LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 Gl FT OF 
 
 .;...kuA 
 
 C/^ss 
 
THE GRAVER THOUGHTS 
 
 OF A 
 
 COUNTRY PARSON. 
 
By the same Author. 
 
 UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME. 
 
 1. 
 THE RECREATIONS 
 
 OF A 
 
 COUNTRY PARSON. 
 
 FIRST AND SECOND SERIES. 
 II. 
 
 LEISURE HOURS IN TOWN. 
 
 1 volume. 12mo. 
 
 TICKNOR AND FIELDS, PUBLISHERS. 
 
THE 
 
 GRAVER THOUGHTS 
 
 COUNTRY PARSON 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR OP 
 
 " THE RECREATIONS OF A COUNTRY PARSON," AND " LEISURE 
 HOURS LX TOWN." 
 
 BOSTON: 
 TICKNOR AND FIELDS. 
 
 1863. 
 
RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE: 
 STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY H. 0. HOUGHTOX. 
 

 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 I. SUNDAYS LONG AGO 7 
 
 II. HOW GOD FEELS TOWARDS MANKIND . 24 
 
 III. THE THORN IN THE FLESH . . .40 
 
 IV. THE GIFT OF SLEEP .... 60 
 V. JABEZ : HIS LIFE AND HIS PRAYER . . 77 
 
 VI. GAIN* IN THE SAVIOUR S LOSS . . 95 
 
 VII. SPIRITUAL INSENSIBILITY . . . .112 
 
 VIII. LIGHT AT EVENING 129 
 
 IX. A GREAT MULTITUDE A SAD SIGHT . . 148 
 
 X. THE RULING OF THE SPIRIT . . . 168 
 
 XI. BEARING ABOUT THE DYING OF CHRIST . 186 
 
 XII. THE INCONSISTENT WORSHIP . . . 203 
 
 XIII. THE VAGUENESS AND ENDLESSNESS OF HU 
 
 MAN ASPIRATIONS 221 
 
 XIV. COMFORT TO SODOM .... 236 
 XV. THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY . . 255 
 
 XVI. CHRISTIAN SELF-DENIAL .... 274 
 
 XVII. THE GREAT VOICE FROM HEAVEN . . 289 
 
 165025 
 
I. 
 
 SUNDAYS LONG AGO. 
 
 HERE is a subdued, silvery light on the 
 sea to-day, and the hills across the water 
 look like blue clouds. The air is so still, 
 that you may hear the beating of the 
 paddles of a steamer miles distant, unseen in the veil 
 of mist. There has been drizzling rain at intervals 
 through the morning ; and the road by the sea-side, 
 yesterday ankle-deep in dust, is pleasantly firm and 
 cool ; and the trees, just beginning to be touched by 
 the Atlantic breezes of the early days of September, 
 look green again as in May, in the glints of silvery 
 light from the clouded sun. You may see many fair 
 scenes within the compass of Britain : but yesterday 
 morning, when the sky was sapphire-blue, and the 
 sunshine was the brightest ; when that expanse of 
 sea shut in by noble hills was glassy smooth, and the 
 yellow corn-fields round, bounded by green hedges, 
 looked so still and rich in the quiet air, not without 
 a touch of bracing crispness ; you would have said 
 that there could hardly be anything fairer in the 
 world than this bit of the homely Clyde. 
 
 Milton was wont to declare that in the autumn 
 
8 SUNDAYS LONG AGO. 
 
 days, when the leaves are changing and falling, his 
 poetic genius quite deserted him ; and he could not 
 write a line. But in the spring-time, when the sap 
 began to stir in the trees, and all nature to revive, the 
 life around him thrilled his heart though it could not 
 reach his eyes ; and the amanuensis could hardly keep 
 pace with the flow of unpremeditated song. One does 
 not wonder at the spring burst ; but it seems curious 
 that the quiet, thoughtful days of autumn, which waken 
 many old remembrances in most men, should have so 
 chilled and disheartened the great poet. Many people 
 can say, that there is hardly any influence that so stirs 
 them to vague feelings and impressions which would 
 be poetry in the hands of one who was able to give 
 them expression, as the clear, still air, and the motion 
 less autumn woods in the beautiful autumn sunshine. 
 It is a season in which to recall the days that are 
 gone : and sitting down here, on the steps which lead 
 to this pretty Gothic church, let us think of Sundays 
 long ago. The present writer, for a certain sufficient 
 reason, has this morning been reading over certain 
 pages, bearing truths and counsels which have been 
 addressed to two Christian congregations, one in the 
 country and the other in the town ; and altering a 
 word here and there. And in reading some of these 
 pages, how strangely there comes back the feeling of 
 the old quiet Sundays, far away ! And the season has 
 decided what kind of Sunday shall come most plainly 
 back. It is the autumn Sunday, with its morning 
 
SUNDAYS LONG AGO. 9 
 
 stillness : with the clear hills round : with the bright 
 dew on the grass : with the yellow fields bounded by 
 the green hedgerows : with the river murmuring by, 
 under the gray churchyard wall : with the aged oaks 
 round the little church just touched into greater 
 beauty by the slight morning frosts : with an influ 
 ence in the air that seems to brace up mind and body 
 together: with the quiet country people sitting on the 
 gravestones before service, resting after their miles 
 of walking over the crisp rustling leaves. Turning 
 a new leaf in life, my reader, you know how misty 
 your former mode of living soon grows in your re 
 membrance : it is only now and then that the old time 
 comes over you ; and you seem to breathe the air and 
 to be surrounded by the little cares and interests of 
 those departed days. And even when these come 
 back most vividly, they serve only to make you feel 
 the more deeply how completely the old days are 
 gone. 
 
 I suppose that almost everybody feels that the 
 Sundays of life are much better remembered than 
 the series of any ordinary week-day. Sunday has 
 always a character of its own : whereas Tuesday in 
 one week need not be the least like Tuesday in the 
 next week, in occupation, in scene, in feeling. No 
 body can speak of the character of the Tuesdays in 
 his history. A number of Sundays is like a flock of 
 sheep, all very much like one another. A number 
 of Tuesdays is like a drove of animals of the most 
 
10 SUNDAYS LONG AGO. 
 
 varied aspect : as, for example, pigs, dogs, horses, 
 lions, whales, giraffes, and peacocks. They form a 
 heterogeneous mass. The peculiar kind of atmos 
 phere that breathes from the Sundays of childhood, 
 depends entirely on the bringing-up you have passed 
 through. But most men, looking back upon the Sun 
 days of childhood, are aware of a very decided char 
 acter that invests them. The character may be pleas 
 ant, or it may be painful : but it is there, and you feel 
 it strongly. Would that all parents were so kind and 
 so judicious, as to have the will and way to make 
 Sunday the day on which their children shall always 
 look back as the happiest of all days ! It can be 
 done, very easily : and I believe that in these more 
 enlightened times, it is very generally done. Let it 
 be the day of little indulgences ; which are very great 
 in the judgment of the little men and women. I am 
 well aware that many people in England entertain a 
 most grim and repulsive idea of a Scotch Sunday. 
 One of the present writer s most valued and revered 
 friends says, on a page which has been read by scores 
 of thousands, " In those fortunate regions they have 
 not learned to make a ghastly idol of the Sunday." 
 It -does not matter where those regions are : but of 
 course Scotland is the country aimed at by innuendo. 
 No doubt, there are people in Scotland who make the 
 Lord s day a ghastly idol : who compel their children 
 to sit in church for three or four hours at a stretch, 
 listening to two tremendously long sermons preached 
 
SUNDAYS LONG AGO. 11 
 
 at the same service, in which Christianity is reduced 
 to a system of the dryest metaphysics : and who, on re 
 turning home, devote the entire evening to question 
 ing the poor little things upon the Shorter Catechism. 
 That Catechism is a very admirable one : but one 
 may easily have too much of even the best things : 
 and the peculiar system which has been described, 
 generally results in making the children hate both 
 the Catechism and the Lord s-day as long as they 
 live. And I have heard of a man who said that 
 when he looked at a certain green expanse, on which 
 on Sunday afternoon you might see many people 
 quietly and decorously walking, before returning home 
 from church, he was always reminded of Sodom and 
 Gomorrah, and expected to see fire from heaven come 
 down to destroy the wicked race. You have heard, 
 too, of the Highland elder who spoke of the awful 
 sight which may be beheld on a Sunday at Edin 
 burgh. There, he said, you might see people walk 
 ing along the street, smiling AS IF THEY WERE PER 
 FECTLY HAPPY ! But there are multitudes of men 
 and women in Scotland who could tell you, that their 
 Sundays, in childhood and manhood, have been the 
 happiest days of their life ; restful, thoughtful, cheer 
 ful days of elevation above the little cares and worries 
 of week-days, when care and worry come : kept sa 
 cred, as far as may be, from the intrusion of these : 
 and spent as in a purer air. You remember, my friend, 
 how you used to think that all nature looked quieter 
 
12 SUNDAYS LONG AGO. 
 
 and sweeter upon the day of rest : you remember the 
 sunshiny evenings, so calm and bright : you could not 
 wish, in this world, for anything happier or better ! 
 They are gone, indeed : and some who spent them 
 with you are no longer here : but you may humbly 
 trust that all that was good and happy about them 
 will come back again. 
 
 But Sunday is especially interesting to the preacher. 
 It is his most important day. And his work is a very 
 solemn and anxious one ; particularly in Scotland, 
 where the clergyman feels that the entire service 
 depends so much upon himself. The profit and com 
 fort of the congregation, from the worship of that day, 
 are too dependent, you know, upon your clearness 
 of head and devotion of heart. But the preacher s 
 work is always a solemn and weighty one : whether 
 he walk in, one of four or five clergymen, surpliced, 
 stoled, and hooded, following a procession of surpliced 
 choristers, while the solemn tones of the organ peal 
 through the long-drawn cathedral vault; or enter a 
 little Scotch country-church, homely as homely may 
 be, a solitary minister arrayed in robes of sober black, 
 to do the whole duty of the day. For several Sun 
 days past, the writer has been far away from his 
 parish ; and has gone to church daily with no feel 
 ing of responsibility for the conduct of the service. 
 With what a different feeling one goes ! However 
 much you may love and enjoy your work, my friend, 
 I am sure it is both pleasant and profitable for you 
 
SUNDAYS LONG AGO. 13 
 
 now and then to go to a strange church merely as a 
 worshipper, and to join in the service with unanxious 
 quiet. It is a delightful rest and relief. Jf you hear 
 a very poor sermon (which I am bound to say I 
 hardly ever do, anywhere), you may be aware of 
 some wish, or even longing in your heart, to be al 
 lowed to say a few sentences of comfort or warning 
 to your fellow-Christians : you may vainly fancy you 
 could give a better discourse ; which in all probability 
 is a fond delusion. But as for you, my reader, who 
 never have to preach at all, you go to church on 
 Sunday: you are there an hour and a half, or a few 
 minutes more: all this is a little part of the week to 
 you: it is but an incident in the week, though perhaps 
 an important one : and as for the sermon, it is just 
 half an hour s occupation to listen to it, which you 
 do sometimes with interest, oftentimes with patience. 
 But think how different a thing that sermon is to the 
 preacher. I mean, to the preacher who is preaching 
 in his own church on an ordinary Sunday. To him, 
 if his heart be in his work, and if he be doing his 
 duty, not merely to get through it decently, but to the 
 best of his ability, that discourse is the culmination of 
 all the week. His best thoughts for the entire week 
 past have probably been running on that discourse 
 which to you is just the occupation of half an hour. 
 He fixed on that text, very likely, last Sunday even 
 ing, after considerable perplexity. Then he sketched 
 out the sermon : and by day and night, its subject was 
 
14 SUNDAYS LONG AGO. 
 
 always simmering in his mind. It cost many hours, 
 possibly on three or four days, of steady work at his 
 writing-table, to cover those pages which you see him 
 turn over, one in every minute or two. And then, 
 perhaps, he spent many hours more of toilsome drudg 
 ery, in committing all that material to memory, so as 
 to give it without the aid of that paper which is the 
 abhorrence of uneducated and stupid folk in many 
 Scotch parishes. I have heard of good Scotch minis 
 ters, on approaching whose manse on a Saturday, you 
 might hear a sound of howling, and of an occasional 
 stamp on the floor. These noises signified that the 
 minister was getting his sermon by heart ; which in 
 Scotch phrase used to be called mandating it : and 
 that he was repeating it over in the fashion in which 
 he intended to preach it from his pulpit. And no 
 doubt, if the work of mandating was done so thor 
 oughly, that the sermon could be given without a 
 painful effort of memory, and a nervous fear of break 
 ing down, the sermon gained greatly in its effect when 
 preached. You had the accuracy of language and the 
 deliberation of thought which can hardly be counted 
 on in extempore speaking : with something of the fire 
 and spontaneity of extempore speaking added to these. 
 And I cannot admit that it is a mere vulgar prejudice, 
 to prefer that a man in speaking to you should look at 
 you, and seem to be addressing you, rather than that 
 he should look at a written page, and read at you, or 
 read in your hearing. But in many cases in which a 
 
SUNDAYS LONG AGO. 15 
 
 sermon is committed to memory, and repeated without 
 the aid of the document, you can see that the preacher 
 is painfully reading from his memory: and that a very 
 little thing would put him out, and cause him to break 
 down entirely. And I can quite imagine that a man 
 who could speak extempore with sufficient fluency if 
 he had made up his mind to do so, might flounder and 
 stop if suddenly cast upon his extempore resources by 
 his memory failing him in repeating a written dis 
 course. A good swimmer has been drowned when 
 he has unexpectedly fallen into deep water. And 
 considering the facts, that with most preachers, the 
 sermon gained nothing in effect by being repeated and 
 not read : and that the weekly labor of memorizing 
 one sermon, and much more two, was the most irk 
 some and depressing conceivable: we may rejoice that 
 even in Scotland, the fashion of repeating sermons 
 from memory is all but extinct. And in the most 
 retired country parishes, where once upon a time 
 many of the congregation would have risen in wrath 
 and quitted the church had the preacher begun to 
 read his sermon, you will find the rustics listening 
 with the most decorous attention to a preacher who 
 turns over his leaf at minute intervals. And no 
 preacher now makes any secret that he reads : while 
 I can remember, as a boy, the hasty and surreptitious 
 fashion in which the leaf used to be turned over. You 
 may imagine what a fearful mental burden a Scotch 
 minister in old days had to bear, when he walked 
 
16 SUNDAYS LONG AGO. 
 
 down to church with two long sermons in his memory. 
 And any one who knows Scotland, must be aware of 
 the great number of amusing stories current among 
 high and low, turning upon the inveterate dislike to 
 the paper, and the desperate and not always successful 
 efforts of preachers to do without the forbidden aid. 
 You are to understand, my English friend, that the 
 reading of sermons was never forbidden by any law 
 of the Church ; but merely by popular dislike to it. 
 A faithful clergyman, aware that to read his sermons 
 would greatly diminish the good they would do his 
 parishioners, would feel it a sacred duty to give in to 
 a prejudice which he heartily disapproved. But even 
 when a clergyman is free from the painful pressure of 
 a sermon memorized to its every word and point: even 
 when the fairly-written pages lie before him; we have 
 all seen plainly with what nervous strain and anxiety 
 the very greatest preachers begin their solemn and re 
 sponsible work. And as for the ordinary run of men 
 of fair ability, of whom their congregations expect 
 less: the strain, my reader, is quite as great upon 
 their moderate powers. And after all the labor of 
 preparation, and the anxiety of the time of preaching, 
 the hearer very likely thinks the sermon not very 
 good after all. Depend upon it, my friend, the 
 preacher feels that at least as much as you. 
 
 I have remarked that several preachers of great 
 eminence are quite cool and unembarrassed before 
 beginning their duty. I have seen such talking away 
 
SUNDAYS LONG AGO. 17 
 
 on indifferent subjects in the vestry till the moment 
 they ascended the pulpit ; yet able instantly to call 
 up the right feeling which becomes the solemn occa 
 sion, and to give very admirable sermons. I have 
 heard one very distinguished man, of that happy 
 equanimity of temper, declare that he could not 
 understand it as possible that a preacher, in giving 
 the same sermon on two different occasions, should 
 give it on one occasion with great feeling, and on the 
 other with very little. He said that surely any man 
 might at any time express the same thoughts with 
 equal perception of their force. Happy man ! Many 
 clergymen know that the self-same words are felt, and 
 tell, very differently at different times. I have heard 
 a great orator give a discourse, with a manifest effort, 
 a painful and unsuccessful effort, to call up the cor 
 responding feeling. The orator was at the moment 
 quite out of sympathy with the mood in which what 
 he had to say had been written. And such persons 
 as have passed through this experience, I have re 
 marked as specially nervous and anxious before their 
 work. They know that though they have done their 
 very best at home, many little things, physical and 
 mental, may prevent their giving their sermon with 
 comfort and effect. I am not going to mention 
 names; but I can say that I have had opportunities 
 of observing this in the case of several of the most 
 eminent preachers both in Scotland and England. I 
 have heard a very distinguished preacher say that he 
 
18 SUNDAYS LONG AGO. 
 
 would think no reward too great for the man who 
 would tell him how to come up to his work on Sun 
 day in perfect condition for it. Body and mind should 
 be at their best. And to secure any approximation 
 to such an end, many things, little and great, must be 
 attended to. 
 
 All past things, of course, are past ; but one can 
 not but think how thoroughly past are the services 
 and the exhortations of Sundays long ago. One has 
 thought of this, going to hear a great pulpit orator. 
 There is the church ; the dense crowd of worshippers, 
 or at least of hearers ; the beautiful music ; the au 
 dible stillness in which the telling voice poured forth 
 its sentences of warning and comfort. But it is all 
 over. There is the sigh of relief at the close, as if 
 people had not had a full breath for many minutes 
 past ; and then the great tide of life ebbs away. And 
 there is nothing to show for it all ; nothing to be easily 
 traced by sense. Robert Stephenson is dead, but 
 there is the Menai Bridge ; Brunei is gone, but there 
 is the Saltash Viaduct and the Great Eastern. But 
 now Chalmers is silent, a fading impression in many 
 memories is all that remains ; and in a few years, 
 when all who listened to him are dead, it will be im 
 possible rightly to understand what he was. It will 
 be impossible to recall the almost awful impression of 
 the moments in which you heard him : and in which 
 you thought to yourself, that never before could y ni 
 
SUNDAYS LONG AGO. 19 
 
 have believed that human words could have so thrilled 
 through you and swept you away. Yet, there are 
 enthusiastic recorders of all that. I have seen men, 
 not easily roused to enthusiasm, warm into an un 
 wonted glow of admiration and affection, in telling 
 of that simplest-minded and noblest-hearted of great 
 and good men. But the thing they always insisted on 
 was, how vain it was by any description to make you 
 understand the reality. You may go and visit the 
 plain church where he preached : but his burning 
 words have left no echo there. You may read the 
 sermons in print; but to do that gives you no idea 
 whatever of what they were when said by him. He 
 could not publish that fire of manner, which made 
 single words, and bits of sentences, tingle through 
 you, which when you afterwards coolly looked back 
 on them, seemed nothing particular. It seems to me, 
 there is no more incommunicable gift of genius. An 
 ordinary man may make a deep impression by saying 
 something which is very fine and impressive ; but he 
 must have the divine gift who makes you start on your 
 feet by saying Mesopotamia ; or. That is not true ; or 
 w r ho moves a crowd of thousands to tears by saying, 
 He did it, because Providence was kind to him. Speak 
 ing of Chalmers, one is taking the extremest case ; but 
 it comes almost as touchingly home to one, to think 
 how the thoughts and exhortations of ordinary men 
 pass into entire oblivion. I once saw a great mass of 
 old faded sermons of a good clergyman who was dead. 
 
20 SUNDAYS LONG AGO. 
 
 They were lying on the floor of an empty room in a 
 house to let. I have little doubt they were ultimately 
 used for lighting fires. You could not but think what 
 a great amount of labor had gone to producing those 
 neglected manuscripts. The good man who wrote 
 them had for many years held the charge of a con 
 siderable country parish. You could not but think 
 how the words written there, heartily spoken on Sun 
 days in church, might be remaining (some of them) in 
 the memory of a generation of rustics who had grown 
 up under that instruction, and who had doubtless 
 heard all the sermons several times preached. And 
 in that case you might hope and believe that the ex 
 hortations remained not merely in the memory, but 
 (better still) in the lives of the people of that quiet 
 parish. You could not but think of a bright summer 
 morning, when the people came along leafy ways, and 
 listened (a little drowsily) to that faded sermon which, 
 as you may see, was preached on the 24th of June, 
 1817. You thought of a clear frosty winter day, brac 
 ing and cheering, on which that other sermon did duty ; 
 which bears to have been given on a certain 24th of 
 December. But our calculations are usually wrong ; 
 and it is probable that the June Sunday was cold and 
 rainy, and that the Christinas time was a damp and 
 green one. But how little trace remains of many 
 things ? All the work of preparing that sermon, and 
 committing it to memory ; all the anxiety of the Sun 
 day morning ; all the hearty tones in which it was 
 
SUNDAYS LONG AGO. 21 
 
 given ; all the warmth of heart it awakened in the 
 people who listened to it ; all the volume of simple 
 but telling praise that preceded and followed it ; have 
 left no more trace than that inscription of June 24:th, 
 1817. I see the people walking away home, by the 
 various paths which lead from the church-door ; I 
 imagine how the poor little children in many homes 
 were required to give some account of the sermon, 
 and could not do it ; I think of the good old clergy 
 man going home from church, and having a quiet turn 
 in his garden ; and of the sun going down over each 
 dwelling in the pastoral district which I can see ; and 
 here is what stands for all that : in faded ink, the date 
 I have already told you. And when a clergyman who 
 is still living and preaching turns over his stock of 
 sermons, and looks at the inscription at the end of 
 each, which states the churches and the dates at 
 which each was given, he cannot but feel how little 
 vestige remains of the circumstances in which it wa3 
 preached, and of the impression made by it. There 
 is nothing more completely forgot than the average 
 Sunday sermon of even a very good preacher. 
 
 But a happy result follows. The preacher can use 
 his discourses, even in the same church, a good many 
 times over. In about four or five years, all remem 
 brance of a sermon is gone, unless perhaps of its text, 
 and of some odd sentence here and there. I have 
 heard of a very excellent clergyman, who had charge 
 of the same church for thirty years. His stock of 
 
22 SUNDAYS LONG AGO. 
 
 sermons lasted just three years: so in that period 
 each was preached ten times. Yet the people did not 
 grumble : probably did not know. Here is an advan 
 tage which the preacher has over other producers and 
 salesmen of thought. A man who writes leading ar 
 ticles for newspapers, or tales or essays for periodi 
 cals, must always go on, producing what purports to 
 be new. He cannot republish an old article word for 
 word, as the preacher can reproduce an old sermon. 
 No doubt, literary men do reproduce themselves : it 
 is the old material slightly rearranged and touched 
 up : but it is their readers who feel this as an impo 
 sition and infliction ; not the literary men who feel it 
 as a relief. They fancy they are producing some 
 thing new : there is all the effort of fresh production. 
 The reader feels it is the old thing, but not so good. 
 At least, it is not so fresh. It seems but a faint echo 
 of the old days. But the preacher, after a suitable 
 time is gone, takes out the old sermon, and preaches 
 it exactly as it is. And if the sermon be fairly good, 
 those who remember something of its tone, are quite 
 pleased to hear it again. The person who likes it 
 least, is probably the preacher himself: if his mind 
 and experience be still growing. He feels he has 
 got beyond it ; and grown out of sympathy with it. 
 And even besides this, he is aware of many defects 
 and flaws. You look with great favor at a compo 
 sition fresh from your mind : but after the lapse of 
 years, you regard it much more coolly and more 
 justly. 
 
SUNDAYS LONG AGO. 23 
 
 In the pages which follow, my friend, you will find 
 certain of the graver thoughts of a writer whose lighter 
 ones have been received by very many readers with a 
 favor much beyond their desert. You will find some 
 portion of the material to which the writer s best pains 
 have been given, on many forenoons and many even 
 ings in country and in town : which has been carried 
 to church on Sundays in his pocket ; and which has 
 been spoken from the pulpit to the congregations 
 given to his care. Many of these words have been 
 said to a little handful of kindly country-people : and 
 all of them to a large congregation of educated folk 
 in a great city. It has been the writer s desire to 
 make those who listened to him feel that religion is a 
 real thing, with the most practical bearing on all the 
 interests of life ; and not a thing quite beside and be 
 yond our daily experience. He has aimed at sim 
 plicity and clearness ; arid at that reality which comes 
 of the preacher s saying what he has actually known 
 and felt, and not merely what he thinks he must say. 
 And he wishes for nothing better in this life, than to 
 continue to set forth the blessed gospel of Christ, ever 
 more simply and sincerely. 
 
II. 
 
 HOW GOD FEELS TOWARDS MANKIND. 
 
 "If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your 
 children, how much more shall your Father which is in 
 heaven give good things to them that ask him?" ST 
 MATT. vii. 11. 
 
 BELIEVE that one of the first and 
 most important things that mortal man 
 can do ; I believe that the very first and 
 most important of all things, for our spir 
 itual welfare ; is that we should get and keep just 
 and right views of God. Many human beings, I say 
 not only in heathen lands, where men have set up 
 and worshipped as divine, stocks of wood, and images 
 of stone, and fancied beings invested with every at 
 tribute of monstrous cruelty and foulness, not only 
 there, but even in this country of Christian light, 
 live under entire delusion as to what God is, and as 
 to how God feels towards us His poor sinful crea 
 tures, delusion which affects all their views, all 
 their conduct, all their life. There is nothing what 
 soever, which man can ever think or ever do, which 
 will not be influenced, more or less, by the thought 
 and the belief he has in his heart concerning Al- 
 
HOW GOD FEELS TOWARDS MANKIND. 25 
 
 mighty God. Oh, then, how precious an attainment, 
 how great a blessing it will be, if we are enabled, by 
 the light of God s Word, and by the teaching of His 
 Spirit, savingly to know God ; to discern Him rightly ; 
 and (so far as may be here, where we see so dimly 
 and darkly) to see Him as He is ! 
 
 Now, here, in our text, we have words of authority 
 concerning God. We might have doubted them, if 
 we had heard them spoken by man : we cannot doubt 
 them now. He said them, who spake as never man 
 spake. He spake them, who could speak with un- 
 doubting authority of God, forasmuch as He himself 
 was God. And you see the great principle which is 
 involved in these words. The principle involved is 
 this: that the way to judge of God, and of God s 
 feelings towards us, and of what God will do for us, 
 is to look at the best, and purest, and kindest feelings 
 of human nature; and to think that God is like all 
 that : only that He is infinitely purer, kinder, and 
 better. TJiat is the way to arrive at some faint notion 
 of what God is, and of how God feels. 
 
 We are made in God s image, after His likeness. 
 No doubt, the image is defiled and ruined : yet there 
 are traces of the great, pure, happy original state. It 
 is only because there is something in us, something in 
 our spiritual nature, which resembles God, that we 
 are able to form any conception of Him and His 
 character. But for this, we could no more conceive 
 of God s attributes, than a blind man, who never 
 2 
 
26 HOW GOD FEELS TOWARDS MANKIND. 
 
 saw, can conceive of color. Of course, we are falleo 
 creatures ; and our blurred and blotted qualities bear 
 only the faintest and farthest likeness to that Divine 
 image in which we were made. Speaking as men 
 speak, we may say that there are feelings which are 
 unquestionably good in human nature; but we know 
 that tried by the standard of perfect purity, the very 
 best has some alloy, some lack, some flaw. And it 
 is in these that something of God s likeness lingers: 
 it is from these distant hints and indications of what 
 God is like, that the Saviour would have us learn 
 what God is. 
 
 And thus, in our text, Christ tells us what we are 
 to expect of God, in His treatment of us. There is 
 mystery about God s nature : we cannot fathom it : 
 and we bow humbly before Him, taking up the 
 prophet s words, " Verily thou art a God that hidest 
 Thyself." And as God is thus mysterious, our kind 
 Redeemer takes something that all men will know. 
 He appeals to feelings which are lacking in very few 
 human hearts. He goes to the love and care of 
 parents for their child : something which is there, even 
 in the most wretched and the worst. It is rightly 
 thought one of the saddest and most miserable sights 
 to be seen in this sorrowful world, something indi 
 cating the loss of all that stamps a being as human, 
 the unnatural heartless wretch that does not care 
 for his child : God be thanked that such heartless 
 wretches are few, even among the most degraded of 
 the race ! 
 
HOW GOD FEELS TOWARDS MANKIND. 27 
 
 Now, says the Blessed Redeemer, speaking to you, 
 and me, and all : If you want to know how God feels 
 towards you, and how ready God is to give you every 
 thing that is really good ; here is something to go by. 
 You know how much you would do for your children: 
 you know how anxious you are to care for them in 
 every way. You know how a father will work, and 
 how a mother will watch, all for the good of their 
 little ones. You know how much of the work that is 
 done by men in this world, and how much of the care 
 that is felt, is not for themselves at all, but for their 
 children : all for them. After the dream of fame is 
 past, after ambition is outgrown, the man toils 
 on as steadfastly and earnestly as in his most hopeful 
 and most aspiring days, that he may provide for his 
 little ones ; that he may see them in comfort and 
 happiness ; that he may push them on (as he trusts 
 and prays) to be far better and happier than ever he 
 was himself. The human heart is always the same : 
 you do that now, my friends ; and so you may be 
 sure that people did that long ago, in the days when 
 Christ was here. Well, says Christ, you know all 
 that. You know all that, says His blessed voice : and 
 now hear me and believe me when I tell you, that the 
 great Father above is just like that ; only a thousand 
 fold better. If even you, sinful and evil, would wear 
 your fingers to the bone, would lose your rest, would 
 cut off every selfish indulgence, that you might see 
 your children s wants supplied, that you might see the 
 
28 HOW GOD FEELS TOWARDS MANKIND. 
 
 little things happy and good, then take this blessed 
 truth to your heart, that in all you feel towards your 
 children, you have a faint and far reflection of how 
 the great God above us feels towards you. He feels 
 for us just like that: cares for us, loves us, wishes us 
 well, works for us. And if you know that when your 
 poor little boy or girl comes to you, and asks you for 
 something that is needful and right, they will not ask 
 in vain ; then be sure that when we go, with our 
 feeble words and our many sins, and ask what we 
 need from God, he is as ready to bend down from 
 the throne of the universe, as with a smile on his 
 kind face, and listen to our imperfect petitions, and 
 help them out, and give us in answer all that is right 
 for us, thoughtfully and graciously. And hear me 
 when I tell you, my Christian friends, that even such 
 is the picture we should have in our minds of the 
 Christian s God ! Not the grim tyrant, not the mere 
 rigorous and inflexible punisher, that some misguided 
 and gloomy religionists worship, and terrify their chil 
 dren with ; not a being all severity and wrath and 
 cursing and woe ; not a being hard and cold as 
 granite ; not a being that damns little children that 
 never sinned, and then asks us to thank him for 
 doing it ; not a being that made millions for sin and 
 misery, and looks on in gloomy satisfaction as his 
 poor creatures are consigned to hell, all for his glory. 
 Call that black vision, conjured up by heartless and 
 soulless logicians, as though they longed to drive man 
 
HOW GOD FEELS TOWARDS MANKIND. 29 
 
 away from his Maker, call it Moloch, or Jugger 
 naut, if you will ; but never dream that in that you 
 see the Christian s God, the God revealed to our 
 love and hope in the blessed gospel of Jesus Christ ! 
 No ; our God is one who, while hating the sin, pities 
 and loves the sinner; one who wills not that any 
 should perish ; one who made a real sacrifice, the 
 greatest, by sending his Son to die that we might 
 live ; one who would that his glory should be vindi 
 cated by our bliss and salvation ; who " sent his Son 
 into the world, that whosoever believeth in him might 
 not perish, but have everlasting life;" who entreats 
 us to come to him and trust him and believe that he 
 loves us; who has manifested himself to us in no 
 grim face, and in no cruel judge, but in the kindest 
 heart that ever beat, and the kindest face this world 
 ever saw ; or where can we find a better and happier 
 way of saying the truth than our Saviour s own way, 
 a kind Father listening to our prayers, with pa 
 tience and love and care of which our best feelings 
 are but the feeble reflection : " If ye, being evil, know 
 how to give good gifts unto your children, how much 
 more," oh, listen to it, " how much more, shall 
 your Father which is in heaven give good things to 
 them that ask him ! " 
 
 If St. Paul had told me that, I should not have 
 dared to believe it. If the greatest and most inspired 
 of mere mortals had told me that, I should have said 
 that that was too simple, kindly, and homely, to be a 
 
30 HOW GOD FEELS TOWARDS MANKIND. 
 
 fair statement of the truth concerning the Infinite 
 God. If any other had told you, that the way to 
 know how God feels towards you, is to look into your 
 own heart, and thinking how you feel, when at your 
 best, towards your little child ; you could not have 
 taken it in. But you know Who said it. One, from 
 whose lips you would believe anything ; One, whose 
 lips beseemed the best and most hopeful words ; One, 
 who knew God best, and what God is, seeing he is 
 one with him ; yea, One in whose face we see the 
 invisible God. " The only-begotten Son, which is in 
 the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him," 
 and never in words more precious, or that come 
 straighter to our hearts, than here. 
 
 And so, my friends, God feels towards each of us 
 as a kind and wise father feels towards his child ; and 
 the difference is just this : that God, our Father in 
 heaven, is infinitely better than the very best earthly 
 father. And now that I have shown you the great 
 and blessed truth which is taught us by the text, on 
 the first glance at it, let us turn our thoughts to the 
 further truth, that is brought out by the words in the 
 text, " how much more ; " the truth that God differs 
 from an earthly father by being fur kinder, wiser, and 
 better. brethren, there is an immense deal sug 
 gested by that " how much more ! " It would be an 
 unspeakable comfort to us, it would be a glorious 
 and comfortable truth, that God was just as willing 
 to give us all we need, as you kind-hearted people 
 
HOW GOD FEELS TOWARDS MANKIND. 31 
 
 are to give what is needful to your litUe child. I 
 think I know men and women who have hearts so 
 good and kind ; who are so ready to do what they 
 can to make their own children happy, or to add to 
 the happiness of any little child ; that I should feel 
 safe enough and sure enough in going, sinful, weary, to 
 Almighty God, to ask for his mercy and his Blessed 
 Spirit, even if I knew no more than this, that I should 
 find such a welcome at his throne of grace as these 
 good men and women would give to any suffering, 
 helpless child, even if it were not their own. But 
 " how much more ! " What a silent reference to an 
 inconceivable depth of love and pity n. the heart of 
 God ! It is as if Christ had said to those whom he 
 addressed, You cannot understand the difference ; 
 words cannot explain the difference ; here is the kind 
 of thing, in yourselves ; but in God " how much 
 more ! " Yet not a different kind of thing ; the same 
 kind of feeling you bear towards your children, only 
 heightened up to a pitch you can never know. And 
 then, what a silent suggestion in the hint of what we 
 are, even at our very best : " If ye, being evil ; " that 
 is what we are at our very best, in the sight of God. 
 The man who bears on his kind face the unmistakable 
 signs of the kind heart within, that make little chil 
 dren (those unerring physiognomists) hail him on 
 short acquaintance as a congenial friend, that kind 
 good man, after all, is nothing better than evil in the 
 pure sight of God. Far kinder, purer, wiser, better, 
 
32 HOW GOD FEELS TOWARDS MANKIND. 
 
 is the care for all his children which dwells with the 
 great Father of all. How inconceivably better is 
 God than man at his very best ! You, being evil, 
 will do a great deal for your children ; but God, 
 " how much more ! " 
 
 And so you see, my friends, that it is impossible 
 for us fully to understand all the love of God for us ; 
 its essential depth and excellence are beyond our 
 comprehension. But though Christ s words suggest 
 that it is impossible for us to fathom the essential 
 depth of our heavenly Father s love, still it may be 
 comforting and profitable to think for a little of cer 
 tain respects in which even we can understand how 
 much better a father God is, than any earthly father 
 can ever be. 
 
 And these points of superiority are so plain and 
 simple, that they need very little illustration. For 
 one thing, God knows what is good for us, as no 
 human parent can know what is good for his child. 
 Although no human parent, with a parent s heart, 
 would give his child a stone for bread, or a serpent 
 for a fish, many a human parent has done, and will 
 do again, what really comes to that. With the kindest 
 intentions, we all know how injudicious parents often 
 are ; how often they err on the side of over-severity 
 or of over-tenderness ; how completely they some 
 times mistake what is to conduce to the true good 
 or happiness of their children ; indeed, it is not too 
 much to say that a very great proportion of all the 
 
HOW GOD FEELS TOWARDS MANKIND. 33 
 
 sorrow that is in this world arises from the mismanage 
 ment of parents in youth, or from the consequences of 
 that mismanagement in after-years. Now God knows 
 us ; knows what we are, and what we can do ; knows 
 what we are fit for, and how things affect us ; knows 
 all our peculiarities of temperament and disposition. 
 He knows what we really need ; he knows when to 
 give us what we wish, and when to deny it ; he 
 knows how to make " all things work together for 
 good " to such as love him. There is no caprice 
 with him, no fretfulness, no passion. He never 
 punishes merely because he is angry. Nor does he 
 refrain from sending punishment when needful because 
 he shrinks from giving pain. In short, he knows 
 best what is good for us ; and he has firmness to send 
 us just that. 
 
 Another point in which appears the superiority of 
 the great Father to whom Christ points us above all 
 earthly parents, is his power. He is able to do all 
 he wishes. He has all power to give us all good 
 things ; to help and save. You know how different it 
 is with us ; how well we often know what we should 
 like to do for our children, to make them wise and 
 good and happy ; yet how very little we can do. 
 When the ruler s little child was dying, what could he 
 do but turn his back upon the house where was the 
 darkened room and the little bed and the white little 
 face laid upon the pillow and the cold lips laboring 
 with the rapid breath, turn his back upon all these, 
 2* 
 
34 HOW GOD FEELS TOWARDS MANKIND. 
 
 because he could da nothing to help, and hasten 
 away along the lake side, going in his despair to 
 just the very best place where any of us can ever go, 
 
 going to the presence of our beloved Saviour, and 
 saying, " Lord, come down ere my child die ! " But, 
 O brethren, think what a glorious combination : the 
 kind Father s heart and the almighty God s power ! 
 Oh, how bright and happy and Christian a future 
 would the wise and good among you picture out for 
 your children, if you had the power to make them as 
 good and happy as you could wish ! But with human 
 beings it is a commonplace ten thousand times re 
 peated, how far apart are will and power. You have 
 heard of the poor mother with her infant, who perished 
 in a snow-storm crossing the hills on a wild winter 
 night ; there, in the dark night, and amid the waste 
 wilderness, the mother died. They found her in the 
 morning, cold and dead ; but the little child was alive 
 and well ; for the poor mother had spent her last 
 strength in stripping the clothing from her own stif 
 fening frame and wrapping it about her child and 
 clasping the little bundle to her breast. Ah, brethren, 
 that tight clasp of the dead arms, and those poor 
 garments, so carefully wrapped, surely they spake 
 from the world beyond the grave, and told the last 
 care in the dying mother s heart ; and told how her 
 last thoughts had been with the unconscious little one 
 that never would remember or miss her ! Now there 
 is the type of God s love ; not more tenderly did the 
 
HOW GOD FEELS TOWARDS MANKIND. 35 
 
 dying woman yearn over the little thing that must go 
 through life and she far away than does God over 
 each sinful soul in this place ; and the grand differ 
 ence lies in this, that our heavenly Father has infinite 
 power to do all we ask or need ! 
 
 Then God is always kind. There are unnatural 
 parents let us hope, very few. There are people who 
 repel their children s confidence ; who from mistaken 
 principle or from a bad heart do all they can to make 
 their children miserable ; who point out with pride in 
 the misery of a child, that things have come just as 
 they said they would ; who so act as to make us 
 wonder that a trace of natural affection should be left 
 in their children s hearts. I shall not dwell on a sub 
 ject so miserable, save to remind you that our heavenly 
 Father has anticipated such a case : " Can a woman 
 forget her sucking child, that she should not have 
 compassion on the son of her womb ? Yea, they may 
 forget, yet will I not forget thee." 
 
 And now the last matter I shall name, as to which 
 our heavenly Father excels the best earthly one, is 
 that he is always near. Earthly parents may be far 
 away, just when they are needed most ; there is many 
 a father, away on Indian plains, thinking day and 
 night of his children here ; and thinking how he is 
 losing their society just at the most interesting season 
 of their life, losing the years that change them from 
 boys and girls into men and women, losing those 
 impressionable days, in which the soul is taking the 
 
36 HOW GOD FEELS TOWARDS MANKIND. 
 
 character it is likely to keep forever. And earthly 
 parents must often leave their children orphans ; must 
 leave the little thing, so pleasing and happy now, not 
 knowing what things may befall it, not knowing how 
 years in this world, without a parent s care and love, 
 may change that fresh young heart, and make the 
 soul such that in the better world they may never 
 meet again. You know, my friends, that with worthy 
 people, it is not very long till the chief interest of life 
 comes to be about their children, and about how it is 
 to fare with them. Oh, I can well think that when 
 the shadows steal from the sight this world and all its 
 concerns; when the glazing eye of death can no 
 longer see the faces round the bed ; the sorest thought 
 in many a parent s heart, is of how his poor little 
 children are to fare when he is gone. The very 
 bitterness of death to many a heart is in the words, 
 " My little child, I must leave you ! And who will care 
 for you when I am far away ? " The kindest earthly 
 parent that ever lived cannot help or guide his little 
 ones from the farther shore. They may go to his 
 grave with their story of grief; but they might as well 
 tell it to the winds. But, O brethren, our heavenly 
 Father is always near ! Always within hearing ; always 
 within reach ; never leaving, never forsaking ; Father 
 of the fatherless, Friend of the friendless ; yea, " When 
 father and mother forsake me, then the Lord will take 
 me up ! " O Father of mercies, remember this word 
 unto Thy servants, upon which Thou hast caused us 
 to hope ! 
 
HOW GOD FEELS TOWARDS MANKIND. 37 
 
 Thus kindly and graciously, my friends, does our 
 Father which is in heaven give good things to them 
 that ask him. Yes ; and to them that do not ask, 
 save by their needs. The good earthly father does 
 not give good things only to those among his children 
 who are able to ask ; the mother s heart never warms 
 more tenderly to any than to the little thing that can 
 not speak at all, that cannot ask for anything, 
 most touching in its helplessness, and its incapacity to 
 say or even to know what it needs. And even so 
 with the better Parent above. He hears the voice 
 of our wants ; he gives us many a blessing that we 
 have not the sense to ask for. Yea, when our race 
 was asking nothing, and knowing nothing of its deep 
 est wants, he gave us the best of all good gifts, he 
 gave us the Blessed Saviour and the Blessed Spirit ! 
 And well for us, my friends, that God did not wait to 
 be asked ; well for us that he supplied great wants of 
 which we did not know ; well for us that he treated 
 us as the thoughtful mother does the little infant that 
 cannot tell its needs ; for true, as beautiful, are the 
 words of the poet : 
 
 " So runs my dream; but what am I? 
 An infant crying in the night, 
 An infant crying for the light, 
 And with no language but a cry." 
 
 There was a man who once said, that he was the 
 best-abused man in Britain. I believe we may say, 
 much more truly, that the most misrepresented and 
 
38 HOW GOD FEELS TOWARDS MANKIND. 
 
 misconceived of all beings is Almighty God. You 
 know that every syllable I have said of him has its 
 warrant in his own Word. You know that the only 
 right manifestation of him to our weak minds is in 
 the face of his dear Son, our blessed and beloved 
 Redeemer. And yet you know how many people 
 think of God mainly as a grim punisher, mainly as 
 the keeper of the dark prison-house below. I lately 
 read, with extreme disgust and abhorrence, a book 
 intended for little children, in which a mother was 
 represented as asking her child, " What does God do 
 for little children ? " and the answer put in the child s 
 mouth was, " God sends bad little children to hell." 
 Think of that given as a fair account of God s char 
 acter ! It is as if a man, being asked, " What does 
 the sun do for mankind ? " were to answer, " Oh, he 
 gives people sun-stroke and makes them drop down 
 dead ; " but not a word of his cheerful light and genial 
 warmth, guiding the steps, ripening the grain, glad 
 dening the heart ! Oh, God does punish, but sorely 
 against his will ! He does not want to be glorified 
 in the sinner s destruction ; he may be driven to that 
 at the last ; but he wants to be glorified in the sin 
 ner s complete salvation. Hear his own words, as 
 he pleads with his rebellious children : " Fury is not 
 in me ; who would set the briers and thorns against 
 me in battle? I would go through them, I would 
 burn them together. But let him take hold of my 
 strength, that he may make peace with me, and he 
 
HOW GOD FEELS TOWARDS MANKIND. 39 
 
 shall make peace with me ! " The day may come, 
 my friends, when that will not be so ; but on this day 
 of grace hear me when I tell you, that our God s 
 right name is, " The Lord God merciful and gracious, 
 forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin ! " It was 
 because he loved us that he sent our Saviour to die 
 for us ; because God loved us, that our Saviour died. 
 And freely and fully, through him, we can offer this 
 day to all who will but receive them pardoning mercy 
 and sanctifying grace. Let us all believe and live ; 
 God wills not that one should perish ! And as I tell 
 you these things, my friends, I come back ever to the 
 blessed truth, whose preciousness and sublimity admit 
 of no addition, that the self-same love which dwells 
 in your heart, as you look on the rosy little face of 
 your child, dwells in our Father s heart above, as he 
 looks down upon us sinners ; that he rejoices to give 
 good things to them that ask him ; and that when we 
 go to ask the best thing, the good part in Christ, we 
 may be as sure that he will give it us, as the child 
 that runs confidently to a mother s arms can be of a 
 mother s care. Surely there is not one among us 
 who would not trust and love this God ! Surely 
 there is not one who will not join in the prayer, Our 
 Father, keep us through life, thy poor wandering 
 children ; wash us in our Elder Brother s blood ; and 
 bring us to thy Home ! 
 
III. 
 
 THE THORN IN THE FLESH. 
 
 And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abun 
 dance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in 
 the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should 
 be exalted above measure. For this thing I besought the 
 Lord thrice, that it might depart from me. And he said unto 
 me, My grace is sufficient for thee : for my strength is made 
 perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather 
 glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest 
 upon me." 2 COR. xii. 7-9. 
 
 DO not know where we shall find words 
 more touching, more comforting, more 
 saturated with the deepest wisdom, more 
 filled with the true spirit that should 
 abide in the true Christian, than these words which 
 you have read. They are touching words. I have 
 no doubt at all but it cost St. Paul an effort to write 
 them. You can see it was a sore subject about which 
 he was to tell. Not often, I dare say, even to his 
 nearest friends, would the great apostle speak of that 
 heavy burden, of that sore infirmity, so humiliating 
 in its nature, and so sure to last as long as he lasted, 
 which he names as his " thorn in the flesh." And 
 we seem to know him better, we seem to get at his 
 
THE THORN IN THE FLESH. 41 
 
 inmost thought and heart in a way we seldom else 
 where do ; when the good man thus takes us into his 
 confidence, and speaks less like an authoritative and 
 inspired apostle than like a tried and suffering man : 
 frankly and fully telling us all about something to 
 which we should not have liked to allude in talking 
 to him ; frankly and fully telling us about something 
 he had to bear which was painful and humbling ; 
 frankly telling us how much he needed it, yet how 
 earnestly he wished to escape it ; thankfully telling 
 us how God told him he must bear it to the end, but 
 that the grace would never be wanting that would 
 enable him to bear it rightly ; and then humbly yet 
 resolutely stating the determination to which he had 
 come at last, of entire submission to his wise and 
 kind Master s will. Yes, when St. Paul speaks to us 
 in this brotherly manner, we feel a sympathy and a 
 brotherhood with him which we cannot always feel 
 with one so far above us and beyond us in all the 
 graces of the spiritual life ; and I think we could clasp 
 the trembling hand of that greatest apostle, and tell 
 him how well we understand him here ; tell him that 
 we too have our burdens, sore and crushing ; that we 
 too have our infirmities, of which it is painful to speak; 
 that we too have had our disappointments ; that we 
 too have thrice and oftener than thrice besought God 
 to do for us that which in his wisdom he saw it meet 
 not to do ; and then humbly pray, and ask him to 
 pray with us, that the same needful grace may be 
 
42 THE THORN IN THE FLESH. 
 
 vouchsafed while the trial lasts ; and that in the end 
 it may all prove to our true good and to our blessed 
 Saviour s glory ! 
 
 It seems to be God s way, and we may humbly and 
 firmly believe a kind and good way, to give his crea 
 tures heavy burdens to bear ; to make all, so to speak, 
 carry weight in the race of life ; and work and fight 
 at a certain disadvantage. There is some little thing 
 about every one which holds him back from being a 
 far better, happier, and more successful man, than now 
 he will ever be. There is something in our nature, 
 something in our circumstances, which is as the ad 
 ditional pounds laid on a race-horse s back, preventing 
 his doing his very best ; greatly abating the visible 
 results of his strength and speed. Now St. Paul had 
 his drag-weight, we see ; something that took him 
 down and held him down ; something that caused him 
 suffering ; something he would have given much to be 
 without. You know, I doubt not, that much industry 
 and ingenuity have been spent, to very little practical 
 purpose, in trying to settle what St. Paul s thorn in 
 the flesh was. It does not matter at all what was the 
 precise nature of that trial. It may be stated, how 
 ever, that the usual belief at present is, that the over 
 powering impression made upon him by that mysteri 
 ous rapture, when he was caught up into Paradise, 
 and heard unspeakable words, had so affected the 
 system of his nerves as to leave a permanent infirm 
 ity ; affecting, as we gather from various allusions in 
 
THE THORN IN THE FLESH. 43 
 
 his epistles, his sight, his speech, and his hands. You 
 remember how he could not write his own epistles, 
 save a few tremulous lines at the end ; you remember 
 how kindly he spoke of those who did not despise his 
 " temptation which was in his flesh ; " and who listened 
 with respect to one whose " bodily presence was weak, 
 and his speech contemptible ; " to one who in his worn 
 features and his emaciated frame, was " always bear 
 ing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus." 
 The material thing for us to bear in mind is just this : 
 that St. Paul had to bear something humiliating and 
 painful ; painful as a sharp thorn ever pressing deeper 
 into the quick flesh. 
 
 I need not say to you, my friend, that it is not 
 merely to observe what the apostle did with his 
 special cross, how he felt towards it, and how he 
 bore it, that I have turned your thoughts to this 
 subject. It is because all this is a matter of such deep 
 personal concern to ourselves. It is because in all 
 this we are not looking at St. Paul the apostle and 
 the worker of miracles, doing things the like of which 
 we could never do ; but at St. Paul the suffering man, 
 bearing his burden as we might ours, and feeling and 
 acting under it as we might act and feel. It is be 
 cause each human being has his own cross to bear ; 
 and because we ought to do with ours just what St. 
 Paul did with his, find out (that is) what God is 
 seeking to teach us by it, and understand the way in 
 which God may very likely deal with us as concerns 
 

 44 THE THORN IN THE FLESH. 
 
 the bearing of it. And thus applying the subject to 
 ourselves, I take a large view of St. Paul s thorn in 
 the flesh ; I look at it, not in its specific and peculiar 
 nature, but just as a great trial laid upon him for a 
 certain end, and to be borne in a certain way. I take 
 the thorn in the flesh as a type of any great trial 
 which is daily pressing upon any one who shall read 
 this page ; bodily pain, perhaps, in some ; disap 
 pointed hopes and ambitions, perhaps, in others ; 
 separation from dear friends, it may be, or their loss 
 by death ; the frustration of some cherished plan on 
 which we have set our heart ; domestic jars and dis 
 comforts, perhaps, with some ; poverty and priva 
 tions ; heavy cares and anxieties as to the means of 
 life, and the like ; in short, by the thorn in the flesh 
 I mean each man s especial trial and sorrow, the 
 thing which mainly detracts from the happiness of his 
 life, the thing as to which he would be ready to 
 say, Oh, if that trouble were only gone, if I were 
 but delivered from that, it would be well with me. 
 That is your thorn in the flesh, my friend ; the thing 
 you think you would be happy and right, if you 
 could just get rid of. Each human being has his own 
 peculiar thorn, whose painful pressure he himself 
 knows best ; many human beings are ready to fancy 
 that they could bear almost anything, better than the 
 particular trial which God has been pleased to send 
 upon them. You will find people who speak as if 
 they fancied that the Almighty knew just the sensi- 
 
THE THORN IN THE FLESH. 45 
 
 tive place where they would feel a blow most keenly ; 
 and that his hand fell heavy there. It is just the 
 most cherished hope that is blighted ; it is just the 
 thing on which you have set your heart that you are 
 least likely to get. You may get something else ; 
 perhaps something better ; but not that. 
 
 Now, my friend, the first lesson which is suggested 
 to us by these words which St. Paul speaks, manifestly 
 speaking from his heart, is this : that the thorn in the 
 flesh comes for a specific end. Of course it does not 
 come by chance ; nothing does ; it comes by God s 
 appointment or permission. But more than this; God 
 does not send it out of mere wilfulness, or caprice; 
 He sends it for a certain purpose ; and a purpose 
 which we may in many cases find out. We cannot 
 always, indeed, discover the design for which God s 
 afflictive dispensations come, of the good that is to 
 come of them. But in many cases we can discover 
 all that ; and whenever we feel the thorn pierce our 
 flesh, we ought diligently and prayerfully to seek to 
 do so. 
 
 Let us look at St. Paul s case. There are many 
 lessons for us in it. Was it not hard that he should 
 be weighted for the race of life with that which took 
 so much from his usefulness and his happiness? It 
 was not merely that the thorn in the flesh caused St. 
 Paul suffering ; that would have been a lesser trial to 
 one whose heart was so entirely in his work ; if the 
 suffering had been something that made him do his 
 
46 THE THORN IN THE FLESH. 
 
 work better, he could have welcomed it all ; but the 
 thorn was far worse than that : it was something that 
 took from his usefulness ; that faltering speech, those 
 trembling hands, those weak eyes, that contemptible 
 bodily presence, -all these things tended to make him 
 a less successful missionary and apostle ; ah, the thorn 
 in the flesh pierced St. Paul just where he would feel it 
 most bitterly ! St. Paul did nobly for Christ, as it was ; 
 but how much greater and better things he might have 
 done ! Take off from him that burden he bore ; give 
 him the fluent, fiery words, that would convey the 
 feelings of his burning heart ; give him the swift hand 
 that could freely trace upon the written page the 
 message he so yearned to deliver ; give him the 
 dignified commading port that should conciliate the 
 respect and attention of the stranger ; curb that hasty 
 temper, that came of his shaken nerves ; and who 
 shall reckon how much more might have been done 
 by St. Paul ? And I believe that to many an earnest- 
 minded man, the thorn in the flesh, or the crook in 
 the lot, never comes in a form so painful as in the 
 form in which it came to St. Paul ; in the form of 
 something that diminishes or destroys his usefulness ; 
 that keeps him from serving as he would wish his 
 generation and his Saviour ; that constrains noble 
 powers, or the makings of noble powers, to rust sadly 
 and uselessly away. Think of a heart, brimful of the 
 longing to declare to dying sinners the unsearchable 
 riches of Christ ; but joined to a feeble, nerveless 
 
THE THORN IN THE FLESH. 47 
 
 bodily frame that neutralizes all ! Can you imagine a 
 sorer thorn in the flesh ? Or think of wonderful gifts 
 of nature and training ; cribbed and confined by cir 
 cumstances to a sphere in which they are turned to no 
 account. Think of Moses, wasting (as human beings 
 would judge) the best years of his life, as a shepherd 
 in the desert of Midian. There was the thorn too ; 
 piercing, and wearing, through a full third of his life ; 
 through forty long years ! And yet, hard as the divine 
 appointment appears in Paul s case, it was a divine ap 
 pointment ; it was something which the all-wise God 
 deliberately and advisedly did. And the apostle tells 
 us what the thorn came for; and tells us that he 
 needed it all. It must have been a hard thing for 
 him to say ; but here it is. He needed it all, to keep 
 down a strong tendency to self-conceit. Yes ; with 
 whatever effort, St. Paul will tell us frankly the un 
 worthy weakness which the thorn in the flesh was sent 
 to cut down. " Lest I should be exalted above meas 
 ure through the abundance of the revelations, there 
 was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger 
 of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above 
 measure." The great apostle gives us just one reason 
 why the thorn was sent : it was sent to take him down. 
 There were many things which tended strongly to puff 
 him up ; and he had not got over that lingering weak 
 ness of humanity, vanity and self-conceit. He had 
 been especially and wonderfully honored ; and all this 
 tended to make him self-confident ; to make him think 
 
48 THE THORN IN THE FLESH. 
 
 how extraordinary a man he must be, who was thus 
 distinguished above others. He had been early con 
 spicuous for his learning, and for the strictness of his 
 Pharisaic life ; he had been especially called to the 
 apostleship by the Saviour himself; he had been re 
 markable for his usefulness as a preacher of the gos 
 pel ; doubtless he was held in the highest estimation 
 throughout all the churches he had planted, and by 
 many believers who felt that under God they owed 
 everything to him. And above all these things, the 
 apostle seems to have placed the wonderful revelations 
 that had been especially vouchsafed to himself, which 
 are mentioned in some preceding verses : how he had 
 been, in the body or out of the body, caught up into the 
 third heavens ; how he had been caught up into para 
 dise, and there heard unspeakable words, not lawful for 
 a man to utter. And coming back again to this lower 
 world, with these words yet ringing in his ears, and 
 the light of that vision yet as it were in his face, we 
 can well imagine how he might have been disposed to 
 walk apart from his fellow-men, as one favored and 
 honored as very few have been out of all the millions 
 of the race. But then it was that God gave him 
 something which should save him from high-minded- 
 ness and self-conceit ; for though " the messenger of 
 Satan," it was yet " given " by God ; he would not 
 cherish pride above others, when his special glory was 
 known only to himself, and his special infirmity was 
 plain to the eyes of all ; and so the thorn in the flesh 
 
THE THORN IN THE FLESH. 49 
 
 was given, u lest he should be exalted above meas 
 ure ! " 
 
 And so, the thorn in the flesh was sent to St. Paul 
 by God ; and sent for a certain specific purpose ; and 
 St. Paul knew what that purpose was. Of course 
 St. Paul was an inspired apostle ; and he was able to 
 speak with an authority with which we cannot speak, 
 as to the meaning and purpose of the divine deal 
 ings. When the thorn pierces us ; when bodily trou 
 ble comes upon us ; when sore disappointment is sent 
 to us ; when long seasons of anxiety and struggle must 
 be slowly dragged through ; when any painful and 
 mortifying thing befalls us ; we cannot be so sure as 
 St. Paul was as to the precise end God has in view 
 by all this. And more especially, when these afflic 
 tive things befall others ; when we see disappointment 
 and sorrow sent to our friends and neighbors ; we 
 should be most careful to avoid any such interpreta 
 tion of these things as is only too common. You 
 will hear some people say of a misfortune or disap 
 pointment which has befallen some man, Ah, that will 
 take down his self-conceit ; he needed it all ; it will do 
 him a great deal of good. Indeed I have never wit 
 nessed more manifest and disgusting indications of 
 rancorous malignity and a thoroughly bad heart, than 
 in people talking of the misfortunes and trials of their 
 neighbors as providential visitations, and as likely to 
 do their neighbors a great deal of good. I have re 
 marked that people who never rejoice at the blessings 
 3 
 
50 THE THORN IN THE FLESH. 
 
 of others when these blessings come in a pleasant 
 shape, evince an immense delight at the blessings of 
 others when these blessings come in the painful guise 
 of disappointments and trials. And I shall venture to 
 believe, that the real feeling of these people is one of 
 pure malignity ; and that what they rejoice at is not 
 the ultimate good that trials and misfortunes may 
 cause their neighbors, but the immediate pain that 
 trials and mortifications are sure to cause. We have 
 all known people who had no greater enjoyment, than 
 to see an acquaintance taken down ; the misfortune 
 of a neighbor was a real blessing to these miserable 
 creatures; and I have not the least doubt but that 
 among people who knew St. Paul there would be a 
 man, here and there, envious of the great apostle s 
 gifts and usefulness, who would chuckle over the thorn 
 in the flesh ; who in his heart would rejoice at the 
 suffering it caused the apostle ; yet who would not 
 venture to express his secret exultation ; but would 
 go about saying, "Ah, that Saul of Tarsus needs it 
 all. Very conceited man ; do him a great deal of 
 good. It will take him down, teach him sense ; and 
 he needs very much to be taught that ! " Cannot you 
 imagine, my friend, how the envious, malicious, tat 
 tling gossips at Corinth would go about from house to 
 house, saying that kind of thing ? Now, my readers, 
 let none of us here give way to this wicked and con 
 temptible fashion of thinking and talking. What we 
 are to do is this : each of us to try to understand the 
 
THE THORN IN THE FLESH. 51 
 
 lesson which God is addressing to his own self by the 
 thorns and trials that come ; and leave our neighbors 
 to interpret their own thorns and trials. It is beauti 
 ful, it is touching, it brings the tear to the eye, to hear 
 St. Paul himself telling all about his thorn in the flesh, 
 and about how much he needed it to keep him down, 
 and about how humbly he desired to submit to God s 
 heavy hand. But think how differently we should 
 have felt, if anybody else had said the very same 
 things about Paul ; how different a thing it would have 
 been, if Paul had told us about Timothy s weak health 
 and often infirmities ; and had said to us, You know 
 Timothy was made a bishop very young ; and he was 
 growing quite insufferable, he was so blown up with 
 conceit, till God sent him this failing health to take 
 him down and keep him modest. Now, my friend, 
 what would you have thought, if you had found words 
 like these somewhere in Paul s epistles ? You would 
 have been astonished, I think. You would have said, 
 This is not like St. Paul. You would say, No, no ; 
 Paul never wrote that ; it is an interpolation ; it is 
 something foisted into the manuscript by some one 
 who envied Timothy and hated him. Remember this 
 then : that there is all the difference in the world 
 between talking as Paul does in the text about our 
 selves, and about any one else. When trial comes to 
 ourselves, let us humbly seek to find out the lesson 
 God is teaching us by it ; but let us not presume to 
 say wherefore the trial has come to any other man. 
 
52 THE THORN IN THE FLESH. 
 
 Little we know of his heart ; little we know of his 
 special temptations, cares, and fears. I dare say we, 
 each of us, may have formed a theory of the charac 
 ter of many a man we see every day, that is as far 
 from the truth as the old astronomy was from rightly 
 stating the nature and movements of the stars ! You 
 may have known men accused of self-conceit, by peo 
 ple who knew hardly anything of them, whom you 
 knew well to be the humblest and most shrinking 
 of mankind. You may have known men supposed 
 to be very ambitious and self-confident, by those to 
 whom they were almost strangers, who wished for 
 nothing more in life than to slip unnoticed by. 
 
 But, my friend, while thus cautioning you against 
 judging your fellow-men by what you see of God s 
 providential dealings with them ; let me ask you, 
 when sorrow comes to you, or abides with you, 
 prayerfully to inquire why it has come ; and what 
 God may be intending to teach you by it. You 
 know, if you have indeed believed in Christ, you 
 have God s own promise that " all things shall work 
 together for good " to you ; and the thorn in the flesh 
 or the crook in the lot, just like everything else. And 
 we can see various ways in which such things may 
 work us good. Pain, trial, disappointment, may all be 
 sanctified by the Blessed Spirit to wean our hearts 
 from this world ; to impress upon us that great funda 
 mental lesson, that " this is not our rest; " to lead us 
 with all our heart to Jesus, the only satisfying portion 
 
THE THORN IN THE FLESH. 53 
 
 of our never-dying souls. And the thorn in the flesh 
 may do us good also, by giving us a deeper and larger 
 sympathy with others in their trials and sorrows. 
 People who have not suffered themselves are very 
 impatient of the sufferings and complaints of other 
 people. We cannot properly understand a thing 
 which we have never felt anything like. And you 
 will find those who get positively angry with any one 
 who is weak and ill, as if it were all his fault. But 
 passing by these lessons taught us by the discipline of 
 sorrow, let me turn your thoughts especially to the 
 lesson the thorn taught St. Paul ; the lesson which 
 he tells us he needed ; and one which perhaps each 
 of us knows that he in some respect needs. 
 
 The thorn in the flesh was sent to keep Paul 
 humble. And we may be quite sure it did what it 
 was sent to do. It would be effectual. The apostle 
 had many things to puff him up ; but this one thing 
 would keep him down. My friends, perhaps, in the 
 case of each of us, most of those who know us would 
 find it difficult to see any reason why we should be 
 exalted above measure ; we have not much perhaps 
 to be vain about ; yet who does not know how ready 
 all human beings are to think of themselves far more 
 highly than they ought to think ; and to think of 
 themselves as very different from what they appear to 
 others ? St. Paul, you see, was thinking especially 
 about spiritual pride, and about temptation to be vain 
 of his spiritual gifts and attainments ; and probably 
 
54 THE THORN IN THE FLESH. 
 
 there is no form of self-conceit that steals in more 
 subtly than that, or needs to be more rigorously kept 
 down. A man may feel a deep spiritual pride because 
 he is (as he fancies) so free from spiritual pride. And 
 indeed in all respects, as regards our talents, our in 
 fluence, our reputation, our general position, there 
 is in the heart of almost all a tendency, needing to be 
 constantly held in check, to undue self-estimation. 
 And this tendency is not one that will do to have cor 
 rected just once for all. It is not like a tree that you 
 cut down once for all and are done with ; it is rather 
 like the grass of a lawn, which you may mow down as 
 closely as you can, and in a little it will grow up again 
 just as before. Now Paul s self-conceit, you see, was 
 mown down regularly every day. If it was always 
 growing, the influence was always at work to keep it 
 down. If at any time the thought began to get the 
 upper hand, how great, and useful, and highly -favored 
 a man he was, there was the sharp thorn piercing 
 in, sorer and deeper ; and that set him right. And 
 it is so with us, my friend. As surely as you get to 
 grow out of that humility which best becomes us ; as 
 surely as you begin to cherish vain thoughts and high 
 thoughts ; so surely, if God loves you, will something 
 come to take you down ; so surely will some thorn in 
 the flesh bring you back to your better and lowlier 
 self ; some fresh proof be given you, how weak you 
 were where you fancied yourself strong; how little 
 esteemed where you thought it far otherwise ; how 
 
THE THORN IN THE FLESH. 55 
 
 feeble, worldly, and imperfect a believer you are yet ; 
 how little grown up to that stature in grace to which 
 you fancied you had grown. And painful as these 
 lessons may be, we need them all. And if they be 
 sanctified by the Holy Spirit, they will effectually do 
 their work. We shall not think much of ourselves in 
 the day of crushing sorrow. There will be a constant 
 lesson of humility in remembrance of some sin into 
 which we fell, or in even the remembrance of some 
 act of weakness and folly. You look back, my read 
 ers, over your past life, and you remember many 
 things such as we take to be symbolized by that 
 humbling thorn of St. Paul. You have had many 
 takings down. You have had many things tending 
 to make you lowly ; and they are coming every now 
 and then ; perhaps there is some humbling thorn from 
 which you are -never free. But was it not all needed ? 
 Very few can say that they are too humble with it all ! 
 Which of us can say that we feel our sinfulness and 
 helplessness too much ; and that we are clinging to 
 our Blessed Saviour too earnestly ? Which of us can 
 say that we feel too deeply our utter weakness ; and 
 that we are praying too often and too heartily for the 
 aids of that Holy Spirit who alone can bring us safely 
 through? Ah, my readers, many as may have been 
 our trials, our disappointments, our temptations, let 
 us thank our God for them ; for we needed them all ! 
 
 And now we come to a most interesting part of the 
 
56 THE THORN IN THE FLESH. 
 
 subject. See what the apostle did about his thorn in 
 the flesh ; see what God did ! St. Paul tells us that 
 he did not like the thorn in the flesh ; no man can 
 like what is painful and humiliating ; and three times 
 he besought God that the thorn in the flesh might be 
 taken away. " For this thing I besought the Lord 
 thrice." Thrice, you know, is a number indefinitely 
 used in Scripture ; we may be sure Paul offered that 
 prayer far oftener than the bare three times. Every 
 day, I doubt not, when the thorn was first sent ; morn 
 ing, evening, noonday, would the earnest supplication 
 go up from his very heart, that this heavy burden 
 might be taken from him ; surely it could never be 
 God s will that through the long years of all his com 
 ing life he was to bear that heavy and crushing weight ! 
 My reader, have not you done the same ? Have not 
 you prayed in earnestness, yea, in bitterness of heart, 
 that some cup appointed you might pass away ; have 
 not you prayed in earnestness that some sore trial, 
 that you thought would darken all your life, might be 
 spared you ; that some bodily disease would leave 
 you; that some sorrowful bereavement you saw com 
 ing might be kept off; that the plans and hopes of 
 years might not be frustrated ; in short, that your 
 special thorn might depart? And perhaps Paul s 
 answer was yours. See what God said to Paul s 
 prayer. The thorn in the flesh was not to depart. 
 It was to hang about the great apostle, burdening and 
 humbling him, till the last breath went out from that 
 
THE THORN IN THE FLESH. 57 
 
 feeble frame. He was never again to be like other 
 men, that great apostle Paul ! And yet, who shall 
 say that his prayer was not answered ; nobly, fully, 
 sublimely answered ! There are two ways of help 
 ing a man, burdened with what he has to do or 
 bear. The one way is to give him less to do or 
 bear ; to take the burden off the back. The other 
 way is to strengthen him to do or bear all that is sent 
 him ; to strengthen the back to bear the burden. In 
 brief, you may give less work ; or you may give more 
 strength. And it was in this way, which even we can 
 see is the better and nobler way, that the wise and 
 almighty Saviour thought it best to answer his ser 
 vant s prayer. " My grace is sufficient for thee : for my 
 strength is made perfect in weakness." Yes, St. Paul s 
 weakness was to be supplemented by God s almighty 
 strength ; the thorn was still to pierce, but patience to 
 bear it all was to be sent ; the load was to press heavy 
 on the back, but the back was to be strengthened in 
 just degree. And we do not need to go far for proof 
 how completely God s promise was fulfilled. How 
 thoroughly resigned Paul was ; how sanctified to him 
 must that thorn have been ; how strengthened his 
 heart must have been with an unearthly strength ; 
 when he could honestly write such words as follow 
 his account of his Redeemer s promise ! Oh, the thorn 
 was there, piercing as deep as ever ; marring his use 
 fulness, making him seem weak and contemptible to 
 the stranger ; but he liked to have to feel, from hour to 
 3* 
 
58 THE THORN IN THE FLESH. 
 
 hour, that he must be always going anew to God for 
 help ; he liked the assurance of the Blessed Spirit s 
 presence which he drew hourly from feeling himself 
 kept up to bear without a murmur what he knew 
 that by himself he never could have borne ; and so 
 he wrote, not perhaps without a natural tear, " Most 
 gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, 
 that the power of Christ may rest upon me ! " 
 
 We cannot but think, drawing these thoughts to a 
 close, how Holy Scripture sets before us two men, 
 who were favored with very near revelations of God ; 
 and each of whom was visited with a thorn in the 
 flesh to keep him down, and to keep him in mind. 
 You remember the patriarch Jacob, by that stream at 
 Peniel ; how there he saw God face to face, and 
 won a special blessing through persevering prayer. 
 You remember how he went away from that place, 
 under the rising sun, as a prince who had prevailed 
 with God ; but you remember, too, how he went, not 
 with the free and active step of former days ; how as 
 he passed over Peniel he halted on his thigh ; and he 
 went lamely through all his after-life, bearing about 
 that thorn in the flesh in memory of that great spirit 
 ual blessing. And so St. Paul, caught up where 
 living man has rarely ever been ; and who heard 
 words which mortal ears have rarely heard ; bore 
 always afterwards that thorn in the flesh to keep him 
 humble. My friends, have you found special comfort 
 
THE THORN IN THE FLESH. 59 
 
 in communion seasons ; special joy in Christ ; special 
 sense of God s favor ; manifold proofs of God s good 
 ness in your daily lot ; then seek to be humble with it 
 all, that the sore discipline may not be needed, which, 
 if needed, will (in some form) surely be sent. And 
 should God be pleased to send us the thorn ; if there 
 be those who feel the thorn even now ; if there be 
 those bowed under bereavement, or blank with disap 
 pointed hopes ; oh, my friends, do like St. Paul under 
 his sore trial ; learn the lesson of humility God is 
 teaching you by it. We blame you not, if thrice, and 
 more than thrice, you beseech God to take the bitter 
 cup away. But if he see meet to deny that prayer ; 
 if he see meet to continue the trial even to the end 
 of life ; oh, pray for the better and sublimer blessing 
 of grace sufficient for you, of strength made perfect 
 in the weakness of your feeble and sorrowful hearts. 
 And so, by God s kind grace, and by the comfort of 
 that Blessed Spirit whom we humbly desire for our 
 closest companion ; so it may come to this, that you 
 shall never wish things other than they are ; that you 
 shall be content that the path be thorny and steep, so 
 it lead at last to our heavenly Father s dwelling ; and 
 so that meanwhile, "most gladly shall you rather 
 glory in your infirmities," in your trials, disappoint 
 ments, and losses, " that the power of Christ may 
 rest upon you ! " 
 
 
IV. 
 
 THE GIFT OF SLEEP. 
 
 " For so he giveth his beloved sleep," PSALM cxxvii. 2. 
 
 shall better understand what is, in the 
 first and most obvious force of the words, 
 taught and suggested by this text, if we 
 remember what is the general bearing 
 of the psalm in which it stands, and what were the 
 circumstances in which it is believed to have been 
 written. The psalm bears the title, " A Song for 
 Solomon ; " and the usual belief is, that this psalm 
 was written by David, and dedicated to his son ; with 
 the purpose of keeping Solomon in mind of a great 
 truth, which every man should seek devoutly to re 
 member, and which it was especially desirable that 
 Solomon should lay to heart. That truth was, that 
 God s blessing must go with all man s labor, in order 
 that man s labor should be effectual. No exertion ; 
 no skill ; no setting early to work, nor sitting up late 
 at it; can make sure that our plans shall succeed, 
 without the help and blessing of God. It is utterly 
 vain for the creature to think to set up independently 
 of the Creator. Now Solomon was a wise man ; and 
 
THE GIFT OF SLEEP. 61 
 
 he was likely to know that he was so ; and there were 
 sure to be plenty of people about him to tell him how 
 wise he was ; and so his father desired to caution him 
 against undue reliance on his own wisdom. Then 
 Solomon had much work before him when he should 
 become king. He had God s temple to build ; and it 
 was well to remind him, that " except the Lord build 
 the house, they labor in vain that build it." He had 
 his city and his kingdom to guard against evil and in 
 vasion ; and it was well to remind him, that " except 
 the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in 
 vain." And the Psalmist seems to anticipate an an 
 swer to all this ; he seems to anticipate his son s say 
 ing, What, will not my most diligent and self-denying 
 labors suffice ? If I toil early and late, if I cut off my 
 enjoyments and recreations, and give my whole mind 
 to it ; may I not then please myself by thinking that I 
 can build the house and keep the city for myself? 
 No, the Psalmist says ; all that is quite useless. " It 
 is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat 
 the bread of sorrows." Not that David undervalued 
 hard work ; not that he did not know the virtue there 
 is in hard work ; not that he was ignorant that there 
 are few things worth much in this world that can be 
 had or done except by hard work ; but still all those 
 long hours, all that hard self-denial, would never make 
 a man independent of God ; would never come to any 
 end but by God s help and blessing. And then, if 
 that blessing be given, what is worth having or desiring 
 
62 THE GIFT OF SLEEP. 
 
 of worldly or spiritual good may come without that 
 life-wearing toil ; the time spent in seeking God s 
 blessing upon our work will be as profitably spent as 
 the time spent in actual labor ; our task will sit the 
 lighter upon body and mind, if we cast the care of it 
 upon our God, and do not try to bear it all ourselves ; 
 " for surely he giveth his beloved sleep." The word 
 translated so ought to be surely. The proper meaning 
 of my text is, " Surely the Lord giveth his beloved 
 sleep." And I have told you the way in which it 
 comes in. 
 
 It is known, I doubt not, to many of you, that a 
 certain great genius who died not long ago, declared 
 that there was no text, even in that book of Psalms 
 whose sentences come so wonderfully home to our 
 hearts still, though spoken to us across the ocean of 
 three thousand years, that fell upon her ear so com 
 fortingly and so sublimely, as this which tells us what 
 gift it is that God Almighty gives, as a great and good 
 gift, to such as he holds dear. " Surely he giveth 
 his beloved sleep." You remember how one of the 
 wisest of heathens wrote, as a great principle arrived 
 at through the meditation of a long life, that " the 
 end of work is to enjoy rest." And you will think 
 of One, wiser than the Greek philosopher, who seems 
 to have thought as he did as to what was the largest 
 and best blessing which can be offered to man. You 
 remember the blessed words of Him who made us 
 and who died for us : " Come unto me, all ye that 
 
THE GIFT OF SLEEP. 63 
 
 labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." 
 We must be somewhat subdued, indeed, by the wear 
 and toil of this weary world ; and we must have 
 gained an insight into the deepest wants of our spirit 
 ual nature, such as comes commonly through fuller 
 experience and longer thought ; before we shall ap 
 preciate such words completely. It is the toilworn 
 man that knows the worth of repose ; it is the jaded 
 pilgrim that understands best what it must be to sit 
 down at home ; and as we go on, year after year, till 
 our hearts begin to grow a little weary, there is music, 
 growing always sweeter, in the ancient words of the 
 patient patriarch, " There the wicked cease from 
 troubling, and there the weary are at rest ! " 
 
 There are three shades of meaning in which we 
 purpose to understand this text; and to rest for a 
 little in its contemplation. 
 
 And first : take the most obvious meaning of the 
 words. God " giveth his beloved sleep." People 
 whose whole heart is set upon this world may rise 
 early, and sit late, and eat the bread of anxiety and 
 sorrow, in their eager pursuit of worldly aims and 
 ends, in their breathless quest of wealth, or emi 
 nence, or success in some of its many forms ; and 
 thus these men may be so fevered and wrought up, 
 and have their thoughts so full of the perplexities of 
 business, and of its manifold cares and worries, that 
 when the jading day is done at last, and they lay their 
 busy head upon their pillow, sleep may fly from them; 
 
64 THE GIFT OF SLEEP. 
 
 and they may seek its blessed refreshment and for- 
 getfulness in vain. Now, this is not a small matter. 
 Looking at its entire effect upon mind and body ; 
 looking at what it testifies as to the unhealthy and 
 overdriven state of those parts of our physical nature 
 which stand in closest relation to the immaterial and 
 immortal soul ; we can see that it is a most grave and 
 weighty matter. There are few things more dispirit 
 ing, and more wearing out, than the loss of our natural 
 rest. To count hour after hour in feverish wakeful- 
 ness, seeking that forgetfulness which will not come ; 
 to feel the mind within stimulated to a preternatural 
 activity, and refusing to recall any but the most sor 
 rowful thoughts ; to be stung by a host of painful and 
 distressing remembrances of the past and anxieties 
 for the future, each (as it were) coining up and 
 striking its little poisoned dart into your nature ; many 
 a one knows well how dismal a thing all that is. 
 There are physical causes, doubtless, in many cases ; 
 we may be told of unhealthy excitement of the brain, 
 and of undue sensitiveness of the nervous system ; 
 but I go beyond these second causes, and I say that 
 as a general rule, the great cause of those weary 
 hours of wakefulness, anxiety, and misery, is want of 
 faith in God. It is because we are not able, as we 
 ought, to trust ourselves and all that concerns us to 
 his sure providence and his thoughtful care. You 
 know quite well, my friends, that it is mental anxiety 
 and worry that break your rest; that it is because 
 
THE GIFT OF SLEEP. 65 
 
 you are trying to bear the burden yourselves, to build 
 the house yourselves, to keep the city yourselves, that 
 you have those anxious, miserable hours ; it is because 
 you will plan too far ahead, instead of letting each 
 day bear its own evil, because you will keep asking 
 what is to become of you and your children if such 
 and such an event takes place, because you will try 
 to take the reins of your lot into your own hands, in 
 stead of leaving the direction of it all to his wisdom 
 and kindness, it is because of these things that you 
 so often rise unrefreshed from your weary bed, to take 
 to the dreary round again. Ah, my friends, if you 
 had all of you a stronger trust in God, you would 
 have sounder sleep ! If you have really sought and 
 so found the good fruit in Christ ; if you are sure that 
 nothing can go amiss with you, that all things are 
 ordered for your good, that " the Lord will pro 
 vide," that the daily bread and the daily strength 
 will come with the day that is to need them, that 
 God will guide you by his counsel while you live, and 
 receive you to his glory when you die, that through 
 all your way, in dark and in light, angels guide your 
 steps and guard your beds, and that the Holy Spirit 
 of God himself dwells within you from hour to hour ; 
 oh, how free from care and fear you will lay your 
 head upon your pillow, and sink into gentle forgetful- 
 ness ; to rise again with the morning light refreshed 
 and cheerful and hopeful ! You know, that when all 
 is said that can be said of physical causes, it is the 
 
66 THE GIFT OF SLEEP. 
 
 things that prey on our mind by day that break our 
 rest at night. And you know, too, how in those still, 
 waking hours, those thoughts of how it stands with 
 him from eternity, and of the accumulated guilt of his 
 past life, which the heedless sinner can keep off amid 
 the occupations and the companions of the day, force 
 themselves in, and demand that they shall be listened 
 to. It is impossible, then, quite to suppress the ques 
 tion, where the soul is to be when the body shall lie 
 down on its last lowly bed ; when all earthly things 
 have faded from around us like the fading light ; and 
 left us no other comfort but that which we may draw 
 from things eternal ! But if you can humbly trust 
 that it is well with you ; that amid your deep-felt 
 unworthiness you are simply believing on the Saviour, 
 and daily striving to grow like him ; that your task is 
 appointed you by God ; that he is always ready to 
 help you in it ; that you and those dear to you are 
 provided for by him, and that so effectually that you 
 never shall want anything that is truly good for you, 
 and you remember the promise, " They that fear 
 the Lord shall not want any good thing ; " then, how 
 pleasantly you may rest and how cheerfully wake ! 
 Surely God will "give his beloved, sleep!" 
 
 Now, in the second place, let us understand the 
 text in a less literal way. We all know that healthful 
 sleep is our most peaceful state. In the untroubled, 
 dreamless, refreshing repose of health after fatigue, 
 you see human nature in that state in which it is most 
 
THE GIFT OF SLEEP. G7 
 
 thoroughly free from all annoyance or trouble. You 
 all remember the Spanish proverb as to the comfort 
 with which sleep wraps us round. And in this view, 
 we read in the text something to remind us how amid 
 all the anxieties and competitions of life, God has 
 promised peace to his own. " Peace I leave with 
 you ; my peace I give unto you." " Thou wilt keep 
 him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed upon God." 
 But how little there is of that even amid such as pro 
 fess to be true believers ! How far is the peace from 
 being " perfect " even of the best believers ! You 
 remember the single word in which the ancient 
 schoolman hit what he conceived to be the great 
 characteristic of this life. " I entered this world," he 
 said, " in lowliness ; I have lived in it in anxiety ; I 
 shall leave it in fear." And there can be little doubt, 
 I think, that he was right. Anxiety, care, are the 
 characteristics of most lives here. You need not go 
 far for the proof of this. Look at the faces of the 
 people you see upon the street ; remark their expres 
 sion. You will very seldom see a cheerful face. 
 Almost every face you meet, beyond early youth, is 
 careworn and anxious. There is no doubt that care 
 sits heavy upon the majority of mankind. You know 
 the anxious look and the inelastic step of most middle- 
 aged people in this country. No doubt, there may be 
 something due to the nation and the race. " They 
 took their pleasure sadly, according to the fashion of 
 their nation ; " there is no need to tell you of what 
 
68 THE GIFT OF SLEEP. 
 
 nation the old chronicler said that. And you know 
 how the greatest physical philosopher of modern times 
 tells us that far in the American woods, beyond the 
 reach of civilization and the cares that come of it, 
 he found an unwrinkled tribe, on whose smooth faces, 
 fresh and young-looking even to. the verge of life, 
 anxiety seemed never to have drawn a line. And 
 some of you will think of a sublime description, given 
 by a great poet, of the fresh, serene, unanxious life of 
 certain of the free foresters who were the pioneers of 
 civilization in the wilds of the far western world. But 
 still taking the life we lead, I think you will hold by 
 the schoolman s " Anxious I have lived." You know 
 how many people, even when they could not tell you 
 of any particular thing about which they are anxious, 
 do yet live under the pressure of constant vague 
 forebodings of ill. If some hasty, unexpected mes 
 senger were of a sudden to come for any of you, your 
 first question would be, What is wrong ? You would 
 be sure that something was amiss. And what testi 
 mony does that one little indication bear to the too 
 well-grounded anxiety for the future under which most 
 human beings live ! Now, my Christian friends, that 
 is not like the perfect peace which God has promised ; 
 that is not like the peace and the rest which the 
 Saviour told us he would give to such as went to 
 him in simple faith. But remember this ; that faith 
 in our hearts is as it were the hand which we stretch 
 forth to receive all the gifts of God s grace. We 
 
THE GIFT OF SLEEP. 69 
 
 receive salvation, you know, of God s free grace ; yet 
 we must believe that we may be saved ; we must 
 stretch out the hand of faith, and lay hold of the 
 salvation freely offered us. And it is just the same 
 with the promised blessing of rest and peace amid all 
 the agitations of life. God has promised it ; God is 
 ready to give it ; but we must receive it by faith. 
 And we may confidently say, that the amount of 
 peace and quiet that we shall experience in this tur 
 bulent and troublesome world, will be in exact pro 
 portion to the strength and reality of our trust in God. 
 If we were able really to trust God with everything, 
 and with a whole heart, instead of doing as most 
 Christians do, never trusting God more than they 
 can help, and never feeling quite safe as to what he 
 may do ; if we were able truly to cast our cares and 
 roll our burdens upon him, instead of trying to bear 
 them all ourselves ; oh, what a blessed fulfilment there 
 would be of the promise in the text ! Surely God 
 would then indeed have given his beloved peace and 
 rest ! "We should do our best ; and then, with perfect 
 confidence, leave the issue of all with God. And 
 then, the lined face will grow smooth again ; and the 
 heavy heart would grow light ; the mind, beset with 
 anxious calculations and forebodings of evil, " careful 
 and troubled about many things," would be buoyant 
 and free once more ; for our heart would be " stayed 
 upon God," and then we should be "kept in perfect 
 
70 THE GIFT OF SLEEP. 
 
 But I wish here to suggest to you, that probably 
 the thing which is at the foundation of that vague dis 
 quiet and apprehension which in the case of many 
 does so much to gnaw away the enjoyment of life, is 
 one of which they do not think. Some people are 
 disposed to say, Oh, if I could only be free from such 
 and such a thing that vexes me and keeps me anxious, 
 I should be all right ; everything else is as I would 
 wish, but that one bitter drop in the cup turns it all 
 to bitterness ! Now, any such idea is quite mistaken. 
 I believe that the real reason of the disquiet of many 
 hearts is, that they are not right with God ; they have 
 never truly and heartily believed in Jesus Christ. 
 They may have thought a good deal about religion ; 
 but still they vaguely feel within themselves that they 
 have never fairly taken the decisive step. Now, we 
 cannot be converted to God unless it be heartily ; we 
 cannot go to Christ and at the same time hold by the 
 world just as we used to do ; we cannot put our hand 
 to the plough, and at the same time look back, and 
 hang back, and turn back. And if a human being 
 thinks at all, he can never be otherwise than vaguely 
 uneasy, unhappy, unsatisfied, restless, anxious, till he 
 has really and heartily believed in Christ ; till he is 
 able, very humbly indeed, and with no vain self-con 
 fidence, to say, " I know Whom I have believed ; and 
 I am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I 
 have committed to him against that day." I am not 
 careful to explain the logical steps of the process; 
 
THE GIFT OF SLEEP. 71 
 
 there are many things in the working of our deepest 
 consciousness which are beyond our logic ; but let me 
 say to every one who hears me, who is always vaguely 
 foreboding ill, who trembles at the coming of post- 
 time, lest it may bring some terrible bad news, 
 whose imagination is always running upon the sad 
 contingencies and possibilities of evil which hang 
 over our life here, who carries only too far the 
 wise man s admonition, not to " boast of to-morrow," 
 because we " know not what a day may bring forth ; " 
 to every such person let me say, Try a different way 
 of escaping from your cares and fears than perhaps 
 you have been trying ; the thing that is at the bot 
 tom of them all is the lurking fear that you are not 
 right with God ; it is that which is eating the heart 
 out of your enjoyment of life ; it is that which keeps 
 you vaguely unsatisfied and fearful ; oh pray to have 
 that set right, and then it will be well with you ! Do 
 not foolishly refuse to examine into the truth of the 
 case ; probe your nature to the uttermost ; it will not 
 heal a deep, poisoned wound, just to skin it over ; if 
 you have been wrong till now, oh begin and be right 
 from to-day ! Go to God, and say, I am a poor, sin 
 ful, trembling creature ; I fear I have been deceiving 
 myself, and thinking of myself far too well ; yet as I 
 am I come to thee once more, and ask mercy and 
 grace only through Christ ! O brethren, get the great 
 central stay made firm and sure ; and all will be well. 
 But if the keystone of the arch be wrong, or even 
 
72 THE GIFT OF SLFJLP. 
 
 doubtful, then all is amiss. The great step towards 
 trusting all to God as your Father, is to be really 
 persuaded that God is your Father ; to be persuaded 
 that he loves you, unworthy as you are ; to be per 
 suaded that he reckons you among those to whom 
 the promise is given, " Surely he giveth his beloved 
 rest ! " 
 
 And I ask you, my brethren, to remark the kind of 
 peace and rest which the Saviour gives his people ; 
 and will give us, if we seek and pray for it. If quiet 
 and peace could be had only by withdrawing from the 
 duties and occupations of active life, then quiet and 
 peace for most of us could never be. Not many of 
 us, perhaps, could escape from manifold work and 
 care in this life. Where most of us are placed in this 
 world, we are likely to remain to the end; it is not in 
 our power to fly to some far and still retreat, in whose 
 quiet we might escape the evils and troubles here. 
 And the corner will never be found in this world, 
 where care and evil shall be unknown by human be 
 ings. But the peace which the Saviour gives his 
 own, is peace of heart and mind amid daily duties. 
 It is that " central peace * which may " subsist at the 
 heart of endless agitation." When you look at the 
 believer s busy life, you may see no trace of his in 
 ward peace of soul. But you know that the ocean, 
 under the hurricane, is lashed into those huge waves 
 and that wild foam only upon the surface. Not very 
 
THE GIFT OF SLEEP. 73 
 
 far down, the waters are still as an autumn noon ; 
 there is not a ripple or breath or motion. And so, 
 my friends, if we had the faith we ought, though there 
 might be ruffles upon the surface of our lot, we should 
 have the inward peace of perfect faith in God. Amid 
 the dreary noises of this world ; amid its cares and 
 tears ; amid its hot contentions, ambitions, and disap 
 pointments; we should have an inner calm like the 
 serene ocean depths, to which the influence of the 
 wild winds and waves above can never come ! 
 
 And in the third place, my friends, we come to a 
 yet sublimer sense in which we may understand the 
 text. Let us think of the last, deepest, and longest 
 sleep, as given by God. " Surely he giveth his be 
 loved sleep ; " he gives it ; and gives it to those whom 
 he holds dearest ; sleep ; all sleep ; every kind and 
 form of it. You remember how God s Word names 
 the violent end of the martyr Stephen ; " he fell asleep." 
 You remember how the apostle names the Christian 
 dead ; " them that sleep in Jesus." And you remem 
 ber the words of One dearer and better by far; "Our 
 friend Lazarus sleepeth." And that Blessed One 
 liked the word ; he used it more than once or twice ; 
 " She is not dead," not dead, as you mean by the 
 word, "not dead, but sleepeth." Thus kindly and 
 hopefully does that kindest and most hopeful voice 
 that ever stirred the atmosphere of this world, speak 
 of our last change. And oh, how the very nature of 
 4 
 
74 THE GIFT OF SLEEP. 
 
 death is changed when we thus think of it ! Not the 
 gloomy visitor, coming so unwelcome ; but the kindly 
 gift of our kind Saviour, gently soothing us to rest. 
 When all is said, our hearts will never be quite free 
 from troubles, fears, anxieties, forebodings, here ; our 
 feeble faith, and our many sins, clouding God s face, 
 will make sure of that ; but in that last repose we shall, 
 if we be Christ s people, sleep into forgetfulness of all 
 these. We never shall know a real, sound, untroubled 
 sleep in this world, till that ; till the weary head is laid 
 upon the bosom of its God ! " After life s fitful fever 
 he sleeps well ;" how literally, how gloriously true, 
 the great poet s words are of the true believer ! Let us 
 bless God for the pleasant thought of death which is 
 given us by this gracious text ; we need it all. Gently 
 as a mother soothes her weary infant, the kind Saviour 
 calms away all our cares, all our fears and forebodings, 
 in that perfect rest. We call to our remembrance 
 the lowliness of death ; we stand by the last bed ; we 
 see the weakness of mortality ; we mark the sad signs 
 of dissolution ; and who that has ever seen them but 
 knows how sad they are to see ; but what a change 
 comes over all that, over the parting breath, over the 
 still face when the last pain is over, when we think 
 it is but that God has " given his beloved sleep ;" and 
 gently soothed the unquiet heart to the dreamless 
 rest of a child ! He giveth it ; it is not as if it were sent 
 by even the sublimest messenger ; he comes himself; 
 he stands by his departing brother ; it is he him- 
 
THE GIFT OF SLEEP. 75 
 
 self that composes the weary heart, and closes the 
 glazing eyes. Not the fatal disease ; not the days and 
 nights of weakness and suffering ; not those long years, 
 perhaps, which have silvered the head and worn out 
 the machinery of mortal life ; look beyond these, my 
 brethren ; there is a Higher Hand here. " Surely 
 God giveth his beloved sleep." 
 
 Yes, to his beloved. To those washed in Christ s 
 blood, and sanctified by the Holy Spirit. We pray 
 earnestly, this day, that all of us, that every one of us 
 who are within these walls, may be so ! We pray 
 earnestly that we all may be led and enabled un- 
 feignedly to love and trust him as we see him in 
 Christ ; and so that we may be loved by him ; by 
 him who first loved us, who sought us in the wilder 
 ness when we had wandered away and were lost, and 
 brought the wanderer home to his fold. And then, 
 passing from this life, closing our eyes upon this 
 world of trouble, we shall rest in our Blessed Saviour ; 
 we shall sleep in Jesus ; we shall win the peace of 
 God ! And in that rest, which remaineth for all his 
 people, we shall be far away from all weariness, all 
 anxiety, all care, all sorrow. And while the soul shall 
 pass to God, to enter on the rest of glory, the mortal 
 body has its rest no less, sleeping peacefully till the 
 resurrection day. And when the green grass of 
 another June waves over us ; when the soft summer 
 wind of another June sighs through the green leaves ; 
 
76 THE GIFT OF SLEEP. 
 
 s 
 
 when the sunshine of some more genial Longest Day 
 shall brighten cheerfully the stone which may bear oar 
 name and yours ; what better can we wish, than that if 
 we leave behind us those who may sometimes visit the 
 quiet spot, they may be able to say, humbly and hope 
 fully, Surely here, at last ; and surely there, in a better 
 place ; the weary heart and hand are still ; yea, surely 
 God " hath given his beloved, sleep ! " 
 
 j * t * -* ; 
 
 June 22, 1862. 
 
V. 
 
 JABEZ : HIS LIFE AND HIS PRAYER. 
 
 "And Jabez was more honorable than his brethren: and his 
 mother called his name Jabez, saying, Because I bare him 
 with sorrow. And Jabez called on the God of Israel, say 
 ing, Oh that thou wouldest bless me indeed, and enlarge 
 my coast, and that thine hand might be with me, and that 
 thou wouldest keep me from evil, that it may not grieve 
 me! And God granted him that which he requested." 
 1 CHRON. iv. 9, 10. 
 
 HERE was a Hebrew mother, to whom 
 a child was born in a season of special 
 sadness and sorrow. We do not know 
 what was her name ; and we do not 
 know the place or the time in which she lived ; save 
 that the time was many hundred years ago, and that 
 the place was somewhere in the promised land of 
 Canaan. We do not know what was the cause of the 
 special sorrow which was in that poor mother s heart 
 when her child was sent to her ; though we may per 
 haps suppose, from what we are told as to the mother 
 being the only one to decide what should be her boy s 
 name, that her husband was dead ; and so that the 
 little one, half-orphaned from his birth, could never be 
 met by a father s welcome, nor tended by a father s 
 
78 JABEZ. 
 
 care. The sorrow of that Hebrew mother is all over 
 now ; and indeed we have reason to think that it was 
 turned into gladness, if she was spared in this world, 
 before many years passed on. But at the time, it had 
 quite crushed her down ; it had so overwhelmed her, 
 that she seemed for the time to have lost even the 
 power of hoping for better days. It seems as if she 
 had thought that no good nor happiness could ever come 
 of that little child that was as the memorial of so sad 
 a season ; and so she gave him a name that told of 
 her present grief and her fears for the future. His 
 mother called him Jabez ; that is, Sorrowful. And 
 he went through life bearing that name ; and his 
 memory has come down to us through all these cen 
 turies, linked with that name ; Jabez, Sorrowful. 
 
 It is not much we know of Jabez ; we have his 
 entire biography in these two verses which you have 
 read. But I think, my friend, that in this recorded 
 history of that man, there is suggested to us something 
 of as solemn warning, and of as blessed consolation, 
 as you will find within the range of God s holy book. 
 We know nothing of his childhood or his youth ; noth 
 ing of the first steps by which he showed how little 
 his name befitted him ; nothing of the pride and de 
 light, mingled with self-accusing for her lack of faith 
 in ajkind God, which would spring up in the mother s 
 heart, if she was spared to see what her son became 
 at last. We are only told that Jabez, Sorrowful, 
 grew up to be a man ; and rose to honor, to special 
 
JABEZ. 79 
 
 and supereminent honor. And we have preserved a 
 prayer which Jabez offered, and which God granted 
 him, which shows us that Jahez was as good and wise 
 and energetic and devout as he was honored and re 
 nowned. That prayer we shall think of hereafter; it 
 might be a pattern for ours ; and every petition in 
 it may serve to remind us of great religious truths, 
 which we ought never to forget. But meanwhile, let 
 us fix on this ; the preeminent honor to which he rose, 
 who came into this world at so gloomy a season, and 
 who bore a name expressive of so gloomy foreboding 
 for the days to come. " Jabez," we are told, " was 
 more honorable than his brethren." You have noth 
 ing told you of the other members of that family, who 
 perhaps came in happier days, and who perhaps 
 received more hopeful names. We may well believe, 
 from the way in which the story is told, that they 
 were good and worthy too ; but still, in fame, in holi 
 ness, in wisdom, in goodness, it was Jabez who was 
 always first. And how strange a contrast it must 
 have been, between the sorrowful name, and the 
 honored and happy man who bore it ; how strange 
 a comment that life of honor and usefulness must 
 have seemed, upon the mother s faithless forebodings, 
 and her needless fears ! Yes, it must have been 
 curious to hear that name that sounded so sadly, 
 mentioned by all men with such pleasant looks, 
 and linked with so many deeds of kindness and wis 
 dom and true heroism. For God, we are told, granted 
 
80 JABEZ. 
 
 him the things he asked in that most comprehensive 
 prayer ; and oh, how good and wise and brave a man 
 he must have been, to whom that prayer and all it 
 asked was granted ! And we say it must have sounded 
 strange to hear it asked, Who was it that did that kind 
 and noble deed ? and to hear it answered, Oh, it was 
 Jabez ! Who was it that went out so valiantly against 
 the enemies of his God, and " enlarged his coast," his 
 portion of the promised land, by those rich fields and 
 woods ? Oh, it was Jabez ! Who was it that com 
 forted that despairing heart, who cheered that house 
 of sorrow, who guided that poor wanderer back ? 
 Still, it was he whose name promised such different 
 things ; still, it was Jabez ! Yes, it was Sorrowful who 
 carried joy to many a desolate home ; it was Sorrow 
 ful who made the dim eye grow bright again with 
 hope ; it was Sorrowful whose name was on the lips 
 of multitudes of men, as their very ideal of all that 
 was pure and good and true and happy. He rose 
 above his fellow-men. He was " more honorable than 
 his brethren ; " and the words seem to imply that they, 
 too, were honorable, were good men, and happy 
 men ; but oh ! there was none like Jabez ! None 
 like Sorrowful to gladden his mother s heart ; none 
 like Sorrowful for worldly success, and for spiritual 
 wealth, wisdom, and happiness. 
 
 My friend, let us fix on this point in the history of 
 Jabez to think of first ; and tell me, is the lesson of 
 all this far to seek ? You see, it was to her best and 
 
JABEZ. 81 
 
 worthiest son that the mother of Jabez gave the name, 
 that implied how little hope of future happiness with 
 him or through him remained in her weary, despairing 
 heart. We can think of a contrasted picture ; you 
 remember the proud and hopeful name which the 
 mother of our race gave to her first-born son ; you 
 know how much of confident hope was embodied in 
 the name of Cain. Possession, she called him, a 
 great thing gained from God, who was yet so sorely 
 to wring her heart. For even thus vain are human 
 anticipations, whether of good or ill ; the first mur 
 derer welcomed with the hopeful name of Cain ; while 
 this wise and good and happy man was to bear the 
 desponding name of Jabez. But without dwelling 
 upon the vanity of all human calculations, of all 
 human hopes and fears, let us now remember how 
 often we all call by hard names, dispensations of God s 
 providence which in reality are to prove great bless 
 ings. Probably in many cases those events in our 
 history, those dealings of God with us, which we 
 should call sorrowful at the time, stand us in more real 
 stead, and do us more real good, than the brightest 
 and happiest that ever come in our way. Even here, 
 and now, we can understand, that that earthly trial or 
 loss is not rightly called Jabez, Sorrowful, which 
 works our spiritual good ; which leads us with sim 
 pler and humbler faith to that blessed Saviour who is 
 our only satisfying portion ; and which weans our 
 
 heart somewhat from those things of time and sense 
 
 4=* 
 
82 JABEZ. 
 
 to which it so naturally cleaves. And do you not all 
 know, how sometimes we can afterwards see, that 
 even looking no farther than this world, it was good 
 for us that we were afflicted ; good for us that we 
 were disappointed, that we were tried, that we were 
 bereaved? That turning you wished to take in life, 
 you can now see was the wrong one ; though it was a 
 sad trial at the time when God hedged up your way, 
 and bade you walk along a track so different from 
 that which you would have chosen for yourself. 
 Yes, even worldly success and advantage have come, 
 because of dispensations which were disappointments 
 and sorrows at the time they happened ; and who 
 does not know what precious spiritual blessing has 
 often come out of dealings which when they came 
 were Jabez ; who does not know what blessed graces, 
 what purity, heavenly-mindedness, sympathy, kind 
 liness, faith, and hope, have beamed out, in modest 
 loveliness, in the soul which has come through the 
 sore discipline of sanctified sorrow, of disappointment 
 rightly met and rightly used ? If we be truly united 
 to Christ, we may be sure of this, that nothing can be 
 fall us, which may not be turned to good, by God s 
 sanctifying Spirit. Sickness, care even, bereave 
 ment ; all may be like Jabez ; dark and unpromising 
 at the beginning, but brightened into glory and beauty 
 in their result ; and the believer, as he looks back on 
 his past history, may be constrained to say, God 
 has been very good to me ; he has sent me many 
 
JABEZ. 83 
 
 blessings ; but oh, never the blessing that was so good 
 and precious, as when he sent me that trial which I 
 felt so crushing ; as when he blighted the hopes so 
 fondly cherished, or sent the bereavement which almost 
 broke the rebellious heart ! 
 
 And now, my friend, as we go on to consider the 
 prayer which Jabez offered, and which God granted 
 him ; let us take along with us, to the consideration 
 of the petition that stands first in it, the remembrance 
 of these things which have been said, as to our little 
 power to discern what is a blessing and what is not ; 
 as to the tendency in human beings to call that Cain 
 which ought to be called Jabez ; and that Jabez which 
 ought to be called Cain. You see the all-compre 
 hending petition with which the prayer of Jabez sets 
 out. He " called upon the God of Israel, saying, Oh 
 that thou wouldst bless me indeed ! " Yes, Bless me 
 INDEED ! It was because Jabez knew that he could 
 never certainly tell what was truly blessing, and what 
 seemed blessing and was not ; that he devolved upon 
 God himself the charge and the responsibility of 
 deciding what things were to come to him. What a 
 wise, and what a safe prayer ! " That thou wouldst 
 bless me indeed ! " Send me that which Thou 
 knowest is blessing, though it may not seem blessing 
 to me ; and deny me that which Thou knowest is not 
 blessing, however ready I, in my ignorance, may be 
 to think it so ! That is the spirit of the prayer. It 
 
84 JABEZ. 
 
 was for the All-wise himself to decide what was the 
 exact discipline which Jabez needed at the time ; it 
 might be a painful discipline, it might be a happy- 
 one ; but whatever it might be, Jabez knew that the 
 thing he needed was the true blessing; and all he 
 asked from God was, that, pleasant or painful, God 
 would send him that ! Yes, my friend ; put that 
 prayer together with what we are taught by the entire 
 history of Jabez ; and see what a lesson it teaches us 
 as to how we ought to pray. When we are praying 
 for temporal blessings, we ought never to pray for 
 them absolutely ; we ought always to pray for them, if 
 they be truly good for us ; if not, God in answering 
 our prayer would not be blessing us indeed. And 
 even as regards spiritual blessings, though we may- 
 pray for them with more confidence and less reserva 
 tion ; though we are quite sure that it must be truly 
 good for us to have our sins pardoned through Christ, 
 and our souls sanctified by the Holy Spirit ; and 
 though thus w r e are sure that God in giving us pardon 
 and holiness would be blessing us indeed ; still, even 
 as regards spiritual blessings, we do not know what is 
 the exact dealing that may be most expedient for us 
 at the time ; we cannot be sure that in asking spiritual 
 peace, joy, hope, or strength, we are asking the thing 
 which would suit our present need the best. Perhaps 
 humiliation may be the thing we need just then ; per 
 haps the best thing for us would be to have our over- 
 confidence rebuked, to be brought back to a deeper 
 
JABEZ. 85 
 
 sense of our own weakness, and a simpler leaning 
 upon our kind Redeemer s strength and grace. You 
 know, generally, the direction in which to steer ; but 
 you cannot say what little movement of the helm may 
 be expedient from time to time, to suit each pass 
 ing flaw of wind, or each crossing wave. And it is 
 just because we do not know these things, that it is 
 so wise to leave the decision of the precise thing to 
 be sent us, as Jabez did, to God ; and to pray, with 
 him, that God would bless us indeed. Let him deny 
 us that which is not blessing indeed, however like 
 blessing it may seem ; and let him send us that which 
 is blessing indeed, though we might write against it, 
 Jabez ! Ah, my brother, you dare not pray, without 
 a reservation if God sees it fit, that you may gain the 
 worldly end on which you have set your heart ; you 
 dare not pray absolutely that you may live a long or 
 a peaceful life ; you dare not pray, without a condi 
 tion, by the dying bed of your dearest, that they may 
 be spared to you longer ; you must always add, God s 
 will be done, if God sees it good for you and them ; 
 but you can never go wrong, if you do like Jabez ; 
 if you go humbly and hopefully in Christ s blessed 
 name ; and call on the God and Father of our 
 Blessed Saviour, saying, Oh that thou wouldst bless 
 me indeed ! 
 
 But let us go on with the wise and good man s 
 prayer. The next two petitions in it let us take to 
 gether. " Oh that thou wouldst enlarge my coast ; 
 
86 JABEZ. 
 
 and that thine hand might be with me ! " These two 
 requests must stand together, as we shall see. No 
 doubt the first of the two refers to this : that Jabez 
 was an Israelite who had yet to conquer from his en 
 emies some portion of the inheritance allotted to him 
 in the land of promise. There were fair tracts round 
 him, appointed to him by God; and he wished to win 
 these from God s enemies ; and accordingly he prays 
 that God would give them to him ; he prays, " That 
 thou wouldst enlarge my coast ! " And it was right, 
 of course, to pray for this ; but it was not enough 
 merely to pray. It would not do, that Jabez should 
 slothfully sit down, content to have merely asked God 
 to give the inheritance he wished. You see from his 
 prayer that he is going out to do what in him lies to 
 accomplish the thing for which he prays. You see he 
 asks that God s " hand might be with him," as he goes 
 forth to do battle with the idolatrous race which mean 
 while possesses the soil which is by right his own. In 
 short, the wise man, in the exercise of a manly com 
 mon sense, asks God to help him, because he is going 
 to try to help himself. 
 
 There is a great and sound principle implied here ; 
 a great lesson for all of us. It is the duty of combin 
 ing effort with prayer. When we, my friend, are de 
 sirous to compass any new attainment ; when we 
 wish to enlarge our coast, as it were, by taking in 
 greater fields of faith, of holiness, of patience, of hu 
 mility, of all Christian grace, in regard to all of 
 
JABEZ. 87 
 
 which we may well take up Joshua s words, that 
 " there remaineth yet very much land to be pos 
 sessed," let us do like Jabez. It is not enough 
 that we pray to God to give us more grace ; we must 
 labor to get more grace. We must diligently use 
 the means that foster the growth of grace in us. We 
 must cultivate Christian grace as we cultivate bodily 
 strength and skill, by exercise; all the while re 
 membering that without God s help and Spirit we can 
 do nothing ; working, in short, like Jabez, as if we 
 could do all, and praying as if we could do nothing. 
 We may well and rightly pray for increase of spiritual 
 comforts : for greater joy in communion seasons, for 
 greater heart and earnestness in prayer, for more 
 of Christ s love and life in our daily work and war 
 fare, for greater and happier elevation above worldly 
 cares ; but while for these tilings we pray, like Jabez, 
 for these things let us also labor and strive, like him. 
 
 We may safely say, that if Jabez had merely 
 prayed that God would enlarge his coast, and then 
 remained idle at home, making no exertion for him 
 self, his portion would not have been enlarged. God 
 would have regarded such a prayer as a mere mock 
 ery. And on the other hand, if Jabez had gone forth 
 against his enemies in his own unaided strength, he 
 would likely enough have failed too. The wisdom of 
 Jabez appeared in this : that he put prayer and effort 
 together. You know how a wiser and greater than 
 Jabez had done the like ; how our Saviour bade us at 
 
88 JABEZ. 
 
 once " Watch and pray." Now is it not a curious 
 thing, that when God s Word and our own common 
 sense tell us that these two things ought always to go 
 together, and are (so to speak) the closest of allies, 
 we constantly find people talking as if they were 
 things opposed to each other, and as if by holding 
 to the one, you sacrificed the other? But you just 
 see here the narrowness and one-sidedness of man s 
 view, as compared with the largeness and comprehen 
 siveness of God s view. Jabez, you remember, prayed 
 that God would enlarge his coast ; and even as he 
 prayed, he went forth to enlarge his coast for himself. 
 Jabez was wise and right. But if Jabez had been 
 like some people nowadays, he would have prayed 
 that God would enlarge his coast, and then sat at 
 home and done nothing ; and finally wondered why 
 his coast was not enlarged. And if Jabez had been 
 like other people nowadays, he would have gone out 
 to enlarge his coast without troubling himself to pray 
 at all. You know how many among us take these 
 one-sided views ; and apparently cannot look at both 
 sides of a truth together ; or see that prayers and 
 pains must go together ; and that it is foolish to cry 
 up either at the expense of the other. Thus, when 
 pestilence threatens the land, you will find one set 
 proposing to have a fast-day, and pray to God to 
 avert the pestilence. And you will find another set 
 proposing to flush sewers, and cleanse and ventilate 
 close and filthy dwellings. And, strange to say, in- 
 
JABEZ. 89 
 
 stead of seeing that both these things ought to be 
 done ; that you ought to drain and cleanse with all 
 your might, and at the same time to pray with all 
 your heart ; you will find the advocates of the fast- 
 day, and the advocates of the cleansing, abusing each 
 other like bitter foes ; as if the plan of the one set 
 excluded the plan of the other. Why, of course, both 
 should be done. "Watchfulness and prayer must go 
 together, alike in things temporal and things spiritual. 
 And it is foolish to raise a question which is the more 
 essential, when both are essential. It would be abun 
 dantly absurd to get up a furious controversy whether 
 food or drink were the more necessary to the life of 
 man. Both are necessary. And Jabez, wise and 
 good man, knew it. And so, while he prayed that 
 God " would enlarge his coast," he buckled on his 
 harness and went down to the battle. Do you the 
 like, my friend. Pray earnestly for more grace ; and 
 work heartily to get it. 
 
 And so we come to the last petition in this prayer ; 
 a petition comprehensive and wise as the first. The 
 first petition, you remember, was for true blessing. 
 The last is for deliverance from true evil, and from 
 the evil effects and influences of all evil. Here are 
 the words : " And that thou wouldst keep me from 
 evil, that it may not grieve me." You know that this 
 is a world of evil, bodily and spiritual ; a world of 
 suffering and wrong ; and through these, among other 
 
90 JABEZ. 
 
 means, God works his ends on our souls. It is not 
 God s purpose that we should never see or come in 
 contact with evil at all. And you see the moderation, 
 the acquiescence in God s appointments, the sound 
 sense, which characterize Jabez s prayer. " And that 
 thou wouldst keep me from evil, that it may not 
 grieve me." He does not ask, you see, that evil may 
 never come; but that evil may not be suffered to 
 really harm when it comes. And so his prayer is in 
 perfect harmony with that which was dictated to us 
 by Christ : " Deliver us from evil ; " for Christ s 
 words do not lead us to hope that evil will never 
 come ; but that by God s grace when it does come, we 
 shall be saved from its evil tendencies and results. 
 Jabez did not ask, and we would not ask, that evil 
 should never befall us at all ; that would be too much; 
 and if that prayer were granted, we should miss some 
 of the most blessed and precious influences that ever 
 helped to make the believer meet for the better land 
 above. Evil coming, and trying us, may do us great 
 good ; we should not thrive without it ; some of the 
 heavenliest fruits of the Spirit would never grow in 
 us if we never knew sorrow ; patience, resignation, 
 humility, sympathy, could hardly exist in the soul that 
 never knew grief; and I think, my friend, that we 
 should feel almost alarmed if we were never visited 
 with trial ; we should almost feel that our heavenly 
 Father was not treating us as -his children, he who 
 disciplines his children for immortality by the sad ex- 
 
JABEZ. 91 
 
 perience of sorrow and pain ; we should feel it strange 
 to be excluded from that training, so salutary though 
 so sad, to which such multitudes of believers have 
 been witnesses, and which is embodied in that an 
 cient declaration of St. Paul and St. Barnabas, that 
 " we must through much tribulation enter into the 
 kingdom of God." But Jabez prayed, and we may 
 pray, that evil should not grieve us. We may pray 
 that evil may never be suffered to harden us ; to stir 
 us up to wrath against God ; to make us fretful, rebel 
 lious, impatient ; to tempt us to sin ; in short, to do us 
 harm when God intends it always to do us good. It 
 was for this that Jabez prayed. 
 
 Oh, my brother, we know that evil will come to us ; 
 it has come already, and it will come again. There 
 is not a heart not even the youngest that has not 
 had its share of grief; and that which has been is that 
 which shall be. But if evil be sanctified to us ; if it 
 be met in a right and humble spirit ; then, though it 
 may come, it will not grieve ; it will not offend us, 
 it will not prove a stumbling-block in our heavenward 
 way. Nay ; it will further us with a continual help ! 
 It will prove a blessing, a blessing indeed. It will 
 wean us from earth ; it will purge away our dross ; it 
 will quicken our steps towards that peaceful home, 
 where dwell such multitudes who "came out of great 
 tribulation ! " Let us then pray like Jabez. Let us 
 prefer, not the unreasonable and extravagant request, 
 that evil may never come ; but the modest and Chris- 
 
92 JABEZ. 
 
 tian request, that when evil comes, as it surely will 
 come, still that it may never grieve ! 
 
 And such, my friend, was the prayer of that good 
 man whose history so belied his name ; and who, 
 doubtless for our comfort arid warning among other 
 ends, lived and died, so long ago, and so far away. 
 And see what came of Jabez. No wonder he was 
 so honorable ! You have seen what the things were 
 for which he asked ; and God s word tells us, closing 
 the history of Jabez, " And God granted him that 
 which he requested." God gave him all he a<kecl ! 
 Oh, what a biography for any man ! See what is 
 taught us in the assurance that God granted Jabez 
 his prayer. It tells us that through life, God blessed 
 him indeed ; that God enlarged his coast ; that God s 
 hand was with him ; and that God kepfr him from 
 evil, so that it did not grieve him. Think of that, my 
 friend ! Could you even pray for anything better ? 
 If God were this day to allow you to sketch out for 
 yourself the kind of life which you would wish to 
 lead, so long as you are spared in this world, could 
 you ask for more than that God would grant to you 
 what he granted Jabez ! Well, now for a comforting 
 thought. It must have been a good and a noble life 
 that Jabez lived ; and perhaps you are ready to think 
 that it is far beyond your reach ; that it was all well 
 in those distant days when men felt God s presence 
 nearer them ; but that only a specially-favored one, 
 here and there, can look for such things now. But 
 
JABEZ. 93 
 
 do not think that. It does not at all follow, from what 
 we are told of that good man s honored life, that it 
 was one of unmingled brightness ; or that it was be 
 yond what we may humbly ask through Christ, and 
 humbly hope. God "blessed him indeed;" but that 
 which is a blessing indeed, may not be what the 
 worldly man would think a blessing at all. We can 
 not be sure, even of the man whom God blessed in 
 deed, that his life was all sunshine. Likely enough, he 
 had his share of the worries of life. Likely enough, 
 he had now and then a great trial. Likely enough, 
 there were days when the heart of Sorrowful was 
 sorrowful enough ; and when Jabez mourned beside 
 the tomb where those he loved were sleeping. But 
 still, he went on through life in such fashion that he 
 drew good from all things that befell him ; and so, 
 through all, God kept his promise, and " blessed him 
 indeed," for all that came was truly blessing. And 
 then, though his " coast was enlarged," perhaps the 
 portion he got, after all, seemed large only to his 
 moderate desires and ideas ; perhaps it was no such 
 very great tract of territory after all ; and likely 
 enough, his neighbors would smile at Jabez for being so 
 well pleased with it; and I dare say the ill-set people 
 among them would try to put him out of conceit with 
 it, just as ill-set people do the same thing now. 
 And then, when evil befell Jabez, all men could see 
 the outward affliction, but none could see what was 
 the inward result ; all men could see that evil came, 
 
94 JABEZ. 
 
 but only Jabez knew that it fell where it could not 
 grieve. And so, to the eyes of ordinary onlookers, 
 the outward lot of Jabez may not have seemed so 
 much happier than the lot of other men. Perhaps 
 his path in life may, to outward view, have appeared 
 like the average one of ordinary believers. His lot 
 was not beyond our reach ; nor beyond the possibili 
 ties of what may come to ourselves. Perhaps there 
 are people in every Christian congregation, who are 
 very like what Jabez was. People who are more 
 deserving of honor than most of their brethren of 
 mankind, though they may not get it. People whom 
 God blesses indeed, though they have their many 
 cares. People whose coast is enlarged, though it be 
 in fields of faith and holiness and peace, which are 
 not visible to the passer-by. People to whom their 
 share of evil comes, but is made by God s Spirit to 
 conduce to their eternal welfare. And we may fitly 
 ask for all that ; and hope for all that ; through our 
 Redeemer, and for his sake. 
 
 Let us humbly pray, then, this day, to the God of 
 our fathers, through that Blessed Redeemer who is 
 our Eld-er Brother, saying, Oh that thou wouldst bless 
 us indeed, and enlarge our coast ; and that thine 
 hand may be with us ; and that thou wouldst keep us 
 from evil, that it may not grieve us I 
 
VI. 
 GAIN IN THE SAVIOUR S LOSS. 
 
 " It is expedient for you that I go away." ST. JOHN xvi. 7. 
 
 HE parting of friends, we all know, is al 
 ways a sad thing, even if it be for not 
 a very long time, and to not a very great 
 distance ; for it never can be quite for 
 got, in this uncertain life, that many things may come 
 to prevent a meeting again. But partings sometimes 
 are among the very saddest things that ever happen 
 upon the face of this sorrowful world ; partings of 
 those who are very dear ; partings of the playmates 
 of childhood ; partings of those who hitherto have 
 kept close together in the race and the warfare of 
 life, bearing one another s burdens, dividing one an 
 other s sorrows, sharing one another s joys, but who 
 are now to be severed by long months and years of 
 time, by long leagues of land and sea. I have seen 
 an emigrant ship depart upon its long voyage ; I re 
 member the bustle and hurry which attended its 
 departure ; the crowded deck, thronged with old and 
 young ; gray-haired men bidding farewell to their 
 native land, and little children who would carry but 
 
96 GAIN IN THE SAVIOUR S LOSS. 
 
 dim remembrances of Britain to the distant Australian 
 shore. And who that has ever witnessed such a 
 scene can forget, how, when the white canvas was 
 spread at last, and the last rope cast off, the outburst 
 of sobs and weeping arose as the great ship solemnly 
 passed away ! Doubtless that parting was to many 
 of those who parted then, as complete as that which 
 is made by death. 
 
 And why was it then, that those who felt the pang 
 of parting so much, were yet content to part ? Why, 
 but because they felt it was better so. The emigrant 
 felt that he was leaving a country where he was not 
 needed, a country which would not yield him bread, 
 for another where there were work and bread for all. 
 And the friends who remained behind knew all that 
 too. They knew that however keen might be the 
 anguish of that day, brighter days would follow. 
 They knew that it was best that the youthful son 
 should carry his sturdy arm and his active brain to 
 the young, fresh world across the Atlantic, and not 
 remain to be hampered and held down through life 
 in the over-crowd and over-competition here. " It 
 was expedient" for all parties, "that he should go 
 away." He would find a new home, far away. He 
 would form new ties there. He might find there, 
 perhaps, a path to fame and fortune. He would 
 often think, indeed, in the thoughtful twilight, of the 
 hills of his native land ; and sometimes, perhaps, 
 wonder whether, for all that he had gained by leaving 
 
GAIN IN THE SAVIOUR S LOSS. 97 
 
 the country of his birth, it might not have been as 
 well had he saved his home-bred virtues in his fa 
 ther s lowly lot, and laid his head at last in his father s 
 honored grave. 
 
 But after all, my friends, I do not doubt that you 
 have found it in your own experience, that the thing 
 to which people most naturally have recourse to blunt, 
 in some measure, the pang of parting, is some such 
 thought as is suggested in the text. The dying wife 
 tries to persuade the husband she is leaving, that it is 
 far better as it is. The poor, friendless young laborer, 
 reckless and graceless once, but reclaimed by a kind 
 ness and a wisdom that were half angelic, said, as he 
 felt life ebbing away, and thought of all the tempta 
 tions he was saved from, said in his own simple 
 way of speaking, that " perhaps it was as well he 
 should go home pretty soon." And just with that 
 simple and natural thought did the Blessed Redeemer 
 seek to console his disciples as he was leaving them 
 behind. He is addressing them in those memorable 
 words, in that last and most beautiful discourse, which 
 we all know so well. It is the night on which he 
 was betrayed. He has partaken of the Jewish Pass 
 over for the last time, and he has instituted that better 
 Christian Passover which was to take its place ; and 
 now more plainly than ever before, he begins to tell 
 his friends of his speedy removal from them. And 
 as he sees the shadow fall deep upon their faces, and 
 deeper upon their hearts, at the thought, he hastens 
 5 
 
98 GAIN IN THE SAVIOUR S LOSS. 
 
 to comfort them as a parent might the child from 
 whom he was for a season of trial and training to be 
 divided. I go, it is as if he said ; and it is better 
 that I should ; I leave you, and though you may sor 
 row at first, you will gain more by my leaving you 
 than you could have gained by my remaining with 
 you. " I tell you the truth ; it is expedient for you 
 that I go away." 
 
 Now, we all know it perfectly well, that such words 
 as these are oftentimes spoken, and spoken with a 
 kindly intention too, when they are not really true. 
 When some stroke of disappointment has fallen, when 
 some cherished hope has been blighted, we are anx 
 ious to persuade ourselves that it is better as it is ; we 
 say so, and we try to believe it. And the dying 
 father, who is leaving his little ones alone in this cold 
 world, would try to make them think that it is better 
 he should go in God s good time, although his anxious 
 mind and his feeble heart belie the words he utters. 
 We often say, and we often hear such words as those 
 of the text, when they express rather what is wished 
 than what is felt and believed. " It is expedient that 
 we should part," we say ; " it is better as it is ; " when 
 we could give no sufficient reason for thinking so ; 
 no sufficient reason, that is, save that one sheet-an 
 chor of the weary and disappointed heart, the wise 
 and kind decree of God. God orders all things that 
 happen, we know ; and whatever God does must be 
 right ; and so we may safely say of everything that 
 
GAIN IN THE SAVIOUR S LOSS. 99 
 
 happens that, in one sense, it is best as it is. But it 
 is not merely in this general view, and it is not 
 merely by way of saying a kind word that might cheer 
 up somewhat in a trying hour, that Jesus said to his 
 disciples ere he left them, " It is expedient for you 
 that I should go away." There must be good reason 
 for his saying these words, or he would never have 
 said them. And the reason, too, you see, must be one 
 which related rather to his disciples than to himself. 
 He was not thinking of that bright and happy home 
 that was waiting for him, and of that glory into which 
 he could enter only by bidding his earthly followers 
 for the while farewell. He was not thinking of all 
 the advantages which might thus follow for himself. 
 " It is expedient for you," he says, " that I should go 
 away." No doubt, to look at it selfishly, it was bet 
 ter for Christ himself to go away. It would be a 
 change for the better, indeed, when the homeless wan 
 derer, rejected and despised, who had not where to 
 lay his head, should stand on the right hand of God, 
 the centre of heaven s glory, the object of heaven s 
 praises ; but Jesus was not thinking of himself, or of 
 what would be most agreeable to himself. He was 
 thinking of his disciples, and he declared that it was 
 expedient for them that he should go away. He was 
 indeed their best and dearest friend ; they never could 
 find such another ; and it must be some very strong 
 reason indeed to make them believe that they would 
 be as well or better without him. There must be 
 
100 GAIN IN THE SAVIOUR S LOSS. 
 
 much indeed to gain by his going, to outweigh what 
 would be gained by his staying. And the Saviour 
 himself fixes upon a single reason. His departure, 
 lie said, was the condition of another s coming, who 
 would more than make up for his loss. Precious 
 indeed, then, must that other be ! Think of it, my 
 friends ; try to comprehend it ; he was to be a better 
 companion in that present season, a better friend than 
 Christ ! It was not merely that the new friend would 
 make up for the loss of the old one ; situated as they 
 then were, the disciples would gain by the exchange. 
 " It is expedient for you," said the Redeemer, " that 
 I go away;" that is, You will gain by my going, 
 it is not merely as well, it is better for you that I 
 should go. u For if I go not away, the Comforter 
 will not come unto you ; but if I depart, I will send 
 him unto you." 
 
 We must all feel that although it is our duty and 
 our privilege to " love the Lord our God with all our 
 heart, and strength, and mind ; " and although that 
 pious affection ought to extend to each of three Per 
 sons in the Trinity: the Father, the Son, and the Holy 
 Spirit; still there is one of these Divine Persons whom 
 we cannot choose but single out for special love. It is 
 our Blessed Saviour who has done the most for us ; 
 it is only he who has suffered for us ; it is the re 
 membrance of him that must always most warm our 
 heart ; and it is his constant presence which will 
 make the Christian s heaven. And if the question 
 
GAIN IN THE SAVIOUR S LOSS. 101 
 
 were absolutely, whether we loved more the Saviour 
 or the Sanctifier, and so which of the two we should 
 absolutely desire to have with us ; I believe that 
 every Christian would feel his whole being answer, 
 " Christ all in all," " Jesus the chiefest among ten 
 thousand, and altogether lovely." And we should 
 hardly be able to persuade ourselves that even the 
 coming of the Blessed Comforter could make up for 
 the absence of the Blessed Redeemer. Absolutely, 
 this is so ; but you see Christ s words are not uttered 
 absolutely, but in a qualified sense. All that the 
 Saviour declared in the text was, that for believers so 
 situated as the disciples he was addressing, it was ex 
 pedient and advantageous that the Comforter should 
 be present with them, even at the price of his own 
 departure. For you, it is as if he said, for you who 
 have to live in a world of work and warfare, a world 
 of sorrow and temptation, a world which is not the 
 heaven to be enjoyed, but the trial and training to be 
 endured, for you, so placed and so exercised, it is 
 expedient that I should go away ; for my presence 
 with you holds away from you one whose society is, 
 for beings placed as you are, even more important 
 and more advantageous than my own. And it is not 
 straining our Lord s words beyond their natural mean 
 ing, to say that they are spoken to the entire Christian 
 Church on earth ; that they make an assertion which 
 holds good of the whole multitude of true believers ; 
 that they lay down the great principle, that for men 
 
102 GAIN IN THE SAVIOUR S LOSS. 
 
 and women like us, with our work to do, our sorrows 
 to bear, our cares to bear up under, our sinfulness 
 to strive against, it is better, so long as we remain 
 in this world, to have the Holy Spirit of God con 
 stantly though invisibly present with us, than it would 
 be to have Christ himself, in visible presence, still 
 remaining here. Oh ! if it had been good for us, 
 surely he would never have left us ! If it would 
 really have conduced to our eternal well-being, then 
 there still would be found on this earth a place, the 
 centre of the Christian world, towards which, from 
 all lands and climes, the streams of pilgrims would 
 converge ; and there we should even yet be able to 
 behold the gracious face, and to hear the gentle 
 voice, and to look on the beloved form of him who 
 died to save us ! We should even yet be able to 
 touch the hem of his garment, to bring our troubles 
 to his feet, to bring our children to his arms ! But 
 that is not to be ; we must love him, while we see 
 him not ; we must mourn an absent Lord ; we must 
 wait till the fleshly vesture shall fall from around 
 our spirits, before we shall see him as he is. And 
 yet think not that the decree is made in severity ; 
 do not imagine that it is merely to deprive us of a 
 privilege that we should dearly prize ; it is for our 
 own good that our Redeemer is unseen by us ; it 
 was the kindest consideration for our true welfare 
 that dictated the law that looks so stern ; it is far 
 better, though it may be hard to think so, it is 
 
GAIN IX THE SAVIOUR S LOSS. 103 
 
 far better as it is ; " it was expedient for us that 
 Christ should go away ! " 
 
 Yes, my friends, it was expedient that Christ should 
 go away, because unless he went, the Comforter would 
 not come ; and to the Christian Church, cast upon a 
 world like this, the invisible Comforter would stand 
 in even better stead than the visible Redeemer. But 
 the thought naturally suggests itself, Why might the 
 Church not have had both ? Surely it would have 
 been best of all to have Jesus still with us, gracious as 
 of old ; and the Blessed Spirit as well. Might not the 
 Second Person in the Trinity and the Third have 
 been both on earth together ? Now, my friends, we 
 must just take Christ s word for it, that this cannot be. 
 We cannot tell how and why it is ; but for some good 
 reason, unknown to us, we cannot have both together. 
 In this world, it is needful that we should do with one. 
 The Saviour s words are perfectly explicit : " If I go 
 not away, the Comforter will not come unto you." 
 And so, receiving this as a truth which cannot be 
 questioned, let us consider for a little how it comes to 
 be, that it is better for the Christian Church to have 
 the Holy Spirit, than even to have the Saviour per 
 sonally present. Can it be made out that it was bet 
 ter on the whole to submit to the Saviour s personal 
 loss, if that was the condition upon which alone the 
 Comforter could come ? We may not be able to make 
 out all the reasons which were present to the Saviour s 
 mind, when he thus exalted the Spirit s society above 
 
104 GAIN IN THE SAVIOUR S LOSS. 
 
 even his own. Yet it would be pleasing if w r e could 
 in so far understand the matter ; and it is a very fit 
 use of our reason, to employ it in seeking to discover 
 grounds for that which we receive by faith. 
 
 It is but the merest sketch of two or three consid 
 erations which it is possible for me now to present to 
 you. 
 
 For one thing, then, let us remember that the choice 
 lay between Christ as he then was, a person, dwelling 
 in a human body ; and a Divine Spirit, capable of 
 being universally present at the same time. Christ, 
 dwelling in flesh, could be only in one place at a 
 time ; while the Comforter, unbound by fleshly tram 
 mels, could be in a thousand places, working on a 
 million hearts, all at once. And I think you will see, 
 that for the grand end of carrying on the government 
 of a Church that is to overspread the w r orld, and to 
 include within itself men of every country and every 
 tongue, it was better to have one Divine Being, equally 
 present everywhere, working with equal energy every 
 where ; than even to have Christ himself dwelling in 
 visible form in some favored spot, and by the very 
 fact of his being visible there, making those disciples 
 in distant countries who saw him not, feel as though 
 they were so far overlooked, as though they were in 
 some sense placed at a disadvantage. Far better, 
 surely, to be able to think, as we can gladly think 
 now, that there is no disciple who is far away from 
 his Saviour s presence ; and far better, surely, to be 
 
GAIN IN THE SAVIOUR S LOSS. 105 
 
 able to think, as we can think now, that wherever two 
 or three are assembled in Christ s name, he is there 
 in the midst of them ; than even to be able to journey 
 far away, till we reached the place of his visible pres 
 ence ; and there, entering some noble pile, the mother 
 church of Christendom, to join in a worship, simple 
 and sublime, wherein the visible Christ himself took 
 part. No, it is the fancy of Papery, but it is not the 
 purpose of the Redeemer, to have one fixed, localized, 
 visible centre of the Christian Church. It is better to 
 have a Divine Agent, everywhere present, everywhere 
 exercising an equal power, than to have a living Sov 
 ereign, who by the very fact of his being seen at one 
 place, clothed in a human body, is precluded from 
 exercising an equal influence anywhere else. But as 
 it is, the Divine presence is equally diffused over the 
 entire Christian world. No believer can fancy that 
 he is overlooked, no believer can feel as though he 
 were kept at a distance ; the empire of Christ, main 
 tained on earth by the Holy Spirit, is able to afford 
 equal and uniform blessings at all places and at all 
 times. The Holy City has no preference above any 
 corner of God s earth. We are no nearer Christ at 
 Jerusalem than we are in Galloway or at Edinburgh. 
 And if sacred places can even yet warm the Chris 
 tian s heart ; if not without emotion we can even yet 
 pace the narrow bounds of Gethsemane, or climb the 
 slopes of Olivet, or muse where stood the accursed 
 tree ; it is but the working of natural associations that 
 5* 
 
106 GAIN IN THE SAVIOUR S LOSS. 
 
 awakens the feeling ; it is not that Christ is nearer us 
 there than here. And when you and I, my friends, 
 call it to mind, how the cares and duties of life tie 
 most of us to one little spot of this world ; when we 
 think how vainly most of us might wish to make a 
 weary pilgrimage of thousands of miles, even though 
 that pilgrimage should bring us into the visible pres 
 ence of our God ; shall we not be humbly thankful 
 that now we have but to enter into our closet and shut 
 the door, and we are as near our Saviour as w r e can 
 be anywhere on earth ; shall we not be thankful for 
 the presence here of a Divine Being, Sanctifier and 
 Comforter, who can make our very soul his home ; 
 and shall we not, as we think of all he can do in all 
 places and all hearts at once, and remember that the 
 price paid for his presence was the loss of a visible 
 Saviour, whose visible presence would have blessed 
 hundreds, but only tantalized hundreds of thousands, 
 and who can still remain with us although unseen, 
 shall we not, as we reckon the gains and losses, agree, 
 after all, with that Saviour s own declaration, that "it 
 was expedient for us that he should go away " ? 
 
 So much, perhaps, we are justified in saying, before 
 we have thought at all of the special nature and work 
 of the Holy Spirit. Even thinking of him merely as 
 a Divine Being, whom Christ had deputed to fill his 
 place, it seems as if his power of universal, though 
 invisible presence, made him even more useful to the 
 
GAIN IN THE SAVIOUR S LOSS. 107 
 
 members of a Church scattered over all the world, 
 than a bodily, visible Redeemer, limited by time and 
 localized in space. But when we go a little farther, 
 and think what are the peculiar functions of the 
 Holy Spirit, what kind of work it is especially his 
 to do, we shall see, I think, even more plainly, 
 how fit it was that so long as the Christian Church 
 is militant upon earth, he should take the place of 
 the visible Redeemer. For what are the functions of 
 the Holy Spirit ? He is the Regenerator ; he is the 
 Sanctificr ; he is the Comforter ; he is the Prompter 
 and Dictator of prayer. It is not for us to say how 
 far such duties as these might be performed by other 
 Persons of the Godhead; these are things into which 
 we have no right to pry ; but this we know, that it has 
 pleased Divine wisdom to allot such work especially 
 to the Blessed Spirit; and such work will be done, we 
 dare not say better, but certainly more naturally, by 
 him than by any other. Each Person in the Trinity 
 has his own share in the great task of preparing man 
 for heaven ; and a certain work has been appointed 
 to the Third Person, the Holy Spirit. Now, when you 
 think of the several things which it is the Spirit s 
 occupation to do, do you not see that this world is 
 the place where they must be done ? Do you not 
 see that the Holy Spirit s work lies mainly with 
 a suffering, struggling, sinful, tempted, imperfect 
 Church ? Do you not see, in short, a special fitness, 
 a special relation, between the workings of the Holy 
 
108 GAIN IN THE SAVIOUR S LOSS. 
 
 Spirit, and the condition of Christian people upon 
 earth, till the day of judgment? Yes, placed and 
 tried as we are, it is just the Holy Spirit we ne-ed ; 
 and so it is just the Holy Spirit that we get. It is in 
 this world that his gracious work is to be done. We 
 shall need him less, with reverence be it said, when 
 we shall have entered upon the immediate presence 
 of our God. For are we dead by nature, must we be 
 quickened into newness of life, must we be regener 
 ated ? Then it is by the working of the Blessed 
 Spirit that we are born again. And once new crea 
 tures in Christ Jesus, must we be sanctified day by 
 day ? Must we grow in grace, and become meet for 
 heave"n ? Then it is by the working of the Blessed 
 Spirit that we are sanctified. Christ s people are 
 "chosen to salvation through sanctification of the 
 Spirit and belief of the truth." And are we pressed 
 with cares and sorrows ? Has it grown into a trite 
 commonplace, a tale a hundred times repeated, that 
 this is a world of sorrow, that this is a world of 
 care ? Then the Blessed Spirit is the Comforter, who 
 can make the Saviour s people bear up patiently, and 
 sometimes even cheerfully, amid all earthly troubles ; 
 and who, not forgetting his other great work of 
 sanctifying, can turn all earthly care into heavenly 
 discipline ; can make the path of tribulation serve to 
 quicken the steps, and to purify the spirit, for the 
 upper kingdom of God ! And is this a world wherein 
 the believer must live and breathe by prayer ? Is this 
 
GAIN IN THE SAVIOUR S LOSS. 109 
 
 a world wherein prayer is the channel through which 
 we can draw all needful blessing, day by day : daily 
 bread, daily strength, daily guidance, daily pardon, 
 daily comfort and hope? Then the Holy Spirit, 
 Spirit of all grace and all supplication, is by us, to 
 put upon our poor dumb lips the words of acceptable 
 prayer, and to breathe into our cold hearts that fer 
 vency of devotion which shall make prayer effectual 
 and prevailing, which shall make it at once profitable 
 and delightful to pour out our hearts in prayer at our 
 heavenly Father s knee. Oh for that blessed Spirit ! 
 Oh that his gracious, soft, beautiful influences, coming 
 in showers of blessing, were poured out in tenfold 
 measure, refreshing, reviving, comforting, sanctifying, 
 upon this dry and dusty world, upon this valley of dry 
 bones, crumbling and cold ! Oh that his gracious in 
 fluences, sanctifying, comforting, were poured out in 
 tenfold measure, upon our own sorrowful and sinful 
 hearts ! 
 
 How beautifully, how admirably, surely you will say, 
 the powers and influences of that Blessed Spirit, are 
 adapted to all the exigencies of the collective Church 
 and of the individual believer ! There is not a point 
 in the soul s better life, there is not an emergency in 
 the Christian s earthly pilgrimage, at which the Blessed 
 Spirit does not come in, the very thing we need ! He 
 begins, and he ends, all that the Christian counts of 
 life. His gracious influences, indeed, were purchased 
 at a dear price. He cost the early Church the pres- 
 
110 GAIN IN THE SAVIOUR S LOSS. 
 
 ence of its Head and Lord. He would not come, 
 perhaps (who knows ?) he could not, till the last 
 words of blessing had parted from the ascending 
 Saviour s lips, till Jesus, seen as he is, had quitted 
 this world until that day when he shall come again. 
 But yet, so precious was his presence with us, that 
 the Redeemer s own words assure us that it was well 
 worth all it cost ; and in the prospect of his com 
 ing, and as the condition of his coming, our Blessed 
 Saviour hesitates not to say of himself, " It is expe 
 dient for you that I go away ! " 
 
 And so, for reasons such as these, it is better as it 
 is. It is better to have the Holy Spirit, the Regener 
 ator, Sanctifier, Comforter, Prompter of prayer, every 
 where diffused over the Christian world, working on 
 every Christian heart, than even to have the Saviour 
 himself consecrating some spot on earth by his visible 
 presence. It is better as it is, for this our life of dis 
 cipline for immortality ; and when our life of holiness 
 and happiness begins, then we shall see him as he is, 
 and grow like him through that beatific vision. We 
 have not on earth, as yet, a fitting home for him, nor 
 fitting friends for him ; we are not yet pure enough 
 in heart to behold with these eyes our God. His 
 tempered glory beams upon us, his strong hand 
 touches us gently, through the intervention of an 
 unseen Spirit, who is truly and actually God. But 
 still, if you are Christ s true disciples, and to Christ s 
 
GAIN IX THE SAVIOUR S LOSS. Ill 
 
 true disciples this sermon is preached, the Saviour, 
 although " gone away," is present in your hearts and 
 in your dwellings still. He left us in visible form ; it 
 was " expedient for us " that he should ; but even as 
 he went, he said the hopeful words, " Lo, I am with 
 you always, even to the end of the world ! " And 
 present in his spirit, in his house, in his ordinances, 
 in his word, surely Jesus is with us still. Softened to 
 our poor comprehension, mellowed like the setting 
 sun to our weak sight, we have our Saviour with us 
 yet, and we will never let him go ! He is far away, 
 yet he is very near ; he " went away," yet he never 
 left us ; we cannot see him, yet he watches us night 
 and day ; and the hour is on the wing, when he shall 
 return in glory ; when the Comforter s mission will be 
 fulfilled ; and the Blessed Redeemer and his true 
 disciples shall meet face to face, meet, and never 
 part! 
 
VII. 
 SPIRITUAL INSENSIBILITY. 
 
 " Who, being past feeling . " EPH. iv. 19. 
 
 N the wilds of North America, amid vast 
 prairies and trackless woods, there lived, 
 through many centuries, the race of the 
 Red Men. Encroached upon from all 
 sides, hemmed in by settlers from Europe, and de 
 frauded of their ancient territories, that race of men 
 has almost disappeared from the face of the earth. 
 They were a race of hunters ; unsettled, cruel, and 
 deceitful ; yet not without many features of character 
 which gave them a peculiar interest. Their hospital 
 ity was inviolate ; and the stern gravity of their man 
 ners deeply impressed the stranger. But there was 
 one thing about them, in particular, which they cul 
 tivated with especial care, and which was matter of 
 especial pride : this was their power of absolutely re 
 pressing the slightest outward exhibition of feeling. 
 If they were glad, they never looked it ; if the most 
 awful misfortune befell them, it wrought not the least 
 change on their iron features and their impassive de 
 meanor. From his tree-rocked cradle to his bier, the 
 
SPIRITUAL INSENSIBILITY. 113 
 
 Indian brave was trained to bear all the extremes of 
 good and evil, without making any sign of what he 
 felt. If he met a friend, the dearest friend on earth ; 
 or if he was being tortured to death at the fiery stake ; 
 he preserved the same fixed, immovable aspect. And 
 you could not please him better than by believing that 
 he was as completely beyond all feeling as he seemed; 
 for he set himself out as " the stoic of the woods," as 
 " a man without a tear." 
 
 And, indeed, it is curious to think how much, in 
 this respect, the extreme of civilization and the ex 
 treme of barbarism approach one another. Greek 
 philosophy centuries ago, and modern refinement in 
 its last polish of manner, alike recognize the mute 
 Oneida s principle, that there is something manly, 
 something fine, in the repression of human feeling. 
 A Red Indian, a Grecian philosopher, an English 
 gentleman, would all be pretty equally ashamed to 
 have been seen to weep. Each would try to convey 
 by his entire deportment the impression that he cared 
 very little for anything. And there is no doubt at 
 all, that it might be unworthy of the grown-up man, 
 who has to battle with the world for his family s sup 
 port, were his feelings as easily moved as in his child 
 ish days, or did his tears flow as readily as then. 
 Even the gentleness and freshness of womanly feeling 
 would hardly suit the rude wear of manhood s busy 
 life. And it must be admitted, that the highest pitch 
 of heroism to which man has ever attained, as well as 
 
114 SPIRITUAL INSENSIBILITY. 
 
 the vilest degree of guilt to which man has ever sunk, 
 has been attained, has been sunk to, by the putting 
 down of natural feeling. The soldier volunteering for 
 the forlorn hope, must do that as truly as the desperate 
 pirate who spreads his black flag to the winds. And 
 yet St. Paul was right when he wrote these words of 
 my text. When he was speaking of people who had 
 become hopelessly and fearfully bad, who had broken 
 through every restraint, who had flung off every obli 
 gation ; he was quite right to mention, as something 
 symptomatic of their case, that they were " past feel 
 ing." They were thoroughly hardened. You could 
 make no impression upon them. They were beyond 
 all sense of the foulness of the sin in which they were 
 sunk ; and it was vain to think to make them feel it. 
 And that was the most hopeless thing about them. 
 Say what you might, they did not care. You could 
 not move them ; you could not touch them ; you 
 could make nothing of them ; for they were " past 
 feeling." 
 
 We all understand, then, that there is a certain pitch 
 of wickedness at which moral insensibility comes on ; 
 and when that comes on, the case becomes almost 
 hopeless. There is little prospect of repentance or 
 reformation then. No matter how bad any poor sinner 
 has been, there is still some hope so long as you can 
 get him to feel. If when you speak kindly to the poor 
 outcast, and point out to him the shame and sinfulness 
 of his life, and remind him of his better days and of 
 
SPIRITUAL INSENSIBILITY. 115 
 
 the home of his youth, and ask him what his father 
 and mother would have felt, if they had lived to see 
 him what he is, and tell him how Christ is ready to 
 receive back even the chief of repenting sinners ; if 
 the poor outcast is touched by such thoughts as these, 
 then there is still hope for him ; there may be joy in 
 the presence of the angels of God over that poor out 
 cast yet. But if when the Christian minister presses 
 such thoughts upon some unhappy being whom he has 
 found in the course of his duty, they are all listened 
 to with a reckless unconcern, with a total apathy ; if 
 the poor wretch shows that but for some miraculous 
 interposition of God s irresistible grace, you might as 
 well speak to a stone ; if no tear flows, if no relenting 
 is stirred at the heart ; if your reception be just one 
 of perfect indifference ; then the Christian minister s 
 heart sinks within him. Then he feels that he can do 
 nothing, nothing, at least, but pray for an influence 
 that is beyond all human power. Then, indeed, it 
 seems as if the poor sinner is past hope, because he 
 is " past feeling ! " 
 
 Yes, brethren, St. Paul was right. It is one of the 
 last and worst symptoms of the soul s condition, when 
 feeling is gone. You know that it is sometimes so 
 also with the body. Sometimes when disease has run 
 a certain length, there is nothing which looks so ill as 
 an entire cessation of pain. For that may indicate 
 that mortification has begun, and so that all hope is at 
 an end. So with spiritual insensibility ; for that is 
 
116 SPIRITUAL INSENSIBILITY. 
 
 arrived at by most men only after a long continuance 
 in iniquity ; and that is an indication which gives sad 
 ground for fearing that the Holy Spirit, without whom 
 we can never feel anything as we ought, has ceased to 
 strive with that hardened soul, has left that obdu 
 rate heart alone. brethren, let us have sinfulness, 
 however great, so there be with it the sensibility of 
 life ; rather than outward decency and propriety of 
 conduct, and with them the insensibility of death. 
 There is more hope of repentance, more hope of final 
 salvation, for the very murderer, shuddering in the 
 condemned cell, and wakened up to an awful, over 
 whelming sense of the black transgressions of his life, 
 than for the decent respectable man, who, without ever 
 heartily believing in Jesus, has, year by year, never 
 missed a Sunday from church, nor a sacrament from 
 the communion-table ; and who has thus grown so 
 thoroughly familiar with religious truths, that the 
 mention of them makes no more impression upon 
 him than a wave makes upon a rock. The guilty 
 criminal is now, at least, brought to a state of intense 
 fear, of intense alarm and concern about his soul ; and 
 God only knows what good may come out of that. 
 But, oh ! what movement can come of pure stagna 
 tion ! What can you look for but doing nothing, from 
 the man who has arrived at feeling nothing ! 
 
 But while thus we remember that to have become 
 " past feeling " is, morally and spiritually, a very hope 
 less thing ; and, very generally, a thing which is not 
 
SPIRITUAL INSENSIBILITY. 117 
 
 reached but slowly and gradually ; let us not, there 
 fore, imagine that our text describes a state of matters 
 which can only be found among the most degraded 
 and abandoned of the race. I believe, on the con 
 trary, that our text names a spiritual condition which 
 is too common a condition ; a condition to which we 
 have all a strong tendency ; a spiritual condition which 
 we must all daily be striving and praying against. 
 We all run a great risk of becoming so familiar with 
 spiritual truths, as that we shall understand them and 
 believe them without feeling them ; without really 
 feeling what their meaning is, and without that degree 
 of emotion being excited by them that ought to be 
 excited. I am sure that even the very best Christians 
 among us must often be surprised to find how coolly, 
 how indifferently, they can listen to truths so awful, 
 that, when we think of it, it seems almost impossible 
 that men should ever remember them but with the 
 hushed heart and the silent earnest prayer. That 
 God is ever by us, and ever watching us ; that death 
 and the grave are before us all, we cannot say how 
 near ; that beyond the grave there awaits us a great 
 eternity, in which there are but the two alternatives, 
 heaven and perdition ; that Jesus died to save us from 
 hell, to raise us to heaven ; and that we are invited 
 and entreated to believe on him, and live forever ; 
 that the few years of our earthly pilgrimage are to 
 decide the momentous question of our eternal state ; 
 brethren, do you not wonder to find that you can 
 
118 SPIRITUAL INSENSIBILITY. 
 
 think of all these things, and believe them all, and yet 
 feel so little ? And if it be true, that even the con 
 verted man, in whom what we may call the organs of 
 spiritual perception have been quickened from their 
 native paralysis, and the capacity of spiritual emotion 
 in some good measure developed, by the working of 
 Divine grace, has to wonder and lament that he be 
 lieves so much, but feels it so little ; we need hardly 
 be surprised to find that in the case of most uncon 
 verted men, living in a Christian country, and probably 
 frequenting a Christian church, there is a perfect 
 numbness of soul ; as regards spiritual things, they are, 
 in the full sense of the words, " past feeling ! " They 
 know already all that the Christian minister can say 
 to them ; they believe it all ; it has been presented to 
 them a hundred times in all conceivable forms, and 
 pressed upon them by all conceivable arguments and 
 considerations ; but it produces no impression ; you 
 might as well speak to the wild winds ; they never feel 
 what you say to be real, real in the sense in which 
 trees and fields, home and children, friends and money, 
 are real. You may remember what a faithful and 
 zealous minister tells us, of a conversation which he had 
 with an aged man in his parish, a respectable, decent 
 man, who bore an unstained character, who never was 
 absent from church or sacrament. That zealous min 
 ister, in his parochial visitation, went to that respect 
 able man s house, and there, addressing him and his 
 family, he told simply of the salvation that is in Christ, 
 
SPIRITUAL INSENSIBILITY. 119 
 
 and urged those who listened to a hearty acceptance 
 of it. The minister finished what he had to say, 
 and when he left the house his friend accompanied 
 him ; and when they were alone together, said some 
 thing like this : * Spend your time and strength upon 
 the young ; labor to bring them to Jesus ; it is too late 
 for such as ine. I know," he said, k that I have never 
 been a Christian. I fully believe that when I die I 
 shall go down to perdition ; but somehow I do not care. 
 I know perfectly all you can say ; but I feel it no more 
 than a stone." And that man, we are told, died with 
 the like words on his lips. He had lost the spring 
 time of his life ; he had missed the tide in his affairs 
 that might have borne him to heaven ; his heart had, 
 under the deadening influence of a present world, 
 grown hard and unimpressionable ; and saving only 
 God s irresistible Spirit, there was no use in any one 
 speaking of religious things to such as him. Oh, past 
 feeling ! Past feeling ! Not past it in the mere sen 
 timental sense in which the poet tells us that "it is the 
 one great woe of life to feel all feeling die ; " not past 
 it in that mere sentimental sense in which youth has a 
 freshness of feeling and heart which tames down, which 
 passes away with advancing years ; not past it merely 
 in that sense in which as we grow older we grow less 
 susceptible, less capable of all emotion ; not past it 
 merely in the sense, that when the hair grows gray, 
 and the pulse turns slower, the tear flows less readily 
 avt the gospel story, and even at the table of coinmu- 
 
120 SPIRITUAL INSENSIBILITY. 
 
 nion we miss somewhat of the warmth of heart and 
 the vividness of thought which we felt in earlier days ; 
 but " past feeling" in that saddest sense, that religious 
 words fall with little meaning on the ear, and with no 
 impression at all upon the heart ; " past feeling " in 
 that saddest sense, that now to all spiritual truths, to 
 all expostulation and all entreaty, to God s abounding 
 mercy, to Christ s blessed sacrifice, to the hopes of 
 heaven and the fears of perdition, the understanding 
 may indeed yield a torpid, listless assent ; but the heart 
 is stone ! 
 
 Now, my friends, there is no doubt at all, that in 
 the nature of things, by the very make of our being, 
 we have to lament that we are far less impressed and 
 affected by spiritual truths than we ought to be. We 
 know them ; we understand them ; we believe them ; 
 but somehow we do not realize them ; we do not, in 
 short, feel them. And till we have in some degree 
 "passed from death to life," from death, with its 
 torpor and insensibility, to life, with its keen senses 
 and its quick perception, we never can rightly feel 
 spiritual things in their overwhelming reality and im 
 portance. And perhaps, indeed, so long as our souls 
 are clogged by these mortal bodies, the true force and 
 meaning of those grand realities which are discerned 
 by faith and not by sight will never be felt by us as 
 they ought. Oh, there would be no wicked men, if 
 people realized what is meant by heaven and hell ; 
 there would be no worldly men, if people realized 
 
SPIRITUAL INSENSIBILITY. 121 
 
 what is meant by time and eternity ; there would be 
 no heart cold to the gracious invitations of the Blessed 
 Redeemer, if people realized to their hearts how kind 
 and merciful and forbearing and gracious HE was 
 and is ; and realized to their hearts that in that gentle, 
 sympathizing, loving Being, we see the visible image 
 of the invisible God ! But true as all this is ; true as 
 it is that at no period in our life, not even when the 
 heart is softest and the head least sophisticated, do 
 we naturally feel spiritual things as they ought to be 
 felt ;- still it is true no less, that as we grow hardened 
 through the wear of life, we must, apart from Divine 
 grace, grow less and less impressible by them. Even 
 in earliest youth we do not feel divine things as we 
 ought ; but in the common course of things, as we grow 
 older, we shall always feel them less ; because as we 
 grow older, all feeling becomes less easily awakened, 
 religious feeling and natural feeling alike. We grow 
 so familiar with divine things, that they cease to 
 strike us as they might strike a stranger. We know 
 so thoroughly well all that the preacher can say to us, 
 that his words fall upon our ear with the worn-out 
 interest of a twenty-times repeated tale. What can 
 we hear when we go to church that we do not know 
 already ? What argument can at this time of day be 
 addressed to us, with which we have not been many 
 times already plied ? Oh for a return of the days 
 when we first believed in Christ ! Oh for a revival 
 of the warm, fresh feelings of communion Sabbaths 
 
122 SPIRITUAL INSENSIBILITY. 
 
 past and gone ! Oh for a return of those early days 
 when the tears flowed at gospel story ; when, with the 
 warm, touched heart, we traced the life of the Man of 
 Sorrows from the manger to the grave, and listened 
 to his comfortable words, and watched his deeds of 
 mercy, and felt our souls burn within us at the recol 
 lection that all he did and all he suffered was done 
 and suffered for us, and for such as we are ! Oh for 
 a revival of those better days, before years and care 
 and hard experience had withered up the heart, and 
 frozen the founts of feeling ! 
 
 But, my brethren, while we never forget that in the 
 case of even a true Christian, it is a sad thing when, 
 as years go on, his religion appears to be always grow 
 ing more a thing of the head, and less a thing of the 
 heart ; and while we are well assured that no one will 
 lament that more than the true Christian himself; let 
 us remember that such a train of thought must not be 
 pushed too far. It would be very wrong if the aged 
 believer were to fancy that because his religious feel 
 ings are growing less keen, less easily excited, than in 
 former years, he must therefore conclude that he is 
 backsliding from his God, and leaving his first love. 
 He takes his place, shall we say, at the table of high 
 communion ; he receives into his hands those simple 
 elements which mean so much ; but he grieves as he 
 misses something of that warm feeling which he re 
 members used to come over him in days gone by ; 
 and perhaps he makes himself unhappy by trying to 
 
SPIRITUAL INSENSIBILITY. 123 
 
 awaken feeling which no longer comes spontaneous, 
 and which, if it do not come spontaneous, will not 
 come at all. He is causing for himself needless 
 sorrow when he so acts and thinks. It is just that 
 he has grown older, and so less capable of all emotion; 
 but his choice of Christ may be just as firm, and his 
 religious convictions as deep as ever. Religion in the 
 soul has to do with both the head and the heart; it 
 would be quite as false to represent it as entirely a 
 thing of sentiment, as to make it entirely a matter of 
 principle and resolution. We know that Christianity 
 is such in its essential nature as to suit all sorts of 
 men, those in whom the intellectual faculties pre 
 dominate, no less than those in whom the emotional. 
 True and vital religion is a plant which will grow in 
 either soil ; either soil may be good, and we cannot 
 say which is best ; and it may be that the calm, 
 thoughtful mood, in which the old man covers his 
 face, as he bends over the white cloth, befits as well 
 our calm feast of remembrance, as do the young be 
 liever s tears. It seems to me as if some good divines 
 go wrong, when they lead communicants at a sacra 
 ment time to fancy that feeling is the test and touch 
 stone of worthy receiving ; and that according as that 
 is present or absent, the partaker of that consecrated 
 bread and wine has made a worthy or an unworthy 
 approach to the Lord s table. No doubt, warm emo 
 tion at such a time is much to be desired ; no doubt 
 we cannot but have a certain disappointment if it 
 
124 SPIRITUAL INSENSIBILITY. 
 
 be lacking ; but after all, it is of the nature of a 
 luxury rather than of a necessary ; and if it should 
 please God to deny it to us, he may still be feed 
 ing us with the bread of life, though it may taste to 
 us less sweet and refreshing than we have known it 
 do. If, as years go on, the time comes, when even 
 under the roof-tree of a long-parted father s house, 
 even standing by his young sister s grave, the man of 
 no more than middle age wonders that he feels so 
 little where once he felt so much, we need not wonder 
 if the same law extends to even the holiest emotion. 
 And though we may think of it with sorrow, we need 
 not necessarily think of it with remorse, if we have 
 grown in some degree " past feeling." 
 
 But while it would not have been right, had I 
 failed to mark this great exception to the general 
 principle which seems to be implied in the text, it 
 would be wrong, did I fail to add, that it is only to 
 such as have really some good ground for hoping 
 that they have believed in Christ, that all this should 
 be any ground of comfort. If a man is truly a Chris 
 tian, then the fact, that as time goes on, religious 
 truths come to affect him less, and less than he could 
 wish, may be explained by these two laws of mind : 
 that when things grow quite familiar, they strike us 
 less, and cannot but strike us less, than when they 
 are new and strange ; and also, that as we grow older, 
 we grow, by the make of our being, less susceptible 
 of the warm, lively feelings of childhood and of youth. 
 
SPIRITUAL INSENSIBILITY. 125 
 
 But if a man be not a believer; and if, when he 
 listens to the declaration of the doctrines of the Cross, 
 he understands them but does not feel them ; if he 
 knows thoroughly well that whosoever does not be 
 take himself to the great atonement of Christ must 
 perish eternally ; and if he knows too that he himself 
 has never gone to Christ, and never prepared to die ; 
 and if, with all this, he does not care ; ah, then there 
 is a sad and a fearful explanation of how he comes to 
 be so ! Ah, there is a sad and a fearful reason for all 
 this insensibility ! Is there not some reason at least to 
 fear that this dead calm, this utter heedlessness, is be 
 cause God s Spirit has let that man alone, has given 
 him up, and is striving with him no more ? Is there not 
 something awful and strange, something beyond the 
 mere spiritual insensibility of nature, in the calm reck 
 lessness, the cool apathetic indifference, of the man 
 who knows perfectly that there is but a step between 
 him and death, and that to him death means perdition ; 
 and yet who lives on quite quietly and comfortably, 
 attending to his business, enjoying his home comforts, 
 improving his estate and does not care ! Ah, has 
 God indeed given him up? Is the black brand al 
 ready, if we could but see it, on that composed and 
 polite face ! How else can we understand how he can 
 come regularly, perhaps, to church ; and listen to 
 doctrines that should save, that should at the very 
 least alarm him ; and believe them all ; and go away 
 home and never mind ! Surely there seems to be no 
 
126 SPIRITUAL INSENSIBILITY. 
 
 other way in which it is possible to explain a state of 
 things which exists in too many cases, which is a 
 sadly common one, than by supposing that the de 
 cree has gone forth which we know went forth con 
 cerning ancient Ephraim : "He is joined to his idols, 
 let him alone ! " Surely you would say, that man is 
 not sane ! Surely he is under some fatal, mysterious 
 influence, that paralyzes the soul s perceptions, and 
 that deadens its feelings ! And so he is, my friends. 
 So are all of you, who weekly listen to the preached 
 gospel, yet never seriously go to Christ, and never 
 earnestly seek to make your peace with God. A 
 faithfully preached gospel will act upon the soul in 
 one of two perfectly opposite ways. It will either 
 save, or it will harden. And if it do not save, it is 
 sure to harden. If you listen to the declaration of 
 the message of mercy, if you come to know all 
 about it, if you grow familiar with all the argu 
 ments which the Christian minister can employ to 
 impress it upon your heart, and yet if after all 
 you do not become a believer, then if all this has 
 gone on for years, it is less likely that the arrow of 
 conviction will ever reach your obdurate, your hard 
 ened heart, than if you were a poor heathen in some 
 darkened land that never heard of Jesus, and where, 
 if that blessed name ever should be heard, it will come 
 with the freshness of a surprise. The gospel has 
 hardened you ! The Saviour has knocked at the door 
 so long, while you never opened it, that now you have 
 
SPIRITUAL INSENSIBILITY. 127 
 
 grown familiar with the sound, and it is never noticed 
 by your listless ear. We feel deeply, and right that 
 we should, for the missionary laboring in distant lands, 
 and seeking to convey the elements of the knowledge 
 of Christ to the narrow understanding of the untutored 
 savage; but narrow as is that untutored being s under 
 standing, still he has a heart capable of deep feeling, 
 and on his ear the glad tidings fall fresh and new. 
 And perhaps the deeper sympathy is due, where we 
 should hardly think of giving it, due to the earnest 
 minister of some beautiful country parish, whose con 
 gregation has listened to the gospel message so long, 
 that many among it are thoroughly hardened ; that 
 all who are not converted are hopelessly hardened ; 
 and have been so often roused to inefficacious con 
 victions, to passing concern that ended in nothing, 
 that now you need speak to them no more, that 
 now they are " past feeling." 
 
 Then, brethren, let it be your earnest prayer and 
 endeavor at once to go to him who came to seek and 
 save the lost. There is deep philosophy, there is ac 
 curate knowledge of human nature, in the inspired 
 warning, "To-day, if ye will hear his voice, harden 
 not your hearts." For, speaking humanly, every day 
 that repentance is put off, is making repentance more 
 difficult. " Now is the accepted time, now is the day 
 of salvation." With every succeeding day, your hearts 
 are growing harder ; you are becoming less capable of 
 receiving any deep impression, or of making any vital 
 
128 SPIRITUAL INSENSIBILITY. 
 
 change. You are leaving behind you, day by day, the 
 more impressible season of your life. And if you live 
 on, you are advancing to years in which the heart will 
 always be more difficult to touch ; and in which the 
 care of religion, neglected so long, may become more 
 than difficult, may become impossible. The Holy 
 Spirit, without whom you can do nothing, may be 
 finally grieved away. You may reach at last that 
 hopeless condition, that you shall know quite well that 
 your soul is lost; and yet only wish to think of some 
 thing else, and only feel that you do not care. You 
 may live to know, that, as regards religion, you are 
 "past feeling," and so past hope. It must be sad, 
 indeed, to see the hardened criminal listen to the 
 sentence of death, which the judge who utters it can 
 scarcely pronounce, with utter insensibility ; but all 
 men think of him as of some monstrous exception to 
 the common nature of humanity. And surely it is 
 sadder by far to see a human being, a rational man, 
 going onwards to a doom which Jesus wept to think 
 of, which Jesus died to save from, careless, heedless, 
 feelingless as a stone. And yet there are some in 
 every congregation who are doing all that ! Oh, God 
 have mercy on such, if there are any here ! You have 
 lived too long, my friends. You have outlived " the 
 day of your visitation." What can we do but pray 
 that the Divine Spirit may even yet speak to you, in 
 sentences so telling, that they shall touch and pene 
 trate even the obdurate heart, that, to human power, 
 is " past feeling ! " 
 
VIII. 
 LIGHT AT EVENING. 
 
 " But it shall come to pass, that at evening-time it shall be light." 
 ZECHARIAH xiv. 7. 
 
 T is when the day is drawing to its close, 
 that most men have their hour of leisure. 
 The season of toil is past, the task is laid 
 apart, the strain upon bone and sinew is 
 relaxed ; and if it be the winter-time, we gather around 
 the fire to enjoy the feeling of repose ; and if it be the 
 summer days that are passing over us, we wander forth 
 in the declining light, and mark how nature sinks to 
 slumber. We know, most of us, how nature looks at 
 evening, better than we know how she seems in the 
 busier hours of the day ; we are too much occupied 
 during them to have time for watching the aspect of 
 trees and fields, the form of clouds and the azure of 
 the sky. But in our evening leisure we have many 
 a time had the opportunity of marking the sun s grad 
 ual withdrawal, the shadows as they darkened upon 
 the landscape, the mist stealing upward from the 
 river, and its murmur deepening upon the ear, the 
 leaves so motionless, the silent fields, the universal 
 hush and quiet. But after all, if we were asked what 
 6* 
 
130 LIGHT AT EVENING. 
 
 it is that makes the evening-time, even the even 
 ing-time of summer, we have no difficulty in sin 
 gling out from the many features which we have re 
 marked so often, that which is the essence of the 
 evening, and the cause of them all. It is the gradual 
 withdrawal of the light. It is the lessening light, after 
 all, that makes the evening-time. It is because of that 
 that the daisies close, and the birds fly to their nests, 
 and this hush comes over nature. And it is just be 
 cause evening is the time when, in the ordinary course 
 of things, the light is going and the darkness is com 
 ing, that there is anything remarkable in the text 
 \vhich you have read. " At the evening-time there 
 shall be light; * that is, light shall come at a period 
 when it is not natural, when in the common course of 
 things it is not looked for. It would be no surprise 
 that light should come at noonday. We expect it 
 then. It is just what we are accustomed to see. 
 Hundreds and thousands of times we know that the 
 sun has risen, and steadily advanced to his meridian 
 splendor ; and all this, we think, is only the usual 
 tiling. But if, when the twilight shadows were fall 
 ing deeper and deeper, when the distant woods seemed 
 in a slumberous trance, and the distant hills showed 
 purple against the soft crimson, with a sudden burst 
 the noonday light were to spread around, that would 
 be a surprise. It would be indeed only a thing which 
 we are accustomed to see, but it would be coming at 
 a time when we are not accustomed to see it. Yet 
 
LIGHT AT EVENING. 131 
 
 nothing less than this is signified in that remarkable 
 promise, given first to the Church of God and then 
 to individual believers, that in their experience, in 
 their day, " at the evening-time it shall be light." 
 
 That is, to state the promise in the form of a gen 
 eral principle, great and signal blessing shall come 
 just when it is least expected. Evening, usually the 
 season of increasing and encroaching darkness, is to 
 be the season of special light. And this would be a 
 noteworthy thing, if it happened at the close of the 
 very brightest day. But it appears, from the words 
 which precede the text, that this special light is prom 
 ised at the end of a day which should be somewhat 
 overcast and dreary. " It shall come to pass in that 
 day, that the light shall not be clear, nor dark ; but it 
 shall be one day which shall be known to the Lord, 
 not day, nor night ; but it shall come to pass, that at 
 evening-time it shall be light." The day, you per 
 ceive, was not to be one of unmingled serenity, nor 
 yet of unrejieved gloominess ; there should be, per 
 haps, succession of light and shadow, and for great 
 part of it, it might be, a subdued and sober gray ; but 
 however that might be, light should come upon the 
 darkened way at last. And in all this, we have the 
 picture set before us, of the ordinary Christian s ordi 
 nary life, and likewise of the history of the collective 
 Church of God. As regards our daily life, my be 
 lieving friends, how true it is that " the light is not 
 clear, nor dark ; " childhood looks sunshiny when we 
 
132 LIGHT AT EVENING. 
 
 cast back our glance upon it ; and youth, too, has its 
 bright blinks of light-heartedness and freedom from 
 care ; but as years go on, life turns but a matter-of- 
 fact and commonplace thing; not much of the -old 
 gayety is left, not much of the elastic spring of spirit 
 but is pressed out by the weary load of constant care ; 
 and yet it would be unjust to say that, except in ex 
 ceptional seasons of deep sorrow, life is all gloom ; 
 there is usually something to enjoy, as well as some 
 thing to bear ; there is an equable sobriety, a sort of 
 average endurableness, about this " pleasing, anxious 
 being ; " the light is " not clear, nor dark." And so, 
 too, as regards our spiritual life. It is with that just 
 very much as it is with our outward lot. There are 
 times, indeed, when we seem to be upon the moun 
 tain s summit, and to feel the light of our heavenly 
 Father s face beaming upon us without a cloud be 
 tween, and to see the promised land almost as it were 
 under our feet; perhaps on a Communion Sabbath, 
 perhaps in a lonely walk, perhaps in an hour of sol 
 itary prayer ; but oh, how fast these glimpses of sun 
 shine leave us, and we may be thankful if it is no 
 worse with us than just that the light is u not clear, 
 nor dark ; " for sometimes there come days of spirit 
 ual desertion and depression, in which it seems to us 
 as if the Sun of Righteousness would never shine 
 upon us more. It should seem as if God judged that 
 neither in providence nor in grace would it be good 
 for us to have either unvarying gladness or unvarying 
 
LIGHT AT EVENING. 133 
 
 gloom ; they shall come to us in succession ; or, if 
 we are to have anything for a continuance, it shall be 
 a sobered twilight, " not clear, nor dark." And so, 
 too, in the history of God s Church on earth ; it is but 
 seldom it has known great extremity, whether of good 
 or ill ; there is for the most part mercy for which to 
 be thankful, as well as judgment to which to bow. 
 But however heavily the day might drag through, 
 with however little of joyous light throughout its 
 course, it was quite certain how it should close, so 
 only it were a Christian day. There might be no 
 great light where it might have been looked for ; but 
 that should be compensated by abundant light where 
 men might have expected none. At the evening- 
 time, if never before, at the evening-time, there 
 should be an end of that subdued twilight. Then, 
 there should be light at last. When the Christian s 
 little day has drawn to its close, when the Christian s 
 earthly sun has set, then there should be to him the 
 beginning of a day whose sun shall never go down, 
 and whose brightness shall be lessened by no intru 
 sion of the dark. Then a day shall break in which 
 there shall be no anxiety, no care, no sorrow, no hid 
 ing of God s face, no struggle with temptation, no fall 
 into sin ; not one moment s darkness to mingle with 
 that unvaried day. And so, too, with the Church of 
 the living God, as with the separate members of it. 
 When the world s day is closing in, when Time s even 
 ing is hastening on, then a light will be dawning upon 
 
134 LIGHT AT EVENING. 
 
 the Church, purer and better a million times than that 
 which led her forth from the ages which we call dark. 
 At the evening-time there shall be light ; and as for 
 the season which shall follow the evening-time, we 
 know that it shall find the triumphant Church in that 
 country to which darkness can never come; because 
 concerning that ceuntry, God s word assures us, that 
 41 there shall be no night there ! " 
 
 We understand the text, then, first, in its most 
 general and extensive meaning, as signifying that, in 
 God s dealing with his children, it very often happens 
 that signal blessing and deliverance come just when 
 they are needed most, but expected least. " Man s 
 extremity," we are sometimes told, " is God s oppor 
 tunity ; " it is when times are at the worst that they 
 begin to mend. I purpose to show the prevalence of 
 this law in the Almighty s treatment of believers in 
 dividually ; a thought upon days past will suffice to 
 remind us how often the case has proved so as regards 
 the collective Church. When was it that the first 
 great promise was given, that contained the germ of 
 so many more, "exceeding great and precious," but in 
 the hour of that first sin which brought in so much 
 death and woe ? Surely it was in as dark a season as 
 ever over-clouded this world, that the first beams of 
 the Sun of Righteousness trembled upon the gloomy 
 horizon. When and where was it that Abraham was 
 called out to be the Father of the Faithful, but in a 
 country and an ase of the most degraded idol-wor- 
 
LIGHT AT EVENING. 135 
 
 ship ? When did deliverance come to God s oppressed 
 people in the land of Egypt, but when their slavery 
 had grown altogether intolerable, when the heavy 
 task was doubled, and the first-born doomed to die ? 
 When did the Blessed Redeemer himself come, but in 
 the world s darkest day ? He, the " true light." shone 
 upon our race just when " darkness had covered the 
 earth, and thick darkness the people." And, not to 
 multiply instances, was it not when, through centuries 
 of ignorance and degeneracy, the better light of the 
 glorious gospel was all but entirely eclipsed and hid 
 den from men s eyes by falsehood and superstition, 
 that men were raised up to clear away the accumu 
 lated rubbish of the Papacy, and set out gospel-doc 
 trines in their saving simplicity again ? The least 
 acquaintance with the history of the world will bring 
 before us a host of instances in which the oppressed 
 and persecuted, sometimes the cold and apathetic, 
 Church of God found better days dawn when they 
 were least looked for, and so found the fulfilment of 
 the promise, that " at the evening-time there should 
 be light." 
 
 And now, when we turn to think of individual 
 Christians, I might well trust the illustration of my 
 text to the memory and the heart of each of you, 
 of those among you, I mean, who are able humbly to 
 trust that you have given your souls to his keeping, 
 who is able to preserve what is committed to him till 
 the great day of account. Ah, no sermon that I could 
 
136 LIGHT AT EVENING. 
 
 write will go home to the aged Christian s heart, like 
 that sermon which is gently breathed to him from his 
 own life s story. You do not need to tell him that in 
 the experience of Christ s people, at the evening-time 
 there often comes light ; for he has found it so. He 
 has learned it by experience. Many a time, through 
 the years of his life, it has seemed as though darkness 
 were settling down upon his path and his home ; but 
 when things were almost at the blackest, of a sudden 
 his heavenly Father sent unlooked-for deliverance ; 
 the perplexity was unravelled, the cloud was dispersed, 
 the falling stroke was withheld, the loss was compen 
 sated a hundred-fold, the bereavement was blessed and 
 sanctified; the light came softly, beautifully, upon the 
 benighted way. Yes, the humble Christian s life is 
 the best sermon upon this text ; arid his own memory 
 the best preacher. Each Christian has had his own 
 dark seasons, to which God sent his own light ; and 
 these times of needfulness and of deliverance are 
 known, perhaps, to no one but himself, not even, it 
 may be, to his very dearest. There is an inner world 
 of thought and feeling in which each of us lives, 
 wherein we are profoundly alone ; and many a light 
 and shadow may sweep over that little world, many a 
 twilight gloominess may come, and many a heaven 
 sent light may scatter it, of which none save ourselves 
 will ever know. And what reflecting person but must 
 look with interest upon some thoughtful, aged man, as 
 he thinks what an unread volume there is within that 
 
LIGHT AT EVENING. 137 
 
 aged man s heart, in, the remembrance of his own 
 history, and in his reflections upon its changes and 
 events ? Yet, though I never can know with what 
 peculiar force my text may present itself to each 
 of you, my Chri.-tian friends, or from what passages in 
 your own life you may draw your most impressive il 
 lustrations of my text ; still, let us in that general way 
 in which alone it is possible to discourse on a sub 
 ject like this, in discoursing upon which the preacher 
 is but drawing a bow at a venture, think of several 
 occasions in the life of each of us, on which light has 
 come, or may yet come, at evening-time. 
 
 And first, my Christian friends, has it been in your 
 experience, that you did not feel the light of God s 
 reconciled countenance lifted upon you, but after a 
 dark eventide of anxiety and fear ? We know that 
 in the common course of God s grace, the soul must 
 be awakened from worldliness and carelessness by 
 fear ; we must be convinced of our sin and misery by 
 nature by God s Holy Spirit, before we feel our need 
 of a Saviour, and surrender our helpless, sinful souls 
 to him by simple faith. How many a one has never 
 known what it was to find peace and rest in Jesus, till 
 he had passed through a fiery trial ; till he had been 
 made to feel his sins a burden that was like to drive 
 him to utter despair ! How many a one can tell that 
 the very darkest days of his life were the days of his 
 spiritual awakening ; that the terrors of the law laid 
 their grasp upon him ; that he felt himself a sinner 
 
138 LIGHT AT EVENING. 
 
 above all other men ; and that not till after a long 
 and gloomy evening, say rather night, the happy light 
 visited his soul ! Not that in every case it is so. 
 Not but that some happy souls may have been re 
 generated from their very birth, and, growing up un 
 der the pious influences of a Christian home, may have 
 chosen Jesus as their portion from the earliest dawn 
 of intelligence, and thus may have needed no conver 
 sion ; for conversion means turning into another way 
 and wherefore should they do that who, trained up in 
 the way they should go, are advancing in the heaven 
 ward path already ? But though such cases are con 
 ceivable, we believe that they are very rare ; that no 
 holy training, however constant and kindly, can pre 
 vent the children of the most pious parents from being 
 at least thoughtless and careless as to their soul s sal 
 vation ; and who that has ever been aroused to a con 
 viction of guilt and danger, but knows that that is a 
 sin which sits heavy and crushing as any, upon the 
 quickened soul ? Yes, most men need conversion ; 
 and conversion is, for the most part, a dark and miser 
 able time. But that is a darkness which is followed 
 by a gracious light. The more heavily the burden of 
 sin is felt to press upon the soul, the more heartily 
 will the soul turn to him who alone can take it away. 
 The deeper the darkness, the pleasanter the following 
 light. It seemed to you, perhaps, that your sins were 
 too great to be forgiven ; that you had broken your 
 purposes of amendment so often, and trifled with the 
 
LIGHT AT EVENING. 139 
 
 go.-pel invitations so long, that now there was no hope 
 for you, that God s Spirit was quite grieved away. 
 But at last you were brought to feel how free is the 
 offer of salvation, how willing God is to receive the 
 repenting sinner, how sure is that precious sheet- 
 anchor of the despairing soul, " Him that cometh 
 unto me I will in nowise cast out ; " you were en 
 abled with all your heart and mind to trust yourself 
 to your Saviour ; and then the gloom was scattered, 
 and " at the evening-time there was light." 
 
 Let me further mention to you, as another occasion 
 on which the gracious promise in the text has often 
 proved true to the Christian, the season of great trial, 
 of losses, disappointments, bereavements. Every 
 one knows that these are indeed dark seasons in our 
 life ; and the Christian knows that it has often hap 
 pened that wonderful support and strong consolation 
 have often been vouchsafed to him as he was passing 
 through them, that amid the dreary evening there 
 stole in a strange, unearthly light. And I am not 
 thinking now of those times when the darkness was, 
 so to speak, entirely dissipated, when the threatened 
 trial was prevented from coming at all ; when the 
 hope, though long deferred, met with its fulfilment at 
 last, when the dear one whose loss you dreaded was 
 wonderfully restored and spared to you. I desire 
 you to think of those sad seasons when sorrow did 
 its very worst ; when the cherished plan was entirely 
 frustrated, when the possession you so prized was 
 
140 LIGHT AT EVENING. 
 
 wrecked, and the friend you so loved died. Even 
 then, have you not sometimes found it so, that a 
 heavenly light has stolen into the bleeding heart, inlo 
 the darkened chamber, into the house of death ? No 
 doubt, indeed, it was a sore trial when it pleased God 
 to shut against you the way to that earthly eminence, 
 honor, usefulness, on which you had set your heart ; 
 no doubt it was a miserable time when you were 
 forced to turn your back upon the scenes and the 
 friends you loved best in this world, and, pressed by 
 the hard exigencies of life, to go far away ; no doubt, 
 it was a time not even yet to be remembered but with 
 some return of the old aching desolation, when death 
 made the first break in the family circle, and you saw 
 the face that used to brighten at your presence, heed 
 less, fixed, and cold. These were indeed the dark 
 periods of your life ; but still the darkness was not 
 quite unrelieved. Did you not feel, with something 
 like surprise, that now the worst had come, you were 
 far less crushed down by it than you had expected ; 
 that whatever was taken from you, you still had much 
 left to be thankful for ; that as for the disappointment, 
 well, perhaps things were better as they were ; that 
 as for the bereavement, bitter as that was, you could 
 bear it when you remembered how far happier it was 
 to be a pure and blessed spirit in the perfect safety 
 and peace above, than to be perhaps a poor sufferer 
 in this evil world of sin and peril and sorrow and 
 risk of endless loss ; and when you remembered, too, 
 
LIGHT AT EVENING. 141 
 
 that the same happy world to which your lost friend 
 had gone before you was inviting you no less to enter 
 upon its endless rest and quiet and union. And so, 
 at the evening-time there came light; quietly, meekly, 
 humbly, you set yourself to the duties that remained 
 to you ; you would do your task, you thought, though 
 with a breaking heart ; you would try to feel kindly 
 towards all around you, though you never could care 
 for any as for those who were no longer here ; resig 
 nation and content might come, you thought, but 
 cheerfulness and light-heartedness you did not look 
 for ; till, as the days and weeks crept on, you felt the 
 revival of the old interest in life ; you ceased to feel 
 it a mournful contrast between the desolate feeling 
 within, and the smiling face of the summer world ; 
 you felt the strength growing equal to the day, the 
 strong consolation matching the need for it ; the cloud 
 was there yet, but the sunshine was breaking through ; 
 it was still the twilight, but there, in the distant hori 
 zon, you could see the dawn of brighter days ; you 
 had found, in a word, the fulfilment of God s blessed 
 promise, that grace and strength and consolation 
 should come when they were most needed but least 
 expected ; that " at the evening-time there shall be 
 light ! " 
 
 Thus, then, my friends, we have thought of several 
 times in the progress of the Christian s life, at which 
 he may find, through God s grace, some fulfilment of 
 this precious promise ; and now, in the last place, let 
 
142 LIGHT AT EVENING. 
 
 us think of one time more, at which the evening may 
 be darker, at which the evening will deepen into night, 
 but at which the light that comes shall be perfect and 
 never-setting. It is to that period, doubtless, that the 
 text, when applied to individual Christians, makes 
 especial reference ; the evening-time of life, when the 
 dark valley of the shadow of death must be trodden. 
 The day of life, shall we think, is drawing to its close. 
 It has been, on the whole, a sober day, with " the light 
 not clear, nor dark ; " there has been neither unvary 
 ing sunshine, nor unvarying gloom ; there have been, 
 no doubt, some great trials in it, and a host of little, 
 insect cares, which do no worse than fret and annoy ; 
 it has seemed, perhaps, a dull and weary thing, yet 
 we have grown to like even its dulness and common 
 ness ; it has had within it times of special elevation, 
 love to the Redeemer, trust in God ; and it has had, 
 too, its seasons of backsliding, of coldness and world- 
 liness, of lack of interest in spiritual engagements, 
 of despondency, and almost of despair. For the day 
 of grace goes by just such rules as the day of provi 
 dence ; and, save a few blessed and memorable be 
 lievers, who have seemed to breathe the air of heaven 
 even while they lived on earth, it is the general 
 experience of even the earnest .believer, that his 
 inward feeling, like his outward lot, is a checkered 
 one, is in the main a sobered one, is shone upon 
 by a light which is " not clear, nor dark." But the 
 evening of the long day is drawing on at length ; the 
 
LIGHT AT EVENING. 143 
 
 day that dawned with the sunny cheerfulness of in 
 fancy and childhood, that went on amid the growing 
 cares of maturity, that sloped westerly amid the en 
 feebled powers and the flagging hopes of age ; and as 
 the evening advances, as the hours go on in which 
 the light that had lasted through the day might natu 
 rally grow less, strange how it oftentimes is that that 
 unwearied light does but beam brighter and clearer ! 
 It was but a cloudy day; but the Sun of Righteousness 
 has broken through the clouds ; the flaming west is 
 all purple and gold ; it is the evening-time, and oh, 
 how fair its light ! It has sometimes been as in that 
 beautiful story, that the last steps before the dark 
 river was reached lay through the land Beulah ; 
 that already the brightness of the Golden City shone 
 from afar upon the believer s face, and his sharpened 
 ear could almost catch the fall of its ceaseless songs. 
 I do not say that such a thing is common ; all I say 
 is that such a thing has been ; and wherefore should 
 it not be again with you or me ? I shall not pretend 
 to describe this happy state in my own words ; I shall 
 tell you about it in the words of one who spoke from 
 his own experience, and who, shortly before he died, 
 wrote as thus : " Were 1 to adopt the figurative lan 
 guage of Bunyan, I might date this letter from the 
 land of Beulah, of which I have been for some weeks 
 a happy inhabitant. The Celestial City is full in my 
 view. Its glories have been upon me, its breezes 
 fan me, its odors are wafted to me, its sounds strike 
 
144 LIGHT AT EVENING. 
 
 upon my ears, and its spirit is breathed into my heart. 
 Nothing separates me from it but the river of death, 
 which now appears but as an insignificant rill, that 
 may be crossed at a single step, whenever God shall 
 give permission. The Sun of Righteousness has been 
 gradually drawing nearer and nearer, appearing larger 
 and brighter as he approached, and now he fills the 
 whole hemisphere ; pouring forth a flood of glory, in 
 which I seem to float like an insect in the beams of 
 the sun ; exulting, yet almost trembling, while I gaze 
 on this excessive brightness, and wondering with un 
 utterable wonder why God should deign thus to shine 
 upon a sinful worm." There, my hearers, are \vords 
 dictated by experience ; that is what was actually 
 written by a dying man. And, oh, what need I add 
 to it, to make you feel how glorious a sermon it is 
 upon the blessed promise, that " at the evening-time 
 there shall be light ! " 
 
 But then you will say to me, and say it truly, that 
 it is not always so. Not only is it not the case that 
 all who have " died the death of the righteous " have 
 thus tranquilly, fearlessly, hopefully, triumphantly 
 passed away, but has not such a thing been known, 
 as that one who was a true Christian, if true Christian 
 ever breathed, died absolutely in despair ? Oh, who 
 can forget the story of that sweet and gentle poet, 
 who would take nothing to himself at the last of the 
 comfort his words have given to others ; whose latest 
 lines sadly tell us how his soul was whelmed in 
 
LIGHT AT EVENING. 145 
 
 deeper than Atlantic depths ; who regarded himself 
 as doomed to everlasting perdition ; and who shud 
 dered at the very mention of the name of that Blessed 
 Redeemer who was looking down in kindness upon 
 his wayward child ! But then, let me remind you, 
 that fine as was that poet s mind, it was a mind un 
 hinged and deranged ; and however the Holy Spirit 
 works upon the renewed soul, he no more sets him 
 self to cure the hereditary diseases of the mind than 
 those of the body. Religion does not alter tempera- 
 naent: it leaves the cheerful man cheerful; it leaves 
 the anxious, desponding man still prone to look at 
 the future through the haze of anxiety and fear. It 
 no more pretends to cure that hereditary taint, that 
 overshadowing gloom, that all his life had its grasp 
 of Cowper s mind, than it pretends to weed out the 
 family consumption or apoplexy from the Christian s 
 body ; and never let us forget, that constitutional 
 temperament, and the depressing influences of many 
 forms of disease, may make dark and distressful the 
 dying bed of the very best believer. Perhaps, even 
 with true Christians, the death is as the life was ; the 
 evening is what the day was, " not clear, nor dark," as 
 the general rule. There are blessed hopes, but there 
 are also distressing fears. And shall we say, then, 
 that this text does not speak truth ? No, far from 
 that. The light does come ; and it comes at evening ; 
 but evening is the close of day ; and the light may 
 perhaps not beam forth until day has entirely closed. 
 7 
 
146 LIGHT AT EVENING. 
 
 Not upon this side of time may the blessed promise 
 find its fulfilment. The foot may be dipped in the 
 chill, dark river, before the heavenly light has shone 
 upon the face. The eye may be blind to dearest 
 faces and forms, ere the Sun of Righteousness dawns ; 
 as in the natural world, the darkest, coldest hour is 
 that before the daybreak. The tongue may never be 
 able to tell surviving loved ones, how the shadows 
 fled away when the dark valley was past, till they 
 have passed through that darkness too. Yes, to the 
 believer, true as that God liveth, " at the evening-time 
 there shall be light ; " if not in this world, then in a 
 better! Bowing his head to pass under the dark 
 portal, the believer lifts it up on the other side, in the 
 presence and the light of God. It is but a single step 
 from the darkness of death into the light of immor 
 tality ; and if the evening should remain gloomy to 
 its very end, all the brighter will seem the glory when 
 the latest breath has parted. I told you how that 
 Christian poet passed away almost in despair, how 
 the gloom that overshadowed his spirit endured all 
 but to the end ; but even in the last moment there 
 came a wonderful change, and they tell us how even 
 on his dead face, there remained till it was hidden for 
 ever, a look of bright and beautiful and sudden sur 
 prise ; the light at evening had been long in coming ; 
 but oh, it had come at last ! 
 
 There is something very touching about the story 
 of that eminent teacher, the most eminent of his time, 
 
LIGHT AT EVENING. 147 
 
 who, when his mind wandered in the weakness of the 
 dying hour, fancied himself among his pupils, engaged 
 in his accustomed work ; and whose last words, when 
 the shadow of death was falling deeper, were, " It 
 grows dark, boys ; you may go." There is something 
 touching too, in the parting scene of that great poet, 
 dying as the sun was going down in its summer glory, 
 who bade his friends raise him up that he might see 
 the light once more, open the window that he might 
 look on the setting sun again, before his eyes should 
 close upon the earthly light forever. Arid very strange 
 it is, indexed, to stand, as some of us may have stood, 
 in the chamber of death ; and in the west to see the 
 summer sunset blazing, and the golden rays shining 
 upon the still face, and the closed eyes which never 
 shall open more till the sun has ceased to shine. But 
 it is only to us who remain that the evening darkness 
 is growing, only for us that the sun is going down. 
 Oh ! look on the fixed features of that disciple now 
 asleep in Jesus ; and think, as the prophet spake, 
 " Thy sun shall no more go down ; neither shall thy 
 moon withdraw itself; for the Lord shall be thine 
 everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall 
 be ended." And oh, my hearers, tell me ; as the 
 evening falls on you, but not on him ; as the shadows 
 deepen on you, but not on him ; as the darkness 
 gathers on you, but not on him ; if now, at last, the 
 glorious promise has not found its perfect fulfilment, 
 that " at the evening-time there shall be light ! " 
 
IX. 
 
 A GREAT MULTITUDE A SAD SIGHT. 
 
 " And Jesus went forth, and saw a great multitude, and was moved 
 with compassion toward them." ST. MATT. xiv. 14. 
 
 HERE is something, surely, that is re 
 markable in this statement of the evan 
 gelist. Our Saviour, we are told, looked 
 upon a great multitude of human beings ; 
 and the feeling which that sight awakened in his 
 breast was a feeling of pity and compassion. He 
 saw the people ; and he felt sorry for them. Now 
 the general impression is, that a great mass of human 
 beings collected in one place forms a grand and im 
 posing spectacle rather than a pitiful and a sad one. 
 Most people who have seen a vast crowd of many 
 thousands of men, would tell us that they felt thrilled 
 and awed at the sight ; that there was something in 
 it inexpressibly awe-striking and impressive. Any 
 one who has been accustomed to worship God in the 
 presence of a very large congregation, could tell you 
 how fine a sight it is when the great dark mass arises 
 at once to the prayer, or listens as with one heart and 
 mind to the exhortation. And no doubt this general 
 
A GREAT MULTITUDE A SAD SIGHT. 149 
 
 belief that there is something grand and impressive 
 about a great multitude is a true belief; but if we may 
 draw a general principle from the words you have 
 read, there is something farther and deeper about a 
 great multitude, which suggests itself less immediate 
 ly and less generally. We are not told whether when 
 Jesus looked upon this occasion on the vast crowds 
 that had followed him into the desert, he was im 
 pressed by their wide extent and their wave-like un 
 dulation, and awed by their mighty hum. We are 
 not told whether he felt roused and stirred by the 
 thousands of eager faces that were bent upon him, 
 or whether he thought to himself that here was a 
 congregation that was worthy of even his best preach 
 ing. But one thing we are told : that when he saw 
 a great multitude, he was moved with compassion 
 toward them. Nor does it appear that there was 
 anything peculiar about this multitude specially to 
 draw forth his compassion. He would have felt 
 just as much pity awakened in his kind heart by 
 the sight of any great assemblage of men. No doubt 
 there were sick folk in that multitude, for we are told 
 that the Saviour " healed their sick ; " no doubt there 
 were weary people there, for they had " followed him 
 on foot," and they had followed him far ; no doubt 
 there were hungry people among them, for not with 
 out sufficient reason would our Lord have multiplied 
 the loaves and fishes to keep them from " fainting by 
 the way." But it does not seem that there was much, 
 
150 A GREAT MULTITUDE A SAD SIGHT 
 
 if there was anything, about that crowd to make it a 
 sadder sight than any other. Hunger and weariness, 
 sickness and sorrow, are not such uncommon things. 
 Look at any great gathering of human beings, in any 
 part of the world, and you may feel sure that there 
 are many sad hearts there. No, it was for no acci 
 dental reason that the Saviour compassionated that 
 multitude. If Jesus felt moved to pity in the sight 
 of that crowd, it must have been because in some 
 sense and in some measure, it is always a sad sight 
 to look upon a crowd of men. And what we wish to 
 do, in this discourse, is to consider what there can be 
 in the presence of a great multitude that should move 
 a kind and feeling heart to compassion. Why was it 
 that when " Jesus went forth, and saw a great multi 
 tude, he was moved with compassion toward them " ? 
 
 And to give us some little light on the subject, let 
 us call it to mind that Christ was not the first who had 
 felt that the sight of a great number of men was sad. 
 It is now three-and-twenty centuries since a great 
 monarch of the East, bent upon subjugating an inde 
 pendent race, collected together a force so large that 
 it has hardly been equalled in the history of the world. 
 His ships were ten thousand ; his soldiers were three 
 millions. When this incredible array was assembled, 
 the king desired to see it all at one view ; and he sat 
 down, we read, upon a throne of white marble, whence, 
 stretched along the shore, he beheld his fleet and his 
 army. I will tell you the story in the simple words 
 
A GREAT MULTITUDE A SAD SIGHT. 151 
 
 of the earliest of secular historians. " When he saw the 
 whole Hellespont concealed beneath the ships, and all 
 the coast of Abydos full of men, Xerxes held himself 
 happy; but soon after he burst into tears. This being 
 observed by his paternal uncle Artabanus, he, under 
 standing that Xerxes was shedding tears, addressed 
 him thus : Sire, how very .different are your present 
 actions, and what you did erewhile ! For then you 
 declared yourself happy, and now you weep. The 
 king answered, Yes ; for when I consider how short 
 is human life, pity enters my heart ; since of these, 
 many as they are, every one will be dead before a 
 hundred years. " That Persian monarch, knowing no 
 immortality, looked abroad over his millions, gathered 
 in proud array ; and he knew that whatever might be 
 their courage and their numbers, there was one quiet 
 and sure adversary who would vanquish them at the 
 last. The plains and the shores around him were 
 warm with life. Millions of pulses beat ; millions of 
 strong hands and anxious brains were there ; but 
 before a century, they would be all dead and buried 
 and forgotten. And at the thought, even the selfish 
 and foolish tyrant wept. He acknowledged by the act 
 that there is something pitiful to see, in a great mul 
 titude of men. 
 
 The Persian monarch, when asked why he wept at 
 the sight of something so little likely to move tears 
 as a noble army with gay banners and bright arms, 
 thought he gave reason sufficient when he mentioned 
 
152 A GREAT MULTITUDE A SAD SIGHT. 
 
 the shortness of the life to which each individual in 
 it was destined. But the historian tells us that the 
 man whom he addressed replied to him, that he did 
 not think that the saddest thing in the lot of humanity. 
 " Other woes," he said, " yet more deserving than this 
 of commiseration, do we suffer during life. Indeed, 
 the calamities that fall upon us, and the maladies that 
 shake our frames, make life, short though it is, to ap 
 pear long ; death therefore becomes the most desirable 
 refuge for man." It was not that life was so short, 
 but that it was so sad, that the wise Persian counsellor 
 thought the true cause for tears. The true reason, he 
 thought, for looking with compassion upon a great 
 multitude, was rather that the men who composed it 
 were pressed by care and sorrow while they lived, than 
 that they would die so soon. 
 
 But we may very well combine the two reasons for 
 pitying human beings which were stated by Xerxes 
 and by Artabanus ; they are quite consistent each 
 with the other ; and there is truth in both of them. 
 No doubt, no doubt, it is a reason why the feeling 
 heart should be moved with compassion in the view 
 of a large assemblage of people, to think how much 
 suffering each of them must have gone through ; to 
 look at the anxious faces, the thinned hair, the fur 
 rowed brow, and to reflect what weariness, care, dis 
 appointment, anxiety, sorrow, each heart there must 
 have known ; and no doubt, too, it is a reason why 
 the feeling heart should be moved to compassion in 
 
A GREAT MULTITUDE A SAD SIGHT. 153 
 
 the view of a large assembly, to think of the last 
 solemn scene which lies before each of them, to 
 reflect upon the weariness and weakness, perhaps the 
 pain and agony, in which every one of them must 
 some day lie down and die. And no doubt such 
 reasons as these for compassion may have been pres 
 ent to the gentle heart of Jesus, when " he went 
 forth, and saw a great multitude, and was moved with 
 compassion toward them." We can well believe that 
 the kind Creator and Saviour, who " knoweth our 
 frame " so well, who has proved for himself all our 
 sinless infirmities, and who understands what sore 
 temptations are because he himself has felt them, 
 we can well believe that as he looked abroad over 
 that Eastern crowd, which would have seemed so 
 strange to our eyes, he discerned the griefs, the cares, 
 the bereavements, the privations, the fears, which 
 were at home in each heart ; he knew that all these 
 things were as common under the Eastern sky, and 
 within the Eastern dwelling, as they are now under 
 our roofs and within our breasts ; and how could one 
 so kind and generous as the Redeemer look upon 
 sorrow and suffering without feeling compassion for 
 those who suffered and sorrowed ? But we feel quite 
 sure, that although Jesus, when he compassionated 
 the multitude, was moved to that feeling by every 
 reason which the eye of omniscience could see, and 
 the heart of mercy be moved by, still that the strong 
 est reason for compassion would be that which would 
 7* 
 
154 A GREAT MULTITUDE A SAD SIGHT. 
 
 touch him most, and he would feel the most pity for 
 that which was the saddest thing in the lot of the 
 human souls before him. And what, then, was the 
 saddest thing in the lot of that great multitude? What 
 is the saddest thing in the lot of any great multi 
 tude, gathered anywhere ? Was Xerxes right, when 
 lie judged that it was that death is so near ; was 
 Artabanus right, when he judged that it was that life 
 is so pressed with cares and sorrows ? Nay, my friend, 
 it was not either of these considerations that most 
 moved the compassion of our blessed Lord. It was 
 sin rather than sorrow that he was thinking of. It 
 was not so much that the people were wandering 
 weary in the desert, as that their souls and consciences 
 were without a guide. It was not so much that they 
 were faint for want of the bread that perisheth, as 
 that they knew nothing of where they were to turn for 
 the bread and the water of life. It was not so much 
 that they were surrounded by griefs and troubles, 
 as that they knew not how to seek the aid of that 
 Holy Spirit, who can make of all these a heavenly 
 discipline to prepare for a better land. It was not so 
 much that they were hourly drawing nearer to death, 
 as that they were deep in darkness about a glorious 
 life and immortality beyond the grave. And in say 
 ing all this, in asserting that such were the main 
 and principal reasons, if not the only ones, of Christ s 
 compassion for the multitude, we are not speaking 
 without due authority. True, in the story as related 
 
A GREAT MULTITUDE A SAD SIGHT. 155 
 
 by St. Matthew, we are not told what were the reasons 
 why the Saviour felt compassion ; but, as you know, 
 what is omitted by one evangelist is often supplied by 
 another ; and when we turn to the parallel passage in 
 the Gospel of St. Mark, we find not merely the fact 
 of Christ s feeling pity recorded, but the reason why 
 he felt pity expressly stated. It is a striking contrast 
 to the reasons for that feeling which Xerxes and Ar- 
 tabanus gave ; it is a reason that goes far deeper, and 
 that means far more. St. Mark tells us,* " And Jesus, 
 when he came out, saw much people, and was moved 
 with compassion toward them, because they were as 
 sheep not having a shepherd." So here was Christ s 
 reason for feeling compassion. It was because the 
 people were in spiritual blindness and ignorance. It 
 was because they did not feel the burden of their sins, 
 and had no one to point them to the only Saviour of 
 sinners. It was because in sinfulness they knew not 
 where to go for pardon and purity ; it was because in 
 sorrow they knew not where to go for comfort ; in 
 weakness where to go for strength ; in death where to 
 go for life ; in dying where to look for immortality. 
 It was, in short, their spiritual destitution that Christ 
 regarded as the saddest and most pity-moving thing 
 about that multitude. It was for that he felt the deep 
 est compassion. It was the soul s disease that most 
 touched the kind Physician of souls. It was the soul s 
 darkness that looked saddest to him that came to be 
 * Chapter vi. 34. 
 
156 A GREAT MULTITUDE A SAD SIGHT. 
 
 the Light of the world. It was the soul s thirst and 
 hunger that seemed most urgent to him whose flesh 
 was yet to be meat indeed, and whose blood drink in 
 deed, the bread and the water of life for the nourish 
 ment of our immortal part. And so the great reason 
 why our Saviour felt compassion in the sight of that 
 great assemblage was, that there were among it so 
 many sinful souls. The great reason why our Re 
 deemer would even yet feel compassion in the sight 
 of any great assemblage of human beings is, that it is 
 made up of sinful souls. Ah ! he knows, as we can 
 not know, what is meant by sin ! He knows how evil 
 and foul it is in itself; he knows all that follows from 
 it, all that it ends in ! He knows that this is the 
 root whence all sorrow and suffering spring. He 
 knows that if there be death in this world, death is 
 the wages of sin. He knows that if there be care,* 
 anxiety, disappointment, pain, anguish, bereavement, 
 in this world, they are all the result of sin. And so 
 Christ s reason for feeling compassion in the presence 
 of a multitude is one which includes in it all other 
 reasons. It has within itself the ground of the Per 
 sian counsellor s sad estimate of life, and the ground 
 of the Persian monarch s tears. All that ever has 
 wrung the kind heart, all that ever has darkened 
 the comprehensive view, every reason for pitying 
 poor human nature that ever was thought of, all 
 are gathered up in the reason which the evangelist 
 gives us for the compassion of our blessed Lord, 
 
A GREAT MULTITUDE A SAD SIGHT. 157 
 
 who, when lie saw a great multitude, " was moved 
 with compassion toward them," " because they were 
 as sheep not having a shepherd." Sinful, sorrowful, 
 dying ; yet knowing not where to go ; wearied with this 
 troublesome life ; yet clinging to it because they knew 
 of no better ; orphan children, lost sheep, strangers 
 and pilgrims on the earth, they had yet been guided 
 to the right place for once, when thus they came to 
 the feet of the Saviour. 
 
 Let me ask you to observe, my friends, that the 
 Redeemer s reason for compassionating the great mul 
 titude is a reason of universal application. It was a 
 reason for feeling compassion for that assemblage that 
 day in Palestine ; it is a reason for feeling compassion 
 for any assemblage anywhere. Christ s pity was not 
 moved by any of those accidental and temporary 
 causes which exist at some times and in some places 
 and not elsewhere. No ; sinfulness, and the need of 
 a Saviour, are things which press, whether felt or 
 not, upon all human beings. If Christ were to look 
 upon you, my friend, to-day, be sure he would look 
 upon you with compassion. Many and great are the 
 differences between you and the people who are 
 spoken of in the text. You speak a different lan 
 guage ; you w r ear a different garb ; you live in a dis 
 tant land ; but oh ! you are the same in being stricken 
 with that disease which only Christ s blood can wash 
 away. We are all by ourselves like lost sheep, wan- 
 
158 A GREAT MULTITUDE A SAD SIGHT. 
 
 dering without a shepherd ; we all need to be brought 
 back from our wanderings into the fold of the Good 
 Shepherd of souls. But how much easier it is to con 
 fess this with the lips than to feel it in the heart ! Oh 
 that God s Spirit might so effectually convince us all 
 of our sinfulness, that we might deeply feel that the 
 first and most pressing need of our nature, is the need 
 of a share in the great atonement of Christ ! May we 
 feel that that is more to us than water to the thirsty, 
 than food to the hungry ; in very deed the most 
 urgent of all the " necessaries of life." For that spir 
 itual malady of sin from which the Great Physician 
 alone can save us is one that is wide as the human 
 race. Ah, he sees in it the weightiest reason for com 
 passionating any mortal, through every stage of his 
 existence, from the first quiet slumber in the cradle, 
 to the rigid silence in the shroud. 
 
 Let me ask you also to observe, that the Redeem 
 er s reason for feeling compassion toward the multitude 
 was the strongest reason for doing so. One man, we 
 have seen, said that death was the saddest thing in the 
 lot of humanity ; another said that the griefs and cares 
 of life were sadder still ; but Jesus fixes upon that 
 which is the source and origin of both. He fixes, as 
 the saddest thing, upon that which " brought death 
 into the^ world, and all our woe." And when we just 
 think what sin is, and what sin tends to, we cannot but 
 feel how rightly the Saviour judged. For sin is indeed 
 
A GREAT MULTITUDE A SAD SIGHT. 159 
 
 man s sorest disease, and man s greatest unhappiness. 
 It means that man, the creature, is at enmity with the 
 Creator ; that man, the child, has rebelled against his 
 Father in heaven. It means, that whereas, when 
 things are right, all happiness consists in nearness 
 to God, and in God s favor and friendship, man has 
 now brought himself to this, that he shrinks away in 
 dismay and dislike from God ; that he only feels it 
 terrible and distressing to remember that there is a 
 God ; and that he feels communion with God in 
 prayer a weary and irksome task, by all means to be 
 avoided. Sin means that God s handiwork is ruined ; 
 that God s creation is defaced ; that God s glory is 
 tarnished ; that God s purposes are frustrated ; all so 
 far as such things can be. And sin, if unpardoned, 
 tends to death, death spiritual and eternal. A sin 
 ful soul is a soul stricken with the worst of diseases, 
 leading to the most awful of deaths. Unpardoned sin 
 leads to endless misery ; and when Jesus looks upon 
 a soul going on in sin, he sees at a glance all the ruin 
 and despair to which, if unchanged from above, it is 
 advancing. And O brethren, can you think of a con 
 dition so sad, and so fitted to excite compassion in a 
 Being who is all kindness and mercy, and who sees 
 things as they truly are ? Surely, surely, if we saw 
 things right, we should see that a soul going on in 
 unrepented sin, and rejecting the Saviour s offered 
 grace, is in the very saddest plight in which an im 
 mortal being can ever be. He may be gay and 
 
160 A GREAT MULTITUDE A SAD SIGHT. 
 
 thoughtless now ; he may never think of the doom 
 that hangs over him ; he may be surrounded with 
 earthly comforts ; and many a one may envy him ; 
 but in very deed, he is in a pitiable and wretched 
 state. You feel compassion for the poor consumptive, 
 whose hectic cheek tells you that the malady is at 
 work which will lay him in his grave. And why do 
 you feel compassion ? It is not that he is suffering so 
 very much now. Many a person, affected by some 
 passing pain which we hardly think of seriously sym 
 pathizing with, is suffering perhaps twenty times as 
 much. But we feel compassion, because we look for 
 ward, and remember to what end the slow decline is 
 going forward. We remember that the headache 
 goes, and leaves the man none the worse ; but the 
 consumption kills. And it is the serious ending that 
 makes us think the disease serious, even in those early 
 stages when it is causing little pain. It is because sin 
 ends in eternal woe, that it is so dreadful a malady, 
 even while the soul that is stricken with it is cheerful 
 and gay. It was because Christ looked on into the 
 unseen world, and discerned the wrath in which sin 
 unpardoned would land the soul, that he felt so deep 
 a compassion as he looked on the great multitude 
 gathered in the Eastern desert. And just as ruinous 
 as sin was then, sin is yet. This is a disease which 
 has never worn itself out, as it came down to us 
 through successive generations. It has lost nothing 
 of its ancient poison, nothing of its power to bring 
 
A GREAT MULTITUDE A SAD SIGHT. 161 
 
 down to death. Blessed be God, it is the most tract 
 able and easily managed of all diseases, in the hands 
 of the Great Physician of souls ! There is a remedy 
 for it which never can fail. It has healed millions of 
 sufferers ; and it can heal each of us. " The blood of 
 Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin ! " 
 
 Let me ask you further to observe, that if Jesus 
 thought the sight of a great multitude a sad sight, if 
 he could not look upon the multitude but with com 
 passion, it must have been because he could not 
 look but with compassion on each individual soul in 
 the multitude. And as that multitude was, so far as 
 regards the circumstances which moved Christ s pity, 
 a fair sample of the human race, it follows that Christ 
 feels that there is something for him to pity as he 
 looks on each of us, on each separate human being. 
 Oh, how it cuts down pride, to remember this ! To 
 remember that when that Being who cannot go wrong 
 in his estimate of us, looks upon you and me, what 
 ever we may think of ourselves, he feels compassion 
 f or USj he feels sorry for us ! Surely it is a lowly 
 thing to be a sinful human being ! How it pours 
 contempt upon human self-sufficiency, to think that 
 when Christ looks down upon the man of highest rank, 
 and greatest wealth, and most extended power, 
 one before whom his fellow-creatures grovel, one 
 who carries a high head and a proud heart, Christ 
 sees in him only a poor, helpless creature, to be pitied, 
 
162 A GREAT MULTITUDE A SAD SIGHT. 
 
 to be relieved ! There are few things that people like 
 less, at least after they have grown up to maturity, 
 than to be pitied. They think there is something poor 
 and contemptible about that. And this opinion has 
 grown into the very construction of our language. 
 We say that a thing is pitiable, when we desire to 
 ascribe to it all that is low and contemptible. You 
 cannot say worse of a man, than to say that he is a 
 pitiful creature ; unless indeed it be to say that he 
 is a poor creature, which means much the same thing. 
 Well, then, my friend, just remember this, whenever 
 you feel any tendency to a haughty spirit, whenever 
 you feel any disposition to talk big, and look big, and 
 speak about your position, and your influence, and 
 what you are entitled to, just remember this, that 
 Christ thinks us all poor creatures, pitiable beings, 
 beggars needing alms, fever-stricken patients 
 needing the physician, helpless, hopeless, unworthy 
 sinners, deserving of the deepest compassion because 
 we are so devoid of help or hope. How humble we 
 ought to be when we draw near to God ; with how 
 lowly a countenance ought we to address our fellow- 
 men ; how carefully we should avoid the least ap 
 pearance of anything overbearing, or tyrannical, or 
 haughty ! The Bible tells us, as you all know, that 
 pride is especially hateful to God. " God resisteth 
 the proud, and giveth grace to the humble." "An 
 high look, and a proud heart," said the wisest of men, 
 " is sin." * And what wonder that it should be so ? 
 * Prov. xxi. 4. 
 
A GREAT MULTITUDE A SAD SIGHT. 163 
 
 Is it not something besides sin ; is it not the most 
 outrageous folly ? A poor creature, the object of 
 Christ s kind compassion, and fancying to himself 
 how great and influential and dignified a person he 
 is ! Oh, my brother, let us be humble ! Let us be 
 clothed with humility. It is the right frame of spirit 
 for beings such as you and rne. Let us go humbly to 
 the foot of the cross ; and feeling our helplessness, 
 let us patiently wait till the kind Saviour shall look 
 upon us with compassion, and take away our -sins. 
 We will admit no lingering trace of pride or self- 
 righteousness : " After his loving-kindness, according 
 to the multitude of his tender mercies," may he " blot 
 out our transgressions, and remember our iniquities 
 no more." " Like as a father pitieth his children," so 
 may the Lord pity and compassionate us in all our 
 sins. And take comfort from the gracious words of 
 comfort to the humble-minded : " For thus saith the 
 high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose 
 name is Holy ; I dwell in the high and holy place, 
 with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, 
 to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the 
 heart of the contrite ones." 
 
 Yes, my friends, there is nothing degrading in bow 
 ing humbly, as sinful creatures, in the presence of our 
 Maker, and in beseeching his kind compassion and 
 his pardoning grace. There is no degradation in 
 being compassionated by Almighty God ; nor in being 
 received as penitent sinners by that Best Judge of what 
 
164 A GREAT MULTITUDE A SAD SIGHT. 
 
 is fit and becoming in human conduct, who looked with 
 anger on the self-righteous Pharisee, and with approval 
 upon the humble publican, standing far away with 
 downcast eyes, and smiting upon his breast. It is a 
 painful thing, and when it can be avoided it is a poor 
 thing, to seek compassion from any human being be 
 yond the circle of our nearest kin. We despise the 
 man who is always grumbling and complaining to 
 strangers about his griefs and troubles, whether these 
 are great or small. We despise the man who is thus 
 always seeking to excite compassion by hawking about 
 the story of his ills, and always harping upon that te 
 dious string. No ; beyond the limit of nearest blood, 
 let a man keep his troubles to himself. He may feel 
 assured that his best friend will grow weary of hearing 
 about them ; he may be sure that the pity accorded to 
 him will be in most cases mingled with something of 
 contempt. Deception, of course, is never a right thing ; 
 but we are not required to wear our heart upon our 
 sleeve ; and ever since the days of that stern Spartan 
 youth who kept a composed look while the savage beast 
 was at his vitals, men have felt that there is something 
 sublime in the unflinching resolution that waves off 
 the stranger s sympathy, and that shows the world a 
 firm face when the heart is weary and weak. But oh ! 
 when we turn to Jesus, who can read our inmost soul, 
 when we turn to him, who never will upbraid us or 
 despise us, though we make bare to him every poor 
 weakness, every sorrow, and every sin about us, we 
 
A GREAT MULTITUDE A SAD SIGHT. 165 
 
 feel that the need for that reserve is gone, and that it 
 is no shame nor humiliation to tell out to him all we 
 fear and suffer, with the same abandonment with which 
 the little child sobs out the story of its little sorrows 
 at a kind mother s knee. At the throne of grace, the 
 man who, whatever he suffered, would never complain 
 to mortal, may without reserve lay before the Re 
 deemer the tale of his wants and woes. Ah, the 
 dumb spirit that would dissemble and cloak its sins 
 even before the heart-searching God, that is one of 
 the saddest symptoms of the soul s worst disease ! 
 Simple confession of sin to God is a part of true con 
 trition ; and if we go to God with the humble desire 
 to confess our sins with a penitent and lowly heart, he 
 will be ready to help us out with the sad recital, to 
 anticipate our imperfect words, and interpret our con 
 trite tears. "If we confess our sins, he is faithful 
 and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from 
 all unrighteousness." 
 
 And thus, my friend, we have meditated for a little 
 upon St. Matthew s declaration, that Christ found 
 something in the sight of a great multitude to move 
 his compassion ; we have sought to discover what it 
 was about the multitude that made it a sad sight for 
 Christ to see ; and we have sought to draw some 
 lessons from the conclusion to which we came. It 
 was that the Physician of souls saw in that multitude 
 an assemblage of souls diseased ; it was that he saw 
 
166 A GREAT MULTITUDE A SAD SIGHT. 
 
 before him souls stricken with that worst of maladies, 
 sin ; souls doomed, unless that disease was checked, 
 to be drawn down by it to eternal death and woe. 
 He felt compassion for that multitude, because he 
 saw in it a host of immortal beings in the very sad 
 dest and sorest plight in which immortal beings could 
 ever be. It is a sad and a sore sight, when some 
 young one, smitten by wasting disease, is bidden, as 
 the last faint hope, to leave the home of childhood, 
 arid to seek some milder clime, whose balmy breezes 
 may perhaps fan the cheek to the glow of health once 
 more ; and we can think of few things more affect 
 ing than the last parting from parents and brothers 
 and sisters, whose foreboding looks and sighs tell 
 that they know that death may be delayed but not 
 averted ; that the sunbeams of Italy will smite in 
 vain, and its climate can work no cure. And we can 
 think of few things more sad than of that young exile, 
 fading day by day in a foreign land ; and pining, 
 amid myrtle groves and glorious skies, for the well- 
 remembered trees and sunsets far away at home. 
 But if we saw things right, we should see a sadder 
 sight in many a one who is a parent s pride and 
 hope ; we should see something that angels might 
 weep over in the gay, thoughtless worldling that lives 
 and acts in the forgetfulness of a Saviour and a life to 
 come. For a direr malady is sapping that young 
 life ; a more deadly disease is wasting there. Yes, 
 the compassion that Jesus felt for that multitude of 
 
A GREAT MULTITUDE A SAD SIGHT. 167 
 
 common human beings, was just a little out-welling of 
 that same kind and gracious compassion which had 
 brought him to this earth at all ! What was it that 
 made the Son of God leave the glory and the bright 
 ness of heaven, and come down to this world, and 
 suffer, and die, what was it, but that looking upon 
 this world, he " beheld a great multitude, and had 
 compassion on it," he saw the human race infected 
 with the leprosy of sin, smitten with the disease 
 that ends in ruin, and came to seek and save ! Oh, 
 may he remember now, when the travail of his soul 
 is past, that it was for us it was endured ! As for us, 
 may he not have died in vain ! And if, when he 
 looks down on us to-day, his kind compassion is stirred 
 by the sight of sorrowful hearts, we ask that he may 
 comfort them ; but forasmuch as we know and are 
 sure that when he looks upon us, his compassion must 
 be stirred by the sight of an evil that is worse than 
 sorrow, we would yet more earnestly ask that he would 
 take away all iniquity, and receive us graciously, and 
 blot out all our sins ! 
 
X. 
 
 THE RULING OF THE SPIRIT. 
 
 " Better is he that ruleth his spirit, than he that taketh a city." 
 PROV. xvi. 32. 
 
 fys& VERY one knows, and the most thought 
 less can understand, that to carry a very 
 heavy load for a mile, is hard work ; or 
 that to go through a long day s plough 
 ing, is hard work ; but not every person is able to un 
 derstand and to take it in, that the things which cost 
 a man the greatest effort and the hardest work that he 
 ever goes through in all his life, may be done with no 
 bodily exertion at all ; may be done as he sits in an 
 easy-chair with his eyes shut. Here is one great dif 
 ference between the civilized man and the savage : a 
 great part of the work of the civilized man consists of 
 that which the savage would not regard as work at all. 
 But every thoughtful person knows that the hardest 
 of all work is that which puts the soul upon the 
 stretch, though it may leave the body at rest ; and 
 that there is no wear like the wear of heart and brain. 
 And all this wear and exertion may be without any 
 outward sign, without any bodily effort, without any 
 
THE RULING OF THE SPIRIT. 1GO 
 
 of that which the uncivilized man would understand 
 by work* I dare say St. Paul never spent days of 
 harder work in all his life than the days he spent at 
 Damascus lying blind upon his bed, struggling to get 
 free from the prejudices and convictions of all his past 
 years, and resolving upon the course he would pursue 
 in the years to come. Some of you, no doubt, have 
 heard of that great English engineer who, when he 
 was perplexed how to manage the construction of 
 some new and intricate piece of machinery, would 
 remain for days together in a darkened room, hardly 
 stirring from one attitude, with his mind all the while 
 strained to the top of its bent, till he had struggled 
 through the difficulty, and had the whole plan of the 
 machine clearly before his view. What tremendous 
 work he went through in these days ! But a stupid, 
 ignorant person, if told that the great engineer had 
 lain upon his bed without moving for three whole days, 
 in a dark room, would very likely have said, What a 
 lazy man that must be ! Here he has spent these 
 days, and done nothing ! Done nothing ! we might 
 reply ; you cannot tell what wearing, perplexing, 
 bewildering drudgery he has undergone ! 
 
 Now, my friends, the words you have read point 
 us to an enterprise which makes no outward show ; 
 and boldly tell us that it is a better and nobler thing 
 to accomplish that, than even to carry out another 
 enterprise of the most showy and glaring kind. The 
 text points out to us a certain work, very difficult to 
 8 
 
170 THE RULING OF THE SPIRIT. 
 
 do, very noble when done, which yet is done with so 
 little outward appearance or physical effort, that some 
 might perhaps fancy that it is no work at all. Every 
 one knows that he must be a skilful and a brave man 
 who takes a guarded and fortified city. There must 
 be much skill to devise the assault, much bravery 
 and exertion to carry it out. There is unmistakable 
 work in sapping a way towards the beleaguered ram 
 parts, in bridging over the deep moat, in shaking 
 down the massive battlements ; there are effort and 
 daring needed for the final rush through the deadly 
 breach, in the face of desperate foes, for the hand- 
 to-hand encounter, with its blood and din, till the 
 central citadel is stormed, and the " city taken " at 
 last. But the inspired writer is not afraid to set 
 before us a companion-picture, and bid us contrast the 
 two. He bids us turn away from the noisy triumph and 
 the crowned conqueror ; and he points us to a nobler 
 and a " better " man. He bids us turn away from 
 that wild exhibition of desperate energy; and he 
 points us to a quiet labor that tasks yet more heavily 
 all that is noblest in human beings. " Better," he 
 says, " better is he that ruleth his spirit, than he that 
 taketh a city ! " 
 
 Now, my friends, every one of you who has sought 
 to believe in the Saviour, and, by the Holy Spirit aid 
 ing you, to lead a Christian life, must have learned by 
 experience how great a part of the work of an im 
 mortal being is mental work, is work that makes no 
 
THE RULING OF THE SPIRIT. 171 
 
 bodily show, is work done by the soul without any 
 corresponding exertion of the body. And I am not 
 thinking now of head-work merely, as contrasted with 
 hand-work. Of course, the man who sits at his study- 
 table, writing his book or his sermon, is working very 
 hard ; the judge who sits in his easy-chair weighing 
 the merits of the case which has been argued before 
 him, and making up his mind what his judgment 
 ought to be, is working very hard ; far harder than 
 the mason building his wall, or the ploughman follow 
 ing his team. But I am not thinking now of merely 
 intellectual effort ; I am thinking of the exertion of 
 the whole spiritual nature, of intellectual, moral, 
 and spiritual effort, without bodily ; and I say that all 
 Christian people must know, that the most important 
 work and labor which immortal beings ever can do, is 
 of that kind. We have to " work out our salvation ; " 
 but the work is mainly to be done by the unseen ex 
 ertion of the invisible soul. We have to " strive to 
 enter in at the strait gate ; " we have to " labor to en 
 ter into rest ; " but the laboring and striving are all 
 spiritual and not bodily. We have to repent ; and it 
 is not an easy thing to repent ; but the strain to do it 
 comes upon the soul. We have to believe ; and it is 
 difficult to believe ; but when we go to God, and seek 
 to believe, and pray for grace to "help our unbelief," it 
 is the soul that goes and strives and prays. Our en 
 tire spiritual life ; the entire path which we trust is to 
 lead us to glory ; is, in one sense, a " ruling of our 
 
172 THE RULING OF THE SPIRIT. 
 
 spirit ; " the idea of unseen exertions, of spiritual 
 strivings and efforts, is one with which all believers 
 are perfectly familiar. And that is the idea which the 
 wisest of men sets before us in this text. 
 
 Of course, when the inspired writer tells us that 
 " better is he that ruleth his spirit, than he that taketh 
 a city ; " he teaches us that to rule our spirit rightly is 
 a difficult thing, and a thing from rightly doing which 
 great and valuable results are to follow. And all this 
 is as much as to say, that within the heart of every 
 man there are many unruly tendencies ; many im 
 pulses to do and to think and to feel wrong. There 
 is a great deal in every human soul that needs to be 
 kept down. If man s spirit were always ready to do 
 right, it would need no ruling, or the ruling would be 
 a very easy thing. But as it is, it is very difficult. It 
 is very difficult to hold the path of duty, because there 
 is so much within us that tends to lead us astray from 
 it. And so long as we live in a fallen world, crowded 
 with temptations and snares ; so long as we bear a 
 fallen nature, whose whole bent is towards evil rather 
 than good, towards earth rather than heaven, towards 
 the creature rather than the Creator ; so long will the 
 ruling of man s spirit be man s hardest and longest- 
 lasting work ; a work which no one who would not 
 drift to degradation and perdition can avoid ; yea, a 
 work which but for the aid of God s grace and God s 
 Blessed Spirit would foil and baffle and weary out the 
 stoutest-hearted ! 
 
THE RULIXG OF THE SPIRIT. 173 
 
 And now, looking more closely into the details of 
 this solemn and most practical subject, let us think 
 what are the things about our spiritual nature that 
 stand especially in need of ruling. And we may ar 
 range the evil impulses which in ruling our spirit we 
 have to resist, under the two heads of Impulses to 
 think and feel wrong ; and Impulses to do wrong. 
 
 Let us look, in the first place, at those tendencies 
 and leanings in our spiritual nature which would lead 
 to think and feel wrong. 
 
 And this head of our subject, my friends, includes a 
 vast field ; and takes in little impulses, which to resist 
 is no more than matter of worldly prudence ; as well 
 as grander temptations, to resist which is of the very 
 essence of religion. If you look to the former clause 
 of the verse in which the text stands, you will see that 
 the special thing which the wise man had in view, 
 when he spoke of ruling the spirit, was the keeping 
 down of an evil feeling ; he says, " He that is slow to 
 anger is better than the mighty." He teaches us that 
 it is a noble thing to hold in check this one bad 
 tendency of anger, whether it may manifest itself in 
 fretfulness, or in sullenness, or in violent outbursts of 
 passion. It is in some men, no doubt, in a larger 
 degree than in others, this bad tendency ; some have 
 a native amiability and sweetness of temper that 
 makes it easy for them in this respect to " rule their 
 spirit ; " but there is none who will not sometimes be 
 called on to do it ; and remember this, that for any 
 
174 THE RULING OF THE SPIRIT. 
 
 of you to give way to little spurts of petulance, or 
 fretfulness, or general ill- temper, is not, as you may 
 think it, a small matter ; it is a symptom that some 
 thing is amiss in your Christian character ; that you 
 are failing by God s grace to resist " the sin that doth 
 most easily beset you ; " that you are not striving by 
 God s grace to " rule your spirit " as you ought. It 
 is like the little leak which may make the gallant ship 
 go down. I need not suggest how sadly this evil ten 
 dency in those who yet, as we would trust, have the 
 root of the matter in them, goes to keep them from 
 being epistles in commendation of their Saviour s 
 cause, goes to make them into stumbling-blocks and 
 causes of offence. The sullen humors or the peevish 
 outbursts of a professing Christian are not small mat 
 ters, if they go to fix in the minds of the young a 
 disagreeable and painful idea of what Christianity and 
 Christian people are. Now, my friends, here is some 
 thing in our spirit which we probably all of us have to 
 rule : let us, honestly, praying for God s grace, seek 
 to rule it. Let us not take up the impression that 
 even the smallest temptation can be resisted in any 
 strength of our own ; or that the very least hindrance 
 in our spiritual life is too small a matter to take to 
 God s footstool, and to tell God about, and to make 
 the subject of earnest prayer. I believe that there is 
 hardly anything which does more to injure the spiritual 
 life of ordinary Christians, than their getting into their 
 minds some vague impression that it is all quite right 
 
THE RULING OF THE SPIRIT. 175 
 
 to go and ask God s grace in prayer for performing 
 great duties and resisting great temptations ; but that 
 really it would be something like profanation to make 
 the little worries of life known at God s footstool, and 
 to ask his Spirit to aid in ruling a little evil tendency 
 in your spirit which you think you might really rule 
 yourself. Let us get rid of that impression ; it is out- 
 and-out wrong. There is nothing that interests you, 
 that is too little to confide to your God, in the soli 
 tude of closet-prayer. You may enter into your cham 
 ber, and shut your door, and, secure of a kindly hear 
 ing, you may tell your Father which is in secret of 
 little things which worry and vex you, and retard you 
 in your spiritual life, which are yet so little that you 
 would be ashamed to confess to your nearest friend 
 how great a space they fill up in your heart. Fix it 
 in your mind, that there is no duty, however little, 
 which we can do without God s grace ; and no tempta 
 tion, however small, which we can resist without God s 
 grace. And do you need to be told, that little duties 
 and little temptations make up, for most of us, the sum 
 of common life ? We are not called on to rule our 
 spirit on a grand and magnificent- scale ; we are just 
 to do the little task God sets us. You are not tempted 
 to renounce your Saviour ; but you are tempted to 
 speak snappishly to those under your roof, or to dwell 
 upon some little offence which has been given you. 
 Your temptation is not the scaffold or the stake ; it is 
 no more than some little irritability of nerve or heart ; 
 
176 THE RULING OF THE SPIRIT. 
 
 but it is your temptation, it is your besetting sin, it is 
 the very thing which in your spirit needs ruling ; and, 
 whether in things great or small, " better is he that 
 ruletli his spirit, than he that taketh a city ! " 
 
 I need not tell any hearer, that it is quite impossi 
 ble, and not even desirable, that I should make out a 
 list, or attempt a description of all the varied tenden 
 cies to think wrong or to feel wrong that may be found 
 in the human heart ; of all the things about our 
 " spirit " which in this respect need to be " ruled," to 
 be held in check, to be turned in the right direction. 
 I aim at no more than setting before you such repre 
 sentative tendencies as may set your own minds think 
 ing ; I desire to say something which may make each 
 of you remember that impulse to wrong or morbid 
 thought or feeling which you yourself are especially 
 called to resist and keep down. And now that we 
 have looked at an impulse to wrong feeling or passion, 
 let us look at another wrong tendency of a somewhat 
 more intellectual cast. 
 
 I mean the tendency which exists, more or less, in 
 most hearts, to discontent with the allotments of God s 
 providence ; to envy and jealousy as regards those of 
 our. fellow-creatures who are more favored and for 
 tunate than we. The ruling of our spirit which I am 
 now thinking of, is that which lies in reconciling our 
 mind to painful things ; in acquiescing in mortification 
 and disappointment when they come ; in feeling rightly 
 towards people to whom we are disposed to feel un- 
 
THE RULING OF THE SPIRIT. 177 
 
 kindly and bitterly. And let me tell you, my friends, 
 there is to many a man no harder ruling of the spirit, 
 than that of reconciling his mind to the place where 
 God has set him. The Hand above gives you your 
 place and your work ; and then there is the struggle 
 heartily and cheerfully to acquiesce in the decree. 
 And this is not always an easy thing ; though be sure 
 that the man who honestly and Christianly tries to do 
 it, will never fail to succeed at last. How curiously 
 people are set down in life ; in all callings whatso 
 ever ! You find men in the last places they would 
 have chosen ; in the last places for which you would 
 say they are suited. And such men, and all thinking 
 men, have doubtless their own battle in making up 
 their mind to many things, both in their own lot, and 
 in the lot of others. I do not mean merely the intel 
 lectual effort to look at the success of other men and 
 our own failure in such a way as that we shall be in 
 tellectually convinced that we have no right to com 
 plain of either ; I do not mean merely the labor to put 
 things in the right point of view ; but the moral and 
 spiritual effort to look fairly at the facts not in any 
 way disguised, not tricked out by some skilful way 
 of putting the case ; and yet to repress all wrong 
 feeling ; all fretfulness, envy, jealousy, dislike, hatred. 
 I do not mean to persuade ourselves that the grapes 
 we cannot reach are sour ; but (far nobler surely) to 
 be well aware that they are sweet, and yet be content 
 that another should have them and not we. I mean 
 
178 THE RULING OF THE SPIRIT. 
 
 the labor, when you have run in a race and been 
 beaten, to resign your mind to the fact that you have 
 been beaten, and to bear a kind feeling towards the 
 man that beat you. And this is labor, and hard la 
 bor ; though very different from that physical exer 
 tion which the uncivilized man would understand by 
 the word. 
 
 You know, my friends, that in all professions and 
 occupations to which men can devote themselves, 
 there is such a thing as competition ; and wherever 
 there is competition, there will be the temptation to 
 envy, jealousy, and detraction, as regards a man s 
 competitors ; and so there will be need of that labor 
 and exertion which lie in resolutely trampling that 
 temptation down. It does not matter whether the 
 prize be great or small ; the temptation in all cases is 
 the same in its essential nature. It does not matter 
 whether it be two schoolboys, both bent upon the 
 medal which only one can get ; or two traders, each 
 determined to be first in that street; or two states 
 men, each resolved that he himself shall be Prime 
 Minister ; or two great lawyers, each set upon being 
 Lord Chancellor. You are quite certain, my friend, 
 as you go on through life, to have to make up your 
 mind to failure and disappointment on your own part, 
 and to seeing other men preferred before you. Now, 
 when these things come, there are two ways of meet 
 ing them. One is, to hate and vilify those who sur 
 pass you, either in merit or success ; to detract from 
 
THE RULING OF THE SPIRIT. 179 
 
 their merit and underrate their success ; or, if you 
 must admit some merit, to bestow upon it very faint 
 praise. Now, all this is natural enough ; but as 
 suredly it is neither a Christian nor a happy course 
 to follow. It is natural enough ; natural in inferior 
 animals as well as in man. You have heard of the 
 race-horse, running a neck-and-neck race with an 
 other, and beaten by an inch, which turned savagely 
 upon his successful rival and tore him with his teeth. 
 Natural enough, indeed ; but just one of those wrong 
 tendencies in our fallen spirit which it concerns the 
 Christian man to rule and to put down. That is 
 one way ; but the other and better way is to fight 
 these tendencies to the death ; to struggle against 
 them, to pray against them ; to seek God s grace to 
 put them down ; to resign yourself to God s good will ; 
 to admire and love the man who surpasses and excels 
 you. And this course is the Christian one, and the 
 happy one. Rightly rule your spirit ; and, oh, it is a 
 noble thing ! I believe that the greatest blessing God 
 can send a man is disappointment, rightly met and 
 used. There is no more ennobling discipline ; there 
 is no discipline which results in a happier or kindlier 
 temper of mind. And in honestly fighting against 
 these evil impulses we have thought of, in thus 
 seeking to rule your spirit fitly, you will assuredly 
 get help and strength and grace from above. And 
 that ruling of the spirit which is needful Christianly to 
 meet disappointment, brings out the best and noblest 
 
180 THE RULING OF THE SPIRIT. 
 
 qualities that can be found in man. I have seen the 
 homely features look almost sublime, when man or 
 woman was faithfully by God s grace resisting and 
 wrestling with wrong feelings and tendencies, such as 
 these. It is a noble end to attain, and it is well worth 
 all the labor it costs, to resolutely be resigned, cheer 
 ful, and kind, where you feel a strong inclination to 
 be discontented, moody, and bitter of heart. It is not 
 philosophy that will win in this fight ; but the aiding, 
 sanctifying, comforting Spirit of God. And when I 
 would picture forth a noble conqueror, I turn from 
 even the brave men who, with grim face and bayonets 
 fixed, are climbing the slope slippery with blood, and 
 raked by shell and shot, that leads to the scarce prac 
 ticable breach ; and of whom a bare remnant will in 
 half an hour place upon the ramparts the unconquered 
 flag that all the world knows, I turn from even them, 
 though the bravest of the brave, and I look to where 
 the wisest man has shown us something more heroic ; 
 and I see it in the unsoured spirit and the kindest 
 heart, which have gone on through many a care and 
 disappointment, which have withstood many a mortifi 
 cation, and only been made the sweeter by many a 
 taking-down ; as I remember that no human wisdom 
 dictated the words of the text, and told all men that 
 " Better is he that ruleth his spirit, than he that taketh 
 a city ! " 
 
 But now, brethren, you will easily think of a host 
 of tendencies to wrong thought and feeling, which 
 
THE RULING OF THE SPIRIT. 181 
 
 the Christian man, in ruling his spirit, will need to 
 hold in check. One of these, very powerful in 
 many minds, is to procrastination as to our spiritual 
 interests ; it is that within us which would lead us, 
 even when convinced that we must see to it that we 
 make our peace with God, always to put off to an 
 other day, to a more convenient season, a work for 
 which God has told us that "Now is the accepted 
 time." Ah, my friends, how many a soul has dated 
 its ruin to yielding to an impulse that ought to have 
 been resolutely put down ; to postponing till to-mor 
 row a work which should have been done to-day ! 
 And after a reflection so solemn, we feel it is coming 
 down to something almost trivial in comparison, 
 though by no means trivial in its bearing upon the 
 happiness of life, or upon the formation of our spirit 
 ual character, when I mention as a tendency to be 
 checked, that unhappy disposition which is in many 
 hearts, to be always dwelling on and brooding over 
 the little worries of life ; to be unthankfully and queru 
 lously looking away from the hundred kind gifts God 
 has given, and dwelling upon the crook in the lot, 
 the little vexation, the little cross, the little mortifica 
 tion, which he who would rule his spirit well would 
 look away from, and try to forget. Suppose a man 
 living in a pleasant home, in the midst of a beautiful 
 country. Suppose that he has pleasing scenes all 
 around him, wherever he can look ; except that in one 
 direction there is a bleak, uninteresting, ugly prospect. 
 
182 THE RULING OF THE SPIRIT. 
 
 Now, what would you think of this man, if he utterly 
 refused to look at the cheerful and beautiful prospects 
 which all around invite his eye, and spent the whole 
 day gazing intently at the one ugly view, and at 
 nothing else ? Would you not say the man was mad ? 
 And yet, don t you know, possibly from your own 
 experience, that there are hosts of men and women 
 who, in a moral sense, do just that ? Hosts of human 
 beings who turn away from the many blessings of their 
 lot, and dwell and brood upon its worries ? Hosts who 
 persistently look away from the nnmerous pleasant 
 things they might contemplate, and look fixedly and 
 almost constantly at painful and disagreeable things ? 
 How ungrateful to a kind God ; how unhappy ; how 
 foolish ; how detrimental to all that is noble and 
 worthy in our spiritual being ; how stunting to our 
 growth in grace ! O brethren, let us rule down this 
 evil tendency ; we cannot repress it entirely ; but we 
 can at least refuse voluntarily to encourage it ; we 
 should regard it as of the very essence of our religion 
 to put it down ; and by God s grace we may do so in 
 a great degree. I do not mention, as another thing 
 to be stopped, the giving the rein to impure and 
 wicked imaginations, of things you would blush to 
 speak of ; for I trust that no one within hearing of my 
 voice would wilfully do that ; but I just name it as 
 something which, indulged, has been to many as the 
 opening of a floodgate which admitted the vilest ex 
 cesses of degrading sin and sharne. And I suggest to 
 
THE RULING OF THE SPIRIT. 183 
 
 you, as my final specimen of tendencies and leanings 
 in our spirit which need ruling, that great pervading 
 tendency which is to most ordinary Christians the 
 besetting sin ; the tendency to keep this world and 
 its interest first in the heart, and the unseen and 
 eternal world only second ; the tendency in our hearts 
 to "cleave to the dust," to set our affections upon 
 things on the earth, to live as if there were no other 
 life, to work as if food and raiment, as if worldly 
 wealth and comfort, were the " one thing needful." 
 O brethren, that God by his Spirit would in this mat 
 ter rule our spirits to truth and wisdom, help us to 
 realize which is the substance and which the shadow, 
 and grant to us " the victory that overcometh the 
 world," even a living faith ! Oh that we might feel it, 
 that not this is substance which we grasp, but that is 
 substance which we believe ; that not the earth we 
 tread on is the solid, enduring reality, but rather the 
 unseen country which is very far away ! 
 
 I have reached the end of my discourse, dwelling 
 only on those tendencies to evil thought and feeling 
 which were to have taken up only the first part of it ; 
 and there is not space to say anything of those im 
 pulses in our spirit, needing to be ruled with a tight 
 and a strong hand, which would lead to express and 
 open acts of evil. We need not turn that sad leaf; 
 and I believe that in preaching to an intelligent 
 Christian congregation, the other is the more practi- 
 
184 THE RULING OF THE SPIRIT. 
 
 cally important. We have thought of the angry 
 passion which would use no deadlier weapon than 
 a harsh word ; of the envy and malice which rankle 
 inwardly, rather than of such as would make an out 
 ward show. And indeed, it is when sins of thought 
 and feeling are indulged, that they grow into sins of 
 life and conduct; and after all, an actual fact, our 
 great sins, the main things we have to confess and 
 seek pardon for, are sins of thought and feeling 
 rather than of life and conduct. We do not murder ; 
 but we may cherish that hatred of our brother which 
 shall stamp us murderers in the judgment of God. 
 We bow to no idol ; yet we may cherish that covet- 
 ousness, which is idolatry. We lead decent, regular 
 lives ; yet we may be so set upon this world, as that 
 we shall be found guilty of crucifying Christ afresh, 
 and grieving the Holy Spirit of God away ! Our 
 great sins, in short, are the sins of the heart ; are sins 
 of thought and feeling ; and rightly to " rule our 
 spirit," is the sum, the essence, of all our Christian 
 duty. And to do that, what a noble work ; how hard 
 in its progress, how glorious in its results ! All that 
 shall make us like our Saviour ; all that shall make 
 us meet for heaven ; lies in that work ! No strength 
 of our own is equal to it ; but only his might, who 
 regenerates and sanctifies, that Blessed Spirit, who 
 is promised without stint to all who seek him in fer 
 vent prayer. Oh, may he be poured down upon us, 
 day by day ! And so, through many duties, many 
 
THE RULING OF THE SPIRIT. 185 
 
 trials, many temptations, many cares, we shall hold 
 still that central peace of mind which is promised to 
 the man whose mind is stayed upon his God ; we 
 shall be victors in a noiseless, bloodless battle, fight 
 ing day by day in many quiet places, fought in by 
 shrinking women, and by men that never drew a 
 sword, yet open, too, to the most daring and heroic ; 
 a battle which may leave upon the outer aspect no 
 worse trace than the thin cheek and the sad smile ; 
 yet which is the heaviest strain upon human pith and 
 endurance ; and which may end in the most glorious 
 rewards which can ever be won by human being. 
 For " Better," said the wisest man, inspired by wis 
 dom beyond his own, " Better is he that ruleth his 
 spirit, than he that taketh a city." 
 
XI. 
 
 BEARING ABOUT THE DYING OF CHRIST. 
 
 " Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus. 
 2 COR. iv. 10. 
 
 HERE is something striking and remark 
 able in these words ; and it is not easy, 
 at the first thought, to take in their exact 
 meaning. St. Paul is telling of the per 
 secutions and troubles which he and his friends had 
 daily to endure, as they carried on their great work 
 of preaching the gospel. " We are troubled," he 
 says, " on every side, yet not distressed ; we are 
 perplexed, but not in despair ; persecuted, but not 
 forsaken ; cast down, but not destroyed ; always bear 
 ing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus." 
 Now, it is likely enough, that there were things in 
 this catalogue of sufferings which St. Paul would 
 have avoided, if he had been able to do so with a 
 clear conscience. He had no special liking for trou 
 ble, perplexity, or persecution, any more than we 
 have ; and if the kingdom of the Redeemer could 
 have advanced as well, and his own growth in grace 
 could have been secured as effectually, without these, 
 
BEARING ABOUT THE DYING OF CHRIST. 187 
 
 doubtless he would have been thankful. It has been 
 said, very truly, that tribulation is not a thing for us 
 to seek, but for God to send. But there is something 
 d if Ft rent about the peculiar trial which is mentioned 
 in the text. It was & trial, or St. Paul would not have 
 named it in thus reckoning up the troubles which he 
 was called to bear. But it was a trial of such a sin 
 gular kind, that the great apostle did not wish to be 
 rid of it. It was a trial of that singular nature, that 
 he prayed that it might be sent to him, and laid upon 
 him. It is not here that he does so ; but in another 
 of his epistles he uses words which recall to us at once 
 what he has written here concerning bearing about 
 his Saviour s dying ; and he tells us there, that there 
 was nothing in this world he wished for more than 
 that. He tells us there, that he counted all things as 
 worthless, that he might "win Christ ;" that he might 
 be " found in him ; " that he might " know him, and 
 the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of 
 his sufferings; being made conformable unto his death." 
 " Conformable unto the Saviour s death ; " that is what 
 St. Paul wished to be ; that is what every Christian 
 ought to be ; that is what we should daily pray that 
 we may be ; that is something which implies difficulty, 
 which implies suffering ; yet which implies blessing so 
 precious that you never could seek better for yourself, 
 or wish better for your dearest friend ; and what else 
 does that mean, but that every true Christian should 
 ever be doing what St. Paul tells us he always did : 
 
188 BEARING ABOUT THE DYING OF CHRIST. 
 
 " Always bearing about in the body the dying of the 
 Lord Jesus ! " 
 
 Now, my friends, we know the way in which St. 
 Paul, and many of the first preachers of the gospel, 
 had to do this. There is but one opinion, I believe, 
 as to the first and literal meaning of these words of 
 the text. It is understood that they mean that St. 
 Paul and his friends were in daily peril of such a 
 death as Christ s was ; that they had daily to bear 
 such stripes as had been laid upon that blessed Lamb 
 of God ; that their daily privations were wearing out 
 within them the principle of life. It is understood 
 that when St. Paul said that the apostles were " al 
 ways bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord 
 Jesus," he meant that all these trials and privations 
 which they suffered had left their sorrowful trace upon 
 form and feature ; that these early Christians bore in 
 their emaciated bodies the outward signs of the tribu 
 lation they were passing through. They may have 
 been but a poor, puny race of men, in the matters of 
 outward strength and outward comeliness, who yet 
 were honored to convey to after centuries and to un 
 born generations, the very best tidings that ever 
 gladdened man s weary heart, the blessed gospel of 
 salvation and immortality through a crucified Re 
 deemer. They may have been but a weakly, dying- 
 like company of men, in whose weakness God made 
 perfect the martyr s heroic strength ; and through 
 whose instrumentality God told us of a Saviour in 
 
BEARING ABOUT THE DYING OF CHRIST. 189 
 
 whom " whosoever belie veth " " shall never die." It 
 may be, that if you had looked upon the living form 
 and face of the great apostle of the Gentiles, you 
 would have seen in the pale, wasted figure, worn 
 down by want and travel and scourgings and buffet- 
 ings and aged before its time, that St. Paul bore in 
 his body the traces of such sufferings as wrote too 
 early age upon the kindest face this world ever saw ; 
 that St. Paul bore in his body the traces of such suf 
 ferings as brought Christ himself to his grave. 
 
 That, my friends, was the apostolic way of " bearing 
 about in the body the dying of Christ." It is not so 
 that we are called to be " conformable to the death " 
 of our Redeemer. The days of such martyrdom as 
 that of the apostolic age are gone, in this part of the 
 world. When St. Paul spoke of being conformable 
 to his Lord s death, he probably meant that if need 
 were, he was willing to die in like manner ; and at 
 that time, it was so likely that a professed Christian 
 might be called to die a violent death, that the man 
 who made such a declaration was likely enough to 
 have his resolution put to the proof. Nor is it needful 
 or right for us to seek by self-inflicted penances to 
 rival the worn aspect of the early confessors ; we are 
 not called, by vigils, scourgings, and fastings, to ma 
 cerate our bodily frames. You know that there are 
 those among Christians now, who think to obey the 
 injunction implied in the text in a fashion more literal 
 still. There are persons who think to obey it by 
 
190 BEARING ABOUT THE DYING OF CHRIST. 
 
 always bearing about with them the material represen 
 tation of the Redeemer s death ; the crucifix, where 
 the artist s skill has sought to picture out the last 
 agonies of our Lord, as he hung upon the cross ; or 
 the cross itself, the recognized emblem over the wide 
 world of our holy faith, and of devotion to him who 
 died for us on the accursed tree. Ah, my friends, 
 that is not the way in which the believer is called to 
 be " always bearing about in the body the dying of 
 Christ." You might bear the crucifix or the cross 
 with you wherever you went ; you might have the 
 dying Saviour s image placed where it should be the 
 first thing to catch your waking eyes at morning, and 
 the last thing to leave them at night ; and yet you 
 might be hundreds of miles away from any compli 
 ance with the spirit of the text. It is no mere bodily 
 service which our Lord requires of us. The service 
 he desires is the devotion of the heart ; it is spiritual 
 ly, and yet most really, that we, in these days, are to 
 seek daily to do what St. Paul always did ; even to 
 bear about our Saviour s dying. 
 
 And now let us inquire, my friends, what manner 
 of obedience to this unrepealed requirement remains 
 for us. Let us think in what way we may still " bear 
 about with us the dying of the Lord Jesus." 
 
 In the first place, we may bear about the memory 
 o it. If it be true at all that our Redeemer died as 
 he did die ; and died so for us ; nothing can be more 
 plain than that we ought never to forget it. Even 
 
BEARING ABOUT THE DYING OF CHRIST. 191 
 
 when we are not specially calling our Saviour s death 
 to mind, the recollection of it should be latent in our 
 hearts, and should be unconsciously affecting all our 
 views of things. I am sure you know that such a 
 thing may be. When you met some great bereave 
 ment ; when some one very near to you died ; even 
 after the first shock was past ; even after you no 
 longer had before your mind s eye, wherever you 
 went, the parting hour of the little child perhaps that 
 was taken from you ; even when you could once more 
 with some measure of calmness set yourself to your 
 common duties again, without having always breaking 
 in upon you the picture you once thought never would 
 leave you, of the lips of clay silent and still, and the 
 little silky head laid in the last resting-place where 
 you could ever lay it ; did you not still feel, in the 
 subdued spirits, in the greater sympathy with the sor 
 rows of others, in the quieter and gentler mood, that 
 you ha d not quite got over your trial ; that you were 
 still bearing about with you the dying of the dear one 
 that was gone ! The first shock was over ; but its 
 memory was there ; and you were the kinder and the 
 better for it. 
 
 Now, my friends, I say that in all our life, in all 
 we are ever called to do or to bear, we ought to 
 be, more or less consciously, "bearing about with us" 
 the remembrance of our Blessed Lord s death, and of 
 how he died. We should live daily in memory of 
 his death ; and that memory should influence and 
 
192 BEARING ABOUT THE DYING OF CHRIST. 
 
 affect all our views and all our doings. You know, 
 there is something that shocks one, when we see a 
 new-made orphan, or a new-made widow, showing 
 plainly that they have entirely and fast got over the 
 death of the husband or parent who is gone. We 
 have all, perhaps, been shocked by unse-emly mirth, 
 by revolting levity, in those who have been freshly 
 bereaved ; and most of us will agree in thinking that 
 the rapid dying-out of warm feelings, and the rapid 
 change of fixed resolutions, is one of the most sorrow 
 ful subjects of reflection which it is possible to suggest. 
 "We do not ask for any long continuance, even in the 
 most tried, of extravagant grief; it is the manifest in 
 tention of the Creator that very strong feelings should 
 be transitory. But it is a sorrowful thing when they 
 pass, and leave absolutely no trace behind them. Let 
 us be content, my friends, to look at the case temper 
 ately. Let us face and admit the facts. The healthy 
 body and mind can get over a great deal ; but there 
 are some things which it is not to the credit of our 
 nature should ever be entirely got over. And if it be 
 a sad thing, and a shocking thing, to see any human 
 being who has been called by God s providence to 
 stand by the dying bed of many near relatives, show 
 ing by his entire demeanor that he has quite forgot 
 it; if the tacit consent of all thinking people has 
 decided that such a one may be, and ought to be, 
 unostentatiously bearing about the quiet remembrance 
 of their dying; is it too much to expect that we, whose 
 
BEARING ABOUT THE DYING OF CHRIST. 193 
 
 Saviour died such a death, and died it, in simple truth, 
 for us, should not live quite as if he had not died ! 
 You would feel that you had a right to expect the 
 friend you may leave behind you, to " bear about 
 your dying " a little ; especially if it were a death of 
 special pain, and if you were to undergo it for his 
 sake. The kind mother, who wore out her life in. 
 caring and toiling for her child, might well think that 
 the child might sometimes come and stand by her 
 grave ; and remember her living kindness and her 
 dying words, when she was far away. And, O breth 
 ren, when we do but try to think what our Saviour 
 Christ has done for us ; done for us by his life, but 
 above all by his dying ; when we feel how impossible 
 it is for us to reckon up what he has done for us, 
 and how impossible it is for us to understand and 
 realize what he suffered for us ; when we think that 
 every hope, every blessing, that ever can gladden our 
 poor sinful hearts, was won for us by that great sacri 
 fice consummated by our Saviour s dying ; surely, 
 surely, we might well determine that we never shall 
 forget that death, that we never shall live as if that 
 death had never been ! You hear people say, truly 
 enough perhaps, that this world has never been the 
 same to them since such a loved one died ; that their 
 whole life has been changed since then. Is it un 
 reasonable when St. Paul suggests to us, that we never 
 should look at anything now, just as if Jesus had not 
 come to this earth and laid down his life for us ; that 
 9 
 
194 BEARING ABOUT THE DYING OF CHRIST. 
 
 we ought to look at everything, and specially at all 
 spiritual and moral realities, in the light of his dying ; 
 that we should always bear about the remembrance 
 of it ! Oh, it is sad to see a Christian living in such 
 a fashion as to show plainly that he has quite forgot 
 how his Redeemer died ! It is sad to feel in our 
 selves, that we spend many an hour just as if our 
 Redeemer had never died ! Surely it ought not so to 
 be. It is not that we ought to be, or that we can 
 be, always directly thinking of Christ s death ; that is 
 impossible 5 we must think of many a worldly matter, 
 and think intently, too, or we shall do little good in 
 this life ; and no one, knowing anything of the laws 
 of the human mind, would ever ask that the mind 
 should be kept running ceaselessly upon any single 
 thought. But what we ask is, that the remembrance 
 of the Redeemer s dying should always be latent in 
 our hearts ; that it should, almost unnoticed, color all 
 our views and doings ; that even when other thoughts 
 are uppermost, that should ever be at the bottom of 
 our hearts ; and more especially, that whenever we 
 are called to think of spiritual things, and whenever 
 we come to critical points in our pilgrimage-path, 
 places where we must go to right or left, that re 
 membrance should spring up into strong and vivid 
 life, and be as a lamp to our feet and a light to our 
 path. When we think of sin, let us see it in the light 
 of Christ s death, and hate it because it nailed him 
 to the tree ! Let us, whensoever we are pressed by 
 
BEARING ABOUT THE DYING OF CHRIST. 195 
 
 some pleasing temptation, associate it in our minds 
 with the suffering and dying of Christ ; oh, let us, 
 whensoever and howsoever tempted to sin, call up 
 before our memory the pale, drooping figure on the 
 cross, anguished, bleeding, dying, and let us think 
 that there is the proof what sin is, and what God 
 thinks of it ; and thus, as a fence against temptation, 
 as something to keep us always right in our views and 
 feelings towards every form of evil, let us bear about 
 with us the dying of our Lord ! Or, is it suffering and 
 sorrow that come to us ; and are we ready to repine 
 and to rebel ? Oh, then, let us call to mind the agony 
 and the dying of our Redeemer ; and it will not seem 
 so hard that the servant should fare no better than the 
 Master fared ? You may remember that good priest, 
 in the history of our own country, who was subjected 
 to inhuman tortures because he told a wicked king 
 and court certain unpleasing truths. The pain was 
 cruel, he said after it was past ; but he thought how 
 meekly the cross was borne up Calvary ; and that 
 thought enabled him to bear it without a murmur. 
 And how slight and trivial all our endurances will 
 seem, when we set them by the side of those of our 
 kind Redeemer ! Or, are we pressed with the sense 
 of our sinfulness, and the fear of God s wrath for sin ? 
 Then let us remember how Jesus died for us, the just 
 for the unjust ; how his blood can take all sin away ; 
 how he was wounded for our transgressions ; how 
 our sins were laid upon his sinless head ; how it must 
 
196 BEARING ABOUT THE DYING OF CHRIST. 
 
 be in the salvation of such as us, that he is yet to see 
 of the travail of his soul. And in days of doubt and 
 fear for the way before us, let us remember how Jesus 
 died ; and think, he that spared not his own Son, 
 but delivered him up to death for us all, how shall 
 he not with him also freely give us all things ? Oh, 
 let us, by faith, bear that remembrance in our hearts ! 
 The Redeemer s parting hour, indeed, is passed away ; 
 but its remembrance should never pass from us. Yea, 
 rather, as fence against temptation ; as light to show 
 the true dark colors of sin ; as lesson of patience, 
 faith, hope, and charity ; we should be " always bear 
 ing about " with us " the dying of the Lord Jesus ! " 
 
 But there is more than this. There still remains 
 for us a further way of doing what St. Paul names in 
 our text. We have seen that we may always bear 
 about the memory of Christ s dying, and see all things 
 by that light ; but, secondly, we may show in our daily 
 life the transforming power of the Saviour s death. 
 Our whole life, changed, and affected in its every 
 deed, by the fact that Christ died, may be a standing 
 testimony to all who see us that there is a real power 
 to affect the character in the sight of the dying 
 Saviour ; and thus we may, in a very true and solemn 
 sense, be always bearing about with us the dying of 
 the Redeemer ; bearing about with us a soul which 
 is what it is, mainly because he died. And there 
 is nothing incomprehensible, nothing mystical, in all 
 
BEARING ABOUT THE DYING OF CHRIST. 197 
 
 this. We are not asked to believe that Christ s 
 death has a power to transform our nature, without 
 seeing where that power lies, or how it is exercised. 
 We have already, in thinking of the way in which 
 we ought to be ever bearing with us the remem 
 brance of our Master s death, had a glimpse of the 
 rationale of the process by which Christ s death ex 
 ercises its transforming power. To say that Christ s 
 death has efficacy to transform the character, is just 
 in other words to say this: that the remembrance 
 of Christ s death is a practical thing in our hearts ; 
 that it will not rest in mere pensive recollection ; 
 that it does not waste itself in that ; but that it 
 spurs on to action. It is impossible that we should 
 rightly remember our Saviour s death ; and yet live 
 just the same as before. The remembrance of his 
 dying ; the view by faith of his cross ; has something 
 to say to everything we think, or say, or do. There 
 is something in the mere contemplation of Christ 
 crucified, for which heart and life, by God s grace, 
 are the better, we can hardly say how ; but we do not 
 rest any weight on such a thought as that, because we 
 know how natural it is for us all, when religious truths 
 like that are presented to us, to feel somehow as if 
 they were away from reality ; and to fancy that many 
 things are all sound and right enough in theology, 
 but that somehow they fail to work in actual life. 
 But, brethren, when in the view of the cross we see 
 how bitterly and mysteriously evil and ruinous sin 
 
198 BEARING ABOUT THE DYING OF CHRIST. 
 
 is, surely the practical lesson is plain : Is it not that 
 we should dread sin, and battle with temptation, and 
 resolutely tread it down ; and earnestly seek for de 
 liverance from the curse of that fearful thing which 
 brought such unutterable agony upon our Redeemer ; 
 and constantly pray for that Blessed Spirit who will 
 breathe new life into every good resolution, and 
 vivify into sunlight clearness every sound and true 
 belief? You cannot look upon the dying Saviour, 
 agonized on account of sin ; and then go and live in 
 sin just as if he had not died ! And thus, in a 
 mind and heart all whose beliefs and affections are 
 founded on, and take their tone from, the fact of the 
 Redeemer s death ; and in a daily life which is the 
 outflow and result of these beliefs and affections ; 
 you will be showing that the sight of Christ cruci 
 fied has a real power to affect and transform human 
 nature ; you will be " always bearing about in your " 
 life and conduct and character, " the dying of the 
 Lord Jesus!" 
 
 And this which has been said of the way in which 
 views of sin, as beheld in the light of Christ s death, 
 are carried into the life, and transform the nature, 
 may serve as a specimen of the way in which the 
 Saviour s dying should transform us entirely. Thus 
 do right views of spiritual things, obtained by seeing 
 them all in the light of Christ s death, pass into prac 
 tice. When sorrow and suffering come, think of them 
 as in the presence of the Redeemer s death ; and you 
 
BEARING ABOUT THE DYING OF CHRIST. 199 
 
 will learn the lesson of practical resignation. Under 
 the deep conviction how sinful and lost you are, let 
 the sight of your dying Saviour encourage you to go 
 and confide your soul to him by a living, earnest 
 faith. And in days of fear and anxiety, when you do 
 not know how it will go with you, oh look to Jesus on 
 the cross ; and learn the lesson of practical confidence 
 in God s disposing love and wisdom, as you think that 
 surely he who provided that precious sacrifice will 
 never fail to justify the hope and promise of the name 
 the patriarch gave him ; that his name is still Jeho- 
 vah-jireh, The Lord will provide ; and that not in the 
 mount of the Lord only, but over the wide world in 
 the experience of all his people, that shall be seen. 
 And to sum up all in one, let us be made conformable 
 to Christ s death, let us daily bear about his dying, 
 by dying to sin and living to holiness. That is the 
 grand conformity which is open to all of us ; that 
 is the fashion in which we may be " crucified with 
 Christ ! " In the perpetual mortifying of our corrupt 
 affections and desires ; in the ruling of our spirit ; in 
 the constant struggle against all that in us which is 
 displeasing to God ; all envy, hatred, malice, unchari- 
 tableness ; all self-sufficiency, all pride, everything 
 which there was nothing like in the mind of Jesus ; 
 we shall be crucified to the world, and the world 
 crucified to us ; and thus bear about our Redeemer s 
 dying ! 
 
 Yes, always bear it ; never lay that burden down ; 
 
200 BEARING ABOUT THE DYING OF CHRIST. 
 
 that yoke made so easy and pleasant by the precious 
 communications of the Holy Spirit. Always bear it ; 
 not in sourness ; not in that hard, severe type of relig 
 ion which we may see in some mistaken and narrow- 
 hearted believers, and which does so much to repel 
 the young from religion ; not in that stupid forbidding 
 of innocent amusement, which is strange indeed in the 
 disciples of One whose first miracle was wrought at a 
 marriage-festival ; and who, we may be sure, cast no 
 damp over its innocent mirth. Yes ; always bear the 
 Saviour s dying ; bear it in humility, in kindness, in 
 charity in your doings and your judgments; in resig 
 nation to God s wise appointments, in faith in God s 
 great love, in faith the simplest and in love the deep 
 est towards that Best and Kindest Friend, transcend 
 ing all thought and word, who died for us upon the 
 accursed tree. Bear it, too, in hopefulness and cheer 
 fulness, so far as these things are given to us in this 
 life. There need be no change upon your outward 
 aspect, like that wearing change which passed upon 
 St. Paul, as you bear about in the body your Saviour s 
 dying ; no change wrought upon you save that wrought 
 so gradually by advancing years and their many toils 
 and cares ; your brow need not be lined a day the 
 sooner, nor your hair a day the sooner gray ; but oh 
 that all of us might be daily and hourly bearing that 
 burden ! it would be well for the world we live in, 
 and well for ourselve.5 ; you would look with interest, 
 and almost with awe, at a man concerning whom you 
 
BEARING ABOUT THE DYING OF CHRIST. 201 
 
 knew, that all the while he was busied with the little 
 business of life, there was a great, solemn, sacred re 
 membrance at the bottom of his heart, ready to come 
 up in the moment when it should be needed, and even 
 now unconsciously giving its tone to all his thoughts ; 
 and oh, if a sand-grain looks small when you compare 
 it with a mountain, think what petty, what inconceiv 
 ably little, insignificant things the worries of daily life 
 would be, to the man who was always bearing about 
 with him the dying of Jesus Christ ! 
 
 And thus, my friends, though to the end of our mor 
 tal life, we may never know what it is to bear physical 
 sufferings like those of our Blessed Redeemer; though 
 at the last we may lay our bodies in the grave, un 
 marked by stripes like those which he and his apostles 
 bore ; and though our cold hand, when it is cold at 
 length, may moulder into clay, unpierced by such nails 
 as pierced his merciful hands ; we yet may, most truly 
 and really, bear about his dying. It may go with us, 
 that dying, in its remembrance and its influence, affect 
 ing all our views ; leavening and transforming all our 
 life. And when a few days or years are gone, and we 
 are called indeed to die ; when the heart, pausing for 
 its long rest, beats feebly and slow, and the cold waters 
 of the dark river seem stealing up and up to pass over 
 us ; oh let us think, to comfort and support us then, 
 that we are faring only like our Master ; that in this 
 strange trial we are only being made conformable to 
 
 9* 
 
202 BEARING ABOUT THE DYING OF CHRIST. 
 
 our Saviour s death ! And not^ we may humbly ask 
 and hope, not quite conformable to that. For not, 
 we may humbly ask and hope, not like him, in tor 
 ment and in shame, may we be called to draw our last 
 breath ; but on our quiet bed ; and with dear friends 
 by, to moisten the parching lips, and to smooth the 
 weary pillow. And oh, my friends, if it shall please 
 God to grant us that peaceful departure, how light will 
 our burden be to his ; and how little a part of his dy 
 ing shall we be called to bear ! 
 
XII. 
 
 THE INCONSISTENT WORSHIP. 
 
 " They feared the Lord, and served their own gods." 
 2 KINGS xvii. 33. 
 
 HE ten tribes which formed the kingdom 
 of Israel, had at length wearied out God s 
 forbearance ; and God gave them over to 
 the hand of the king of Assyria. That 
 monarch took Samaria, and carried Israel away into the 
 land of Assyria, where they remained as captives. But 
 the Assyrian king did not choose that the land of Is 
 rael should remain without inhabitants ; and so he col 
 lected a motley band of people from various portions 
 of his dominions, and sent them to dwell in the cities 
 of Samaria instead of the children of Israel. But 
 these new-comers did not find themselves comfortable. 
 Through the country having lain desolate for a while, 
 wild beasts had multiplied ; and lions came and slew 
 some of them. They were a poor ignorant race, that 
 mixture of people from Babylon, Cuthah, Hamath, 
 and Sepharvaim ; but though they were ignorant, and 
 by consequence superstitious, they came nearer the 
 truth in their idea as to the reason why the lions 
 
204 THE INCONSISTENT WORSHIP. 
 
 came, than some of our wise men nowadays, who re 
 gard any interference of God in the system of provi 
 dence, as an unwarrantable intrusion. These poor 
 ignorant people judged that God had sent the lions ; 
 and so far they were right. But they went wrong 
 when they thought that the Being who sent the lions 
 was a God specially connected with the land of 
 Samaria; and when they fancied that this God had 
 his own peculiar fancies, ideas, crotchets ; and that 
 he was angry because they did not know his partic 
 ular way of thinking and feeling. They made their 
 complaint to the king who had sent them ; and a 
 pitiful story it was. They sent him word that they 
 were in a bad way ; that they did not know " the 
 manner of the God of the land ; " and so that he had 
 sent lions among them, who slew them ; because they 
 did not know the manner of the God of the land. 
 Then the king of Assyria, feeling for their case ; but 
 with little sense, we may be sure, of the depth of 
 meaning there was in that poor, sad, helpless wail of 
 ignorance concerning God ; gave orders to send back 
 one of the captive priests, that he might give the new 
 inhabitants of Samaria the information they needed ; 
 that he might " teach them the manner of the God 
 of the land." The priest went ; and " taught them," 
 we are told, " how they should fear the Lord ; " but 
 he must have taught them very badly, or they must 
 have learned very ill ; for the plan on which they fell 
 was this. Each tribe continued to worship its own 
 
THE INCONSISTENT WORSHIP. 205 
 
 god, the idol which it had previously worshipped ; 
 and, in addition to this, all agreed in worshipping the 
 true God as well. The men of Babylon worshipped 
 one thing ; the men of Hamath worshipped another ; 
 the Avites worshipped a third, and the Sepharvites a 
 fourth ; they kept up the worship of the old familiar 
 gods to which they had grown accustomed away in 
 their own countries ; and then, in addition to that, 
 they added a certain amount of worship to this pecul 
 iar-tempered " God of the land," with whose " man 
 ner " they had found it so hard to get acquainted. 
 And the result was, that matters became what they are 
 described as being in that short, but most suggestive 
 sentence which forms my text. These new-comers 
 to the land of Samaria " feared the Lord, and served 
 their own gods." And so well pleased were they 
 with this compromise between truth and falsehood, 
 between God and Satan, that the historian that wrote 
 this book was able to tell us they had kept it up for 
 three hundred years. 
 
 If that singular race of men who lived many hun 
 dreds of years ago in the cities of Samaria had been 
 the only race that ever did the like ; if there were no 
 such thing known among us, who are living to-day in 
 Britain, as that men should " fear the Lord, and serve 
 their own gods ; " it would not have been worth while 
 to found a sermon addressed to a Christian congrega 
 tion upon such a text as that which I have chosen for 
 this afternoon. No doubt, it would still have been a 
 
206 THE INCONSISTENT WORSHIP. 
 
 curious study, the conduct and character of those 
 poor superstitious creatures, whom a vague undefined 
 terror of Almighty God led to offer him a little share 
 in that religious worship which they rendered with the 
 heartiness of early training and old associations to 
 various lying idols ; but the study would have been 
 more curious than practical ; and I suppose that most 
 of us have lived too long to be much surprised, how 
 ever we may be saddened, at the sight of sincere, 
 humble, earnest, honest delusion and folly. But it is 
 different when we remember that in the errors and 
 delusions of these poor benighted beings, we may see 
 new foes with an old face ; when we remember that 
 among ourselves there are hosts of men who are doing 
 the self-same thing which these people did ; when we 
 remember that in the heart of each one of us there is 
 an inveterate disposition to do that self-same thing. 
 Yes, brethren, this subject which the text brings up, is 
 as fresh, and as practically important, to-day, as it 
 ever was ; and in asking your attention for a little 
 while to the strange phase of religious feeling which 
 the text sets before you, I know that I am asking 
 your attention to a matter of personal concern to us 
 all. 
 
 The first thought which I think suggests itself to 
 our mind, in looking at the statement that the in 
 habitants of the Samaritan cities " feared the Lord, 
 and served their own gods ; " is of the curious in 
 consistency of their conduct. They worshipped the 
 
THE INCONSISTENT WORSHIP. 207 
 
 true God ; and, along with him, they worshipped 
 various false gods. Now, this seems strange to us. 
 We cannot imagine a man being at once a Christian, 
 a Mohammedan, a Jew, a Heathen, and an Atheist. 
 You must make your choice what religion you will 
 profess j you cannot profess several inconsistent re 
 ligions together. But, my brethren, it is just because 
 Christianity has so thoroughly leavened our ways of 
 thinking, that there appears to us anything strange 
 in the conduct of these inhabitants of Samaria. For 
 Christianity, we all know, is an exclusive religion. It 
 not merely calls men to believe in itself, but to reject 
 every other faith. It not merely claims to be right 
 and true ; but it boldly says that every other faith is 
 wrong and false. The God of the Bible not merely 
 commands us to worship him ; he commands us to 
 worship no one else. His very first commandment is, 
 "Thou shalt have none other gods before me." In 
 short, the great characteristic of Christianity, and of 
 Judaism which preceded it, is, that they are exclusive 
 religions. This is their great characteristic as com 
 pared with all other religions. Christianity is a faith 
 which admits no rivals, no competitors; it demands 
 to stand alone. And the true God is not the God of 
 this land or that land ; he is the God of all the earth ; 
 he tolerates no brother near his throne. But it was 
 not so at all with the gods of false religions ; with the 
 gods whom these poor Samaritans worshipped ; no, 
 nor with the gods and goddesses who were worshipped 
 
208 THE INCONSISTENT WORSHIP. 
 
 by the polished nations of Greece and Rome. It did 
 not follow that because you held Jupiter to be a true 
 god, you held Mercury or Apollo to be false gods. It 
 did not follow because you worshipped Dagon, that 
 you failed to worship Moloch. It did not follow that 
 Beelzebub would feel himself slighted, because you 
 offered a sacrifice to Rimmon. Each false god had 
 his own province, and he held by that. One god was 
 in prime favor in Philistia, another in Moab. One 
 god ruled the sea, another the air, another the land, 
 another the region under the earth. When the people 
 at Athens or Rome heard of some new god, who was 
 much esteemed in some distant country, and who was 
 supposed to have done great things there ; they took 
 his claims into consideration; they inquired whether 
 he deserved divine honors ; and if they concluded 
 that he did, they added him to their long list of gods ; 
 they built him a temple and appointed him priests 
 and sacrifices ; and all this without the least idea that 
 they were trenching on the vested interests, on the 
 rights and dignities, of the gods they already wor 
 shipped. And so you can see that these ignorant 
 Samaritans, when they " feared the Lord, and served 
 their own gods," had no sense at all of the inconsist 
 ency, of the self-contradiction, of what they did, 
 such as that which we might feel. In all simplicity 
 they imagined that in coming to Samaria, they had 
 entered into the kingdom of a new god ; and they 
 judged that it was expedient to offer him such wor- 
 
THE INCONSISTENT WORSHIP. 209 
 
 ship as might prevent his doing them mischief ; but 
 they had no notion at all of giving up the worship of 
 the old, familiar idols, which they had worshipped in 
 their distant homes. No ; the gods would get on 
 peaceably together. Tartak, Nergal, and Moloch, 
 were still quite good gods, though it had been found 
 expedient to add to their number one, who was evi 
 dently regarded as a rather peculiar-tempered god, 
 one whose " manner " it was not very easy quite to 
 understand. It was upon this principle that these 
 poor Samaritans went ; it was thus they judged, and 
 thus they acted. 
 
 A second thing worthy of notice in their conduct 
 is this : the motive which led them to offer worship 
 to the true God. You observe, that motive was pure 
 and simple fear. They worshipped God, because they 
 were afraid of him. They worshipped him, because 
 they thought he had done them much mischief al 
 ready ; and because they thought that unless they 
 did something to conciliate him, he might do them 
 more mischief yet. They came, you see, from their 
 various regions, to Samaria ; they settled down in the 
 abandoned homes which the mourning Israelites had 
 lately left ; they went on in their old worship of their 
 old idols ; and they never seem to have cast a thought 
 upon the God of the tribes they had supplanted, till 
 evil befell them. Good might have come, in any 
 measure ; and they would never have seen God in 
 that. But when evil befell them, such was their con- 
 
210 THE INCONSISTENT WORSHIP. 
 
 ception of the Divine nature, they said, Now, here is 
 the finger of God. The lions came prowling about 
 their fields and dwellings ; and this neighbor and 
 the other was devoured by them ; and then at once 
 their thoughts ran up to a God as the sender of mis 
 chief ; that was all they knew about him ; and they 
 determined to worship him, not because he was 
 good and kind and deserving of all worship ; but be 
 cause unless they affected some measure of regard 
 and respect for him, he might send them something 
 worse than even the lions who had already come. 
 They thought of God, in short, not as a being whose 
 love they hoped for, but as a being whose wrath they 
 dreaded. Their idea of the Almighty, was of an 
 author of mischief; one who had sent lions already, 
 and who might send worse if he were not kept quiet. 
 And thus their worship was in truth devil-worship, 
 and not God-worship ; for the essence of devil-worship 
 lies in offering worship to a being not because you 
 love him, but because you are afraid of him ; not 
 because you hope any good from him, but because 
 you fear much harm from him. They could not 
 possibly, these men, have any love for a Being of 
 whom their entire idea was that he had sent the 
 savage beasts who had torn their friends and their 
 children ; they could not possibly join in his worship 
 with any pleasure or any heart ; the language of their 
 hearts never could be, " How amiable are thy taber 
 nacles, O Lord of hosts ! " It would rather be, How- 
 
THE INCONSISTENT WORSHIP. 211 
 
 ever disagreeable thy tabernacles, however unpleasant 
 thy worship, we must perforce submit to that, for fear 
 of something worse. 
 
 And this leads us to the third matter which I wish 
 to suggest to you, as worthy of notice in the conduct 
 of the people of whom we are thinking. It is evident 
 from the entire account of them, that the worship 
 which they paid to the true God was not nearly so 
 hearty and real a thing as that which they paid to 
 their old idols. " They feared the Lord ; " they stood 
 in a vague terror of him, which prompted them to 
 offer him a sacrifice now and then ; to meet for his 
 worship now and then ; but " they served their own 
 gods ; they lived day by day in mind of them ; they 
 were not merely the worshippers, at long intervals, of 
 these false gods ; they were the servants of these false 
 gods, obeying them, working for them, from hour to 
 hour. When the two things came together ; the wor 
 ship of a Being from whom they simply feared eyil, 
 and the worship of beings from whom they expected 
 good ; you can easily see which of the two would 
 have the predominance. You can easily see which 
 would always have to give way to the other, in case 
 of any conflict between the two. You can easily see 
 that the problem which the sharp-witted man among 
 these Samaritans would set himself to solve, would be 
 this : to find the minimum of worship which would 
 satisfy the true God ; to find the very smallest amount 
 of reverence and service that would just keep him 
 
212 THE INCONSISTENT WORSHIP. 
 
 from doing them any mischief. The best they looked 
 for from him, was to refrain from doing them harm ; 
 and the worship which would barely suffice to get 
 him to refrain from doing them harm, was all that a 
 prudent and economical man would think of render 
 ing. But it was quite different with regard to their 
 false gods. From them they hoped good, as well as 
 feared evil. And in their case the astute Samaritan 
 would think it judicious to offer a very great amount 
 of worship, because he would think that, the more 
 worship he gave, the more good he would get. A 
 little worship was needed, for a beginning, to make 
 sure that these gods should not harm him ; and then 
 any extra worship, beyond that point, would go tow 
 ards making sure that they should bless him. In 
 short, my friends, the worship prompted by fear will 
 be the very least that will do. But as for the worship 
 prompted by hope and love, there is no limit to that. 
 No part of it could be regarded as thrown away ; it 
 would all be of use. Now, the great laws of human 
 thought will in the long run sway the belief and the 
 practice of even the dullest minds ; and so these poor, 
 ignorant, superstitious Samaritans had still penetra 
 tion enough to see in what quarter, according to their 
 ideas of Almighty God and of their own false deities, 
 their worship would be most profitably invested. 
 Accordingly, they carried out their views to their 
 natural and logical conclusion : " They feared the 
 Lord, and served their own gods." 
 
THE INCONSISTENT WORSHIP. 213 
 
 Such, my friends, are the great characteristic fea 
 tures of the conduct of the people spoken of in the 
 text. And in order that their way of thinking and 
 acting might be set before you with greater clearness, 
 I have pointed out to you these characteristic features 
 without interrupting the line of thought by any refer 
 ence to ourselves, and to our own ways of thinking 
 and acting. But now, brethren, let us seek to give a 
 practical bearing to all this that has been said. Let 
 us look back upon the errors of these Samaritans, so 
 many centuries ago ; let us see whether human nature 
 be not now very much what it was then ; let us see 
 whether we ourselves, and many around us, are not, 
 day by day, falling into the like errors ; or at least 
 tempted to the like errors still. 
 
 The Samaritans did not see that it was inconsistent 
 to worship the true God, and at the same time to 
 worship false gods ; they did not remember, because 
 they never had been taught, that the true God claims 
 to reign alone ; that he does not regard himself as 
 worshipped at all, if any other being is worshipped 
 along with him. Now, my friends, we have not the 
 excuse which the Samaritans had ; we quite under 
 stand how exclusive is the worship which our God 
 claims for himself; but is it not sadly true that day 
 by day we are all too much disposed to combine his 
 worship with other worship, to " fear the Lord and 
 serve our own gods " ? Ah, brethren, many a profess- 
 
214 THE INCONSISTENT WORSHIP, 
 
 ing Christian is trying in his entire life to do the very 
 thing which the Saviour said could not be done, 
 to " serve God and Mammon." There is many a 
 man who has that degree of superstitious fear of what 
 God may do to him, that he dare not cast off God s 
 fear altogether ; while yet the love of money, or the 
 love of pleasure,, or the love of eminence and honor, 
 really sits upon the throne of his heart! He "fears 
 the Lord ; " and at the same time he thinks to " serve 
 his own gods," wealth, pleasure, or ambition. Of 
 course, the days of stock and stone idolatry are past, 
 at least in this country ; but who needs to be told 
 that idols are worshipped in Britain yet, as truly as 
 idols ever were worshipped at Babylon or Samaria ? 
 The essence of idolatry is there, whether a man casts 
 his gold into an image and bows down to it ; or only 
 leaves it in the form of a balance at his banker s, or 
 invests it in the Funds ; and then makes it the first 
 thing in his heart and thoughts. Not, my friends, 
 that this view should be pushed to any fanatical ex 
 treme. Not that Christianity requires of us to set no 
 value at all upon earthly good, or to refuse to give to 
 those we love any affection at all. That is asceticism, 
 monasticism ; it is not Christianity. The requirements 
 of Christianity are always characterized, among other 
 things, by sound, practical common-sense. They are 
 always workable. They will always do in actual life. 
 What Christianity requires is, that God should be 
 supreme in the heart ; that nothing else should ever 
 
THE INCONSISTENT WORSHIP. 215 
 
 be put on a level with him ; that he should reign in 
 the soul as he does in the universe, alone, with all 
 things else at an immeasurable distance beneath his 
 feet. And the great practical test whether this is so 
 or not, is, whether in the event of our duty to God 
 coming in competition with our obtaining any worldly 
 profit or pleasure or advantage of any kind, the 
 worldly advantage has always and at once to give 
 way. Say you have it in your power to gain some 
 money by doing something dishonest ; by telling what 
 is not true to your neighbor, or by overreaching him 
 in any way. Now, my friend, if you admit for one 
 moment the idea of doing the unfair thing for the 
 sake of the profit that may come of it ; you are for 
 that moment weighing with yourself whether you 
 may not succeed in doing what the Samaritans did, 
 " fearing the Lord," and at the same time " serving 
 your own god," your god in this case being Mam 
 mon. The fraudulent trader who adulterates his 
 wares, and yet is never out of church on a Sunday ; 
 the greedy farmer, who will tell many lies to get a 
 sound price for a lame horse, yet who would not on 
 any consideration be absent from a sacrament ; and I 
 say it with sorrow, brethren, I have known several 
 such ; what are such men doing but what the Samari 
 tans did : " fearing the Lord, and serving their own 
 gods!" 
 
 And this brings us to the second thing we remarked 
 
216 THE INCONSISTENT WORSHIP. 
 
 as worthy of notice in the conduct of the Samaritans : 
 they worshipped the true God, because they were 
 afraid he would do them harm unless they worshipped 
 him. Their motive in worshipping God was not love, 
 but fear. And, O brethren, is it not sadly true, that 
 there is too much of the same thing among ourselves ? 
 Are not very many professing Christians constrained 
 to make some little profession of religion, and to pay 
 some little regard to religious duties and observances, 
 just by a superstitious fear that something will happen 
 to them if they do not, that God will send some evil 
 upon them if they do not ? Is it not so, that all of us 
 have known what it is to do some religious duty for 
 no better reason ? When we were weary and had lit 
 tle heart for it, and would rather have escaped it, have 
 we not sometimes uttered some formal, heartless words 
 of prayer, because we were afraid to omit them ; be 
 cause we feared something ill would happen to us, if 
 we did not interpose this perfunctory performance of 
 duty a duty that is worth nothing if it be done per 
 functorily between us and the anger of God ! Ah, 
 brethren, it is deep-set in human nature, the disposi 
 tion to serve God from the wrong motive, and to re 
 gard him from the wrong point of view. It is deep- 
 set in our fallen nature, the disposition to think of 
 God as a being from whom we dread evil rather than 
 as one from whom we hope good ; and the disposition 
 to worship him rather from fear than from love. But 
 surely you do not need to be reminded what an un- 
 
THE INCONSISTENT WORSHIP. 217 
 
 Christian way that is of looking at God ; what a hea 
 thenish motive that is for serving God ! Who can 
 forget what Christ told us was the first and great 
 commandment of God s law ? Not, Thou shalt dread 
 God, be afraid of God, crouch and tremble and shud 
 der at the name of God ; no, far from that : " Thou 
 shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and 
 with all thy soul, and with all thy mind ! " That is 
 Christian worship ; that is the grand motive that should 
 prompt to the worship of the Christian s God ! Under 
 the dispensation of the Cross, the terrors of the law may 
 still be rightly used to awaken men from utter careless 
 ness as to their soul s salvation ; you may rightly im 
 press it upon them, that away from Jesus, God is to the 
 sinner " a consuming fire ; " but once driven to " flee 
 from the wrath to come ; " once led to Jesus ; 
 once united by living faith to that kind, loving Sav 
 iour, oh, it is love and not terror that leads the 
 Christian on ! The mere dread of hell, I make bold 
 to say it, has in the heart of the earnest believer, 
 walking humbly with his God and leaning simply on 
 his Redeemer, really no appreciable weight at all. It 
 is not because sin ends in ruin, that he hates sin so 
 much ; it is because sin bound his gracious Saviour to 
 the accursed tree ! It is not because he dreads final 
 perdition, that he strives daily against sin, and seeks 
 daily the aids of the Holy Spirit, and strives ever to 
 lay up his treasure on high ; it is because he longs 
 for his blessed Lord s gracious presence, because he 
 10 
 
218 THE INCONSISTENT WORSHIP. 
 
 pants for the day when sin and sorrow shall be done 
 with, because he thirsts for the time when he shall 
 enter on the blessed rest of God ! We did not come 
 here to-day, my friends, because we were afraid of 
 God ; we " worship him in fear," indeed ; but it is 
 no slavish fear ; we are not within these walls, a 
 crouching, panic-stricken, shivering crew, as driven by 
 the slave-driver s lash, in pure abject terror that God 
 would send some terrible judgment upon us if we 
 failed to present ourselves in his house, and to go 
 through some form of his worship. No, we have 
 come to the kind merciful God who loves us, as 
 children might gather at a parent s knee ; we have 
 come to One who so loved us as to give his son to 
 die for us ; we have come to worship One who wills 
 not that any should perish, but that all should believe 
 and live ; we have come to tell of all our wants that 
 he may supply them, and to confess all our sins that 
 he may wash them all away ; we have come to ask 
 strength for our work, and comfort in our sorrows, 
 and heart for our weary way. And when we look up 
 to him, we see nothing of which to be afraid. The 
 invisible God, indeed, eludes our sight ; but we can 
 see him in a gracious face we know well ; with the 
 eye of faith we can see a gentle, loving countenance 
 looking down on us, with eyes that for us have been 
 dim with tears ! We see the " glory of God in the 
 face of Jesus Christ ; " we can trust our souls to his 
 blessed keeping ; we can worship and serve him 
 
THE INCONSISTENT WORSHIP. 219 
 
 "whom having not seen we love;" and love with 
 out a fear ! 
 
 And finally, my friends, you remember that the 
 last thing we remarked in the conduct of the Samari 
 tans was, that it was plain they were far more hearty 
 in serving their own gods, from whom they expected 
 good, than in serving the Almighty, from whom they 
 only dreaded ill. And who needs to be told that in 
 this respect, too, many professing Christians exactly 
 resemble them ? Indeed, my brethren, by the very 
 nature of things, the three things mentioned as re 
 markable in the Samaritans will always go together. 
 If you, like them, try to combine the worship of God 
 with the service of Mammon, or Pleasure, or Ambi 
 tion ; you will soon find that any worship you can 
 spare for the true God, you are giving, just for fear 
 that some mischief will happen you if you do not take 
 means to pacify him ; and you will soon find, too, that 
 your worship of God is a very chilly and heartless 
 thing when compared with your service of your 
 worldly idol. The avaricious man ; the dishonest 
 man ; the over-ambitious man ; even if for fear of evil 
 he keeps up some kind of worship of God, will find 
 that God is always growing less in his heart, and 
 money or eminence growing more ; will know quite 
 well that if he were free to act as inclination leads 
 him, he would give up the sham of worshipping God 
 at all, and openly give his worship where he has al 
 ready given his heart. It is a fact about which there 
 can be no doubt, that if a man tries to worship God 
 
220 THE INCONSISTENT WORSHIP. 
 
 and Mammon together, Mammon will always have 
 the advantage ; Mammon will always have the pre 
 eminence, and the chief share of service. If you try 
 to "fear the Lord, and serve your own gods," then in 
 the long run, your own gods will get all your service, 
 and the Almighty will get none, or, if any, then the 
 very least thing that you think will keep him quiet. 
 You know that, my friends. Your prayers will always 
 get shorter, your attendance at church more irregu 
 lar and more heartless, your reading of the Bible a 
 more wearisome task. Your conscience will always 
 become more easily pacified ; the worship of your 
 earthly idols will eat up the worship of your God; 
 and some day you may remember with a start, that 
 weeks have passed since you knelt in prayer, or since 
 you opened God s word ; that the care of your soul 
 and of eternity, long pushed as it were into a corner 
 of your time, can now find no time at all ! 
 
 O brethren, may God grant to us, to make religion 
 the first thing ; to give God the first place ! "We may 
 work, we must work, for many things ; but may we 
 never forget that there is " one thing needful ! " And 
 so shall we be enabled to escape that error described 
 in our text ; an error as natural to human beings 
 now, as when men six-and-twenty hundred years since 
 " feared the Lord, and served their own gods." So 
 shall we be enabled, in a nobler sense than that in 
 which he wrote them, to take up the poet s words : to 
 " fear our God, and know no other fear ! " 
 
XIII. 
 
 THE VAGUENESS AND ENDLESSNESS OF 
 HUMAN ASPIRATIONS. 
 
 " And I said, Oh that I had wings like a dove ! for then would I 
 fly away, and be at rest." PSALM Iv. 6. 
 
 DO not know, my friends, where I could 
 find more convincing proof of the essential 
 identity of human nature now, with hu 
 man nature thousands of years since, than 
 we find in these words. The words are very ancient ; 
 but their spirit is perfectly modern. These words 
 were centuries old, in the days when this country was 
 a savage wilderness, peopled by more savage men ; 
 and yet, they have quite the ring of the latter half of 
 the nineteenth century after Christ. Here we find 
 David, king and psalmist, involved in some of those 
 many sorrows and troubles which we may be glad 
 he passed through ; some of those many sorrows and 
 troubles which fitted him for writing those sacred 
 poems which come so home to our hearts, and which 
 seem to suit our own case and describe our own feel 
 ings so well. Here we find the psalmist and king in 
 great perplexity and grief and fear. The first of 
 modern essayists has said that the great characteristic 
 
222 THE VAGUENESS AND ENDLESSNESS 
 
 of modern life is worry ; but it should seem from the 
 text that it was the great characteristic of ancient life 
 too ; for if there ever was such a thing in this world, 
 here we have the utterance of a thoroughly worried 
 man. And see what he says. From the midst of 
 endless and countless cares, fears, and griefs, he 
 wearily looks up ; he plainly sees that where he is, 
 the day will never come in which cares, griefs, and 
 fears will not still surround him ; and so he bursts 
 out into a vague, hopeless, yet passionate cry, he 
 cannot clearly say for what, but only that he might 
 get away to some place, he does not know where, 
 in which these should be done with forever ! Ah, 
 the vague aspirations and longings of human nature, 
 only to define them, only to try and get them into a 
 tangible shape, makes us feel how vain and foolish 
 they are. The psalmist wanted, he did not well 
 know what ; but only to get away from here. He 
 knew he was not at rest where he was ; he felt that 
 he never would be at rest there ; and he breaks out 
 into words which seem mistily to mean that he fan 
 cied there surely was, somewhere, some happy island 
 where he might find peace and rest at last. My 
 friends, I spoke of the essentially modern tone of 
 that fancy as proving how like we are now to what 
 King David was centuries ago, as proving that man 
 is always essentially the same. Do you not remember 
 that when the greatest living poet wishes to set before 
 us a human being of this age, restlessly dissatisfied 
 
OF HUMAN ASPIRATIONS. 223 
 
 and disappointed, he puts upon his lips words which 
 look almost like an expansion of the vague aspiration 
 of the psalmist ; he represents Mm too, as confusedly 
 wishing that he could get anywhere away from where 
 he was ; he makes him vaguely long to burst all links 
 of civilized habit, to leave all traces of civilized man 
 behind him, to fly to distant seas where an European 
 flag never floated, as though thus he could cast off" 
 the burden of his cares and of himself! And no 
 doubt, we can all sometimes sympathize with the 
 fancy. No doubt, it must be accepted as an unques 
 tionable fact, that the many advantages of civiliza 
 tion are to be obtained only at the price of countless 
 and ceaseless worry. No doubt, we must all some 
 times sigh for the woods and the wigwam ; but the 
 feeling is as vain as that of the psalmist s wearied 
 aspiration in the text The modern poet, indeed, 
 shows us one point of difference between ancient and 
 modern modes of thought ; he makes the man whom 
 he describes analyze his feeling and his wish, and see 
 for himself how vain they are ; he makes him confess 
 that his words are wild, and that they set out no more 
 than a dream and a fancy. Here, indeed, we can 
 discern that the psalmist was of an earlier age, and 
 an earlier period in human development. He merely 
 records what his feeling was ; he does not stop to 
 analyze and examine it ; for all he tells us, the vague 
 feeling might have remained with him yet, that once 
 you gave him the swift wings, he would know where 
 
224 THE VAGUENESS AND ENDLESSNESS 
 
 to fly with them ; that once he had " wandered far 
 off," he could " remain in the wilderness," and be 
 quite peaceful and content at last. But it is just 
 this thing, which makes the aspiration in the text one 
 so practically profitable for us to think of; it is just 
 because in its vagueness, its unreasonableness, its end 
 lessness, it is so accurate a type of the endlessness 
 and the vagueness of human aspirations. Oh, give 
 the psalmist the swift wings ; and whither could he 
 fly ? Give him all the universe to choose from ; and 
 where would he find the place where he could be at 
 rest ? Give men all this world could yield them ; tell 
 men that for the naming it, they shall have every wish 
 gratified to the utmost, that begins and ends on this 
 world and this life ; and they will be as far from rest 
 for their weary souls as ever. And, thank God, we 
 know the reason why. It is because " this is not our 
 rest." It was because God had unalterably fixed and 
 appointed, that worldly things alone can never make 
 the soul of man permanently happy. You think to 
 make yourself content and happy without the good 
 part in Christ, and the reconciled love of God in him ; 
 you cannot ; it is impossible. God says No to that ; 
 it cannot be done. If you think and try to find real 
 rest for your soul away from God in Christ ; if you 
 think to be really happy away from Christ ; you are 
 thinking and trying to do what, by the make of your 
 being, is impossible. You might as well think to 
 quench the thirst of the parched throat with sand, as 
 
OF HUMAN ASPIRATIONS. 225 
 
 to satisfy man s thirst for happiness with anything 
 merely worldly. You are in the wrong course alto 
 gether, when you try to do that. And when you 
 think to do it, you are doing something as natural, as 
 endless, as hopeless, as the Jewish monarch thought 
 to do, when in a world which has no corner, no field, 
 no seclusion, no station, no life, that could give him 
 rest, he fancied he could find rest if he could but fly 
 far enough away from the sorrows that were plucking 
 at him where he was ; when he said, " Oh that I had 
 wings like a dove ! for then would I fly away, and be 
 at rest." 
 
 Yes, my friends ; it is a most practical, and a most 
 important subject, for us to think of to-day, that this 
 text brings before us. For it would be our salvation, 
 if we could only feel and realize the fact, that this 
 world is not our rest ; and that only in God, as we 
 see him in the face of Christ, can we find rest and 
 peace, and that which shall truly satisfy our weary 
 and thirsting souls. For, after all, it is the love of 
 this world that stands between most men, and their 
 seeking to go to Jesus and believe in him ; and if 
 you could only get them to feel it in their hearts that 
 this world will not do, that this world cannot give 
 us rest, it would be a vast step in the direction of 
 honestly seeking to lay up their treasure in a better. 
 Now it is just by vague fancies, like that of the 
 psalmist, that men encourage themselves to go on 
 setting their hearts on earthly things, and never really 
 10* 
 
226 THE VAGUENESS AND ENDLESSNESS 
 
 striving to win the good part in Christ with the same 
 real intention and industry with which they strive to 
 gain some worldly advantage. When human beings 
 meet with disappointments, cares, anxieties, bereave 
 ments ; when they find how different a thing daily 
 worry has made of life from what they had antici 
 pated in the bright dreams of childhood ; when they 
 are constrained to feel, day by day, that they are not 
 happy, that they cannot be happy, that there is always 
 something happening to vex them, and keep them 
 from being happy, instead of learning the lesson 
 which God is teaching them by all this, that they 
 ought not to set their heart on things here, that they 
 ought to seek for that one thing needful which will 
 never disappoint, that they ought to seek for rest in 
 Jesus, where alone it is to be found, instead of doing 
 all this, they do something exactly analogous to what 
 the psalmist did ; they fancy that there is some time 
 if not some place in this world to which if they could 
 fly away, they would be at rest ; they bear up under 
 the worries of present time in some vague hope that 
 better days are coming, days in which there will be 
 no more of these little fretting cares, these heavy dis 
 appointments, these crushing bereavements, that weigh 
 upon the present; days that shall pass unanxiously, 
 peacefully, happily ; and in which this world will, not 
 perhaps satisfy our early anticipations of it, but at 
 least come up to the moderate hopes of maturer 
 years, and afford the soul something like content and 
 
OF HUMAN ASPIRATIONS. 227 
 
 quiet happiness at last. Oh, brethren, that we could 
 once for all get rid of this false notion, a notion 
 which does so much to keep our hearts in slavery to 
 the things of sense and time ! Oh that we could 
 really feel that it is as vain a fancy, to believe that 
 future years will bring rest with them, as the psalm 
 ist s, that once far away in the wilderness, he would 
 be at rest ! The days to come will do no more for us, 
 than the dove s wings and the desert would have done 
 for him. Coming days may and will do for us just 
 what the wings would have done for the wearied mon 
 arch ; they will no doubt bear us away from the 
 trials and troubles that now surround us, that are 
 present now ; but they will only bear us to other 
 trials and troubles that are awaiting us then. Oh, 
 brethren, that we could lay it to heart, that the day 
 will never come in which there will not be something 
 to vex and weary ; the day will never come in which 
 everything will go as we would wish ; the day will 
 never come in this world that will make the soul 
 happy and complete ; and all this just because God 
 does not intend that such a day should ever come ; 
 all this because this world was never meant for our 
 rest ; and whenever it is beginning to grow too like 
 our rest, God will send us something to remind us that 
 it is not ; all this because these immortal souls within 
 us are not to be put off with any worldly aim or 
 worldly enjoyment, but will ever reach and blindly 
 long after something as immortal as themselves ! It 
 
228 THE VAGUENESS AND ENDLESSNESS 
 
 was not a piece of mystical piety, but a plain, certain, 
 philosophic truth, that sentence of the ancient African 
 bishop, written more than a thousand years since: 
 " Thou madest us for Thyself," thus he addressed 
 his Maker, " and our souls are restless, till they find 
 rest in Thee ! " 
 
 The wings and the wilderness would not have made 
 the psalmist happy ; and no imaginable worldly bless 
 ings will ever suffice to make us so. The only real 
 rest that the soul of man can ever know, is that which 
 is given by him who said, " Come unto Me, all ye that 
 labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." 
 And not even that rest, given by the Redeemer to 
 his own, is perfect in this present life ; the best be 
 liever s heart will be many a time disquieted and per 
 plexed, so long as he abides here. " There remaineth 
 a rest for the people of God." It remaineth ; it is 
 waiting for them; far away. My dear friends, this 
 is not our rest ; our rest is beyond the grave. We 
 are but " strangers and pilgrims upon earth ; " and 
 heaven is our home. And it is only our Saviour s 
 presence that can make us happy. God has made us 
 so that we never shall be right, till we are " forever 
 with the Lord ! " It is not the quiet country, that 
 will give all the rest he needs to the jaded man of 
 business in the great city. It is not the longed-for 
 breathing space, the longed-for leisure, that is all 
 which is needed by the over-driven brain. It is not 
 the home fireside, and the cheerful domestic circle, 
 
OF HUMAN ASPIRATIONS. 229 
 
 that is all the lonely wanderer needs to give him rest. 
 It is not money that will really satisfy the soul of the 
 man who works hardest for it ; it is not high station 
 and eminent fame that will truly enable even the most 
 ambitious man to sit down and feel himself perfectly 
 content at last. There will always be something want 
 ing ; always some vague idea like the psalmist s, that if 
 he had but wings, he would fly far, far away. There 
 are rest and peace to be found in God, in God as 
 we see him in the merciful face of Christ ; and no 
 other where ! 
 
 Now, brethren, we remember that it was a king who 
 wrote these words of the text. It was one who had 
 attained to the highest position which can be reached 
 by any human being. It was one who had experi 
 enced an extraordinary degree of what men esteem 
 as good fortune. He was at first nothing more than 
 a shepherd-lad; but he came out from that lowly 
 estate, and rose to fame and power and wealth. He 
 actually reached all those things after which most 
 human beings are striving in vain through all their 
 lives. You know how men labor and pinch year after 
 year to gain money, and possibly after all can do no 
 more than get the ends to meet, of what they get, 
 and what they must give away ; here was a man who 
 attained wealth without limit. You know the silly 
 way in which people scheme and plan, to gain a little 
 advance in social position ; to get recognized as fairly 
 
230 THE VAGUENESS AND ENDLESSNESS 
 
 belonging to a class a hair s-breadth higher than that 
 in which they were born ; to get admitted to good 
 society ; well, here was a man who had undeniably 
 risen from a humble origin to the very top of the 
 social scale. And is this the man, we are all ready to 
 think, who speaks so poorly of a world which has 
 used him so handsomely ? Yes, the very man. All 
 these things he had attained failed to make him 
 happy ; there were many thorns yet in the pillow ; his 
 heaviest sorrows befell him after he was an anointed 
 king. You remember, too, how his more famous son, 
 Solomon, the wisest and greatest man of his time, 
 summed up the result of all his experience of life in 
 the mournful declaration, " Vanity of vanities, saith 
 the Preacher ; all is vanity ! " Now, brethren, it is 
 good for us to listen to such words, from such lips. 
 You cannot say that Solomon or David cried down 
 this world because they could not get it ; you cannot 
 think that they said the grapes were sour because they 
 could not reach them ; you might have suspected 
 something like that, if you had heard a man who had 
 failed in life declaring that " all is vanity," or wishing 
 for the dove s wings, that he might fly to the wilder 
 ness, and get far away from a world of which he was 
 sick and weary. This was not Timon, giving up the 
 world because the world had given up him. Here 
 were men who had got all that life could give them ; 
 and who yet declared that all would not suffice to give 
 the soul rest. And not merely is there here for us a 
 
OF HUMAN ASPIRATIONS. 231 
 
 lesson not to envy the rich and great ; not to seek 
 great things for ourselves ; not merely is there some 
 thing here to remind us, that we may be as happy 
 in a lowly station as anywhere on earth, that in the 
 Valley of Humiliation, as Bunyan said, we may have 
 as much of the herb called heart s-ease in our bosom, 
 as anywhere ; but there is a lesson of yet deeper spir 
 itual import read us by the history of those great 
 men who stand out like beacons for our guidance as 
 we steer over the sea of life. Very few men indeed 
 ever reach all the specific objects they seek ; and so 
 come to such vague aspirations as those of the psalm 
 ist. Very few men, whatever may be their occasional 
 feeling, ever reach that point, that the serious and 
 constant wish of their heart comes to be after the 
 undefined end, the vague rest, of our text. For it 
 is of the essential nature of human objects of pursuit, 
 that while each is in view, it shuts out the view of 
 the rest ; it concentrates our thoughts and wishes 
 upon itself; it creates some confused impression that 
 we should be happy, that we should be right at last, if 
 we could only reach it. We fancy that something 
 would make us happy if we could get it ; and if we 
 never do get it, we go on under that fancy ; we keep 
 thinking that it would make us happy ; while if we 
 had got it, we should have found that it would not. 
 As for instance : a man wants to be rich ; he sets his 
 heart on wealth. Well, year after year, he toils for 
 that. He never reaches it. And so he still thinks 
 
232 THE VAGUENESS AND ENDLESSNESS 
 
 that if he had but reached it, however much it may 
 have failed with others, it would have succeeded with 
 him ; and he goes down to his grave still fancying 
 that if he had been rich he would have been happy, 
 still thinking within himself, No doubt I knew So-and- 
 so, and such another man, who were very rich, and 
 they did not seem to be very happy ; but that was 
 their own fault ; they did not know how to manage ; 
 if I had been in their place, I should have been per 
 fectly content ! Yes, the next end shuts out all the 
 rest ; as when you ask a drowning man what he wants, 
 he says, Save me from drowning, that is all he 
 wants in the mean time ; he never thinks of anything 
 more till he has got that. But here in the text we 
 find a man who had actually gained all the ends after 
 which men seek and strive ; here is a man who has 
 actually gained wealth, rank, fame, empire ; and now 
 he vaguely wants more. He has got past the stage in 
 which we fix on something near, on some specific 
 end, as money, or position, or the like ; he has got 
 past that, and reached the farther stage at which we 
 look up, and take a general view, and ask ourselves 
 to what all this is tending ; and then comes the vague, 
 confused wishing and reaching on for something which 
 we cannot define ; then comes the " Oh that I had 
 wings like a dove ! Then would I fly away, and be 
 at rest." 
 
 And now, my friends, let me remind you, that it is 
 not God s word alone that tells us how this world is 
 
OF HUMAN ASPIRATIONS. 233 
 
 not OUT rest. Other voices chime in, and tell us the 
 same sad story. " Vanity of vanities ; " " The world 
 passeth away;" "We all do fade as a leaf;" O 
 brethren, is not that the strain of very much of the 
 best part of the literature of this day, and of all days ? 
 Do you not know how one of the most brilliant 
 authors of the age has devoted all his writings to the 
 illustration and enforcement just of Solomon s famous 
 text ? But, brethren, what a wretched blank we feel, 
 when genius tells us the story of this world s vanity, 
 and stops short there ! Oh, surely those who have, 
 with an eloquence that far surpasses the theologian s, 
 told us of the unsatisfying nature of all this world can 
 yield us, were especially bound to point us to him in 
 whom alone the weary, thirsting soul can find all it 
 needs ! If you will point man s poor soul away from 
 this world, oh, point it to Jesus ; direct its faltering 
 steps to him who has promised the rest to which 
 the speediest wings would not bear you, and which 
 you could not find in a wilderness far more remote 
 than that remote seclusion to which the wearied 
 monarch would fain have fled away ! Never say 
 that " this is not our rest," without remembering the 
 blessed " I will give you rest," without remembering 
 thankfully that " there remaineth a rest for the people 
 of God." But how different the case often is ! You 
 find it set out, sometimes with all the bitterness of the 
 cynic, sometimes with matchless pathos and tender 
 ness, that " here we have no continuing city ; " well, 
 
234 THE VAGUENESS AND ENDLESSNESS 
 
 and what then ? You wait in vain for that which 
 would complete that half-sentence and half-truth : 
 " but we seek one to come." No ; in many cases 
 you will hear what virtually comes to this : " Here 
 we have no continuing city; and it does not much 
 matter." It does matter ! If this world be so blank, 
 so vain, so unsatisfying, what could we do, but for the 
 blessed hope of a better ; what could we do but for 
 that blessed gospel which tells us of a Saviour who 
 will guide us thither, and wash away our sins in his 
 blood, and send us a Holy Spirit to make us pure as 
 he is pure ! This is far too serious a case for mere 
 sentimentalism. Nothing will stand us in stead but 
 the faith of Christ, with its present strong consola 
 tions, with its substantial hopes for days to come. 
 There is nothing real upon earth, but that good part, 
 that saving interest in Christ, which never can decay. 
 Everything else, even if it could satisfy while it lasts, 
 is passing away so fast, and will be passed away so 
 soon ! We feel this sometimes, when sudden vivid 
 glimpses come back upon us of tranquil days, gone 
 forever ; or when we realize it plainly, that all the 
 blessings which now surround us, home, friends, 
 children, strength and life, are going too, chang 
 ing, decaying, ebbing away from us, withering in our 
 grasp. Oh ! dear friends, where shall your portion 
 be ? Here, amid the cares and changes of time ; or 
 there, amid the satisfying and enduring joys of im 
 mortality ! Oh that we might each choose, for our 
 
OF HUMAN ASPIRATIONS. 235 
 
 soul s portion, him in whom there is pardon for the 
 guilty soul, holiness for the sinful, rest for the weary, 
 and peace for the disquieted ! He made us for him 
 self ; he redeemed us with his blood ; his blessed 
 promise is of rest ; oh, may our souls, by nature rest 
 less, find rest in him ! 
 
XIV. 
 
 COMFORT TO SODOM. 
 
 " When I shall bring again their captivity, the captivity of Sodom 
 and her daughters, and the captivity of Samaria and her 
 daughters, then will I bring again the captivitv of thy cap 
 tives in the midst of them: that thou mayest bear thine own 
 shame, and mayest be confounded in all that thou hast done, 
 in that thou art a comfort unto them." EZEK. xvi. 53, 54. 
 
 |OW, first, what is the meaning of this 
 
 text? 
 
 We find that Jerusalem is said to have 
 
 been a comfort to Sodom and Samaria ; 
 and this is mentioned as if it were a fault. Jerusalem 
 was to be punished, we are told ; Jerusalem was to be 
 ashamed and confounded ; because it had been a com 
 fort to Sodom and Samaria. Jerusalem was the chosen 
 city of God, we know ; and Sodom and Samaria were 
 places remarkable for their wickedness. But still, we 
 are a little surprised at the first glance at our text. 
 Is it not a Christian s duty to do good to all as he has 
 opportunity ? Are we not bidden to love even our 
 enemies, and to do good even to them that hate us ; 
 and can it then be wrong to be a comfort even to the 
 worst of mankind, even to Samaria and Sodom ? 
 
COMFORT TO SODOM. 237 
 
 Yes, in such a case as this it is wrong to be a comfort 
 to a bad man or a bad city ; because in such a case it 
 is the very reverse of a kind turn to be a comfort to 
 them. It is doing harm to them, and not doing good 
 to them, to be a comfort in this particular way. For 
 Jerusalem had been a comfort to Sodom and Samaria, 
 in such a manner as had encouraged them in their 
 sins. When the wicked men of these cities were ready 
 to be frightened and anxious about their sins, then 
 the men of Jerusalem had behaved in such a way as 
 tended to keep their minds easy, to smooth down 
 their anxieties and fears. Jerusalem had, so to speak, 
 kept Sodom and Samaria in countenance. When the 
 people of Sodom and Samaria were growing ashamed 
 and alarmed, and were likely to repent of their sins, 
 they looked across to Jerusalem ; they saw it was just 
 as bad as they were ; and so they said to themselves, 
 If Jerusalem, God s own chosen city, goes on in these 
 evil courses, there can be no great harm in our doing 
 so too. If we are going wrong, we are going wrong 
 in good company. We, who never pretended to be 
 better than our neighbors, need not mind much if 
 we are no worse than people who profess to be the 
 chosen people of God. And so, Jerusalem encouraged 
 Sodom and Samaria to go on in sin ; and so, in this 
 blameworthy sense, Jerusalem was " a comfort to 
 them." It was a comfort, even as the flapping 
 wings of the vampire bat make a cool current of 
 air which is extremely comfortable to the sleeping 
 
238 COMFORT TO SODOM. 
 
 man whose blood it is drawing fast away. It was a 
 comfort, as it is comfortable for the weary man, out in 
 the snow-storm, to sink gently down in that slumber 
 from which he will never wake below. Bnt the com 
 fort of that sleep which will shortly end in death is 
 far from a desirable thing. The true friend of a man 
 in such a case would be he who should rouse him up, 
 however rudely, and compel him to push on his way, 
 however unwillingly. And in like manner, if Jeru 
 salem had wished to do a kind turn to Sodom, the 
 course to follow would not have been that of soothing 
 its fears away, and encouraging it to go on peacefully 
 and cheerfully in the road which would end in woe. 
 The best and kindest turn which a good man could 
 render to a bad man, would be, to be by precept and 
 example a constant gnawing discomfort, to keep his 
 conscience always uneasy, to give him not an hour 
 of rest, to keep him ever anxious, unhappy, fear 
 ful, till he had turned him into the right and safe 
 path. It was sin and shame for God s professed peo 
 ple to live in such a way as encouraged those who 
 never professed to be God s people to persevere in 
 their sin and thoughtlessness ; and very fitly might 
 Jerusalem be threatened with shame and confusion, 
 " in that it was a comfort " to Sodom. 
 
 Now, my friends, I am sure you will all readily see, 
 that there is a great and important principle sug 
 gested to us by the words of the text. The text sug 
 gests to us, that it is very blameworthy in those who 
 
COMFORT TO SODOM. 239 
 
 profess to be Christians, to do anything which may 
 comfort a sinner in his sinfulness, and encourage him 
 to go on in his evil ways. You know, every Chris 
 tian is solemnly bound to do all he can to make 
 other men Christians. The knowledge of the gospel 
 is not a thing which a man may have, and without 
 blame keep to himself. No ; all Christians, and not 
 the ministers of the cross only, are under a bounden 
 obligation to bring all within the sphere of their in 
 fluence into the same light and liberty in which they 
 themselves rejoice. And we know that a special 
 blessedness is promised to him who shall turn a sin 
 ner from the error of his ways. " He which con- 
 verteth a sinner from the error of his way, shall save 
 a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins." 
 And just as blessed and happy a thing as it is to 
 bring another soul to the belief of the gospel, so 
 wretched and wicked and fearful a thing is it when a 
 man who bears the Christian name lives in such a 
 way as positively encourages those around him to 
 contemn and disbelieve Christianity. And alas ! how 
 often we find this so ! How many a seeming be 
 liever, yea, how many an inconsistent and injudi 
 cious real believer, is " a comfort to Sodom ; " that 
 is, by his daily life does what he can to bring religion 
 into discredit, to make worldly men think it a hypo 
 critical pretence, a sham and a delusion ! Ah, Chris 
 tianity has received its sorest wounds in the houses of 
 its seeming friends. The infidel cannot damage re- 
 
240 COMFORT TO SODOM. 
 
 ligion half so much as its hypocritical professor can. 
 The consistent believer, by his entire life, should be a 
 warning to the unbelievers around him. It should be 
 a daily thorn in the flesh for the unconverted man 
 only to see him and converse with him. To do so 
 should make the unconverted man uneasy, dissatisfied 
 with himself; it should make him feel that he lacks 
 something that is supremely needful ; it should stir in 
 him a sense of discomfort which nothing can allay, 
 save an instant hearty acceptance of the great salva 
 tion which is in Christ. Now, my brethren, is this so 
 with you ? There are many of you here who profess 
 that you are Christians. There are many of you who 
 come season by season to the communion table, and 
 there declare that you are the disciples of Christ. 
 Well, and what does your life say ? Does that recom 
 mend Christianity to all around you ? Does your 
 daily life enforce the sermons which the unconverted 
 hear in church ; or does it nullify them ? Are you 
 people whose conversation and conduct, whose can 
 dor and scrupulous fairness in your dealings, and 
 manifest dread of committing sin, no matter what 
 gain may be got by it, are a constant witness to all 
 who see you that your religion is a reality ; or are you 
 rather a " comfort to Sodom," something that unbe 
 lievers may point to as a proof that religion is all a 
 pretence, something to encourage them in their 
 neglect of religion, something that worldly men can 
 point at and say, See, that man is a communicant, 
 
COMFORT TO SODOM. 241 
 
 he is never out of church, he makes a great profes 
 sion of religion, and is he a bit better than we are, 
 who make no profession of religion at all ? If there 
 is any difference, is it not that he is worse ? Ah, my 
 brethren, surely we have all got sins enough of our 
 own to answer for, without making ourselves thus 
 partakers of other men s sins, by so living that they 
 may find in our example an apology for all the ill 
 they do. But let us look more particularly into this 
 matter, and think of various ways in which professing 
 Christians may lay themselves open to the charge of 
 being a " comfort to Sodom and Samaria." 
 
 1. There is one obvious way in which professing 
 Christians may do this, which we mention only to 
 pass it by, in the hope that none of us who bear 
 even the Christian name are so sorely and shamefully 
 guilty. This is the way in which we understand from 
 the prophet that Jerusalem was a comfort to Sodom ; 
 and that was, by being actually as bad as Sodom it 
 self. You can easily imagine how wicked men would 
 take encouragement to go on in wickedness, when 
 they found those who claimed to be God s peculiar 
 people as wicked as themselves. If there were such 
 a fearful and wretched sight to be seen, as a church- 
 going man and a communicant, who was a swearer, a 
 drunkard, a liar, a slanderer, and a cheat ; if there 
 were such a thing to be found, as God forbid there 
 should ever be, would not every swearer and drunk- 
 11 
 
242 COMFORT TO SODOM. 
 
 ard and liar in the parish quiet his conscience with 
 the reflection that he was no worse than that wicked 
 professor of religion ? Would not such a man be a 
 comfort to all the Sodoms and Samarias in the dis 
 trict ? And it is for this reason that it is impossible 
 to calculate the amount of mischief that may be done 
 in a parish by an unworthy minister, by one of 
 those degraded men whom every now and then the 
 Church is called to denude of the office which he 
 has disgraced. O brethren, it is easy to say, and it is 
 true to say, that religion is a thing that must be 
 judged of on the ground of its own merits, and quite 
 apart from the conduct of those who profess to believe 
 in it ; yet, illogical as it may be, foolish and wrong as 
 it may be, the mass of mankind will always encour 
 age themselves in sinfulness when they find professing 
 Christians going on in sin. True it is, that the right 
 way of regarding such a case is to judge that these 
 professing Christians are no Christians, that they 
 are only men who are adding hypocrisy to their other 
 sins ; and that it would be as fair to reckon darkness 
 as a part of light as to reckon them as men for whom 
 religion is in the least degree responsible. And pass 
 ing by such a case, as one too miserable to be 
 thought of, and in any case quite hopeless to mend, 
 let us consider whether there may not be ways in 
 which even sincere and good Christians may, with 
 out saying or doing anything that is expressly sinful, 
 yet so act as to be a comfort to Sodom, as to 
 
COMFORT TO SODOM. 243 
 
 encourage wicked and worldly men in worldliness 
 and sin. 
 
 2. And as one of these we mention, allowing sinful 
 conduct to pass without notice or rebuke. If any 
 sincere Christian is present in a company where what 
 is sinful is said or done ; and if he permits it to pass 
 without remark, or even appears tacitly to approve it ; 
 I do not see how he can clear himself from the charge 
 of having been " a comfort to Sodom." If any clergy 
 man is present in a company of persons who so far 
 forget, I do not say what is in accordance with God s 
 law or with morality, but even what is due to common 
 propriety, as to indulge in profane swearing ; and if the 
 clergyman allows that to pass without the least indica 
 tion of disapproval ; I do not see how he can clear 
 himself from the charge of having been "a comfort 
 to Sodom." If any sincere Christian is present when 
 any man avows his intention of doing what is wrong, 
 or mentions with satisfaction that he has already done 
 what is wrong ; and if the Christian makes no sign of 
 what his feeling is or ought to be, then that Christian 
 most assuredly is " a comfort to Sodom." If any 
 sincere Christian is present, when a man relates with 
 something like pride how he made an extremely prof 
 itable bargain by means, which he probably regarded 
 as being decidedly smart, but which right-thinking 
 people would call lying and cheating ; and if the 
 Christian expresses nothing of the disgust which such 
 conduct has excited in his breast ; then that Christian 
 
244 COMFORT TO SODOM. 
 
 is proving himself " a comfort to Sodom." For, my 
 friends, the very worst man attaches, and cannot help 
 attaching, great importance to the opinion of his be 
 havior which a real Christian entertains. His own 
 heart condemns him when he does what is wrong; 
 and he has an uneasy feeling that the Christian is in 
 his heart condemning him too. Depend upon it, all 
 who are real consistent Christians are able by their 
 disapproval, even by their silent disapproval, to 
 check a man most materially in his wrong-doing ; and 
 they are also able most materially to encourage him 
 and comfort him in his wrong-doing by appearing to 
 approve it. The apparent approval of one true and 
 earnest Christian, even the very humblest in worldly 
 rank, will have more influence to comfort the wicked 
 man, to keep his mind easy, and his conscience 
 asleep, than the loudest declarations of his own 
 wicked associates that he is a fine fellow and has 
 done nothing wrong. And I am not forgetting, my 
 brethren, the restraints which the usages of civilized 
 society impose upon our telling a man to his face 
 what is our opinion of his conduct. The Christian is 
 not called upon to go up to a man and tell him that 
 he is a bad man, merely because he thinks he is one. 
 The Christian is not called to set himself up as a sort 
 of daily reviewer, a moral critic, of the character 
 and conduct of all he knows. The. Christian is not 
 commanded to tell every bad man he meets exactly 
 what he thinks of him ; nor forbidden to be civil and 
 
COMFORT TO SODOM. 245 
 
 even respectful in answer, to those of whose conduct 
 he disapproves the most. It is not demanded of the 
 sincere believer, in order to his escaping the guilt of 
 being " a comfort to Sodom," that he should make 
 an enemy of almost every man he meets. Nay, my 
 friends, there is a silent, unobtrusive disapproval, by 
 which the humblest may be a check upon the highest ; 
 there is a silent, unobtrusive disapproval, expressed 
 Avithout words or demonstration of manner, one can 
 hardly tell how, which even the most hardened sinner 
 will find it very hard, very uncomfortable, to bear. If 
 the believer in his very heart reprobates and condemns 
 the wicked man s wrong-doing, that condemnation and 
 reprobation will make itself keenly felt, felt by that 
 electric sympathy which makes us so readily know 
 when a really strong and decided opinion of us and 
 feeling toward us is entertained by another human 
 being. If you truly hate the sin, while yet, so far as 
 that may be, you love the sinner ; then, my friend, 
 your manner toward the sinner will involuntarily be 
 such, that you will be quite clear of the risk of being 
 " a comfort to Sodom." 
 
 3. Another way in which a Christian may so act as 
 to encourage and comfort an irreligious man in his 
 godless ways, is by seeking his society and acquaint 
 ance ; showing him that you think him a congenial 
 spirit, and that you feel it pleasant to be with him. 
 I need not say to you, my brethren, that whatever may 
 be a man s position and occupation, it is almost cer- 
 
246 COMFORT TO SODOM. 
 
 tain that he will find it absolutely necessary to be 
 upon terms of kindly and even cordial social inter 
 course with many persons who he knows are not 
 Christians ; and perhaps even with some persons 
 who have violated and are violating the laws of 
 common morality. You cannot entirely decide for 
 yourself what kind of persons shall be your acquaint 
 ances, in the way of business, or duty, or social inter 
 course even ; you cannot entirely decide for yourself 
 who shall be your acquaintances, but most assuredly 
 you can decide for yourself who shall be your friends. 
 You can choose for yourself, and you ought to choose 
 for yourself, those whose companionship you shall 
 seek, whose conversation you shall delight in, to 
 whom you will tell your secrets and confide your 
 feelings, those, in short, for words can make the 
 idea no plainer, whom you will make your chosen 
 friends. And we do not hesitate to lay it down as a 
 certain principle, that a Christian man ought never to 
 choose for his special friend a person who he knows 
 has no religion. A man, they say, is known by the 
 company he keeps ; that is, if he keeps it by his own 
 free choice and will. No man will choose for his 
 especial friend one whose hourly conversation revolts 
 and disgusts him. The refined taste, to say nothing 
 of principle, of a cultivated man shrinks from contact 
 with that which is coarse and foul ; and if we find a 
 professed Christian whose chosen and intimate friends 
 are found among the profane and godless, I believe 
 
COMFORT TO SODOM. 247 
 
 the common sense of most men would conclude that 
 such a one s Christianity did not reach far beyond 
 profession. But what we now maintain is this : that 
 if any believer courts, and delights in, the society of 
 those who are not Christians, no matter how pleas 
 ant and elegant and intellectual that society may be, 
 that believer is incurring the guilt which Jerusalem 
 incurred, when Jerusalem made itself " a comfort to 
 Sodom." That believer is following a course which 
 directly tends to encourage the unbeliever to go on in 
 his evil ways. For what is the natural reasoning of 
 any man who is not a Christian, when he finds a man 
 who is a Christian ever ready to make him a com 
 panion and a friend ? " How can he think," the un 
 believer will judge, " How can he think that I am 
 going to hell ! Is it possible that he should like to 
 be the companion of my walks, to interchange 
 thought and feeling with me, to discuss great ques 
 tions with me, perhaps often to jest and laugh with 
 me ; and all the while believe and know, that as sure 
 as there is a God above us, I am going down to hell ! " 
 Don t you see now what eternal damage you who are 
 Christians may do an unbelieving neighbor? Don t 
 you see how you may so act as to confirm him in all 
 his unbelief? Don t you see how you may so act as 
 to make him fancy that you do not believe the great 
 truths of Christianity yourselves ? I do not love, and 
 I do not respect, that Christian man, and still more 
 that Christian minister, who is ready to be as familiar 
 
248 COMFORT TO SODOM. 
 
 with a bad man, be he rich or poor, as the bad man 
 himself may choose. I cannot imagine how any ear 
 nest believer can ever find it otherwise than inexpres 
 sibly awful and tremendous to look in the face of an 
 unbeliever, and to think that he is hasting onward 
 to the everlasting flames ! O Christians, " make a 
 difference," as St. Paul said. O Christians, be kind 
 
 you cannot be too kind to the sinful and the 
 godless ; but be kind with a sorrowful kindness, as 
 a parent might weep over a son running fast to ruin ! 
 O Christians, love them, pray for them, do all the 
 good you can to them ; but let them ever see, by your 
 whole demeanor, that you never forget that they are 
 in the wrong way. Let them feel that you dare not 
 make those too dear, from whom the grave must 
 part you forever ! See that you be not a " comfort " 
 to them ! Rather so hold off from them, so be kind 
 to them, but so shrinking from them, as that you may 
 be a constant check on them, a constant discomfort 
 to them, a warning voice telling them always that 
 they are on the road to woe ! So, with God s blessing, 
 you may save them ; so, at the least, you will clear 
 yourself, clear yourself from the awful charge of 
 having " been a comfort to Sodom ! " 
 
 4. I go on to mention, as a fourth way in which 
 Christians may encourage and countenance ungodly 
 men in their doings, the cherishing a worldly spirit, 
 
 being as eager for worldly advantage, and as un 
 scrupulous as to the means by which it may be at- 
 
COMFORT TO SODOM. 249 
 
 tained, as men who make no Christian profession. 
 And, alas ! my friends, how much of this there is 
 among professing Christians ! We are told that the 
 true believer should walk by faith, not by sight ; should 
 set his affection on things above ; should seek first 
 the kingdom of God and his righteousness ; should 
 never forget that a saving interest in Christ is the one 
 thing needful. But is the fact as it ought to be ? Are 
 not many professing Christians even those in whom 
 charity would hope there may be found " the root of 
 the matter " the most worldly of men ? Are not 
 many who bear the Christian name as eager to get 
 money in any way, as if it were the " one thing need 
 ful ? " Do not many who bear the Christian name 
 show that they are far more eager to get on in life, 
 than to prepare for immortality? Is there not as 
 much vanity and pride and grasping at gain and self- 
 seeking and contemptible worshipping of rank and 
 wealth, even when completely dissociated from 
 worth and goodness, among many professing Chris 
 tians and Christian ministers, as in any class of men ? 
 True it is that religion repudiates and flings off such 
 unworthy pretenders ; and if the only result of their 
 utter worldliness of heart and life were to make them 
 the contempt of all right-thinking men, we should 
 not quarrel with it ; but far worse result follows from 
 the worldliness of Jerusalem ; it is " a comfort to 
 Sodom " to see it and hear of it all ! The sharp bar 
 gain made by the communicant may do worse than 
 
250 COMFORT TO SODOM. 
 
 levy an unfair tax upon his neighbor s pocket ; it may 
 damage his neighbor s soul ! It may set him up to 
 " go and do likewise ! " It may lead him to think that 
 there is no difference between the Christian and the 
 worldly man at all ! Oh, miserable, miserable, that 
 it should ever, even once, be said, as I read in a re 
 ligious paper not long ago, that " give many a loud 
 professor of religion the chance, and he will take you 
 in as fast as another ! " Oh ! what wonder, if that 
 can be said with even a distant approximation to truth, 
 what wonder if the Christian Church is many a 
 time little better than " a comfort to Sodom ! " 
 
 5. I shall mention, in the fifth place, just one way 
 more, in which a Christian may incur the condemna 
 tion pronounced in the text : this is, by never in any 
 way warning his neighbor that he fears or knows he 
 is not a Christian. 
 
 My Christian friends, I dare say some of you have 
 some idea that it would be intruding into the priestly 
 office were you to set yourselves to the work of bring 
 ing souls to Christ. You think that is not your voca 
 tion. That is the work of the Church ; and by the 
 Church many people mean the clergy. But if you 
 saw a friend manifestly stricken by fever or consump 
 tion, would it not be your duty to warn him, although 
 you are not a physician ? If you saw a friend drown 
 ing, would it not be your duty to try to save him, al 
 though you are not a member of the Humane Society ? 
 Ah, brethren, if a man be really in earnest about re- 
 
COMFORT TO SODOM. 251 
 
 ligion, he will never bear the sight of a human being 
 whom he daily sees and talks with, going to eternal 
 ruin, without a word of warning or advice ! If you 
 are a Christian, and if a man with no religion is 
 accustomed frequently to see you and converse with 
 you ; and if you talk of many things which interest 
 you both, yet never of the most important thing of 
 all ; if you talk of your common welfare, your hopes 
 and prospects in life, yet never of the world in which 
 you are to live forever ; if you never, in any way, 
 say that word which shall imply that your friend and 
 you are resting upon different foundations, that you 
 believe in Jesus, and that you know and feel that he 
 does not ; if you never express or hint the wish, that 
 so far as you are a true believer, he were such as 
 you, and that thus only can he be happy here and 
 hereafter ; what are you but " a comfort to Sodom ; " 
 what are you but something to soothe down your 
 friend s latent fears and cares about his soul, and to 
 r speed him peacefully along the way to woe? It is 
 possible enough he may not like to listen to your 
 warning words ; it is possible enough you may make 
 yourself an annoyance and a discomfort to him ; he 
 may think you are his " enemy, because you tell him 
 the truth ; " but oh ! better, better that than to be a 
 comfort to one, to whom comfort is the anodyne that 
 will drug to death, to whom comfort is the stream 
 that will bear on to perdition ! Clear yourself, my 
 Christian friend ! let not your friend s blood cry out 
 
252 COMFORT TO SODOM. 
 
 against you ! Oh ! let it not be, that on the day of 
 judgment, a spirit condemned shall be able to cry 
 out, that if you had done your duty by it, if you 
 had warned it as you ought, it never would have 
 come to that doom of woe ! Never tell us, that really 
 you have not opportunity, you have not moral cour 
 age ; the thing can be done, done in many ways ; 
 and Christian principle, sincere and deep, will not 
 be easily daunted. Who can tell how God s gracious 
 Spirit may carry home to the conscience and the 
 heart the words even of youth and inexperience ? 
 I have heard of one who on his death-bed said, that 
 if, as he humbly trusted, he had been led to yield 
 himself to his Saviour, and so to find hope in death, 
 it was by the simple and solemn warning of one, in 
 whom simple earnestness and heartfelt piety gave 
 force to the words of early youth, unsophisticated and 
 sincere. But if it be thus true, that a solemn respon 
 sibility rests upon every Christian, what shall be said 
 of that which rests upon the ministers of the cross ?, 
 How shall they clear their own souls, in the great 
 day of account, if they fail, as each Lord s-day comes 
 round, as dying men speaking to dying, to warn, to 
 rebuke, to exhort, to leave no means untried that 
 shall waken up the thoughtless and regardless from 
 their false peace, that shall carry such discomfort, 
 such disquiet, such restlessness, such a keen barb to 
 the unbeliever s heart, that he shall never know ease 
 till he has betaken himself to that atoning blood in 
 
COMFORT TO SODOM. 253 
 
 which alone our sinful nature can be washed and 
 made pure ! Can there be a more bitterly bad ac 
 count of the preaching of any minister, than that an 
 unconverted man should like to hear it ? Could 
 worse be said of any preaching, than that an uncon 
 verted man finds it pleasing and soothing ? Is it not 
 so, if it be so at all, because that preaching is " a com 
 fort to Sodom ! " No sermon is good, unless it makes 
 a godless man uncomfortable and ill at ease ; it is only 
 thus that it will ever stir him to earnest turning to 
 Christ, O brethren, what an awful thing to think of, 
 that perhaps in the place of woe, there may a soul be 
 found, that shall be able to say : I went every Sun 
 day to my parish church, I listened to the preach 
 ing of the parish minister ; his sermons were always 
 pleasing and soothing to listen to ; they never made 
 me uncomfortable ; they never sent me home dis 
 satisfied with myself, and anxious to get peace and 
 pardon; Sunday by Sunday I heard them; I heard 
 them and I am here ! Think of the unfaithful min 
 ister, think of the cowardly minister that durst not 
 preach the truth for fear of giving offence, think of 
 him entering the other world, and greeted there by 
 such a cry as that! Oh, shall the preacher of the 
 gospel dare to preach smooth things, with such a 
 possibility as that before him ! Shall the fear of man 
 drive him to dare the curse of God ! Shall he, bid 
 den as he is to " speak comfortably to Jerusalem," 
 speak comfort to Sodom too ! Or shall he not rather, 
 
254 COMFORT TO SODOM. 
 
 as one bound to " take heed unto himself," as well as 
 " to the doctrine," cry aloud and spare not in the un 
 believer s ear ; pressing and crushing it home upon 
 him, that he must choose between blessing and curs 
 ing, between life and death ; that so, when his minis 
 try is ended, when his voice is hushed, when he lies 
 down in his winding-sheet, it never may be said of 
 those cold dumb lips, which shall give out text no 
 more, that when, Sunday by Sunday, they spoke from 
 the pulpit in the house of prayer, they spoke words 
 of " comfort to Sodom ! " 
 
XV. 
 
 THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. 
 
 " For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal 
 must put on immortality." 1 COR. xv. 53. 
 
 T is a remarkable change, when we come 
 to think of it, which at death passes at 
 once on the material and the immaterial 
 part of the nature of man. The soul is 
 separated from its mortal tenement; and that spiritual 
 existence, whose warm affections we vainly referred 
 to the material heart, and whose thoughts and fancies 
 we vainly referred to the material brain, now lives 
 apart from both, and independent of either. But the 
 soul was always a mystery ; it was invisible before, 
 and it is no more now ; we cannot tell how it left the 
 body, but we never knew how it lived in it, or where 
 in this mortal framework was its home ; and its de 
 parture is no more inexplicable than its existence. It 
 is on the more familiar body, that the more palpable 
 and the more affecting change is wrought. The con 
 trast with that which a little before it was, strikes 
 us painfully and harshly ; and an undefined and 
 mysterious awe comes over us, as we stand by 
 
256 THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. 
 
 the body from which the soul has gone. The heart is 
 there, but it beats no longer ; the eye, but it sees no 
 more ; and the kindliest and best-loved voice cannot 
 arrest the attention of the dull, cold ear. The color 
 of life has fled from the cheek, and the light of intel 
 lect from the brow ; the multitudinous machinery of 
 animal life is there, but the vital spark to set it in 
 motion is wanting ; and when weeping friends stand 
 round the bed of death, that, which once could never 
 see their grief without seeking to soothe and lighten 
 it, remains heedless and still. 
 
 But this is not all. The great law of decay, power 
 less against life, now asserts its authority over the life 
 less frame. To that place where the rich and the poor 
 meet together, alike in the helplessness and humili 
 ation of mortality, to that narrow house, appointed 
 for all living, the living bear the dead, and lay 
 them to their long repose. And then, decay begins 
 its quiet work ; the worm feeds sweetly on that, round 
 which many warm affections clung, and on which 
 many fond hopes were set ; that which parents had 
 caressed and cared for ; that by which we knew those 
 we loved ; that which was so often the eloquent and 
 loved expositor of the mind within, which spoke in 
 the eye, and flushed the cheek. And in a little, the 
 change grows more complete still ; and a little dust, 
 not distinguished from the crumbling mould around, 
 is all to show where sleeps what was once a human 
 frame, but is now of the clods of the valley. The 
 
THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. 257 
 
 trees around send out their roots and pierce it ; the 
 long grass waves the greener, nourished by man s 
 decay ; and when daisies grow over the grave, and 
 moss has covered the head-stone, there is now be 
 neath it nothing; save earth to earth, ashes to ashes, 
 dust to dust. 
 
 And so, all sense is over. The old churchyard, 
 where every spadeful of earth is mingled with human 
 mould, is as lifeless and feelingless as any common 
 field near it. The heart there throbs no more to the 
 call of passion, nor dances to the song of hope. Over 
 that quiet place there floats the sound of the Sabbath- 
 bell ; but many who heard it once, hear it now no 
 more. Lowly grief, and lordly pride, rest here to 
 gether. The ashes of friends mingle without sym 
 pathy ; and those of enemies without recoil. 
 
 My brethren, all the generations of mankind have 
 seen as much as this ; and at this point the informa 
 tions of sense and of reason cease. That is the very 
 last that we see of our fellow-creatures. But we can 
 well believe that through the long ages before our 
 Blessed Saviour " abolished death," and " brought 
 life and immortality to light," declaring that he was 
 " the resurrection and the life," many a bereaved 
 heart must have asked in anguish if this was the end 
 of all ? Was the touch of the vanished hand never 
 again to be felt ; was the well-remembered voice 
 hushed forever? Was this the sorry ending, in the 
 dust of death, of all the thoughts and purposes, of all 
 
258 THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. 
 
 the warm feelings and affections, which even in the 
 darkest days of the history of our race, spoke man 
 made at first in the image of God ! And have we 
 looked our last, we can hear the mourners asking, 
 upon the features and the forms of those we loved, 
 whose presence once warmed our hearts and bright 
 ened our homes ? Must it be, that the parting look, 
 when we lifted the winding-sheet aside, and gazed 
 silently and long upon the sharp face, so sadly 
 changed, was indeed the very last ? And we can 
 trace, even among those who enjoyed no gospel-light, 
 what look like indications of some dim, confused 
 yearning after the glorious doctrine of a Resurrection, 
 which forms so essential a part of our Christian faith. 
 Perhaps those are right who maintain that at least 
 some vague aspiration, some blind reaching, after that 
 wonderful Christian truth, underlies all doings and 
 observances implying care or respect for man s mortal 
 part after the soul has left it. Perhaps they are right 
 who think they discern in all these some undefined 
 and almost unconscious hope, that at death even the 
 poor body is not done with forever, that there is 
 something coming yet, in which even the material 
 part of man s nature is concerned. And if this be so, 
 what a meaning and solemnity are breathed through 
 many little things in which we are ready, perhaps, to 
 see nothing more than human weakness ; such things 
 as the care which the dying have expressed that they 
 might sleep in scenes, and near friends, they loved ; 
 
THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. 259 
 
 and that their ashes might remain unmolested, save 
 by the gentle hand of Nature ; such things as the 
 sweetness and seclusion of the places where we would 
 wish to lay the dead ; such things as the awful in 
 scription which the greatest of philosophers and poets 
 caused to be written over his grave ; such things as 
 that last direction of the patriarch Joseph, of which 
 the apostle Paul speaks with such solemn approval ; 
 telling us that " by faith, Joseph, when he was a- 
 dying, gave commandment concerning his bones ! " 
 
 And yet, brethren, we can well understand how, 
 notwithstanding whatever natural longings may be 
 thus indicated, the stupendous nature of the miracle 
 implied in a resurrection of the body baffled the belief 
 of such as walked in Nature s light alone. That pro 
 pensity to live in the future, to be always putting off 
 the true enjoyment of life to some indefinite season, 
 somewhere in the days before us, conjoined with a 
 horror of annihilation, both of which seem natural 
 to man, had indeed led some who enjoyed no revela 
 tion, to wish and to hope that the spiritual part of 
 man were immortal ; and it was a great thing to 
 believe that what in us now acts should continue its 
 agency, and that what now thinks should think on for 
 ever. Perhaps it filled the philosophic mind with 
 lofty thought ; perhaps it yielded some comfort to 
 humbler and tenderer spirits ; when the dying man 
 raised himself upon his dying pillow, and said, with 
 an eye that brightened at the belief, and a voice that 
 
260 THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. 
 
 gained strength from the hope that prompted that last 
 exertion, that what in him truly lived was strong now 
 as in his days of youthful strength ; that his interest 
 in the welfare of those he loved was only growing 
 deeper; that it would be deeper on the morrow, 
 though he might never see it in this world; and that 
 his better life only began when men said he died. 
 Perhaps there may have been men whom nature 
 alone guided to such a belief as that ; let me say for 
 myself that I do not believe there ever were, that I 
 hold the proofs of our immortality derived from nature 
 alone as worth absolutely nothing, that I believe 
 that only through relics of God s own teaching had 
 men even the faint inkling of a future life, which some 
 who never heard of Jesus have possessed, and that 
 only our blessed Lord " brought life and immortality 
 to light." But granting that the man was ever found, 
 who, untaught from above, was able, in the act of 
 death, to declare confidently that he knew he should 
 never die ; surely, even then, the white sharp fea 
 tures ; and the tongue that grew palsied with the 
 words of hope on it ; and the drops on the rigid 
 brow ; and soon the cold senselessness ; and then the 
 thought of what was coming in a little longer ; would 
 tell friends around that that life, so confidently held 
 by, was the immortality of the soul alone. All merely 
 rational belief was staggered by the first thought of 
 what was meant by raising and reconstructing the 
 mortal part of man. It is so yet. The resurrection 
 
THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. 2G1 
 
 of the body is an essentially Christian doctrine. 
 "Wherever the apostles went and preached, you re 
 member the two distinctive words which they always 
 named together: "Jesus and the Resurrection." I 
 believe we often fail to remember both how essentially 
 Christian this doctrine is, and also how essential a part 
 it is of Christianity. How forcibly, how constantly, 
 the apostles pressed it on all who heard them ; and 
 with what wonder, what incredulity, even with what 
 contemptuous derision, their hearers listened! 
 
 And it need not surprise us. The doctrine implies 
 a miracle the most stupendous. We know how the 
 poet, looking upon a skull cast out from the heaps of 
 a ruined city, moralized upon the mighty power which 
 would be needful to refit that dismantled palace of 
 the soul, and quicken it to life again. We think of 
 the multitudes who have given back their mortal part 
 to the elements ; how every period of thirty years sees 
 the grave close over a thousand millions of human 
 beings. We think in how short a time the mortal 
 remains of man cease to bear a trace of what they 
 were in life. " Dust we are, and to dust we return." 
 It was a quaint but solemn fancy of the poet, to apos 
 trophize a molehill in a churchyard, as containing 
 part, perhaps, of a great company of human beings. 
 It is strange, indeed, to think how many mortals may 
 meet in that small hillock ; how winds and rains may 
 there have brought together in death those who never 
 met in life ; how the warm blood once ran through 
 
262 THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. 
 
 that crumbling mould ; how every atom of it claims 
 closest kindred with ourselves ! And we remember, 
 too, how science tells us, not as a striking fancy, but 
 as a certain fact, that the whole material world is per 
 vaded by the atoms which entered into the material 
 frames of generations that are gone. There is some 
 thing of them in the yellow autumn harvests, and in 
 the leafy summer trees ; something in the dust which 
 our footsteps stir, and which the breeze wafts in play. 
 There is but one generation of humankind alive at 
 once ; but there are a hundred slumbering in the dust 
 together. " All that tread the globe, are but a handful 
 to the tribes that slumber in its bosom." 
 
 No wonder that men, upon any authority less cer 
 tain than that of the Almighty God himself, should 
 have failed to believe that what was so widely dis 
 persed and so completely assimilated, should ever be 
 separated, assembled, quickened again. And there 
 was a difficulty hardly less formidable in the very 
 nature of the thing. Human reason has seen, and it 
 can imagine, that gradual series of decay which turns 
 fresh and vigorous youth to weak and faded age, and 
 which then brings the wasted frame to dust and ashes ; 
 but how strange to conceive this process reversed, 
 the steps of this series retraced ? To think of dry 
 bones arranging themselves in human form, and knit 
 ting themselves together by nerves and sinews ; to 
 think of the multitudinous apparatus of animal and 
 intellectual life again appearing about them and 
 
THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. 263 
 
 within them ; and, more wonderful than all, to think 
 of the vital spark returning, to set the whole machin 
 ery again in action, warming the heart, and circling 
 in the blood, and beaming in the eye, was what the 
 human mind, of itself, could not do. " Can these 
 bones live ? " said the Almighty to Ezekiel, in the 
 valley of vision ; and the prophet answered, " God, 
 thou knowest ! " And till God himself answered the 
 question, that was the sum of what man could say. 
 
 But the question is answered now. Prophets de 
 sired to see the things that we see, and did not see 
 them. Ezekiel, with all his inspiration, durst not say 
 that dry bones could live again ; but there is not a 
 child among us but has been taught to say confidently, 
 in that Creed which we have repeated from infancy, 
 " I believe in the resurrection of the body ! " There 
 is not a doctrine of the gospel that is more clearly, 
 strongly, and fully declared. You remember how St. 
 Paul, in the chapter in which our text stands, argues 
 the question at length ; and anticipates and puts down 
 all objections. " This corruptible shall put on incor- 
 ruption, and this mortal shall put on immortality." 
 "The dead shall be raised incorruptible." "That 
 which was sown in corruption shall be raised in in- 
 corruption ; that sown in dishonor shall be raised in 
 glory ; that sown in weakness shall be raised in 
 power ; that sown a natural body shall be raised a 
 spiritual body." And remembering that the soul is 
 not all the man ; remembering that it needs body and 
 
264 THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. 
 
 soul in union to constitute the perfect human being ; 
 remembering that the body is redeemed with Christ s 
 blood as well as the soul ; the great apostle hesitates 
 not to say, that not even the perfect holiness and hap 
 piness of the soul would content him ; that not till the 
 body, wrested from land and sea, and glorified into 
 beauty and perfection, is united to the soul again, 
 would he be willing to confess that Christ s great 
 atonement had proved fully successful in all it aimed 
 at for God s glory and man s salvation ; and that only 
 " when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, 
 and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then 
 shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, 
 Death is swallowed up in victory ! " 
 
 I know, my friends, that a hundred objections may 
 be started to the doctrine of the Resurrection ; and a 
 hundred questions may be put as to the rationale of it. 
 We are not careful to answer such questions. It is 
 not wise to go into details as to a truth whose details 
 are not revealed to us, and as to which we might 
 speculate endlessly without reaching certainty or clear 
 understanding. St. Paul looked forward to the ques 
 tion, " How are the dead raised up, and with what 
 body do they come?" and doubtless such questions 
 would be in the mind of the men of Athens when 
 they mocked at the mention of a resurrection ; but it 
 is more reverent and more wise, not to try to explain 
 what is manifestly miraculous, and manifestly beyond 
 our comprehension. Some of you may remember how 
 
THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. 2C5 
 
 the great Emperor Napoleon, in his exile at St. Helena, 
 was wont to speculate upon this great Christian doc 
 trine ; and while expressing his wish to be burnt 
 rather than buried after his death, he said, truly 
 enough, that as for the resurrection, that was miracu 
 lous at all events ; and it would be as easy for the 
 Almighty to accomplish it in the case of burning as 
 in that of burial. It is best to hold, with simple faith, 
 by the great truth, that " this corruptible must put on 
 incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortal 
 ity." We hold by that truth ; and we do not pretend 
 to explain how it is to come true. And we all know 
 that we see daily things we can explain as little. Who 
 can tell us how the oak grows from the acorn ; how 
 the golden harvests of autumn grow from the seed 
 which decays in the ground ? Let us not perplex 
 ourselves in endless speculations as to the manner in 
 which the dead shall rise ; but let us rather repose in 
 the certainty that they surely will. That almighty 
 One, whose voice speaks to us in this text, we may be 
 sure, knows how he is to fulfil it. 
 
 The body, then, shall awake ; though it be not till 
 " the heavens are no more." The grave is but a place 
 of temporary rest, not of eternal forgetfulness. Great 
 truths are sometimes embodied in single words ; and 
 this is so with the word cemetery. That word means 
 sleeping -place ; it is a truly Christian name to give a 
 burying-place ; it implies that such as slumber there, 
 sleep for a gfeat awaking. The grave of the right- 
 12 
 
266 THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. 
 
 ecus is the treasury of the skies ; it will hear the voice, 
 " Restore the dead," and every atom of its trust shall 
 be rendered back. From places which we pass with 
 little thought of those who are resting there, human 
 forms will come forth to judgment. From some .un 
 known spot, over which the L>eluge rolled its effacing 
 waters, the first of men will rise. Ruth will rise from 
 that place where she was buried by Naomi s side ; and 
 Moses from the sepulchre which no man knew. The 
 cave of Machpelah will give up its charge; and David 
 and his fathers will rise from the place where they 
 slept together. Martyrs and patriots will come out 
 from the dungeon where they died, and be brought 
 back by the winds to which men scattered their ashes. 
 The material frame will as certainly be there, which 
 was burnt to ashes, ground to powder, cast into a 
 rapid stream, as that which lay, in careful seclusion, 
 from the hour of death to the day of judgment. 
 Massive stones and cathedral arches do not keep 
 the remains of royalty more securely than the wide 
 elements of nature are preserving the vestiges of 
 every man that ever breathed. From ocean depths, 
 from mountain-side ; from the forest and from the 
 desert ; they shall come again ! 
 
 And thus, the earth is more valuable than you 
 would think it. God has far more to watch over in 
 it than its living population. It rolls on its way, bear 
 ing in its bosom a vast freight of that which is yet 
 to people heaven. Let us remember, that the quiet 
 
THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. 267 
 
 bury ing-place which we pass with scarce a glance, 
 contains mines which in God s sight are richer by far 
 than ever enriched Peru. Not merely the mouldering 
 remains of organized matter; not something which has 
 seen its day and done its work ; but something whose 
 day is only coming, and whose work is not yet well 
 begun ; something which rests less in memory than in 
 hope ; the " body still united to Christ ! " The field 
 of the world is a harvest-field. Not vainly did our 
 fathers call the burying-place God s Acre. It is sown 
 with the seeds of God s harvest ; and the day of resur 
 rection is God s reaping-day. 
 
 The places on earth that are quietest now will be 
 most bustling on that day of resurrection ! When the 
 hum has ceased in the great city s streets, the seques 
 tered walks of its burying-place will be trodden by- 
 many generations together. It is a strange thing to 
 stand in the breathless stillness of some populous 
 cemetery, and to think what a stirring amid its dust 
 the voice of the last trump will make ! 
 
 And thus, the human body is as imperishable as 
 the human soul. These frames of ours, which seem 
 among the most fragile things on earth, are the only 
 immortal things about it. That delicate organization, 
 which any slight accident may destroy, and which a 
 century brings to dust, will outlive far, far more than 
 states and empires. It will see the world out ! It 
 will last infinitely longer than the everlasting hills. 
 It will be young and fresh after the material universe 
 
268 THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. 
 
 shall have fulfilled God s purposes, waxed old, and 
 passed away ! 
 
 What shall we say, then, to this destiny which 
 awaits such as fall asleep in Jesus ? We are ready 
 to think that it would now confer on us a happiness 
 beyond expression, if the Saviour were once more to 
 appear among men, working the same miracles as in 
 ancient days. How it would delight many, if he 
 would now accompany them, as he did the sisters of 
 Lazarus, to the place where lie those so dear, and so 
 missed day by day; and give them back to their 
 homes and hearts ! It would delight us, though 
 they were only given back to a world of sin and 
 sorrow, and a life which a few years would close 
 again. How much more, if they were raised to a 
 being in which sin and sorrow were alike impossible, 
 and endued with a life which could never end ! 
 How much more, if they came forth from the tomb, 
 not in the pale body worn down by long disease, 
 but in frames which, though yet material, had caught 
 something of the pure immortality of the happy spirit 
 within ! How much more, if they and you were no 
 longer to pass your days in the company of sinful men ; 
 but in the society of beings all as pure as they are 
 happy, and in the immediate presence of the Blessed 
 Saviour himself ! 
 
 It is to this latter kind of resurrection that our 
 Redeemer lifts our hopes. It is to a sinless and 
 perfect life that the dead in Christ shall rise. The 
 
THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. 2 GO 
 
 corruptible is to put on incorruption ; the mortal, im 
 mortality. The body raised is to be indeed the same ; 
 and yet, how different ! The eye that will open on 
 the better world will be brighter by far than ever 
 brightened at the view of native scenes, or long-parted 
 friends. The voices that shall swell the hymns above 
 will be sweeter by far than ever sang God s praises 
 here. These poor frail bodies are, to sum up all, to 
 be made into conformity with the glorified body of 
 Christ. And if we should ever feel disposed to envy 
 those to whom the Saviour when on earth gave back 
 their beloved dead, we may comfort ourselves with 
 the hope, that though ours will never be recalled to 
 tread by our side the thorny paths of this world, 
 though we have parted, till advancing seasons lay us 
 l ow , though "our path" meanwhile may be "in 
 these ways we know, and theirs " through scenes 
 strange and far away, they may yet and if 
 God s grace fail us not, they will yet be our 
 companions in that better land, where tears are 
 never shed, and friends are never parted ! 
 
 The wisest people of antiquity exerted all their 
 ingenuity to arrest the progress of decay in their 
 beloved dead ; and so successful was their skill, that 
 we can even yet draw forth from the sepulchral pyra 
 mids of Egypt, forms that two thousand years since 
 walked the streets of cities whose very ruins have 
 disappeared before the touch of time. It was but the 
 
270 THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. 
 
 other day that I held in my hand the hand of a little 
 Egyptian boy who died two thousand years since ; 
 and it was a strange thing as it were to touch that 
 hand across that long waste of years. And though, 
 when we look on the decaying features, which in all 
 their fragility have outlived rocks and empires, we 
 may smile at this earnest anxiety to preserve the least 
 important part of man, we cannot but feel a thought 
 ful interest in the contemplation of that pious care 
 which made men so anxiously seek to preserve the 
 lips they had in childhood kissed, and the knees they 
 had climbed. It was a praiseworthy, even though a 
 futile task, for such as knew of no resurrection, to 
 care for even the material part of man ; and though 
 we, in these modern days, may bury our dead from 
 our sight, and yield the battle with decay, it is not be 
 cause we feel no concern in even the decaying relics 
 of a parent or a friend ; it is because we know assur 
 edly that this mortal shall put on immortality, and that 
 God himself will watch over it in the space which 
 must elapse before it does so. Give, then, Christians, 
 the body to the grave ; and never seek to arrest its 
 quiet progress to rejoin the elements. Let it decay 
 like all things here, returning peacefully to the dust 
 from whence it was taken ; and rather cherish in your 
 memory the pleasant recollection of its health and 
 strength, than preserve in your dwelling the wasted 
 image of its weakness and ruin. Lay it in the grave, 
 in the certain hope of a joyful resurrection ; and when 
 
THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. 271 
 
 you come to die, cling to the same blessed hope. 
 Know that never pyramid kept ancient king so care 
 fully and well as earth and air and sea will keep the 
 mortal part of your friend and of yourself. And an 
 ticipate, through Jesus, that coming day, when the 
 blessed soul shall tenant its glorified body, and the 
 glorified body shall be rendered meet for the dwell 
 ing of the blessed soul. 
 
 It is sad to have to suggest any thought so fearful, 
 in the presence of hopes so bright. Yet, while we 
 contemplate the resurrection of Christ s people, we 
 must not forget that there is a resurrection of those 
 who are not his people, too. " The dead in Christ 
 shall rise first ; " but the dead without Christ shall 
 find no hiding-place in the grave. They shall rise 
 too, invested with a woful immortality. And how 
 ever, in the prospect of the dismal eternity before 
 them, they may long for the peace of annihilation, 
 that peace they can never know. There will be no 
 escaping from life and consciousness and perdition. 
 We dare not amplify such a thought. Is there one 
 who will reject God s offered mercy in Jesus, and 
 brave that awful doom ? 
 
 I am sure, my friends, that we have all felt, in our 
 own experience, what a curious power there is in the 
 human mind, to cast off the thoughts of these solemn 
 realities of death and resurrection which await us 
 all, almost as rain-drops fall from the wings of the 
 
272 THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. 
 
 water-fowl. We have all an extraordinary power of 
 living in the forgetfulness of our latter end. And it 
 seems not to be God s purpose that it should always 
 be present with us. Even those who have sought to 
 bring these remembrances home to them by means 
 to which we are not likely to resort, have told us 
 that they strove in vain. Some of you may think 
 of that good priest, three centuries since, who tells us 
 that not even the mouldering bones which he kept 
 in his chamber, not even the coffin standing contin 
 ually by his bed, could make him think, indeed, that 
 he must die. You may know, too, how a certain great 
 poet and humorist, who passed away but a few years 
 since, seeking, as it seemed, to bring the fact of death 
 home to his feeling, spent some time during his last 
 illness in drawing a picture of himself dead in his 
 shroud. In his biography, published by his children, 
 you may see the picture, grimly truthful ; but I think 
 you may see there something of a morbid taste for 
 the ghastly and the physically repulsive ; and it is 
 with far more pleasing imagery that the Christian 
 should seek to invest his passage from this life. 
 Surely in perfect cheerfulness and healthfulness of 
 spirit, the human being who knows (as far as man can 
 know) where he is to rest at last, may oftentimes visit 
 that peaceful spot. The hard-wrought man may fitly 
 look upon that soft green turf, some day to be opened 
 for him ; and think to himself, Not yet, I have more 
 to do yet; but in a little while. Somewhere, doubt- 
 
THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. 273 
 
 less, there is a place appointed for each of us; a 
 place that is waiting for each of us, and that will not 
 be complete till we are there. But our Saviour is 
 " the Resurrection and the Life ; " and " this mortal 
 must put on immortality." And we rest in the hum 
 ble trust, set out in words which have been used in 
 Christian prayer for ages, that " through the grave, 
 and gate of death, we shall pass to our joyful resur 
 rection." It will be a lowly thing to lie down there, 
 in the humble repose of mortal dissolution ; but oh ! 
 never forget, that to the true believer, lowly as that 
 sleep may seem, it is a sleep, sent by God, and to be 
 broken by a joyful waking ! 
 
 12* 
 
XVI. 
 
 CHRISTIAN SELF-DENIAL. 
 
 " And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him 
 deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me." 
 ST. LUKE ix. 23. 
 
 U| deep an impression did these words of 
 our Saviour make upon the minds of his 
 followers ; so great and far-reaching a 
 truth did they appear to convey ; so es 
 sentially characteristic of the religion of the Man of 
 Sorrows did the truth they imply seem ; that three 
 of the evangelists have preserved them in the self 
 same form. And here they stand, to teach us the 
 necessity and the nobility of Christian self-conquest 
 and self-denial. As for the terms in which the text 
 is expressed, the only thing about them that needs 
 explanation is that reference to taking up the cross 
 daily ; and most of you are doubtless aware that the 
 allusion is to the fact that criminals sentenced to the 
 barbarous punishment of crucifixion were forced to 
 carry their own cross to the place of execution ; and 
 that sometimes, for lesser offences, the criminal was 
 sentenced simply to carry a cross. And thus the 
 
CHRISTIAN SELF-DENIAL. 275 
 
 meaning of our Lord s words is, that if any man, then 
 or now, wishes to be his disciple, that man must 
 make up his mind to daily self-denial, and to the 
 daily bearing of burdens, more or less painful to be 
 borne. It was not a smooth or attractive account of 
 his religion that the Blessed Redeemer gave. He 
 said frankly that its requirements were hard, that its 
 standard was high, that it might, nay, that it would, 
 lead along paths where it would not be pleasant to 
 walk ; and that if its ultimate rewards were glorious, 
 you must go through a great deal to reach them, and 
 they were far away. The founder of a new religion 
 would be likely to repel men anywhere, if he dwelt 
 strongly upon the persecutions and hardships which 
 those who went with him were sure to meet ; but the 
 Jews of the Saviour s time were of all men the most 
 likely to be repelled by such statements as these. 
 For, as you know, worldly prosperity was the blessing 
 of the Old Testament, even as worldly adversity is 
 sometimes the promise of the New ; the Israelites 
 regarded wealth, long life, and earthly comfort and 
 honor, as marks of the Divine favor ; they had not 
 learned, as we have, that sometimes " whom the Lord 
 loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom 
 he receiveth." But notwithstanding all this, the truth 
 must be told ; the Saviour would not enlist men under 
 his banner as earthly commanders sometimes do, by 
 false representations ; by putting very prominently 
 the ideas of glory and victory, and saying very little 
 
27 G CHRISTIAN SELF-DENIAL. 
 
 of certain privations and perils, of possible defeat and 
 death. No man could ever say worse of the Redeem 
 er s service, than the Redeemer himself was content 
 to do. For " he said unto them all, If any man will 
 come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his 
 cross daily, and follow me." 
 
 The Saviour hardly ever said words whose bearing 
 is more direct upon the practical work of our daily 
 living ; and though it is a bold thing to make the 
 assertion, we do not hesitate to assert that no words 
 ever uttered by Christ were ever so misunderstood and 
 misinterpreted by very many men, in many places, 
 and in many ages. You would say that nothing could 
 be more plain, than that what our Lord meant when 
 he said these words, was, that whosoever earnestly 
 tried to lead a Christian life would find it needful 
 to make many sacrifices of feeling and inclination for 
 duty s and religion s sake ; to do many things which 
 would be painful and difficult, and to turn away from 
 many things attractive and alluring, Our Lord plainly 
 meant that no matter how difficult and painful any 
 duty might be, we must do it, if our allegiance to 
 him demanded that we should ; and that no matter 
 how dear anything might be, though it should be our 
 most cherished hope or possession, we must give it up, 
 if it stood between us and our salvation ; yea, that we 
 should be willing to cut off a right hand or to pluck 
 out a right eye, if these offended us in our heavenward 
 career. And I need hardly tell you that when our 
 
CHRISTIAN SELF-DENIAL. 277 
 
 translation of the Bible was made, the word offend did 
 not bear the meaning with which we are now familiar, 
 but meant obstruct or prove a stumbling-block. So that 
 Christ s teaching was that the earnest believer must 
 be ready to give up anything, though it should be a 
 right hand or eye, that tended to obstruct him in his 
 Christian course ; and that he must be ready to fulfil 
 every Christian duty, however painful, and to bear 
 every burden laid upon him by the hand of God, 
 though it should press upon him heavily and sorely, 
 as the weighty cross upon the poor criminal who bore 
 it to the place of doom. 
 
 Well, that was Christ s teaching in the words of 
 the text ; and that is the spirit that breathes from 
 the whole New Testament. The spirit of Christianity 
 says, Deny yourself everything, however pleasant, that 
 God disapproves ; Bear every cross, however painful, 
 that God lays upon you : Do every work, however 
 hard, that God allots you ; Suffer, labor, endure up 
 to martyrdom, when your Redeemer s voice calls you 
 to do so. And the farther teaching of Christianity on 
 the subject, is, that in those ways to tread which God 
 commands, we may look for the kindly guardianship 
 of angels ; and better far, that through all these trials 
 a Divine Spirit will go with us, giving us the strength, 
 guidance, comfort, light, we need ; and that all these 
 things shall be made to work together for our eternal 
 good ; that all shall go to mature in us a nobler 
 character, to develop all in us that is most Christ-like 
 
278 CHRISTIAN SELF-DENIAL. 
 
 and divine ; and so that the " much tribulation " of 
 this world shall tend to make us the more meet for 
 the glorious " kingdom of God." 
 
 I have thus sought to set before you in a brief form 
 the great lines of Christian doctrine concerning self- 
 denial and self-sacrifice. It may be added here, that 
 this doctrine has proved sufficient to produce many 
 instances of the purest heroism that this world has 
 ever witnessed. Many a time it has led men to make 
 a sacrifice of feeling that demanded a sustained reso 
 lution more than equal to the fiery, feverish courage 
 that bears the forlorn hope to the deadly breach. 
 Many a time it has gained victories, silently won, in 
 struggling hearts, to which earthly battle-fields are 
 nothing. Many a time has it led the martyr to the 
 stake, and nerved him to abide in calmness the too 
 slowly-rising flames. What incalculable, what inex 
 pressible things has it brought men to do, to suffer, to 
 resign ! It does its work, even yet, amid the trimness 
 of modern society. Ah, my brethren, sometimes the 
 thin cheek, the deep-lined brow, the languid step, are 
 indications of a heroism every whit as noble, of a 
 strife every whit as fearful, as ever were hinted by 
 the empty sleeve, the scarred face, the cross of valor 
 over the brave heart ! Truly said the wise man, 
 " Better is he that ruleth his spirit, than he that taketh 
 a city." 
 
 And now, my brethren, what has man oftentimes 
 made of this Christian doctrine of self-denial and 
 
CHRISTIAN SELF-DENIAL. 279 
 
 bearing the cross ! What a wretched, what a foolish 
 caricature of the simplicity and truth of the gospel ! 
 I should lament very much if I were in any way to 
 exaggerate or misrepresent the teaching of many 
 Christians on the subject of self-denial ; but I appeal 
 to all of you who are acquainted with the history of 
 the Christian Church in early ages, with the doctrines 
 still taught by the Church of Rome, and with the 
 spirit than runs through a large portion of contempo 
 rary literature, if I am not correct in saying that there 
 are many men and women who fancy that it is a 
 Christian thing to seek out painful and disagreeable 
 things, and to do them just because they are painful 
 and disagreeable, although God never sent them to 
 us, and although no good whatsoever is to come of 
 our doing them. They fancy that it is pleasing in the 
 sight of God, that it is ennobling as regards our own 
 character, that it is carrying out the spirit of the text, 
 to seek out voluntary and self-inflicted sufferings ; to 
 cut off the hand and pluck out the eye, though they 
 are doing nothing whatever to offend and obstruct us, 
 merely because to part with the hand or the eye is a 
 very sad and painful thing. You all know quite well 
 that the great thing which in the Middle Ages caused 
 a man to be regarded as a marvel of holiness was not 
 the amount of good he had done to the souls of his 
 fellow-men, but the quantity of needless and aimless 
 suffering which he had inflicted on himself; the great 
 things which were told to his honor were such mat- 
 
280 CHRISTIAN SELF-DENIAL. 
 
 ters as the number of years he had slept upon sharp 
 flints ; the bloody stripes he had daily laid upon him 
 self; the irksome garments he had worn; and the 
 nearness to starvation which had been reached by his 
 daily diet. They fancied then that the more repul 
 sive and revolting anything was, the more like Christ 
 you would be if you resolutely faced it. They for 
 got that though Christ was the " Man of Sorrows," 
 he did not bear his sorrows just for sorrow s sake ; 
 but because a noble work was to result from them, 
 
 the work of man s salvation in consistence with 
 God s justice and glory. And such of you as are con 
 versant with the literature of the present day must 
 know how much of the old spirit of Romish austerity 
 
 the spirit that idolized Stylites on his pillar 
 runs through a great part of it. There is a current 
 idea that it is a fine thing to go through self-imposed 
 trials, to do what is disagreeable just because it is 
 disagreeable ; it is noble to climb Alpine heights 
 not because the slightest good is to come of your do 
 ing so, not because you have the faintest idea of 
 what you are to do when you reach their summit ; 
 but just because it is difficult and dangerous to climb 
 them, and most men would rather not. Some people 
 nowadays appear to think that when our blessed Lord 
 uttered the sublime words which form the text, he 
 meant that we are to be always seeking out a tribe 
 of petty disagreeables, constantly finding out some 
 thing we don t like to do, and then doing it ; some 
 
CHRISTIAN SELF-DENIAL. 281 
 
 people, I do believe, have a vague impression in their 
 minds which they have never put into shape, but 
 which really comes to this, that God would be angry 
 if he saw his creatures cheerful and happy. Oh, the 
 wicked delusion ! God is love ! When will men 
 believe that grand foundation-truth ! You may see 
 something like God s feeling in the kindly smile with 
 which the kind parent looks on at the merry sports 
 of his children, delighted to see them innocently happy. 
 But believe it, brethren, there is nothing the least like 
 God in the sour, morose look of the gloomy fanatic, 
 as he turns with sulky indignation from the sight of 
 people who venture to be harmlessly cheerful. Let 
 us try to feel it, that God loves us ; that God wishes 
 us to be happy ; that it was because he loved us 
 and wished our happiness that he sent his Son to die 
 for us ; and that he does not desire or intend that 
 in this life we should endure any suffering or sorrow, 
 except that which for wise reasons he himself sends 
 us, sends us for our spiritual good, and would not 
 send us if that end could be attained without it ; 
 for " He doth not afflict willingly, nor grieve the chil 
 dren of men ! " 
 
 You now see, my friends, what is the Christian 
 doctrine of self-denial ; and what is the perversion of 
 it. Christ says that whosoever would be his disciple 
 must be prepared to deny himself, and take up the 
 cross, because it will oftentimes be duty and necessity 
 to do so. But those who misapprehend Christ s mean- 
 
282 CHRISTIAN SELF-DENIAL. 
 
 ing, put the case in this way : they say, Christ said 
 that if any man will come after him, he must deny 
 himself and take up his cross ; it therefore appears 
 that Christ thought painful self-denial a good thing, a 
 wholesome discipline, perhaps a work of merit ; and 
 if self-denial be such a good thing, we cannot have too 
 much of it ; the more of it the better ; and so, let us 
 seek out pain and suffering for ourselves. In short, 
 here is the point at issue : Christianity says, Deny 
 yourself, cut off the right hand, if it be your duty ; if 
 God call you to do it ; and if your soul s salvation 
 and sanctification are to be advantaged by your doing 
 that. But Bhuddism, Romanism, Puritanism, and 
 modern Asceticism, say, Deny yourself, find sorrow 
 for yourself, although there is no end or aim whatso 
 ever to be gained by these ; for self-denial and self- 
 inflicted suffering are good things in themselves. Ah, 
 we meet them here with a flat denial. We say that 
 it is the teaching of Jesus, that all the glory of work 
 and self-sacrifice is reflected back on them from a 
 noble end. It is noble, it is heroic, it is martyrdom, 
 to go to the stake for the cause of the blessed Re 
 deemer ; it is folly, it is wrong-headedness, it is self- 
 murder, to give your body to be burnt, merely because 
 to be burnt is something terribly painful and abhor 
 rent. The self-denial required by Jesus does not lie 
 in seeking needless suffering for ourselves, but in 
 bearing humbly and submissively what should come 
 in the discharge of Christian duty. " Let a man," 
 
CHRISTIAN SELF-DENIAL. 283 
 
 says Jesus, " deny himself, and take up his cross," 
 his own cross, the cross God is pleased to send him, 
 and no other ! Let him bear the sorrow allotted to 
 him in love and wisdom by the Almighty ; let him 
 not tempt the Lord by trying to take the reins of 
 providence into his own puny hands. Let us ever 
 seek, my brethren, to hold unswervingly on our 
 Christian way ; and let us seek to mortify every 
 evil propensity, every worldly lust, that would turn 
 us aside from it. And that will give us enough to 
 do ! If we take the trials God sends us ; and strive 
 faithfully against the temptations from within and 
 without that God permits to assail us ; we shall find 
 that we need not go out of the way to create trials for 
 ourselves. The world, the flesh, and the great Adver 
 sary, are hourly seeking to mislead us ; and if any 
 man will come after Christ, he must deny himself, and 
 take up his cross daily ! 
 
 And now, brethren, lest any of you should fancy 
 that it is setting up a low and an unworthy standard 
 of Christian self-sacrifice, to say that it never should 
 be attempted merely for its own sake ; let me remind 
 you of a case in point. Not one of those romantic 
 persons who are represented in modern literature as 
 almost afraid to breathe God s air and look on God s 
 sunshine lest that should be a sinful self-indulgence, 
 not one of them, I suppose, will pretend to exceed the 
 great apostle Paul. And you know that although he, 
 
284 CHRISTIAN SELF-DENIAL. 
 
 like the other apostles, was ready to suffer even to 
 death in the way of duty, and for the gospel s sake, 
 he never did so gratuitously ; he never suffered as 
 though there were anything good in the mere suffering 
 itself. He avoided suffering whenever he could avoid 
 it without making a sacrifice of principle. You re 
 member how on two different occasions he pleaded 
 his rights as a Roman citizen, to escape bonds and 
 stripes. Yet he bore these cheerfully when they came 
 in the way of duty ; he could say, sincerely, that he 
 "rejoiced to be thought worthy to suffer the shame 
 of stripes for the name of the Lord Jesus;" that is, 
 when they could not be avoided but by the giving up 
 of Christian principle. 
 
 But as regards suffering of any sort, it is a fearful 
 responsibility that rests upon the man who wilfully 
 brings it upon himself, with the purpose of thus disci 
 plining and forming his character. It is intruding upon 
 the special province of the Almighty God. When God 
 sends you sorrow, you may hope that he will send 
 you the grace to bear it and profit by it ; you have no 
 right to expect that, if you presumptuously bring it 
 upon yourself. You have sometimes known of a 
 mother, perhaps, who was making an idol of her child, 
 saying, long after, that it was in kindness and love 
 for her soul that God took that little one to himself; 
 that the sore affliction was sanctified for her good ; 
 that it served to turn her affections towards the better 
 world. .Yes; it was well for her when God took 
 
CHRISTIAN SELF-DENIAL. 285 
 
 away her child. But suppose any human being had 
 thought to do her good in this way : suppose any man 
 had dared to say to her, You are making an idol of 
 your child, it is injuring your soul, and therefore I 
 shall kill it ; would you not say that that man was a 
 profane intruder on the province of Deity ; would you 
 not say that he was a blasphemous madman ? It is so 
 of all disciplinary suffering ; it is not for us to seek 
 it ; it is for God to send it, and for us to bear it when 
 God has sent it. If indeed it were so, that suffering 
 never came without seeking it, then perhaps occa 
 sional acts of uncalled-for self-denial would be a good 
 spiritual discipline ; just as those gymnastic exercises 
 which exert the muscles when there is no necessity 
 for exerting them, tend to keep them fit for use when 
 they are needed. But, O brethren, God sends us trial 
 sufficient ! We have crosses enough to bear, to keep 
 our souls ever in training ; we have occasions enough 
 on which God calls us to deny ourselves, without 
 seeking supererogatory woes. There is no need that 
 we should seek out flints to sleep upon, and hair 
 cloth to wear, scourges for our discipline, and vigils 
 and fastings to keep down our fleshly nature ; there 
 is no need to seek out petty vexations that may daily 
 sting us like insects, nor weightier disappointments to 
 crush out the spring from life. No; so long as we 
 are in a world where our hearts cleave to the dust 
 and worship the creature, we shall find it needful to 
 mortify and crucify the affections which gravitate 
 
286 CHRISTIAN SELF-DENIAL. 
 
 towards earth ; so long as we are in a world where 
 there is work to be done and temptation to be met, so 
 long shall we have to deny and hold down a hundred 
 feelings within, that shrink from work and side with 
 temptation. And even in a world where " godliness 
 has the promise of the life that now is ; " and where 
 the true believer is the truly happy man, the Saviour s 
 words have never ceased to hold good, that " if any 
 man will come after me," he must " deny himself, and 
 take up his cross daily ! " Not that there is merit in 
 any suffering of ours ; not that by sufferings inflicted 
 upon ourselves, we have to eke out anything that is 
 lacking in those mysterious sufferings of the Lamb of 
 God that took away sin ; not that God grudges us the 
 cheerful enjoyment of life, or that it pleases him to 
 see his creatures wretched ; not that there is anything 
 noble in crucifying affections which are beautiful and 
 right, or in denying ourselves happiness which God 
 meant us to partake ; not that the noblest specimen 
 of human kind is the emaciated eremite, with the 
 haggard face and the wasted frame, who (for God s 
 sake, as he fondly fancies) has weeded out all save 
 bitterness from life ; who has resolutely denied him 
 self everything that he ever loved, and accumulated 
 upon himself all that our nature shrinks from ; who 
 has no home, no hope, no love ; not that God would 
 have us deny ourselves anything that is right, or take 
 up any cross save that which he himself imposes; 
 but simply and entirely because from the very make 
 
CHRISTIAN SELF-DENIAL. 287 
 
 of this universe, you never can follow Christ without 
 finding that in following him you must deny your 
 selves many things, or you will stray from the right 
 path ; and you cannot, except by denying your Lord, 
 miss taking up your cross daily ! 
 
 And it is a far more difficult thing, a thing demand 
 ing far more faith and prayer, to live in the daily prac 
 tice of true Christian self-denial ; than to heap upon 
 yourself those foolish though terrible austerities in 
 which even the Romish anchorite has been beaten by 
 the Hindoo fakir; and which seldom have failed to 
 foster a deep-set spiritual pride, and to produce a most 
 repulsive and unamiable temper. No doubt, there is 
 a factitious pleasure in self-imposed suffering ; no 
 doubt there may be an acquired taste for it ; no doubt 
 there is in human nature a capacity of coming to feel 
 a positive satisfaction in thinking how much you are 
 denying yourself, how much you are taking out of 
 yourself; no doubt there is a prejudice, very hard to 
 get rid of, that all this is in some way noble, bene 
 ficial, pleasing to God. No doubt this erroneous belief 
 has not been confined alone to the disciples of the 
 Man of Sorrows ; it runs through all religions ; India, 
 Persia, Arabia, have known it, no less than Rome and 
 Scotland ; the fakir, the eremite, the hermit, the monk, 
 the covenanter, have erred together here. The Church 
 of England and the Church of Scotland are no more 
 free from the tendency to it, than the Church of 
 
288 CHRISTIAN SELF-DENIAL. 
 
 Rome ; and the grim Puritan, who thought it sinful 
 to smile, was just as far wrong as the starved monastic 
 and the fleshless Brahmin. It shows how all men, 
 everywhere, have been pressed by a common sense 
 of guilt against God, which they thought to expiate 
 by self-inflicted punishment. But we, my brethren, 
 know better than that. Jesus died for us ; Jesus 
 suffered for us ; his sufferings took away our sins ; 
 our own sufferings, how great soever, never could ; 
 Christ s sacrifice was all-sufficient ; and any penance 
 on our part is just as needless as it would be unavail 
 ing. Take, then, brethren, without a scruple or a 
 misgiving, the innocent enjoyment of life. Let your 
 heart beat, gladly and thankfully, by your quiet fire 
 side ; and never dream that there is anything of sinful 
 self-indulgence in that pure delight with which you 
 watch your children s sports, and hear their prattle. 
 Look out upon green spring fields and blossoms, upon 
 summer woods and streams ; gladden in the bright 
 sunshine, as well as muse in the softening twilight ; 
 and never fancy that though these things cheer you 
 amid the many cares of life, you are falling short of 
 the ideal sketched by that kindly Teacher of self- 
 denial who said, " If any man will come after me, let 
 him deny himself, and take up his cross daily ! " 
 
XVII. 
 
 THE GREAT VOICE FROM HEAVEN. 
 
 " And they heard a great voice from heaven saying unto them, 
 Come up hither." REV. xi. 12. 
 
 HIS is a world, my friends, in which 
 there is no standing still. Ceaseless 
 progress is the law of nature. Every 
 thing is going on. Time is going on ; 
 life is going on ; among all visible things there is 
 nothing that remains always the same ; everything is 
 either wearing out or growing better ; some things 
 indeed more slowly than others ; but even the living 
 rock crumbles in the lapse of ages ; and the everlasting 
 hills wax old. 
 
 And in our lives, my brethren, we feel it often, and 
 sometimes we feel it sadly, there is no pause nor cease. 
 We have all of us, perhaps, known quiet and happy 
 days that we would have liked should never have 
 gone over ; seasons when it would have pleased us if 
 time would just have stood still. But whether it be 
 the school-boy, who wishes the day would never come 
 that is to take him once more from the love of the 
 home fireside to the cold indifference of strangers ; or 
 13 
 
290 THE GREAT VOICE FROM HEAVEN. 
 
 the youth, doomed to long years of Indian exile, who 
 lingers, with a sinking heart, on every moment of the 
 last days he is to spend among dear ones whom he 
 may see no more ; or the man condemned to die to 
 morrow, who wonders what makes the hours fly so 
 fearfully fast when he most longs for their lingering ; 
 all men feel that there is no making life stand still. 
 Indeed, it is more especially on the life of man, and 
 the formation of his character, that this law of prog 
 ress lies ; it has been suspended to many things else, 
 but to these never. The sun once stood still, but 
 human life never, did. The shadow on the dial went 
 back, but all the time the shadow of death was steal 
 ing lower on the brow of man. The Jordan was 
 arrested in its course, but the stream of Time flowed 
 on. There is indeed in human life sometimes an 
 appearance of standing still. We have all observed 
 that many a man among us remains for years very 
 much the same in external appearance ; we see little 
 outward difference in him from what he was this time 
 last year, or what he was five or ten years since. But 
 he has not been standing still ; to the eye of God he 
 is a very different man ; he has moved away from the 
 point where he stood before; he is so many years 
 more confirmed in the service of God or the service 
 of Mammon ; so many years more bent on the things 
 of time and sense, or elevated to the interests of eter 
 nity ; so many years more grown into that habit of 
 mind in which he will live forever. Here, in truth, 
 
THE GREAT VOICE FROM HEAVEN. 291 
 
 we have no continuing city ; our feet are not set upon 
 solid land ; from birth to death we are carried on by 
 a rapid current against which there is no striving. 
 We are cast, at birth, upon the stream of Time ; and 
 we must grow and decay as the stream flows on with 
 us. Sometimes it bears us as it were through happy 
 fields, where flowers grow along the banks, and green 
 leaves are reflected on its waves ; by a motion so calm 
 and quiet that we hardly feel we are advancing. But 
 the current goes on yet; goes on in the quietest 
 country-place, where the pulse beats calmest, no less 
 than in the throng and excitement of the great city ; 
 and in fast fleeting strength, and fast fading beauty, 
 in the silvering hair and the withering cheek, in an 
 ticipations sobered and tempers mellowed or perhaps 
 soured, in the soul more earthly or more heavenly, we 
 see the work it is doing. You and I, my friends, are 
 going on ; and the great question then is, Whither? 
 
 Now there are just two ways in which men can ad 
 vance. Advance they must; and there are just two 
 great tracks along which all possible progress is bear 
 ing all human beings. The one leads upwards, and 
 its end is heaven ; the other leads downwards, and its 
 end is perdition. In one of these ways every man 
 is walking ; every one of us here is advancing either 
 to heaven or to hell. Yet a little while, and we who 
 are here met in one place, may be parted by a gulf 
 which all eternity can never bridge over. In far less 
 than a hundred years you will have walked your last 
 
292 THE GREAT VOICE FROM HEAVEN. 
 
 mile along the path in life you made choice of; you 
 will have reached either the glory or the grief in 
 which the two paths end. And God knows there are 
 voices enough to invite us along the downward road to 
 ruin. Pleasure, with her siren voice ; Fame, with her 
 trumpet tongue ; Worldliness, with its choking cares ; 
 Temptation of every kind, with its varied allurement ; 
 all tend to lead men on in a way which is not heaven 
 ward. And man s own weak heart, with its vain af 
 fections, lends a willing ear to these congenial invita 
 tions, till the whole soul is engrossed by things seen 
 and temporal ; and then the unseen realities of eter 
 nity are forgotten, till death rends the veil of flesh 
 away ! 
 
 But let us, my friends, this Sunday afternoon, try 
 to bring in our minds from the cares of our daily life ; 
 and listen, in thoughtful attention, to a Great Voice 
 from heaven which says to us, Come up hither. Let 
 us consider whether there be not a voice around us, 
 not speaking indeed to the outward ear, but speaking 
 all the more solemnly to the heart ; stealing gently 
 upon us in our thoughtful hours, and breaking rudely 
 in on the busy whirl of life ; blending with our own 
 serious moods, and sometimes checking the power of 
 folly. And if we never observed it before, let us listen 
 now ; let us think whether there be not near us an 
 other voice than that of birds and winds and waters ; 
 a voice that harmonizes with these, and yet stands 
 apart from them ; a voice from God s dealings and 
 
THE GREAT VOICE FROM HEAVEN. 293 
 
 God s word, from Christ s cross and Christ s throne, 
 from the Blessed Spirit the Sanctifier and Comforter, 
 from angels and apostles, from saints and martyrs, and 
 from our own dear friends who once trod by our side 
 the thorny path of life, and who have gone before us. 
 
 First, then, the voice of God comes to us from 
 heaven, and says to us, Come up hither. 
 
 We need hardly say that none of us who are here 
 now has ever heard God s voice with the outward ear. 
 We have listened to the thunder, as it rolled above 
 us, but no articulate words were there. Where the 
 wind rustled the leaves, their sounds were not those 
 of our English tongue ; and where great sea-billows 
 thundered their anthem of praise, it was the mind of 
 those who listened that clothed their stormy music in 
 meaning. The true voice of God speaks not to the 
 ear but to the heart ; for wherever God does that in 
 which man can make out deep meaning ; wherever 
 what happens to us teaches us a great lesson ; 
 wherever in nature, or providence, or revelation, we 
 can find out what is the mind of God ; there is God 
 speaking to us. And it is in this fashion that God 
 says to us, Come up hither. He says these words to 
 us, in very truth, in a voice more solemn, though it be 
 more still, than any which this world of sense could 
 make- Get the key to the cipher in which the Al 
 mighty expresses his purposes, and you will find that 
 from every quarter to which our eyes can be turned, 
 
294 THE GREAT VOICE FROM HEAVEN. 
 
 from every thought on which our minds can rest, 
 from every event that befalls us, from every joy that 
 cheers us, from every grief that saddens us, from 
 every care that perplexes, from every disappointment 
 felt, from every hope deferred, from every friend that 
 fails us, from every man that dies, we can discern 
 and discover that God never meant that man should 
 take any path but that which leads to heaven. In 
 what a multitude of ways he has shown us that it is 
 upwards he would have us go ; what hosts of things 
 and events and circumstances and actions, stand like 
 guideposts of God s own erecting along the way of 
 life, pointing us away from this world, inscribed in 
 great letters To Heaven! There is the vanity which 
 God has impressed upon all earthly objects ; what 
 means that, unless it be, that the place of our affec 
 tions, and the home of our heart, should be some 
 where else, amid purer and holier things? Would a 
 Being of infinite goodness have placed men, with their 
 capacity of infinite happiness, in a scene where every 
 rose has its thorn, every blessing its canker, and where 
 every imagined source of enjoyment, if compassed to 
 the utmost, would still leave an aching void within, 
 if he had not meant, thus disheartening them with 
 things seen, to make them think, May there not be 
 something more satisfying and more real that is not 
 seen as yet ; and since there well may be a better 
 world than this, may we not take God s word that 
 there is ; should we not bestir ourselves, and seek 
 
THE GREAT VOICE FROM HEAVEN. 295 
 
 out the way, and go up thither ? And then, death and 
 change ; the mutability of the most permanent things, 
 the fleeting character of the most precious things, the 
 evanescence of the happiest feelings ; what mean 
 these, but to turn our thoughts to a place where 
 " every loveliest thing lasts longest," where joy is 
 eternal, and decay never comes ? And when God 
 resumes the friends he gave us ; when the sudden 
 stroke, or the slow decline, has snatched or has worn 
 down those we love to the house appointed for all liv 
 ing ; when the ties that bound us to earth seem almost 
 parted, and we feel " the bitterness of death," and the 
 soul turns weary away from all things here, and longs 
 for the rest and the meeting which never can be in 
 this world ; is not all this God s sharp discipline to 
 turn us into the upward way ; God s solemn voice 
 saying to us, Come up hither, where anguish is 
 never felt, and friends are never parted ? 
 
 But we are not left to read, by the light of reason, 
 the pages of nature and providence alone, to find 
 which way God would have us go. Elsewhere God s 
 voice is heard more plainly ; heard in the thunders of 
 the law, and the invitations and promises of the gos 
 pel. The whole Bible is a great voice from heaven, 
 saying, Come up hither. For, what is the Bible, but 
 the history of that plan of redemption, but for which 
 all men must have trodden one broad way, the down 
 ward way to ruin ? It is revelation that furnishes us 
 with convincing proof that it is the upward path 
 
296 THE GREAT VOICE FROM HEAVEN. 
 
 which God would have us choose from the two that 
 lie before us. Had he willed that we should take 
 the downward path, he had but to leave us alone ; 
 and then the curse of that law which we have every 
 one of us broken would have crushed us down to 
 final woe. There was but one road before us by 
 nature ; only one road, save for the work and sacrifice 
 of him who said of himself, " I am the way." And 
 could there be more certain proof that God would 
 have us choose the path to glory rather than this, 
 that he made that path where before there was none ; 
 that path which begins as it were from every poor 
 man s door, but ends in glory which no mortal eye 
 hath seen ! And lest the doubting spirit should fear 
 that such a path was riot made for it, in its unworthi- 
 ness, the Bible is thronged with declarations of God s 
 desire, that " not any should perish," but that " all 
 should come to repentance ; " that all should " for 
 sake their wickedness and live ; " that " the wicked 
 should forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his 
 thoughts ; and return to the Lord that he may have 
 mercy upon him, and to our God, for he will abun 
 dantly pardon." 
 
 Nor should we forget, that although the upward 
 road to life is so free to us, open to us "without 
 money and without price," it cost the Almighty an 
 infinite price to make it ; and in the price he paid 
 his dear Son s life to make this upward road, you 
 may see how sincerely he desires that men should 
 
THE GREAT VOICE FROM HEAVEN. 297 
 
 have such a way, and should avail themselves of it. 
 You have heard of great roads made by human hands, 
 for the passage perhaps of armies, or for leading the 
 commerce and civilization of milder regions through 
 rugged and desert tracts. You have heard how the 
 everlasting hill has been pierced through, and the 
 living rock blasted, and the mighty river bridged, and 
 the far-stretching valley spanned over ; how all the 
 wealth of kings and states, and all the energies of 
 thousands of men and decades of years, have been 
 bent on the great beneficial work, that was to in 
 crease men in wealth and comfort. And even yet, it 
 is fine to look on these unperishing monuments of the 
 industry and skill of past ages ; these hoary relics of 
 an ancient race of gigantic strength and gigantic en 
 ergy ; and then to think how long man s works may 
 outlive man s self ; to think where are now the 
 hands that quarried these huge stones, and reared 
 these time-worn arches where the feet that trod 
 them first, and the eyes that saw them when they 
 were fresh and new. And our own modern days have 
 seen roads more wonderful still link distant cities and 
 provinces, making space almost vanish, and perplexing 
 our old notions of time, making the bustling city a 
 near neighbor of the sylvan quiet, and bringing the 
 deep hum of crowded men almost close to the still 
 music of nature. But oh ! how infinitely little all these 
 ways which man has made, how utterly insignifi 
 cant the price they cost, compared with that mighty 
 13* 
 
298 THE GREAT VOICE FROM HEAVEN. 
 
 way which bridges the space between earth and heav 
 en, the time between now darkly and then face to 
 face ; which it cost Christ s sufferings to make, Christ s 
 death to open ; which the feet of patriarchs and 
 prophets, of saints and martyrs, have trod ; and 
 along which the Saviour invites us to follow ! Oh, 
 brethren, if it proved the military commander s in 
 tense determination to convey his army to a point he 
 had fixed on, when through Alpine solitudes and 
 snows he cut his onward path, with lavish expense of 
 labor and of life ; is it not fair to reckon that when 
 the Almighty at the expense of his dear Son s blood, 
 opened the way to heaven, and made it plain for man 
 to tread, he did by that very act call from heaven 
 to man with affectionate, earnest entreaty, and say 
 " Come up hither ! " 
 
 A second voice that invites us up to heaven is that 
 of our Blessed Saviour. 
 
 We have spoken hitherto of the First Person in the 
 Trinity, of God the Father ; and we have seen that 
 in many ways he is calling upon men to turn their 
 steps into the path to glory. But we are now to speak 
 of One whose name makes appeal to deeper and ten 
 derer sympathies than even that of God ; of that be 
 loved Divine Person who has learned by experience 
 what it is to be a man. He was whatever we have 
 been, sin only excepted. And the same gracious 
 voice which spake so kindly to the least deserving 
 while he dwelt on earth, speaks to our hearts yet 
 
THE GREAT VOICE FROM HEAVEN. 299 
 
 from the glory where he dwells, and says to us, " Come 
 up hither." For even now he says, as before, " I am 
 the way ; " " Follow me ; " " Come unto me, all ye 
 that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you 
 rest;" " If any man serve me, let him follow me ; and 
 where I am, there shall also my servant be : " " and 
 if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again 
 and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there 
 ye may be also : " " Father, I will that they also whom 
 thou hast given me be with me where I am, that they 
 may behold my glory which thou hast given me." 
 And what mean all these gracious words but this, 
 that Christ would have men choose the upward way, 
 though the gate be strait and the path be steep ? 
 " I am the way," says Christ : and whither, but to 
 heaven? "Follow me," says Christ: and whither, but 
 to heaven ? "I will that where I am, there ye may be 
 also : " and where is that, but heaven ? Does he not 
 thus cry to us, "Come up hither"? Oh, may it be 
 the answer of our hearts, Lord, we come ; for, blessed 
 be thy name ! whither thou hast gone and where 
 thou art, we know, and the way we know ! And put 
 ting out of view altogether the many invitations to 
 sinners to repent and be saved, which our Saviour 
 uttered, and which his apostles uttered in his name ; 
 putting out of view altogether the fearful representa 
 tions he gave of the place of woe and the miseries of 
 its tenants, and the beautiful pictures he drew of the 
 rest and happiness of the blessed, all calculated in 
 
300 THE GREAT VOICE FROM HEAVEN. 
 
 the highest degree to startle and to invite sinners to 
 thought and repentance, what was the Redeemer s 
 whole appearance on earth, but one earnest, unceas 
 ing, life-long entreaty that men would turn to God ? 
 It was all that men might " wash their robes and 
 make them white in his blood, and therefore appear 
 before the throne " on high, it was all for this that 
 he lay in the manger at Bethlehem ; it was all for this 
 he went about doing good ; it was for this he preached 
 his every sermon, and wrought his every miracle, and 
 withstood his every temptation, and bore his every 
 pang of pain. It was all for this that the sun was 
 darkened, and the rocks were rent, and the dead came 
 back, and all nature shuddered at the sufferings of the 
 expiring Son of God ! And the Saviour even yet 
 appears to remind us of all his earthly travail and 
 sorrow ; and to whisper to our hearts, As ye would not 
 that all that should prove in vain, " Come up 
 hither ! " I died that ye might have leave to come ! 
 And will ye not " come unto me, that ye might have 
 life ? " 
 
 The Blessed Spirit, too, adds his voice to that 
 which invites us towards heaven. The whole scope 
 and object of his working, meant as that chiefly is to 
 make us fit for heaven, is an indication of his design 
 and his wish that we should go up thither. The 
 Spirit the Purifier, as he makes us holier and better, 
 thus fitting us for a clearer atmosphere and a nobler 
 company, is ever whispering within us that it must 
 
THE GREAT VOICE FROM HEAVEN. 301 
 
 be a higher life in which virtue shall be perfect, and 
 another world in which hearts shall be pure. As his 
 gradual influences, like gentle rain, steal into the soul ; 
 as the fruits of righteousness appear, and the work of 
 sanctification progresses day by day, what is this 
 for, but that we may be made meet for the place 
 where God is seen, fitted for the society of the 
 spirits of the just ? It is not for time that his seed 
 is sown ; it is not for time that his harvest grows; 
 and though his blessed influences may rear up virtues 
 which shed a fragrance over this sinful earth, and 
 breathe a blessing on the weary hearts of suffering 
 men, and make Christianity a name to be revered, and 
 the true Christian one whom the eye sees and blesses, 
 yet it is in a more genial clime that this gracious 
 work is made perfect ; and thus the Holy Spirit, as he 
 works to make us fit for heaven, is not uncertainly 
 calling us up thither. 
 
 And the Spirit in his great work of comfort, too, is 
 calling to us from heaven, " Come up hither." If you 
 consider, you will see that there is a reference to 
 heaven in every part of the Comforter s work. For, 
 is not the great comfort when dear friends die, that 
 we may meet them yet, where farewells and partings 
 are a sound unknown ? Is not the great comfort 
 under the pressure of suffering, that there is a place 
 where there is no more pain ? Is not the great com 
 fort in the night of weeping, that God tells us of 
 heaven, that there is no night there ? Is not, in short, 
 
302 THE GREAT VOICE FROM HEAVEN. 
 
 the great comfort of earth, that there is such a place 
 as heaven ! 
 
 Is it fanciful to think that the angels, too, concern 
 ing whom we know that they rejoice when a sinner 
 repents and prays, and thus gives the first sign of 
 choosing the heavenward path, add their voices to 
 the great call thither? And surely the apostles and 
 martyrs, who first preached the gospel of Jesus, in 
 labor and peril and much tribulation, until the fiery 
 or the bloody baptism sent them from their work to 
 their reward, seem, in no fanciful sense, to be even 
 yet pointing to all they did and suffered that men 
 might know a way to heaven was made, and asking 
 if all that shall have been in vain. Even yet, 
 from the pages of the inspired history, the burning 
 zeal of Paul reproves the lingerer; even yet, the 
 proto-martyr Stephen, from where his dying eye saw 
 Christ standing, says, " Come up hither ! " And the 
 whole of the noble army who from that day to this, 
 have borne a martyr s testimony to the faith of Jesus, 
 
 from the first whom Jewish stones crushed, and 
 Roman lions tore, and Greek philosophers laughed at, 
 
 to the last whom the clubs of savages slew, and the 
 racks of the Inquisition silenced, and the venomed 
 shaft Of polished ridicule assailed, seem to cry in 
 one vast voice from their place of rest, " Come up 
 hither ! " 
 
 And now in the last place, brethren, there is one 
 voice more that invites us up to heaven ; one voice 
 
THE GREAT VOICE FROM HEAVEN. 303 
 
 more, that adds itself to that great call, to the several 
 parts of which we have been listening. It is the voice 
 of those dear friends who have fallen asleep in Jesus, 
 and gone before us from the place we knew together. 
 There are few, indeed, who have lived long in this 
 world, and have not stood by the bed of the dying ; 
 and let us hope that there are many who have seen a 
 Christian friend or brother depart: who have looked 
 on such a one as life, but not love, ebbed away, as 
 the eye of sense grew dim, but that of faith waxed 
 bright and brighter. Have you heard such a one, in 
 bidding you farewell, whisper that it was not forever ; 
 have you heard such a one tell you so to live, as that 
 death might only remove you to a place where there 
 is no dying ; and as you felt the pressure of that cold 
 hand, and saw the earnest spirit that shone through 
 those glazing eyes, have you not resolved and prom 
 ised that, God helping you, you would ? And ever 
 since, have you not felt, that though death has sealed 
 those lips, and that heart is turning back to clay, that 
 voice is speaking yet, that heart is caring for you yet, 
 that soul is remembering yet, the words it last spoke 
 to you ? From the abode of glory it says, " Come up 
 hither!" The way is steep, the ascent is toilsome; 
 it knows it well, for it trod it once ; but it knows now, 
 what it knew not then, how bright the reward, how 
 pleasant the rest that remaineth, after the toil is past. 
 And if, my brethren, we go with interest to the grave 
 of a much-loved friend, who bade us, when dying, 
 
304 THE GREAT VOICE FROM HEAVEN. 
 
 sometimes to visit the place where he should be laid 
 when dead ; if you hold a request like that sacred ; 
 tell me, how much more solemnly and earnestly we 
 should seek to go where the conscious spirit lives than 
 where the senseless body moulders ? If day after day 
 sees you come to shed the pensive tear of memory 
 over the narrow bed where that dear one is sleeping ; 
 if amid the hot whirl of your daily engagements, you 
 find a calm impressed, as you stand in that still spot 
 where no worldly care ever comes, and think of the 
 heart which no grief vexes now ; if the sound of the 
 world melts into distance and fades away on the ear, 
 at that point whence the world looks so little ; if the 
 setting sun, as it makes the gravestone glow, reminds 
 you of evening hours and evening scenes long since 
 departed ; and the waving grass, through which the 
 wind sighs so softly, speaks of that one who " faded as 
 a leaf," and left you like " a wind that passeth away 
 and cometh not again ; " oh, how much more should 
 every day see you striving up the way which will con 
 duct you where the living spirit dwells, and whence it 
 is ever calling to you, " Come up hither ! " It was 
 the weak fancy of a dying man that bade you come 
 to his burying-place ; but it is the perpetual entreaty 
 of a living seraph that invites you to join it there ! 
 
 Mothers, who have seen your little ones depart, 
 believe that from that glory in which there are far 
 more little children than grown-up men, they are call 
 ing you to join them. Listen, wherever you go ; and 
 
THE GREAT VOICE FROM HEAVEN. 305 
 
 your heart will hear a little, familiar voice, saying, 
 " Come up hither." Parents, who have seen your 
 children die in the bloom of youthful hope and beauty, 
 and in the faith and hope of the gospel, remember 
 that you can now reckon an angel among your family ; 
 and believe that he or that she whom you remember 
 so well, remembers you not less ; and believe, too, 
 that the dear voice, which you sometimes hear in 
 dreams, is coming down from heaven to you with a 
 thousand others, and bidding you hasten there. And, 
 aged pilgrims, who can remember yet, with a quivering 
 heart and a tearful eye, how, long, long since, you knelt 
 at a pious mother s side, and said your evening prayer, 
 till on one sad evening you said your prayer alone, 
 and thought, at " Our Father which art in heaven," 
 that now you had a mother there too ; think that she 
 has watched you all through your course in life, and 
 that now from her place of rest she speaks and says, 
 Son, " come up hither ! " 
 
 You are going away, my friends, from this house of 
 prayer ; and no one here can tell how these words 
 now spoken may affect you. You may regard all that 
 has been said of this Great Voice from heaven, as 
 nothing more than the fancy of the preacher ; or you 
 may hereafter keep your attention awake to that mighty 
 sound, which in sober earnest is about your daily path, 
 and which mingles in your ear with the voices of your 
 daily companions. You have heard the like a hun- 
 
306 THE GREAT VOICE FROM HEAVEN. 
 
 dred times before, on a hundred previous Sabbaths ; 
 and you may fancy that you are now just what you 
 were then ; and that hereafter, just as you are now, 
 you may hear and consider the gospel invitation else 
 where. But, my friends, you are not the same ; you 
 have used up so many weeks or months quantity of 
 your little allotment of life ; and now there remains so 
 much the less, and you are so much nearer the end 
 of whatever path you are treading. Since every night 
 you must pitch your tent a day s march nearer some 
 home, oh that through the wilderness of this world 
 you may be striving upwards to the promised land ! 
 And there is another thing in which you are not the 
 same. You are more grown into good or evil, more 
 bent upon heaven or earth, than when you heard the 
 gospel-call last ; for every time you hear it and resist 
 it, you are encasing your heart in a flinty armor, that 
 will turn off the arrows of conviction when they reach 
 it next. If you care less for what has been said to 
 day, than you did for the last appeal you heard like it, 
 then fear, my friend, lest by an insidious progress, 
 the great Adversary is leading you downwards to his 
 realm of woe. And if so, plant your feet as on the 
 rock, and take not one step farther ; for to-morrow 
 may end your path, and to-day is the accepted time. 
 Repent, believe, obey; praying for the Spirit s aid, 
 and trusting in the Saviour s grace ; and it may be 
 that you are not yet too late, if so you continue in 
 the downward path not one moment longer. But if, 
 
THE GREAT VOICE FROM HEAVEN. 307 
 
 treacling the upward way, you listen to the voices that 
 float around it, till they grow familiar to your ear as 
 your mother s voice, and sweet like that of your na 
 tive river ; till the habit of attention grows into your 
 soul, and their ever-regarded sound always warms 
 and cheers and swells your heart; oh, what a happy 
 meeting that will be, when your sun is set and your 
 journey finished, when the voices that called you 
 coming shall welcome you come, when the voices 
 which came sweetly from afar, and sounded pleasant 
 even amid the world s din, shall be sweeter yet close 
 at hand, as they stir the leaves of the tree of life, and 
 melt away upon that tranquil sea ; when many holy 
 ones and dear ones shall crowd around you, and greet 
 you now grown pure and holy as themselves, in ac 
 cents so familiar and friendly that you will feel you 
 are now at last at home. And then, more conscious 
 of the soul s great worth, and more bent upon the 
 bliss of others, you will add your own to that Great 
 Voice which from heaven calls to all on earth, and 
 says, " Come up hither ! " 
 
 THE END. 
 
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by TlCKNOR AND FlELDS. 5 
 
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by TlCKNOR AND FlELDS. 11 
 
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by TlCKNOR AND FlELDS. 13 
 
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