$B 2^7 SbM ALLKjN « isrix^, Store, LIBRARY OF THE University of California. Mrs. SARAH P. WALSWORTH. Received October, i8g4. .^Accessions No.S''^/^^ . Class No. ■^.y^ SELECT DISCOURSES. ;«'i'f61(l, w ,AfD(D)[L[PC{lE. Rfl(D)1^(D)[D)c » SELECT DISCOURSES BY ADOLPHE MONOD, KRUMMACHEE, THOLUCK, AND JULIUS MULLER: TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH AND GERMAN, BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES, AND DR. MONOD'S CELEBRATED LECTURE ON THE DELIVERY OF SERMONS. BY REV. H. C. FISfl, AND D. W. POOR, D.D. Mirb a Urn %Ud portrait ai Mx. ^Honolr. NEW YOEK: SHELDON, BLAKEMAN & COMPANY. BOSTON: GOULD & LINCOLN. LONDON: TRUBNER & CO. 1858. Kc^ Lntebbd according to Act of Congress, in the year 18fi8, by SHELDON, BLAKEMAN & CO., Ct the Clerk's Office of the District Court of tlie United States, for the Southern District of New York W. H. TiNsoN, Stereotyper. Geokgk Russell, & Co., Printers. uc<^ >^ OF PREPACBI^^jyiYI e.-i. The object in tlie preparation and publication of tliis volume, has been to render accessible to Christian readers generally, some of the rich literary and religious treasures which lie hidden in the writings of the good and great men here represented. Several of the Dis- courses here presented, have long had the reputation, in Europe, of being among the che/s-cPmuvre of their respective authors. Tliis is true, for example, of the two of Dr. Monod on Woman, and his three on The Temptation of Christ ; and those of Dr. Krummacher on the same subject ; which, for deep penetration and lofty eloquence, are not excelled by anything that this celebrated author has ever published. It is believed that these two sets of sermons on the Temptation of our BLESSED Lord, coining as they do from two of the ablest and most eloquent preachers of this age, contain a more touching, instructive, and exhaustive discussion of this deeply interesting subject than is elsewhere to be found. Professor Tholuck's Discourse on the Christian Life AS A Glorified Childhood, is a precious gem ; and each of his sermons here furnished will enhance his already distinguished reputation. Those of Professor Miiller will be the more gratefully received, from the fact that none of his Discourses, with a single exception,* have ever appeared in an English dress. * In Pulpit Eloquence of XIX. Ckntctbt. VI PBEFACE. The sermon of Krummaclier entitled The Believer's Challenge, is a remarkable specimen of bold and abrupt rhetoric, the peculiarities of which it was difficult to preserve in the translation. It has been a delightful task, thus to be the means of extending the acquaintance of these honored and beloved servants of God — now ripening off for heaven, and one of whom has, of late, already ^gone up higher.' In a very few instances advantage has been taken of former renderings, but not without the most careful revision. The part which the translators respectively have performed in the preparation of the work, is indi- cated by the order of their names on the title-page, taken in connection with the order of the sermons in the volume ; the first named being particularly responsible for the French department, and the last named for the German. Newark, N. J., April 20, l"^58. CONTENTS. ADOLPHE MONOD. I. THE MISSION OF WOMAN. Page 17. n. THE LIFE OF WOMAN. Page 47. m. THE LOVER OF MONEY. Page 83. IV. THE CONFLICT OF CHRIST WITH SATAN. Page 117. V. THE VICTORY OF CHRIST OVER SATAN. Page 135. VI. THE WEAPON IN CHRIST'S CONFLICT. Page 150. VII. THE OMNIPOTENCE OF FAITH. Page 180. Vlll CONTENTS. F. W. KRUMMAOHER. VIII. THE TEMPTATION OF CHRIST. Page 201. IX. THE OBJECT AND AGENT IN THE TEMPTATION. Page 212. X. THE ONSET AND THE ARMS IN THE TEMPTATION. Page 221. XI. THE DEMAND AND THE PROMISED REWARD. Page 238. XII. THE LAST ASSAULT AND ISSUE OF THE CONTEST. Page 250. xm. THE PERIL AND SAFETY OF THE. CHURCH. Page 259. XIV. THE BELIEVER'S CHALLENGE. Page 215. ff: Aua.^ a. tholuck. ^a. T XV. THE BETRAYAL OF JESUS. Page 295. XVI. THE CHRISTIAN LIFE A GLORIFIED CHILDHOOD. Page 305. CONTENTS. IX xvn. THE TOUCHSTONE OF HUMAN HEARTS. Page 315. xvin. THE FATHER DRAWING MEN TO THE SON. Page 32*7. JULIUS MULLER. XIX. THE SUPERIOR MIGHT OF GOD'S SERVANTS. Page 343. XX. THE WALK OF CHRIST UPON THE WAVES. Page 355. XXI. THE RELATION OF RELIGION TO BUSINESS. Page 367. xxn. THE LONGING FOR HOME. Page 380. APPENDIX. THE DELIVERY OF SERMONS. BY ADOLPHE MONOD. Page 395. ADOLPHE MONOD, D.D. 4ir BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. Db. Monod * was a son of the late Eev. John Monod, of Paris. He had seven brothers and three sisters, all of whom, it is believed, survive him. Three of his brothers are in the ministry of the gos- pel — all evangelical, faithful, and most highly esteemed brethren. The oldest is the Eev. Dr. Frederic Monod, who is pastor of one of the churches in Paris, connected with the Free Church of France. The Rev. William Monod, another brother, is now pastor of a Pro- testant Church in Paris. The youngest brother is the Rev. Horace Monod, one of the French pastors at Marseilles. Dr. Adolphe Monod, as well as his brothers, was educated mainly at home, under private teachers and professors, and then, according to the liberal practice which prevails in France, he underwent an ex- amination in one of the colleges of Paris, and, paying the usual fees, received his diploma as Bachelor of Letters. His theological studies, we believe, were pursued in Geneva, in the Theological de- partment of the Academy (or University, as we should call it) of that city. For two or three years he preached to a French congre- gation at Naples, holding the post of chaplain to the Embassy of Prussia. From that city he was called to be one of the pastors of the National Protestant Church in Lyons, in France, when his great pulpit talents soon made him widely known. He was even chosen president of the consistory of that church. But he had not long been settled in the church in Lyons, before his mind was led by the grace and Spirit of God to embrace heartily the evangelical system. As soon as he had clearly apprehended Christ as the Son of God, as well as the Son of Man — as the only Mediator * Pronounced as if the d were lost : thus, Mono. 18 i^ iBft^ ADOLPHE MONOD. between God and man — ^his preaching began to partake of the glori- ous change. At first, and for a while, the rich and worldly church of Lyons, to which he (with two other pastors, men of a very differ- ent spirit) ministered, were astonished. Soon dissatisfaction with truth began to manifest itself, and in a few months the distinguished but humble servant of Christ was compelled to resign his place, and open an independent chapel, on truly evangelical principles. About seventy people, mostly poor but pious persons, followed him. He commenced his labors in a large room in the third story of a private house. Soon it was filled to overflowing. It was again and again enlarged, until it held nearly four hundred people. As it could be enlarged no more, it was resolved to build a chapel or church in a more central part of the city. Ei-om Lyons, Dr. Monod was called, in 1836, to the Theological Seminary at Montauban, where he became Professor of Sacred Elo- quence. This appointment he received from the hands of Baron P6tit, a Protestant nobleman of evangelical sentiments, who was for a considerable period Minister of Public Instruction in the reign of Louis Philippe. For several years Dr. Monod filled with great ability the professorship which he held in the only theological institu- tion of the National Reformed Church of Prance. During that period he wrote several of his most valuable publications. In his vacations he visited Paris and other important cities, and was always heard, when he preached, by great crowds of people ; or else he made missionary tours in the ancient provinces of Saintonge, Poitou, or other districts in southern and south-western France. The last seven or eight years of the life of Dr. Adolphe Monod were spent at Paris, where he preached the gospel with great effect, to large and delighted audiences. His labors, and those of Dr. Grandpierre and other distinguished brethren of the same school, have done much to make the evangelical doctrines known and re- spected among tliose who attend the churches of the Reformed body ia that great and important city. It was on Sunday, April 16, 1856, that this honored servant of Christ ceased from his labors. His death-bed was one of intense suffering, and, at the same time, of glorious and gracious triumph. In the full and perfect assurance of his salvation through Christ, and in peace, he commended his spirit into the hands of his Heavenly Father. A few da^s previous to liis decease, he was heard to nay : BIOGBAPHIOAL NOTICE. 15 " My ministerial labors^ my worhs^ my preaching. I reckon all asjiltliy rags ; a drop of my Saviour'^s Mood is infinitely more precious.'''' At the time of his death he was not far from fifty-six years of age ; and to show how deeply he was beloved among the pious men and women of France, it is only needful to say, that while he lay dying in Paris, in the remotest extremities of the nation the dispersed Protestants were holding circles of prayer for him. French Protest- antism universally wept at the news of his death. As a preacher, it would not be asserting too much to say, that Adolphe Monod occupied the first rank in France. Although not a large man, or a man of commanding appearance, he was neverthe- less a prince among preachers. His voice is said to have been melody itself, and ever under perfect control. As to his discourses, those which he delivered in large assemblies were almost invariably prepared with great care, written, and committed to memory. And yet his extemporaneous^ or rather his unwritten sermons or lec- tures were represented as admirable for beauty of style, for clear- ness of conception, and for adaptation to the occasion. Says Dr. Baird, in a letter written several years ago: "I have no hesitation in saying, that Adolphe Monod is the most finished orator I have heard on the Continent. Modest, humble, simple in his appearance and dress, possessing a voice which is music itself, his powerful mind, and vivid but chaste imagination, made their influ- ence felt on the soul of every hearer in a way that is indescribable. The nearest approach to giving a true idea of it would be to say, ' that his eloquence is of the nature of a cTiarm which steals over one, and yet is so subtle that it is not possible to say in what consists its elemental force. It is an eloquence the very opposite of that of the late Dr. Chalmers, which was like a torrent that carries everything away. I have often heard Eavignan, the great Jesuit preacher, in France ; and Bautain, by far the best preacher, in my opinion, in the Eoman Catholic Church, that I have heard ; but they were much inferior to Adolphe Monod. If the late Professor Vinet, of Lau- sanne,"" he adds, " was the Pascal of the French Protestants in these days (as he certainly was), Dr. Adolphe Monod was their Bossuet. But Drs. Yinet and Monod were incomparably superior to Pascal and Bossuet as expounders of evangelical truth, which is, after all, the highest glory of the Christian teacher." It is well known that the late Abbe Lacordaire, the Dominican, 16 * ADOLrHE MONOD. who was by far the most popular of the Eomish priests in Franco, in his day, remarked to his friends, after hearing him : •• We are all children, in comparison with this man." Beside a strong and vivid intellect, what the French call onction was the characteristic of Monod's preaching. He was ineffably impressed, himself, with the truth he preached, and the earnestness of his soul thrilled every tone and every gesture. But great as were Dr. Monod's talents, and fascinating as was his eloquence, these qualities were rivalled by his unfeigned piety, his profound humility, his cordial friendship, his simple and truly Chris- tian manners, the purity of his conversation, and the uniform cheer- fulness of his life. Dr. Monod is said to have left written productions from which several volumes might be formed, that would be equal in beauty of style, in beauty of thought, in force of logic, and vastly superior in true instruction, to anything which Bossuet, F^n^lon, Flechiere, or Bourdaloue — the so-called "greats" of the Eoman Catholic Church in France — ever wrote. He had published several things of great merit. His Introduction to the French edition of Dr. Hodge's "Commentary on Komans," his "Zwa7^," his '•'■ Femme'''' ("Woman), his "Controversy with a Romish Priest," at Lyons, his "Lecture on the Delivery of Sermons," etc., are pronounced by a high authority ^''perfect gems."* The accompanying beautiful and striking portrait of Dr. Monod is the only one ever presented to the American public. It has been engraved with great care from one published in Paris some years since, and which is pronounced by those acquainted with Dr. Monod, an admirable likeness. * Rev. Robert Baird, D.D., to whom indebtedness is acknowledged for many of the above particulars. fOHIVBESIT?; DISCOURSE I. THE MISSION OP WOMAN. " And the Lord God said, It is not good that man should be alone : I will make aa helpmeet for him." — Gknesis, ii. 18. My dear Sisters : If I address myself to you to-day, the other part of this audience, accustomed to observe its name at the head of our discourses, has no reason to be jealous. We are speaking for man when we address woman and endeavor to sanctify her influ- ence. Yes, her influence. In refusing to her authority, which emanates from the strong over the weak — a necessity in the nature of things — the Creator has assigned to her influence, which generally emanates from the weak over the strong ; an influence freely accepted, but accepted on the condition that it should not be manifest. I hesitate not to say it : the mightiest influence which exists upon the earth, both for good and for evil, is concealed in the hand of woman. History declares it with me, although the his- torian does not always say it — perhaps because he is ignorant of this secret power, or because he keeps it secret to profit by the self-admiration either of one sex or the other. Let us study the past. Nothing more truly distinguishes the savage state from the civilized, the east from the west, paganism from Christianity, antiquity from the middle ages, the middle ages from modern times, than the condition of woman. Who knows not, for ex- it 18 ADOLPHE MONOD. ample, that the single word polygamy or monogamy determines the manners and destinies of a people ? Let us observe what is going on around us. Woman will be found everywhere in the world, as the poet represents Agrippina in the Senate — " Behind a veil, invisible and present." As by a woman Satan entered into the innocent race, so shall we generally trace to woman the calamities and crimes which desolate humanity — the hatreds, the revenges, the trials, the suicides, the duels, the murders, and the wars. And as by a woman our Saviour came into the fallen race, so shall we equally trace to woman the thoughts and the works which elevate and bring peace to humanity — the tender devotions, the generous sacrifices, the holy aspirations, the religious institutions, and the public charities. Is it not for this reason that art and poetry, in all ages, have personified the moral powers by women ; and that the Holy Spirit himself, in the Proverbs, has delineated under the traits of two women the two opposite tendencies which divide the world ? * Imparting to this terrible influence of woman a salutary direc- tion, by studying with her the mission which she has received from God, we shall serve the highest interests of the human race. By your mission, women who hear me, I understand here the distinctive mission of your sex. It has a general one which it shares with ours : to glorify in his representation on the earth the God who created us in his image, and who, seeing this image effaced by sin, has reproduced it in his Son. From this point of view, as *' there is neither Jew nor Greek, neither bond nor free," so is there also " neither male nor female ; for we are all one in Christ Jesus." But, included in this common mission, which should be the first object of your ambition as well as of * Compare Prov. vii. and viii. ; and ix. 1-12, with ix. 13-18. THE MISSION OF WOMAN. 19 ours, there is for you a special mission, adapted to your peculiar endowments. Depend not upon the world to teach you this mission ; it has never known it ; it is not able to comprehend it ; for it has ever reduced the question which concerns you to the meagre proportions of its own self-interest, or your vanity. It remains, then, that we refer it to the word of God ; to that word which, mainly occupied, as it shows itself to be, with " the one thing needful," resolves, in passing, all the great problems of liumanity ; and, uniting example to precept, judges wisely concerning all things, because it judges spiritually. I open to the first pages of the first book, so well named Genesis, because it reveals the secret of all existences in their wonderful origin, and throws out to us, as if spontaneously, the highest philosophy in primitive acts, recounted with the sim- plicity of primitive times. There, immediately after those few words, in which God sums up the general mission of humanity, "Let us make man in our image," do we discover another, in which he sums up in like manner the special mission of woman, before creating her in her turn : " It is not good that man should be alone ; I will make him an helpmeet for him." This applies to every woman, not simply to the one who is married ; for Eve is not only the wife of the first man, she is also the first woman : and, the representative of all her sex, as Adam is of ours, she presents in herself, as in a sort of miniature, a type of her sex. Let us start out with this thought which presides at your very birth ; and let us take, as our guide in developing it, the inspired oracles of the old and new economy. We shall not be in danger of going astray in a path where God himself has marched before us. And well is it that your own heart will achieve the demon- stration, and oblige you to say, while listening to the claims of God's word upon you ; yes, this is truly what I ought to be ; this is truly what I ought to do. "It is not good that man should be alone." Loaded with the gifts of God, he still wants something, of which he is him- ^6? TH 0SIVBS 20 ADOLPHE MONOD. self ignorant, or of which he knows nothing except by a vague presentiment ; — a helper " like to himself ; " without which life is to him but a solitude, and Eden a desert. Endowed with a nature too communicative to be self-sufficient, he demands a partnership, a support, a complement, and only half lives while he lives alone. Made to think, to talk, to love, his thought is in search of another thought, to stimulate it and to reveal it unto itself ; his word dies away in sadness on the air, or awakens a mere echo which does violence to it, rather than responds to it ; and his love knows not where to fasten itself, and, falling back upon himself, threatens to become a devouring self-love. His whole being, in fine, aspires to another self, — but that other self does not exist : " for Adam there was not found a helpmeet." The visible creatures which surround him are too far helow him ; the invisible Being who has given him life, too far ahove him, to unite their condition to his. Then, God formed woman, and the great problem was solved. Behold here, what Adam demanded ; that other self which is himself, and at the same time not himself. Woman is a companion whom God has given to man to charm his existence, and to double it by sharing it with another. Her vocation by birth is a vocation of charity. To this vocation corresponds the jilace. which God has assigned to woman. It is not an inferior place : woman is not only a helper for man, but a helper "like to himself."* She ought, then, to march along as his equal, and it is only in this condition that she can bring to him the assistance which he requires. But it is, nevertheless, a secondary and dependent place : for woman was formed after man, made for man, in short, taken from man. This last characteristic speaks volumes to man. Taken from him, " she is bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh," and so closely united to him, that he cannot depreciate her without depreciating: himself. But at the same time, taken from him. * This is the rendering of the French for " helpmeet,"— Un aide semblable a lui.- Transl. THE MISSION OF AVOMAN. 21 she owes tc him the life which she breathes, and the name which she bears. By what right, — I ought to say with what heart, — can she dispute with him the first rank ? Her position by birth is a position of humility, A vocation of charity in respect to man, in a position of humihty next to man : — This is the mission of woman. As to the rest, that vocation and that position, revealed by the same acts, resulting from the same principle, are so inseparable in the formation of woman, that we may include them in the general idea of renunciation, bearing in turn upon self-will and self-glory. This commentary upon Moses, I have taken from Saint Paul, recalling to the Corinthians the condition of woman, in order to justify his prohibition to her of praying or prophesying with the head uncovered. This subject does not require him to enlarge upon woman^s vocation of charity : he merely indicates it in saying " the woman was created for the man." But observe in what terms he explains her position of humility : " But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ ; and the head of the woman is tl^e man ; and the head of Christ is God. The man is the image and glory of God : but the woman is the glory of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman ; but the woman for the man." Is not this the doctrine, which I just found in Genesis ? But this doctrine the Apostle enforces with a rigor which would be out of place in any other mouth ; and for the general idea of dependence at which I pause, he substitutes the more precise one of subordination. He concludes from thence that woman ought, "because of the angels" who contemplate what is pass- ing upon the earth, and particularly in the church, " to bear upon her head a mark of the authority" under which she is placed. Man, whose birth formed a part of that great work of creation which inspired the angelic songs of joy, being the image and glory of God, owes it to God to appear with the head lifted up to the view of the whole universe. But woman, whose forma- tion is an event of the second scheme, and, so to speak, of a 22 ADOLPHE MONOD. family character, being the glory of the man, owes it to him to remain hidden in a comparatively narrow inclosure as a modest spouse in her own home. The intention of the Apostle is the more marked as the instruc- tions which he gives here are intended for woman in rare cases. For it is only as an exception that a woman can be called to pray or prophesy before men. The order which God has estab- lished for a certain end he is free to modify so as the better to gain that end. We sometimes see that in promoting the good of man, a woman is called to depart from the way prescribed to her ; it may be to prophecy, as the women of Corinth, as the four daughters of Philip, the deacon, or as the mother of King Lemuel. It may be as Deborah, to judge a people, or even to preside over a mighty expedition. In such cases woman must obey, and she shall be blessed in her obedience : '' Blessed above women shall Jael be, blessed shall she be above women in the tent." But then, as ever, aside from what is essential to the extraordinary ministry with which she is clothed, she should remain a woman, according to St. Paul, and, all inspired as she is to caution the man, should remember that she is " the glory of the man," and should withdraw herself from the eyes of the world. Such being the order of creation, it remains to inquire if the primitive mission of woman was changed by the fall of our race, which disturbed so deeply the work of God. Satan commenced by beguiling the woman, after which he employed her to beguile man ; a doubly skillful move, by which he was most sure to succeed with her, because she is weaker than man, and close to man, and because she has greater power over him than he has over her. But has this sweet empire been given to her, that she may domineer over the conscience of man, become a snare to him rather than a support, and return to him for the life which she received from him, sin and death ? God punished her for her abandoned charity, by that supreme suffering without which she could not henceforth continue the race of man ; and for her unacknowledged humility, by abasing still lower her condition. THE MISSION OF WOMAN. 23 " Thy desires shall be unto thy husband, and he shall rule over thee." Woman is compelled to look to her husband for all that she desires — here is her increased dependence ; and to live under his authority — here is her dependence converted into submission. Think not, meanwhile, that she ceases to be an " help-meet " unto him. Alas ! when was this tender aid more needed ? Such is the mercy of God, that the moment in which He hum- bles woman, is also the moment in which He confers upon her a ministry greater and more humane than ever. In order to elevate and reestablish between the two sexes the disturbed equilibrium, it is by a virgin that He will one day give to man the longed-for Restorer, who shall destroy the works of the devil ; and the first name under which He announced his Son to the world is that of the " seed " of the w^oman : " And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed ; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." Thus, the relations are not essentially changed by the fall ; the vocation of woman is still one of charity, and her posi- tion that of humility. Only everything has taken a more serious character ; the charity has become more spiritual, exercised in a more profound humility. Ashamed of herself, and anxious to reestablish herself, woman lives henceforth but to repair the wrong which she had done to man in heaping upon him, with the consolation which can sweeten the present bitterness of sin, the warnings which may prevent its eternal bitterness. Another commentary borrowed from St. Paul : "I will that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefaced- ness and sobriety.; not with broidered hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array ; But (which becometh women professing godli- ness) with good w^orks. Let the woman learn in silence, with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence ; For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. Not withstand- .24 ADOLPHE MONOD. ing she shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity, and holiness with sobriety." Woman, says the Apostle here, was second in birth and first in sin — double reason why she should continue in an attitude of modesty, silence, and submission. Behold here, in no equivocal terms, the place of humility that we have already assigned to woman. But the Apostle would have her make it a place of honor by Christian beneficence. There is a chaste adorning which admirably befits her — that of good works ; — good works, these are the tresses, the gems, the jewels, the adomings which give her beauty in the eyes of God and man. Nor is this all. Woman shall procure salvation for man, at the same time that she obtains it for her- self, by the childbearing of the promised seed. This salvation a woman shall give to the world, in the fullness of time, by giving birth to the Saviour ; but the woman, whoever she may be, will also give it to him in her way, who teaches him to know and love the Saviour. Here again is this mission of charity which we have assigned to woman, and which imposes upon her the obligation, we say rather which confers upon her the privi- lege, of consecrating herself with redoubled tenderness, not only to the consolation of suffering man, but also to the salvation of sinful man, whose attention she shall turn to Jesus Christ. Woman is then, according to Scripture, which is to say according to God, since the creation, and more especially since the fall, a companion given to man to labor for his good, and above all for his spiritual good, in an attitude at once modest and submissive. Thus . Scripture instructs us ; and nature teaches the same lessons. The task assigned by God to each half of the race dis- covers itself in their dispositions, reveals itself in their instincts. Consult, now, yourselves, and tell me why you were so created, if not for the mission which we have recognized as yours by the Word of God. Your place, we have said, is a place of dependence and humi- lity. Upon this point St. Paul hesitates not to appeal to the THE MISSION OF WOMAN. 25 instinctive convictions of his readers, when, after forbidding a woman to pray or prophecy with her head uncovered, he adds : " Judge in yourselves ; is it comely that a woman pray unto God uncovered ? Doth not even nature itself teach you, that if a man have long hair it is a shame unto him ? But if a woman have long hair, it is a glory to her ; for her hair is given her for a covering ?" These principles appear so incontestable to the Apostle, that they cannot be denied, except by an unworthy spirit of chicanery which ought not to be entertained. " But if any man seem to be contentious, we have no such custom, neither the churches of God." Evidently, the long or short hair characterizes here a general and profound distinction between man and woman. When man goeth forth from his house and gives himself to his labor until the evening, he chooses outward activity for his task, public life for his domain, and the world for his theatre. What do I say ? he presents himself in the sight of the angels, and places himself in affinity with the entire universe. He cannot carry too far the name and the image of that God whom he has a mission to represent, not only upon the earth, but before the whole creation. To resist the feeling which calls him to go forth, in order to shut himself up within the narrow circle of the domestic hearth, this would be on his part weakness, forgetful- ness of himself, infidelity to his mission ; nothing more remains but to put a spindle into his hands and a distaff at his feet. But it is altogether different with woman : the heart is her theatre ; the domestic life her sphere ; the in-door activity her work ; and the long hair with which the Apostle is pleased to see her covered, is an emblem of an entire existence hidden and silent, in the bosom of which she accomplishes most faith- fully, and most honorably, the primary obligations of her sex. " Woman," says a great writer of the age, " is a flower which emits not its perfume except in the shade." To retire from notice, to remain quiet, to devote herself to her dependents, to keep the house, to govern her family, this is her modest ambition 2 26 ADOLPIIE MONOD. If the wise man paints for us " a woman, noisy, and turbulent, appearing in the streets, wliose feet abide not in the house," you will recall the woman to whom this applies. Indeed, is not the humble sphere which we assign to woman, the one for which her whole being is predisposed and designed beforehand ? That more delicate conformation, but more frail ; that more rapid pulsation of her heart ; that keener nervous sen- sibility ; that exquisiteness of her organs, and even the delicacy of her features ; all contribute to make her, according to the expression of Peter, " a weaker vessel," and render her constitu- tionally unfit for stern and unyielding cares, for affairs of state, for the labors of the cabinet, for all that yields renown in the world. And do not her intellectual powers hold her equally distinct ? It is sometimes asked whether they are equal to those of man. They are neither equal nor unequal, they are different, having been wisely adapted to a different end. For the work reserved to man, woman has faculties inferior to those of man, or rather she is not adapted to it. I speak here of the rule, not of the exceptions. That there may be among women some minds fitted for cares confined primarily to the other sex ; or that there may be for an ordinary woman some situations belonging to man, which she is obliged to fill in default of his doing it, I readily grant, provided these exceptions are clearly indicated by God, or demanded by the interests of humanity. After all, in the mission of woman, humility is but the means, charity is the end, to which all must be subordinated ; and why should not God, who has made exceptions of this nature in sacred history, also make them in general history ? Be that as it may, I leave the exceptions to God, and to the individual conscience ; and, jealous of discussing irritating, personal, or even disputed ques- tions, I confine myself here to the rule. Now, as a rule, that comprehensive glance into politics and science which embraces the world, that bold flight of metaphysics and of the lofty poetry which, transcending its limits, ventured THE MISSION OF WOMAN. 27 into the void of thought aud imagination, this is not the business of woman. Language even, above all ours (let us not sacrifice this useful remark to the fear of provoking a light smile), lan- guage, that simple philosophy of the people, often more profound than that of the schools, this sieve of the common reason, which, of all the bold expressions of the individual mind, allows only those to pass which respond to the good sense of all, proves this. It does not permit a woman to make herself notorious. It will not apply to her the word "man " accompanied by a feminine ter- mination, except as an expression of ridicule or blame. The epithets taken from public life honor man, but dishonor woman in different degrees. To cite only those examples, which the delicacy of this place authorizes, endeavor to say, a " woman of science," a " great woman," a " woman of affairs," a " woman of state :" in like manner talk of a " domestic woman I" But, on the contrary, while she acts within a narrow circle — narrow in extent, but vast in influence — where we exhort woman, with the Scriptures, to limit her action, she has faculties superior to those of man, or rather which belong to her alone There she finds her compensation, while she shows herself mis tress of the domain, and calls into use those secret resources which I should call admirable, were it not that a more tender feeling inspires me towards her and God who endowed her with them : that practical insight which we might say is all the more unerring because quick ; that glance which seems to prefer to be more brief that it may be more clear ; that art of penetrating into hearts by, I know not what subtle road, to us unknown and impracticable ; that incessant omnipresence of mind and body at all points at once ; that vigilance as exact as unperceived ; those numerous and complicated expedients of the domestic adminis- tration, always at hand ; access always open to every appeal ; and that perpetual audience given to all the world ; that freedom of action and of thought in the midst of bitter pains and accu- mulated embarrassments ; that elasticity shall I say ? or that indefatigable weakness ; that exquisite delicacy of feeUng ; that 28 ADOLPIIE MONOD. tact SO studied, if it were not instinctive ; that fidelity of perfec- tion in little things ; that adroit industry to accomplish what she will with her fingers ; that charming grace with which she animates the sick, cheers the drooping, awakens the sleeping con- science, opens the heart long closed ; and, in fine, all the many things which we know not how to discern or to accomplish with- out borrowing her hands or her eyes. But after all, to what advantage is the statement of these facts, when we can appeal to an inward sentiment, planted by the Creator in the depths of your soul, and which has preceded all personal reflections, all the announcements of others, and even the testimony of the Book of God ? That chastity, that modesty, to which a woman never ceases to pretend, even after she has ceased to keep it — what is this but the proof engraven upon your heart, and transferred irresistibly to your counte- nance, that order, repose, honor, is found for you in an attitude of dependence and reservedness ? Dependence and reserve ; the right of which never appears more inalienable than in certain delicate occasions, when the same nature is making a cruel play in efforts of one part against the other, without either obtaining a victory. What woman, conscious of this dependence, has not wished, at least sometimes, the arm of a man for support, and for a shelter the name of a man ? But what woman also, in the feeling of this reserve, keeps not her wish within her own bosom, waiting till she is sought — waiting if need be till death, hastened perhaps by the inward fire with which she would rather be consumed than let it outwardly be known ? This invariable order of marriage, which assigns the iniiio,- tite to man, and the appearance of which you will not allow, is not a refinement of civilization, nor even a scrupulousness of the gospel : it is a law imposed by woman, upon all times, without excepting the most barbarous, and upon all nations, without excepting the most savage. I exaggerate. I have a vague remembrance of having read, in I know not what account of a distant voyage, that a people was discovered among whom THE MISSION OF WOMAN. 29 woman takes the first step. Only, it is a country where she is degraded to the rank of the brute, and men are cannibals. If nature is in harmony with revelation as to the jplace which becomes your sex— one of humility — it is equally so as to the task belonging to it — one of charity. Here again, here above all, that which is within the Book is confirmed by that which is within the heart of woman. For what is your natural inclina- tion, if it is not to love ? I forget not, in speaking in this way, that your sex is no more exempt than ours from the egotism which reigns in fallen humanity. But try to recollect yourself, and to withdraw into the depths of your being; penetrate beyond the ravages which sin has made there, even to that primitive ground (allow me the expression), which came forth from the hands of God, and tell me if love is not its essence and base. "More superficial than man in everything else;" a Christian thinker has said, " woman is more profound in love." We are familiar with that touching word of a woman. " Love is only an episode in the life of man, it is an entire history in the life of w^oman."* She might have said yet more : it is her whole being. Your origin itself, as Moses narrates it, sufficiently indi- cates this. That of man, formed from inanimate dust, has some- thing more supernatural, more striking, more magnificent about it ; that of woman, taken from the throbbing flesh of sleeping man, seems more intimate, more loving, more tender. But, as regards love, it is less the degree tlian the character that is important. Love is the depth of your being, but what love ? Think, and you will find it to be that which most predis- poses you to the vocation of benevolence assigned you by the Scriptures. There are two kinds of love : the love which re- ceives, and the love which gives ; the first delights itself in the feeling which it inspires, and the sacrifices which it obtains. The second satisfies itself in the sentiment which it approves, and in the sacrifices it accomplishes. These two kinds of love * Madame De Stael. 30 ADOLPHE MONOD. hardly exist separate, and woman knows them both. But do I presume too much of her heart in thinking that with her the second predominates ; and that her device, borrowed from the unselfish love of which our Saviour has given us an example, is this : " It is more blessed to give than to receive ?" To be loved, I know it well, my sisters, is the joy of your heart; alas ! a joy perhaps refused ; but to love, to devote yourselves out of love, is the need of your soul, it is the law even of your exist- ence, and a law which no one should hinder you from obeying. Man also knows how to love and must love ; it is in love, that St. Paul sums up all the obligations that married life imposes upon him : " Husbands love your wives," as he sums up those of woman in submission: "Wives submit yourselves unto your own husbands." But we are now occupied, not with the faculty of the obligation, but with the inclination. Now love, it must be acknowledged, is less spontaneous, less disinterested in man than in woman. It is less spontaneous. Man often needs to conquer himself before he can love ; woman only needs to listen and to follow her inward impulse. This is the reason, perhaps, why Scripture, which frequently commands the husband to love, refrains from enforcing it upon the wife, as if she were competent, from her nature to supply it. But above all, it is more disinterested. Man loves woman more for himself than for her ; woman loves man less for herself than for him. Man, because he is not sufficient unto himself, loves her whom God has given to him : woman, because she feels herself im- pelled to love him whom God has given to her. If solitude depresses man, it is because life has no charm apart from an '' helpmeet ;" if woman dreads to live alone, it is because life is without an aim, unless she can be an " helpmeet " to some one. We might say of her, if I may be permitted this reference for the sake of the serious spirit in which I hazard it, We love her because she first loved us. Moreover, what is the sentiment which has become among all nations and languages of the earth, tlie type of a love at once THE MISSION OF WOMAN. 31 pure, living and profound ? It is woman's love, maternal love ; maternal love, which exhausts life without exhausting itself, and which, after suffering everything, labors by day, and watches by night, considering itself sufficiently repaid with a caress or a smile ; maternal love, celebrated as well by moralists as by poets, but whose praises, we believe, may be included in this one : that paternal love, itself, gives it the preeminence. What do I say ? This same love is that of which God made choice, when he sought among all human affections an emblem for the love which he himself bears to his people. "But Zion said, the Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me." We might expect to see our Father in Heaven replying to this doubt which offends him, by making an appeal to the love of a father for his child. But no, to a mother's love he appeals ; and to this mother he gives the name of woman, as if to give honor to the treasure of riches deposited in the heart of woman, found in the heart of the mother : " 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." But if such is the heart of woman, how can we fail to recog- nize a soil prepared expressly for this vocation of charity, which the Scriptures assign to you close to man? Love not only inspires woman with a desire to furnish this career of devotion, but it also gives her the courage for it. Courage, that is the word. Yes, at the risk of seeming to advance a paradox ; I was about to say there is a kind of courage, and that which is the most necessary to do good, which impels your sex much farther than ours. I speak not of active courage ; here man excels you, and ought to excel. You yield to him without regret the merit of an intrepidity which would ill become your sex : and a man of spirit has dared to say, and that without violating the truth, that " women affect fear as men do courage." I speak of passive courage, which is more constantly required than any other in the daily and humble practice of good works, and of which woman furnishes the most beautiful examples. Man 33 ADOLPIIE MONOD. knows best how to do — woman, best how to endure. Man is more enterprising, woman more patient ; man more hold, woman more strong. Would you be convinced of it ? Behold her in that sorrow of sorrows reserved to her sex, at the cost of which is human life ; see her and compare her with man, in solitude, in sickness, in poverty, in widowhood, in oppression, in secret martyrdom. I say designedly secret martyrdom ; for in public martyrdom, man maintains himself in the rank of honor by the grandeur of the theatre ; but, when it comes to that martyrdom cautiously and cruelly hidden in the subterranean cells of the inquisition, be assured the advantage is on the side of woman. God knew all this, when he portioned out life so that w^oman should have more of sufferings and less of pleasure than man ; at least if we do not place in the first rank the pleasure of doing good. This pleasure woman enjoys even in suffering, and attaches herself, by suffering, to him for whom she suffers. To a being thus formed, who dare dispute her vocation of self-sacrifice ? — a vocation which her heart revealed to her ages before a line of Scripture was given to the world ! Tell me not that Scripture alone holds woman to the special obligation im- posed upon her to labor for man's spiritual good, by a holy charity which seeks God and eternity for him before everything else. Admirable to behold ! nature has provided for it : not, it is true, sufficiently to make up for the teachings of revelation, buf enough to make up for their deficiency, enough to make them perceived. For who does not know that woman's keener sensi- bility, her more open heart, her more sensitive conscience, her less logical mind, her finer and more delicate temperament, render her more accessible to piety, while, at the same time, her occu- pations being less abstruse, less continuous, less absorbing, than ours, leave her more leisure for prayer and freedom for the service of God ? Who knows not also that the first conditions of suc- cess in the spiritual mission which everything contributes to mark out for her, are found less in activity, in word, in direct action, which man almost entirely appropriates to himself, than in that THE MISSION OF WOMAN. 33 penetrating influence of example, of silence, of self-forgetfulness, which is peculiar to the woman who is truly a woman ? Yes, we declare it boldly, if Scripture is not right, if woman was not made for a mission of charity in humility, nature has missed its aim ; for woman has been called to one work and pre- pared for another. Yet understand us aright : I have not entered this place to flatter woman, but to sanctify her. In saying that nature has prepared you for the duty which Scripture imposes upon you, I have not meant to say that you are, in your natural state, ca- pable of fulfilling it. By one of those strange contradictions which the fall has introduced into our race, troubling the work of creation without destroying it, woman is at the same time prepared and unp-epared for her vocation ; prepared, inasmuch as she possesses peculiar qualities which wondrously adapt them- selves to it : unprepared, inasmuch as she has other qualities which interfere with it. "It is the enemy who has done this." In the same heart where the hand of God deposited the precious germs of a life conformed to the mission of woman, Satan has secretly sowed those noxious germs which choke, or neutralize, the first. He has done more. He has sought with his infernal skill, to corrupt these healthful germs in your heart, and to gather from good seed evil fruit. Yes, these precious resources with which the Creator has endowed you to accomplish your work, the tempter knows how to convert into obstacles to this same work. Under his mys- terious and formidable influence, we see this activity degenerate into restlessness ; this vigilance into curiosity ; this tact into artifice ; this penetration into temerity ; this promptness into unsteadiness ; this gracefulness into coquetry ; this taste into studied eloquence ; this versatility into caprice ; this aptness into presumption ; this influence into intrigue ; this power into domi- nation ; this sensitiveness into irritability ; this power of loving into jealousy ; this necessity of being useful, into a passion to please. 34: ADOLPIIE MONOD. The two principal tendencies wliicli we have recognized in woman, humility and charity, have been perverted. The same mental peculiarity which assigns to her the narrow circle of home as her sphere, inclines her to take small views of things, and to centre her attention upon a single point, with a strength pro- portioned to the narrowness of the field which she embraces ; and, little accustomed to doubt either of things or of herself, impatient of contradiction for want of believing more than she can understand, she enters insensibly upon a way of haughtiness by a road which ought to lead to humility. And then this same necessity of the heart which impels her to love and to self-devote- ment, exposes her to the danger of self-seeking, even in self- forgetfulness, and of carrying this renunciation to extremes — hardly wilhng that good should be done unless she can have a hand in it ; jealous of the man she would help and please with- out rivalry ; envious of the woman who also aspires to help and please ; jealous, envious — note it well — from very strength of love, but a love transformed into passion and self-will in the dread laboratory of the tempter I Then woman, whom we cheerfully believe superior to man in spiritual things, if the essence of holiness is love, and the essence of love sacrifice, applies to evil noble instincts, which might enable her to excel in goodness, and delivers herself up to sin with an abandon, at the same time energetic and heedless, such as man hardly under- stands ; carrying to a greater extent than he, vain glory, ego- tism, avarice, intemperance, anger, hatred, cruelty, love of the world, and forgetfulness of God, as if she would justify the old adage, "the greater the height the greater the fall." The heart of woman is the richest treasure upon earth ; but if it is not God^s treasure, it becomes the treasure of the devil ; and one might be tempted sometimes to think that instead of having been given by Gou to man to be an " helpmeet " to him, the devil formed her, saying, it is not good that man should be alone ; I will make a snare for him. Accuse me not of slandering woman. I no more calumniate THE MISSION OF WOMAN. 35 her now thau I flattered her a moment since. I spoke then, and speak still, according to the Bible. The Scriptures, which delineate with so much complacency the graces of woman and her humble virtues, present her faults and wanderings with a vividness unusual to them, and which they seem to reserve for this subject alone. St. Paul knows no worse scourge for the church thau these women whom he describes in his first Epistle to Timothy. *' For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts, ever learning, and never able to come to the know- ledge of the truth." In the same book of Proverbs, which closes with a sublime description of the virtuous woman, Solo- mon overwhelms with the strokes of his bitter and almost satirical eloquence, not only the abandoned woman, whose mur- derous work no one has described with a more holy horror (ye young, ponder his maxims 1) but every woman unfaithful to the mission which she has received of God. The foolish woman, " who plucketh down her house with her hands f the brawling woman whose companionship is more grievous than " to dwell in the corner of the house-top, or in a desert land ;" the vicious woman, " who is as rottenness in the bones of her husband ;" the odious woman who is " one of the four things which disquiet the earth ;" the fair woman without discretion, whose beauty is as " a jewel in a swine's snout ;" the contentious woman, " this continual dropping in a very rainy day ; whosoever hideth her hideth the wind, and the ointment of his right hand which betrayeth itself." This same Solomon, in old age, gathering up the remembrances of his whole life, confesses that he had vainly sought a woman after his own heart. " And I find more bitter than death the woman whose heart is snares and nets, and her hands as bands ; whoso pleaseth God shall escape from her, but the sinner shall be taken by her. Behold this have I found, saith the preacher, counting one by one to find out the account, which yet my soul seeketh, but I find not ; one man among a thou- sand have I found, but a woman among all those have I not found.'* 36 ADOLPHE MONOD. These astonishing declarations the Bible confirms and com- pletes by its narratives, which are so many lessons. After explaining by Eve the entrance of sin into the world, it explains to us by Adah and Zillah, Lamech the first polygamist and blasphemer; by the daughters of men ensnaring the sons of God, the corruption of the earth and the deluge ; by Hagar, the faith, the charity, and peace of Abraham for a time disturbed ; by the women of the house of Laban, the faithfulness of Jacob for long time concealed ; by Judith and Bashemath, the profane indiffer- ence of Esau ; by the revenge of an adulterous wife, the injustice of Potiphar ; by the daughters of Moab, the most terrible plagues of Israel in the desert, and by the daughters of Canaan, her wickedness and idolatry after the conquest ; by Delilah, the shameful humiliation of Samson ; by the companion of the Levite of Ephraim, a whole tribe cut off ; by Bathsheba, David ceasing to be David ; by strange women, Solomon serving other gods, and gathering from fall after fall the warnings which he would at a later period give to the world ; by Jezebel, wicked Ahab, perjurer and murderer ; by Athaliah, the kings of Judah following in the way of the kings of Israel ; by Herodias, Herod beheading John the Baptist in spite of himself ; by the Jewish women, Paul and Barnabas persecuted and driven from Antioch ; by the prophetic women of the Apocalypse, the corruption of the whole earth. Holy liberty of the Scriptures which declare equally the good and evil, not to exalt human nature nor to humiliate it, but to give glory to God who creates the good and repairs the evil I This heart of woman, so ardent but so passion- ate, so tender but so jealous, so delicate but so susceptible, so impulsive but so hasty, so sensitive but so irritable, so strong but so weak, so good but so bad, must be subdued and trans- formed, in order that the sap of life which inundates it, may return to its legitimate course, diffusing itself wholly in the flowers of humility and the fruits of charity I Subdued and transformed : but by whom ? Ah ! from whom could you expect this grace but from the Son of God, who, not' THE MISSION OF WOMAN. 37 content with having, through the organ of his inspired servants, restored your place and revealed your mission, has come Himself to show you the ideal of it in His life, and to open for you the way to it by His cross ? Jesus living, perfect type of the gentle virtues as of the strong, is an example for woman as for man ; and Jesus crucified, sole victim who expiates sin, is the only source of this holy love which, varying merely in the application, frees from sin both man and woman. But, between man and woman, if Jesus could sooner find access on the one side than on the other, would it not be on the part of woman ? He, who is love ; He, who " came not to be ministered unto, but to minis- ter ;" He, who satisfied himself only in privation and sacrifice ; He, in fine, who took upon Him our nature in order to ascribe the highest charity in the most profound humiUty ? Am I mistaken, my sisters (it is for you to say), am I mis- taken in thinking that there is nothing upon earth more in sym- pathy with Jesus Christ than the heart of woman ? Superfluous question I Ah, no, I am not deceived, or your heart would deny all its instincts ! The Christian faith, so truly founded in the depths of humanity that it is not wonderful only because common, adapts itself so marvellously to all the needs of your moral being, that you cannot be truly woman except upon condition of receiving the Gospel. The Christian woman is not only the best of women, but at the same time most truly a woman. 0, you, then, who would accomplish the humble and benevolent mission of your sex — beneath the cross, or never ! Indeed, my dear sisters, the first aid which man has a right to expect from you is spiritual aid. It is httle to be indebted to you for the consolation of this life of a day, if he owes not to you, so far as it is in your power, the possession of eternal life. Not only that true charity, which subordinates time to eternity, demands it of you, but justice itself, as we have shown from the Scriptures. Your sex has an original wrong to repair towards ours, and a spiritual wrong. That with which we reproach you in the fall where we have followed you, if we feel not bound to 88 ADOLPHE MONOD. restrict our reproaches to ourselves, is not that death which you have introduced into the world, neither that embittered life which your sympathy even cannot always alleviate — it is a much greater evil, the only real and absolute evil — Sin, w^hich the first man was doubtless inexcusable in committing, but which he was beguiled to commit by woman. Imagine Eve kneeling with Adam beside the corpse of one sou murdered by the other, whom the divine curse drives far out upon the wild and solitary earth. In sight of the visible and present fruits of sin, and with the thoughts of its invisible and future results, if the tender look of Adam said not to Eve, Give me back the favor of my God I give me back my peace with myself I give me back the days of Eden, and my sweet innocence, and my holy love for the Saviour and for thee I — doubt not that she said all this to herself I To her, it seemed very little to heap upon him the consolations of earth, if she could not bring to him those of Heaven ; and, unable to repair the wrong she had done him, she urges, she implores him to turn his weeping eyes to the Deliverer promised to repair all, to refe'stablish all, and to open to the fallen but reconciled race, a second Eden more beautiful than that to which the sword of the cherubims henceforth forbade entrance. If such are the senti- ments of Eve, let her be blessed, although she be Eve 1 With this heart. Eve approximates Mary ; and in the woman who ruined the world by sin, I discover already the woman who will save it by giving to it the Saviour. Well, now, this that she would do, do yourselves. Though no one of you has been an Eve to man, yet be each of you a Mary to him, and give him a Saviour 1 This, this is your task I But, if you respond not to it, refusing to pass your life in the exercise of beneficence, you shall fail of your calling ; and, after having been saluted of man by the name of "good woman," " deaconess, '^ or " sister of charity," you shall be accounted of God, " as sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal I" But, how can you give the Saviour to others, if you do not possess Him in your own THE MISSION OF WOMAN. 39 heart ? "Women who hear me, yet agahi — heneatk the cross, or never ! We say nothing of those holy women of the Old Testament, who died in faith before the coming of the Saviour, '* not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off and embraced them :" neither of the pious Sarah nor of the modest Eebekah, nor of the tender Rachel, nor of the heroic Deborah, nor of the humble Ruth, nor of the sweet wife of Elkanah, nor of the prudent Abigail, nor of the intrepid Rizpah, nor of the retiring Shunamite. We confine ourselves to the women of the New Testament. Beneath the cross, Mary, more touching now than at the cradle, offering herself without a murmur to the sword which pierces her soul, associates herself with the sacrifice of her son by a love more sublime than any other after that of the adorable Son, and presents to us a type of the Christian woman, who knows not how to aid and to love but in keeping her eyes fixed upon " Jesus and him crucified." Beneath the cross, Anna the prophetess, type of the faithful woman, gives glory first, in this same temple, where " she served God day and night with fast- ings and prayers," to Hun whom the aged Simon had confessed by the Spirit, and in spite of her fourscore and four years, renews the energy and activity of youth " to speak of Him unto all them that looked for redemption in Jerusalem." Beneath the cross, Mary of Bethany, type of the contemplative woman, eager for the one thing needful and jealous of that good part, sits now at the feet of Jesus and feeds in silence upon the word of life, and at another time, in the sam« silence, anoints those blessed feet with pure spikenard of great price, and wipes them with the hairs of her head, as if she could not find a token sufficiently tender of her respect and love. Beneath the cross, Martha, her sister, type of the active woman, sometimes lavishes her unwea- ried attentions upon a brother whom she loved, sometimes busies herself for the Saviour whom she adored, serving him in every day life, invoking His aid in bitter suffering, and blessing Him 40 ADOLPHE MONOD. ill the joy of deliverance. Beneath the cross, the Canaanitish mother, type of the persevering woman, surpassing in faith and light those apostles whom she wearies with her cries, triumphs over the silence, refusal, disdain even, by which the Lord him- self seems to contend against her invincible prayer, and, wrests from him at last, with the cure so much desired, the most bril- liant homage that any child of Adam ever obtained : " woman, great is thy faith I be it unto thee as thou wilt.'' Beneath the cross, Mary Magdalene, freed from seven devils, type of the grateful woman, surpassing these same apostles in love and courage, after them at Calvary and before them at the sepul- chre, is also chosen from among them all, the first to behold her Lord as He comes forth from the tomb, and charged to carry the good news of His resurrection to those who would announce it to the world. Beneath the cross, Dorcas " full of good works and alms deeds," type of the charitable woman, after a life conse- crated to the relief of the poor and of the widows of Joppa, in her death shows what she was to the church by the void she left in it, and by the tears she caused to flow ; and, in the same spi- rit, Phebe, the deaconess of Cenchrea, " a succorer of many," and in particular of the Apostle Paul, gives birth in all succeeding times by her example to a multitude of dea- conesses, clothed or not — it little signifies — with this official title before men. Beneath the cross, Priscilla, type of the ser- vant of Jesus Christ, shares with Aquilla, her husband, many of those perils incurred to preserve to the church of the Gentiles their great missionary, or engages in those conversations by which the faith of the eloquent Apollos was enlightened and strengthened ; and, in the same spirit, Lydia hazards her life by opening her house to the apostles, which, transformed at once into a church, becomes the centre of evangelical charity in Phi- lippi and Macedonia. What more shall I say ? Shall I speak of Julia, and Lois, and Enodias, and Sintyche, and Mary, and Persis, and Salome, and Tryphena, and Tryphosa, and of the many women of the THE MISSION OF WOMAN. 41 Gospel, and of so many others who have followed in their steps, the Perpetuas, the Monicas, the Mary Calamys, and the Eliza- beth Frys ? Beneath the cross, with the Bible in hand — this Bible to which no human creature owes more than she, both in respect to the world and to Christ — beneath the cross — it is there that I love to see woman I Kestored to God, to man, to herself, so worthy m her submission, so noble in her humility, so strong in her gentleness, gathering all the gifts she has received to con- secrate them to the service of humanity with an ardor which we hardly know how to exhibit except in passion, she obliges us to confess that she who effaced our primitive holiness, is also she who now offers of it on this apostate earth, the brightest image. you who so well read our hearts, bear with me, because for a moment I have read yours. I have said enough, perhaps too much. You accept this mission at the hand of Jesus; you burn to fulfill it beneath the cross of Jesus. Come then, that passing from the principle to the application, I may show you how it can be accomplished in every condition ; and how woman can always — daughter, wife, or mother — be unto man an "helpmeet." You have considered the mission of woman, contemplate her dfe ; this will be the subject of a second discourse. 1 ought to close here to-day; but I am unwilling to leave this place without inquiring of the men who listen to me, how they regard the mission of woman, as I have exhibited it. Many, perhaps, have hardly been able to suppress a smile of incredu- lity, at hearing me assign to woman a sphere of action so humble and at the same time so elevated, since it calls her to apply, as one has said, "so great principles to so small duties." This smile may be explained by two opposite reasons : one places woman above the task to which I invite her, the other below it. There are epochs and nations before which I might feel ob- liged to oppose the first of these impressions, and to defend against man the dignity of woman. This duty would be neces- sary, not only with the Pagans, both ancient and modern, but 42 ADOLPHE MONOD. with many an elevated spirit, with many an eminent moralist nourished in the bosom of Christianity. To cite but one example, Kant, whom no contemporaneous philosopher has sur- passed in the depth and energy of the moral sense, Kant, in his little book on " The Sentiment of the Beautiful," reserves to man the nolle virtues, and leaves to woman only the beautiful virtues : by which he understands an agreeable, spontaneous virtue, exerted without effort. " Speak not to woman, says he, of duty, of obligation. Expect not from her sacrifices, nor generous victories over herself. You propose, for example, to give up part of your fortune to save a friend. Do not inform your wife of your purpose. Why check her lively gossip, and burden her bosom with a secret too weighty for it ?" What sayest thou to this. Christian woman ? One is ready to ask himself if the cautions of Kant with regard to woman, are much less humiliating to her than the abjectness in which paganism holds her ; and to combat language so stern and so haughty, it is sufficient to recall to man in default of what he owes to woman, what he owes to himself from whom she hag been taken, and to God who has taken her from him. Yet, in the full light of Christianity, in France, and in the ideas of the day, the danger of excess is on the other side. No more is claimed for woman against my doctrine, than has been done these sixty years past ; but it is claimed, not in the name of a worn-out gallantry, but in the name of systems and the prejudices of the day. One complains that I abase and sacrifice her, in assigning her a place so humble, instead of putting her on a level with man, and a path so self-denying, instead of exhort- ing her to live for herself. No, no : I promote, on the contrary, her true glory and best interests, because I oblige her to con- form to the law of her creation, the first condition of all order and all repose for the creature. I no more degrade and sacri- fice woman, in inviting her to live for charity in humility towards man, whose glory she is, than I abase and sacrifice man, who is the glory of God, in inviting him to " glorify God TUE MISSION OF WOMAN. 43 in his body and spirit which are his ;" no more than I abase tind sacrifice the planet, in inviting it to continue in the modest path of its orbit, sole guaranty of its safety and harmony. There is one who abases and sacrifices woman : it is this same world, sometimes frivolous, sometimes bold, which treacherously takes up her defence against me. You abase and sacrifice her whenever you entice her, to satisfy your egotism and glorify your theories, from the path which God has marked out for her, and in which we would keep her. You have abased and sacrificed her of late, in placing her upon the pedestal and man at her feet, in your romances, in your saloons, in your plays, because instead of the mission to aid and glorify man, you have substituted that of weakening and effeminating him. You abase and sacrifice her to-day, in seeking for another emancipation than that which she has received of the Gospel, in claiming for her the rights of man ; since for the mission which she can and ought to fulfill, you substitute one in which she cannot succeed, and to which she ought not to pretend. What idea then have you of woman, if you believe her willing to exchange the humble glory of accom- plishing the mission which belongs to her, for the mortifying vanity of failing in that of another — satisfied with being an incomplete man, while she might be a complete woman ; and of losing her natural and legitimate influence in the sterile pur- suits of an influence factitious and usurped? Nothing more remains to her than to regret the nature which God has given her, and to indulge this regret by begging without shame from our sex the name, the dress, and the gait of man. Doubt it not, I have the heart of woman on my side : and if any one has smiled at hearing me exhibit her mission according to God, it is not she, I answer for her. What woman worthy of her name, has ever smiled when one has appealed to her spirit of renunci- ation and of sacrifice ? It is bread for her hunger, it is water for her thirst. What do I say ? the woman worthy of her name ! Worthy or unworthy, every woman starts at these words of sympathy ; the heart of the worthy leaps for joy, and 4:4: ADOLPIIE MONOD. the unworthy is moved with bitterness. You even, who turn away from the way which I trace for you, confess it ; you think me right in the depths of your soul ; and in spite of all your words, you respect her while you murmur at her, if she follows my commands rather than yours, and you scorn her while flatter- ing her, if she follows yours rather than mine. Be that as it may, the greater part of those who hear me, I say it boldly, not content with admitting the principles which I have attempted to develop, appreciate and admire them. Let them learn then from this example to what a degree Scripture is true. For indeed, what have I done but interrogate it before you ? I confess, when I began to meditate upon the mission of woman, I was far from having upon this subject, so little studied, the precise and strong views which I entertain to-day. I had resolved to open the Bible, to listen to it, and to allow myself to be guided by it ; and I have been confounded at finding there, instead of some thoughts scattered throughout forty books and nineteen centuries, an entire doctrine, developing itself from book to book and from age to age, passing from the hand of prophet to apostle, as a work planned by one workman and transmitted by him to another to complete ; a doctrine, whose mission, plenitude, clearness, simplicity, brilliant in the midst of an ignorance profound and universal, excited in me a surprise which grew with meditation. For all this revealed itself to me by degrees ; the place assigned to woman in Scripture, limited at the first glance, continually enlarged itself before me. We must seek for woman in Scripture ; but once found, she appears there clothed with a ministry as beneficent as glorious. Her posi- tion there instructed me : I learned that such as she is in this book, she ought to be in life, great, but hidden. I say it boldly : of all religions and all systems. Scripture alone has known and understood woman. Alone, between the two oppo- site tendencies of the Southern and Germanic races, of antiquity and the middle ages, the one making her the slave of man, the other the arbiter of his destinies, it has spared her at the THE MISSION OF WOMAN. 45 same time, "this excess of honor and this indignity." Alone in fine, by one of those combinations of truth in which the world only sees strange contradictions, it has at once restored to her her place and held her in silence, giving to her a work as much more noble as it is more humble, as much more loving as it is self-sacrificing. Understand then, man, the treasure which you possess in Scripture, and question it that you may gather from it the light which it spreads upon even those subjects which it does not seem to have intended to illuminate. Interrogate it, men of thought ; know if it does not retain concealed within its fertile recesses, waiting until your haughty pride shall abase itself to demand them of it, new revelations upon the plans of the Creator and the destinies of the creature, and the final solution of some of those problems which are the eternal despair of philosophy. Interrogate it, men of science ; know if our old earth, which has been obhged to open its bosom most profoundly to the most con- scientious investigations, to show itself in perfect agreement with this bibhcal cosmogony to which one had opposed it with so much assurance, has not still some other secret to say to the genius of a Cuvier in favor of the inspiration of a Moses. Inter- rogate it, men of letters ; know if these sublime thoughts of poetry, the paintings so natural, the narrations so animated, the demonstrations so simple and so strong, that our greatest writers glory in imitating, without flattering themselves of ever equalling them, have not some salutary, some powerful regenera- tion in reserve for the ready, but premature, greedy, impure, still- born literature of our day. Interrogate it yourselves, men of state ; know if this divine constitution which has served as a model to modern legislation and created European civilization, holds not hidden within its unopened folds some yet unknown perfection for our proud age, and if it could not teach, for ex- ample, our magistracy, renowned in all the world, that the least that it can do for this Gospel which has founded all freedom, is to allow it to be itself free. 40 ADOLPHE MONOD. But, if Scripture has so mauy lessons upon subjects whicli hardly seem to occupy it, what will it not have to say upon that subject which is to it, and which ought to be also to each of us, the one thing needful ? Oh I I beg you, inter- rogate it upon salvation. Interrogate it concerning sin and pardon, life and death, good and evil, heaven and hell. Woe to you, if your ears are too sensitive to hear this language I Yes, interrogate it upon heaven and hell ; and you will find the only place where woman can accomplish her mission, is also the only one where you can yourselves find grace, peace and life. Beneath the cross, beneath the cross, all together, one in mind, one in heart! Beneath the cross to live, beneath the cross to die, beneath the cross to meet the judgment of the great day — happy in then recognizing in him who is our judge, him who has been our Saviour I THE LIFE OF WOMAN. My dear Sisters : My first address left you, I hope, convinced that your mission, according to the Bible, as well as according to nature, is one of charity in humility towards man ; and resolved to accomplish this mission in Jesus Christ who alone can prepare you for it. Are we then agreed as to principles ? Let us now pass to the application. Let us trace the mission of woman, in the life, of woman : that is to say, let us see how this common mission can be realized by each of you (the Christian faith being taken for granted), according to the particular condition assigned of God. I say, according to the condition in which God has placed you, and I insist upon this point to prevent a dangerous illusion. On hearing me exhibit the duties of woman in a position different from yours, you are tempted, perhaps, to whisper : 'Ah I if I were thus placed, with what devotion would I give myself to the work of loving and helping I' Believe me, my sister, you may not only accomplish, with self-devotion, your mission as a woman in your present position, but you will acknowledge it to be the situation of all others, in which you can lest accomplish it. Else why has God assigned it — He, " who makes all things work 48 ADOLPIIE MONOD. together for the good of those that love Him ?" You answer sadly, perhaps, that it is less God who has assigned you your place than your own will, and a will badly controlled. It may be, I admit (although I distrust the heart of woman in accusing her conscience) ; that you have come where you are, by a way which you cannot recall without regret or without repent- ance. Still, your place, as it is fixed to-day, is the one in which God wishes you to-day to be ; and the best one possible for you, if you accept it at His hand, in a spirit of faith and sub- mission. With Jesus Christ there is no more a condition without resources, than a soul without hope. Such is the power of the Gospel, that it reacts upon the whole course of life, and con- strains a regretted past to take its place among those ''all things," that work together for the good of them who love God. It is not position, but disposition, that is of importance with God, and the surest mark of a well regulated mind, is to accept our present position, as chosen by God, to promote our spiritual development. I take, therefore, your moral physiognomy just as it is, as the daguerreotype would take your natural physiog- nomy. The man to whom you ought to be an "helpmeet" is a husband, a son, a father, or a man, simply as man, apart from any individual relation. Your attitude towards him may either be that of equality, of superiority, of inferiority, or of independ- ence ; it matters little to the end which I propose. The only point of importance is, that you possess a true woman's heart ; I would say a heart desirous of life not for yourself but for others ; first, unquestionably for the Lord, according to the general mission you share with us, and next for man, agreeably to the special mission which occupies us, in these discourses. Accordingly, the Scripture, content with exhibiting the works of holy women, whom it offers as models to their sex, does not trouble itself to explain their social or domestic condition, oblig- ing us often to surmise it for ourselves. That Eunice was both wife and mother, that she might give to the Apostle of the Gen- tiles the most useful of his co-laborers j that Priscilla, as we THE LIFE OF WOMAN. 49 may suppose, was wife but not mother, that she might follow her husband from place to place, and assist him in the service of the Gospel ; that Phoebe might not have been either wife or mother, so that she might remain free to carry from church to cliurch her devotion, and her activity ; that concerning Dorcas the same thing may have been true, — this, with Scripture, was of secondary moment j it is sufficient that in them all there was a faithful heart. The same heart which rendered a Dorcas faith- ful in the position of Dorcas, would have made her equally faithful in the position of Phoebe, of Priscilla, or of Eunice ; and the same heart which would render you unfaithful to your mis- sion in your present position, would make you equally unfaithful in any other. But "although I thus speak, I am persuaded better things of you," my beloved sisters ; and it is in this firm confidence that I would inquire with you, how you can be for man, each in her place, an " helpmeet." I penetrate at once to the heart of my subject, and take woman in her normal position, the one in which she was found as she came forth from the hands of God, that for which she was formed, that in which she can best accomplish her peculia. work, by a loving devotion in an humble equality — marriage. Married woman, that which woman is called to be for man, you are called to be for oiw man. God said, speaking of your hus- band : " It is not good that this man should be alone ; I wiP make an helpmeet for him :" and it is you whom He has given to him. If He did not guide you by His own hand to him, as Eve to Adam, He has done still better ; He has pronounced upon your union by the voice of His servants, a word of blessing, which gives it a holy character — what do I say ? — which makes of it a visible emblem of the invisible union of the Lord with His Church. Scripture alone would dare risk such a comparison, and only a Christian heart can comprehend it. But to what a height it elevates marriage with him who understands it ! And with what authority it clothes this double precept, which sums up so tenderly the obligations of the husband ; " Husbands, lore 3 50 ADOLPHE MONOD. your wives, as Christ also loved the Church :" and so humbly those of women ; " Therefore, as the Church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything." Perhaps, alas I this word of blessing scarcely touched your heart when it was pronounced, the Lord having been the last consulted in the gift of your hand. But to-day, it regains its divine virtue, reanimated and renewed, as it were, by your faith, according to the power that we have recognized in the Gospel, to react even upon the past : and, provided you carry to-day into your married life the heart of a Christian woman, you may believe yourself truly chosen of God for your husband, and he for you, as was Eve for Adam, and Adam for Eve. As for him, I know not with what fidelity he fulfills his part of the obliga- tion ; let him fulfill it or not, fulfill yours ; for to God we must all give account, not to man, and " each shall bear his own bur- den." Your mission, then, is no other than the general mission of woman, applied, and as it were concentrated, in your inter- course with your husband, and, if I dare so speak, carried to its highest perfection, by the closest and most individual of all re- lations. This position of humility, and this vocation of charity, which comprise the mission of woman, concentrate, gather up, upon one object : tJien shall you be what the married woman ought to be to her husband, a " helpmeet." Freely and cheerfully assume towards your husband a humble, dependent, and submissive position. Is there here a spirit giddy enough to find in these words, food for the inex- haustible raillery with which this subject inspires the world ? Let it be understood, that I speak seriously for serious women, holily for holy women, and that I do not consider myself exempt from the duty of enforcing upon them the pure doctrine of God, because of puerile fear of exposing them to the ridicule of those who would seek in the church the curtains of the theatre, and who would judge this word, which must judge them at the last day. Yes, my sisters, whatever the sentiment or usages of society may be upon this subject, openly and frankly assume THE LIFE OF WOMAN. 61 towards your husbands a humble, dependent, submissive posi- tion. It is not I who demand it of you, it is God who com- mands you. " Wives," writes Paul to the Epfeesians, " submit yourselves unto your own husbands as unto the Lord ;" "for the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church." That which he had said of man in relation to woman, speaking to the Corinthians, " The man is the head of the woman," he says here of the husband in relation to his wife : it is the same doctrine, but this doctrine specially applied, " Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wife see that she reverence her husband." St. Paul not only con- siders this submission one of the obligations of the married woman, it is the chief obligation, including every other. Some- times he names it alone, as here : sometimes he gives it the first place, and subordinates to it all the rest. St. Peter expresses the same thing : " Likewise ya wives, be in subjection to your own husbands, that, if any obey not the word, they also may, without the word, be won by the conversation of their wives ; while they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear." " Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plait- ing the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of ap- parel. But let it be the hidden man of the heart, in -that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price. For after this manner in the old time, the holy women also, who trusted in God adorned themselves, being in subjection unto their hus- bands ; even as Sara obeyed Abraham, calling him Lord : whose daughters ye are, as long as ye do well, and are not afraid with any amazement." Doubt it not, the harmony and felicity of domestic life de- pend upon each one's holding this position. More than one household which promised well, has been disturbed by confound- ing duties which Scripture has carefully distinguished. We can- not with impunity depart from the divine arrangement. The trouble which others give themselves to usurp the first rank^ 52 ADOLPIIE MONOD. give yourself to avoid this usurpation, under whatever skillful precautions, under whatever tender appearances it may disguise itself. Let your husband be, next to God, the centre of your existence ; with your own name, sweetly lose in him your own glory, and your own will. Lose sight of yourself, abide in silence, avoid even the appearance of arrogance or arbitrariness. Let it be your ambition to promote his praise, or rather to be yourself his praise, not by an outward edat which depends not upon you either to give or to withhold, but by a conversation so irreproachable that all husbands may propose you for an example to their wives. Realize, in short, in its full meaning, this beau- tiful saying of Solomon, " A virtuous woman is a crown to her husband." Modesty is not inaction. The Scriptures give you a place so humble, only that it may confide to you a work all the more beneficent. This special humility which it recommends to you in relation to your husband, is a pledge of the special charity with which you will devote yourself to his happiness. This home in which the Apostle would see you quietly remaining, he wishes you to make by your affection, by your presence, by your good government, by the care you bestow upon your children, a sanctuary of order, peace, and happiness, in which your hus- band may find, after the cares of business, his sweetest repose and favorite recreation. Let him so truly find it such, that he will not think of seeking elsewhere than with you, the satisfac- tion which he needs to dissipate his fatigues, to alleviate his pain, to calm his agitated spirits and to restore their elasticity. Let him find there, for I refuse you no way of being useful, let him find there, hidden in the bosom of home, wise counsels, salu- tary inspirations, which will follow him silently into public life, and which contribute their part in controlling the words of his lips, and the deeds of his hands, by motives superior to the passions and impulses of men at large. Let him find there, in short, all that can make him happy within, together with all that can render him useful without, so that, as he crosses the THE LIFE OF WOMAN. 53 threshold of his door, to engage again in his noble labors, he shall utter to himself with gratitude towards you, and to God, who gave you to him, the touching words of Solomon, '' Houses and riches are the inheritance of fathers, and a prudent wife is from the Lord." Happy if you can hear those words from his lips I But no, that is not necessary : your conscience will tell you what he thinks. It will say to you, that when with grati- tude he recalls to his remembrance all the good things he has received from God — fortune, health, family — the first and the last of his earthly treasures, that which he fears most to lose, is YOU. Yet, let not your devotion be idolatry. Love and be loved in God. The most intimate of all relations ought to be also the most holy. The Gospel would never have seen in marriage a type of Christ and the church, if it had not anticipated there a sanctifying influence, exerted by each of the pair upon the other. For what knowest thou, wife I whether thou shalt save thy husband ? These serious words denote the grand obligation of marriage; that which the Apostle calls, for reasons given in my first discourse, the special obligation of woman. This loving, this penetrating, I had almost said irresistible influence, which God has placed in your hands, woe to you, if you know how to turn it to everything but its true use, the glory of God, and the salvation of your husband ! Are you happy in being united to a true disciple of Jesus Christ ? Hardly need I urge you, so sweet is the duty, to be to him a constant edification, never a snare. A faithful wife, sustaining the heart and strengthening the hands of a faithful husband for the conflicts of life, is a " helpmeet " in all her glory. But I will suppose your husband, if not a stranger to the faith, at least floating between it and the unbelief of the natu- ral heart — disturbed by the cares of business, carried away by the temptations of public life, and influenced by those of a skeptical and fault-finding spirit. To preserve him from so many snares, to gain him forever to the faith, he needs, perhaps, only to seo 54: ADOLPHE MONOD. it in action so near him, that he cannot overlook the reality of the facts, nor suspect the sincerity of the feeling. Do you not recognize this as your special vocation ? Who but you will fur- nish him with this " demonstration of the spirit and of power," practical, winning, incontestable, which alone can make day within his soul ? It is precisely for this kind of persuasion that you have been prepared by God, and no one else can supply your place. Woman has not a mission as man, to preach the Saviour, and to reveal Him : she does even more ; she gives birth to Him by virtue of the Holy Spirit. She gives Him, all living, all com- plete. Instead of declaring Him by thought and word, she communicates Him by act, by sentiment, and, if we may so speak, by inspiration. She is not to preach the Gospel to her husband, but to insinuate it into him in her actions and her slightest words, in the pure and limpid depths of her being, in all the course of domestic life, making it all pervading, without seeming to place it anywhere. If we rely upon you for this pre- cious influence, Christian woman, if we see in you the most effi- cient auxiliaries to our preaching, we only follow the example of St. Peter, whose thought I do but this moment develop. He recommends, as we have seen, " that wives be submissive to their own husbands," but why ? " that if any obey not the Word, they may also, without the Word, be won by the conversation of their wives, while they behold (literally, while they watch) your chaste conversation, coupled with fear." How is it possible to exalt higher the spiritual influence of the Christian woman ? She supplies the place of the Divine Word to her husband, when her conversation, watched by means of the conjugal intimacy, reveals to him the hidden power with which the Gospel operates in her heart. A man must be truly blind, truly hardened, not to yield at last to the daily spectacle of living and true piety which he beholds in his wife, one of which he gathers fruit so sweet that one is ready to ask, which has the most to gain from it, either he for the present life, or she for the life to come ? THE LIFE OF WOMAN. 55 However it may be, woman, be faithful, and await the fidelity of God. You envy the woman who hears her husband saying to himself, " a prudent wife is from the Lord." But what passes, think you, in the heart of that other woman, who some day invo- luntarily concealed, sees her husband fall upon his knees, exclaim- ing : " My God! I bless thee for having given me a faithful wife, who has led me to thyself I" Perhaps this testimony will be refused you upon earth ; but how many men render it at the tomb of a wife, whom henceforth they seek in a better world I How many men at the last day, when every veil is raised, will say to their Judge, in the most profound sense of the word : It is good for me that I was not alone I Would you see all that I have said, all that might be said upon this subject, sumned up in a few lines? Read the description of a virtuous woman, guiding her son in the choice of a wife. If the general tone, or some detached features of this picture, seem to you to contrast with the Christian woman as painted in the Gospel, forget not that it is taken from the Old Testament, in which the splendor of visible things serves as an emblem of invisible, spiritual beauty. " Who can find a vir- tuous woman ? for her price is far above rubies. The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil. She will do him good, and not evil, all the days of her life. She seeketh wool and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands. She is like the merchant's ships ; she bringeth her food from afar. She riseth, also, while it is yet night, and giveth meat to her household, and a portion to her maidens. She considereth a field, and buyeth it : with the fruit of her hands she planteth a vineyard. She girdeth her loins with strength, and strengtheneth her arms. She perceiveth that her merchandise is good : her candle goeth not out by night. She layeth her hands to the spindles, and her hands hold the distaff, She stretcheth out her hand to the poor ; yea, she reacheth forth her hand to the needy. She is not afraid of the snow for her household ; for all her household are clothed with scarlet 56 ADOLPIIE MONOJJ. She maketh herself coverings of tapestry ; her clothiii; is silk and purple. Her husband is known in the gates, where ne sit- teth among the elders of the land. She maketh fine linen, and selleth it, and delivereth girdles unto the merchant. Strength and honor are her clothing, and she shall rejoice in time to come. She openeth her mouth with wisdom, and in her tongue is the law of kindness. Her children rise up, and call her blessed ; her husband also, and he praiseth her. Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all. Favor is deceitful, and beauty vain ; but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised I" Behold a woman without humility, who, instead of being the glory of her husband, only seeks in her union with him the means of glorifying herself ; who loves to eclipse him, by whom she should desire to be eclipsed, and who finds less pleasure in his smile of approbation than in the flattery of strangers ; a woman without charity, who abandons to mercenary hands the first interests of her house, and of her children ; who even sets an example to her husband to seek his pleasures away from home ; who contradicts him with bitterness, and roughly magnifies her wrongs, supposed or real ; restless and slovenly at home, gra- cious and kind as soon as she crosses the threshold of her door ; a woman without piety, ready to say of her husband, as Cain of Abel, " Am I his keeper ?" or only using her influence to turn him from the Saviour, like the wife of Jehoram, whose fatal influence the Holy Spirit points out in a few words : " Jehoram walketh in the way of the kings of Israel, like as did the house of Ahab : for he had the daughter of Ahab to wife" — a woman, in short, who compels her husband to groan in secret over the day when he was blind enough to seek her hand, until he shall measure before the tribunal of God, the whole extent of the evil she has done him for eternity I 0, ye who recognize in this picture some features of your own image, what shall I say to you ? Change your course ! — become the woman acceptable to God — acceptable to the heart of man I THE LIFE OF WOMAN. 57 Change you may, for to this is needful neither youth, nor beauty, nor superior mind : it is only needful that you become a Christian woman I But since, at this day, woman enters not as Eve, at birth, into marriage, let us take her at that point of her development where she commences to prepare herself for her future work, and address ourselves to the young girl. Understand well, my young sister, what determines the character of your condition and its privileges. The race to be run is yet all before you ; and while those who have preceded you cannot look back with- out seeing much to deplore, to repair, to efface if it were possi- ble, let nothing prevent you from reserving for your mission as woman, under the blessing of God, all that you have of time, resources, life. Under the blessing of God, I have said ; for, without Him, what are our most sincere resolutions, and, above all, the resolutions of a young girl ? Nowhere is the spirit more willing, nowhere is the flesh more weak. The wind plays not more capriciously with the dust, than the tempter with the pro- jects of fidelity which you form for the future. Alas ! how many women at your age, formed theirs, whose actual life responds so little to your ideal — still less to theirs I Far be it from me, my dear daughter, to discourage your generous promises ; I would only that you carry them to the foot of the cross, and shelter your weakness under • the strength of the Omnipotent God. Then, I will deliver myself without fear, to the pleasure of con- templating in you the living type of hope ; of hope, this incom- parable grace of youth, exalted all the more in the young girl, by her greater influence, and by her hidden destiny. For, who ever thought of personifying hope, otherwise than under the traits of a young girl ? In this uncertain expectation, it is asked, if the young girl should prepare herself for the general mission of humanity, or for the special mission of the wife. Authors who have treated the subject of the education of girls, are divided upon this point. We say, relying upon Scripture, either answer is incomplete 3* 58 ADOLPHE MONOD. Yes, without doubt, tlic young daughter should be prepared for the general mission of humanity, which is to glorify God, who created us in His image ; but this preparation is not sufiBcient ; for, independently of the general mission which she shares with man, woman has yet a special mission, which is the subject of these discourses. Yes, the young girl must be prepared for the special mission of the wife, which is to be an " helpmeet " to one man in particular, since, according to the ordinary course of things, she will be married. But this preparation should not be exclusive ; for every woman is not called to marriage, and a special education in this sense is in danger of missing its aim. Here is the secret of reconciling all. Together with the general mission of humanity, and the special mission of the wife, there is for woman a third mission, special as to the first, general as to the second, pecuhar to woman, and common to all women — that which I have explained from the Scriptures, which Moses reveals in calling woman an " helpmeet " to man, and Paul, in calling her " the glory of man." I would prepare the young girl for this mission, without losing sight either of the supreme necessity of glorifying God, or the natural eventuality of marriage. She will then be prepared for both, by the intermediate preparation which we claim, if she is what she ought to be. Let young girls look carefully to the spirit of this preparation, and let their mothers look to it for them. Since a woman's highest excellence, next to the fear of God, is in the humble vir- tues of domestic life, the first care of a daughter, after that given to her soul, should be to cultivate these inward and hidden vir- tues. I hardly need say to her, abstain from all that has the appearance of evil ; carefully avoid pictures, plays, readings, which can bring the slightest stain upon the purity of your heart. But it will be less superfluous perhaps to say to her : Mistrust the maxims of an egotistical and sensual age, which, seeking in a young girl merely an agreeable plaything to divert the melancholy which devours it, decks her in haste with brilliant charms, instead of adorning her by slow degress with useful THE LIFE OF WOMAN. 59 graces. A vain brilliancy, a precocious development, knowledge badly directed, the memory burdened without regard to the in- tellect, gifts of imagination placed in the first rank ; this is the tinsel which the education of the day prefers for our daughters, to the pure gold of an instruction, solid, beneficent, precious in the sight of God and man. This tinsel, I firmly believe, my young sisters, is meant by the world for itself, whereas there should be pure gold for you and for your house. I do not exclude you from any serious study, because I would not deny you any legitimate mode of influence. Give yourself without scruple to the culture of the imagination, of literature, 01 art, which, in developing an essential and too much neglected side of the human mind, will be an aid to the beneficial influence you wish to exercise, by adding to your capacity to please. Only put everything in its right place, and arrange your subjects of study according to the demands of your mission. Above all, be yourselves, be women, and never sacrifice to the false tastes of man the distinctive occupations of your sex. Tell me not of a young girl, who can win the applauses of all, at a concert, but who knows not how to hold a needle, or to make herself useful at home I Lastly, I may include all my exhortations in one : let the heart be well governed, and let it control the life. By the Word of God and prayer, nourish within you this humility, this charity, which are the peculiar graces of woman, and the first conditions of her mission. The world itself could teach you, in default of the gospel and your own conscience, that if humility and charity were banished from the earth, they ought to find a last refuge in the heart of a young girl. As for me, if I love to sec woman beneath the cross, with Bible in hand, a young girl, above all, I love to contemplate in this attitude, pi;^- paring herself for a future career known only to God, bull which can be faithfully accomplished, whatever it j^aj be,, only beneath the cross, with Bible in hand. One word more, for you an(i yo,ur fejoilies, but a word without development, upon a matto? as grave as it is delicate. Let it bff 60 ADOLPHE MONOD. understood, that deciding resolutely to marry only in the Lord, you will give your hand to none but a moral, religious man, capable of entering with you into the Christian idea of marriage. By this entirely passive resolution, not only ill-assorted unions might be prevented, but also a happy reaction would be ex- erted upon the manners and principles of society, and men would find in modest girls the most efficient " helpmeets," to say nothing of the most powerful reformers. Yet you need not await this most uncertain event, to be a '' helpmeet " unto man. You can be such now, believing that the accomplishment of yorr present task is the best guaranty for that of the future. Your actual position demands, it is true, a peculiar reserve. With one, it is the humble equality of the wife, with another, the respectful inferiority of the daughter who has hardly passed the period of childhood : but this reserve permits, it even encourages, a kind of useful activity proper to your age. True humility prompts true charity ; and the flowers which hide beneath the grass their delicate colors, are those which emit the most fragrant perfume. How many ways there are for you to do good, without going beyond the domestic cir- cle I You have a school, a parish ready for you, in the young children of the family, whose education already you share with their mother. Contrary to the common law of prophets, you are called to exercise your humble ministry " in your own country, and your own house." Do you realize all you can be to this young brother, over whom your advantage of some years gives you a kind of influence of your own, whose confidence in you is all the more free, because unrestrained by deference ? Like that loving sister, who watches beside the floating cradle confided to the Nile, when prudence permits not a mother to reveal herself ; who, on account of her youth is employed without exciting sus- picion, to give to Moses a faithful mother for nurse at the moment when God gives him an unfaithful princess for a mother, and who then disappears from the scene, content with having helped a brother forward into the world, whose name, one day, must THE LIFE OF AVOMAN. Gl eclipse her own — has God placed you beside your brother, to give him such help as he can find nowhere else, and which he would be least suspected of receiving. Beside him, yesterday, you taught him to read, or to-day, you inspire him with un- quenchable ardor in his fatiguing studies ; and to-morrow, you counsel him in his choice of a profession, or in that of a wife. But those for whom you can do most, are those to whom, next to God, you owe all. Who can supply to the father and mother that daughter's place, who, timid and silent with strangers, is at home full of that sweetness and lire, which, at this age, are the marvellous combinations of nature ? Who, will supply to them her light and caressing hands, her prompt and subtle spirit, her tender and submissive affection, her firm and simple piety, to lighten the burden of years, to soothe their pains, to dissipate their anxieties, to anticipate their wishes, to gladden their hearts, to comfort their souls, as if she longed to give back to them the life she received from them ? This young daugh- ter that you see hiding herself behind her mother, blushing at the attention she attracts in spite of herself, do you not know, that she is more than the ornament of the house ? She is its joy, its life, its pillar, or if you prefer a term borrowed from Scripture, she is its corner stone ; " that our daughters may be as corner- stones, polished after the similitude of a palace." Coming from the Scripture, so exact even in its boldest poetry, you under- stand what is meant by this corner stone. Alas I you will know soTne day, perhaps, the profound truth of this image, as you see the void made in the house by the removal of this loved child I You will understand, then, what were her love, her devotion, her piety to those who shall surround her, and shed tears over her loss. But no, you will not realize it ; her family alone will understand it — let us retire — sympathy itself may be intrusive — let us not intermeddle with the secret of their grief, we, who have never penetrated into that of their joy I This is not all. There are good works for which I permit the young daughter to leave the domestic sanctuary, and, if need be, 62 ADOLPHE MONOD. to lay aside the reserve even, which her age prescribes to her. Would you instruct the ignorant, relieve the poor, exhort the sick, visit the widow and the fatherless ? Go, my daughter ; go, without hesitation, and may the Lord go with you ! I love to see the young girl, who is ever ready to assist her mother in the labors of housekeeping, to ofiTer her arm to her aged father, or to read the Bible with her brothers and sisters, turn from this charity within to charity without, and bestow upon the unhappy, attentions which they receive with double gratitude, surprised to see her reserve for such uses, graces which so many others think themselves permitted to devote to the world and its pleas- ures. Permitted 1 it may be, if we wish it ; but, permitted or not, a life of pleasure seems to you, without doubt, less desirable, less conformed to the mission of woman, than that which I have proposed to you. Or, indeed, do you recognize rather the " helpmeet " in that other young girl, who prefers the shameful horrors of a daughter of Herodias, to the modest glory of a Rebecca ; who loves better to be the idol of saloons than the treasure of the family, who finds more delight in loading herself, at great expense, with rare ornaments, than to be herself as God made her, the ornament of her home ; who consumes herself in fruitless efforts to attract the notice of men, and to outstrip her companions, I might say her rivals (accuse me not of exagger- ation) ; who abandons herself to vanities, and casts into the void this plenteous sap of life which has been given her for a day, and which to-morrow she will seek, and no longer find. Poor child, willing to bury herself all alive in the cold joys of the present life I Sad victim, day after day, night after night, sacrificed to the folly of the world, by the vanity of her own heart I Some morning, at break of day, two young ladies sud- denly meet in the silent street. One hastens from the ball ta her bed, that she may snatch some tardy repose after her pleas- ures ; the other, to the death-bed of one who calls for her m all liaste, unable to depart in peace, he says, withoij.t the ^r^seace of his good angel ! Young ladies, choose I THE LIFE OF WOMAN. 63 We have contemplated woman before marriage, let us contem- plate her now after marriage, intrusted with that precious fruit which Scripture calls " a heritage from the Lord :" let us turn to the wife now become a mother. Towards this son, whom God has given you, Christian mother, you occupy a position not of inferiority, as the daughter, nor of equality as the wife ; but of superiority, and that, too, a superiority which does not exclude the renunciation peculiar to the mission of woman. It is not good that the child should be alone, and God, who has given him to you, has given to him, at the same time, in you, a " helpmeet." Even the tender cares which his physical develop- ment claims, are dear to your heart. Anxious, by nourishing him from your own life, to prolong the pride of communicating to him being, you will not, without a necessity thrice demonstrated, deprive him of the treasures with which nature has enriched you, through him, and for him, nor deprive yourself of the holy plea- sure of being an undisputed mother. Yet, a graver interest pre- occupies me at this time ; the aid which you owe before all others to this little one, is education, the birth-giving of the soul, which follows by right that of the body, and which no one should dispute with you. That ineffable joy with which you welcome your son, what is it but the natural joy of Eve, who called her first-born Cain, that is to say, " acquisition," because " she had gotten a man from the Lord ?" Or, indeed, is it the more noble joy signified by Christ, in these words, whose striking truth so often has made you start : " A woman, when she is in travail, hath sorrow, because her hour is come ; but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world." Maternity is a ministry, and the first condition of a faithful ministry is disinterestedness. Say not, here is my son, born to me, born of me, ani for me ; but say, here is a man born into the world, for the good of the world. " What manner of child shall this be ?" demand earth, heaven, and hell, bending, as if suspended, in boundless expectation over 64: ADOLFIIE MONOD. the cradle of this frail creature, whose life has just disengaged itself from yours I The response — I say it not forgetting the divine operation, which is exerted through human instrumen- tality — the response depends, before everything else, upon the training ; and the training depends, before everything else, upon the mother. It has been often remarked, that the decisive moment in educa- tion is the point of departure. In the earliest years is implanted that strong bias which gives shape to the entire life. But the first years belong to the mother. Paganism took them from her ; but Jesus Christ restored them to her. Grudge her not these beginnings. If they are too important for strangers, they are also too delicate and too exacting for a father. Aptness, freedom of mind, time, patience, are wanting to us. But all this, God has given to the mother. No one else so clearly dis- cerns the nature of her son, the strength and weakness of his character, the allowance to be made for his temperament, the degree of severity and indulgence suited to his disposition, and the precautions needed to make him plastic without spoiling him. No other one possesses so truly the art of awakening his curi- osity, of stimulating his ardor, of gaining his attention, of keeping his eyes open, and of initiating him by degrees in the practical knowledge of things, which, more living than that of books, has also a larger part in the development of the life. No other has a hand gentle, and at the same time strong enough, to give to the rising plant its early bias — a hand at once too strong to be resisted, and too tender to awaken a wish to resist it — and which controls all his future growth. The greatest moral power in the world is that exercised by a mother over her child. Demand not from her a systematic account of it. She acts from inspiration, more than from calcu- lation, and perhaps never says to herself what I say to you. God is with her in her work, and here is the secret. She appears to you perhaps, to guess at it ; but let her alone. She under- stands it better than you, and will accomplish more by guessing, THE LIFE OF WOMAN. 65 than you by your reasonings and calculations. Rely upon God, and the maternal instinct. " As a general rule, to which at least I have hardly seen exceptions," says a contemporaneous writer, " superior men, are all the children of their mother." * Contem- plate that man, strong in heart, with intrepid voice, whose indomitable courage in turn braves the wrath of a prince and controls the popular wave, and whose determined will, equally invincible by obstacles and fatigue, seems anxious to justify the proud maxim : " Man can do what he will." You give, perhaps, the honor of his energy to nature. But learn that there appeared in his childhood a spirit so irresolute, a character so vacillating, that every one said : "He will never be a man." A woman has made him a man ! and this woman is the same who brought him into the world. She alone has never despaired concerning him. Sustained by love, guided by instinct, she has discovered beneath his weakness, hidden virtues, which she labored tenderly, humbly, slowly to develop. She has formed him to perseverance, by combats wisely graduated, in which her faithful sympathy has wished to share in everything, but the honor of victory. She has revealed him to himself, she has restored him to society. Then, when this son, upon his death-bed, recalls the good permitted him to accomplish for his people and generation, to his mother, next to God, he gives the glory ; and the last name upon his lips, in his delirium, is the same, which he attempted to pronounce fifty years before, in the lispings of his infantile days 1 I may be permitted to add, without overlooking the value of our instruction, that maternal education is rendered doubly necessary by the tendency of our public instruction. We often hear the complaint that with precious resources, which it places at the disposal of all classes, it presents, to say the least, griev- ous deficiencies, it may be for the heart, about which it concerns itself too little, it may be also for the mind, with which it shows itself too exclusively occupied. It not only nourishes self love • Mlchelet. 66 ADOLPHE MONOD. by an immoderate use of the principle of emulation, and does nothing to inculcate a holy respect for duty, but that which it does with so much skill, labor and sacrifice for the culture of the mind itself, is at least incomplete. The faculties which depend upon memory are sharpened by perpetual exercise, whilst those that depend upon reflection, even more important than the first, remain comparatively without employment. By too entirely occupying every moment of the pupil, by absorbing too much his ardor in a laborious preparation, we take from his mind the leisure, the elasticity, the activity, requisite to assimilate to itself what it receives. We accustom him to content himself with borrowed knowledge, into which his personality does not enter. Then the development of thought and character ceases, or a wrong direction is given to it. The flower of originality, as charming as vigorous, which nature refuses to no one, falls before yielding its fruit. We might say that a low equality has come upon all minds, and the man disappears in the child, because the child disappears in the scholar. For an evil so grave, I know no remedy but the counterpoise of family life, and domestic education, which alone can penetrate into the windings of the individual mind, and give it its proper direction. But I depend on the mother to save this family life, so threatened to-day by common life ; and this domestic education, I rely upon her to undertake. Urge her not to send away her child : let him remain a long while with her. When the time arrives for him to enter into contact with public life, she may be allowed still to interpose to maintain the rights of the heart, of the person, of the mind ; that is to say, of the man. Are you jealous of the too feminine influence she exercises ? Know that this influence, formidable if alone, is an indispensable complement of ours. Man has not all that is necessary to form the mind of man, because this mind has a feminine element. I so name this tender, penetrating, instinctive faculty, which seizes, or shall I say divines the truth, in opposition to that calm reason which gives an account of things, and to that strong will which gives an account THE LIFE OF WOMAN. 67 of itself. In this sense it can be said with truth, " no man of genius was ever exempt from a feminine development." Hesitate not : place public instruction under the safeguard of the family, but the family presided over by the mother : it is the surest means of securing advantages to your son, as well as of saving him from perils. Let us never forget in education, as in life, that " one thing is needful;" this one thing needful, is the result of the mother's suc- cess. Too often, alas I in the holy work of guiding her son to the Saviour, she has no one with her ; happy indeed, if all the world is not against lier. But if alone, let her take cour- age ; it is here above all that God is with her, and He is sufid- cient for her. Are we speaking of a young child ? This son beloved, but loved in the Lord, with whom she humbles herself each day at the feet of the Saviour, whom she teaches him to seek in his earliest thoughts, and name in his earliest words — she holds in a measure his soul in her hands. Alone in the world, she knows the ways by which to go in depositing the fruitful germs of salutary truth, instilled with so much lovo, im- planted so profoundly, linked so strongly to the natural instincts (here learn the empire of her own image I) that neither storms without, nor storms within, shall be able to uproot them. Be- lieve me, nothing is more irresistible to man, nor at once more indestructible in man, than these early impressions left by a pious mother, and shielded by the vague and simple charm of youthful remembrances. A son will twice doubt the mind of his father before he doubts once the heart of his mother. Or, are we speaking of the age, when, no longer a child, and not yet a man, a son escapes insensibly from the watchful care of his mother, inspiring her with new solicitude ? By a faithful use of her past influence, she has gained the confidence of this son, and this confidence to-day is an assurance for the future. In those tender disclosures which she has made a habit with him, and a need to him, she reads his heart to its depths ; and a heart to whose depths we read, is almost always one of which we are master 68 ADOLPHE MONOD. Passion speaks, perhaps ; he is about to yield : but he must tell his mother — impossible ; or he must conceal it from her — more impossible still ; and the temptation is overcome. At length the time arrives for the last embrace, prelude of a separation, perhaps, eternal . , . Christian mother, what dost thou fear ? Prepared dur- ing so many years upon the humble stocks of the family, launch, since, God wills it, launch thy vessel upon the uncertain sea I Let thy weeping eye follow it, even to the most distant limits of the horizon, and then, when thou shalt see it tossing upon the farthest wave, ready to disappear — disappearing — disappeared — offer thy prayer, committing thy treasure to Him who holds the winds and the waves in His hands, and who loves — more than thou lovest I Thou hast been faithful from the beginning ; He will be faithful unto the end. Go on ; He will not forget the promise, which seems to have been given expressly for thee. ''Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it." Happy foresight, justifying a still happier experience. If it is true, that the greater part of distinguished men are the sons of their mothers, it is, above all, true of religious men. Scripture history, the history of the church, and contemporaneous history, agree in attesting it : we say rather in leaving it to be discovered ; for it is necessary to seek for the mother to discover her, behind this son whose namo eclipses her own in the memory of man. But this is all a Christian mothers asks. If she has saved her son, she has accomplished her mission as a woman ; and if she has saved him without revealing herself, she has doubly accomplished it. Listen to the Bible. What is the object of the short pre- face placed at the head of the life of Samuel, if it is not to ex- plain this holy man of God, this giant in prayer, this first link in the chain of prophets, this great reformer of the state and of re- ligion, by the faith, the vow, the fidelity, and the songs of Anna, his mother ? How this recital atones for the brevity with which the Bible elsewhere explains in a similar manner, a Moses, a Pavid, a Timothy I and how it gives us the key to the apparent THE LIFE OF WOMAN. 69 minuteness with which it names, in passing, the mothers of the kings of Judah 1 Open the annals of the church. Who hears the name of Augustine, that living light, twice almost extin- guished, but delivered in turn from lust and heresy, to glorify God before the most distant posterity, without recognizing with him in this double deliverance, next to God, the hand of the lov- ing, humble, patient Monica ? But learn that Chrysostom, Basil the Great, Gregory of Nazianyen, and many others who have followed in their steps, each had their Monica, of whom we forget to inform ourselves, ungrateful as we are, even while tasting with delight the fruit of that which she sowed. But we need not extend our glance so far : look around you. Study the ways of God, and you will find that the greater part of the servants of Jesus Christ, in whom our generation glories, are indebted to a mother for the first gleams of their piety. Not long since, in a pastoral conference, where were assembled one hundred and twenty American pastors, united in a common faith, each one was invited to relate the human cause to which he attributed, under the divine blessing, the change of his heart. Do you know many gave the honor to their mother ? Out of one hundred and twenty, more than one hundred ! At another time, a mother equally faithful, seems not to have succeeded as well ; her son has wandered far from the path which she traced out for him, A mother, after all, mother though she be, is not God. But the greater the wandering of this prodigal son, the more we admire the maternal power to which he closes his ear, without being able to free his con- science, and which may (what do we know ?) triumph at last over his resistance, long after the voice and prayers of his mother have become silent in death. Disregard the piety of a mother — that is possible, but forget it — never, no, never I A good man was hastening towards a church where religious service for sailors was being held. Opposite the church, at the door of an inn, he saw seated an aged sailor, with a rude and decided air, who, with folded arms, and a cigar in his mouth, looked with 70 ADOLPHE MONOD. indifference, or else with disdain, upon those of his comrades who repaired to public worship. " My friend," said the stranger, ' approaching him, "come with us into the church." **No," answered the sailor roughly. His manner would have given this response to the stranger, who added, with mildness, "you appear to have seen hard times. Have you still a mother?'^ The sailor, raising his head, fixed his eyes upon the stranger, and remained silent. " Ah ! well, my friend I if your good mother was here, what counsel, think you, would she give ?" Wiping away, with the back of his hand, a tear which he vainly attempted to hide, the old man arose, and, with a choking voice, said, " I will go." Mothers, mothers, understand your power I Feel your re- sponsibility ! Happy the child who has a good mother I Hap- py your son, if he has a good mother 1 But, understand me ; I waste not this name upon every one, who simply loves her child. A loving mother is one thing, and there are such even among the heathen ; a good mother, accord- ing to God, is quite another thing. In our day, alas I the history of some men's relations with their mother is soon told. All this intellectual, moral, spiritual development is to them unknown. From her bosom, the poor child, (if it is not under the roof of a salaried mother) drops into mercenary hands, with- in the paternal mansion, until its age permits it to go forth from home to college, from college to the higher institutions, from the higher institutions to the army ; and, returning from the army, if he returns at all, what will this mother, to whom he was almost always a stranger, be to him now, lut a stranger? — stranger to his future course — stranger to his marriage — stranger to the education of his children. Oh, mother, who still hast a son to rear, awake I And thou, mother, who hast thu^ reared one, repent I Yes, repent, but despair not. The word despair is not Chris- tian. The eleventh-hour laborer may not only be admitted, he may even be favored. You can become a "helpmeet" to your THE LIFE OF WOMAN. 71 son, and educing, by the grace of God, good from evil, experience the truth which contains in it the germ, the whole Gospel, ''When I am weak, then am I strong." One work completed, another commences. Too late for that of education, another remains to you, for which it is never too late, since weight of years imposes it upon you. You reign no longer by authority over children, who have become men ; but you can exercise over them, a dominion of love and respect, which their maturity will honor. Last link between past and future generations, frail and precious vestige of that which has been, and which will be no more, vigilant depository of the family traditions — you form a venerable centre, around which group themselves, with silent anxiety, many families whom your departure will soon disperse. In your presence, the depths of their hearts are stirred by many thoughts, many interests, many passions perhaps ; but all is restrained by the common feeling which you inspire, and each vies with the other in efforts and S9:>rifices to maintain the peace of your last days. Your experience, your white hairs, your past services, your present infirmities, a vague fear of not finding* you in your place to-morrow, gain for you every heart. Noble aii*' useful position which God has prepared for you I Words o^ power, received as the experience of life, as the warnings Ot death, almost as the inspirations of heaven I Happy the mother, who faithfully completes a career faithfully begun I But happy the mother, also, who longs with a holy jealousy, to finish well that which she began badly ; who knows how to turn to the good of her children her own unfaithfulness. " The aged women likewise, that they be in behavior as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things, that they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, keepers at home ; good, that the Word of God be not blasphemed/' The secret of this beneficent influence, is in the inward life. " The widow who liveth in pleasure, is dead while she liveth ; but she that is a widow, indeed, and desolate, trusteth in 72 ADOLPIIE MON-QD. God, and continueth in supplications and prayers night and day." If I mistake not, my dear sisters, before this picture which I have drawn of the Christian wife and mother, the heart of one woman sinks within her, and a silent tear moistens her eye. This woman, perhaps from circumstances, perhaps from choice, perhaps from a generous sacrifice, or from religious fidelity, has become neither wife nor mother. Understand it well ; it is but a holy jealousy that troubles her this moment. Exclusively pre- occupied with the sublime mission of her sex, she would accept without difficulty, all of the incompleteness, according to opinion, according to the heart, and to the law of Providence, which her position offers. But having no one to whom to devote herself, she is compelled to restrain within her own bosom the thirst for sacrifice which consumes her, without profiting any one ; to this she cannot consent. My sister, my noble sister, shall the deli- cacy of my subject close my lips ? It signifies not that it is delicate, provided I accomplish my mission of the ministry of Jesus Christ, in aiding you to accomplish yours as a woman. You are, I love to tell you, in a complete illusion. Your position, viewed in the light of God, and the interest of your mission, is a privileged one, if you can so regard it. Believe the Apostle, writing to the Corinthians : " There is difi'ereuce, also, between a wife and a virgin. The unmarried woman cared for the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit ; but she that is married careth for the things of the world how she may please her husband. And this I speak for your own profit ; not that I may cast a snare upon you, but for that which is comely, and that ye may attend upon the Lord with- out distraction. But if any man think that he behaveth himself uncomely towards his virgin, if she pass the flower of her age, and need so require, let him do what he will, he sinneth not ; let them marry. Nevertheless, he that standeth steadfast in his heart, having no necessity, but hath power over his own will, and hath so decreed in his heart that he will keep his virgjin : THE LIFE OV WOMAN. 73 doeth well. So then, lie that giveth her in marriage doeth well, but he that giveth her not in marriage, doeth better." Strange words, it must be confessed, and which it has been easy to misconstrue to the profit of erroneous views of celibacy, estab- lished at a favorite time in the church. Without doubt, the language of Paul must be explained by the particular circum- stances of the time in which he wrote ; but we may boldly declare that he would never have expressed himself in this manner, if he had considered your position as of inferior import- ance to that of the wife, in the service of the Lord, and in the, accomplishment of your mission. He chose himself an analogous oosition, not only to prove to the churches his disinterestedness, ind to relieve them of the burden of his support, but to give himself " unto the Word and prayer," with greater freedom ; freedom of time, of action, of mind, and, in short, of heart. These reasons are worth as much to you as to the apostles, and the last has a special value for woman : it is this, above all, which I desire to make you understand. There is in the heart of woman, a power of loving, to which man cannot attain. In the natural position, which is conjugal life, this power expands and satisfies itself in the family, upon a husband and children. In single life, it finds light by another road, and throws itself into one or the other of these two ways. In the first place, it turns within, and concentrates itself in selfishness ; from whence springs an egot- ism without measure or scruple. Probably in this class of single women we find the most humiliating examples of self-love, of curiosity, of idleness, of avarice, of worldliness, and altogether of petty existence, miserably consumed in trifling pleasures. Or, in the other case, it turns without, diffusing itself in love to God, and to our neighbor, and impels woman to devote herself to the good of humanity, as a wife or mother lives for her family. Then, by an apparent contradiction, charity gains at the same time in breadth and depth ; in breadth, because it ex- tends beyond the domestic circle, in depth because it assumes the ardor of a necessity, and the enthusiasm of personal feeling, 4 74 ADOLPHE MONOD. saying nothing of a tinge of sweet melancholy, which well be- comes it, and which also, in its way, stimulates it. In this way holy and Christian women are found ; or, as I might say, the daughters of holiness and charity, among whom we must seek (or the most accomplished models of Christian benevolence ; who, weary of earth, impatient of heaven, by the simplicity of their zeal, by the purity of their renunciation, by the abundance of their good works, seem perpetually occupied in filling an immense void which God has made in their hearts for the good of humanity. Their ranks are open to you ; enter them, follow- ing in the footsteps of the many women who have chosen this position in order to be more useful to the world. Enter them, and give yourself no repose until you have learnt to see in your isolation a merciful privilege. God has prepared before you, according to the Apostle, a path of good works : to walk in it you only need a heart truly consecrated, not with that selfish devotion which seeks self even in sacrifice, but with that disinterested devotion, which sacrifices, if necessary, even itself. " Open thine eyes, and thou shalt be satisfied with bread." Look first around you, and see if your family relations do not offer you the opportunities you desire. We find sometimes very near us, the thing which we seek at the ends of the earth. In default of a father and mother who have left you, you have perhaps a young brother at the outset of life, to whom you can be a friend and mother ; or a sister, it may be, ready to sink under the envied burden of a family, if she finds not in you that complement of strength, of time, of health, of light, which God has so plainly given her in you. Your heart demands a family. Well now, here is one. It is not yours ; I know it is not all that you desire ; but it is that which God has chosen for you, my sister, providing, at the same time, for the good of others, by your charitable labors, and for your own by your self-renunciation. No, when I demand of the whole earth, a type of the charity, most useful, most pure, most Chris- tian, I fi*d nowhere those conditions better fulfilled than in the THE LIFE OF WOMAN. 75 good aunt, wlio, with a marvellous forge tfulness of herself, ac- cepts the fatigues and the cares of maternity, without its ineff- able compensations : mother, more than mother perhaps, when it is a question of serving and supporting ; putting herself out of sight, when it is one of reaping and enjoying ; sad, but with a heavenly sadness which translates itself into love and devotion. What if an engagement of family binds you ; extend your view ; seek a family in all who need you, in relieving the unfortu- nate, in founding or sustaining charitable institutions, in aiding a faithful minister in his labors, in all the good works for which God seems expressly to have reserved your liberty. Or, embrace if you can, a still wider field : embrace the world, if you will provided it is in love. Renew in your person, the holy office of deaconness ; prepare yourself for it, if necessary, in these schools which a vigilant and ingenious charity opens to-day to pious females ; go, another Phebe, carry your services now to Rome, now to Cenchrea, sometimes in a hospital, sometimes in a family, sometimes in a church, wherever they shall be claimed, even if it be in behalf of some heathen nation, shut up under other skies. In fine, fulfill so well your mission, that at the hour of death, each of you will congratulate herself upon the happy isolation which permitted so much devotion ; so fulfill it, that in the affectionate regrets which follow to the tomb your mortal re- mains, none shall discover whether you were wife, or mother, sister or aunt, parent or stranger, because they see it not in your sacrifices I If, instead of taking the difference of natural positions as the central point of my development, I had taken that of social positions, I could equally have shown you woman, finding by turn in a condition of equality, of superiority, or of inferiority, special resources for accomplishing the mission of her sex. The subject must be left to your personal reflections. Yet there is a class of women, that I cannot permit to leave this place, without some words of encouragement, because I believe they need them, and have a right to them. 76 ADOLPIIE MO^'OD. Christian woman, whom God has placed in the humble rank of servants, the levelling spirit of this age, which disturbs all inferior conditions, has not, I hope, so carried you away that you cannot accept the trials of yours ; — I say more, that you cannot appreciate its compensations and advantages. But per- haps you say to yourself : this beautiful mission of woman is for all the world except me 1 What can a poor servant do, who lives by dependence upon others ? Listen to my answer. You can accomplish the mission of your sex — I say not in spite of this dependence, — but even by its help. Many women have forced things to create for themselves a way of obedience, thus de- ceiving themselves in substituting their wisdom for that of God, But their error resulted from a profound instinct of woman, to which, in you, God has taken care to give satisfaction in choos- ing for you the lowest place. This is the place, which our Saviour prepared ; " Who took upon Him the form of a ser- vant," and "Who came" — I love to repeat it — "to minister, and not to be ministered unto." Was it an obstacle to his work ? Was it not its support, its condition, its life ? It will be all that for you, believe it well, if you enter into the Spirit of your Master. Hardly could I name one who contributes more to the order, the prosperity, the happiness of a house, than the truly Chris- tian servant ; above all to day, when the treasure is so rare, alas ! and so imperfectly appreciated when found. This holy woman, " obedient to her master with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart as unto Christ ; not with eye-service as men pleasers, but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart ;" anxious to please them, unwilling to oppose their wishes, espousing their interests, and faithful even in trifles ; at home accommodating herself to their infirmities, and concealing them when abroad — good and noble woman — with the veil of her charity ; elevating, in fine, her condition tc the height of her sentiments — free by faith, a servant by love— what a gift of God for a family I Appreciate this blessing-, THE LIFE OF WOMA^. 77 you who have received it, without waiting for God i^ reveal ith' vahie to you, by removing her from you and uUir^g her plac« with one of those servants, so numerous, full of the vorld, am of themselves ; ill at ease, and, as in a prison, when at hoir^- -ii constant conspiracy with those without, like a traitor in 6 besieged place, scarcely restrained by a vigilance more fatiguing to exercise than to submit to ; as careful of her person in public as she is negligent of it in private ; spreading through the town domestic secrets ; curious, gossiping, crabbed, and, in fine, car- ing but for her own interests, and awaiting only an offer of the slightest advantage to break a yoke which is painful to bear. Thus we see her in the present life — but in another ? Ah ! beware of thinking the spiritual mission of woman is denied you. In the humble sphere assigned you, you can do more than many others for the service of the Gospel, provided you are willing to serve it as a woman, gently, silently, endeavoring before all else, " to adorn the doctrine of God your Saviour " in all things, by a conversation without reproach. Besides, influence ascends more than it descends : many a one resists that of his superiors, against which he is on his guard, and yields to that of his subordinates, of which he is all the while unconscious. Hence the power of the enfranchised in Rome. Hence, in Proverbs, the influence of the wise servant who ruleth over a* sou that causeth shame, and who shall have his part of the inheritance among his brethren. Spiritual influence follows the one law of all influences, which gain in power as they are most con- cealed : being that which is most humbling to the natural pride. Go on, your spiritual opportunity is great, and in proportion to it, your responsibility. I tell you that there is a retreat into which you alone can penetrate ; there is a conversion which God has reserved for you, and which no one can accomplish better than you ; there is a proud heart which yields neither to a mother, wife, nor daughter, but which will be constraincxJ to lay down its arms before the obscure fidelity of a servant ; ha last" here being "first." 78 ADOLPIIE MONOD. When Peter, escaping from prison, knocked at the door of the house where the disciples were assembled, Rhoda, the servant, was permitted to run before him, and announce the news of his deliverance. It is a beautiful privilege to open tht; door to an apostle ; and still more beautiful to open it, when the Lord knocks ; He enters willingly by these private doors, which you only can unclose to Him. But the children, above all, the children, this hope of the future, do you consider the influence which God has given you over their minds ? How often has it been remarked that children, instead of following the example of their parents, more readily form their accents, their language, their habits, from servants ; it may be, because of more frequent intercourse, or less apparent efforts, and which least provoke resistance. The heart of man is thus made. This power, it only remains that you use for the interests of the Gospel. You dispute with the faithful mother the spiritual development of this child which you carry in your arms, or which you lead to walk : over the ordinary mother you have an advantage 1 With works such as these to do, are you jealous of still greater works reserved for others ? Then, finally, the greatness comes from God : and it depends upon Him to change the little things which you have accomplished into great ones, even in the eyes of the world. When it became necessary to put the powerful and vain-glorious Naaman in communication with the prophet, who would at the same time both heal him of his leprosy, and reveal to him the true and living God, a little Israelitish maiden is employed, whom the soldiers of the Syrian captain had taken prisoner, and whom he had given to his wife for a slave. Poor child I she hardly imagined when skc strug- gled in the arms of her savage conquerors, that she would yet be a great blessing to the Syrian, and that the time would come when she would be cited as an oracle in the court of the king : " Thus and thus said the maid that is of the land of Israel." Was not this circumstance narrated for your encouragement? THE LIFE OF WOMAJN-. 79 Do you remember how Illyricum received the Gospel in the €rst age of the church ? By a Christian woman, who was there^sold as a slave. I say all this not to excite your vanity, or to be a snare to you, but to awaken in you a holy jealousy, to lead you to appreciate the position in which God has placed you. Yes, my dear sisters, conform yourselves to His views ; not a word of complaint or regret ; no ambitious dreams of change, but a fidelity full of joy, to your peculiar mission, and a heart which envies one nothing but a more active charity and a more pro- found humility I Woman, in fine, whoever thou art, and wherever thou art, take to thy heart this word, " I will make for him an helpmeet," and determine, without more delay, to justify the definition which God has given of thee. Useless woman, who groanest under the thought that thou hast, even to this day, burdened the earth, as a tree without fruit ; that thou mightest be taken away from it, without leav- ing any greater void than is made in the water by the sword which we plunge into it and quickly withdraw from it ; thou, who hast hitherto lived without knowing from whence thou earnest, or whither thou goest, here is discovered the vague object after which thou longest without knowing it. Here is a work for thee, to which, living, thou mayest consecrate thyself, and dying, will be able to say, " I have finished the work which Thou gavest me to do." Enter to-day, even, according to thy posi- tion — whose apparent difficulties are real resources — upon this life, at once so humble and so glorious, so full of meaning, and so devoted, for which God destined thee in the day when he said, " I will make an helpmeet for him," and which Clirist restored to thee when He gave Himself for us, "that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works." Worldly woman, who hast consumed thy most beautiful years in cares, innocent, I grant, but frivolous and unworthy of thee, infatuating and infatuated, using for the interests of thy pride, 80 ADOLPIIE MONOD. a power whicli God has confided to thee for his glory and the good of his people, here, in place of this brilliant existence, but brilliant as a meteor, resounding, but resounding as an empty vessel, here is a life glorious and fall, in which, in a word, thou wilt find, in finding thyself, the satisfaction which thou hast vainly (is it not true ?) demanded of the world. Take off thine heart from vanity, and give it to charity ! Believe me, leave this artificial life, which supplants and abridges the real ; reserve for thy home the labors of the day and the repose of the night ; count as lost the day in which thou hast not done some good ; enjoy, in short, the happiness of being a woman — and thou wilt know that if made to be to man a '* helpmeet," it is better to be useful to him, than to be flattered by him ; to serve him, than to fascinate him I Isolated woman, from whom God, who renders not an account of his doings, has taken away with the husband of thy youth, the attraction, the aim, the life of thy life — and thou, also, widow of a living man, forsaken wife, whom the husband of thy youth, after a short joy given and received, has overwhelmed with grief by his coldness, if not by his unfaithfulness ; tender plant, torn from the earth, that it may be transplanted into a better soil, but which has been cast upon the road-side, abandoned to the scorching fire of the sun ; thou, whom the Lord has chosen as a type of the most ineffable griefs, take courage — thy consola- tion is found I If the sweetness of being loved has been taken from thee, allow not thyself to be despoiled of the privilege of loving, of loving first, loving last, loving always, of loving not- withstanding all. Follow in the steps of Jesus, who was de- pised as thou art, but was never cold and unjust as one is with thee. Be still unto him who has wronged thee, a " helpmeet." Drink without a murmur the cup which his cruel hand offers thee each day ; oppose his ingratitude only with an increased submis- sion and devotion. Be silent, humble thyself. Go on ; this heart which thou seekest will be restored to thee, conquered by thy love I But should it persist even to the last in its injustice, THE LIFE OF WOMAN. 81 shonld it — horrible thouglit I — finish its murderous work by raising some day against thee a threatening hand, yield, still blessing him — accomplish even to the end thy mission as a woman, rely upon God whom thou lovest, and who loves thee in order to make thee a partaker of His glory through his cross I And thou, whom I hesitate to name, fallen woman, charity will not permit me to leave thee without a response — without a response, for I hear thy heart interrogating me. Fallen woman, — " let no one trouble this woman I'^ a sinner who repents is a spectacle, if not worthy of you, yet worthy of angds ! As for me, if I could despise her tears and disdain her repentance, I could not believe myself a disciple of Him who said to the peni- tent sinner ; " Thy faith hath saved thee — go in peace I" My sister, my poor sister, yes, this is also for thee I Believe not thy- self alone excluded from this appeal, and beware of despairing of thyself. Thy heart burns within thee to accomplish this mis- sion of woman, to become to man what God made thee, a " helpmeet." Thou canst — ^yes, thou canst ; none can better than thou, if none feels a deeper thirst for grace I Knowest thou that many of the holy women who shine in the first ranks among the benefactresses of humanity upon the earth, and among the re- deemed of the Lord in heaven — a Rahab, a Mary Magdalene, a penitent sinner, commenced as thou hast ? Well, then, finish as they did I Humblest among the humble, the most charitable of the charitable, remember the past, only for the good of the future. Permit none to recall the past, except to admire in thy change both the divine compassion, and the vocation of woman I And upon thy guilty head, all covered to my eyes by the blood of Jesus Christ, let the blessing of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, descend with mine I But we, my brethren, witnesses of this new baptism of woman, have we gathered naught from it but a vain spectacle ? It con- cerns our interests, our dearest interests ; but also our conscience. If woman owes to man the aid of a " helpmeet," does man owe 4* 82 ADOLPHE MONOD. nothing to her ? If woman has her influence over us, have we no influence over her ? This duty of acknowledgment, of reciprocity, how have we fulfilled it ? We said, in our first discourse, that sin came to us by woman : alas I have we not returned it to her, returned it with usury 1 If woman has dis- regarded her mission, who has taught her to disregard it ? If woman has been idolized, who has placed her upon the shameful pedestal ? If woman has been degraded in paganism, in poli- gamy, in licentiousness, who has degraded her ? In fine, if one should give you this problem to resolve, which of the two has done to the other the greatest wrong — man to woman, or woman to man ? what would be your answer ? — Question sad as diffi- cult I in the room of which I would propose to you, on the con- trary, another : Which of the two will henceforth do the other the most good ? Do you see her who, in meditation before God, is seeking to know henceforth how she can be to us a " helpmeet ?" Let us meditate, for her sake, upon the same problem at the feet of the same Saviour 1 Most truly are the principles the same, the applications alone vary. Humility, charity — if we abandon them to woman, ah I what will remain to us ourselves ? Humility, charity — was the man Christ Jesus anything else ? With a god- ly jealousy, one of the other, let the humility and charity of the woman aid the man ; let the humility and charity of the man aid the woman, looking forward to the time when, beneath purer heavens and upon a regenerated earth, the humility and charity of the elect of God, in whom all earthly difference shall be for- gotten, shall glorify from age to age this Saviour God, doubly our Father, having created us in a day of love and saved us in a day of grace I DISCOURSE III. THE LOVER OF MONEY. " Take heed and beware of Covetousness." LuKK, xii. 15. In the warning which the Lord gives to his disciples in our text, there is something deep and solemn which claims no ordi- nary attention. We feel that it is his desire to put them upon their guard against certain illusions full of peril. What are these illusions ? We believe the three principal to be, deception as to the nature of covetousness ; deception as to God's judg- ment concerning it ; and, finally, deception as to the empire which it holds among men. A plan of meditation is thus fur- nished for the present occasion ; and we shall endeavor to show what covetousness is, how great is its criminality, and how gener- ally it prevails. , I. Covetousness. — ^We are deceived in regard to the nature of Covetousness ; and the fault is to be attributed less to our- selves, than to our language which does not perfectly agree with that of Scripture. It is usual to call a man covetous who, loving money for its own sake, thinks only of amassing it, without making it the means of enjoyment to others, or even to himself. Is it astonishing, then, if, being habituated from infancy, to this mode of speaking, we should regard it as the language also of the Scripture, and if we should believe involuntarily that the Scripture condemns in the covetous man only that which the Si ADOLFIIE MONOD. world itself reproves as parsimony ? I say involuntarily ; never- theless we have a secret motive for understanding it thus. For this kind of covetousness being fortunately somewhat rare, and not easily charged upon most of us, we regard the language of Scripture as not meant for us, and have the satisfaction of being able to say : I am not the man. But be upon your guard ; you are placing your reliance upon a word, and upon a word ill understood. The covetous man of our language is one person, and the covetous man of the Bible is another. Far from confin- ing this appellation to the sordid hoarder, the Bible scarcely mentions him. In Holy Writ you will not find a single descrip- tion of him ; he appears only in apocryphal writings, upon the pages of profane authors ; and it is here alone that you must look for him. Doubtless, the Almighty foresaw that human reason would do justice to a sin so grave, a folly, at least, so crying. This kind of covetousness is a scandal, a madness, a disease. The world has suffered too much from its effects to tolerate it ; and, accordingly, those polluted by it are treated more severely than libertines or reprobates. The covetousness against which our Lord warns us, is quite another thing. Judge concerning it, either by the circumstance which furnished to him an occasion to give this warning, or by the parable wherein he cites an example of it. A certain man had just said to our Loi^ : " Master, speak to my brother, that he divide the inheritance with me." WhQ,t mark of covetous- ness could there be in this request, if the name of covetousness were given only to a sordid parsimony? And again, where- would there be the covetousness of the rich man of the parable, whom our Lord represents as thus speaking to himself : " I will pull down my barns, and build greater ; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods ; and I will say to my soul. Soul, thou has much goods laid up for many years ; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry ?" This is not the language of excessive meanness, but rather that of selfish prodigality. Thus the Lord, applying this parable to his disciples, warns them, not against THE LOVEK OF MONEY. 85 parsimony, but against the cares of life and the thirst for riches. In order to discover the Lord's true meaning of covetousness, it is only necessary to recur to the original text ; a precaution which the interpreters of the Scriptures cannot too carefully observe, and which is often more profitatble than much research. There are three words in the Bible which in our versions are rendered by the words Covetous or Covetousness. The first signi- fies a man greedy of gain, and not very scrupulous in general, as to the means of getting it. The second signifies properly a man who always desires to have more ; and this is the word employed in our text. The last signifies simply a lover of money. Thus when in our translation of the Bible we read, " And the Pharisees also who were covetous derided him:" (Luke xvi. 14), "A bishop must not be covetous :" (1 Tim. iii. 3.), "Let your con- versation be without covetousness :" (Heb. xiii. 5.), we read in the original, " And the Pharisees who were lovers of money derided him :" "A bishop must not be a lover of money :" " Let your con- versation be without the love of money." So again, in that hideous picture which St. Paul has drawn of the last days (2 Tim. iii. 2-4), the following traits, "Lovers of their own selves," " covetous" " lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God," answer to different Greek words which signify literally friends of self, friends of money, friends of pleasures, more than friends of God. See, then, how the Bible itself enlightens us as to what is meant by covetous. A covetous man is a friend of money ; covetousness is the love of money. Everything is now explained in our text. This man who wished Jesus to compel his brother to divide with him the inheritance, was a covetous man, a lover of money ; or he would not have interrupted the " words of Eternal life " which were issuing from the Saviour's mouth, in order to promote his petty interests. The rich man of the parable was a covetous man ; or he would have been less desirous of heaping up worldly goods for himself, than of being rich in God. The disciples, in their turn, might have sinned 8i ADOLFIIE MONOD. world itself reproves as parsimony ? I say involuntarily ; r.ever- theless we have a secret motive for understanding it thus. For this kind of covetousness being fortunately somewhat rare, and not easily charged upon most of us, we regard the language of Scripture as not meant for us, and have the satisfaction of being able to say : I am not the man. But be upon your guard ; you are placing your reliance upon a word, and upon a word ill understood. The covetous man of our language is one person, and the covetous man of the Bible is another. Far from confin- ing this appellation to the sordid hoarder, the Bible scarcely mentions him. In Holy Writ you will not find a single descrip- tion of him ; he appears only in apocryphal writings, upon the pages of profane authors ; and it is here alone that you must look for him. Doubtless, the Almighty foresaw that human reason would do justice to a sin so grave, a folly, at least, so crying. This kind of covetousness is a scandal, a madness, a disease. The world has suffered too much from its effects to tolerate it ; and, accordingly, those polluted by it are treated more severely than libertines or reprobates. The covetousness against which our Lord warns us, is quite another thing. Judge concerning it, either by the circumstance which furnished to him an occasion to give this warning, or by the parable wherein he cites an example of it. A certain man had just said to our Lopd : " Master, speak to my brother, that he divide the inheritance with me." What mark of covetous- ness could there be in this request, if the name of covetousness were given only to a sordid parsimony ? And again, where would there be the covetousness of the rich man of the parable, whom our Lord represents as thus speaking to himself : " I will pull down my barns, and build greater ; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods ; and I will say to my soul. Soul, thou has much goods laid up for many years ; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry ?" This is not the language of excessive meanness, but rather that of selfish prodigality. Thus the Lord, applying this parable to his disciples, warns them, not against THE LOVER OF MONEY. 85 parsimony, but against the cares of life and the thirst for riches. In order to discover the Lord's true meaning of covetousness, it is only necessary to recur to the original text ; a precaution which the interpreters of the Scriptures cannot too carefully observe, and which is often more profitarble than much research. There are three words in the Bible which in our versions are rendered by the words Covetous or Covetousness. The first signi- fies a man greedy of gain, and not very scrupulous in general, as to the means of getting it. The second signifies properly a man who always desires to have more ; and this is the word employed in our text. The last signifies simply a lover of money. Thus when in our translation of the Bible we read, " And the Pharisees also who were covetous derided him:" (Luke xvi. 14), "A bishop must not be covetous :" (1 Tim. iii. 3.), ''Let your con- versation be without covetousness : " (Heb. xiii. 5.), we read in the original, " And the Pharisees who were lovers of money derided him :" "A bishop must not be a lover of money :" " Let your con- versation be without the love of money." So again, in that hideous picture which St. Paul has drawn of the last days (2 Tim. iii. 2-4), the following traits, "Lovers of their own selves," " covetous," " lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God," answer to different Greek words which signify literally friends of self, friends of money, friends of pleasures, more than friends of God. See, then, how the Bible itself enlightens us as to what is meant by covetous. A covetous man is a friend of money ; covetousness is the love of money. Everything is now explained in our text. This man who wished Jesus to compel his brother to divide with him the inheritance, was a covetous man, a lover of money ; or he would not have interrupted the "words of Eternal life" which were issuing from the Saviour's mouth, in order to promote his petty interests. The rich man of the parable was a covetous man ; or he would have been less desirous of heaping up worldly goods for himself, than of being rich in God. The disciples, in tlieir turn, might have sinned S8 ADOLPIIE MONOD. especially the vice of old age, prodigal cupidity is that of youth, and ambitious cupidity is that of mature age. In other respects, covetousness is found in all conditions of life. A rich man, who makes his happiness depend upon his fortune, and who desires constantly to add thereto, " less rich on account of what he possesses than poor on account of what he has not," is the lover of money ; is a covetous man. But a poor man is not the less so, if he cannot be contented in the condition in which God has placed him, and if his heart runs after fortune as the chief good. In point of fact, these two men are the same ; and we can easily believe that if one of them should succeed the other in position, he would succeed him also in sentiment. In a single word, covetousness is cupidity under all possible forms, and in all situations ; it is selfishness applied to money. If covetousness, as we have been accustomed to understand it, is not uncommon, all will agree that covetousness such as we have just seen it defined by the Bible, is much more so. But is it then so culpable ? And whence then comes this so earnest exhortation : '* Take heed, and beware of covetousness?" II. The Criminality of Covetousness. — We deceive our- selves as to God's judgment concerning covetousness. We believe ourselves free, after all, to enrich ourselves as much as we can, and to do afterwards as we wish with our wealth. Thereupon, we give ourselves up to covetousness. We would not give ourselves up to intemperance, or to robbery. But covetousness seems to be regarded as a sin of quite a different character. While the former vices are shameful and shocking to the feelings j while they are attended by disorders that dis- turb the repose of society, and the peace of families, covetous- ness seems to be a sort of prudence and attention to one's duties. It dreads noise and scandal ; it is generally creditable in its appearance, estimable even according to the world, which cheerfully gives to it the names of generous ambition, useful industry, or praiseworthy economy. I will grant to it more than THE LOVEE OF MONET. by this ; the covetous man may have religious habits, may give an example of respect for religion, and for the Word of God. " The love of money," says a Christian thinker, " is almost the only vice to which a person may yield himself, and still preserve the appearance of piety. But do you know what will be the consequence of this sin? Listen, then. There is every reason 1 ) believe that of all sins, it is the very one that will destroy the ii,reatest number of persons who profess to serve the Lord." For, as Jesus Christ said to the Pharisees: "That which is highly esteemed among men, is an abomination in the sight of God." — (Luke xvi. 15.) Reflect seriously upon these words. They refer directly to our subject. Jesus Christ had just ex- plained, by the parable of the unfaithful steward, the use which a pious man ought to make of riches ; he had closed by declar- ing, that no one can love God, if he is carried away by the love of money. "And the Pharisees, also, who were covetous," and who were, nevertheless, regarded as models of devotion, " heard all these things, and they derided him." Then it was that the Saviour gave them this solemn warning : "Ye are they which justify yourselves before men ; but God knoweth your hearts ; for that which is highly esteemed among men, is an abomination in the sight of God." Thus, whatever may be the opinion of the world, the virtue and piety of the lover of money are, according to Jesus Christ, only an abomination in the sight of God. And why ? Because God knows the heart. Under these creditable appearances, under this religious cloak, he discovers in the heart of the covet- ous man an abyss of iniquity. What, in fact, is the love of money, except a dethronement of God, and a setting up of Mammon in His place ? The covetous man loves Mammon, as he ought to love God, " with all his heart, with all his soul, with all his mind, and with all his strength." He does more ; he confides in Mammon, instead of relying upon the Almighty. While the true disciple of Jesus Christ "trusts not in uncertain riches, but in the living of God, who giveth us richly all things 90 A^DOLPHE MONOD. to enjoy," the covetous man esteems himself happy in his gains ; *' he has made gold his hope," and said to the fine gold, " Thou art my confidence." It is for this that the Holy Spirit calls the covetous man, "an idolater" (Eph. v. 6), and covetousness, *' idolatry." — (Col. iii. 5.) Thus, our Lord declares the love of money absolutely incompatible with the love of God. " No man can serve two masters," said He upon more than one occasion, " for either he will hate the one, and love the other ; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and Mammon." This incompatibility is so true, that it is betrayed by the ex- cuses of the lover of money ; he can justify his covetousness only by giving it to be understood that he has renounced the faith. *' My fortune is my own ; I am at liberty to do with it as I please." Your fortune your own ! you can do with it as you please ! Have you then renounced the Master who redeemed you? Does not all that you possess belong to Jesus Christ ? Do not you yourself belong to him ? If neither your body, nor your mind belong to yourself (1 Cor. vi. 19-20J; if for the sake of Christ you ought to abandon your father and your mother, your wife, and your children, and even your own life (Luke, xiv. 26) ; is your money so sacred that it alone must be excepted from this universal sacrifice ? Your fortune your own I At liberty to do with it as you please ! And why may not another say: My mind is my own ; I am at liberty to apply it to thoughts which may pervert it, or to causes which may corrupt it ? Or a third say : My body is my own, and I am at liberty to yield my " members servants to uncleanliness and to iniquity unto iniquity." No I says the Apostle, for "your bodies are the members of Christ" (1 Cor. vi. 15); and I say in imitation of him : No ! for your for- tune is the treasure of Christ. He is its true possessor ; you are only his steward, and you are bound to use it only in his service. He who does otherwise is unfaithful, according to the judgment of our Saviour (Luke xvi. 12) ; quite as unfaithful as the steward of the parable, who wasted the goods committed to his THE LOVER OF MONEY. 91 care. Your fortune your own I At liberty to do with it as you please ! Take care. There is but one way in which you can legalize this pretension, and that is to break with Jesus Christ. It does not rest with you to make the conditions of your alliance with him ; he has made them, and you will find them written in St. Luke, xiv. 33 : " So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple." Under no circumstances can you serve God and Mammon. The love of money is a separation of the heart from the Saviour, an idolatry, an abomination in the sight of God. As is the tree, so is the fruit. You have just witnessed the love of money in the heart ; now observe the works which it produces. " The love of money," says the Holy Spirit, " is the root of all evil." — (1 Tim. vi. 10.) If we were to treat this sub- ject in its whole extent, we should have material for a book, instead of a discourse ; let us confine ourselves to Vhat covet- ousness has done, at all times, against the advancement of the kingdom of God in the world. I open the Old Testament, and amid that multitude of crimes by which men have thwarted, as much as they could, the plans of God for the salvation of the nations, I find many, and they of the blackest character, due only to the love of money. What drove Balaam to harden himself against the warnings of the Lord, against the cries of his own conscience, against the naked sword of the angel, against the miraculous voice of a stupid beast, and to try, by turns, impious enchantments and infamous seductions in order to shut up to the chosen people the road to the promised land ? The love of money. What induced Achan to conceal the accursed spoils, to disobey the command of God, to brave His threats, and to cause His wrath to fall upon the vic- torious armies of Israel ? The love of money. What induced Gehazi to scandalize the newly-born faith of Naaman, to ren- der useless the disinterestedness of a holy prophet, and to cause him to be suspected, perhaps of hypocrisy ? The love of money. What made in Israel those prevaricating magistrates, those 92 ADOLPIIE MONOD. iniquitous judges, those lying prophets who conducted the people of God only to lead them astray, and to "destroy the way of his paths ?" The love of money. Let us pass to the New Testament ; we shall then see the evil growing and assuming a more odious character. Scarcely had Jesus commenced his work, than covetousness lifted itself up against him ; it everywhere intruded upon his path ; it dis- puted every step that he took. It misunderstood and forsook him, in the person of the rich young man ; it excited his holy anger in the person of the sellers in the temple; it hated him ; it railed at him; it persecuted him in the person of the Pharisees ; and, in the person of Judas it tithed the fruit of his charity for the poor ; it begrudged the honor destined to his burial ; it betrayed him, it delivered him up, it sold him. Oh, prophetic crime, which casts a sad light upon the future of tlie Church of Jesus Christ I This same crime of him, who for thirty pieces of silver sold the blood of the Son of God, is the very crime which will show itself most active in depriving men of the in- effable benefit of this shed blood ; for it will oppose equally the salvation of the individual, the fidelity of the church, and the conversion of the world. In regard to the salvatioii of the individual. A man cannot turn towards the Lord, but covetousness seems to waylay him in order to thwart his purpose, and he is thus beset from the mo- ment that he receives his first religious impressions, to the most advanced period of his faith. Is he simply an invited guest to the great feast ? Covetousness persuades two invited persons in three to excuse themselves by saying : " I have bought a piece of ground," or " I have bought five yoke of oxen." — (Luke xiv. 18, 19.) Has he listened to the truth and received the good seed into his heart ? Covetousness cultivates thorns beside it ; soon " the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches " threaten ''to choke the word, and he becometh unfruitful." — (Matt. xiii. 22.) Has he made some progress in the ways of piety ? Covetousness does not yet despair of turning him aside and of THE LOVER OF MONEY. 93 adding him to the number of those who, possessed by the love of money, " have erred from the faith." — (1 Tim. vi. 10.) Happy if, '• taking the whole armor of God," he is " able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand." Happy, if he does not imitate those imprudent travellers whom Bunyan describes as leaving, at the invitation of Demas, the road to the holy city to visit a silver-mine in the hill called Lucre." Now whether," says Bunyan, " they fell into the pit by looking over the brink thereof, or whether they went down to dig, or whether they were smothered in the bottom by the damps that commonly arise, of these things I am not certain ; but this I observed, that they were never seen again in the way." The love of money does not oppose itself less to the fidelity of the church. Ah I who does not know the history of the Chris- tian church ? Who does not know the sad influence that covetousness has exercised upon its development, upon its orga- nization, upon its discipline, upon its very doctrines ? Who does not know that, trampling under foot the maxim of its founder — " freely ye have received, freely give " — the church has made so much traffic of the truth of God, of His promises and of His threats, of paradise and of hell, of holiness and of sin, that its name has become in the language of the world the type of venality ? But there would be so much to say in regard to the evil which the love of money has done in the church, that we will speak only of the good which it has been the means of prevent- ing. The church was planted in the world for the good of the world. Depositories of eternal life. Christians ought to commu- nicate it all around them, and even to the ends of the earth ; the church was born to be a missionary to the human race. This, she understood at her birth ; and that angel of the Apocalypse, that flew through the midst of the heaven bearing the everlast- ing Gospel, is a true image of the ardor with which the first disciples labored to gain new kingdoms for Jesus Christ. But 94 ADOLPIIE MONOD. why lias this ardor abated from century to century ? Why has such a glorious conquest been arrested ? Why has it gone backward, and finally limited itself to so small a portion of the globe ? Why have those very nations in the midst of which God first lit up the olden faith, been compelled to acknowledge, for nearly three centuries, their indebtedness to pagan people ? Alas ! and why should that holy cause, in behalf of which all Christianity ought to be engaged, why should it now find among us so many hostile, or, at least, so many indifferent hearts ? One of the fathers of the church, St. Cyprien, replies to these inter- rogatories, and you shall judge, whether or not, what he wrote in the third century of the Christian era applies to ours. " Every one," said the holy martyr, groaning, " every one devotes himself to increasing his worldly substance ; and forget- ting what the faithful did during the times of the Apostles, and what should always be done. Christians cherish an insatiable desire of augmenting their fortune." Where, then, could be found that entire devotion to the salvation of men, which can alone establish missions, and those generous sacrifices which can sustain them ? And thus the work became abandoned, or at least neglected ; and what a work, oh, my God ! The world was perishing of hunger, hunger for the word of God. The compassion of God was moved. The message of grace was ready. The church was charged to bear it through every land, and not to rest so long as there should remain upon the earth a single nation, family, or man, to whom the glad tidings had not been carried. The church, for a time, was faithful ; but the spirit of the age returned and paralyzed its activity. Is the evil now less pressing ? No. But the church has- other cares ; like the world, it is occupied in buying, in selling, and in getting gain. Its devotion to Mammon will not allow it to be faithful to the Lord. The covetousucss of the church engenders still another evil. Not contented with preventing the church from evangelizing the world, it scandalizes the world through the church. Judge in THE LOVER OF MONEY. 95 regard to this, my brethren. Let the man of the world give his heart to money, which is the key of the world ; it is precisely what must be expected : but you, Christians, believing the Gos- pel, have, without doubt, adopted its spirit : it is in heaven that you lay up your treasure. And seeking first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, everything else touches you feebly in comparison with the one thing needful. Oh I if the detachment from earth, taught by your maxims, had exhibited itself in your lives 1 Would not your example have excited among men a holy emulation similar to that with which the faith of the martyrs formerly inspired the pagans ? And would not the world, in seeing you make a sacrifice of its vanities, have con- fessed that God is truly among you ? But what is the real state of things ? The world has heard you conversing hke Christians, and seen you acting like itself. It has seen you quite as much attached to money as others, quite as eager to acquire it, quite as slow in detaching yourselves from it. And what do you wish the world to think, I do not mean of yourselves, that would be an unimportant matter, but of the Gospel ? Has not, then, that Gospel, with all its precepts and all its promises, no more power to detach your hearts from worldly things, than the lessons of philosophy ? Faith, grace, regeneration, all are suspected of impo- tency ; " the salt has lost its savor." So true is it that the love of money makes war against the works of Christ, as it has made war against Christ himself : seducing the individual, cor- rupting the church, and scandalizing the world. Now behold what damnation God has in store for the covetous man. Its visitation upon him commences even during the pre- sent life. He punishes himself, indeed, by his iniquity itself : no one can be more miserable than a covetous man. Solomon exhibits the lover of money as unable to satisfy himself there- with, his cares increasing with his fortune, every one enjoying his good, except himself, sleep flying from his eyes, and "all his days eating darkness, and having sorrow and wrath with his sickness." — (Eccles, v. 10-17.) Samt Paul, in his turn, has 96 ADOLPIIE MONOD. shown the covetous man as " pierced through with many sor- rows " (1 Tim. vi. 10) ; and our Lord tells us in the simple but expressive words which follow our text : "A man's life consist- cth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth." And if anything is wanting to this punishment which the lover of money, with his own hands, inflicts upon himself, divine jus- tice makes up the deficiency. The mercenary Balaam having failed of a recompense, perished by the edge of the sword. The covetous Achan, troubled by the Almighty, for having troubled His people, was stoned to death with all his family, and even the treasures that had tempted him were destroyed. The faithless Gehazi carried into his own house the leprosy of Naaman as well as his presents, and thus transmitted to his posterity the double heritage of a fortune and a scourge. And Judas, the perfidious Judas, devoured by remorse, alas I but not touched with repent- ance, casts his money into the temple, gives himself to two deaths at once, carries upon his mutilated body the seal of divine vengeance, and goes " to his own place." To what place ? What is the eternal portion of the covetous man ? You think that covetousness is only one of those infirmities that God tolerates among his children ; but you must learn from God himself that it is one of those sins that exclude the offender from his kingdom. You would charge us with exaggeration and injustice if we were to place the covetous man in the same rank with the drunkard and the extortioner : but learn that God associates the covetous man, I mean the covetous man of the Bible, the lover of money, God, I say, associates him with the drunkard, with the extortioner, and with even greater criminals. Open the Scriptures, and examine those frightful lists of the most detestable sins ; you will find scarcely one in which the covetous man has been forgotten. We see covetousness enumer- ated among the sins which characterize the apostasy foretold of the last times : " For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce-breakers, THE LOVER OF MONEY. 97 false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God ; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof." — (2 Tim. iii. 2-5.) When Saint Jude, describing the false teachers who seduced the church, assembles in a single verse the three most culpable that ever lived upon the earth, the covetous Balaam figures between the murderer Cain and the rebel Korah. — (Jude 11.) When Saint Paul collects in a hideous picture the vices that prevailed among the heathen, covetousness is named among the first. — (Rom. i. 29.) The covetous man is an offender that should not be tolerated in the church, and with whom the faithful should hold no intercourse, however great may be his professions of piety. " If any man that is called a brother, be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railcr, or a drunkard, or an extortioner ; with such a one, no not to eat." — (1 Cor. V. 11.) Finally the covetous man appears upon that shameful catalogue, wherein the Holy Spirit designates to the Church Universal those who are farthest removed from God and from his kingdom. " Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God ? Be not deceived ; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God."— (1 Cor. vi. 9-10.) Behold, now, the covetous man, the lover of money, who passes, perhaps, in the world for a moral man, for a religious man, behold him advancing in the centre of the most infamous company that ever existed, giving his right hand to the drunk- ard, and his left to the thief, with the adulterer (not to repeat names still more odious) with the adulterer before him, and the extortioner behind him I Is he journeying on towards the king- dom of God ? No, he is marching towards the place of the thief and the drunkard ; towards the place of the extortioner and the adulterer ; towards the place of the traitor Judas ; towards the place of Satan and his angels. Let the covetous 5 98 ADOLPHE MONOD. man cease from blinding himself, at least let him know -what he is doing and where he is going. Let him not flatter himself that the door is open to him, if he dies such as he is ; it will open to him only when it shall open to the drunkard and the adulterer, whose hands knock thereat simultaneously with his own I And if your soul were to be demanded this very night I — Lord, preserve us from covetousness I Are we in danger of fall- ing into it ? Would we have lived in it ? Would we live in it still ? Enlighten me, Lord, and let me not be of the number of those insensates " who flatter themselves in their own eyes, until their iniquity be found to be hateful." IIL The Prevalence of Covetousness. — We are deceived in regard to the empire which covetousness holds among men. There is, perhaps, no sin more ignored by those who give them- selves up to it than covetousness. " No one confesses the sin of covetousness," said a pious bishop, who had long officiated at the confessional. The drunkard or the adulterer cannot conceal his infractions of the law of God ; the proud man, even, or the vindictive can perceive and condemn the passions which govern him ; but the covetous man scarcely ever knows himself. The object desired by the drunkard and the adulterer being bad in itself, they are treated as open enemies. It is not so with the love of money. Money is good in itself ; money is necessary for the preservation of life ; money is useful even in doing good. Beyond this, what ready excuses have you for acquiring it? Well, we refer you to your conscience j but, let it be understood, to a conscience fair and enlightened. We v/ish simply to pro- pound to you a few questions, upon which we leave to you the care of examining yourselves before God. They will bear upon three points : the means which you employ in order to acquire money, the ardor with which you seek it, and the use which you make of it. Are the means which you employ to gain money always honest ? THE LOVER OF MONEY. 99 Do not be offended by this question ; I do not speak of those means that lead to the galleys or to the prison ; but as exempt from crime, are yours always legitimate in the sight of men, and especially before God ? Is there no one among you who lends money at an interest which the laws of the country, as well as charity, forbid ? In your business transactions are there no secrets which you would blush to see revealed ? Is fraud abso- lutely unknown in your affairs ? Have you no false weights, no false measures, no false samples, no false charges of expense, nothing, in short, that is false ? Is falsehood banished from your transactions ? Have you never promised what you could not perform, nor deceived a buyer as to the quality of your merchan- dise, or as to its value, or as to the place whence it came ? Do you never demand for what you sell an excessive price, and one which the chances of commerce cannot justify ? Do you never abuse the position or the ignorance of those with whom you have to do, in order to impose upon them onerous conditions, and such as you yourself would not accept ? Has the love of gain never prompted you to retain some office or receive some commission which your conscience disapproved ? Have you never risked the property of others in hazardous speculations ? Have you never enjoyed the fruit of wrongs committed by others, or refused to restore what you justly owed, but what the law could not compel you to pay? Have you never resorted to harsh means in collecting what was due to yourself, forgetful of that touching recommendation of God to Moses : ''If thou at all take thy neighbor's raiment to pledge, thou shalt deliver it unto him by that the sun goeth down : for that is his covering only, it is his raiment for the skin ; wherein shall he sleep ?" Do you never, in order to increase your fortune or to preserve it, engage in divisions, family quarrels, lawsuits, which would not have been found to be unavoidable if you had remembered this passage of Scripture : " There is utterly a fault among you, because ye go to law one with another. Why do ye not rather take wrong V^ Finally, if you are entirely innocent of all these bad practices. 100 ADOLPHE MONOD. is there not one of them to which you would not have resorted if you had not been restrained by the terrors of the law or by the fear of opinion ? Examine your hearts. I do not pretend to judge you ; I wish simply to aid you in judging yourselves, before your own consciences and before God. I admit that your wealth may have been fairly acquired. Honesty does not preclude covetousness. Here, for instance, is a man who becomes rich by the cultivation of his fields ; what revenue could be more honest ? Here is another who becomes so, by receiving his share of the paternal heritage ; and what, again, could be more legitimate ? Jesus Christ does not, on this account, tax them the less with covetousness, because they both seek money with such ardor that the things of God are not visi- ble in them. Do you feel, also, my dear hearer, this supreme ardor for the acquisition of money 1 To make your fortune, if you are poor, or to increase it if you are rich ; is this the thought that governs your life ? Is it this alone that can explain your tastes and your distastes, what you do, and what you leave undone ? Do you find time for the exercise of a lucra- tive profession, while you find none for praying to God, and for reading the Bible ? If you should find it necessary to labor on the Sabbath, in order to preserve your revenues, what would you do ? And in case you have already decided this question in favor of God's service, do you carry into His house a heart that walketh after gain, and which says, as said those Jews of Amos, *' When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn, and the Sabbath, that we may set forth wheat ?" If you could make choice between two careers, the one bril- liant, but strewed with temptations, the other safe for your soul, but modest ; what would you do ? Think seriously ; what would you do ? In reading that exclamation of our Lord : " How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the king- dom of God I" have you trembled that you were rich, or blessed God that you were not ? Even at this moment, what are your feelings in listening to my words ? Do you say in your heart : THE LOVER OF MONEY. 101 these are very good maxims for the pulpit, but impossible to be observed in real life ? Do you say that provided you could make a fortune, you would willingly run the risk, and that he who preaches against the love of money, thinks in the bottom of his soul as you do ? Are your strongest emotions, your liveliest joys, your most bitter regrets, to be ascribed to the favors and the frowns of fortune ? Does a trifling gain, a slight loss, affect you more than the satisfaction that follows a good work, or than the unhappiness that results from sin ? Do you sigh inwardly for an inheritance ? a delicate thought which one fears to ex- amine ? In choosing a wife, are you more anxious to know what she has than what she is ? In fine, are you most desirous of being a Christian eminent for piety, or of being a man full of riches ? And if you were now to begin to serve the Lord, as you have been serving Mammon, and to serve Mammon as you have been serving the Lord, which of them would gain by the change ? Examine your heart. I do not wish to judge you j I desire simply to aid you in examining yourselves. In the meantime, I admit again, no one observes in you an extreme ardor in the pursuit of fortune ; but what use do you make of money ? I do not ask whether you spend it, but whether you spend it usefully. For my object is to aid you in discovering, not whether you are a miser, but whether you are a lover of money ; and you might be a great lover of money, even while squandering it for your personal advantage. The wicked rich man who suffered Lazarus to die of hunger at his door, " fared sumptuously every day ;" and the hand of prodi- gality, open through vanity or selfishness, is also as tightly closed as that of parsimony to the appeals of charity. Do you give ? The Gospel principle, in regard to alms and pecuniary contributions, is admirably shown by St. Paul, when exhorting the Christians of Corinth to aid those of Judea : " That now at this time your abundance may be a supply for their want, that their abundance also may be a supply for your want ; that there may be equality : as it is written, He that 102 ADOLPHE MONOD hath gathered much had nothing over ; and he that had gathered little had no lack." An obligatory and absolute equality is not alluded to here ; the Apostles never preached this ; even the Church at Jerusalem did not practise it ; and you must look into systems entirely foreign to Christianity, if you seek this beautiful chimera, which has been falsely attributed to the Gospel. But, in distributing unequally the advantages of fortune, God has shown that He intended that the superfluity of some should supply the deficiency of others ; and by this law of fraternal love, he determined to provide for the wants of the latter while exercising the charity of the former. And now, my brethren, have you entered into the spirit of this law, and do you honor it by your example, or do you think yourselves permitted to trample it under foot as did the wicked rich man ? Do you give to the poor ? Do you provide for your own kindred, as the Lord has especially commanded you in say- ing : ^' If any provides not for his own, he has denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel V Do you give to those charitable institutions which are multiplying in our churches, and which procure for those whom they assist the bread which nourishes the soul as well as that which nourishes the body ? Do you give to those religious associations which characterize our age, and which propagate in the world the knowledge of God and of His word ? If you give, how do you give ? Do you give spontaneously, and from an inclination that causes you to seek opportunities for so doing ? or is it only in mere imitation of others, or because you are urgently solicited, or overcome by shame ? Do you give in secret, and do you experience a special pleasure in those good works that are witnessed by God alone ? It is written : " God loves the cheerful giver." Do you give cheerfully ? Is he who collects for charitable objects welcomed at your house ? Is your door one of those at which he enters with pleasure, or is it one of those at which he knocks only after having won a victory over himself ? Do you encourage him by your reception, or do you THE LOVER OF MONEY. 103 begin by telling him that the times are bad, that your afifairs are not in a very prosperous condition, and that the demands upon you are very numerous ? Poor collector I Ilis task may have been an enviable one in the church of Jerusalem ; but rendered what it is by such as yourself, would you take his place ? But especially, how miuJi do you give ? Is your liberality — speaking in the words of Saint Paul — made ready " as a matter of bounty, and not as of covetousness ?" Yes, as of covetous- ness ; the word employed by Saint Paul in this place (2 Cor. ix. 5), is the same as that of which the Lord makes use in our text. The gift is of covetousness, when it is reduced as much as it can be honestly, and when the desire of giving is less exhibited than that of retaining. Do you give in a way that may serve as an example to others, or do you content yourself with giving as much as those who give but very little ? If every one were to give in the same proportion with yourself, would the prosperity of the institutions for which you contribute be secured, or would their existence be placed in peril ? Do you give systematically ? Does the reign of God, and do charitable interests occupy a place by themselves in your account-book, or do you devote to them only what happens to be in your hand, as you would in the case of little unforeseen expenses ? Do you give more, do you even give as much for charitable purposes as for superfluities ? and could you maintain the luxury of your dwelling, or that of your table, with the sacrifices which you present to the Almighty ? Have you, in order to be able to give, worked with your own hands, according to the exhortation of the apostle ? Have you, for this purpose, triumphed over a single inclination, sacrificed to a single taste, renounced a single pleasure ? But I will spare you ; I will not push my questions as far as I could, or as far, perhaps, as I ought. For what, in fine, would you think of me if I were to ask you whether you would give your whole fortune if God were to demand the sacrifice ? And this sacrifice was, nevertheless, demanded of the rich young man spoken of in the Gospel, who, not being willing to make this 104 ADOLPIIE MONOD. sacrifice, could not be a disciple of Jesus Christ ; and if he con- tinued to be unwilling to make it, he is at this moment with the wicked rich man in hell. Jesus Christ, it is true, does not impose this obligation upon all, but the disposition is required of all ; and he who would not do what the young rich man refused to do, cannot be a true Christian. What do you say to all this ? Consider, examine. I do not pretend to judge you ; I wish simply to aid you in judging yourselves. But, if I ought not to judge an individual, I cannot shut my eyes to the condition of society. I look around me ; I reflect upon what is taking place at the present moment in this coun- try, in this city, and I am constrained to answer yes, to each of the three classes of questions which I have just propounded to you. Yes, bad means are often employed in the acquirement of riches. If I were obliged to prove this from your personal experience, I would here point you to slavery, that curse of pagan nations, that shame to Christian people ; slavery, whose obj-ect seems none other than to exhibit in a single action all the crimes and misery that the love of money can produce ; slavery, that national sin, against which public opinion begins to clamor, but which we have practised for centuries, which we still retain in spite of generous examples, and which finds defenders even in our legislative assemblies. But it is needless to go so far for arguments ; we have them all around us. The usurer, who deserves not to be named among Christians, is not unknown either among our poor, or among our rich, or in our towns, or in our fields ; and those who engage in this business, know that it is criminal, since they take care to leave no written traces of their dark transactions. Frauds, and falsehoods, great or small (a distinction which the Lord my Master has not taught me how to make) ; frauds and falsehoods, I say, abound in business matters. This fact is pro- verbial ; it is confessed, it is justified, and commerce has a code of morals of its own, which agrees but ill with that of J^sus THE LOVEK OF MONEY. 105 Christ. There are, however, faithfu? men, who desire, at any price, to keep their conscience pure ; but the smallness of their number, their embarrassments, the temptation which they ex- perience, either to withdraw from a competition which their deli- cacy renders unequal, or to continue a career which the world does not condemn, attest more conclusively the greatness of the evil. It is a very easy matter, at the present day, to count these upright, clean-handed merchants, who, controlled by con- science, even when not compelled by law, think, in adverse times, of increasing their own fortunes only after having repaired the losses of others ; but it is not a very rare thing to see per- sons risking in rash enterprises, a borrowed capital, getting out of difficulty in case of accident, by declaring themselves bank- rupt, and then beginning anew, with no damage to themselves except of conscience. Distrust is felt everywhere ; bad faith is always counted upon; we weigh after the seller has weighed ; we beat down the price of everything, and this bad habit which shows itself in the most honest people in spite of themselves, gives a fair exhibition of the morality of commerce. Even the pubhc health is jeopar- dized by it, and poisonous substances find their way into the bread which nourishes us, and into the liquors which we drink. Jealous of one another, overseers and workmen seem associated together only for the sake of mutual injury. Not long since we saw the latter combining unjustly to compel manufacturers to raise their wages. But we see, every day, manufacturers taking advantage of the necessities of the poor, and obliging them to undergo labor so excessive as to destroy mind, soul, and body. We see young children (oh, that the representatives of the nation, who have revealed to us the depth of the wound, might find an efficacious remedy!), we see young children working in our factories from six o'clock in the morning until ten o'clock at night with scarcely time to eat and sleep, deprived of schools, without religious instruction, and induced by a brutish fatigue to resort to more brutish means of excitement. "We see them, 5* 106 ADOLPIIE MONOD. sometimes (shall we saj it ?) more abandoned than the very- slaves of our colonies, for the simple and frightful reason that more care is taken of what is bought than of what is hired. We are told in reply to this, that the manufacturer is forced to conform to the general custom, if he would not shut his work- shop. This may be so ; I do not pretend to judge ; but what is then our condition, if the individual can be absolved only at the expense of society ? Ah, how few fortunes, great or small, wherein sin has not had a hand I and how generally does the manner in which money is acquired, justify the name given to it by our Lord : '' the Mammon of unrighteousness !" Once more fortune is pursued with insatiable ardor. This ardor has always existed, but during our day, it has a peculiar character ; it is a passion for sudden riches. Everything is ven- tured, in order to obtain everything ; the chance of falling into absolute poverty will be taken, rather than forego the opportu- nity of securing fortune ; and that honest mean which the pious Agur placed above everything in his humble prayer : " Give me neither poverty nor riches ; feed me with food convenient for me," is what the present age seems to shun with the greatest care. Cast your eyes about you. Every one is covetous, every one is eager to enrich himself, even in a single day. Commerce is covetous : competition is without bounds ; rapid fortunes, un- heard-of successes, sudden falls, speculations without end, haz- ards, lotteries, excitements for gaming under all forms ; such is the new mode of satisfying the old thirst for gold. Industry is covetous : those admirable inventions which are continually succeeding one another, aim less at the progress of art than at the making of money ; produced by the hope of gain, they has- ten towards gain ; in their headlong march, imprudence is inevi- table, and accidents multiply ; but this is of no consequence, and cupidity drives the impatient wheels over the scattered ruins, and the ghastly dead ; the earth soon drinks up what little blood is shed^ but the money will remain. Ambition is THE LOVER OF MONEY. 107 covetous ; that solicitation for office, whicli crowds all the avenues to authority, aims less than formerly at honor, and more at money ; and the venality of office is revealed even in the praiseworthy but humiliating precautions which are considered as necessary to be taken against it. The struggle of parties is covetous : if the levelling spirit of some often conceals a desire of building up and enriching themselves, is the love of order in others always so pure that it never covers the desire of preserv- ing their own advantages ? and if many of the friends of equality are such in regard, above all, to propriety, are there not many conservative men who are such in regard, above all, to their own fortunes ? Legislation is covetous : in it, money is the chief cor- ner stone ; money choses the arbiters of our social and political destinies ; it does more, it choses the managers of our churches; and, judging by appearances, one would believe that the rich enter most easily the kingdom of heaven. Marriage is covet- ous : the union of man and woman is ordinarily a secondary matter ; it is i\NO fortunes that are pleasing to one another, that woo one another, that win one another, and are married to one another ; and the most intimate of all associations degenerates into a calculation, and is transformed into a contract. Litera- ture is covetous : that desire of perfection, that persevering labor, that earnest study, that conscientious worship of the beau- tiful, of the good and the true, which formerly characterized our great writers, are sought in vain among their successors ; im- patient of producing, and more impatient of acquiring, the literature of the present day spends its strength in unfinished, defective, extravagant works, alas ! perhaps immoral and im- pious, but which cater for the tastes of the multitude, and pour into the hands of their authors streams of gold unaccompanied by glory. What shall I say yet ? What if we were to search into the part which the love of money has in those numberless errors that, by turns, toss the human mind, and in those senseless systems that topple, one upon the other, after having been 108 ADOLPIIE MONOD. sustained a few years by the aj^peal to material interest ? the part which it has in those crimes that sully the pages of all our public journals • in the murders, the poisonings, the suicides, the law-suits, the divorces, the hatreds, the revenges, and in all the fruits of sin which we harvest abundantly in a field sown with infidelity ? A covetous use is, in fine, made of the goods of fortune. Not that they are not spent ; let them, indeed, be ever so much spent, they are, with few exceptions, spent for self-gratification, not sacrificed to charity. I will cite but a single proof of this, the condition of our religious and benevolent societies. The Lord has, in our day, inspired his followers with the happy idea of propagating the Gospel by means of association, that power- ful instrument of our age. He has raised up faithful servants who have given their time, their strength, and their money, to organize and maintain institutions devoted to the good of man- kind and the glory of God.. When they have urged the churches to engage in their pious works, what has happened ? Help has been obtained, and the work of the Lord has not been stopped ; it has been productive of good, much good, and, after God, we bless the authors of these sacrifices in which God delights. But are the contributions liberal? are they sufficient? Do we give, generally, as we could, as we ought to give ? Do we even approach it ? No, my brethren, no ! Our societies vegetate rather than live. One proposes to publish an edition of the Bible for the aged, but the enterprise must be delayed until sufficient funds are specially gathered together for it. Another begins its work with a deficit, the first year, of fifteen thousand francs ; and the following year, with a deficit of thirty thousand francs. A third has five missionaries ready for the people of Southern Africa, who are anxiously awaiting them ; but the sum of 25,000 francs is needed to fit them out, and during the last five months all France has been ransacked with- out finding more than half of the required sum. Poor Bech- uanas ! we will give you missionaries, but on condition that you THE LOVER OF MONEY. lOO pay for them I You must give tlie half of your wretclied income, the only good that you possess in the world, the fruit of a whole year's economy I Ah ! that you may be ignorant at least of our covetousness, and not judge by us of that Gospel which we preach to you 1 Again, everything is embarrassed, mean, uncertain in our societies ; and thus it will be, so long as the plan of our liber- alities shall not have undergone a complete revision, a radical reform. Money is not wanting, but it takes a wrong direction. Instead of flowing abundantly in the channels of charity, water- ing the garden of the Lord, it is emptied into the gulf of Parsi- mony, or swallowed up in the thirsty sands of Prodigality. Making allowance for the necessities of life, for habits, social comforts, provision for the future, the establishment of children, etc., would there not be, with prudence, abundant resources for every good work, provided that some would retrench expenses which they know to be foolish, and which they dare not defend ; and that others would have the courage to lay a bold hand upon those useless treasures that they are, day by day, accumu- lating ? And what, oh, my God ! if we were to do as did the disciples of a crucified Master, if we were to impose upon our- selves true sacrifices, if we were less mindful of our ease, of our tastes, of our welfare, of what we deem necessary, but which is, in fact, superfluous ? What, if we were to enter into the spirit of those beautiful words of David : " Neither will I offer burnt offerings unto the Lord my God of that which cost me nothing ?" My brethren, I do not wish, nor is it in my power, to tax you. But compare what you give with what was given by the primi- tive Christians : I do not mean at Jerusalem, but in the other churches. "We do you to wit of the grace of God bestowed on the churches of Macedonia," wrote St. Paul to the Corin- thians (the grace of God bestowed ; do you feel the force of this expression?) ; how that, in a great trial of affliction, the abundance of their joy, and their deep poverty, abounded unto the riches of their liberality. " For to their power I bear record, 110 ADOLFIIE MONOD. yea, and beyond their power, they were willing of themselves ; praying with us with much entreaty, that we would receive the gift, and take upon us the fellowship of the ministering to the saints." Ah, my brethren, when shall we exchange places with them ? When shall the time come, when you will press us to receive, and we shall be obliged to moderate your zeal ? Compare what you give with what is given, at the pre- sent day, by, whom ? the richest nations of the globe ? the English? the Americans? no, but by liberated negroes. The five hundred thousand negroes of Jamaica, slaves but yesterday, have recently, in the course of a single year, given for religious and benevolent purposes, from twelve to fifteen hundred thousand francs ; a sum enormous, in consideration of their poverty, a sum double, triple, quadruple, quintuple, perhaps, that given during the same time, and for similar objects by all the united Protestants of France. Finally, compare what you give with what the law of Moses obliged the Jews to give for the support of religion, and for charitable purposes. The tenth part of their revenues was for the Levites, and the fortieth part superadded for the priests. Besides this, the Jews were obliged to give the produce of their fruit trees during four years, the first fruits of all their harvests, the sixtieth part of their crops, the fruits of the earth during the year of jubilee, which returned every seven years, and the debts contracted in the interval between one jubilee and another. Add to all this, personal taxes, multitudinous sacrifices and oblations, with frequent jour- neys to Jerusalem, and we shall find that God imposed upon his people a tribute that exceeded the third of their revenues. Who would dare to propose to us such sacrifices ? But should love, under the new economy, do less than law did under the old ? If God, treating us with the confidence of a father, is contented to say to us : " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and thy neighbor as thyself," and at the same time allow us to apply this perfect rule, shall we abuse this confidence by spending what we owe to God t^ud to THE LOVKli OF MONEY. 1 1 1 onr neighbor ? We do not assume to tax yoii, I repeat it, when God has not done it ; what we could wish, what God wishes, is that charity should tax itself, " each one as God hath prospered him.'' — (1 Cor. xvi. 2.) But that charity is stifled by the love of money. Such a one enjoys those pleasures which force a relative, a brother, I will not say a father or a mother, to struggle against the privations and the fatigue of poverty. Such a rich man spends less in a whole year for the support of charitable insti- tutions, than he lavishes in a single day for the maintenance of his house. Such a fashionable woman will find scarcely five or ten francs for the advancement of the kingdom of God, while she will find five hundred or a thousand to throw away upon an evening party. Such a cultivator, full of wealth, will draw from his coffers a few francs for the evangelization of the world, or of France, and spend a few thousand for the construction of a more commodious and more elegant mansion. Oh, my friends, bear with the freedom of my words. I make no personal appli- cation of them, and I beg that no one will apply them except to himself. But I speak of things which every one knows, which every one sees, and if I hold my peace the very stones will cry out. Oh, what covetousness is in the world I What covetous- ness is in the church 1 What covetousness in the noisy city I What covetousness in the quiet fields I But I return, my dear hearer ; I am not now dealing with society, but with you, with you alone. Place your hand upon your heart. Forget the poor sinner who is addressing you. Suppose that Jesus Christ, your Lord and your God, were him- self to come to you, and, with that tender love that pierces the heart, that divine unction that moves it to its very centre, should say : "My friend" (it was thus that he addressed Judas), " My friend, art thou one of my friends, or art thou a frieTid of money 1" If you feel that the truth condemns you, do not forsake the light ! Pluck not out the arrow that has penetrated your soul ! You are living in sin, in sin that is destroying you ! You must abandon it, whatever it may cost, you must abandon it I 112 ADOLPIIE MONOD. If the Lord says to you : " Take heed and beware of covet- ousness," he warns you also to save yourself from covetousness. And how will you do it ? I will tell you very briefly, for time urges us ; besides a few words will suffice, if you are sincere ; and if you are not, all the instructions in the world will profit you nothing. To save yourself from covetousness I Ah ! it is the vork of God alone.' But God can do it. God has done it for others. Lovers of money and those enslaved to the worst sins have been transformed into free men. Witness Zaccheus, that tax-gatherer, " that man that is a sinner," enriched by wrongs committed upon his neighbor ; not only was he completely changed, but he was changed in a single day. Take him for a model. Zaccheus did two things. First, he became a disciple of Jesus Christ; secondly, he disposed of his fortune, according to the direction of Jesus Christ. Do ye likewise. Give to the Lord, this day, your heart and your hand. It is in the heart that we must begin. The love of money is in the heart. But what must be done to drive it out ? Form an energetic resolution to combat and stifle it ? Such indeed is the advice of the moralists of this age ; and thus they have never been able to accomplish anything, and thus Seneca gave an example of covetousness, while thundering against it in his eloquent pages. The Gospel employs quite another method : it opens our heart to another love, to the love of the Saviour. There is in the heart of man a thirst which the love of money will always fail to satisfy, so long as it is not quenched by the love of Christ. Give your heart to Jesus Christ ; this is not so difficult ; for in order to love him, it is only necessary to contemplate him. You have read the Gospel, but you have not given attention to it ; return to it, and, upon your bended knee, implore the Holy Spirit to aid you in comprehending and feeling the Divine word. See him, that holy, just, and innocent One, without spot, separate from sinners, exalted above the heavens ; see him coming down to THE LOVER OF MONEY. 113 earth " to seek and to save that which was lost/' to seek even you, to save even you. See him, "who was rich," — and with what riches I — " for your sake becoming poor," and with what poverty ! See him living upon the earth — him your Lord and your God — jiving as you yourselves would not wish to live, nourished by cliarity's hand, not even a penny wherewith to pay the tribute demanded of him, nor a place whereon to lay his head. See him sold for that miserable money which you prefer to all things, deliv- ered into the hands of wicked men, condemned as a criminal, insult- ed, crowned with thorns, crucified between two malefactors, and for whom ? For you, yes, for you who have, until this very moment, loved the thirty pieces of Judas more than the blood of your Saviour, but who wish henceforth to love the blood of your Saviour more than the thirty pieces of Judas. See and believe, and fall at His feet, crying with the Apostle Peter, " Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." Then, doubt it not, the shameful chains with which you have been bound by Mammon, will fall from you of themselves. How would you still call fortune the chief good, and poverty insupportable ? Your Saviour became poor that you might have eternal riches. How would you still be anxious for your life, or for your family ? He has said unto you, " I will not leave thee, nor forsake thee." How could you be unable to suffer the deprivation of your goods ? You have in heaven treasures better and enduring. How refuse the sacrifice of your fortune to the Lord ? It belongs to Him, and He has confided it to you, He who first gave himself for you, and who is himself alone your riches, your gold and your silver. Ah I it is only necessary to be a Christian, in order to be the most disinterested of men ; and if there are so few uncontrolled by the love of money, it is because there are so few trae Christians even among true Christians. Such is the first step, heartfelt faith ; behold now the second, liberality of the hands, which springs from this faith, and which, in turn, nourishes it. Zaccheus had no sooner known the Lord 114 ADOLPHE MONOD. than he presented himself before him, saying : " Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor, and if I have taken any- thing from any man by false accasation, I restore him fourfold." Imitate him, like him, give with method ; like him, establish a rule, broad and generous. What each one ought to give, or the manner in which he ought to give it, is with him to settle with the Lord ; the Gospel has not prescribed in such matters, it has been left with your charity. Justify this confidence. Raise yourself above cold custom, and make your account not with men but with Jesus Christ. Be not satisfied with the exclama- tion : " That is well done." Be filled with the thought that your fortune belongs to Him more than to you, and that you are appointed to administer it in His name. Remember the words of Christ : " It is more blessed to give than to receive ;" and give like a man who feels that even giving is a favor which God has accorded to him. Congratulate yourself upon living in a time when occasions for giving profitably are increasing. Blessed is he who can at the same time respond to the appeal of the age, to the appeal of mankind, to the appeal of the Lord, and to the appeal of his own heart, but of a heart animated by charity I For you who are rich, this is a happiness exceeding all others. Learn then to enjoy your fortune. Understand why God has given it to you. Spend it for his glory as long as you live ; and forget not in your last will Him to whom you owe your temporal and eternal inheritance. Of what use are your riches, if you make them not the means of doing good, if you are not " rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communi- cate ?" Then alone will you be happy in being rich, and the world happy in that you are so. Then this prosperity which has destroyed so many others, will be for you a means of making "your calling and election sure." Then in parting with your earthly treasures, you will remember with joy that you have sown in the field of the Lord, where you will reap many fold ; and, like the charitable man of whom we read, you may cause to THE LOVER OF MONEY. 115 be written upon your tomb : " What I kept, I lost ; what I gave away, I retahied." And you to whom the Lord has given what was desired by the wise Agur, complain not that you cannot give what you could wish, but rather give what you can. " For if there be first a willing mind, it is accepted according to that a man hath, and not according to that he hath not." Try hard, and you will find that you can do more, much more than you imagine. An inge- nious charity will enrich you in the Lord ; impracticable sacri- fices will become easy ; necessary expenses will seem to you superfluous ; and if the rich have the advantage of offering more abundant gifts, you will have the advantage of exercising more self-denial in yours. And finally, to you, whom the Lord has placed in the same situation in which He lived while upon the earth, to you should Christian liberality be forbidden ? No, my brethren, no. Take the example of the poor widow. Have you nothing to give ? She had no more than you, but a sacrificing spirit enabled her to discover in her profound poverty, an offering which excited the admiration of the Lord. Do you say that what you might be able to give would be too little to be of any service ? Were the two mites of the widow lost ? Have they not been more ser- viceable, yes, literally, more serviceable than the rich offerings that fell with hers into the treasury of the temple ? These two mites have been multiplied from age to age, by the faith that offered them and by the blessing of the Lord who accepted them, and who determined that His Gospel should perpetuate their remembrance. These two mites have, from century to cen- tury, provoked sacrifices on the part of a multitude of poor Christians, who would have never known that they had anything to give, if they had not been taught by the poor widow, and who, by reason of their number, give, as has often been calcu- lated, more than the rich. These two mites have already drawn into the treasury of the church sums immensely great, and their work is not yet done ; they will continue to act " wheresoever 116 ADOLPHE MONOD. this Gospel shall be preached throughout the whole world ;" and if you, yourselves, decide this day to imitate the widow's charity, it will be a new fruit of her humble offering. Why should there be no fruit of yours ? Be faithful only, and wait upon Him who increased the oil of the widow of Sarepta, and multiplied the mites of the widow of Jerusalem I Lord Jesus I Thou hast come to us, to-day, saying : " Take heed and beware of the love of money." And we come to Thee saying : Save us from the love of money ! Beat off, destroy this serpent that enfolds us ! Faith, liberality, everything comes from thee 1 Bestow these upon us, so that, washed in thy blood and baptized in thy spirit, we may henceforth consecrate to thy service all that we have and all that we are ; glad to offer thee a thousand fortunes and a thousand lives if we had them, and still regretting that we had not more to offer, in return for that ineffable gift whence flow our happiness and our eternal wealth I DISCOURSE IV. THE CONFLICT OP CHRIST WITH SATAN. "And Jesus, being full of the Holy Ghost, returned from Jordan, and was led in the Spirit into the wilderness, being forty days tempted of the devil. And in those days he did eat nothing : and when they were ended, he afterward hungered. And the devil said unto him. If thou be the Son of God, command this stone that it be made bread. And Jesus answered him, saying. It is written, that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God. And the devil, taking him up into an high mountain, shewed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them : for that is delivered unto me ; and to whomsoever I will, I give it. If thou, therefore, will worship me, all shall be thine. And Jesus answered and said unto him. Get thee behind me, Satan : for it is written, thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. And he brought him to Jerusalem, and set him on a pinnacle of the temple, and said unto him. If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down from thence : for it is written, He shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee : and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone. And Jesus answering said unto him, It is said, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. And when the devil had ended all the temptation, he departed from him for a season." — Luke, iv. 1-13. My Christian Friends : The aspect of Scripture truth oftentimes varies, according as we regard it with the eyes of human wisdom, or with those of faith : and nowhere is that difference more striking than in the page which we have just read. For my own part, I remember a time when I never met this passage without a kind of shame for my own understanding, and I might almost say for the word of God : whereas now I turn to it again and again, as to a favorite passage, where my soul finds food both grateful and abundant. 117 118 ADOLPHE MONOD. This is so because the narrative is as full of wholesome instruc- tions for the little child who simply trusts to God's testimony, as it is of mysteries for the philosopher who assumes to judge the Scriptures, instead of consenting to be judged by them. There is mystery in the personal existence of the devil, and in the influence which he exerts upon us. His influence is so clearly asserted in the Scriptures that we cannot deny it without doing them violence. But as to its origin, its nature, its extent — on all these points we are left in almost total ignorance. There is mystery in the power granted to the devil to lay his in- famous snares for the Son of God himself. We ca,n understand how he tempts us, for by sin we have become subject to his sway ; but how can we conceive of his being permitted to tempt "The Lord of lords, the Holy of holies," him "in whom he hath nothing ?" There is mystery in the nature of the tempta- tion to which Jesus Christ was subjected. " He was tempted," and yet " without sin :" these two facts are expressly affirmed in the Scriptures : but seek to take a step further, and you are hedged in on every side. How can we explain a struggle against temptation, when there is no inward propensity to sin ? Yet, how can we reconcile an inward propensity to do wrong, with unspotted holiness ? If it were impossible for Jesus to fall, where is the glory of his triumph ? If it were possible, what becomes of his divine nature ? There is mystery, finally, in the manner in which the scene here described took place. Its basis is assuredly a real fact ; everything proves it, the tone of the narrative, the locality assigned to the event, the character of the book : and yet the text, considered both as a whole and in its various details, shows no less certainly that the fact was beyond the limit of human experience. How can we solve this apparent contradiction ? — this conflict, of which earth was the theatre, while the actors were taken from heaven and from hell ? Where did it occur ? W^as it in the visible or the invisible world ? — or was it on some dark boundary territory, in its nature paxtaking of both ? — Mysteries on mysteries I THE CONFLICT OF ClIKIST WITH SATAN. 119 These obscurities I do not even attempt to solve. I examine my text simply from that practical point of view which a child could apprehend as well as we, and, perhaps, better. Guided by these words of the Lord — " I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done,"^— let us seek the instructions which he here gives as the rule of our life. Now, in this terrible con- flict of the Son of God with the spirit of darkness, we distin- guish three principal things : the conjiid itself, the victory, and the weajpons. Each of these three will in turn afford us instruction. By the conflict which he endured, Jesus teaches us to expect a conflict also. By the victory which he won, Jesus teaches us that we in like manner may conquer. And by the weapons which he employed, Jesus teaches us how we make certain our triumph. The subject is so vast, that I have thought proper to devote three separate discourses to its consideration. We will restrict ourselves, on this occasion, to the Conflict which our Lord maintained in the wilderness. This conflict should reconcile us to that which we ourselves are compelled to maintain. It is the outward expression of the struggles of our own souls. From -you who are the children of God, and who are experienced in the Christian life, I fear no contradiction in saying that its temptations confound you, and at times even threaten to prove your ruin. Upon entering the ways of the Lord, it seems to us that the devil should be kept at a distance, where it is impossible for him to annoy us. When we feel his assaults, a secret terror creeps upon us, as if the Lord were leaving us altogether. Our anxiety increases if the temptation be prolonged and rendered more fierce, especially if it happens in moments of communion with God, and, so far as we can see, answers no good purpose. In such a case, we may be driven well-nigh to a state of despair. Now, the conflict of Jesus corresponds to all this. Jesus is tempted. — The struggle you are undergoing. He under- went before you. What do I say ? Your trial hardly deserves to be mentioned when compared with His. Temptation>s are 120 ADOLPHE MONOD manifold ; they are not equal, nor is the temptation equally strong in the case of different individuals. In order, then, rightly to appreciate the nature of a temptation, we should ascertain, not only what it is in itself, but also to him who is called to endure it. Must we, then, in the first place, consider the temptation in itself 1 Among all you have borne, you will find none to com- pare with that which Jesus had to endure, as related in my text. Think of it, and endeavor in imagination to put yourselves in the position of our Lord — separated from the society of men ; cast out alone into the midst of a desert ; surrounded by wild beasts ; deprived of all food ; with the devil at his side inces- santly attempting to ensnare him ; and all this lasting forty days and forty nights.* This situation, in which you dare not even imagine yourselves, was that of your Saviour. But we proceed. The true standard of temptation lies not in its external conditions, but in the internal sensibilities of him whom it visits. The cold, slimy touch of a serpent is one thing to the rough skin of a herdsman, and quite another to the delicate sensitiveness of a young child. The tempter's attacks are not the same when directed against a sinner like you or me, as when directed against the " Saint of saints." If we account it a terrible thing to contend with the spirit of darkness, what must it have been to the Son of God ? To us, conceived and born in iniquity, fully subject to " the prince of this world," his assaults — his onset and the blows which he aims at us — are in keeping with the natural order of things. But for " the only begotten and well beloved Son " to be exposed to them — is not this fearfully contrary to the nature of things ? and must not His whole divine Being have risen up against that conflict with unspeakable horror? However this may be, He has actually been in conflict with the tempter. * It appears from the account of the evangelists, that the Lord was tempted during forty days , and that after this space, the devil directed against him a final effort, which alone is detailed to us in its full particulars. THE CONFLICT OF CHRIST WITH SATAN. 121 Children of God, behold this only begotten and well beloved Son, wrestling, as you now are, with the eternal enemy of God and His people I Suppose yourselves to have been living in Judea, eighteen centuries ago, and to have been informed that the promised Messiah was somewhere on the face of the earth. Where would you have sought him ? I know not ; but you would surely have sought Him anywhere rather than where He really was ; not in the carpenter's humble abode ; not among those whom John baptized, on the banks of the Jordan ; above all, not in the wilderness, fighting with the devil. And yet there you would have found Him, and you would have searched else- where in vain for forty days and forty nights. But had you there at last discovered Him, would not the sight of His temp- tations have explained to you the inexplicable mystery of your own ? Ah I I acknowledge it at last. The conflict before which I recoil, and under which I had well-nigh sunk, is the common lot of humanity — a lot so unavoidable, that it must needs be waged, even when humanity was united to divinity itself ! Then let temptation come, let it come in its most bitter, its most pros- trating form, nothing shall either surprise or terrify me ! Jesus we must seek in the wilderness ; Jacob at the brook of Jabbok ; Moses at Massah, and at Meribah ; Daniel in the lion's den ; John in his exile ; Chrysostom in his disgrace ; John Huss at the Council of Constance ; Luther at the Diet of Worms I Jesus "was tempted" — and in whatl The Holy Spirit an- swers "in all points." Yes, verily, "in all points;" follow Him by the light of my text, and you will see Him tempted at all times, in all places, in all ways. 1. At all times. — This is bnt " the beginning of sorrows " — a beginning which the sequel will complete. "The temptation" being " ended " for this time, " the devil departs from Him, but only for a season." He will return to the charge — do not doubt it — he will return to it throughout the whole of Christ's career ; he will renew it especially when it shall reach the great, the decisive hour. After having once wounded his heel in the 6 122 ADOLPHE MONOD. wilderness, he will inflict a second wound at Golgotha, in order that Jesus, who has begun to tread upon this serpent in his solitude, may finally crush his head on the cross. Thus, at the two extremes of the ministry of the Son of God, do we find two great temptations, the most terrible of all, opening and shutting the series of all those which assailed Him in succession for three and a half years. The first a temptation of covetousness — the rejection of all earth's promises ; the second, a temptation of suffering — all the rage of hell, and even the wrath of heaven to be endured. We, too, shall find on our way this double temp- tation of the desert and the cross, and, generally, in the same order. At the beginning of the Christian course, we are called upon to overcome earthly desires by self-denial ; at a later period, and especially in the last struggle, to subdue by patience the pains of the body and the anguish of the mind, " If any man will come after me, let him deny himadf, and take up his crossP 2. In all places. — Here we need not wander from our text. We here find Jesus tempted in the wilderness, tempted on the mountain, tempted in the holy city. There are men who have buried themselves in deserts, hoping thus to avoid temptation — strange delusion ! Did they, then, forget that it was in a desert that the Lord was tempted ? You may have escaped the com- pany of your fellow-men, but how will you escape Satan, and your own heart ? These two foes, the outward and the inward, banded* together against you, will follow you wherever you go. In the wilderness, on the mountain, in the holy city — that is to say, in solitude, in the world, in the church — everywhere, you will have to meet temptation. Our business is not to flee, but to fight : not to exchange the temptations of one form of life for those of another — temptations so much the more dangerous in such a case because of our own selecting, — but stoutly to con- tend against the temptations of that particular position in which it has pleased God to place us. Finally, and this is my principal remark — in all ways. Here. THE CONFLICT OF CHRIST WITH SATAN. 123 once more, I appeal to my text. The devil stops only after hav- ing " ended all the temptation." Of all the temptations to which Jesus was subjected, that of the desert is the most character- istic and complete. We see here the enemy collecting his whole energies, exhausting in turn all his resources, all his means. It is more than a temptation, it is the temptation ; it is a system, and, so to speak, an entire course of temptations. For the devil acts according to a plan, which we should know, and which the Holy Ghost reveals to us : " the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes^ and the pride of /z/e."* He adhered to that plan with Eve, who yielded to temptation when she saw, first, that the fruit " was good for /ooc/," then " that it was pleasant to the eyes,^^ and lastly, that it was " to be desired to make one wise^ He adopted it, especially with Jesus, whom he tempted first by the wants of the flesh ; secondly, by the exhibition of earthly pomp; lastly, by the pride of a wonderful miracle. His intention in this place will appear very clearly if, instead of simply looking at the temptation as such, you penetrate into its spirit. Satan endeavors to make the Lord succumb, in the first place, by a spirit of distrust towards God ; then, by a spirit of unfaithful- ness to God ; lastly, by a spirit of rash confidence in God. He appeals in succession to want of faith, to forgetfulness of faith, to abuse of faith. How skillfully is all this contrived, nicely arranged, and prosecuted to the end I Still farther, everything is an instrument in the tempter's hands. When his own resources fail, he employs those that are used against him, and turns into weapons for his own purpose, the very means of resistance. Jesus has just heard a voice pro- claiming him as the Son of God ; the devil endeavors to seduce him by that glorious title. Jesus has been clothed by the Holy Ghost with superhuman dignity ; the devil endeavors to make * 1 John, ii. 16. The order in which the Apostle names the three great principles of human covetousness cannot have been taken at random, especially as that order occurs in Eve's temptation, and in that of our Lord (as recorded by St. Luke). It seems that the three temptations were here arranged according to their degree of subtlety. The first was a temptation of the flesh ; the sscond, of the eyes ; the third, of the spirit. 124 ADOLPHE MONOD. him abuse his power. Jesus fasts ; the deviF seeks to push him to extremities by hunger. In order the better to succeed, the traitor " is transformed into an angel of hght ; " he acts the saint, he consents to make use of holy things ; the holy temple, the holy city, and even the holy word of God, are made avail- able by his perfidious hands. Observe, especially, the use he makes of the name Messiah, which Jesus bears. Upon it he constructs the whole temptation. Jesus may exhibit himself as the Messiah, provided his Messiah- ship be not such as the holy prophets have described, but accords ing to the conceptions of the carnal-minded Jews. In this he expected the better to succeed, from the circumstance that he was addressing a Jew, and a Jew interested in answering the expectations of his countrymen. The Messiah is endued with supernatural power : Satan desires him to use it, not according to the sense of the prophets, that he may save the souls of men, but according to the sense of the carnal Jews, in satisfying his carnal desires and theirs — " If thou be the Son of God, com- mand this stone to be made bread." The Messiah must inherit all the kingdoms of the world : — be it so. Satan desires that he receive them, not, as the prophets have foretold, from the Father's hand, and as the reward of his sacrifice ; but as the carnal Jews expected, without a struggle, and from the hand of the prince of this world — " If thou wilt worship me, all shall be thine." In fine, to the Messiah attach glorious promises of aid and of deliverance. Satan wills that he should make use of these, not, in the acceptation of the prophets, that he may accomplish his work of mercy in spite of all obstacles, in spite of Satan himself ; but, as the carnal Jews anticipated to forward his own glory together with that of his people — " If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down from hence." Such are the wiles of this fallen spirit ; such are the coils of this serpent I So true is it that he spared no effort to procure the downfall of Jesus, had it been possible for him to fall. you, then, who are besieged, and, as it were, overwhelmed THE CONFIJCT OF CHRIST WITH SATAN. 125 with temptations, cease from your complainings I When all things conspire against you ; when your endeavors, your precau- tions, your supports, your very prayers become a snare to you ; when you feel comfortless, weak, abandoned of men, separated from God, ready to die of anguish — cast one look, one single look, at Jesus in the wilderness I Believe it ; one moment spent with Him during those forty painful days, would have left you recollections capable of strengthening you forever against the doubts which the overwhelming force of temptation suggests, and against the murmurs which it forces from your lips. If you supply, by faith, that interview, you will feel your courage rise. What can happen to you which has not happened to Jesus ? What, indeed, can you meet with but what is far below the trials He had to suffer ? No, no, children of God, your Father has not forgotten you I He but deals with you as He has dealt with His only-begotten and well-beloved Son. In this are ye " conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the first- born among many brethren." " We have not an high-priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities ; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us, therefore, come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need." Jesus is tempted — and when ? after what ? and before what ? After His baptism, after His fervent prayer, after the heavens have opened above His head, after the Holy Spirit has descended on Him, after the voice from heaven has been heard : " This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased ;" after all this, and even, according to Mark, " immediately" after. It is this moment of glory and of spiritual blessing which is selected for the temp- tation. Selected by Satan, because then the Son of God excites to the highest degree His anger and His jealousy ; but, at the same time, selected by God, because his Son is then better forti- fied against all the assaults of the enemy. When, therefore, you are a prey to temptation, do not suppose that you have been forsaken of God. If Satan gathers all his forces against 126 ADOLPHE MONOD, you, it is, perhaps, because signal graces ar(f making you the object for bis blows, whilst, at the same time, they prepare you to repulse them. We said that temptation is the common lot of humanity : let us add that extraordinary temptations constitute the privilege of the best. God keeps such trials in store for those heroes of the faith, whom no impediment arrests, and no difficulty con- founds : for a Moses, a Samuel, a Jeremiah, a poor woman from Canaan, a centurion of Capernaum, a Peter, a Paul. Nor is this all. He reserves them not only for the strongest, but, far- ther, for the period of their greatest strength. God has spared them during the early season of their spiritual career, when they could only lean upon the conscious piety of first-love ; just as a humane ordinance of Moses exempted for one year every newly- married man from the service of war, in order that he might " remain at home and cheer up his wife which he had taken." But, when once this power of feeling has been replaced by another power, more constant and firm — that of the faith, which knows how "to hope against hope," then comes the season of fatigue and of war ; then the Lord calls His children to severer contests, which keep alike and develop their holy courage. You have just been baptized with a fresh baptism of the Holy Ghost; you have just poured out your whole heart before God in a humble, fervent prayer ; you have just seen heaven opened, in some sort, over you, and heard the voice of the Almighty, " bearing witness with your spirit that are a child of God :" you believe that, for this time at least, you are beyond the attacks of the evil one. Be not deceived. This is the very moment when you should expect him, and place double watch around your heart : watch, then, and pray. But also remember, that this is the moment in which God has been careful to strengthen you beforehand ; therefore, take courage. It was when Paul had been "caught up to the third heaven," that there was " given to him a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to buffet him." THE CONFLICT OF CHRIST WITH SATAN. 127 Aud lefore wlia* was Jesus tempted ? Before, immediately before the beginuiug- of His ministry ; on the eve of entering upon a career wholly devoted to the glory of God, to the salva- tion of men, to the holiest work that ever was known. As long as Jesus remains at Nazareth concealed in humble life in the workshop of Joseph, we do not hear that the devil went to seek Him ; but He no sooner commences His public duties, He no sooner devotes himself to the mission which He has received from His heavenly Father, than He is arrested at the very outset. Be not, then, astonished at seeing temptation either approach or increase when you are engaged in some good work, some pious undertaking, some enterprise approved of God and man. You especially, young servants of the Lord, who are preparing to exercise in His church the ministry of the Word,* do not think that anything extraordinary has happened to you, if the time you spend in this holy preparation should be for your soul a time of uncommon trial. As long as you lived under the shelter of the paternal roof in happy obscurity, the faith you imbibed there was as a second nature increasing with your years, and seemed to you so deeply rooted that no storm could ever shake it. But now, deprived of a father's watchful guidance, and of the tender counsels of a faithful mother, called upon to face an unbelieving, a profane world — a world that tolerates every- thing but what is holy and true — now, having learned enough in the science of divine things to raise more than one perplexing question, yet not enough to solve the questions raised, you are terror-stricken by thoughts of a skeptical nature creeping into your heart. My young friend, be not troubled ; this is the common history of all those who have trodden the path beforie you ; it is the history even of the holiest and most faithful. " The enemy hath done this ;" and he does it because he sees you so profitably • These three Discourses were preached before the Theological Students at Montauban. 128 ADOLniE MONOD. occupied. He might, perhaps, consent to leave you more at ease, if you yourself would consent to bury the talent which you have received from the Lord ; for, then, by causing you to fall, he would be injuring you only. But now it is your future minis- try he hopes to frustrate ; it is a whole people he liopes to deprive of the Word of life, if he succeeds in robbing you of " your most holy faith." It is this that renders him so vigilant and so active. The work of the Holy Spirit and that of the devil are closely connected ; the first provokes the second ; and in the invisible world, heaven is nigh unto hell. The Holy Ghost conducts Jesus into the wilderness where He is tempted by the devil ; and Satan, when about to tempt Job, appears " in the heavenly places," in the midst of "the sons of God." Fore- warned as you are by the example of the Lord himself, fearlessly await the evil one. "Resist the devil, and he will flee from you." Does he render you indifferent in the perusal of the Bible ? Pursue your meditations with increased eagerness. Does he discourage you in prayer ? Pray with more ardor, with more perseverance. Does he turn you away from the simphcity of the faith ? Endeavor to grow in the disposition of a little child, as well as in the learning of a theologian. As soon as the enemy sees that you turn his attacks to your own advantage, he will become weary, and desist rather than benefit you so much. At any rate, he can undertake nothing against you which the temp- tation of Jesus Christ should not have caused you to anticipate. The doctors of the synagogue themselves can here instruct you. One of their apocryphal books, Ecclesiasticus, begins its second chapter thus : *' My son, if thou come to serve the Lord, pre- pare thy soul for temptation." Finally, Jesus is tempted — and why ? The complete answer to this question touches upon those mysteries which we do not pretend to investigate. But the Scriptures tell us everywhere that our Lord's temptation was necessary. " It behoved him," the Apostle expressly says, " to be made like in all things unto his brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful high THE CONFLICT OF CHEIST WITH SATAN. 129 priest in all things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. For in that He himself hath sufifered, being tempted, He is able to succor them that are tempted." It was, no doubt, necessary likewise, to justify, by the victorj of Jesus Christ, the condemnation of man, overcome in the same conflict ; to fill the measure of the Messiah's expiatory suffer- ings ; to begin to exhibit in him, before the face of heaven, of earth, of hell, that the Son of God was manifested, " that He might destroy the works of the devil ;" perhaps, for aught we know, to reveal Him completely to himself, to make Him " per- fect through trial," and to carry Him forward, " conquering and to conquer." Whatever the reason may be, it was necessary that Jesus should be tempted ; that is enough. The temptation was no mere accident in His life ; it was useful, essential to it ; it entered into the plan of our redemption. All the images under which the prophets had described the coming Messiah, looked to a strife between himself and the spirit of darkness — a strife, of which the narrative supplied by the text is but the prelude. Having come to establish a kingdom, but to establish it upon the ruins of a usurper, the Messiah — that true Joshua — could obtain His dominion only by conquest ; He could receive " the inheritance of the nations" only by wresting it from "the prince of this world." The Jews had understood it thus themselves, and it was an article in their belief that the Messiah should be tempted by Satan at the very outset of his career. Our text, in its turn, acknowledges in the temptation this kind of necessity. Everything is foreseen, arranged, willed by God. Jesus " is led," or, as Mark has it, " driven by the spirit " into the wilderness, where He is tempted by the devil.* Matthew expresses himself in terms still more positive : " He was led up of the spirit into the wilderness, to be tempted of the devil." The devil tempts Him, and then departs from Him, " having ended all the temp- tation ;" as having played his part, for we know that whilst * Mark i. 12 ; the expression of the Evangelist has peculiar energy, it signifies casi^ thrown. * 61F 130 ADOLPHE MONOD. tempting Jesus, as well as whilst crucifying Him, lie could only do whatsoever " the hand and the counsel of God determined before to be done." Let us learn from this, my dear friends, that the trials of which we complain are useful to us also, essential to perfect our holiness, and to fit us for the work which God hath given us to do in the world. " God," says James, " tempteth no man," because he never drives us to sin ; but he may bring us into temptation, as he did in the case of his Son, in order to " prove us, and to know what is in our heart." If we resist temptation, we come forth from it stronger and more devoted, purified as gold in the fire. But if we yield, then, no doubt, we bear the punishment of our cowardice ; although, even then, if repentance lifts us up again, we have, at least, learned to know our own weakness, and to seek our strength only in the Lord. It is by this incessant battle while proceeding from victory to victory — or, alas I instead of constant victories alternate vic- tories and defeats — that the wholesome exercise, of our faith acquires its development. The tempest prostrates and uproots the tree slightly rooted in the soil ; but, if it shakes the one whose grasp is firm, it is only for the purpose of driving deeper and deeper down those thousand hidden arms by which it pene- trates and clings firmly to the earth. " Tribulation," the Apostle writes, " worketh patience, patience experience, and ex- perience hope." * What is here said of tribulation, that species of temptation most frequently dwelt upon in the Word of God, is also true of all other forms. And hence the Apostle James, * Rom. V. 3, 4. In order to understand distinctly these deep truths, we must bear in mind that experience here means, the test which tribulation makes of our faith, and the tested (or tried) character it imparts to it. ITope, likewise, does not signify an ex- pectation more or less uncertain, but the firm assurance of those good things to come which we as yet possess only by faith (Rom. viii. 22, 24). When we are afflicted, we are exercised to patience ; when we have suffered with patience we know on trial our faith to be genuine ; and when our faith has thus been tried, we have a firm and glorious assurance in the grace of the Lord. I THE CONFLICT OF CHRIST WITH SATAN. 131 IQ the energetic and paradoxical language so peculiar to him, exhorts us " to count it all joy when we fall into divers tempta- tions ; and calls " blessed," not the man who is not tempted, but him who " endureth temptation,^^ that is to say, who under- goes it without yielding to it ; for, " when he is tried," riz : when he has resisted in seasons of trial, " he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord has promised to them that love him." If Jesus needed his temptation, we need ours also. Satan's work is necessary to complete that of the Holy Spirit ; and..in ^ thisworld nothing comes to perfection except it has been helped ^ .^onjiyijjjejdeyil. In order to enlighten Job's faith, to strengthen his heart and perfect his joy, the cruel display of Satan's malice was necessary. The perfidious detractors who cast Daniel into the lion's den were necessary to him, in order that he might know during the peaceful night which he spent amidst those ter- rible animals, all the power, and all the faithfulness of his God. Paul needed that "thorn in his flesh," that "messenger of Satan sent to bufifet him," that he might be kept humble, and not " exalted above measure through the abundance of his re- velations ;" that he might feel the power of that word which comforted him, and which will comfort the saints to the end of time — " When I am weak, then am I strong." Peter needed that court of the high priest, to show him his own weakness ; so that after the confession and the forgiveness of his sin, he might reappear in the eyes of the church worthier than ever of the distinction which the Lord had bestowed upon him, and which he continued to him notwithstanding his fall. Chrysostom needed the anger of his master ; Augustine, the perils of his youth ; Luther, the mortal conflicts of his soul ; Calvin, his weak health and his implacable enemies. And you, my dear brother, whom Satan seems to have selected as the object of his most powerful attacks ; you upon whose downfall his whole pride appears bent ; you who are driven to the last extremity, and ready to succomb ; you who join in t^e 132 AUOLFHE MONOD. Messiah's cry of anguish in the Psalms : '' I am come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me. . . . mj throat is dried ; mine eyes fail while I wait for my God " — be assured, all this was necessary for you ; it was the very thing you required to teach you to serve God, to confound the great adversary, and to fill you with "joy unspeakable, and full of glory !" You are a child of God, his beloved, his privileged child ; and, in very truth, if we could rise above the flesh, and judge according to the word of God, we should be more incHned to envy than to pity you. " Cast not away, therefore, your confidence, which hath great recompense of reward ;" but rather resist, hold fast* unto the end, give glory to God, and abound in thanksgiving I Young servants of God, if temptation is necessary for all, it is doubly so for you. This fight which you are beginning to carry on against the opposition of the world, and especially against the natural unbelief of your own hearts, should not sur- prise you. It is the narrow path through which you must pro- ceed, in order to reach a firmer faith ; in order to learn, as your Saviour did, by the anguish of temptation, to sympathize one day with the infirmities of others, and to succor those that are tempted. Listen to what was said on this subject by a great master in the school of Christian experience — a hero who fought valiantly against the powers of the world and of hell. Luther, writing to a young theologian, makes him observe, in the 119th Psalm, three principal means by which the inspired writer strengthens himself in the divine life — prayer, meditation on the Scriptures, and temptation ; and hear how he expresses himself on the last of these three points : '' Temptation is the touchstone which will make you not only know and understand, but feel, how correct the Word of God is, how true, how sweet, how lovely, how powerful, how- consoling, how wise above all other wisdom. Without temptation there are no good preachers, but only mere babblers, who know not them- selves of what they speak, nor why ; as says Paul to Timothy, ' desiring to be teachers of the law, understanding neither what THE CONFLICT OF CHRIST WITH SATAN. 133 they say, nor wliercof they affirm.' This is why you see David ill our psalm often complaining of all sorts of enemies, oppressors, rebellious and obstinate spirits, whom he must endure, because he carries everywhere with him the Word of God. For as soon as you begin to give your witness to the Word of God, the devil will endeavor to tempt you, that you may become a good divine, and that through the trials by which he visits you, you may learn to explore and to love this Word of life. I am under the greatest obligations to the Papists myself, who, with the aid of all the din of Satan, have so ill-treated me, and driven me to such an extremity of anguish, that they have succeeded in mak- ing of me a tolerable theologian, which I never could have been but for their assistance ; and as for what, on the other hand, they have gained from me, I willingly yield to them the honors, the victories, and the triumphs, which make up the whole object of their desires." Lord Jesus I we would no more complain of temptation. We have this day found thee in the wilderness ; thither we will not refuse to follow thee. We have glanced at what thou hast suf- fered, being tempted, and the sight has affected us to the very depth of our hearts. Thou didst endure temptation in order to be hke unto us ; shall we not consent to suffer that we also may be like unto thee? We distrust ourselves. Lord, and, as thou didst teach us, we say : " Lead us not into temptation I" But if into temptation we must be led, then, we confidently add, as thou hast further taught us : " Deliver us from the Evil One I" It is enough for us to remember that we have in thee " a merciful and faithful high priest, who, because he has himself suffered, being tempted, can also succor those who are tempted." How sweet is this thought to us, Lord I Thus, whatever be our temptations, thou hast known them before us, thou hast beforehand overcome them for us I Therefore it is, Oh, our compassionate Saviour I that we pour out our hearts in thy presence with a holy free- dom ; and were it possible for us to be tried as thou wert thy- self tried, still would we " come boldly unto the throne of grace, 134 ADOLPIIE MONOD. that we migM obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need." It is not at us that thine enemy and ours levels his blows ; t/iee, thee alone, he attacks in us : Thou, therefore, must defend us I Triumph over him in us I And since thou hast been tempted like as we are, make us conquerors like unto thy- self I Amen. DISCOURSE V. THE VICTORY OF CHRIST OVER SATAN. " And Jesus, being full of the Holy Ghost, returned from Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, being forty days tempted of the devil," etc. — Luke iv. 1-13. My dear Christian Friends : The conflict of Jesus has reconciled us to that which we must endure : His victory will be a pledge that we too shall conquer in turn. That which makes us feeble to resist temptation, is our uncer- tainty as to the issue of the strife. Nothing would be impos- sible to us, were we assured of victory ; but doubt, bitter doubt, destroys our courage. You are tempted by a spirit of sloth ; you wish you could become " fervent in spirit,'^ and " instant in prayer ;" but you doubt whether you can overcome your spi- ritual indolence — and, in spite of yourself, you continue to creep slowly along the path in which God invites you to run. You are tempted by a spirit of discontent : under the weight of a heavy and prolonged affliction, you wish you could abound in thanksgiving ; but you doubt whether you will be able to over- come the grief which oppresses you — and your life continues to be spent in fruitless and ungrateful complainings. You are tempted by a spirit of unbelief ; you wish you could rely upon God's word with an unshaken confidence ; you well know that from this source must come your peace, your strength, your satisfaction ; but you doubt whether you will be able to eradi- 135 136 ADOLPHE MONOD. cate a sluggishness of faith wliich has been fostered by tempera- ment, by education, by example, by habit — and you go on wretchedly vacillating between the truth of God and the cavils of the natural heart. You are tempted by a spirit of lust ; while abstaining from such excesses as would dishonor your Christian profession, " you make provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lust thereof," and you feel weighed down under a humiliating yoke which is burdensome to bear ; but you doubt whether you can address yourself to a life of self-sacrificing devotion — and you go on indulging in a pleasurable and enervating indolence. Oh ! you, who recognize yourselves in this sad picture, come and learn from the history of my text, that you can conquer every temptation. Jesus, like you, has been tempted ; and while the first Adam yielded in Eden, the second Adam has gained a universal conquest in the wilderness. His victory is complete. After forty days of unceasing attacks, after a final and desperate assault, the adversary sees himself at last com- pelled to raise the siege, ashamed and convinced of his weak- ness, and Jesus has acquired the right to say : " The prince of this world has nothing in me." Not one of "the fiery darts of the wicked" could find an open way to His heart. It is written: " He was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin ;" no sin before nor with the temptation ; no sin after the tempta- tion, nor proceeding from it. In him we have " an high priest who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners." Well, if Jesus has thus conquered, you too may conquer. Here, as before, we must begin by setting aside the mysterious part of our subject, and the questions more curious than useful to which it has given rise. Between the temptation of Jesus and our temptation, the analogy is not complete ; for, as children of a corrupt race, we harbor within us lusts which Jesus never knew. Although He took upon himself the infirmities which sin had introduced into our nature, far be it from us to suppose that He shared in the slightest measure the sinful tendency itself. We may distinguish three kinds of temptations : that of Jesus, that THE VICTORY OF CHRIST OVER SATAN. 137 of Adam, and our own ; the first was without sin, both before and after the trial ; the second without siu before the trial, but not after ; the third accompanied by sin before, as well as after, according to the declaration of St. James in that passage of his epistle : " Every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed ; then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin." Hence, upon the moral character of temptation, and the degree of holiness to which we can attain during this life, have arisen those questions which have more than once agitated the church, but which we think it neither necessary nor possible satisfactorily to solve. However this may be, I here confine myself to the application which concerns us in our actual condi- tion, and I leave the subject on that practical ground chosen by the Apostle James in the words just quoted. Our business is to prevent lust from conceiving, and from bringing forth sin ; we can always do this. Of all the temptations you encounter on your way, there is not one which you cannot overcome, as Jesus overcame his, and as Adam might have overcome his also. Thus, you who are tempted by a spirit of sloth, can " have life, and have it more abundantly." You who are tried by a spirit of discontent, can "rejoice evermore," and sing aloud "with the voice of thanksgiving." You who are tempted by a spirit of unbelief, can " continue in the faith, stablished, strengthened, and settled ;" and you who are tried by a spirit of sensuality, can " keep under your body, bring it into subjection, and mor- tify its deeds through the spirit." You can do it : for, what you are called upon to do, Jesus has already done. Perhaps you will answer : Jesus was the Son of God ; His vic- tory proves nothing as to us. If such an objection were valid here, it would be equally so elsewhere. Then would it be vain to set forth the pattern of Jesus before men ; then would the Holy Spirit have said in vain : " Christ has left us an example, that we should follow His steps." But this objection comes from a source which accounts for many other errors, both of doctrine and of practice ; which is, that we ignore, or, at all events, lose 138 ADOLPHE MONOD. sight of the human nature of our Lord, which it is quite as necessary to be kept in mind as His divinity. Yes, Jesus was the Son of God, but He was also the Son of man ; and as it was in His human nature that He was tempted, in His human nature likewise He overcame temptation. In thus speaking, we by no means leave out of sight the divine nature of the Lord in the narrative of the text. We do not forget that Jesus had been, immediately before the temptation, declared to be the Son of God, filled with the Holy Spirit, and thereby strengthened for the conflict which awaited Him. I would only have you observe, my dear friends, that during the conflict itself the nar- rative of the Evangelists shows us in Jesus the Son of Man alone, while the Son of God disappears. And yet I mistake — the Son of God does show himself, but only in the words of Satan. The devil reminds Jesus of that title, for the purpose of tempt- ing Him now by doubt, then through presumption, and then again through ambition : but Jesus does not make use of it as a means of defence. Had He wished to display His divine power. He might have prayed — as He himself declared in that other struggle which marked the close of his career — " to His Father, who would have given Him more than twelve legions of angels." What do I say ? He needed no angel ; one word from His lips, and Satan would have been overthrown like the messengers from the Sanhedrim in the garden of Gethsemane. But He does nothing of the kind ; He confines His energy to man's sphere of action. He wrestles against Satan with man's infirmities, and with the means which man has at his disposal. He endures hunger, and allows himself to be approached, parleyed with, and tempted like a man. Like a man, He stands through confidence in God, and triumphs by the power of God.* Above all, like a man, He quotes the Scriptures, which were written by men for men. As we see Him on another occasion in His anguish supported by an angel — Him " whom the angels of God worship " — so we here * Ephes. vi. 10, and following verses. In this passage St. Paul seems to allude to our Lord's conflict. THE VICTORY OF CUKIST OVER SATAN. 139 see Him resting upon Moses, Lord and master of Moses as He is ! Wondrous source of astonishment and of admiration ! What need had Ho to turn over as we do the books of His servant, in order to find answers to the seductions of the evil one ? Mierht He not have drawn them from His own resources ? Is He not the onl}^ begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father," who is in heaven, and who " speaketh from heaven ?" Yes, but it was necessary that here He should speak from earth, to be an example for those who are " of the earth." This remark is so true, that, not satisfied with appealing only to the Scriptures, He selects from the Scriptures only those passages which apply indiscriminately to all believers. As for the numerous testimo- nies concerning the Messiah exclusively, and which guarantee to Him the victory. He alludes to none of them — so resolved is He to draw merely from the common treasury of the whole church. The more extraordinary this circumstance, the more manifest is its intention. Against a temptation commou to man, Jesus gains by human resources a human victory, to teach human beings that they may overcome even as He overcame. Still farther : not only did Jesus conquer in humanity, but for humanity. Engaged in the contest of the wilderness as the Saviour and representative of man, it is in the name and on the behalf of man that he gains a victory, the fruits of which will be gathered by all who believe in his name. Had he not con- quered for us, how could his triumph strengthen us against the tribulations of the world ? "In the world ye shall have tribu- lation : but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world. He alone could "bind the strong man ;" but the strong man once bound, he does not enter alone "the strong man's house, and spoil his goods ; " we also enter after him. Satan is already defeated, before he attacks us ; and his power is so much the less against us, as he finds Him present in us by whom he was vanquished in the wilderness. The victory is made so sure unto us in Jesus, that the Scriptures represent us as having already obtained it : "Ye are strong, and the word of God abideth in 140 ADOLPHE MONOD. you, and ye have overcome the wicked one." In Jesus all is accomplished ; **we are more than conquerors through him that loved us :" nothing more is left for us except to join in his triumph, and in order to join in it we have only to believe on his name : " Whosoever is born of God orercometh the world ; and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith." " That roaring lion who walketh about, seeking whom he may devour," is, no doubt, formidable : but he has vainly tried his strength against " the lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David, who hath prevailed,"* and to whom the spirit of prophecy thus speaketh : " From the prey, my son, thou art gone up ; he stooped down, he couched as a lion, and as a terrible lion ; who shall rouse him up ?"f He alone is invincible, and it is he who fights for us : " For thus hath the Lord spoken unto me : Like as the lion and the young lion roaring on his prey, when a multitude of shepherds is called forth against him, he will not be afraid of their voice nor abase himself for their num- ber, so shall the Lord of hosts come down to fight for Mount Zion, and for the hill thereof." J Fear not : " greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world."§ Let us then rest assured that the victory of Jesus guarantees our own, and that we shall find in him efficient aid, since he him- self has met and overcome temptation. Such is the idea of the Holy Spirit in those two passages from the Epistle to the He- brews which we have already cited : " Because he himself has suffered, being tempted, he is able to succor them that are tempted ;" and again : " As he was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin, let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need." * Rev. V. 5. t Gen. xlix. 9. $ Isaiah, xxxi. 4. § 1 John iv. 4. Compare with tliis passage 2 Kings vi. 16 : " Fear not, for they that be with us are more than they that be with them ; " and 2 Chron. xxxii, 7 : "Be not afraid nor dismayed for the king of Assyria, nor for all the multitude that is with hi m ; for one more powerful than all that are with him is with us." THE VICTOKY OF CHKIST OVER SATAN. 141 I miglit stop here : this doctrine is sufficiently established, especially as supported by the narrative before us ; but the soul that is "weary and heavy laden" is not so readily assured : it wants new encouragements, which I have no disposition to refuse. In the presence of temptation, it is tormented by two things : its own weakness, and the strength of the temptation. If we examine ourselves, we find that we are unable to resist even the most ordinary temptation ; and if we consider the temptation, we see that it is strong enough to overwhelm us, even when we are strongest. But let us once more draw nigh unto Jesus tempted in the wilderness : his victory will help to reassure us in both these respects. You are weak, my dear brother ; so weak, so languishing, so destitute, so cast down both in body and in mind, that you find yourself unable to overcome the least temptation. Such, indeed, would be the case, if you were left to triumph in your own strength. But do you suppose that it was in his own strength that your Lord triumphed in the desert ? You conceive of him, perhaps, as a stranger to all your weakness — calm, unmovable. But this portrait is the work of your imagination, not of the Scriptures. They show the Messiah to us as "a man of sor- rows, and acquainted with grief." They say nothing, it is true, about the state of his mind during the struggle in the desert ; and it does not become us to supply what they have left unsaid, nor to state how far his forty days' fast must have exhausted his strength or impaired his courage. But the Scriptures exhibit the Saviour elsewhere under the weight of sufferings which you have never known — in Gethsemane, " exceeding sorrowful, even unto death, falling on his face, and praying in agony, while his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling to the ground." They exhibit him on the cross crying to his God : " My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me ? " Where, then, does he find his strength ? In God. The aim of the whole temptation is to separate him from God : first, let him provide for his own wants independently of the providence of God ; then, let him receive 142 ADOLPHE MONOD. the ownership of the nations, but not as the gift of God ; finally, let him display his divine glory without the command of God. But solely upon God does Jesus rely : it is not in his own strength that he wrestles and conquers ; but in the strength of his Father. Receive instruction, then, my dear friends. If you are less strong than Jesus, your God is not less strong than the God of Jesus. Let this rock be your rock, and His strength shall be your strength. For Jesus, for Adam, for yourselves, the ques- tion here is not a question of strength ; it is one of faith. As your own strength could not deliver you without faith, so neither can your own weakness injure you with faith. Nay, if advantage be taken of it, this weakness may be of service to you ; and a sense of it driving you, it may be, to seek God's help, you will experience the truth of this word : "When I am weak, then am I strong." Strange paradox I sublime truth I Instead of stop- ping to discuss it, believe it, live upon it. You are, my dear brother, poor and languishing, downcast in body and in mind, incapable of overcoming the least temptation ! This is well, you are in the very condition which will enable you to triumph. Now it is, that conscious of all the illusions of pride, and abso- lutely despairing of yourself, you will seek to "be strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might ;" now it is that you will " take unto you the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil." Cling to God, as the branch does to the vine; in Him you will find "grace to help in time of need." In time of need, note well this expression ; it is for the moment of need that His strength is promised you. You would like to enjoy it beforehand, to reassure yourself against the terrors of the future, by a complacent consideration of your spiritual supplies. But such are not the Lord's ways ; He does not give you to-day what you require for to-morrow ; but He will certainly supply to-day for to-day, and to-morrow for to-morrow. The man whose hand was withered, and to whom Jesus said : " Stretch out thine hand," would never have doije THE VICTORY OF CJIKIST OVER SATAN. 14:3 SO, if he had waited to receive beforehand the strength requisite for that act ; but at the Lord's word he stretches out his hand, and lo, it is healed — " only believe, and thou shalt see the glory of God I" The temptation, you say again, is strong, terrible, overwhelming I But was that of Jesus less so? Compare it with that of Adam. The Scriptures themselves suggest the parallel, for it is not with- out design that one of those temptations has been placed at the beginning of the Old Testament, and the other at the opening of the New ; opposing here as everywhere, "the second Adam" to "the first." Adam is tempted in Eden,* Jesus, in the wilder- ness ; Adam, amidst the abundance of all things ; Jesus, in want and in hunger. Adam is tempted once and falls, Jesus is tempted three times, we should say rather He is tempted for forty days, and He resists. And what a temptation ! How subtle, how perfidious — mixing so adroitly truth and falsehood, good and evil, that it seems impossible to separate them I Verily, this is the masterpiece of the spirit of darkness. It is true, as we have already stated, that we cannot exactly balance the Lord's temptation either with Adam's or our own ; but we know at least, that He had to undergo a conflict, by a mystery which we do not attempt to penetrate, a terrible conflict, of which the anguish of Golgotha and Gethsemane can give us some idea. But what signifies the strength of the temptation ? It is enough that it was the Holy Ghost who led Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted there. God, who allows the trial, is also He who measures it ; and He will have taken care, you may be sure, to strengthen His Son for the combat according to His need. He will do the same, my dear friends, for you ; and this is why no temptation, present or to come, should appear to you irresistible. For, recollect this, although it is the devil wJio tempts, and not God, it is God who measures the temptation, and not the devil ; and He measures it either according to the * Ed&n Bignifies '• a place of delights." 144 ADOLPHE MONOD. strength which you have, or according to that which He has in store for you. This consolatory truth is shown to us in the clearest light by the history of Job. Was Satan ever allowed greater liberty against a poor servant of God ? Nevertheless, he still is fastened to his chain, which God lengthens or shortens at His pleasure, but which Satan never can outgo ; and the Holy Spirit makes us perceive it on this occasion, that we may know the devil is never without his bonds, alt)iough we do not always see them. Satan can undertake nothing against Job without first having obtained God's permission ; " Put forth thine hand now, and touch all that he hath." Then, when God grants him the permission, God makes reservations in favor of His servant. First, Job's person is reserved : " Behold, all that he hath is in thy power, only upon himself put not forth thine hand." At a later period, when this first temptation has fortified Job for a harder trial, God once more, entreated by Satan, abandons to him the person of his servant, but on this occasion he reserves his life : " Be- hold, he is in thine hand, but save his life."* If Job had fallen under the first surprise of this new attack, if he had yielded to despair, he would have justified the enemy's insolent prediction : " He will curse thee to thy face." But now he has leisure to recollect himself, to listen to Elihu, to humble himself before God ; and notwithstanding a few imprudent words which the excess of his bitterness forces from his lips, he remains firm, he drives back the adversary in confusion, and, recovering God's favor in a double measure, he is referred to as a model of patience in the New Testament. f Be comforted, then, my dear * Job ii. 4. Notice the gradation which Satan introduces in the temptations he suc- cessively presents to Job ; the loss of his fortune, the loss of his family, the loss of his health, and, if he had obtained leave, the loss of his life. A certain pride of feeling would, perhaps, have induced us to reverse this order ; but " the old serpent " knows this matter better than we do, and the dexterity of the course he follows is warranted by God's own authority in this surprising narration. + James v. 11. We can scarcely refrain from surprise in seeing Job proposed by St. James as a pattern of patience. How are we to reconcile this testimony with those many bitter complaints to which Job gives expression in the third chapter of his history ? God THE VICTOKT OF CUEIST OYER SATAN. 145 frieuds, by the thought that tlic devil can never tempt you but by the leave of your heavenly Father, and never beyond the extent which he permits.* Without this permit, or beyond those limits, he can do nothing against you. Never, then, say that your trials exceed your strength ; such an accusation, apparently aimed at the devil, would be directed against God himself. If the proof which I have just given you from history does not seem sufficient, if you demand a formal declaration from the Lord's own hand, here is one ; but after that be satisfied, and doubt no more. It is written : " There hath no temptation be- fallen you but such as is common to man." So much for the past ; now for the future : " And God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able, but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it." What more do you want ? Recall the past : " There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man ;" that is to say, connected with human nature, and conse- quently surmountable by it — I say by human nature, not such as it was in Jesus, nor even such as it was in Adam, but such as it is more merciful in Lis judgments than we are in ours. God measures the patience of his saints not simply by the degree of their submission, but by that degi-ee combined with the extent of their sufferings ; just as a man may evince more physical strength while dragging painfully a considerable weight, than another man would by carrying easily a light burden. Above all, God looks to the heart ; and the heart is revealed but very imperfectly through those ext'?rnal manifestations which alone are perceptible by man. A man who utters bitter complaints may have more inward submission to God's will, than another who is better able to moderate the expression of his feelings. This last remark is confirmed by a deep study of Job's complaints. Even in the boldness which characterizes them, and which we cannot entirely justify, we perceive a liberty and familiarity with God, which indicates an unshaken confidence in Him, and which honors and pleases Him more than the blameless moderation of many. Job's heart is revealed to us by that of Jeremiah in the following Scripture, which will prove offensive, perhaps, to more than one reader, but which is, I know infinitely precious as viewed by God : " Righteous are thou, Lord, when I plead with thee ; yet let me talk with thee [or, rea- son the case] of thyjudgments." * The same doctrine is found in Luke xxii. 81, 32 : "Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat ; but I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not." 1 ltl:6 ADOLPHE MONOD. is in yourself. If Adam before his fall, and Jesus in the wilder- ness, endured any temptation beyond your strength, it is enough that you have certainly been spared them. Much more, God pledges himself to you for the future, and does so in the name of his own faithfulness : " God \^ faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able" (he does not say, above what Jesus was able, nor even above what Adam was able — ^be says above what you are able); "but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it." After this, my dear brother, if you tell me : "Here is a temptation which I cannot overcome, it is stronger than I am," I must choose, you see, between your assertion and God's word ; for the first affirms what the second declares to be impossible. No, whatever the appearances may be, as long as God is God, and the Bible is his word, we can never have to endure a temptation which it is impossible for us to sur- mount. The lesson which we have just learned from the victory of Jesus in the wilderness, is taught us in many other places of the Scriptures, and implied everywhere : we are never compelled to yield to temptation. Having before me a great variety of texts, I quote merely a few relating or alluding to our subject. Some of the clearest are to be found in that very 91st psalm which Satan so imprudently placed in our hands, and which we should not have dreamed of but for the unworthy abuse he makes of it against our Master. This psalm is full of promises of victory ; but consider especially the words which immediately follow those which Satan calls to his support: ''Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder ; the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet." Why didst thou not finish the quotation, cruel enemy of our souls ? Does that verse have nothing to do with thee ? The lion and the serpent, those two images twice associated in so short a passage, may well repre- sent all the enemies we have to encounter ; but they refer more particularly to the leader who directs and inspires them, and THE VICTORY OF CUBIST OVER SATAN. 147 whom the Scripture likewise calls elsewhere, sometimes a lion, sometimes a serpent. That lion, we shall tread upon ; that ser- pent we shall trample under foot. • This assurance is still further given us by the words of the Apostle, where Satan is distinctly named : " The God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly." In this passage, Paul alludes to the first prophecy: "It" (the seed of the woman), " shall bruise thy head ;" and he shows what we learn in like manner from an attentive study of the prophecy itself, that the victory is there promised not only to the Messiah, but also to the whole family of believers. The same doctrine may be found in James, who no doubt had in view the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness when he wrote : "Eesist the devil, and he will flee from you ; draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you." But nothing can be compared with the fullness of the promises which the Holy Spirit has given us in John : "For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might de- stroy the works of the devil. Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin, for his seed remaineth in him ; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God. In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil." This is not the place to enlarge upon the sense of this difficult passage ; * but every one must acknowledge that it at least means that the child of God possesses in nimself a secret virtue, by which he can subdue the enemy, and that he is never irresistibly constrained to yield to him the victory. It will not do to urge against me your experience : I know too well that every one of our days is marked by some fall ; but for this we only are to blame. It will not do to urge even the experience of the most faithful among the Lord's servants, among his saints, his prophets, and his apostles. I do not forget, that, unblamable as their lives may be, when compared with ♦ The expression " canuot sin," explained by these to commit sin, is employed here to designate, not '* a brother overtaken in a fault," but a heart enslaved to sin. 148 ADOLPHE MONOD. ours ; justified as they may be in saying to us : " Brethren, be followers together of us," yet they had also cause to say : " In many things we offend all ;" but what then ? is it through a fatal and imperative necessity 1 Ah ! the holier they are, the more will such a thought inspire them with indignation and hor- ror. Go and tell a Noah, that he could not have avoided be- coming intoxicated in his tent ; a Jacob, that he could have ob- tained the promised blessing only by a lie ; a Moses, that he could not have glorified God at Meribah ; a David, that he could not have resisted the charms of Bathsheba ; an Elijah, that he could not have overcome the discouragement of his soul ; a Hezekiah, that he could not have subdued a movement of vanity; a Job, that he could not have restrained his rash complaints ; a Zacharias, that he could not have believed the words of the angel ; a Peter, that he could not have confessed his Master in the court of the high-priest : and you will see them all smite upon their breast, and lift up their eyes towards heaven, saying : " Lord, righteousness belongeth unto thee, but unto us confusion of face !" Every time we fall, it is through our own fault ; it is because we have not faithfully used the means, al- ways sufficient, with which God has furnished us to enable us to stand. Whatever may happen, " let God be true, but every man a liar." Let his faithfulness never be suspected. "Let no man say when he is tempted : I am tempted of God ; for God cannot be tempted of evil, neither tempteth he any man." My brother, my dear brother, "Lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees." Wrestle with courage, with good cheer. You say : Oh I if I were sure to overcome ! Well, you can always overcome in Jesus ; we are not fatalists, we are Christians. Do not make up your mind to any fall. Live not, knowingly and willingly, on terms with any sin. " Be not over- come of evil, but overcome evil with good." Learn moreover of Jesus, the conqueror in the wilderness, what may be the results of one single victory. In our Lord's history, the temptation is one of those critical epochs, which THE VICTORY OF CHRIST OVER SATAN. 140 decide a whole life, just as a battle, lost or gained, may decide a whole campaign. Thus circumstanced, the victory of Jesus not only keeps Satan away for a season ; it abates his confidence, and he will return to new conflicts weakened by the presenti- ment of a new defeat. There are also for you such decisive days ; nay, perhaps this very day is one of them : feel its value, its importance. If you fight valiantly, if you obtain a complete victory, you may discourage the enemy forever. If, on the con- trary, you give way, and leave the issue undecided, you will em- bolden him, and be constantly a prey to his attacks. Only one moment of weakness, think you, one single moment more . . . but that moment is the one selected by the tempter for a last trial, and in it you are about to ruin his hopes forever, or to give them fresh vigor. Courage, then ! Stand firm I Give not back a single step ! Falter not, for a moment ! Dispel every illusion of the enemy I Prove to him that with you he loses both his time and his trouble I And by the reception which you give him, compel him to recognize in the disciple, the Master who overcame him in the wilderness I It costs something, indeed, to conquer No human undertaking requires so much resolution as the fight of faith ; and it is the secret sense of the mighty effort you have to make over yourself, which keeps you in a state of indecision. Yes, but think of the joy of triumph I Think of the joy of Job when delivered from trial, and sanctified by trial ! Think of the joy of the three young men after they came out of the furnace, or of Daniel when he left the lions' den ! Think, especially, of the joy of Jesus returning from victory : " Look unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God." What will not your own joy be, when you have overcome that very temptation which has hitherto seemed to you insurmountable ; a joy so much the greater, because, by your victory, you will strengthen your brethren," as Jesus has strengthened you by his victory I Amen. DISCOURSE VI. THE WEAPON IN CHRIST'S CONFLICT.* " And Jesus, being full of the Holy Ghost, returned from Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, being forty days tempted of the devil," etc. Luke, iv. 1-13. My dear Christian Friends, Admonished by the conflict of Jesus, of the combat which awaits us, assured from his victory that we too can overcome, it remains for us to examine the weapons by which He has con- quered, and by which we too can conquer in our turn. Before entering upon the subject, it would have been pleasing to dwell upon the preparation of Jesus for the conflict. It would have taught us what is requisite in order to be in a posi- tion of defence against the attacks of the tempter ; and this is half the victory. But our theme expands with its study, and this discourse would be too long : we must confine ourselves to a statement of the main ideas. Let us, at the outset, cast aside a slavish imitation which sub- stitutes the letter for the spirit. In order to be conformed to the example of Jesus in preparing for his victory, we have no need to go to the desert to get rid of temptation. In order to be conformed to the example of Jesus in fasting forty days, we have no need, every year, to bind ourselves down to a forty days' * Dr. Monod acknowledges, in a foot note to this sermon, his indebtedness in some of its paragraphs, to the sermon of Krummacher, on this samo subject, found in this vol- ume. — Transl. 150 THE WEAPON IN CHEISt's CONFLICT. 151 abstinence. By acting thus, we should expose ourselves to temptation, — not guard against it. Here we should bear in mind a principle of which the imitator of Christ should never lose sight — to imitate is not to copy. Jesus was " filled with the Holy Ghost," when he was " bap- tized, and praying." This was the secret of his strength. Let us "pray without ceasing," that we may be "filled with the Holy Ghost ;" for he who is " full of the Holy Ghost," is also " full of wisdom, of faith and of power." Jesus has just been proclaimed by God " his beloved Son, in whom he is well pleased." This character, while it designates him as we have seen, for the tempter's attacks, strengthens him also against them, because it permits him to apply to God as to a " Father who hears him always." We need that " the Spirit should bear witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God," his well beloved children. We shall thereby be the more exposed to the assaults of the enemy ; but also the better able to resist him : " Whosoever is born of God overcometh the world." Jesus is " led by the Spirit " to meet the temptation, and he does not encounter it of his own accord : hence his confidence. Where God is the guide, God is likewise the defence. Let us not court danger. Peter paid dearly for having set at defiance all warnings, and forced his way into the temptation which, he had been told, would overcome him.* Let us do all we can in order that the trial may be spared us. If this cannot be, then we shall meet it with the freedom which springs from a good conscience, and with the strength which accompanies humility. Finally, Jesus fasts before and during the temptation. This fasting which the devil makes use of against Jesus, gives at the same time new strength to Jesus against the devil. Our Saviour fasts, whilst praying, and in order that he might pray. His * John xviii. 15, 16. When Jesus enters into the court of the high priest, John follows him, " hecause he was known of the high priest ; " but Peter remains outside. John leaves the court on purpose, and speaks to the door-keeper that Peter may be admitted 152 ADOLniE MONOD. abstinence is explained to us by that of Moses, who, on two occasions, " fell down before the Lord forty days and forty nights, without eating bread or drinking water." An example "which has been abused elsewhere, but which we have too much neglect- ed. The use to which both Jesus and his Apostles apply fasting, shows us in that exercise, a means sometimes necessary to wrestle successfully against temptation : " This kind (of spirit) can come forth by nothing but by prayer and fasting." Besides, abstinence from food is connected with an abstinence more gene- ral, and always in season, which consists in subduing the flesh and its propensities : " I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection." " Make not provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof." Satan has his footing in the flesh : when the flesh is bridled, he loses his hold and is powerless. Jesus being thus prepared, let us follow him to the enemy, and see by what weapons he obtains the victory. The weapons of Jesus ? — say we rather the weapon, for he has but one ; it is the Word of God. Three times tempted, three times he repels the temptation by a simple quotation from the Scriptures, without explanation or comment. " It is written/' — this one expression tells upon the tempter like a tremendous discharge upon an assaulting battalion. " It is written," — the devil withdraws for the first time. " It is written," — the devil withdraws for the second time. " It is written," — the devil gives up the contest. God's word is the weapon which Satan most dreads — a weapon before which he has never been able to do aught but succumb. Most justly does Paul call it " the sword of the Spirit ; " * and John describes it, in the Revelation, as •'' a sharp, two-edged sword, proceeding out of the mouth of the Son of man." With that " sword of the Spirit" in our hands, our cause becomes that of the Holy Spirit himself, and we shall * Rev. i. 16 ; ii. 16 ; xix, 15-21 ; Heb. iv. 12. " The word of God is quick and powei> ful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of sou] and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." THE WEAPON IN CIIKISt's CONFLICT. 153 be as superior in strength to our adversary, as is the Spirit of God to the spirit of darkness. Without it, on the contrary, left to ourselves, we shall be as much below him as is man's nature below that of angels. Adam fell, ouly because he al- lowed this sword to drop. Jesus triumphs, because no one can wrest it from his hand. But why is it that the Son of God, instead of meeting the enemy with some new sword brought from the heavens whence he came, took up only our own weapon, from that very earth where Adam had, with such cowardice, left it ? This is for our example. From what that weapon accom- plished in his hand, we must learn what it can do in ours. Let us, then, take it up in our turn ; or rather, let us receive it from him, re-sharpened, as it were, by his victory, and we shall have nothing to fear. To all the adversary's attacks let us oppose a simple " it is written,''^ and we shall render vain his every en- deavor. The devil would entangle you again in the snares of the world. He proceeds with consummate skill in this attempt. Insinuating himself into your company, he represents to you that it is scarcely compatible with charity that you should keep yourself so distant from the society of men ; that a better way to win them over to the Gospel, would be to frequent their social meetings, thus showing them that your religion is not that of anchorites ; lastly, that too many precautions do not become him who would grow strong in Christian virtue, and that there is no glory in a triumph obtained without peril. Thus speaks the tempter. If you only resist by your own understand- ing, you will be the more easily convinced, in proportion as your natural heart is but too much inclined to his suggestions. But if you take up God's Word, if you answer in faith : It is written, "Be not conformed to this world" — this one quotation puts everything in its true place ; the adversary is unmasked, and his malice confounded. The devil would make you disbelieve that Christian faith is the only way to salvation. He takes you to some large square 1* 154 ADOLPHE MONOD. in a groat city, and pointing out to you the multitudes passing to and fro without intermission, be says : Can you really think that all these are on the road to perdition? Neither your understanding nor your heart can respond to such a doctrine. And yet, for the most part, these people do not believe in Jesus Christ ; at least, their faith is not yours, not that of those like you. Is it true, then, that the only path to life everlasting is the little track in which you go ? Are not your ideas on this subject narrow and unworthy of God ? Thus argues the tempter. If you resist him only with your own wisdom, you will not hold out long against him ; you will return from the fight uncertain, trembling, and spiritless. But if, taking up the Word of God, you unhesitatingly reply : It is written, "I am the way, the truth, and the life ; no man cometh unto the Father, but by me '^ — the spell is destroyed, " the snare is broken, and you are escaped" out of the hand of the perfidious fowler. Once more, the devil wishes to take away from a faithful minister of Jesus Christ, all the vitality of his preaching. He recommends him not to be so inflexible, not to cry out "heresy" for such trifles, not to make heaven so inaccessible and salva- tion so difficult, and not to throw gloom over the goodness of grace by imaginations of a devil and a hell. This new course, by gaining him the good-will of all his hearers, will enable him to bring them more surely to the faith, and turn to a more profitable account the precious gifts which heaven has bestowed upon him. Thus advises the tempter. If you consult nothing but your own light to refute him, you must needs fall into the snare ; so skillful is he to make good appear evil and evil good — to make light seem darkness and darkness light I But if you rest upon God's word, if you answer with assurance : It is written, " If any man preach any other Gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed" — the "strong man " has found a *' stronger " than himself, and he has only to quit with consternation the field of battle. Oh ! if we did but know what the Word of God can effect 155 even in our own hands I If we knew the terror with which it inspires our formidable adversary, at the very time when he affects to laugh at it in our presence, that he may induce us to give it up I If after having heard him, on the theatre of temptation, scoff- ing at the word of God, we could (allow me the expression) follow him behind the scenes, and hear him confess to his accom- plices that he is lost if he cannot succeed in wresting from our hands this irresistible weapon ! — If we did but know all this, and if, like the vaKant Eleazar, " we could keep hold of our sword till our hand clave unto it " — oh, then we should be invin- cible, yea, invincible ! But, in order that the Word of God may have in our hands the power it possessed in those of Jesus, it must be for us what it was for Him. I know of nothing in the whole history of humanity, nor even in the field of divine revelation, that proves more clearly than my text the inspiration of the Scriptures. What I the Son of God, " He who was in the bosom of the Father," and who could so easily draw His resources from him- self, preferring to borrow them from a book which He finds in our hands, and to derive His strength whence Joshua, Samuel, David, derived theirs ? What I Jesus Christ, the Lord of heaven and earth, calling to his aid, in that solemn moment, Moses, His servant ? He who " speaks from heaven," fortifying himself against the temptations of hell, by the word of him who " spake from earth ?" Ah, how can we explain that astonishing mystery, or rather that wonderful reversing of the order of things, if for Jesus the words of Moses were not '' the words of God, rather than those of men ?" if he were not fully aware that " holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit ?" I do not forget, my dear friends (and here I address myself more particularly to the young ministers of the Word) I do not forget the objections which have been raised against the inspiration of the Scriptures, nor the real obscurities with which that inspiration is surrounded ; if they sometimes trouble your hearts, they have troubled mine also. But, at such times, in 156 ADOLPHE MONOL). order to revive my faith, I have had only to glance at Jesus glorifying the Scriptures in the wilderness ; and I have seen that for all who rely upon Him, the most embarrassing of problems is transformed into a historical fact, palpable and clear. Jesus, no doubt, was aware of the difficulties connected with the inspi- ration of the Scriptures ; and the part of Scripture which He quotes, the Old Testament, is that which presents the greatest of these difficulties. Did this prevent Him from appealing to its testimony with unreserved confidence ? Let that which was suf- ficient for Him, suffice for you. Fear not that the rock which sustained the Lord in the hour of His temptation and distress, will give way because you lean too entirely upon it. Whence comes your perplexity about inspiration ? Is it from the varia- tions of the diflTerent manuscripts ? These were unavoidable, without a perpetual miracle ; and, in the days of Jesus, there were already various readings for the Old Testament, which He here quotes three times. Is it from the little discrepancies of the sacred writers, when they describe the same event, such, for instance, as we find in Luke and Matthew, in the very his- tory which constitutes my text ? Discrepancies quite equal to these exist amongst the books of the Old Testament ; for instance, between the Kings and the Chronicles. Is it from the degrees of inspiration ? Are you afraid lest there should be less inspira- tion in the historical, than the prophetic books ? Jesus uni- formly quotes the Scripture as an authority which " cannot be broken ;" and in the passages we are now considering. His quo- tations were all taken from an historical book — Deuteronomy. Finally, do you hesitate about the theory you should adopt respecting inspiration ? — what its mode or its extent, what it leaves to man's agency, whether it directs the mind of the sacred author or his pen ? and other questions of a similar nature. Here again, take example by Jesus. He enters upon no expla- nation concerning all these speculative points. But when the practical question is at issue, when that question is the confi- dence with which you may quote the Scriptures, all the Scrip- TUE WEAPON IN CHRISt's CONFLICT. 157 tures, and even a single word of the Scriptures* — then it is impossible to be more clear, more firm, more positive than was He. Go and do likewise. Quote the Scriptures as Jesus quoted them, and hold respecting inspiration whatever theory you will. Jesus takes a higher position than that occupied by our theological systems, one more free from earthly influences ; let us follow Him to those heights where we breathe an atmos- phere that is luminous and pure, and where the vapors with which the world obscures the truth of heaven, will settle beneath our feet.f Ah 1 when the devil attempts again to insinuate into your mind some one of those scholastic subtleties which he has always in store against the inspiration of the Scriptures, content your- selves with referring him to Jesus : " Why didst thou not say all this to my Master, when, in the wilderness, He repelled thee by that Word which now seems to thee so weak and so uncer- tain? Go, carry to Him thy quibbles, and when they have shaken Him, then may they shake me also 1'^ Jesus had no other weapon against Satan than the Word of God ; but how does He handle this weapon ? Let us study each of the three quotations which He borrows in succession from the Scriptures. Thus, as by His example we have learned the power of God's word, so, by His example, shall we also learn the use we ought to make of it. After forty days and forty nights spent in the wilderness, Jesus is conscious of hunger, from which He does not appear to have suffered during the course of His fast, everything here being supernatural. Then it is that the devil draws near, and begins his attacks. We have already had occasion, in another * John X. 35. The quotations of Jesus prove only the inspiration of the Old Testa- ment. The inspiration of the New Testament has its peculiar proofs, and rests equally, though in another manner, upon Christ's authority. Besides, except the Jews, no men receiving the inspiration of the Old Testament, have rejected that of the New. + " Eat In peace the bread of Scripture, without troubling thyself about the particle of sand which m9,y have b>e€n mixed with it by the millstone " — BengeVs advice to a y