in the way, but I am on the In-
tercessor's breast-plate ; if I could hear Christ
praying for me in the next room, I would not

GOD IN REDEMPTION.

fear a million foes ; yet, distance makes no dif-
ference, He is praying for me."

He was an active member of the Convocation,
just then engaged in behalf of the Free protest-
ing Church as against the Establishment, and
being an uncompromising foe of ".Patronage,"
he made many enemies. But he perseveringly
worked with others, endeavoring to reform the
abuses which were hindering the progress of true
religion in his native land. And, like William
Wilberforce, who spent forty years of his life in
advocating the abolition of slavery, and died the
year before his life-long efforts were crowned
with success, this man, whose moving spirit did
so much to stir up the popular feeling against
the domination of civic authorities in spiritual
things, passed away to rest on the eve of victory.

He fell in the breach, with his hand on his
sword doing battle for God. His last sermon
was preached at Broughty Ferry, from the first
verse of th^ 60th chapter of Isaiah : " Arise,
shine ; for thy light is come, and the glory of the
Lord is risen upon thee." Soon after, while
visiting a fever-stricken district of the city, he
caught the infection, which easily gained way on
his over-wrought frame. When made aware of his
danger, he calmly replied : " Shall we receive
good at the hand of the Lord, and shall we not

I«

FOOTHOLDS FOR FAITH S FEET.

receive evil ? My thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways My ways, saith the Lord."
Again and again he repeated the text : " There-
fore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, un-
movable. . . ." His heart was with his people to
the last. Continually engaged in prayer, he was
heard to say : " This parish, Lord ; this people,
this whole place ; do it Thyself, Lord, for thy
weak servant." To his sister, who waited by his
bedside, he repeated the words of Cowper's
hymn :

*' Sometimes a light surprises

The Christian while he sings ;
It is the Lord who rises,

With healing in His wings.
Set free from present sorrow,

We cheerfully can say ;
Even let the unknown to-morrow

Bring with it what it may."

And soon after, while in the act of raising his
hands as if pronouncing the benediction, the
spirit of the holy McCheyne soared away from
the ennobling service, to the beatific presence of
the Master he so faithfully followed. His work
was ended when the majority of lives are but
begun. One of his favorite maxims was this :
" So live among men that you may bo missed
when you are gone ; " and the sanctified life, that

GOD IN REDEMPTION.

spent its short hoTT in the grandest work which
can engage the energies of man, will live on in
the memory of the people of God until time
shall be no more. Like the lives he studied,
under Christ, as models of earnest and whole-
souled devotion, the story of his life was cut
short. Patrick Hamilton was cut oft at twenty-
four; John Janeway at twenty-three; David
Brainard at thirty; Henry Martynat thirty-two,
and Robert McCheyne at twenty -nine. The
best of their lives were given to God and His
people. Young manhood's energy was over-
spent, but well-spent. They walked along the
sun-lit heights of exalted fellowship so near to
heaven, while yet on earth, that God put out
His hand and took them into uninterrupted
communions in His presence forever. Two lives
they live — the "far better " life of the "rest that
r'^maineth " is one ; the other is that immortality
of influence which is patent to some men before
their work is done, and which lives on and speaks
for generations upon generations after their
voices are hushed and their hands are still.

The spirit of McCheyne is most beautifully
revealed in the hymns he composed from time to
time ; but in none of them more expressly,

FOOTHOLDS FOR FAITH S FEET.

than in the hymn we have chosen for the study
of to-night :

'* I once was a stranger to grace and to God,
I knew not my danger, and felt not my load."

And if the poet sought in these lines to ex-
press his own experience, he accurately described
the experience of others — the experience of the
majority of us, before Jesus Christ became to
our souls the true " Tsidkenu," the Lord our
Kighteousness.

A Christian engraver in the City of New
York has recorded in his experience, that the
great saving impression was made upon his
soul while he was engaged in preparing a print
of that famous picture, "The Only Son." It
represents a lad with a bundle on his back
wandering in self-will from the house of his
father; and as the engraver worked on the
print, the Spirit of God whispered in his soul,
" Wandering, and where to ?" That was enough.
An immortal soul with his back turned to God,
deaf to the call of redeeming mercy, stumbling
on in the dark — and where to ?

In McCheyne's confession there are three
things implied : ignorance, insensibility, indiffer-
ence ; and one or all of these is wrought into the

GOD IN REDEMPTION.

fibre of every sin that keeps the soul away from
the Saviour.

I once was a stranger to grace and to God,
I knew iMt my danger, and felt not my load ;
Though friends spoke in rapture of Christ on the tree,
Jehovah Tsidkenu, was nothiiig to me."

One of the most infamous inventions of the
cruel Inquisition in Spain, whereby thousands
of Protesta.its were put to death, was the " Vir-
gin's Kiss." The steadfast martyr, who chose
to die rather than renounce the principles of his
religion, was rudely pushed forward in mock
worship to kiss the image of the Virgin, when
the arms of the image, controlled by a secret
spring, clasped him in deadly embrace, and
pierced his body with hidden daggers. And
there is many a soul who, persuaded by the de-
ception of sin, goes forward to the worship of
godless pleasure, to tbe worship of perishing
profits, to the worship of a sinful self, to the
worship of everything else but God, all unthink-
ing that within the silentless embrace of that
which he worships, there are daggers concealed
to destroy the soul. Let us be assured of this,
just here, that wilful ignorance is wilful wrong;
that bolstered insensibility is only the madman
kissing his fetters, and that thoughtless indifier-

B'OOTHOLDS FOR FAITH'S FEET.

ence is, in the majority of cases of those who are
lost, the damning sin.

" Like tears from the daughters of Ziou that roll,
I wept when the waters went over His soul ;
Yet thought not that my sins had nailed to the tree,
Jehovah Tsidkenu, 'twas nothing to me."

There is a sort of religion, or profession of
religion, that actually counts for nothing in view
of eternity.

There are many persons who are found to
weep over the sufferings of Jesus on the cross,
who would have lifted, were they there, the
crown of thorns from His bleeding head, who
would angrily have driven back the low-browed
mob of mocking crucifiers from His presence,
and yet who have never wept over a personal
sin. This is no religion ! We are not to confuse
mere sentiraentalism with a saving experience.

There may be belief in, or admiration for, a
historical person called Jesus, who was born in
Bethlehem, who lived a blameless life, and died
at last on Calvary ; just as men have belief in,
and admiration for, Howard, the philanthropist ;
Gordon, the patriot, or Moflfatt, the missionary ;
but this is altogether a different thing from the
faith that realizes in Jesus a Saviour from sin.
It comes very far short of the great confession

GOD IN REDEMPTION.

written down by the apostle for the believing
soul, " He hath made Him to be sin for us, who
knew no sin ; that we might be made the right-
eousness of God in Him." It knows nothing of
the conviction that wrings from the heart of
every true child of God this contrite confession :
" Mine are the hands that formed that cross, and
mine are the lips that repeated loud amens to
that Saviour's suffering." A religion of mere
admiration for Christ may be an easy kind of
religion, but it is neither a safe, satisfactory, nor
scriptural one. The religion that saves and
satisfies is intensely personal and intensely prac-
tical. It does not merely admire the life-boat of
salvation which stands alongside the old founder-
ing ship of sin — it enters into it, and finds life by
means of it.

When a man looks at a rope upon which a
miner is about to be lowered into a mine, he
may say of it, "I believe that rope is well-
formed an4 reliable." But when the miner lays
hold upon it, and swings away down into the
tremendous chasm, that means more than the
passing of a mere opinion. He lets go of every-
thing else when he lays hold upon it. His safety
and life depend upon its strength. He trusts it.
And I tell you, friends, when an immortal soul,
dangling over the gulf of an endless eternity,

100

FOOTHOLDS FOR FAITH's FEET.

realizes his danger, lets go of every other refuge
in the wide universe, and depends upon the
merit of an atoning Christ for salvation, it is
not a matter of mere opinion with him. It is a
matter of personal experience, of personal de-
pendence, of personal trust. The evidence of our
being saved, lies not half ns much in what
we think about Jesus, as in what we do with
Jesus. A single weary, wishful soul, meeting
with and accepting the only and all-sufficient
Saviour, means life eternal. Thus did McCheyne
realize it, and hence the expression of his great-
est verse :

•

'' When free grace awoke me, with light from on high,
Then legal fears shook me, I trembled to die ;
No refuge, no safety in self could I see —
Jehovah Tsidkenu, my Saviour miist be ! "

There is an awakening from the slumber of
death. There is an earnest crying, " What must
I do to be saved ? " for the soul, no longer insen-
sible to its need, can no longer be indifferent.
There is the law to condemn, there is conscience
to accuse, and there is an eternal future to be
faced. No wonder that an awakened sinner is
an alarmed sinner, " Then legal fears shook me,
I trembled to die." But, blessed be Qod, there is
grace to save ! As Mr. Moody quaintly puts it :

GOD IN REDEMPTION.

101

{

" The law shows you that you are not straight ;
grace straightens you." "Oh, the blood, the
redeeming blood of Christ ! It satisfies the mind
with truth ; it satisfies the heart with affection ;
it satisfies the conscience with peace ; it satisfies
the soul with heaven."

An awakened sinner enquired of a well-known
evangelist, at the close of one of his meetings,
the way of life. The evangelist hurriedly re-
plied, "I cannot talk with you to-night, but
when you go home, take your Bible and turn to
Isaiah, 53rd chap., 6th verse ; go in at one ' all '
and come out at the other." The enquirer did
as he was directed and read, " All we like sheep
have gone astray : we have turned every one to
his own way." " That finds me," said the man
to himself, " I go in at that door ; I am one of
the ' all.' " Then he finished the verse, " and the
Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all,"
and quickly added, as the light of truth fell
upon his soul, " and I go out at that door." That
very night he had part in the blessedness of
those " Whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose
sins are covered," for Jesus' sake. He could look
by faith to Him, wao on the cross of Calvary
stood surety, bondsman, substitute for sinners.
He could say :

102 FOOTHOLDS FOR FAITH'S FEET.

" Upon a life I^have not lived,
'- Upon a death I did not die ;

Another's life, another's death,
I stake my whole eternity"

The whole heart finds God, when the whole
heart seeks Him, and whe he is found in Christ
— found in the fulness of His grace, in the mag-
nitude of His mercy, in the largeness of His love
— the force and beauty of McCheyne's favorite
expression, "Christ's righteousness is broader
than the sin-wound," is readily perceived. " Oh,
for the spirit," says Phillip Brooks, " that is con-
tent with nothing less than the highest help. To
turn in temptation directly to the power of God,
to cry out in sorrow for God's company, to be
satisfied in doubt with nothing short of divine
assurances, to know that there is no real escape
from sin other than being made holy in God's
holiness ! These are what makes a man's com-
plete salvation."

"Jehovah Tsidkenu, my Saviour must be."

A converted Chinaman thus quaintly tells the
story of his conversion : " I was lying in a deep,
dark pit, with no hope of rescue, and ready to
die. Confucius came by, and looking in, said :
' If you ever get out, be careful not to get in
again.' Next a Buddhist priest came by, looked

GOD IN REDEMPTION.

103

in, and said: 'Poor fellow I am very much
pained to see you there ; if you only come up
part of the way, I mij;ht reach and help you.'
At last there came one called Jesus, and His face
was bright with kindness. He came right down
into the pit where I lay helpless, lifted me clear
out of it, washed away my uncleanness, clotLoJ
me in white raiment, and said, ' Go, and sin no

» »

more.

" My terrors all vanished before that sweet name ;
My guiUy tears banished, with boldness I came
To drink at the fountain, life-giving and free, —
Jehovah Tsidkenu, is all things to me."

It is no longer the sinful Magdalene lying in
tears at the feet of Jesus, and begging for for-
giveness ; but Magdalene going forth in peace
at the bidding of her Master, and ready in the
greatness of her gratitude, to follow Him to
death. It is Saul, the persecutor, changed in
one supreme moment into Paul, the preacher,
done with trusting in the flesh, and counting "all
things loss, for the excellency of the knowledge
of Christ Jesus," It is the infinite outreaching
of the human soul, forever satisfied with a peace
" which passeth all understanding," with a love
" which passeth knowledge," with joy unspeak-
able and full of glory."

♦'Jehovah Tsidkenu, is all things to me."

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FOOTHOLDS l^OR FAITH S FEEt.

Oh people, more of Christ is what we want.
More of Christ would make the sad home bright,
the wavering soul steadfast, the breaking heart
happy, the selfish nature generous, and the bur-
dened conscience free. Jesus my Prophet, Jesus
my Priest, Jesus my King ! " Name which is
above every name" — the Lord our Righteous-
ness ! To Him let every knee be bowed. Crown
Him, ye people, " Lord of all."

'< Ever treading the valley and shadow of death.
This watchword shall rally my faltering breath ;
For if from life's fever my God sets me free, —
Jehovah Tsidkenu, my death-song shall be."

The old reformers had this watchword, " The
Lord our Righteousness,"emblazoned on their ban-
ners as they went forth to battle in the redeem-
ing cause. John Lambert could cry out amid
the flames of Smithfield: "None but Christ,
none but Christ !" and Robert Murray McCheyne,
as the prison doors of his mortal body were flung
wide open to release the grand, aspiring spirit,
could rejoicingly say : " My soul is escaped as a
bird out of the snare of the fowler : the snare is
broken, and I am escaped."

" So he took the one grand step, '

Beyond the stars of God,
Into the splendor, shadowless and broad,—
Into the everlasting joy and light, —
The zenith of his earthly life had come."

.1/

O happy day that fixed my choice
On Thee, my Saviour and my God !

Well may this glowing heart rejoice.
And tell its raptures all abroad.

'Tis done; the great transaction's done;

I am my Lords and He is mine;
He drew me, and I followed on.

Charmed to confess the voice divine.

Now rest, my long-divided heart;

Fixed on this bl'ssful centre, rest;
With ashes who would grudge to part.

When called on angePs bread to feast.

High heaven, that heard the solemn vow,
That vow renewed shall often hear;

Till in lifis latest hour I bow,
And bless in death a bond so dear.

PREVAILING GRACE.

" By the grace of God I am what I am."— I Corin-
thians XV. 10.

" He drew me, and I followed on,
Charmed to confess the voice divine."

PHILIP DODDRIDGE, the writer of this
familiar hymn, was born in London, June
26th, 1702. He was pastor of the Congrega-
tional Church at Northaa»pton, and Principal of
the Theological Academy there.

He was a youth of pious disposition, and at
the age of eighteen commenced his studies for
the Episcopal ministry under the patronage of
Dr. Clarke, of St. Albans. We judge of the
character of the student from the following
reply to a friend of his, who had condoled with
him in a letter, on having been " buried alive "
at Kilsworth : '* Here I stick close to these
delightful studies which a favoring providence
has made the business of my life. I live like a
tortoise shut up in its shell ; yet I live like a

108

POOTflOLDS FOR faith's FEBt.

prince — not, indeed, in the pomp of greatness,
but the pride of liberty ; master of my books,
master of my time, and, I hope I may add,
master of myself. I can willingly give up the
charms of London, the luxury, the society,
the popularity of it, for the secret pleasure of
rational employment and self-approbration. So
that instead of lamenting it as my misfortune,
you should congratulate me upon it as my
peculiar happiness."

The rich promises of youth were more than
fulfilled ; and the firm determination of the
student to excel in the great work to which he
had consecrated his talents appeared in the mun
of deep and abiding faith, who afterwards wrote
that book which has remained popular through
a century aiid a half : " The Rise and Progress
of Religion in the Soul." ,

The famous epigram of Doddridge was made
upon his family motto : " While we live, let us
live," and stands thus in his works :

V, ^;-

? .'

■\'-

" Live while you live, the epicure will say,
And take the pleasure of the passing day ;
Live while you live, the sacred preacher cries,
And give to God each moment as it flies ;
Lord, in my views let both united be,
I live to pleasure, when I live to Thee."

,•■;(

PREVAILING GRACE.

109

In keeping with this iofty sentiment, we find
him writing to his wife from Northampton, in
1742, the following words : " My days begin,
pass, and end in pleasure, and seem short
because they are so delightful ; and the reason,
the great and sufficient reason is, that I have
more of the presence of God with me than I
remember ever to have before enjoyed. He
enables me to live for Him and live with Him.
It is pleasant to read ; pleasant to compose ;
pleasant to converse with my friends ; pleasant
to write letters of necessary business by which
any good can be done ; pleasant to go out and
preach the Gospel to poor souls, some of whom
are thirsty for it, and others dying without it ;
pleasant on the week-day to think how near
another Sabbath is ; but. Oh, hoT^ much more
pleasant to think how near eternity is, and how
short the journey through the wilderness, and
that it is but a step from earth to heaven ! "

His habits of devotion were fixed and regular.
It was his custom to awake at five o'clock in the
mo i. .ig, and repeat the stanzas of his own
hymn, " Awake, my soul, to meet the day."
When he reached the sixth stanza, he rose from
his bed to prayer and duty.

He was a friend and favorite of the great and
good Lady Huntingdon, and among those with

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FOOTHOLDS FOR FAITHS FEET.

whom he associated at Donnington Park — the
residence of the Earl — were the godly Romaine ;
Toplady, the writer of " Rock of Ages ; " De
Coursey, the Christian philosopher; Rowland
Hill, the famous preacher; the sainted James
Hervey ; and Watts, the voluminous hj^^mn-
writer. Here pre-eminent graces shone tide by
side with remarkable gifts. Here, indeed, was
an armory in which soldiers of Christ polished
their weapons for spiritual warfare. " Iron
sharpeneth iron;" and in this place of com-
munion the life of Philip Doddridge was puri-
fied, strengthened and fitted for doing a lasting
work of good."

He was recognized in his day as a preacher
of wonderful fervor and earnestness; but it is
as a hymn-writer that he is most widely and
popularly known. His compositions on spiritual
subjects number three hundred and seventy-
four ; and he himself classified them in his
works according to the books of the Bible, from
which the themes are taken. His hymns " at-
tain great heights of devotion, and are so excel-
lent in phraseology as to be deemed indispens-
able to every collection of sacred verse."

" My God, and is Thy table spread," from his
pen, is conceded to be the moat beautiful of sacra-
mental hymns, and is used by almost all Chris-

PUEVAILING GRACE.

ill

tian denominations in connection with the great
feast of Eucharistic remembrance. We learn
from the life of Frances Ridley Havergal, that
early and lasting impressions were made upon
her heart by the words of this hymn being
sung in her father's church, just preparatory to
partaking of the Holy Communion. And if its
influence had but blessed this one life, through
this gifted and sainted woman it has blessed
millions.

Equally famous is that hymn of Doddridge's
which afterwards found its way into the Scotch
paraphrases, " O God of Bethel." It was origi-
nally written to follow a sermon of its author's,
on " Jacob's vow ; " and has since proved a com-
fort to many a home and heart, in times of
special devotion and trying affliction. A pathe-
tic interest attaches to these verses from their
association with the story of the heroic mission-
ary David Livingston. It was fixed in his
memory in early youth by the careful training
of his Scottish home, and it remained the favorite
hymn of his weary marches through the unex-
plored wilds of Africa, as he sought to eman-
cipate her benighted races from the gyves of
slavery and sin. These very words set to a
familiar tune were sung on the 18th of April,
1874, as his remains were interred in Westmins-

112

FOOTHOLDS FOR FAITHS FEET.

ter Abbey, and a nation did honor to one of the
noblest of her sons.

" Grace, 'tis a charming sound," and " 0, happy
day that fixed my choice," are hymns of every
devotional heart, and are sung wherever the
name and religion of Christ are known and
loved. The latter is especially associated with
times of ingathering to the ranks of the Church,
and no verse is a more appropriate expression of
the devoutly confessing soul than this :

" 'Tis done, the great transaction's done,
I am my Lord's, and He is mine ;
He drew me and I followed on,
Charmed to confess the voice divine."

Doddridge lived to exemplify by consistent
Christian life the sanctifying influence of that
grace which he delighted to magnify ; and, at
the age of fifty, died triumphant in the know-
ledge that abounding grace is for the pilgrim of
earth the first stage of eternal glory. One day
while conversing with his pupils at Northamp-
ton, on the various ways in which Christians
meet death, he said : " I wish that my last words
may be the lines of Watts :

*' A guilty, weak, and helpless worm.
On Thy kind arm I fall"

PREVAILING GRACE.

113

He died at Lisbon, in the autumn of 1751, a
victim of consumption, cared for to the last by
the kindness of his fast friend and sister in
Christ, Lady Huntingdon ; and it is testified by
those who knew him best, that of his life and its
solemn close, the l&st verse of his hymn was
strikingly true : ■ .

*' High heaven that heard the solemn vow,
That vow renewed shall daily hear ;
Till in life's latest hour I bow,
And bless, in death, a bond so dear. "

The word grace, in its spiritual use, has been
variously defined. Some have spoken of it as a
sort of general good — a smile of kindness on
the face of God — a sending of His rain in mind-
ful providence upon the good and the evil, upon
the just and the unjust ; but the grace of which
the Apostle speaks in the text, means more than
this. It is "the grace of God that bringeth
salvation." It is free favor for the undeserving.
It is as some one has aptly defined it : " God's
goodwill toward us in Christ while yet we are
sinners, and God's good works for us by His
Spirit when once we are saved." It is merciful
in its provisions, " For ye know the grace of
our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though He was rich,
yet for your sakes He became poor, that ye
8

114

FOOTHOLDS FOR FAITH S FEEt.

through His poverty might be rich. " It is sove-
reign in its operations, " for by grace are ye
saved through faith ; and that not of yourselves ;
it is the gift of God ; " and yet this gift is clearly
conditional, "By grace are ye saved through
faith." It is in the plainest terms, free favor
accepted by the undeserving that results in per-
sonal salvation ; so that the great proclamation
of grace is this : " Whosoever will, let him take
the water of life freely."

There is a grace that saves. In the figures
of the Gospel it sought the lost sheep, it wel-
comed the lost son, and in one supreme moment
it changed the career of him who made this con-
fession, " By the grace of God I am what I am."
There is grace that keeps us saved. It is a prin-
ciple of new life transmitted to the believing
soul, from the essential life-force of God Him-
self, through " our Lord Jesus Christ." It is
God workintr within the heart surrendered to His
services, " both to will and to do of His good
pleasure," sustaining in weakness, comforting in
sorrow, shielding in times of temptation, and
ultimately saving in the hour of death.

So that Paul could write this text over every
experience of his wonderful life. He could say,
as he thought of that marvellous theophany on
his way to Damascus, "I am crucified with

PREVAILING GRACE.

115

Christ, nevertheless I live ; yet not I, but Christ
liveth in me." He could say, as he journeyed
over land and sea to herald the message of life
to his perishing fellow-men, " Unto me, who am
less than the least of all saints, is this grace
given, that I should preach among the Gentiles
the unsearchable riches of Christ." He could
s&Y, as when he was sorely tried by a thorn in
the flesh, he heard from heaven the re-assurinsr
words, " My grace is sufficient for thee." " There-
fore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches,
in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for
Christ's sake : for when I am weak, then am I
strong." Strange things to take pleasure in!
But a man can be wonderfully strong when he
has the Almighty God for his ally, and acts
from the right motives — "for Christ's sake."

*' I live in pleasure when I live to Thee."

The constant thought of Paul's remarkable
confession seems to be this : humble and entire
dependence on the grace of God is the truest
attitude of the Christian life.

In other uses than spiritual we have learned
the meaning of that word dependence. Of all
God's creatures perhaps the least independent is
man. Regard him merely as mortal, and what
has he got that was not given him ? Dependent

116

FOOTHOLDS FOR FAITH S FEET.

in the helplessness of childhood, dependent in
the decrepitude of old age, there is only an hour
in life when he walks alone — even then he is far
from being independent. If God should close
that gracious hand that is always opening "to
satisfy the desire of every living thing " — if He
should remove His reservoir from the skies, and
withhold the rains for a single season, what
about the husbandman and what about the mil-
lions who look to Him for bread ? " Collect a
synod of scientists ! Convoke a conclave of
princes! Call together the parliament of
nations!" Bid capitalists come with their ac-
cumulated millions ! And when the sky is like
brass above their heads, and the earth like iron
beneath their feet, what can they all do ? Poor,
helpless children of the devil, what but this — to
dust return !

And what is this to immortal need ? Just in
degree what this perishing body is to the im-
perishable soul, who for a while is tabernacled
in it. There is dependence which has reference
to an earthly supply, and there is dependence
which has reference to the issues of eternity.
"Man cannot live by bread alone." The Lord
knew this when he linked together the temporal
and the spiritual in two petitions of His wonder-
ful prayer : Give us graciously this day's food,

PREVAILING GRACE.

117

mercifully forgive us every day's sin. And is
not this " give " our perpetual cry — the cry of
the body, the behest of the soul." As the shell-
fish clings to its native rock so firmly that the
mightiest swell of the Atlantic cannot detach it,
because the web-foot with which it clings con-
tains a vacuum, an emptiness, so it is spiritual
want — self-emptiness — that keeps us clinging to
divine support, and earnestly pleading for divine
satisfactions. And as God gives light for the
eye that sees, harmonies for the ear that hears,
science for the investigating intellect, landscape
for the vivid imagination, and objects for the
heart that loves, so to that outgoing trust that
lifts us above ourselves in strange discontent
with everything earthly, God comes down, and
gives, and gives, and gives ; gives what we most
need — gives Christ, and with Him all else —
gives grace ! " Thanks be unto God for the un-
speakable gift."

First. There must be on the part of a seek-
ing sinner absolute dependence on the grace that
saves in order to salvation.

" By the grace of God I am what I am," is the
grateful language of every soul who rests in the
consciousness of sins forgiven. As the blind
man said to his inquiring friends who wondered
at his cure : " A man that is called Jesus made

118

FOOTHOLDS FOR FAITH S FEET.

clay, and anointed mine eyes, and said unto me,
Go to the pool of Siloam and wash : and I went
and washed, and I received sight ;" so every man
and woman who is saved to-night, has felt the
thrill of the Saviour's touch on the sin-sealed
eyelids of the soul, and has washed at His bid-
ding in the virtuous "Siloam " of His cleansing
blood.

There is no other way but His way. The
priceless boon of life and salvation is found
alone at the lifted cross. The scholarly Seldon,
after a Nicodemus-like experience, makes this
confession : " I have f ried learning, I have tried
society, I have tried scepticism, I have tried se-
clusion, and now I am shut into a single verse of
that strange old Book : ' This is a faithful say-
ing, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ
Jesus came into the world to save sinners ; of
whom I am chief.' "

" By the grace of God I am what I am," said
John Bunyan, as his soul marched forth from
his poor imprisoned body, rejoicing in the
liberty of a personal salvation ; " unsearchable
riches of grace to have reached down to me, the
outcast tinker of Bedford — grace indeed to make
angels wonder, to make sinners rejoice, to make
devils tremble."

" By the grace of God I am what I am," said

PREVAILING GRACE.

119

John Newton, whose conversion from a career of
recklessness and sin to God, and His service, was
a veritable miracle of inftrcy. One morning at
his usual devotions, as he sat with his Bible
opened at this verse, he was heard to soliloquize :
" I am not what I once was, an enemy to God ;
I am not what I ought to be, my life is imper-
fect and my efforts weak ; I am not what I wish
to be, for 'when I would do good evil is present
with me ' ; I am not what I hope to be, for soon
this mortal shall put on immortality ; but ' by
the grace of God I am what I am.' "

*'JeBus of Bethlehem, humbled and low !
Wondering shepherd-kings, why was it so ?
Jesus of Nazareth, wearied and worn !
Tell mc\ disciples, what burdens were borne ?
Christ in Qethsemane, pleading in prayer !
Ministering angels, why pleads He there ?
Christ upon Calvary ! what to atone
Treading that winepress of suffering alone ?
All was in love, sinner, all was for thee ;
See, how thy healing meant sore stripes for Me."

And in this we find a saved soul's wonder at the
marvels of grace, and a Saviour's reply.

Second. Absolute dependence on this grace
saves, and life-long dependence on this grace is
needed to sustain the soul in its Christward
growth.

When the Saviour is speaking, in the 15th
chapter of John, of the believer's relation to
Himself, He strongly emphasizes this thought
of dependence: "I am the vine, ye are the
branches ; he that abideth in Me the same bring-
eth forth much fruit, for without Me ye can
do nothing." That is not very flattering to
human self confidence and self-conceit ; but in
every day's march in this pilgrim life we learn
its truth. There is not a grace that adorns the
soul, which we have not received by " abiding " in
the Vine. The love that lives within our hearts,
the faith we exercise from day to day, the hope
that lifts us above the earth, the patience that
enables us to bear our crosses, and makes us
superior to all trials, the courage that enables us
to fight life's battles, have all been nurtured in
the school of Christ — are all fruits that have
flourished on the strength of His life. " I do not
frustrate the grace of God," says Paul, immedi-
atelv after he has confessed : " The life which I
now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the
Son of Ood, who loved me, and gave Himself for
me."

Michael Angelo was wont to say of the chip-
pings that fell from his chisel, " While the marble
wastes, the image grows ; " and so in the processes
of divine grace, the more we curtail the self-like

(•

120

FOOTHOLDS FOR FAITH's FEET.

■st

PREVAILING GRACE.

121

the more we increase the Christ-like. This, in-
deed, is the divine purpose concerning us — " To
raise the human to the holy, to wake the spirit
from the clay." God takes a thousand times
more pains with man, than the sculptor with his
marble, to bring him into the form which is the
highest and noblest in His sight — the image of
His Son ; but man must yield to the hand that
chisels. The " marble " of this lower life must
waste if the " image " is to grow.

" By the grace of God I am what I am," said
Samuel Rutherford, who braved persecution and
feared not death, because he could lean on the
strength of his sovereign Redeemer. "How
dark it is," he writes, " when He, the sun of my
day, hides Himself from me ; how weak I am in
my resolves, when seven times a day I need to
seek Him ; and how short I would shoot of the
covenant prize if the grace He has promised
were not supplied. My faith hath no bed to rest
upon but omnipotency ! "

" When all around my soul gives way,
He then is all my hope and stay."

Third. There is need that we place absolute
dependence in the offered grace in order to a
right performance of every duty in the Christian
life.

122

FOOTHOLDS FOR FAITHS FEET.

" His grace which was bestowed upon me was
not in vain," said Saul, " but I labored more
abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the
grace of God which was with me ; " and so with
the base of his operations in the grace of God,
he could stand within the portals of the temple
of Diana at Ephesus, or beneath the shadow of
Csesar's throne, and fearlessly preach redemption
through Christ his Master. He could look to the
open field of conflict at three score and ten, gird
his sword upon his thigh, think of the cross and
determinedly say, " I can do all things through
Christ which strengtheneth me." Each Christian
duty is on its way to the crown of glory when it
throbs with the energy of a Saviour's love, and
each act of Christian worship is a real sacrament
when performed in His name ; but what is all
this work and all this worship other than the
purposeless wheels of soulless machinery, unless
we have said before we started, " To me to live
is Christ " — is Christ-likeness, is Christ-glory-
fying, is Christ-communion. So in the acts we
are called to perform among men and for them,
in our respective spheres of duty as they touch
the world, our truest successes are always
achieved when we lean on God. " Picton, go
take yon fort," said the Duke of Wellington to
his favorite general in one of the battles of the

PREVAILING GRACE.

123

Peninsular war, when the British forces were
subjected to a galling fire from a neighboring
fortification. " I cannot," said Picton, " the thing
is impossible." " Go take that fort, Picton," said
the resolute Duke. Picton no longer demurred,
but approaching the General, said, " Give me a
grasp of your conquering right hand, and I will
take that fort." The warriors clasped hands for
a moment, the needed inspiration was imparted,
and before sunset the " Union Jack " was float-
ing victoriously over the enemy's stronghold.
The lesson is plain — my hand in the right hand
of Him who conquered on Calvary, and all
things are possible.

*' By the grace of God I am what I am," said
William Wilberforce, as he walked one day to
the British House of Commons, repeating the
words of the 91st Psalm, " He that dwelleth in
the secret place of the Most High shall abide
under the shadow of the Almighty," and resolv-
ing, in the might of consecrated action, to strike
the fetters of civilized barbarity from the op-
pressed lives of nearly one million British slaves.
His noble efforts were crowned with the success
they deserved.

" By the grace of God I am what I am," said
the Christ-like James Harvey, when with failing
body, but indomitable spirit, he sought to ad-

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FOOTHOLDS FOR FAITH S FEET.

vance the Master's cause. "Had I," he says,
" all the faith of the patriarchs, all the zeal of
the prophets, all the constancy of the martyrs,
all the flaming devotion of a seraph, I would
disclaim them all in point of dependence, and
rely entirely on the grace of God."

" By grace we stand, by grace we persevere ;
Ourselves, our deeds, our holiest, highest deeds.
Unworthy aught ; grace, worthy endless praise.
If we fly swift, obedient to His will,
He gives the wings to fly.
If we resist temptation, and ne'er fall.
It is His shield omnipotent that wards it ofl* ;
If we with love unquenchable before Him burn,
'Tis He that lights, and keeps alive the flame."

So wrote Robert Pollock, and when we each
have done our best — our best for God and our
best for man — we borrow the pen of the inspired
apostle and write over character redeemed, over
actions performed, over devotions accepted, over
heaven won, " By the grace of God I am what
I am."

Fourth. — Abounding grace ! it reaches the life
at its every point, in its every weakness, for its
every necessity ; and life's work done, " By the
grace of God," we fear none evil and conquer
death.

' What am I doing," said Dr. McLaren, of

PREVAILING GRACE.

125

Talbooth Church, Edinburgh, when on his death-
bed he replied to the interrogation of a friend,
" I will tell you what I am doing, I am gather-
ing up all my prayers and my sermons, my good
deeds and my ill deeds ; I am going to fling them
all overboard and swim to glory on the plank of
free grace."

" Speak not to me of my honorable position,"
said the Duke of Kent — father of Queen Victoria
— in the hour of death, to some one who sought
to administer a false comfort. " If I am to be
saved at all, it is not as a prince, but as a sinner.
I rest alone on the grace of God."

And one and all of those who have run before
us the Christian race, who have endured through
dark days and bright days as " seeing Him who
is invisible," have already cast their crowns in
one glittering heap at the feet of " Him that
sitteth upon the throne ; " and this is the song
that rolls on and up beneath the crystal dome of
the New Jerusalem: "Unto Him that hath
loved us, and washed us from our sins in His
own blood, and hath made us kings and priests
unto God and his Father ; to Him be glory and
dominion forever and ever."

Christian men and women, home-bound pil-
grims of the night, is not this text the willing
expression of your every heart ? As you think

V I

126

FOOTHOLDS FOR FAITH S FEET.

of the hour when you first " fled for refuge to
the hope set before you," as you think of the
iove that has sustained you through many a
season of sorrow and trial, as you recall the
sweet memory of hallowed communion — the
oasis-spots in the desert of life — where you have
met with Jesus, as you gird up the loins of your
spiritual strength, to make fresh start for the
rest that remaineth, are you not constrained to
speak as you go, " By the grace of God I am
what I am ?"

Here, then, let us resolve that in the constant
reception of needed grace we shall give evidence
of our appreciation of it by a deepening consecra-
tion to the service of Him, " whose we are." "Ye
are not your own," says the Word, but, " bought
with a price ;" and as blood-bought creatures it
is yours and mine to " glorify God " in our bodies
and spirits which are His.

When Dr. Doddridge succeeded in obtaining
a reprieve for a man condemned to death, and
presented it to him with the signature of the
Sovereign attached, bathed in tears of gratitude,
the pardoned man fell down at his feet and cried
out : " Oh, Mr. Doddridge, I am all yours, every
drop of blood in my veins thanks you, for you
had mercy on every drop of it."

PKEVAILING GRACE.

" Oh to grace how great a debtor,
Daily I'm constrained to be."

127

It is all very well to sing these lines, but it is far
better to live them — to show by our " walk and
conversation " among men that we mean what
we say when, at the foot of the cross where
Jesus died to purchase our pardon from death
eternal, we make the confession : " I am all
yours."

" Having then gifts differing according to the
grace given unto us," as the Apostle writes to
the Romans, let us use our gifts ; let us evince
our gratitude by living action ; let us reflect in
our lives some grandeur of His character, \vhois
the " Sun of Righteousness " and Sun of the soul.
Let the "lights of the world" shine for the
world. Let the salt of redeemed life give proof
of its savor. It is our duty, it is our privilege !
God expects it ; and the degree of our glory for
all eternity is conditioned upon the attainments
in grace which we reach to-day. " To him that
hath shall be given."

And, undecided soul, outside the ark, exposed
to the storms that are coming up, without a
sufficient shelter, without a sustaining hope,
what meaning has my text for you to-night ?
Little as you may think it, it may have applica-

128

FOOTHOLDS FOR FAITH S FEET.

tion to your very condition, it has meaning for
you. " By the grace of God," you are what you
are — an object of mercy still, a sinner spared
by long-suffering grace, a lost one whom Jesus
is waiting to save, and, it may be too, a lost one
who realizes just now, that pardon is free, that
the door is wide open, that the curious Zaccheus
may come down and denounce his world liness,
and selfishness, and sin, and be saved, that grop-
ing Bartimseus may look up from his blindness
and look and live ! But beware lest ve receive
the grace of God in vain. The Word of Life is
in your dwellings and in your lands ; the lamp
of salvation shines on your way. There will be
no new prophet sent into the world ; there will
be no new miracle to dispel your doubts ; and,
do not forget this, there will be no second Christ
to atone for the guilt of rejecting the first.

*' Be wise to-day, 'tis madness to defer."

) grace of our Lord Jesus Chri
you all," to sanctify and save. Amen

" The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with

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