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 1 
 
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 1 2 3 
 
 4 5 6 
 
LOOK UP AND HOPE 
 
•^ 
 
 Look Up and Hope 
 
 BY 
 
 MRS. BALLINGTON BOOTH 
 
 f 
 
 ^ 
 
 C\\"'J 
 
 t<>D 
 
 TORONTO : 
 
 WILLIAM BRIGGS 
 
 Montreal : C. W. Coaxes. Halifax : S. F. Huestis. 
 
 1897. 
 
i- V. .•■.., 3 8r 
 
 /i) i', 1^, 
 
 
 *'A 
 
 Entered according to Act of the Parliament of Canada, 
 in the year one thousand eight hundred and ninety-seven, 
 by Thr a. D, F. Randolph Company, at the Department 
 of Agriculture. 
 
 &. 
 
 •«5r 
 
 % 
 
LOOK UP AND HOPE. 
 
 '\T THITE lilies raise proudly their 
 graceful heads; buds and blos- 
 soms break forth, and to the kiss of 
 sunbeams the little birds twitter as the 
 golden sun casts his first shafts across 
 the sky, and all Nature wakes, while 
 fragrance and song fill the air. 
 
 Easter and spring have come to 
 us together, and bring to our hearts 
 thoughts of new life and Heaven- born 
 hope. How welcome is the time of 
 flowers and song-birds, soft breezes 
 and warm sunshine, after the dark, 
 
Look Lp and J I ope. 
 
 cold hopeless days of winter and the 
 boisterous winds of March ! 
 
 A writer has said that cold shrivels 
 up the little wings of dreams. 1 have 
 always disliked winter. It seems in- 
 deed a time when dreams and hopes 
 and sweet thoughts were impeded ia 
 their flight, and had to bury them- 
 selves deep in the heart to keep warm. 
 Leaden skies and chilly fogs, snow, sleet, 
 and rain weigh down not only the at- 
 mosphere, but prove often a check to 
 the spirit and a burden to the thoughts ; 
 and it is truer still when the surroundings 
 are gloomy, and every effort of will and 
 mind must be exerted to throw off the 
 sad influences. 
 
 * 
 
Look Up and Hope, 
 
 \ 
 
 As the days have grown longer and 
 the sky at even- time has begun to blush 
 with mellow lights, and the coming of 
 birds and flowers have told of the glad- 
 ness of spring, my heart has bounded, 
 for it has seemed to me that fresh hopes 
 and sweet whiffs of free air and stray 
 beams of golden sunlight would soon be 
 bringing gladdening influences to hearts 
 I love in prison cells. It is impossible 
 to get much into one letter; impossible 
 to write one's heart-thoughts and feel- 
 ings even in a column or two of print, 
 so I welcome this chance to send some 
 messages to you through the medium 
 of this little booklet, which will be 
 more enduring than a letter, and more 
 
 f 
 
1 
 
 8 
 
 Look Up and Hope, 
 
 personal than notes printed in the 
 <* Oazette." 
 
 Easter time ! After the winter, sweet 
 spring ; after the time of frozen brooks 
 and bare, naked trees, fresh singing rivu- 
 lets and budding green ! One seems to 
 speak of death and suffering, the other 
 of life and victory. Look back at what 
 preceded this glad day of hope and 
 life. The Christ of Easter was also the 
 Christ of Calvary. Think of the dark 
 side of the picture : the night of agony 
 in Gethsemane, alone, suffering, forsaken, 
 and betrayed ; the trial in which the 
 divine defendant stood arraigned before 
 unjust judge and bitter enemies ; sworn 
 against falsely, insulted, condemned 
 
 I ! 
 
 1 ' 
 
Look Up and Hope, 
 
 I 
 
 amid the acclamations of an incensed 
 mob. Christ the Convict bears His 
 cross up Calvary, bowed with a grief no 
 one can estimate. Christ the Saviour 
 dies in agony, and darkness reigns upon 
 the scene ! 
 
 The greatest darkness often comes 
 before the dawn, and so the dawn of 
 that fint Easter, after the awful scene 
 of Calvary, brought to the world the 
 brightest day-dawn of hope that ever 
 could have come to man. The Christ 
 who looked down on the empty grave 
 that could not hold Him ; the Lord who 
 looked out with love to the dead souls 
 to whom He could bring life; the 
 -world's Redeemer, who passed through 
 
lO 
 
 Look Up and Hope, 
 
 t^ 
 
 the golden gates in company with the 
 thief whom He called to His side in 
 those last moments, — could indeed look 
 back and say, " O Death, where is thy 
 sting ! O Grave, where is thy victory ! " 
 
 The message He sends to sorrowing 
 hearts, the message He would bring to 
 burdened, weary ones still in the dark; 
 the thought that the song of birds and 
 sweetness of flowers lifting their heads 
 to the spring sunshine would whisper 
 over and over again to the messenger- 
 winds this spring-tide is, '' Look up and 
 Hope ! " To tiny blades of grass push- 
 ing their way through the cold ground,, 
 the sunbeams said, " Look up and 
 Hope ; " and the more they looked up 
 
 ', 
 
■■1 
 
 { 
 
 Look Up and Hope, 
 
 II 
 
 the faster they grew, till the barren 
 brown earth was clothed in their fresh 
 spring verdure. *' Look up and Hope,'*^ 
 whispered the wind to the close furled 
 buds on the apple-trees, and they waited 
 and trusted, and now the bare branches 
 are bare no longer, but a mass of snowy 
 whiteness and blushing pink, while busy 
 bees and happy birds rejoice in the 
 fragrance of the blossoms. How could 
 that old knotted tree become so beauti- 
 ful, and the brown earth so soft with its 
 carpet of green? Well, there was some- 
 thing above worth looking to, something 
 worth trusting, even in those early chilly 
 days of spring. From above came the 
 gentle rain and the sweet dew, and more 
 
12 
 
 Look Up and Hope. 
 
 than all the sunshine, warming, cheering, 
 life-giving, and at his touch cold and 
 darkness vanished. 
 
 So to the souls dark and dreary, cold 
 and hopeless, comes the message, " Look 
 up and Hope ; " and as they look up they 
 find that comfort and love, sympathy and 
 hope, come from above, and better than 
 all, the dear Sun of Righteousness with 
 healing in His wings and life in His 
 touch looks down in loving response 
 and transforming power. 
 
 Sometimes one is tempted to think 
 the night very, very dark, as one looks 
 on the ground, where not an inch of the 
 path can be seen, and into the shadows, 
 so gloomily impenetrable that one can 
 
 -J 
 
 I 
 
> 
 
 : 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 I 
 
 Look Up and Hope, 
 
 13 
 
 see nothing but blackness ; but when 
 one looks up, steadily up to the sky 
 above, star after star shines forth with 
 its message of hope, of infinite might 
 and watchful care. I have heard it said 
 that astronomers have rarely been in- 
 fidels. The geologist who digs down 
 into the earth, who studies stones and 
 strata, fossils and bones, may become so 
 filled with his theories and dead, dry 
 knowledge, that the instincts of the 
 heart that should turn to the Infinite 
 become petrified, and his mind exalts 
 itself against its Creator and rules out the 
 tender impulses of the heart. With the 
 one who studies the stars, who spends his 
 time watching those worlds upon worlds, 
 
14 
 
 Look Up and Hope, 
 
 '%. 
 
 those suns and moons and flying fiery 
 comets, it is not so. He sees the mighty 
 ruUng controlHng power; he feels the 
 smallness and weakness of human 
 strength ; he stands awed and silenced 
 before One who is too great to doubt. 
 But what have stars and budding flowers 
 and singing birds to do with the hearts in 
 prison to whom I am writing? Starlit 
 heavens cannot be very clearly seen from 
 barred cell windows : budding flowers 
 will blossom to gladden other eyes, while 
 their eyes grow weary gazing on bare 
 walls, and the song-birds do not come to 
 sing to them, but nest in the far-away 
 fresh forests amid greenness and freedom 
 and blossoms. Well, they have just this 
 
Look Up and Hope, 
 
 IS 
 
 , 
 
 much to do with the ** boys " in prison. 
 I want their thoughts to fly beyond the 
 bars and walls, and gather from these 
 hopeful, brighter things in life the lesson 
 of comfort they can bring. Pure thoughts 
 are like the bees that leave the hive and 
 fly hither and thither, gathering honey 
 from clover and rose, or from myrtle 
 and honeysuckle, and come back with 
 their precious store to enrich the comb. 
 Hopeless, evil thoughts are ever flying 
 back into the shadow of the night, and 
 like the bat, they seek the darkest corners 
 and hide from the pure, sweet sunlight. 
 
 But what have stars, flowers, and birds 
 to do with you, did I ask? Well, I think 
 the stars can speak of hope, — strong 
 
i6 
 
 Look Up and Hope, 
 
 
 true inspired hope, that Hfts us from our 
 hopeless little selves, up, up to God, and 
 they tell us that for us in our once dark 
 sky He has Himself placed gleams of 
 heavenly light. Flowers pure and fra- 
 grant bring their message of new life, — 
 a life that can be pure and beautiful ; a 
 life that can not only be lived above the 
 stain and corruption that would tend to 
 spoil it, but a life that can be lived for 
 others, — for no flower blossoms for itself 
 alone. Then do not the songs of birds 
 speak of gladness of heart, of joy, of 
 victory, such as can come to the soul 
 alone who has been made free by the 
 love of Christ, and filled with the dear 
 spirit which He can shed abroad within it ? 
 
Look Up and Hope. 
 
 17 
 
 I 
 
 
 Sometimes the c/ouds of past failure 
 and sorrow hang so low and prove so 
 impenetrable as to make it hard to be- 
 lieve that there is any star shining behind 
 the clouds for them. The awful past is 
 so dark and vivid in its haunting mem- 
 ories, that it not only blights the present 
 and shuts out the comforting star-gleams, 
 but it sends forth its gloomy shadows to 
 overcast the future, and like a dread 
 nightmare it rises and blocks every avenue 
 to which the longing thoughts would turn 
 for relief. The past is dead if you will 
 but believe it; let it die indeed this 
 Easter-tide, and from its grave let sweet 
 Hope arise, pure and fragrant as the 
 flower from the earth. Past failures, dis- 
 
 !':« 
 
i' » 
 < ' i 
 
 Wil^lMI WW t W iaiMWi W MB Wl L llIl t 
 
 I f 
 
 I 
 
 i8 
 
 Looi' Up and Hope. 
 
 appointments, and sins must not prove the 
 chilly frost that will blight the buds of 
 promise; must not blow like the cold 
 chill winds to shrivel the little wings of 
 sweeter dreams. Rather let them do 
 their work and prove to us the lessons 
 that will make the future stronger, brighter, 
 and better. Trees are fertilized by their 
 own dead leaves and branches; the 
 wind comes and shakes from the tree its 
 seared, yellow leaves; the winter comes 
 and breaks away the tangled branches; 
 and as they lay down around its roots 
 they sink into the soil, so that it can 
 often be said that the forest rises and 
 throws up into the air its glad, green 
 branches, gaining strength from the losses 
 
1 
 
 I 
 
 Look Up and Hope, 
 
 19 
 
 of the past. So let it be with the losses 
 and failures of your past ! They have 
 been sinful, dark, and hopeless, but from 
 this experience you can draw lessons 
 which will make the future brighter than 
 it ever otherwise could have been. From 
 the wasted hours and the many errors of 
 a sinful life, new hopes and brave resolves 
 may spring, chasing the memory of the 
 past and reaching out to the hopes of the 
 future. 
 
 Yesterday now is a part of forever ; 
 
 Bound up in a sheaf which God holds tight, 
 With glad days, and sad days, and bad days 
 which never 
 Shall visit us more with their bloom or their 
 
 blight, 
 Their fulness of sunshine or sorrowful night. 
 
20 
 
 Look Up and Hope, 
 
 Let them go since we c?nnot relieve them. 
 
 Cannot undo and cannot atone ; 
 (Jod in his mercy receive, forgive them I 
 
 Only the new days are our own. 
 
 To-day is ours, and to-day alone. 
 
 AVlien we leave the past we naturally 
 look into the future. To some it holds 
 nothing, to others a delusive prospect; 
 and yet to all it may hold, if they will 
 but see it, a true strong gleam of hope. 
 
 While crossing the desert in California 
 in the fall of last year I looked up from my 
 writing and saw gleaming in the distance 
 a beautiful silvery lake. Amid that arid 
 country, composed of alkali desert, bare 
 rocks, and grey sage-bush, it was indeed a 
 welcome sight as it lay, calm and bright, 
 reflecting the rocks and hills on its placid 
 
 1 
 
Look Up and Hope. 
 
 21 
 
 breast. I thought how the weary travel- 
 lers who crossed that stretch of country 
 in the pioneer days must have welcomed 
 the sight of it. "What lake is that? " I 
 asked the porter. " Lake ! Why, that 's 
 no lake," he answered disdainfully, " it is 
 only a mirage." As I watched the cruel, 
 deceptive waters that falsely shimmered 
 where in reality was only arid sand, I 
 thought of the despair just such a sight 
 had often brought to the thirsty, fainting 
 traveller. So are often self-made plans, 
 worldly ambitions, earthly affections, 
 bright, promising, and hopeful as they 
 may seem to the weary longing heart and 
 struggling empty life that reaches out to 
 grasp them. But alas ! they fade and 
 
22 
 
 Look i'p and Hope, 
 
 vanish, and leave the one who has fol- 
 lowed so hard after them weary, discour- 
 aged, and sick at heart. 
 
 The liope that Clirist gives is one so 
 sweet, so lasting, so inspiring, that those 
 who have followed its gleam have found 
 that it pointed as unmistakably to life 
 as the Star of Bethlehem did to the Christ- 
 babe's manger, — new, glad, risen life, 
 before which the darkness flies away 
 and tears are lighted with a rainbow 
 glory. 
 
 Life ! What a wonderful word that is 
 in counter-distinction to the word Deaths 
 with all its thoughts of cold, stiff helpless- 
 ness and its awful irrevocableness. A 
 worm has eaten its way to the roots of 
 
Look Up and Hope, 
 
 23 
 
 your plant and blighted it; its fresh, 
 green leaves are limp and yellow; the 
 stems are shrivelled, and the flowers droop, 
 and the little buds which will never now 
 unfold, drop off, and soon it stands a 
 lifeless, sapless thing, worthless and un- 
 sightly. 
 
 You take tenderly from the grass the 
 little songster who has fallen, pierced by 
 a cruel shot ; the eyes grow dim, and the 
 little head falls limply from side to side ; 
 the wings lie helpless as you stretch them 
 out, feather by feather. No longer will 
 that little throat be filled with song-joy; 
 never again will those pinions soar up, up 
 towards Heaven. Life has gone, and 
 nothing is left but the poor little feathered 
 
24 
 
 Look Up and Hope, 
 
 bod), soon to become a prey to the insect 
 world of a lower order. 
 
 Have we not all sat by the bedside of 
 some loved one after the spirit has flown ; 
 pressed the cold hand from which no 
 answering touch was felt; called the 
 dear name in an agony of grief, but to 
 receive no answer from the still lips? 
 Death ! death in the physical world is an 
 awful thing, — so real, so cold, so inevi- 
 table, so impossible to change or over- 
 come, that its thought has become a 
 dread to all living things, and its ap- 
 proach casts a dark shadow that hushes 
 mirth and robs the sunlight of its very 
 brightness. 
 
 What about death in the spiritual world ? 
 
 \ . 
 
Look Up and Hope, 
 
 25 
 
 It cannot be quite so clearly discerned by 
 the onlooker, does not seem so awful to 
 the world because it does not affect the 
 sight, hearing, touch, or other senses ; but 
 in reality it does affect not only the life 
 to come, but the present. We cannot go 
 to our work or pleasures, meet our sorrows, 
 carry our cares, or plan our future with a 
 dead soul within us without its condition 
 being a constant menace to our temporal 
 safety, and without its having a deep, 
 marked influence upon our thoughts, 
 actions, and character. A soul deaf' to 
 God^s voice is very easily charmed by 
 the voice of the tempter. An eye blind 
 to the purity and righteousness of a Christ- 
 following life and to the claims of its 
 
26 Look Up and Hope, 
 
 I ? 
 
 ■X' 
 
 I J- - 
 
 Saviour looks all too keenly and longingly 
 on evil, and the pride of life, and on those 
 things that can but curse and blight where 
 they are followed. A heart that answers 
 not to the great love divine, that has been 
 cold and hard, that has shut itself against 
 tender pleadings and earnest prayers, is 
 soil prepared indeed for all the seeds and 
 influences of evil that can be cast into it 
 by the enemy of man's soul. Such a 
 heart may readily break human law and 
 lay aside human ideas of rectitude and 
 honor, because it has in it no power to 
 control, no life to inspire. 
 
 But when we speak of poor, dead 
 souls we need not speak hopelessly as we 
 do when the physical life is goUe out. 
 
Look Ip and Hope, 
 
 27 
 
 The bird, the flower, the loved human 
 body lie helpless, and we can only hide 
 them away under the green mother-earth 
 that will cover and enfold them ; but 
 in the spiritual world all is different. 
 There, the risen Lord, the Conqueror of 
 all death, and the One at whose touch 
 the young man of Nain arose, at the 
 sound of whose voice Lazarus came 
 forth, stands ready and waiting to bring 
 back life, and that life everlasting. The 
 Hand that gave the touch of healing to 
 the leper, brought sight to the blind, and 
 made the lame to walk ; that thrust back, 
 at its stretching forth, disease and death 
 itself, is just as powerful, just as tender, 
 just as near to help to-day as ever it was 
 
 
 lii 
 
 DH 
 
28 
 
 Look Up and Hope. 
 
 in the days of old, and the Christ-hand 
 brings in its touch Life. How strange 
 and wonderful has this new life seemed 
 to some of vou who have already found 
 it ! The old desires, old temptations, 
 and old habits that seemed so absolutely 
 unconquerable as to become ruling 
 powers in your Hfe, have vanished like 
 shadows before the sunlight. Yesterday 
 they were chains that wrapped in grim 
 slavery your poor heart, — to-day they 
 lie in broken fragments at your feet, and 
 you look down upon them with a song of 
 triumpli on your lips. What your own 
 poor hands could never have accom- 
 plished, what your own resolutions and 
 efforts would have failed in breaking, has 
 
Look Up and Hope, 
 
 29 
 
 been done by the divine power that 
 brings in deliverance and transformation 
 with its entrance. Now you know full 
 well that I believe in the possibility of 
 this wonderful new life, coming to those 
 who are shut in prison cells, as truly as it 
 can come to those in happy homes and 
 costly churches, who have never known 
 the shame and sorrow of prison life. 
 For my part I am inclined to believe 
 from what I have learned of the Christ- 
 heart that the dear Life-giver would 
 sooner go to the souls that need Him 
 most, and that where the blight of sin 
 has fallen the heaviest, and the reaping 
 has been the most bitter, He would 
 hasten the more eagerly to bring His 
 
 
30 Look Up and Hope, 
 
 tender, compassionate touch to the heart 
 that is hopeless, forsaken, and crushed. 
 He stands ever waiting and longing to 
 enter in, that He may banish the night 
 and bring the Easter dawn of a new, glad, 
 holy life to just such souls. I know many 
 prison cells that are now brightened by 
 His presence, and many, many hearts 
 beating, still, it 's true, beneath the stripes, 
 and yet beating with glad, new feelings 
 and a joy that dark surroundings cannot 
 shut out. So is it a wonder that my 
 message this Easter time to all that read 
 these few pages is an earnest plea for 
 them to seek the loving, living, personal 
 Saviour who can do so much for them? 
 Often do I quote to those who seem to 
 
Look Up and Hope. 
 
 31 
 
 be groping in a half dawn, battling their 
 weary way through the clouds and mist, 
 those strong, true hnes that speak of 
 Christ the Saviour as He is : — 
 
 Reality ! Reality I 
 
 Lord Jesus Christ, Thou art to me. 
 
 From the spectral mists and driving clouds, 
 
 From the shifting shadows and phantom crowds, 
 
 From unreal worlds and unreal lives 
 
 Where truth with falsehood feebly strives. 
 
 From the passing away, the chance and change, 
 
 Flickerings, vanishings, swift and strange, — 
 
 I turn to my glorious rest on Thee, 
 
 Who art the grand Reality. 
 
 Reality in greatest need ; 
 
 Lord Jesus Christ, Thou art indeed. 
 
 Is the pilot real who alone can guide 
 
 The drifting ship through midnight tide ? 
 
 Is the life-boat real as it nears the wreck, 
 
 And the saved ones leap from the parting deck ? 
 
32 
 
 Look Up and Hope, 
 
 Is the haven real where the barque may flee 
 From the autumn gales of the wild North sea? 
 Reality indeed art Thou, 
 My Pilot, Life-boat, Haven now. 
 
 But as we speak of Life, other thought 
 crowd into my mind. Life is not givei 
 for selfish ends. No flower, no creature 
 no being, has ever been created o\ 
 ordained by God to live for itself alone, 
 nor are good gifts given to be enjoyed or 
 shut up within the heart of the one who 
 receives them. The snows melt, the 
 rains fall, and, drop by drop, stream by 
 stream, the living, singing, rippling tor- 
 rent gains its strength gladly and joyfully. 
 It runs down the mountain side, through 
 the forest, along the meadow, away, away, 
 
Look Up ami Hope. 
 
 33 
 
 ever downward and onward towards the 
 river and the sea. Always receiving, it 
 is always giving. Its waters are clear and 
 fresh and sparkling, because it keeps 
 them not for itself. Standing away up 
 on the mountain where you cannot see 
 the stream, you can yet trace its course, 
 for the grass is greener, the trees are 
 stronger, and the whole country is bright- 
 ened by its passing through. Cattle 
 quench their thirst ; little birds stoop 
 and drink in its freshness, and it comes 
 to all as a reviving blessing. Look at the 
 contrast. The pool that receives the 
 rain and has no outlet, gives nothing to 
 others, so the water which was once clear 
 and sweet becomes polluted, stagnant, 
 
 3 
 
34 
 
 Look Up and Hope. 
 
 while slimy scum gathers upon its dark 
 breast. Myriads and myriads of noxious 
 fermentations spread disease and danger 
 to the swamp around it. It has seemed 
 to me that some hearts are like the living 
 spring, while other selfish souls are like 
 the stagnant pond. God gave to both 
 at first, but one has gladly given out to 
 others, and to that one an ever- fresh 
 supply has come ; but to the other selfish, 
 stagnant experiences comes misery, for 
 they have lost themselves that which 
 might have been so precious to them 
 and to others. 
 
 The life that Christ can bring to the 
 heart He enters must be a life that can 
 be "read and known of all men," as 
 pure, strong, true, and victorious ! 
 
Look Up ami Hope. 
 
 35 
 
 When the spring comes you know it : 
 flowers and leaves, song-birds and sun- 
 beams proclaim it ; and so it is with the 
 life upon which the Sun of Righteousness 
 has risen. You can no more keep it 
 from the knowledge of the world around 
 than you can hide the results of spring- 
 time in the forest. But what a miserable, 
 cold, stiff, unlovely thing religion seems to 
 be from some people's rendering of it ! 
 Religion is not a creed or belief; not 
 something which we are to accept and 
 tack on to our life to make it respectable ; 
 not a performing of some duties and an 
 acceptance of some obligations. Religion, 
 if it is anything, is life^ — new life coming 
 into the soul, as truly as spring comes into 
 
3< 
 
 Look Up and Hope, 
 
 Nature, making all things new ; and it is 
 this kind of religion and this alone that 
 can bring victory to the soul, peace to the 
 heart, and constant strength to the one 
 whose good resolutions and efforts would 
 otherwise prove so fruitless and discourag- 
 ingly weak. 
 
 Victory ! What a ringing, cheering 
 word that is ! Oh, how much it means 
 to weary, hard-pressed warriors who have 
 toiled and suffered bravely, faced the foe 
 and stood the storm of shot and shell ! 
 Victory is sweet because it has always 
 meant a battle to gain it. As the cheer 
 rises ard falls in notes of joy upon the 
 calm, still air, it is all the gladder and 
 fuller because it takes the place of the 
 
Look Up and Hope. 
 
 37 
 
 crash and thunder of tumult and strife. 
 Souls that most truly rejoice to-day in 
 the calm and rest of the peace that Christ 
 can bring, know full well what a storm 
 and struggle, what a conflict with doubts 
 and fears, and what a battle with self pre- 
 ceded that entrance of light into their 
 hearts. A great general among the 
 ancients, when urged to cease from the 
 wars and struggles with the foes of his 
 State, that they might enjoy a season 
 of peace, answered tersely, *^ Pax paritur 
 bello," — " Peace is born of war ! " 
 Truly in things spiritual it can be said 
 that peace, the true, deep, lasting peace 
 of the soul, is only born after the battle 
 has been fought out and gained; the 
 
38 
 
 Look Vp iDid Hope. 
 
 foe not parleyed with, but conquered ; 
 the wrong mastered, and the right en- 
 throned. Oh, the fallaey of soothing a 
 guihy ( onseienee ; oh, the danger of 
 crying peace, peace, where there is no 
 peace ; oh, the pity o{ saying to the 
 soul, "oNiv beheve on the Lonl Jesus 
 Christ," when the conscience rises up 
 and shows tlK\t heart, that something is 
 nciessary before any behef can bring 
 peat e. 
 
 'lliere are some who will seek peace, but 
 who will not pa\ the cost. They want the 
 sense of sins pardoned, of a guilty con- 
 science stilled, of safety for the future ; 
 but they are too cowardly to fight the 
 matter out, to face and deal with them- 
 
Look' ('/> (Uii/ Hope. 
 
 39 
 
 selves, their doubts, their allowed wrong- 
 doings. They want the flag of victory 
 hoisted and the reign of peace proclaimed 
 in the citadel, but they are not ready to 
 have the enemy cast out or the evil guest 
 slain. They parley ; they want half and 
 half measures ; they would hoUl to the 
 skirts of the King of Righteousness with 
 one hand for fear lie will forsake them, 
 but they still hold tight to the things they 
 have liked and followed after with the 
 other. This will always prove a failure, 
 a miserable defeat. It cannot be other- 
 wise. 
 
 When the dear Christ-life enters in, 
 when the soul lays down its :'.rms of 
 rebellion, the Lord himself casts out the 
 
4.0 Look up and Hope. 
 
 eneiTiles and brings in a power that not 
 only saves, but keeps the soul. Inhere 
 is then an influence within that can 
 enable the Christ- follower to meet each 
 difificulty, to face each temptation, to go 
 through each battle, and yet to be ever 
 victorious. The glad song of triumph 
 and joy can go up from tht heart as 
 naturally and as constantly as the songs 
 of the little bird in the sunshine, for the 
 new life is a risen life indeed, that has 
 within it a power far exceeding human 
 effort or courage or determination. Life 
 in the natural world is a struggle ag tast 
 disease, danger, and death; life m iur 
 spiritual world is a fight against sin and 
 evil, and soul- spoiling influences. No 
 
Look Up and Hope, 
 
 41 
 
 one can enter into the new life and 
 make a success of it who thinks he can 
 easily and effortlessly drift onward to a 
 haven of rest on calm seas without strug- 
 gle or sacrifice. Christ-following while 
 in this world will always mean a warfare, 
 and it is only those who will fight the 
 good fight of faith, who will finish their 
 course with songs of victory. But is it 
 not those very struggles, those very bat- 
 tles for the resisting of evil and the 
 advance in a new life, that bring with 
 strengthening of character brave pur- 
 poses, and a daily growth in grace? 
 The finest, strongest trees are not those 
 hidden away in sheltered nooks, but the 
 tall pines and firs of the mountain side, 
 
42 
 
 Look Up and Hope. 
 
 where the strong winds sweep. They 
 
 are tempered, tested, and strengthened 
 
 by their battle with the storm, and it is 
 
 they that attain the strongest, noblest 
 
 growth. 
 
 Many of you are where you are to-day 
 
 because you yielded to the tide instead 
 
 of battling against it. As you look back 
 
 upon the past you can see point after 
 
 point where you weakened your own 
 
 character for want of the courage to 
 
 stand up and brave the storm. You 
 
 could have strengthened your character, 
 
 but instead you just drifted, and that 
 
 drifting weakened you, and every battle 
 
 lost proved a further sapping away of its 
 
 strength. But this must not make you 
 
Look Up and Hope, 
 
 43 
 
 hopeless. Let it rather strengthen and 
 inspire you to valiant efforts in the future. 
 I know and understand you as perhaps 
 very few can, for have I not, since God 
 sent me to you, entered into your lives 
 and learned to love you? And I, who 
 know many of your difficulties, tempta- 
 tions, and suffering, and something of what 
 awaits you when you step out again into 
 the world, can tell you that I am gaining 
 fresh hope each day, and feel a stronger 
 confidence that thousands of you are 
 coming forth into the world new men in 
 Christ Jesus, so that old things may in- 
 deed pass away and all things become 
 new. The outside wodd has been dis- 
 cussing theories, collecting statistics, for 
 
■ i 
 1 
 
 44 
 
 Looi' Up and Hope, 
 
 years, upon what it calls " the criminal 
 problem." They have written papers 
 and given learned discourses upon the 
 question, **'Can the Criminal be Re- 
 claimed?" I turn to you and say that 
 the problem lies in your hands, not 
 theirs. The men who will turn to the 
 Power from above that can make them 
 strong, pure, brave, and victorious, can 
 come out a great army of resolute souls 
 who shall prove by their future how truly 
 the past can be redeemed ; and the path 
 they make through the difficulties and 
 obstacles which must, for a time, face 
 them, will make it all the easier for the 
 many feet that will in the future follow 
 them. 
 
Look Up and Hope. 
 
 45 
 
 God bless you ! I cannot look at the 
 flowers of spring, I cannot listen to the 
 singing of birds, I cannot see the glad 
 sunshine, without praying for you in the 
 darkness of your prison cell. All life is 
 changed to me since I learned to love 
 you, and into the very depth of my soul 
 the mother*s yearning over you has 
 grown day by day. My life is yours, and 
 if iDy word of lip or pen, by work or sac- 
 rifice, I can help you, you can always rely 
 on me as your true friend who cares and 
 understands about your present and your 
 future.