HARVARD
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 riarvard Vespers. 
 
 Addresses to Harvard Students 
 
 Preachers to the University. 
 
 18861888. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS. 
 
 1888.
 
 Copyright, 1888, 
 BY ROBERTS BROTHERS. 
 
 frets o/Geo. //. Ellis, 141 Franklin Street.
 
 PREFATORY NOTE. 
 
 THE addresses in this volume were given 
 by the Plummer Professor and the 
 Preachers to Harvard University at the Ves- 
 per Services which have been held during 
 the past two years. They are reprinted from 
 phonographic reports which appeared weekly 
 in The Christian Register. It has been thought 
 best to retain the direct extemporaneous form 
 in which they were taken down by the stenog- 
 rapher, instead of submitting them to formal 
 literary revision. An address of Rev. Dr. 
 A. P. Peabody, who conducted one of the 
 services, is included. 
 
 Given as these brief addresses were to 
 young men in the course of their student 
 life, their application is restricted to no single 
 college. In the hope that they may be found 
 helpful to young men everywhere in promot- 
 ing the religious life, the Preachers to the 
 University have kindly consented to their 
 
 publication. 
 
 s. j. B. 
 
 641526
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 1. THE Two BAPTISMS. 
 
 Dec. 16, 1886. FRANCIS G. PEABODY, 9 
 
 2. CHRIST AND THE BLIND MAN. 
 
 Jan. 13, 1887. PHILLIPS BROOKS, 19 
 
 3. THE SOIL AND THE SEED. 
 
 Jan. 20, 1887. FRANCIS G. PEABODY, 25 
 
 4. GOD OUR ROCK. 
 
 Jan. 27, 1887. EDWARD EVERETT HALE, 32 
 
 5. CHRIST AND NATHANAEL. 
 
 Feb. 3, 1887. PHILLIPS BROOKS, 37 
 
 6. SEMBLANCE OR REALITY. 
 
 Feb. 10, 1887. ALEXANDER MCKENZIE, 46 
 
 7. THE SINCERITY OF GOD. 
 
 Feb. 17, 1887. GEORGE A. GORDON, 51 
 
 8. OPENING THE DOOR. 
 
 Feb. 24, 1887. FRANCIS G. PEABODY, 58 
 
 9. THE CHRISTIAN COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 March 3, 1887. EDWARD EVERETT HALE, 67 
 
 10. THE TEMPTATION OF JESUS. 
 
 March 10, 1887. PHILLIPS BROOKS, 72
 
 6 Contents 
 
 n. IRREMEDIABLE Loss IN SIN. 
 
 March 17, 1887. GEORGE A. GORDON, 82 
 
 12. MY FATHER'S BUSINESS. 
 
 March 24, 1887. ALEXANDER MCKENZIE, 89 
 
 13. JESUS IN EPHRAIM. 
 
 March 31, 1887. FRANCIS G. PEABODY, 99 
 
 14. NICODEMUS. 
 
 Dec. i, 1887. FRANCIS G. PEABODY, 111 
 
 15. A LIFE OF PURPOSE. 
 
 Dec. 22, 1887. ALEXANDER MCKENZIE, 121 
 
 16. MAKING ALL THINGS NEW. 
 
 Jan. 5, 1888. PHILLIPS BROOKS, 130 
 
 17. MORAL HEROISM. 
 
 Jan. 12, 1888. GEORGE A. GORDON, 137 
 
 1 8. THE EYE OF GOD. 
 
 Jan. 19, 1888. ANDREW P. PEABODY, 146 
 
 19. GOD is A SPIRIT. 
 
 Jan. 26, 1888. ALEXANDER MCKENZIE, 153 
 
 20. THE SIMPLICITY WHICH is IN CHRIST. 
 
 Feb. 2, 1888. FRANCIS G. PEABODY, 160 
 
 21. FISHERS OF MEN. 
 
 Feb. 9, 1888. PHILLIPS BROOKS, 168 
 
 22. SEEK, AND YE SHALL FIND. 
 
 Feb. 16, 1888. GEORGE A. GORDON, 176 
 
 23. THE PARABLE OF THE POUNDS. 
 
 Feb. 23, 1888. EDWARD EVERETT HALE, 184
 
 Contents;* 7 
 
 24. COMING TO ONE'S SELF. 
 
 March i, 1888. FRANCIS G. PEABODY, 192 
 
 25. JUDGMENTS OF LIFE. 
 
 March 8, 1888. PHILLIPS BROOKS, 203 
 
 26. REMEMBERING GOD. 
 
 March 15, 1888. GEORGE A. GORDON, 212 
 
 27. ENLARGEMENT OF LIFE. 
 
 March 22, 1888. EDWARD EVERETT HALE, 218 
 
 28. THE MASTER'S GUEST-CHAMBER. 
 
 March 29, 1888. ALEXANDER MCKF.NZIE, 226
 
 HARVARD VESPERS. 
 
 i. 
 
 THE TWO BAPTISMS. 
 
 IN the weeks just before Christmas, a 
 large part of the Christian Church 
 remembers especially the work of John 
 the Baptist. He makes not only the im- 
 mediate preparation for the advent of 
 Christ, but he is also, with the exception 
 of Jesus himself, the most dramatic and 
 impressive of New Testament characters. 
 Two qualities unite in him, each of which 
 is rare, but both of which together are 
 almost never seen. The one was his self- 
 confidence : the other was his self-subordi- 
 nation. It takes a bold man to begin a 
 new reform, but it takes a much bolder 
 man to revive an old and discarded move- 
 ment ; and this last boldness was that 
 
 of
 
 io 
 
 of John the Baptist. For three hundred 
 years the prophetic voice had been alto- 
 gether silent, and now with an amazing 
 confidence it speaks again. It is the 
 same prophetic message. John is the 
 lineal descendant of Micah and Habak- 
 kuk ; but the beginners of prophecy 
 never spoke so unsparingly and absolutely 
 as did this new voice among them. Such 
 was his self-confidence. But with it came 
 a wonderful self-subordination. A re- 
 former is often brave, but he is seldom 
 humble. A prophet seldom announces 
 that his message is incomplete. Yet 
 here is John, summoning his nation to 
 repentance as a master speaks to his 
 servants, but at the same time foretelling 
 one among them who is greater than he. 
 He is but a voice crying, " Prepare ye 
 the way of the Lord." All Jerusalem 
 and Judea flock to him at the Jordan, 
 and there he tells them of one unnoticed 
 young man in their midst whose shoes' 
 latchet he is not worthy to unloose. It 
 is a wonderful union of conflicting attri- 
 butes, and there is a legend that the 
 Christian Church commemorates it in 
 its very date of Christmas. For many 
 
 years,
 
 13aptisms'. 11 
 
 years, as we know, it was the death and 
 the resurrection of Jesus which held at- 
 tention ; and the time of his birth was 
 unobserved. Finally, the tradition says, 
 the winter solstice was the time assigned, 
 when the days grow longer and the nights 
 grow less, that thus in the coming of the 
 Sun of righteousness there might be ful- 
 filled the word of the brave and humble 
 John : " He must increase, but I must 
 decrease." 
 
 This reference of the whole work of 
 the Baptist to the higher work which was 
 to follow it is summed up in one striking 
 contrast, the contrast which John him- 
 self presents, of the two baptisms. "I 
 baptize with water," says John, "but he 
 that cometh after me is mightier than I : 
 he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost 
 and with fire." Here is the transition 
 from the forerunner to the fulfiller, from 
 John to Jesus. The baptism by water is 
 obviously the symbol of John's preaching 
 of repentance. It is the washing of life 
 clean of its stains. A man heard the 
 word of John, " Repent, repent," and, de- 
 siring repentance, bathed in the Jordan. 
 Washing the body meant washing the 
 
 heart
 
 12 
 
 heart clean of its stains. But what is 
 this second baptism, which the Master 
 would require, the baptism by fire? It 
 means not only the cleansing as of out- 
 ward water but the cleansing as of an 
 inward flame. It is a fire lighted in the 
 heart, which shall not only burn up the 
 old life, but shall kindle the new. It 
 means not only washing, but inflaming 
 and inspiring ; not only purity, but pas- 
 sion ; not only freedom from the power 
 of evil, but baptism with the power of the 
 Holy Ghost. Such is the step in which, 
 John says, one passes from his disciple- 
 ship to that of Christ. When a man has 
 brought his life to repentance for that 
 which has stained it, when he is ready to 
 have it washed of its misdeeds, then he 
 is indeed taking the first step toward the 
 discipleship of Christ. He is standing by 
 the Jordan bank, ready for the baptism of 
 John. It is a great, a momentous, a cru- 
 cial step. I suppose there were few who 
 were brave enough to accept the ministry 
 of the Baptist who were not thereby made 
 ready for a hearing of the Messiah him- 
 self when he came. Yet, none the less, 
 it is but a preparing of the way of the 
 
 Lord.
 
 Ctoo llBaptttfms;. 13 
 
 Lord. The baptism which is of Christ is 
 by fire. It is when a man commits him- 
 self, under the power of Christ, to a new 
 passion; when there is kindled within 
 him a flame of loyalty ; when he is led 
 out of his own repentances and regrets 
 into the enthusiastic service of a new and 
 a worthy aim. To be changed from con- 
 fession to devotion, from self-conquests to 
 self-consecration, from purity to passion, 
 from the resolution not to do wrong to 
 the loyalty to what is holy, from the 
 struggle against error to the zeal for truth, 
 this is the baptism by fire. 
 
 Set these two baptisms now for a mo- 
 ment in contrast with each other as they 
 affect our modern life. We see some- 
 thing of them in our intellectual affairs. 
 It is a great thing when the mind is bap- 
 tized by water, cleansed from error and 
 tradition and myth, and set freely and 
 calmly before the truth. It is what hap 
 pens to many a man in his academic life. 
 Much that once seemed true shows its 
 inadequacy. Mistakes are outgrown, sys- 
 tems lose their hold, and the mind is no 
 longer ensnared or enslaved. It is a pre- 
 paring of the way for the regeneration 
 
 of
 
 14 S?arbar& 
 
 of the mind. But let a. man suppose that 
 in such a baptism his regeneration is com- 
 plete, and he has received the worst harm 
 which an education can do. He has been 
 cleansed from error, but he has found no 
 truth. He criticises, but he does not cre- 
 ate. He can despise conviction, but he 
 cannot do work which demands convic- 
 tion. He has been baptized by water, 
 but the baptism by fire has not touched 
 his mind. Then, sometimes, into such a 
 mind there comes by some blessed influ- 
 ence a passion for some way of truth, 
 a desire toward some definite encl ; and 
 with that kindling of eagerness the mind 
 is born again. The end illuminates the 
 task. The purpose interprets the mate- 
 rial. When a man is thus intellectually 
 devoted, each new book seems written 
 for his sake and makes its unintended 
 contribution. He is no longer the dilet- 
 tante or the cynic. He is the disciple 
 of the truth. He has been baptized, not 
 alone with water, but with fire. 
 
 Or look at the two baptisms in our 
 social life. We try to cleanse society by 
 our legislation and our reforms, and we 
 do well. But in all such removal of evils 
 
 we
 
 2Dtoo HBapttemsu 15 
 
 we are accomplishing not a completed, but 
 a preparatory work. What saves a com- 
 munity is not deliverance from evil, but 
 a newly kindled desire for good. In our 
 own community, for instance, it happens 
 that we have just voted that we would 
 have no traffic in intoxicating drink. To 
 many of us it seems a good work well 
 done. To many it seems like a genuine 
 baptism of the town by water. But such 
 an enterprise only brings with it a new 
 danger, if duty is supposed to cease with 
 one's vote. Such legislation is but a 
 preparing of the way of the Lord. It 
 must be succeeded by new and more 
 positive work, by the provision of better 
 places of resort, by a new spirit of self- 
 sacrifice and service, or else the law it- 
 self is sure to fail. After the baptism 
 by water must come the baptism by fire. 
 The disciple of John the Baptist may cast 
 his vote, but the disciple of Jesus Christ 
 must apply himself to the building of a 
 Christian city. 
 
 Yet these are but suggestions of the 
 more serious meaning which the contrast 
 of the two baptisms was intended to con- 
 vey. What John and Jesus were thinking 
 
 of
 
 1 6 
 
 of was the salvation of men's souls from 
 sin. Each step in t/lis solemn process 
 is, they say, essential. There is but one 
 way in which a man's soul can begin to 
 be saved. It is the way of repentance. 
 John the Baptist summons him to put 
 away the things that separate him from 
 God. But, when a man has thus accepted 
 the baptism by water, he is not yet safe. 
 He is like one who has climbed a preci- 
 pice, and lies down to sleep upon its brink. 
 His life has been left clean by the ebbing 
 tide of his temptation ; but, if he does not 
 forthwith bar out the waters, back they 
 will come upon him as surely as the flood- 
 tide of the sea. A man cannot live safely 
 in this negative purity. His safety lies in 
 the supplanting of the old passions by 
 new and better ones, by the discovery of 
 new interests which leave no room for 
 the old. That is what the Christian life 
 really means. It not only summons a 
 man to repentance, but it supplies him 
 with a new passion. A man catches sight 
 of the personality of Jesus Christ beckon- 
 ing to him from the heights of character 
 and summoning him to his service, and 
 a great new sense of personal loyalty and 
 
 a
 
 2Ctoo HBapttems* 17 
 
 a flame of personal trust are kindled in 
 the disciple's heart. He has passed from 
 the ministry of the Baptist to the ministry 
 of the Saviour. It is not only the water 
 that has washed him : it is fire that has 
 touched his brow. 
 
 Would God that this great transition, 
 in which alone is safety, might happen 
 to some of the souls who gather here ! 
 Would God that in the common life we 
 lead together this twofold baptism might 
 occur ! It would, indeed, be a great thing 
 for our University if we could feel the bap- 
 tism of John, if there might be among 
 us a cleansing from vice, a purifying of 
 conduct, a conquest of our follies, our 
 conceits, and our sins. But by no such 
 controversy with evil is our common life 
 wholly secure. What we must pray for 
 much more deeply is not the cleansing, 
 but the kindling power. What we need 
 is a great tide of high and broad spiritual 
 interests, an enlarging power of generous 
 loyalty, the sense that we are set here 
 together for a common service and a com- 
 mon end, and the responsibility, the self- 
 respect, and the seriousness which start 
 up thus within us like a flame. What 
 
 must
 
 1 8 J?arbarD 
 
 must save us is a new power of enthusi- 
 asm, a new degree of moral passion, the 
 fire that is kindled in life when Christ 
 touches the soul. In such a step, the life 
 of an individual or a community is ful- 
 filled. It has passed from the ministry 
 of John to the discipleship of Jesus, from 
 the baptism of water to the baptism of 
 fire. It has kept its Advent season, and 
 it is ready for the spirit of the coming 
 Christmas Day.
 
 II. 
 
 CHRIST AND THE BLIND MAN. 
 JOHN ix. 14-38. 
 
 WE find in this chapter of John two 
 figures standing facing each other. 
 One of them is the familiar figure of Jesus : 
 the other is the strange figure of the poor 
 man, perplexed and bewildered with the 
 very manifestation of the wonderful mercy 
 that has come to him, perplexed about the 
 way in which he has received that mercy 
 and the way in which it has been recog- 
 nized by those about him. There is hardly 
 a picture more pathetic than that of this 
 poor man to whom Christ has given his 
 sight, and who finds himself subjected to 
 pains and perplexities and distresses that 
 he had never known before. Having sat 
 a beggar all these years by the side of 
 the road, men had tolerated him ; but, 
 the moment he was cured, they began to 
 speak hard things of him, and to be parti- 
 sans
 
 20 
 
 sans over him. Perplexed and confused, 
 and turning from those who said these 
 hard things, and at the same time being 
 drawn toward Jesus, not knowing what to 
 do, he stood there in the bewilderment 
 of his new life. Then Christ comes and 
 stands in front of him. 
 
 Infinitely interesting must be the first 
 words that Christ says to such a bewil- 
 dered life: "Dost thou believe on the Son 
 of God ? " A personal question. Can we 
 probe the whole meaning of the startling 
 words that had come to this man in this 
 question of the recognition of a personal 
 deliverer who is hereafter to be his Master, 
 his Lord ? Everything else that Christ 
 might have said to the man, all the ques- 
 tions that had been raised by the Phari- 
 sees, were left unsaid for the present ; and 
 there was only one question on the heart 
 of Christ, whether there had come to 
 the heart of that man the personal leader- 
 ship through which his life henceforth was 
 to be strong. 
 
 There can be no real salvation to any 
 man until it comes in a personal leader- 
 ship, in a Master, by obeying whom the 
 man's life is redeemed and saved. Truth 
 
 comes
 
 Cfptet au& tlje BlinD span* 21 
 
 comes then in the acceptance of the nat- 
 ure of one whom the truth fills, and in 
 whom it is lodged. Law comes then in 
 the personal will of one who is a worthy 
 master, in whom we fulfil our own duty. 
 Hope comes then as it shines out of the 
 face of one who comprehends the future 
 in his deep knowledge of the present, and 
 opens that future to us which is so real 
 to himself. Do you believe ? is the ques- 
 tion to the human soul. Do you accept 
 in your own soul the certainty of God's 
 revelation of himself in human life, that 
 henceforth you can walk with your eye 
 upon that revelation of God and fulfil it 
 in yourself as it is set before you in his 
 Son, who is manifested to be the Leader 
 and the Master of the world ? With such 
 a Master, what is there that shall make 
 our hearts afraid ? What darkness is there 
 in which we cannot walk, with him to lead 
 us ? What sorrow and trouble that we 
 cannot face ? What perplexity which he 
 may not clear up, so that we shall find a 
 road in which we can walk, when lighted 
 by Jesus Christ ? He is a Saviour and a 
 Friend, when he saves us by making us 
 go into the path in which he goes. 
 
 Into
 
 22 U?atbarD 
 
 Into the heart of this man there had 
 grown something of this kind. I think 
 there can be no deeper sign of eagerness 
 and earnestness than there is in the words 
 in which he answered this question of the 
 Master: "Who is he, Lord, that I might 
 believe on him ? " The words of Jesus 
 become, first, interpretations of our own 
 consciences ; and then they become a law 
 for our lives. There came first the con- 
 sciousness that it was a personal master 
 that he needed. If that may come, then 
 everything is clear. Then the Pharisee 
 may question and jeer; for there is his 
 master, who is to be the revelation of the 
 Infinite Love. 
 
 Then out from behind the gift there 
 comes the giver, out from behind the 
 mercy there comes the merciful one ; and 
 Jesus, whom he had thought of as only 
 the agent who had given him the light, 
 says, "I who speak unto you am he." 
 The true revelation of life comes to us 
 when out from behind all the good things 
 which we enjoy there comes the divine 
 presence of Him who has given them to 
 us; when out from behind our perplex- 
 ities there comes the true solution ; when 
 
 the
 
 Ctjrtet anO tlje Blind span* 23 
 
 the past becomes significant of the future, 
 and every mercy we receive becomes a 
 revelation of Him who has the future in 
 his hands, and who has us through all 
 eternity in his own soul, and whose love is 
 waiting for those who are ready to receive 
 it. Let us be content with no mercy, 
 unless it reveals the merciful one; with 
 nothing godlike, unless God is manifested 
 through it. When that has come, then 
 the Lord is around us ; and there is noth- 
 ing which may perplex us as we go forth 
 in our lives. 
 
 Then Jesus, turning with that wistful 
 look which we see again and again on his 
 face, ponders on his own mission in the 
 world : " For judgment I am come into this 
 world, that they which see not might see, 
 and that they which see might be made 
 blind," the need of humility to accept 
 the Master as he reveals himself to our 
 needs, the need of such humility because 
 our lives are to be fulfilled in the Infinite. 
 True humility is the great power which 
 takes possession of the infinite future and 
 of the unmeasured powers of our human 
 life. It is pride, and not humility, when 
 a man says, "I can do little, for I am a 
 
 man."
 
 24 
 
 man." It is humility when a. man says, 
 "I can do everything that is in the divine 
 idea of man, because God has made man 
 his own child, and is more and more fill- 
 ing him with his own fulness." 
 
 And so this man goes forward, follow- 
 ing the Master, leaving behind him all 
 petty quibbles about healing on the Sab- 
 bath day, and the words of his parents, 
 "He is of age, can speak for himself," 
 and going forward into what life we can- 
 not begin to guess, and here, as there in 
 the eternal world, fulfilling it by the power 
 of Jesus Christ, which has taken pos- 
 session of him in his consecration to 
 the Master. To such consecration may 
 we look forward together, forward into 
 whatever life God has for us here, into 
 whatever richer life awaits us when the 
 gates are opened and we have passed into 
 eternal life.
 
 III. 
 
 THE SOIL AND THE SEED. 
 MATT. xiii. 1-23. 
 
 I TURN from most of the types of life 
 with which this wonderful Parable of 
 the Sower deals, and ask you to think, for 
 a moment, of but one. I pass by the 
 seeds sown by the wayside. These way- 
 side lives are those which are hard like 
 a road, trodden down by business or fri- 
 volity, so that there is no chance for relig- 
 ion. Sometimes, no doubt, we know what 
 this impenetrability is ; but it is certainly 
 not in a hard and unreceptive mood that 
 we are here to-day. I pass by the seed 
 sown among thorns. These are the lives 
 which are so overgrown and choked by 
 other things that there is no room for 
 religion. Sometimes, we know of this 
 stifling of the soul ; but it is certainly 
 not because we are wholly without room 
 for religion that we are here. 
 
 But
 
 26 J?arbart) 
 
 But when one has passed out of this 
 spiritual hardness and out of these stifling 
 thorns, when one has reached any clear- 
 ness of religious desire, then comes an- 
 other peril. It is the peril of instability, 
 the absence of permanence, the lack of 
 fixity in the religious life. It is not that 
 we are unreceptive, it is not that we are 
 choked ; but it is that when God the 
 Sower scatters His seed over our hearts 
 it does not find stable and permanent root, 
 so as to grow and stand and withstand in 
 its own strength of continuous conviction. 
 These are they which receive the word 
 among stony places. "The same is he 
 that heareth the word, and anon with joy 
 receiveth it. Yet hath he not root in 
 himself; and, having no depth of earth, 
 when the sun is up, he withers away." 
 
 Now, what is it that brings about this 
 absence of fixity and permanence in the 
 spiritual life ? The parable names two 
 things. One is lack of earth, the other 
 is lack of root. Sometimes there is no 
 depth of soil. A life is soft on the sur- 
 face, but hard just below. It is quick 
 with emotion, but shallow in sentiment. 
 It finds in religion an excitement, a recre- 
 ation ;
 
 il ana tije >ee&, 27 
 
 ation ; but its religion, like the rest of its 
 resources, is a thin, superficial, and im- 
 penetrating thing. There is no harder 
 class to reach with any good than this, 
 for there is nothing in which any seed 
 can fasten itself. There is no depth of 
 earth. 
 
 Then there are other lives which have 
 no fixity, because they have no root in 
 themselves ; and the reason they have no 
 root in themselves is that they are trying 
 to have a root which is not in themselves. 
 They are like those plants which we call 
 parasites. The moment they begin to 
 grow, they run along the ground to the 
 nearest tree, and throw their tendrils 
 round it and draw their life from it. Such 
 parasitism is always a peril of academic 
 life. A few self-confident men stand here 
 over against a multitude of self-distrustful 
 men ; and the life of the many tends to 
 run for its opinions, its precedents, its 
 beliefs and unbeliefs, to the life of the 
 few. A glimpse of truth shines down 
 upon a young man ; and, instead of letting 
 it warm and deepen his own life, he runs 
 to see what the books and the masters 
 have to say. A suggestion of duty opens 
 
 before
 
 28 
 
 before a young man's soul ; and he turns 
 to examine the traditions, the customs, 
 and the prevailing sentiment of the place. 
 It is, thus, at once the great blessing and 
 the great peril of such lives as we lead 
 here that we are brought into contact 
 with leaders. It is a great thing to find 
 a master, to discover one's humble place 
 in the procession of learners, to have the 
 corrective influence of the history of dis- 
 ciplined minds. But all this is for evil, if 
 it mislead a life out of its healthy method 
 of growth, and make it draw its life from 
 other roots than those which are its own. 
 The learning of the past and the author- 
 ity of the present fulfil their work only as 
 they teach each mind to grow in its own 
 way. The method of God with each soul 
 is a new method. It cannot be borrowed 
 from another mind. It is a revelation to 
 the individual. A fixed and stable growth 
 in personal conviction is not the life of a 
 parasite : it is the growth from a root 
 which is in one's self. 
 
 Finally, how is this fixity obtained ? It 
 demands, answers the parable, two fac- 
 tors, the soil and the seed. The one 
 is man's contribution : the other is God's. 
 
 Many
 
 tl ano tlje >eefc* 29 
 
 Many people think that one element is 
 enough, a cultivated soil. Let a man 
 cultivate himself, and he will be strong. 
 It is not necessarily so. Sometimes, self- 
 culture contributes to fixity of life. Some- 
 times, it seems to have less permanent 
 hold on the things which remain than 
 ignorance possesses. The fact is that 
 culture does for a man what it does for 
 a field. It prepares and deepens the soil 
 for the coming of the sower. A man who 
 leaves his ploughed ground unsown has 
 not fulfilled his work. He has depth of 
 earth, but no crop. But let God the Sower 
 come, moving across men's lives as Jesus 
 saw the man striding through the furrows 
 of Galilee, and then the soil that has been 
 loosened and deepened by the processes 
 of culture is the soil that gladdens the 
 Sower's heart. Thus it is that culture 
 and religion, the intellectual and the re- 
 ligious life, man's work and God's, meet. 
 Soil and seed, each has its part. Often, 
 the seed grows in uncultured places ; but 
 it grows best and deepest in the prepared 
 mind. Let a man neglect the culture of 
 his mind, and he is neglecting the prepa- 
 ration for receiving his God. Let a man 
 
 think
 
 30 
 
 think that his self-culture is his crop, and 
 his life is but a ploughed field without a 
 harvest. The large results of life appear 
 when the two elements meet, when the 
 life of man has made itself ready for the 
 life of God, and the descending life of 
 God finds depths of earth within the life 
 of man. 
 
 Would God that it might be so with 
 some of us to-day ! The processes of self- 
 culture occupy us much. They have oc- 
 cupied the hours of this day. What have 
 we done ? We have been preparing the 
 soil of life. We have been digging out 
 its stones of error, and deepening its 
 powers of receptivity. We ought to have 
 gained, to-day, some increased depth of 
 earth. And now for what do we wait ? 
 We wait for God the Sower to scatter 
 over us in these quieter moments of re- 
 flection and communion His seeds of in- 
 fluence, the infinitely minute thoughts, 
 hopes, memories, ambitions, and ideals in 
 which He utters himself, and which have 
 such marvellous power of growth. Let 
 the Sower come. Let our hearts lay them- 
 selves bare for His visitation. Let Him 
 turn us from our unstable, unfixed, and 
 
 parasitic
 
 tl anti tljc >ee&* 31 
 
 parasitic living, that we may receive into 
 prepared lives these germs of a stable 
 growth, so that there may come to pass 
 in us that growth which is like the normal 
 growth of nature, quiet and slow, pa- 
 tient and unassuming, out of a depth of 
 prepared soil, out of a root which is in 
 itself, and, finally, with the fruit after our 
 varied capacity, some thirty, some sixty, 
 and some, in God's own time, a hundred 
 fold.
 
 T 
 
 IV. 
 
 GOD OUR ROCK. 
 PSALM xviii. 31. 
 
 HIS figure of God as a rock runs 
 all the way through the Old Testa- 
 ment. It is a favorite figure, not only 
 with David, but with all these writers from 
 the earliest to the latest of the prophets. 
 The foundation of a man's life, that which 
 he is to build on, is the Lord Almighty. 
 Man's sense of God, of his connection 
 with God, is to be the foundation of his 
 life, is to be his rock. The figure is often 
 an inconvenient one, as when the rock is 
 made to travel from place to place. It 
 is not always poetic ; but it is so certain 
 that life must have a foundation, that 
 these writers return to this figure again 
 and again, often when it seems awkward. 
 The ancient mythology had the world 
 standing upon an elephant, and the ele- 
 phant standing on a tortoise ; but what 
 
 does
 
 our Hock* 33 
 
 does the tortoise stand on ? There must 
 be a foundation. All life must have a 
 foundation. With these Hebrew poets, 
 the statement is absolute that a man's 
 life is founded upon the Living God, upon 
 his sense of the being of this God, " I 
 Am," the Existent. This consciousness 
 that one rests upon the original "exist- 
 ence" is the foundation of life. 
 
 In the New Testament, the Saviour 
 takes it up, and urges it intensely and 
 earnestly, and wishes us to live by this 
 sense of God. At the end of the "Sermon 
 on the Mount " is the man who builds his 
 house upon a rock, that man is sure ; 
 and also the man who builds upon the 
 sand, that man is not sure. When 
 Peter makes the great central statement 
 to Jesus, " Thou art not a messenger, 
 thou art the Son of God," Jesus says to 
 him, " Yes, and this is the foundation that 
 I build upon." Man is the Son of God; 
 that is the foundation. 
 
 My friends, we all of us come back to 
 the same necessity : there must be a foun- 
 dation. Why do I do this ? Why do I 
 study to-day ? Why did I play yesterday ? 
 Why am I going to New York? We 
 
 work
 
 34 
 
 work back and back through a series of 
 reasons : there must be something behind 
 it all. We must come to some founda- 
 tion on which our life rests. If the Bible 
 is authority, if Jesus Christ is authority, 
 this foundation for the life of every man 
 and woman is the sense of God ; and, 
 more than this, the sense that we are the 
 children of this God, that we partake of 
 his nature. We come back to the feeling 
 that we are his divine children. We are 
 not the manufacture of his hands. We 
 are not the mere creatures of his wisdom. 
 We are the children born of his nature, 
 and share that nature. Is God a creator ? 
 So are we. Is God immortal? So are 
 we. Can God love with infinite love ? 
 So can we. We share the being of God, 
 we live in his life. He is our Rock and 
 our Foundation. 
 
 We cannot enter upon a religious life 
 without some sense or thought of this rela- 
 tionship to him. That is what the Script- 
 ures speak of as faith. In the Old Testa- 
 ment, the word translated "faith" always 
 bears an etymological reference to a rock 
 foundation on which a man builds. He 
 builds on a rock ; that is, he is certain that 
 
 he
 
 our Kocfe* 35 
 
 he is founded on God, that he lives be- 
 cause God lives. " I Am " is the name of 
 God. "I Am" is the name of God's chil- 
 dren. Man inherits his being from God, 
 from whom he is born. If we take the 
 Bible as authority, if we take Jesus Christ 
 as authority, here is to be the foundation 
 upon which we are to live, the Infinite 
 Being whom we cannot help seeing and 
 knowing. 
 
 I look out upon Orion, and ask, What 
 is beyond ? What is beyond Arcturus ? 
 What is beyond the furthest space ? There 
 is being, there is existence. So much is 
 clear. Then the Saviour of mankind says 
 to us that this Being is conscious Being, 
 that this Being knows us and we may 
 know him, that this Being loves us and 
 we may love him. Our foundation, that 
 which we build upon, is the Conscious 
 Being in which worlds move, in which 
 trees grow, in which seasons pass, in 
 which all things are. 
 
 That is our Rock ; and religion is our 
 effort to come into relation with this Being, 
 to listen to what he says to us, to tell him 
 what we would say to him. We may give 
 wider definitions to religion in our duties 
 
 to
 
 36 
 
 to each other ; but what we call personal 
 religion, the religion of a man's life, is the 
 effort to draw nearer to God, to know him, 
 to listen to what he has to say, to tell him 
 what is in our heart. It is that which 
 brings us here this afternoon or in the 
 chapel service in the morning; it is to 
 gain that, that we pray ; and it is that by 
 which we trust him in the hour of joy or 
 sorrow. We seek to know him, and build 
 our lives upon this Rock of Ages.
 
 L 
 
 V. 
 
 CHRIST AND NATHANAEL. 
 
 JOHN i. 43-51. 
 
 ET me ask you to think for a few 
 moments on the very interesting 
 character brought before us in these verses, 
 one of the most interesting of those 
 characters in the Gospel which are drawn 
 with a few touches, and yet stand out very 
 clearly in the picture. They are very dis- 
 tinctly before us, not because they are 
 elaborately drawn, but because their nat- 
 ures are so simple. Nathanael, one of 
 these disciples, has a singular freshness, 
 loveliness, and beauty about him, which, 
 I am sure, always attracts us to him. I 
 feel as if Jesus himself must have loved 
 him peculiarly. He came so freshly and 
 naturally to Christ, he entered so com- 
 pletely into his ideas, and made himself 
 so naturally and so readily his disciple. 
 There was just enough questioning to in- 
 dicate
 
 38 
 
 dicate the activity of an earnest mind. 
 At the same time there was a readiness 
 to give himself to that Jesus who pre- 
 sented himself to him, and seemed to be 
 the light for which he had been yearning. 
 
 These short conversations seem to be 
 full of interest, as they lead us on from the 
 beginning to the end of a young man's 
 history, who in the first place is seen 
 looking after the truth, and in the end is 
 seen consecrating himself to Christ. 
 
 Think how naturally these speeches fol- 
 low each other. The first is the address 
 of a young man to a fellow-student en- 
 gaged in that occupation which draws men 
 more and more closely to each other ; for 
 there is nothing, I think, that can bring 
 men so earnestly together as the com- 
 mon search after truth. Common circum- 
 stances, the common search for advantage, 
 have something to do in bringing men 
 together ; but, when you take men of kin- 
 dred mind and heart, joined in the great 
 search after truth, following it with the 
 deepest enthusiasm with which men can 
 follow, then how closely such souls are 
 drawn to each other ! Philip and Nathan- 
 ael had lived together, and sought together 
 
 for
 
 Ctjrtet ana ^at&anael* 39 
 
 for the fulfilment of the prophecy written 
 in the ancient history of Israel. Vague 
 and unrealized it was before them, yet 
 they felt it was to be fulfilled in some way 
 and in some time. They had grown to- 
 gether in this common wish. They had 
 told each other of their common hopes. 
 Each one had some glimpse of that which 
 was coming ; and now, at last, one of them 
 comes and says : " The search is at last 
 satisfied : that for which we have been 
 seeking is found. We have found him 
 who was expected, who was foretold by 
 the prophets." 
 
 Philip comes and tells Nathanael, as if 
 he would immediately share that which he 
 had learned with one who was as dear to 
 him as his own soul, as if the truth could 
 not be his until he had imparted it. There 
 can be no richer moment in any man's 
 life than when he is able to help forward 
 the search for truth, and to impart to 
 others the truth which he has himself 
 received. And so these young men stand 
 out with great simplicity, and yet with 
 great richness, in their relationship one 
 with another, Philip finding Nathanael, 
 and saying to him: "We have found him 
 
 of
 
 40 C?artoara 
 
 of whom Moses in the law and the proph- 
 ets did write. The Messiah has at last 
 come." 
 
 Then see how Nathanael receives Jesus 
 at the representation of Philip. We see 
 how intelligent he was, and yet how ready 
 and receptive. He does not dispense with 
 his criticism. He does not fail to say to 
 his friend that his word does not entirely 
 satisfy his anticipations. It was not from 
 poor, despised Nazareth, but somewhere 
 upon the heights of Jerusalem, that that 
 new truth was going to shine. That a 
 man who has been longing for the truth 
 in one place should be disturbed when it 
 shows itself in another ; that that which 
 he thought was one of the conditions of 
 finding the truth should prove, when the 
 truth comes in some other way, not to be 
 essential, that is very perplexing. A 
 man would not be thoughtful and intelli- 
 gent if it were not so. Yet, when Philip 
 turns to Nathanael, and says, "Come and 
 see; come and look upon this man, and 
 see whether he be not the Messiah ; come 
 and look upon his truth, and let it relate 
 itself to your soul, and see whether it be 
 not what we have been seeking for," then 
 
 come
 
 Christ ana jjiatbanad. 4 l 
 
 come forward the candor, the largeness,, 
 the receptivity, of the man. He goes with 
 his friend with an objection in his soul, 
 but with a determination that it shall not 
 stand in the way of his receiving the 
 truth. No petty objection about Nazareth 
 shall come between him and the Messiah. 
 He will look into his eyes ; and, if Jesus 
 reveals himself to his soul, and lays hold 
 upon him with a grasp with which the 
 Messiah may take hold of the Jew who 
 has been waiting for him, he will become 
 his disciple. 
 
 And so he comes into his presence; and 
 Jesus says, "Behold an Israelite indeed, 
 in whom there is no guile." Israel meant 
 something divine to the Saviour. It 
 meant some great idea. He was looking 
 in vain in the faces about him to find it 
 fulfilled. When this young man came to 
 him here, with his earnestness and enthu- 
 siasm and candor, seeking the truth, anx- 
 ious to have his questions answered, and 
 Jesus saw all this in his face, he said : 
 " Here is the Israelite whom I have been 
 looking for ; here is the true Jew who has 
 been waiting for my coming; here is the 
 great family which the Son may bring to 
 
 the
 
 42 
 
 the Father, with that spirit which he 
 brought into the world, as the Father's 
 anointed Son." 
 
 Every generation of life has its ideas 
 which must be fulfilled. Israel has be- 
 come a poor, stunted thing ; but it was 
 full of an idea which it had had in all its 
 history, and with which it was constantly 
 replenishing itself. Jesus was going to 
 make it complete. Jesus saw in Nathanael 
 something of the fulfilment of that Israel 
 to which he had come to manifest God. 
 So it is in every life ; so it is with our 
 church membership and our citizenship ; 
 so it is in college and everywhere else. 
 Those things which belong to us in our 
 natural relationships are capable of much 
 vaster fulfilment than we can give to them. 
 When we fulfil them with a true life, 
 then the idea is complete. When the cit- 
 izen is the complete citizen, when the 
 scholar is the complete scholar, when the 
 man himself is the complete servant in the 
 relation in which he is placed, then God 
 can manifest himself to him in fuller life. 
 This is the sacredness of the partial rela- 
 tionships in which we stand. If we fulfil 
 them with a large, complete, consecrated 
 
 life,
 
 Cljrtet anD jjiatfjanael. 43 
 
 life, then the fullest manifestation of God 
 may come to us in them, as it came to 
 Nathanael in his place in Israel. 
 
 Then Nathanael says to Jesus, "Whence 
 knowest thou me ? " And Jesus says to 
 Nathanael, "Before Philip called thee, 
 when thou wast under the fig-tree, I saw 
 thee." It makes a deep impression upon 
 Nathanael's mind that Jesus should have 
 known him before he knew Jesus, that 
 Jesus should have been conscious of him, 
 with a life that was higher than that which 
 he had carried unto the life and presence 
 of Jesus. It is a thing which must always 
 impress the soul. That I should go to 
 God, and find God, and, when I find him, 
 should realize that God knew me before 
 I knew him, that is a thing which lays 
 hold upon the human soul. You may go 
 to a friend and brother, and try to make 
 him see the glory of the Christian life, the 
 glory of unselfishness ; but how can you 
 impress him so completely as when you 
 conduct him to the Master, and tell him 
 that that Christ has been giving himself 
 to him, and that there has never been a 
 moment when that Christ has not been 
 pressing himself upon his life ? That is 
 
 the
 
 44 H?artoard 
 
 the richness of the Christian life, that it 
 is simply laying hold on something which 
 has been from the beginning of our exist- 
 ence, something which has been pressing 
 upon our lives. 
 
 You remember those great words of 
 Paul, in which he describes the fulness 
 of his life. He had such a multitude of 
 great phrases in which he put the richness 
 of his life ; and this, I think, is one of 
 them : " I follow after, if that I may appre- 
 hend that for which lam also apprehended 
 of Christ." That seems rich and great. 
 Christ Jesus apprehended me, that I might 
 apprehend Christ Jesus; that, realizing 
 the divine force, the great powers that 
 have been from the beginning at work 
 upon my life, I may be able to respond to 
 them, to lay hold on, to apprehend them 
 as they have apprehended me. There are 
 forces vaster than we know of that are 
 apprehending us. God has put forth all 
 the power that is needful to put forth. 
 There is nothing for us to do but to re- 
 spond with a large consecration, that we 
 may grasp the highest manifestation of 
 that divine love which it is possible for us 
 to lay hold on. 
 
 And then note the last word which 
 
 Jesus
 
 Christ anD jftatljanacl. 45 
 
 Jesus says, when Nathanael has declared 
 himself his disciple. Impressed by the 
 manner in which he has entered into dis- 
 cipleship, Jesus says : " Do not think that 
 you have exhausted all ; do not think that 
 this little beginning is the whole. Here- 
 after, you shall see greater things than 
 this." Know that every point of life which 
 we have reached, just in proportion as it 
 is pure and holy, is the beginning of the 
 infinite life. Be sure that God has so 
 much more for the soul as it goes on, 
 becoming richer and richer ; that every 
 new relationship of the soul with God is 
 not merely a sign of thankfulness for that 
 which is passed, but a new opening of our 
 nature, into which God shall pour more 
 and more of himself. In each new conse- 
 cration, some new gift becomes possible, 
 and for that new gift some new consecra- 
 tion becomes necessary, and in that new 
 consecration comes some new gift. So 
 this everlasting reciprocity goes on, each 
 new gift bringing new consecration, and 
 each new consecration making a new gift 
 possible. So the soul goes on entering 
 into God, and receiving God unto himself. 
 "Because I saw thee under the fig-tree, 
 believest thou ? thou shalt see greater 
 things than these."
 
 VI. 
 
 SEMBLANCE OR REALITY. 
 
 MARK viii. 10-24. 
 
 OUR Lord had gone into the village of 
 Bethsaida. They brought a blind 
 man to him. He took him by the hand, and 
 touched his eyes, and asked him if he saw 
 anything. The answer was, "I see men 
 as trees walking." He had not been born 
 blind. He knew men, and knew trees. 
 He knew that these were not trees, and 
 he did not act toward them as if they were 
 trees. He acted upon what he knew, and 
 treated them as men. Judging merely by 
 appearance, he might have been tempted 
 to climb into them or cut them down; 
 but, judging by the knowledge he had, he 
 could greet them as men, and receive a 
 greeting from them in return. 
 
 This is the only one of our Lord's mir- 
 acles which is divided. I do not know 
 why it is divided, except to teach us the 
 
 incompleteness
 
 Semblance or Healitv. 47 
 
 incompleteness of life and the inconsist- 
 encies between the things we know and 
 the things we see; to teach us to judge 
 by our knowledge rather than by the out- 
 ward appearance. We are familiar with 
 the line that "things are not what they 
 seem." It would be a very dismal truth, 
 were we not able to enlarge it with an- 
 other truth, that, whatever things may 
 seem to us, we are not subject to the ap- 
 pearances, but are able to control our con- 
 duct by our knowledge of realities. 
 
 This becomes true in many different 
 relations in life. I have that knowledge 
 of my friend which makes him perfectly 
 trustworthy. I can depend upon him for 
 everything; but, some day, he does some- 
 thing that is not compatible with that 
 friendship. Shall I give him up or trust 
 him still? I have a conception of a hero, 
 with a tall, commanding figure, with dig- 
 nity upon his brow; but, when I see him, 
 he is a short man, with low brow, and 
 nothing of grandeur about him. Shall I 
 give up my idea of heroism, or say, in 
 spite of everything, that he is a hero still? 
 I act from what I know. I interpret the 
 appearance by that reality which I knew 
 
 before
 
 48 J?arbar& 
 
 before I saw the appearance. Our familiar 
 saying that we judge men by their actions 
 is not more true than the other necessity, 
 that we judge actions by their men. We 
 are continually compelled to interpret that 
 which appears by that which we saw be- 
 fore the appearance. 
 
 Carry this into the ethical relations of 
 life. Duty seems to a man, when he is 
 alone, meditating in his house by himself, 
 to be the "stern daughter of the Voice of 
 God" ; but, when he ventures out into the 
 street, it has lost some of its grandeur, not 
 exhibiting any such authority and not re- 
 ceiving any such homage. When a man 
 thinks about truth in the morning, the 
 truth seems to him to be pure and sacred. 
 He looks out upon life, feeling that his 
 sword shall never be drawn but in her 
 defence, repeating the words of John Pym, 
 "I would rather suffer for speaking the 
 truth than that the truth should suffer for 
 want of my speaking." Then he goes out 
 into life, and sees that truth is different in 
 the maxims of men. Truth speaks, and 
 men do not listen to it; and he finds him- 
 self tempted not to listen with that defer- 
 ence which he thought in the morning he 
 should pay. 
 
 Charity,
 
 Semblance or l&ealitp. 49 
 
 Charity, too, seems so divine in the 
 morning. He thinks of the glory of liv- 
 ing for others; and he says, The value of 
 my life is in its service. He goes out 
 again into the world, and he finds himself 
 tempted to be selfish and grasping; and 
 he forgets that he was not to live, not to 
 strive, for himself. Shall he be governed 
 by truth as it is on the street, by charity 
 as it appears in the conflicts of the world? 
 Or shall he be governed by duty as he 
 knows duty, by truth as he knows it in 
 the sincerity in which he has seen it, and 
 by charity in that reality which he has 
 found in his own closet? 
 
 It is thus that we need to be on our 
 guard, lest we take our conceptions from 
 appearances, and do violence to the higher 
 knowledge which we have. For man has 
 the realization of the highest things in the 
 life of the men to whom he pays his most 
 reverent respect; he has the teachings of 
 God's Word; he has the teachings of the 
 spirit of truth and duty and charity, the 
 teachings of an unseen spirit. And, if he 
 is wise, he will be governed by what he 
 knows, and will not treat men as trees, 
 because in the mists of the world a man 
 
 seems
 
 50 
 
 seems to be a tree. He will govern him- 
 self by the reality which he possesses 
 rather than by the semblance which the 
 world offers. 
 
 There is a common impression that men 
 seem to be better than they are. For 
 one, I do not believe it. I think men are 
 better than they seem. I think it is a 
 rare man who shows the best of himself 
 to the world, his deepest convictions, his 
 highest conceptions of duty, his most pro- 
 found belief in charity, and who lives out 
 the deepest and holiest thoughts which he 
 has in the midst of the world that needs, 
 though it may not ask, this gift. 
 
 If we are to give anything to the world, 
 it must be by this strength of our personal 
 devotion, throwing down in the midst of 
 these shadows and semblances the reality 
 of truth and duty and charity, as we have 
 seen these things. For we are old enough 
 and wise enough to make no serious mis- 
 take in life. We know enough never to 
 treat a tree as if it were a man, and always 
 to treat a man as if he were not a tree. 
 Realities, things as we know them, 
 these are to possess us and to control our 
 lives.
 
 VII. 
 
 THE SINCERITY OF GOD. 
 
 2 COR. i. 12. 
 
 PERHAPS of all the qualities in a 
 noble character, this of sincerity is 
 the most widely and deeply interesting. 
 There are many men who do not care 
 much for piety; that is, for the distinct 
 recognition and worship of God. They 
 do not care much for saints; that is, for 
 those who walk by and commune with the 
 unseen. There are many men who do not 
 value as they should the qualities of gen- 
 tleness, patience, and silent equanimity ; 
 and yet all these men would be found 
 to respond most heartily and most fully 
 to this grand quality of sincerity. The 
 reason seems to be this : that, for the 
 just appreciation of the first named qual- 
 ities, a certain degree of moral experience, 
 of spiritual cultivation, seems necessary ; 
 whereas, all that is needed for the ap- 
 preciation
 
 52 Jt>art)arD 
 
 preciation of sincerity is simply the full 
 equipment of a man, the possession of 
 large human instincts. Bring a great 
 singer, say Jenny Lind, before some large 
 popular audience, and ask her to sing 
 what she considers her best piece. It 
 will be appreciated very intensely and 
 very deeply by a few ; but it will be be- 
 yond the majority in that gathering, it 
 will presuppose more musical cultivation 
 than they possess. But now ask her to 
 sing a song from Moore or Burns ; and 
 the appreciation is universal, deep, in- 
 tense, and the response marvellous. The 
 reason is that in the first case there is 
 presumed more culture than exists. In 
 the second case, all that is necessary for 
 appreciation is human instinct, human 
 sympathy. So with this quality of sin- 
 cerity : all that is necessary to the appre- 
 ciation of its worth is simply the heart 
 and soul and nature of man. 
 
 Now, this quality, so deeply interesting 
 to young life, is defined for us by the 
 apostle, in the very words that he uses, 
 sincerity of God. He means, by sin- 
 cerity, testing one's self by the light of 
 God's life, and, in the test, finding one's 
 
 self
 
 of <S5oD* 53 
 
 self approved. You step into a store : 
 you see what seems to be a beautiful 
 vase. As you look at it standing before 
 you, it seems perfectly sound. You want 
 to know whether the appearance and the 
 reality correspond, whether it is just 
 what it seems to be. You take it up, 
 and hold it between you and the light. 
 The light flows through it. If there is 
 any flaw, any stain, spot, or defect, it will 
 be revealed. If it is perfect, if it is sound 
 and fine, that will also be revealed. 
 
 Now, the apostle says that we need to 
 bring ourselves into the presence of God, 
 and hold ourselves up in his light, and let 
 the light of his character stream through 
 us. And then, as we look at ourselves, 
 illuminated by the radiance of his being, 
 all the defects and flaws and stains and 
 spots in our nature, if there are any, will 
 stand out before us clear and recogniz- 
 able. And, if we are fine and really 
 sound through and through, that fineness 
 and that soundness will also appear in 
 that same light: we are tested by the 
 light, and found true. 
 
 This definition of sincerity will explain 
 to us a very common phenomenon in our 
 
 life,
 
 54 
 
 life, that a great many men sincerely 
 say they are sincere when they are not 
 sincere. The reason is that they test 
 themselves by inadequate light. You 
 step into a store to buy you a shade 
 for your lamp. You see it on the counter 
 before you ; and it appears to be, as in 
 the previous case, perfectly sound. You 
 take it home, and place it over your burn- 
 ing light ; and that light flowing through 
 it shows that it is practically useless. 
 Tested by one degree of light, it was all 
 right ; tested by another, it was all wrong. 
 Now, we look at ourselves, judge our- 
 selves, in the twilight of a crude moral 
 sense, in the twilight of a crude social 
 conscience. Because we cannot see the 
 stain and the flaw and the spot and the 
 defect in ourselves by that light, we con- 
 clude that we are sound. Yet if we set 
 the spirit of God in our hearts, the spirit 
 of the Master of Christendom in the in- 
 terior of our nature, and let the illumina- 
 tion of his life pour forth, our secret and 
 hidden faults will stand out ; and we, who 
 before thought we were sincere, sound, 
 true to the core, will find ourselves false 
 and unworthy. 
 
 The
 
 of 5od 55 
 
 The end of these few remarks and the 
 object toward which I am drifting is this : 
 that quality which we think can be culti- 
 vated by an atheistical nature, which we 
 think can be cultivated in separation from 
 the Supreme Being, in the apostle's view, 
 and according to his definition, leads us 
 to God just as surely as the saint's faith 
 leads to him. For, just as the man who 
 makes a vase makes it in the sunlight, 
 and his idea of fineness and soundness is 
 taken up and expanded and purified by 
 the sunlight, and the sunlight is his stand- 
 ard of a successful approach to a perfect 
 embodiment of his idea, so we come into 
 the presence of Christ, through whom the 
 radiance of God's nature streams on the 
 world; and our idea of soundness and 
 fineness is taken up and purified and en- 
 larged immeasurably by his action upon 
 us. We test ourselves by him, and see, 
 as we are in his presence, whether or not 
 we are approaching more and more to the 
 perfect embodiment of the idea of sincerity 
 in our individual life. 
 
 This to me is very interesting. As I 
 hinted at the outset, it seems to me that 
 the very blood of youth is all aglow and 
 
 on
 
 56 
 
 on fire with the appreciation of this quality 
 of sincerity, as if a young man would 
 die sooner than give up the thought of the 
 ultimate complete possession of soundness 
 of soul. And yet, for him to gain that 
 quality in its completeness, he must have 
 a model. He must work in the presence 
 of that model, just as the artist does, just 
 as the poet does, just as the man who 
 wishes to attain excellence in any line 
 of life must work in the presence of an 
 ideal. 
 
 So this sincerity, if we earnestly desire 
 to possess it, leads us into the presence of 
 the ideally sincere man, that our ideal of 
 it may be glorified by him and our progress 
 into the possession of it be more and more 
 assured. 
 
 Is not this a grand faith to have, to 
 be tested by the eternal light and found 
 true ; illuminated by the central radiance 
 of the moral and spiritual universe, to find 
 ourselves, in that eternal light, flawless, 
 stainless, spotless, and pure? It seems to 
 me a most inspiring faith for any one to 
 have. Let us pursue it with the energy 
 and zeal and enthusiasm and manliness of 
 young life, led by the passion for it into 
 
 the
 
 SClje >tneerit of <0oD. 57 
 
 the presence of the Son of God, seeking 
 through him to bring the eternal light 
 into our human lives. Let this be our 
 faith and our endeavor, to be tested by 
 the eternal light, and found true.
 
 VIII. 
 
 OPENING THE DOOR. 
 REV. iii. 20. 
 
 I WANT to pause before this wonderful 
 image of Christ standing at the door 
 of human life, and asking, like a weary 
 traveller, to be let in. It seems to set 
 before us the two ways in which a man 
 may stand over against the possibilities 
 and opportunities of his life. One way is 
 as if we stood outside of these possibili- 
 ties, trying to get in to them ; the other 
 way is as if they stood outside, and were 
 trying to get in to us. Under the one 
 view, we stand at their door and knock, 
 if perchance they will let us in : under 
 the other view, they stand knocking at 
 our door, if perchance we can hear their 
 voice, and let them in. The first view of 
 life is the common one. Its possibilities 
 seem hidden from us under lock and key, 
 and we give ourselves with all our efforts 
 
 to
 
 tfje SDoor. 59 
 
 to unlocking them. We are like the be- 
 siegers of a city full of treasure. The 
 money and the successes which we seek 
 lie within, and we stand not so much 
 knocking at their door as battering at 
 their gate and scaling their wall. 
 
 This, I say, is the common way of 
 looking at our life, the way of attack 
 and struggle and victory ; and perhaps it 
 is the only way in which one can regard 
 many of the problems of his money-get- 
 ting and his competitive success. But, 
 when we turn to the deeper experiences 
 of life, the other way begins to open. 
 Truth, beauty, love, wisdom, peace, for- 
 giveness, of these things, which are the 
 great possessions of human life, it is not 
 so true to say that they hide themselves 
 from us as that we hide ourselves from 
 them, and will not let them in. 
 
 Take, for instance, any scientific discov- 
 ery, such as the electric light which illu- 
 minates our streets. There it has been, 
 this wonderful power of electricity, sur- 
 rounding human life with its possibilities 
 of usefulness, and knocking at the doors 
 of scientific men since science began ; 
 and, at last, a few men are able to hear 
 
 this
 
 60 
 
 this persistent knocking, and open their 
 doors, and then these inventions of elec- 
 tricity find their way into our affairs. We 
 call it a new force, but it is not a new 
 force. It is only a new awakening of 
 the mind to understand a force which 
 has been always bearing upon us. It is 
 almost terrible to think of the many other 
 secrets of thp universe which must be thus 
 still knocking at our doors, and waiting to 
 get in to us, and to imagine how sense- 
 less and unreceptive we must seem to an 
 omniscient mind, when so many blessings 
 meant for us are beaten back from our 
 closed minds and wills. And think, still 
 further, how it is that such truth does 
 reach men when it reaches them at all. 
 It is not by lying idle and passive for its 
 approaches. It is not without effort and 
 discipline that such insight arrives. No: 
 it is by training the mind, so that it can 
 open its doors. This is the end of educa- 
 tion, the opening of the door of the 
 mind. It is the making one's self quick 
 with receptivity toward truth, so that, 
 when truth speaks, we hear its voice, and 
 recognize it as the voice of truth, and let 
 it in. Most men are so sluggish that they 
 
 do
 
 ttje Door* 61 
 
 do not hear the knock : many men are so 
 feeble that they cannot open the door. 
 But, when a truth is first heard and then 
 welcomed, then it is that a great discov- 
 ery is made. We say that the man dis- 
 covered the truth ; but, to the man him- 
 self, it is as if the truth spoke to him, and 
 he had heard its voice, and let it in. 
 
 The same thing is true in a man's re- 
 lations to his duty. When we have to 
 determine between right and wrong, we 
 are apt to take refuge in the idea that it 
 is hard to find out what is right, that our 
 duty hides from us, and that we are trying 
 to find out what it is ; and, because it 
 does not let us in when we are knocking 
 at its door, therefore we make our mis- 
 takes and commit our sins. But the fact 
 is that this is very rarely true. If we set 
 ourselves, with a perfectly open mind, to 
 see what is right and to discover what is 
 wrong, it is one of the rarest things in the 
 world that duty is not made clear. How 
 do we act? We do not honestly try for 
 this one end alone. We shut out from 
 ourselves this clear distinction. We min- 
 gle it with other motives. We do what is 
 wrong, and pretend to ourselves that it is 
 
 right.
 
 62 
 
 right. We think that what is manifestly 
 wrong will change itself some day into 
 right. I suppose that even great crimes 
 come about thus. A man in his business 
 moves step by step into fraudulent prac- 
 tices, until at last both he and society are 
 smitten with a great disgrace ; and yet, at 
 every step, he defends himself with the 
 assertion that he has done nothing wrong. 
 He blurs his sense of right. It is not that 
 his duty is not there, but that he will not 
 hear its voice. It is knocking at his door; 
 but he pretends that there is no knocking, 
 and bars himself against the summons. 
 And then, at last, he looks back over the 
 whole awful series of slight perversions 
 of the right, and sees that at each step 
 his duty stood before his life, plain and 
 persuasive, if only he would have heard 
 its voice, and let it in. There is no 
 greater self-deception than this imagining 
 that it is hard to find out what it is right 
 to do. The difficulty lies not in the rev- 
 elation of the right to us, but in the open- 
 ing of ourselves to the revelations of the 
 right. Duty stands, for the most part, 
 close at hand, unobscured, simple, imme- 
 diate. If any man has the will to hear 
 
 her
 
 Opening tlje E>oor 63 
 
 her voice, to him is she willing to enter, 
 and be his ready guest. 
 
 Now, this which is true in the world of 
 thought and in the world of duty is as I 
 want to say, with even more of seriousness 
 true of the largest relations in which we 
 find ourselves, the relations of the relig- 
 ious life. When we first think of religion, 
 it seems to us a matter full of difficulty. 
 God seems to hide Himself, and we seem 
 to be searching for Him with our books 
 and our learning amid the mysteries of His 
 hiding-place. Christ seems to us a prob- 
 lem which we have to solve, and which has 
 perplexed the wisest of inquirers. The 
 blessings of the religious life, such as the 
 forgiveness of our sins, seem to be kept 
 under lock and key, as though we were 
 knocking at the door of a severe Divinity 
 and asking, as suppliants, to be let in. But 
 what is the truth about religion ? The 
 great and awful truth awful in its stu- 
 pendous simplicity is this: that these 
 infinite blessings are seeking us before 
 ever we searched for them, and are wait- 
 ing, not for our proof, but simply for our 
 acceptance. We think we discover, verify, 
 and prove them. Scholars knock at their 
 
 door
 
 64 
 
 door with the books which solve these 
 problems ; and, indeed, there are mysteries 
 enough to satisfy all learning and research. 
 But the deepest mystery of all is this : that, 
 if the love of God, the power of Christ, 
 the forgiveness of sins, are to have any 
 reality for us, it must be as living and 
 active forces knocking at our doors and 
 asking to be let in. How are we to think 
 of God ? It must be as always accessible, 
 if we would but have it so, searching for us 
 before ever we searched for him. We love 
 Him because He first loved us. When we 
 turn to Him, it is but our answer to His 
 call to us. It is the father of the prodigal, 
 waiting with an infinite patience and 
 love, and coming to meet us, if we will 
 but turn even with faltering step, and 
 make ourselves accessible to Him. How 
 are we to think of Christ ? Behind all as- 
 pects of Him as the problem of the ages, 
 and all the perplexity of His wondrous 
 personality, lies the power of His prac- 
 tical and present leadership. We do not 
 first find Him, but He finds us. It is not 
 the sheep which look for the shepherd : 
 it is the shepherd who searches for the 
 sheep; and, when they hear his voice, they 
 
 follow
 
 ti)t Door* 65 
 
 follow him. Even so Christ calls to men : 
 "Behold, I stand at your door and knock. 
 If you will not hear my voice, I cannot 
 enter ; but, if any man will hear my voice, 
 I will come in." And how shall we think 
 of that forgiveness of our sins for which 
 we pray? It, too, is waiting for us, wait- 
 ing with the infinite pathos with which a 
 parent waits for his sinning child, knock- 
 ing at our door, if we will but let it in. 
 There is nothing complicated or mechan- 
 ical or unnatural about the forgiveness of 
 sins. There is only one thing that for- 
 bids it. It is the locked door of our own 
 hearts. 
 
 See, then, the wonderful simplicity of 
 religion. Here, on the one hand, are our 
 own lives, shut in, limited, and self-ab- 
 sorbed ; and here, on the other hand, are 
 these great powers of the universe, want- 
 ing to get in to us, and between the two 
 only one barrier, the barrier of our own 
 wills. What a terrific thought it is that 
 the spirit of God is forever thus trying to 
 reach us, and that the power of a Chris- 
 tian life is standing like a weary traveller 
 knocking at our door! 
 
 God grant that in these moments of 
 
 withdrawal,
 
 66 
 
 withdrawal, when we turn from the stir 
 of our busy lives to the quietness of this 
 place, there may be a little of this opening 
 of the doors of our wills to these heavenly 
 visitants ! It is not a work that makes 
 a noise or sensation, this unbarring of 
 one's life. It is not a work that one man 
 can do for another, or that can be preached 
 or forced into a life. No power not that 
 of God Himself can open that door from 
 the outside. Only the soul itself can open 
 itself. But if, with perfect simplicity and 
 unaffectedness, any one of us is able just 
 to put aside the bolt of his own wilfulness, 
 and open his door and say: "Almighty 
 God, come into me! Spirit of Christ, be 
 thou my guest ! Father, I have sinned, 
 forgive me," then it is as if these 
 sharper days of winter were melting into 
 the approaching spring, and as if one of 
 us came down some morning in his heated 
 house, and should throw his door open to 
 the gentler air, and there should flow in 
 upon him the milder freshness and the 
 purer fragrance of a renewing and reviv- 
 ing world.
 
 IX. 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN COMMONWEALTH. 
 ROM. xii. 3-9. 
 
 I SPOKE yesterday of Paul's practical 
 way of putting Christian duty. I 
 want now to remind this congregation of 
 the way in which Paul always chooses 
 to speak to us as members of the great 
 body, as linked together as brothers and 
 sisters in the world. He never chooses 
 to speak to any man as if any man could 
 be alone. We bear each other's burdens, 
 and so fulfil the law of Christ. 
 
 The human race is the individual, of 
 which men and women are the separate 
 organs and members. That is the way 
 Fichte put it eighteen hundred years 
 after Paul had said the same thing, and 
 one may say that it was because Fichte 
 felt and knew this that he got that hold 
 on the German nation which led it so fast 
 and so far. In this way, I mean, he got 
 
 hold
 
 68 
 
 hold of student life, and showed to those 
 young men that they were not at work 
 for themselves, but that they must touch 
 elbows and work in and for the great 
 company of mankind. There are other 
 prophets and other poets, who will tell 
 you to eat out your own heart, to look in 
 upon your own soul, and to take care 
 of yourself alone, as if there could be a 
 lonely Christian. But it is not Paul that 
 says that. He is always speaking for the 
 company, for the kingdom of heaven, as 
 he calls it, for you and me as belonging 
 to that company, and so working for that 
 kingdom. 
 
 I once heard Dr. Furness say that he 
 knew no distinguished author writing on 
 the Christian life and work, who, if he were 
 brought up under an absolute monarchy, 
 ever could express or ever could under- 
 stand what Jesus Christ meant by the 
 kingdom of God. A man who is brought 
 up under the absolute monarchies of the 
 Old World is constantly thinking of this 
 great commander, of the field-marshal who 
 commands the lieutenant-general, of the 
 major-general who commands the briga- 
 dier-general, and so on all the way down ; 
 
 but
 
 Cljritfttan Commontoealttj, 69 
 
 but the Christian idea is that of a Chris- 
 tian Commonwealth. It is stated so dis- 
 tinctly in Paul's address, when he spoke 
 of all conditions of men as being of one 
 blood. We are all of one blood, with 
 that great primogeniture, in which Jesus 
 Christ is the first-born of our inheritance, 
 and the first brother of our family; and we 
 are all members of one family, of which 
 God is the single head. What Paul pleads 
 for and urges is that you and I shall take 
 hold in that family; that we shall do some- 
 thing for its good, its behoof ; that we 
 shall count ourselves as of one birth and 
 one blood. 
 
 I am speaking to many gentlemen who 
 must determine before many months are 
 over in what way they shall teach the 
 world, in what profession they will work, 
 what career they will seek for themselves, 
 how they will try to live for their fellow- 
 men. I have read here the passage in 
 which Paul refers to the celebrated epi- 
 sode in Roman history, when Menenius 
 Agrippa met the great secession of the 
 ptebs, which we should call their great 
 strike. Agrippa told them the story of 
 the belly and the members, that each 
 
 member
 
 70 
 
 member is necessary to each ; and Paul 
 repeats that lesson. 
 
 And this is Paul's statement all along, 
 of what this Christian Church should be 
 into which you and I are born. We are 
 born Christians, thank God ; and we must 
 enter into this service, a common service 
 with each other. It is for any man, in 
 choosing his vocation, to recall this and 
 ask how he is to be of service to other 
 men. It is impossible to maintain his alle- 
 giance to God, and go into any calling in 
 which he would not be of service to others. 
 And if any man were to come to me, and 
 ask for the advice which after forty years 
 of life I could give to him, I should bid 
 him find some way in which the education 
 he has here received shall be of use to 
 those around him. He is the interpreter 
 of the wisdom, the knowledge, the train- 
 ing of the past to those who have not 
 been so fortunate as we are here. He 
 has spent four years here, to give to these 
 men and women around him the benefit 
 of this past, which has been speaking to 
 us all through all the ages. And that 
 lesson is taught all through the New Tes- 
 tament. It is the lesson of the Church 
 
 of
 
 Christian Commontoealtfj, 7 1 
 
 of Christ. Not as if that Church were 
 any mechanical organization, into which 
 any man could come through this method 
 or that method. It is the great company 
 of the sons of the living God, in which 
 each one must do his part. Be it for the 
 teaching, the amusement, or the service 
 of others, we must wait on our teaching, 
 wait on our ministry, wait on our prophe- 
 sying. We are false to the relations of 
 children of God, we are false to what the 
 past has done for us, if we do not find 
 our place in carrying such lessons and 
 such love to those around us and to the 
 future.
 
 THE TEMPTATION OF JESUS. 
 MATT. iv. i-n. 
 
 THERE is hardly anything more inter- 
 esting, more delightful, I think, in 
 all the Gospels, than the air of exuberant 
 and exultant youth that fills them. There 
 is no touch of old age upon them any- 
 where. The old men of the Gospels 
 the Zachariahs and the Simeons stand 
 in the background of the abundant and 
 overwhelming youth and life that are in 
 the stories from the beginning to the end. 
 The young Christ stands surrounded by 
 a circle of his young apostles, and in the 
 power and life of these young men lies 
 the conversion of the world. It is won- 
 derful to see how this spirit of youth goes 
 everywhere, so that everything is of the 
 sunrise and of the morning. Everything 
 is looking forward, anticipating new life 
 in the world. The very death in which 
 
 the
 
 temptation of 3fle$u$. 73 
 
 the Gospel closes is the birth of a. new 
 life. 
 
 So, in the passage I read, the tempta- 
 tion of our Lord is temptation as it comes 
 in the strength of youth, as it comes in 
 the exuberance and fulness of the life of 
 this young man as he goes into the desert. 
 It is not the stripping down of life : it is 
 the stocking of life for that which it has 
 to do. It lies in the very way in which 
 the beginning of the temptation of Jesus 
 is told : " Then was Jesus led up of tJie 
 spirit into the wilderness, to be tempted 
 of the devil," that spirit which carried 
 forth his life and inspired it for the work 
 which it had to do. It was by that spirit 
 that he was led into the mountain of 
 temptation, as into the mountain of trans- 
 figuration, or the mountain of the sermon, 
 or the mountain of prayer. Thus, in the 
 life of Jesus, the temptation that is re- 
 vealed becomes a true part of the man's 
 life. It becomes a true portion of the 
 development of his consciousness for the 
 preparation and fulfilment of his work. 
 
 Yet it is not at the same time true that 
 temptation is the same for every man. 
 The temptation of Jesus has something 
 
 in
 
 74 
 
 in common with our own life. It makes 
 him our brother in that life ; and yet how 
 high it stands above the temptations which 
 we have ! There is no temptation from 
 the senses, from the lower life, or toward 
 the indulgence which seeks a lower grati- 
 fication. It is in the higher portions of 
 his life that Jesus meets with the power 
 which tempts him, and by resisting which 
 he grows into his strength. Every man's 
 temptation is in proportion to his nature. 
 
 " If thou be the Son of God, command 
 that these stones be made into bread," 
 an appeal to the growing God-conscious- 
 ness that was in Jesus, an appeal to the 
 divine potency that was in him to do great 
 things in his work in this world. 
 
 Then the second temptation, " If thou 
 be the Son of God, cast thyself down ; for 
 it is written, He shall give his angels 
 charge over thee," an appeal to the son- 
 consciousness of Jesus. If you are really 
 the Son of God, why do you not use that 
 sonship so that even no exposure can be- 
 come dangerous or harmful to you ? Why 
 do you not use it for your comfort and 
 self-satisfaction ? 
 
 And then the last and the greatest of 
 
 the
 
 3Demptatton of 2f|e*u& 75 
 
 the temptations, "All these things will 
 I give thee," as he stands upon the 
 mountain and looks forth upon the world, 
 "All these things will I give thee, if 
 thou wilt fall down and worship me." 
 Thou hast come, O Christ, for the re- 
 demption of the world ; thou hast come 
 to save this world from its sins, to make 
 it divine, to make it what the Father de- 
 signed it to be. Thou shalt have all these 
 things, all the great and glorious things 
 that thy love for man desires, if thou wilt 
 only consent to attain thy purpose by wor- 
 shipping me. 
 
 Can there be any greater temptations 
 than these ? Can they come to any but 
 a noble nature ? When to the conscious- 
 ness of association and affiliation with 
 God, when to the great desires and pur- 
 poses which glow in a generous young 
 man's heart, the devil comes and makes 
 this appeal, it is at once a tribute to the 
 nobleness of the nature of him whom he 
 tempts. And the glory of Christ's resist- 
 ance is that he appeals from the tempta- 
 tions which assail the higher parts of his 
 nature to the God supporting and sustain- 
 ing that nature : he appeals from the 
 
 temptation
 
 76 
 
 temptation to tempt God to the greater 
 power that is in him to trust God. He 
 does not go down from the heights of his 
 nature, that he may be able to escape 
 from this temptation : he goes on to a 
 deeper trust and more entire reliance, a 
 higher fulfilment of the life that is in 
 him. 
 
 So what does he bring forth out of his 
 temptation ? and what are we to bring 
 forth from our temptations, in whatever 
 region of life we may be ? These same 
 things that Jesus brought forth, and which 
 seem to show how much of that which 
 was great in him during his youth had 
 come to its fulness and consummation 
 there. He came forth certainly with 
 these three things in him from that time 
 forward, these three things, which may 
 we not see ourselves in him to-day, in 
 virtue of that temptation which he con- 
 quered ? He came down with a certain 
 confidence in God, with a certain confi- 
 dence in the power which had held him 
 when he was tempted. He came down 
 with a consciousness of himself and of the 
 mission to which he was sent. He came 
 down with a sympathy for those who, in 
 
 any
 
 temptation of 3fle$u$* 77 
 
 any part of their nature, may be tempted. 
 What great things are these ! What great 
 things are these shining in the face of 
 Jesus as he comes down ! What great 
 things are these in the life of any man 
 who has met a temptation as Christ met 
 his, and has conquered it ! the conscious- 
 ness of God, the consciousness of our- 
 selves and our mission, and the most 
 tender sympathy of our brother in the 
 temptations he has to meet. I know 
 nothing that a man has to encounter 
 which will need anything more than the 
 calling forth into fuller life of those 
 things which Jesus gained in this great 
 victory. 
 
 God help you, brother, then to do some- 
 thing more than to resist your tempta- 
 tions. God help you to do something 
 more than simply to come down as if you 
 had resisted an enemy. God help you 
 to come forth, not merely strong, but 
 stronger ; not merely having kept the 
 strength you have, but having been filled 
 with a new and inspiring strength which 
 subsists in these three great things which 
 have taken possession of your soul, your 
 consciousness that God is over you, that 
 
 the
 
 78 
 
 the power of God is in you, and that 
 every one led into temptation is the child 
 of God. 
 
 Was Christ tempted again ? He cer- 
 tainly was ; but I am sure the power gained 
 in this temptation comes up in all the other 
 trials. Never can we forget that trial, or 
 be too grateful for it. Never can it cease 
 to be a help to his children, who feel the 
 weakness of their lives, and yet need to 
 know that in the weakness of their lives 
 may lie the deepest strength of their lives, 
 if they have the strength of God. " Father, 
 save me from this hour," he said in his 
 later trial. It stood awful and terrible be- 
 fore him; and he shrank back from it, and 
 it might seem as if he were not going to 
 do the things that he came for. "Father, 
 save me from this hour." And then there 
 rises up the great fulness of his divine 
 consciousness, " Father, save me from 
 this hour; but for this cause came I unto 
 this hour." What is man made for, except 
 that he shall meet the suffering of his life 
 in the fulfilment of the purposes of his 
 life? Can it be that I have walked thus 
 far, and shall not be able to complete that 
 for which so much has been done? Then 
 
 the
 
 SDemptation of 31e$u0. 79 
 
 the hands are dropped even from petition, 
 and then the one great wish fills his soul : 
 "Father, glorify thy name." 
 
 My friends, I cannot help connecting 
 the two. I cannot help thinking of the 
 mountain, and then of the strength that 
 came out of the mountain, and then of the 
 strength that came at the last, and made 
 him ready for the cross. God grant that 
 you may so conquer your temptations by 
 the power of God, that they may not leave 
 you as you were, but fill you with the con- 
 sciousness of God, with the consciousness 
 of yourself, and with deep sympathy with 
 your brothers, so that, when any great 
 sacred trial shall come to you, his influ- 
 ence and his strength that are in you now 
 may be in you then ; and everything shall 
 unfold itself in the great prayer, "Father, 
 glorify thy name." 
 
 It was only a few days after that Jesus 
 offered the prayer in the seventeenth chap- 
 ter of John. And then there came up the 
 thought of the object of his life in the 
 world, and the way in which that life had 
 been fulfilled; and Jesus could say, "I 
 have glorified thee on the earth, I have 
 finished the work which thou gavest me 
 
 to
 
 8o 
 
 to do." Of all the satisfactions thac men 
 have, is there anything greater than this ? 
 I have made my contribution to the pur- 
 poses which God had in me; I have ful- 
 filled the purposes of him who sent me 
 into the world. It has been gradually 
 growing clearer and clearer to me. Much 
 I did not know, as I followed back my 
 tasks unto him who gave them to me. 
 Much I cannot understand, I do not know. 
 I only know that I have done my part: 
 "I have glorified thee upon the earth, and 
 finished the work thou gavest me to do." 
 When a great man dies, a man whose life 
 is to make a conspicuous part in the his- 
 tory of the world, or when a man dies 
 whose name is to be forgotten with the 
 dropping of the sods upon his grave, it 
 matters not, if he can say, I have glorified 
 him, the great Master of all the plans and 
 purposes of the world ; I have glorified 
 him upon the earth, and finished the work 
 he gave me to do. Then whatever glory 
 we can render to him in any fuller life, 
 whatever work he shall give us to do here- 
 after, whatever joy we shall be called upon 
 to enter in virtue of the fulfilment of the 
 little work he has given us here, becomes 
 
 possible ;
 
 temptation of 31e$u0. 81 
 
 possible; and the eyes that close upon 
 good work, humbly finished in the fear 
 of God, open upon the untold tasks and 
 the infinite growths of the eternal life. 
 From the temptation when the youth's 
 soul struggled in that conflict with the 
 great power that was besieging him on to 
 the time when he gave his life into the 
 hands of his Father, it was but one and 
 the same Christ who was to finish the 
 work which God had sent him to do in 
 the world. God grant that we may echo 
 the same power that worked in Christ in 
 the sphere in which we are sent !
 
 XL 
 
 IRREMEDIABLE LOSS IN SIN. 
 HEB. xii. 16, 17. 
 
 YOU must all remember the story in 
 the Old Testament to which these 
 verses refer. Esau, the wild hunter, has 
 returned from the chase, weary, exhausted, 
 hungry. To satisfy his hunger, he sells to 
 his brother his birthright for a mess of 
 pottage. Afterward, when he wanted to 
 undo the consequences of that rash act, he 
 could not. He found that he had done 
 something that was irreparable ; that he 
 had set in motion consequences which, in 
 spite of all that he could do, would exer- 
 cise their influence upon his life. 
 
 This simple story calls our attention 
 to the irremediable element in all sin. 
 There is loss, irreparable loss, of man- 
 hood in every wrong act that we do, in 
 every wrong thought we cherish, in every 
 inward dishonesty and disloyalty. There 
 
 is
 
 3f|n:emelHable JLostf in >m 83 
 
 is something that repentance cannot do. 
 It cannot undo the past; it cannot blot 
 out our record, it cannot change it in the 
 least. If a young man has squandered the 
 fortune left him, he may regret it in after 
 life ; and that regret may be in itself and 
 in no other respects a very good thing, 
 but it cannot recover his lost fortune. 
 He may have gone into athletics beyond 
 his power of endurance, he may have 
 broken his constitution and lost his 
 health, persisting against warning after 
 warning from his overtaxed body. In after 
 life, he may regret it very much ; but his 
 sorrow will not redeem his lost physical 
 vigor. Or he may go through the four 
 precious years of his college life without 
 securing the disciplined mind and wide in- 
 formation which these may furnish ; and 
 when he is in the stress and strain of pub- 
 lic life, fighting in the broad arena of busi- 
 ness or in some profession, he may be very 
 sorry that he did not use his advantages 
 in college. But, again, the sorrow, how- 
 ever much good it may do in some re- 
 spects, cannot bring back that lost oppor- 
 tunity, cannot restore to him what he has 
 thrown away. 
 
 So
 
 84 
 
 So it is in higher things. We read that 
 Paul persecuted the Christians with blind 
 zeal. We read afterward that he repented 
 of it ; but his repentance could never 
 change the fact that he had persecuted 
 the lowly followers of Jesus, that he had 
 identified God's service with inhuman 
 practices, that he had wasted his power 
 in early manhood. That record was un- 
 changed to his dying day. We read of 
 the publican, Zaccheus, who afterward re- 
 pented in Christ's presence of his unjust 
 exactions, and his life as an extortioner. 
 His repentance wrought out great results 
 for him ; but it never changed his record 
 as an extortioner, that he always had to 
 face. The years that he had squandered 
 in his unjust practices were forever with- 
 out redemption for him. And so there 
 was one thing which the penitence of the 
 penitent thief could not do for him. It 
 could not recover for him his lost life on 
 earth, it could not make him out other 
 than a thief. 
 
 There is, therefore, this irremediable ele- 
 ment in all sin. There is an irreparable 
 loss to us. All our dishonesties, all our 
 disloyalties, all our impurities of thought, 
 
 all
 
 3|rwnrDiable ILostf in >m* 85 
 
 all our insincerities, all that is bad with- 
 in and baleful without grows into a fixed 
 and unalterable record, and goes on for 
 a long time wielding its baleful power 
 over the agents that set it in motion, and 
 over the agents that are associated with 
 it in the corporate life of society. It is a 
 terrible thing, but it is our wisdom to face 
 the fact as it is. There is something that 
 repentance cannot do. There is some- 
 thing that it could not do for Paul or Zac- 
 cheus or the penitent thief. There is 
 something that it cannot do for you or 
 me : it cannot alter our disloyal record, 
 our past as sinful men. 
 
 Now, then, what can it do ? It seems 
 to me that a man who has opened his eyes 
 to this fact has come face to face with the 
 reality of things, and this very fact may 
 set in motion in his heart the emancipat- 
 ing power of God. If he sees that the 
 past of sin is permanent as a record, that 
 it goes on for a long time exercising its 
 influence upon him, he will come to a bet- 
 ter sense of the sinfulness of the act and 
 of his own folly in identifying his good 
 with any such action ; and this sense of 
 his terrible act and of his folly in doing it 
 
 will
 
 86 
 
 will generate a repugnance to it which is 
 the very power of God in emancipating 
 the soul from its record and its habit. 
 When Esau came to look upon his rash 
 act, when he thought that he could not 
 undo it by turning his past over and shed- 
 ding a few tears in his father's presence, 
 then the result of his impetuosity became 
 more serious, and led him to think more 
 deeply of all such acts, which, though in- 
 advertently done, are fixed, and send their 
 influence over the whole of a man's life in 
 this world. Would he not also feel more 
 and more his own folly in identifying the 
 good of his rational spirit with the satis- 
 faction of appetite ? And would not this 
 sentiment, the very fact that the past was 
 persistent, that it had rained down its 
 judgment upon him, would not that fact 
 generate a new power of self-protection, 
 vigilance, and freedom ? 
 
 Much more with Paul. We know that 
 the recoil of his soul from the past, the 
 recoil of his soul from his guilt and folly, 
 was the power of God that developed in 
 his heart all his zeal and effectiveness as 
 an apostle of Christ. We know that it 
 was this same recoil from a fixed, abhor- 
 
 rent
 
 in >m. 87 
 
 rent past which made Zaccheus say, " The 
 half of my goods I give to the poor ; and, 
 if I have taken anything from any man by 
 false accusation, I restore it fourfold." He 
 allowed his whole past to excite in him a 
 proper thought and a proper emotion, and 
 these brought into his heart the deliver- 
 ing power of God. 
 
 So with the penitent thief. That mar- 
 vellously tender and trustful appeal of his 
 to Christ, just as they were both going 
 down into the darkness of death, " Lord, 
 remember me when thoti comest into thy 
 kingdom," this appeal was excited in the 
 poor man's soul by the view of his past 
 life as a fixed and shameful record, and by 
 the sense of his own folly in having iden- 
 tified his good with such a course of life. 
 Peter went out from the presence of the 
 Lord, and wept bitterly ; but his tears 
 could not wash out his denial. That re- 
 mains fixed as a part of Christian history 
 for all time. But the recoil of Peter's 
 soul from the base act he had done, his 
 sense of grief and folly in having taken 
 that for his good, that sent him on. He 
 attained new freedom, the freedom of a 
 son of God. 
 
 Carry
 
 88 
 
 Carry a tame pigeon a hundred miles, 
 and set it free, and its instinct of strange- 
 ness, its instinct for home, its fear and its 
 love, are the double impulse in its wings 
 to send it home. When the boy in the 
 parable of our Lord found himself in a 
 strange country, the feeling of strange- 
 ness and the feeling of home, the instinct 
 of fear and the instinct of love, these 
 were the wings that carried him out of the 
 far country to his old home. 
 
 And so it is with us. If we face our 
 bad acts and our bad deeds as permanent 
 things, things that no tears can wash 
 out, no repentance can undo, nothing can 
 change from what they are, there will 
 be a recoil in us from that past, there will 
 be a sense of guilt in us, and a sense of 
 folly in us, for having identified the eter- 
 nal good of the human spirit with such 
 gratifications. And the recoil will be the 
 power* of the Eternal Spirit delivering us 
 from our past and from our habit into the 
 future which God has willed for us, and 
 into the habit that Christ wears, and which 
 we may share.
 
 XII. 
 
 "MY FATHER'S BUSINESS." 
 LUKE ii. 
 
 THIS was the first visit of this child 
 to Jerusalem since he was carried 
 there in his infancy. When the company 
 that had brought him now to this city and 
 temple of his delight, and his parents had 
 turned toward their home, he lingered 
 behind, as we have read ; and when they 
 found him, in the temple where they 
 looked for him, he turned to them his sur- 
 prised and grieved face, and asked: "How 
 is it that you sought me ? Did you not 
 know that I must be in my Father's house, 
 that I must be about my Father's busi- 
 ness?" Twelve years old! But he knew 
 that God was his Father, which scarcely an- 
 other man in Jerusalem knew. He knew 
 that the temple was his Father's house. 
 He knew that all that was before him in 
 his dawning life was simply his Father's 
 
 business.
 
 90 
 
 business. What a wonderful beginning for 
 a life as wonderful ! And, when we find 
 him in the midst of it, he is uttering the 
 same thought : " My meat is to do the will 
 of Him that sent me, and to finish his 
 work." And at the close : " I have glori- 
 fied thee on the earth : I have finished the 
 work which thou gavest me to do." From 
 the beginning to the end, it was "my 
 Father's business." 
 
 But, with this devotion to his heavenly 
 Father's will, there was the most perfect 
 fidelity to his human duties. We read 
 that he went back to Nazareth with his 
 parents, and was subject to them as afore- 
 time. If traditions are to be trusted, he 
 went into the shop of his father, and 
 worked at his humble, useful occupation. 
 And we may well believe that no work 
 which was not perfect went from that car- 
 penter's shop. 
 
 When he went out into the world, 
 helping, inspiring, strengthening, relieving 
 every one, and being always a shepherd, 
 and, like a good shepherd, giving at last 
 his life for the sheep, he was still teaching 
 that God is our Father, that the solitary 
 thing which any man has to do in this 
 wide world is his Father's business. 
 
 Have
 
 .ffatiier'sf Business," 91 
 
 Have we not to learn the same lesson ? 
 We stand in this double relationship, 
 first to God over us, and then to the world 
 that is about us. But we are to hold these 
 two together in one thought and one in- 
 tention. If we take the first by itself, our 
 thought becomes a meditation, an emotion. 
 We become monks ; we build monasteries ; 
 we tread cloisters. If we take the other, 
 life becomes narrow, restricted, one-sided, 
 of the earth, earthy. There is no help 
 but binding together and never separating 
 the two which God in wisdom and grace 
 has united. 
 
 If now we remember our Lord's pre- 
 cepts, we find the same lesson, that the 
 second commandment is like the first. 
 But the first is the first, and the first is 
 the greatest. The world must have both. 
 If we take the second alone, life goes 
 down, and is restricted because it is not 
 living up to the greatest. If we look 
 down, then our shoulders stoop. If our 
 thoughts look down, our character bends. 
 It is only when we hold our heads up that 
 the body becomes erect. It is only when 
 our thoughts go up that our life becomes 
 erect. 
 
 We
 
 92 J?art)aru 
 
 We have another successful, forcible 
 illustration of this in a man whose life has 
 impressed men more deeply, perhaps, than 
 any other which has been lived since his 
 time, Saint Paul. We think of him, as 
 we do of Jesus Christ, as doing his Father's 
 will. Paul was a tent-maker. If he had 
 given himself up to tent-making alone, he 
 might have been a skilled and successful 
 and wealthy tent-maker. But then his char- 
 acter would have taken something of the 
 shape and texture of the tent. A man's 
 occupation does enter into a man's life, as 
 truly as a man's life enters into his occu- 
 pation. But when he gave himself to this 
 higher purpose, then this common work, 
 this tent-making, became illustrious, sacred. 
 It wrought in everything he did. I sup- 
 pose there is no one who knows the life of 
 Saint Paul who does not believe that the 
 trademark with his name upon a piece of 
 black tent-cloth in the market of Corinth 
 was a positive addition to its value. And 
 I am sure he was a better preacher for 
 this work. As he himself said again 
 and again : " These hands have ministered 
 unto my necessities." " I have wrought 
 with labor, . . . that we might not be 
 
 chargeable
 
 jfartjer'0 JBtutfnwfc." 93 
 
 chargeable to any of you." He asked no 
 favors from any one. He cared for him- 
 self, and took care of those with him. In 
 this independence, he did the work of his 
 ministry. When he was in the house of 
 Aquila and Priscilla at Corinth, because 
 he was of the same craft he abode with 
 them, making this tent-cloth, in order that 
 he might preach. He could say that he 
 preached because he made the tent-cloth, 
 the two working together, but the preaching 
 being first. It is what ranks in our thoughts 
 as first that determines the character which 
 we possess. We may do good things and 
 inferior things, but the things which are 
 first in our purpose determine our char- 
 acter and our desert. Some one said to 
 Casanova, " Rubens, I believe, was an 
 ambassador who amused himself with 
 painting." "No, madam," was the reply, 
 " Rubens was a painter who amused him- 
 self with' embassies." The first would 
 have left him an ambassador long ago for- 
 gotten. The second leaves him an artist 
 evermore remembered. 
 
 What, then, does it come to ? What 
 are we to do ? 
 
 First of all, are we not every morning 
 
 to
 
 94 J?artoar& 
 
 to adjust ourselves to God? Are we not 
 to take that simple principle which is as 
 true in morals and conduct as in material 
 things, that the greater includes the 
 less ? The greater does not disown it : it 
 holds it. The less does not supplant the 
 greater : it rests within it. It is when we 
 carry out this principle in the strength 
 and unity of our conduct that we have 
 taken a very safe principle by which to 
 live. Every morning, before we cross our 
 threshold, before we make a single plan or 
 appointment for the day, we must give 
 ourselves unto our Father's business. In 
 looking out upon life, in choosing our pro- 
 fession, before we take counsel and as we 
 take counsel, first of all we must ask why 
 we live at all, then give ourselves to our 
 Father's business. 
 
 We are not, as we do sometimes, to de- 
 termine what we will do, and then devote, 
 it to God ; but we are first to devote our- 
 selves to God, and then ask him what we 
 shall do. Give life to him in the large, 
 and let him arrange the details afterward. 
 The ship first adjusts herself to the sun 
 in the heavens ; and, having done that, 
 the ship is rightly adjusted to every star 
 
 that
 
 jfatljer'0 Business*" 95 
 
 that gleams. The man whose heart is 
 right with God is wrong with nothing. 
 The man whose life contents God has ful- 
 filled its intent. The life that does the 
 will of God does everything that men 
 ought to ask and everything that men 
 require. 
 
 What shall we find, then, in a life like 
 that, beginning first of all with God, as at 
 twelve years of age we are standing in the 
 temple, with the thought of him upper- 
 most in our minds ? Standing in our 
 morning, in our youth, looking down upon 
 life, what shall we find ? We shall find, 
 in a life like that, everything that we 
 need, every power recognized, every fac- 
 ulty of our being energized to do its best. 
 There is nothing beyond it. " Thou shalt 
 love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, 
 and with all thy soul, and with all thy 
 mind, and with all thy strength : this is 
 the first commandment. And the second 
 is like ; namely, this : Thou shalt love thy 
 neighbor as thyself." That is what God 
 requires, and whosoever shall do that shall 
 do all which he needs to do to be all which 
 it is possible for him to be. 
 
 We shall find, again, everything that 
 
 the
 
 96 J?artoaru 
 
 the world neeas at our hands. No one is 
 so compassionate toward men as God. 
 The Father is tender and pitiful to his 
 children. There is no one overlooked. 
 There is no prayer unnoticed. The whole 
 thought of God is pity and mercy and 
 helpfulness and love toward all men. And 
 when a man is doing the will of God, is 
 about his Father's business, he is express- 
 ing the love of God and carrying it down 
 among men. 
 
 The world has many wants. It wants 
 tents, it wants goods that come from 
 the carpenter's shop ; but shall we be 
 satisfied, then, to be only tent-makers, 
 carpenters, scholars ? The world needs 
 apostles. A man may be a better apostle 
 for being able to make a tent : he will 
 only be a good tent-maker when he is an 
 apostle. 
 
 We shall find, then, an incentive, an 
 inspiration, the very nobility of our career, 
 when we are working with God and feel- 
 ing the strength of that divine life breathe 
 itself into our purposes and flow along the 
 channels of our life. There is nothing 
 like it, nothing like this constant sense 
 that we are one with God, in communion 
 
 with
 
 jfatljcr'sf HBusrtnestf," 97 
 
 with him, listening to him, obeying him, 
 and going out to do his will, sure that 
 there is no man who is faithful to his 
 Father's business but shall know the doc- 
 trine and shall do the work. 
 
 Thus, also, we shall find the unalterable 
 purpose of God. The thoughts of God 
 are eternal thoughts. They are indepen- 
 dent of time, independent of worlds. You 
 set your life to-day into the doing of the 
 will of God. After you have set your life 
 into that life, it need never be changed. 
 A million years hence, what is my duty 
 to-day will be my duty still. The cen- 
 turies that are before us will never change 
 the character of our duty. No age can 
 ever bring anything of loss to that man 
 who is doing the will of our Father who is 
 in heaven. Let changes come ; let the 
 carpenter's shop fall ; let men cease to 
 need tents ; let our hands lose their cun- 
 ning to make them; let death come, we 
 pass on, still thinking God's thoughts, still 
 doing God's business, on, on forever, up 
 the ages. This is to make up our pur- 
 poses, our intentions, our conduct, not 
 after the law of a carnal commandment, 
 but after the power of an endless life. 
 
 "The
 
 98 
 
 "The world passeth away," so an old 
 man wrote, "the world passeth away: 
 but he that doeth the will of God abideth 
 forever."
 
 XIII. 
 
 t 
 
 JESUS IN EPHRAIM. 
 JOHN xi. 45. 
 
 THERE is something very noteworthy 
 in this simple incident, thus slightly 
 described in a single Gospel : " He de- 
 parted into the country near to the wil- 
 derness, into a city called Ephraim." For 
 consider when it was that this apparently 
 unimportant event occurred. It was but 
 a week or two before the last events of 
 the life of Jesus. It was after the time 
 when, as Jesus said, "he had steadfastly 
 set his face to go to Jerusalem." It was, 
 indeed, probably on this very day, the 
 Thursday before what we call Palm Sun- 
 day, that Jesus came forth from this re- 
 tirement in Ephraim, and joined the pil- 
 grims on their way to Jerusalem. He 
 knew what was to follow. There was no 
 illusion about that journey. "Behold," 
 he said to his disciples, " we go up to Je- 
 rusalem ;
 
 100 
 
 rusalem ; and the Son of Man shall be 
 delivered and mocked and scourged, and 
 put to death." Thus he was looking on 
 through the Sunday of welcome and enthu- 
 siasm, when the multitude would spread 
 their garments in his triumphant way, 
 through the week of quick reaction from 
 enthusiasm to hostility, through the be- 
 trayal and the garden and the trial to the 
 swiftly approaching cross. Just then it 
 was, when this consciousness of a tre- 
 mendous crisis was solemnizing every step, 
 that he left his preaching and working, 
 left the cities and the contest with scribes 
 and Pharisees, and went away with a few 
 of his friends into this remote place called 
 Ephraim, and there remained so quietly 
 that his withdrawal has been hardly re- 
 membered by the Christian Church, until 
 at last, as he would have said, " his hour 
 was come " ; and on precisely this day of 
 this very week he comes back into the 
 world again. 
 
 What docs this mean, this turning 
 away from practical work, just when prac- 
 tical opportunity seemed most pressing 
 and brief? Certainly, this inaction at 
 such a time is most extraordinary. Does 
 
 it
 
 3f|mt* in Cpfjratm. 101 
 
 it mean that Jesus was indifferent to his 
 work, and did not much care whether he 
 finished it or not ? We cannot be so fool- 
 ish as to say that of him. Or does it mean 
 that he was afraid of what was coming, 
 and for the moment fled from his fate ? 
 We have yet to find in the later story any- 
 thing that looks like fear. On the con- 
 trary, we have for the most part a state of 
 mind more like that of a kingly triumph, 
 as though he, rather than Herod, were 
 master and judge, and as though the 
 crown of thorns were a crown of laurels. 
 No ! It was a much deeper impulse than 
 indifference or fear which led Jesus thus 
 into this withdrawal. The fact was that 
 it seemed to him the best way to use his 
 time. If he was to fulfil his mission in 
 the calmness and self-possession of its 
 last tremendous incidents, it must be, he 
 knew, through strength not suddenly de- 
 veloped as the crisis met him, but stored 
 up for the crisis in antecedent hours of 
 quiet communion with his God. If he 
 was to pour himself out so wholly in word 
 and life, it must be from a fulness not to 
 be received except in this occasional with- 
 drawal into the close and quiet sense of 
 companionship with God. 
 
 This
 
 102 
 
 This seems to be a law in the life of 
 Jesus. Before each crisis of his life, he 
 goes away from the work which seems to 
 demand him, to the wilderness, or the sea- 
 side, or the mountain, or the garden. It 
 was as though his perpetual and contro- 
 versial relations with men left him solitary 
 and parched, like a shore left by the re- 
 ceding tide, and as though he must place 
 himself where the inflooding and uninter- 
 rupted tide of the spirit of his God could 
 flow in upon him without hindrance, and 
 fill his life again. In his work, he was 
 alone, though he seemed to be in the 
 midst of companionship, alone in that 
 profoundest solitude, when one is misin- 
 terpreted and unheard; and in these 
 times of withdrawal he found compan- 
 ionship, though he seemed to be alone. 
 At the one time, he spent himself. At 
 the other, he revived himself. Thus it 
 was that, with those only who were near- 
 est to him, he went apart into this soli- 
 tary place called Ephraim ; and thus it 
 was that, when he came forth from this 
 withdrawal of whose incidents we know 
 not a word, he comes forth with an abso- 
 lute self-possession and tranquillity, the 
 
 real
 
 in <fl;pl)ratm. 103 
 
 real crisis of his life lying behind him in 
 this hidden experience, and the triumph 
 of Palm Sunday, along with the tragedies 
 which succeeded it, only the incidents of 
 a willingly accepted destiny. 
 
 Let us notice, first, the marvellous self- 
 control which all this implies. To pause 
 just when action seems expected, to be 
 wise as well as to be self-sacrificing, to be 
 able to wait until one's time is come, 
 that is the hardest thing for the man of 
 a strenuous purpose to do. The reformer 
 is, by his very calling, impatient of delay. 
 The man who has found a truth feels the 
 very power of truth urging him to imme- 
 diate results. "Now," he says, "is the 
 appointed time. Now is the day of salva- 
 tion." What disturbs him most is delay. 
 " The trouble is," said one such great re- 
 former, "that God is not in a hurry, and I 
 am." Think, then, on the other hand, of 
 the power in Jesus to wait, to let his pur- 
 pose ripen, nurtured from years of child- 
 hood, like a plant withholding its blossom 
 until at last it blooms once and dies, paus- 
 ing in the midst of work, if work can be 
 made better by a pause. Let us stand 
 rebuked for our restlessness and impa- 
 tience,
 
 104 
 
 tience, our hurry for success, our prefer- 
 ence for incomplete results, if only they 
 shall be quick results. In the midst of 
 our competitions and controversies and 
 hopes and fears, who of us permits him- 
 self any time spared from his activities to 
 go apart into any quiet Ephraim, and per- 
 mit his life to proceed under a self-con- 
 trolled and far-reaching plan ? 
 
 But there is more than this for us to 
 notice. There is that which I have called 
 a law in the life of Jesus, and which thus 
 seemed to demand these alternations of 
 society and solitude, of reflection and 
 action, of receptivity and utterance, as 
 the method of his work. What is the 
 teaching of this law which thus led Jesus 
 away from what seemed his duty to the 
 quietness of Ephraim? A life, it says 
 to us, lived in the absorbing occupations 
 of the active world cannot be lived wisely, 
 unless at times it is led to pause, and let 
 the whole large intent of life lie broadly 
 before it in one quiet view. We are like 
 artists absorbed in working out some 
 small detail of our task. We must at 
 times stand off from it, and look at it 
 in its wholeness ; and it is only when 
 
 we
 
 in (Kpljraim. 105 
 
 we thus see each part in its relation to 
 the whole that we see the parts them- 
 selves aright. It is not only that we thus 
 need rest in life : it is thus that we get 
 power and insight for life. We try to 
 sum up the great moments of our expe- 
 rience, and we seem to see them in some 
 conspicuous incident of triumph or suc- 
 cess. But, in reality, that which gave 
 such incidents their worth or greatness to 
 us, the capacity to meet and use them, 
 was not the immediate gift of the emer- 
 gency, but was the outcome of a habit of 
 mind or of life nurtured and disciplined in 
 days so uneventful that they have no his- 
 tory. It is in the quietness of Ephraim 
 that the force is stored up which uses the 
 days that are to follow. 
 
 Let a man, for instance, who is a stu- 
 dent, permit himself no pause in his eager 
 acquisitions, and he becomes only a ped- 
 ant, a bookworm ; not a channel of living 
 truth, but a cistern of stagnant truth ; but 
 let him welcome in himself moments of 
 quiet receptivity, when he cannot reckon 
 himself as acquiring anything, but is per- 
 mitting his larger purposes to flow in 
 upon his mind, and in these contempla- 
 tive
 
 io6 
 
 tive experiences he finds that the great 
 creative movements of his work have had 
 their remote and secret source. Or let a 
 man hurry on in the rush of his business 
 or his society or his home, with no time 
 to think whither he is hurrying, and, when 
 the test of his strength arrives, he meets 
 it only with exhaustion and despair. He 
 is like a man who has been living on the 
 edge of his physical health. He is well 
 until he is tested by some sudden strain, 
 and then he is smitten down. What sad- 
 der sight have we to see than this kind 
 of moral breakdown in a man who had 
 seemed to himself strong, but who has 
 none of what young men call "staying 
 power " ? He is like a man who thinks 
 himself ready for a race, but finds him- 
 self only half-trained for it ; and, when 
 the test comes, he knows that no conceiv- 
 able effort at the crisis can atone for the 
 neglected opportunities of quiet discipline. 
 And what, on the other hand, is more 
 beautiful than this, to see a man meet 
 the tests of life, and meet them with an 
 abundant strength, not as though he were 
 surprised by them, but as though, through 
 the unobserved discipline of habitual life, 
 
 he
 
 in Cp&ramt, 107 
 
 he was ready for them ? Such a man is 
 like an athlete to whom supreme exertion 
 is not a distress and torture, but a joy 
 and glory, because it is the expression of 
 all that quiet training which had it in 
 view. Nay, rather such a man comes 
 forth as Jesus came from Ephraim, with 
 the struggle and darkness left behind him, 
 and the step of a conqueror along the way 
 that is left to tread. 
 
 I have spoken thus of these moments 
 of withdrawal, because it is for just such 
 moments that such services as this seem 
 to stand. As we look back upon them, 
 at their close for this year, what is it that 
 they seem to mean ? They are not meet- 
 ings for discussion or argument or for 
 the demonstration of religious truth. We 
 come here simply because the pressure 
 and strain of life are constant, because its 
 cares and perplexities are baffling, because 
 its follies and trivial events are absorbing, 
 and because we want to place ourselves 
 for some brief instants where the whole 
 meaning and tendency of life may lie 
 broadly and quietly before our view. But 
 let us not think lightly of such times of 
 meditation and communion. It may be 
 
 that
 
 io8 
 
 that the very issues of life are determined 
 for you while you thus sit and let God 
 speak to your soul. I do not know nor 
 do you the duties, opportunities, emer- 
 gencies, to which you will soon be called : 
 whether the multitude will throw their 
 garments in your way, as you move on in 
 some noble triumph, or whether that same 
 multitude will scoff at you, as you bear 
 the burden of your cross, or whether both 
 these things will happen to you. But this 
 I do know : that, when the crises of life 
 thus meet you, as they met your Master, 
 you will bear them, not in a quick acces- 
 sion of spiritual strength, but in the power 
 brought down into your life through some 
 such moments ^ as are permitted to you 
 here of quiet receptivity before the spirit 
 of your God, so that, while the world may 
 sum up the great moments of your life in 
 its conspicuous activities, you will silently 
 refer them to the experience of some re- 
 mote and unrecorded Ephraim. 
 
 I remember in Austria a high hill rising 
 out of the plain, with a steep and rugged 
 pathway winding up its flanks, and, at 
 the top, a broad and beautiful view and 
 a shrine for prayer. As one wearily 
 
 climbs
 
 in Cpljraim, 109 
 
 climbs the hill, he finds at intervals rough 
 benches set for his rest ; and opposite 
 each bench is set up one of those rude 
 pictures from the last days of Jesus, which 
 are called in Catholic countries "the sta- 
 tions of the cross." Thus, one pauses in 
 his climbing; and, as he pauses, there looks 
 down upon him one great thought out of 
 the life of Christ. And so, refreshed, he 
 climbs again ; and the landscape slowly 
 broadens beneath him, until at last the 
 world on every side lies at his feet and 
 the final station of the cross is won. Such 
 is the normal and healthy progress of a 
 human life. It must be climbing, and 
 it must be weary. No fool is greater 
 than he who would see the vision from 
 the heights of life without making the 
 effort to climb. Yet here and there along 
 this steep ascent there are given us brief 
 chances to pause and rest, moments like 
 those which Jesus sought in the quietness 
 of Ephraim, and like these which, in God's 
 mercy, we have been permitted to share 
 together here ; and, as we thus pause, 
 there looks down upon us one solemn 
 thought of the Christian life, with its 
 plain and restful message. So, refreshed 
 
 and
 
 no 
 
 and strengthened, let us climb again, from 
 the lower to the higher levels, from station 
 to station of larger outlook, until at last, 
 in God's own time, we may stand where 
 the world and its temptations are softened 
 into a landscape at our feet and the final 
 station of the cross is won.
 
 XIV. 
 NICODEMUS. 
 
 JOHN iii. 1-9; vii. 45-52; xix. 38-41. 
 
 '"THHESE three passages tell us all that 
 J- we know of this man named Nico- 
 demus. The first of these incidents was 
 on a day near the beginning of the min- 
 istry of Jesus ; the second occurs more 
 than two years later; the third, some six 
 months later still. It is interesting to 
 notice the character and position of the 
 man who thus stands before us. He is 
 an exceptional type in the Gospels. Most 
 of the early disciples were plain people, 
 fishermen, and country folk. This man, 
 on the contrary, was an educated and 
 cultivated gentleman, a member of that 
 council which gave law to his nation. 
 Translated into our modern life, his place 
 was something like that of a respected 
 lawyer or an honored judge in one of our 
 upper courts. Here we have then what 
 
 we
 
 ii2 
 
 we have hardly anywhere else in the Gos- 
 pels the contact of Christianity with a 
 cultivated life ; and we see this life un- 
 folding itself before us through its whole 
 religious history. The stages of this con- 
 tact are marked by the three days of which 
 we have read. This educated man, want- 
 ing to know about the message of Christ, 
 turns straight to the Master himself. It 
 was a sincere, candid, scientific thing to 
 do. It shows us an open-minded man. 
 He comes to Jesus by night, and it is 
 commonly thought that he came by night 
 because he was afraid to come by day. 
 I think it was, on the contrary, a mark of 
 his prudence and sagacity. It was not for 
 him to follow Jesus with the noisy, shal- 
 low rabble that thronged about the new 
 Teacher through the day. It was for him 
 to seek out some quiet hour of evening 
 meditation, when the Master could be 
 found alone, and when he could calmly 
 investigate what the new leader meant to 
 do. Thus it was that he came by night, 
 as a truly scientific student and critic 
 should have done ; and then it was that 
 Jesus poured out upon him that marvel- 
 lous conversation which we usually asso- 
 ciate with the name of Nicodemus. 
 
 " Except
 
 jlitcoDr mu0. 1 1 3 
 
 " Except a man be born again, he can- 
 not see the kingdom of God"; "That 
 which is born of the flesh is flesh, and 
 that which is born of the spirit is spirit " ; 
 "The wind bloweth where it listeth : so is 
 every one that is born of the spirit." All 
 these utterances have a height and depth 
 and range hardly equalled even in the gos- 
 pel narratives. What Jesus is trying to 
 unfold in this first interview is that which 
 must always be the first word of religion. 
 It is the teaching of the naturalness of 
 the supernatural. Like the birth into 
 one's physical life, with the same natu- 
 ralness, yet with the same mystery and 
 miracle, like the coming of the wind, 
 ordered by natural laws, yet by laws be- 
 yond our comprehension, so is the com- 
 ing of the influence of God upon a human 
 life. It is the same message which in our 
 own day is pressing to be heard, the natu- 
 ralness of the supernatural. But Nicode- 
 mus cannot receive it. He has not come 
 there to hear such a method. He has come 
 there to ask his own questions, to inves- 
 tigate and criticise ; and so the critic turns 
 away, puzzled and bewildered. " How can 
 these things be?" That is all he says, 
 
 and
 
 ii4 
 
 and for two years we hear of him no 
 more. 
 
 What do you suppose happened to this 
 man in those two years ? We do not 
 know. We only know that the experi- 
 ence of life must have pressed upon him 
 as upon other men. A few new joys must 
 have come into his life, and a few trials 
 and sorrows must have befallen him ; and, 
 as each fresh experience touched him, he 
 must have recalled that wonderful inter- 
 view which he at the time so little under- 
 stood. " This is what the stranger meant," 
 he must have said to himself, as he tried to 
 interpret his experience. " Now I begin 
 to see that what is born of the flesh is 
 flesh, and what is born of the spirit is 
 spirit. More and more I discover that, as 
 he told me, nature is full of mystery ; and 
 that the way of Christ, mysterious though 
 it is, is the way of nature." How do we 
 know that Nicodemus thus remembered 
 Jesus ? It is because, when we next see 
 him, he has taken a great step. He is no 
 longer standing bewildered before Christ, 
 nor seeking him out like a critic in the 
 dark ; but he is openly pleading with his 
 brethren for justice to Jesus, "Doth our 
 
 law
 
 jjiteo&emus. 1 1 5 
 
 law judge any man," he asks judicially, 
 "before it hear him and know what he 
 cloeth ? " Jesus, he has come to believe, 
 should have a fair chance. His message 
 deserves to be heard. It has made its 
 impression on him in spite of his first 
 bewilderment. Then he came as a critic, 
 and went away without any conscious gain. 
 Now he reappears after these years of 
 experience, and the message has plainly 
 grown upon him, so that he takes the step 
 from the position of a critic to the posi- 
 tion of an advocate. He is no longer a 
 neutral : he is ready to confess that the 
 word of Christ has meant something to 
 him. 
 
 One other step remains for this edu- 
 cated man to take, and it comes naturally 
 and it comes soon. The life of Jesus is 
 hurried to its close. The hopes that 
 lived with it seem buried in his grave. 
 The new faith seems nailed to his cross. 
 It is a time to test the supremest loyalty. 
 Then it is that Nicodemus comes again, 
 comes not to talk about his faith, but to 
 do something in witness of it, to offer 
 himself for service. Just when the cause 
 seems most hopeless comes this cultivated 
 
 gentleman,
 
 n6 
 
 gentleman, with his offering, bringing his 
 myrrh and aloes, nay, bringing the offer- 
 ing of himself for the cause which he has 
 slowly learned to love. He comes as a 
 willing, obedient disciple of Jesus Christ. 
 Such is the story of Nicodemus. So 
 his religious life unfolds itself before us in 
 these three glimpses of his three great 
 days. First, he has tried to find religion 
 by the way of criticism ; and the problems 
 of religion have been opened before him, 
 though he could not enter in. Then he 
 has tried the way of experience, and 
 through the interpreting of his own life 
 he has been led to see that religion has a 
 right to be heard among the factors of the 
 world. Finally, he commits himself to 
 the way of service; and, in that offering 
 of himself for service, his criticism and 
 his experience find their goal. From 
 neutrality, through justice, into obedi- 
 ence ; from criticism, through experience, 
 into service, that was the way in which 
 the life of this educated and high-minded 
 man seems to have been led. And such, 
 it seems to me, is the normal course of an 
 intelligent man in his relation to religion. 
 Sometimes, indeed, there comes one great 
 
 tumultuous
 
 117 
 
 tumultuous and passionate shock, which 
 revolutionizes life in an instant, and re- 
 moves all distinctions of intelligence and 
 ignorance. But the way of Nicodemus 
 remains the type of a normal religious 
 growth. Let an educated man come, first 
 of all, to Jesus with an open and honest 
 mind. In some quiet evening of medita- 
 tion, let his soul come face to face with 
 the message of religion, and let him hear 
 it in all its naturalness, yet in all its mys- 
 tery. That is the attitude of criticism, 
 and it is not to be discouraged nor de- 
 spised. But let a man be nothing but a 
 critic, and he remains nothing but a neu- 
 tral. He can only turn away with the 
 words of Nicodemus, " How can these 
 things be?" What the message of relig- 
 ion must have is time. It must be taken 
 up into the material of experience. A 
 man must try it, as he tries a key to 
 life, and see whether it unlocks things 
 that were hidden. As his joys encourage 
 him or his trials perplex him or his temp- 
 tations beset him, he must unlock their 
 meaning with such words as these: "That 
 which is born of the flesh is flesh, and 
 that which is born of the spirit is spirit " ; 
 
 and,
 
 u8 ^arbara esters. 
 
 and, passing into the regions opened by 
 such a key, he must consider whether 
 they are not the regions where he wants 
 to dwell, and where his life is interpreted 
 and sustained. And yet another region 
 still waits beyond this interpreting of ex- 
 perience before complete discipleship is 
 reached. It is the world of service. Let 
 a man remain in the world of criticism, 
 and he never realizes the truth of religion 
 at all. Let him remain in the world of 
 experience, and he realizes it only self- 
 ishly and partially. But let him, having 
 weighed the matter with an open mind, 
 and having tested it by the experience of 
 life, then bring to it, not the profession 
 of his lips, but the offering of himself for 
 the service of his God ; and then the 
 course of a religious experience is com- 
 plete. It is like the story of many young 
 men, whose names you daily read in yon- 
 der transept, where you bare your head 
 as you pass by. They had heard the 
 principles of their country expounded to 
 them here ; and they had received them 
 by the way of criticism, and they had 
 done well. Then they had tested their 
 principles by the way of experience, and 
 
 had
 
 1 19 
 
 had found that a country of freedom and 
 union was a country where they wanted 
 to live. Then comes the final test, the 
 test of service. Could they offer for their 
 country's sake the myrrh and aloes of 
 their fragrant young lives, just when the 
 principles of their country seem nailed 
 upon a cross? It was that great transi- 
 tion which changed those youths from 
 commonplace young men to whom educa- 
 tion had brought no greatness into the 
 heroes and martyrs whom we remember 
 forever. 
 
 So it is that the summons of the relig- 
 ious life meets educated men to-day. It 
 asks no abrupt acceptance, no unreason- 
 able emotion. It meets first the critical 
 mind, but asks us to be more than critics ; 
 it meets next the experience of life, but 
 asks us to be more than introspective 
 interpreters of our own problems ; it sum- 
 mons us finally into the way of unpreten- 
 tious, honest service, as the way which 
 verifies and sustains the hidden things of 
 faith. What is there more stagnant and 
 sterile than a life which would get every- 
 thing by the way of criticism ? What 
 is there more introspective, self-absorbed, 
 
 and
 
 and inadequate than the constant inter- 
 preting of one's own experience ? But 
 what is there more beautiful among the 
 sights of earth than to see a man, with 
 the bloom of his education on him, pass- 
 ing on, through the way of criticism and 
 the way of experience, into the way of 
 service, gathering up the results of his 
 inquiries and the broadening experience 
 of his life, and bringing these gifts, like 
 fragrant spices, as offerings to the Higher 
 Life? It is as if you should be standing 
 at first outside some great cathedral, and 
 studying its towers and porches and criti- 
 cising its spires. It is the student's mind 
 investigating the master's art. Yet slowly 
 your feet are leading you from without to 
 within; and, as you enter, you pass from 
 the attitude of a critic to the attitude of 
 a worshipper. Your experience spreads 
 itself out before you as you enter, and 
 you are lifted by the lifting arches and 
 broadened by the broadening aisles. Thus 
 you move slowly on, up the long aisle of 
 this temple of a Christian experience, 
 until at last you lay the little gift you 
 have even your own unpretending, sin- 
 cere, modest, consecrated manhood itself 
 upon the altar.
 
 I 
 
 XV. 
 
 A LIFE PURPOSE, 
 i COR. ix. 
 
 SUPPOSE there was never a man 
 who rejoiced more in liberty than 
 this man whose words we have been read- 
 ing. " Am I not free ?" he asks. When 
 he was a prisoner, and the chief captain 
 said, "With a great sum obtained I this 
 freedom," he answered, " But I was free 
 born." So, when these people at Corinth 
 were questioning him and sitting in judg- 
 ment upon his conduct, he answered : "Am 
 I not free ? Can I not do as I please ? 
 Have I not this right given me, that I 
 should carry on my own ministry accord- 
 ing to my own judgment ? " 
 
 The case was this : They were disputing 
 whether it was right to eat meat that was 
 offered to idols. Some said they might, 
 others said they might not. Paul said it 
 was perfectly right to eat it ; that putting 
 
 the
 
 i22 
 
 the meat before an idol did not affect it 
 in any way. Having demonstrated his 
 perfect right to eat it, he said : " I shall 
 let it alone. I have a right to do it ; but 
 I renounce the privilege, and I do that 
 which is less desirable in your eyes." He 
 did this, not from any spirit of mere amia- 
 bility or good nature. He did it not at 
 all in the spirit of a time-server. But he 
 did it because, in using his freedom in 
 this way, he could accomplish the greater 
 purpose which was engaging his mind. 
 He had set himself to win these Corin- 
 thians to the faith of Christ ; and nothing 
 which would hinder that should enter into 
 his life, nothing which would help that 
 should be left out of his thought and work. 
 Bending everything to this one purpose, 
 these little questions about eating meat 
 which had been offered to idols, about his 
 salary, about a wife, all these things set- 
 tled themselves in the train of that great 
 purpose which was the passion and the 
 commandment of his life. 
 
 We answer that question always with 
 the same reply, Am I not free ? We 
 continually assert it. We assert it for 
 ourselves, and when we judge one another. 
 
 Yet
 
 # iltfe purpose. 123 
 
 Yet often, because the assertion of our 
 liberty has met with resistance, we aban- 
 don our purpose and turn away from our 
 plan, as if some force were arrayed against 
 us which we could not overcome. Take 
 this question of eating meat offered to 
 idols, one which does not come in a literal 
 form to any of us. Some night, alone 
 under the stars, we debate this matter 
 with ourselves, and determine that we will 
 not partake of the meat. We go to our 
 rest, complacent in our good resolution. 
 But, in the morning, habit asserts itself. 
 The customs of our neighbors appeal to 
 us. We have a craving, a hungering for 
 the meat, as if nothing else was desir- 
 able ; and it seems better than ever. The 
 chances are that, before the sun passes 
 over our heads, we shall be eating meat 
 offered to idols. Have we not had that 
 experience ? We feel that resolutions and 
 purposes go for so little ; and we satirize 
 them in our philosophies and in our poetry, 
 as if good intentions were like the early 
 dew and the morning cloud. Yet liberty 
 is a very real thing. We have done in 
 this instance precisely as we pleased. We 
 chose to give up what we had enjoyed, 
 
 then
 
 124 H?art)aru 
 
 then we chose to take it back. That was 
 liberty. Surrender is a desperate sort of 
 freedom. The man who is keeping a be- 
 leaguered city at last opens the gate and 
 lets the enemy in. He opens the gate in 
 perfect freedom, but he has to do it. So, 
 when we give up our resolution, we are 
 perfectly free, but we have to give it up ; 
 and the power is none the less tyrannical 
 because it is in us, and because it comes 
 to us in the guise of freedom. 
 
 Is there anything which will hold us to 
 the purposes which we deliberately and 
 carefully form ? You answer that we must 
 be firm. That is simply substituting one 
 word for another. Is there any way by 
 which we can be firm ? We can be firm 
 by laying hold upon something which is 
 firm. If I can grasp something which 
 cannot be moved, there is a chance that 
 I shall not be moved. Is there anything 
 better than that which Paul adopted ? He 
 gave his thought and life to one supreme 
 and constant purpose. Whatever happens, 
 whatever I gain or lose, I will win these 
 Corinthians. When he had settled that, 
 all other things adjusted themselves to it. 
 We need more than resolutions. I think 
 
 we
 
 # tlife purpose. 125 
 
 we need to put our thought in the singular 
 number; to have not intentions, but in- 
 tention ; not purposes, but purpose ; not 
 choices, but choice ; some one thing that 
 is great enough to hold us. When we 
 get this, then we get strength, marvellous 
 comfort, and achieve a wonderful saving 
 of time. It is unworthy of us, it is inex- 
 pedient and unprofitable, to be so often 
 discussing little questions of conduct, little 
 matters of casuistry. Cannot we settle 
 these in some grand principle, so that 
 they shall adjust themselves to our life as 
 the waves adjust themselves to the ship 
 which is sailing through them. Some- 
 times we meet these questions as if they 
 were a swarm of gnats, fighting them one 
 by one ; when, if we would only move on, 
 we should leave them behind, and then 
 in the cool, clear air we could do the work 
 which we have determined to do. 
 
 I think you will find it difficult to recall 
 any man who has done much in life who 
 has not done this. You do not find the 
 world's great men sitting down to consider 
 these little things. They establish them- 
 selves in one great purpose : then every- 
 thing settles itself with relation to that. 
 
 When
 
 126 n?art)arD 
 
 When you know where the north star is, 
 you know where every star is that shines. 
 When you adjust yourselves to that, you 
 are adjusting yourselves to all the stars 
 which are around it. When the soldier 
 determines to give himself to his country, 
 he must needs give up home and comfort, 
 and a thousand other things. When a 
 student determines to be a scholar, he 
 determines to give up everything which 
 would hinder his purpose, to take on 
 whatever would help it. One of our pro- 
 fessors told recently of a merchant who 
 was devoted to very high purposes in life, 
 who was determined to be a man. One 
 day a ship that was coming home was 
 delayed. He became anxious, and the 
 next day more troubled, and the next 
 still more. Then he came to himself, and 
 said, " Is it possible that I am coming 
 to love money for itself, and not for its 
 nobler uses ? " And, taking the value of 
 the ship and cargo, he gave it to charities 
 which he esteemed, not because he wished 
 to get rid of the money, but because this 
 was essential to the great thing which 
 he had determined to do. Then there is 
 the life, so interesting and stimulating, of 
 
 Hannington,
 
 & ilifr purpose, 127 
 
 Hannington, the bishop and martyr ; a 
 man who turned aside from the allure- 
 ments of the life to which he was born, 
 dropping one thing after another, that he 
 might be a better priest in his parish ; sell- 
 ing his horse, because money would serve 
 his purpose better ; changing his carriage 
 house into a chapel, because his purpose 
 needed the chapel ; leaving England and 
 venturing into the heart of Africa, be- 
 cause there he could better do the work 
 to which he had devoted himself. Is there 
 anything which will hold a man against 
 all weakness and all temptation so well as 
 this covenant which he has made with his 
 own heart, This one thing I will do; 
 and this, not less, not other, shall be my 
 success ? 
 
 Then there comes one other question, 
 What is it to which a man has a right thus 
 to devote himself? It must be something 
 which is so high that it is right to leave 
 everything else to secure it, a purpose so 
 high that nothing else shall enforce its 
 claim in the presence of it. Here, in this 
 house, in this service, over this book, there 
 is but one thing which a man can say, 
 there is but one choice so high that every 
 
 other
 
 128 
 
 other choice ought to submit to it. There 
 is one purpose so grand that every other 
 ought to give way before it. That is, to 
 live for Him who is the truth, the life, 
 the Son of God and the Saviour of men. 
 When we devote ourselves to him, ques- 
 tions of casuistry are answered. Whether 
 you eat meat offered to an idol depends 
 on whether eating it or letting it alone 
 will better serve your purpose to be his 
 disciple and apostle. Whether you take 
 this course or that depends upon its rela- 
 tion to the greater thing. You are taken 
 out of the little things that centre in self. 
 Questions of ease, questions of self-indul- 
 gence, questions of gain, they are all 
 behind us. When we have settled with 
 ourselves and with our God that we will 
 do the things which are pleasing in his 
 sight, then comes the truth that, if a man 
 wills to do the will of my Father, he shall 
 know ; if a man keeps my commandments, 
 Jesus said, God will live with him, and I 
 will live with him ; if a man follow me, 
 I will give unto him eternal life. In the 
 presence of these spiritual truths, what 
 are these little questions of meat and 
 drink, of pleasure and ease, the trifling 
 
 themes
 
 ilife purpose* 129 
 
 themes of popular casuistry ? They fall 
 into their proper insignificance; and we 
 press our way forward along a triumphant 
 career, honorable in its course, and faith- 
 ful to that crown which awaits all true 
 and constant service. And, when the Son 
 of God goes forth to war, we follow in his 
 train.
 
 XVI. 
 
 MAKING ALL THINGS NEW. 
 REV. xxi. 
 
 IT seems as if words of such gorgeous 
 and vague imagery as these were the 
 very words we need as we pass from one 
 period into another, and especially as we 
 stand at the beginning of one of these 
 periods, which, however arbitrary they may 
 be, still by their associations represent all 
 the relationship of the past to the future. 
 We stand just where we need to read 
 these words which paint this future in all 
 its gorgeousness. There are some words 
 in this Book of Revelation, and especially 
 in this richest of all its chapters, which 
 seem to me to come to us with a certain 
 definiteness and distinctness. There is 
 one verse that I should like to read as 
 the old year passes into the new, sitting 
 quietly with the book open and letting 
 the thought of its words pass into my 
 
 soul.
 
 11 flings jjieto, 131 
 
 soul. The transition from state to state 
 is inevitably dreary, unless there be some 
 principle which underlies it. But it seems 
 to me that, if we could take one of these 
 verses and read it as the old year was 
 passing into the new year, we should get 
 here just the distinctness and the solidity 
 which the idea of transitoriness needs. 
 It is that verse which says, " He that sat 
 upon the throne said, BehoJd I make all 
 things new." The changing of the past 
 into the future is so dreary that men 
 shrink from it. They strive to cling to 
 the past that is inevitably slipping from 
 their hands, because the future is so 
 vague and unreal to them. But, if there 
 be one the richness of whose life makes 
 the past and the future one, if there be 
 one who in the very fact of change can 
 say, not "all things become new," but 
 " I make all things new," the constructive 
 power of the past being fulfilled in the 
 future, then how gracious it becomes ! 
 Then the soul that looks for God and his 
 manifestation expects the larger manifes- 
 tations that are to be given to it in the 
 days that are to come. We are going 
 to realize when we look back upon this 
 
 period
 
 132 
 
 period of our life, this century in which 
 we live, how the thought of God, the 
 moving principle, and his entire relation 
 to the things that are moving, has taken 
 possession of the world. Men talked of 
 God a century ago, and it was as if they 
 talked of an artificer, a carpenter, a builder, 
 who stood somewhere out of his world, 
 and then, having made it, sent it forth as 
 if it were a ship upon the ocean, only 
 letting it come back to him as it needed 
 repairs. If there is a great thought that 
 has come to men's minds, it is that God 
 is not outside of his world, but that he is 
 inside. He is perpetually leading it on 
 from instant to instant, so that we are 
 sometimes almost inclined to lose it in 
 him and him in it. Thus we feel that 
 the whole conception of God and his rela- 
 tion to the world to-day shows the rich 
 meaning of those words that have come 
 down to us through the ages, " Behold I, 
 this living power, this living principle, 
 I make all things new." 
 
 It seems to me that one of the ways 
 in which this word of God is perpetually 
 being verified, and is perpetually becom- 
 ing a blessed consciousness to us, is in 
 
 the
 
 011 SDljingsf jjieto. 133 
 
 the way we are constantly assured that 
 the newness of the world must be in the 
 newness of its human creatures. It is 
 not that the world changes : it is that 
 man changes. The world might not be 
 the same; but, if men were the same, it 
 would still be a monotony. All things 
 must be forever new to every man. Think 
 how they are new to every man who comes 
 into the world. The world deals out its 
 systems of philosophy, it accumulates its 
 rich store of experience ; and then every 
 new child that is born into the world has 
 to begin again, as if he were the first one. 
 Sorrow, joy, friendship, enmity, all these 
 experiences of men's souls, we learn about 
 when we are children. We cannot know 
 them till they come to us. They are born 
 anew to every new man. Columbus sails 
 across the ocean, and finds America ; and 
 it seems as if he had found it for all 
 voyagers since. Yet every new ship and 
 every new voyager discovers it again. So 
 the age is born anew for every soul that 
 enters it. Who can tell what the world 
 is for any one of his brethren ? I often 
 think that I would like to be one of my 
 fellow-creatures, it matters not who, for 
 
 ten
 
 134 
 
 ten minutes, that I might know what 
 it is for that man. There is something 
 awful in the thought that a man goes 
 through these threescore years and ten, 
 and is always simply himself ; that he does 
 not know how the sunshine appears, how 
 the world seems, how the skies bend over 
 the head of any one but himself. We get 
 some glimpses of how the world reports 
 itself to others. What are those miracles 
 of Jesus over which the world disputes 
 except the recognition by the world of its 
 master, who speaks to it ? This world is 
 so much more to him than it was to his 
 ancestors, who knew so little of its secret, 
 who had entered so little into its largest 
 confidence, showing more complete obedi- 
 ence to the master of its life when he 
 stands in its midst. If Christ be a mani- 
 festation of God, miracle is the very first 
 condition of his life. I look for it the 
 very moment that I know his nature. 
 The world turns its new side, its deeper 
 being, out to him, as it turns a new side 
 to every man who has looked into it, and 
 claimed the mastery over the world in 
 which God has set him as its lord. 
 So, if the world is made new with every 
 
 creature,
 
 011 Swings Jlieto. 135 
 
 creature, what is the expectation for the 
 future ? Not only that each man is going 
 to be grander and stronger, but that hu- 
 manity is to be stronger. The whole 
 race moves forward. Not only occasion- 
 ally, but steadily and solemnly, the whole 
 great life of man moves on. Who can 
 tell what this obedient earth, so richly 
 yielding her resources, so observant of 
 the power and life of man, is going to 
 be to man in the years to come ? A new 
 heaven and a new earth must come when 
 a new man comes to claim it. The only 
 way for us to make a new world is to be 
 forever new men. The only way for us 
 to take upon our lips a new song, to count 
 God's mercies new every morning, is to 
 be perpetually new men, to find our lives 
 new with every rising of the sun. Oh, 
 the great depth of that word of the Master, 
 who said to his disciple, "Thou must be 
 born again " ! To Nicodemus, who asked 
 for new laws and new arrangements, the 
 Master said, " You must be a new man." 
 Do you ever dread the tedium of life? 
 Does it ever seem to you that, bright as 
 life is at its entrance, it must by and 
 by become monotonous ? As if the ever 
 
 rising
 
 136 
 
 rising and setting of the sun, the ever 
 going on of the seasons, the everlast- 
 ing repetition of those laws and routines 
 which the social and political life of man 
 has beaten out, must become wearisome 
 and dead with their constant reiteration ? 
 What is the prospect, unless there is 
 every new day a deeper life for every 
 child of God, a deeper conception of his 
 Father's nature, his Father's influence, 
 and his Father's love ? And the great 
 truth is that he who makes men new with 
 every beginning day makes the world new 
 with every beginning day. 
 
 Let us pray for a new birth, not as one 
 experience, but as the perpetual experience 
 of our lives ; for such nearness to our God 
 that every day he shall give us something 
 more of himself, be something more to us, 
 so that, being ourselves forever new, the 
 whole world may forever have richness 
 and abundance and variety and beauty 
 and interest and joy and education to give 
 us, so long as we live. So may we enter 
 upon a new year with the promise of a 
 new life.
 
 XVII. 
 
 MORAL HEROISM. 
 HEB. xii. i, 2. 
 
 THE writer of the Epistle to the 
 Hebrews has been exhibiting the 
 power of faith, faith in the living God. 
 He has been citing examples of it in the 
 olden time ; and he has brought forward 
 a great number of witnesses to show that 
 this faith supported men under the great- 
 est trials, and led them to the exhibition 
 of the highest type of moral heroism. 
 Moral heroism in life was the fruit of 
 their faith. Now, he says to those to 
 whom he is writing, you have the same 
 faith ; and your life ought to be equally 
 manly, equally robust, equally heroic. As 
 he is pressing this matter upon them, the 
 figure occurs to him of a race-course ; and 
 he says, "Wherefore, seeing we also are 
 compassed about with so great a cloud of 
 witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, 
 
 and
 
 138 J?art)ar& 
 
 and the sin which doth so easily beset us, 
 and let us run with patience the race that 
 is set before us." 
 
 There are two branches to his figure, 
 if we look into it : first, the influence of 
 the race itself upon the runner ; and then 
 the added influence of the on-lookers. 
 Through these two branches of his figure, 
 we get these two ideas : first, the influence 
 of a man's own faith ; and then the added 
 influence of that same faith held by the 
 world at large encompassing him, really 
 present to his thought and imagination. 
 Let me dwell for a moment on each of 
 these branches of the figure. 
 
 First, of the influence of the race upon 
 the runner. Discipline is inseparable from 
 the idea of a race. Every true athlete has 
 a trainer, who prescribes for him what he 
 shall eat and what he shall drink and the 
 form of his exercise. For the time being, 
 the athlete has no will. He is in the atti- 
 tude of self-surrender to one who guides 
 him, an instructor who is wiser than he. 
 He recognizes the necessity of cheerful 
 submission, of hearty self-surrender, that 
 the discipline may do its best work for 
 him. He never thinks of grumbling at 
 
 the
 
 139 
 
 the prescription, at the self-surrender. 
 The idea of the race carries this with 
 it. So the writer tells us a man who 
 holds faith in the living God carries with 
 that the idea of discipline. He has a 
 heavenly educator, a heavenly trainer to 
 whom he submits his will, giving himself 
 up in hearty surrender, that his soul may 
 be wrought into athletic form. And all 
 this through the whole system of disci- 
 pline which is laid upon him by the will 
 of his trainer. It may be temptation, it 
 may be disappointment ; in later life, it 
 may be sorrow and bereavement. What- 
 ever it is, it is a system of discipline laid 
 upon the individual life by one outside of 
 and greater than himself; and the very 
 idea of faith implies cheerful, hearty sur- 
 render, in order that an athletic condition 
 of soul may be attained. Again, it is in- 
 separable from the idea of the race that 
 the racer rid himself of every encumbrance. 
 A man does not appear on the race-course 
 with overcoat and muffler on : he strips 
 himself to a condition in which he can 
 show the utmost fleetness. And so self- 
 denial is inseparable from Christian faith. 
 There are certain gratifications and cer- 
 tain
 
 140 
 
 tain pleasures, certain forms of excite- 
 ment, that the Christian man does not 
 expect. They are incompatible with the 
 very idea of faith. We hear a great many 
 sermons preached about amusements. The 
 matter often seems very complicated. It 
 is in reality the simplest thing in the 
 world. If a man has given himself up to 
 the pursuit of the highest, he will never 
 have any trouble about how much or how 
 little he can have of them. What he 
 wants is to make moral victory sure. 
 Everything that would threaten him with 
 moral loss is cast out of account. Every- 
 thing that menaces victory is bad. Every- 
 thing that gives more speed, power, en- 
 durance, is good. A man who has faith 
 has self-denial. That is implied in his 
 faith. 
 
 Once more, when he has been wrought 
 into an athletic condition, and has placed 
 himself on the race-course, stripped for 
 the race, the next thing is exertion. From 
 start to goal, he runs with all his might. 
 So the idea is inseparable from faith of 
 vigorous volition from day to day, per- 
 sistent, robust, willing, manly assertion 
 of individuality in the face of opposing 
 
 circumstances.
 
 J?erot0m. 141 
 
 circumstances. There is discipline work 
 ing out an athletic condition ; self-denial 
 ridding us of encumbrances and besetting 
 sins ; and then exertion pressing the whole 
 power of personality into the victorious 
 pursuit of moral good on which we have 
 set our heart, and which we believe to be 
 the supreme end of human life and the 
 rational justification of our existence in 
 this world. 
 
 I have hardly time to develop the other 
 part of the figure: just let me allude 
 to it, the influence of spectators upon 
 athletic contests. We know that the 
 presence of a multitude of people, a pro- 
 miscuous, indiscriminate mass, throws a 
 stimulus into all such contests. But we 
 know, also, that, if there are in the 
 multitude old, eminent athletes, who can 
 appreciate skill and power and victorious 
 energy, the presence of this small number 
 in a vast crowd is an added stimulus. 
 Then, if there are those in the crowd 
 who would be glad to see the contestants 
 defeated, who are enemies of their success, 
 their presence in the crowd is another 
 stimulus. There is the stimulus of the 
 mass, there is the stimulus of the eminent 
 
 few,
 
 142 J?arfearD Vespers* 
 
 few, and there is the stimulus of opposi- 
 tion and enmity. 
 
 Now, he must be a very pale specimen 
 of humanity, he must have very thin blood 
 in his veins, who does not feel the stim- 
 ulus that comes to him from the fact that 
 he holds his faith in God with the world, 
 who gets no inspiration from the fact that 
 he holds his Christian belief in common 
 with the ages of enlightened humanity. 
 
 " For all thy saints who from their labor rest, 
 Who thee by faith before the world confessed, 
 Thy name, O Jesus, be forever blest. 
 
 Allelujah ! 
 
 "Thou wast their Rock, their Fortress, and their 
 
 Might ; 
 Thou, Lord, their Captain in the well-fought 
 
 fight; 
 
 Thou, in the darkness drear, their Light of light. 
 
 Allelujah ! " 
 
 There is a vast inspiration that comes 
 to every manly man, to every earnest soul, 
 from the very fact that his faith has been 
 held by the wide world. 
 
 Then there is a second impulse com- 
 ing from the service of great men. The 
 
 Christian
 
 143 
 
 Christian ages have been adorned by gifts 
 of intellect and gifts of devotion and gifts 
 of beautiful character, and the very fact 
 that one holds the faith that these men 
 held presents an additional motive. Just 
 as a soldier to-day might honor his calling 
 more in remembering that he follows it in 
 common with the hero of Marathon, with 
 Epaminondas, with Leonidas, Alexander, 
 Hannibal, Cassar, Cromwell, Washington, 
 Grant, so we may honor our faith more, 
 and cling to it with greater devotion and 
 give it greater reverence, because it has 
 been adorned by the saintliness and great- 
 ness and power of the world's best men. 
 We can lift up our hearts in thankfulness 
 "to Him who made great lights, for his 
 mercy endureth forever." 
 
 There is a final stimulus. O my friends, 
 there are men in this community who do 
 not want that you should be full of power, 
 full of usefulness, who would rejoice in 
 your degradation and ruin. The very fact 
 of the presence of this element among 
 those who are spectators of the struggle 
 should stimulate to vigilance, to circum- 
 spection, to prayer, to more continual and 
 energetic endeavor, that we may disap- 
 point
 
 144 
 
 point the wretched spirits that would re- 
 joice in our ruin. 
 
 There is a kind of inspiration that comes 
 in the spiritual that is not to be had in the 
 natural race. You notice that the writer 
 says "looking unto Jesus, the author and 
 finisher of our faith." He stands at the 
 goal, and his mighty presence is the heav- 
 enly and divine stimulus. We are to take 
 our faith with its idea of discipline, with 
 its idea of self-denial, with its idea of self- 
 exertion. We are to take the stimulus 
 that comes from the world at large who 
 hold this faith, and from the eminent men 
 who have graced and adorned it, and from 
 the presence of those who would corrupt 
 and destroy it, if they could. And, in 
 addition to all that, we are to look to our 
 Divine Master, to his divine personality; 
 and in the magnetic power, in the inciting 
 influence, in the stimulating might that 
 comes from him, we are to run the race 
 that is set before us. How did he run 
 his race ? He ran it with patience, and 
 he accepted the cross, despising the shame 
 because of the joy that was set before him ; 
 and he has taken his place at the right 
 hand of the Majesty on high. He offers 
 
 to
 
 145 
 
 to us a crown more beautiful than the 
 garlands which the victor's brow received 
 in the contests of old. 
 
 Let us set our hearts upon the highest; 
 and let us, in the strength of the highest, 
 press on to the highest.
 
 XVIII. 
 THE EYE OF GOD. 
 
 WHATEVER relation there may be 
 between us and the inferior ani- 
 mals, we find in them the types of human- 
 ity. Three types seem to be referred to 
 here. There are the beasts that are not 
 held in, and perhaps cannot be. There 
 are those which are made serviceable and 
 held in the right way by careful guid- 
 ance and constraint, like the horse and 
 mule, with bit and bridle. There are 
 those like the dog of noble breed, that 
 looks into his master's eye and takes his 
 direction from that eye, and knows with- 
 out voice or gesture whither his master 
 would have him go and what his master 
 would have him do. There are corre- 
 sponding types among men. There are 
 those whom we deem incorrigible. I do 
 not believe that they are so. I do not 
 
 believe
 
 of 45oD. 147 
 
 believe that any human being is incorrigi- 
 ble by the might and love of the Creator, 
 or will be incorrigible when that might 
 and love are incarnated as they ought to 
 be and will be one day in the Church of 
 Christ. There are those who will go right, 
 who will do what they ought to do, by the 
 help of the bit and the bridle. They need 
 the restraint and guidance of rule and 
 law. There are those whom the eye of 
 God guides, not that they are above law, 
 not that they set aside law, but what the 
 mere legal servants do because they are 
 afraid not to do it, these do because they 
 love to do it. 
 
 The eye of God ! We believe in God, 
 but not as if he were only in the past or 
 in heaven. He is not in the creeds and 
 catechisms or in the Bible, but here and 
 everywhere, now and always, with you 
 and me. His eye is upon our ways, upon 
 our souls ; and we may look into that eye. 
 We know, or may know, on what that eye 
 rests with pleasure, on what it rests with 
 pity, on what it rests with condemnation ; 
 and we can, if we will, always do the 
 things that please him, and can make his 
 good pleasure our constant motive, our 
 
 rule
 
 148 
 
 rule of duty, our reason for doing and for 
 not doing, and still more, for being and 
 for not being. We can shape ourselves 
 under the eye of God as he would have 
 us. His eye, we know, rests with pleas- 
 ure on all that rightfully gives us pleasure ; 
 on all the bright and happy and festive 
 side of life ; on all that refreshes and 
 recreates ; on all that can give us new 
 strength for duty, or can bind more closely 
 the bonds of family, kindred or friendship; 
 on all that gives joy to which there can 
 be no counterpoise of regret or sorrow. 
 In everything which makes us happy, let 
 us feel doubly glad if it is under our 
 Father's eye, if we are following the direc- 
 tion of that eye in the pursuit of fit pleas- 
 ures and enjoyments, and especially in 
 the diffusion of pleasure and enjoyment 
 among those whom he would have us 
 make happy ; for he would have us min- 
 isters of gladness, joy-givers, even as he 
 himself is the universal joy-giver. 
 
 But how does he look on those slight 
 beginnings of moral wrong and evil, on 
 those first timid, tentative steps in the 
 way of transgression, the beginnings, in 
 which he sees, as we are prone not to see, 
 
 the
 
 of <0oo, 149 
 
 the bitter ending or no ending, the first 
 steps which, in his eye, are steps down a 
 declivity that will lead to utter ruin ? Oh, 
 if we could read the glance of that all- 
 seeing eye on those early turnings aside 
 from purity and soberness and right ; if 
 we could feel the infinite pity with which 
 he regards what seem to us but slight 
 misdoings, we should dread the first 
 steps, the first thoughts, above all, the 
 first heart-movements in the way of wrong 
 and evil. Let us then, whenever there is 
 any such movement of soul or thought, 
 feel the divine pity resting on us, a pity 
 rising from the assurance of what these 
 things will surely issue in, what they in- 
 evitably tend to, and must necessarily 
 produce. 
 
 In our social relations, let us take God's 
 view. He, we believe, looks with equal 
 eye on all, has love and kindness and 
 long-suffering for those with whom we are 
 prone to be impatient, looks with tender- 
 ness where we are prone to anger and 
 resentment, has unchanging love where 
 we are prone to be influenced by differ- 
 ence of opinion or party feeling or dissen- 
 sion, and to look with jealousy, suspicion, 
 
 and
 
 150 
 
 and dislike. Would we only endeavor to 
 take God's view of those among whom we 
 dwell, and among whom our daily inter- 
 course lies, how gentle, how patient, how 
 earnest in all good works and kind offices, 
 how averse from everything that could 
 give offence, should we be! How would 
 our social lives be refined, filled with love 
 and mercy, bearing peaceful and blessed 
 fruits ! 
 
 In fine, as regards the whole way of 
 duty, if we look upon it as something 
 which we are forced to do because we are 
 afraid not to do it, if we look upon virtue 
 as a constraint, and upon conscience as a 
 hard master, we may be kept from evil; 
 but we shall lose all the joy that there is 
 in right-doing. But if in our own con- 
 sciousness the eye of God directs us in 
 our daily ways, and rests on those paths 
 in which he would have us go, then those 
 are ways of joy, of ever-increasing joy, 
 of a joy which shall wax fuller and fuller, 
 until it shall have its consummation in his 
 more intimate presence, when we shall 
 see him, as it were, face to face. 
 
 The eye of God! We have what may 
 bring that eye very close to us in him 
 
 who
 
 of <$o&. 151 
 
 who bore God's image, in him in whose 
 humanity we behold all of the divine that 
 can exist in human form. I think that we 
 all know how Christ, if he were on earth, 
 would walk among us, on what his eye 
 would rest with love, with approval, with 
 pity, with condemnation ; and we may fol- 
 low him. And, if we follow him, we are 
 walking with God. If we live as we know 
 he would have us live; if we make his 
 presence as we have it in the sacred rec- 
 ord, a real presence to us, and think that 
 he is really walking among us, as he is in 
 spirit and in his undying love, I am sure 
 that the eye of God in Christ will make 
 and keep us as God would have us. I do 
 wish that all controversy with regard to 
 Christ could be merged in the one thought 
 of his divine humanity, and in the pres- 
 ence of God with us in that humanity. 
 Oh, if we will but follow him, if we will 
 but make him our way and truth and life, 
 we shall know him as we can in no other 
 way. We shall know him as we should 
 not know him, had we the eye of omnis- 
 cience for what we call his nature and his 
 offices. The only worthy way in which 
 we can know him is by following him, by 
 
 looking
 
 152 J?arijarti 
 
 looking into his eye, and making that our 
 director in life. Thus to know him is 
 blessedness here on earth : thus to know 
 him is life everlasting. This gives us 
 guidance day by day. This knits our 
 spirit unto his spirit. May God guide us 
 by his eye, and lead us on and up to that 
 home in heaven where that eye shall ever 
 rest on us, as our eyes shall be ever turned 
 to him !
 
 XIX. 
 
 GOD IS A SPIRIT. 
 
 JOHN iv. 
 
 GOD is a spirit, man is a spirit. This 
 is the rational basis of religion. It 
 is in practical recognition of this truth 
 that throughout this land and in other 
 lands thousands of devout men and women 
 have this day entered into communion 
 with the Father of their spirit, spirit with 
 spirit, in spirit and truth, supplicating 
 God that he would give his presence and 
 favor to our schools and colleges. This 
 is a witness of how closely our schools are 
 bound up with the hope of the home, of 
 the church, and of all who love their kind 
 and serve their God. Surely here, where 
 the very ground beneath us has been hal- 
 lowed by the feet, by the knees of the 
 best men the world has seen, where our 
 charter is emblazoned in our windows, 
 where the very air is full of supplication 
 
 which
 
 154 
 
 which has never ceased for more than 
 two hundred and fifty years, here we, 
 who are the sons of our fathers, may well 
 bow before him, and pray that as God 
 was with the fathers so he will be with 
 the children. This is fitting. It is more 
 than fitting. It is possible ; and it is 
 partly as an illustration of the truth which 
 our Lord spoke, sitting on the low curb 
 of the well of Samaria, that I bring it to 
 your thoughts at this time. It has its 
 own weight and merit to commend it, but 
 it illustrates in an impressive manner the 
 truth which Jesus taught. For, if a man 
 can draw near enough to God to worship 
 him, he can come near enough for any- 
 thing. He can enter in the fullest way 
 into relationship with him, the relation- 
 ship of a child with the father, out of 
 which we wander, but to which he per- 
 sistently recalls us. When we shall learn 
 this truth and believe in it, or rather 
 when it shall believe in us, and shall be- 
 come part of our truth and part of our 
 life, then there shall come that wonder- 
 ful enlargement of our whole being, that 
 broadening of our horizon, that deepening 
 of our thought, that uplifting of our pur- 
 pose,
 
 fif a Spirit. 155 
 
 pose, which will make us feel how great 
 and holy a thing it is to live. 
 
 Think for a moment. It is possible for 
 us because we are spirit, just as God is 
 spirit, to have intercourse with him, to 
 talk to him, to listen to his voice. Nay, 
 this is more than possible. It is per- 
 mitted to us, it is required of us, not by 
 precept or commandment alone, but by 
 the instinctive craving of the child for 
 his father's presence and love. In the 
 commonest things of life, in the greatest 
 things of life when the crisis comes to us, 
 at the strategic moments of our life, we 
 can come to him for counsel, for wisdom 
 which is never denied, never grudgingly 
 bestowed, but bountifully given to any 
 one who seeks. We are pushed along 
 beyond all that men can do, and all that 
 men, of themselves, can be, when our 
 spirit is truly in his spirit. There are 
 wise counsellors, kind friends, generous 
 instructors ; but 
 
 " What are they all in their high conceit, 
 When man in the bush with God may meet?" 
 
 Think, again, that this spiritual life 
 is ours as it is God's, and ours because 
 
 it
 
 i5<5 
 
 it is God's, and that it may be continually 
 strengthened, re-enforced, out of the spirit 
 which God is ; that our life is but so 
 much of GoJ's life, incarnate within these 
 human limitations. It is so much of the 
 life of God, unbroken between him and 
 us, as a ray of light is unbroken through 
 its ninety millions of miles from the sun 
 above us to the glass by which we shatter 
 it into its separate splendors. We can 
 ascend along this line of life to him as 
 he comes by this line of life to us. If 
 that wonderful thought of our having 
 God's life possesses us, we shall rise to 
 live with him. For think of this again, 
 that it is possible for us to take God's life 
 and, in our measure, to live it here among 
 men, though we cannot do it by ourselves. 
 We can do it each in his separate place 
 and in his separate opportunities, not by 
 standing apart from him, and doing what 
 we wish, but by living in him and doing 
 what he wishes. It is as if he divided 
 the work he would have done in the 
 world, and allotted to each man his por- 
 tion. There has been one instance of 
 faith in the world, one that towers above 
 all others, when our Lord Jesus Christ 
 
 committed
 
 <0oD is a Spirit* 157 
 
 committed into the hands of eleven men 
 the work which had brought him into the 
 world, and gave them their commission, 
 to go into all the earth "even so" as he 
 was sent into the world, and to be wit- 
 nesses to the truth and life of God. The 
 eleven have been multiplied to thousands. 
 Yet it is only when we place our thought 
 in his thought, and set our personal in- 
 complete lives in his life, when we take 
 our part of God's purposes and change it 
 into our conduct and establish it in our 
 purposes, that we do the work which it 
 is given us to do. When we pray " Thy 
 kingdom come, thy will be done," we 
 are not praying for the conversion of the 
 Gentiles so much as for the little kingdom 
 over which we rule, that it may become 
 the kingdom of our God and be governed 
 by his guidance, that his protection may 
 be our safety and his glory our honor. 
 We rise into this high and holy life with 
 the divine spirit, our spirit with his spirit, 
 only as we learn to know this simple, nat- 
 ural, eternal truth : that, as God is spirit, 
 man is spirit, and man can worship God 
 in spirit and in truth. 
 
 But why do we divide these things ? 
 
 Do
 
 158 
 
 Do we not need to unite our life, and give 
 to it one meaning and intent ? Do we 
 not need to bring all our powers into one 
 power and all our plans into one plan ? 
 But where shall they be united ? Never 
 anywhere, never completely at any time, 
 save as they are united within the thought 
 and desire of God. When a man knows 
 what God will have him do, he knows the 
 extreme possibilities of his being. When 
 a man is doing what God would have him 
 do, he is doing the best which it is possible 
 for him to do. God's purposes are mar- 
 vellously fitted to our possibilities. When 
 one comes to feel all this, to break with 
 himself and break with the world, not be- 
 cause the world is not kind and good, but 
 because God is the All-wise, the Eternal, 
 the Almighty, then there comes this trans- 
 formation. No change from the darkness 
 of night into the glory of morning, no 
 change from the barrenness of winter into 
 the life and beauty of spring, is so great as 
 the change of the man's life when, raising 
 his own thought, he has God's thought, 
 when God's spirit breathes through his 
 faculties, expressing itself in his energies, 
 embodied in his purposes. Whatever the 
 
 path
 
 10 a Spirit. 159 
 
 path before him be, it is the path that 
 leads upward, beyond the splendid stars. 
 O brethren, let us say it over and over 
 to ourselves until we fully believe and 
 know it, and, knowing it, live in it, let 
 us say it over and over till it sinks down 
 into the mind and becomes part of the 
 very tissue of our being. God is a spirit. 
 I am a spirit. I can talk with him. I can 
 hear him, I can live by God's wisdom, I 
 can be strengthened by God's strength. 
 I can glorify God on the earth. I can lift 
 my little system up into his great system, 
 and find my success in his accomplish- 
 ment, and the honor of my life in that 
 honor which for himself he has fore- 
 ordained. This is to live. Not until we 
 have found this have we found the begin- 
 ning of life. Not until we have come to 
 this have we come to God. It is so sim- 
 ple, but so grand, real, and divine, here 
 on the earth, yet reaching to the heaven 
 of heavens ! Then shall we make our 
 career, our intentions, our successes, "not 
 after the law of a carnal commandment, 
 but after the power of an endless life."
 
 XX. 
 
 THE SIMPLICITY WHICH IS IN 
 CHRIST. 
 
 [On the day of the funeral of Asa Gray.] 
 
 IT is but a few hours since many of us 
 were gathered here at the funeral of 
 a great man. He was, beyond dispute, 
 the most widely known of all our schol- 
 ars, -not alone in the circles of highest 
 learning throughout the world, but in the 
 still larger circle of popular interest and 
 modest studies. It is impossible to turn 
 to any thought this afternoon but one 
 associated with his memory. This is not 
 the time for any analysis of his greatness ; 
 but it is a time to pause for a moment in 
 the midst of our varied and absorbing pur- 
 suits, and consider what it was that gave 
 this greatness its peculiar charm. 
 
 When I try to strike the note of this 
 gracious character, one Bible verse keeps 
 repeating itself in my mind. It is the 
 
 appeal
 
 &tntpltdtg toljiclj 10 in Christ, 161 
 
 appeal of Paul to his brethren, that their 
 minds should not be "corrupted from 
 the simplicity that is in Christ." What 
 gave this great man of science an almost 
 unique power over students, fellow-scien- 
 tists, neighbors, and friends, was the im- 
 pression of his single-mindedness and his 
 simplicity, a peculiar childlikeness and 
 guilelessness and naturalness of mind, 
 traits which, in these days of pretentious 
 learning and inflated self-assertion, seem 
 almost inconsistent with greatness. He 
 was a man of the beatitudes and of the 
 childlike temper. No one could come into 
 any relation with this life without this 
 impression of its simplicity. It was the 
 quality that gave lucidity to his literary 
 style, straightforwardness to his scientific 
 controversies, singleness of mind to his 
 pursuit, and humility and reverence to his 
 religion. 
 
 And now, we ask ourselves, what is it 
 that, in the growth of learning and reputa- 
 tion, can keep a man in this uncorrupted 
 simplicity ? How is it that a man is not 
 ensnared in his own greatness, so as to 
 grow artificial, self-important, and without 
 simplicity ? Evidently, if a man is think- 
 ing
 
 1 62 Jartoart) 
 
 ing of himself and his career, of his repu- 
 tation and of his results, and if thus the 
 world of his thought revolves around him- 
 self, he cannot have this endowment of 
 simplicity. For the largest thing which 
 concerns him is himself; and the magni- 
 tude of that centre of his system must 
 show itself in pretence, affectation, and 
 self-esteem. But that which gives a man 
 simplicity is the discovery of ends and 
 motives infinitely larger than himself, 
 the sense of unattained truth, mysterious 
 and compelling, and making all the truth 
 thus far attained seem insignificant ; the 
 sense of duty, great and overshadowing, 
 which makes the duty thus far done seem 
 slight and insufficient. Once let these 
 great ideals get control of life, and all the 
 sense of self-importance and attainment 
 drops away. It is like a planet, which 
 thought itself great, and found in itself 
 the centre of its orbit, and then became 
 aware of a larger centre round which its 
 smaller life naturally revolved. It is the 
 transition from what we may call the Ptol- 
 emaic to what we may call the Copernican 
 view of life, the discovery of the great 
 ideas and great ends toward which the 
 
 single
 
 Simplicity? toljicl) in in Christ. 163 
 
 single mind was meant to gravitate. Now, 
 that is what makes greatness humble and 
 simple. To live in the presence of great 
 truths, to be dealing with eternal laws, to 
 be led by permanent ideals, that is what 
 keeps a man patient when the world ig- 
 nores him, and calm and unspoiled when 
 the world praises him. It is the discovery 
 of the relative magnitude of things. That 
 which is known or done seems much to 
 those who look.at it, but it seems little to 
 him whose eyes are fixed on the completed 
 truth and the perfect system. 
 
 So it was with this man who passes 
 from among us to-day. He was reverent 
 and unspoiled, because he lived in the 
 presence of great ends. He had simplic- 
 ity, because he had no other ends to gain. 
 Simplicity means straightforwardness ; and 
 a life is straightforward when it sees a 
 commanding end of life, and moves toward 
 it. If there are many competing ends, 
 then life is complex. If the end of life 
 and work is clear and commanding, then 
 life is made simple. Thus it was with this 
 great teacher. He knew to how great an 
 end he had given himself, and in the pres- 
 ence of that end there was nothing nat- 
 ural
 
 1 64 tt>artoara 
 
 ural for him but humility and simplicity. 
 Three years ago, he said to me that at 
 seventy-five a man came to the happiest 
 time of his life, "because there were so 
 many things of which he could afford to 
 be ignorant." More and more clear, that 
 is to say, the end of his life had grown to 
 him; and it simplified all his living. 
 
 Let us take this law of Irfe as it thus 
 speaks to us to-day. It is not only that 
 the chief grace of greatness is its simplic- 
 ity, but it is that the way of simplicity is 
 by single-minded devotion to great ends. 
 If any man among us, old or young, wants 
 to keep his spirit as a little child, and de- 
 sires to outgrow all intellectual conceits 
 and academic flippancy and self-sufficiency, 
 there is but one way to do it. It is the 
 way of devotion to truths and duties and 
 aims, in the presence of which you are 
 necessarily humbled in your weakness and 
 ignorance. What makes a man conceited 
 and artificial and self-asserting is that he 
 has not discovered the proportions of 
 things. It is not his knowledge which 
 puffs him up : it is his ignorance. It is 
 not his superiority and maturity of mind : 
 it is the mark of his ignorance and imma- 
 turity.
 
 >implidt toljiclj isf in Christ. 165 
 
 turity. He has discovered himself, but 
 not that to which he has given himself. 
 He is like a nebula just coming into shape 
 as a planet, but has not yet discovered the 
 system where his orbit is to be found. 
 The great transition of any thoughtful life 
 is when it passes thus from the way of 
 self-culture into the way of service, and 
 finds a centre of truth or of duty to which 
 it may commit itself. Then it is that 
 single-mindedness, seriousness, humility, 
 simplicity, enter into life. 
 
 Finally, let us see this same devotion to 
 high ends, which simplified this man's in- 
 tellectual life, acting with the same clear- 
 ness in his religion. How beautiful and 
 helpful it was to those who care about 
 religion to have this man for their ally 
 I need not say. No attendant was more 
 devoted to this chapel, no hearer more 
 sympathetic, no adviser more generous. 
 The simplicity of his religion was like the 
 simplicity of his mind. It was the simple 
 discovery of a centre of life larger than 
 his own will, to which he might freely give 
 himself. It was the simplicity " that is in 
 Christ." The natural motion of his soul 
 drew it to that centre of the Christian 
 
 system.
 
 1 66 l^arbartj 
 
 system. Ah! If religion could but offer 
 itself to us all in this simple, uncompli- 
 cated, straightforward way ! What is it 
 that you want in the perplexities and dis- 
 tractions of your life, in its temptations 
 and ambitions, its varied hopes and fears ? 
 You want to be drawn out of the control 
 of all these diverse passions into the power 
 of the supreme centre which gathers up 
 your life into a system instead of leaving 
 it as a chaos. That ce.nt.re of life is what 
 God is to the soul ; it is what Christ is 
 to the Christian. 
 
 " Sun of my soul, thou Saviour dear," 
 
 says_the hymn, with scientific accuracy. 
 Just as the worlds of nature are drawn by 
 the sun, so the natural life of man feels 
 the power of spiritual attraction, and hears 
 that word of the Master, " If I be lifted 
 up from the earth, I will draw all men 
 unto me." 
 
 Such is the simplicity that is in Christ. 
 It discovers its own smallness, because it 
 has discovered that which is great. Its 
 faith makes it humble. The vision of 
 Christ, like the sense of scientific truth, 
 drives away all self-sufficiency and all self- 
 conceit,
 
 SCfte Simplicity tot)icl) is; in Christ. 167 
 
 conceit, and leaves the spirit of the little 
 child. When we see this in the life of a 
 great man of science, we see that which 
 gives greatness its completed charm ; but 
 it is no less true a teaching, for every man 
 among us, that, however far from great 
 his life must be, the charm of simplicity 
 comes to all by the way of faith. 
 
 It is the greatness of truth which keeps 
 men humble. It is the sense of God that 
 will save you from the sense of self. It 
 is your loyalty to a Christian end of life 
 which will set you free and keep you pure, 
 and finally make you remembered among 
 men as witnesses of the simplicity which 
 is in Christ.
 
 XXI. 
 
 FISHERS OF MEN. 
 
 MATT. iv. 19, 20. 
 
 I HAVE read to you the beginning and 
 the end of this chapter. It seems to 
 me that it is impossible for us to read the 
 two without feeling that they belong to- 
 gether. Christ in the glory of his youth 
 goes up on the mountain, and undergoes 
 that temptation in which he becomes con- 
 scious of his powers. The education of 
 Jesus, the gradual development of his self- 
 consciousness, and the opening before him 
 of the purpose of his life are very clearly 
 given in the Gospels. And then we see 
 Christ coming down from the mountain 
 clear and distinct in the purpose before 
 him. He goes to meet men. We can 
 see something of the discontent which 
 comes into his face as he looks upon them, 
 and sees how they use the capabilities and 
 unfolding powers which he has just learned 
 
 are
 
 of spen. 169 
 
 are to be consecrated to the highest uses. 
 There must be something of that feeling 
 as he comes to summon Simon and his 
 brother, casting their nets into the sea, 
 and says to them those marvellous words, 
 " Follow me, and I will make you fishers 
 of men." Surely, there is something more 
 here than the simple method of summon- 
 ing these men to come and do the work 
 that Christ was going to give them. We 
 see in the face of Jesus, as he looks upon 
 these young men, not a particle of con- 
 tempt of their manhood, no conception of 
 their humanity as though it were made 
 for low uses. There is always with Jesus 
 a sense of the mystery of human life, a 
 sense of its powers, of what it is capable 
 of doing. And, when he suggests in these 
 words the analogy between the work which 
 these men had been doing and the work 
 which they were to do, there is a hint of 
 his whole way of looking at human life. 
 Those same powers that they were using 
 on the waters of Galilee were to be used 
 in all the labor which they were to exer- 
 cise for Christ. He found them fisher- 
 men ; and the same powers which they 
 were using, the carefulness, the watchful- 
 
 ness,
 
 1 70 ^arbarD 
 
 ness, the hopefulness, which were needed 
 in their ordinary trade, were to go into 
 the higher life which they were to live, 
 and to be exercised there. Is not, then, 
 the suggestion of these words this : that 
 the power which man is using in the 
 lowest uses is the same -power which he 
 is to use in the highest? What God sum- 
 mons him to is the full use of himself, 
 the entire consecration, the entire devel- 
 opment, and so the perfect activity of the 
 powers which he is already using. There 
 are no new powers needed to complete the 
 work of the world. God gives a man no 
 powers that were not in him before; but 
 he takes those which the man was using 
 for lower purposes, and consecrates them 
 and makes them a capacity of glory and 
 richness and power which he can never 
 begin to guess. If it were not thus, there 
 would be no power in the will of man to 
 call upon him to stand upon his feet and 
 do the full work of a man. If it were not 
 so, there could be no cry of man to God. 
 We do not ask him to make us different 
 from what we have been. We ask him 
 to make us thoroughly ourselves. All this 
 seems to be involved in th ; words of Jesus. 
 
 See
 
 of $en, 171 
 
 See how it is with the peculiar powers 
 of our lives. Take the power of admira- 
 tion. We are forever wasting it upon 
 those things which are utterly unworthy, 
 upon those things which are fictitious in 
 their value, which are false in themselves; 
 and, when the man lifts himself up and 
 uses the same power of admiration, only 
 glorified and purified, and gives his honor 
 and praise to the noblest things, then 
 he has fulfilled the divine side of his 
 human life. Look at our power of hatred. 
 We are hating the discomforts of the 
 world, those things that interfere with our 
 pleasure and enjoyment ; but the power of 
 hatred is to be concentrated. We are to 
 hate baseness and wickedness, and to let 
 our indignation pour itself out upon those 
 things which are unworthy of human life. 
 Think of the power of imagination, that 
 marvellous power which may go beyond 
 the clouds and enter into the very heaven 
 of heavens; that marvellous power which 
 may go forth into our own future and the 
 future of man, and picture the things 
 which the children of God are to possess; 
 that power which may go back into the 
 past, and restore for us with its historic 
 
 grasp
 
 172 
 
 grasp an image of the things which man 
 has done and been. Then think of the 
 foul pictures which are brought before our 
 minds ; think of the base conceptions we 
 cherish of what it is to succeed in life ; 
 think of the pictures of our fellow-men 
 which we bring up before ourselves ! 
 Take these various powers, our hatreds, 
 our loves, our praise, our imagination, and 
 give them to Christ, that he may purify 
 them and that these marvellous capacities 
 may become what they ought to be. 
 
 So we see that the man who is degraded 
 and undeveloped must become in his high- 
 est life that which he declares possible in 
 his lower life. So it is with all the active 
 powers. What are men doing who are 
 committing the divine capacities of genius 
 to base and unholy things, prostituting it 
 to low uses, when these men have the 
 power by which they may become almost 
 divine themselves, and by which they shall 
 reveal the divine to man ? What is the 
 painter doing who brutalizes his art and 
 vulgarizes it through his own mean pas- 
 sions? What is the writer doing who is 
 prostituting both thought and language, 
 and making them base, low, and sordid ? 
 
 What
 
 of spni. 173 
 
 What is any man doing anywhere, who is 
 using divine powers for devilish ends ? Is 
 he not reversing that command of Jesus, 
 when he said, "Come up unto the high- 
 est" ? What is the difference between the 
 hero and the athlete ? The athlete applies 
 these wonderful powers of our bodies to 
 low uses : the hero applies them to the 
 highest. St. Christopher passing before 
 the world, and carrying the Christ-child 
 through the stream, finds his strength be- 
 coming greater and firmer and richer by 
 the burden upon his shoulders. There is 
 the fulfilment of the suggestion of Jesus 
 Christ, to claim, behind every capacity, 
 the power for its highest fulfilment. 
 
 What is the reason that we do not think 
 of Jesus as possessing this and that spe- 
 cial power, that we do not think of him in 
 connection with strength or in connection 
 with genius ? It is because behind every 
 power that he had there lay this power of 
 powers, which was the power to invest all 
 his capacities with the completest conse- 
 cration. The man enters into the fulness 
 of human life, and forgets his special pow- 
 ers in the consecration of all of his powers 
 to his Father, and makes not the doing 
 
 of
 
 of this thing or that thing, of which he 
 may be proud or ashamed, the thing which 
 he most desires, but the living of a life 
 whose sum and substance is obedience. 
 
 I marvel when I think how simple are 
 the powers by which the great work is 
 done in the world. I marvel when I look 
 round and see the few men here and there 
 using the simplest powers of our human 
 nature, using their courage, purity, truth- 
 fulness, kindliness, and lifting their little 
 bit of the world by their exercise It 
 seems to me to open the vast prospect of 
 the future : that the world is to be devel- 
 oped, not by the attainment of great effects 
 by individuals, not by striking or singular 
 and starlike natures that are to shine forth 
 and take possession of the world, but by 
 the consecration of the smallest powers 
 everywhere; by the men who are fishing 
 with a little skill, and exercising their 
 power upon poor material, simply taking 
 the finer material with the finer impulses, 
 and doing the beet that they can do with 
 the powers that God has given them. 
 This is the encouragement of the weakest 
 among us, while it is the glory of those 
 upon whom God may have bestowed any 
 larger powers. 
 
 Are
 
 jfisljera of $)nt, 175 
 
 Are we not like great musicians playing 
 little ditties upon wonderful instruments? 
 Are we not like artisans spending their 
 time and tools upon poor little accomplish- 
 ments, and holding them up for the admi- 
 ration of other men only because those 
 other men are not doing anything greater ? 
 We need not to have any new faculty put 
 into us, but just purely and simply to give 
 fulfilment to the faculties we have ; to 
 make ourselves capable of what God meant 
 when he sent us into the world. 
 
 That is the contribution which each one 
 may make to the salvation of the world. 
 There shall never be given to us, in any 
 celestial glory which we may attain, any- 
 thing that is not implied in us now. The 
 humanity of heaven shall be nothing but 
 the humanity of carLh lifted to its full ac- 
 tivity, filled with the divinest impulses, 
 made cognizant of its greatest powers, and 
 made ambitious for its completest work. 
 God grant us the beginning of that heaven 
 now !
 
 XXII. 
 
 SEEK, AND YE SHALL FIND. 
 
 MATT. vii. 7. 
 
 THESE two words must never be 
 put asunder, seek and find. The 
 reason why so many people fail to find 
 anything great, anything worthy, any- 
 thing satisfactory in life, is because they 
 do not seek. There are gems in the 
 world, but they shine on the bed of rivers 
 and at the bottom of the sea. Those who 
 would possess them must dive for them. 
 There is gold in the world ; but it lies hid 
 at the heart of the earth, and those who 
 would have it must dig for it. Some per- 
 sons will travel through a clover field a 
 hundred times, and never find one with 
 four leaves. So there are people who go 
 the whole round of experience, who go 
 through all the relationships of life, son- 
 ship, brotherhood, citizenship, friendship, 
 and so on, never finding anything un- 
 common,
 
 , anU pe sfyall finD. 177 
 
 common, never finding anything unusual, 
 extraordinary, or divine. It is there just 
 as the clover is there ; but they do not 
 seek, and so they do not find. You re- 
 member that Saul in the cave was so near 
 to David that David cut a piece from his 
 robe, and yet Saul did not know it. On 
 another occasion, Saul was so near to 
 David that David drew his spear and 
 planted it at the king's head, and the king 
 did not know it. So it seems to me men 
 are just thus near to the peril and the pos- 
 sibility of life, just thus near to the degra- 
 dation that may be avoided, to the dignity 
 that may be won, and are all the while 
 unconscious of it. They read the Lord's 
 word thus : They who do not seek shall 
 find. But thus it is not written. Seek 
 and find are bound together, and must 
 never be separated. 
 
 How reasonable it is that such advice 
 should come to us standing on the very 
 threshold of our life ! For consider a mo- 
 ment what a complicated thing it is, 
 body, mind, soul ; material, intellectual, 
 spiritual ; appetites, desires, reason, affec- 
 tion, conscience, will, and all the number- 
 less relationships of life that grow out of 
 
 this
 
 178 H?ariJari) 
 
 this composite individuality. Life is an 
 intricate, complicated thing ; and all sorts 
 of wrong views prevail as to it. Now, in 
 order to find the true view, the adequate 
 view, the view which will support a man 
 in life and on which he can rest his head 
 in death, is it not reasonable that for this 
 view he should seek studiously, honestly, 
 devoutly, and with all his heart ? 
 
 You remember that in Tennyson's " Vi- 
 sion of Sin " he speaks of a youth who 
 came to the palace gate : 
 
 " He rode a horse with wings, that would have 
 
 flown, 
 Rut that his heavy rider kept him down." 
 
 What does that mean ? The youth was 
 drawn to the palace of pleasure by social 
 instinct, by the energies and impulses of 
 his human heart ; and these, but for his 
 evil purpose, but for his base interpreta- 
 tion of them, would have borne him aloft 
 into the heaven of chivalrous feeling, rev- 
 erence for his kind, exalted sentiment, and 
 noble service. But his misinterpretation, 
 his base construction of his nature, his 
 evil purpose and design, made that which 
 otherwise would have been of the heaven, 
 
 heavenly,
 
 , anU i?e tfljall fint). 179 
 
 heavenly, of the earth, earthy, and turned 
 him into the sneerer at virtue, the unbe- 
 liever in goodness, the unhappy and loath- 
 some wretch that he became. We are 
 drawn into the great life in which we live 
 by the power of our instincts, and we do 
 not know ourselves as we may. We are 
 in danger of putting a wrong interpreta- 
 tion on this imperious nature which we 
 possess, and we need to seek in order to 
 find that interpretation which shall give 
 wings to our instincts and set them free. 
 
 It is reasonable, also, to take to heart 
 our Lord's words, " Seek, and ye shall 
 find," because he delivers them on the 
 authority of a great moral teacher, the 
 world's teacher, the divine teacher. For 
 consider that every student goes, to a cer- 
 tain extent, on the ipse dixit of his teacher. 
 We think, sometimes, that we live in a 
 wholly critical age. It is a great mistake. 
 Every man who is rightfully a teacher 
 exercises a certain degree of authority. 
 The astronomer tells his pupil to turn his 
 glass now to this corner of the universe, 
 now to that. He tells him he shall find 
 this, that, and the other star, tells him 
 about their dimensions and relations, tells 
 
 him
 
 i8o 
 
 him to seek and he shall find, holds out a 
 promise for the reward of obedience ; and 
 the pupil does as he is told to do. It is 
 the same in every department of human 
 study, and we never feel the bondage of 
 it. And so our Lord comes to us just as 
 other teachers do, and says, out of the 
 maturity, out of the fulness, out of the 
 divinity of his own spiritual wisdom, out 
 of the wealth of his own consciousness 
 of sonship and brotherhood, "Seek, and 
 ye shall find." It is reasonable that we 
 should act on his command inspired by his 
 promise, as it is reasonable that we should 
 act on the command inspired by the prom- 
 ise of our other teachers. 
 
 And, finally, our Lord's words rest for 
 their reasonableness on the great assump- 
 tion of the passage which I read, the 
 fatherhood of God. God will not mock 
 our instincts ; God will not mock our as- 
 pirations, our essential and crying needs. 
 Human fatherhood will not mock. No 
 father will give a stone for a piece of 
 bread. No human father will give a ser- 
 pent for a fish. Human fatherhood meets 
 the real need, and does not mock it. And 
 will not the divine fatherhood meet the 
 
 real
 
 , ana ye sfyall finfc* 181 
 
 real need ? If, indeed, we ask for a stone, 
 supposing that it is bread ; if, indeed, we 
 ask for a serpent, supposing that a serpent 
 is fish, God will not answer that prayer ; 
 but, in denying the form of the prayer, he 
 will answer its spirit, and give us, not 
 what we ask, but what we need. And it 
 is this faith that we are made in the image 
 of God, with truth for our birthright, with 
 character for our crown, with a holy soul 
 for our righteous reward, it is this truth 
 that is the deepest inspiration of all our 
 seeking, of all our devotion, and all our 
 hopes. This seeking must be perpetual. 
 
 How sad was that incident reported of 
 the severe weather in the West the other 
 week, when a man dropped down in hope- 
 lessness, and died seven feet from his own 
 door ! There are many men that come 
 near a great truth, come close to a great 
 moral triumph, come almost to the door of 
 faith and hope and love and spiritual peace 
 and power, and lie down in despair and 
 hopelessness, and sacrifice their manhood, 
 their possibility of joy and usefulness. We 
 must press on. As Bishop Berkeley says, 
 we must dedicate our youth and our age 
 to the pursuit of truth, if we would find 
 
 it
 
 1 82 Barbara 
 
 it in its symmetry, in its beauty, in its 
 grandeur, in all the glory of its essential 
 being. 
 
 Do you remember that story about 
 Jacob, when, after he had sinned against 
 his father and against his brother, he fled 
 from his home, and went out into a soli- 
 tary place and lay down, as he thought, a 
 poor, God-forsaken fugitive? And he had 
 a dream while he slept of a ladder, one 
 end of which was planted on the earth and 
 the other end of which touched the very 
 heavens. And on its rounds came down 
 and passed up messengers from the celes- 
 tial world ; and, when he woke from his 
 dream, he said, fugitive, vile sinner as he 
 was: "Truly, the Lord is in this place; 
 and I knew it not. This is none other 
 than the house of God ; this is the gate of 
 heaven." That was the sense of God that 
 overtook one fleeing from him. If you 
 and I flee not from God, but to God, may 
 not similar visions of glory meet us, and 
 a profounder sense of God enclose us ? 
 May not the blessed conviction come to 
 us in the broad fields of the world and 
 under the canopy of the sky, as it came 
 to that fugitive, if we flee to God ? This 
 
 world,
 
 ant) ve styall finu. 183 
 
 world, in all its activities, in all its rela- 
 tionship, in all its proper ends, in all its 
 legitimate enjoyment, is none other than 
 the house of God ; and this life, properly 
 interpreted, properly pursued, properly re- 
 garded, the gate of heaven.
 
 XXIII. 
 
 THE PARABLE OF THE POUNDS. 
 LUKE xix. 
 
 BOTH of these parables are crowded 
 full of suggestive lessons for life. 
 Our affair with them to-day consists singly 
 in this point, which both of them teach, 
 the illustration they both give of the in- 
 terest these people took in their work it- 
 self, without apparently looking forward 
 to any reward which they were to receive. 
 They took hold of the work, and did the 
 best they could. What is interesting is 
 that the Saviour recognizes this very curi- 
 ous diversity of human faculties which we 
 recognize in such a place as this, and 
 which is recognized in the world every- 
 where. No two people having the same 
 talent given them will come out to the 
 same result and in the same way. Each 
 one has a different capacity ; each one is 
 going to use it in a different fashion ; 
 
 each
 
 parable of tfoe |0ounDfif 185 
 
 each one is going to come out with a 
 different result. But observe, that, in 
 both parables, the people who receive the 
 commendation of the Saviour are those 
 who went to work, heartily interested in 
 the work itself, and carrying that work to 
 a successful conclusion, each one in his 
 own way. 
 
 This is the point which I want to press 
 this afternoon. I do not wish simply to 
 call your attention to the value of an 
 intellectual interest in the work you have 
 in hand. I would do that, perhaps, in 
 some detail, if it had not been done so 
 much better, only a few weeks ago, by the 
 English Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. 
 Goschen, in a very striking address to the 
 students of Aberdeen. He took the sub- 
 ject of the intellectual interest which a 
 man must have in his own work, and he 
 showed, for instance, that the great law- 
 yers succeed, not because they receive 
 great fees, but because they are interested 
 in the law ; and, for another instance, that 
 the advances in medical science are made 
 by physicians because of their personal 
 interest in medical science. This address 
 descends so profoundly into the depths of 
 
 things
 
 1 86 
 
 things that some of the English journals 
 speak of it as marking an era in educa- 
 tion. I could hope that the editors of the 
 Harvard Monthly, or of the other college 
 journals, might find themselves able to 
 make copious extracts from it. 
 
 I do not want now to speak of this in- 
 tellectual interest alone, but to ask, How 
 are we going to get a moral interest in 
 our work ? And here Mr. Goschen stops. 
 Perhaps he did not think it wise to go 
 into it before his audience ; but that is 
 what I may and must speak of here. 
 How are we going to be morally inter- 
 ested in our daily work, and give our 
 whole vital power to the work we have in 
 hand ? Certainly, we are not going to be 
 bought into any such interest. Any one 
 knows, who is preparing for an examina- 
 tion, what the difference is between the 
 work he does only because his father 
 wants him to have an A or B, or because 
 he knows that he will be dropped unless 
 he gets up to this point, or, on the other 
 hand, because he is dead in earnest in the 
 work itself ; because he is interested in 
 Homer, or because he is interested in the 
 law of growth, and is determined to find 
 
 why
 
 parable of tty poun&s. 187 
 
 why these trees grow as they do. Any 
 one of you knows the difference between 
 work done for love of the subject and work 
 done merely to keep up to such or such 
 a standard, or for any external inducement 
 which can be offered. 
 
 Now, what the parable shows us is the 
 way in which a man gets his interest in 
 his subject, so that he carries on his duty 
 as if he were carrying it on by his own 
 original power. All these men do this 
 thing for their loyalty to their chief, be- 
 cause they are his servants. And the 
 Saviour himself, in many instances, has 
 shown us how he so fully did his work. 
 He said to his mother, in the very first 
 words of his we have, "Wist ye not 
 that I must be about my Father's busi- 
 ness ? " There is the key to the whole of 
 it. Again, afterward, " My Father work 
 eth hitherto, and I work." That is the 
 standard of his endeavor. He is at work 
 because he is the Son of God. God has 
 commissioned him. And he is at work 
 because God wants him. Now, let a man 
 go to work in that fashion ; let him study 
 his botany or chemistry in that fashion ; 
 let him invest his funds in State Street in 
 
 that
 
 1 88 Carbarn 
 
 that fashion ; let him go into a school and 
 teach a boy the Latin grammar in that 
 fashion ; and then he will know what it is 
 to love his work with all his heart and 
 soul and mind and strength. There is a 
 certain purpose which God almighty has 
 for this work. He has not yet finished 
 that purpose. He has advanced it in 
 every century from the beginning. What 
 we call evolution is simply a result of the 
 steady advancement of God's purpose in 
 the world. The world is better now than 
 it was a hundred or a thousand years ago, 
 because God has advanced his purpose 
 in the world. There is not a man of us 
 who would live in the year 1788, or two 
 hundred years ago, if any wizard could 
 put him back there. The world is so 
 muchx better a world to live in, that every 
 human being, who knows anything about 
 it, would choose this year to live in rather 
 than any year of the past. Well, God has 
 similar purposes for this century, for this 
 very year that is before us. How are 
 those purposes to be carried out ? Why, 
 by people like you and me, by people who 
 are sons and daughters of God, and to 
 whom God has given this direction, that 
 
 we
 
 parable of tlje pounft*. 189 
 
 we should go about our Father's business, 
 and be sure to fulfil our Father's will. 
 When that dawns upon a man ; when he 
 finds that he cannot be alone, but has in- 
 finite powers given him for an infinite 
 purpose, that man is interested in the 
 work in which he is engaged. Such a 
 man was the great chief of science who 
 has just now been called away from us 
 here.* Such men have been all the great 
 leaders that the world has had. They 
 have entered into their work because they 
 were going about their Father's business, 
 and were using the powers he gave them 
 for the purposes which he had in view. 
 The Saviour himself has again and again 
 shown, with that close, keen knowledge of 
 one who knew what was in man, what this 
 power is. It is the point of so many of 
 his parables. 
 
 You remember one of those parables in 
 which he describes two women who are 
 working in the very same place, about the 
 very same thing. But they work with 
 such different motive ! They were grind- 
 ing corn for the evening meal of their 
 children. They were grinding it in the 
 simple way which some of you have seen. 
 
 You 
 
 * Dr. Asa Gray.
 
 190 J?art)aru 
 
 You can see it in New Mexico or Texas 
 to-day. The woman sits with a sort of 
 trough before her. There are little ribs 
 across the trough. The corn is put in 
 there, and she rubs a rough long stone up 
 and down over it, working it backward 
 and forward. In this case, there were 
 two women working backward and for- 
 ward, holding the same stone and push- 
 ing and pulling in exactly the same way. 
 One of these women was all the time 
 provoked that she had to do this. She 
 was asking why some one else could not 
 do it, why this man or this boy could 
 not do it. She was not doing it be- 
 cause she wanted to : she was doing it 
 because her children would complain if it 
 were not done. But the other of these 
 women remembered who she was, that 
 she was God's child, and God had given 
 her children, and God had commissioned 
 her to answer the prayer of those chil- 
 dren for their daily bread. I suppose that 
 woman said to herself : " The great God 
 in heaven made this corn to grow. The 
 great God in heaven moved the sun in 
 the sky that the corn should ripen. And, 
 when the right moment came, he watered 
 
 it
 
 2Elje parable of tlje pounDs. 191 
 
 it with his dew and the showers that fell 
 on the ground ; and, when it grew and 
 ripened, he sent men to harvest it ; and 
 now at last here I am, sent as a fellow- 
 workman with him, to work as steadily as 
 the sun in heaven and the dew that falls, 
 doing their work in his perfect love. God 
 permits me to give this last touch of his 
 love, that my children might be fed." 
 Thus were these two women, doing the 
 same thing. But, as the Saviour says, 
 one of these women was taken up into 
 the very joy of God, taken to be his 
 companion, and to rest in his arms ! The 
 other woman was left, left to her own 
 sour thoughts and complainings. This is 
 just the contrast that happens every day 
 in this university. It happens every day 
 in the streets of the city. It happens in 
 every workshop. It is the difference be- 
 tween the man who works with the sense 
 that he is a child of God, and is doing his 
 duty, and the man who is filled with the 
 poor thought of his own selfishness and 
 greed.
 
 XXIV. 
 
 COMING TO ONE'S SELF. 
 LUKE xv. 
 
 TASK you to think for a moment of 
 a single point in the pathetic story 
 which we have read together, of the 
 Prodigal and his Father. I do not ask 
 you to follow this young soul into the 
 worst of its evil, or to apply the lessons 
 of his whole career; for it must be only 
 rarely that the more tragic part of his 
 experience can come home to you with 
 any force. Most of the time let us 
 frankly confess it you are not conscious 
 of this complete and voluntary estrange- 
 ment. You have not abandoned yourself 
 to riotous living. When you hear people 
 confessing this absolute vileness and this 
 hostility to God, it comes to many of you 
 with a sense of unreality. Perhaps you 
 would agree that the case of the elder 
 brother was nearer your own, the son who 
 
 never
 
 Coming to ne'0 >rlf* 193 
 
 never wholly deserted his home, but who, 
 though he shared its blessings, was never 
 wholly generous or self-forgetful. 
 
 I turn, then, to the young prodigal 
 to-day, not in his devotion to evil, but 
 in his new beginning of the life of good. 
 Evil has had its way with him. He has 
 left his home, he has yielded to his pas- 
 sions, he has drunk the cup of self-indul- 
 gence to its dregs ; and then, as the story 
 says, "he comes to himself," he wakes, 
 as it were, from what had been so vivid 
 that he had not dreamed it was a dream, 
 and finds that he has been asleep, or, as 
 perhaps is still more strongly meant, he 
 rouses himself from that illusion and in- 
 sanity of life in which he had been, as we 
 say, "beside himself," and, coming to him- 
 self again, finds what a sane, true life 
 should be. 
 
 " He came to himself." That was the 
 turning-point of this young man's career. 
 It was not himself, then, that had de- 
 parted from his father's house into the 
 life of sin. His true life, his real self, 
 had remained behind. As the father said 
 of him, " he had been dead, and was alive 
 again ; he had been lost, and was found." 
 
 He
 
 194 
 
 He had thought it was himself which 
 had gone away, but it was not. It was 
 only a mockery of himself. He had 
 thought that he was, as we say, "seeing 
 life " ; but he was in reality only seeing 
 death, the death of his real self. And 
 now, as he sits among the husks, the illu- 
 sion is withdrawn from his sense of per- 
 sonality. He rediscovers himself. He 
 comes to himself ; and, with the emer- 
 gence of this sense of his own true per- 
 sonality above the currents of the pas- 
 sions which had overwhelmed him, his 
 new life begins. It was like the emer- 
 gence of the first dry land after the del- 
 uge. It gave a spot of firm ground on 
 which the ark of his safety might rest. 
 There was the joy of finding that which 
 had been lost. There was the miracle of 
 that which had been dead coming to life 
 again. 
 
 " He came to himself." That is the 
 transition which makes the turning-point 
 of any human career, whether it has 
 passed through all the tragedy of sin or 
 whether it knows nothing of these deeper 
 sorrows. Still, the first, plain, practical, 
 and personal experience which indicates 
 
 the
 
 Coming to ne'0 >elf. 195 
 
 the most momentous transition in any 
 life lies in this discovery of the meaning 
 of personality, which the parable calls 
 coming to one's self. 
 
 See how this occurs in the intellectual 
 life. Your mind wanders away into list- 
 lessness and sluggishness. It does its 
 tasks, but it does them trivially and un- 
 productively. It thinks, but not of things 
 of which it is worth while to think. Thus 
 it is that many a young man goes on in 
 his education. He acquires that fatal 
 facility of getting enough knowledge to 
 serve his immediate need, and then of 
 shedding it from the mind like water from 
 a roof. The pressure of his tasks is upon 
 him : he learns, he succeeds, and he for- 
 gets. Then, some day, he wakes up. 
 Some great thought or great book speaks 
 its word to him, or some trivial conversa- 
 tion conveys its deeper meaning; and the 
 mind comes to itself. Then the tasks of 
 the mind take on a new meaning. All 
 the dulness and commonplaceness of 
 study drop away. The book or thought 
 meets the awakened mind, and it is like 
 the meeting of the two poles of an elec- 
 tric battery. Out of their contact come 
 
 forth
 
 1 96 
 
 forth new light and new heat. It is the 
 doctrine of regeneration applied to the 
 intellectual life. That which was lost is 
 found. That which was dead springs to 
 life again. It is like a slow blossoming 
 plant, lingering through years of sluggish- 
 ness, and then blooming in a night. 
 
 See, still more seriously, how the same 
 thing occurs in the moral conduct of life. 
 Here is your conscience, drifting, listless, 
 and sluggish. It is not that your con- 
 science is bad : it is only that it is asleep. 
 It has not yet waked to a sense of itself. 
 That is the drowsy condition of the 
 worldly, thoughtless life. Then, some day, 
 something happens something great or 
 something small which wakes your will. 
 You come to yourself, and say : " What 
 is this that I have been doing ? I have 
 been asleep when I should have been 
 awake. I have been asleep like a soldier 
 at his post. Nay, I have been asleep as 
 one who wakes and finds a precipice at 
 his side." Sometimes, this great transi- 
 tion comes in the tremendous shock of 
 some solemn experience. There comes 
 to you, in the midst of your compan- 
 ionship here, some sudden recall to seri- 
 ous
 
 Coming to ne'$ |a>clf, 197 
 
 ous things, a word spoken, an influence 
 accepted, the terrible spectacle brought 
 close to you of a life which had lived 
 near the precipice, and had suddenly gone 
 over it, or there is brought to you one 
 day the word from your home that the 
 life which was most dear to you, and 
 which you would have done anything to 
 make happy, is all at once taken out of 
 your keeping. At such times as these, 
 a man goes back to his room ; and his 
 life is in that moment changed, and he 
 says to himself : " What have I been 
 about, in the midst of these daily possi- 
 bilities of tragedy and sorrow, in this 
 transitory moment of my human oppor- 
 tunity, to let my real self lie undiscovered 
 or unused ? Here is my life with its op- 
 portunities, my companionships with their 
 responsibilities, my home with its prayers ; 
 and all have been carelessly rejected or 
 sluggishly received. I have been drifting, 
 like the lazy crew of a becalmed vessel. 
 Now, of a sudden, there is the whistle of 
 a fresh wind above me, and the sound of 
 breakers in my ears. It is no time for 
 drifting : it is time to leap to the helm ! " 
 And so the will takes command of its 
 
 drowsy
 
 198 
 
 drowsy faculties. The energies which 
 were lost are in that moment of crisis 
 found. The loyalty which was dead 
 springs to life again ; and the soul, under 
 the prick of pain or sorrow or example, 
 comes to itself again. 
 
 Such are some of the ways in which 
 the life of the mind or of the will takes 
 this mighty step. It is not an experience 
 for prodigals alone, but for every mind 
 and will. The first discovery of a mature 
 life is the discovery of itself. The return 
 of the prodigal to his father's house began 
 when he came to himself. But now there 
 is still another question to ask. What 
 is the inward impulse to this new sense 
 of one's real life ? Why is it that, when 
 circumstances thus press upon us, they 
 bring us to this new waking of the soul ? 
 What made the prodigal come to himself? 
 Was it simply a natural reaction, a spon- 
 taneous, self-originated thought ? I have 
 no doubt that the prodigal thought so. I 
 suppose he seemed to himself to be all 
 alone in this transition, as though he 
 pulled himself together by strength of 
 will, and said to himself, " I have gone 
 too far, and will return." But in reality 
 
 there
 
 Coming to ne'$ g>elf, 199 
 
 there was another influence beyond his 
 own, which was working in him to draw 
 him home. It was the influence of his 
 father, tugging at his will throughout all 
 his wandering and now at last getting 
 control. What was gnawing at the poor 
 boy's heart was in reality homesickness. 
 It was not alone the self-assertion of his 
 own will, it was the reassertion of his 
 father's will, with its new persuasiveness, 
 so that the moment he came to himself 
 he said, " I will arise, and go to my 
 father." What he thought was his own 
 resolution was in reality the wonderful 
 electric message which had passed from 
 his father's heart to his own, and which 
 demanded its reply ; and his coming to 
 himself was of itself the work of God in 
 his own soul. 
 
 Precisely so it is that we must interpret 
 all these varied experiences of mind and 
 will which we have traced. Yes, they are 
 human resolutions and reactions, but they 
 are, none the less, when more deeply 
 traced, the workings of the influence of 
 God in the souls of men, the homesick- 
 ness of the child, and the influence of the 
 waiting Father. Whenever any young 
 
 life
 
 200 
 
 life comes to itself in the growth of its 
 mind or the renewal of its duty, there, 
 and in no remoter place, is the influence 
 of God. That which is a human thing 
 from one side is a divine leading from the 
 other. That which is intellectual or moral 
 in one aspect is religious in another. It 
 is a twofold process. We work out our 
 own salvation, because God is working in 
 us to will and to do. We come to our- 
 selves, because God calls us. It is like the 
 coming of the flowers in spring. They 
 might think their sudden push above the 
 earth was a work which was all their own. 
 But it is not. It is in reality their re- 
 sponse to the increasing sunshine which 
 calls to them. It beckons, and they bloom. 
 They have been dead, and are alive again. 
 They have been lost, and are found. 
 
 O my brethren, I would to God that I 
 could make you see how much this means 
 in the conduct of our daily life ! Here we 
 are searching for signs of God and evi- 
 dence of religion in some remote region 
 of science or of Scripture, while all the 
 time the real evidences of a living God 
 are in the intimate experiences of per- 
 sonal life which remain for us all unex- 
 plored.
 
 Coming to ne'0 >elf 201 
 
 plored. When, in the unfolding of your 
 mind among the happy influences which 
 beset you here, there shall come to you 
 that peerless moment when the mind 
 comes to itself, and you determine to do 
 a man's work in a world which needs men 
 so sorely, what is all this in its deeper 
 meaning ? It is a living God speaking to 
 your mind. It is the revelation of the 
 Father to the child. It is the universal 
 mind calling to the individual mind. It 
 is Truth demanding your loyalty. It is a 
 religious experience, close, inevitable, real. 
 And the true answer of the mind, when it 
 thus comes to itself, is to say, " I will 
 arise and go to my Father, and will dedi- 
 cate to him the wondrous gift he has put 
 into my hands." Or when, in the crises 
 of your duty, the way of peace and right 
 summons you with its sweet compulsion, 
 it is once more the call of the Eternal 
 Right, making itself heard in your waking 
 soul. It is the summons of God through 
 the voice of duty. Not far away lie the 
 sources of religious trust, not in the evi- 
 dences of the stars or seas or ancient man, 
 but here amid the inevitable experiences 
 of our daily mistakes and of our sincere 
 
 repentances.
 
 202 l^arbaru 
 
 repentances. The life of God and the life 
 of man are all interwoven in the web of 
 human experiences. 
 
 " So nigh is grandeur to our dust, 
 
 So near is God to man, 
 When Duty whispers low, ' Thou must,' 
 The youth replies, ' I can.' " 
 
 There is but one way of separating the 
 life of God from the souls of men. It is 
 by withdrawing one's self into that distant 
 country of forgetfulness and self-absorp- 
 tion, of passion and lust. Then the mes- 
 sages of God, while they are still sent, fail 
 to penetrate into the life, and remain un- 
 heard. But, when the mind or the will 
 comes to itself, then it recognizes the call 
 of God in these deeper passages of expe- 
 rience; and it answers this "drawing of 
 the Father" with the response of a son, 
 "I will arise, and go to the home where I 
 belong, and will finish the work that is 
 given me of my God to do."
 
 XXV. 
 
 JUDGMENTS OF LIFE. 
 PSALM x. 
 
 IN the psalm which we have read to- 
 gether this afternoon, David gives us 
 one of those strong descriptions, emphatic 
 and intense, of the wicked man and the 
 fate that awaits him. One of the things 
 that always strike us in the Psalms of 
 David is the distinctness with which the 
 wicked man and the righteous man stand 
 before us as clear and distinguishable in- 
 dividuals. We, with our modern ideas and 
 subtle thought, are apt to think of every 
 bad man as partly good and every good 
 man as partly bad, of goodness and bad- 
 ness as always mingled together in per- 
 sonal character. We are so apt to think 
 this that the good man and the bad man 
 do not stand out so clearly before us as 
 they did before David, and, I think I may 
 say, as they stood out before Christ. While 
 
 that
 
 204 
 
 that analysis and perception of the weak- 
 ness of character in each man's life, which 
 is so familiar to us, is very good, David's 
 thought is no doubt the true one, that 
 there is, after all, in every character de- 
 termination which declares for righteous- 
 ness or toward unrighteousness. There- 
 fore, the wicked man is distinguished as 
 the man who does not desire goodness, 
 as the man whose face is set away from 
 righteousness, who is living in the midst 
 of unrighteousness, and is content with 
 that life. 
 
 I was struck with one verse the fifth 
 in that psalm, which describes in one 
 definition this wicked man and his con- 
 tent to live in unrighteousness. David 
 says, "Thy judgments are far above, out 
 of his sight." 
 
 God's judgments are out of a man's 
 sight. Just think of it for a moment. 
 There are regions of which we have no 
 cognizance, which do not enter into our 
 thought or sympathy, in which we are 
 being judged every day. A man's life 
 depends much, upon his consciousness of 
 the judgments passed upon him. If a 
 man is satisfied with the lower judgments 
 
 relating
 
 of iltfe. 205 
 
 relating to his earthly condition, which ap- 
 peal to his immediate prospects, he leaves 
 untasted and untouched his right to the 
 richer series of judgments, which are far 
 above him, and which are condemning or 
 approving all his life. It almost seems to 
 open the universe before us, to let us see 
 the clouds in the heavens filled with the 
 long series of thrones, growing whiter and 
 whiter until the great white throne stands 
 above them all. On each one sits one of 
 the judges, and at the summit of all God 
 himself; and every action that we do, 
 every thought, and every life is ever pass- 
 ing up and being judged at each one of 
 these separate judgment seats. And the 
 richness and the sacredness and solemnity 
 of a man's life depend on his conscious- 
 ness of these judgments which are for- 
 ever being passed upon him. And the 
 condemnation of the wicked, according to 
 David, is that God's judgments are so far 
 above out of sight, that he is so groping 
 in the dust of the present life that he is 
 unconscious, that he is unmoved, unsol- 
 emnized, unchanged, unaffected, by all the 
 great judgments which the higher powers 
 of the universe are passing upon his life. 
 
 Think
 
 206 
 
 Think how many of us live in lower 
 judgments. Think how we live before 
 the judgment-seat of pleasure, deciding 
 whether the thing that we are going to 
 do is to give us happiness or unhappiness 
 for the moment. Think how we live be- 
 fore the judgment-seat of profit, deciding 
 whether the thing we are going to do shall 
 make us richer or poorer. Think how we 
 live before the judgment-seat of reputa- 
 tion, doing or not doing things according 
 as those who stand around us, with no 
 higher standards than our own, are going 
 to disapprove or approve. And all the 
 time tower before us these great judg- 
 ment-seats of God, so far above us, out 
 of sight. Think what some of them arc. 
 
 The universe is judging us all the time 
 as to whether we shall find and occupy 
 the place that has been appointed for us 
 in the purposes of God. There is no 
 more solemn thought for any man than 
 that there is some one place in the world 
 which is meant for him, which he is capa- 
 ble of filling, and nobody else can fill. 
 And the universe is perpetually judging 
 him by that special place, and it is con- 
 demning or approving him as he does or 
 
 leaves
 
 3fltU>gmem$ of flife. 207 
 
 leaves undone the part set for him to do 
 among all the millions of mankind. 
 
 Then there is the judgment which ab- 
 solute Righteousness is always passing 
 upon us, the calm abstraction which we 
 call the Right, which makes itself known 
 so really through all the operations of 
 the world. These our lives come up be- 
 fore that Righteousness, sitting throned 
 in its calmness, and are judged by it. 
 It casts us aside for our perversity, or it 
 takes us into its embrace, and makes us 
 stronger for what little righteous contri- 
 bution we have made to the good activi- 
 ties of the world. 
 
 Then there are all the pure and noble 
 men who are forever judging us, not 
 malignantly condemning us, not feebly 
 applauding us for little things, but decid- 
 ing, as we come into their presence, 
 whether there is any use in us, whether 
 there is anything that we can do to make 
 things stronger in the interests of which 
 they live. 
 
 Thus the universe and righteousness 
 and the noblest men are sitting on the 
 judgment-seats ; and our thoughts and 
 lives are forever coming before them for 
 
 judgment.
 
 208 J?arbarD 
 
 judgment. And above them, whiter than 
 them all, is the great white throne, where 
 God himself is sitting, knowing every ac- 
 tion of our lives, judging whether we are 
 capable of receiving him, God with his 
 inexpressible, unutterable, unfathomable 
 love, trying to put himself into our lives, 
 to make us rich with his richness, good 
 with his goodness, and finding in our 
 character every moment either acceptance 
 or repulsion, either invitation or rejection 
 of his love ; God judging us with that 
 importunate affection which beats at the 
 door of our nature, with that affection 
 which would fain make our lives filled 
 with his life, with that affection that feels 
 itself accepted or refused, the judgment 
 of the soul being in the refusal of the 
 offer of God. 
 
 O my dear friends, when these great 
 judgments open themselves above us, 
 when these great judgment-seats are fill- 
 ing the sky, and we know that every deed 
 of ours comes before them, how solemn 
 and how dreadful that life becomes, the 
 life which is forever moving toward these 
 judgment-seats and does not know it, the 
 life to which all of God's judgments are 
 out of sight! 
 
 Sometimes,
 
 31uUgment0 of flife* 209 
 
 Sometimes, you see your friend close at 
 your side doing a work or living a life 
 that is full of discontent. His face grows 
 troubled. The world does not satisfy him 
 as it has been satisfying him. You see 
 that his aspirations are going somewhere 
 far beyond your thought. What does it 
 mean ? That he has lifted up his eyes 
 and has seen the loftier and nobler judg- 
 ment-seats, and that his judgments have 
 come back to him. God grant that they 
 may remain with him until he shall have 
 so remade his life by the power of these 
 lofty judgments that it shall be reconciled 
 to God, and he shall come before them 
 and no longer be ashamed, but say, " I 
 shall be satisfied with no approval until 
 the universe, righteousness, and the holi- 
 est men and God shall claim me for the 
 noblest work that they can do for me and 
 that I can do for them." 
 
 The life of Jesus, what was it ? A life 
 forever pressing forward, forever being 
 judged by higher and higher standards, 
 a life that had peace and freedom from 
 the little slavery and the miserable stand- 
 ards of lower judgments, which stood face 
 to face with God ; for there was no judg- 
 ment
 
 210 
 
 ment of the eternal law, the eternal love, 
 that was out of his sight. Not peace, as 
 we call peace; not peace that lives in com- 
 placency and is content, nothing should 
 satisfy us short of the peace that is abso- 
 lute reconciliation with God, that sees and 
 accepts his divine standards, that is will- 
 ing and craves nay, demands to be 
 judged by the highest ; no peace short of 
 that peace which eternity shall bring to 
 us, when, having matched the perfect de- 
 mand with complete obedience, we shall 
 move before the judgment-seat with joy, 
 absolute and perfect ! There comes a 
 peace before that, which is the peace of 
 struggle, the peace of looking forward to 
 that which alone, when it is attained, shall 
 be absolute, entire rest. The peace of the 
 soul which is possible now is the peace of 
 the journey. Only when we come to be 
 perfect as our Father in heaven is per- 
 fect shall we have the peace of rest, and 
 the work that shall bring no perplexity, 
 no weariness, no misgivings, but infinite 
 effectiveness, progressiveness, and power 
 forever and forever. In the peace of the 
 journey which despises the sluggish peace 
 which has not yet set out, in the peace of 
 
 the
 
 3f|ut>gmmtfi! of ilife, 211 
 
 the journey which expects the peace of the 
 end, may we go on in these days, while 
 God keeps us living in this world, to the 
 richer world that is to come !
 
 XXVI. 
 
 REMEMBERING GOD. 
 ECCL. xii. i. 
 
 THAT word "remember," standing 
 where it does, must mean a great 
 deal. It must mean to keep in mind the 
 thought of God as the shaping, construc- 
 tive, sovereign influence in life. The idea 
 of beauty, the artist paints by ; the idea 
 of the special harvest, the farmer tills the 
 field by ; the chart, the mariner sails by. 
 So of the idea of God. We are to think 
 by it ; we are to feel in reference to it ; 
 we are to work under its inspiration ; we 
 are to live by the power of its life and 
 incentive. The idea of God is illumina- 
 tion and power. It is interpretation, and 
 it is the power of realization. When we 
 keep in mind the idea of a Creator vitally, 
 vividly, profoundly, we provide for a celes- 
 tial interpretation of human existence and 
 for the divine power in the realization of 
 
 that
 
 Hemembermg <$ou. 213 
 
 that interpretation. This I understand to 
 be what the writer meant by the word "re- 
 member." Now for two or three thoughts 
 urging us to this practice in youth. 
 
 First of all, youth is educable. If a man 
 wants to be a mechanic or a merchant or 
 a physician, he begins early. It is essen- 
 tial to the trade or the profession that it 
 shall be so. If a man wants to Chris- 
 tianize his life, to make that life religious, 
 ought he not to begin early, in analogy 
 with other things which he does ? Take 
 some bright-eyed child with you, walk 
 through the city or any place of interest, 
 and mark how many things that child 
 will observe which are entirely ignored 
 by you. Why so ? Because childhood is 
 immeasurably more impressionable than 
 youth. So youth is immeasurably more 
 impressionable than manhood. And just 
 as the hot wax receives the impression 
 clearly and retains it lastingly, so the im- 
 pressionable mind of youth receives the 
 stamp of the character of God more clearly 
 and retains it more lastingly than in the 
 subsequent periods of life. 
 
 Then consider, too, how simple life is 
 when we are young. Look at the busi- 
 ness
 
 214 
 
 ness man of forty, and see how his life 
 has left its original simplicity. He is 
 no longer simply a son and a brother, a 
 friend and a student : he is himself a hus- 
 band and a father, and a business man 
 with a hundred cares and responsibilities. 
 His life has branched out into wonderful 
 complexity. It is intricate, complicated, 
 hard to manage. Now, suppose that the 
 man of forty begins to be religious. How 
 difficult is his problem, to take that 
 single force of the idea of God and send 
 it through all these relationships in which 
 he stands ! It cannot be done. It is like 
 an attempt to thread not one or ten or 
 a score, but a hundred needles at once. 
 But, if the man begins early, it is differ- 
 ent. He is a son ; and he lets the love 
 of God bear upon that relation, and seeks 
 for the power of God to realize the mean- 
 ing of it. He is a brother, a friend, a 
 student. These are the simple relations 
 in which he stands. Let him bring these 
 under the divine illumination, open his 
 heart to the power that leads him to real- 
 ize their divine meaning. Then, when 
 his life enlarges, it will be a process of 
 assimilation. He is religious at the core, 
 
 and
 
 Hrmembering <0oD. 215 
 
 and the substantial relations in which he 
 stands are already Christianized. Life will 
 be simply the growth of godliness. 
 
 Then, again, if a man wants to make 
 any high attainment in religion, he must 
 begin early. What is religion but the 
 consecration and the perfection of human 
 life ? And, if it be the consecration and 
 perfection of human life, ought not the 
 passion of a man's heart to be for eminence 
 in it ? When a man wakes up to a thirst 
 for knowledge late in life, he is pursued 
 by everlasting regret that he did not wake 
 up earlier. When a man becomes prudent 
 after he has squandered the fortune left 
 him by his father, having missed what 
 opportunities for enrichment have already 
 presented themselves, he is pursued by 
 the same regret. Whenever a man raises 
 an ideal later than he should have raised 
 it, he brings upon himself regret. When- 
 ever a man raises the ideal of a Christian 
 life later than he should have raised it, 
 the same regret comes upon him ; for he 
 sees that he has subtracted from his pos- 
 sible life as a rational being. Take so 
 many of the men that call themselves 
 religious, their religion is simply a sen- 
 timent.
 
 216 
 
 timent. It is a precious sentiment. But 
 it is not conduct, it is not life, but sim- 
 ply sentiment. They do not begin early 
 enough to go beyond the sentimental 
 stage into that of habit and character. 
 
 If we begin early, we may expect finally 
 the consummate blessing and power of 
 the religious life, spontaneity in work, 
 spontaneity in noble views of God, in 
 noble views of men and of the future of 
 the world, spontaneity in goodness. Is 
 not this the case with most of us, 
 instinctively pagan, reflectively Christian, 
 spontaneously selfish, with deliberation 
 unselfish ? Is not this our hard battle 
 when our instincts are unchristianized and 
 remain in the pagan state, that simply 
 by reflection, by deliberation, by the power 
 of reason, is a man good? If we began 
 early, we should reach the instincts, and 
 transfigure them ; we should harness this 
 power of spontaneity to the chariot of the 
 Lord. If we begin early to subject our 
 life to the sovereign power of the idea of 
 God, if we set it forth under the illumina- 
 tion of his light and under the realizing 
 power of his love, our religion shall at 
 last become a spontaneous and instinctive 
 
 thing
 
 Remembering $oD. 217 
 
 thing. We shall becpme instinctively 
 Christian, spontaneously noble. Reflec- 
 tion shall have the wings of spontaneity 
 and instinct to carry it into the pure 
 upper air of divine service, of divine 
 thought, and divine hope. 
 
 Yes: begin early, because it is right. 
 We do so everywhere else. Begin early, 
 because life is simple then. Begin early, 
 because we want eminence in religious 
 life, as in everything else. Begin early, 
 because we want an instinctive and spon- 
 taneous Christianity. 
 
 May all the fresh life here, full of the 
 pride of youth, aspire after that Chris- 
 tianity which means the consecration and 
 perfection of human existence ! May such 
 religion become the passion, the glorious, 
 overmastering passion, of every soul !
 
 XXVII. 
 
 ENLARGEMENT OF LIFE. 
 LUKE xix. 
 
 I READ this parable a few weeks since 
 in conducting this service, wishing to 
 take from it the lesson which it gives us 
 of the varieties of human character and 
 human life. We will look now for the 
 other lesson which it teaches us, in the 
 enlargement of life, that the servants of 
 God, if they do their duty, shall enlarge 
 their lives from day to day, and indeed 
 forever. If there be any proper gospel 
 for the day, this is that gospel ; for, as 
 you will see in the connection, the parable 
 was pronounced by Jesus just a day or 
 two before Palm Sunday, as they were on 
 their way to Jerusalem. In fact, the pas- 
 sage begins when Luke says, " He added 
 and spake a parable to them, because he 
 was nigh to Jerusalem, and because they 
 supposed that the kingdom of God was 
 immediately to appear." 
 
 In
 
 enlargement of tlife, 219 
 
 In this parable and the corresponding 
 parable, the lesson of the enlargement of 
 life as the real recompense of duty is 
 spoken of in the most distinct way ; and 
 it is clear that each parable would have 
 been incomplete without this lesson of 
 the enlargement of life. The faithful ser- 
 vants are not rewarded in kind : they are 
 rewarded by promotion to a higher life. 
 These men who have been dealing with a 
 few paltry pounds or a few paltry talents 
 are rewarded by entering into the joy of 
 their lord and by the command of cities. 
 This man, who traded with a little money, 
 got profit on it and invested the profit, 
 traded with it again and invested that, 
 finds himself in a position where he is no 
 longer buying and selling, does not have 
 to watch the market, does not have to in- 
 vest his rent. He is now riding from one 
 city to the other : he is building up a pub- 
 lic library here, he is attending to the 
 drainage there, and is seeing to the better 
 administration. In all this work, he is 
 using the same moral faculties in virtue 
 of which his master has promoted him. 
 But he is not merely promoted from one 
 seat in his master's trading-house to a 
 
 higher
 
 220 
 
 higher seat in that trading-house : he is 
 lifted out of that trading-house, and is 
 promoted to be the master of five cities 
 or ten cities ; and he has entered into the 
 joy of his Lord. 
 
 This lesson, which in both of the para- 
 bles is the lesson of enlargement, shows 
 us, in this critical moment of Jesus' life, 
 how eager he is that we shall understand 
 what we are in this world for. It is the 
 enlargement of our lives. 
 
 You will hear a great deal of discussion 
 at the present time about what is the 
 character of the retribution which is to 
 follow life in this world. There is no 
 nobler or finer illustration of it, from one 
 end of the New Testament to the other, 
 than is given in these two parables. In 
 each of them, we see that the transfer 
 from this life to the other is a transfer 
 in which the same moral characteristics 
 go from one life to the other, so that life 
 is enlarged, so that one who trades with 
 a few pennies here is lifted up to the man- 
 agement of cities there. We understand 
 this all in our life here. You come to a 
 university. What do you come here for? 
 For the enlargement of your lives. You 
 
 go
 
 Enlargement of ilife, 221 
 
 go to the gymnasium. Why ? For the 
 enlargement of your physical strength. 
 You enter on the track, that he who can 
 run a mile jn seven minutes this week 
 may run a mile in six minutes next month, 
 and perhaps before six months are over 
 may run a mile in fifty or sixty seconds 
 less than six minutes. Precisely so the 
 opportunity of every lecture or recitation 
 is the enlargement of intellectual power. 
 The boy, who was obliged diligently and 
 with difficulty to work out a problem with 
 arithmetic, finds that by a simple process 
 he works it out with more success in alge- 
 bra, and then learns that there are higher 
 steps yet to come. And, as he passes up 
 into the various stages of the calculus, he 
 finds that these earlier processes are less 
 needful to him, as his larger intellectual 
 life enables him to use power and to work 
 out problems which he could not work out 
 before. 
 
 But such enlargement is not all. The 
 action and effort of his life come out upon 
 a larger plan. The life which Jesus spoke 
 of is on a higher level ; and, as I hope we 
 cannot try to show too often, it is a prom- 
 ise which is given to all sorts and condi- 
 tions
 
 222 
 
 tions of men. The promise is not simply 
 given to him who has the brilliant intel- 
 lect with which a Goethe might astonish 
 the world. It is not a promise given to 
 him who has the athletic power of a Sam- 
 son or somebody else, who can pull down 
 columns in the temple. It has nothing 
 to do with the mere physical or intel- 
 lectual power of the man concerned. It 
 is a promise that there shall be an en- 
 largement of spiritual or moral power. It 
 is a promise that the man shall see more 
 and more as God sees ; that he shall live 
 to God's glory more and more completely, 
 and shall be able to go about his Father's 
 business more and more as life goes on. 
 
 If you are inquiring with regard to this 
 matter of compensation or retribution, be 
 careful to shun that frequent suggestion 
 that God has put you into this world 
 as if he had put you into a court-room, 
 as if you were to be watched by this 
 detective and that, and at the end to be 
 tried whether you have done ill or not. 
 That analogy is misleading. The analogy 
 of a university is the true analogy. In 
 this world, you are in a school where you 
 are to be educated for life higher and 
 
 higher,
 
 enlargement of llife* 223 
 
 higher, just as it says in the parable, 
 so that he who has managed a few pounds 
 has ten cities. He who has here a little 
 hope, a little love, a little faith, is to be 
 so trained in this school or university, 
 which we call the World, that he shall 
 grow in hope, shall grow in faith, and 
 shall grow in love. 
 
 I meet with young gentlemen, members 
 of this university of Cambridge, who do 
 not understand why it is that God has 
 been pleased to give them such advan- 
 tages as he has given them. They have 
 only to go to the other end of Boston to 
 see lads of their own age who have not 
 equal advantages; and they ask, "What 
 is the fairness of a system, that we, so to 
 speak, are born in purple, while that poor 
 lad yonder is in the midst of destitution ?" 
 If God were going to measure us by our 
 athletic or our intellectual strength, this 
 question would be a fair one, and a very 
 difficult one to answer. But the lad in 
 the midst of the slums of Boston or the 
 gentlemen here, who have been born to 
 the highest opportunities, are alike in this 
 reality : that they have this moral sense, 
 this sense of the difference between right 
 
 and
 
 224 
 
 and wrong. That lad and this gentleman 
 here are alike to seek to grow in hope, 
 in faith, in love. 
 
 Well for us if we make use of the match- 
 less opportunities for intellectual training 
 that are given here. We are to use them, 
 so that, when they fail, as fail they must, 
 "the children of light shall receive us into 
 everlasting habitations." We are to have 
 a nearer sense of God. " Nearer to thee, 
 my God, nearer to thee," that is faith. 
 We are to have more faith. As each 
 year goes on, we are to be living, not for 
 time merely, but for that which transcends 
 time : we are to be living for eternity, 
 not living for the year 1888, not living 
 for the four years of a college existence, 
 not living for the threescore years a,nd ten 
 that may be given to a human being, but 
 living as those who can look beyond time 
 and enter into life with God. This is to 
 live in hope. 
 
 Greater than either of these, says Saint 
 Paul, is it to live in union, in harmony, in 
 co-operation, with all men, our brothers, 
 and with all women, our sisters, in this 
 world ; to accept the solidarity of the 
 human race, to bear our brothers' burdens, 
 
 to
 
 (Enlargement of tlife, 225 
 
 to teach and be taught, to lend and bor- 
 row, to lead and be led, to go forward as 
 one great company of God's children in 
 the great commonwealth of Christ. So 
 much better this than for a man to say, 
 " For myself I will live, and for myself I 
 will die." To live thus, knit in with the 
 whole body of mankind, this is what 
 those Gospels mean when they speak of 
 living in love. Love, as Paul tells us, is 
 the greatest of the three elements of life. 
 It is these three realities of life with God, 
 life in eternity, life with our brothers and 
 sisters of the world, these realities which 
 are named faith and hope and love, it is 
 these which are the infinite elements of 
 our lives. And we in this university or the 
 boy doing his duty in the slums yonder 
 are at one in the work that we may en- 
 large our faith, enlarge our hope, that we 
 may enlarge our love. That we may so 
 enlarge our lives is our steadfast prayer 
 to the Father of us all.
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 THE MASTER'S GUEST-CHAMBER. 
 MARK xiv. 1-17. 
 
 THAT, too, was Thursday evening. 
 A great multitude, whom no man 
 can number, account this the sacred week 
 of the year, and its hours more serious 
 and more impressive than any others. 
 Many men of varying beliefs and varying 
 habits will to-morrow bow at the cross of 
 Christ with penitent, loving hearts. On 
 Sunday, the world over, the air will be 
 filled with Easter carols, and hearts with 
 Easter blessings. In every . place where 
 the name of Christ is known there will be 
 gladness. 
 
 On this Thursday our Lord sent two of 
 his disciples before him into Jerusalem, as 
 we have read, because he desired to keep 
 with them the Passover, the memorial feast 
 which he had kept from his boyhood. He 
 told them that they should find a man 
 
 bearing
 
 SEtie Raster's? 0uesfccl)amber. 227 
 
 bearing a pitcher of water. Him they 
 should follow ; and they should say to the 
 good man of the house, The master says, 
 " Where is my guest-chamber, where I 
 shall eat the Passover with my disciples ? " 
 One of the best things that the revisers of 
 the New Testament have done for us is to 
 change some of the smaller words. They 
 have taught us that Jesus said, " Where 
 is my guest-chamber ? " not yours, not 
 another man's, not the room for all the 
 travellers who come to Jerusalem at this 
 season, but, Where is my room at this 
 house ? And the man shall show you a 
 large upper room furnished and ready : 
 there prepare the Passover. Through all 
 the centuries since a great procession, 
 never broken, has gone up those outer 
 stairs, and come down richer and stronger 
 for the hour they have spent with him. 
 This is history for us all. This is experi- 
 ence for all who love him and trust him. 
 
 Yet he has not always been so fortunate 
 as he was on that day. He never found 
 room for himself before. When they came 
 to Bethlehem, there was no room for his 
 father and mother in the inn. Then, after 
 a few days, Herod thought to push him 
 
 from
 
 228 
 
 from the world that would be overcrowded 
 with more than one king. When he came 
 to Nazareth and began to talk with his 
 neighbors and friends, they drove him to 
 the brow of the hill on which the city was 
 built, and would have thrust him down 
 headlong. Nazareth was too small for 
 him. When he went to Jerusalem, Pilate 
 drove him beyond the city wall, lifted him 
 on the cross, and bade him vanish from a 
 world which "had no room for him. In 
 the pathetic sentence of the gospel, " He 
 came unto his own, and his own received 
 him not." Once he walked from the shore 
 out upon the sea, and found room there ; 
 and once, from the top of the mountains, 
 he ascended into the upper air, and found 
 room there. But from tire beginning to 
 the end, with rare exceptions, there was 
 no room for him. It is better to-day. 
 The finest buildings in the world are his. 
 The finest music in the world sings his 
 praises. The finest paintings in the world 
 represent him. Civilization dates every- 
 thing from the night when he was born. 
 He is the centre of history, the centre of 
 light ; and in almost every college in the 
 world he has made himself a place. If he 
 
 could
 
 SClje paster's (Sues^cljambrr, 229 
 
 could be contented with a large homage, 
 with reverence, with worship, he might 
 well be satisfied. Yet, with importunity 
 that was never more pressing, he is still 
 knocking at the door with the old ques- 
 tion, " Where is my guest-chamber ? " 
 
 It is the sad truth that the greater part 
 of the world has not heard his name. It 
 is, perhaps, even a sadder truth that many 
 who have heard his name have been in- 
 different to his approach. The world is 
 not hostile to Christ. I wish it were. 
 Hostility means life. Men are indiffer- 
 ent, and that is worse than opposition. 
 We can sail the seas in a storm ; but what 
 can we do in a fog ? The world is pre- 
 occupied. Our time is all taken up. We 
 are very busy. Our engagements are 
 made, our life is invested. There seems 
 little place to admit him, to admit any 
 one who craves not merely entrance, but 
 the large upper room. He has never less- 
 ened that demand, the large room, the 
 upper room. The large room may be the 
 palace hall or a narrow cell. The upper 
 room may be one whose windows open 
 toward Jerusalem or a dungeon in the 
 ground. It is the largest we have, the 
 
 largest
 
 230 
 
 largest and the highest room, where he 
 may find his guest-chamber. 
 
 Brethren, we ask ourselves perhaps to- 
 night, Why is it that he needs so much ? 
 The answer is simply this, Because he is 
 so much. The Lord, the King, the Re- 
 deemer, the Saviour of men, he needs a 
 great deal of room, room enough to walk 
 in, room enough to work in, room enough 
 to live in. He who fills the spaces around 
 us needs the largest room that we have. 
 
 Then think what he brings with him ! 
 He brings with him that cross on which 
 the world has been redeemed : the cross 
 needs much room. He brings in the 
 throne, that he may assert his authority 
 over us ; and it is a very large throne. 
 "Thou shalt love the Lord with all thy 
 heart and with all thy soul and with all 
 thy strength." When we think of the 
 gifts which he brings, robbing heaven to 
 enrich us, we find that it needs not a 
 spare day or a spare hour or a spare place : 
 it needs more room than we have to hold 
 the gifts. And, when he would come 
 with that spirit which needs to breathe 
 itself into our hearts and lives, it is clear 
 that no walls are broad enough, no roof 
 
 hi<2fh
 
 SDfjc Raster's (Sucsfcctjamber. 231 
 
 high enough, to confine what would bless 
 us in the fulness of its boundless pres- 
 ence. He comes to teach, to strengthen, 
 to comfort, to inspire, not some section of 
 our life or some portion of our time, but 
 the large upper room. If you will, recall 
 for a moment what our Lord did in this 
 upper room in Jerusalem, when it had 
 been thrown open to him. Over his words, 
 reverent hearts are still lingering. The 
 highest prayers which are offered under 
 the sun are prayers for the things which 
 he promised to men in that large upper 
 room. There he taught the lesson of 
 service, washing the disciples' feet, and 
 instructing them that the law of life is 
 not to be ministered unto, but to minis- 
 ter; to give to others, that sublime law 
 toward which faintly and inconstantly we 
 are struggling. Did he not spread his 
 table before them, and give them divine 
 food and drink ? Did he not teach them 
 that in his Father's house are many man- 
 sions, and that he would prepare a place 
 for them, and come again, and receive 
 them to himself ? Did he not teach them 
 that he was the vine, and that he would 
 impart life to every one who came to him 
 
 and
 
 232 
 
 and clung to him ? Did he not leave it as 
 his prayer that they all might be one ; 
 that, out of this discord of our lives, we 
 might be one in him and his Father ? 
 Did he not breathe on them the benedic- 
 tion of his own peace ? Surely, these are 
 the blessings which we need this day. 
 
 O brethren, let us give it, not some 
 spare room for which we have no use, not 
 some Sunday afternoon which is not en- 
 gaged, not some year when the work of 
 life is over, but the year of thought, of 
 strength, of purpose, the large upper 
 room for the large upper Lord who comes 
 bearing all his blessings with him. 
 
 How, as we close this service for this 
 year, can we do it better than to hear that 
 question, which he is certainly asking us 
 to-night, asking us in whose heart he has 
 gained admission, pressing his way into 
 something larger than he has found ? Can 
 we do better than to hear the question, 
 "Where is my guest-chamber?" O man, 
 where is the guest-chamber in your life? 
 Blessed are we on this day, if we open 
 unto him the large room, and keep with 
 him the Passover that is the earnest of an 
 everlasting rejoicing. God give to us,- as 
 
 we
 
 SCfje Raster's <Sue0t*l)amber 233 
 
 we separate and go our ways, God give 
 to us this grace, to receive Him whom he 
 has sent into the world to be to us the 
 Truth and the Life !
 
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