IvIBRARY 
 
 OF TIIK 
 
 University of California. 
 
 Mrs. SARAH P. WAISWORTH. 
 
 Received October, 1894. 
 Accessions No. Sls'^^U'- Class No. 
 
 
 
 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2008 with funding from 
 
 IVIicrosoft Corporation 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/christinchristiaOOhuntrich 
 
CHRIST IN THE CHRISTlAxN YEAR 
 
 THE LIFE OF MAN 
 
 SERMONS FOR LAYMEN'S READING 
 
 (ADVENT TO TBINITT) 
 
 Rt. Rev. F. D. HUNTINGTON, D.D. ^ 
 
 BISHOP OF CBNTBAIi NEW TOEK 
 
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 E. P. BUTTON AND COMPANY 
 
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 I This volume owes its existence to a letter received by the author, 
 some months ago, from a presbyter in one of our western dioceses 
 highly esteemed in the Church at large and of wide experience in its 
 service. He believes that there is still need of printed sermons to be 
 read in churches, and gives some reasons why the present publica- 
 tion should be made. Although it would not have been undertaken 
 but for his advice and request, he is in no manner responsible for 
 what the book contains. 
 
 This suggestion having been- .adopted, it became necessary to 
 accept whatever limitations it imposed both as to matter and method. 
 Preferences which otherwise might be reasonably indulged, as re- 
 spects topics and their treatment, lines of abstract thought and 
 completeness of discussion, must to some extent be sacrificed. The 
 frequent appearance of italics, a blemish on the pages to the eye of 
 taste, is to be accounted for in the same way. It was also thought 
 that to most readers certain obvious aspects and explanations of the 
 principal Church-seasons might be supposed to be already suflSciently 
 lamiliar. 
 
 Let it be stated as according to the author's general conception of 
 preaching that the aim in each individual discourse should be rather 
 to give a sense of reality, in the particular truth there presented, than 
 to exhaust subjects; to create in the hearers as vivid and abiding an 
 impression as may be of some distinct department of Christian doc- 
 trine or duty, comprehending only such relations of idea and fact as 
 seem most suitable to that end. Several important topics, pertaining 
 to the domain of Church-instruction, are reserved for another volume. 
 
 The author ought frankly to add that in allowing these sermons, 
 many of which were written for a parochial ministry, to go to pres*, 
 he could not bring himself to consider merely their use in lay read- 
 ing. He would modestly hope that some of them, while help 
 
IV 
 
 ing a soul here and there to live heartily for God, may also at 
 least indicate a belief that the men of this country and this time, 
 especially if somewhat thoughtful and right-hearted, are to find a 
 solution of many theological and speculative difficulties by subor- 
 dinating everything else in Christian teaching to the fact of the 
 Incarnation of our Lord, Son of Grod and Son of Man, and to the 
 power of His person as the Giver of life, the only true and eternal 
 life, through the divine channels of His grace, to mankind. The 
 best promises of the thinking and working world appear to encour- 
 age this anticipation. May it not be expected that, as this profound 
 and inspiring verity takes its due place, many doubts arising in the 
 spheres of physical science and metaphysical philosophy will dis- 
 appear, not by a process of dialectics or controversy but by a fair 
 construction of that Word which is ** the Word of life" just because 
 it has for its substance Him who is the living and everlasting "Word 
 made flesh" and "dwelling among us"? 
 
 It would seem to follow naturally in the line of this view that the 
 higher rather than the lower range of motives is to be addressed 
 by the pulpit, in appeals for faith and obedience, for manliness and 
 godliness. Had there been in the homiletics and general religious 
 literature of the last two hundred years a more distinct and rugged 
 realism, a more visible relation between the supernatural elements of 
 revelation and the production of character in Christian people, and 
 had piety been represented rather as spiritual health in the entire 
 man than as a special and somewhat exceptional not to say abnor- 
 mal sentiment, the scepticism of the "common- sense" school in 
 England with the humanitarian and literary rationalism of Germany, 
 France, and the United States would have had less plausibility and 
 been less destructive. 
 
 F. D. H. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 11 
 
 29 
 
 41 
 Man. 
 
 55 
 
 FAGB 
 
 Advent Stjot)ay, 1 
 
 Christ's First Coming. 
 
 Second Sunday in Advent, 
 Christ's Second Coming. 
 
 Third Sunday in Advent, . . . . 
 Christ in Judgment. 
 
 FouKTii Sunday after Advent, . 
 
 The Highteousness of God, and Uprightness in 
 
 Chkistmas-Day, . . . 
 The Man Christ Jesus. 
 
 Sunday after Christmas, .... 
 Faith Outliving its Special Occasions. 
 
 Second Sunday afier Christmas, 
 
 E"ew and Old. — Beginning of the Year. 
 
 First Sunday after Epiphany, . 
 The Epiphany Goodness. 
 
 Second Sunday after Epiphany, 
 
 The Soul Sought by Christ and Seeking Him 
 
 Third Sunday after Epiphany, . 
 
 The Law of Christian Enlargement. 
 
 Fourth Sunday after Epiphany, 
 The Saviour in the Ship. 
 
 66 
 73 
 83 
 94 
 105 
 117 
 
VI CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Fifth Sunday after Epiphany, .... 128 
 Two and Two before His Face. 
 
 Sixth Sunday after Epiphany, .... 141 
 Instant Obedience. 
 
 Septuagesima Sunday, , 152 
 
 The Foremost Desire. 
 
 Sexagesima Sunday, 164 
 
 Sons and Daughters in the Family of Christ. 
 
 QUINQUAGESIMA SuNDAY, 175 
 
 One Weak Spot. 
 
 Ash- Wednesday, 186 
 
 The Yoke and Burden ah-eady Easy and Light. 
 
 First Sunday in Lent, 196 
 
 The Throng and the Touch. 
 
 Second Sunday in Lent, 207 
 
 Supplication the Church's Power. 
 
 Third Sunday in Lent, 219 
 
 Purity and its Safeguards. 
 
 Fourth Sunday in Lent, . . . ^ . 232 
 Strength out of Weakness. 
 
 Fifth Sunday in Lent, 243 
 
 A Heavenly Mind Here. 
 
 Palm Sunday, or Sunday before Easter, . . 255 
 Spiritual Waste and Wealth. 
 
 Good Friday, 265 
 
 The Water and the Blood. 
 
 Easter-Day, 280 
 
 Tlie Power of the Hesurrection. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Vll 
 
 First Sunday after Easter, . 
 How the Kisen Christ is Seen. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 . 293 
 
 Second Sunday after Easter, . 
 What is Heaven ? 
 
 . 307 
 
 Third Sunday after Easter, 
 
 Why there will be no more Sea. 
 
 . 320 
 
 Fourth Sunday after Easter, . 
 Alone at Athens. 
 
 . 335 
 
 Fifth Sunday after Easter, 
 
 The Human Society in the City of God. 
 
 . 350 
 
 Ascension-Day, ...... 
 
 The Heavens 023ened. 
 
 . 362 
 
 Sunday after Ascension, .... 
 Unprofitable Gazing. 
 
 . 372 
 
 Whcts UN-Day, 
 
 Leadings of the Holy Spirit. 
 
 . 384: 
 
[Uiri7BIlSIT7l 
 
 CHEIST'S FIEST COMING. 
 
 Advent Sunday, 
 
 " The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld 
 His glory."— >S^. John i. 14. 
 
 By a People numbering nearly four millions of souls 
 there is a celebration to-day of the coming into this 
 world of the greatest and best of all the Sons of men. 
 What is wonderful, if we judge in the way the world 
 has been apt to judge of men these thousands of years, 
 is that He is the greatest hecause He is the best. Under 
 that order of ideas which ruled till He came, still hold- 
 ing its own in vast dull communities where He is un- 
 known or unwelcomed, and each trying to maintain 
 itself within the bounds of His nominal empire, the 
 greatest men have been soldiers who conquered and 
 killed their kind ; princes of fortune who bought, hired, 
 and bribed men ; or, in social states a little higher, stu- 
 dents and thinkers who led and entertained them by 
 knowledge or speech. That is, power and command 
 and hence commemoration belonged to certain men by 
 virtue of what they had^ not by what they were, Now 
 came a new order, bringing new estimates of human 
 welfare, new aims for human life, new foundations for 
 strong states and grand institutions, a new law and 
 impulse for civilization ; in a word, a new standard by 
 which to measure and test what is really noblest and 
 
2 CHRIST S FIKST COMING. 
 
 most glorious for man — man the individual, man in the 
 family, man in the nation; yes, for humanity itself. 
 Thenceforth the greatness of any man was to be reck- 
 oned not by what he has, but by what he is. Character 
 was to be king. 
 
 No revolution could be so radical, so wide, so prolific 
 of real results as this. It goes to the roots of life, and 
 sooner or later everything on earth must be touched by 
 it. Why? Because the life of man and the life of 
 God were to be brought together, and made one. 
 Hitherto, even by the nation that knew most of Him, 
 God was thought of, worshipped, obeyed, as living 
 apart from the world ; over it, to be sure, exalted above 
 it, but separate from it. Looking through the Old Tes- 
 tament we do not often find God spoken of as entering 
 into the heart of His child, dwelling in man's soul, or 
 as making even the holiest of His saints or the purest 
 of His prophets a "partaker of the divine nature." 
 Yet it must be just that, and only that, which could 
 create in a man the highest conceivable or possible good- 
 ness; because God is the Good One, and His life the 
 only perfect life. If humanity could only receive that 
 divine life into it, be quickened, enlarged, transfigured 
 by it, share its eternal vigor and beauty, that would be 
 indeed its "new creation." How could this be? It 
 would be, if a man, still remaining man, a child " born 
 of a woman," should be also, by some life-giving mys- 
 tery not unlike that of the first creation, a partaker of 
 the life of God, — be divine, one with the Father. 
 Through Him the vital heavenly goodness enters into 
 mankind. Through His heart, as its channel, its organ, 
 its " living way," God's life pours itself into all the sons 
 of men that will receive it by this Son of Man. We 
 shall have only to be united with Christ, the human 
 
3 
 
 Brother, spiritually, inwardly, to be united also at once 
 with God ; for God is in Him ; and we are joined to 
 the whole Christ. That is possible for all men that live. 
 
 And now this coming in flesh is what has taken place. 
 It is the Advent-fact. Is it strange that four hundred 
 millions of people remember it to-day, and rejoice in it, 
 with chants and hymns, with Eucharist and spiritual 
 communion ? It is the regeneration of our race. There 
 is a new creation. There is a second Adam. " The first 
 man Adam," says St. Paul, " was made a living soul " ; 
 but the soul was a natural soul, and the life was nature's 
 life, limited, with seeds of imperfection and death in it. 
 The Greeks called it psyche, and St. Paul uses their 
 word. ** The last Adam was made a quickening spirit." 
 By Him life, life imperishable, everlasting, is given to 
 those w^ho want to live, and do not want to die. " As 
 in Adam all die," or live a dying life, " so in Christ shall 
 all be made alive," or live directly, spiritually, from 
 God. This is the Incarnation. Read the first chapter 
 of St. John. We get only a partial notion of the coming 
 of Christ when we think of Him as coming, as other 
 historical persons have come, from without, or even from 
 above, in the ordinary sense of " above." He " comes 
 forth" from God, and God comes forth in Him, to 
 receive willing, believing, obedient men into Himself. 
 We ourselves are new-born in Him, and live forever, — 
 live a divine life, sons and daughters of the Lord Al- 
 mighty. "Whosoever will," may. 
 
 JS'o matter what the enterprise, skill, wit, energy, 
 combinations, or bravery of men may do, there is nothing 
 to be done, or remembered, like this. All other comings 
 and goings in history must turn around this, make room 
 for this, look up to this. The kingship of character is 
 enthroned. A Christian immortality is constituted. 
 
We are enabled to live the highest life. Heaven begins 
 on earth. The Word is made flesh and dwells among 
 us. God and man are at one. 
 
 The face of society was changed because its heart was 
 changed. Instead of wearing any longer a look of hate 
 and greed and cruelty, there came flashing and glow^ing 
 into its expression the look of love, purity, mercy. This 
 was the Advent-light. The world silently began to be 
 another world. And the Power set working to bring 
 this change about made it unlike all other revolutions. 
 It wrought without violence, noise, ambition, or parade, 
 " not with observation." It went on not by destruction, 
 but construction ; not tearing down, but building up. 
 When the sword was drawn it was because human hands 
 were used, and the obstinacy of the old system would let 
 a path be made for the new in no other way. Generally 
 it moved in among the kingdoms of this world according 
 to the great anthem that announced it when it was born, 
 peacefully seeking glory for God by good- will to men, — 
 spreading as morning is spread upon the mountains, as a 
 harmony spreads through the spaces and arches of a 
 sanctuary. Hence, inasmuch as it must take an organic 
 form, after its Living Head, and be a kingdom, it was 
 called a Kingdom of Life. Life was a great word wuth it. 
 Its founder was the life-giver. " I am come," He said, 
 " that they might have life, and might have it more abun- 
 dantly." The change was first in the seats of life, within, 
 — coming gradually out into doings or fruit, as the way 
 of life is, — from a hidden seed to root, germ, blade, and 
 ear ; into common labor, elevating it ; into homes, puri- 
 fying them by honoring woman and consecrating child- 
 hood; into commerce, hallowing it by the spirit of 
 integrity ; into education, making the training of con- 
 science and faith, our loftiest capacities, the crown of all 
 
other culture ; into worship, directing it to the One God, 
 worshipped in spirit and in truth. 
 
 We know precisely when this new Age, regenerating 
 humanity, came visibly in. The Divine Power did not 
 come as an idea, or a book, or a system, or a code of 
 laws, or a bundle of maxims. Great and good things 
 have come in all these shapes. But the Life of life came 
 in a man, born as a child, growing as a youth, living as 
 other men live. It was not, then, Christianity that 
 renewed the race, it was Christ ; not abstract Truth, but 
 a Personal Force, " made flesh." ISTor did He come to 
 disappear, but to remain. We Christians are not a 
 backward-looking people. His Church holds Him fast, 
 clinging to Him by her faith, and keeping His presence 
 fresh by commemorative ordinances, and by Christ-like 
 work. Is it not clear what our Advent-observance ought 
 to be? 
 
 True enough, too true, the new Life was not kept 
 pure. What river of Truth running through the world 
 ever was ? The Giver or His Apostles never promised 
 such a miracle. The old selfish kingdom crept back and 
 crowded into the Church. The promise was that tlie 
 Life, however perverted, should never be lost. It never 
 was. Again and again, when most in peril, it has reas- 
 serted its original healing power. It is slow work, but 
 it goes on. So every year, besides the millions who 
 praise the Lord that has come, millions more who do not 
 acknowledge Him are glad to live in the Christendom He 
 has created. There is a believing modern science, and 
 a believing modern literature. What is to be said of a 
 science and a literature which undertake to discredit the 
 Author of the age which makes their existence possible ? 
 
 But this is not all. Men have another kind of want. 
 Without the Life of God in them they become conscious 
 
Q CHKIST S FIRST COMING. 
 
 of their poverty and peril. Bad men know that they 
 are bad. A sense of guilt wakes up and torments them. 
 At least it haunts their dreams. The kingdom of 
 Christ's righteousness stands before them, witnessing 
 against them. The Life of God in the Son of Man judges 
 them. They feel it around them, though not within 
 them. They know what its holy fruits are, and that 
 they ought to be bringing them forth, and are not. 
 Through frivolous employments and dissipated nights 
 the irreligious youth, the flighty, prayerless woman, carry 
 with them a feeling, partly smothered, partly drugged, 
 but never dead, — a feeling that springs up again, comes 
 back, wakes in the night, seizes them when they are 
 alone, making them confess secretly that they are not 
 right, not safe, not friends with God ; and yet God is 
 Almighty. What will the end be ? They are afraid to 
 look at themselves honestly. Perhaps they despise them- 
 selves and the hollow life they are living. They wish 
 they were out of it. The sense of sin that pours its con- 
 fession in the fifty-first Psalm, and cries out in the pub- 
 lican's prayer, is stirred in them*. Had Christ not come, 
 that saving discontent might have slumbered still. In 
 heathendom they might have been content. Jesus said, 
 "If I had not done among them the works which none 
 other man did, they had not had sin." The unjust, un- 
 clean rich man looks round him on his broad estate, and 
 it does not satisfy. It shrinks, as he looks at some poor 
 brave neighbor filled with the life of Christ. A shadow 
 falls across all the comfort and splendor. It falls from 
 a dark spot within him. His experiment at living with- 
 out God is failing, and he is aware of it. What is it all 
 for ? It occurs to him that the cofiin will be as indis- 
 pensable an article in the furniture of his house as any. 
 What then ? Will that be really the end ? Christ's 
 
coming sunders the world of men into two sorts, right 
 and left. So, by thousands, men are revealed to them- 
 selves as sinful, — if left to themselves lost. How shall 
 they find peace, how be forgiven, how know that they 
 have God reconciled for their Friend ? That question, 
 too, Christ comes to answer. IS"o other ever did, — no nat- 
 uralist, no moralist, no positive philosopher. Then it 
 appears that Christ came not only to live, and to give 
 life by living, but to die, and give life to men dead in 
 sin, by dying. He suffers. He bears the cross. Mys- 
 teriously but with a certainty that grasps and holds the 
 conviction of the believers of every age and land, that 
 suffering and that cross disclose the worth of a soul's life 
 so redeemed. The Divine Life is Love, a Love that is 
 willing to give a mortal life for undeserving, disobedient 
 brother-men. Law is not loosened ; it stands. The 
 eternal contradiction between right and wrong is not 
 confused. But in faith the penitent feels the love, and 
 lives. This is atonement. Christ comes to put away sins 
 by the sacrifice of Himself. 
 
 "We have infirmities which are not sins. In ways 
 partly known and partly unknown they may be fruits of 
 disobedience ; but they are not distributed among persons 
 in proportion to their deserving. Still, they are a part 
 of moral discipline. At its very best, this life is " com- 
 passed" with them. To the last the little ship sails 
 heavily freighted with sorrows. Of how many kinds 
 these sorrows are ! And then death separates us. The 
 good die young. The saints cease from their beneficent 
 service. The prophets do not live forever. Can we 
 bear it ? In imagination — thank God not otherwise — we 
 can put ourselves out into that bleak desert, a Christless 
 world. We ayk there, and then ask here, will these 
 graves ever open ? Shall I see the face of my mother, 
 
8 chkist's fiest coming. 
 
 my child, my friend, whose spirit was rich in the gifts 
 and graces of God 1 See it in an eternity of blessed, 
 unbroken, undivided life ? I know that I shall. Jesus 
 Christ has come, has died, has risen from the dead. 
 Because He lives. His follower, one with Him, shall live 
 also. The resurrection is not only His. It is the res- 
 urrection of every believer on earth. The life-power is 
 common to both. It is within the Christian heart. 
 When the undying Christ liveth in us, we can never 
 die. Be His, and you are already immortal, mortality 
 being swallowed up of life. Tlie glorious expectation 
 enlarges itself. In the day of His appearing you shall 
 appear, and with Him. " We know not what we shall 
 be, but we know that we shall be like Him." We know 
 that none of us need die eternally. Countless house- 
 holds in every Christian country, knowing what it is to 
 mourn for the dead, awake this morning to worship a 
 risen Redeemer, and to realize the strength of the 
 beatitude, " Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall 
 be comforted." Let it come close to your bereavement. 
 " Thy brother shall rise again." You say, " Obscurity 
 overhangs the future state." Obscurity perhaps, but 
 not uncertainty. It is of the first Coming that we are 
 the children now, not of the second. Eye hath not seen 
 the place, the mode, the scenery, the employments. All 
 in due time; all in order. "We shall see as we are 
 seen ; know as we are known." Jesus Christ has come 
 for this, — a Helper of infirmities, holding us in the hand 
 of His most sure promise, till the day break and the 
 shadows flee away. We have seen the three-fold 
 character and power of Advent. It brings the life 
 of God into humanity ; forgiveness of sin and peace to 
 every faithful heart ; boundless and endless comfort to 
 sorrow, even though it be the sorrow of death. 
 
Christ's first coming. 9 
 
 The drawback with all stated and repeated observ- 
 ances is that we keep them outwardly, not inwardly. 
 We say over the religious words; we go through the 
 decent forms ; perhaps we think the appropriate religious 
 thoughts. "Advent! Oh, yes; it is good to keep 
 Ad\^ent. It is well that Christ came " : — and we go 
 away with almost as little love of Him, almost as much 
 of the old sellishness, pride, passion, which He died to 
 deliver us from, as before ; almost as much uncharitable- 
 ness or insincerity dropping from our lips; to renew to- 
 morrow the poor life of getting, hoarding, competing, 
 being amused, eating, drinking, dressing, as if these 
 things were ends, — " without God." 
 
 What is it really to Iceejp an Advent-season ? The re- 
 ligious repetition will not give us the Christ, whether as 
 the Renewer of the world's life, or the Pardoner of sin, 
 or the Conqueror of death. The worth of the observ- 
 ance is only that it helps us to a deeper, inner union 
 with our Lord, and likeness to Him. Words are not 
 saviours. Is this social state we live in such as Christ 
 came to frame? Is its spirit His? Are its fashions 
 moulded by the principles of His righteousness? Your 
 daily business, — is it a Christian service ? Your family 
 manners and conversation, — are they such that if Christ 
 were to make His advent there. He would find Himself 
 at home in your house ? Your hidden life, that secret 
 world within you which no housemate, neighbor, friend, 
 ever sees, the " inner man," — is it renewed day by day 
 so as, more and more brightly, to reflect His image? 
 
 It is remarkable that, while the Scriptures for Advent- 
 Sunday are greatly concerned with the august events to 
 which they point, we find in them searching directions 
 for our present, e very-day conduct ; rebukes for common 
 sins; familiar dangers mentioned by name. Examine 
 
10 Christ's first coming. 
 
 tlie "Epistle " especially. What does it signify ? This, 
 without a doubt: that our true preparation for our 
 Lord's approach is holy living. Mark the ascending 
 scale. Debts are to be paid. Elementary command- 
 ments are to be re-studied down to their roots. The new 
 Christian, year is to be the beginning of a new period of 
 spiritual life ; the young are to strike into a new line of 
 Christian action ; all are to set up higher standards of 
 Christian, honor ; '^ the night is far spent " ; a " day " of 
 unprecedented splendor, lighting us on to unprecedented 
 labors, is mounting into the sky. And when all duties, 
 with their loftiest motives, are to be comprehended in a 
 single precept, it can be no other than this: "Put ye 
 on the Lord Jesus Christ." 
 
CHKIST'S SECOND COMI]S"a 
 
 Second Sunday in Advent. 
 
 " Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, He is in the desert ; 
 go not forth: behold He is in the secret chambers, believe it not. 
 For as the lightning com^th out of the east, and shineth even unto 
 the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be." — Matt, 
 xxiv. 26, 27. 
 
 I SHALL assume that there is some interest on your part, 
 and at the same time some uncertainty, as to what the 
 Scripture teaching of the future coming of the Son of 
 Man really is. Both have always been found to exist 
 among Christians, though the interest of the question has 
 been much livelier and more general at some particular 
 periods of the Church than others, being generally strong- 
 est in times of great social disturbance and danger, like 
 the several epochs of persecution under the Roman em- 
 perors, the first uprising of modern liberty in conflict with 
 European despotism, the struggles between the people 
 and the crown in England, involving the integrity of the 
 national Church, in the middle and latter part of the 
 seventeenth century, and again in the great social and 
 political agitations of our own day. Such intensely 
 wrought states of the public mind naturally direct the 
 attention forward to the final issue, giving activity and 
 acuteness to the sense of future change, somewhat as the 
 jar of the atmosphere by travel on the highway, or the 
 jostle of machinery, is said to quicken in deaf persons 
 
12 Christ's second coming. 
 
 the sense of hearing. But there never was a time when 
 the true followers of Christ were indifferent to His prom- 
 ise of meeting them face to face, and receiving them into 
 a wider fellowship and an everlasting kingdom. 
 
 There are some real difficulties, we ought candidly 
 to acknowledge, in discovering how much the inspired 
 writings were intended to reveal. Hence we shall lay it 
 down at the outset, and remember it all along, that there 
 are two provinces to he kept entirely distinct. One is 
 the province of what the Scriptures plainly and undoubt- 
 edly declare, as by all Christians to be believed, and as 
 being in some way necessary to a complete life and god- 
 liness. The other province includes much matter less 
 essential, matter of inference and construction less vitally 
 related to the edifying of the soul and its salvation, 
 where room is given for a lawful difference of interpre- 
 tation, and for variety of opinion. Even here we all 
 have the duty of investigation, and the responsibility of 
 it; truth is never a matter of indifference; every topic 
 that the Bible touches deserves a reverent regard. Yet 
 the dividing line is one that ought to be respected, and 
 in relation to few subjects more than this one. Revela- 
 tion tells us with wonderful clearness what all men ought 
 to believe and ought to do. The disclosure to us of 
 necessary doctrine and duty, if not obvious at first sight 
 in every part, can be understood on a very reasonable 
 amount of pains, even by unlettered and common minds, 
 if the attempt is lighted up by that inward illumination 
 of the Holy Spirit which shines on our darkness in 
 answer to prayer. But round about this region of posi- 
 tive teaching, resting on absolute authority, there lies 
 another region, still scriptural, of intimation and sugges- 
 tion, of allusion and probability, of things half unveiled, 
 prospects dimly disclosed and intended so to stand till 
 
13 
 
 we are lifted into loftier places and broader light, perhaps 
 till we have " open vision for the written word." These 
 shadows and half-lights of Kevelation, these things seen 
 as through a glass darkly, have their divine uses and even 
 their peculiar glories in the exercise of our patience, the 
 feeding of simple faith, and the discipline of humility. 
 The mischief is that curiosity and audacity are often 
 tempted to take what belongs to this matter of religious 
 suggestion and throw it over into the province of dog- 
 matic assertion, requiring to be received as religious 
 fact, and perhaps with some defined theory of the fact, 
 what God meant us to behold only with wonder, trust, 
 and hope. The mischief is manifold. It intermixes 
 mortal mistakes with God's unadulterated truth. It 
 colors the uncolored beam of Heaven. It repels candid 
 inquiries by a tone of arbitrary presumption. Worse 
 than all, it draws the soul aside from her direct and 
 practical work, of doing her Lord's will, into a thousand 
 very tempting and seductive, but wholly irrelevant, lines 
 of thought, quite foreign from the building of men up 
 in righteousness, in love, and in holy obedience. 
 
 St. Matthew tells us that a short time before the 
 Saviour's suffering and departure from the world, as He 
 went out of the temple at Jerusalem for nearly or quite 
 the last time. His disciples called his attention to the 
 grandeur and durability of the structure. He simply 
 amazed and alarmed them at the moment by informing 
 them that a destruction was awaiting the building so 
 violent and complete that not one stone would be left upon 
 another. The topic was not pursued at the time in so 
 public a place. But a little later in the day, on their 
 evening walk to Bethany, as they sat down privately on 
 the Mount of Olives, and, looking westward, saw those 
 superb towers of marble and gold standing firm against 
 
14 
 
 the twiliglit sky, where the fading sunshine must have 
 appeared to them like a sad symbol of that declining and 
 vanishing national enthusiasm which for centuries had 
 kindled the hearts of their ancestors toward that hal- 
 lowed spot, they renewed the conversation, begging their 
 Master to tell them when this startling prediction should 
 be accomplished, and what signs they might expect 
 beforehand of the great catastrophe. ITor was this all. 
 Mark what else they included in their inquiry. They 
 said : " What shall be the sign of Thy coming^ and of the 
 end of the world f'^'^ which seems to show that they 
 associated together the sacking of the Holy City with 
 the final crash of the whole terrestrial order, either 
 regarding the local ruin as to be simultaneous with the 
 general dissolution, or else as somehow leading on or 
 pointing to it. This opened the whole subject, and 
 Jesus proceeded with that august prediction which the 
 Evangelists have recorded, where every word is weighty 
 with the solemnity of the judgment. 
 
 N^ow, without a minute scrutiny here of each phrase 
 in detail, but embracing in the same view with the 
 entire passage all the other teachings of Christ and His 
 several Apostles on the subject, — which are certainly 
 capable of being reduced into entire harmony with each 
 other, — we may reach, and put down before us, as it 
 appears to me, a few satisfactory statements, or doctrines 
 if you choose, which pretty much exhaust what we have 
 just referred to as the plainly revealed and therefore 
 essential truth in the whole matter. And this we get 
 at, remember, not by an attempt to make out a foregone 
 conclusion, or to square Scripture to any favorite view, 
 but simply by bringing all the pertinent passages to- 
 gether, placing them side by side, observing their several 
 connections, ascertaining the meaning of the original 
 
15 
 
 as well as the translated terms, ""and declaring the 
 result. 
 
 1. First, then, both Christ and His Apostles speak 
 repeatedly of a second coming of the Son of Man, in 
 such a sense as forbids us to confound the second with 
 the first. The two are put entirely apart in time, though 
 they are internally and morally connected with each 
 other; the one preparing the way for the other, and each 
 being in fact fragmentary and unintelligible without the 
 other. The one coming, however, as a historical fact, 
 is past, — having given birth to a new age, the Gospel 
 and the Church ; the other is yet to be. They are re- 
 spectively the beginning and the end, in time, of one 
 design, the redemption and training of mankind, from 
 sin to holiness, from an old life, which was death, into 
 a life everlasting, in an immortal society. We are all 
 living, throughout this Christian dispensation, in the 
 intermediate stage of this glorious proceeding. It is a 
 kind of transition-period. As compared with eternity, 
 it is all but a short term, — a narrow strip between two 
 boundless seas. Could we really conceive of eternity, 
 or could we so be lifted up as to look down on the im- 
 mensity stretching on each side of this whole Christian 
 era, it would no doubt appear like a mere thread across 
 the field of vision. Yet, it is sufficient for the disci- 
 pline of a living race, including millions of souls. So 
 we stand here, each individual life but a speck on that 
 narrow belt, and here we make our choice. We look 
 behind and before. The Gospel tells us, over and over, 
 in every variation of the plainest language, that Christ 
 has come in our fiesh and nature once, and has removed 
 every possible hindrance to our living with Him forever. 
 It tells us just as explicitly that He has gone, like a 
 travelling prince, to receive for Himself a kingdom, and 
 
16 Christ's second coming. 
 
 that He is coming again to reign in that kingdom, with 
 His own people, and that, in connection with that, the 
 whole period of trial, of choice, will end. So the 
 Church has ever believed and taught, and so she prays 
 in her repeated Advent collect. Her Advent season 
 reaffirms and illustrates the truth. From Sunday to 
 Sunday she holds up many Scripture lessons to keep it 
 ever in mind. Her living Head is to come a second 
 time. 
 
 2. In the next place, that coming is personal and 
 literal. Look at all the language and all the accompany- 
 ing descriptions, and you will see that no loose talk of 
 "figures of speech" will explain away this lucid and 
 repeated declaration, or the mysterious fact it announces. 
 Whatever accommodations of the literal language we 
 may find, they must all grow up around this one un- 
 mistakable, foretold faoty and grow out of it. We 
 may call signal social revolutions, reforms in govern- 
 ment, the emancipation of slaves, or great accessions 
 of knowledge or charity, new coinings of Christ. The 
 figure is intelligible ; but they are not comings of Him. 
 They may be comings of the impersonal power and 
 principles of His religion, — partial blessings reminding 
 us of the one great blessing that includes them all ; but 
 He is to come. " Ye shall see the Son of Man (not 
 His ideas but Him) coming in power and great glory." 
 Either by the gathering of His people, or by His own 
 celestial movement, " Every eye shall see (not His works 
 but) Him." Besides, certain particular miraculous 
 events and tokens are mentioned as attending His 
 appearing. 
 
 Nor, again, will it do to tamper with Holy Scripture 
 by such a theory of interpretation as that His comiiig 
 means our going. The death or departure of the indi- 
 
17 
 
 vidual is one thing; the Bible often mentions that, 
 meaning just what it says. The Lord's coming is 
 another ; it will be but once again for all men ; there 
 will be a time for it ; it will be sudden and bright, like 
 the light that shineth from east to west. We have no 
 data, no experience, no critical apparatus, to measure 
 such a fact by. That is not our business. We are 
 learners to be taught. 
 
 *'Thou hast spoken, T believe, 
 Though the oracle be sealed." 
 
 3. Thirdly, this great coming is to be connected with 
 a separation of the good from the bad, the believers from 
 the deniers, the spiritually alive from the spiritually 
 dead. Hence it is always spoken of as a Judgment; 
 because each one then goes to his own place, and finds 
 his portion where he has chosen it. That begins to be 
 the case, inwardly, wdth every man, now. But it be- 
 comes tlie outward, literal, terrible fact, not till then. It 
 is not declared that the whole process of final adjudication 
 to heaven or hell is finished then ; it is rather made to 
 appear that after another long period some mysterious 
 ordeal will try the faithful once more ; but the external 
 judgment begins: and hence how well it is for us to 
 entreat, as we do, that by His first coming the hearts of 
 the disobedient may be so turned, and the works of 
 darkness be so cast off", that at His second coming in 
 majesty to judge the world, we may be found an accept- 
 able people, and rise to the life immortal I 
 
 4. The chapter of St. Matthew, however, in the 
 common-sense interpretation of it, obviously has some 
 reference to a kind of coming of Christ which was to 
 take place in the lifetime of the generation that was on 
 the stage while the Saviour was speaking. It was to be 
 
18 
 
 in some way connected with the invasion of the Homan 
 armies and the downfall of the capital and temple of 
 the Jews, in that century. This is the first of two main 
 difficulties. Men have said, If the Messiah meant to 
 predict a great coming in His kingdom at the en d of the 
 Christian age, why did He employ terms that distinctly 
 point to what was to take place so soon, and at Jerusa- 
 lem, and call that His coming? To answer that, con- 
 sider that the disciples were questioning Him on that 
 very point, the overthrow of the Temple. The reply to 
 them must be a part of His discourse. 
 
 But consider, further, that it is one of what we may 
 call the laws or canons of prophetic writing, that the 
 language employed may have reference to two different 
 persons or times, — the one, and the less important, 
 too near to the speaker ; the other and the greater ful- 
 filment being found in some remoter and grander per- 
 sonage or event to come. Thus, for instance, if you 
 examine those Psalms of David which contain prophecies 
 of the Messiah, you see that they are so composed as to be 
 in part and at first applicable to David himself, and his 
 own personal fortunes ; but you look again, and see that 
 there is prophetic language there which will not suit any 
 other personage than the Son of God ; and in fact Christ 
 and the Evangelists expressly declare that it w^as written 
 of Him. The human subject is made a groundwork 
 and a type, to exhibit the Divine King that was to be. 
 So of some of the predictions of Isaiah. The same prin- 
 ciple must be heeded in interpreting these predictions 
 of our Lord. You find a part of the phraseology refer- 
 ring explicity to Palestinian history, and of that part He 
 says, " This generation shall not pass away till all these 
 things are fulfilled." It is said that " this generation " 
 may refer to the national life of the Jews. It ispossihle. 
 
Christ's second coming. 19 
 
 Others liave said those words mean the whole Chris- 
 tian Dispensation, which appears to ns to be forced 
 and improbable. Yet at the same time you find, in the 
 same discourse, expressions that show the speaker to 
 have been looking forward down the track of ages, to a 
 much wider and mightier consummation. For He goes 
 on to say that all nations shall be alarmed and aroused at 
 this final appearing ; that it shall be preceded by unpre- 
 cedented disorders and antagonisms ; that the Gospel 
 must first be preached to all nations; that signs shall 
 appear before it such as the world has not yet witnessed. 
 Moreover, studying the passage more carefully, you will 
 notice that the change of reference is gradual ; and that, 
 while Christ begins with dwelling almost entirely on 
 incidents of the fall of the City and Temple, He rises, as 
 He proceeds, till in the latter part the words befit His 
 world-wide manifestation, and that alone.* Admit the 
 rule of a double application, one immediate and the other 
 remote, which for some cause or other is evidently 
 according to the supernatural genius and usage of the 
 prophetic spirit, and difiiculties disappear. Each portion 
 of God's Word becomes consistent with itself, with other 
 portions, with the character of the author, and with what 
 was known of human history outside of it. 
 
 5. We come now to what, with many minds, has 
 been a greater difficulty, viz., that inspired writers. 
 Apostles, signify their expectation that Christ's second 
 advent would take place during their own natural life. 
 Were they mistaken, and mistaken teachers of others? 
 A vast amount of ingenious efibrt has been made to 
 break the force of this objection without sacrificing 
 
 * The order of sentences seems not intended by the Evanglists to be 
 exact. See St. Luke. 
 
20 Christ's second coming. 
 
 the infallibility of the record. For the most part it has 
 failed by taking the purely external or philological 
 method, and without sounding spiritually the depths of 
 the Evangelic purpose. I need not even specify the var- 
 ious hypotheses. Let us honestly take the language of 
 honest men in its ordinary acceptation. What, then, shall 
 we say ? To me all difficulties are cleared by the fol- 
 lowing proposition, which I think commends itself as 
 reasonable, reverential, and in harmony not only with 
 the drift of the doctrine we have presented, but with 
 the doctrine of inspiration which the faith of the 
 Church Catholic has held from the beginning: The 
 purpose of Revelation^ in this matter, was to create 
 in Christians, not a helief that Christ would come at 
 any particular hour in history, hut a helief that He is 
 always at hand, and that all Christians should at all 
 times and in all places he ready, as men that stand 
 with their lamps trimmed and hurning, to meet Him 
 personally. The date of the event was no part of 
 the Divine communication. On that point the writers 
 were left to their human faculties, and if they misap- 
 prehended, it was only the plainer evidence that they 
 were but men. In other words, it was of importance 
 that the mind of the Church should be always regarding 
 the Lord and Head as nigh, but not to have the chronol- 
 ogy settled. The Bible makes its usual preference of 
 moral and religious impression above accuracy in the 
 letter. There was, in fact, no practical error. For the 
 writers were as careful to caution the Church against 
 impatience and over-confidence as against the opposite. 
 That generation passed; and no future one could be 
 misguided by their expressions. In regarding it as their 
 solemn duty to be ever waiting, and watching, and hast- 
 ing unto the coming of the day, as one of them ardently 
 
Christ's second coming. 21 
 
 expresses it, even though thej were individiaally to die 
 in martyrdom, or in their beds, they were unquestion- 
 ably and blessedly right. 
 
 In proportion as we rise, in thought, toward the im- 
 mensity of the life of God, and have " the mind of the 
 Spirit," the whole period of history shrinks, great dis- 
 tances dwindle, epochs are pressed together, and " a 
 thousand years are as one day." 
 
 Besides, the highest authority in modern physical 
 science, in astronomy, and geology, and chemistry, har- 
 monizes singularly enough as to the issue with the 
 Apostolic language. It concludes that the machinery 
 of the material universe is wasting, its movements are 
 slackening, its balance is slowly loosening, and that a 
 general catastrophe is inevitable. The sneer of the 
 scientific sceptic of the last century is silenced by the 
 science of to-day. 
 
 We may say that, in the Bible predictions generally, 
 borrowing a phrase from the fine arts, what we may 
 call historical perspective is lost sight of. We are not 
 told at what intervals from each other, or always in just 
 what order, these majestic events, by which eternity 
 seems to open down into time, shall follow on. Chro- 
 nology is not the object. The facts are what we are to 
 know, and receive, and feed upon in our hearts by faith. 
 The moment we begin to try our petty arithmetic on 
 them we miss the mark, and lose our way. We all 
 know that, even with ourselves, the moments of tremen- 
 dous peril, when awful events are casting their colossal 
 shadows about us, are just the time when the ordinary 
 measure of succession drops out of sight. We look 
 across the great tract and see other great conjunctions, 
 as if they were nigh at hand. Christ Jesus is not en- 
 closed in time, but time is all in Him. The regular 
 
sequence of incidents is broken up ; common occurences 
 are dwarfed ; and we see nothing else but Him, — His first 
 mediatorial ministry, His present ineffable life. His fu- 
 ture glorious appearing and reign ; — we see Him as an 
 object of supreme affection. So that the intense life of 
 faith, begotten in the first disciples, at the miraculous 
 stirring age of the very presence and sacrifice of the, 
 Saviour, would be the very condition of things where 
 everything hetween would be forgotten, and the believer 
 would look on straight to the great consummation and 
 end of all, and would behold it as if that were the one 
 transcendent and even near event, — as, to the traveller 
 straining his eyes to the mountain top before him, the 
 higher the peak the narrower the intervening plain ap- 
 pears. This, therefore, would become the appropriate 
 and forward-looking attitude which the Church and the 
 Christian would always hold, — an attitude of hopeful, 
 ardent, believing expectation, — " looking for and hasting 
 unto the coming or day of the Lord." 
 
 The chief elements in the practical, animating power 
 of that expectation are that it assures us of the unity 
 and sure completion of the "redeeming work" for 
 which the Son of God took our nature upon Him; it 
 promises the end of that long conflict of evil with good 
 of which this world has been the defiled and weary 
 theatre, — wet, so many thousand years, with the tears of 
 the wronged and the blood of the just, and resounding 
 with groans of remorse; it preannounces the victory and 
 the eternal peace ; it welcomes to the throne the Leader 
 and Shepherd in whose dear cause the good soldier has 
 fought, faithful to his life's end. It anticipates the eter- 
 nal festival when, not only in the right of possession but 
 in the actual and loyal submission and praise of saints, 
 the earth shall be the Lord's and the fulness thereof. 
 
23 
 
 [Here, if I understand the record, the realm of what 
 is essential to Christian doctrine in the passage ends. 
 There are other points which different schools have in- 
 sisted on as necessary parts of it, sometimes with unwar- 
 ranted assurance. As matters of opinion, as construc- 
 tions of what the Scriptures imply rather than reveal, 
 they may be correct, or may not be. They cannot be 
 held or taught as authoritative matter, nor are they 
 included in the Catholic system of truth. Thus, there 
 have been ambitious attempts to fix the year, by compu- 
 tation on many different data or bases, when the present 
 dispensation will be wound up and the Son of Man come 
 to close the probationary age. They have all offended 
 common-sense by the extravagance of their mode of 
 dealing with numbers, and every one of them has broken 
 down by the simple passage of time. The very starting- 
 point of them was a departure from faith to mathematics, 
 — and the mathematics turned out to be about as weak 
 as the faith. The marvel is the greater, because the 
 statement in the Acts is so explicit that the Father hath 
 hid the times and seasons in His own power; while it 
 might have been supposed that the Saviour had given 
 His followers the most impressive and conclusive lesson 
 of reserve and modesty, when He declared it as a part 
 of the condescension of His incarnation and humility, 
 that so long as He was in the flesh the day and hour 
 were hidden even from the Son himself. 
 
 [Similar bold ventures have been made toward deter- 
 mining precisely who that " Man of Sin " is, that, before 
 the end comes, is to gather up, as St. Paul says, and 
 embody in himself somewhere all the malign infidelity 
 and blasphemy of modern irreverence and conceit, 
 whether as pope, autocrat, or philosopher, exalting him- 
 self above all that is called God, and sliowing himself 
 
24 
 
 that he is God. But these transgressors over the line 
 of written truth have only published their own presump- 
 tion, and contradicted one another. 
 
 [A favorite accessory to the revealed doctrine is that of 
 the regathering of the tribes of Israel in their Judean 
 home, and the restoration of the Holy City. There is 
 certainly a great deal of apparent Scripture encourage- 
 ment for that bright and tenacious hope of the Hebrew. 
 It seems to me that, on the whole, the preponderance of 
 prophetic testimony favors it. But I cannot be blind to 
 the grave questions which arise, both exegetical and 
 historical, holding many able minds in suspense as to 
 the part the Jew is yet to l^lay, and arraying others on 
 the negative side ; and so I cannot help wondering at 
 the unqualified confidence of men in what strikes me as 
 a cheerful probability, of which we must humbly wait 
 the verification, rather than an evangelically affirmed 
 certainty. 
 
 [Much the same may be said of those decided opinions 
 we sometimes hear advanced respecting the exact order 
 of events in the final disposition of things in the last 
 days, and the ultimate fate of this planet. Such specula- 
 tions are utterly worthless. A little more faith, hope, 
 and charity would be better than the best of them. All 
 we know is that such changes in our globe as have been 
 wrought in the past geologic periods, and as reason 
 declares to be probable at any time, only universal, are 
 foretold in the Bible as to happen some time or other, — 
 " the elements shall melt with fervent heat " ; that the 
 resources of Omnipotence are infinite ; that the universe 
 is vast, beyond the utmost stretch of the amplest imagin- 
 ation ; that the souls of the righteous are in the hands 
 of God alone, where no torment shall touch them ; and 
 that though this earthly house of our tabernacle were 
 
25 
 
 dissolved, we have a building of God, eternal and in- 
 destructible, where, though we know not what we shall 
 bo, we know that we shall be like Christ, and with Him, 
 seeing Him as He is. 
 
 [Biblical criticism is a much profounder thing than 
 many prompt and confident people have suspected, 
 requiring both learning and modesty. If the Bible were 
 a text-book of the observatory or laboratory, or a treatise 
 of natural history, or a simple narrative of facts, it would 
 be comparatively easy to pronounce on all its contents 
 and meanings. But remember, it contains specimens of 
 almost every kind of composition known in literature, 
 written at intervals reaching over nearly two thousand 
 years, abounds in the boldest and most poetic forms of 
 speech, and yet conveys to us the few simple truths 
 relating to our relations and duties to God through 
 Christ, which make up, for every wayfaring man and 
 child, the way of salvation. Oh, the plainness of the 
 way ! The longer I live, the more I stand in awe of its 
 simplicity, and give God thanks for it, and the more I 
 disesteem the artificial systems that are built upon it, 
 or used to overlay and crowd it aside. But when we go 
 beyond that open learning of the heart, we must be 
 guarded against shallow interpretations and catch-words. 
 A few Greek and Hebrew clauses are not enough. It 
 needs the largest appreciation, and most comprehensive 
 scope, and ripest maturity, of any study in this world. 
 You may take almost any crude fancy or pet system to 
 tlie Bible, and find something plausible in those free and 
 affluent pages to support it. And so books that have the 
 look and air of scholarship have often abused and deluded 
 thousands, who thought they were eating the Bread of 
 Life. Where the Word of God is plain we can walk with 
 firm steps. Repentance toward God and faith in the 
 
26 
 
 Lord Jesus Christ are verj intelligible words. But when 
 we go over from certainty to conjecture, let it be with 
 slow, careful, and unpretending steps.] 
 
 *'If they shall say unto you. Behold, He is in the 
 desert ; go not forth : behold, He is in the secret cham- 
 bers ; believe it not.'^ 
 
 Here are two opposite yet ever-present dangers. One 
 is that of fancying that our Saviour and our salvation 
 are to be found in some extraordinary, out-of-the-way 
 fashion of religious manifestation : " Behold, He is in the 
 desert." Anything looks attractive and promising in 
 religion, to some temperaments, which lies aside from 
 the commonplace path of familiar well-doing. That 
 soon tires and grows distasteful. A very prevalent 
 temptation hides under this innocent-looking passion for 
 novelty. We imagine, with the sons of Zebedee, that 
 we should do better in some other and more favorable 
 condition. We fail to see that there is a deep sense in 
 which Christ presents Himself to us now under the 
 forms of common persons and things that we meet in 
 our households and business. If we saw Him, and knew 
 Him, and felt Him there, by faith, all this dull routine 
 would take on a new interest, and rise into new dignity. 
 The old prophets, with their rough exterior, haggard 
 aspect, sharp cry, and fierce eloquence, used to make their 
 appearance by coming out of solitary and desert places. 
 So excitable people, wanting some stimulus to whet 
 their dull desire, looked out into the wilderness. Only 
 blow a trumpet, and point to a new John or Jeremiah, 
 and the Church will seem to be awaking to new life. 
 Christ is coming. But no; Go ye not forth. He sol- 
 emnly says. He comes to you, in His own time and 
 way. Invite Him where you are. Open to Him your 
 heart, without changing your place. Most of us have to 
 
27 
 
 become acquainted with Him, and learn to sit at His 
 feet, where our lot is cast, or we never find Him at all. 
 There is a fringe of desert lying all around us, and there 
 are novelties enough coming out of it, and voices enough 
 to cry, " Lo, there is Christ, in some new ritualism, or 
 new revivalism, or new rationalism." Believe it not. 
 It is a false Christ. The old creeds, the old duties, the 
 old ordinances, the old prayers, and praises, and confes- 
 sions ; the old charities, kindnesses, graces, forbearances, 
 — the sweeter for being old, — keep to these ; fill them 
 up with a fervent, thankful, holy heart. And when 
 Christ has any new disclosure or gift to make to you, it 
 shall meet you there, shining through all the sky of your 
 inner life, from east to west, and making for you, in the 
 stronger light of His love, new heavens and a new earth. 
 The other danger is that we shall fancy that our Sav- 
 iour and our salvation are to be found in particular states 
 of our own interior feeling : ^^ Behold, He is in the secret 
 chambers." The first was superstition ; this is fanat- 
 icism. The first fostered a fickle and shallow restless- 
 ness ; this fosters a self-opinionated, self-confident, and 
 fiistidious indolence. The one is the religion of social 
 excitement ; the other of a dreamy sentimentality. The 
 one makes an idol of an outward scene or symbol ; the 
 other of a complacent sensibility. One is led by the 
 multitude ; the other by an idol in th(5 heart. One is 
 an Athenian agitator; the other an Oriental mystic. 
 These sentimentalists are always asking, " How do I feel ? 
 Am I happy ? Is my frame exalted ? Is my inner sense 
 acute and high?" But, ah! mistaken dreamer, Christ is 
 not there. Come out of your secret chambers ; you may 
 go there, and shut your door, only to pray and commune 
 with Him, for refreshment, after and before your busy 
 work in the world. Frames of feeling are no tests of 
 
28 
 
 your progress. An honest, healthy, robust, out-of-door 
 faith is what you want. Plain duties, homely piety, cheer- 
 ful submission, regular worship, — Christ is waiting for 
 you in all of these. In the morning, take up the morning's 
 cross. "Walk with Christ all day. "Working under Him 
 is watching for Him. And then, whether He shall come 
 at the first watch, or in the second, or at noon-day, or at 
 evening. Blessed is the servant whom He shall find so 
 watching I 
 
CHEIST IN JUDGMENT. 
 
 Third Sunday in Advent. 
 
 '•Fob we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ." — 
 II. Cor. V. 10. 
 
 In the four weeks of Advent we regard Him who wa3 
 to come, and who has come, and who is to come again, 
 not only in His other characters, but as our Judge. 
 
 There are some parts of the truth that God will have 
 delivered which make the messenger stand in awe of his 
 message. It is so with what is revealed of the retribu- 
 tions of eternity. In whatever degree we realize the 
 words we speak, we shall wish those words to have very 
 little that can be called our own in them. We shall be 
 anxious that they shall only represent, as simply as pos- 
 sible, the announcements that are made on the authority 
 from which there is no appeal. 
 
 Indeed, there is so much of this judgment-language 
 in all portions of the Bible that I shall set myself smaller 
 limits yet, and only attempt to open before you what is 
 taught us by it from the lips of the Saviour himself. It 
 is not so much in the hearing of many warnings as it is 
 in the realizing and remembering of a few ; it is not so 
 much in having the scenes of final judgment made 
 familiar as it is in making the outlines clear and strong, 
 so that we shall see whatever we do see as definite 
 and undeniable realities, — that we are to expect deep 
 
30 CHRIST IN JUDGMENT. 
 
 and practical impressions. This is the way of the Script- 
 ures. They do not deal much, like many of their weak 
 interpreters, in elaborate descriptions of that Great Day 
 of Reckoning, or of the sufferings beyond. What they 
 are earnest t6 have us all know, and feel, and remember, 
 is that there is a Reckoning, and that the Justice and 
 Love of the Son of God and Son of Man will control and 
 guide it. What they would make certain to us is that 
 our everlasting life is in actual peril from our daily 
 temptations ; that the Judge is just ; and that there can 
 be no change in His judgment. Grounded in these 
 certainties their one entreaty is, " Be ye ready." 
 
 You hear it said that the judgment is going on now ; 
 that we are judged from hour to hour. That is true, 
 and a truth of very awful and startling import, which 
 ought never to be forgotten. In one sense our own char- 
 acter and conduct judge us. What we really are deter- 
 mines our condition. Every new message from the Spirit 
 of God judges us. We are always taking sides, for God 
 or against Him. In the presence of a pure and noble 
 Person we are always judged, — sent to the right hand 
 or the left. By conscience, by the choice between right 
 and wrong, we are sundered terribly, one from another, 
 at this moment. By His very coming on earth amongst 
 men Christ in that sense judges men. But that is not 
 all. It is not the only judgment. It is not that Judg- 
 ment to Come, of which our Lord so plainly declares 
 that it shall he hereafter. 
 
 Men are swayed by their best sympathies. I find, 
 from a generous thinker, an English preacher, who has 
 had great popularity in oar day, these sentences : 
 " Christ's preaching differed from that of John the Fore- 
 runner, in that it was not a ministry of terror. He sel- 
 dom appealed to fear. Christ taught that God is love. 
 
CHRIST IN JUDGMENT. 31 
 
 He instructed in those parables which required thought- 
 ful attention, and a gently sensitive conscience. He 
 spoke didactic, calm discourses, very engaging, but with 
 little excitement in them, — which assuredly, if any one 
 were to venture so to speak before a modern congrega- 
 tion, would be stigmatized as a moral essay." Fair 
 minds will recognize at once a certain amount of truth 
 in this very one-sided statement. The question is one of 
 fact : Did Christ appeal to the dread of retribution ? 
 
 There can be no question at all that He, the Son of the 
 God of Love, the highest of all Teachers, places love, 
 as a motive, far above fear ; that He will rather have 
 men come to Him as their Friend than as their Judge ; 
 that He would have them cling to righteousness for the 
 righteous One's sake, and put faith in God for His 
 goodness, rather than be scourged into the Kingdom by 
 tlireats of penalty and the terror of torment. Let this 
 be granted, for it is precious and momentous truth. 
 Where it is forgotten, let it be reaffirmed. But having 
 granted it we shall only be in the better position to see 
 how defective and superficial these statements quoted 
 are, taken as a full description of Christ's Gospel. 
 Wliat man might be and ought to be, in his suscepti- 
 bility to the higher range of impressions is one thing; 
 but what he really is, in his spiritual poverty and dul- 
 ness, is what Christ mercifully considers. 
 
 We are not at liberty to take an ideal Christendom, 
 the conception of which we owe to the loftier elements 
 of our own religion, and attempt to square to that the 
 words of Him who came to stir and move the world 
 that now is by " the powers of the world to come." 
 That is the true love which moves by the surest path, 
 not always the shortest or most agreeable, to its end, — 
 the welfare of the beloved. 
 
32 CHRIST IN JUDGMENT. 
 
 We should expect, therefore, that this \oving Lord 
 and Master, who knows so well what is in man, w^onld 
 present not a part but all of the grand motives that 
 constrain men to newness of life, to repentance and 
 faith, to the conquest of self, and the glory of good- 
 ness ; and therefore that He would sometimes take away 
 the veil from the misery and horror that belong to the 
 second death; that He will bid His servants sometimes 
 call men to " flee from the wrath to come," and by " the 
 terrors of the Lord," — of the Lord — to persuade men ; 
 that he would show that God has not forgotten to be 
 just, hecause He has not forgotten to be gracious, but 
 that He governs the world by law, — blessed and right- 
 eous law, which is " the mother of our peace and joy," 
 — just as truly now as before the Gospel pity and 
 redemption came. 
 
 We turn to the actual instructions of the Saviour to 
 refute the assertion that He spoke only " calm, didactic dis- 
 courses," addressed to men's hopes and affections, " with 
 little excitement in them." We open, at the beginning, 
 that Sermon on the Mount, which it is pretended is so far 
 from anything that excites the fear of punishment or 
 judgment. It has proceeded but a little way when we 
 find the Teacher threatening the people, that unless their 
 righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the 
 Scribes and Pharisees, they shall " in no case enter into 
 the Kingdom of Heaven." A little further, and we 
 hear Him say, " Whosoever is angry with his brother 
 without a cause, shall be in danger of the judgment ; and 
 whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of 
 hell fire." A little further, and he cries, with the repeti- 
 tion of a fearful emphasis, " If thy right eye, or thy 
 right hand, cause thee to sin, pluck it out, or cut it off, 
 and cast it from thee ; for it is profitable for thee that 
 
CHRIST IN JUDGMENT. 33 
 
 one of thy members should perish, and not that thy 
 whole body should be cast into hell." A little further 
 yet, in the same Divine Sermon, He begins to speak very 
 solemnly of " the broad way which leadeth to destruc- 
 tion," and " the narrow way which leadeth unto life," 
 and the " few that find it." Then He passes to warn those 
 that come to the gate, crying, " Lord, Lord," without doing 
 His will, that at a certain day He will profess unto them, 
 " I never knew you ; depart from me, ye that work 
 iniquity." Then comes the parable, — which is only a 
 picture and prophecy of the last judgment, — of the house 
 on the rock and the house on the sand, with destruction 
 as the penalty of folly. Only one chapter further for- 
 ward He calls up the vision of many coming from the 
 East and the West, with the unworthy and false children 
 of the Kingdom "cast out into outer darkness; there 
 shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." We turn a 
 leaf or two, and the same faithful voice, loving as ever, 
 but faithful just because it is loving, is exclaiming, " Fear 
 Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." 
 In the next chapter. He is upbraiding, tenderly, the peo- 
 ple before whom His mighty works have been done, — 
 just as they are done before so many of us, — " in vain," — 
 " because they repented not " ; — " it shall be more toler- 
 able, in the day of judgment, for Tyre and Sidon, than 
 for you." (" Thou that art exalted to heaven shalt be 
 brought down to hell.") Just after. He rebukes the 
 impious blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, with a threat 
 which almost silences our lips, — "It shall not be forgiven 
 him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come." 
 This He follows with the almost equally appalling decla- 
 ration, — "Every idle word that men shall speak, they 
 shall give account thereof in the day of judgment." 
 When He has spoken the parable of the tares of the 
 
34 CHRIST IN JUDGMENT. 
 
 field, He finishes and applies it with the words,—" The 
 tares are the children of the wicked one ; the enemy that 
 sowed them is the de\ril ; the harvest is the end of the 
 world, and the reapers are the angels. So shall it be in 
 the end of this world. The Son of Man shall send forth 
 His angels, and they shall gather out of His kingdom all 
 things that offend, and them which do iniquity, and shall 
 cast them into a furnace of fire : there shall be wailing 
 and gnashing of teeth." When He has delivered the 
 parable of the net cast into the sea, he explains, " So shall 
 it be at the end of the world : the angels shall come 
 forth and sever the wicked from among the just, and shall 
 cast them into the furnace of fire." Out of the sorrow 
 and burden of His soul. He cries, weeping," Woe unto the 
 world because of ofiences ! Woe to that man by whom 
 the offence cometh !" He shows the forgiven servant who 
 had no compassion on his fellow servant as " delivered 
 to the tormentors " ; and he says, " So likewise shall my 
 Heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts 
 forgive n^t every one his brother their trespasses." In 
 a different parable yet, wicked men are miserably 
 destroyed ; the kingdom is taken from them ; and on 
 whomsoever the stone of retribution falls, " it will grind 
 him to powder." In still another parable, the guest that 
 pushes his way in, without the wedding garment of holi- 
 ness, prepared for him at the door, is bound hand and 
 foot, and taken away, and cast into utter darkness. Of 
 one class of sinners before His face He asks, as if the 
 burden of an unutterable grief pressed upon him in having 
 exhausted every resource of mercy for them in vain, — 
 " How can ye escape the damnation of hell ?" The 
 exhortation to watch and be ready is followed by the 
 example of the drunken and reckless servant whose por- 
 tion is cut suddenly asunder, leaving him to weep and 
 
CHRIST IK JUDGMENT. 35 
 
 groan in agony. Yon know how the parable of the wise 
 and foolish virgins ends, — with the solemn and final 
 shutting of the door ; that of the talents, with the strip- 
 ping and shame of the faithless servant ; and, above all, 
 that of the shepherd king, the Son of Man in his glory, 
 dividing and separating the sheep from the goats, on the 
 right hand and the left, — the blessed and the cursed, — 
 these going away into everlasting punishment, but the 
 righteous into life eternal ! 
 
 You will see, dear friends, that there must be some 
 limit set to these proofs and confirmations. I have only 
 collected these from a portion of the first of the four 
 Records of Christ's public ministry. So He preached. 
 So He came testifying of the judgment to come. You 
 hear His words. Mine are nothing. Ponder His. Ask 
 yourselves what they mean. Take them in their natural, 
 obvious, and tremendous import. What shall we say of 
 a writer who, having the New Testament before his eyes, 
 tells us Jesus preached gently always, and did not preach 
 terror ? Are these the " didactic, calm discourses, very 
 engaging, but with little excitement in them " ? Is it 
 so unlike the preaching of the Baptist, crying, " The axe 
 is laid unto the root of the tree : every tree that bringeth 
 not forth good fruit is cut down and cast into the fire" ; 
 " Whose fan is in his hand, and He will thoroughly purge 
 His floor, and gather the wheat into His garner ; but the 
 chaff He will burn with unquenchable fire " ? Are these 
 those placid parables which "required only thoughtful 
 attention, and a gently sensitive conscience," sounding 
 " to a modern congregation like moral essays " ? — these 
 with their fire, and sifting, and separating, and shutting 
 doors, and sundering of soul from soul, and opening of 
 the house of torment, and punishment everlasting? Let 
 us at least receive our Master's words as they stand. It 
 
36 CHKIST IN JUDGMENT. 
 
 will go ill witli us if we alter them, if we reject them. 
 Prejudice, the power of a preconceived idea, works 
 strange results of interpretation. We have not to 
 rewrite the Gospel of our Lord. He who knew all 
 our necessities gave it all for our salvation. And since 
 we must all stand before His judgment seat, He has told 
 us beforehand, so that repenting and believing we might 
 stand there with joy, — not with grief, — to pass from it 
 to the right hand, and not the left, of the Son of Man in 
 His glory, our Shepherd, and our King. 
 
 The question is not about the imagery, but whether 
 the imagery has a meaning ; not whether the terms are 
 partly figurative, but whether the figures have a reality 
 behind them. 
 
 It has become a habit to confuse the strong and simple 
 declarations made here with subordinate and irrelevant 
 speculations as to the mode, the time, and the place. 
 The text sweeps these all away, and our poor subterfuges 
 and evasions with them. " For we must all appear before 
 the judgment seat of Christ," not here or there, or at 
 any foretold hour, or in any scenery that is described : 
 only, " we must appear." 
 
 The infirm and worldly heart, clinging to its wrong 
 indulgencies, half-conscious of its guilt, seizes on a screen 
 from the blaze of the judgment throne. " This notion 
 of judgment is harsh, — Jewish ; — Christianity is all ten- 
 derness ; God is too good to cast even the worst of His 
 rebellious and sinful subjects from Him." 
 
 Argument in its place ; not here. We are out of that 
 sphere. " We must all appear before the judgment seat 
 of Christ." We must The first fact we are to think 
 of respecting the judgment is the certainty of it. The 
 Scriptures never say, our Lord never says, that it is some- 
 thing which may take place, but which some possible 
 
CHEIST IN JUDGMENT. 37 
 
 contingency in tlie future course of the world may pre- 
 vent. Whatever else may fail or prosper, — enterprises, 
 governments, expeditions, colonies, campaigns, intentions, 
 — their failure or their success will not touch the decree 
 that has fixed one day beyond them all, — the judgment. 
 There is scarcely one human interest, institution, under- 
 taking, of which we can predict the course for twenty- 
 four hours ; but far above all their chances, independent 
 of them all, subject to no chance, no reconsideration, no 
 postponement, is the judgment. The whole frame-work 
 of order in outward nature may be broken to pieces; 
 the heavens be wrapped together like a scroll, the ele- 
 ments melt with fervent heat, the planet be refashioned, 
 or burnt, or drowned, the stars be loosened from their 
 circles, and clash together, or fly apart, — these revolutions 
 would only make more sure the fulfilment of the whole 
 prophecy, and their inevitable end will be the judgment. 
 So doubtful and ignorant are we about everything in our 
 own personal lives and fortunes, from this hour onward, 
 that we can be said to be perfectly sure of only two 
 events to come : " It is appointed unto men once to die, 
 and after this the judgment." And "now," says the 
 Apostle, " God commandeth all men everywhere to re- 
 pent; because He hath appointed a day in the which 
 He will judge the world in righteousness." It must he. 
 The second fact is the universality of it. We must 
 all appear. Here the individual sometimes escapes 
 notice either by retiring from society, or by being lost 
 in its crowd. There the one kind of concealment will 
 be just as hopeless as the other. There will be room 
 enough for all, and yet the personal soul of each, with 
 its individual character, with the sign of Christ its Lord 
 or the sign of His adversary upon it, will stand out as 
 sharply distinguished as if no other soul had ever been 
 
38 CHRIST IN JUDGMENT. 
 
 related to it, or shared its experience. They will come 
 from lonely deserts and from thickly populated cities, 
 from scattered houses far back in villages, from border- 
 dwellings on the edges of forests, from solitary cells in 
 hills and on plains, from homes that resound now with 
 voices of life, from chambers of dreary sickness where a 
 charitable visitor entered to break the stillness only once 
 in the long week, from the field of war where great 
 armies fought together, and from the same field the 
 night after the battle when the spirit of the dying sol- 
 dier went up to meet its God alone ; but they will all 
 bo there ; we shall all be there ; every one. There will 
 be no excuse taken, and there will be no absence to 
 be excused. Merchandise, the farm, marriage, mental 
 promises, getting a livelihood, calls of business, sceptical 
 habits of mind, companies and journeys of pleasure, 
 doubts about being accepted, — these will have no force 
 to keep one bidden guest away, and all are bidden. 
 Every name will be called, — those that have been 
 written in the Book of Life, and the names of those 
 that have heard the Gospel preached Sunday after 
 Sunday, and year after year, and yet would not turn to 
 take the cross and follow Christ. Every member of this 
 present congregation will be there, and that may be the 
 next time we shall all be assembled in one another's 
 presence without one left out. Obscurity, insignificance, 
 weakness, youth, poverty, ignorance, — those natural 
 extenuations that we so often plead for not taking up 
 responsibilities here, will not keep any out there ; many 
 that were last shall be first, and so, also, many that were 
 first shall be last. Station and dignities and wealth and 
 honors will avail nothing to obtain an exemption or a 
 substitution. The guilty, the careless, the sensualist, 
 the mocker, the trifler, the old man here that is coming 
 
ClIKIST IN JUDGMENT. 39 
 
 to his grave with his heart hard and selfish, the merchant 
 here who imagines he has no time to be a Cliristian, the 
 scholar that dreams he can make learning and accom- 
 plishments pass for repentance toward God and faith in 
 the Lord Jesus Christ, the profane swearer, the scandal- 
 monger and uncharitable tale-bearer, the proud, resentful 
 woman, the wilful boy who is trying to forget his 
 mother's prayers, the vain gh'l who thinks of every 
 dress for her body but that one which will be put on her 
 for her burial, — all of us must appear before the judg- 
 ment seat of Christ. 
 
 The third fact is that we must ajp^ear there ; that is, 
 we must be not only present, but our true characters 
 must be made manifest ; what is here kept hidden must 
 come to light. We pray, every Sunday, to Him "to 
 whom all hearts are open, and from whom no secrets are 
 hid." In that day, this Searcher and Reader of our hearts 
 will take us up, and deal with us. Faith will stand out 
 boldly. Purity will shine in garments white as the light. 
 Long-abused innocence will get its due. Misunderstood 
 charity and wrongly suspected integrity will come forth 
 out of their cloud, in triumph and joy. "Holy and 
 humble men of heart " will be seen for what they are. 
 
 Deception and concealment will have had their crafty 
 way long enough. Masks will fall off. Disguises will be 
 stripped aside. The cunning sagacity that has covered up 
 the lurking passion, or the cool calculation, will lose its 
 self-possession. Whatever wicked thing we have been at 
 most pains to conceal will be written out as with a pen of 
 fire on our foreheads. There will be only one covering 
 for our shame, — and that the robe of the mercy prom- 
 ised to them who believe. There is a fountain for un- 
 cleanness. Purge me in that, and I shall be clean! 
 Wash me in that, and I shall be whiter than snow ! 
 
4:0 CHRIST IN JUDGMENT. 
 
 The only thing furtlier that it much concerns ns to 
 know of the judgment is that He who then reveals our 
 hearts and fixes our condition, the Judge, is the Son of 
 God and the Son of Man. Eepeatedly Christ says that 
 His work, while on earth, in His first coming, is not 
 judgment. Here "I judge no man." Here He min- 
 isters life; will we receive it? Here He ofiers grace; 
 will we accept it? Here He opens the way into His 
 kingdom ; will we enter ? Here He suffers and dies, the 
 one perfect, sufficient, only sacrifice; can we believe, 
 confess, and live ? There, on His throne, all judgment is 
 committed unto Him, " because He is the Son of Man." 
 He knows all man's infirmity, to have compassion ; all 
 man's sympathy with evil, to punish. It is not then the 
 time of salvation. The time of salvation is now. Our 
 opportunity is to-day. In that day, every work will be 
 brought into judgment, and every secret thing. Every 
 work I Every secret thing ! 
 
THE EIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD, AND 
 UPEIGHTNESS IN MAN. 
 
 Fourth Sunday after Advent, 
 
 " Righteousness and judgment are the habitation of His throne." 
 — Psalm xcvii. 3. 
 
 "Petee answered and said unto her, Tell me whether ye sold the 
 land for so muoh. And she said, Yea, for so much. Then Peter 
 said unto her, How is it that ye have agreed together to tempt the 
 Spirit of the Lord? Behold, the feet of them that have buried thy 
 husband are at the door, and shall carry thee out.'' — Acts v. 8, 9. 
 
 In the first passage we are shown the principles upon 
 which the universe is carried on through the everlasting 
 ages. Thej are very simple, though they are very 
 grand. First, there is a living God, living now, not 
 passing away with passing periods, or a mere tradition 
 of the old Bible-days, but alive all days. 
 
 Next He has a " Throne" ; not only a life, not only a 
 dwelling-place, not only boundless fields to work in, and 
 not only a kind heart, but a throne. The psalm begins, 
 " The Lord reign eth." This world, with everybody in 
 it, is not only under a government, but under a personal 
 Governor. Modern science is right about everything 
 being done by law ; only revelation uncovers to science 
 a secret of its own. Beliind the law is a Law-ffiver and 
 a Judge, — a truth. of quite as much practical value to us, 
 in the long run, as the other. The history of man on 
 the globe is not a spontaneous generation. The machine 
 
42 THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD, 
 
 of nature is not running itself. The seasons and the 
 harvests, the streams and the stars, house-keeping, schools, 
 trade, politics, are not the human contrivance of "per- 
 petual motion." There may be a good deal of meaning 
 in such popular words as "self-reliance," "independ- 
 ence," "the power of the will," "man the master of 
 circumstances," "dignity of human nature"; but then, 
 after all, there is a Throne, and One sits on it who is not 
 man. We talk of self-reliance, but the reliance at least 
 is upon Him. Of Him, it is finally found out, we are 
 never independent. As to the power of the will, when 
 it has done its best, it brings up against another Will, 
 more powerful than itself, immeasurably more. There 
 turn out to be circumstances of which we are not mas- 
 ters, by any means. The stopping of pulse and breath 
 is one of them. Human nature has, to be sure, a kind 
 of dignity, but there is a greatness infinitely more royal, 
 and a glory more glorious. 
 
 Then we know what the Throne is made of, and 
 what He who occupies it keeps there forever with 
 Him. We are not governed by caprice, by impulse, by 
 policy, by passion, by indiscriminate indulgence. There 
 are principles of this rule over us, and their names are 
 given, — " Kighteousness and judgment are the habi- 
 tation of His throne." They are not there now and 
 then ; they inhabit or abide there. They inhere in the 
 character of the living King. 
 
 Over all this world, then — this is what the first pas- 
 sage says — over you and me, personally — reigns the 
 living, righteous, just Lord. 
 
 The second passage discloses a different sight. It 
 takes us to the opposite extremity of the moral king- 
 dom, — from the top to the bottom. " Self-reliance," 
 separating itself from God as far as it can, has made its 
 
AND UPRIGHTNESS IN MAN. 43 
 
 experiment, worked out its ambitious result of "inde- 
 pendence," and here it is. " Tell me whether ye sold 
 the land for so much. She said, Yea, for so much." 
 The doctrine of the dignity of human nature, left to 
 itself, breaking away from the " Throne," has come to 
 this; and it does not appear to good advantage. It 
 appears with a fraud branded on its forehead, a false 
 invoice in its hand, and a lie upon its lips, the criminal 
 victim of a capital execution. " Then fell she down 
 straightway at his feet and yielded up the ghost ; and 
 the young men came in and found her dead, and carry- 
 ing her forth buried her by her husband. And great 
 fear came upon all the Church." 'No matter whether 
 the miracle happens once or every day. It is simply 
 the type of a law inevitable and universal. Whether 
 the outer stroke should ever be repeated or not, it was 
 only the visible sign of a thing that is always going on 
 while the world stands, — unrighteousness blasted, lying 
 exposed, the cheating man and the cheating woman, in 
 spite of their skill in concealment, sent down at last to 
 misery. 
 
 In the two parts of the text, therefore, we have the 
 same foundation-truth of our religion, — -personal in- 
 tegrity the criterion of life or death. In the first it 
 shines out in the splendor of the great white Throne, 
 with the rainbow bending its glorious beauty around it. 
 In the last it is thundered forth along the low line of 
 an earthly horizon, out of a horror of great darkness, lit 
 up only by the lightning-flash of God's "consuming 
 fire." 
 
 Among the characteristics of the times we are living 
 in there is one not much mentioned by the many popu- 
 lar speakers, who seem to think the men they speak to 
 are to be benefited chiefly by being assured^^^gwinuch 
 
 ^V^ Of thb"^ 
 
44 THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD, 
 
 wiser and better and more "progressive" they are than 
 any of their fathers were, who suppose the age is to be 
 instructed by being flattered, and that the country needs 
 to be glorified rather than to be purified ; which was cer- 
 tainly not the way of the old prophets. The characteris- 
 tic I mean is dishonesty. 1 am not discrediting any 
 of the actual modern merits, — intelligence, enterprise, 
 invention, philanthropy. Grant all these, in large de- 
 gree. Nevertheless, they do not bring with them hon- 
 esty in proportion. Falsehood and fraud flourish along 
 with them, in spite of them, and in some cases by the 
 help of them. From the vulgar sediment of society up 
 to its highest summits there spreads a tremendous force 
 of selfish materialism — call it sharpness or call it crime — 
 by which men reach after and snatch and call their own, 
 for use or for show or for hoarding, what is not theirs. 
 It is stolen property, only stolen ingeniously and indi- 
 rectly, and in such ways that the old forms of law, which 
 under took to punish outright robbery, fail to overtake 
 them. E'ot in a few rare spots, but in every spot where 
 two or three hundred people live together, a part of these 
 people consume, or lay up, or waste, what belongs to 
 other people, and what they have managed to get by 
 some species of deception. "What natural production of 
 the earth is there, meant for the sustenance or comfort 
 of man, that is not adulterated by some degrading mix- 
 ture, or shortened in the measure ? Do not the devices 
 of Anglo-Saxon traffic repeat, in faithful exactness, the 
 devices of the Jew, denounced by the prophet, making 
 the ephah of the seller small, and the shekel of the buyer 
 large ; selling the refuse for wheat, and " falsifying the 
 balance by deceit" ? "What line of mechanical work is 
 there, where the base material, or the shabby construc- 
 tion, or the overcharge, does not disgrace the handicraft ? 
 
AND UPRIGHTNESS IN MAN. 45 
 
 What branch of commerce without its dehisive labels, 
 its broken promises, its advertising fictions, its postponed 
 payments, its calculated bankruptcies, its hollow con- 
 tracts ? Men who will not suffer their respectability to 
 be challenged, look one another in the face, and with a 
 mutual jugglery of knavish tricks conspire to grow rich 
 by villany. The brilliant audacities of the great com- 
 mercig-l centres have their lame and creeping copies, 
 hardly less cruel or calamitous, back in the little rural 
 villages, in sight of grave-yards where sleep the ashes of 
 clean-handed ancestors, living and dying, in their day, 
 in the faith of a God who has righteousness and judg- 
 ment for the habitation of His Throne. Outside the 
 Church are financial Ahabs and social Jezebels. Inside 
 are Ananias and Sapphira, tacitly agreeing together to 
 lie to the Holy Ghost, pretending to give to God, for 
 missions or Bible societies, a hush-money fragment of 
 what they have seized from their fellow-men. Too often 
 there is no Peter with the courage to search out their 
 sin, — " Tell me whether ye sold the land for so much." 
 The grand difficulty with our popular piety is that it is 
 still trying to find a way, in this nineteenth century of 
 the Gospel, of serving two gods together. 
 
 If our national Christianity is to maintain its respect, 
 it will have to deal with these abominations somewhat 
 more directly, more fearlessly, and more personally, than 
 it is doing now. Greatly to their credit, our cotempor- 
 ary moralists have undertaken to investigate crime, its 
 sources, its statistics, and its correction. But the crimi- 
 nals are of two classes. One class, ill-bred, ill-fed, ill- 
 clad, with little knowledge, bad examples, and strong 
 temptations, take what they have no right to take, and 
 render no equivalent. Another class, better clothed, 
 better educated, with a better chance of living honestly, 
 
<^ THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD, 
 
 perhaps holding offices and entertaining flattering as- 
 semblies, do precisely the same thing. The first class 
 perform their lawless work in the dark ; and so do these. 
 The detected felons sometimes put on masks ; and what 
 else but a mask are good manners over an unprincipled 
 heart ? The vagrant robbers occasionally come together 
 and lay out their schemes and count their booty. The 
 gentlemanly robbers who haunt the lobbies of Legis- 
 latures, the municipal chambers, the bribable courts — 
 tramps of the commercial highways — understand each 
 other with an instinct just as keen, and a cunning just 
 as infamous. Now, if this is all true, and if the habita- 
 tion of the living God is righteousness and judgment, 
 then what is sure to come by and by, when the King, 
 patient as He is, uncovers that Throne, and the Judge 
 finally brings these souls, one by one, to the reckoning ? 
 Are we any safer than Ananias and Sapphira ? Is this 
 a safe country ? "With all its advantages, its celebrations 
 of what it has done, and its loud predictions of what it 
 is going to do, is America resting, secure and approved, 
 this Advent, at the foot of God's righteous judgment 
 seat? 
 
 " Tell me whether ye sold the land for so much ; and 
 she said. Yea ! for so much." 
 
 Is there any remedy ? The remedy will be found by 
 finding through what popular mistakes the mischief has 
 crept in, and by raising against them the everlasting 
 principles of the Bible-morality, the old-fashioned safe- 
 guards of personal uprightness, on the staunch com- 
 mandments of a God of righteousness. 
 
 The unguarded conversation of men is the natural 
 revelation of them ; of their moral standards, if they 
 have any, and of their lack of them if they have none. 
 We hear people continually debating whether some line 
 
AND UPRIGHTNESS IN MAN. 47 
 
 action will be lucrative, prudent, or agreeable ; politic, 
 reputable, or successful ; whether it will serve some in- 
 terest, or baffle some opponent, or advance some party. 
 But how often, in all the thoroughfares of society, do 
 we hear an open question shut and concluded by the 
 short, swift, clear argument of a Christian tongue? 
 " This is right, and because it is right, it must be done, 
 cost what consequences it may ; that other thing is wrong, 
 and therefore it cannot be touched, let it promise to pay 
 what it will." In the clamoring of calculation and profit, 
 how often is the simple voice of Duty audible and deci- 
 sive? 
 
 Looking for causes, we find that, among the virtues 
 which the people honor, we have been trying a good 
 deal, of late, to make the softer virtues answer for the 
 sturdier, and philanthropy for all the rest. It happened 
 by a natural reaction. In the feudalism and vassalage 
 of the middle ages, and under the monarchies of the old 
 world, the tendency ran to physical cruelty. Life was 
 cheap. Liberty was crushed. The lower classes were 
 not too good to suffer any sort of deprivation. The 
 slave was at the mercy of the master ; and where that is 
 true, mercy always gives place, sooner or later, to wrath. 
 When the free spirit arose, and more equal forms of 
 civil society were planted, the milder compassions and 
 gentler sensibilities of Christian people came uppermost. 
 So far as the moral feelings were aroused at all, the im- 
 pulse was to make everybody comfortable in condition 
 and happy in mind. But there is something higher 
 than that. Wrongs were righted, not always because 
 they were wrongs, and because rights are sacred, but 
 because suffering is disagreeable. If a malefactor was 
 seized by the arm of justice, and shut up in prison, an 
 indiscriminate sympathy, thinking nothing of the safety 
 
48 
 
 of society, went about to stir up public sympathy in his 
 behalf, sent flowers and pictures and carpets to his cell, 
 tried to shorten his term of punishment, and, if possible, 
 to get him out of the hands of the law altogether. 
 1^0 w,* it must be a hard heart which does not recognize 
 in these kindly impulses the working of the spirit of 
 Christian charity. Such ameliorations were needed, in 
 a degree, and thej came, and blessed were they by whom 
 they came. But, after all, God does not govern mankind 
 by an unqualified pity, but by mercy balanced with jus- 
 tice; by tenderness harmonized with severity, — the 
 severity itself sometimes being merciful. In mortal 
 progress the pendulum swings from one extreme to 
 another. Probably in the old social order there were 
 some upright and downright traits, intermixed with 
 coarser ones, which, as sons of a God of righteousness, 
 we could not afford to let go, and which w^e shall have 
 to bring back, and plant side by side with our yielding 
 charities and fair humanities, before we shall throw off 
 this disgrace of dishonesty. There must be more 
 respect for reality, and less for show ; more willingness 
 to be poor, if God wills it ; less anxiety to hang out the 
 signals of success; more simplicity and less extrava- 
 gance. Nor is there any such thing possible as atoning 
 for a fraudulent getting of money by giving a part of it 
 away. Ananias laid a part of the proceeds of the land 
 at the Apostle's feet for the use of the Church. It is 
 known of one of the foremost of American statesmen 
 that he was in the habit of bestowing munificent alms 
 impulsively on mendicant people about him, and letting 
 his debts go unpaid. What a wretched world this would 
 be if the Almighty turned His ordinances of truth into 
 a confusion of unprincipled indulgences like that! 
 Kindness is always lovely, but kindness will not save us 
 
AND UPRIGHTNESS IN MAN. 49 
 
 from the consequences, if we do not pay what we owe, 
 or if we take more than our due. An age of mingled 
 philanthropy and dishonesty is not an age of the reign 
 of Christ, whose name is " the Lord our righteousness." 
 Another mistake pertains to the realm of religion. 
 In almost any of our communities you may set ten per- 
 sons to inquire into the religious state of their neighbors, 
 and in nine cases of the ten the first question will be 
 about feelings ; not, What are your convictions of truth, 
 your principles of conduct, the root and ground of your 
 faith in God, or in the solid and fixed facts of a revealed 
 Gospel and historical kingdom of our Lord ? but. What 
 is your feeling? not, What are you standing on? not 
 whether a holy Christ has your loyal and unflinching 
 obedience ; not how far you are practically pledged to a 
 righteous Master, — which are certainly the chief matters 
 now, as they were in the days and the preaching of the 
 Apostles, — but rather whether the sensibilities are lively 
 and the devout emotions enthusiastic. Eeligious feeling 
 is one of the fruits of the Spirit — one of them ; it has 
 much to do in kindling and sustaining religious exertion. 
 But feeling is certainly the most irregular element in 
 our composition, and it so far depends on outward con- 
 ditions that it makes one of the least trustworthy tests 
 of the actual frame of a Christian soul before God. 
 Feeling belongs to the passive part of our nature ; prin- 
 ciple to the active part. Feeling depends on a sensitive 
 surface ; principle on depths of moral purity. We feel 
 spontaneously, and often whether we would or not. 
 There is no principle and no duty without a direct 
 exertion of the will. Feeling may be sudden ; duty is 
 deliberate. Feeling may be transient ; duty is constant. 
 Feeling changes with temperament, with states of health 
 and nerves, with a thousand fickle external influences. 
 
50 
 
 Principle is independent of all physical or alterable 
 circumstances, moves straight on through all moods and 
 climates, sails by fixed stars, and is the same secure and 
 glorious thing through all the shifting seasons, though 
 the mountains of prosperity were torn up and cast into 
 the sea. 
 
 It deserves to be considered, therefore, whether the 
 emotional type of piety is, on the whole, the only or the 
 strongest type, or is calculated to carry a man bravely 
 and uprightly through all the temptations of the market 
 and society, of public and private life. Let us hope that 
 the sturdy common-sense of this people will repudiate 
 any ministration that addresses itself chiefly to a senti- 
 mental fancy, whether in the gusty appeals of open-air 
 conventicles, in sensational pulpits, or in the scenery of 
 church chancels. Is it not likely that some part of the 
 loose dealings, and false accounts, and violated covenants, 
 which have frightened the propriety and shocked the. 
 better sense of all Christian bodies, are traceable to this 
 idea, that religion is concerned entirely with emotions, 
 and not with character ? Ananias and his wife had just 
 come into the church, been baptized, joined the Christian 
 community, and their feelings were so far wrought upon 
 that they wanted to follow where the popular current 
 was then setting, and to throw their private estate into 
 the common treasury, though that was no part of the 
 Christian obligation, as St. Peter taught them. What 
 was their sentimental ardor worth? It did not save 
 them from being both, one after the other, wound up in 
 shrouds and carried out to a dishonored burial. It 
 appears to me that, even within the recollection of living 
 men, the Christian Faith has come to be less and less 
 regarded as a commanding and mighty power from 
 Heaven, a voice of authority, a law of holy life, but 
 
AND UPRIGHTNESS IN MAN. 51 
 
 more and more as an easy-going guide to future enjoy- 
 ment, to a universal happiness and an indiscriminate 
 salvation. Who can believe these horrible insults to 
 morality would go on cursing our cities, and corrupting 
 our young men, if the offenders looked up above a hire- 
 ling police, a venal judiciary, and a cowardly public 
 opinion, and believed those simple words, " Thou, God, 
 seest me, who wilt by no means clear the guilty " ? The 
 Gospel is a gift of grace ; but if it does not keep the 
 disciple out of the schemes of sharpers and liars, the 
 grace has miscarried. The Gospel is love ; but it has a 
 law-element in it, too, which the saintliest Christian 
 never outgrows. The Old Testament goes into the 
 ISTew. The Saviour says explicitly He came not to 
 destroy the law, but to fill it full, and that He is coming 
 again to judge every follower by his deeds. If you cut 
 the JS'ew Testament apart from the Old, your one Bible 
 is gone, and rationalism will pick the fragments to pieces 
 at its leisure. We want that elder and eternal Testa- 
 ment which gives us the text — "Righteousness and 
 judgment are the habitation of His throne." See how 
 that word " righteous " studs all the Scripture-pages, and 
 how the glorious reality it represents is the steadfast 
 foundation of the welfare of souls, from the first creation 
 on to the new heavens and the new earth. 
 
 We read public reports of ardent religious agitations. 
 Not a syllable shall my lips speak in disparagement of 
 religious revivals. Till there is more thought for things 
 unseen, in these uncounted dwellings around us, which 
 have now no veneration, no Lord's Day, no prayer, no 
 sacrament, no Advent, and no realized God, we can ill 
 aftbrd to despise any honest attempt to waken the dead 
 to life. But we are certainly not wrong if, with God's 
 Bible in our hands, we urge that the religion that 
 
52 THE KIGHTEOrSNESS OF GOD, 
 
 is revived shall revive with it honesty, fair dealing, 
 veracity, chastity, plain living and faithful work ; shall 
 bring on a new epoch of duty, — courageous, clean- 
 handed, sweet-hearted duty, irreproachable and incor- 
 ruptible duty — fearing God and keeping His command- 
 ments. 
 
 How wise it would be, too, if, in the disorganizing 
 social questions and the depressing commercial reverses 
 of the time, we could come to look at these problems 
 more in the daylight of duty, and less under the delu- 
 sive glamour of speculation ! When markets are over- 
 loaded and the wheels of industry hang idle; when 
 merchants go to their counting-rooms in the morning, 
 not to see how much money they can make, but how 
 little they can lose ; when the charities of the Church 
 are shrivelled, and hope dies out of the hearts of the 
 poor, not for the want of bounty but for the want of 
 work ; do not imagine you can go to the bottom of the 
 matter by some disputed theory of currency or political 
 economy. Take God's law with your account-book. 
 Admit, frankly, that enterprise and commerce have been 
 living, these last years, too much on false pretenses. 
 Own that where business professed that it was done on 
 solid capital, it has been done on bubbles of air ; that 
 you have walked in vain shadows, and called those 
 shadows property ; that you have promoted to places of 
 honor men who have asked to be trusted when there 
 was nothing to trust, — men shocked at no duplicity, 
 sticking at no excess, ashamed of no dishonor! How 
 can any financial philosophy or turn of political parties 
 repair ruins wrought by sins like these ? 
 
 You return from the out-of-door vexations, for peace, 
 to your home. But remember that even home, where 
 virtue generally makes its last retreat, if without this 
 
AND UPRIGHTNESS IN MAN. 53 
 
 Christian principle of right, is no safer than the exchange 
 or the street. Marriage loses its sacredness, and along 
 with its sanctity its joy. Domestic life is tossed into a 
 troubled, angry strife. License and self-will, pagan 
 deities, stalk out of their old Pantheon, and become the 
 household gods of a degenerate and heathenized Chris- 
 tendom. Men look at women through a mist of passion, 
 and women look at men as rival claimants for privilege 
 and power. Who can marvel that the fountains of young 
 life are poisoned, and that the foundations of social 
 honor are loose ? The relations of man and woman will 
 not grow healthier — they will be worse disordered — till 
 we hear less about " rights," and more of what is right ; 
 less of the clashing of their spheres, and more of their 
 mutual obligations. Were every " incompatible " hus- 
 band and wife to take at once the simple spirit of duty 
 for their reconciliation, resolved to do what is nobly and 
 tenderly right, in the mutual bond that has bound them 
 divinely and indissolubly together, a new age would 
 begin in the soiled history of American families, and 
 cleaner blood would run in the veins of the generations 
 coming. We need apostolic households, no less than an 
 apostolic Church ; and it is an Apostle who, when he has 
 said, " Wives obey your husbands," says with equal 
 emphasis, " Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter 
 against them," — and what gentleness in his reason ! — for 
 " The husband is the head of the wife, as Christ of the 
 Church." 
 
 Begin with your children. Speak cheerfully, but rev- 
 erently and solemnly, to them of the righteousness of 
 God. Tell them He is their Father, and tell them He 
 is their Judge. Show them His face of compassion ; 
 show them His Throne of retribution. Teach them 
 that He loves the good ; teach them that He hates lying, 
 
54: THE EIGHTEOUSJSTESS OF GOD. 
 
 and lust, and all iniquity, and that, for His goodness's 
 sake. He will sweep those who do not hate them finally 
 into tribulation. Take care, yourselves, to touch not 
 the unclean thing, so that your counsel to your sons and 
 daughters be not a mockery. Shake off the first dishonest 
 penny from your fingers, as the Apostle shook the ven- 
 omous viper into the fire. Stand in awe of your con- 
 science ; stand in awe of the King of kings. Expect and 
 welcome, from the ministry of Christ, searching mes- 
 sages. Pray for prophets who will rebuke you, as their 
 ancient predecessors did Israel, for robbing man by any 
 fraud, for robbing God by keeping back the offerings at 
 His altar which He requires at your hands. Turn to old 
 Isaiah, and listen to the burden of his advent vision: 
 
 "Hear, O Heaven, and give ear, O Earth, for the 
 Lord hath spoken. I have nourished and brought up 
 children, and they have rebelled against me. "Wash you ; 
 make you clean. Cease to do evil ; learn to do well. 
 Seek judgment ; relieve the oppressed ; right the father- 
 less ; plead for the widow. Zion shall be redeemed with 
 judgment, and her converts with righteousness. Say ye 
 to the righteous. It shall be well with them, for they 
 shall eat the fruit of their doings. "Woe unto the 
 wicked ; it shall be ill with him, for the reward of his 
 hand shall be given him. The mouth of the Lord 
 hath spoken it." 
 
THE MAN CHEIST JESUS. 
 
 Christmas Day, 
 
 "And they shall call His name Emmanuel, which being inter- 
 preted is, God with us.— /S^. Matthew i. 23. 
 
 ^ The form of the sentence is prophetic. The Evangel- 
 ist expressly quotes it from the Book of prophecy where 
 it originally stood. Isaiah, sometimes called the evan- 
 gelist among the prophets, because his mind was so 
 deeply acquainted with the spirit of Christ, wrote it as a 
 promise to his people. Through them it was a promise 
 to the world. Blind and lost humanity had gone wrong, 
 groping and stumbling down the slope of four thousand 
 evil years. Had it been only man that was offended, 
 then some better man, large of brain and large of heart, 
 might have been the mediator. But the Prophet saw 
 deeper than that. With the Psalmist, he knew that the 
 human heart must cry out, " Against Thee, Thee only," 
 O my God^ " have I sinned." Some mightier Saviour 
 must come. Even the Heaven of heavens is moving it- 
 self in mercy. " Ask thee a sign of the Lord thy God ; 
 ask it either in the depth or in the height above. The 
 Lord himself shall give you a sign. Behold, a virgin 
 shall conceive, and bear a Son." " In the beginning was 
 the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word 
 was God. He was in the world, — that w^orld which was 
 made by Him, — and the world knew Him not." " In 
 
56 THE MAN CHEIST JESUS. 
 
 Him was life " ; original, absolute, eternal, uncreated 
 life. So, virgin-born, God came in great humility as 
 man, — Emmanuel, — and we, with undeserving eyes, be- 
 held His glory, the glory as of one only begotten of the 
 Father, full of grace and truth. How have we beheld 
 Him? Has it been with a joy like John's? Has it been 
 with a faith like Mary's ? Have we knelt, bringing our 
 offerings to Him with the sages, or worshipped Him in 
 simplicity of heart, with the shepherds ? 
 
 Secondly, the Mediator was to come in the purity and 
 the power of a sinless human character. Here, again, 
 notice how simple and natural the prophet's language is. 
 The child to be born " shall know to refuse the evil and 
 choose the good." Heavenly knowledge ! " To depart 
 from evil, that is understanding." This Christ to come 
 shall be the perfect Man. In Him all virtues, all graces, 
 shall meet. They shall not only meet but harmonize in 
 Him, blending together into one matchless manhood. It 
 shall not be as in all other men, the grandest specimens 
 of virtue, where some disproportion spoils the sym- 
 metry; excess or defect, one-sidedness or limitation, 
 clinging to the highest minds. But everything in Him 
 shall be tempered faultlessly together : energy with pa- 
 tience, dignity with tenderness, forbearance toward the 
 guilty with indignation at wrong, command with obe- 
 dience, courage with humility, the fortitude of heroes 
 and martyrs with the sensibility of woman, and the ripe 
 experience of saints with the artlessness of a child. It 
 was " that holy thing " of which the angel spoke so mys- 
 teriously and awfully to Mary, which " should be born 
 of her," as " the Son of God." He would be the man 
 with men. He would be humanity's one consummate 
 immaculate example. He would be the world's one 
 stainless human soul. 
 
THE MAN CHRIST JESUS. 57 
 
 This was the second part of the world's one real 
 want: First, Divine redemption for the sins that are 
 past. Secondly, a holy Man. We, my friends, are a 
 part of the human world ; and you and I, if we have at- 
 tained at all to a spiritual life, must join in with the cry 
 of this longing of human hearts for a Christ. Give us, 
 O Giver of all good gifts, one Leader like ourselves ; one 
 glorious human Person that we can love immeasurably 
 and forever, and the more we love Him be the more ex- 
 alted ; one King that our loyalty can cling to, without 
 abatement or misgiving, till we die, and then not die 
 eternally. Let Him be one of us, that we may be one in 
 Him. Let Him be no strange, distant demigod, belong- 
 ing neither to heaven nor earth, too unearthly for our 
 affections, and yet too mortal for our worship. But let 
 Him be born here, — on this familiar, sinful earth, which 
 feels human to our human feet ; in some Bethlehem vil- 
 lage, where men and women work and weep, and chil- 
 dren play in the streets; and if it be in a stable-manger, 
 so much the better for the encouragement of our faith 
 that He really means to minister to us, and to take the 
 form of a servant, and to put pride altogether away ; — 
 though He was rich with the wealth of heaven and earth 
 before, to become poor for our sake. Let Him grow up 
 in a carpenter's family, that He may make all our com- 
 mon labor sacred, and have a place in every humble 
 house on the globe. Though He is to be the conqueror 
 of all nations and all ages, let us see Him first as a filial 
 boy at home, subject to the order of the house, obedient 
 to His mother, growing into His lordship over the 
 race through these steps of pious subordination. Above 
 all, let Him, for our poor sinful nature's sake, — let Him 
 be tempted, like as we are, that He may know how to 
 succor and pity and love us who are tempted. Com- 
 
58 THE MAN CHRIST JESUS. 
 
 plete, and spotless, and triumphant in His holiness, let us 
 nevertheless find Him facing our adversary, — in actual 
 struggles, — in the wilderness, hungry for earthly bread ; 
 on the temple-top, with the pride of personal display 
 before Him ; at the mount, beholding the kingdoms of 
 worldly dominion lying helpless within the grasp of His 
 ambition, yet refusing them. Alone, out among the 
 hills, when the world of men has misunderstood, wor- 
 ried, rejected Him, with the night wind on His heated 
 face, let us catch the words of peaceful prayer from His 
 lips. Though He is to overcome death, passing through 
 it, and rising from it, yet, since we all dread it, let us 
 hear Plim entreat, under its agony, " If it be possible, 
 let this cup pass from Me." Let us meet Him weep- 
 ing sometimes at the grave of His friend, and by all this 
 thorough and utter humanity in Him, let Him be to us 
 a brother, while He is a Saviour ; Mary's child, while 
 He reigns over the kingdom of D.ivid, — the Son of 
 Man, as He is the Son of God, — God himself, in His 
 wondrous way, with us. Emmanuel ! 
 
 When this yearning of mankind was taken up into 
 the guidance and inspiration of God, it became proph- 
 ecy. The voice became articulate. A "more sure 
 word," as the Apostle says, " holy men of old spoke as 
 they were moved by the Holy Ghost." One of the 
 most expressive titles of our Lord condenses and con- 
 veys all this that I have been trying to say. He was the 
 " Desire of all nations," and accordingly the Evangelist, 
 in the passage of the text, while he records the blessed 
 nativity at Bethlehem, adds to the narrative, " [N'ow all 
 this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken 
 of the Lord by the prophet." Some puzzled students, 
 looking not much below the literal sense lying on the 
 surface, have wondered at this language, and disputed 
 
THE MAJ? CHRIST JESUS. 59 
 
 about it. " Is it credible," they have asked, " that God 
 in lieaven should order such grand transactions as make 
 up the Messiah's ministry, merely for the purpose of 
 fulfilling certain old predictions, written by men ages 
 before ? " But there is a profounder view of the unity 
 between prophets and evangelists than this. And 
 where do we find it, but in the very significance and 
 strength of those desires we have just seen in the whole 
 mind and heart of the nations of men, seeing them 
 there just because we feel them first in ourselves; — 
 desires for a Divine propitiation, for a perfect Master, 
 Leader, Lord, to love, and trust, and follow, — to love 
 more than life, to follow through all hurt and peril with 
 joy, to trust for everlasting salvation ? In order that 
 these longings of the human heart, — fed on prophecy, 
 divinely instructed, made a preparation for (Christ, gath- 
 ered up and clothed in miraculous authority in great 
 illuminated seers like Isaiah and Zechariah, — might be 
 fulfilled. He was born, and died. Herein was love. 
 ^Nothing here is beneath the dignity of the covenants 
 and revelations of Heaven. It is the answer of God's 
 eternal purpose to the cry of His penitent family, in the 
 gift of the Emmanuel, our Saviour. 
 
 And now these things that I have been saying to you, 
 as our Christmas morning thought, are a declaration, — 
 only not in the usual formulas of theological discussion, 
 — of the one fact which lies central and life-giving, at 
 the heart of all our Christian thoughts and hopes. The 
 name that the creeds and standards of the Church have 
 always given it is the Incarnation, — or the doctrine of 
 God in Christ, made flesh, and dwelling with us. Ready 
 as Christians have been, however, to give that blessed 
 truth this place in words, there is too much reason to 
 fear it does not possess the soul of Christendom as the 
 
60 THE MAN CHEIST JESUS. 
 
 joyful conviction it ought to be, lightening all our dark- 
 ness, scattering all our fear, sanctifying all our life. We 
 cover it up with strange and gloomy draperies of un- 
 real phraseology, technical traditions, or sectarian dis- 
 putes. It is not blessed truth at all then, but is robbed of 
 its blessedness. Let it stand out in its own simple, fresh, 
 and glorious splendor, and what loveliness of moral 
 beauty, what majesty of disinterested sacrifice, what 
 gladness of relief and consolation, what beam of hope is 
 there, that does not meet and mingle in its mercy ? In 
 the whole world of realities there is nothing so real, or 
 so comforting to us, as this. JSmmanuel ! 
 
 Further, we come short of the full grandeur of the 
 Gospel when we take the clause, " God with us," as 
 signifying only one among us, — a Deity moving among 
 individuals, outside of them all, and, however friendly 
 and gracious, still an external Person, saving them only 
 by a work wrought all above them. Christ's atonement 
 is no mechanical device in the Divine counsels, brought 
 in at an unexpected emergency in the world's fortunes, 
 paying the price of men's sins in a mercantile equiv- 
 alent adjusted by contract, after which the Redeemer 
 retires to contemplate His ransomed beneficiaries from 
 afar off. Oh, friends in Christ, friends in Christ, we 
 have a dearer, warmer, holier faith. When it is said 
 that, in Emmanuel^ God is with us, it is meant that His 
 very nature is wrought into our nature, if in faith and 
 baptism we receive Him, and ours into His. In the 
 true Incarnation all humanity is, in a certain sense, taken 
 up into the embrace of God. Henceforth all the world 
 is saved, and no soul born of woman,— no man, no child, 
 — needs to be an alien or outcast from the Father's House. 
 It only needs that the energetic command be heeded, — 
 " Repent and be baptized ; come in faith ; accept your 
 
THE MAN CHRIST JESUS. 61 
 
 lieritage; be born of water and of the Spirit; awake to 
 the spiritual privileges and holy living of the family 
 order and affection around you." Then new beauty will 
 robe the earth ; new joy will encompass it like an at- 
 mosphere ! IS'ow we have a meaning for the angels' 
 song, — " Glad tidings of great joy to all people " ; " Glory 
 to God in the highest ; on earth peace ; good-will to 
 men." Old things are -passed away; behold all things 
 are become new. 
 
 It is a remark of the historian Guizot, and it doubt- 
 less contains a sound philosophy, for all history confirms 
 it, that " there never can be a great moral revolution 
 without its being concentrated in some great personage." 
 Doubtless, loyalty, everywhere, must have a leader. 
 But the practical assurance which this Feast of the 
 ]N"ativity repeats to us reaches far beyond that, and 
 comes home to the heart's experience of those that are 
 themselves sore let and hindered in running the race 
 that is set before them. Christ not merely takes His 
 place in history; but all history takes place in Him. 
 He is large enough, comprehensive enough, compassion- 
 ate enough, to take in all the experience, the souls, the 
 lives, the burdens, the sorrows, of all nations and all 
 ages. See at once what a higher and holier character 
 this truth puts on the much-abused dogma of the dignity 
 of human nature. Human nature without the incarna- 
 tion is the least dignified of all things : it is weak, incon- 
 stant, vulgar, guilty, lost. As for anything it is in itself, 
 only conceit and vanity could call it noble, and hence it 
 is that the doctrine of the dignity of human nature, held 
 without the Church-truth of Christ's divinity and incar- 
 nation, has proved but a thin and feeble force to convert 
 mankind, to raise society, or to send out missions to the 
 heathen. Its fatal infirmity, in the lack of this funda- 
 
K)j3 the man CHRIST JESUS. 
 
 mental and vitalizing fact of the Gospels, has emptied 
 even its honest and eloquent advocates of spiritual power. 
 But let it be seen that human nature is uplifted and 
 ennobled in the Divine humanity of Christ, Son of Man 
 and Son of God, and forthwith it wears a grandeur as if 
 the majestic bearing and outlines of the Divine Man 
 were visibly reflected upon it. Education is a new 
 thing now : it is a sacred training in a sacred school. 
 Social reform is a new thing : for it is no visionary 
 scheme of an indefinite " progress," all whose forces are 
 secular, and whose civilization is unconsecrated, never 
 on its knees, and never at sacraments ; but it is a restor- 
 ation of this divine image in man. Philanthropy is a 
 new thing : no longer bitter, headstrong, factious ; but 
 reverential, genial, generous, and orderly. Christ's 
 human nature is the nature of all classes and conditions 
 of men, — the slave's nature, the poor man's nature, the 
 pagan's nature; and when He died, with the cruci- 
 fixion and anguish of that nature, on the cross, it w^as 
 that all these might be lifted to the glory of spiritual 
 liberty and light, and their sins be blotted out. Here 
 centre and here rest all solid hopes of a bright and 
 happy future for mankind ; not in economic schemes, 
 or bills of rights, or civil constitutions, or policies of a 
 godless self-elevation and self-reliance. They rest in 
 the reverent spirit of the Church of God, with her hope- 
 ful and all-animating certainty of an incarnate Lord, a 
 God with us, who is the Son of Man : Eiamcmuel, 
 
 Then, too, it will begin to appear what Christ's own 
 people may be, acknowledging their membership, con- 
 firmed and alive in His body. Take the Holy Scriptures 
 and see how often Christ is there spoken of as an indwell- 
 ing Christ, present now, formed within, living in the 
 believer and the believer in Him, the very Life of life. 
 
THE MAN CHKIST JESUS. DO 
 
 Take our service of the Holy Communion of His body 
 and blood ; study its sublime scriptural language ; and 
 you find how intimate and inward is this membership of 
 the disciple and communicant with his Lord by faith. 
 Light even breaks in on that almost inexplicable and 
 incredible saying of St. Peter, that by the " exceeding 
 great and precious promises " of the Word made flesh, 
 men may be " partakers of the Divine nature, escaping 
 the corruption that is in the world through lust." Kea- 
 son, blind and anxious, may still have its difiiculties, and 
 toil and grind in its prison-house, " bound in affliction and 
 iron " ; but Faith marches right over them as if they 
 were not ; nay, she takes wings and leaves them out of 
 her sight. What we want, that our Gospel gives. While 
 Reason is puzzling herself about the mystery. Faith is 
 turning it into her daily bread, and feeding on it thank- 
 fully in her heart of hearts. While Heason is applying 
 the tests of her earthly chemistry, threatening to dis- 
 solve the very cross of Calvary in her crucibles. Faith 
 has quietly set the holy doctrine to the music of her joy, 
 and is singing it as her hymn of Benedictus^ or Magnifi- 
 cat, in unquestioning peace. The doctrine may crucify 
 the proud, but it crowns the meek with salvation. 
 
 We cannot separate, then, fellow Christians, the two 
 main grounds of our Christian rejoicing this day. If 
 reconciliation is by the Lord's sacrifice, so is daily right- 
 eousness and sanctification by His life. There could be 
 no Mediator without both ; and by both we are saved. 
 If, " being justified by faith, we have peace with God 
 through our Lord Jesus Christ," so in the blessed 
 remembrance of the Divine humanity of that unseen 
 Friend we shall find a power to raise us, day by day, 
 above the weakness, the sufiering, and the sinfulness of 
 the mortal flesh. Perhaps some of us will find there 
 
64 THE MAN CHKIST JESUS. 
 
 what will even comfort us more than the bare thought 
 of an "escape from the wrath to come," viz., a power to 
 help us mightily in this mysterious and constant strife of 
 the flesh with the spirit. We know now that the world 
 of matter and the body is under no malignant deity or 
 demon at war with God ; but to the believer even the 
 outer tabernacle is sanctified by Him who took it upon 
 Him ; the flesh, too, is redeemed ; the " creature itself 
 shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into 
 the glorious liberty of the children of God " ; and, while 
 " the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain 
 together," we wait in Christ who hath taken our flesh 
 " for the redemption and resurrection of our body," 
 which is the living image and figure of His Church. 
 
 Honor and praise, then, in the Church, with Christ- 
 mas anthems, with the shepherds, and the sages, and the 
 virgin-mother, and the heavenly host, to our Emmanuel, 
 as the Son of Man ! As man He was born. As man 
 He was a servant, was homeless, was weary, was an hun- 
 gered, and wept. As man He was tempted, and as man 
 He was without sin. As man He endured contradiction, 
 reviling, insult, cruelty, and yet said, " Daughters of 
 Jerusalem, weep not for Me, but weep for yourselves 
 and for your children." As man He was crucified, dead, 
 and buried. As man He rose again, ascended, and reigns. 
 As man He shall come again, to divide, and to judge, 
 and to reign ; for " therefore is all judgment committed 
 unto Him, because He is the Son of Man." 
 
 So well-grounded is the universal joy of this day's 
 feast. The blessing belonging to it falls not on one 
 day, or on a few rare and separated spots. Its light 
 shines in through all the frost and fruitage of the year. 
 When the star in the east came and stood over where 
 the young child was, and looked in on the Bethlehem 
 
THE MAN CHRIST JESUS. 66 
 
 stable, it saw the beginDing of a reconciliation which 
 should bring rest to the world. When the song of the 
 angels startled the shepherds, keeping watch over their 
 flocks by night, it was the first strain of a harmony in 
 which we bear our unworthy part this morning, to sound 
 on till it is completed, where it was begun, — in heaven. 
 The manger is a cradle for all the anxieties and sorrows 
 and fears of our hearts, where they may sleep in child- 
 like peace. The human nativity of Jesus is the Divine 
 birthday and new creation of the soul. 
 
FAITH OUTLIYIKG ITS SPECIAL OCCASIONS. 
 Sunday after Christmas, 
 
 "And it came to pass, as the angels were gone away from them 
 into Heaven, the shepherds said one to another, Let us now go even 
 unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the 
 Lord hath made known unto us." — St. LuTce ii. 15. 
 
 The trial of men's faith comes after God's awakening 
 angels have gone away. 
 
 His angels are His messengers. In so sublime a cere- 
 monial as the visible ushering into the world of the Person 
 of its Lord they might well come as winged forms in the 
 sky, heavenly light clothing them, singing a super- 
 natural hymn : the whole appearance a court befitting 
 the glory of the King. When God bringeth His only 
 begotten Son into the world, He " maketh His angels 
 spirits, and His ministers a flame of fire." We call it 
 supernatural, and it is ; yet what could be more natural 
 to Him than that, when the eternal Son, begotten of His 
 Father before all worlds, becomes a man, — because men 
 could not be thoroughly and inwardly saved but by the 
 sacrifice and sympathy of a Saviour entering into the 
 poverty and suffering of their mortal estate, — those inter- 
 mediate orders of life which stand between Him and us 
 should attend His advent, and announce the transcen- 
 dent blessing to the world ? It was too high a mystery 
 to be heralded, even in music, from the stained and sin- 
 ning lips of men. 
 
FAITH OUTLIVING ITS SPECIAL OCCASIONS. 67 
 
 To US God's favoring messengers are stripped of their 
 miraculous raiment. They take the shape of merciful 
 providences to relieve and comfort us, of Christian 
 ordinances to strengthen us, festivals to reawaken our 
 thanksgiving, and human hearts to enrich the poverty 
 of ours with their affection. The Faith that was born 
 at Bethlehem is ages old ; its outer benefits as well as 
 its forms are familiar. "While they are present to the 
 senses in the vividness of some special impression it is 
 not very difficult probably for our feelings to move in 
 grateful answer to their ministrations. On the Mount of 
 Transfiguration the three favored disciples cried, "Let 
 us build tabernacles and abide here " ; yet scarcely had 
 they stepped down from the splendors of Tabor when 
 they began disputing which follower of the poor stable- 
 born and homeless Redeemer should be greatest. In the 
 fresh mercy of some gracious deliverance, from sadness or 
 pain or accident or threatened sorrow, men cast their 
 thank-offering into the treasury of the Church, and 
 wonder that they should ever be forgetful of God's care. 
 In th8 stillness of a sanctuary, when all the harmonies 
 of holy times and places seem to shut out temptation, 
 to set open the windows of heaven, and fill the uplifted 
 spirit with hearty praise, men say, " Would to God all 
 days and places were like this ; for then faith, and zeal, 
 and charity never would grow cold ! " In the warmth 
 of the feast it is easy to be glad. And even when the 
 shadow moves into the house, — for that shadow too is 
 one of God's angels, — the whole family, bending with 
 prayers and whispers above one fevered, wasting child, 
 find it easy to turn to the Saviour, and impossible not 
 to pray. But these hours pass by. The angels are gone 
 away into heaven. The festive lights are put out; the 
 temple-doors are shut ; the Winter snow lies white and 
 
b» FAITH OUTLIVING ITS SPECIAL OCCASIONS. 
 
 smooth on tlie little grave in the burial-ground. The 
 world comes crowding, beseeching, flattering, threaten- 
 ing, almost forcing its way back, with its noise and its 
 guilt, into the unguarded and yielding heart. Then 
 comes the test of the reality, the sincerity, the power, 
 of your Christian principles. 
 
 When the song ceased, the first Christmas eve, and 
 the bright host vanished from the sky, the shepherds 
 did not fall asleep again, and so have only a dream to 
 tell the next morning. They verified the vision, like 
 earnest and constant men. They stayed a while, and 
 watched, and resolved : " Let us now go even unto Beth- 
 lehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which 
 the Lord hath made known to us." 
 
 Secondly : Such willingness to watch and seek com- 
 monly leads, as it does here, to an equal readiness to 
 heliem when the promise is fulfilled, and they that have 
 sought Christ find Him. It will be easy to imagine in 
 them — and all the easier because there are so many peo- 
 ple close at hand that are examples of it, — a state of mind 
 exactly opposite to this simple, believing, and confiding 
 one in the shepherds. They might have said, — and if 
 they had been modern philosophers, conceited critics, or 
 ambitious naturalists, they would have been very sure to 
 say, — to each other, " Beware how you believe : these, to 
 be sure, are extraordinary phenomena; they look very 
 much as miracles are said to look, — brilliant figures 
 plainly seen by many witnesses, nay, by our own eyes, 
 and articulate melodies from their tongues! — but pos- 
 sibly electricity, meteorology, optics, or acoustics may 
 explain them all ; — light or sound." And if the legiti- 
 mate sciences fail, they can at least fall back on necromancy 
 and witchcraft, — the retributive " spiritualism " which 
 often persuades those who would not believe a miracle of 
 
FAITH OUTLIVING ITS SPECIAL OCCASIONS. 69 
 
 truth to believe the miracle of a lie. Anything but 
 simple, straight-forward Christian faith, of Gospel and 
 Church together ! They say, " We will look into our 
 books. It is extremely unlikely that nature would inter- 
 rupt her order, or let in new light by a new channel. 
 Let us take care not to be ridiculed for believing too 
 much." And so, while they turn downward from God to 
 themselves, these Scribes of outward knowledge and 
 Pharisees of the law of nature, as fast bound against all 
 the living power of truth and the liberty in Christ as 
 ever the Scribes and Pharisees of the letter and law 
 of Judaism were, freeze in unbelief. Glories of heaven 
 and earth, grander than telescopes ever pierced among 
 the stars, or hammers ever uncovered in the rocks, 
 pass by, and there is no vision to behold them. Quick 
 minds, but dull affections! Full understandings and 
 empty hearts ! Spiritual things not seen for want of 
 spiritual senses ! " O fools and slow of heart to believe " 
 all that God's prophets, God's angels, God's Scriptures 
 have spoken ! 
 
 Around the person of Jesus in the flesh, when the 
 Divine voice was ringing out of Heaven above Him, 
 some said that it thundered, others that an angel spoke to 
 Him. These shepherds were wiser than the sages. God 
 knew whom he was choosing when he opened Heaven 
 on those clear-hearted keepers of simple flocks. They 
 discredited neither messenger nor message, — as true and 
 humble-minded disciples reject neither Christ nor His 
 Church, the Bridegroom nor the Bride. They said, not 
 as our own doubters say, " Let us go somewhere and see 
 whether this thing is come to pass or not " ; but, " Let 
 us go and see this thing which is come to pass, which the 
 Lord hath made known to us." Everywhere you see 
 men ready to hww, ready to reason, ready to speculate, 
 
TO FAITH OUTLIVING ITS SPECIAL OCCASIONS. 
 
 ready to stand by their party and their prejudice, ready to 
 dogmatize and denounce those that differ, ready to receive 
 this world's gifts. But when that divinest gift of all 
 comes, — ^pardon and eternal life; purity and peace; 
 Emmanuel born in a manger ; a kingdom coming not 
 with observation ; the gift of Christ ; a Life that is within 
 life and beyond life, which can come only by believing ; 
 are they ready ? Not till they are will Christmas Day 
 be really honored, or Jesus really come within us in 
 power. 
 
 Thirdly : When Faith is prompt, honest, and manly, 
 like this, it comes out as it does in these brave men, to 
 an open confession. The shepherds said what they said 
 frankly, " one to another ^^'^ and with one consent. It was 
 a confession of Faith as much as the Creed we have said 
 this morning ; and, like that, its substance was not an 
 opinionof men, but a Divine Fact which had taken place. 
 So they did not hide their purposes, or play fast and 
 loose with their convictions. They did not arise and go, 
 one by one, in byways of concealment, as if they were 
 ashamed of their errand, or were going only on guesses 
 instead of certainties ; they looked each other in the 
 face, as men do who act upon realities, and know what 
 they believe, and expect the same good faith in their fel- 
 lows. They spoke out their belief. They set up their 
 banner. They came forth from among the unbelieving. 
 They enrolled themselves under their Leader. "Would 
 all the men who actually believe with them, and mean 
 not to dishonor their Master, but are kept back by false 
 teaching, unfounded fears, and scruples that no evangelic 
 promise justifies, only come with them, — there would be 
 such a rallying of workmen under the cross to-day as 
 would make it almost a new nativity, such a feast as the 
 Church has scarcely kept since Pentecost; enough to 
 
FAITH OUTLIVING ITS SPECIAL OCCASIONS. 71 
 
 make tlie whole family in heaven and earth sing " Glory 
 to God in the highest," with united acclamation. 
 
 But after all these, — after the constancy which outlives 
 the visit of the special privilege, after the willing Faith 
 that accepts without question the offered Saviour, and 
 after the frank and fearless confession of His name before 
 men, comes one sharp criterion more. "Will those men 
 who have resolved to go to Bethlehem and see, really 
 arise and go? Many a Christian life falters and fails in 
 every congregation between these two. "Will resolve 
 pass on into action, and a good faith confirm and 
 demonstrate itself in good works ? Yes, " they came with 
 haste, and found Mary and Joseph, and the Babe lying 
 in a manger. And when they had seen it, they made 
 Icnown abroad the saying which was told them concerning 
 the Child." 
 
 So complete are the intimations of Christian doctrine 
 in this story of the shepherds. It ends where every 
 Christian life must be lived, in hearty service to Christ 
 and the preaching of His truth. Visions are transient ; 
 the festival is but for a day ; the angels go away into 
 heaven. But the indwelling Christ abides. Everyday^ 
 amidst ignorance, and wrong, and difficulty. His will 
 is to be done. For us all, the true trial of our faith 
 is in the constancy which clings to the promise of His 
 "Word, and the diligence which keeps its vows, and bears 
 His cross. 
 
 We have now celebrated the birthday not only of 
 Christ, but of Christendom. Men point sincerely 
 enough to its vast fields, and its centuries of blessing, 
 and call on their fellow-men to receive a religion which 
 yields such fruit. But in that way souls are seldom 
 gained to a living trust, such as either satisfies or sancti- 
 fies the heart. "We must still return to that old and 
 
72 FAITH OUTLIVING ITS SPECIAL OCCASIONS. 
 
 inspired definition: "ISTow faith is the substance of 
 things hoped for ; the evidence of things not seen." It 
 is not by looking at what has been in the world of the 
 past, it is by feeling the wants of the sinful world within, 
 and by the preparation for the sinless world to come, 
 that we seek and find our Lord. Blessed are they that 
 so hunger and thirst, for they shall be filled ! and that so 
 seek, for they shall find ! 
 
NEW AND OLD. 
 
 BEGINNING OF THE YEAE. 
 
 Second Sunday after Christmas. 
 
 " Things new and old." — Matthew xiii. 52. 
 
 Into these two kinds our Saviour sorts the materials 
 of wise instruction. The doctrines, the spiritual forces, 
 the ways of interesting, influencing, and moulding men 
 for a true service in the Christian life, are of these 
 two classes, — partly new and partly old. This fact is at 
 once an explanation of His own method of teaching, 
 and a direction to His disciples how they should proceed 
 to build up the Church, or to convert and to sanctify 
 any individual heart. 
 
 The great Teacher had Himself just spoken to the 
 multitude gathered within the reach of His voice 
 seven striking parables. Four of them, — the parables 
 of the Sower, the Tares growing with the wheat, the 
 Mustard-seed becoming a tree, and of the Leaven pene- 
 trating through the woman's measures of wheat, — were 
 doubtless delivered from a fishing- vessel anchored by the 
 shore of the Sea of Galilee, to a multitude of people 
 listening on the banks. The other three, — those of the 
 Treasure hidden in the field, of the Merchant seeking 
 goodly pearls, and of the Draw-net which gathers in 
 its meshes of every kind, — were heard afterward by 
 
74 NEW AND OLD. 
 
 a smaller group, collected in a dwelling-house that He 
 had entered, not far from the sea-side. All the subjects, 
 you notice, are taken from the agricultural, commercial, 
 maritime, or domestic pursuits of the people He was 
 instructing. Yet there was such novelty in the use 
 made of them, such unexpected arrangement, coloring, 
 and application of these "old" daily doings, that they 
 were at once transfigured before the people into a fas- 
 cinating glory ; they listened under the spell of an in- 
 describable charm; it all seemed "new," as if the 
 things spoken of were just created, and had the dew of 
 the morning on them. So the touch of true genius, in 
 a painting, is never so plain as where the figures and 
 objects represented are common, yet the whole effect is 
 original as a creation. " Things new and old " together 
 make up the mystery and the beauty of the parable and 
 the picture. But more than this, — in what the parables 
 taught, or the hidden meaning that Christ conveyed 
 through them, there was the same mixture of the two 
 elements. As they hearkened to the Lord from heaven 
 these Galilean peasants and fishermen found something 
 that was new, and something that was old. Duties were 
 declared, principles were announced, springs of human 
 feeling and action were touched, which their religious 
 education and the light of their consciences had made 
 as familiar to them as the slopes of the hills about the 
 lake, the curves of the shore, or the trees along the 
 street, under the common sunshine, where they plied 
 their daily calling. This was "old," but this was not all. 
 As the heavenly words came from the lips of this " Son 
 of Man," knowing not only all that is in man but the 
 secrets in the bosom of God, they caught glimpses of 
 something " new," and as grand as it was new. Yery 
 faint and inadequate these glimpses were, at first. But 
 
NEW AND OLD. 75 
 
 the patient Master knew the work He had to do, and 
 led their dull intellects along through this simple path 
 of parable, giving them what they were able to bear, 
 — tempered beams for their weak eyes. What He was 
 seeking to unfold to them was nothing less than the 
 nature of that, everlasting and universal kingdom of 
 God, which embraces all other truth, transcends all mor- 
 tal understanding, and provides redemption for all the 
 nations of our race, and yet sets up its true throne in 
 the unlettered heart of a regenerated child or a penitent 
 slave. Holding fast all that was good in the "old" re- 
 ligion of conscience and Law He was bringing forth to 
 them the " newness " of His Gospel. 
 
 "Then said He unto them. Every Scribe which is 
 instructed unto the kingdom of heaven is like unto a 
 man which is an householder, which bringeth forth out of 
 his treasure things new and old." Perhaps, while He 
 was speaking, the table in the house where He was had 
 been hospitably spread for this welcome and beloved 
 Friend, like that of the lover in the Song of Solomon who 
 sings, " At our gates are all manner of fruits, new and 
 old^ which I have laid up for thee, O my beloved " ; — 
 and thus Jesus frames another allegory from the ready 
 meal ; — " so thoroughly," says Stier, " has He got into the 
 taste for parables, that the festive board becomes a sym- 
 bol of the nourishment of His Bread of Life." Neander, 
 on the other hand, supposes the "treasure" to be the 
 jewels which Eastern hosts sometimes display to their 
 guests, — " old " heirlooms to recall the past, and "new" 
 gems to signify present prosperity or friendship, both 
 alike precious. 
 
 We shall find that the principle the Saviour announces 
 here is too broad to be confined to any one profession, 
 even the most sacred. It appears in the whole provi- 
 
ib NEW AND OLD. 
 
 dential disposition of our lives, and impresses a particular 
 lesson as we pass, under Christ our Leader, from the 
 things of the old year to the things of the new. 
 
 Take notice, first, with what wonderful beneficence, in 
 the mere outward scenery of our mortal life, God has 
 joined these two elements, — the new and the old. A 
 great deal that we hear, see, and experience every day 
 is so familiar that it excites no surprise, and so fixed that 
 we come to rely on its continuance ; but intermixed with 
 this there is a great deal besides in every day that we 
 never saw, or heard, or felt before, which keeps up a 
 perpetual entertainment. The " old " supplies a foothold 
 to assure us, props to lean upon, a sense of stability to 
 rest our groping and unsettled faculties, giving to the 
 world about us something of the feeling of a home. 
 The "new" stimulates those faculties, wakes up our 
 dulness, and prevents us from sinking down into a 
 stupid, careless monotony of mechanical routine. Every 
 morning opens upon us with the same well-known ele- 
 ments of earth and water, air and sky. But when some 
 subtle change in the season, the temperature, or the 
 light, puts a new expression on the earth's face, shifts the 
 scenes in the sky, scatters sunshine and shadow with an 
 original pencilling, we seem to wake into a day that 
 never had its exact likeness in any day that went before, 
 and yet it is a day in the same old world. Were every- 
 thing new, we should be strangers in a homeless dance 
 of accidents, desultory, frivolous, careless, without concen- 
 tration of purpose, or continuity of affection, or labor. 
 Were everything old, we should rust and harden in life- 
 less repetitions. So God balances our being mercifully 
 between uniformity and variety, between fixedness and 
 alteration, between habit and experiment, between 
 memory and hope, between endearments and friend- 
 
NEW AND OLD. T7 
 
 ships which grow ripe and mellow with time on the one 
 hand, and, on the other, blessings, efforts, enterprises, 
 and discoveries which, as it is written, are a part of the 
 Creator's compassions, "]^ew every morning and fresh 
 every evening." One great part of what makes life 
 precious and sweet we bear on with us in our arms and 
 hearts through all the changes ; the other part is like 
 the unexpected openings in the winding road of a trav- 
 eller, teaching us that the Maker's world is larger than 
 we thought, and that there are not only many mansions in 
 our Father's house, but endless opportunities for gaining 
 knowledge and being useful in all these earthly fields, 
 planted and recovered by His Son. 
 
 Enter next a sphere which lies closer to the seats of 
 religious character. All the advances that are made 
 in human society toward the practical realization of the 
 great Christian ideas of justice, order, liberty, and love, 
 are carried forward by the providential balance and in- 
 terworking of these two principles, — the preservation 
 of the old, and the introduction of the new. Each gen- 
 eration is meant to hand down something to its suc- 
 cessor, in experience, in wisdom, in a funded stock of 
 valuable traditional opinions and usages. So is each 
 generation meant to find out something new, by study 
 and endeavor, and to add the result to that funded cap- 
 ital, dropping off and pushing aside what it finds to be 
 false or wrong. It is very rare that there is an institu- 
 tion, or custom, or doctrine, gaining the consent of a 
 considerable number of good men, and holding its place 
 a long time, which is so utterly bad that it requires to 
 be completely blotted out, — and even when that is the 
 case, we still hold on upon the past by some better bond 
 not to be dissolved. Our roots to-day all lie back in 
 the soil of centuries gone by, and we grow out of 
 
78 NEW AND OLD. 
 
 that, — tlie old. But there were errors and evils growing 
 there that must have the axe laid at their root, to make 
 room for better and nobler forms of life, — the new 
 John Baptist comes heralding the Christ. Truth itself, 
 speaking strictly, is always old, — eternal as God is. 
 But as we are constantly walking around it, catching 
 different aspects of it, and perhaps hewing away the 
 disfigurements that mistaken men before us have plas- 
 tered upon that majestic and beautiful countenance, its 
 features seeiYh to be new. And here comes the distinc- 
 tion between true and false reformers, in their opposite 
 extremes. Destructionists that are over-bold would cut 
 the present clean off from the past, for the sake of hav- 
 ing a future built after their own plan, — like the Spar- 
 tans that killed their old men because they were in the 
 way, making their reform a beginning and a beginning 
 over and over again, never bringing forth out of their 
 treasure "things old." Conservatives that are over- 
 timid, on the other hand, would never allow an innova- 
 tion, lest it should disturb the peace; they render 
 reform impossible by the fear of change, like Herod, 
 who slaughtered the Holy Innocents lest there should be 
 a young king among them to dispute his throne, — never 
 bringing forth out of their treasure " things new." But 
 the wise Householder in Heaven overrules both of their 
 one-sided follies, and, by opposing each with the other, 
 bears His human family forward in one unbroken order 
 of gradual and merciful advancement. 
 
 Pass to the more sacred ground of God's special 
 revelations in the three successive dispensations through 
 which he has guided His Church. First was the Period 
 of Patriarchs, of which we have the description and 
 history in the Book of Genesis. It was adapted to the 
 childhood of the race ; but when the time came for it to 
 
NEW AND OLD. 79 
 
 give place to a written Law, and an established Kitual, 
 not everything in it was abolished. The grand cen- 
 tral doctrine of one God, the duty of religious obe- 
 dience, the paternal Providence that leads men out and 
 in all their days, the prophetic appointment of sacrifices 
 pointing forward to the Cross of Christ, the promise of 
 the Messiah at the Garden of Eden, the institution of 
 the Sabbath when God blessed the seventh day and hal- 
 lowed it, the justifying faith of Abraham who believed 
 and trusted God so that it was counted to him for right- 
 eousness, the covenant by which children are bound up 
 in the same family-blessing of Faith with their parents, 
 — all these you find in that Book of Genesis, and in that 
 first Biblical dispensation. Were they abolished when 
 Moses came, with the Tables of the Law in his hands at 
 Mount Sinai ? Not one of them. Yery much in that 
 Mosaic age was new, — statutes, tabernacles, ordinances, 
 and one national seat of the national worship. But 
 much more was old than new, — and of every one of 
 those " old things " that I just mentioned there remains 
 some memorial and some hereditary power even now in 
 our third and Christian age, — Christ promising, even of 
 its final consummation, that His spiritual followers shall 
 be privileged to sit down in the new kingdom above 
 with the old believers and patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, 
 and Jacob. There is a sublime and majestic unity in 
 these revelations. Moses is, in turn, superseded by 
 Christ; the Law by grace and truth; Jerusalem by the 
 Church universal. Yet not one jot or tittle passes from 
 that old Law till all is fulfilled. The principles that 
 underlie the Eitual and Liturgy of the temple and the 
 synagogue have only a freer and more expanded opera- 
 tion in the worship of Christendom ; prophecy is ful- 
 filled; types are followed by their substance; and all 
 
80 NEW AND OLD- 
 
 the three dispensations of Holy Scripture are one, be- 
 cause within them all is the everlasting Christ, — '^ the 
 same yesterday, to-day, and forever," "the Alpha and 
 Omega, the Beginning and the End." 
 
 These are inspiring and enlarging contemplations. 
 They lift us out of the petty round of our narrow occu- 
 pations in small cares and selfish calculations, in house 
 and shop, in the poor gossipings, envyings, and competi- 
 tions of societ}^ They make us feel that the world we 
 are living in is not ours but God's world, and that all its 
 strange, blind ways are, after all, controlled by Him who 
 seeth the end from the beginning. 
 
 Yet even over this exalted line of thought I should 
 hardly have invited you to follow me at this solemn 
 time, if I had not been drawing nearer with you, 
 through such an approach, to the very inmost seat of 
 what is most practical and momentous in our indi- 
 vidual relations with God and with the judgment to 
 come. There is an " old " life to be " put oif," not be- 
 cause it is old, but because it is bad ; there is a "new" 
 life to be " put on." Unless every part of the frame- 
 work and substance of the Gospel is mistaken, every 
 heart that is not willingly renewed to righteousness 
 and true holiness in the image of Christ by God's Holy 
 Spirit is dying the death of sin ; then every one of us 
 here who has not consciously and penitently renounced 
 this world as his master for the sake of confessing and 
 serving Christ his Saviour, is lost from God. " That ye 
 put off the old man ; that ye put on the new " : — this is 
 your Saviour's cry to you again to-day, from this place. 
 Were He to enter here and look in your faces, as He 
 entered and looked round on the old temple just before 
 He suffered, this would be His sermon. Human nature 
 keeps its old weaknesses, and wants, and wickedness 
 
NEW AND OLD. 81 
 
 IS'otliing c^n cover them up from Him who died to 
 deliver us from them, lie would separate you here as 
 He always did on earth, and as He has surely declared 
 He will finally at the last day, into two easily marked 
 and deeply divided classes. The line might not be seen 
 by any outward profession, for men deceive themselves 
 and are deceived. Those on the right side of it are not 
 perfect characters ; but that does not put life or hope 
 into the dying hearts of you that are on the wrong side. 
 You all know, or may know by the Word in the New 
 Testament, whether in an honest and good heart you 
 have chosen Christ and followed Him in the regenera- 
 tion or not. " ISTow then, as ambassadors for Christ, we 
 beseech you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God." 
 
 What are the " old things" that, in such a new revolu- 
 tion, and new confession, and new creation in you, are 
 to be kept and brought forth ? Not the old life ; that 
 must be rooted out, for self-love, and pleasure-seeking, 
 and pride, and money-getting, and frivolity are the 
 springs and goings forth of it. The old things that are 
 to be kept, when you become a new soul in Christ Jesus, 
 are your old capacities and powers, — the power of choos- 
 ing, of repenting, of loving, of believing, of working for 
 your Lord, powers which He gave you in an awful trust 
 when He gave your body breath, and your mind the 
 image of Himself. This ground- work of humanity, this 
 capacity for conversion, for holiness, and for immortal 
 life is the old element that has not to be given you 
 again. It is there, — a talent buried or used, — and if 
 buried, your Lord is asking. Why have you not yet used 
 it for Him ? The Judge standeth at the door. 
 
 And for the very reason that He is a merciful Judge, 
 He does not let our life flow on in one even, uninter- 
 rupted and continuous stream of time, with no breaks or 
 
b2 NEW AND OLD. 
 
 turns in the current to make us stop and think whither 
 and how fast we are drifting. He breaks it up into 
 days, into years, into periods of infancy, youth, matu- 
 rity, manhood or womanhood, old age, — shifting the old 
 scene by new employments, new relations, new sorrows, 
 and new blessings. Into every such waymark He puts 
 a voice of warning, making it a solemn minister of His 
 salvation. He says, of infants, to their parents, " Suffer 
 them to come to Me." O child, remember thy Creator 
 in the days of thy youth; O young man, rejoice and 
 let thy heart cheer thee; but remember that for all these 
 things God shall bring thee into judgment. Be strong; 
 overcome the wicked one, and let the Word of God 
 abide in thee. O man and woman, filled and eager with 
 business and pleasure, love not the world, nor the things 
 that are in the world. For all that is in the world, the 
 lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride 
 of life, is not of the Father. " He that doeth the will 
 of God abideth forever." 
 
 Make this a winnowing time, to sift out of the old 
 things in your habits and your desires whatever you do 
 not dare to take with you into the day of your reckon- 
 ing with God. " Set thy house in order." Make this a 
 " 'New Year," in a sense so deep, so complete and so 
 blessed, that, like as Christ was raised from the dead, so 
 ye may walk in newness of life ! 
 
 Take to you the old Gospel, the old promises of God, 
 the old creed of truth, and holding them fast as your 
 imperishable " treasure," move forward with them in the 
 " new " and Living Way ! 
 
THE EPIPHANY GOODNESS. 
 
 First Sunday after Epiphany . 
 
 "Behold my Servant, whom I have chosen; my Beloved, in 
 whom my soul is well- pleased: I will put my Spirit upon Him, and 
 He shall show judgment to the Gentiles. He shall not strive, nor 
 cry; neither shall any man hear His voice in the streets. A bruised, 
 reed shall He not break, and smoking flax shall He not quench, till 
 He send forth judgment unto victory. And in His name shall the 
 Gentiles trust."— /S^ Matthew xii. 18-21. 
 
 Wherever, in all the world, in any heart of Jew or 
 Gentile, bond or free, formalist or prodigal, there is any 
 movement toward Him, Christ encourages it. Whether 
 it is an outward movement, of travelling feet, an in- 
 quiring tongue, the open confession that brings visible 
 offerings, as with the wise men that came out of hea- 
 thendom to Bethlehem at the Great Epiphany, or 
 whether it is only the inward movement of a secret de- 
 sire after His holiness, it is never the economy of Heaven 
 to despise it or smother it. It may be very feeble and 
 dull; very awkward and irregular; very much mixed 
 with baser elements, which overlay it with their un- 
 sightly deformities and almost kill it . Let them kill 
 it, if you will, God never kills it. It may only smoul- 
 der out of sight, like fire in a ball of flax, where nothing 
 but smoke struggles out through the mass of matted 
 fibres, and a little heat warms the hand that feels for it. 
 This does not provoke the mighty Lord to " quench " it. 
 
84: THE EPIPHANY GOODNESS. 
 
 His hand is patient, and does feel for it. He is as 
 long-suffering as He is mighty. By His very name as a 
 Saviour, the business of His ministry, the passion of the 
 " spirit " " put upon Him,- ' is not to destroy the faint 
 flickerings of spiritual life, but to save them. Even the 
 fragments of that poor bread which only nourishes the 
 body He would not waste, but gathered it up in baskets. 
 Much more the broken and dying embers of penitence 
 and faith in the soul will He not quench. He will gather 
 and cherish and watch over and fan them, if He is not 
 hindered, into flames of vigorous and constant ardor. 
 
 As with feeble religious affections in men's hearts, so 
 with mistaken opinions in their minds. In almost every 
 false system of belief, whether within or outside the 
 limits of nominal Christianity, there are some traces of 
 truth. Like the seeds of ancient grain that were some- 
 times wrapped up in the winding-sheets of dead bodies 
 and buried in dusty sepulchres for centuries, which ger- 
 minate, and send up the green blade, and the full corn, 
 when air and light and soil are given them ages after, 
 so some dry germs of God's early but buried gifts lie 
 lifeless in these dark religions, till Christ, the Light of 
 the world, quickens them. He came into the world on 
 that mission. He came not to create a world, but to 
 seek out, to gather up, to save, something which had 
 been lost in the world, and, taking hold of that, to give 
 Himself for it, — to breathe His own life into it, to pour 
 out the blood of His own veins to revive it, — and thus 
 to redeem and recreate the world. Notice how almost 
 every common term that expresses the object of Christ's 
 mediation includes this little particle, which signifies that 
 His work was a second work, — a doing over of what had 
 been done, or a bringing back of what had been thrown 
 away, or a bringing up of what had been buried under 
 
THE EPIPHANY GOODNESS. 85 
 
 iniquity and falsehood, — re-storing, re-generating, re- 
 newing, re-covering, re-forming. To save, to rescue, 
 to deliver, to ransom, — all imply that there is a sub- 
 stance of life remaining to work upon ; and that the 
 Great Redeemer's ministry is to seek it out and save 
 it, — in other words, to take these broken, disordered, 
 depraved elements of our humanity out from under their 
 corrupt bandages ; to set them free ; to cleanse them ; 
 to graft them into the Heavenly Vine ; to train them 
 up into fruit-bearing branches, as members of His 
 own Life. In doing this His patience and His conde- 
 scension are wonderful. He despises no virtue because 
 it is frail. He refuses no prayers because they are timid 
 or ignorant. He thrusts away from Him no inquirers 
 because they are yet beclouded with much doubt or su- 
 perstition. He listens to them. He tells them to come 
 nearer. He makes the way of admission not harder, but 
 as easy as He can. He lays hold, first, of everything in 
 man which is already in sympathy with Him, — the life 
 not utterly gone, the better feelings not completely dead, 
 and by these He strives with this seeking soul to in- 
 crease its faith, and to recover it altogether. Be it false 
 living, or false doctrine, vice, heresy, heathenism, infidel- 
 ity, the sin of publicans and harlots, — whatever the 
 transgression, whatever the unbelief. His Divine heart 
 so loves the souls they enslave, and so longs to deliver 
 them, that He comes down into the midst of them; and 
 then, the point at which He begins to save is that last 
 spark of unquenched life which gleams out, brightens, 
 and warms toward Him. Tliis is the central miracle 
 of the Gospel, and the glory of the Cross. It is that 
 " love of Christ which passeth knowledge." 
 
 Go with it, this morning, to that grand promise of the 
 gathering in of the nations which now, at Epiphany, 
 
>6 THE EPIPHANY GOODNESS. 
 
 tirs the heart and inspires the animating worship of the 
 3hurch. Look, from under it, at the star in the east, 
 nd the adoration of the magi. 
 
 After dpscribing how silent and- unobtrusive the Sav- 
 our's method was, in His teaching and His miracles ; 
 low willing He was to wait for the fulfilment of His 
 glorious purposes; how He withdrew Himself from 
 rowds and avoided noisy demonstrations, disappointing 
 he pompous expectations of the people ; and how all 
 his Divine patience was only the calm surface of that 
 leep sea of power which was one day to overflow and 
 onvert the world, — the Evangelist goes on : " That it 
 flight be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the 
 ^rophet, saying. Behold my Servant, whom I have 
 hosen ; my Beloved, in whom my soul is well-pleased : 
 
 will put my Spirit upon Him, and He shall show 
 udgment to the Gentiles. He shall not strive, nor cry ; 
 leither shall any man hear His voice in the streets. A 
 iruised reed shall He not break, and smoking flax shall 
 le not quench, till He send forth judgment unto vic- 
 ory. And in His name shall the Gentiles trust." 
 ?hat is, these tender traits of His person, these char- 
 table aflections of His Gospel, this catholic economy of 
 lis kingdom, this patient and comprehensive love of 
 lis sacrifice, shall accomplish the gathering in of Gen- 
 ile nations to His feet. He meets them where they are. 
 lis judgment of them, as of us, is first gentle, con- 
 escending, and so afterward the more terribly just, 
 lis victory over them is on the Cross where He sufliers 
 ^r them. Oh, to helieve this is to be "justified by 
 iith." 
 
 Turn to the wise men, following the star to His 
 irthplace. Think who they were, and why they 
 ame. They were from far beyond the bounds of that 
 
THE EPIPHANY GOODNESS. 87 
 
 chosen and favored Israel whose were the covenants, 
 the oracles, the fires of Sinai, the glory of Sion, and the 
 faith of the fathers. They came, doubtless, from Persia, 
 a heathen country. "With whatever distinction among 
 their countrymen, they were yet hitherto but princes 
 among pagans, or a priesthood of superstition. Their 
 business was a vain attempt to read the fortunes of 
 empires and of men by watching the changing posi- 
 tions and mutual attractions of the stars. Ko plainer 
 revelation of God's loving-kindness and wisdom for 
 them stood before their eyes than the cold splendors 
 of the midnight sky. The heavenly commandment and 
 promise they must spell out in the mystic syllables of 
 the constellations, or else grope on in darkness. The 
 sun was the burning eye of an Unknown Deity. With 
 night-long, solemn vigils, they strained their eyes into 
 the heavens; but they saw no "Heaven of heavens," 
 because they saw no Father of forgiveness, and no heart 
 of love, there. Astrology was their pursuit, and astrol- 
 ogy was neither a true faith nor a true science. !N^ot 
 Abraham, nor Moses, nor Elijah, nor Daniel, nor Isaiah, 
 nor any of the " glorious company " was their prophet, 
 but Zoroaster, — a mysterious if not quite mythical per- 
 sonage, ever vanishing in the shadows of an uncer- 
 tain antiquity. These were the men that God was 
 leading to Bethlehem, representatives of that whole 
 pagan world that He would draw to the Saviour. 
 
 On the other hand, we must take care not to fall into 
 the popular mistake about these magi. They held the 
 best religion of their time, outside of Judaism, Their 
 sacred books prove tliem to have been no degraded or 
 sensual idolaters, probably not idolaters at all. When 
 they fed their sacred fires with spices and fragrant wood, 
 it was not the fire they worshipped, but a strange and 
 
88 THE EPIPHANY GOODNESS. 
 
 unseen Light, of which the fire was a symbol. Their 
 Ormuzd was an Infinite Spirit, and the star-spirits were 
 his bright subordinates. They believed in immortality, 
 in judgment, in prayer, in the sacredness of marriage, in 
 obedience, in honesty ; they practised carefully most of 
 the virtues of the Christian morality, including that foun- 
 dation one of truthfulness, which is rare enough in both 
 East and West, and which Christianity has found it so 
 hard to establish in public or in private life, in all its 
 eighteen centuries of discipline. And to this day, when 
 the American traveller or merchant meets among the 
 miserable native communities of the East-Indian cities 
 a citizen more intelligent, more upright, of nobler man- 
 ners and gentler hospitality than the rest, he is almost 
 sure to find him a Parsee descendant of those Zoroastrian 
 students of the stars : brethren or children of the wise 
 men who offered their gold, frankincense, and myrrh to 
 the infant Messiah in the stable. 
 
 Now, from these mixed characteristics of the magi, — 
 the first worshippers our Lord had on earth, — it is easy 
 to learn, I think, just what their place on the pages of 
 Scripture is meant to teach : — practical truth for us all. 
 
 First, they teach us this : that^ in the largeness of the 
 plan of His salvation^ Christ not only hreaJcs over all the 
 narrow notions of national, family, and social prejudice, 
 hut He permits every heart to come to Him, in spite of 
 its imperfections and errors, hy the test light and the 
 test feeling it has. These astrologers were all wrong 
 about the stars presiding over the destinies of men, and 
 foretelling the birth of kings. Yet, condescending to 
 them, taking them up at that low point of their childish 
 superstition, this " testimony of Jesus, which is the spirit 
 of prophecy," made use of their astrological credulity to 
 guide them to Christian knowledge, shaping the miracle 
 
THE EPIPHANY GOODNESS. 89 
 
 even to their mistake, by all means to bring them out 
 into " the truth as it is in Jesus " ; saving them finally 
 from their error, in seeming to save them by it. 
 
 It is most impressive to see how this patience and con- 
 descension, beginning there at the cradle, run through 
 our Lord's personal ministry among men. He always 
 gains persons, just as He gains the world, by going down 
 to them. If fishermen are to be converted, lie gets into 
 a boat, or sits down by them as they are mending their 
 nets. If ]N"icodemus is too cowardly to come to Him in 
 the daytime. He lets him come in the night, and willingly 
 wakes to explain to him the new birth of water and 
 spirit which is the entrance into life. In order to show 
 the proud doctors of the law that all their traditional 
 learning is good for nothing without a simple heart. He 
 goes in among them at the temple, as a child, listens to 
 them, and asks them questions, in the fashion of their 
 Eabbinical schools. "When wicked women are to be puri- 
 fied. He allows them to come in the wild earnestness of 
 their impulsive devotion, and lets them wash His feet with 
 tears. Sometimes He reasons with men ; sometimes He 
 waits silently for them ; sometimes He sends them away 
 only till they need Him more ; sometimes He passes 
 quietly out of their reach, to let their passions cool. If 
 the cure of disease, or raising the dead, or stilling the 
 sea, will turn men's hearts to Him, He works the out- 
 ward wonder for the inward blessing. Indeed, it is 
 probable that the whole system of miracle-working, 
 sublime as it is to us, was rather a condescension of our 
 Lord, and looked to Him as but an inferior ministry, 
 — since He said, " Blessed are they which have not seen 
 and yet have believed," and " If ye will not believe Me, 
 believe the works." When He chose His disciples. He 
 adapted their calling to their capacity, — some to speak, 
 
90 THE EPIPHANY GOODNESS. 
 
 others to work. Because common people are more 
 readily reached by those in their own condition He 
 chose poverty, and sat down to meat with publicans and 
 sinners. So when Ilis Apostle to the Gentiles preached, 
 He addressed the love of eloquence at Athens, the logi- 
 cal understanding at Rome, the versatile imaginations 
 and emotions of the East at Corinth, Ephesus, and 
 Antioch. Everywhere, without abating a whit the 
 strict sanctity of its principles, or the awfulness of its 
 righteous retributions, the Gospel goes forward, becoming 
 all things to all men, taking men as it finds them, suit- 
 ing the manner and voice of its appeal to their culture, 
 tastes, and aptitudes ; feeling after some better quality 
 or longing in them, to lay hold of, by all means, as St. 
 Paul puts it, to " save some." For the present, Christ 
 says He is not come to judge the world, but to save the 
 world — quenching not the smoking ilax. "When all 
 these merciful and fostering ministries are ended, — the7i 
 Cometh the judgment, rendering unto every man accord- 
 ing as he has accepted or slighted them. 
 
 We see the same gracious economy proceeding about 
 us every day. Every careless, unchristian person is like 
 these wandering Gentiles. Worse than that, he may 
 be living in frivolity, or in pride and self-will. But the 
 Spirit of God is constantly at work, trying and search- 
 ing him, to see if there is any tender spot in his heart, 
 any sacred memory, any purer attachment, any look to- 
 ward the stars, any nobler aspiration, or at least any sus- 
 ceptibility to suffering, by wliich he can be touched and 
 renewed. By that door repentance may enter. So all 
 our personal traits are, one by one, taken in hand by 
 the Spirit, as instruments to awaken and sanctify us, 
 that we may not perish. If pain and sorrow and 
 death are used, it is only because nothing softer would 
 
I 
 
 THE EPIPHAJSTY GOODNESS. 91 
 
 rouse US. There is not one stroke of superfluous agony. 
 Every pulse of anguish is felt by God, as the refiner and 
 purifier of silver watches the furnace, sure to lift the 
 molten metal out, or to cool the fire, when the needed 
 change is wrought. The instant faith's deep discipline is 
 accomplished, Christ stays His hand. The bruised reed 
 will not be broken, nor the smoking flax quenched, till 
 He bring forth judgment unto victory. 
 
 Another part of what is taught by the leading of the 
 Gentile wise men to Christ is, that at every step forward 
 in the Christian life, each disciple's amount of privilege 
 or blessing is generally in proportion to the growth of his 
 faith, up to that time. We saw, just now, that these 
 Eastern magi were the purest-minded and most spiritual 
 religionists in the heathen world. There can hardly be 
 a doubt that it was for that superior cleanness of heart 
 that they were honored with this heavenly illumination, 
 and promoted to the leadership of the whole Gen- 
 tile procession in their pilgrimage to the Son of God. 
 I believe the rule of God's dealing is the same with 
 ourselves : that our future advances in the knowledge 
 and obedience of the Gospel are always in the degree of 
 our past endeavors. We are not to carry the doctrine of 
 Christ's condescension to such a pitch of extremity as to 
 hide from view the real dififerences in men's hearts. 
 Christ seeks for all, invites all, dies for all, that none 
 might perish.. But He does not kindle a star for every 
 one, nor make all converts memorable among His saints 
 wherever the Gospel is preached. There are laws in tlie 
 economy of grace, as in the growth of the body and 
 the mind. Blessings are according to faith. Faith is 
 nothing but the soul's willingness to receive Christ's 
 blessings, and to receive them in Him by whom alone 
 they can come. If, like the wise men, you have been 
 
92 THE EPIPHANY GOODNESS. 
 
 true to the early Hglit; if, like Timothy, you have 
 remembered what a Christian mother, — ^your mother 
 after the flesh, or your mother in the Spirit, the Christian 
 Church, — has taught you ; if conscience has been kept 
 tender and true ; if, like Saul of Tarsus, while you were 
 only under the law you were a faithful and scru- 
 pulous servant of the law, — then there is a firm and 
 healthy stock on which your new-born Christian grace 
 will thrive. Then the pagan abominations of a godless 
 youth, or the renounced delusions of worldliness, or 
 of a conceited mind dallying with doubt and proud 
 of unbelief, will not hinder and darken your way 
 to Heaven. Spiritual glory will be revealed to spirit- 
 ual eyes. Character will unfold and strengthen in 
 its heavenly order. According to your faith it will be 
 unto you. Every new year will set you nobly forward 
 toward higher purities of sanctification. Power, pa- 
 tience, consistency, self-control, peace with God, joy in 
 believing, victory over the world, — these and every other 
 grace will grow with your growth. Such a life will be 
 a perpetual journey of honor, with light all the way, 
 and immortality at the end. 
 
 Once more, the subject completes itself in the still 
 higher thought that, after all, wherever the starting- 
 point, whoever the travellers, whatever the gentleness 
 that forbears to quench our feeble life, and however 
 merciful the long-suffering that waits for us, there is 
 an end of the whole way, at the feet of the Lord. All 
 His patience, His diversities of working, the disci- 
 pline of life, the dealings of the Spirit ; all the gentle- 
 ness and infinite charity in Christ, are for this end. 
 And if, after all, we are not found there, — ^liear the 
 Scripture of God, — " there remaineth no more sacrifice 
 for sin, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment." 
 
THE EPIPHANY GOODNESS. 93 
 
 Judge, then, of yourselves, my friends, whether this 
 is not the unvarying doctrine of God's vrhole Word, of 
 His Providence in Christ, of the daily discipline of His 
 Spirit. Through these unclean chambers of our hearts, 
 like the earnest woman who swept her littered house 
 for the lost piece of silver, moves this our Blessed 
 Friend, — the same who receives the praises of saints 
 and the adoration of angels, — searching amidst the poor 
 rubbish that the world and the senses have scattered 
 there for some remaining sign of hope, some fire of 
 love not quite gone out, some broken pledge of union 
 with Himself that He may bind together again, and 
 so make us His own, in everlasting comfort. Or, as 
 in another parable. He walks among the stones and 
 thorns and thistles, there searching for stray affections, 
 like the shepherd for the wandering sheep. I have 
 seen a striking picture, by a great artist, of that Shep- 
 herd, with the recovered sheep lying weak and fam- 
 ished on His shoulders. The fierce, dark wilderness is 
 behind. A rocky precipice falls steep and rough to the 
 bitter sea below, and up in the wintry sky whirl the 
 disappointed vultures, that had waited for their perish- 
 ing prey. How can we help crying in thankful faith, 
 O faithful and everlasting Shepherd, find us in our 
 wilderness ; let not the adversary have dominion over 
 us ; quench not, but rekindle by Thy Spirit, the dying 
 embers of our repentance; bring us home, where the 
 angels rejoice over every wanderer that was lost I 
 
THE SOUL SOUGHT BY CHEIST AND 
 SEEKING HIM. 
 
 Second Sunday after Epijphany. 
 
 " Again the next day after John stood, and two of his disciples; 
 and looking upon Jesus as He walked, he saith. Behold the Lamb of 
 God I And the two disciples heird him speak, and they followed 
 Jesus. Then Jesus turned, and saw them following, and saith 
 unto them, What seek ye? They said unto Him, Rabbi (which is 
 to say, being interpreted. Master), where dwellest Thou? He saith 
 unto them. Come and see. They came a!)d saw where He dwelt, and 
 abode with Him that day: for it was about the tenth hour. One of 
 the two which heard John speak, and followed Him, was Andrew, 
 Simon Peter's brother. He first findeth his own brother Simon, and 
 saith unto him. We have found the Messias, which is, being inter- 
 preted, the Christ. And he brought him to Jesus." — St. John i. 35-42. 
 
 So the loving biographer, who, by that wisdom which 
 is partly intellectual and partly spiritual, knew so much 
 more of the Master than we know, goes on, telling in 
 to-day's Morning Lesson what was said and done in 
 that group of persons of whom One was the King of 
 heaven and earth. As to the manner of the Divine 
 story, it is in the same artless style that a child would 
 use in telling it to another child. The things told took 
 place under St. John's own eyes; for when he writes 
 here of there being two disciples that were saluted 
 by John the Baptist, and that were so honored as to be 
 received as guests under the Lord's own roof, though he 
 mentions the name of only one of them, it is because 
 
THE SOUL SOUGHT BY CHRIST. 95 
 
 the other was himself. This is his modest way through- 
 out his Gospel : he hides himself whenever he can ; 
 and when he must refer to himself at all, he leaves out 
 the name. The noblest spirits are the meekest. Those 
 who have most in them that is worth showing are least 
 anxious to show it. This best-beloved apostle is always 
 thinking of his Saviour, not of himself. That is one 
 reason why he is the best-beloved. And so, although 
 he is to have all Christendom, in all ages, for his vast 
 and admiring audience, he is altogether unconscious 
 and natural in his narrative, as we all are when we are 
 describing something because of the feeling and impres- 
 sion in ourselves, and not trying to produce an effect/b/* 
 ourselves. He tells us what this one said, and that one, 
 — the very words ; what day it was, and the hour of the 
 day; who were there, and how they were related to each 
 other; he explains what "Eabbi" and "Messias" 
 mean, for fear some reader not brought up in Judea 
 might be puzzled by a hard word. The strokes are 
 strong because they are true, and they make a very 
 graphic picture. Great orators never do better than 
 this, l^ay, it is not a whit the less likely, on this 
 account, but the more certain, that the Evangelist wrote 
 as he was moved by the Holy Spirit. 
 
 For the purposes of our instruction this town might 
 be Bethabara, beyond Jordan ; America might be Syria ; 
 it might be you and I that were looking for Jesus, and 
 finding Him, too, and listening to Him, and leading 
 our friends to Him, instead of Andrew and John and 
 Simon. This House where we are might be that dwell- 
 ing where He abode, of which He said, " Come and see," 
 and where they " abode with Him." 
 
 Among you who are listening it is almost certain there 
 are some hearts that are thus looking for Him, and 
 
SJ6 THE SOUL SOUGHT BY CHRIST. 
 
 wishing they might hear His voice: some whose lips 
 may still refuse to utter their wants before men, but who 
 have unsatisfied desires, who are discontented, and some- 
 times even wretched, to think how they have been so long 
 living, — whose consciences torment them with shame 
 for their sins, who really know that there is something in 
 their lives which separates between them and God. Are 
 not some of you conscious of having had occasional 
 glimpses of a better way and a nobler aim, — hours when, 
 secretly at least, you have said to the watchman on the 
 upper walls, " Saw ye Him whom my soul loveth ? " or to 
 Himself, in your prayers, " Tell me where Thou feedest, 
 where Thou makest Thy flock to rest at noon : for why 
 should I be as one that turneth aside by the flocks of Thy 
 companions ? Draw me ; I will run after Thee." In this 
 you are like the world waiting for Christ before His 
 coming. It wanted Him without knowing clearly what 
 it wanted. Busy as it was with its poor work, eager with 
 its ambitions, mad with its unholy appetites, it was not 
 satisfied ; and its finer spirits knew it. Deep down in 
 the heart of humanity somewhere there was a restless 
 longing for a better life. And hence one prophet says, 
 very affectingly, that the "Desire of all nations shall 
 come," — the Son of Man. 
 
 He came. He has been "manifested." I will not 
 believe it possible that all of you can hear that announce- 
 ment without real feeling. It means too much, too 
 much, for that. You cannot, I am sure you cannot all 
 be unconcerned about the rest of the message which is 
 thus solemnly begun. For you, then, here in this House, 
 this text is recorded. If we take it by its several parts 
 in order, and enter down into its eternal signification, 
 we shall find it represents the soul of man both sought 
 after by its Saviour and seeking after Him. 
 
THE SOUL SOUGHT BY CHRIST. 97 
 
 1. "John stood, and two of his disciples, looking 
 upon Jesus as He walked." As in other historic 
 statements where we have great things to learn, our 
 minds go behind the plain fact stated and inquire how 
 it happens to be, or what lies behind it. Was it by 
 accident, was it a matter of course, was it one of the 
 ordinary "happenings" of history, that the Eternal 
 and Only Begotten of the Father, whose name is the 
 perpetual worship of saints and angels, and who had 
 dwelt from before all worlds with the Father, should 
 be walking there, in a little province of this planet, a 
 world full of trouble and evil at the best? They were 
 " looking upon Jesus as He walked." He was walking 
 to find them, who had it now for the infinite joy of 
 their life that they were found of Him. They had not 
 gone to bring Him ; like all of us, they were too blind 
 and weak for that, and would not have known what 
 kind of a Christ to look for. They had not persuaded 
 Him to come ; He came of the great " love wherewith 
 He loved them." They had not arranged the arrival 
 of the Traveller, " travelling in the greatness of His 
 strength." That was the miraculous hospitality which 
 brightened the skies over Bethlehem with the new star, 
 and set the glory of God in the face of the new-born 
 Child. No needy and sinning heart ever has to furnish 
 or obtain its Christ. Before it begins to seek, to in- 
 quire, to beg. He is already walking near. The very 
 first word is encouragement for you. Christ is waiting 
 for you. God in man, Emmanuel, is never far from 
 where man is. He may be unseen. Our best posses- 
 sions are always unseen ; those we love best may be long 
 absent, but friendship has other than the bodily eyes. 
 All the possibilities of a pure and holy life are within 
 your reach. Heaven itself is "brought nigh." The 
 
98 THE SOUL SOUGHT BY CHEIST. 
 
 blessed Incarnation that takes millions of souls from 
 death to life is accomplished. Prophecy is fulfilled. 
 The Epiphany is a fact. 
 
 2. How do men treat it? "And the two disciples 
 heard John speak, and they followed Jesus." Now 
 begins man's part in the great reconciliation. It is an 
 act that decides for every man what manner of man 
 he is, what he lives for, and, when he dies, whether it is 
 the agony of an eternal death or the transient struggle 
 that ends in the triumph of a life imperishable. Not 
 every one, like St. Andrew (whose name means man)^ 
 is to be an apostle ; an apostle is one " sent," commis- 
 sioned for a special service. All are to be disciples ; 
 a disciple is one who learns, for a service that is com- 
 mon. But whether apostle or disciple each must 
 first " follow " ; and finally each, by following, learn- 
 ing, and seeing, will be lifted into likeness to the 
 Master and enter into the priesthood and kingship of 
 Christian character. With the gifts and powers neces- 
 sary for that in His hand the Son of God appears, 
 oftering them to you. The choice is with you. Will 
 you look on a little lohile, at the sound of a new voice, 
 from curiosity, from momentary impulse, as long as the 
 Church service lasts, as long as the sympathies of the 
 social meeting keep you entertained, as long as the sober 
 recollection of your sorrow or your sickness lies upon 
 you, and then turn and go the other way, where Christ 
 does not lead you ; and so will you lose the sight of 
 Him? Or will you, cheerfully', thankfully, steadily^ 
 take His Cross up and go after Him whithersoever He 
 goeth ? 
 
 3. It is not certain whether the first impulse to follow 
 will prove a constant religious principle. " What seek 
 ye ? " He asks them. Eather a chilling and forbidding 
 
THE SOUL SOUGHT BY CHKI8T. 99 
 
 question, as it stands: love does not take that tone, 
 unless it is such profound and holy love as is willing to 
 be misconstrued for a moment for the sake of ensuring 
 to the beloved some unseen good. We cannot know the 
 manner of Christ's saying it, or how the tone and look 
 went to interpret and temper the severity. But we 
 know His object, because we know Him, One spirit 
 ruled all His speech. He saw that at just that point the 
 motives of these ardent converts must be lifted into the 
 light and laid open to themselves. You may say, it is 
 the Lord you are seeking, and that so long as you can 
 say that, you are safe. But words that are only words 
 are no better for being the highest and holiest we can 
 speak. " Coming to Christ," " following Christ," " ex- 
 periencing religion," " getting a new hope," these are all 
 great phrases if they mean religiously just what they 
 mean literally. But Christ himself comes and searches 
 them out. " What seek ye ? " What do you really seek, 
 when you seem to be seeking the Saviour? Is it for 
 His sake, or only for your own sake, that you seek Him ? 
 Is it only to make sure of a self-indulgent heaven ? Is 
 it for the complacent feeling of belonging to a safe set 
 of people? Is it only to furnish a counter-excitement 
 to ease the sting of some trouble, following a law of 
 emotional reaction that has no grace in it, or a senti- 
 mental fancy for the excitements of religion, or for its 
 externals ? It is a good test for every Christian to apply 
 to his own heart, whether he is just awakened to his 
 duty or further on at any stage of his life. God applies 
 it by many touchstones. Time is one of them ; at the 
 mere wearing out of novelty, the repetition of the same 
 homely duties, the love of many grows cold. The 
 candid Scripture tells us of them : they " went back." 
 Worldly examples and associates are another : " Demas 
 
100 THE SOUL SOUGHT BY CHRIST. 
 
 hath forsaken me, having loved this present world." 
 Spiritual disappointment is another: results are not so 
 striking as their promise; it is small harvesting, and 
 tame drudging ; the same old conflict and vexation every 
 day. What, then, are you seeking ? Is it truth ? Is it 
 goodness? Is it self-denying virtue? Christ wants 
 uncalculating love, loyal love, disinterested love, and 
 love that works gladly, by faith, for His poorest and 
 meanest people, in His name. There is no lack of ten- 
 derness in this question. 
 
 4. Now, then, comes the place for a deeper exercise of 
 that faith, and the rising by it into a higher life. Will 
 the disciple 5^ar the proof ? Will he evade the question, 
 and simply follow along, on the level of the old decency, 
 — going with the multitude, saying careless prayers, 
 paying church taxes enough to escape social scandal, and 
 presuming that where the Bible speaks of mounting up 
 with wings as eagles, of going from grace to grace, of 
 being more than conquerors, of the joy of believing, and 
 of having one's life hid with Christ in God, it only means 
 worrying on tlirough week-day cares and Sunday cere- 
 monies, half under the law, and half under the pitiless 
 stare of public opinion, with Sinai for our Calvary, 
 with experiments instead of covenants, with preaching 
 platforms for the Ark of the Fold, with a mere sus- 
 picion that all will come out well enough in the end, 
 instead of the assurance of a present salvation : with 
 a system of interesting doctrinal suggestions suited to 
 the times, which may be true and may be not, instead of 
 the promises that are " yea and amen " in the Gospel of 
 Him who is above all " times," " the same yesterday, to- 
 day, and forever " ? Notice the spiritual beauty in the 
 answer of the two disciples. They call Him " Master " ; 
 but not now in the old sense of the common form of 
 
THE SOUL SOUGHT BY CHRIST. lUl 
 
 salutation. They find a new and tenderer meaning in 
 that lordly title, — the same that the holy George 
 Herbert found : 
 
 "How sweetly doth My Master sound! My Master I 
 As ambergris leaves a rich scent 
 
 Unto the taster, 
 So do these words a sweet content, 
 An Oriental fragrancy,— My Master." 
 
 Calling Him Master, they said, "Where dwellest 
 Thou ? " This is the least ostentatious and yet directest 
 possible confession of a desire for a closer personal 
 communion. It is precisely the growth of that feeling 
 in a man which marks an ascent into a purer and more 
 positive type of spiritual character. It is a confession 
 of ignorance, a renunciation of intellectual conceit, a 
 penitential prayer for a hiding-place in a peaceful pa- 
 vilion. It is the question of one whose brain is weary 
 of subtle contriving, and whose " locks are filled with 
 the drops of the night." To get clear of blind leaders 
 of the blind, to cease confounding speculation with 
 belief, or morbid sensibility with piety, — to come into 
 sympathy with the healthy and unexaggerated earnest- 
 ness of Him who could at once gather up the fragments 
 of broken bread and lay down His life to save bad 
 men; — yes, to "abide" with Him, to be under the 
 Lord's roof, to sit down and rise up with Him, and to 
 be rooted and grounded in Him, — ^to cease from self in 
 the holy joy of this celestial fellowship, — that will be 
 the summit, the mountain vision, of a Christian's ex- 
 pectation. 
 
 5. Would it be granted, only for the asking? "He 
 saith unto them. Come and see ! " Let that stand for 
 the dispelling of all your doubt. There is no descrip- 
 tion of the house beforehand to excite wrong anticipa- 
 
102 THE SOUL SOUaHT BY CHRIST. 
 
 tions. Find out what the Christian life is by living it. 
 Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor heart conceived, 
 the things that He hath prepared. The feast in the 
 Christian's heart, the antepast of Heaven, is not under- 
 stood by verbal pictures of it, bat only as we ripen 
 spiritually for the relish of it. When the Bridegroom 
 leads His spouse to the banqueting-house, there is no 
 attempted enumeration of the delicacies in store. It is 
 only said, how finely ! that " the banner over her is 
 love"; leaving it for a growing faith to learn what He 
 will give His people, whose own meat and drink it is to 
 do His Father's will. "Come and see." "Him that 
 Cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out." "Knock, and 
 it shall be opened." 
 
 6. " They came and abode with Him." If they had 
 been like some Christians, they would have disbelieved 
 that any so great blessing and honor could be really in- 
 tended for persons hitherto so insignificant and undeserv- 
 ing ; — as if God's favors were ever granted because we 
 are deserving ! If they had been like some of us, they 
 would have hesitated between resolving and doing, and, 
 having professed a religious interest, they would have 
 stopped short between the word and the deed. With 
 true saints, however, and with all who ever mean to be 
 saints, believing action must be not only the uniform but 
 the immediate follower upon inquiry. Faith takes God 
 at His word.' 
 
 T. And now, see playing outward the holy power 
 which has been at work in the man's own heart and 
 character. It begins to take the form of active useful- 
 ness and to testify for Christ abroad ; the operation of 
 the missionary spirit. !N"o sooner is the awakened heart 
 in actual fellowship with Christ, and settled on that 
 centre, than it begins to cast about and ask what it can 
 
THE SOUL SOUGHT BY CHRIST. 103 
 
 do for Him. IS'o matter in what spliere. No time is to 
 be lost in discussing methods, debating difficulties, or 
 wondering whether it is worth while to undertake to do 
 good at all if it can only be done on a small scale or in 
 one's own pattern-way. As some one says, there are two 
 sorts of people : those that go and do the thing, and those 
 that stand and wonder why it was not done after some 
 other fashion. St. Andrew begins at the nearest point ; 
 begins in his own household. " He first findeth his own 
 brother Simon." There is no postponement for a com- 
 plete plan, for the " times," for the weather, for becom- 
 ing "good enough," for great occasions. His heart is 
 full, and he does what he can. How soon this spirit 
 in all the followers of Christ would bring the world to 
 His feet, — so fearless, so self-forgetful, so hearty. Out 
 the mighty conviction comes, — must come: — let him 
 that hath ears hear, and whosoever will let him come. 
 "When thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren, and 
 call them that they may be strengthened. And when you 
 are at the door, the Great Shepherd will listen not only 
 for your " Here am I," but for the better plea, " Here 
 are those whom Thou hast given to believe and to come 
 through my life, or my tongue, — children, relatives, 
 friends, neighbors : the living gifts of a new Epiphany." 
 
 The subject is completed, dear friends, with two 
 thoughts belonging to it, specially fitted to this day. 
 What the one brother says to another is a joyful recog- 
 nition of the fulfilment of ancient promises. " We have 
 found the Messias," — predicted and expected, — Him of 
 whom Moses and the prophets did write. Epiphany, 
 like Advent, is peculiarly sacred to prophecy. The 
 prophets lifted the veil from before the nations sitting 
 in darkness. They should see a " great Light." 
 
 Finally, what was it that roused and started these two 
 
104 THE SOUL SOUGHT BY CHKIBT. 
 
 disciples on their search, and brought them to their full 
 acceptance before their predicted Lord ? " Behold the 
 Lamb of God." They beheld, followed, believed, and 
 lived. This, then, is the message of Christ's witnesses 
 to the world. All preaching of the Gospel must begin 
 and end here. Epiphany and Easter, Advent and Pas- 
 sion, are one. "Behold the Lamb of God!" Not 
 Christ the Pattern only, not Christ the Teacher only, 
 not Christ the Bridegroom or the Shepherd or the 
 King only, but Christ the Sufferer; suffering with us, 
 and for us; — the "Lamb slain." Stand where we will 
 in the annual round of faith's blessed commemorations, 
 never can we forget to say, " Behold the Lamb of God, 
 which taketh away the sin of the world." For through 
 all that round sin walks near us; in ourselves. And 
 there is in us no justification. In the Son of Man we 
 know that God is faithful and just to forgive, and to 
 cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 
 
THE LAW OF CHKlSTIAK EISTLAKGEMENT. 
 
 Third Sunday after Epiphany, 
 
 "In every nation he that feareth God, and worketh righteousness, 
 is accepted with Him." — Acts x. 35. 
 
 It has been made an objection to Christianity that it 
 involves a system of religious privileges expressly lim- 
 ited, for some two thousand years, to a single nation. 
 Admitted, it is said, that the New Testament proposes 
 a more catholic plan, and offers its advantages impar- 
 tially to the whole race, irrespective of national boun- 
 daries : still, the ITew Testament makes itself responsi- 
 ble for the Old ; the Gospel for the Judaism on which 
 it was grafted. !N"o intenser national exclusiveness than 
 the Jewish, it is added with truth, was ever known. 
 The feeling of every Hebrew for every foreigner was a 
 mixture of political animosity, religious intolerance, and 
 social contempt ; a triple combination of hereditary pas- 
 sions hard to break down. The sacred writings appear 
 to encourage it. How is this consistent with the benev- 
 olence of a God whose love is wider than the world ? 
 
 In your minds. Christian believers, this precise form 
 of scepticism may not take a very definite shape. But 
 it is one branch of a difficulty about the Bible of a 
 more general kind, never more common than now. 
 That difficulty is this : an apparent conflict between the 
 clearer moral sentiments and judgments of men with 
 
106 THE LAW OF CHRISTIAN ENLARGEMENT. 
 
 some of the literal records or else with some of the 
 traditional interpretations of Scripture. Men saj, " We 
 know something of the character of the Christian's God : 
 it is not compatible with that character that a few Ori- 
 ental tribes should be segregated and isolated from the 
 rest of the race and made the petted child of heaven." 
 The same conflict may gather about other apparent 
 points of incongruity, — as the Hebrew criminal code, 
 the destruction of the Canaanites, or the standard of 
 moral character in conspicuous Jewish leaders. In other 
 words, you make use of the sharper moral vision and the 
 broader ideas for which you are actually indebted to the 
 Gospel as a revelation, and as an educating power, to 
 criticise and fault the Gospel. 
 
 The Church must not shrink from this criticism. If it 
 is fair, it must be met. If it is unfair, it can be shown 
 to be. 
 
 I mention three answers. 
 
 First stands the recorded fact that long before this 
 separation and isolation of Israel took place, God de- 
 clared that it was not the permanent law or normal 
 method of His Divine purpose with His children : it was 
 rather a special and provisional economy brought in to 
 meet a peculiar and temporary emergency occasioned by 
 the wrong choice of men. At the very moment when the 
 special selection began to be made, an explicit and re- 
 iterated prediction was carefully annexed to it that it 
 was to be used only for a required end, and would then 
 be expanded into a grand Brotherhood of the world, of 
 equal advantages, lying four-square and open to all the 
 quarters of the earth, and which should be no respecter 
 either of nationalities or of persons. The man in 
 whom the special calling began was Abraham. And he 
 was the very man to whom the Lord broke apart the 
 
THE LAW OF CHRISTIAN ENLARGEMENT. 107 
 
 august silence of tlie midniglit sky, and spoke from 
 beyond the stars, to say, that among his descendants 
 there should be a " seed," a certain wonderful Son, in 
 whom not one country or people only, but all the nations 
 of the earth, should be blessed. That mysterious Shep- 
 herd-king of the whole human flock was to have a hu- 
 man mother, and that mother a Hebrew : — " born of 
 a woman and born under the law," so as to connect the 
 special preparation with the universal blessing: — but 
 that He might, on the other side, be free of every pos- 
 sible human restriction. His Father was to be the Father 
 of all that live, and His Life begotten from eternity. 
 There is therefore no mistake, no concealment, no re- 
 consideration or suspense in the plan. The promise in 
 Genesis is as broad and as catholic as the preaching of 
 St. Peter in the text from the Acts. 
 
 Secondly, is there anything in the method itself, the 
 selection of the Hebrew tribes and the Jewish Church, 
 that makes a reasonable justification of it to the high- 
 est moral instincts, — suppose we must be judges of 
 God's way ? When a Christian missionary goes into a 
 population of barbarians, why does he gather in a score 
 or two of children, out of hundreds, into a school, leav- 
 ing the rest for the time untaught ? When an intelli- 
 gent American merchant, doing business in a pagan 
 seaport, wants to benefit that paganism, why does he 
 choose out one or two native youths of bright parts and 
 send them to America or England for an education, 
 instead of spending the same amount of money in 
 scattering spelling-books among the heathen houses? 
 When you want to introduce into a manufacturing inter- 
 est an original and improved kind of machinery, why 
 do you send a single student to the best engineering 
 school in the United States or Europe, instead of issuing 
 
108 THE LAW OF CHRISTIAN ENLARGEMENT. 
 
 an exhortation some morning to all the agents and mas- 
 ters of the mills to improve themselves in that depart- 
 ment of science ? The principle appears to be pretty 
 plain in these practical undertakings : — it is the principle 
 of selection and concentration, for the sake of an ulte- 
 rior benefit that is to become general, a result that is to 
 be wide-spread. Such is the nature of the human mind 
 and of human society that practically this is the better 
 and shorter way. Do for one mind, thoroughly, first, 
 what you want the whole to do afterward. ]^ow, in the 
 world, when Moses was lying all unconscious of it in 
 the little rush-basket in the !N"ile, the great problem was 
 how to stop the race from going any further wrong, 
 into stark savagery and idolatry, and how to turn it about, 
 and get it ready for the setting up of a Divine order 
 upon it, and for the reconciling and renovating of it with 
 the heavenly communion it had lost. This was the 
 thing to be done. And it was to be done, suppose, not 
 by the thrusting in of an arbitrary revolution, a stupen- 
 dous miracle of mechanism which would simply set the 
 outward works all right, but would leave the springs o f 
 spiritual life, — love, choice, energy, faith, — all untouched 
 and unchanged. The very thing wanted was to bring 
 in and set up these grand interior holy forces in the soul. 
 "The world by wisdom knew not God." God only 
 could make it know Him ; and, being what He is. He 
 could do it only by preserving man's freedom, and re- 
 specting every law wrought into his nature. He took, 
 therefore, what we call the practical way ; He used the 
 principles of selection, concentration, and adaptation. 
 He did it gradually. He did it by human instruments. 
 He limited the scene and the numbers. He took this 
 child out of the rush-basket, bearing in his veins the 
 finer blood of that Hebrew pastoral people that God 
 
THE LAW OF CHRISTIAN ENLARGEMENT. 109 
 
 liad led with His own hand and voice before, over the 
 hills and pastures of Mesopotamia and Canaan, — the 
 most reverent and conscientious on the earth. He 
 trained that child in the best scientific school of the time, 
 — " in all the wisdom of the Egyptians," and then He 
 set him at the head of a commonwealth. He selected 
 a priesthood. He made elders. He organized a State. 
 He arranged a ritual. He chose a limited territory in 
 the right spot. And then He put this crude and child- 
 ish nation down, — not in liberty yet, — they were not 
 ripe for that, — but under discipline and regulation ; not 
 in the Gospel yet, — for they would abuse and waste it if 
 they had it, — but in the Law. This was the school 
 and the scholar. In a word God did, — only better and 
 more gloriously, and with some sublime signals of mi- 
 raculous justice ^and mercy breaking through all along 
 to turn to it the eyes of mankind and the reverent mem- 
 ory of the generations forever, — just what wisdom must 
 do. He chose out one nation, and sent it to school to 
 learn the prophetic rudiments of Christianity and to 
 make ready a people prepared for the Lord. The Old 
 Testament is simply the narrative of that training school 
 for Christ and for men. Some parts are more obscure 
 than others ; for the time was a great way back, and the 
 materials of knowledge were scanty, and, above all, the 
 Infinite and Inscrutable One, whose ways are often past 
 our finding out, was the Master. But this is the key to 
 the scheme. Was not the plan magnificent ? Can the 
 best critic or the shrewdest objector suggest a wiser way 
 to save and lift to heavenly places enervated, sensual, 
 vulgar, wretched humanity ? And when we take a view 
 of the whole Old Testament history wide and deep and 
 rational as this, — with all its strange incidents, its erring 
 heroes, and faulty saints, intermingled with its splendid 
 
110 THE LAW OF CHKISTIAN ENLARGEMENT. 
 
 virtues, its sublime loyalty, its eloquence and poetry un- 
 equalled in all the literature of the world, and its super- 
 natural prophecies, — all intense and bright with hallowed 
 fire, because it is the school of God,— is it not a very 
 poor thing indeed to carp at an unexplained passage 
 here and there, or to sneer and cavil at some half- 
 veiled feature in the majestic working out of the design ? 
 
 And all this while the original intention, disclosed to 
 the patriarch far back on the plains, under the stars, 
 was never forgotten, or dropped, or suffered to fail. 
 "We were reading, the other morning, a piece of fiery 
 logic from one of St. Paul's Epistles, to prove that no 
 temporary narrowing of the system under the law, for 
 a special object, would disannul or alter the older and 
 broader and more catholic revelation to Abraham, four 
 hundred and fifty years before, — a covenant having in it 
 by promise the largeness of the Gospel and the uni- 
 versality of Christ. When the Jew should have been 
 drilled and taught, the Gentiles would be gathered in, 
 "No siderial motion in astronomy, no regularity in celes- 
 tial cycles and orbits will be more sure than the rising, 
 in the due and foretold time, of the Epiphany star. 
 The Saviour will fulfil both the parts of the great plan : — 
 " A light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of My 
 people Israel." 
 
 There is a third explanation to relieve the alleged 
 narrowness of the Jewish religion, — and that is its con- 
 stant progress as it goes on into a larger and larger 
 breadth and liberty, more and more like the breadth and 
 liberty of the great world-embracing Church and Gospel 
 in which it is finally merged, as the winding river is lost 
 in the sea. 
 
 "We have only to study the Hebrew prophets, and to 
 study them with some system, in the order of their 
 
THE LAW OF CHRISTIAN ENLARGKMENT. Ill 
 
 living and writing, with this clew in hand, — the pro- 
 gressive enlarging of their conceptions of God's good- 
 ness to the whole Gentile world, — to find ample demon- 
 strations that the Divine tuition they were under was 
 doing its work. Instead of over-coloring this evangel- 
 istic element in Old Testament prophecy, I doubt 
 whether the Christian pulpit or Christian writers have 
 ever adequately represented it. With a hostility in their 
 blood to everything foreign, intenser than any people on 
 earth, probably, has ever felt ; with an intolerance, arro- 
 gance, and superciliousness all the more tenacious and 
 unsparing because bound up with their religious scruples, 
 there was yet never a national mind at all approaching 
 theirs in the frequency, earnestness, solemnity, pathos, of 
 the expectation and hope of the breaking down of all 
 international walls, and the gathering in of all the fam- 
 ilies and kingdoms of the continents and islands to an 
 equal share with themselves in the peace and glory of 
 the Messiah's dominion. To be sure the gathering w^as to 
 be unto Zion ; Israel was still to be central and somehow 
 parental ; yet there was to be equality. And the beauty 
 and splendor of the fore-visions of that homeward 
 march of the Gentiles, as we have them in all the Epiph- 
 any chapters, have no match in any book. Should any 
 nation on earth instantly drop all that is seliish in its 
 policy, and all that is exclusive in its patriotism, and 
 proclaim an economy of the universal and impartial open- 
 ing of every door of privilege to all lands, the moral 
 spectacle would really be less striking than the Hebrew 
 predictions of Gentile conversion under Christ. The 
 strain grows louder and more confident all along: — till, 
 in Malachi, we have it resounding in that sentence at the 
 opening of our service, to which the famous saying of 
 the great orator, where the morning drum-beat of the 
 
112 THE LAW OF CHRISTIAN ENLARGEMENT. 
 
 British Empire circles the earth, is but a feeble figure : 
 " From the rising of the sun, even unto the going down 
 of the same. My name shall be great among the Gentiles ; 
 and in every place incense shall be offered unto My 
 name, and a pure offering : for My name shall be great 
 among the heathen, saith the Lord of hosts." 
 
 Give a few moments now to a use of St. Peter's words 
 which will bring them down to ourselves. " In every 
 nation he that feareth God, and worketh righteousness, is 
 accepted with Him." 
 
 The sense here is not theological, but popular; so 
 that they are wide of the mark who suppose that the 
 Apostle means to take back all that he preached, up and 
 down the world, and wrote in his Epistles, of every 
 man's need of true repentance, and of the faith in 
 Christ as a Redeemer, and of our reaching a spiritual 
 and eternal life only through that faith. That would be 
 to unsay all the burning confessions, and quench all the 
 noble enthusiasms, of his Christian life and apostleship. 
 "Why, then, should he be preaching Christ, and the 
 Cross, as the " only way," to Cornelius, and to every Jew 
 and Gentile tliat he can reach? IS^o. He means by 
 "fearing God and working righteousness" this: — In 
 every nation, now that Jesus Christ has come, there is 
 an equal access to the open door for every tongue and 
 tribe and people. Under this new and heavenly reign 
 of light and love which has been set up, all are free 
 citizens. Partition-walls are levelled. Caste, rank, pre- 
 scription, arbitrary terms of admission, are done with. 
 The Pentecostal signs mean nothing less. Circumci- 
 sion, miracles, Jew and Gentile, Barbarian, Scythian, 
 bond, and free, are without difference at Bethlehem and 
 Calvary, at baptism, at the Christian communion, every- 
 where in the Church, and at the resurrection. There 
 
THE LAW OF CHEISTIAN ENLARGEMENT. 113 
 
 are no external disqualifications. There are no internal 
 incapabilities for being saved. You can all be saved if 
 you will : you will live forever, if you will let tlie life 
 of the Spirit in Christ enter in. " Fearing God and 
 working righteousness" is the universal ground of ac- 
 ceptance, not meritoriously, into heaven, but into the 
 gracious privileges and helps of the Church and family 
 of Christ in this world, as the school for heaven. All 
 this St. Peter had just found out in a peculiar way, — 
 the vision of the four-cornered sheet three times let down 
 from heaven, to show him that the ceremonial distinc- 
 tions of things to be lawfully eaten, — symbols of all other 
 natural disqualifications, — were abolished. The Gentile 
 world w^hich God has now liberated from its long neglect, 
 " call not thou common." But go to it, preach to it, 
 respect and love human nature in Cesarea just as much 
 as in Jerusalem or" Bethany : there is no difi'erence. The 
 Gospel is no respecter of persons. Christ died for all. 
 The Church is Catholic. The Christian is tolerant and 
 friendly to all souls, for his Lord's sake. And while St. 
 Peter spoke after that gracious fashion, " on the Gentiles 
 also was poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost." 
 
 So the Word and Spirit of Christ go on constantly 
 filling out our small measures of charity and hope, — 
 breaking up our petty and jealous judgments, enlarging 
 our sympathies for all classes and conditions of men. 
 This is certainly one great and very beautiful teaching of 
 this season. We have a great many personal and private 
 limitations ; each has his own. We all live inside sev- 
 eral concentric circles, self being the centre-point; and 
 unless we watch and pray, and deny ourselves, and give 
 away a great deal, these are constantly narrowing in and 
 cramping us into smaller and meaner souls. First, there 
 is the circle of our own purely personal interests, — in 
 
114 THE LAW OF CHRISTIAN ENLARGEMENT. 
 
 physical ease and comfort, in property, in dress, in eat- 
 ing, in mawkish sentiments and a self-indulgent giving 
 way to them, to the inconvenience or injury of others. 
 Christ, by the Cross of His sacrifice, makes His whole 
 ministry among men, and His Gospel, a constant re- 
 monstrance against this; and unless we catch that spirit, 
 and give up self for service, and for one another, w^e 
 can be none of His. Next is the circle of the family, of 
 kindred. This is a little wider, but often only a little. 
 Because family fastidiousness, family pride, and family 
 resentments, are all very belittling and unchristian feel- 
 ings. We may only see ourselves, and love ourselves, 
 reflected in our children, or other kindred that are spe- 
 cially necessary to our comfort. Then there is an un- 
 christian fondness for them while they live, and an un- 
 christian, unsubmissive sorrow for them when they die. 
 The Epiphany doctrine requires us to look into these 
 luxurious gratifications, to see whether our absorption in 
 our own domestic pleasures restricts our sympathies for 
 strangers, for neighbors, for the poor, and so stops our 
 growth in the Lord's likeness. Then there is the circle 
 of our own social set, — a very dangerous as well as sub- 
 tle enemy to true spirituality, as well as to true nobleness 
 and largeness of character. The very selectness of the 
 associations gives a charm to them. All the mutually 
 admiring and complacent members just reflect each 
 others prejudices, study to please each other's whims, 
 listen to each other, ridicule or satirize the rest of 
 society, and so, of course, must stop growing in all that 
 constitutes greatness of heart. Then there is the circle 
 of business engagements, where the confinement of 
 attention and the engrossment of concern at last become 
 a passion, or a habit, that looks like necessity, — and the 
 slave of mercantile ambition, or routine, sacrifices home 
 
THE LAW OF CHKISTIAN ENLARGEMENT. 115 
 
 and clnirch, liis higher life, his spiritual culture, his 
 communion with his Lord, for the poverty that is thus 
 starving him in all the generous and lofty desires of his 
 manhood. Beyond these still lies the circle of patriotic 
 attachments, or devotion to country. And scarcely yet, 
 — Christian as we claim to be, — has the idea of the 
 brotherhood of nations in one family and Church of 
 God entered into the statesmanship, much less into the 
 politics and legislation, of even civilized man. 
 
 We are not to suppose that Epiphany signifies to us a 
 mere sending out, in a lifeless and formal sort of way, 
 of a few missionaries here or there to foreign countries. 
 Done earnestly and heartily, that is worth doing, and, 
 in proportion as we really appreciate what Christ is to 
 the world and to ourselves, we shall probably do it, or 
 give for it, more and more, the more Christianlike we 
 become. Men may say they prefer to give their mission- 
 ary money nearer home, where they see what becomes 
 of it. But remember that it is by setting up standards 
 and beacons, getting hold of a few here and there and 
 Christianizing them, even when results look small, that 
 a great testimony to Christ is finally given. Make tlie 
 Gospel " witness to all nations," before the end comes. 
 The Apostles travelled and sailed, casting their bread 
 upon the waters, not too anxious to count up visible 
 results. The great commission was, " Go, preach the 
 Gospel to all nations." There is no knowing where the 
 fruit will spring. 
 
 But, above all, it is not to be forgotten that there is 
 a kind of heathendom within ourselves to be yet con- 
 verted. Surely we are alike in this. Self, in disguised 
 shapes, behind masks, and with cunning weapons, still 
 fights bitterly against the large love and the generous 
 righteousness of the true disciple. We ourselves are 
 
116 THE LAW OF CHRISTIAN ENLABGEMENT. 
 
 the Gentiles for whom these glorious prophecies were 
 written, and the Epiphany light was sent, and the sac- 
 rifice was made. What a miserable failure it will be, if, 
 after all, looking, as He surely does, into our hearts, God 
 sees there no true reflection of the light of His glory in 
 the face of Jesus Christ I 
 
THE SAYIOUE IN THE SHIP. 
 Fourth Swnday after Epiphany. 
 
 '* The ship was covered with the waves." — Matthew viii. 24. 
 
 The quieting or peace-making power of Christ, over- 
 coming all disorder, is what we feel most in the account 
 of the stilling of the storm in this morning's Gospel. 
 There was a short vojage across Gennesaret, after a 
 fatiguing day spent by Jesus in preaching to multitudes 
 of people in the open air on the shore of the lake. 
 Everything as we read is very real. Only suppose the 
 whole scene transferred to waters that we are acquainted 
 with, — bring it down to our own day, — let it be known 
 that one of the cloudy tempests that sweep through our 
 sky had been stayed instantly and dissolved into calm 
 sunshine at the command of a living voice, — and you will 
 feel in a measure how distance and time are apt to dull 
 our sense even to the grandest realities. When we look 
 more carefully at the account, there are touching and 
 beautiful traits of a natural order, making us conscious 
 that we are in the presence of actual events, and not 
 reading a fiction. The little fishing-vessel laboring in 
 the waves that make a clean breach over her deck ; the 
 human frame of Jesus asleep in the midst of all this 
 trouble, with bodily weariness and mental peace; the 
 disciples, who are themselves the ship's company, toiling 
 and tacking as long as they can, reluctant to disturb 
 
118 THE SAVIOUR IN THE SHIP. 
 
 that revered and beloved sleeper, but driven to it at last 
 bj sheer terror and desperation; when they come to 
 their " wits' end," the Master's serenity and authority at 
 waking, and then the most natural transition in their 
 minds, wlien the deliverance is over, from the escape itself 
 to the mystery and marvel of the rescue. These are very 
 impressive introductory aspects of the miracle, predis- 
 posing us to treat it with the same intellectual honesty 
 and religious reverence that we find in the story itself, 
 and leading us along into a deeper opening of its spirit- 
 ual sense. 
 
 Let us try to touch this spiritual sense now only at 
 three principal points, showing how they are connected 
 with each other, and how much they suggest of personal 
 assistance in the practical difficulties of a faithful follow^ 
 ing of Christ. 
 
 1. First, then, we do not need to be literally at sea, 
 or to feel waves literally breaking over our heads, to find 
 out what absolute helplessness is. Most men will allow 
 that, — because by far the greater number of us, at some 
 time in our lives, have known what it was to touch the 
 last limit of our strength. You have desired something, 
 supremely perhaps, and having put out all your ingenu- 
 ity, all your persuasions with other minds, all your en- 
 ergies, you have been obliged to say, " That is the bound 
 of my ability ; if the desired thing comes now, it is well, 
 but if it refuses to come I cannot compel it, for my 
 power is spent." You have dreaded something, and for 
 the time that fear excluded every other evil from your 
 view, just as in the perspective of natural objects a 
 small shrub close to your eyes will hide from you broad 
 meadows of sunlight, with shining streams and hills of 
 defence beyond ; but every possible resistance you could 
 bring to bear, of mind and body, has been tried, and 
 
THE SAVIOUR EN THE SHIP. 119 
 
 you stood dismayed at the thought that after all, in spite 
 of this struggle, the terrible calamity might come. One 
 of the commonest forms of this exhaustion of human 
 strength is in the struggle with disease or death, ap- 
 proaching yourself or some one you love like a part of 
 yourself. Regimen, travel, medicine and surgery, the 
 finest skill, have all been tried ; and lying there, weak 
 and wasting, or watching over the dear form that you 
 want to clasp and hold back from the grave, you acknowl- 
 edge that, come what will, your part in the issue is done. 
 The most determined characters some time or other 
 reach this end. Affection, ambition, vanity, accumula- 
 tion, the mere imitative passion, the longing of worldly 
 men to live on because they know there is nothing for 
 them afterward — all are spent. The powers that over- 
 match us, tire us out, and run us down, are various, — 
 time, hereditary maladies, sudden sickness, the superior 
 strength of other people serving their own interests 
 against us, that formless enemy, never so seen as to be 
 struck, but often "preventing" us, — that we call "bad 
 luck " ; everything that hedges about our inclinations, 
 thwarts our plans, baffles the brain and the will, and 
 brings us up where we wish not to he. Most plainly it 
 is a part of God's scheme of mercy to lead us, in our 
 self-confidence and self-will, every one of us, to just that 
 pointy so that when we are obliged to stop trusting or 
 calculating for ourselves we shall come willingly to Him. 
 Humiliating as the fact is, it is, with the great majority 
 of us, only when we are pushed on to that sense of 
 impotence that either reason or faith so wakes up in us 
 that we begin to cry, as we ought to have cried, in thank- 
 ful confidence and devout dependence all along, to our 
 Lord. God's love is too loving to let us alone. We would 
 not begin right, or come right, in prosperity and health 
 
120 THE SAVIOUR IN THE SHIP. 
 
 and youth ; we set our best parts against the Providence 
 of Life, and are conquered. We would not grow up 
 Christians in the Fold, under the Shepherd's hands, and 
 hence the Shepherd lets us run on the sharp stones, 
 the barren ledges and thorns of the mountains, till we 
 are quite certain we are lost, before He comes after us ; 
 but then He is sure to come. Hence, as we see in all the 
 working of this Divine discipline with our perversity, 
 whatever the kind of storm it is that makes us confess we 
 can do nothing more for ourselves, but are empty and 
 forlorn and lost, — it is just that confession that our Lord 
 wants of us. We say we are full, satisfied, and sufficient 
 to ourselves, and that we have some better way than 
 God's way ; and so long we sail straight to shipwreck. 
 No matter what the shape or color of the cloud from 
 which the tempest breaks, — it is the searching and 
 awful sense of the desolation of sin at last, — it is the 
 distress of a conscience afraid to think of God except 
 through the mediation and pardon of the Cross ; it is the 
 startled and overwhelming conviction of a man's conver- 
 sion hour ; it is the simple and blessed turning from the 
 sinking ship of nature, that the storm is sent to create. 
 David felt it in the burning agony of retribution for his 
 transgressions when he cried, "All Thy billows have 
 gone over me; deliver me out of the deep waters." 
 Every Christian believer that has had a new heart and a 
 right spirit created in him has come to it and tasted of 
 it. The ship is covered with the waves; nothing left 
 underneath for a foothold, — nothing seen overhead to 
 steer by or to hold by, — only a loose, fickle, slippery, 
 fatal element all around, and gaining on us. The heart, 
 with all its external, traditional, or formal knowledge of 
 the Saviour, may hold Him as if He were asleep in its 
 own dark chamber. He wakes, to us, whenever we go 
 
THE SAVIOUR IN THE SHIP. 121 
 
 to Him and call upon Him. And they are the reckless 
 mariners on a deeper sea who put the waking off, on 
 one pretense or another, till the ship is covered with the 
 waves. 
 
 2. Observe that when, at last, the voyager comes sin- 
 cerely and anxiously to that, and utters the prayer, 
 Christ does not refuse him because he did not call sooner, 
 or because when he prayed his prayer was not the purest 
 and loftiest of prayers. Hardly any heart's prayer is 
 ihat^ when it is first agitated under the flashing convic- 
 tion that it is all wrong. While its deep disorder is first 
 discovered it can think only of being delivered. The 
 Gospel constantly informs us of waking unbelievers that 
 they ask, " What shall I do to be saved ? What shall I 
 do to inherit eternal life % " just like these half-spirit- 
 ualized sailors of Galilee ; " Lord, save us, we perish." 
 And the Gospel approves and blesses their asking. 
 When they have gone deeper into the real motives of 
 this disinterested religion, and have drunk more deeply 
 of the Spirit of Christ himself, their petitions will rise 
 to loftier ranges of spiritual desire; they will pray for 
 inward purity and power, for more perfect sanctification, 
 for the increase of faith, hope, and charity, for others' 
 welfare, and for the speeding and enlarging of Christ's 
 kingdom. At present this patient Intercessor and 
 Redeemer accepts the crudest supplication, so only it 
 comes out of a penitent, contrite heart, and is directed 
 to Him. This is enough. He wakes. His sleep is not 
 like other sleep. He implies that during that physical 
 slumber an Almighty security surrounded Him and 
 went out from Him, so that no harm befell the ship, even 
 though she was under the waves, till His " hour " was 
 come. Why else should He reprove the disciples at all ? 
 The fault was that there was so much alarm mingled with 
 
122 THE SAVIOUR IN THE SHIP. 
 
 tlieir belief in Him, and that they did not rest content- 
 edly in the trust that wherever He was they would be 
 safe. He saw this weakness ; He called it a " little 
 faith." But He does not denounce it as no faith at all ; 
 nor does He disdain it because it is but little. Take cour- 
 age from that, you that are conscious of having turned 
 to your Saviour, and yet are very distrustful whether 
 you have so turned as to be accepted of Him. He says, 
 " Why are ye fearful." But He does not say, " Ye shall 
 sink and perish because ye are fearful." The whole 
 dealing of Christ with the new young life in believing 
 hearts goes on this gracious, encouraging principle. He 
 fosters the faintest glow of faith. He cherishes the 
 nascent, half-formed purpose of obedience. The life of 
 •God in the soul of man, He teaches, is always a growing 
 thing, and so by necessit}^ must be imperfect at the 
 beginning. Christians full grown at their Christian 
 birth are as rare as full grown scholars or philosphers or 
 athletes or soldiers at the natural birth, or corn at the 
 planting. The germ of the holy life actually lodged 
 and alive in the soul is the essential requirement and 
 test of a disciple. Is the prayer earnest ? Does it come, 
 even though it stammers, out of unfeigned lips ? If it 
 does, then the Lord is never so in slumber as not to hear 
 it, or so unyielding and unpitying as to turn it back. 
 Christ is not a critic on the soul's frail steps, as it comes 
 tottering home to Him, a prodigal from the far country 
 or a penitent from the sinful ways of the city. Every 
 promise of His Gospel is a pledge to accept sinners, not 
 after they have ceased to he sinners^ — for when would that 
 be ? — but while yet they are sinners. This is the glory 
 of the Cross. The dying is for the ungodly. The 
 Physician is for the sick. The scarred shoulders of the 
 Shepherd are for the sheep that was lost. That candle 
 
I 
 
 THE SAVIOUR IN THE SHIP. 123 
 
 of the Lord that is lit in the dark house of the world is 
 to find the " lost " piece of silver. He saves unto the 
 uttermost. Every one that asketh receiveth more than 
 he asketh. None of us know what to pray for as we 
 ought. To him that crieth only in fear, and because the 
 weather of this troublesome world is too much for him, 
 the sea is smoothed. And whosoever so cometh, pro- 
 vided only it is to the Lord that he directs his supplica- 
 tion, shall in no wise be cast out. 
 
 3. But we should miss the full breadth of Gospel 
 teaching in this miracle of the quieted tempest if we 
 saw nothing more in it than a mere figure or likeness of 
 what goes on in an individual heart. The whole strain 
 of the 'New Testament teaches us a profounder doctrine 
 than this of the connection between the visible world of 
 nature and the invisible world of God's spiritual king- 
 dom. We needed to know what the Pagan, the Jew 
 even, and many a student of science born and bred in 
 Christendom has never really comprehended, that the 
 Person of Jesus, Son of God and Son of Man, is the 
 actual bond of a living unity between both these two 
 great realms of God's creation; that He mediates 
 between them and reconciles them. Scholars will never 
 explore nature thoroughly, or right Wisely, till they see 
 this religious signification of every law, every force, and 
 every particle of mattter, and explore it by the light of 
 faith. God is in everything or in nothing, — in lumps of 
 common clay, as Ruskin says, and in drops of water, as 
 in the kindling of the day-star, and in the lifting of the 
 pillars of Heaven. The naturalists of antiquity were quite 
 as original and acute, in the purely intellectual quality, 
 as the moderns. But none of them, of any nation, ever 
 really grasped this doctrine of creation till Christ revealed 
 it. It is the Christian conception of nature, — even 
 
124 THE SAVIOUR IN THE SHIP. ^ 
 
 thougli many men who have the knowledge are too blind 
 or bigoted in their theories of nature to admit it. The 
 miracles of Jesus in Judea, as attestations that the ele- 
 ments of nature were plastic in His hands, are really a 
 new key to the grandest scientific principle in the uni- 
 verse, — which is that God lives and moves and acts in 
 all of nature, every instant, and that the whole creation is 
 formed and guided in the interest of the spiritual man, 
 i. e., of the kingdom of heaven on the earth. This world 
 is a place for the training of souls in a Christian immor- 
 tality. All its laws are yet to serve that end. Its evils, 
 sufferings, disorders ; its blights and tempests and agonies, 
 are somehow in it, — we know not how, and shall not 
 know at present, because it is the residence of a wrong- 
 choosing, falling, and sinning race. When Jesus of 
 ]S"azareth took our flesh, which is one with the dust of 
 the earth. He entered on the stupendous and transcen- 
 dent work of redeeming not men only, but the earth 
 itself. Man's body is not a temporary accident. Every- 
 thing material, visible and tangible, answers to something, 
 expresses something, symbolizes something, in the soul 
 and its spiritual life, as it is hereafter to be developed. 
 Hence Christ must be Lord of life and death, of seas and 
 storms, of diseases and demons, of every mystery and 
 might and secret of created things. " The winds and 
 the sea obey Him." The whole creation, now groaning 
 and travailing in pain together, waits for the redemption, 
 the manifestation of the sons of God. The estrange- 
 ments even of dumb creatures, as the prophets say, in 
 some remote Christian age are to partake in the general 
 reconciliation, — the wolf lying down with the lamb, and 
 the young lion and the fatling together, and a little child 
 leading them in peaceful harmony. This individual 
 soul of yours, when it is aroused to holy life because the 
 
THE SAVIOUR IN THE SHIP. 125 
 
 waters have gone over it, and cries for help, and is for- 
 given, is not left a solitary thing, struggling alone to swim 
 against the tide. It is in the ship with the Master. It is 
 one of an innumerable company. It is surrounded with 
 the praises of the Church of the First-born. It belongs to 
 a Christ who has all power in heaven and in earth, and 
 whom all the angels of God worship. 
 
 4. Incomplete still would this enlarging view of the 
 miracle be, if it did not further disclose to lis the true 
 practical use both of the Gospel miracles themselves, and 
 of every other gift and blessing of Heaven, in leading us 
 up in aifectionate gratitude to Him who stands as the 
 central figure among all these visible wonders, the imper- 
 sonation of all spiritual beauty, the heart of all holy love, 
 and the originator of all the peace-making powers which 
 tranquillize and reconcile the turbulences of the world. 
 Whatever other and more abstract or general truths of 
 the spiritual creation these supernatural works of the 
 E'ew Testament may express, it is plainest and most 
 precious of all, that they draw believing and thankful 
 hearts to the Saviour himself. The disciples, you see, 
 did not selfishly congratulate themselves on their escape, 
 or, with the impoverished spirit, the thin blood, and 
 niggardly honor of modern rationalism, refer their relief 
 to the laws of nature, or to peculiarities of climate, and 
 so, proud of their sagacity, make for the port. Their 
 reverent minds, quickened by faith, travelled fast from 
 the wonder to the wonder-worker. "The men mar- 
 velled, saying, What manner of man is this ! " It was 
 not the mercy to men's imperilled or sick bodies that 
 Christ had first in view when He loosened the bodily 
 ordinances and let the streams of Divine energy flow in 
 on mortal sufferers. " Tliat ye might believe in me," — 
 this is the continual explanation, — we might almost say 
 
126 THE SAVIOUR IN THE SHIP. 
 
 the excuse, He offered for deeds that must necessarily 
 be exceptional and temporary. I have heard Christians 
 with the doubting temperament of St. Thomas, slow but 
 desirous to believe, avow their wish that miracles could 
 come to confirm and satisfy them now ; and I have heard 
 others, easier to believe, express 'their expectation that 
 they would come again, in some new supernatural cycle 
 of the Church. All that miraculous treasure of Christ 
 is ours, not only by certified history, as undeniable fact, 
 but because in having Him we have all the benefit and 
 blessing of His supernatural life included. The wonders 
 fulfilled their office when they gained men's ears and 
 hearts for their Redeemer. He living in our hearts by 
 faith, we can dispense with the rest as but the transient 
 vehicle of His grace. Feeding on Him, dying with Him, 
 at liberty with His freedom, walking daily in His light, 
 forgiven through His mediation, enriched and sanctified 
 by His intercession, — what can the brave and true Chris- 
 tian need more ? The tranquillity will be like that of the 
 sea when the storm had been subdued, — not a dead or 
 stagnant " calm," but, as the same original word signifies 
 in Homer's Epic Greek, the rippling calm that laughs, 
 because it moves and makes music and catches all the 
 light of heaven. If the Saviour of us from our sins into 
 everlasting life "giveth peace, who then can make 
 trouble?" 
 
 Augustine, of the fourth century, who knew as well 
 as most men what the storms of temptation are, and bet- 
 ter than most men what the deliverance is, and by "Whom 
 the victory comes, often in his writings refers to this pas- 
 sage of the evangelist, and those psalms, like the forty- 
 sixth and ninety-third and one hundred and seventh, 
 where we almost seem to hear the roaring of the waters 
 and the voice of God above them. In one of these he 
 
I 
 
 THE SAVIOrE m THE SHIP. 127 
 
 sums up the practical application of tlie miracle in lan- 
 guage that cannot be bettered : " "We are sailing in this life 
 as through a sea, and the wind rises, and storms of tempta- 
 tion are not wanting. "Whence is this, save because 
 Jesus is sleeping in thee ? If He were not sleeping in 
 thee thou wouldst have calm within. But what means 
 this, that Jesus is sleeping in thee, save that thy faith, 
 which is from Jesus, is slumbering in thine heart ? What 
 shalt thou do to be delivered ? Arouse Him and say, 
 Master, we perish. He will awaken ; that is, thy faith 
 will return to thee and abide with thee always. When 
 Christ is awakened, though the tempest heat into yet it 
 will not fill thy ship ; thy faith will now command the 
 winds and the waves, and the danger will be over." 
 
TWO AE"D TWO BEFOKE HIS FACE. 
 
 Fifth BundoAf after Ejpij^hany, 
 
 "Aptee these things the Lord appointed other seventy also, and 
 sent them two and two before His face into every city and place, 
 whither He himself would come." — St. Luke x. 1. 
 
 It is remarkable how little stress has been laid on this 
 statement. There have been a few conjectures, among 
 scholars, that one or another of the historic men whose 
 early confession of the Faith gave their names a place in 
 the Christian records was among these " seventy." But 
 we really are told about any of them only two things, — 
 their errand, and the fact that they were held worthy, 
 through their prompt and obedient discipleship to the 
 Master, to be made forerunners of His own ministry. 
 From Jerusalem eastward beyond Jordan, and so up to 
 Bethsaida, — from Nazareth west to the coasts of Tyre 
 and across through Samaria, — ^might be seen these pairs 
 of pilgrims, bound on a mysterious march, eager, solemn, 
 urgent, as if the spell of another world was on their 
 spirits ; — this is all we know. 
 
 Yet questions of high interest immediately arise. 
 Why should there he any forerunners? What were 
 they sent to do? How were they received by their 
 countrymen where they came ? And what were the after 
 fortunes of their lives? Silent as the narrative is on 
 points like these, there are indicated in the single sen- 
 
TWO AND TWO BEFORE HIS FACE. 129 
 
 tence which mentions the incident two or three princi- 
 ples of the Christian life, in the world and in man, of 
 great practical power. He "sent them two and two 
 before His face into every place whither He himself 
 would come." 
 
 In order to the full personal influence and reign of 
 Christ anywhere, there is a law of necessary preparation. 
 Yery impressive it is to see that God, when He has any 
 great gift to communicate, proceeds by prearrange- 
 ment. He never bursts into His family with thunders 
 of revelation too sudden or loud for them to bear. Take 
 the one signal event which stands in the centre of all 
 history, — the personal coming of the Son of God on the 
 earth. In one sense, to be sure. His birth was a surprise ; 
 the dull mind of the lodgers at the. Bethlehem tavern, 
 and of the peasants at Nazareth, was not looking for Him 
 in the place and fashion of His actual appearance. But 
 Simeon and Anna in the Temple were ready for Him. 
 The prophetic spirit of His nation had been looking out 
 for Him, as nightly watchers on Mount Moriah looked 
 out for the dawn toward Hebron, two thousand years. 
 A group of magi from the far East, without Bible or 
 Hebrew tradition or Mosaic monuments, were expecting 
 Him, earnestly enough to travel a long way by a strange 
 road to find Him. Herod was not surprised, — fore- 
 knowing Him by that presentiment of alarm with 
 which unrighteous kings always dread prophets. Every 
 student who reads below the surface of the letter under- 
 stands that the whole course of Eastern empire and emi- 
 gration, from the patriarchs, as much as the literal pre- 
 dictions of Jacob or Isaiah, was a making ready for just 
 that spiritual revolution which came embodied in the 
 Galilean carpenter, the Desire of all nations, the Ever- 
 lasting King. From the very beginning He was sending 
 
130 TWO AND TWO BEFORE HIS FACE. 
 
 out, along the highways of ages, voices, two and two, 
 of herald and psalm, of priesthood and commandments, 
 6f awakened conscience and struggling faith, of failing 
 virtue and falling thrones, into the places whither He 
 himself would come. 
 
 There is a wider view of history, and of God's majes- 
 tic purposes in it, still. To narrow and jealous inter- 
 preters it used to appear to be somehow a slight upon 
 the Scriptures to suppose that the Almighty took other 
 nations besides the Jews into His design, or that He 
 illuminated Gentile seers and sages to catch any glimpses 
 of the Gospel. But Scripture itself is bound by no such 
 exclusive rule. It sees religion beyond the bounds of 
 Judea. It honors Melchisedec's devotion and Balaam's 
 vision of the Christian Star rising out of Jacob, and 
 celebrates the adoration of the wise men, and welcomes 
 the ships of Tarshish, the dromedaries of Midian and 
 Ephah, the outstretched hands of Ethiopia. Christian 
 scholarship in later years, rising to loftier conceptions of 
 the Christly providence and the Divine philosophy in 
 history, discovers proofs that, long before Mary took her 
 way to the feast, or laid Jesus in the manger, there were 
 great converging lines of thought and life pointing to 
 that wonderful nativity. On the purer pages of both 
 Greek and Latin literature there are guesses of an 
 Evangelic future; there are ideas working out from 
 men's minds under the breath of the all-inspiring Spirit, 
 preparing the way for the reconciliation of Calvary, for 
 the brotherhood of the race, for the Sermon on the 
 Mount, for the parable of the Good Samaritan, for the 
 missionary journeys of St. Paul. Over the plains of 
 Syria, along the sea-coasts of the Mediterranean, in the 
 northern forests, tribes and their captains were moving, 
 thrones were put down and set up, armies were gathered 
 
TWO AND TWO BEFORE HIS FACE, 131 
 
 and dispersed, — the miglity leaders themselves not con- 
 scious for what King of kings they were opening a path, 
 but all shaping the face of the earth for His kingdom. 
 Literally, Caesar's legions were building roads out from 
 Italy to every quarter of the compass, not more for the 
 Pretorian eagles to pass than for the apostles and wit- 
 nesses of the Cross. Alexandria laid the keels and 
 spread the sails of her galleys for a better freight than 
 she knew, — for the message of love on earth, good will to 
 East and West, and glory to God in the highest, out 
 to the Pillars of Hercules. The Athenians, through 
 period after period, in the exquisite culture of their per- 
 fect tongue, were producing a language for the truth as 
 it is in Jesus to proclaim its glad tidings in, from the 
 Granges to the Danube. Eoman jurisprudence, by its 
 skilful statutes and admirable discipline, quite as much 
 as military conquests, was familiarizing courts and sen- 
 ates and thinkers with the idea of universal law. In 
 fact, to eyes that see the divinity in the Saviour's face 
 at all it is not difficult to discern, all along those earlier 
 ages, heralds like " the other seventy also," going before 
 that Face into the places whither He himself was after- 
 ward to come. 
 
 Now, on that great scale of time and space we have a 
 picture, in colossal proportions, of what goes on in every 
 one of our own breasts. Conscious of it or not, agencies 
 are at work in us to make ready, if we only will, for the 
 entrance of the Lord of the heart into His home and 
 dwelling-place there. Having created us for Christian 
 service, as the true end and real glory of our being, our 
 Father takes pains to fit and to fashion us for that 
 destiny, with all its honor and all its joy. By secret 
 influences, untraceable as the wind that bloweth where 
 it listeth, silently pressing on the springs of feeling and 
 
132 TWO AND TWO BEFORE HIS FACE. 
 
 principle within us; by strange sorrows and misgivings 
 there ; bj hours of uneasiness not explained ; by sharp 
 twinges of conscience ; by open providences, prosperous 
 or painful, so plain that he who runs, in the busiest 
 habits, can read their meaning, and even the wayfaring 
 fool can hardly miss it ; by letting us have what w^e 
 want, to encourage or to shame us ; by taking away what 
 we love too well, or love falsely, that we may become 
 wise and strong and pure in our grief, — this process of 
 personal preparation is in continual operation. The 
 heralds are out, sent by Him who is coming after them. 
 The " other seventy " are proceeding on their errand. 
 "We ourselves are the cities and places whither He would 
 come. He wants us, and He would have us want Him. 
 He has named us, one by one, to the messengers. He 
 has marked each heart, as He did the chamber in the city 
 by the man bearing a pitcher of water where He would 
 have the disciples " make ready the passover." This is 
 the Divine reality of our human life, and it throws over 
 its common things one of their tenderest and most 
 earnest aspects. Nothing is separate from this blessed 
 plan ; and so nothing is insignificant. Even the com- 
 monplaces, in God's view, however it may be with ours, 
 are parts of the formation of character. They are 
 always teaching what manner of persons we ought to be. 
 The voice of the wilderness rings through them, — " Pre- 
 pare ye the Lord's way." He knows of each one whether 
 the door is open or shut. And by one touch or another 
 He will open it, unless we would rather die than live. 
 
 All our approaches to full religious truth, to spiritual 
 power, or holiness, or peace, are gradual. The best are not 
 hest at once^ any more than the very bad are worst at once. 
 The towns and cottages of Palestine must hear a little 
 about the Messiah before they saw Him, and get used at 
 
TWO AND TWO BEFOEE HIS FACE. 133 
 
 least to His name. " Is not this He that should come ? " 
 IN'ot Elias, not one of the old prophets, — but everybody's 
 Friend, the Saviour of publicans and laboring men, of 
 sinning women, and of the little child. Were our ears 
 open, we should hear about Him in other voices than 
 those of sermons. Childish instruction is one of them, 
 including all the little morsels of Christian knowledge 
 that are scattered in the houses of the people. Many of 
 them are but crude and broken bits ; the information is 
 scanty and one-sided ; it is mixed with false theories and 
 mistaken impressions ; but there it is, — some precept about 
 prayer, some fragment of the Kew Testament narrative, 
 some text committed to memory, some names of saints, 
 some verses of a hymn. Even in households not very 
 religious, or in streets, or in secular schools, these crumbs 
 of the sacred Bread of Life are dropped ; and they help 
 to prepare the way. The children cry in the market- 
 place, " Hosanna to the Son of David ! " and they may 
 be the more glad to greet Him and sit at His feet after- 
 ward. Sunday-school teaching, imperfect as it is, 
 goes before the face of Christ, and that is a reason why 
 it ought to be more carefully and thoroughly done. If 
 there is too little of Christ himself there, there are at 
 least His promises. His gifts. His praises from young 
 lips, and knees bent to Him. All habits of daily devotion 
 are a preparation for Christ. He may not be faithfully 
 received, or confessed, or followed ; yet the practice of 
 saying something often to God, " through Jesus Christ 
 our Lord," keeps a private by-path where His holy feet 
 may walk at any time, in some season of penitence, or 
 agony, or under the shadow of a cross. So it is with 
 morality. It is not always Christian morality. The 
 flavor of the passion-flower, the sweetness of humility, 
 the strength and sanctity of faith, may not be in it. 
 
134 TWO AND TWO BEFORE HIS FACE. 
 
 There is a morality that is hard, proud, bitter, self- 
 approving. Men may do right from wrong motives, — be 
 honest from policy, or amiable for favor, or liberal for 
 popularity, and even austerely just in a kind of haughty 
 ambition to do as well without religion as Christians do 
 with it. But, generally, right living is akin to righteous 
 living. Zaccheus was the better pupil to Jesus for his 
 obedience. The stern moralists of antiquity, Marcus 
 Aurelius, Seneca, Socrates, would doubtless have wel- 
 comed the Son of Man from Galilee if they had seen 
 Him. And therefore, along with a right education goes 
 a correct ordering of conduct, the two casting up a 
 causeway, through miry grounds, for the spiritual sov- 
 ereign of the soul. 
 
 Again, it appears from the Lord's sending of the 
 seventy that all personal efforts and public movements 
 for extending truth and increasing righteousness in the 
 world are really parts of His work, and are dependent 
 on His spiritual power. Christendom everywhere is full 
 of beneficent activities. They are philanthropic, edu- 
 cational, sanitary, reformatory, missionary. Sometimes 
 they scarcely recognize, and oftener they fail to praise, 
 wdth explicit and conscious gratitude, the Great Fountain 
 from which they spring, and the ever-present Leader 
 who inspires and sends them. So much the worse for 
 their vitality and their honor if they do. But none the 
 less are they the merciful emanations of the one great 
 central, mighty, and missionary Heart which has brought 
 the love of heaven into the dwellings of men. 'No 
 matter where you find them, or what human agents 
 started them, or what particular form of good they aim 
 at, they are none the less, in their first origin, products 
 of the one great healing and loving plan, — just as the 
 million shapes of organization in the forests and flora of 
 
TWO AND TWO BEFORE HIS FACE. 135 
 
 vegetable nature spring and bloom and bear fruit from 
 a single living principle at the heart of the universe. 
 The grandest result of modern scientific discovery and 
 scholarly thought is the growing conviction of a uni- 
 fication of forces : — all the infinite variety of shape and 
 color and odor, of leaf and blossom and stalk, flowing 
 from one Head, in one shoreless stream, under one all- 
 including Law. The spiritual creation is not less 
 orderly, or less at unity in itself, than the material. 
 " Master, we saw one casting out devils in Thy name, 
 and he folio weth not us; and we forbad him." But 
 Jesus said, " Forbid him not, for there is no man which 
 shall do a miracle in My name that can lightly speak 
 evil of Me. For he that is not against us is on our 
 part." " Whosoever receiveth a child in My name, re- 
 ceiveth Me " : and the ignorant and the heathen and the 
 poor are children. " Whosoever shall give you a cup to 
 drink in My name shall not lose his reward " : and 
 healthy tenements, or temperance, or bathing-houses, or 
 schools, or hospital care, or flower-missions in cities, are 
 cups of water. " Wisdom is justified of all her chil- 
 dren." " He that keepeth My commandments, he it is 
 that loveth Me." " All souls are Mine." The benefac- 
 tions of this late age, half-blind though they may be, or 
 forgetful of their Author, were born at Bethlehem, and 
 grew in stature at Nazareth, and conquered their 
 enemies, — selfishness and pride and wrath, — at Calvary, 
 and went out among the nations with the apostles. If 
 we had seen one of the seventy walking in some by-way 
 of Jericho or Bethany, we might have seen no badge of 
 Christ upon him, and wondered at his eager gait or 
 absorbed expression. But he was going where the 
 Master sent him, and the Master's mantle was on him, 
 and the Master's secret in his soul. Thither, after him, 
 
136 TWO AND TWO BEFOEE HIS FACE. 
 
 tlie Master himself would come, — to reaffirm and fulfil 
 His words, — to deepen, sanction, complete His work. 
 Large or small, these forerunners run over the earth, — 
 from Zion to Damascus and to Spain, from London to 
 Cape Town and Japan, from the New York Bible House 
 to Mexico and Oregon. One Sender sends them. One 
 Keaper and Ingatherer and Finisher follows them. He 
 is the Alpha, beginning them, — the Omega who will 
 end them. They began in His charity. They will end 
 in His righteousness His grace conceived them — every 
 one. His mediation holds them up. His glory will 
 crown them, in His own good time. The many-handed 
 Church Missionary Society of Great Britain, with its 
 million dollars a year, and the little " auxiliary " of a few 
 quiet women in a rural parish, are branches of one tree, 
 drawing their life from one root, yielding for that 
 patient Planter who will come " seeking fruit." 
 
 And on Him they all depend. Underneath their 
 roots, and filling every pore with the sweet stream that 
 nourishes each fibre. He is over them as well, watching 
 and tending and watering, and lifting the boughs into 
 air and light. Without Him they can do nothing, as 
 without His creation they could not have been. Unless 
 they cut themselves ofi", — severing the secret channels by 
 unbelief, by headstrong self-will, by a quarrelsome and 
 alien temper, by the bitterness of a radical rejection of 
 Him,— He feeds their springs. That is the wonder and 
 the beauty of the love. So much does He care for the 
 whole flock, that He will let shepherds almost as simple 
 as the sheep go after them, — to lead some, to drive 
 others. So much does He long to draw souls in, that 
 He opens gates in all the walls, on the four sides of the 
 city, which lies four-square to all the points of the com- 
 pass, — the city of holiness and rest. He never shuts 
 
k 
 
 TWO AND TWO BEFORE HIS FACE. 137 
 
 tliem. If tliey ever seem " strait," and the way to tliem 
 "narrow," it is only because, without obedience and a 
 likeness to the self-denying Lord of the place, they that 
 enter would not be at home there, but uneasy prisoners 
 at the court of a goodness which judges them. His 
 heavenly economy is not to bar out but to invite in. 
 He suffers ten thousand stammering tongues, of scanty 
 wisdom, to teach and preach Him, if only they will 
 heartily repeat His name. If there are not ordained and 
 official hands to baptize new-born children into His 
 family, they shall not be left outasts and homeless for 
 want of outward and inward water, and a welcome. 
 " The Son of Man is not come to destroy men's lives, 
 but to save them." 
 
 How plain it is, then, that all our exertions to do good 
 to our fellow-men, or to ourselves, are strong and effect- 
 ive exactly in proportion as we keep them in direct con- 
 nection with Christ. Do you inquire how? By our 
 inward feeling; by the outward confession, and the 
 continual thanksgiving, and the sacramental memorial ; 
 by carrying requests to Him ; by marking the signs of 
 His guiding will and following them, though they cross 
 interests or break up projects of our own ; by managing 
 and deliberating and administering, working alone or 
 working in societies, in His Spirit; by thinking of 
 Him in our work, reverently and affectionately. Where- 
 ever they went, in mountain passes, or river jungles, or 
 lonely deserts, among robbers, among Pharisees, among 
 serpents, do you suppose the seventy ever forgot the 
 voice, the face, or the blessing of Him who said to 
 them, " Go ye, hefore Me " f Their knees would have 
 trembled, their hearts would have sunk in them, many 
 a time, if they had. Whether we try to convert the 
 heathen, or to Christianize our western barbarians, or to 
 
138 TWO AND TWO BEFORE HIS FACE. 
 
 build cliiirches, or to reclaim in our Christian communi- 
 ties " such as neglect so great salvation," or to train the 
 young, or to nurse the sick, or to employ the idle, or to 
 house and clothe orphanage and old age, — it is not only 
 true that " without Him we can do nothing " ; it is just 
 as true that in the degree of our conscious and willing 
 and loving memory of Him we prosper and prevail. As 
 we are in communion with Him, He strengthens us. As 
 His name and creed are on our lips, His mark on our 
 foreheads, our knees bent to Him, we prepare His way. 
 He comes after us, and comes up with us, and we walk 
 with Him, and the bread is broken, and our eyes are 
 opened to the vision of Him, and we feast with Him, 
 and with His Father, who is our Father, and They 
 with us. His kingdom comes in Him, from Him, and 
 round about Him, and abides with Him wherever He is. 
 This leads on to the final truth. When the spiritual 
 life unfolds into its real freedom and practical energy, 
 the character it presents is a Christlike character. The 
 moment we see it, we see not only its beauty and useful- 
 ness but its source. The stamp of its authorship is upon 
 it. However rude, imperfect, immature the earlier 
 forms of religious life may be, as surely as they grow 
 and ripen there comes out in them the likeness of the. 
 perfect Pattern of them all. Many failures and rough 
 outlines at first ; not much else but sincere longings, 
 penitent resolves, half-discouraged struggles to worry 
 through the daily fight and break down the old selfish 
 or sensual habit. Amendment is slow ; the record only 
 a little better to-day than yesterday; some* back- 
 slidings, very likely ; timid faith asking " where is the 
 promise of His coming"; Peter sinking in the waves as 
 the wind rises ; and half-pagan Christian neighbors look- 
 ing on with little hope and less cheer. But what then ? 
 
TWO AND TWO BEFORE HIS FACE. 189 
 
 Always the herald must be less than the king. Prepar- 
 ation is not perfection, nor is seed-time the harvest, nor 
 is John calling down fire on Samaritans the John on 
 the Lord's breast at the Last Supper. First the blade ; 
 then the ear ; after that the full corn in the ear. Only 
 make sure that the seed-corn is the genuine grain ; that 
 the tillage goes on ; that the blade is nurtured, and the 
 weeds are killed. Then the full corn will be Christ's life 
 again. Is the true quality here in the germ, — the bap- 
 tism of the Spirit, — the new creature's breath and 
 blood, — the love and longing for God, however feeble 
 or faint? Then take care of it. Your business is to 
 water and feed it, — and, if need be, to fight for it. The 
 Church's business is to train it ; she is its nursing-mother ;' 
 the entire system of her ministrations is a divine ar- 
 rangement and provision for it ; her christening Christ- 
 ens it ; her confirmation confirms it ; her adoring prayers 
 hold it up to the light of the Lord's countenance ; her 
 teaching gives it body and soundness ; her Church work 
 makes sinew and nerve and hardness for it; her Eucha- 
 rist satisfies and renews it; her hymns invigorate its 
 aspiration, making it rise like the wings of the eagle. 
 But, in all Christ must be, or there is nothing. To 
 Him it must all tend and work in the heart, or it works 
 to vanity. Christ begins and finishes its glorious circle 
 of seven-fold light and grace in personal lives. When 
 we speak of the kingdom, it is only the society of Christ's 
 men, the complete and brotherly body of living souls, 
 alive in Him. That only is the Church that rfses, and 
 makes Gentiles see the brightness of its rising, and brings 
 sons from far, and nurses daughters at its side, and gathers 
 gold and incense from east and west, and doves of the 
 air to its windows, — its gates not shut day nor night, 
 and glorified with the glory of the Holy One. 
 
140 TWO AND TWO BEFORE HIS FACE. 
 
 Who He is you know. All better things, of desire 
 and purpose, in the heart point to Him and prophesy 
 Him. Seventy times seven messengers, in these Chris- 
 tian ages, go before Him. Our repentance is comforted 
 by His forgiveness. Every step is made safe and steady 
 by His hand. The whole course and order look to 
 Him, — " Path, motive, guide, original, and end." 
 
 Men of our time think they see a grander future in 
 store for the people, and for the world. They are right, 
 if they look for an age of greater nearness to the Son 
 of Man. The heralds go out. Commerce, science, 
 discovery, education, nature interpreted, sea and sky 
 and land comprehended, humanity awakened, the uni- 
 verse explored, every law traced, — these are messen- 
 gers that will not only foresee but help bring in the 
 millennium they predict, if they labor and move to- 
 gether in the faith of the great reconciliation, for the 
 righteousness and peace, for the love and purity of God. 
 For then these are manifestations of the kingdom of 
 His Son. Is that kingdom within you ? 
 
INSTAITT OBEDIENCE. 
 
 Sixth SundoAj after Epiphcmy, 
 
 " His mother saith unto the servants, Whatsoever He saith until 
 you, do it."— >S'^. John ii. 5. 
 
 The riglit path into the meaning of this saying, 
 found in one of the Epiphany " Gospels," lies through 
 the scene where it was spoken, or rather it is found 
 in an interior view of the three states of mind repre- 
 sented in the little group at the wedding: — that of 
 Mary, who speaks; of the servants, to whom she 
 speaks ; and of the Saviour, for whose decisive word she 
 and they are waiting. 
 
 On the part of Mary, the mother of the Lord, there 
 was evidently a mixture of perplexity, impatience, rev- 
 erence, and trust. The impatience, betrayed a moment 
 before, in her anxiety that her Son should interfere to 
 relieve the embarrassed host, — who is conjectured to 
 have been a relative of her own family, — an anxiety 
 heightened very probably by a little natural pride in the 
 indications of extraordinary wisdom and authority al- 
 ready apparent in Jesus, — had been sufficiently reproved 
 and restrained. His " Woman, what have I to do with 
 thee ? " (more exactly rendered, What is there in com- 
 mon between Me and thee ? ) had produced the intended 
 effect: dispelling her rising complacency, and placing 
 her on that level of ordinary human dependence where, 
 
142 INSTANT OBEDIENCE. 
 
 with all tlie loveliness and beauty of her character and 
 the sanctity of her maternal relation to the human 
 nature in Christ, she must ever remain. Nothing but 
 an utterly baseless superstition would ever presume to 
 remove her from it into a semi-adorable divinity. As 
 St. Augustine says on the passage, it is as if Christ had 
 replied to her, " That in Me which works miracles was 
 not born of thee." See the deep distinction between 
 the mere filial feeling, always so tender and strong in the 
 Redeemer, up to the last moment when He commended 
 her to St. John's faithful care on the cross, and, on the 
 other hand, that loftier and more august life of God 
 within Him by which He must pursue His solemn work 
 of miracle and sacrifice all alone. Even you, my mother, 
 — He seems to answer her, — must now keep silence and 
 wait. Dismiss that natural complacency and vain ambi- 
 tion of display for Me. Let Me, from this time forth, 
 release and disengage Myself, not indeed from a son's 
 afiection, but from all dependence and deference, that I 
 may go on without hindrance or interruption to this sol- 
 itary and separate office of mediatorship and propitiation. 
 Henceforth be the holy woman, the meek follower, the 
 redeemed though not sinless disciple, — and nothing more 
 than that, whatever erring men may pretend. But for 
 Me, the Son of God, whom the Father hath sanctified 
 and sent into the world, — not an act in My merciful 
 ministry can be either hurried forward or kept back 
 for an instant; it must be done only when "Mine 
 hour" for it "is come." 
 
 All this would be a direct appeal to faith, and a call 
 for increased faith. For thirty years Mary had carried 
 in the solemn silence of her soul the memory of the 
 strange events which signalized His birth, childhood, 
 and youth at Bethlehem and the Temple. Probably the 
 
INSTANT OBEDIENCE. 143 
 
 remarkable words He had shortly before uttered to 
 Nathaniel, written just at the close of the previous 
 chapter, had been repeated to her, " Hereafter ye shall 
 see the angels of God ascending and descending upon 
 the Son of Man." As yet He had given no super- 
 natural sign; for we are expressly told that this was 
 the " beginning " of His miracles, manifesting forth His 
 glory. If He had really come with a celestial commis- 
 sion, — greater than Moses and Elias, — was it not almost 
 time, almost the " hour," for some token of it to appear? 
 Moses fed the hungry people with heavenly bread in 
 the wilderness, and, when they thirsted, opened springs 
 of water in the rock ; Elias multiplied the widow's oil 
 and flour. Why should not this greater Prophet, to 
 whom all the prophets gave witness, fill the six stone 
 water-pots before Him with wine, and gladden the fru- 
 gal wedding with bounty by His hand ? Yet when she 
 adventured on that so reasonable suggestion, she was 
 rebuffed. 
 
 Just at this point of uncertainty, then, she stood. 
 The dull servants, knowing nothing of this mystery, 
 ready to take their order, were at hand. She only 
 looked at Jesus, and all doubts fled, all impatience gave 
 way» all fears and marvels sank to rest in one blessed 
 resolution of simple, trusting obedience. " Whatsoever 
 He saith unto you, do it." This was the complete con- 
 fession of her faith. It was the grand triumph in her 
 of the very spirit of the Lord. And I shall go on to 
 lay it open before you now as a condensed and blessed 
 commandment of love for us Christians of to-day. Let 
 me do this by drawing out three contrasts, implied in 
 the text. 
 
 " Whatsoever He saith unto you." One voice is singled 
 out, and we are told of it, here and in every part of the 
 
144 ^ INSTANT OBEDIENCE. 
 
 Word of Life, — that voice alone has supreme authority. 
 There are other voices, a whole Babel of them, clamor- 
 ing to be heard. It has been said, with a great deal of 
 truth, that the difference between one man and another is 
 in their choice of their masters. Some master every hu- 
 man being has, and none are in so complete a bondage as 
 those who fancy themselves to be absolutely independ- 
 ent. We never call the service that we like a slavery ; 
 the neighbor who looks on and sees the toil, but has no 
 sympathy with the motive, may call it so. To the in- 
 dolent voluptuary the business man's unremitting appli- 
 cation is a bondage ; but this busy worker, with far more 
 reason, gives the same name to the voluptuary's indolence. 
 A mother's incessant care of her children seems a slavery 
 to those who have no sense of maternaV affection. Each 
 of the trades, professions, callings, to observers who have 
 no feeling of the spring from which it is done, and no 
 aptitude or relish for it, bears in its routine this servile 
 aspect. There is always liberty in doing what we love 
 to do. There are as many masters as there are interests, 
 appetites, tastes, passions, and pursuits, — of the. body 
 and the mind. There are people who scorn the idea of 
 working at all, who yet work harder, put up with more 
 humiliations, and part with more real liberty, for vanity, 
 for fashion, for a certain standing in society or a certain 
 amount of prosperity, or a sensual pleasure, than the 
 serf that is bought and sold and whipped. So it appears 
 that men are always choosing their masters. And, how- 
 ever it may be with the outward employments, when we 
 come to their moral life, i. e., the region of their motives, 
 men are at liberty to choose as they will. It is there, 
 on that ground of their moral freedom, that the Gospel 
 meets them. The freedom of this choice, and its re- 
 sponsibility, keep on with them, and follow them up, till 
 
INSTANT OBEDIENCE. 145 
 
 they die. Hence the mercy of God keeps the message 
 of salvation sounding through the world. He has 
 turned your feet in here to hear it once more to-day ; 
 and He only knows whether it is the last time you will 
 hear it before judgment begins. Choose now this day 
 whom you will serve. Were there any interference 
 with your choice, any compulsion, the whole state of the 
 case would be changed ; preaching to you would be an 
 impertinence; and your hearing would be in vain. 
 But there is no interference and no compulsion : the 
 most frivolous and careless sinner knows that. Tempta- 
 tion, in all its degrees, — opportunity, temperament, ex- 
 ample, education, perversions of the truth, bad custom, 
 — these are fearful forces ; but never, anywhere, do they 
 for a moment annihilate responsibility, or quench the 
 light lighting every man that cometh into the world. 
 The liberty to choose your master clings to your soul. 
 Choose Christ, and live forever ; choose otherwise, any 
 other master, and forever die. And you do choose. 
 Not only have we the liberty to choose if we will^ but 
 we use the liberty. Every heart chooses. Every life is 
 the result of that choice. We may go on choosing and 
 choosing again, trying many masters ; falsehood is never 
 consistent with itself, and sin loves change. Every pas- 
 sion and appetite and interest may take its turn in play- 
 ing master. We may fancy we make some progress, 
 hecause we change, when really the selfish principle, the 
 root of all the evil, is just as vital, and as bitter and poi- 
 sonous in its vitality as ever, under all the refinements of 
 culture and manners. The external habits may become 
 more orderly and decent; the tastes less gross; the 
 results of labor more useful to others. But God is not 
 mocked, and we must not deceive ourselves. Changing 
 our masters is of no avail till we exchange every other 
 
 10 
 
146 INSTANT OBEDIENCE. 
 
 for God. Hence it is that the Bible always treats the 
 false masters of the soul as altogether but one ; — " He 
 that is not for Christ is against Him," it says. So it 
 presents but one alternative. " No man can serve two 
 masters." The order of the mother of Jesus at the 
 feast expands and reaffirms itself, you see, into a search- 
 ing, universal, and unrepealable command for every soul 
 that would live. " Whatsoever Re saith unto you, do 
 it." We are servants, all. Listen to no other leader. 
 One voice, only one, is supreme. Till we have found 
 the perfectly holy, the all- wise, and almighty One, we 
 shift our masters to no purpose. Christ alone can turn 
 the water into wine ; the old life into the new. 
 
 Advance to the truth that, as there is but one voice 
 of supreme authority, so there is, on our part, but one 
 great principle of Christian duty, and that so comprehen- 
 sive as to include all particular directions and settle all 
 open questions, viz., instant, active obedience. " What- 
 ever He saith unto you, do itP 
 
 Try to consider, my friends, how many of our failures 
 and miseries in Christian living creep in between the 
 clear hearing of God's command, and the doing of it, — 
 or even the resolute, determined, hearty attemjpting to 
 do it. I say miseries^ because to earnest people failures 
 are miseries. I believe a careful analysis, a sifting to 
 the bottom of the religious unhappiness and dissatisfac- 
 tion so often complained of, would show that it springs 
 very commonly from mistaking speculative for practical 
 truth ; from putting matters of feeling and opinion in 
 place of matters of obedient action, or doing God's will ; 
 in other words, from postponing an unquestioning accept- 
 ance of God's plain word to a questioning which puts 
 the soul out of the line and attitude of simple obedience 
 altogether. Some impenetrable problem of God's provi- 
 
INSTANT OBEDIENCE. 147 
 
 dence, never meant for man to comprehend, is conjured 
 lip and brooded over, as if man had a right to fathom it, 
 or, still worse, had a right to keep his faith and repent- 
 ance waiting till he can fathom it. Some obscure dogma, 
 which, in the regular order of Christian progress, should 
 be left to clear itself up to the mind at some later and 
 more advanced stage of the process of sanctification, — 
 under the law that he who doeth the will shall finally know 
 doctrines, — is torn from its spiritual relations, and set up 
 as a stumbKng-block to piety, the young disciple imagining 
 he is justified in serving some other master than Christ 
 because he is not made a master himself! There are 
 other kindred impediments to true, straightforward 
 Christian obedience and the joy of believing : moods of 
 depression and discontent ; sorrowful misgivings of hav- 
 ing backslidden and grown cold ; queryings whether the 
 plan of life is right, whether time is properly divided 
 between the conflicting claims of friends, neighbors, 
 family, or between the active and contemplative elements 
 of religion ; there are discouragements and griefs at the 
 unbelief and unconcern of those so much beloved, that 
 the thought of their having no faith darkens the daylight 
 of all the days ; there are strange, nerveless, inert seasons, 
 when it seems as if our hands were tied and could not 
 be loosened, our feet paralyzed as in a nightmare, all 
 the horizon of usefulness narrowing in, and pinching us 
 into spiritual dwarfs or cripples. What is to be said of 
 all these drawbacks on the liberty and growth of a joy- 
 ous discipleship, and what the Bible does say repeatedly 
 is this : that they are to be cast off and left behind, not 
 by more thinking over them, or more spasmodic efforts 
 to pump up or manufacture mere feeling, but by a more 
 prompt, unremitting, unambitious doing of Christ's will ; 
 a willingness to do it with just what strength and wis- 
 
148 INSTANT OBEDIENCE. 
 
 dom God has lent you, and no more ; with just that 
 degree of success, or celebrity, or comfort, or honor, that 
 God allows, and no more. " Jesus saith unto them, Fill 
 the water-pots with water ; and they filled them up to 
 the brim." We are servants under Him, nothing more, 
 and must drink of all the cup of obedience that He 
 drinks of in doing His Father's will, and be baptized 
 with all the baptism that He is baptized with, — in 
 suffering, weeping, being sorrowful, and living in a 
 sinful world. Here is the Master's way. Doubts, 
 fears, depressions, break up and dissolve under it. The 
 homely opportunities that stand all round us in our every- 
 day business, in the houses and the familiar workshops of 
 the world, are our six water-pots of stone. Fill them ; 
 fill them ungrudgingly and unhesitatingly; fill them 
 with such water as you have, and up to the hrim. There 
 is but one thing to be done : " Whatever He saith unto 
 you, do it." Whether the water shall be made wine is for 
 Him, the Master, to decide ; not for us. We can settle 
 t)ut few difficult points, and puzzle out but few knotted 
 problems. We are like Mary in her perplexity ; very 
 often confessing silently, "Well, all this is strange, 
 inexplicable ; we should not have expected it so ; but 
 one thing is certainly safe and clear; one blessed path 
 lies open ; that will bring all out well and right at last : 
 Whatever He saith unto you, do it." There is no 
 doom or danger in that. Be about the Master's business. 
 Go to the nearest duty. Take up the first cross. Count 
 no costs too great. Go forward to confession of Christ 
 and His ordinances. Feed upon Him in faith. Do all 
 manner of kindnesses and charities to the least of His 
 people as unto Him. Esteem a small house large 
 enough to be an entrance-way to heaven. If the poor 
 season of this mortal life and this commonplace world 
 
INSTANT OBEDIENCE. 149 
 
 is ever to be turned, by the miracle of grace, into a wed- 
 ding-feast for the eternal Bridegroom and the Church 
 His Bride, it must be by this working of love in Chris- 
 tians to fill the water-pots with water, — preparing the 
 way for the wisdom that transforms our weak and watery 
 offerings into the wine of the new kingdom. 
 
 There is another kind of difficulty that is cured by 
 the same obedient and prompt doing of the will, — I 
 mean indecision as to beginning to follow Christ. There, 
 too, with most persons born and bred in a land of sanctu- 
 aries and scriptures, the obstacle is in a want of religious 
 action, a lack of the practical link that joins a sight of 
 duty with the doing of it, or a longing desire for Christ's 
 acceptance with the practical eifort to obtain it. There 
 must be some persons now listening here that have not 
 so decided and begun. I ask them to go back into their 
 past lives, and say if they cannot recall some time gone 
 by when they were almost persuaded, heard the Spirit 
 pleading, saw the gate open, and then let this world 
 draw them back. What was it that closed the way to 
 God's right hand ? It was the not walking at once in 
 that way. It was no mystical or metaphysical or exter- 
 nal impediment ; it was the moral chasm between hearing 
 the command and minding it. It is not till our part, — 
 the servants' part, — is done, and the firkins are filled, 
 that the supernatural energy will change the nature of 
 the heart into the new creature in Christ Jesus. Believe ; 
 faith is the power ; but the proof and truit of faith is not 
 separated from it : " Arise, and wash away thy sins ; 
 bring forth fruit meet for repentance ; bear witness to the 
 Eedeemer; and have charity for one another. So shall 
 all men know that ye are My disciples." 
 
 One other word completes the scope of this lesson : 
 the first word of the text, — '^ Whatever." " Whatever 
 
!150 INSTANT OBEDIENCE. 
 
 He saith unto you, do it." What it should be that He 
 would say His mother did not know ; the servants did 
 not know. It turned out, with them, to be no very 
 heavy or difficult task ; it might have been to travel to 
 the Kedron or the Jordan ; but it certainly was a trial 
 of their faith, and a greater trial than many of those are 
 that we call so. How was the pouring into the jars of 
 mere colorless and tasteless water to remedy the want of 
 wine ? Yery much so it looks to us, in respect to many 
 of the simple and commanded acts of faith, which are 
 required of us nevertheless. How are our money offer- 
 ings to convert souls to Christ ? How are our prayers to 
 move the everlasting arm, stay sickness or sin, and turn 
 back the currents of evil ? How shall bread and wine 
 feed the heart? How shall any of the miracles of 
 Christ's power and compassion be wrought ? We are 
 slow to learn the irrelevancy and vanity of those 
 inquiries ; yet learn it we must, or never be wise enough 
 to take our blessing and live forever. 
 
 And then there are trials, not for all of us, but for 
 some, which need this broad '' whatever " to cover them. 
 When you find yourself beginning to calculate the con- 
 sequences of your obedience, and measuring out your 
 sacrifices by your prospects of reward ; when your flesh 
 and blood cry out that the sacrifice hurts, and the wicked 
 world seems happier than they that suffer affliction with 
 the people of God ; when you must give up more than 
 you ever gave before, and more than your neighbors do, 
 — ^you will want this " whatever,"" — " Whatever He saith 
 to you, do it." You will want the wide faith it expresses 
 and requires ; and you can have it. Nay, you will want 
 Him who is the author and finisher of it, and who said 
 beforehand, '' In the world ye shall have tribulation ; 
 but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." 
 
INSTANT OBEDIENCE. 151 
 
 And what a life of holy power and beauty and benefi- 
 cence this will yield in our dwellings ! He who began 
 His wonders at the marriage in Cana will continue to 
 manifest His glory and diffuse His joy in every place 
 where this blessed and trusting spirit has consecrated 
 the family, and ordered its occupation. Draw out now, 
 and bear unto every guest in the Father's house. As in 
 every miracle of His the Lord never proceeded without 
 regard to some natural and ordinary substance to be 
 acted on, never created things anew out of nothing, but 
 always changed, healed, transformed, or made letter 
 something existing in disorder before Him, so it is in 
 the glorious operation of His Divine power on the char- 
 acter, heart, and life of men. He takes these old and 
 common water-pots of our mortal relationships, our 
 household affairs, our e very-day dispositions and employ- 
 ments, and then, if only we are ready with our obedi- 
 ence, fills them with that new wine to which He him- 
 self so often compares His gift of life. "When the new 
 man is put on, " old things pass away, and all things 
 become new," but the identity is not lost. The effect is 
 new ; the life is new ; but you are yourself still, only 
 transformed, and the new life is your own. 
 
THE FOEEMOST DESIEE. 
 
 Septuagesima Sunday. 
 
 "Seek ye first the kingdom of God," and His righteousness." — 
 St. Matthew vi. 33. 
 
 To-day the Church turns its thoughts from the begin- 
 nings of our Lord's ministry toward its close. We have 
 been occupied with His coming, birth, and manifesta- 
 tion : we now move toward His cross. 
 
 The spirit of the text is the spirit of the Epistle. 
 There is one •'' race '' to be run ; one " prize " to be 
 gained. Everything else is less than the " incorruptible 
 crown." The cross lies on the way to that. Put all else 
 aside ; count all else immaterial ; do all, bear all, for that. 
 Seek it " first." 
 
 The command carries the whole weight and compass 
 of its meaning clearly written on its face. " Seek ye first 
 the kingdom of God, and His righteousness." The 
 impression it conveys directly to every soul is the true 
 one. I doubt whether in this cono^res^ation there is a 
 person really listening to it that lias not said silently, 
 " That is a high call ; that must come out of the very 
 Spirit and throne of God ; it sounds like the voice of 
 One who speaks with an authority that it would be 
 vain to question ; the words have the ring of eternal 
 truth, reason, and right in them." It is an explicit 
 requirement, — positive, comprehensive, intelligible. It 
 
THE FOREMOST DESIRE. 153 
 
 stands there in the midst of that Divine sermon, 
 which begins with beatitudes and ends with a warning, 
 like the mount on which it was delivered in the scenery 
 around it, the summit of an ascending grade of many 
 heavenward-leading invitations. It sounds out a rallying 
 cry for the waking minute-men of the army of the Great 
 King. " Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His 
 righteousness." 
 
 Sometimes when men are called so to rouse and enrol 
 themselves under Christ's cross they are ready in the 
 main, they acknowledge the general duty; but they 
 want to ask particular questions and to receive particular 
 explanations. Such states^ of mind, if they are honest, 
 and are fairly met, may end in faithful service on the 
 Saviour's side. Seeking, they find. But Christ knew 
 that there are other postures of men's minds, terribly 
 common, where a life with Him amid the realities of the 
 spiritual world are not set at all into this foremost place ; 
 indifference is the first and fatal danger. There is not 
 concern enough to raise particular inquiries. There are 
 no questions to be asked about the methods, the condi- 
 tions, the preparations, the way of the eternal life with 
 Christ, because the treasure lies too far away. Some- 
 times, when you, men of business, are invited to embark 
 in a new enterprise, you see and acknowledge its eminent 
 importance, and only delay for an intelligent investi- 
 gation. In other cases, you say at once that it has no 
 attraction for you ; you are interested in other matters ; 
 and, before he has opened his portfolio or unrolled his 
 scheme, you dismiss the applicant from your door. It is 
 to this last class of dealers with His heavenly benefit that 
 the Saviour is here spealdng, — the unconcerned. To use 
 His own language, which is always the best, " the cares 
 of this world," " the deceitfulness of riches," " the pride 
 
154 THE FOREMOST DESIRE. 
 
 of life," " what shall we eat ? " " wherewithal shall we 
 be clothed ? " " how shall more goods be got and laid up 
 for many years," or spent, or shown ? — these are the real 
 interests ; they are supreme. "Why not frankly confess 
 it, you man or woman of the world ? Why do you go 
 round about the matter with ingenious circumlocutions, 
 with your apologetic postponements, your half-way 
 assent, or your heartless confessions ? If these " be thy 
 gods," why not acknowledge and stand by them ? Why 
 add an unmanly pretension to an ungodly preference, 
 and crown your faithlessness to Christ with an acted lie 
 to your fellow-men? Why buy your unopened Bible, 
 and pay the tax on your reluctantly occupied pew, and 
 repeat compliments to a public Christianity, and send 
 for the minister to bury your dead, if your life and heart 
 have another master, another worship, and another 
 heaven ? Natural honor must admire Elijah's straight- 
 forward and clear-dividing doctrine : " If the Lord be 
 God, follow Him ; but if Baal, then follow him." Only 
 one kingdom can he first. 
 
 " The kingdom of God, and His righteousness." Can 
 there be any ambiguity about the object ? It is plainly 
 of two parts : one social and outward, — God's " king- 
 dom " ; the other personal and inward, — " His righteous- 
 ness " ; and these two are so fitted together, and so par- 
 take of each other, that each alone is incomplete ; both 
 are one in the fulfilment of the Christian obligation. 
 And the Saviour's command is not kept till both are 
 sought. Yet, in seeking them, there is no dividing of 
 the attention, no doubling of the purpose, and no diver- 
 gence in the road. After all it is but one thing^ one 
 object, one seeking, one choice and act, one eternal bless- 
 ing. How is it with the prodigal? Up to a certain 
 time he has no particular destination, no plan, as he has 
 
THE FOREMOST DESIRE. 155 
 
 no faith. He only intends to wander on, and get the 
 most selfish enjoyment out of the world that it can be 
 made to yield him. The one bad determining act was 
 done where he set up his own headstrong will, took the 
 means of self-gratification into his hands, and made the 
 world's great sensual saloon his only home. But the 
 prodigal was no extraordinary monster. This Christian 
 community has thousands of men in it that are doing the 
 same thing in kind every day, and doing it reputably 
 enough. The one characteristic fact about him was that 
 his back was turned to his father and his father's house. 
 He sought another kingdom first. Precisely how far he 
 had gone, or into what company, was not the^r^^ con- 
 sideration ; but which way he was moving. His father 
 let him have his portion of the property, to try his 
 unfilial and dismal experiment with ; and so Providence 
 lets irreligious and unchristian men have money and 
 prosperity, for the same purpose, here. There is some- 
 thing unspeakably pathetic, sad, in the sight of a man, 
 with a heart in his breast which God made, getting 
 worldly success, nothing else, and working this experi- 
 ment out. Tlie badges of fortune that He hangs 
 out about him, and about his family, are only the mock- 
 eries of his mistake. How he is to discover it is only a 
 question of time ; and this* is partl}?^ the sadness of it. 
 You look at him as one after another of his purposes is 
 accomplished, as one token after another of his rising 
 and flourishing condition is put forth in his establish- 
 ment, and you wonder when and how it will be that the 
 hunger in his heart is to discover itself to him. What 
 will be the mysterious influence, — whose infidelity, 
 whose treachery, what disorder, what miscalculation, — 
 that will turn all these splendors into husks, and these 
 apples into ashes? On which child's bloom will the 
 
166 THE FOREMOST DESIKE. 
 
 blight settle ? In what night will the alarm come, that 
 is the beginning of the end, saying, " Thy soul is required 
 of thee " ? Fulness of the intellect, fulness of the 
 body, fulness of the estate, will not keep the sense of 
 hunger away, — and the sense of it is the reality of it. 
 
 When " he comes to himself," you find one thing pre- 
 senting itself to this man's empty heart. It is that one 
 thing that makes all the difference between a bad and a 
 good son, a self-alienated, wretched child and a filial one, 
 an obstinate and a repenting sinner. The whole change 
 is wrought immediately within, him. But what change ? 
 I*^ot a change of place; he has done nothing yet but 
 think and feel. Not a change in his outer man. IS" either 
 time nor miracle has repaired the waste of dissipation in 
 his body. ITot a complete revolution yet, in all the 
 courses and tendencies of his thoughts and desires, — for 
 it takes time to swing all these round, in the new-born 
 man, so that they shall play spontaneously and harmon- 
 iously with the motions of the Spirit in the "new 
 creature." But, a change in his relations to his Father 
 and his Father'^s house. In that point, which is the 
 decisive point in every character, the change is entire. 
 Before, every longing, impulse, passion, from intellectual 
 curiosity down to fleshly lust, looked for its indulgence 
 away from home, which means away from God ; and 
 obeying that choice, every step bore him literally 
 " away." Place is not essential at first ; but destination 
 is essential. Distance is not the principal thing ; direc- 
 tion is. Does the heart turn loyally and yearn faithfully 
 to God? And now, what is the first sign and proof of 
 the inward transformation ? It is in the character of the 
 " first " thought and the " first " desire. Before, it was 
 to get away from the Father and forget Him ; now, it is 
 to get home and abide with Him. And here you find 
 
THE FOREMOST DESIRE. 157 
 
 just those two parts of the new life which the text 
 requires; the new ^lace and the new heart ; the seat at 
 the family board, and the reconciled feeling; the open 
 and visible return, as well as the secret repentance; 
 the Father's house, or Church, as well as the Father's 
 favor and forgiveness; — indeed, where else shall the 
 favor and forgiveness be found but there, on the ap- 
 pointed spot, at the threshold of the old house-door, 
 where childhood and baptism once left him ? Yes, " the 
 Jcingdom of God, and the righteousness thereof." It 
 will not do to stay back among the husks of the far 
 country, no matter whether they are the dissolute husks 
 of sensual pleasure, or the sordid husks of a thrifty and 
 elegant worldly-mindedness, or the frost-bitten husks 
 of intellectual pride ; — not the least matter. It is your 
 Father's house that claims you. Men will ask, and 
 they have a right to ask, "Under which king? Whose 
 art thou ? " Much goods may have been laid up for 
 many years, or you may have failed to get them, or may 
 have squandered them. These are not differences in the 
 sight of Him who says, " Seek first the kingdom of 
 God, and His righteousness." To Him the only differ- 
 ence is between those that are seeking and those that 
 are not. " This night thy soul shall be required of 
 thee." Whose is that soul ? 
 
 " Seek ye." But there are two different kinds of 
 seeking. One is the seeking of those who do not know, 
 while , they seek, whether they shall find or not ; the 
 other of those w^ho know, — because they believe, and 
 know in whom they believe, — that by seeking they shall 
 find. This seems to some of you, perhaps, a not very 
 important difference; or else so very plain a one that 
 everybody must see it. You would not think so, any 
 of you, if you saw how many people there are in 
 
158 THE FOEEMOST DESIEE. 
 
 every assembly as large as tins who can say sincerely 
 tliat they wish they were Christ's disciples, and yet are 
 not, and do not know how to be, or whether in fact they 
 can be. What is this but seeking without knowing 
 whether they shall find " the kingdom of God, and His 
 righteousness " ? They seek, if peradventure they may 
 find. Some do, — they say, — and some fail; they are 
 not sure whether there is some antecedent, fatal, fore- 
 ordained objection in the mind of God ; — they are not 
 sure whether the message the King has sent them is all 
 true, and the ofier of His love is as large as it seems ; 
 they are not sure whether there are not difiiculties in 
 themselves, of constitution, or habit, a temper or a 
 tongue so unpromising as to shut out all probability of 
 their evfer making strong Christians ; they are not sure 
 whether they shall have any helps after they begin seek- 
 ing, or enough to carry them through ; they are not 
 sure but there are some mystical conditions, or incom- 
 prehensible doctrines, which are laid down at the door 
 of the kingdom, which they are expected to comprehend, 
 or be kept away. It is easy to see what irresolute, 
 ineffectual seeking this will be. It is not that seeking 
 of faith which the Saviour tries in so many ways to create, 
 — by showing us Himself, by assuring us of the tenderness 
 of the Father's compassion, by comparing earthly things 
 with spiritual, and the temporal with the eternal, telling 
 us that all our outward wealth is but the grass that to- 
 morrow is cast into the oven ; by solemn repetitions of 
 the promise that He will keep those who once, in a good 
 confession, commit themselves to Him; by declaring 
 that no one shall pluck them out of His hand ; by mir- 
 acles that open the kingdom of God to our very eyes ; 
 by the parable of the great supper for "the lame, 
 the halt, and the blind " ; and by dying in the depth 
 
THE FOREMOST DESIRE. 159 
 
 and boundlessness of His love, that "whosoever 
 will" may come. Yes: "the kingdom of God" is 
 there, and is open ; the " righteousness " of God is real 
 and waiting. It is not a venture, a possibility, a hap- 
 hazard seeking, — like that before the dreary and unbe- 
 lieving mind of Rabelais, when he felt himself dying, 
 and said, in melancholy acquiescence, " I go to seek the 
 great Perhaps." How unlike St. Paul's " I have fin- 
 ished my course, henceforth there is laid up for me a 
 crown of righteousness which the Lord will give me," 
 or St. Stephen's " Lord Jesus, receive my spirit," with 
 his face already like the face of an angel ! Yes, there 
 must be some faith, to begin the seeking ; faith enough 
 to be sure of God; faith enough to be certain that, 
 whatever we may do or be, Christ means what He says 
 when He declares " The kingdom of God has come nigh 
 unto you," " Ask, and ye shall receive," " Seek, and ye 
 shall find." 
 
 Seek it first : — first in time, now, before anything else 
 is sought or done ; first in importance, never letting any 
 other interest crowd this aside, or other engagements 
 take precedence of the appointed means and ordinances 
 that lead to this ; first in earnestness, cheerfully sacrific- 
 ing society, business, income, admiration, just so far as 
 they hinder or interfere with this ; first in afibction, so 
 that you can sincerely say, with St. Paul, " I am per- 
 suaded that neither life nor death, nor things present 
 nor things to come, nor high things nor low things, nor 
 any other creature, shall be able to separate me from the 
 love of God which is in Christ Jesus my Lord." Why, 
 if this were the manner and the spirit of all our seek- 
 ing, — intense and sober and confident, — if all the world's 
 business were so done, and its pleasure so moderated 
 and purified, as to be in all points made secondary and 
 
160 THE FOREMOST DESIRE. 
 
 tributary to tliis, — I liardlj know whether the greater 
 change would pass over the world or over the Church ; 
 — over those that profess and call themselves Christians, 
 yet make their religion wait for their traffic and their 
 entertainment, or over the surrounding multitudes that 
 do not believe the faith of Christ to be a reality at all 
 only because they do not see avowed Christians treating 
 it and presenting it as the "first" thhig. Yet this is 
 perfectly compatible with a diligent business life, with 
 doing vigorously the daily work that your hand finds to 
 do, with public spirit, with learning, with patriotism, 
 with all the refinements and culture of a high-bred tone 
 of civilization. IS^ay, everything other than this, — every- 
 thing that inverts this Divine order, or subordinates 
 Christ's kingdom and righteousness to the kingdom of 
 this world, and seeks material or merely intellectual 
 glory firsts is not a high-bred civilization ; but the seeds 
 of weakness and vulgarity and extravagance and hollow 
 scepticism, and a foetid barbarism are in it, till the 
 curses of God light upon it, and you have the old 
 spectacle of commonwealths revolting from their 
 heavenly King, and perishing in dishonor. To make 
 spiritual interests foremost and supreme is not fanat- 
 icism or asceticism. Christ takes all truth into His 
 Gospel, and remembers our whole condition. When 
 He says, " Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His 
 righteousness," what follows? "all other things shall 
 be added unto you." " Godliness is profitable for the 
 life that now is, as well as for that which is to come " ; 
 for both lie within the Father's keeping, and over both 
 His empire extends. 
 
 There was living, not long ago, a thoroughly conse- 
 crated Christian merchant, now among God's saints no 
 doubt in paradise, who began and finished his whole 
 
THE FOREMOST DESIRE. 161 
 
 prosperous career as a steward seeking " first " Christ's 
 kingdom, — and giving of his income, to the glory of 
 that kingdom, first a tenth, then a half, and finally the 
 whole. When this man found himself prostrated by 
 disease, and not very likely to recover, his conversation 
 was as cheerful and manly as ever. If the Master 
 should call him, he was ready. But it would be a severe 
 disappointment, he said, if he should be long inactive 
 and unprofitable. There was the balance, in him, of the 
 helieving and the working faculties. " You can under- 
 stand this state of feeling," he said to his clergyman, 
 " because you are interested in your own work for the 
 Master, and would regard your separation from it as a 
 calamity. IS'ot," he continued, " that I would compare 
 money-making in importance with the preaching of 
 Christ, but I think I can say, as in the sight of God, 
 that my aim in making money is the same as that of 
 every true minister of Christ in preaching the Gospel." 
 That candid and confidential statement, with eternity 
 in plain sight, disclosed the real secret of the energy of 
 his business life. It is just as possible for such a man 
 to seek first God's kingdom and righteousness in the 
 regulated and sanctified activity which yet never takes 
 him from his place in the Lord's service, as if he waked 
 and slept in a cloister. 
 
 I recall another eminent merchant, up to the close of 
 his last day of health working indefatigably, as he had 
 worked for many years, not to add more to a great for- 
 tune, but to serve and set forward, with what he already 
 had, and with every capacity of his capacious nature, 
 this kingdom, and the glory of its King. The few final 
 months he gave especially to the relief and evangeliza- 
 tion of the freedmen at the South. On one of the 
 
 bitterest days of the Winter, as if some solemn prein- 
 
 11 
 
162 THE FOREMOST DESIEE. 
 
 timation told him his hour was at hand, he refused to 
 leave his counting-house, where he was laboring from 
 morning till night in this work of mercy. Feeling a 
 strange pain in his head, he bandaged it with water and 
 worked on. As the night came on, he rose from that 
 desk, where he had earned a dignity which gives him a 
 place, it seems to me, with the missionaries and soldiers 
 of the cross, with statesmen and scholars, and turning 
 to his clerk said, as his last words, — sublime in their 
 simplicity as almost any of the dying expressions of 
 saints on record, — "Now, — have I left anything un- 
 done ? " Before he had reached his home, the cloud 
 fell over his mind; and, after a few half-articulate syl- 
 lables, showing that his thought was still reaching back 
 to the poor creatures that leaned upon him, breathing 
 that charity which " never faileth," about midnight li,e 
 fell asleep. Why is it, O men of strength, young men, 
 or men in whom the fire of youth is cooling, — why is it 
 that we do not see the true glory of our lives, and 
 round them out, and end them, oftener, in such holy 
 grandeur as this? — "Have I left anything undone?" 
 for Christ and His kingdom ? It matters very little how 
 soon the night shuts in, or the Master calls, if all our 
 days ended with that. The kingdom would go forward, 
 though men die ; the race would be emancipated and 
 regenerated by the living power and witness of the 
 Holy Spirit, the Comforter. 
 
 Would to God, dear friends, that all the air about us 
 were quick with that spirit ! that the life kindled and 
 glowed, with healthful fire, along all our sluggish congre- 
 gations and our worldly highways ! Have no fears that 
 faith and prayer will open the windows of heaven too 
 wide, or that our staid Lents and reverential Pentecosts 
 will be too refreshing ! Spiritual interests are foremost 
 
THE FOREMOST DESIRE. 163 
 
 and supreme. Eternity is close at hand. The Judge 
 does stand at the door. The time is short. Wisdom 
 does utter her voice in these streets, " Unto you, O men, 
 I call." Jesus of Nazareth, as the Gospel says, is pass- 
 ing by. This Church is opening her gate for the yearly 
 ingathering. E'o man can serve two masters. Seek ye 
 first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness, — first 
 in time, first in concern, first in earnestness, first in 
 affection. 
 
 " Awake, thou Spirit who of old, in love and truth. 
 Didst fire the watchmen of the Church's youth, 
 "Whose voices through the world are ringing still, 
 And bringing hearts to know and do Thy will. 
 
 " Would there were help within our walls ! 
 
 Oh let the promised Spirit come again 
 Before whom every barrier falls, 
 
 And, ere the night, shine forth as then! 
 Rend Thou the heavens, and make Thy presence felt; 
 These chains that bind us at Thy touch would melt. 
 
 " Oh that thy fire were kindled soon! 
 
 That swift from land to land its flame might leap I 
 Lord, give us but this priceless boon 
 
 Of faithful servants, fit, for Thee, to reap, — 
 And let them all the earth for Thee reclaim 
 To U Thy kingdom, and to know Thy name 1" 
 
SOJ^S AND DATJGHTEES IN THE FAMILY 
 OF CHEIST. 
 
 Sexagesima Sunday. 
 
 "Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, 
 saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive 
 you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and 
 daughters, saith the Lord Almighty." — II. Corinthians vi. 17, 18. 
 
 Two elements, jou perceive, enter into tlie substance 
 of this majestic sentence : a precept and a promise. The 
 strength of the apostle's thought seems to accumulate 
 from period to period, through the preceding passage, till 
 the gathered force of his argument, like a great wave 
 striking the shore, breaks over into a flood of feeling. 
 Having glanced from the earthly tabernacle to the 
 " House not made with hands, eternal in the heavens," 
 from the " light affliction " befalling the " outward " man 
 that faints and perishes, to the " eternal weight of glory " 
 yet invisible, showing how, in every soul that is new- 
 created in Christ Jesus, " mortality is swallowed up of 
 life," because that " inward man is renewed day by 
 day," and then setting forth the mighty motive to that 
 conversion, viz., that " God was in Christ reconciling the 
 world unto Himself," He comes at last to that close 
 point in the process, where he defines the essential con- 
 tradiction between the spiritual and the earthly man. 
 By a succession of quick, sharp questions, the sword of 
 
SONS AND DAUGHTERS IN CHRIST. 165 
 
 his doctrine cuts asunder the sophistry which would mix 
 up worldly self-will with Christian consecration, and 
 shows the world to be made up of two sorts of persons. 
 " What fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteous- 
 ness ? "What communion hath light with darkness ? 
 What concord hath Christ with Belial ? What part hath 
 he that believeth with an infidel? What agreement 
 hath the temple of God with idols ? " And then, the 
 crowning conclusion : " Wherefore come out from among 
 them, and be ye separate, and touch not the unclean 
 thing, saith the Lord " ; — for it is this '•'Thus saith the 
 Lord''^ that seals the promise. " And I will be a Father 
 unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith 
 the Lord Almighty." 
 
 1. There is a precept. In order to a Christian posi- 
 tion there must be a special act ; an act so personal, posi- 
 tive, and comprehensive, that it determines on which 
 side of one fixed line the rest of our actions shall stand. 
 You may call it by whatever name bears most signifi- 
 cance to your own mind ; the Scriptures furnish as great 
 a variety as you can desire : " renewal of the mind " ; 
 "conversion"; "believing on the Lord Jesus Christ " ; 
 "getting a new heart and spirit"; "putting off the 
 works of darkness and putting on the armor of light " ; 
 " forsaking idols" ; "coming out and being separate" ; 
 these are the Biblical terms for a single fact ; and if you 
 can find a term more descriptive of that fact than either 
 of these. Scripture nowhere forbids you to use it, pro- 
 vided you are sure to retain the substance of the thing 
 meant. What is essential is that conscious choice of the 
 soul by which it gathers up its powers, and resolves, — 
 God's grace helping it, as He ever will help, — to be on 
 Christ's side, in this fronting of armies and this awful 
 battle of our life. 
 
166 SONS AND DAUGHTERS 
 
 Furthermore, this act of choice is the same deep 
 necessity now that it was when Corinth was corrupting 
 tlie whole East, and the citizens were wasting their 
 manhood with Oriental luxuries and sensuality, and this 
 brave apostle was warning them. The human heart is 
 the same, as to its depravity, and its immortality. The 
 same temptations, with only slight variations in their 
 form, heset men now as then. The same two armies 
 face each other ; believers standing up for Christ Jesus, 
 and unconverted men standing up for themselves ; and 
 there is also the same cowardly company on the margin, 
 trying to be neutral, and trying in vain ; flattering them- 
 selves that they can be not exactly for Christ without 
 being exactly against Him, and with just the same suc- 
 cess ; fancying that they can carry the credit of being 
 good men without carrying the cross for it ; that they 
 can blur over that eternal dividing line which runs down 
 from the throne of God, where there is a right hand and 
 a left, through every nation, and every city, and congre- 
 gation, and company, and sometimes between the two 
 that walk arm in arm, or sit in the church side by side. 
 The same two adversaries play their old game for the 
 soul of man. The stake is the same. The strategy and 
 snares, the deceptions and disguises, are the same. We 
 Americans sail swifter ships, and over wider waters, than 
 were steered from the double-port of that " mistress of 
 the keys of the Peloponnesus " into the Ionian and 
 Egean Seas; but the practices that make all trafiic 
 Christian or unchristian are not far diiferent. Our civil 
 constitution and relations are not those of a colonial 
 dependence on a distant throne ; but the inducements 
 to political fraud, and the robberies perpetrated by 
 parties on the nation, and by selfishness on the State, 
 are little altered by time. Social frivolity may here be 
 
IN THE FAMILY OF CHRIST. 167 
 
 less stimulated bj climate, and convivial excess may flow 
 through a less public apparatus ; but this only aggravates 
 the shame of those women here that prepare and patron- 
 ize the frivolity, and those men that encourage the excess. 
 The lires of appetite have not been quenched by our 
 colder skies, or burnt out through eighteen centuries of 
 burning. Tell us, men who are sitting at the heads of 
 these pews, has the love of money, that root of evil, 
 rotted in our northern soil ? or been weeded out ? 
 Every age brings its new brood of vices and adds to the 
 funded stock ; but very few that have once got a foothold 
 die out. History hardly tells of one extinct species in 
 the flora of guilt. If civilization multiplies the refine- 
 ments of culture, so does it the refinements of iniquity. 
 Pride remains as obstinate ; self-love as subtle ; envy as 
 adroit ; avarice as grasping ; ambition as unscrupulous ; 
 self-satisfied indifi'erence as stupid ; and worldly enter- 
 prise as often " without God in the world." ^ay, and 
 going behind all the moralities of life into the evangelic 
 test lying at the heart of the Gospel, men are just as 
 eager to climb up some other way, instead of entering by 
 the lowly door of " repentance toward God and faith in 
 our Lord Jesus Christ." And therefore, what it most 
 concerns us to remember, the responsibility of choice is 
 just as pressing. It is as impossible to evade it and slip 
 into any third way. On one side we must he^ — Christ's 
 or Belial's. Righteousness refuses fellowship with un- 
 righteousness. Light offers no hospitality to darkness. 
 If idols have our hearts' secret worship, the true temple 
 of God shuts its doors upon us. We must touch and 
 handle the unclean thing, or let it alone. "We do assort 
 with the unbelievers, or come out from among them and 
 be separate ; and the Judge knows which we do. 
 
 It need not be forgotten that the Church has some- 
 
168 SONS AND DAUGHTEES 
 
 times made a mistaken use of this truth. It has done 
 so whenever it has sought to exaggerate the distinction 
 between the world's people and Christ's people, for pur- 
 poses of self-complacency or self-applause. It has done 
 so whenever it has drawn itself up in phylacteries, and 
 stood, a Pharisee, aloof from the throng of humanity, 
 saying scornfully, " I am holier than thou." It has done 
 so whenever it has made dress, badge, ritual, feeling, 
 professions, the line of distinction, rather than a prin- 
 ciple ruling the life. The right way for the Church to 
 distinguish itself from the world is, as its Head distin- 
 guished Himself from His countrymen after the flesh, by 
 a purer holiness, and a warmer zeal to help and save the 
 world. Perpetuating its Lord's divine ministry and 
 spirit, it should be as anxious as His own pitying heart 
 was to rescue the lost, to call prodigals home, to redeem 
 publicans and sinners, to undo heavy burdens, to sanctify 
 children from their childhood, to preach and spread on 
 earth the kingdom of heaven. Christian men should be 
 known from men not Christian by every nobler disposi- 
 tion, every more honorable and lovelier trait, every 
 holier affection and deed. Their peculiar badge ought 
 to be a superior righteousness. Their presence in any 
 company or any market ought to be a presence of calmer 
 temper, of firmer resistance against wrong, of greater 
 loyalty to every principle that lends stability to society, 
 — a presence of kinder forbearance and sweeter com- 
 passion, of manlier patience under suffering and of 
 clearer testimony to the suffering that redeemed us on 
 the cross. That is the way the Church, — which is noth- 
 ing else than the united and organized fellowship of 
 Christian souls, — ought to " come out and be separate." 
 Nevertheless, it will be true, — nay, all the more mani- 
 festly will it be true for so glorious a contrast, — that 
 
IN THE FAMILY OF CHEIST. 169 
 
 there is a distinction, or a " coming out " ; — that man- 
 kiiad are of two armies, under two leaders ; that out- 
 ward decency cannot be taken for inward renewal, self- 
 cultivation for the upward-looking faith which works by 
 love and through Christ receives the Spirit. 
 
 Till each individual soul, in the deliberation of a sol- 
 emn election, has chosen to clear itself of all entangling 
 alliances with the one of these two opposing forces, and 
 pledged itself to the other, — so passing out of the natural 
 life into the spiritual, — how can it imagine it is safe ? 
 If God is almighty, His will perfect, and His word 
 true, it cannot be safe. 
 
 Both a beginning, then, and a continuing; both a 
 revolution and a habit ; both a new principle and a new 
 life, is this great decisive act of the Christian. A com- 
 ing out from irreligious associations is one part; it 
 implies energy of purpose kindled by faith. Being 
 separate implies the maintenance of the ground thus 
 taken against all opponents, whether they frown or 
 laugh, sneer or slight, reason or threaten. " Come out" 
 from the bonds of vicious compliance and ungodly 
 habit is a call to the courage and faith of the awakened 
 heart. "Be separate" from sin i« a command to the 
 persevering will. " Touch not " the renounced pollu- 
 tion is an adjuration to the sanctified conscience. And 
 these are the three daily heroisms in the discipline of 
 the soldier of Jesus Christ. 
 
 2. But we are not left with the severity of the com- 
 mandment. To the sternness of the law is added after- 
 wards the tenderness of grace. If man will do his part, 
 God does His. Already, in the renewing, God has done 
 more than man. For it is God that worketh within 
 His work, as much " to will as to do," — prompting the 
 holy desires, and stirring the stagnant fountain. " No 
 
170 SONS AND DAFQHTERS 
 
 man can come to Me," — can begin to come, can so much 
 as desire or resolve to " come out," — " except the Father 
 who hath sent Me draw him." But now the soul, hav- 
 ing turned its face heavenward, has got light enough to 
 grow conscious of this in- working Spirit. When that 
 dinner of husks is fairly ended, and the prodigal's pen- 
 itence has directed his feet towards home, — the first 
 form his lifted eyes see is his father's — meeting him 
 " while yet a great way off." For the wanderer that 
 went out sullen and rebellious, there is a home and for- 
 giveness there. An infinite benediction falls on the 
 returning child ; you feel the power of the promise : " I 
 will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and 
 ye shall be My sons and daughters, saith the Lord 
 Almighty." 
 
 This is that fulness of acceptance which is reserved 
 for the favored hours of the true believer. Do not be 
 ignorant, brethren, that it is possible, that it is reason- 
 able, that it is according to every law of our spiritual 
 nature and the high expectations of the Gospel : never 
 to be sought as a provision of mere comfort ; not to cast 
 any heart into dejection or despair because God's time 
 for giving it, or yours for knowing how to use it, has 
 not yet fully come, but a real state when the character 
 is ripened for it, and the providential conditions are 
 fulfilled. "Whensoever that solemn choice we have been 
 contemplating has not only been taken; when the 
 deliberate consecration has not only lifted the soul out 
 from under the poor servitude to its improvident pas- 
 sions ; but when that entire submission has been reached 
 which bows to the Lord's will, not for the sake of any 
 rewards, but for His own sake, and because the heart 
 has enough in having Him, — then does enter this peace 
 which passes understanding, and which the world other- 
 
m THE FAMILY OF CHRIST. 171 
 
 wise knows nothing of. Then the Christian life does 
 grow cheerful and affectionate, — cheerful, without losing 
 anything of its earnestness, — affectionate, without losing 
 anything of its reverence. So actually wrote a conse- 
 crated child of pain, whom I knew, who had been lying 
 on a bed, and in one position on it, more than twenty 
 years, most of that time in keen distress, and there 
 rising into a victory of faith where she could say, " God 
 must have loved me very much, or He would not have 
 brought me to this life of suffering." Then God does 
 veritably speak, and the voice is, " I will be a Father 
 unto you, and ye shall be My sons and daughters, saith 
 the Lord Almighty." 
 
 Sons and daughters ! What a power of personal 
 endearment is lodged in that particularity of speech ! 
 E^ot " children," merely, losing individual consolation in 
 the generality of the family ! God uses names that come 
 nearer to personal affection, and meet a personal want. 
 He calleth His own by name. Every individual man, 
 struggling under his own load, combatting his own hard- 
 ships, can say, " My God, thou art my Father." Every 
 woman, suffering under her own untold trial, and pray- 
 ing for rest out of a sensitive heart full of misery, is 
 suffered to hear God promising, " Thou shalt be My 
 daughter." And so I have known of such an one, 
 stricken with the long sorrow of a dreadful bereavement, 
 and bowed down for years in that darkness which can 
 behold no pardon and no heaven, from which she could 
 in no wise lift up herself, at last, on hearing these strong 
 and tender syllables of the text, suddenly to be called 
 back again to the light, and to be comforted thenceforth. 
 " Is it so ? " said the mourner ; " has God, the unchange- 
 ably True, said it ? and shall I not believe His word ? 
 Shall it not comfort me ? Shall I not give all to Him, 
 
172 SONS AND DAUGHTEKS 
 
 and he His daughter ? " So the doctrine becomes a doc- 
 trine for the heart. Every affection becomes God's 
 cheerful servant. The whole soul is the filial instrument 
 of tliat Father Almighty. 
 
 " Almighty." Mark the special pledge, secured, too, 
 in that word. It is added now, as if so boundless an 
 offer might be distrusted. And whereas it was the Lord 
 that said " Come," it is the Lord Almighty^ with His 
 Omnipotence the guaranty of His promise, that says, 
 "Ye shall be My sons and my daughters." Of the 
 spiritual power of a communion so tender and so holy, 
 consciously established between any soul and God, there 
 must be distinct, practical results upon character, — 
 confirming, supporting, quickening. 
 
 1. Confirming; — and chiefly by fostering in the heart 
 a keener abhorrence of sin. Under the witnessing of that 
 Divine Guest, impurity, selfishness, uncharitableness, 
 grow insupportably hateful. If the heart is ever recom- 
 mitted to its old mastery, in any moment of surprise 
 or weakness, it rebounds with disgust to its duty, saying 
 with St. Paul, " It is no more I that did it," but " the 
 former sin " clinging to me and shaming me. Sharper- 
 sighted sentinels are set to guard the secret avenues 
 whereby passion used to storm the conscience. Watch- 
 men are appointed to keep the unclean thing off so far 
 from the desires that the fingers cannot reach it if they 
 would. A son, harboring vile companions during the 
 visits of the Infinite, Parental Purity, which finds stains 
 on spotless skies ! A daughter, insulting the Father of 
 Eternal Truth, who has become her Father, by vanities 
 and deceits ! — the offence feels too monstrous now. 
 With every fresh backsliding, a bolder resistance is 
 offered, till victory begins to lift its banners into the 
 morning sky. 
 
IN THE FAMILY OF CHRIST. 173 
 
 "Then every tempting form of sin, 
 Awed by Thy presence, disappears. 
 And all the glowing, raptured soul, 
 The likeness it contemplates wears." 
 
 2. Supporting; — by supplying heavenly arms under 
 tlie agitations of sorrow. If. God, who holds the waters 
 of all afflictions, like the oceans that swing their waves 
 from continent to continent, in the hollow of His hand, 
 who hears every cry wherewith deep calls to deep in that 
 unsounded sea, the heart of man, — if this God, whose 
 pity enfolds the suffering universe, and whose Spirit is 
 the Comforter, calls me His son, what are the terrors 
 that can harm me ? On the bosom of Everlasting Help 
 shall not grief itself feel safe ? And even if the present 
 agonizing discords, or desolating separations, make 
 patience tremble, will not this indwelling Father show 
 His sons and daughters what one of them, he who wrote 
 the " Holy Living and Dying," saw by the vision of faith, 
 — " glories standing behind the curtain, to which they 
 cannot come but by passing through the cloud, and being 
 wet by the dew of heaven and the waters of affliction ; — 
 days without night, joys without sorrow, society without 
 envying, possession without fear, charity without stain, 
 sanctity without sin " ? All consolations for the bereaved 
 are gathered into this one : " I will receive you, and will 
 be a Father unto you, and ye shall be My sons and 
 daughters, saith the Lord Almighty." 
 
 3. Quickening; — by fresh spiritual communications 
 out of His own fulness, giving to your growing holiness 
 an increasing power of life. Let all pretensions to piety 
 be brought to that unerring test. Let all hypocrisy be 
 sifted by that fan in the hands of the Searcher of hearts. 
 Let all sincerity be vindicated and honored by that 
 noblest witness to a living faith, — holiness of life. No 
 
174 SONS AND DArGHTERS IN CHRIST. 
 
 sacramental professions, no imposition of official hands, 
 no temple ceremonies, no repetition of a creed, can bring 
 a vintage from the bramble-bush. It is said that there is 
 a pagan people in the East who trample on the cross, 
 in resentment for the unchristian cruelties and robberies 
 of nominal Christians. Every willing inconsistency in 
 a disciple wrongs the faith of the Church, and so tram- 
 ples on the cross. Think not to recommend your 
 religion by bending it to the low maxims, or accom- 
 modating it to the doubtful practices, of an unbelieving 
 world. Kather come out and be separate. Be content 
 to drink of your Master's cup, and to be baptized with 
 His baptism. Abide in Him ! And may He abide in 
 you! 
 
 "That mystic word of Thine, Sovereign Lord I 
 Is all too pure, too high, too deep, for me. 
 Weary with striviHg, and with longing faint, 
 We breathe it back again in prayer to Thee I 
 Abide in us ! O'ershadow, by Thy love, 
 Each half-formed purpose, each dark thought of sin. 
 Quench, ere it rise, each selfish, low desire, 
 And cleanse our souls with Thy refining fire! 
 Touch Thou, and tune each heart, Hand Divine I 
 Till every note and string shall answer Thine." 
 
ONE WEAK SPOT. 
 
 Quinquagesima Sunday, 
 
 "Yet lackest thou one thing." — St. Luke xviii. 22. 
 
 The power of Christian truth is proved by the thor- 
 oughness of its action rather than by the extent of 
 surface over which its action spreads. It regards com- 
 pleteness, in its spiritual conquests, rather than width of 
 territory. Christian influence is essentially concentra- 
 tive, as well as essentially diffusive. It acts downward, 
 into society, as well as abroad, over it. 
 
 First of all, it demands absolute control where it 
 enters ; and when it moves, it moves always with the 
 full weight of its command ; condensing the whole 
 strength of its blessing on every point of occupation, 
 and accepting none but unconditional submission. One 
 parable it is true compares it to leaven, — a symbol of 
 diffusiveness ; but then leaven operates by changing or 
 converting the whole mass, through a new element 
 reaching every particle in the lump. Another parable 
 likens it to a tree, or mustard, — the symbol of growth ; 
 but then vegetable growth implies the presence of one 
 characteristic vital principle, one vivifying sap, which 
 penetrates every fibre, streams from root to leaf, and 
 regulates, by its own special law, each step of the pro- 
 cess, from germination to maturity. 
 
 Connect this general truth with the particular train 
 
176 ONE WEAK SPOT. 
 
 of suggestions opened by those words of Jesus, — " Yet 
 lackest thou one thing." He says to the complacent 
 man who has come to Him with such a handsome cata- 
 logue of his virtues, " All these are very well ; excellent 
 traits; you cannot spare one of them. You have kept, 
 you say, these important commandments from your 
 youth. But it so happens, in the complicated state of 
 your character, that neither one of these good qualities, 
 nor even their sum total, decides that you are a right- 
 hearted man, or fit to be My disciple. That qu,estion 
 will be settled by another requirement which will try 
 you in a more decisive point. These other good qual- 
 ities you have claimed fail to furnish such a test ; they 
 happen to be easy to you. So, now, I shall reach down 
 deeper into the secrets of your soul, into your motives, 
 your hidden life. I shall select just that one thing 
 which will put your obedience to God and your selfish- 
 ness into a balance. Sell what you have and give the 
 proceeds to the poor. This will tell where your heart 
 is. If your devotion to Me will stand that strain, you 
 are worthy to take up My self-denying cause, — to bear 
 My cross, to be called by My name, to be a mem- 
 ber of My Church." l^eed it be argued before you, 
 my friends, that precisely what Christ says to this He- 
 brew youth. He says to you and to me, and to each sev- 
 eral soul of us all % He wants no divided empire. He 
 desires no friendship that would shut Him out from that 
 portioil of our life which most concerns our affections. 
 He would bless us with a universal joy, giving vigor to 
 every faculty, help, light, freedom, and victory^ to every 
 step of the way, and every effort to overcome the world. 
 " God is love." And therefore it is that He requires 
 the surrender of every unyielding passion. 
 
 When Jesus tells us that we cannot be His disciples 
 
ONE WEAK SPOT. 177 
 
 SO long as we lack one thing, — does He mean that we 
 must have supplied every moral defect, must have 
 attained every grace, must have vanquished every spirit- 
 ual enemy, and, in fact, have ceased to sin, — before we 
 can be His disciples ? That would be simply saying that 
 none of us can hope to be a Christian unless he is 
 morally perfect ; and that, of course, involves the con- 
 verse, that every true Christian is thus morally perfect. 
 The shock this statement gives to our common-sense, 
 and its manifest contradiction of the whole drift of the 
 New Testament, at once drives us from any such inter- 
 pretation. We find a consistent meaning, I suppose, if 
 we understand Him as declaring that no heart is really 
 Christianized, or converted, so long as there is any one 
 consoiouSj deliberate^ or intentional reservation from, 
 entire obedience to the Divine will. So that if I say, 
 Here is one particular sin which I must continue to 
 practise; all the rest of my conduct I freely conform 
 to God's law, but this known wrong I must continue 
 to do; — then I am no Christian. If you single out 
 some one chosen indulgence, however secret, — a dubious 
 custom in business, a fault of the tongue or temper, 
 — and placing your hand over that reply to the all- 
 searching commandment of the Most High, — " This 
 I cannot let go ; this is too sweet to me, or too profit- 
 able to me, or too tightly interwoven with my constitu- 
 tional predilections, or too hard to be put off," — then 
 the quality of a disciple is not in you. There is a por- 
 tion of your being which you do not mean, or try, to 
 consecrate to Heaven. And that single persistent of- 
 fence vitiates the whole character. It keeps you, as a 
 man, as a whole man, on the ^^Z/'-side or world-^\&Q^ and 
 away from Christ's side. For it not only shuts off right- 
 eousness from one district of your nature, and so abridges 
 
 19 
 
178 ONE WEAK SPOT. 
 
 the quantity of your life, but it inflicts the much more 
 radical damage of denying the supremacy of the law 
 of righteousness, and thus corrupts the quality. It 
 practically rejects the heavenly rule, when that rule 
 crosses the private inclination. And that is the 
 essence of rebellion. The test-case is decided the 
 wrong way. Any common intelligence can see the 
 distinction between a moral state like this, and one 
 where the intention, the aim, the endeavor, are all 
 towards a perfect obedience, because the heart is right, 
 where the inmost love aspires Christward, — though the 
 performance still comes mournfully short, through the 
 infirmities of a mortal nature and the lingering mis- 
 chiefs of a repented and disowned habit. That is the 
 state of which St. Paul speaks so graphically, — " The 
 evil that I would not, that I do." " It is no more I that 
 do it, but sin that dwelleth in me." In the one case, 
 the shortcoming is deplored and disowned the instant it 
 is seen. In the other, it is designed and provided for 
 beforehand. One is the falling helow the marh of a 
 heart that has turned in faith to the Master and taken 
 its standard from Him ; the other is determinate trans- 
 gression. One is a loyal follower's error; the other is 
 disloyalty itself. One comes of weakness, the other of 
 wilfulness. One is the mistake of a right minded sub- 
 ject; the other is the defiance of a rebel. 
 
 We shall have the distinction illustrated, — if it needs 
 illustration, — by imagining a kingdom under a good king, 
 whose subjects really love him at heart, and mean to 
 obey his laws, but fail sometimes through enticements ; 
 and then the same kingdom with a tribe lodged in the 
 fastnesses of its mountains owning no allegiance in criti- 
 cal emergencies, obeying only when it suits the fancy, 
 disputing orders at will, and formidable enough to 
 
ONE WEAK SPOT. 179 
 
 nullify all organized national defence when the coiintiy 
 is assailed from abroad. In one case you will say there 
 is a strong and consolidated government, safe because 
 sound. In the other there is anarchy, — the form of sub- 
 ordination without the power thereof. 
 
 Be careful to remember that this fatal retention of the 
 single nullifying sin is not necessarily brought to a pub- 
 lic proclamation. It is much more likely to nestle and 
 hide itself as far from the house-top as possible. Open 
 avowals of it are extremely rare, for they belong only to 
 hardened and desperate offenders. All that is essential 
 to the state supposed is that it should be evident to con- 
 sciousness. Its expression is commonly in that inarticu- 
 late but most practical profession, the life. 
 
 The principle of the distinction I have been aiming 
 to make plain will help us greatly in understanding 
 several other passages in the Bible, which, for want of an 
 understanding, have sounded either insupportably awful 
 or else unreasonable, and so have driven some to despair 
 and others to unbelief. It will be sufficient to instance 
 the most unqualified and most appalling of them all. 
 St. James says in his epistle : " For whosoever shall keep 
 the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty 
 of all." That is, whosoever shall conform his conduct to 
 God's express commandment in every other particular, 
 and yet willingly reserve some one district of his life for 
 sin, — some one habit, appetite, indulgence, which he 
 knows that Divine command condemns as much as the 
 rest, saying secretly to himself, " I will keep all hut 
 tliis^'^ — he, because of that one wicked reservation, affronts 
 the Law-giver, who is the author of one command just as 
 much as another ; shows himself to have a heart radically 
 wrong, — unreconciled at the test-point, — and therefore 
 is in a radically wrong state, or is " guilty of," amenable, 
 
180 ONE WEAK SPOT. 
 
 answerable for, all. The heart being impious at the cen- 
 tre-point, the whole state, the whole man, is disordered, 
 out of harmony with Heaven, — irreligious. This is cer- 
 tainly a very different thing from the desolating doctrine 
 that a single moral failure, in a consecrated soul, con- 
 demns it to perdition. 
 
 Light is thrown on this day's collect. Its subject is 
 charity, or love. Because love is the universal Christian 
 principle, pervading all righteousness, " the fulfilling of 
 the law," " the very bond of all virtues," therefore to be 
 without it damages and diseases everything : " All our 
 doings are nothing worth " ; and even he who liveth is 
 "counted dead." 
 
 When Jesus spoke thus of one thing fatally lacking to 
 the Jewish ruler, He spoke to us all. But with this dif- 
 ference : that one subtle passion which spoils the whole 
 character for us may not be his passion. With him it 
 seems to have been avarice ; he could not bear to turn 
 his private property into public charity. His religion 
 broke down just there ; in other respects he had done 
 admirably ; he had kept other commandments to the 
 letter, — aye, to the letter ; not perhaps in the spirit, for 
 all true obedience has one spirit. But so far his literal, 
 formal obedience came, and there gave out. Now, with 
 us, this "one thing lacking" rnay he just that, — the 
 inordinate love of money, or if you please, the lack of a 
 willingness to sacrifice it for higher interests, for the 
 heathen's conversion, for the Church of God, for human- 
 ity, for spiritual advancement. In commercial commun- 
 ities probably this is likely to be, in the greater number 
 of cases, the one fixed impiety ; nor are rural districts 
 clear of it. Wherever it is, remember nothing w^ill 
 attest the complete sway of the Gospel short of a spirit 
 willing to meet that sweeping requisition, " Go, sell all 
 
ONE WEAK SPOT. 181 
 
 that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thon shalt have 
 treasure in heaven." Better enter into immortal life in 
 penniless poverty than, having houses or bank-stock, to 
 be cast down, a shrivelled and shamed soul, into hell. 
 But then you may happen to be so constituted that such 
 an abandonment of wealth would be a very small sacri- 
 fice, — one of the least that could be required of you ; 
 you are not naturally sordid ; you are more inclined to 
 be prodigal ; and so this would not be a test-point with 
 you. But there is a test-point about you somewhere. 
 Perhaps it is pride ; you cannot bear an affront ; you 
 will not confess a fault. Perhaps it is personal vanity, 
 ready to sacrifice everything to display. Perhaps it is a 
 sharp tongue. Perhaps it is some sensual appetite, bent 
 on its unclean gratification. Then you are to gather up 
 your moral forces just here, and till that darling sin is 
 brought under the practical law of Christ, you are shut 
 out from Christ's kingdom. I have no right to love 
 anything so well that I cannot give it up for God. 
 Christ does not literally require every one of us to give 
 his possessions to the poor. If there are some with 
 whom doing that would be a glorious and acceptable 
 submission to the heavenly rule, there are others with 
 whom it would be a much sharper trial, and therefore 
 the needed trial, to abandon a chosen course of action or 
 study at the command of Providence, or to lay a beloved 
 friend in a grave. God knows where the trial must be 
 applied. And we are to know that wherever it is 
 applied, there is the one thing lacking unless we can say 
 " Thy will be done," and bear it. It may happen that 
 nothing in the whole range of Christian character is so 
 difficult for me as to manage an irritable temper, to keep 
 down petulant and hasty impulses. That, then, is the 
 test-point of my Christianity. I suppose that the entire 
 
182 ONE WEAK SPOT. 
 
 character of a man may depend on liis giving up the 
 selfishness which makes him regard his home as a place 
 meant only for his own accommodation, so that he expects 
 everything to be done for his own comfort, frets if the 
 whole household does not wait on his convenience, and 
 yields nothing, plans nothing, for the simple and cheerful 
 entertainment of the rest; putting them off with a treat- 
 ment which, if God were to transfer it to him, would 
 grind his groaning heart with agonies. So exceeding 
 broad is the Divine commandment that even such an 
 unconsidered shortcoming ' as this may be the one thing 
 lacking that separates us from Christ. 
 
 It is a curious illustration of human infirmity, how 
 we try to wink out of our own view, and crowd out 
 of other people's, this one dangerous and characteristic 
 offence that stands between us and salvation, instead of 
 frankly confessing it, and, with God's help, resolutely 
 fighting it down. Sometimes we attempt to conceal it, 
 by multiplying our activity and concern in other direc- 
 tions, as if to draw off attention by bustling works of 
 supererogation in that quarter, in order to cover the 
 chasm in this. But there is no such law of moral equi- 
 librium in the Divine statics as that. We cannot hire 
 the liberty to persevere in a favorite transgression by 
 paying a honus of easy virtues. Sometimes persons 
 conscious of this one weak spot, and sensitive when it is 
 touched, parry the salutary censure by plunging into a 
 general and not very sincere self-upbraiding. " Oh yesj 
 they are always wrong ; they never do anything well ; 
 they are horribly depraved ; and they will never be able 
 to do better." They submerge their actual fault in a 
 flood of unmeaning and angry deprecations, — all of which 
 signify simply that you have touched an actual disease, 
 — and that they would like to push the surgery aside by 
 
ONE WEAK SPOT. 183 
 
 a flutter of extravagant confessions. But none the less 
 does the cahn searching eye of the Judge, undeceived, 
 look in on your real shortcoming, and say to you, " Yet 
 lackest thou one thing." 
 
 We are told of the young man that came to Jesus 
 and found his single sin so uncompromisingly exposed 
 and rebuked, that he went away sorrowful. An eminent 
 preacher has proposed a different explanation of this 
 sorrow from that which our doctrine requires. His 
 notion is, that while the young man had really fulfilled 
 the perfect scheme of duty, and longed for some loftier 
 satisfaction to his affections, he was merely referred 
 back to the stale and customary round of moral habits. 
 He had exhausted the demands of conscience, and Christ 
 offered him nothing beyond. But besides that this 
 forced hypothesis is not hinted at in the record, 
 while the opposite is affirmed, it treats the Saviour with 
 irreverence, as if there were some heights of expei'ience, 
 or some junctures of spiritual perplexity, which He has 
 not resources to satisfy. The truth is, there was, in this 
 young man's character, though generally so unexception- 
 able, — fair and lovely in all besides, — one unyielding pas- 
 sion clinging yet, which preferred mammon to God, — 
 " much goods," or a successful business, to Christ's self- 
 denying service and everlasting glory. There was one 
 reserved territory of disobedience where he had not the 
 courage to apply the holy principles of faith — one enemy 
 that he did not love Jesus well enough to conquer. 
 Are any of us partakers in his cowardice ? 
 
 It is a trutli which cannot be too thoroughly preached, 
 that a mere outward conformity with the moral law 
 cannot satisfy the soul; first because the faith of the 
 heart is the indispensable fountain of all spiritual life, 
 or true righteousness, and secondly because a perfect 
 
184 ONE WEAK SPOT. 
 
 keeping of a perfect law is impossible, so that the law 
 condemns us all alike, and there is no hope for any of 
 us except in a Gospel of grace, or the forgiveness in 
 Christ. Bat nobody has a right to expect "favor" till 
 he has tried with all his might to honor the law — till he 
 has at least confessed its authority, owned that he ought 
 never to cease trying to keep it, and holds nothing 
 knowingly back. When a man in good faith has ac- 
 knowledged himself a subject of the law, and done his 
 best unreservedly to obey it, then he is ready to come 
 under Gospel grace. He has failed ; but that does not 
 ruin him if he repents of his failure. " There is forgive- 
 ness with Thee, — that Thou mayest be feared." But for 
 a man who has persistently allowed himself in one known 
 iniquity, — one unrighteous practice, — refusing to give it 
 u]) because it brings him gain or pleasure, — to say " I 
 expect grace; I look for pardon; I want to be under 
 Gospel, not law " ; this would be the sophistry of a Phar- 
 i«ee. It obliterates Christ's holy commandments; it 
 blasphemes the Holy Ghost. Christ has no encourage- 
 ment for a faithless temper like this The Gospel does 
 not propose itself as an easy system, — easy in the sense 
 of excusing from duty. It blessedly redeems the earn- 
 est souls who have tried to do their duty, and, failing, 
 have cried for pity, for pardon, and for peace. 
 
 Were we not right then, in the ground taken at the 
 outset, that the power of Christianity over the character 
 is proved by the thoroughness of its action rather than by 
 the extent of surface over which its action spreads ? It 
 displays its heavenly energy in dislodging the one cher- 
 ished sin, in breaking down the one entrenched fortress 
 that disputes its sway. At the battle of Borodino 
 Napoleon saw that there was no such thing as victory 
 till he had carried the great central redoubt on the 
 
ONE WEAK SPOT. . 185 
 
 Kussian line. Two hundred guns and the choicest of 
 his battalions were poured against that single point, — 
 and when the plumes of his veterans gleamed through 
 the smoke on the highest embrasures of that volcano of 
 shot, he knew the field was won. It matters very little 
 that we do a great many things morally irreproacliable, 
 so long as there is one ugly disposition that hangs ob- 
 stinately back. It is only when we come to a point of 
 real resistance that we know the victory of faith over- 
 coming the world. 
 
 Finally, our renewing and redeeming Keligion de- 
 lights to reach down to the roots of the sin that curses 
 us, and spread its healing efficacy there. It yearns to 
 yield us the fulness of its blessing ; and this it knows it 
 cannot do till it brings the heart under the completeness 
 of its gentle captivity to Christ. Submission first ; then 
 peace, and joy, and love. " Jesus beholding him, loved 
 him " ; yet sent him away sorrowing. How tender, and 
 yet how true ! tender in the sad affection, — true to the 
 stern, unbending sacrifice of the Cross ! It is because 
 He would have us completely happy that He requires a 
 complete submission. "One thing" must not be left 
 lacking. "Whosoever would enter into the full strength 
 and joy of a disciple must throw his whole heart upon 
 the altar. 
 
THE TOKE AISTD BUEDEK ALKEADY EASY 
 ANB LIGHT. 
 
 Ash - Wednesday, 
 
 "Come unto Me, ... for My yoke is easy, and My burden is 
 light."— >S'^. Matthew xi. 38, 30. 
 
 It is in the actual life of most of those who do 
 *' come " just as it is in this startling figure of our Lord's 
 invitation : — there is a conflict of opposite forces. Con- 
 tending elements of hardship and ease, of endurance and 
 relief, are strangely intermingled. There is a " yoke." 
 And yet there is such a thing as a certain inward 
 posture, the Saviour says, and some of you no doubt have 
 found it true, — a Divine adjustment or fashioning of the 
 neck to that yoke, which makes it " easy." There is a 
 " burden " : every suiferer, that is every soul whose life 
 has been crippled by its conditions, every soul whose 
 love has lost its object or found no answer, every soul 
 whose day's poor performance has shamed its morning 
 vow, or in which the law of the members has warred 
 triumphantly against the law of the mind, — knows some- 
 thing of the meaning of that word " burden " ; and yet 
 He who knows tells us this weight can be somehow so 
 carried that the very quality of burdensomeness is cast off 
 from it. Things do not remain what they were when 
 One Hand comes and touches them. Their very nature 
 is changed by a wonder-working energy of grace. So 
 
THE YOKE AND BURDEN. 187 
 
 that tliese words not only convey to ns a promise, but 
 tliey become, in themselves, a kind of type or picture 
 of a believer's conflict and victory, day by day. 
 
 There are, therefore, two things to be regarded : — an 
 apparent contradiction, and a secret reconciliation. 
 
 Look a moment at the apparent contradiction. Look 
 into yourselves. The very beginning of a Christian 
 consciousness, or life in the soul, is the beginning of a 
 contest of desires. One combatant is already on the 
 field, entrenched there by a hereditary but yet usurping 
 pretension. " The heathen are gone up, O Lord, into 
 Thine inheritance," — the sacred land in the heart of 
 childhood ; and when the Israel of your new life comes 
 up by Sinai, thundered at by the commandment, through 
 a penitential desert, and enters in, it does not take pos- 
 session of the promise without a siege and many battles. 
 Like the recovery of a man almost dead, the recall of 
 the living pulse and breath is more distressful than the 
 passive process of dying was. Freezing and drowning 
 men find it harder to come back to life than to die. 
 N^either in the second birth nor in the first can the boon 
 of life be had but by anguish. It is a blessing to be 
 born ; but the blessing is costly. It comes in under a 
 " burden." For a time the waking will halts, very likely, 
 in a misgiving whether the cost is not too great for the 
 blessing, and the burden intolerable. Hence occur many 
 relapses. You hear the despairing cry : " Let us alone ; 
 leave us among the devils ; why come to torment us 
 before the time ? " Every nearer approach to the like- 
 ness of Christ is attended witli a deeper sense of un- 
 worthiness, — which is its "burden." Every quickening 
 of sensibility renders the hurt of sin more painful. As 
 the spiritual eye grows keen, the spots on ourselves grow 
 plainer. The cross requires more and more sacrifice, 
 
188 THE YOKE AND BURDEN 
 
 — more of the world's dislike, its privations, its crucial 
 nails and thorns. The yoke must be put on again and 
 again. The blessing justifies it, it is true : glory, honor, 
 immortality, — an incorruptible crown ; but it does not 
 take away the torture. As you know and feel Christ's 
 truth and love more profoundly, they will ask larger 
 oiferings, of time, of property, of ease. How, then, is 
 the "yoke" "easy"? 
 
 Some men say, — and they even say it in Christian pul- 
 pits, — " It is easy only as it is to be taken off; it can be 
 borne because death will break it ; we are to expect ease 
 hereafter as the offset for this endurance ; heaven will 
 be received in reversion ; our wages will be paid at 
 last." In this place, however, Christ does not say that, 
 or mean that. He always means exactly according to 
 His words, in every promise He makes. And here what 
 he tells the whole sorrowing and sinning and seeking 
 world is not that His yoke is to be taken off', or broken, 
 or that the burden is to be made up for by a future 
 compensation. His doctrine is more immediate, and 
 goes deeper. The yoke is to lie there ; it must be there 
 in order to be an " easy " yoke. The burden is not to 
 be taken away, but is to be felt as a " light " burden. 
 We have here the doctrine of a present blessing in 
 Christ ; — what He does for His disciple in this life. A 
 relief, a strength, a peace is possible here, in the very 
 midst of the sufferings. Peace enters the heart while 
 the hurt is on. '^ Now are we the sons of God." 
 Doubtless there is a " Eest {aa^^aTtafjL6(:) which re^ 
 mains — tarries — for the people of God." But remem- 
 ber also, " He that hath the Son hath life," already, and 
 if we dwell in Him and He in us we have passed from 
 the real death into that real life, sin having no more 
 dominion over us. See the connections of the Lord's 
 
ALREADY EASY AND LIGHT. 189 
 
 language. It is not, " Stand and look for a salvation 
 afar off; expect your immortality hereafter; live and 
 work as you can gloomily on earth, and only hope for a 
 postponed union with your living Head by and by." 
 But it is, " Come unto Me noio^ just because you have to 
 labor and are ,heavy laden now. Here I am, at your 
 side ; I have left the glory I had, and taken up your 
 aching flesh upon me for another glory, ^nd to this very 
 end, that I might be where you are, and offer you a 
 present salvation. I do not say there is no added yoke 
 in coming ; for most men there is ; take the yoke up 
 nevertheless ; I do not say there is no burden to bear ; 
 plausible adventurers hunting proselytes might tell you 
 that. I am "lowly," — lowly enough to confess the 
 yoke, and lowly enough to bear the burden with you, 
 for you ; and therefore your " rest " shall be found 
 in coming^ — " rest unto your souls." As soon as you 
 begin to turn your feet you will feel the cross, but as 
 soon as you feel the cross you will feel that it is eased 
 for you. Pain will not vanish, but become a privilege. 
 Self-denial will not be annihilated, but will be welcome. 
 A new power will come. The giving up oi property for 
 your Redeemer's kingdom will demand an effort at 
 first ; even the tenth that belongs to Him will seem a 
 great deal ; but you will take joyfully, with the saints, 
 that "spoiling of your goods." Cold manners and 
 changed countenances or stinging satires in worldly peo- 
 ple will not be pleasant; but you will feel somehow 
 safer and stronger for them on the spot. Come to Me, 
 then, from wherever you are, Matthews from the market- 
 place, sons of Zebedee from the sea, Sauls from the 
 schools, impetuous Peters, and cool, moral Jameses, and 
 contemplative Johns ; come, Marys of meditation and 
 Marthas of busy action, come, not for the sake of being 
 
190 THE YOKE AND BUEDEN 
 
 exempt from discipline or care; but come expressly to 
 learn of Me how to bear and use them, and how they 
 shall be transformed into holy helpers, as you walk at 
 their side." 
 
 " It is difficult," said an old thinker in the things of 
 faith, " and yet not difficult, to be a Christian ; only be 
 in earnest, and take not up the Gospel as a trivial thing, 
 but upon hoth thy shoulders. Make not light of thy load 
 for Christ, and Christ wdll make it light for thee." 
 
 Just before, our Lord shows us how this wonderful 
 comfort is apprehended ; — by simple faith, — never by 
 the dogmatic understanding, — only childlike hearts being 
 clear-sighted enough to read the glorious assurance 
 through the elaborate superscriptions of human learning 
 and ambition : " I thank Thee, O Father, because Thou 
 hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and 
 hast revealed them unto babes." The knowing men, 
 who may be only fools, the clever calculators that never 
 learned to count beyond ninety years, are outwitted by 
 the youngest scholars in this school of Christ. " In 
 quietness and confidence shall be your strength. In 
 returning and rest," O new-born and illuminated hearts, 
 " shall ye be saved." 
 
 In other words, — to generalize the great Gospel- 
 thought, — our faith is for the life that now is, or else it 
 is no faith to fit us for the life to come ; and it works out 
 its hallowed alleviations for all the disquietude of these 
 laboring and heavy laden hearts, not by transforming the 
 conditions of their lot, but, while leaving these just as 
 they are, by bringing the inner man into such oneness 
 of life with the Master, that He, the great burden -bearer 
 of all our humanity, shall be their perpetual Passover 
 and their Peace. 
 
 In this view, the signification of the text becomes both 
 
ALEE AD Y EASY AND LIGHT. 191 
 
 more comprehensive and more striking when we enter 
 in and observe that the terms " yoke " and " burden " do 
 not follow one another by any careless accident, but each 
 relates and answers to the two forgoing terms "labor" 
 and " heavy laden." " Come unto Me, all ye that labor 
 and are heavy laden." " Yoke " means labor. " Bur- 
 den " means suffering. A " yoke " is a symbol of active, 
 tiresome toil. A "burden" is that which hinders 
 strength and drags it down. Take these two thoughts 
 to the two great Biblical dispensations of Law and Love. 
 Each personal history among us reflects that solemn 
 order of Sinai and Gethsemane. Sum up the evils of 
 your old life which formed the " yoke " which hurt you, 
 and their name is self-will, — the active principle of anti- 
 Christ. This was the matter of our Lord's first temp- 
 tation. Sum up the materials of that dull " burden " 
 which sinks the soul the more the more it accumulates, 
 and its name is hopeless sorrow. This was the darkness 
 about the garden and the cross. See now what a spirit- 
 ual Saviour does for those, — the wide world over and in 
 every house, — who are weary of the yoke and heavy 
 laden under the burden. Christ's " yoke " is submission 
 to His will, ceasing from our own ; Christ's burden is 
 simply forgetting all else in Him, or rather holding all 
 else as cheap and transient compared with Him. The 
 whole strain of the truth falls, therefore, on that word 
 " My." Whose yoke, whose burden, is the only question. 
 It is because it is Christ's that it is easy or light. 
 What is borne for Him is not like other pains or losses. 
 The sons and daughters of His afflicting, who come 
 bending unto Him, are the privileged spirits who take 
 their sufferings as love-tokens that He remembers 
 them still, has not left them to their folly, but means 
 by all means to number them with His saints in glory 
 
192 THE YOKE AND BURDEN 
 
 everlasting. The child you lost; the life plan that 
 failed ; the fortune that dissolved ; the invalid years in a 
 sick chamber ; the hidden thorn that stung your side 
 while -^ovlX face smiled from pride or shame, — was a 
 sign that Christ would not leave you to yourself, but 
 knew better than you did how to bring you to the 
 deeper blessedness and nobler freedom of the souls that 
 suffering makes perfect. You will seek no further, but 
 unto Him alone. The legal bondage did hurt ; the angel 
 of the Lord took you from your flesh-pots and your fetters 
 together ; and Achor, the valley of your trouble, became 
 your avenue to liberty and your " Door of Hope." So 
 exclaims great St. Bernard, " What can be lighter than 
 a burden which takes our burdens away ; and a yoke 
 which bears up the bearer himself? " 
 
 There is a fine passage, in the uninspired Hebrew 
 writings called the Sohar, which, like a kind of side-light, 
 sets this metaphor of the yoke into singular spiritual 
 beauty. There too the " yoke " of the heavenly king- 
 dom is referred to, and, as if in a prophetic figure 
 of the evangelic truth, the " Thephillim," which are 
 " the fringes of the garments of prayer," are represented 
 as the yoke by which God binds Israel to Himself. 
 " How beautiful," says this Kabbinical Scripture, ^' is 
 their neck who bear the yoke-robe of Jehovah's pre- 
 cepts ! " " Garments of praise for the spirit of heaviness." 
 
 No Scripture teaches us that this easing and lightening 
 of the Christian life shall be completed at once. The 
 learners in that often sad but blessed school, even though 
 sitting solitary, with pale faces, nerveless limbs, and 
 tears in their eyes, will find " rest " flowing in, not in 
 violent floods, but as the dawn trembles into the sky, by 
 gradual and almost imperceptible increments and risings 
 of the light. Gradually, but steadily, a tranquil faith 
 
ALREADY EASY AOT) LIGHT. 193 
 
 sets up its unseen pillars of power beneath and within 
 those hanging heads and feeble knees, till the whole 
 body of character is built up, by this edifying submission, 
 a spiritual house. Gradually, but steadily, the blood 
 streams back into the veins ; and it is not nature's 
 blood, but is redder and richer and sweeter blood than 
 that, as if the very sweetness and life of the " precious 
 blood " were in it, out of the heart of Jesus, King at 
 once and Lamb, who is the Life of every Christian that 
 lives. 
 
 Another Ash-Wednesday has come. It speaks of 
 yoke and burden, of ashes and shadows, of the cross. To 
 some of those who will keep Lent outwardly it will, no 
 doubt, be yoke and burden both, and nothing more, — 
 unwelcome, unrelieved. I need not tell you who they 
 are. Others will find the added service and the unusual 
 restraint easy and light, because through them they will 
 gain the help they need, the deliverance, the purifying, 
 the closer likeness to their Lord, the spiritual liberty 
 they long for. Even these cost something. Self-exam- 
 ination and penitence and crucifixion of the flesh are not 
 joyous exercises, are not meant to be. All our noblest 
 enlargements of power and of peace are sacrificial : there 
 is something hard to do, or hard to bear, — human nature 
 being what it is. "We need voluntary acts of self-denial, 
 whether to bring down and humble pride, to chasten 
 fleshly propensities, to clear the soul for prayer, to pro- 
 vide larger charities for Christ's missions and His poor, 
 or to honor God by a simple act of obedience to His word. 
 The particular shape, the needed yoke, may not be the 
 same for us all, and it is not defined. One form of it, 
 the Bible certainly declares, is fasting, and that is to be 
 used. How many need to lay a cross on their lips, — to 
 " fast from strife and debate," from slander, idle words, 
 
 18 
 
194 THE YOKE AND BUEDEN 
 
 backbiting ! Here are the ashes we are to sprinkle, and 
 the sackcloth we are to wear. The world about yon 
 calls this a weariness, and a disagreeable burden ; it will 
 even despise and ridicule your scruples if it can. Christ, 
 your Saviour, with the cross on His own shoulders, meets 
 you just here, and faces the world with you. He says, 
 encouragingly and comfortingly, " Yes ; here is a yoke, 
 and here is a burden. At first, they will look and feel 
 to you somewhat as they do to the world's people, but 
 not always. As soon as you feel them to be My yoke 
 and My burden, they will grow lighter and easier every 
 day." 
 
 In the Greek word of the evangelist for " easy " there 
 is a concealed sense of " useful." The yoke is eased if by 
 it you help other men. Lent is for human kindnesses, 
 neighborly sympathy, family tenderness. Learn in it to 
 love the brotherhood, to visit the poor, though they are 
 filthy and ungrateful, as your Master did. Hate nothing 
 so much as hatred,^dropping every grudge and every 
 revenge, every bitter or cruel vestige of the old satanic 
 life, out of your heart, forgiving even them that will not 
 forgive. Live fairly and generously with men. Sub- 
 mission, or piety, to God is never perfect without 
 integrity to your neighbor. The Eastern water-carriers 
 bear the burden of the bucket most easily and safely, 
 they say, when they walk uprightly. God makes the 
 path of obedience to Himself to be the path of 
 honesty and sweet temper and loving-kindness to His 
 children. Let thine eyes look right on, and thine eye- 
 lids straight before thee. Then it will prove that you 
 are blessed children of the Father. You walk at large, 
 like sons of God. The road of duty will still be narrow, 
 but, travelling in it, you will breathe the immortal air, 
 and every deepening breath will be an inspiration of the 
 
ALREADY EASY Atn> LIGHT. 196 
 
 Life eternal. Your daily landscape will be the scenery 
 of both worlds, — all things yours, because ye are Christ's, 
 and Christ is God's. 
 
 " Behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wil- 
 derness, and speak comfortably unto her. And I will 
 give her vineyards from thence, and the valley of Achor 
 for a door of hope ; and she shall sing there, as in the 
 days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up 
 out of the land of Egypt." 
 
THE THROKG AND THE TOUCH. 
 
 First Bundmj in Lent, 
 
 " Staito in the gate of the Lord's house, and proclaim there this 
 word, and say, Hear the word of the Lord, all ye of Judah, that 
 enter in at these gates to worship the Lord. Thus saith the Lord of 
 hosts, the God of Israel, Amend your ways and your doings, and I 
 will cause you to dwell in this place. Trust ye not in lying words, 
 saying, The temple of the Lord, The temple of the Lord, The temple 
 of the Lord, are these. For if ye thoroughly amend your ways and 
 your doings; if ye thoroughly execute judgment between a man and 
 his neighbor; if ye oppress not the stranger, the fatherless, and the 
 widow, and shed not innocent blood in this place, neither walk after 
 other gods to your hurt: then will 1 cause you to dwell in this place, 
 in the land that I gave to your fathers, forever and ever." — Jere- 
 miah vii. 2-7. 
 
 "And Jesus said. Who touched Me? When all denied, Peter and 
 they that were with Him said. Master, the multitude throng thee and 
 press Thee, and sayest Thou, Who touched Me? And Jesus said. 
 Somebody hath touched Me : for I perceive that virtue is gone out of 
 Me."— >S^. l^U viii. 45, 46. 
 
 There is a common truth belonging to both these two 
 passages which are so different in the language, and are 
 taken from parts of Scripture so far apart. I believe 
 that the placing of them together will help give that 
 great doctrine more distinctness, put emphasis upon it, 
 and make it easier to remember. 
 
 In the first passage, occuring in this morning's first 
 lesson, under a vivid picture of a scene at the door of 
 the old temple, the prophet searches out a moral danger 
 
THE THEONG AND THE TOUCH. 197 
 
 that is apt to accompany all public religious observances. 
 The Spirit of God, acquainted with these perils, and de- 
 termined to break them up, puts him there, and inspires 
 him with the clear-sightedness and courage to strike 
 straight home at the popular delusion. Standing at the 
 gate he sees a multitude of men crowding in to go 
 through the forms of worship. He knows that they have 
 just come from the selfish practice, in their markets, 
 fields, streets and houses, of injustice, cruelty to the 
 weak, overreaching " the stranger, the fa^erless and the 
 widow," of every kind of social, commercial, political, 
 and ecclesiastical falsehood, — for he goes on to specify 
 all these, — and what is a great deal worse, that they are 
 privately intending to go back to the same kinds of 
 meanness and outrage after the prayers and sacrifices 
 are over. He also sees that the moment their want of 
 integrity is pointed out, they will, after the Pharisaic 
 fashion, undertake to throw over it the screen of a 
 religious profession. They will answer, at every rebuke 
 of their immorality, " The temple of the Lord, The 
 temple of the Lord, The temple of the Lord," as if they 
 would make up, by the threefold repetition and noise of 
 their zeal, for their hollow-heartedness. And so, having 
 it for his business as a prophet of God to denounce 
 such corruption everywhere, without apology for his 
 Divine commission, without arguing the matter, without 
 any round-about or imbecile phraseology, he goes to the 
 point at once, and begins, " Trust ye not in lying words : 
 amend your ways and your doings." 
 
 The great instructive fact on which attention is to be 
 fij^ed is this : that out of the multitude of persons who 
 enter the sanctuary, many have only a formal, external, 
 and ostensible, not a substantial, sympathy, or actual con- 
 cern, with the holy Realfty which is there embodied 
 
198 THE THBONG AND THE TOUCH. 
 
 and presented. They imagine that, in some strange 
 way, the temple-roof is to shield or excuse their allowed 
 neglect of practical obedience to God's commandment. 
 They throng the visible courts, press the material build- 
 ing, but without touching, in living faith, the sacred 
 Presence, the life-giving hand of the Holy One who 
 inhabits it. 
 
 Turn now to the other passage. It is a distant scene ; 
 — distant in place, for it is up in one of the open high- 
 ways of Galilee, instead of at the temple in the old 
 Zion ; — " a greater than the temple is here," the living 
 and incarnate Christ of whom the tabernacle of the 
 desert and the former and latter house at Jerusalem, in 
 their bravest glory, and all the prophets themselves, 
 were but dim prefigurations. It is distant in time six 
 hundred years. A different tone and color run through 
 the narrative. There is more tenderness, more personal 
 feeling, a plainer working of the power of faith, as befits 
 the healing and gracious spirit of the new dispensation 
 of love. And yet the same old human elements, the 
 same two sorts of persons, with the same sharp line 
 between them, are all there ; for neither human nature 
 nor its temptations are among the things that are much 
 altered by time. Here too a multitude throng and press 
 a sacred spot. It is the spot where Jesus of E"azareth 
 stands, and it is made sacred by His blessed feet. So 
 many are the people that when Jesus, perceiving by His 
 quick, mysterious inward sense that one among them has 
 come with an entirely different heart from the rest, 
 inquired, " Who touched Me ? " Peter and others won- 
 dered at Him, saying, "Master, the multitude throng 
 Thee and press Thee, and say est Thou, Who touched 
 Me?" The answer of Christ draws again the deep 
 and sharp discrimination between those that are only out- 
 
THE THRONG AND THE TOrCH. 199 
 
 wardlj and formally with Him, and those that in a wholly 
 different sense are of Him. " Somebody hath touched 
 Me." That answer divides one person there from all the 
 indifferent crowd following on, as an idle crowd always 
 will, after any new wonder, from curiosity or self-inter- 
 est ; and it sets her all apart by herself, — half trembling 
 at her detection, half rejoicing that she is not wholly 
 overlooked. Here was a living creature whose life was 
 wasting in her veins. My friends, there is a deeper sig- 
 nification in our Lord's miracles on human bodies than a 
 mere remedy for physical disorder. They mean much 
 more than the quieting of a little aching flesh, or the 
 lengthening out of a few mortal years. The maladies 
 the Saviour healed on earth were images and symbols. 
 His wonders of restoration were only types of the 
 diviner cures He wrought on paralytic consciences, on 
 leprous sensibilities, on the halting purpose, the blind 
 faith, the lame will, the consumptive charity. It will go 
 to the very heart of the matter, then, if we can see just 
 what it was in the woman that made the religious differ- 
 ence between her and the multitude around her. That 
 difference is of vital moment to every soul. Peter said, 
 " The multitude throng Thee and press Thee " ; " Jesus 
 said, Somebody hath touched Me." What is it merely 
 to come near, and what is it to " touch " the Giver of 
 eternal life ? Among us, men and women of this day, 
 what is the act on our part that will carry us over the 
 separating space between the outward presence and the 
 real fellowship or participation with Him ? 
 
 The woman reached out her hand and touched the 
 Saviour's garment. What was it that moved her hand? 
 She believed. But in what did she believe ? Not in 
 herself, not in the motion of her arm, not that she was 
 doing anything that was an equivalent for the cure, or 
 
200 THE THEONG AND THE TOUCH. 
 
 would purchase it ; nor yet did she believe that by stand- 
 ing aloof and waiting awhile till she was partly restored, 
 made stronger or more presentable, by some skill of her 
 own, she should be more likely to get the benefit desired; 
 nor had she any theory whatever about the method in 
 which the curative power was to take effect. You do not 
 find in her clear and urgent sense of need that strange in- 
 verting of all reason that we so often see in men when they 
 hesitate about coming to seek heavenly grace in Christ's 
 Church, pleading that they are " not good enough," not 
 strong enough, healthful enough, to be blessed by it. 
 The soldier after the battle, wounded and sick, blood- 
 stained and feverish, creeps along the hot and dusty road, 
 longing only to die under the old home-tree, and under 
 the breath of a mother's lips. He comes to a hospital, 
 and sees it written over the door, " "Whosoever will, 
 let him come." Does He creep back, pleading that He 
 is not well enough to go in and be healed ? What then 
 did the woman believe ? She believed that she was to 
 receive something, a real blessing, from Christ. This 
 was what distinguished her, in her humility and obscur- 
 ity, from the sentimental crowd around her. This was 
 that in her wjiich was not in them. They all travelled 
 on in the highway together, talked about Christ, were 
 interested in Him in various ways, discussed His origin 
 and nature, hoped that some good would come of Him 
 to the nation. They thought it prudent to be in the 
 company of a miraculous power, able to feed or heal 
 them, in case there should be occasion for His help ; and 
 so they took some pains to keep Him in sight. Word 
 for word, brethren, these phrases describe what uncounted 
 multitudes now are ready to do, when the Gospel and 
 Church of Christ call to them. But the woman Relieved 
 that she should personally receive new life from Him. 
 
THE .THRONG AND THE TOUCH. 201 
 
 She knew slie needed it ; she knew she had nothing to buy- 
 it with, — for she had spent all her living on physicians, 
 and could not be healed of any, but rather grew worse. 
 Most graphic history of how many hearts ! She believed 
 that she could have that new life by a touch. The 
 reaching out of her hand was an expression of that faith. 
 Another signal might probably have done just as well. 
 In other cases a prayer was as effectual. But there must 
 have been two things : the faith that she should receive 
 the benefit, and some act to embody that faith and bring 
 the benefit home. With faith, action. 
 
 It is an almost equally significant part of the inter- 
 view that her faith, instead of being perfect yet, had 
 some intellectual mistakes clinging to it. Thus she 
 evidently supposed she could obtain the cure without 
 Christ's knowing of her application, or putting forth 
 any conscious exercise of His will. She meant to keep 
 herself hid, probably from so respectable a motive as 
 natural difiidence. It was no intention of hers, — as it 
 never can be of any true confessing Christian, — to dis- 
 tinguish herself from the rest. She was not forward to 
 make " a profession of religion." "Would that our Church 
 language might exchange that ostentatious phrase for 
 the better one, — the confession of Christ ! Probably her 
 idea was, — like what has often been held as one of the 
 elements of superstition, especially in the East, — that a 
 kind of magical charm charged with some sanative eflS- 
 cacy encircled this miraculous person ; that the border 
 of His garment was the channel of the healing energy, 
 and hence that she had only to put her finger on it to be 
 made whole. She was wrong as to the mode. But did 
 this intellectual misconception, as to the mere vehicle 
 by which the blessed power was transmitted, spoil 
 her faith, or forfeit the cure ? On the contrary, the 
 
THE THRONG AND THE TOUCH. 
 
 Saviour patiently and gently separates the substa/nce 
 of the faith from the erroneous fancies impressed upon 
 it by a weak brain or a false education ; He takes pains 
 to disabuse her and all about her of the superstitious 
 imagination, by showing them that the cure was not 
 wrought, and could not be, without His conscious and 
 consenting will answering her application, — " I perceive 
 that virtue is gone out of Me," — and grants her desire. 
 As He always read the thoughts of both Pharisees 
 and penitents alike, as He marked the concealed 
 discipleship in the guileless heart of E'athaniel under 
 the fig-tree, so here He depends on no outward expres- 
 sion to tell Him the soul's prayer, and yet He requires it 
 for the disciple's sake. And in the same goodness now 
 He is ever gathering and drawing saved souls to Him- 
 self, — thanks to His great power, — wherever His name 
 is heard, even though there hang about their honest 
 and true trust in Him many a poor shred of misbelief, 
 many a badge of mistaken systems, many a paltry rem- 
 nant of traditional illusion. It is a comfortable, Catholic 
 encouragement that He gives us, — in the prevalence of 
 so many erratic devices of the theological mind, and 
 so many crude additions to the energetic simplicity 
 of the Truth, — that mistakes of opinion about methods 
 of grace do not choke the channels of grace itself, or bar 
 the gate of heaven. 
 
 But now there comes forward another aspect of churchly 
 doctrine, bringing with it a new obligation. Why does 
 Christ draw forward this believing follower from her 
 bashful retirement, and insist on her declaring herself 
 in the presence of the multitude? The cure was 
 wrought ; the faith had gained its object, and its mistake 
 had been corrected; the receiver of the blessing was 
 creeping away through the crowd, not ungrateful, but 
 
THE THRONG AND THE TOUCH. 203 
 
 unrecognized and unobserved. Why should she not be 
 suffered to retain her humble seclusion ? For the reason, 
 doubtless, that her anxiety for herself took just so much 
 from loyalty to her Lord. It is a principle of God's 
 kingdom, and a part of God's command, that a confes- 
 sion before men shall accompany the believing of the 
 heart. If anybody could be excused, it would seem 
 that she might be. But there is no exception, none ; 
 none for the proudest man, none for the weakest woman. 
 Hitherto her offering is incomplete ; she has brought her 
 secret faith, but not herself; and true faith must keep 
 nothing back that the Lord requires. Men cannot say, 
 " My religion is my own affair ; it is only a thing between 
 myself and my Maker ; it is entirely an inward and invisi- 
 ble relation to Him, and so I am satisfied in my private 
 feeling that it is there, no more can be demanded of 
 me." They cannot hold that ground ; because the duty 
 of open confession is as clearly enjoined in Scripture 
 as it is illustrated in every sound scriptural example. 
 The fact that there is a faithless multitude, making a 
 merit of formal professions, glossing their worldliness 
 by a pious cant of " The temple of the Lord," and screen- 
 ing their unrighteousness under observances, does not 
 affect a whit the call of sincere believers to acknowledge 
 whose they are and by whom they are healed. " And 
 when the woman saw that she was not hid, she came 
 trembling, and falling down before Him, she declared 
 unto Him, hefore all the people for what cause she had 
 touched Him, and how she was healed immediately." 
 Then the Lord uses for her encouragement a term of 
 endearment he had not spoken before : " Daughter, thy 
 faith hath made thee whole." Her faith had made the 
 occasion, — doing it mediately ; His Divine power had 
 made the cure, — doing it directly. Faith is the con- 
 
204 THE THRONG AND THE TOUCH. 
 
 ditional cause ; Christ himself is the efficient, energetic 
 cause. And the acknowledgment of Him is the 
 signal of the final blessing which then falls in a ben- 
 ediction from His lips : " Go in peace." 
 
 What you are to make this morning's lesson stamp 
 ineffaceably on your hearts, — shaping it into clear out- 
 lines, — is the deep distinction between mere pressing 
 about Christ, and touching Him ; between resting in the 
 apparatus of salvation, and laying hold of it with your 
 hands; between trusting in the material temple, and 
 clinging with a closeness of heart that neither life nor 
 death can separate to the living Rock. You honor the 
 place of your worship ; that is well. But how unreal and 
 shallow it all would be, — how false and foolish we should 
 be with one another, — if this should prove to be all or 
 the chief part of our religion ! Why, it would double 
 your condemnation, and mine. Would that the life of 
 every member of the body of Christ were so lifted 
 above the world, so triumphant over it, so visibly given 
 to the Church and so inwardly to Christ, so self-renounc- 
 ing and so holy, that your completed faithfulness would 
 take the message out of our weak lips and proclaim it in 
 living characters to your neighbor. It oppresses one to 
 remember that here is a reality of infinite majesty and 
 beauty transcending all our conceptions of what is glo- 
 rious, enough to inspire with enthusiasm every breast 
 that breathes, so grand and lovely in its attraction that 
 it would seem only to need to be held up as it' really is 
 to win every heart to the Cross forever, — and yet that so 
 many of us still go on chasing bubbles, fretting with 
 care, scraping together accumulations which if they are 
 not all used for Christ are worth not a particle more 
 than ant-hills on the sand. The very crimes and license 
 of the age, daily published, ought to arouse us, sending 
 
THE THRONG AND THE TOUCH. 205 
 
 IIS witli heartier prayers and more solemn circumspection, 
 in this sacred season, to the altars of God ; — nay more, to 
 the hand, to the heart, of Christ. It might appear to 
 you, at times, as if the preacher's chief aim were to 
 persuade you to an outward confession, or a pressing 
 into the gates. But no, that urgency is only because, 
 without that, the higher duties are never done, and the 
 consecration is never complete You may, if you please, 
 do with the text now as Augustine did in his sermon 
 at Carthage, substitute Ecdesia — "the Church,"— -for 
 Jesus, and write " the body of Christ" for Christ ; still it 
 would be true, as he said, " The faith of a few touches 
 it, — the crowd of many {turba multorum) only presses 
 against it." The Christian ground is never truly taken 
 till Christ is confessed ; but then He may be loudly 
 claimed in the cry, " The temple of the Lord," when 
 no fruits prove the heart to be thoroughly surrendered. 
 Now that many of you are turning your steps more fre- 
 quently to the solemn assemblies and public ordinances of 
 the Faith, forget not your Lord's imperative command, — 
 let it follow you out into your week-day work : " Amend 
 your ways and your doings." "Who is the true Christian ? 
 You may suppose the case of a person who from a state of 
 indifference and neglect about religion has been converted 
 to a sense of its real interest and power, and that this per- 
 son is so placed that the men he meets in his business 
 and in society are not informed of his change. "Will 
 they find it out, then, by any manifest change passing 
 over the spirit and manners of his business and social 
 life ? Will they find him purer, gentler, better, nobler, 
 holier? Or take the case of two men, one with and the 
 other without the Christian profession. Hold the two 
 aloof awhile from any place or occasion where the profes- 
 sion would be formally shown, — at a churchless trading- 
 
206 THE THRONG AND THE TOUCH. 
 
 port, or in the week-day life of a gay city. Would the 
 world be able to tell which is which? These are the 
 tests. There was an artist in the old times who 
 carved a metal shield, into the bosses of which he so 
 ingeniously and inseparably wrought his own name that 
 it could not be obliterated except by the destruction of 
 the shield itself. Good Christians, you ought to bear the 
 armor of righteousness on the right hand and on the left, 
 and on it that one name, seen of all men, one image never 
 invisible there, till you take the armor off to go within 
 the veil. That manifestation of the truth in a practical 
 holiness commends the Christian, commends the Church, 
 commends Christ, to every man's conscience in the sight 
 of God. With that inwrought secret of life and im- 
 mortality in your soul, — a living faith, — though the 
 outward man perish, the inward man is renewed day by 
 day. " Somebody hath touched Me." Are you then 
 touching the temple for your salvation, or Christ for 
 your Saviour ? Are you touching Him by your personal 
 faith, or only pressing upon Him with the multitude? 
 Do you only join the popular procession of a nominal 
 Christianity which shouts its heartless hosannas along 
 the highway to Jerusalem, or will you march all the 
 hard road of a holy obedience, with your crucified Master, 
 till he tells you to lay the cross down, when the resur- 
 rection morning breaks ? 
 
SUPPLICATION THE CHUECH'S POWEK. 
 
 Second Sundm/ m Lent, 
 
 ** And the whole multitude of the people were praying without at 
 the time of incense." — St, liuTce i. 10. 
 
 Both the parents of John, Zacharias and Elizabeth, 
 were of the family of the Hebrew priesthood. For a 
 long time the ministrations of this great sacerdotal order, 
 in the temple service at Jerusalem, had been distributed 
 among twenty-four courses of priests, each course taking 
 its turn for a week, and each having its own leader. At 
 the time when the evangelist's narrative opens, Abia 
 stood at the head of the eighth of these twenty-four 
 courses, and Zacharias, the father of the Baptist, was 
 officiating in his turn in that course. " It came to pass," 
 says St. Luke, " that while he executed the priest's office 
 in the order of his course, his lot was to burn incense 
 when he went into the temple of the Lord. And the 
 whole multitude of the people were praying without at 
 the time of incense. And there appeared unto him an 
 angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar 
 of incense." 
 
 It moves our veneration, — the majestic continuity of 
 this holy office, the order of its courses reaching from the 
 reign of King David, unbroken save by the short inter- 
 ruptions of captivity, and scarcely even then, for four of 
 the courses returned to Jerusalem to take their places 
 
208 SUPPLICATION THE 
 
 when the exile was over ; — the priesthood itself, dating 
 back to the wilderness, reaching over a tract of centuries 
 that saw the rising and falling of many einpires, — its 
 ranks very commonly embracing thousands of men. Tlie 
 sublimity of it is only heightened when we recall the 
 nature of that ministry committed to them by God 
 himself. Constant as the morning and evening that 
 daily open and shut their gates on the eyes of men, they 
 waited around that altar which steadfastly prefigured 
 and prophesied the Redeemer ; they kept a sleepless 
 watch over the fire on the altar of burnt-offerings, which 
 typified Christ's eternal sacrifice, never letting it go out, 
 day or night ; they " fed the golden lamps outside the 
 veil with sacred oil"; they offered the daily sacrifices, 
 morning and evening, at the door of the tabernacle; 
 they were always ready at hand to do the cleansing and 
 comforting offices commanded in the law. And here, in 
 the text, we have a glimpse of them in their lofty work, 
 just as the Gospel fulfilments and spiritual glories broke 
 in on their typical routine in the person of the Son of 
 Man. 
 
 From the ministry going on there turn to the place, 
 with its arrangements. Near the entrancJe of the temple, 
 — the heart of the nation's life, — outside what was prop- 
 erly the sanctuary, advanced as if in token of a freely 
 offered mercy to meet the approaching worshipper, 
 was the large altar of the daily sacrifice. Farther in 
 toward the most holy place, very near to the veil of the 
 covenant, to signify that closer access which the accepted 
 believer has to the Intercessor who is ascended into 
 the true Holy of holies, stood another altar, with its 
 crown of pure gold and its golden rings, on which one 
 of the priests, chosen by lot, — all of them so many that 
 it was a Jewish tradition that the same priest never did 
 
209 
 
 it more than once, — oifered twice every day the sweet 
 incense, which with its ascending smoke, in the beautiful 
 language of St. John, is as " the prayers of saints." 
 Notice that the fire which lighted this altar was always 
 to be taken fresh from the outer altar, of the sacrifice for 
 sin, — another type of Christian truth, — because the 
 acceptance of Christian prayers depends on their being 
 ofi'ered only through a Saviour suftering and crucified. 
 
 Another remarkable feature remains. At the moment 
 when the effectual work of propitiation and intercession 
 goes forward within the temple, — what is seen without ? 
 The whole multitude of the people, bending in silent 
 awe, seconding the priestly office and making it in some 
 sense their own, joining their faith to the sacrifice, and 
 lifting their hearts with the rising incense-cloud, are in 
 supplication before God. This can represent nothing 
 else than the power of the united prayers of the Chris- 
 tian congregation, aiding and supporting the official 
 work of the threefold ministry and the holy offices of the 
 Church, in declaring Christ to the world. 
 
 The question before us, then, thrown open in its 
 broadest form, will be this : Are we using the devotional 
 power of the Church in due proportion to its other 
 powers ? In laying our plans, whether for our private 
 religious regulation and personal growth in holiness, or 
 for the public advancement of Christ's kingdom, are we 
 looking directly enough and constantly enough to God ? 
 In shaping and starting new measures, even for the 
 Church's honor and for the saving of men, do we go 
 first, and go most confidently, and go continually, to Him 
 whose presence is our only life, and whose favoring will, 
 in every Christian movement, is the only moving force? 
 In our individual self-discipline, when we are depressed 
 with a sense that it is not going well with us, when 
 
 14 
 
210 
 
 some flash of light in these Lenten self-examinations 
 exposes a new weak spot, or when a providence suddenly 
 reveals the wrong direction in which our habits have 
 been gradually and almost imperceptibly deflecting, when 
 the heart seems frozen, the senses leprous, faith sleeping, 
 and we wonder what is the matter, do we take that 
 question straight to the Holy Spirit, as readily as we ask 
 it of ourselves ? If in any of our undertakings we fail, 
 there is very little doubt that we fail because we did not 
 expect enough and ask enough of God ; — for that expecta- 
 tion is only another name for faith ; and that asking is 
 prayer. 
 
 Men say, " Religion is a thing between a man and his 
 Maker " ; and though it is often said to palliate some 
 inexcusable neglect of an open religious confession 
 before men, yet it is profoundly true. We take you, O 
 men of the world, at your word. Religion is a thing 
 between man and his Maker ; not between man and 
 himself, not between man and society, not between man 
 and the State. All our relations and duties to these, and 
 theirs to us, come under the law of morality ; and though 
 morality, with its practical relations and duties receives 
 inspiration and guidance from the doctrines and ordin- 
 ances of religion, yet when we rise to religion itself, 
 entering her invisible and heavenly tabernacle, we pass 
 out of all merely moral connections, and are in the 
 presence of God. There are two parties, and only two. 
 The business of religion, therefore, is to bring offerings 
 to Him, and, in answer to our prayers, to take blessings 
 from Him. This, with the sacred sentiments, affections, 
 and actions which belong to that holy intercourse, is the 
 first business of the Church. It sets open the channel 
 of communion, where there is tliis incessant spiritual 
 passing and repassing between the Infinite Heart of Love 
 
211 
 
 which is open there, and these hearts of ours, weak and 
 struggling, uneasy and hungry and sinning, here. By 
 this spiritual interchange, our whole life opens a path 
 into heaven, and the blessed life of heaven opens down 
 upon us. So, Christians, we stand, in this sacred and 
 redeemed creation, always at a temple-door. No doubt 
 there are mysteries. What temple was ever without its 
 suggestions of mystery ? Even a very deep and strong 
 human love has its mysteries. But nevertheless, the Light 
 falls down from the Throne. God is there. The door 
 is swung open. We are near to Him ; He is near to us. 
 The Mediator and Intercessor is praying there for us. 
 Our prayers are joined with His. The reconciliation is 
 accomplished. It is as if the scene at Jerusalem were 
 reproduced in its Christian and everlasting reality. It 
 is the time of incense. The chief-priest is at the golden 
 altar, with the fire kindled. The whole multitude of 
 the Church below is on its knees, the faithful people 
 supplicating for pardon and peace, entreating that they 
 may perceive and know what things they ought to 
 do, and may have power and grace to fulfil the same, — 
 asking and receiving that their joy may be full. 
 
 The next step follows irresistibly. Every movement 
 of religious life among us must get its power and direc- 
 tion from the Spirit of God. Every contrivance of 
 ecclesiastical or parochial wisdom, of energy, even of 
 piety, is nothing but a making ready for this Spirit. 
 We may try other things, as we certainly do, and may try 
 them with the best intentions. We call people together, 
 form societies, write constitutions for them with rules 
 and by-laws, devise and discuss measures, publish statis- 
 tics, secure an incorporation perhaps, send for the ablest 
 speakers, collect money, and when the institution is 
 thoroughly organized and built, we look at.it and watch 
 
 fi 
 
 .^^ot ruT 
 
 mriVBRSii ill 
 
212 
 
 its working. It is all done in the interest and for 
 the sake of some Christian truth or charity. But the 
 amount of spiritual product is exactly in proportion to the 
 coming into all this apparatus of that living Spirit of 
 God, — the love of the Father, the grace of Christ, the 
 fellowship of the Holy Ghost. And the degree of that 
 coming and power, again, will be exactly in proportion 
 to the fervency and the frequency of prayers that are 
 offered by believers around it. If you would find the 
 true secret of spiritual success, you need not seek for it 
 in the admirableness of the plan, the shrewdness of the 
 management, the numbers that subscribe, or the elo- 
 quence of the advocates. You might better seek it in 
 some very obscure chambers, some out-of-the-way corners, 
 some closets with the doors shut, where men or women 
 or children in whose breasts God has a Temple of His 
 own, — never heard of at the public meetings, poor and 
 simple-hearted and of stammering lips, — ^kneel with 
 their great-hearted and prevailing petitions, not dis- 
 couraged by the slowness of the answer, trusting not 
 in themselves but only in the Lord Almighty. These 
 are the " multitude praying without." It is they, — be 
 they few or many, known or unknown, — who are the secu- 
 rity of your constitutions, the builders of your churches, 
 the senders of your missionaries, the really efficient 
 patrons of your orphan-houses, hospitals, and Christian 
 education societies. The finest and firmest machinery 
 in the world is so much dead material without these 
 prayers. I suppose most of you have seen some elabo- 
 rate and costly specimen of mechanism, standing still : 
 every little screw and bolt of the complicated system in 
 its place ; every post and bar, flange and transom secure ; 
 every bright lever and arm, wheel and tooth, tempered and 
 tested ; — the whole a splendid embodiment and trophy 
 
213 
 
 of intellectual ingenuity and determination, — yet silent 
 and inert as icicles, till some lifted gate or opened valve lets 
 in the mysterious motive-power which makes it a sure and 
 mighty servant of a purpose beyond it. So are all our 
 best religious measures, till the breath of the Church's 
 prayers joins them to the Spirit from on High. Through- 
 out all its portions, the Scripture has no other doctrine. 
 " Be strong, all ye people of the Lord, for I am with 
 you, saith the Lord." " ]^ot by might, not by power, 
 but by My Spirit." " Pray ye the Lord of the harvest 
 that He will send forth laborers." " Prove Me if I will 
 not open the windows of heaven, and pour you out a 
 blessing." " O God, we know not what to do, but our 
 eyes are upon Thee." How was it with our blessed 
 Lord himself? It was when He was prajdng, by the 
 river Jordan, after His baptism, that the heaven was 
 opened and a dove descended ; it was when He was 
 praying again, " Father, glorify Thy name," that heaven 
 was opened a second time, and an audible voice spoke. 
 It was when He was praying in the garden of Gethse- 
 mane, that it was opened a third time, and an angel 
 was seen strengthening Him. "And ye, beloved, pray- 
 ing in the Holy Ghost, keep yourselves in the love of 
 God." " The prayer of a righteous man availeth " 
 for his character, more than his labor ; and to those 
 that do not pray there are no promises. 
 
 We look into the Bible records of the beginnings and 
 growth of God's kingdom on the earth. On every spot 
 where that kingdom struck root we see a group of men 
 bending in prayer. When the Eastern magi were 
 brought by the star to Bethlehem, all their intellectual 
 strength bowed itself down to a little child ; they taught 
 nothing, proposed nothing ; — they did not even speak ; 
 it was simply an offering; the signification of it was 
 
214 
 
 the submission of knowledge to faith. It was worship. 
 From page to page, in the Acts of the Apostles, they 
 are shown to us together looking upward. When 
 an order in the ministry, an apostle, or a missionary, 
 was to be set apart, or sent out, special prayer sig-" 
 nalized the ceremony. At the meeting and parting 
 of Christian friends, on their sacred errands, they 
 knelt and prayed. If one of their number was 
 imprisoned, prayer was made for him day and night. 
 When an epistle was written, whatever other words of 
 affectionate salutation there might be, the chief and 
 ever-recurring message ran like this, — " Always, in every 
 prayer of mine, making mention of you all." If an- 
 other of them touches, in his writing, on such a familiar 
 duty as the harmony of husband and wife, the lofty 
 reason of it he gives is, — "that your prayers be not 
 hindered." If a special ministry of deacons is appointed 
 for the outer cares of charity, it is that the higher office 
 may be more especially reserved for prayer. When the 
 Holy sacrament of the Communion is celebrated, or 
 alms are given, eucharistic prayer accompanies the break- 
 ing of bread, and oblation-prayer comes up as a me- 
 morial of faith, with the alms, before Christ. What an 
 epoch of prayer was that ! So elevated are these ardent 
 and consecrated souls towards heaven, so open towards 
 God's spirit, so conscious that they have only to ask to 
 receive, that devotion seems to have become an instinct, 
 and they pray as they breathe. The whole fiery heart 
 of the Church of Christ was in instant communication 
 with its ascended Head. And what followed ? Why, 
 this was the period when the Church grew before men's 
 eyes with such swiftness that a thousand converts were 
 gathered in the time that it takes us to gather ten : in 
 the short lifetime of a single generation the worship 
 
215 
 
 of Christ raised itself to power in the chief cities of 
 three continents ; the swords of all the Herods and 
 Caesars and their legions could not strike fast enough to 
 cut down one Christian where twenty sprang up ; hun- 
 dreds were baptized in a day ; the times of refreshing 
 had come ; — the prediction was literally accomplished ; — 
 the windows of heaven were opened, and the blessing 
 was so poured out that there was not room enough to 
 receive it. If hard questions were encountered, as to 
 discipline, or ritual, or personal preference in the apos- 
 tleship, they were melted down in these holy fires 
 of common prayer ; men could not long strive bitterly 
 with each other who entreated the Lord of unity to pity 
 and bless them together and make them like Himself, 
 every time they looked into each other's faces. These 
 were the fruits. How can we fail to connect together 
 the fruit with the seed, — the glorious movement and the 
 motive-power, — the Church pure in doctrine and victori- 
 ous in converting the world with the multitude of her 
 members not only standing full-clad in all the panoply 
 of the Christian warfare, but praying always, with all 
 prayer and supplication in the Spirit ? 
 
 All along since the last of the twelve laid down his 
 life, this rule has never had an exception ; — the Church 
 has been both strong and pure, victorious abroad and 
 peaceful with itself, just according to its spirit of sup- 
 plication ; according to its devotional nearness to Christ 
 its Head, because that means and carries with it its 
 separation from worldly-mindedness and its indiflfer- 
 ence to the worldly standards of success. Whenever 
 there has been a great uprising of new missionary 
 power, or a reformation, or a rousing from sleep, as if 
 some immense light had broken on the eyes of the 
 watchers east and west, the one invariable mark of such 
 
216 
 
 an age has been a general earnestness and faithfulness in 
 supplication. Men have not been seen running about, 
 till they first went into their sanctuaries and their 
 closets with stronger and heartier cries for the Spirit. 
 They were not looking to each other for help, but to 
 God. They did not undertake first to construct new 
 systems, but they betook themselves first to the mercy- 
 seat by the Church's old and well-worn road. They 
 prayed as they worked, in God's order and appointment. 
 The multitude at Jerusalem had not broken away to 
 worship in their own unbidden and promiscuous fash- 
 ions, according to their individual fancies, as if new ways 
 would bring new hearts or new blessings. 'No, they 
 were at the one, right place ; at the courts of the Lord's 
 house : bending towards the covenant sign ; and it was 
 " at the time of incense." And so the periods of prayer 
 have always been the periods of life. As soon as men 
 imagined they could put schemes, societies, treasuries 
 and buildings in the place of prayer, weakness crept back 
 upon them. The period of power went out as the 
 period of self-reliance or worldly compromise came in. 
 Only by My Spirit can ye be strong, saith the Lord of 
 hosts. 
 
 A lingering doubt casts up its faithless suggestion at 
 these words : " Is not the Church constantly praying ? 
 Yet where is the fulfilment of the promise?" The 
 answer is found under another word, " the prayers of 
 faithP We may be sure that the measure of the faith 
 is the measure of the power of the prayer, and that the 
 measure of such prayer is, sooner or later, the measure 
 of the blessing we receive. We very often mistake the 
 strength of our desire for the strength of our faith. 
 Besides, faith is a general quality of the whole soul in 
 all its acts and aspects towards the Saviour, and pertains 
 
217 
 
 to its habitual attitude ; it is not a mere sudden, special 
 expectation of having some greatly- wanted boon granted. 
 It is, for the most part, a grace of slow, patient, and silent 
 growth. Most of us, in our common moods, scarcely 
 touch the rim of its great depth of meaning, or taste of 
 its incalculable peace. It is true just as it stands, — 
 " According to your faith, in asking, be it unto you." 
 It is true of our private conflicts with the tempter, our 
 struggles with ourselves, our resistance of the sins that 
 most easily beset us, our fight with temper and pride and 
 indolence and luxury, with Satan in his most angelic 
 garment. Spiritual victory and progress will be gained 
 on our knees, by looking up and saying, " Lord, if 
 Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean. Save me, or I 
 perish." Zacharias saw the vision of the angel, beside 
 the altar of incense, before the veil. To us Christians 
 the veil is rent assunder. The Holy of holies is thrown 
 open. The Saviour whom the types foretold is come. 
 And now, if any man sin, we have an advocate with 
 the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous, who ever liveth 
 to make intercession for us, the High-priest tempted 
 here as we are, yet sinless, needing not to make sacrifice 
 for His own sins, yet touched with the feeling of our 
 every infirmity, and Himself our sacrifice. 
 
 Can we look on any side of us this day and not con- 
 fess that the great need of Christ's body is this need of 
 Him, of the power which we have seen can come only 
 from Him, and which comes only as we pray for it? 
 The dear Church seems to me to stand, with her holy 
 mysteries, very much as the temple stood that day, — the 
 ark of promise and the altar of incense and of the one 
 eternal sacrifice all safe and sure within. But is the 
 multitude praying as that multitude prayed ? Is it that 
 prayer of yearning and earnest and living faith, for new 
 
218 
 
 spiritual gifts, wliich will not be denied ? Look every 
 way, — into markets, streets, newspapers, courts, down 
 into the sins of tlie low places, out into the sins of the 
 high places, — the insubordination of the poor and the 
 extravagance of the rich, the impatience of the weak 
 and the arrogance of the strong, the wrongs of com- 
 merce and the impurities of legislation, the selfishness 
 and sensuality tainting the whole structure of the State, 
 and the divisions in the house of the Lord. Seeing 
 that we have no power of ourselves to help ourselves, is 
 it not time to go to Him who alone can show us what 
 things we ought to do, and give us power and grace to 
 fulfil the same ? This is not such a world that we can 
 afford to live in it without great nearness to Him who, 
 having died once, liveth evermore. This is not such a 
 life as we should dare to try to live any further without 
 offering the whole of it, — its gold, its incense, and its 
 myrrh, — possessions, prayers, and praises, at the feet of 
 its spiritual King. Light the lamps of faith, then, and 
 watch. Kindle the fire of incense and wait : — not sleep- 
 ing, but watching unto prayer. 
 
PUKITY AND ITS SAFEGUARDS. 
 
 Third Sunday in Lent, 
 
 "Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see Q-od." — 
 St. Matthew v. 8. 
 
 The warnings of this Sunday are against sins of 
 sensual passion. They are represented as coming by 
 " evil thoughts which assault and hurt the soul." Good 
 men will not be satisfied with escaping the disgrace of 
 public crime. If our minds are set with any reverence 
 towards the right, we shall be asking nothing less than 
 positive purity, or an inward life growing up from a 
 Divine principle, clean from all moral disease, strong 
 with Christian health. Any kind of disease has two 
 effects ; it defiles the body it belongs to, and delilitates 
 it. It pollutes the substance and weakens the energies. 
 Sin is the soul's disease. If the disease is there, then, 
 " from within," out of the foul heart will proceed all the 
 foul things which the Saviour named as defiling the 
 whole man. The question, therefore, is the practical one, 
 how to keep the heart healthy, or clean. 
 
 The pure in heart are blessed : — not the pure by 
 profession; not those who are pure according to that 
 standard of purity demanded by the prevalent social 
 morality. Christ says of these, knowing just liow much 
 and how little they have, — Doubtless they have their 
 reward. But it is not the glorious privilege of the pure 
 
220 PURITY AND ITS SAFEGUARDS. 
 
 in heart They and they alone have what the saints of 
 old used to call the " beatific vision." They alone will 
 see that sight which makes any soul completely blessed, 
 — God's full glory in the face of Jesus Christ. 
 
 Throughout the appointed Scriptures for Lent, it is 
 very noticeable how prominent and plain-spoken are the 
 Divine rebukes of this one particular kind of transgression, 
 — the sins of the bodily senses. And this is not surprising, 
 for when we look underneath the mere ceremonial sur- 
 face we see that there must be some deep connection 
 between such a set time of physical self-denial and those 
 special temptations which have their origin in the animal 
 appetites. These appetites, however, remember, are not 
 a separate section of us, lying by itself, cut oif from the 
 rest of our nature. They are mysteriously and perilously 
 intertangled with some higher and nobler passions, — 
 like artistic enthusiasm, generous affections, intellectual 
 ambition, and even religious excitement. Apart from 
 the principles of Christian morality, neither what is 
 beautiful in any of the fine arts, nor what is true in 
 science or eloquent in letters, has any effectual restrain- 
 ing power over the sensual propensities, — as is seen by 
 awful demonstration in the ages of Pericles, of the Greek 
 Olympics, of Leo X., and of Louis XIY. This alliance 
 with mental curiosity and aesthetic delight is really the 
 most insidious feature of that species of vice. To the 
 better-born and better-bred classes, such vice, in its 
 coarser shapes, is not tempting, because it is disgusting. 
 Many a young man of natural or cultured refinement is 
 protected from some of the worst forms of immorality 
 simply by their vulgarity. But the fearful flimsiness of 
 that shield is shown the moment the tempter exchanges 
 rags and filth for elegance, accomplishments, and literary 
 luxury. In fact, it is the belief of many thoughtful 
 
PURITY AND ITS SAFEGIJAED8. 221 
 
 minds in Christendom that the final manifestation of 
 the power of evil on the earth, — the " man of sin " fore- 
 told in the ITew Testament as to come in "the last 
 time," — surpassing in his powers of mischief every other 
 embodiment of depravity, terrible in fascination, will 
 be an actual historic character, combining together in 
 this all-surpassing badness the most splendid intellectual 
 abilities with unregenerated, ferocious, fleshly passions, — 
 Milton's ideal Satan, realized in a man. 
 
 However this may be, for all of us practically the 
 problem of moral purity is very intimately and subtly 
 connected with this curiosity and eagerness of the mind. 
 An unhallowed knowledge, or the thirst for it, betrays 
 the conscience and seduces the heart. And this is what 
 made St. Paul write to his friend, " I would have you 
 wise unto that which is good and simjple concerning 
 evilP An innocent knowledge and a glorious igno- 
 rance ! 
 
 The idea has crept in among our popular theories of 
 social morals, that a knowledge of vice is a safeguard to 
 virtue. We are told that hardy plants are not grown in 
 a conservatory ; that our sons and daughters may as well 
 be acquainted with the wickedness of the world's ways 
 first as last ; that dissolute fictions and a French stage 
 are a capital discipline for robust principles; in short, 
 that morality is altogether too fragile and insecure a 
 creature to run out-of-doors alone, without a little 
 previous initiation into depravity. Worldly fathers and 
 despairing mothers take what comfort they can from the 
 easy maxim that young people had better have a free 
 range through scenes of temptation, in order that its 
 attractions may not take them by surprise further on, 
 and that they must " see life," to know how to live. If 
 we could lead out in our time the hopeless profligates of 
 
222 PURITY AND ITS SAFEGUARDS. 
 
 a single generation which that plausible philosophy has 
 betrayed, the joyous households, once pure, that it has 
 wrecked and distracted, the sweet, clean hearts it has 
 defiled, the noble natures it has degraded, the men 
 whose honor it has ruined, and the women whose peace 
 it has crushed, — a very long, a very mournful, and a very 
 admonitory procession it would be. At the head of it 
 move the first human pair, marching in miserable 
 humiliation out of Eden. The tree of the knowledge 
 of "good" was not enough. There hung, in ruddy 
 beauty, the more luscious fruit of the knowledge of 
 " evil " as well. "Why not eat of that ? Knowledge 
 can do no harm. Seeing things as they are! Nature 
 is a safe study. " Thou shalt not surely die." Six 
 thousand years the story has been told over and over. 
 You need not go for it to the beginning of Genesis. 
 It was acted last night close to where you live, — 
 happy for you if not by some soul that you love. 
 Indiscriminate knowledge, unhallowed curiosity, the lust 
 of the mind looking through eager eyes, is the unceasing 
 temptation of man. So he falls first into sin, then into 
 shame. " Seeing life " turns' out to be tasting of death. 
 
 Make one or two all-important discriminations. 
 
 There is a difi'erence between kinds of sin. Some 
 sins, far more than others, are sins first of the imagina- 
 tion. They are such that to think of them is to be 
 tempted by them. To harbor their images, to gaze on 
 their portraits, is to open wide the way for the guilty 
 realities themselves. With other offences it is not so, 
 or is so only in slighter degrees. The most vivid and 
 picturesque stories of theft, for instance, most of us here 
 could probably read, to any extent, without much danger 
 of becoming kleptomaniacs or robbers. Such crimes as 
 come of cool calculation, not stimulated by feeling, 
 
PIJKITY AND ITS SAFEGUARDS. 223 
 
 invested by no halo of voluptuous fancy, we are not much 
 more drawn to by becoming familiar with their history. 
 Yet it is observed even of these, like suicide and mur- 
 der, that they have their run at periods, like diseases, 
 showing that the constant contemplation of any evil thing, 
 by some secret fascination or sympathy, weakens the 
 securities that save us from its power. Especially true is 
 this of those which are secret in their very nature, loving 
 darkness rather than light, born and nursed in hidden 
 chambers where no eye of man can reach, till they gain 
 the Satanic strength, finally, to break openly over the 
 bounds of law ; but at any rate corroding, corrupting, and 
 spoiling the chaste heart, till it is pure no longer. So 
 certainly teaches Christ, lie who knows this human heart 
 so well in all its weakness, — when He insists that sin is 
 in the glance of the eye and the desire of the mind. 
 Hence the supreme importance He assigns in His teach- 
 ing to the government of the thoughts, the imagination, 
 the " hidden man." Hence His terrific calling of the 
 unuUered and unacted desire by the name of the most 
 unfaithful of all committed crimes. There are sins 
 that you can no more paint on the airy walls of 
 your contemplation, and keep there, without being 
 made sinful by them, than you can stamp inky types 
 on paper and leave no mark, or handle pitch without 
 its cleaving to your fingers. You may say, " Unto the 
 pure all things are pure," and so you will go and look, and 
 listen, as you please ; you will let meretricious art and 
 ambiguous literature and bold company tempt you to 
 the full bent of their unbridled will. Yes — " Unto the 
 pure all things are pure"; that declares a principle. 
 But who are the " pure " ? Will any one of us here in 
 God's house, right-minded as he may be, looking up 
 honestly toward the great white Throne, dare say, " I am 
 
224 PURITY AND ITS SAFEGUARDS. 
 
 pure " ? and if you are, how does it happen that you 
 willingly suffer impurity to be the tolerated guest of 
 your hearths hospitality ? 
 
 Granted that some insight into evil is necessary, how 
 is that knowledge to be gained ? 
 
 A good deal of it is given to every mind by divinely 
 planted instincts, — about as much, if they are kept alive, 
 as is needful for the practical management of life. In 
 some sense we know evil by knowing good. If a soul 
 loves God, then it finds intuitively that there is a some- 
 thing opposite and hateful to God, which it must hate. 
 Right suggests its eternal enemy, wrong. Charity con- 
 veys some quick intimation of its dark shadow, malice. 
 The dove trembles at the sound of the wings of the 
 hawk it never saw before. Cynics sneer at the weak- 
 ness of innocence. But there are saints who are also 
 heroes, known and read of all men, who never went to 
 school to license, but have grown up clean-hearted and 
 clean-handed from their cradles, " unspotted from the 
 world " ; and yet they are shrewd, strong, keen-sighted 
 men, and masters of men, — hard to beguile, and hard to 
 circumvent. St. Anthony in the picture shuts his eyes; 
 but the rock in his desert is not more unyielding, or 
 the moonlight on his forehead while he prays more chaste. 
 You have read the melodious sermon on purity in Mil" 
 ton's " Comus," — and what stronger woman do you 
 expect to meet anywhere than the guileless heroine 
 there ? Sin is pollution : the very name is like the wild 
 and warning cry heard by travellers in the East at night 
 from the camp of the lepers — "Unclean, unclean ! " Solo- 
 mon understood it. " Go not near it, pass not by it, 
 turn from it " : — touch it not, taste it not, handle it not. 
 These are the counsels of Almighty Virtue, tempted 
 as men are tempted, yet without sin. You may be 
 
PURITY AND ITS SAFEGUARDS. 225 
 
 " simple concerning evil," and yet, by being " wise nnto 
 that which is good," armed against evil, and triumphing 
 over it. 
 
 A brilliant biography was published not long ago, 
 presenting the career of one of the most conspicuous 
 men of letters of the generation just past, in which the 
 theory is advocated that genius is an apology for vice, 
 and that he who would portray society and life skilfully 
 must mix in their muddiest currents and try the whole 
 circle of indulgence : as if those who are to enlighten or 
 entertain mankind must first taste of filthy cups, and 
 descend to vulgarity on their way to refinement : as if 
 any lawless nature had only to set up a claim to origi- 
 nality, in order to take a license for sensuality : as if the 
 Almighty now and then suspended the everlasting laws 
 of righteousness in favor of anybody's mental gifts ! It 
 is a denial of fact, and an impiety to God. Put the 
 case respecting any heart near your own. Would you 
 not recoil from the practical application of any such 
 romantic paganism there ? Of any friend we have, 
 would we not rather be assured he has borne always an 
 untainted breast, than that he has dragged it through a 
 slough ? Or do we ever imagine him less " wise unto 
 that which is good," for his being " simple concerning 
 evil"? 
 
 So thought some of the old Germans, in their whole- 
 some forest life, who, according to their Roman his- 
 torian, buried the details of private vices in oblivion, 
 ^ farbade their publication, and were blest with the 
 chaster manners. 
 
 A pure character is a growth, and follows the analogy 
 of growing things. Make the tree good, and the fruit 
 will be good — the Saviour says. Out of the pure heart 
 the pure life will come. But how do you make the tree 
 
 16 
 
226 PURITY AND ITS SAFEGUARDS. 
 
 good ? Yon provide the natural conditions of a strong, 
 healtliy vegetation. You take care for a good soil, a 
 genial climate, a free play of the sunshine, moisture in 
 its season, a shelter from frost. And if there are any 
 influences destructive of the tree's health, or unfavor- 
 able to its fruitage, you keep them out of the way. 
 You do not bring the noxious things into your orchard, 
 or your nursery, to try how near you can place them to 
 the tree without their taking effect on it, or how much 
 injury it will bear, and live through after all. ]^one 
 but a fool does that. You do not import canker-worms 
 and caterpillars and scatter them in the next field, to see 
 whether they will make their way into your horticulture ; 
 or whether, if they do, the trial will not strengthen 
 the tree's constitution; or whether the tree may pos- 
 sibly have robustness enough to put out a second supply 
 of leaves, after the first have been riddled and blasted. 
 You know that if you plant your tree where the gases 
 and smoke of a smelting establishment pour a corroding 
 breath upon it, it will perish. " The end of these 
 things is death." You know that if you place a peach- 
 tree near others already tainted with the yellows, the 
 contagion will spread, the blossoms will curl and drop, 
 and no fruit will grow on the blighted branches. " What 
 fruit had you then in those things whereof now you 
 are ashamed ? " God, my friends, has not entrusted these 
 sensitive souls to us to be experimented upon by a vain 
 curiosity or a headstrong self-confidence. They are to be 
 guarded at every point from all that blights, and all that 
 defiles. They are to be surrounded with blameless 
 associations, — with companions that act and speak no 
 guile. Every hour while contamination is postponed, 
 and corruption kept away, is so much saved for virtue. 
 The powers of right in the soul are strengthening. Good 
 
PUEITY AND ITS SAFEGUARDS. 227 
 
 habits are getting formed and confirmed. The currents 
 of desire, of thought, and of emotion, are learning to 
 run in fixed and lawful channels. The man is growing 
 daily wiser and wiser into that which is good, in a 
 blessed ignorance of evil. 
 
 It is said, on the other hand, that Providence, in the 
 actual operation of human life, exposes us to a great deal 
 of evil, and therefore that we are at liberty to expose 
 ourselves to it. So, in some sense. Providence exposes 
 us to physical disease. We do not, therefore, approxi- 
 mate as much as we can to the resorts of miasma and 
 fever. We do not seek to inhale the air breathed 
 through consumptive lungs. We never cultivate the 
 acquaintance of tlie plague. The maxim, " The greater 
 the sinner the greater the saint," was never true, except 
 to a shallow judgment which takes intensity of zeal for 
 the balanced and solid power of Christian character, to 
 say nothing of the small chances that out of a hundred 
 " great sinners " you will get a single " saint." 
 
 'No ! we pray, if we pray at all, " Lead us not into 
 temptation." There is meaning in that prayer. Our 
 Lord knew us better than we know ourselves, when He 
 included it in the seven brief petitions of that universal 
 liturgy He gave to mankind. The man must have 
 learnt little of the infirmities of his own conscience and 
 will who fancies himself strong enough to dispense with 
 it. " Lead us not into temptation." Who can repeat it, 
 without insult and hypocrisy, if, having said it to the 
 Most High, he goes to seek temptation, or lets his chil- 
 dren seek it in unprincipled books, in dissolute com- 
 panionships, or among any of the residences of guilt ? 
 
 For one, I can never hear parents speak of sending 
 their offspring purposely into perilous company, in order 
 that they may see the world's worst side early, without 
 
228 PURITY AND ITS SAFEGUARDS. 
 
 painful memories of horrors unutterable which that 
 shallow maxim has sown, hopes it has broken to 
 pieces, spiritual beauty it has disfigured, and the gray 
 hairs it has brought down with sorrow to the grave. 
 Let virtue have the vantage-ground of youth ; let holy 
 shapes of purity and love and truth preoccupy the soul, 
 before the rabble of hateful tormentors rush in. The 
 longer these blameless guests pitch their white tents 
 on the unsullied field of the child's heart, the more will 
 we rejoice and thank the protecting God. Give the first 
 delicate years to goodness ; let right principles grow by 
 exercise ; let the habits of life learn to run in the even 
 channels of piety and obedience, and it shall be harder 
 by and by to break the blessed barriers down. 
 
 But we want, it is said, a robust, an exposed, tried 
 virtue, not a virtue feebly grown in solitude, and too 
 sickly to bear the sun. Beyond all question we do. 
 But they who think to find here an apology for com- 
 merce with sin, forget that there is just as much discipline 
 and a far greater blessing in resisting the inclination to 
 look at sin, as in resisting the increase of it after 
 looking and listening have rooted it in the soul. The 
 point where the first offenders were to learn how to 
 strengthen their principles was in refusing to taste the 
 forbidden fruit, not in seeing how they could escape it 
 when its virus was once in their blood It was enough 
 that it was forbidden. The trial of obedience and of 
 faith was there. 
 
 There is another light, still, under which we may look 
 at this whole matter. We throw ourselves forward a few 
 years, when, by the silent laws of God working out 
 surely and silently their deep and awful issues, the con- 
 sequences of our indulgence will become plain to our 
 experience. If reason, Scripture, the Spirit's testimony, 
 
PURITY AND ITS SAFEGUARDS. 229 
 
 companions, history, the holy dead, did not teach us, time 
 shall. For then, as habit grows obstinate, as the abused 
 spirit begins to turn and prey upon itself, as a perverted 
 imagination wreaks its revengeful retribution, as age or 
 an opening eternity shall displace fleeting fancies with 
 everlasting realities, — then will not all these illusions 
 pass away, and the sternest self-denial appear our 
 happiest wisdom ? Then we shall look back on every 
 familiar tampering with vice with infinite disgust and 
 unavailing remorse. Then, to have turned away our eyes 
 and our ears from every dubious or tempting thing will 
 be an unspeakable joy, and to have been " simple con- 
 cerning evil," will have proved the noblest way of being 
 " wise unto " all that is " good." 
 
 If we look back even over the little way we have gone 
 in our life, our memories will instruct us. Whether 
 we fancy we have conquered or fallen, there are few of 
 us, I suspect, that cannot recall some foolish toleration 
 of ourselves in an unhallowed curiosity which we would 
 now gladly blot out with tears or drops of blood, — some 
 evil companionship in childhood which threw a shadow 
 across our lives, or fixed a stain on our hearts, that has 
 hindered, or saddened, or somehow cursed us ever since. 
 Let us be frank and confess. Whenever we have lin- 
 gered in the presence of low conceits, or have let some 
 lower inclination prevail, has not a secret feeling of 
 having been degraded come, as sure and self-evidenc- 
 ing testimony to our guilt ? " What fruit had ye then 
 of those things ? " 
 
 The best protection against inward impurity is to pre- 
 occupy the inward world with better guests, and hold it 
 for them with ceaseless vigilance. As with the body so 
 with the spirit ; if we would have health we must 
 honor the laws of health. Fill your life with spiritual 
 
230 PUEITY AND ITS SAFEGUARDS. 
 
 service and there will be no room for the thoughts, 
 imaginations or desires which assault and hurt the soul. 
 Instead of fighting them after they enter, keep them 
 out; tell them at the gate yon have better company. 
 Tell them so in the name of Him who, when He had 
 peremptorily put the seducing spirit behind Him, 
 because He had His Father's will to do, found angels 
 ministering to Him. " Overcome evil with good." 
 There is many a secret sin that is best contended against 
 not by first thinking about it and then resisting it, — for, 
 while you think about it, it takes the form of a tempta- 
 tion, — but by crowding our days so full of 'duty that the 
 tempter will find no treacherous door open. "Work is 
 chaste. Work hallowed by prayer is chaster still. Have 
 no fears that God will not help. " Every branch that 
 beareth fruit. He purgeth it." From this, as from every 
 other danger, Christ formed within is safety, is salvation. 
 We must end, as we began, on the mount of the Beati- 
 tudes. " Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see 
 God." It is only another announcement of that won- 
 derful and glorious principle which runs all through the 
 inspiring Gospel. The motive power lies far beyond all 
 selfish hopes or fears. At every step the disciple takes 
 his rewards as he goes on ; and they are rewards in the 
 kind of his toil. For the charity that sufiereth long and 
 thinketh no evil there will be given a mightier power of 
 love, till tongues shall cease and that which is perfect is 
 come. For the struggles of uncomplaining patience 
 there will be the grand endurance which smiles on pain. 
 For faith, the sunlit country where no doubt ever casts 
 a shadow. And for that Christlike purity of heart 
 which is the transparent air in which all spiritual graces 
 live and move, the vision Beatific and Divine, which 
 eye hath not yet seen, which no heart hath yet con- 
 
PURITY AND ITS SAFEGUARDS. 231 
 
 ceived. [Nfevertheless, it is a vision not to be wholly 
 postponed and waited for till death changes us. Death 
 to sin is always changing lis ; victory over evil is always 
 transfiguring us. The knowledge of the Son of God 
 will begin where the purity begins. It will be an imme- 
 diate and ever-growing " blessedness " even here. The 
 vision will be ever-brightening, till we see not in the 
 least " as through a glass darkly," but " face to face." 
 
STEENGTH OUT OF WEAKNESS. 
 Fourth Swnday in Lent, 
 
 "My strength is made perfect in weakness." — II. Corinthians xii. 9. 
 
 Along with other new forces brought in bj the Gospel, 
 spiritualizing society and regenerating humanity, there 
 came an original doctrine of what makes weakness and 
 strength. Up to that time, man was accounted strong 
 in proportion as he was able to overmaster the persons 
 and things about him. Matching his own resources 
 against the elements, or against the capacities of other 
 men, his power was measured by his ability to maintain 
 his superiority in these quarrels or rivalries. Till the 
 death of Christ, the strong man was the man strong 
 with his sinews and his hands, or, at best, with the 
 cunning and calculation of his brain. He was first who 
 could strike down most enemies, gather most wealth, 
 march longest at the head of his army, pile the most 
 perfect pyramid, or most fascinate an Athenian assembly 
 by the subtle charm of eloquent speech. 
 
 Corresponding to this heathenish estimate of what 
 makes up " strength " was the view taken of bodily 
 " weakness." It was either to be simply deplored as a 
 calamity, or despised as a shame. ITo spiritual illumin- 
 ation, shining through, transfigured the sick face ; no 
 submission of faith dignified the poor frame prostrate 
 with pain. The men, and even the women, looked on 
 
STRENGTH OUT OF WEAKNESS. 233 
 
 disease with a kind of dry disgust. Some of tlie best of 
 them proposed to kill off the old people as unserviceable 
 to the State. Yirtue consisted in keeping up the animal 
 vigor as long as possible, and when it failed, all that the 
 most faithful friendship could do was to draw back in help- 
 less embarrassment, just where Christian sympathy is most 
 eager to press forward and reach out its merciful hands. 
 It was imbecility gazing at infirmity in despair. Instead 
 of hospitals for disorder and retreats for the disabled, 
 you have only the Greek tragedies chanting in superb 
 poetry their melancholly wail at human suffering, or 
 Latin comedies laughing at it. We see the apostle of 
 Christ standing in the presence of such a proud civiliza> 
 tion as that, and quietly saying to it, " When I am weak, 
 then am I strong." And we cannot wonder that to the 
 mere children of nature then, as to men and women 
 of the mere natural reason still, such a saying was a 
 riddle, with hardly a clue to its meaning. 
 
 The meaning is that in order to get very near to God, 
 or to let the glorious attractions of almighty love and 
 light lay hold of us, and lift us up, — we must be somehow 
 impoverished first, belittled, disappointed, baffled, weak- 
 ened. Whereas we had imagined we were strong in 
 proportion as we could make our own way, it turns out, 
 quite to the contrary, that we are really strong in pro- 
 portion as we are conscious of needing and receiving 
 help from above us, as we feel dependent on the Divine 
 Man, and keep our hearts open to His inward-working 
 power. Whereas we thought, with those old pagans, that 
 we should be strong by pride, it proves that pride is just 
 the feeblest thing in us, and that we must be emptied 
 clean of it before we can be sure of any real lionor, — 
 because pride separates us effectually from the fountain 
 of inward life. Whereas a growing fortune, or a lucra- 
 
234 STRENGTH OUT OF WEAKNESS. 
 
 tive business, seemed to be a means of safety, it turns 
 out that this depends altogether on tlie man who holds 
 it, and the spirit in which he uses it ; and that unless he 
 can do without it, or give it away, when God calls him, 
 he is as weak as that very promising young man, — 
 promising, but only promising, — who came to Jesus 
 complacent, but went away mortified ; — a moral failure. 
 Whereas a robust body and sharp senses looked like 
 strength, the true powers of a glorious manhood are quite 
 as apt to be manifest in men of broken health or slender 
 constitutions. At any rate, by the Christian plan of life, 
 we must begiu with penitence, or sorrow for the past ; 
 and what is that but a confession of weakness ? We 
 must become as little children, in feeling, the Saviour 
 says ; and what is childhood but dependence ? We must 
 take up a cross ; and that is a taking dowij of the selfish 
 part. We must believe ; and faith is an acknowledg- 
 ment that we are not sufficient to ourselves. So this 
 new kingdom begins in this wonderful way. " When I am 
 weak, then am I strong." Obstacles, sicknesses, losses, 
 defeats of our plans, the breakings up of our securities, 
 are God's opportunities; and He knows how to use 
 them. We watch the course of our lives, and we see 
 that what is best has generally come by self-subjection. 
 And at last our experience answers to this mystical 
 account given of the heroes of the Bible, — " Out of 
 weakness they were made strong." 
 
 St. Paul finds it necessary for once to vindicate his 
 apostleship, and in order to that, a rare thing with him, 
 to vindicate himself. After alluding to certain extra- 
 ordinary revelations which had lifted him into the third 
 heaven, and would naturally tempt him to religious 
 vanity, he emphatically discards any such presumption, 
 and goes on to say that he counts it a signal blessing 
 
STRENGTH OUT OF WEAKNESS. 235 
 
 that he has always been kept down and saved from self- 
 confidence by bodily disadvantages. "What this " thorn 
 in the flesh " was he does not mention ; the Corinthians 
 he was writing to knew : — a weak voice, possibly, — weak 
 eyes, more likely, — for he several times alludes to his eyes 
 pathetically; and if they were permanently hurt by 
 the intense light at Damascus, he might very well say 
 of them, "I bear in my body the marks of the Lord 
 Jesus : — let no man trouble me." (Jewish traditions refer 
 it to convulsions.) At any rate it prevented his presence 
 being admired, limited his powers as an orator, and 
 quenched the hopes of public ambition. He felt it the 
 more because by temperament he evidently relished 
 great natural vigor. He knew, too, with his "like 
 passions," that the men he preached to had a habit of 
 sneering at physical disfigurements. Of course they 
 would take occasion from his infirmity to disparage his 
 ministry and discredit his message. And so he reached 
 this trium^i of self-humiliation, — our special Lenten 
 grace, — only by a tremendous struggle. He carried it, 
 as his devout spirit took everything, into his prayers. 
 Probably he put his petition on the ground that his 
 deformity abridged his usefulness as a preacher. So we 
 all pray when we are not quite clear whether we are 
 thinking more of God's glory or of our own comfort : 
 in other words, whether it is simple faith or a disgusted 
 self-will that prompts the supplication. As with Peter, 
 and with Christ, the tempter came three times. Three 
 times Paul besought the Lord that the vexation might 
 depart from him. For some mysterious purpose it was 
 God's plan that it should remain. But then there rang 
 in his ears an answer to that supplication which thrilled 
 his soul more profoundly, and awoke in him a far more 
 comforting assurance that he was answered, than if a 
 
236 STRENGTH OUT OF WEAKNESS. 
 
 miracle had instantly healed every disordered fibre in his 
 frame. The Lord said, " My grace is sufficient for thee." 
 This trial must continue and try thee still ; to take it away 
 would be to imperil the purity of that human vessel which 
 I am refining to carry the treasure of eternal life to the 
 gentile world, but My imparted grace shall continue too, 
 and never fail. Be that sufficient for thee. Let the 
 thorn still sting the flesh. It will not weaken, nay, it 
 will stimulate and redouble the real power. 
 
 Now if this had been a sentence spoken for efiect, 
 it would be a paradox in rhetoric, and nothing more. 
 Coming from the lips of our Lord, it declares a principle 
 of all Christian life and growth. On the one side we 
 see feebleness, trembling, ignorance, perplexity, a dying 
 body, earthen vessels : — on the other side, strength, cour- 
 age, the demonstration of the Spirit, the excellency of the 
 power, the immortal life of Christ. In that contrast, 
 made a personal experience in our Christian discipline, 
 lie the trial of character, the ministry of ^temptation, 
 the shame and splendor of the cross, and the victory of 
 faith which overcometh the world. 
 
 Something like this we are continually seeing, as the 
 common working of God's Spirit, in the characters of 
 men. Not one in fifty of those who have their hearts 
 made alive and earnest for Christian service are led that 
 way by increased prosperity ; by high health ; by having 
 their own way ; by any personal advantages whatever. 
 Most of us must have seen man after man, yes, score of 
 men after score of men, and it is a sad sight enough, who 
 have once taken up a Christian's work, and vowed them- 
 selves to Christ at His altar, grow negligent of religious 
 duty, and gradually relax all the exercises of a good 
 soldier of the Cross, just in proportion as they flourished 
 in business, rose in office, took what might be called an 
 
STRENGTH OUT OF WEAKNESS. 237 
 
 easy place in the world, or became "strong" in the 
 world's sense. Accordingly we are just in the best way 
 of being made secure when we are cast on rough con- 
 ditions. Poor boys from the country, with their whole 
 wordly estate swinging in a small satchel at their side, 
 are the strong-handed builders of institutions, roads, 
 cities, ships, and become masters of all the grand enter- 
 prises of the world. David was a great deal stronger 
 when he was a stripling with a ruddy face, coming up 
 from the brook with a few stones for his sling, or when he 
 was a hunted exile, flying from one rocky hiding-place to 
 another, or when he was on his knees pouring out of a 
 broken heart the fifty-first psalm, than when he sat in 
 purple on his throne, and in the fulness of his table for- 
 got his Maker, and had to tremble before the prophet. 
 How many there are who first take firmly hold of the 
 everlasting Hand, when they have felt all around them 
 in the dark and could find no other hand ! A man of 
 business on the full current of success, a fortune at his 
 command, and a multitude dependent on him, looks 
 strong no doubt to himself, and to other men. But some 
 day he goes home from his office with a strange weakness 
 in his frame ; he creeps up to his chamber with it ; he 
 lies on his bed and is faint under it ; his business goes 
 on well enough without him ; and weeks after, when his 
 flesh and his will and his pride are all worn down, he tells 
 you, with an accent that has such a sound of reality in it 
 as you have heard in nothing he ever said before, that all 
 his past career has been a superficial and miserable mis- 
 take, because obedience to Christ, and self-surrender to 
 His holy will, were not in him. In his weakness he is 
 for the first time strong. A woman moves in brilliant 
 circles, admired, accomplished, obeyed : for there is a 
 certain sway that seems like power. But changes of 
 
238 STRENGTH OUT OF WEAKNESS. 
 
 fortune shut her up in a narrow estate ; they unclasp her 
 jewels ; set her to tending fretful invalids, teaching 
 dull children, or dragging a feeble frame through the 
 drudgeries of some hard lot; all the radiant visions 
 vanished. But there has risen, meantime, another 
 vision : the open way of life, and the light that is on the 
 Face of the crucified. A voice has been heard saying, 
 " Thou art mine ; forgiven ; redeemed ; My daughter ; I 
 am with thee in thy poverty, made poor Myself for thy 
 sake; My grace is sufiicient for thee; no man shall 
 pluck thee out of My hand." And now her day of 
 power has come, and with power, perfect peace. 
 
 Familiar instances, — you say. Yes, very familiar. 
 Look where we will, the proofs will multiply upon us that 
 here is a great law of the Divine discipline with men, — 
 not wholly confined indeed to spiritual things, but most 
 brightly manifest there and yielding its most blessed 
 fruits there. By some means or other passion, pride, 
 self-will, — the "strong men armed" that keep this 
 world's house, — must be turned out before the King of 
 Glory can come in. We might, no doubt, if we would, 
 let God's goodness lead us to repentance ; we might, if 
 we would, grow straight up and go straight on in the 
 path of the justified. But, humiliating as it is, most 
 of us have to be scourged into our rest. The sunshine 
 of the Lord's love is not let in on many eyes till the 
 walls of the house we trusted are shaken apart. As an 
 old English poet wrote, 
 
 "The soul's dark cottage, battered and decayed, 
 Lets in new light through ciiinks that time has made." 
 
 You see St. Paul before his conversion, with his com- 
 manding intellect and iron will swinging his sword from 
 city to city to strike down Christian disciples, every- 
 
STRENGTH OUT OF WEAKNESS. 239 
 
 thing else in him powerful but charity : and yet it is 
 only when he is sitting in darkness, or led about by 
 another's hand, sightless, helpless, that his passions grow 
 cool, his heart's flesh comes like the flesh of a little 
 child, and the power of Christ rises in his soul. Blind- 
 ness, solitude, humility, these stern hands fashion him 
 into that" brave and irresistible leader of the Church 
 whom all the swords and dungeons between Syria and 
 Spain cannot terrify or silence. Elijah must hunger; 
 John the Baptist must eat locusts and wild honey in the 
 desert; the twelve must leave their homes and their 
 property; St. Peter must weep bitterly — before they 
 can be mighty witnesses, standing before kings. 
 Nay more : the King himself, in the beautiful language 
 of the Yisitation Office, " went not up to joy, but first 
 He suffered pain." Our infirmities are the springs of 
 our victories, — and hence, that we might be made con- 
 querors through Him, He took our infirmities upon Him. 
 
 Perhaps something in us prompts us to answer, " This 
 is a very strange order of things. Why should it be so ? 
 "Why should not the full health and vigor of all parts of 
 our nature go on and ripen harmoniously together? 
 Health is certainly the normal state of man. Property 
 is useful. Why should we have to be spoilt in one part 
 of us to strengthen another part ? Something must be 
 the matter." 
 
 Exactly so ; something is the matter, and that some- 
 thing is the bitter cause of all the misery, the pain, the 
 disappointment, the emptiness and aching of heart in the 
 children of men. It is the sin that doth so easily beset 
 us. God's loving order was disturbed because a hateful 
 human disorder came in, and has never gone out. 
 Therefore the way to life must be just what it is: — 
 through suffering to peace ; through a wilderness to the 
 
240 STRENGTH OUT OF WEAKNESS. 
 
 land of olive gardens ; through fort^^Lenten days to a 
 resurrection jubilee day ; through loneliness, self-disgust, 
 and emptiness into the city of the living God, and ful- 
 ness of joy. 
 
 Remember, strength will be poured into our breasts 
 from God, provided only the bar that keeps it out is 
 taken down. God is always love. If ye, human parents, 
 know how to give good gifts unto your children, how 
 much more the Heavenly Father ! Only one thing is 
 wanting, that the two bolts, — self-will and self-indulgence, 
 — be weakened till they give way. Weaken them, my 
 friends ; weaken them in every way, — by self-reproach, 
 by discipline, by taking up a cross, by fasting, by doing 
 duties that you dislike to do, by disinterested work for 
 other men, and the blessed energy of the Spirit will flow 
 in. In your weakness God's strength will be made per- 
 fect. And then you will know, with St. Paul, what it is 
 to glory in tribulations. Then you will learn to entertain 
 sickness and sorrow in your houses as the royal ambassa- 
 dors of the King of Peace. At first Paul called his thorn 
 a messenger of Satan buffeting him. After he found out 
 why it came, he called it a gift, a love token, a sign of 
 heavenly favor from his Master. If Satan's angels are 
 sometimes clothed as angels of light, why not God's angels 
 in shadows ? If it keeps you humble, the thorn is finally 
 woven into the crown of rejoicing. O blessed infirmities, 
 blemishes, ugliness, pain, poor success, mortified ambition, 
 ye are prophets and heralds of salvation ; ye are our se- 
 curities from deeper and more lasting shame ! "We ought 
 to learn some anthems to sing your honors as pledges of 
 our heavenly deliverance. To accept bodily pain, or an 
 insignificant reputation, or a ruined plan, even after hav- 
 ing prayed against it, as the veiled minister of mercy, and 
 heartily to give thanks for the scourge, — this is to have 
 
STRENGTH OUT OF WEAKNESS. 241 
 
 Christ formed hy faith within. It opens the interpreta- 
 tion of that wonderful saying : — " Always bearing about 
 in tlie body tlie dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life 
 of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh." 
 
 In a prayer repeated since last Sunday, all through 
 this week, the Church makes us bold enough to ask for 
 "abstinence," that "the flesh may be subdued to the 
 spirit." The ground we have gone over brings us to 
 the basis of all this penitence and self-denial. It lies in 
 our nature and constitution as well as in the Scriptures. 
 
 Finally, you may turn to society at large. Look at a 
 whole city, in the full tide of commercial prosperity and 
 social indulgence. Abundance shall run down all the 
 streets like rivers of water. Every scene of entertain- 
 ment, from the glittering play-house to the lowest haunt 
 of dissipation, shall be nightly thronged and illuminated. 
 The men shall build palaces as playthings, and the 
 women string diamonds as beads. The talk of the town 
 shall be of the last night's brilliancy and jewelry, raiment 
 and banquet. Night itself shall be turned into day, 
 not for vigils of prayer or praises of the Great Bene- 
 factor, — if that were done the whole .population would 
 lauirh aloud at the fanaticism, — but it shall be done 
 night after night for frivolity, for dancing and eating 
 and drinking, for this world's god, and no lip shall sneer 
 at it. There shall be wealth enough for all this ; and 
 every new form of ostentation, and every new avenue 
 of traffic, and every addition to the trappings of a material 
 estate that wealth could provide, shall heighten the 
 pomp. Now, would this be the strong city ? What are 
 the attributes of strength? Self-command, courage, 
 filth, endurance, moderation : these are the signs of 
 A?;m^?i strength. Has it these? God alone, the Ahnighty, 
 is the source of strength ; and that city alone is strong 
 
 16 
 
242 STRENGTH OUT OF WEAKNESS. 
 
 of which it can be said that " God is in the midst of 
 her." Can it be said of that city ? Character is strength, 
 and there is no character there. It is weakness at the 
 foundation, weakness in the superstructure, weakness at 
 tlie gates ; weakness in the cliambers ; weakness at the 
 heart. You have read history ; and you know whether 
 Tyre and Babylon and Rome just before they fell were 
 strong. 
 
 Turn from that spectacle to another. By some Provi- 
 dence, the city is humbled. Its face is sober and 
 thoughtful. Manners are simple ; dress is plain ; indus- 
 try is more plentiful than entertainment; luxuries are 
 not seen, but charities are abundant ; its sanctuaries are 
 thronged ; its nights are still ; its people are walking with 
 God ; its children's indulgence is restrained. Wisdom 
 is the ornament of grace about its neck. There are 
 household prayers in all the houses. Righteousness is 
 its law ; and God is its king. Here is strength : " Clean 
 hands and a pure heart." Strong as well as happy is that 
 people whose God is the Lord. 
 
 Man is not strongest when his head is full of dreams 
 and calculations of gain, his heart full of promotion and 
 admiration, his hand full of this world's gifts, and his 
 month full of meat and wine. He is strong when he 
 rules his spirit; strong when he works, and consecrates 
 his work to God ; strong when he is on his knees ; strong 
 wlien he forgets himself, and lives in the spirit of the 
 apostle's declaration: "It is no more I that live, but 
 Christ liveth in me." 
 
A HEAVENLY MIND HEEE. 
 
 Fifth Sunday in Lent. 
 
 **FoR our conversation is in heaven." — Philippians iii. 20. 
 
 Whatever apparent incompatibility there may be 
 between having a residence in one world and a conver- 
 sation in another, the religion of Christ boldly meets 
 that difficulty and puts it out of the way. A life which 
 reconciles these contradictory things is not only possible 
 but is the practical object and the triumph of every 
 Christian man. Not only apostles but the whole con- 
 gregation, not only mhiisters but men of business and 
 young people, can have their conversation in heaven 
 every day and be none the weaker for it, but greatly 
 stronger, for all the work of this world. 
 
 A case easily supposed will illustrate St. Paul's mean- 
 ing ; and it is suggested by the word translated in the 
 text " conversation." The actual sense of that word, as 
 he wrote it, is citizenship. In the old English of the 
 Bible and Prayer Book, a man's " conversation " meant 
 not the mere act of his tongue, but the entire expression 
 of his life in conduct, and so it revealed to what king- 
 dom his heart belonged. An American agent or ambas- 
 sador has a temporary dwelling in Athens. Living on 
 that foreign soil, occupied daily, for the time, with its 
 local aifairs, respectful to its institutions, a good neighbor, 
 he never forgets his allegiance to a distant republic. 
 
244 A HEAVENLY MIND HERE. 
 
 Tlie landscape about him may show a beauty that wins 
 his admiration ; the Greek faces and manners and hos- 
 pitalities may gain his good-will ; yet they are not those 
 of his native land. He remembers that his stay is short ; 
 sometimes he is homesick ; he expects to be called back, 
 not long hence, where his treasure is laid up and his 
 untravelled heart abides ; he is a stranger and sojourner, 
 away from home. 
 
 This simple comparison answers the better, because it 
 shows that when our faith commands us to have our 
 conversation in heaven it does not require us to be 
 bad citizens of the world where we now are. We are 
 not bidden to be absent minded ; if we were we should 
 do poor w^ork here, and lead ineffectual lives. The 
 man may form hearty attachments where he tarries ; he 
 may pay willing tribute to the city that temporarily 
 befriends him ; he may live cheerfully and helpfully, 
 neither a complaining guest nor a fastidious and sullen 
 recluse. And yet, none the less, as the Epistle to the 
 Hebrews so grandly says of the patriarch who is the 
 type of the Christian believer, he desires always a better 
 country, which he knows, — a " city " first in his honor, 
 dearer to his love, and always in his hopes. So Christ, 
 by His doctrine and spirit, reconciles a regular and 
 happy labor among the fields and streets and markets 
 of this world with a constant recollection that we have 
 an eternal citizenship above it. He teaches here, as He 
 taught at Nazareth and Jerusalem, in the fishing-boats 
 and on the mount, and as it had never been taught 
 before, that we can be religiously faithful to every 
 present -relationship, and yet never forget that celestial 
 patriotism which keeps us obedient to " the powers of 
 the world to come." "We can be busy, neighborly, 
 charitable, enterprising, getting our livelihood, making 
 
A HEAVENLY MIND HERE. 245 
 
 some eartlily spot more beautiful as well as more right- 
 eous, and all the time " looking for and hastening unto " 
 an immortality infinitely better, — wearing on our whole 
 manhood or womanhood the stamp of a consecrated pur- 
 pose and an unworldly secret in the soul. No man liv- 
 ing to himself, no man dying to himself, life and death 
 are both transfigured by an indestructible communion 
 with an invisible Friend and Lord. We can^ by the 
 Spirit's help, be in the world without "minding" 
 earthly things selfishly, greedily, ambitiously, or irre- 
 ligiously. This is the original glory of our Christian 
 estate, and nothing less than this is our personal calling, 
 as learners in Christ's school and worshippers in His 
 Church. 
 
 I say, the glory is original. Till Christ came, this 
 majestic fact in our condition, that our little human tent 
 here is overarched by an infinite heaven of light and 
 love which really opens and pours down a living in- 
 fluence upon us, scarcely anywhere broke through the 
 pagan shadows. It neither lightened the dull monotony 
 of mortal labor nor consoled the bitterness and blindness 
 of mortal sorrow. Here and there, in some half-awakened 
 soul, there was a religious dream or guess, — some glim- 
 mer of the light that was to rise on rich and poor alike, — 
 some Athenian thinker, such as Paul found " feeling after 
 God, if haply he might find Him," — some solitary flash 
 like the stoic maxim, " Deny thyself and aspire," almost 
 worthy of the Son of Man, — some morning-star like the 
 reason of Plato. But these harbingers of the day only 
 cast slender streaks on a few hill-tops, showing how broad 
 and deep the darkness lay on all the lands below. Men 
 looked downward at matter, or else across the surface of 
 the earth on their own level, and their " conversation " was 
 of its wars and lusts. It was a civilization boru of appetite 
 
246 A HEAVENLY MIND HERE. 
 
 and self-will, suckled by a wolf, bred in battles, glori- 
 fied in statues and epics splendid in form but barbarian 
 in subject and spirit. In all the Asiatic pomp there was 
 not one house of charity for sickness, insanity, orphan- 
 age, or old age; in the Alexandrian science not one 
 school of virtue or lesson of pure self-renunciation ; in 
 the Greek beautj^ no beauty of holiness ; in the disci- 
 pline of Roman armies not one crucifixion of the flesh to 
 the heavenly law of righteousness. " The law of the 
 members," as the Epistle to those very Romans so graph- 
 ically calls it, ruled the race : — the " law of the spirit of 
 life in Christ Jesus " had not come. The city they called 
 " eternal " was rotting into ruins, and the " citizenship," 
 or " conversation," was far this side of heaven. How the 
 errors of the mind, when let loose from the obedience of 
 Faith, run round in circles and return! One of the 
 audacities of modern sceptical speculation, reported from 
 France, is a proposition that science may so dispense 
 with the Almighty as, among the achievements of the 
 future, to take command of the forces of nature, stop 
 the process of decay, and insure the globe itself against 
 the waste of time and the judgment for its sins. You 
 call it the babbling blasphemy of fools. But it is the 
 logical termination of human thought, cut off by itself 
 from God, living an utterly earthly life. In the midst 
 of such a society as that we see Christ's great convert 
 to the cross standing and saying, " Our conversation is 
 in heaven." 
 
 The earthly and the heavenly mind^ then. The choice 
 between these two is what our Gospel, with its anxious 
 earnestness, is pressing on our conscience. 
 
 "What hinders? First it is said, with an accent of 
 complacent cleverness, " We must take the world as it is : 
 there is no use of flying in the face of an immense major- 
 
A HEAVENLY MIND HERE. 247 
 
 ity : no scattered picket-guard of saints, however pure, 
 can make head against this tremendous mass of world- 
 liness, especially in crowded and eager centres of popu- 
 lation. Your ideal is lovely : it is well enough to hold 
 it up in church, a seventh-day picture of impossible 
 sanctity. But while we live in an earthly commonwealth, 
 if we expect to get 07i with it^ we must keep on pleasant 
 terms with it, sit at its feasts, drink its health, and not 
 be over-critical as to its principles." 
 
 If this answer were valid, it would settle the whole 
 question at once, on the anti-Christian side. The Church 
 would be an organized failure. Instead of a fearless 
 witnessing for Christ, and fighting against wrong, we 
 should have a supple and cowardly system of mutual 
 compromises and flatteries. Men and women would go 
 into society to learn how to live down to each other's 
 weaknesses and prejudices. Christian salvation would 
 be an amiable dream, and moral courage a romantic 
 Action. But then, even the common, careless mind has 
 a deeper-toned conviction than this. There rise up 
 before us all images of heavenly-minded persons whom 
 we have known. Most people know enough of the 
 story of the past to know that its principal grandeurs 
 and glories have gathered about the heads of a few brave 
 and suffering and rather solitary men, who have earned 
 their immortal names by standing out against the fash- 
 ionable corruptions and falsehoods of their times. 
 Inward voices respond in almost every breast to the 
 righteousness of this order of souls, whether many or 
 few. Before they give away their manhood for the sake 
 of getting on with the world, some citizens will inquire 
 to what end the world is getting on. And then, what- 
 ever we do or say, the Word of God refuses to be altered, 
 and that from first to last tells us not only that 
 
248 A HEAVENLY MIND HERE. 
 
 we can, but that we must, unless Af e mean to die eter- 
 nally, live above the world while we live in it. 
 
 Besides, falsehood and sensuality were never yet prev- 
 alent enough or popular enough, anywhere, in Babylon, 
 or Corinth, or Vienna, or Paris, or here, to incapacitate 
 any soul for a clean and godly life, if that soul chose 
 and willed, religiously, to live it. However low the 
 reigning tone of morals about you, in club, or brokers' 
 board, or ball-room, or political cabal, yet in your clearer 
 moments you feel that your freedom is not crippled, your 
 independence not crushed, your power to strike out and 
 keep up a line of consistent Christian action not abro- 
 gated or subdued. Though nineteen out of twenty fall 
 disgraced, you are able to be the twentieth and stand 
 upright. If offences must come, you can refuse to be the 
 offender, and refuse successfully to the end, because the 
 Almighty is on that side, giving both secret inspirations 
 and a shield that no temptation can pierce through and 
 no bankruptcy can break. " Faithful found among the 
 faithless" is the record of many a noble and modest 
 citizen here, true to his secular trusts, as well as of the 
 steadfast seraph Abdiel wearing his crown in heaven. 
 All the crimes and scandals which debase high places, 
 till it seems as if no places would be high very long, ought 
 not to tempt us to forget the ten righteous in a city 
 that save it in spite of the ten thousand that are willing 
 it should be lost, and to be lost with it. 
 
 And further, nothing in society or custom takes off 
 the wrong-doer's sin, or its retribution; numbers, situa- 
 tion, opportunity, example, rulers and chief-priests, 
 being utterly incompetent to alter an iota the eternal 
 contradiction between wrong and right. They may color 
 or drape or baptize wrong-doing, but they never change 
 its essence. The citizen in a bad community who does 
 
A HEAVENLY MIND HEEE. 249 
 
 nothing, says nothing, gives nothing, to purify its iniqui- 
 ties, cannot say, " This is a very wicked place, but tliat is 
 nothing to me ; it allows horrible abuses and facilities 
 for profligacy, but that is not my concern ; / have no son 
 or daughter to lose temperance or modesty; extrava- 
 gance and dissipation are shockingly conspicuous, but 
 that is no reason why I should not indulge myself 
 privately if I please." He cannot say that, because in 
 that heaven where his heart ought to turn every day, 
 there lives a God with whom multitudes of people, and 
 established usages, and municipal officers, and polite 
 concealments, are not of the least account ; to whom 
 there is no privacy, and from wdiom no secrets, of chamber 
 or alley or intrigue or fraud, are hid. No more can 
 a dishonest merchant excuse himself by quoting unscru- 
 pulous or accommodating maxims of trade, and say- 
 ing, " My business is adjusted to the moral scale of my 
 class ; as long as I am up to the average mark I am safe ; 
 if I do bring up my sons or my clerks to take advan- 
 tages which will not bear daylight, — that is the fault of 
 commerce, and not mine." He cannot say that, because 
 neither buyer nor seller, or the board of trade, makes the 
 moral law or modifies it; and God has set you down 
 there, an individual soul, on purpose to bear testimony, 
 by straight accounts and fair bargains, against the vast 
 and evil thing, and not to hide behind it. The partisan, 
 in Church or State, cannot say, " Heckon with my 
 party, not with me." He has, if not a citizenship, a 
 judge in a country where he must reckon, without his 
 party, for what he helped make his party to be. "We 
 who take our shameful part so easily in petty apologies 
 and artifices and winkings at social laxity, cannot say, 
 at the Divine tribunal, "Blame society; — I only went 
 with the rest, and was no worse than they." For God's 
 
250 A HEAVENLY MIND HERE. 
 
 practical Truth will answer us, How then is Christ's 
 kingdom ever to come ? How is the load of the w^orld's 
 iniquity ever to be thrown off? You may presume 
 that these sins will continue, do what you will, — and 
 that may be true. Offences will come, but " woe to that 
 man by whom they come." 
 
 Before it has done, Christianity means undoubtedly to 
 reach society, on the broad scale ; but it must reach it 
 through persons, gathered one by one into its own heav- 
 enly '' citizenship." It has to do wdth conviction, affec- 
 tion, faith ; and these are always properties of persons 
 before they can be of nations or communities. The 
 Saviour did not publish a plan of political reform, or a 
 schedule of social science. Meeting His countrymen in 
 little groups, or one by one, as they came. He sliowed 
 them what was in His heart, and showed them the 
 ineffable' beauty of a holy and blessed " conversation " 
 with His Father, while they were yet fishermen and pub- 
 licans, and reapers and water-carriers, about their houses 
 and fields. So began the everlasting empire and the 
 everlasting age of righteousness through love, which 
 was in time to lift itself over the palaces at Constanti- 
 nople and Home. Before men knew it. He had planted 
 a kingdom to fill and possess the earth, — ^planted it just 
 where alone it could be planted, in the living heart and 
 will of certain individuals who had ceased minding 
 earthly things, or minded heavenly things far more. 
 And so, precisely. He meets us to-day. With all His 
 spirit of sacrifice and mighty power of redemption, 
 with the cross on His shoulders and the scar in His side, 
 He comes to each one of us, and speaks. We all desire 
 to have America a Christian country. Then we must 
 be Christian men in America. We would all, I am 
 sure, have ours a Church practically Christian, in the 
 
A HEAVENLY MIND HERE. 251 
 
 power of the Spirit and in all holy and charitable action, 
 arising and shining on tlie tops of the mountains, like an 
 army with peaceable banners. Then we must be Chris- 
 tian members of it, in conviction, in principle, in what 
 we do and what we refuse to do, in the company we 
 keep and the company we let alone, sustaining as 
 consistently as we can, and without ostentation, a heav- 
 enly conversation. Precisely the strength of our practi- 
 cal endeavor to do this will be the measure of our 
 Christian sincerity and progress. 
 
 My friends, there is a particular reason for these 
 thoughts. There are, doubtless, persons in this House 
 who have not consciously made up their minds to keep 
 God's commandments out and out, through and through, 
 asking God for help, — and yet they would be shocked at 
 the idea of our social life returning to barbarism. There 
 are others farther on, nominally Christian, publicly com- 
 plimenting general religion and applauding Christian 
 institutions, without pretending to conform their person- 
 al practice to Christ's law of spiritual life. This notion 
 that we are any safer or any better for living in a land 
 of a professed Christianity, whose principles we daily 
 ignore and whose most sacred duties we shuffle aside, is 
 one of those delusions that show their absurdity the 
 moment they are noted in language. What our most 
 intelligent Christians need to realize fxr more clearly than 
 they do is that every scheme attempting to cure the bad 
 morals of the people comes short and must tail, unless it 
 goes down to the root and heart of the matter by begin- 
 ning with faith in God, and putting the soul into a direct 
 and earnest conversation with Him. 
 
 In these times the Faith is put back and kept down 
 not so much by persecution as by corruption. AVe live 
 in days of indulgence, and days of education, and so 
 
252 A HEAVENLY MIND HERE. 
 
 temptation comes in under physical and literary luxury. 
 Ever since Eve's parley with Satan in Eden it has been 
 the strategy of evil to gain admission v^ithout having its 
 character suspected. If the moral sense is obstinate and 
 will not yield, teach it to call evil goo.d. If conscience 
 defies a sword, drug it with narcotics. This is the gen- 
 eralship that captures a besieged city by poisoning the 
 fountains at which the people drink, when the walls are 
 too thick to be battered down by assault. Once radically 
 unsettle a man's mind as to the obligations of duty, and 
 you work a far more comprehensive depravity in him 
 than by only enticing him now and then into single bad 
 actions, against which his conscience continues to cry 
 out. You make him the servant of all unclean work in 
 the household of the senses. If, by listening to the 
 sophistry of the appetites, I can really come to believe 
 that things are tolerable which God has declared sinful, 
 I see no breakwater after that to keep the whole muddy 
 sea of sensuality from pouring its foul flood over me. 
 For as the whole quality of a Christian liqs in the choice 
 of the hearty so the lowest and last perdition is wdiere the 
 very faculty of choice is perverted. As this deteriora- 
 tion goes on, so gradual is it that we have to look over a 
 long interval to mark the steps of the decline. It is 
 vain to deny, for instance, that respectable families allow 
 their sons and daughters the forms of social liberty which 
 fifty years ago their wiser fathers w^ould have been 
 ashamed of, and which now yield no particle of addi- 
 tion to their joy or honor. There are encroaching irrev- 
 erences that take down, little by little, the strict and 
 holy standard wdiich keeps the soul near to Christ, and 
 which, like the flying fiery cross among the faithful 
 Highlanders, should recall brave hearts to the front- 
 places in the Christian fight. These are the perils to be 
 
A HEAVENLY MIND HEKE. 253 
 
 watched if our Christian stability, our civil order, our 
 public virtue, our Church of Clirist are to stand fast, or 
 our own souls are to live. 
 
 And so the true confessors of this age are the men and 
 women who exercise their consciences day by day to dis- 
 cern between evil and good ; men and women who 
 replenish their spiritual strength by prayers in their 
 families, and prayers in their closets ; souls that keep so 
 far back within the entrenchments of a heavenly citizen- 
 ship as to be out of all risk of slipping over into dishonor; 
 men of business that will not take a second look at the 
 tempter for an additional thousand in their year's income ; 
 young men who will sooner resign profitable places 
 and turn to less tasteful work than let an initiation into 
 meanness and lying be a part of their training to 
 " success " ; women who choose that good part with 
 Mary's Friend, rather than wade through anbiguities 
 neck-deep to conquests of social ambition ; children that 
 would rather be laughed at than disobey, and rather mas- 
 ter their passions than each other : — all souls that have 
 made the glorious choice between Christ and this world, 
 while in this world, these are they that live heavenly 
 lives, and make this world heavenlike. 
 
 There are certainly two worlds within us, as well as 
 earth and heaven without us ; and one of them is apt to 
 get the mastery and press the other down. Take as the 
 divine image of the one of these, the Saviour's sacramental 
 prayers in the seventeenth chapter of St. John, or St. 
 Paul's description, at the close of the eighth to the 
 Romans, of the love of God, from which neither life nor 
 death will separate him. For the other take any un- 
 believing sensualist's frank testimony: — take Lord Ches- 
 terfield's, who was a type of his class. " I have run," he 
 says, " the rounds of business and pleasure, and have 
 
254: A HEAVENLY MIND HEEE. 
 
 done with them all. Shall I tell jou that I bear this 
 melancholy situation with resignation ? ]^o ; I bear it 
 because I must. I think of nothing but killing time, 
 now it has become my enemy, and my resolution is to 
 sleep in the carriage to the end of the journey." ^ow to 
 say nothing of what happens when the journey ends, and 
 of the waking out of sleep, and of the new question that 
 will rise before a man who has so poorly succeeded in 
 killing time, that time killed him, — viz., how to kill 
 eternity, — leaving all that, we see the contradiction 
 between the two worlds complete. The warfare between 
 the principles that lie at the roots of them is a deadly 
 warfare, and still it goes on. 
 
 It has gone on another season. All around you the 
 lower life has had more than its share. This is not a 
 professional judgment. It comes from those who live in 
 the midst of it. The tide runs over-fast, and over-full. 
 This world has had enough, too much, for a nation need- 
 ing regeneration as much as ours ; too much for a Church 
 which is yet a Church in the wilderness ; too much for 
 earnest followers of a Master who hungered and 
 sorrowed for them, owing all they have to Him. Look 
 up, above it. Set your hurried waj's and self-delighting 
 houses into a holier order. Keep under the body, and 
 bring it into subjection. Standing in these Lenten days 
 under the shadow of the cross, gather clear-sightedness, 
 iind inward power, and by dying to sin live unto God. 
 
SPIEITUAL WASTE AND WEALTH. 
 Palm Sunday^ or Sunday hefore Easter, 
 
 " He that gathereth not with Me scattereth."— /S'^. Luke xi. 23. 
 
 In the material economy no such rule is laid down ; 
 no such necessity exists. We can fold our hands and 
 stand still, neither scattering nor gathering. We can 
 direct our energies or withhold them. In all that sphere 
 of life which man holds in common with the inferior 
 animal orders he can expend his force here or there 
 without being said to rob merely because he does not 
 give. 
 
 But when we rise into the range of relations that 
 are spiritual we pass under a new and peculiar law. 
 Freedom remains. It is enlarged. But irrespective of 
 our own arrangement, we find we are subject to this 
 condition, in respect to one Supreme Spirit, — that if we 
 are not serving Him we are wronging Him ; if we are 
 not working in the line of His loving and bountiful 
 plans, we are striving against Him ; if we are not gath- 
 ering with Him, — gathering wisdom and strength and 
 purity and greater capacity for good and other " fruit 
 unto everlasting life," — then we are wasting what belongs 
 to Him. We are in a necessary stewardship, and this is 
 one of its laws. The law may look exacting in the 
 statement, but it is glorious in its operation. Neutrality, 
 
256 SPEBITUAL WASTE AND WEALTH. 
 
 not only in the posture of our affections, but in the use 
 of our active powers, is impossible. 
 
 Not far from each of the great scenes of our Saviour's 
 ministry tliere was a third party, taking no apparent 
 share in the transaction. Those that sided openly with 
 Him and publicly confessed their loyalty, on the one 
 hand, and those that expressly opposed Him, on the 
 other, became of course conspicuous in the conflicts that 
 sprang up about Him. By their direct opposition to 
 each other. Apostles and Pharisees, the family at 
 Bethany and the Council at Jerusalem, John and Judas, 
 Zaccheus and Herod, Joseph of Arimathea and Pilate, 
 immediately suggest to us two distinct classes of people, 
 — the friends and the enemies of the Son of God. 
 Decided convictions always throw men into definite 
 positions. 
 
 ISTear by, however, you might always find another 
 class, more numerous, probably, than either of them. 
 They are not brought forward into notice, because no 
 real interest or choice brought them visibly into the 
 struggle that was going on. Other things absorbed their 
 attention. This Divine, disinterested Redeemer, who 
 had come from heaven to speak to what was deepest and 
 best in their hearts, to take all their burdens and sick- 
 nesses upon Himself that He might call them more 
 effectually to honor and immortality, was walking their 
 streets and waiting at their doors. It was told along the 
 highways, in villages and cities, " Jesus of Nazareth 
 is passing by." They neither hindered nor followed 
 Him. The routine of the day's business, family festivi- 
 ties, social pleasure, bargains to be begun or closed in 
 tbe market, each one's little busy world of care or dis- 
 play or profit, was enough. What if the Lord of all 
 life, the Healer of all miseries, and final Judge of all 
 
SPIRITUAL WASTE AND WEALTH. 257 
 
 souls, is passing by ? Let Him pass. Give us a little 
 more of this world ; give us the meat that perislieth ; 
 give us popular envy and ascendency ; give us to-day's 
 abundance. What is Nazareth or its Prophet to us ? 
 Answer Him as He stands at the door and knocks, and 
 tell Him there is no room for Him in our houses ; we 
 are engaged and cannot see Him ; in this great tavern of 
 a world, as in the inn at Bethlehem, there is no room for 
 Him. The world ignores its King. 
 
 It was so on that strange, excited morning, at the be- 
 ginning of Passion-week, which this Palm Sunday com- 
 memorates. For some unexplained reason, there must be 
 the outward spectacle of a royal reception of the Messiah 
 into His own city. He comes unto His own nation, and 
 His own received Him not, because He came as a sacrifice 
 and a servant. Yet they must appear to receive him. 
 Hosannas, branches of the palm, the olive and the cedar, 
 torn from the trees, garments spread in the road, must 
 make up the wild and melancholy demonstration of a 
 hollow or at best a half-instinctive enthusiasm. Christ's 
 journey towards the cross begins with this sacrificial 
 anguish at the acclamations of a populace who knew not 
 what they did : — hosannas on their lips to-day, but mal- 
 edictions and " Crucify Him," five days hence ! Palm- 
 branches waving on the heights of Olivet one day, 
 slumbers of heavy eyes or careless vigils in the garden of 
 agony four days after ! In the midst of this jubilant 
 concourse. He wept. Here were the two parties then : — 
 a frenzied and mistaken multitude in the streets ; a plot- 
 ting and hating cabal of jealous rulers and scribes at the 
 court-room in the city. But, remember, between these, 
 and all around them both, was a greater company, that 
 we hear nothing about: indifferent, undecided; not 
 planning murder for the Nazarene, with the Pharisees ; 
 
 17 
 
258 SPIRITUAL WASTE AND WEALTH. 
 
 not following in admiration with his friends ; but caring 
 for none of these things. Thes^ were travellers making 
 their way, that day, engrossed with their own affairs, 
 from Jerusalem out to Bethany, or on to Jericho, or 
 over to the Jordan, who only uttered an exclamation of 
 impatience or contempt that their way was blocked up, 
 and their business delayed, by this intruding stranger, — 
 just as men complain now when the Church interrupts 
 their traffic with her worship, or when Providence shuts 
 them into a sick-chamber that they may repent and lay 
 hold of life. Yery likely there were men and even 
 women there that He had healed once, or whose chil- 
 dren He had healed, who had gone back to their houses 
 to enjoy an ungrateful comfort, and to make a selfish 
 waste of the lives His mercy had lengthened out ; blind 
 men whose eyes He had opened, that looked upon every- 
 thing else than His blessed countenance ; withered hands 
 that He had made whole, which gathered not for His 
 garner, nor even reached out for a palm-branch to honor 
 Him ; tongues there, whose strings He had loosened, 
 that would not speak His name or join in the hosannas. 
 They probably imagined they took no part against Him. 
 They certainly took no part for Him, or against His 
 enemies. 
 
 It was so with the still more august and solemn events 
 that followed. It was so on the night of the Supper, 
 when the little band went out in silence, under the 
 Paschal moon, from the upper chamber to Gethsemane, 
 and when the soldiers, led by the traitor, crept into the 
 shaded garden with their torches, and fell to the ground 
 before the face of the Son of Man. It w^as so the day 
 after, when a few persons collected aBout the Judgment 
 Hall. It was so, later, from the sixth to the ninth hour, 
 when the sudden darkness and the earthquake startled 
 
SPIRITUAL WASTE AND WEALTH. 259 
 
 the people witli the exclamation that the Lamb of God, 
 " slain from the foundation of the world," was dying. 
 It was so in the wonderful reports that filled the air, 
 Easter morning. It has been so ever since, in all the 
 Palm Sundays, all the Good Fridays and Easter Sun- 
 days, all the fasts and feasts, all the days of death and 
 burial, all the years, all the ages. It will be so this 
 coming week. The greater number are those that take 
 no open part for the Master or against Him. Doing 
 nothing, — by honest confession, by a brave enrolment, 
 by the obedience of faith, — to gather treasure for Christ, 
 they imagine they are doing nothing to scatter and 
 waste it. 
 
 He speaks to that large third class among you to-day. 
 If there is any question about that position, — as to its 
 rightfulness, or its safety, or where those that are trying 
 to hold it really belong, — does He not settle that ques- 
 tion by the text ? " He that gathereth not with Me 
 scattereth." 
 
 Just before, the evangelist says, Christ had been 
 speaking, with fearful emphasis, of the two hostile king- 
 doms, which forever confront each other in this world. 
 The strong one armed keepeth his own palace. He 
 will never surrender it, or one particle of it, in any 
 human soul, till a stronger than he, — and there is only 
 one stronger, — binds him. He will seem to surrender 
 it ; he will call it by some innocent name ; he will cover 
 it with a Christian title ; he will deceive, flatter, prom- 
 ise, and manage ; he will transform himself into an angel 
 of light ; but he will do it all to keep his own. Equally 
 exclusive, over against that dark kingdom, is the king- 
 dom of light : open, candid, without concealment or 
 evasion, rejoicing in the truth, all its deeds done in the 
 day, but admitting no admixture, no compromise, no 
 
260 SPIRITUAL WASTE AND WEALTH. 
 
 neutrality. Everywhere, wliat fellowship hath light 
 with darkness? Anywhere, what part hath the true 
 subject with the traitor ? In every soul, these two king- 
 doms and their laws are contrary the one to the other. 
 It is remarkable, in all the Gospel, how invariable and 
 how clear Christ makes this doctrine of absolute and 
 necessary separation. There is no third party after all. 
 There is no place for one. Non-profession does not 
 make non-allegiance, or neutrality. It makes allegiance 
 to the enemy. It makes disloyalty. "He that is not 
 with Me is against Me." 
 
 The universality of this twofold law, therefore, and 
 the impossibility that any human being in Christendom 
 should so escape from it as to stand neither with God 
 nor with His enemies, is the iirst great truth of the sub- 
 ject. Into that sharp conflict that is going on between 
 the two kingdoms everything is drawn. Nobody lives ; 
 nothing by any moral agent, any man, is done ; nothing 
 is thought, written, spoken, built, bought or sold, begun 
 or finished, outside the field of that warfare and the 
 necessity of that choice. 
 
 The next truth to be remembered is our dangerous 
 liability to be deceived just at that point, i. e.^ to reckon 
 as harmless or safe courses of life that are really anti- 
 Christian. Between the Church and the dens of gam- 
 blers, drunkards, thieves, and profligates, between the 
 communion-table and the jail, there runs a broad strip of 
 moral territory, wearing a respectable look ; it seems to 
 belong neither to the one nor to the other. Why not 
 set up over that territory, including so much of business, 
 society, study, and so many people, the name of Chris- 
 tianity ? Why not let it pass as Christian ground, with 
 all its mixed companies, selfish passions, and worldly 
 practices ? " Heathenism " has a bad sound. 
 
SPmmiAL WASTE AND WEALTH. 261 
 
 All this might very well be if Christ had not come 
 and revealed another law and another judgment. The 
 moment He appears, — and wherever the Gospel is 
 preached He does appear, — then separation begins. 
 Reveal to any commnnity a new trutli or propose a 
 new reform, and it acts at once as a touchstone of 
 their quality. According as they receive or reject it 
 they are driven apart. But when Christ comes, He 
 comes as the Lord of every soul that lives; the truth 
 He reveals is universal truth. He is not concerned 
 for a majority; He wants purity: "first pure, then 
 peaceable." The more He can gain, the more will 
 the infinite compassion of His loving heart rejoice; 
 but be the penitents and the believers many or few, the 
 repentance must be true, the faith hearty, the allegiance 
 above suspicion. So He says, " He that gathereth not 
 with Me scattereth." If there are any, here or else- 
 where, who think they do enough because they are not 
 positive opponents, mockers or infidels ; who think that, 
 because they never persecute, or revile, or take a traitor's 
 silver, or meet to plot with Scribes and Pharisees for 
 Herod, therefore they are not secretly fighting against 
 their eternal King, Christ here assigns them tlieir place 
 with terrible distinctness. Unlike the politic leaders of 
 earthly kingdoms, He fearlessly casts this middle-party 
 from Him, — that it may thereby become truly His. All 
 are scatterers that are not gatherers with Him. There is 
 a striking record, in the Book of Numbers, of a prophet 
 who tried, in perilous days, tc be on neither side, and pal- 
 tered with a double tongue between the true God and His 
 enemies ; but at last the issue between the two armies 
 could be no longer evaded, and, after the battle, the body 
 of this compromising neutral, Balaam, was found on the 
 enemy's side, where it fell fighting against the Lord. 
 
262 spiEiTUAL waste" and wealth. 
 
 It is in this sense that Christ comes to put men and 
 families of men " at variance " with one another, — a 
 strange thing to be written of Him. It is not for divis- 
 ion's sake, but onlj that truth may not be confounded 
 with a lie, darkness be called light, and the very founda- 
 tions of all honor guilt. There can be no lasting harmony, 
 no healthy peace, but in Him in whom all things in 
 their unity consist. 
 
 " First pure, then peaceable." Man cannot be really 
 reconciled to man, save as he is first reconciled to his 
 God ; and there is only one Reconciler. In Him alone is 
 humanity restored, and man made one with his brother. 
 Not to gather with Him and for Him, is to divide and 
 scatter. It is He that "maketh men to be of one mind 
 in a house," in a nation, in a Church, in heaven. 
 
 This eternal doctrine needed never to be more plainly 
 repeated than now, when the contest is not with Baal 
 and Ashtaroth, Jupiter or Minerva, or any god of the old 
 mythologies, or with avowed infidelity, so much as with 
 a habit of dropping out, one by one, all the divine and 
 glorious elements of Christ's own peculiar kingdom, and 
 thinking to gather for human comfort or wealth, for 
 social or sanitary or literary " progress," without gather- 
 ing for Him. A few years ago a charitable sisterhood 
 for the benefit of the poor was established in London. 
 A writer in one of the public periodicals described a visit 
 he had made to their establishment, and after giving a 
 most interesting account of the self-denying labors of these 
 refined and delicately bred women, he says, "he was 
 curious to learn the motives that prompted them to take 
 up sacrifices so irksome and repulsive. lie supposed it 
 was human pity, or a natural benevolence toward the 
 beneficiaries; on inquiry he was surprised to find this 
 was not the case at all, but the strong principle which 
 
SPIRITUAL WASTE AND WEALTH. 263 
 
 actuated tliem was a religions self-rennnciation for 
 Christ's sake." They loved the wretched and the poor 
 because they saw in them the objects of the Saviour's 
 tenderness, souls for wliich He died, immortal spirits 
 tliey were to meet hereafter in His kingdom wear- 
 ing His image. They gathered for Him. That is the 
 deepest, strongest, and only lasting power of good works. 
 "We may fancy we can substitute other things : amiability, 
 philanthropy, political economy, a material civilization : 
 — they are all excellent as jparts of Chrisfs kingdom, 
 but all weak, illusory, a mere scattering under the ap- 
 pearance of gathering, if they are taken apart from Him 
 and set up for a religion. The Gospel never admits for 
 a moment the possibility of such a thing as a Christianity 
 without Christ. It is not enough to keep the old name ; 
 we must cling to the Eternal Person, if we would live His 
 everlasting life. 
 
 O Divine Teacher and Prophet, persuade us of this ! 
 Good Shepherd, who wouldst gather us all together 
 when we were scattered abroad ; Blessed Friend, who 
 wast for us when all else were against us, suffer us not to 
 be found indifferent, undecided ; for so we shall be found 
 against Thee ! 
 
 All is wasted then that is not done with a heart of love? 
 and that toward God ; all time that is not spent foi 
 Him, — these days of busy labor, in trades and profes- 
 sions; these unsatisfying contortions of effort to be a 
 little richer, or a little more noticed, or to climb one 
 round more on the ladder that you will slip from the 
 instant death touches your fingers ; these plans, schemes, 
 travels, bargains, buildings ; — they look like gathering, 
 but they are only scattering, unless in the midst of them 
 all your character is daily built up, a spiritual house, 
 Jesus Christ himself being: the chief corner-stone. 
 
264 SPERITUAL WASTE AND WEALTH. 
 
 Gather with Him and all the parts of jour life which are 
 yet alien or iniirm He will steadily draw into the unity 
 of His own Body, making it strong and pure and im- 
 mortal, knit together and making increase by the 
 edifj'ing of His love. 
 
 This morning, not with palms but with praises, we 
 welcome Christ as our King. He is our King ; we are 
 His subjects ; — but what kind of subjects ? decided or 
 wavering ? hiding the badge and colors of His calling, or 
 bravely confessing Him before the world ? Behold, thy 
 King Cometh ! Open to him the heart, the true Zion 
 where he loves to dwell ; otherwise He will look upon it 
 only to weep over it. Bring Him into the city of your 
 souls with the acclamations of a full faith, and follow 
 Him to His Passion with a sincere repentance, that you 
 may rise with Him, at his Kesurrection, into newness of 
 life. 
 
THE WATEE AND THE BLOOD. 
 
 Good Friday, 
 
 " This is He that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ; not 
 by water only, but by water and blood. — /. St. John v. 6. 
 
 By the form of tlie expression, " not by water only," — 
 it is implied that there are two beliefs as to the object 
 of Jesus Christ's coming into the world, — one of them 
 going beyond the other, and taking in something that 
 the other leaves out. St. John lived and wrote close to 
 the very heart of his Master. He rarely touches any- 
 thing that is not essential to the substance of the Gospel, 
 and he dwells most on what most distinguishes it from 
 other systems of religion. 
 
 In a few simple sentences this marvellously illumin- 
 ated mind has just thrown out some most profound 
 and comprehensive statements. " Whosoever believeth 
 that Jesus is the Christ, is born of God." " Wliosoever 
 is born of God overcometh the world." " By this we 
 know that we are the children of God, when we love God 
 and keep His commandments." " This is the victory 
 that overcometh the world, even our faith." Then he 
 goes on from this general doctrine to a more particular 
 definition of it. It is evidently in his mind that some 
 readers of what he is writing will say : — " But what is 
 this ^ faith ' ? Faith in what ? If it is a force so mighty 
 that it overcomes the world, it must have in it the divine 
 
266 THE WATER AND THE BLOOD. 
 
 energy of Him who gives it. Who is He, and what is 
 the mysterious power of His coming which makes Him 
 the Giver of eternal life to those that believe, in all lands 
 and ages of the world ? " 
 
 He answers thus : — " It is He that came by water and 
 blood; not by water only, but by water and blood." 
 There were probably those then, there are certainly those 
 now, who would have no difficulty in accepting the main 
 facts of Christ's birth and biography, would admit Him 
 to be a memorable teacher, a reformer of society, a leader 
 among moralists and philanthropists ; but tliey would 
 allow nothing further in His claims, as the Head of the 
 Church or the Saviour of mankind. They would prob- 
 ably declare that nothing further was needed to make 
 men all that they ought to be. 
 
 So, even among those who are disposed to call them- 
 selves Christians, we meet these two classes ; and what 
 they differ about is just that august event at Calvary 
 which on this day millions of men are remembering. 
 
 As to the transaction itself, so much as this is almost 
 universally allowed, — that at a certain date in history, 
 Tiberias being emperor at Bome, a man called Jesus, of 
 Kazareth, of pure life, having the appearance of a 
 prophet, arraigning and rebuking fervently the prevail- 
 ing life of society around Him, and claiming a mysterious 
 connection with the One God, after a public career was 
 crucified in the obscure province of Judea, near the city 
 of Jerusalem, by the combined action of the imperial 
 and ecclesiastical authorities, assisted by a traitor among 
 His own followers. Along with this fact, so far away 
 from us in time and place, is commonly admitted 
 another, which rises at once into solitary majesty, and 
 becomes a matter of unspeakable personal concern. It 
 is that, in some way, following upon the crucifixion, and 
 
THE WATER AND THE BLOOD. 267 
 
 springing from that spot, a steadily advancing wave of 
 spiritual, moral, and intellectual light went out, and has 
 been ever since spreading over the globe. The feelings* 
 and convictions, the institutions, the principles of per- 
 sonal action and the spirit of society, — what we call the 
 character of mankind, — have been changed and formed 
 anew from that hour. Mark this, too, especially, — this 
 change has been brought in the name of that Person. It 
 has not been a revolution of abstruse opinions or imper- 
 sonal ideas, like the progress of philosophy among the 
 Greeks, or the breaking up of mediaeval stagnation at the 
 crusades, or the transformation of European religion 
 in the sixteenth century, or the political theories of the 
 eighteenth and nineteenth; — it has always and every- 
 where gone on by a personal appeal, a personal loyalty, 
 a personal enthusiasm, — there is a better word yet, — a 
 personal faith towards that crucified Man, Christ Jesus. 
 There is no such name among men. It has made the 
 nations that have rceived it strong. The governing forces 
 of the world have not been superior to it ; almost the 
 whole line of commanding men, since the Caesars, have 
 acknowledged Him to be grqater than themselves, — hav- 
 ing a Lordship different in kind, and loftier in rank. 
 
 So much is almost universally granted. But, around 
 the cross where this Personage died, there stood four 
 groups or classes of men, representing very various 
 opinions of His actual title to honor. There were first 
 the people whom the Prayer Book, in the service of 
 this Good Friday, teaches us so tenderly to pray for ; 
 as the Saviour himself while on the cross, murdered by 
 their malignity, taught His whole Church Catholic to 
 pray for them, — the Jews. They treated His suffering 
 as a proper penalty for a disturber of the peace who 
 had promised to emancipate them from foreign masters, 
 
268 THE WATER AND THE BLOOD. 
 
 but had provoked the aristocracy, and failed. A 
 second class, Romans and other strangers, looked on 
 with indifference, sneering, with Pilate's sarcasm, at a 
 fickle rabble so excitable as to pour out in a 2:)rocession 
 with palms and hosannas after a fiinatic, who five days 
 after takes His turn as a victim of their caprice. Thirdly, 
 friends in perplexity, amazed women, their hearts torn 
 with many kinds of pain, watched from a distance the 
 dear form where their gratitude and affection were 
 sacredly enshrined. 
 
 But, scattered among all these, few in number, and 
 yet the vanguard of a mighty army, unrecognized build- 
 ers of a kingdom that was to rise from that spot and 
 conquer and outlive every empire under the sun, there 
 were certain men on whose souls the truth had taken 
 hold. They knew very soon why their Master died, 
 and what it is to believe in the cross. Afterwards, 
 instructed by a risen Redeemer for forty days, they laid 
 the foundations, they drew the outlines, they set in order 
 the worship, and they spoke the creed of the Church, — 
 the Eternal House which should gather and shelter the 
 family of Christ. "When they are inquired of, what this 
 dying on the cross signifies, they answer, " This death was 
 not only the last crowning act of that most merciful and 
 life-giving life which began at Bethlehem ; it was more 
 than that; it was the opening of the door into life eternal 
 for men who had broken from their Father and were 
 spiritually dead ; it was a perfect offering of Love, obe- 
 dient to Law, for the sins of all mankind ; it was a sacri- 
 fice of atonement, of such ineffable and Divine power 
 that it melts away the wall of separation which the 
 transgressions of the race had built up, and opens the 
 kingdom of heaven to all believers. There was disobe- 
 dience everywhere. Four thousand years of Jewish and 
 
THE WATER AND THE BLOOD. 269 
 
 Gentile self-rigliteousness had proved that there is no 
 self-recovering power in . humanity alone. That power 
 must be lodged in a Person who has in Him both of the 
 estranged natures that are to be reconciled to each 
 other ; — it must be a mediation between an everlasting 
 law of purity and right, which every man is concerned 
 in having kept honorable and inviolate, and the weak but 
 repenting soul, which has violated its commandment; — 
 it must be a suffering so free and so glorious in its charity 
 that it shall be a bond of union between believers, 
 mightier than the wall of partition which it broke down. 
 Be3^ond all the blessings of the Saviour's life among 
 men was the mediatorial mercy and reconciliation of 
 His death. So runs the teaching and testimony of the 
 Gospel, from first to last. 
 
 Each of the New Testament writers clothes this 
 truth in his own characteristic dress. St. John presents 
 it, with peculiar beauty, under the original image of the 
 text. Taking two of the most familiar substances of 
 the material world, — water and blood, — he turns them 
 into a figure of the great central doctrine of the Gospel 
 and the Church. 
 
 First the " water." Water is the emblem of spiritual 
 purification, because it is the common instrument of out- 
 ward washing. Our Lord himself, who was able to set 
 all symbols and all forms aside if He chose, went down 
 into the water, at the beginning of His life's work, in 
 order, we are told, that He might fulfil all righteousness. 
 He " came by water." There must have been weighty 
 reasons for this water-ceremony, so solemnly observed, 
 or He never could have made place for it among His 
 crowded days of teaching, healing, and comforting His 
 countrymen. He takes peculiar pains to say that every 
 Christian life must begin in the same way. " Except a 
 
270 THE WATER AND THE BLOOD. 
 
 man be born of water and of the Spirit," — an outward 
 and an inward washing, — " he cannot enter into the king- 
 dom of God." Nothing plainer is written. " Go teach 
 the nations of the earth and baptize them," with water, 
 was His last commission, when His work was done. 
 " Repent, believe, and be baptized," with water, " every- 
 one of you," was the preaching that converted the world 
 and planted the Church. So it is that each individual 
 Christian life, as well as the whole body of Christ, after 
 Him, came " bv water." 
 
 Why is this ? Because one great part of our Saviour's 
 work is to purify men's lives. Do they not need puri- 
 fying ? The stains are everywhere. In this congrega- 
 tion there is not one clean conscience. We can all see 
 the stains when we look sharply into ourselves, or into 
 society. Manners are not clean ; business is not clean ; 
 politics are not clean ; our literature and our tongues are 
 not clean. In their business dealings few men dare to 
 say that they are perfectly clean-handed ; and in their 
 solitude, fewer still will claim that there is nothing un- 
 clean in their imaginations. The Church herself has not 
 yet been presented to the Bridegroom a Bride without 
 spot. And therefore, in taking upon Him all the 
 plagues and sorrows of His human brethren, Christ came 
 into such close and vital sympathy with them that He 
 desired to go through all the outer as well as inner 
 forms of their experience. Human nature was in Him, 
 too ; it was tempted in Him ; evil came all round it and 
 beset it ; — and therefore He treated Himself as all these 
 human transgressors are treated. He Avas baptized with 
 their baptism, and they with His. The world was to 
 smite and sneer at Him, and spit upon Him, in spite of 
 His purity: in being holy for them He will also be 
 washed with them. He " came by water." 
 
THE WATER AND THE BLOOD. 271 
 
 Accordingly, one great part of the power of Christ 
 among men, through the Gospel and the Church, is the 
 cleansing away of moral corruptions. Whenever a pro- 
 fessed Christianity, or nominal Church, has not gone 
 steadily and effectually to reforming men's conduct and 
 institutions, by righteous education and a higher spirit, 
 there has been some falsehood at the heart, some 
 hypocrisy under the ecclesiastical cloak. " He that hath 
 this hope in him purifieth himself." Stains on the lips, 
 the hands, the habits ; stains on social courtesies, domes- 
 tic dispositions, every room of the house, and even on 
 Church observances ; woi-st of all, stains on the sacred 
 temple walls of the soul itself; — these all have to be 
 washed away, first by one true repentance and regen- 
 eration, havijig water for their sacramental sign, and 
 then, afterwards, by the repeated washings of Christ's 
 truth and spirit, applied faithfully to all the departments 
 of our action. Christ came to cleanse Ilis followers from 
 all unrighteousness. He " came by water." 
 
 But now shall we not only say, " This is true," but 
 shall we go on to say, " This is all that our Saviour gives 
 us, and this is the whole of His Gospel : — Christianity is 
 a system of moral education and religious improvement; 
 nothing more " ? 
 
 Is obedience to a perfect Law, and such obedience 
 as we at best can give, the only salvation ? If it is, I, 
 for one, must wonder how it is going with me ; and I 
 shall have to doubt whether your message to me can be 
 called a gospel of glad tidings at all. I confess to you, 
 preacher of this Law, that while I honor it as a law, 
 " holy, just," beneficent, and know that it comes from 
 God, I fail in keeping it: it is not only exceeding 
 broad, as David found it, but exceeding deep and exceed- 
 ing difficult. I fail in keeping it, have failed all along 
 
272 THE WATER AND THE BLOOD. 
 
 from the first, and shall fail to the end ; for the more I 
 keep it the more I see its breadth and depth, the farther 
 up its splendid standard flies, and the more shamelul 
 seem mj sins. You answer, " Yes, you fail, no doubt, 
 very often ; but you must keep trying : try again, and 
 then try again. You are defiled, but wash yourself. 
 Here are Christian truths and Christian precepts and the 
 Christian spirit : take them and cleanse yourself with 
 them. What you want is more of the water. Christ 
 came by water. It is all He brings. More water, — 
 more water to make you clean ! " 
 
 Systems of religion have made that answer. But, my 
 friends, there comes a time in the experience of earnest 
 people's minds when they feel that this is no answer for 
 them. They know, by a secret conviction, and no ration- 
 alizing and no philosophizing can drive it out of them, 
 that they need more than this ; that lor them to be saved 
 into the everlasting life, and into the presence and com- 
 munion of God, by a perfect mortal righteousness and a 
 blameless obedience is a fantasy so utterly out of all 
 fact and reason both, that to offer it to them as a ground 
 of salvation is a mockery. They believe that somewhere 
 there must be another half to match this fragmentary 
 piece of a mutilated revelation, and they are not mistaken. 
 " This is He that came by water and blood ; not hy water 
 onlyy but by water and blood." The daily sacrifice of 
 four thousand preparatory years had presignified it to a 
 waiting world. As the passion-flower sprang out of the 
 common earth, and held up its bright blossom and nat- 
 ural imago of the tree at Calvary, ages before the real 
 cross was planted in its soil, so the passion-promise of 
 prophecy bloomed in the expectant faith of the race at 
 the very gates of Eden. The serpent had polluted 
 Paradise ; but after all, the woman's seed should bruise the 
 
THE WATER AND THE BLOOD. 273 
 
 serpent's head. Man knew from the beginning that he 
 must have a Saviour to look to, or he was gone ; liu- 
 manity itself would die. He knows it now just as well. 
 Something tells jou that though you had an ever spring- 
 ing font at your side, a well of water, a river, a Jordan, 
 an ocean, in which you should be baptized every day of 
 your life, it would not wash out one of these deep-struck 
 spots in your conscience and your heart. Somew^here 
 among the sons of men there must be One Perfect 
 Obedience, One Sufficient Sacrifice, needing not, like 
 those shadowy sacrifices which prepared the way, to be 
 often offered, but " once oifered." 
 
 Then a living and loving faith in Him will work out 
 the true and healing life in every believing lieart. 
 " There is a fountain opened for sin, and for unclean- 
 ness "; but it is not a water fountain. This day we ap- 
 proach it. The more earnest our soul's life grows within 
 us, the more the conscience, while struggling bravely 
 with all its might for the keeping of the commandments, 
 cries out for this peace. The past, the bad, mean, selfish, 
 sinful, guilty life of days gone by, with all its accu- 
 mulated corruption, we cannot remember it without 
 remorse ; we cannot look back into it without anguish. 
 Only he who doeth the deeds of the Law — so it reads — 
 will live by them. Who of us has done them ? Where 
 are we then, my brethren, if there is "water only," 
 example and precept only, commandments only, sorrow 
 upon sorrow when they are broken, and the breaking 
 repeated still ? It certainly looks very much like sorrow 
 without end. 
 
 From our Lord's first coming in the flesh He knew 
 that He came not by water only, but by water and 
 blood. Among the most remarkable of Overbeck's 
 striking series of pictures illustrating the life of Jesus, 
 
 18 
 
274: THE WATER AND THE BLOOD. 
 
 there is one tliat represents Him as a Child in the car- 
 penter's shop. Like other children, He has been playing 
 with the tools, and has taken np the saw. A look of 
 solemnity passes over His radiant face ; and by the 
 shadow that falls on the floor underneath yon see that 
 the block of wood He is sawing out is taking the shape 
 of a cross. Joseph looks on in a kind of perplexed 
 reverence, and the Yirgin-mother by his side with a sad 
 admiration, as if Simeon's prediction were already begin- 
 ning to have its acccomplishment, and the sword were 
 piercing her own soul also. This is not imagination ; it 
 is rather interpretation. The* artist is only an expositor 
 of the evangelist. '' This is He that came by water and 
 blood." From the outset of His personal ministry, — as it 
 had been from the foundation of the world, — the Saviour 
 was pointing to the sacrifice, — journeying always towards 
 Calvary. Other prophets and reformers had come "by 
 water," preaching purification for the future. He alone 
 came "by blood," giving, in Himself, atonement for 
 past and future both. The august sorrowfulness of the 
 end rested evidently on His spirit. As fast as they were 
 able to bear it He unfolded to His disciples this real 
 object of His being born. He spoke to them of His flesh 
 and blood, to be given for the life of the world. He 
 explained, very early, to a Jewish rabbi, the symbol in 
 Jewish history, the serpent lifted up in the wilderness, 
 an emblem of the cross to which men have to look in 
 faith to be healed. He accepted, at His baptism in the 
 Jordan, the Baptist's ascription to Him as the sacrificial 
 Lamb of God, taking away the sins of the world. On 
 the mount of Transfiguration He announced more openly 
 "the decease that He should accomplish at Jerusalem." 
 To quote the testimony of each of the apostles would 
 be to copy a principal part of their several sermons and 
 
THE WATER AND THE BLOOD. 275 
 
 epistles. A very few concise phrases will call up more 
 pages to your memory, and sliow liow the whole strain 
 of their doctrine proceeds : " Having made peace by the 
 blood of His cross, by Him to reconcile all things to 
 Himself" ; " Ye were redeemed by the precious blood 
 of Christ " ; " While we were yet sinners, Christ died for 
 ns"; "We which were far off, are made nigh by the 
 blood of Christ " ; " Justified freely by His grace, through 
 the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God hath 
 set forth to be a propitiation, through faith in His blood 
 for the remission of sins that are past." We read what 
 is written to the Hebrews: "Without the shedding of 
 blood there is no remission of sins. Having therefore 
 boldness to enter by the blood of Jesus, — let us draw 
 near, — with full assurance of faith." We hear the voices 
 of the Apocalypse : " Unto Him that loved us and 
 washed us from our sins in His own blood, — to Him be 
 glory and dominion." We hear the mighty song of 
 heaven, like the sound of many waters, but singing of a 
 purification that no oceans of water could ever accom- 
 plish : " Thou art worthy, for Thou wast slain, and hast 
 redeemed us to God by Thy blood out of every kindred 
 and tongue." Even if all other tongues were still, in 
 heaven or in earth, we have the truth from Him who 
 speaks alone as men never speak : " This cup is the 
 New Testament in My blood, which is shed for you. 
 He that eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood, 
 dwelleth in Me, and I in him ; and I give unto him 
 everlasting life." 
 
 Can anybody think it strange, after we have repeated 
 afiirmations of Holy Scripture like these, that we repeat, 
 also, every year, with reverent adoration, the commemo- 
 ration of this day ? The day of the sacrifice on the cross ? 
 I can imagine, I think, the total disbelief, of pride or 
 
276 THE WATER AND THE BLOOD. 
 
 delusion, that sliuts the Bible up, with a sweeping denial, 
 or drops it in despair. It is more difficult to conceive 
 how any clear mind can hold on upon it, to call it a mes- 
 sage of moral education, with no atonement : — the water 
 without the blood. 
 
 We stand once more to-day at the foot of the cross. 
 I am half-ashamed to be handling cavils and objections, 
 before this mystic miracle of love, which fills a universe 
 with comfort and light. You can read, if you please, 
 the long line of argument, from Justin Martyr and 
 Augustine to the last modern speculation, on this vast 
 wonder of time, into which, we are told, angels look 
 with humility. But how plain the whole truth that we 
 need is found to be ! We are but children. Your soul, 
 mine, every soul in the world, under its temptation, its 
 infirmity, its bad desires , was sinking into death. We 
 had our unsuccessful projects of relief, failing one by 
 one. Infinite love reaches out the cross to save us. 
 God says to us in His Son, " Take hold of this : believe 
 on this, and live forever, — in thankful service to your 
 Lord." O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou 
 doubt ?" " The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from 
 all sin": — not "water only, but the water and the 
 blood." 
 
 The whole Gospel of our salvation gathers itself into 
 a personal blessing. 
 
 Whatever my personal fortunes, for the present, may 
 happen to be, I know that I am in the midst of a world 
 full of suffering and failure ; — things most valued are 
 passing away, and the best-beloved friends are dying 
 and carried out to be buried. Here is the body ; — not a 
 fibre of the flesh but is liable and sensitive to pain. One 
 little nerve pierced by a needle fills days and years with 
 distress. A careless shot alters the whole course of a 
 
THE WATER AND THE BLOOD. 277 
 
 young man just furnished for a successful career, blinds 
 him, cripples him ; or a crash on a railway crushes out 
 fifty lives at once, and leaves five hundred precious 
 interests, or attachments hanging upon them, broken up 
 and mourning. There is not a faculty of the mind but 
 lias its frightful capacity of torture. Disorder, short- 
 coming, wrong-doing, desertion, .hatred, loneliness, or- 
 phanage, shame, despair : what names these are ! And 
 what realities are under them ! The great w^orld's his- 
 tory is tragical, — a history of war and crime. Now, in 
 the midst of this sorrow-struck humanity, stands a soul, 
 seeing it all and feeling it. Perhaps it is yours. It is 
 told that above it all there is a God, and partly believes 
 it. But is He only above, looking down upon it ? Does 
 that God feel for this wretchedness ? Is there a heart 
 in heaven ? Does the Everlasting King love %is^ and 
 come close to us ? You read the epistle for this day. 
 You look on the face of Him despised and rejected. His 
 countenance marred more than any of the sons of men. 
 Behold the Man! You know that He is more than 
 man, — God's only Son. He prays, " Father, forgive 
 them." He dies. You know, now, whether there is a 
 heart in heaven ; whether your God has entered into 
 your humanity. "Herein is love!" We have a suf- 
 fering and a sympathizing Lord. 
 
 Sorrow is always venerable ; but the degree of it is 
 proportioned to the sensibility. Only a nature infinitely 
 refined, infinitely delicate, and infinitely pure, with an 
 infinite cajpacity for sorrow, could sufier as the Saviour 
 siifiered. No other atonement could be complete. And 
 herein was the love. 
 
 But there is a power and a glory of love beyond even 
 this. Taking one m'ore look around this great world's 
 chamber of sickness and groaning, you discover faint 
 
278 THE WATER AND THE BLOOD. 
 
 occasional gleams of a brighter law breaking in. There is 
 not only fellow-suffering, and not only suffering freely 
 borne for others' lieljp^ but. here and there some nobler 
 spirits, the noblest of all, are gloriously taking up and 
 bearing crosses in one another's stead, that the guilty 
 may be spared, that the lost may not perish, that the 
 worst may be saved. There is such a thing as voluntary 
 suffering to save the hateful and the hating, the spiteful, 
 the evil, the foul. Whence^ in all the universe, from 
 what one spot of singular and central glory, do these 
 beams of heavenly charity arise? From that hill of 
 sacrifice, — and only there, — where we gather our 
 remembrances and assemble our affections and offer 
 our praises this day. The revilers spoke a deeper 
 truth than they knew : " He saved others : Himself 
 He could not save." He whom the faithful Abra- 
 ham, of the morning lesson, dimly prefigured, sadly 
 building his altar and saying, " God will provide 
 Himself a lamb," spared not His Son. Herein is the 
 love that is Divine, — the love of the Son of God, on 
 the cross! 
 
 We come, then, finally, to the great confession, — be- 
 ginning in humiliation and ending in triumph, — the 
 confession of the sinful, redeemed soul. I am sure it is 
 mine. May it not be made, must it not be, — by every 
 soul here ? I am weak ; I am unclean ; I am broken in 
 my will ; I am evil, proud, selfish, passionate at my heart ; 
 I am stained all over with sin ; — and I am fighting 
 against adversaries mightier than I, where all that trust 
 themselves go down. Give me the water to cleanse.. 
 But, O Son of God, keep not from me the precious blood, 
 to sprinkle, to pardon, to redeem. I was far off; make 
 me nigh by that! I was dying; let me live by 
 that! 
 
THE WATER A^D THE BLOOD. 279 
 
 " I saw again. Behold heaven's open door. 
 
 Behold a throne! The seraphim stood o'er it. 
 The white-robed elders fell upon the floor, 
 And flung their crowns before it. 
 
 ** I saw a wondrous book. An angel strong 
 
 To heaven and earth proclaimed his loud appeals. 
 But a hush passd across the seraph's song, 
 For none might loose the seals. 
 
 " And straightway up above, 
 
 Stood in the midst a wondrous Lamb, snow-white, 
 As it were slain with the deep wounds of love, 
 Eternal, infinite. 
 
 " Then rose the song no ear had heard before; 
 
 Then from the white-robed host an anthem woke; 
 And fast as spring- tide on the sounding shore 
 The hallelujahs broke T' 
 
THE POWER OF THE RESUERECTIOK 
 
 Easter Day. 
 
 " To this end Christ both died, and rose, and revived (or lived 
 again), that He might be Lord both of the dead and hving." — 
 Romans xiv. 9. 
 
 In the facts of our Lord's personal history there is a 
 special satisfaction provided by each great event for 
 some special want that is common to men. From the 
 need of reconciliation with a broken law of right and 
 with Him whose perfect will that law is, met by the 
 Sacrifice, we pass this morning to our need of reconcili- 
 ation with our own future. Even the firmest believer^ 
 as he looks along the uncertain years before him, and 
 beyond them all, sees that much must be lost. Is he to 
 receive anything in its place? Three kinds of separa- 
 tion look particularly forbidding : — the separation from 
 human companionship, ftimily and friends ; the separation 
 from the present outward scene, as a familiar sphere of 
 activity ; and the separation of the soul from the body. 
 It is around- these three portentous mysteries that the 
 sorrow and anxiety gather, which Christ's rising from 
 the dead scatters. He meets them, as on this day, by the 
 demonstration of His living and eternal Headship over 
 the spiritual creation. All souls alive in Him not only 
 live forever, but they are in Him forever one. " To this 
 end He both died, and rose, that He might be Lord both 
 
THE POWEK OF THE EESUEKECTION. 281 
 
 cf the dead and living." By virtue of His inextinguish- 
 able Divinity we shall know our Christian friends again. K 
 Dying, the decays of disease, the dust of dissolution, will 
 not permanently overmaster the vitality which has its 
 springs in Ilim. The earth swings, half in light and 
 half in shadow, around the central sun. But to the 
 Household of Faith, such alternations are transient : — 
 the part now shaded and the part shining in joy will be 
 contrasted hemispheres no more, but will move into a 
 boundless noon, one bright and perfect globe, with no 
 need of sun or stars. This is the assurance, the conso- 
 lation, of Easter Day. 
 
 There are, however, two senses in which man is said 
 to be immortal. Natural immortality is simply the 
 lengthening out of bare existence, irrespective of those 
 loftier and nobler qualities which belong to what the 
 Christian calls life. If we take the idea of the best 
 of the old Greek thinkers, making humanity threefold, 
 — body, soul, and spirit, — we should say that beyond 
 the body, which alone dies, there is a second element, an 
 " animal soul," which escapes destruction and survives. 
 What kind of existence that w^ould be, with nothing 
 added to it, animal immortality, we have not the faintest; 
 conception. Nature casts not a beam of illumination'; 
 there; and Bevelation itself is dumb. 
 
 It is striking, — a fact in which it is impossible for men 
 who follow at all the courses of modern thought, and 
 who watch the bearing of science on the great problems 
 of the soul and the dogmas of the Faith, not to be in- 
 terested, — that the most prominent scientiiic assailant 
 of the Bible distinctly declares his belief in a future 
 life. While holding that the human race has been grad- 
 ually /c>rm^fZ upward^ or developed fi-oni the lowest ani- 
 mal type, instead of having been originally set by the 
 
282 THE POWER OF THE KESUEEECTION. 
 
 Maker at the head of creation, he yet admits that some- 
 where on that line of transmutations, this marvellous 
 and majestic attribute of immortality, or imperishable- 
 ness, has been acquired. How far this sort of " life to 
 come " differs from the ancient heathen idea, has not yet 
 been made to appear. 
 
 What we have to notice is that, — being sublimely in- 
 different to all the speculative or naturalistic theories, — 
 the New Testament starts from an entirely different 
 point, leaves the conjectures of philosophy wholly aside, 
 but offers to our faith what harmonizes indeed with all 
 true philosophy, and what no measure of knowledge can 
 ever possibly deny or ever touch, — the doctrine of eternal 
 life in Jesus Christ our Lord. 
 
 The matter stands there in a sublime simplicity. 
 They that live the spiritual life have it from the Son of 
 God, and by believing in Plim : — He rises from the dead 
 and lives forever ; — therefore they also live immortally. 
 These are tho short, clear steps in that evangelic argu- 
 ment. But no line of reasoning establishes the conclu- 
 sion. 1^0 dialectical demonstration ever attempted, — 
 not even the famous one of Bishop Butler, — is without 
 its weak spot. We are dealing not with the parts or 
 conditions of a problem, but with a living fact and a 
 personal reality. " / am the Ilesurrection and the Life : 
 — whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die " : 
 — this carries us beyond the region of premise and infer- 
 ence. We believe, or not ; and are blessed, or wretched, 
 accordingly ; but we are not argued into the conviction, or 
 out of it. The faith, however, in its certainty, amounts 
 to sight or knowledge ; and hence it is no exaggeration 
 when all Christendom, moving ever towards the grave in 
 the procession of its generations, declares in the burial 
 sentence, " / know that my Eedeemer liveth." 
 
THE POWER OF THE RESUREECTION. 283 
 
 It is remarkable, too, that in the New Testainent the 
 common term for this Christian immortality is the eter- 
 nal or everlasting "Z^/d," — or sometimes simply the 
 Life : — as if it meant to say that there is really no other 
 life worth living bnt this one of purity and honor, love 
 and prayer, beginning in a Christian here, becoming af- 
 terwards the life of heaven : so surpassing, whether in 
 this world or the next, is its richness, its joy, its satisfac- 
 tion, its glory. When we examine and weigh them care- 
 fully. Scripture statements that we had not perhaps 
 before looked at in the same light come to confirm 
 this view. Christ himself . says, in His last prayer be- 
 fore the Supper, that it is noiv, not merely that it will 
 he in the future, — it is now eternal life to know the 
 Father and the Son with this affectionate knowledge. 
 When He speaks of going to prepare a place for His 
 followers, it is that this personal intercourse may con- 
 tinue, — " that ye may be with Me, where I am." He 
 says, " He that eatetli My flesh and drinketh My blood," 
 — which is the mystical description of a deep and inward 
 union, — "hath eternal life." Everywhere He teaches 
 that immortality is not a gift conferred upon us from 
 without, as from hand to hand, but that it grows up in 
 the soul, as the sure consequence or fruitage of obedience 
 and trust toward God. St. John is full of this idea, — 
 that you may know whether you will live forever by 
 knowing whether you are following that Master, from 
 the love of Him. St. Paul speaks of being " absent 
 from the body and present with the Lord," and of his 
 desire to depart and be with Christ, — evidently regarding 
 a Christian death as a merely physical incident, an 
 emancipation from the flesh, — leaving the spirit more at 
 liberty to be in direct and active communion with its 
 unseen Friend. This is his magnificent message to the 
 
284 THE POWER OF THE EESUEEECTION. 
 
 Corintliians : — " I^ot for that we would be unclothed, but 
 clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of 
 life." 
 
 So we come to the text. It is the culminating of a 
 rapid and rising stream of devout thought, where the 
 one object that stands supreme is the risen Redeemer. 
 The real import of the Easter event is that Jesus, risen 
 from the dead, becomes thereby the personal centre and 
 giver of all spiritual life to His Church, and is a Lord 
 of the living and the dead. Observe some inferences. 
 
 In the lirst place, this Lordship of the risen Christ 
 over the living and the dead provides the only solid and 
 satisfactory assurance of the future reunion and recog- 
 nition of Ilis followers. The question that rises oftener 
 than any other to the lips of the bereaved touches this 
 point of reunion. " Shall I see him again, — my brother, 
 my child, my friend? Will the hand that lies there 
 white upon the breast be reached out to me when we 
 meet? Will the eyes of my mother, whose light opened 
 on me with my life, welcome my coming? Each dear 
 and trusted face, — by some celestial sense will its mys- 
 terious meanings and attractions be felt as they were 
 here, 
 
 ** * Lovelier in heaven's sweet climate, yet the same ' "? 
 
 There is no need to put these intense longings into words. 
 AVithout saying that they are universal, it can certainly be 
 said that they are common ; and they are generally 
 eager in proportion to the afFectionateness of the sur- 
 vivor's nature. You may try to construct a heaven cut 
 clean oiF in all its sympathies and attachments and recog- 
 nitions from this world we are in now. But you will 
 almost certainly then have before the mind a heaven 
 practically destitute of any sympathies and attachments 
 
THE POWER OF THE EESTJBRECTION. 285 
 
 wliatever ; too vagnc to awaken expectation, too unreal 
 to inspire enthusiasm; bleak, cheerless, and quite too 
 feeble in its attraction to meet the meaning of that 
 grand apostolic expression, — " the jpowei's of the world 
 to come." 
 
 He who rose and lives again is the Lord of the liv- 
 ing and the dead. They are not two families, but one, 
 because they are all in Him, in spite of the transient 
 curtain that hangs between the departed and ourselves, — 
 a curtain that probably has its only substance in the eyes 
 of our flesh. Tlie resurrection of the body of Jesus, as 
 the Church has always taught by the stress she has laid 
 upon it in the Creed, signifies the literal reality of all 
 that is promised the Christian in his future home, — the 
 actual identity of the person here and the person there, — 
 the actual renewal of affections and their interchange, — 
 for what is the identity, or the blessing of it, if the heart 
 has got to begin its whole history afresh ? It signifies the 
 actual restoration, too, of the society, the acquaintance- 
 ships, in other words, the common life and common 
 worship, only in purer and more exalted forms, of those 
 who have believed together, and worshipped the same 
 Saviour, here. 
 
 There will be no confusion of persons, no obliteration 
 of the lines that mark off one soul from another. The 
 individuality of the disciple is not absorbed even in that 
 of his Lord, — which would make a Pantheist's heaven, — 
 or in an undistinguished mass of strange life, — which 
 would make a heaven of pagan " shades." "We shall be 
 just as distinct persons, with all personal faculties, affec- 
 tions, sympathies, substances, yes, and appearances, as we 
 are now. In those celestial congregations there will, no 
 doubt, be something to be recognized b}-, in feature or 
 form, inbred on earth, and indestructible by dissolution. 
 
286 THE POWER OF THE KESUKRECTION. 
 
 Hence tlie need of a glorified, resurrection body, to be 
 set free, at the last change, — following the a7ialogy still 
 of His body who died and rose the same. Character is 
 getting fashioned under an inward sculpture of moral 
 experience, so that the second life will be the orderly 
 outbirth and continuation of the first, — only the gross^ 
 material elements giving place to those that are refined 
 and ethereal, wearing a dignity and beauty of their own, 
 and with every trace of earthliness and defilement 
 purged away forever. 
 
 As the preparatory process of the natural life goes on 
 in secret awhile, — as the seed must lie some time hidden 
 and decaying, till suddenly the end of that patient 
 waiting is found in the budding beauty of the leaf and 
 flower, — so a Christian man's entire mortal education is 
 but an obscure making ready for that moment when this 
 mortal shall put on immortality. 
 
 So, precisely, teaches St. Paul. " There is a natural 
 body, and there is a spiritual body. HoAvbeit, that is 
 not first which is spiritual ; but that which is natural, 
 and afterward that which is spiritual." " To every seed 
 his own body." That is the identity. This is all we 
 know about it ; but it is enough. Everything beyond 
 is speculation, and not revealed on authority. In due 
 time the resurrection-body will be made complete in all 
 its substantial parts, and will become the perfect organ of 
 the spirit of life in Christ Jesus. " Them also that sleep 
 in Jesus, God will bring unto Him." Tlie power of 
 their rising, — the secret spring of their new-born life, in 
 the regeneration that brings new heavens and the new 
 earth, will be the eternal Life-Giver himself, the Head of 
 the whole Family of Faith, the Lord of the dead and the 
 living, — having been first received here by faith, and in- 
 dwelling in the believer's heart. 
 
THE POWER OF THE EESURRECTIOK. 287 
 
 Again, — through Christ our resurrection-life will be 
 social, as well as individual. As everything in . the 
 khigdomof heaven has its type and model in the Person 
 of our Lord, so in the rising of His form, and the sub- 
 sequent interviews with His disciples, we see a promise 
 that, literally and forever, those to whom He imparts 
 His spirit will move together, in a family order and 
 freedom about Him, — whatever their employments and 
 spheres of action may be. [N'othing less than this can be 
 taught us by the parable of Lazarus with the patriarch, 
 by the inspired images of St. John in the Apocalypse, 
 by the company of saints made perfect, by the hymns 
 and amens of the redeemed, by the assembled spirits of 
 just men made perfect, by the whole fomily in heaven 
 and earth, — but, more than all these, by the reappearing, 
 in the body, of tlie Lord of the dead and the living. 
 Reason, to be sure, might conjecture or dream out an 
 individual immortality, — as four or ^voi of the ancients 
 did. But the universe is very large. Whither would the 
 forth-going soul take its strange journey, if there were 
 no centre of spiritual attraction, no living Head around 
 whom the society must circle, making a heaven by His 
 light and love, no Christ receiving the believer to Him- 
 self, where He is? 
 
 Another assurance, given by the fact of the Saviour's 
 bodily resurrection, is that of the independence of the 
 spiritual life on the material conditions and their changes, 
 which accompany dissolution. One of the sources of 
 materialism is the disturbance or utter eclipse of the' 
 mental faculties by physical disease, or by old age. You 
 stand by a bed and watch this distressing process, per- 
 haps the utter wreck and dislocation of a superbly 
 balanced intellect by a fever, or you observe the break- 
 ing up of memory and all coherent thought, between 
 
288 THE POWER OF THE RESUKEECTION. 
 
 eighty and ninety years of age. You see sometimes the 
 finest judgment inverted, the sweetest temper irritated, 
 the holiest piety become petulant, the strength of man- 
 hood sunk to a melancholy childishness. If you were 
 observing this dismal spectacle for the first time, you 
 might sa}^, as many a medical student has said in the haste 
 of his half-way science ; " It looks here as if man were 
 nothing after all but a piece of anatomical or automatic 
 mechanism. A few drops of blood too many on his brain, 
 a jar of the delicate machinery by friction, will unsettle 
 the soul from her seat, and, before the lamp finally goes 
 out, the flame burns so low in the socket that it seems that 
 body and spirit will be buried in one grave. The soul 
 must be but an accidental a2:)pendage to the corporeal 
 organization, and must perish with it." Such thoughts 
 pass through minds that take no pleasure in them ; and 
 faith reaches out her hand, trembling, for some support. 
 You pass then to the death scene at Calvary, between 
 the sixth to the ninth hour. There is no mental eclipse 
 in the august Sufierer ; but there is one sign set there to 
 show us how completely the experience of the Redeemer 
 includes the infirmities and agonies of our humanity, in 
 its inward as well as its outward trial, — the cry, '^ My 
 God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" We 
 know that the death was real^ till the gi^^ing up of the 
 ghost. Yet through all this sinking and final going out 
 of life, we see the indestructible soul asserting her 
 immortality ; unhurt she takes back all the energy and 
 capacity of which destruction appeared to deprive her. 
 It is a visible triumph. The bonds of death are loosed, 
 because it is not possible He should be holden of them. 
 Tlie third morning brings every slumbering faculty and 
 every lifeless fibre up, living, to its place. The Jesus 
 that speaks to Mary at the tomb, and to the disciples 
 
THE POWER OF THE RESUERECTION. 289 
 
 for forty days, is the same Jesus that prays, " Let this 
 cup pass from Me." And because He is ours, and we 
 are His, in the exact language of our prayer at the 
 eucharist, in the bonds of an inward and spiritual pos- 
 session, therefore all signs of decay and weakness pass 
 away with their transient causes. Beyond the tottering 
 frame, the faltering reason, the failing memory, beyond 
 delirium and dotage, beyond lethargy and all the lapses 
 of the mind, the soul resumes its power, its health, its 
 vigor of immortal love, because its risen life is in the 
 risen Mediator, hid with Christ in God. 
 
 Once more, we want this bond of unity between the 
 dead and the living to throw a purifying and ennobling 
 influence into our present daily life, to save it from sinking, 
 as our life is so terribly tempted to, into a besotted mam- 
 monism, an insane frivolity, or a miserable selfishness ; 
 — to make it a noble and ever more perfect preparation 
 for what is to come. How is it with us here ? We want 
 this constant " power " of a practical connection between 
 the two worlds, to keep the present from being a 
 mere scramble and carnival of the senses, a place to eat 
 and dress and sleep in — as well as to keep the future 
 from being a sentimental fantasy, or a dead blank. The 
 apostles join the most inspiring prospects of the glory to 
 be revealed with their sharpest protests against common 
 sins. We are immersed in falsehoods and wrongs, in 
 lusts and ambitions. There is no resurrection for them. 
 We are tempted hourly, — nobody denies it, — to unclean 
 transactions, to covetousness and bad temper, to envy- 
 ing and evil-speaking, to indolence, impatience, and un- 
 belief Now, one of the great powers by which we are to 
 struggle against these successfully, and finally overcome, 
 is the certainty of a day when Christ, — who is life to 
 those that love Him, and whose eyes are like a flame 
 
 10 
 
290 THE POWER OF THE RESUREECTION. 
 
 of fire to those that are untrue to Him and unrighteous 
 to each other, — shall appear. The new man in Him is 
 to be put on immediately. Even in these self-seeking 
 earthly streets the Christian is to walk unselfishly and un- 
 blamably, his pride humbled, his temper controlled, his 
 motives godly. Whatever is done in word or deed is to 
 be done in the name and spirit of the Lord Jesus, risen 
 from the dead, by those that are on the way to meet 
 Him. The true Christian's way through the world is 
 somewhat like the walk of the disciples with Christ 
 through the corn-field on the Sabbath. He does not 
 object to their rubbing the ears of corn for food, — i. e., to 
 their hands doing the ordinary and necessary business, — 
 because they are bound on His service, and need strength 
 to do it with for His kingdom's sake. But they must 
 work with Him. Try to make a little heaven where 
 you are, — in the house where you live, in the scene 
 of your daily toil, — and there will be little doubt of the 
 heaven hereafter. Do your daily work and do it cheer- 
 fully : — this is God's world, good enough for you and 
 me, — bad as some things in it are. Christ thought it 
 not too bad for His holy feet to press for three and thirty 
 sad, hard-working years. We are the workmen of a 
 Master who is as much here as there ; — the Lord of the 
 living as of the dead, and of the dead as of the living. 
 
 When we are asked, therefore, how we know that we 
 shall live forever, we reply, J^ot because some book of 
 arguments, or pledge in paper and ink, or some pretty 
 parable of spring-blossoms and butterflies tells us we 
 may ; but because every Christian can say for himself, 
 " I know in whom I have believed. My Redeemer 
 livetli, and no piember abiding in Him can perish. He 
 that believeth hath the witness in himself." 
 
 We lift up our hearts to the True Tabernacle in the 
 
THE POWER OF THE RESUEEECTION. 291 
 
 heavens, which the Lord hath pitched and not man, — 
 which will abide when all these houses of our earthly 
 tabernacle are dissolved, and with gates ever open to all 
 the separated dwelling-places of the one catholic and 
 pilgrim flock, — gates through which " they go no more 
 out." Blessed be He who died for us and rose again, 
 that the entrance is not shut at all, day or night, and that 
 those angels which keep it are not partial or prejudiced 
 angels, not mercenary or fastidious angels. The poorest 
 Lazarus will not have to wait for room to be made for 
 him by prouder people. The woman whose sins are 
 many and the man whose demons are legion, penitent 
 and healed, — the Publican if he believes and the Phari- 
 see if he is humbled, the Samaritan if he is " good " 
 and the Priest and Levite if they are converted, the 
 Prodigal if he has gone home and the rich Zaccheus if 
 he has made himself poor for Christ's sake, — they all 
 not only enter in, but they are willing to be equal there. 
 They count themselves to be all unworthy, and therefore 
 are made kings and priests together, in a spiritual royalty 
 and a priesthood of likeness to the High Priest who is 
 touched with the feeling of our infirmities. He suffers 
 little children to come in, remembering that He was 
 once a little child in Bethlehem for them ; — He welcomes 
 aged saints, like Simeon in whose arms He was laid. 
 
 Last night some veteran believer turned his face away 
 from the world and went to look for the place prepared 
 for him, — a good soldier and servant to his life's end. 
 Close by his side will be found the spirit of an infant, 
 lying down to sleep amidst his playthings, never con- 
 scious what the sign of the baptismal cross on his fore- 
 head meant. The flesh of the old man's heart will 
 have become as the flesh of a little child. The soul in 
 the baby's breast will spring forward into a seraph's 
 
292 THE POWER OF THE KESUERECTION. 
 
 strength, keeping its childish innocence. And both will 
 bear a part with the same thanksgiving in the Hymn 
 like the voice of many waters, saying, " Amen ; bles- 
 sing and thanksgiving be unto God and to the Lamb 
 that was slain." To this end Christ died and rose. And 
 still, to each one of us, as these seasons of the resur- 
 rection come and go, the Spirit and the Bride say 
 " Come " p and " Whosoever will, let him come." 
 
HOW THE RISEN CHRIST IS SEEN. 
 First Sunday after Easter, 
 
 "And as they went to tell His disciples, behold, Jesus met them, 
 saying, AH hail! And they came and held Him by the feet, and 
 worshipped Him." — St. Matthew xxviii. 9. 
 
 A FEW souls that had been most intimate with Jesus 
 up to the terrible night at Gethsemane, to whom He had 
 become more than all of life or love besides, pass in one 
 moment of surprise from the dismay of His crucifixion to 
 the complete comfort of having Him with them again 
 alive, His form invested with the mystery of this 
 new miracle of His resurrection. On the part of the 
 women it seems to have been an act of silent adoration, 
 not a syllable being spoken ; and we can well understand 
 why it should have been so. The Lord himself at first, 
 and for some time, says but a single word. That word 
 which would be as literally rendered " Rejoice," our text 
 translates into the statelier salutation, " All hail." The 
 verse before tells us that the disciples had received the 
 angel's announcement of His rising from the dead with 
 a mixture of contradictory emotions : — " They departed 
 from the sepulchre with fear and great joy " ; — and this, 
 too, we can all comprehend, if we know much of what the 
 heart contains, and how it fluctuates when it scarcely 
 dares to believe that it has actually grasped the one 
 blessedness it has most longed for. But what is of fear 
 is not of faith. The Saviour joins Himself, therefore, to 
 
294 HOW THE RISEN CHRIST IS SEEN. 
 
 the believing side of their hearts, sends away the last 
 remaining traces of their doubts, and makes their joy 
 full. 
 
 There are six separate occasions, at least, recorded by 
 the four Evangelists, when our Lord, after His resurrec- 
 tion, appeared to human eyes. That every particular of 
 these is brought into the narrative is more than we are 
 at liberty to affirm. St. Luke's statement, at the open- 
 ing of the Book of the Acts, that during the forty days, 
 until the ascension, Christ was occupied in giving 
 instructions to the apostles respecting the constitution 
 and administration of His Church, now perfectly estab- 
 lished and set up in the world, only waiting for the 
 descent of the Spirit from the ascended Head, at Pente- 
 cost, to set its wheels of life into their wonderful opera- 
 tion for all time, would rather seem to imply that much 
 is left unrelated, to be brought out, from time to time, 
 into practical shape, in the planting and training of the 
 Church, after the heavenly pattern, l^or do we get an 
 entire description of even these successive appearances 
 in their order from either one of the four biographies, 
 but only by placing them all side by side, examining care- 
 fully to see where each incident falls in, and so obtain- 
 ing a consistent and perfect record. What gives a new 
 meaning, however, to the whole account, when it is thus 
 arranged, and what has been singularly left almost entirely 
 out of view in the ordinary expositions of it, is that there 
 is evidently from first to last, running through all these 
 manifestations, an order of another sort ; that is, an inten- 
 tional and remarkable progress in the kind and manner 
 of Christ's showing Himself, according to the spiritual 
 condition of the persons to whom He appeared. Each 
 individual sees just so much of Christ as his state of 
 mind and heart, his religious quality and habits, prepare 
 
HOW THE EISEN CHRIST IS SEEN. 295 
 
 him and enable him. to see. In all religious matters we 
 receive and are blessed according to our own willingness, 
 that is, our faith. With this clew in hand you will find 
 there is something here of much greater signification and 
 beauty and power than will be gathered from a frag- 
 mentary reading of the several passages, or from treating 
 the manifestations as so many disconnected occurrences 
 without any secret law of internal connection relating 
 them to each other, or to the religious frame and capacity 
 of those who beheld them. 
 
 Of the several believing women that had agreed, the 
 night before, to meet each other at the sepulchre in the 
 morning, after their Jewish Sabbath was over, Mary 
 Magdalene was found to be first in keeping the appoint- 
 ment. That eager promptness was a remarkable and 
 very beautiful illustration of the saying of Christ, when 
 He had melted this woman's perverted heart and changed 
 her bad life, that they to whom most is forgiven love 
 most. She came very early, before the daylight had 
 fairly divided the shadows of the olive-garden; she 
 came alone ; her love casting out the fear of the solitude, 
 of the darkness, and of the soldiers keeping 'guard. As 
 she comes close to the mouth of the tomb, a single glance 
 shows that it has been opened. It seems to be the popu- 
 lar notion, — and many hymns as well as sermons have 
 perpetuated the mistake, — that the stone was rolled 
 away from the door by the angel hefore the resurrection, 
 as if to open the way for the Lord's arising. But if you 
 look accurately you see that the Lord's resurrection was 
 self-accomplished and independent ; and herein was the 
 special proof of Ilis divinity. In all other returns of 
 life to the dead some visible outward agency wrought 
 the miracle ; but, unlike Lazarus and Jairus's daughter, 
 Christ v^i^Q^ Himself : the omnipotence that first volun- 
 
296 HOW THE EISEN CHRIST IS SEEN. 
 
 tarilj yields, lets death have its way, and sleeps under that 
 face of death, puts forth now its own mysterious energy, 
 and the sepulchre is broken, not from without but from 
 within. It is afterwards that the angel moves the stone, 
 revealing the emptiness of the place, and \hQ,fact of the 
 resurrection accomplished, — first seating himself upon 
 it, as if to say, " You, hostile Roman sentinels, are now 
 dismissed from your post; a celestial watch relieves you; 
 the earthquake bids you be gone " ; — then passing in 
 to sit where the vanished body had lain. Mary does not 
 look into the chamber itself; but full of one thought 
 only, — that the rulers in their spite have robbed the 
 grave, — she turns back in her alarm and grief into the 
 city to tell the disciples. Two of them, — Peter and John, 
 run to the spot, — John outrunning Peter, Peter leaping 
 down into the sepulclire to make the search more sure, 
 and Mary Magdalene, having followed them out, coming 
 up less rapidly, but arriving while they are there. What 
 is especially to be observed, thus far, is this, — that 
 although Christ had actually arisen and was there, these 
 two men, Peter and John, did not see Him. They went 
 back into the city not knowing what had taken place. 
 And it is only then, when they have gone, that to 
 other eyes than theirs, to another kind of nature, of finer 
 mould and quicker sight, a woman, — a penitent, a soul in 
 which the mighty wonder of another resurrection had 
 been first achieved, weeping because they seemed to 
 have taken away her Lord, and she knows not where 
 they have laid Him, — it is to her tliat the- Lord first 
 appears. He speaks only her name, in that toae 
 which, after she had heard it once say, " Thy faith 
 hath saved thee, go in peace," she never could mis- 
 take ; she knows Him ; she cries " Master," with rev- 
 erent gladness; and she throws her arms about those 
 
HOW THE RISEN CHRIST IS SEEN. 297 
 
 feet which she had once washed with her tears and 
 wiped with her hair. 
 
 The second manifestation, — that mentioned in the 
 text, — follows immediately after. Other women come 
 up, with their spices and ointments. At the sepulchre 
 itself they see only angels, — some of them one, others 
 two, — giving rise to the differing statements of the dif- 
 ferent evangelists, — each one seeing according to her 
 spiritual vision, her measure of faith, or her suscepti- 
 bility to the message to be communicated. That mes- 
 sage was that they should go and inform the apostles 
 that Christ was alive from the dead. On their way the 
 Divine Form meets them, speaks to them, gives them 
 joy, and they, letting their clogging fears fly, fall on 
 their knees before Him, cling to Him, and worship Him. 
 Is it possible that a part of the motive for this holding 
 Him by the feet, in a kind of convulsive clinging, was 
 an apprehension that He was somehow to be again torn 
 from them, — caused perhaps by Mary's repeating to 
 them His strange language, " I am not yet ascended to 
 My Father " ? 
 
 It is not to be supposed that the impartial Christ, or 
 the Christianity of His Gospel, literally prefers the one 
 sex to the other. But He respects the nature of each, 
 and does not abrogate the laws of that nature. Had 
 this great principle never been forgotten, how much 
 miserable babble the modern world would have been 
 spared, and with what dignity woman might rise to her 
 real superiority, in spite of the wrongs of men ! To 
 that one, therefore, which has the cleaner and clearer 
 spiritual eyesight, Christ will disclose the first radiancy 
 of His glory, — the lustre of His resurrection-face. In 
 that sex which loves most, and therefore suffers most, 
 and is perhaps capable of sinning most, He finds the 
 
298 HOW THE RISEN CHRIST IS SEEN. 
 
 fciith-faculty most ready to recognize Him, and on that 
 therefore, — as if in a kind of compensation for the first 
 sin, the greater weakness, and the tenderer sensitiveness 
 to all injury, — He bestows the blessing of the earliest 
 benediction of His resmTection-voice. He makes women 
 the private messengers, not the public preachers, of His 
 Eternal Life; they are to tell it to His disciples, the 
 disciples are to set it into a system and to proclaim it 
 openly to the world. It is not till after many hours of 
 thinking and wondering, of anxiety, scepticism, incre- 
 dulity, weighing of evidence, and conquest of the 
 reluctances of pride, that the slow masculine under- 
 standing comes up to faith at all, and finally concludes 
 that it must believe. Even these apostolic men treated 
 the testimony of the women, that day, as idle tales and 
 believed them not. 
 
 But this is not all. The general spiritual distinction 
 thus drawn between the sexes reappears, in its measure, 
 between individuals of each of the two. And thus 
 there is a similar advance of clearness in the other suc- 
 ceeding manifestations. The circle continually enlarges, 
 from the solitary Mary to a great company of men, as 
 they are gradually prepared to see and believe. Toward 
 the evening of that same first day, Jesus joined Himself 
 to two of the disciples, — evidently the more spiritually- 
 minded of them, — on their walk to Emmaus; — but 
 though He converses long and wonderfully with them 
 and makes their hearts burn as He opens the Scriptures, 
 yet their eyes are holden ; and it is not till they are 
 brought under the solemnity of the supper at the end 
 of the day, as He blesses the bread, that they know 
 Him at all. In the course of the same day, St. Peter, 
 creeping slowly out of his doubts, is suffered to catch 
 somewhere a momentary glimpse of the blessed counte- 
 
HOW THE EISEN CHRIST IS SEEN. 299 
 
 nance that had always such a mysterious power over 
 him ; — notice that he also is a forgiven penitent, and has 
 a heart of such tenderness as is rare among men. That 
 evening, at a small assembled company of them in Jeru- 
 salem, the doors being shut for fear, Jesus is suddenly 
 seen in the midst. But they are still slow of heart, fail 
 to recognize Him, take Ilim for a phantom, and are only 
 convinced by the condescending demonstration to their 
 very senses : " Handle Me and see ; a spectre has not 
 flesh and bones. Behold My hands and feet, touch them 
 and know that it is I Myself "; and then, to make their 
 faltering belief more sure. He eats with them. A week 
 later, the same scene is repeated, only that Thomas's 
 doubts are still more obstinate and are subdued only by 
 the same patient proofs presented to His fingers and 
 hands. Later still, there is a promised meeting on the 
 shores of the Lake of Galilee ; but there is something 
 of the same slowness of recognition on the part of the 
 fishermen, the same mingling of apprehension with 
 belief. Still the circle of witnesses widens. On the 
 Galilean mount, probably the same mount where He 
 had been transfigured, he is seen of " above five hundred 
 at once." Keturned to Jerusalem, He gathers the 
 twelve about Him to give them their great commission, 
 and makes the appointment of the perpetual ministry 
 with its inward grace and outward seal. The ascension 
 is drawing near, to be followed by Pentecost. So He 
 assures them, " Ye shall receive power after that the 
 Holy Ghost is come upon you." With each new meet- 
 ing, as you see, these interviews grow more and more 
 natural. The disciples are less troubled and more at 
 ease. At last, when all is accomplished, when they 
 have become so familiar with His risen form as to be 
 certain and trustworthy witnesses, and when from the 
 
300 HOW THE RISEN CHEIST IS SEEN. 
 
 outward evidence of tlie bodily senses they have been 
 patiently lilted up to receive the finer credentials of the 
 Spirit, the communion having become very close and 
 very like that which they look for, through all their 
 sulferings and testimonies for Him till His coming 
 again, then He leads them out toward Bethany ; the 
 final words spoken. His form rises into the heavens; 
 they cannot hold Him longer, with all their love, to 
 the earth; henceforth they can only worship Him in 
 that heaven of glorious life to which He is ascended, 
 and from which they look for Him to appear once more. 
 
 Let us return now to that point in this series of 
 marvels where the words of the text come in, and take 
 out of them three or four great truths to carry with us 
 into our life. 
 
 First is the certification afforded by our Saviour's 
 resurrection to the fact of His divinity. " They came, 
 and held Him by the feet, and worshipped Him." 
 They worshipj)ed Him; and He neither forbade nor 
 checked that worship. Was not He the one true Teacher 
 of what true worship is ? Who so quick and sure as He 
 to detect the slightest traces of sacrilege? Who was 
 ever so prompt and so thorough in putting away every- 
 thing that was not His own ? He had said, at the temp- 
 tation, " Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and 
 Him only shalt thou serve." He had repeated to a 
 scribe the fundamental dogma of the monotheism of the 
 Old Testament. " Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is 
 one Lord." Yet He permits Himself to be worshipped. 
 Either the very root and essence of His transcendent 
 nature is so included within the essence and unity 
 of God that He is God in man, or else He is a created 
 being. If He is the latter, then worship paid to Him is 
 profanation. If He is the former, then this accepted ador- 
 
HOW THE RISEN CHRIST IS SEEN. 301 
 
 ation of His followers is only a consistent offering of the 
 faith He had Himself warranted when he said, " I and 
 My Father are one," — " that all men should honor the 
 Son even as they honor the Father." 
 
 It is noticeable that two of the most unqualified dec- 
 larations of Christ's essential deity were made to Him, 
 and sanctioned by Him, after His resurrection : — this 
 one of the actual paying of divine honors to Him, which 
 was repeated by the disciples just before the ascension, 
 and St. Thomas's hearty confession, " My Lord and my 
 God! " "We see in this just that steady development of 
 Gospel truth which is most natural. Tip to the time of 
 His death on the cross, marvellous as the tokens of the 
 Lord's superhuman character were, both in His words 
 and in His acts, it was the human side of His nature 
 that was kept constantly in view. A being having all 
 the visible attributes of a man, subject in the body to 
 mortal limitations, — to weakness, pain, fatigue, sleep, 
 hunger, tears, — moving and feeling as other men move 
 and feel, must leave on all about him the impression of a 
 human nature ; nor would it be very strange if the daily 
 sight of these external qualities should partly obscure, 
 for the time, the marks of a loftier origin and make 
 a belief in His divinity difficult. But the sepulchre had 
 now put a different aspect on all these mortal signs ; the 
 resurrection had transfigured them and, as it were, divin- 
 ized them. It had never been heard before that a man 
 lifted himself, by his own will, out of the grave and 
 asserted his superiority to all the forces of destruction. 
 Surely here must be nothing less than the Creator's 
 majesty. The divinity broke through the mortal in- 
 vestiture. In the glorified form the " Son of God " stood 
 revealed not less than the "Son of Man." They 
 worshipped Him, and He received their worship. 
 
302 HOW THE KISEN CHRIST IS SEEN. 
 
 Unless it belonged to Him, He must fall instantly in our 
 esteem to a lower place than any modest, clear-lieaded 
 reformer, or teacher, of tolerable self-knowledge, in all 
 history; for no such human creature could endure for an 
 instant to accept these honors. Henceforth to all the 
 Church and to eternity Christ should be owned in the 
 Christian creed and adored in the Christian heart, as 
 " very God of very God." The resurrection sealed that 
 doctrine. And so when we find it everywhere said in 
 the New Testament afterward that the apostles preached 
 " Jesus and the Resurrection," the meaning clearly is, 
 they preached Christ in both His humanity and His di- 
 vinity, and thus a perfect, almighty, all-suffering Saviour, 
 — Jesus, the man, our brother, Mary's child, and the 
 Risen One^ — our eternal Lord and Judge. Begotten of 
 the Father before all worlds ! Begotten, not made, who 
 for our sake became man ! 
 
 Place beside this truth another. These faithful believ- 
 ers were not believers in a one-sided or ultra spiritual- 
 ism. They ^^ held Him hy the feet, and worshipped 
 Him." It is contained in the original sense of the latter 
 clause, that they knelt down to Him. Here were two 
 outward signs of a living faith, and the faith was evi- 
 dently the more living for them both : — the touch and 
 clasping of the hands, and bended knees. Both were 
 welcome to Him who knows every secret spring of the 
 soul's strength, and who replaces the dead formalism of 
 the Jew with the vital forms of a spiritual kingdom. 
 So two principles pervade the whole system of redemp- 
 tion, from end to end. The Redeemer conforms to botli 
 when, from being unseen in the heavens. He puts on our 
 material flesh and blood, to reach us men. He conforms 
 to them again, when, in that glorified body, after His 
 resurrection, — which He has the power to render visible 
 
HOW THE RISEN CHRIST IS SEEN. 303 
 
 or invisible at Ilis pleasure, — He yet lets the women fold 
 their arms about His feet, bids the incredulous apostles 
 touch and handle Him, and convinces Thomas by putting 
 his hand into His side. He conforms to them both 
 when He solemnly establishes the two sacraments and 
 the visible ordinances of worship in His Church ; — He 
 gives grace, and its sign. 
 
 Again, a supreme value is set here, for the Christian 
 life, on the Saviour's personal presence. To us, and to 
 the Church for eighteen hundred years, that presence 
 has not been corporeal ; yet it has been literal and real. 
 What would life immediately become, to any Christian 
 who has really learned or even tasted wliat it is to live 
 in Christ and to have Christ live in him, if that reality 
 of Jesus Christ present with him were stricken out of 
 his soul ! What would his days of loneliness be, his 
 times of depression and discouragement, when all that 
 he has done seems vain and all that he tries to do unat- 
 tainable, his hours of extreme suffering, his bereave- 
 ments, his seasons of repentance or remorse? How 
 could they be borne at all if we could not do as the 
 women did, go to Him, hold Him by the feet, look into 
 His face, be sure of His sympathy and His abiding 
 love ? 
 
 Men of action, men of thought, if any of you do not 
 answer to this, or feel any reality in it, I do not know 
 how to reason with you about it. We can only tell what we 
 have seen or felt, — and that always very inadequately and 
 feebly to those that have seen nothing and felt nothing 
 of the kind. This much some of us cannot help seeing. 
 Those institutions and movements in the world, how- 
 ever moral or religious their object, and however brisk 
 their activity, seem to have no deep or strong or perma- 
 nent life in them which are without this livinor and con- 
 
304 HOW THE RISEN CHRIST IS SEEN. 
 
 scious connection with the presence and person of Christ, 
 so as to draw their constant supplies of power from 
 Him. Those, on the other hand, however few their 
 numbers, or scanty their treasuries, or apparently insig- 
 nificant their results, which are rooted and grounded in 
 Him, animated by the daily breath of prayers to Him, 
 in their members and leaders consecrated to Him per- 
 sonally, holding Him by the feet and worshipping Him, 
 — these seem to have in them a certain tranquil and im- 
 mortal power for good, and to be the salt of the earth. 
 So too with the souls of men. With whatever good 
 intentions, honorable aims, charitable feelings, and 
 abundant energy, they that are without this conscious 
 connection with the living and personal Head seem like 
 streams, however full, which run from a cistern and not 
 from the fountain in the hills. They have all that 
 human goodness and zeal can have without that one 
 secret and inefiable element of Christian love, eternal 
 and inexhaustible ; and therefore, while they are never 
 to be judged uncharitably, they are not to be trusted as 
 we trust what Christ holds in His almighty hand and 
 stamps with His cross. He does not say to them, " All 
 hail," and they do not hold Him by the feet and worship 
 Him. More than that, some of us, I am sure, have seen 
 this. A pure and aspiring heart, praying and struggling 
 for a deeper peace than it has ever found, generous, dis- 
 interested, devout, yet always restless and always dissat- 
 isfied because not conscious of an embraced and wor- 
 shipped Christ, at last begins, perhaps without argument 
 or theological process, to open its spiritual e^^es on the 
 form of the Son of God, — to say, timidly and yet confi- 
 dently, " I know not yet how to frame this trust in me 
 into phrases and formularies, and yet I know that Jesus 
 Christ is with me, is my Saviour, and has for me all the 
 
HOW THE RISEN CHRIST IS SEEN. 305 
 
 power and love I need ; I am sure He lives greatly in 
 me and for me, and that I live a little in Him ; I know 
 that my God comes to me in Him ; I know that all I 
 am capable of receiving of God I find in Christ ; I meet 
 Him in the furnace of fire ; I have found Him at Geth- 
 semane ; I have felt Him when I was tempted in some 
 wilderness ; I have rejoiced to behold Him risen when I 
 have walked among the graves of those whose lives have 
 sunk away as water sinks into the sand ; — yes, Him whom 
 having not seen I love, and in whom though now I see 
 Him not, yet believing I rejoice. I have known Him in 
 the breaking of bread, I have heard His voice forgiving 
 me when I confessed to Him, and His ' Be of good 
 cheer, I have overcome the world,' when the world 
 seemed to be overcoming me. All this is real to me." 
 Whenever this has so been said, we must have felt, 
 I am sure, that there was a new birth into an alto- 
 gether difierent and higher life; and that this life in 
 a man is precisely what the Gospel means for him, 
 comes to give him, and what nothing else is. Blessed, 
 oh blessed are they who whereas they have been blind, 
 now so see I Define or explain their faith as they will, 
 they have found out what it is to hold Jesus by the feet 
 and to worship Him. 
 
 Finally, what we saw to be true of the several disci- 
 ples in their witnessings of Christ's manifestations after 
 He arose is equally true, only in a slightly difierent 
 way, of His followers here. They that were spiritually 
 best prepared, by aftection, by earnestness, by sympathy 
 with the spirit of His life and cross, and by love for Him, 
 had the clearest and earliest disclosures of His glorified 
 presence. It is just so now. Tliey that are least occu- 
 pied with themselves, least engrossed with a business 
 that is all of this world, or witli a social life and its 
 
306 HOW THE BISEN CHKIST IS SEEN. 
 
 fashions that are all afar off from the simplicity of His 
 beatitudes, they that are trying to do and bear His will 
 in their houses, they that are busy looking after His lost 
 sheep, they that are ready to believe more because they 
 use the faith they have, they that repent most sorrow- 
 fully and put not their boast in anything that they do,— 
 these are the souls to which He will unveil the glory of 
 His face, whose eyes He will touch and open that they 
 may see more and more of His truth, and in whose 
 hearts He will dwell as He dwells in no temple that is 
 made with hands. 
 
WHAT IS HEAYEK? 
 
 Second Sunday after Easter, 
 
 " Father, I will that they also, whom Thou hast given Me, be 
 with Me where I am." — St. John xvii. 24. 
 
 From the accounts we have of the teaching of both 
 Christ and His apostles, they seem to have given less 
 space than we might have expected to the particulars of 
 the souPs condition after death. A few great, simple, 
 commanding, comprehensive assurances are made to 
 stand out before us, with outlines that are very sharp 
 and foundations that are very broad and firm, like the 
 mountain peaks of a country towards which we sail. 
 The region around them lies indistinct, till we come to 
 it; it is enough that the summits, with their heads 
 lifted to the sun, tell us that the continent is there, with 
 only some general intimations of its extent, and the mark 
 of the shore. The fact of the Christian's immortality, 
 the fact of the judgment at the entrance, the fact of the 
 separation of the righteous from the wicked, the fact 
 that this judgment proceeds on one principle, and tliat 
 this separation is determined by one affection or the ab- 
 sence of it, the fiict that afterward there are two parted 
 families, each of them a social state, the perfect blessed- 
 ness of the one consisting supremely in the fully recog- 
 nized presence and love of the Lord, and the complete 
 wretchedness of the other in absence from Him, — these 
 
308 WHAT IS HEAVEN? 
 
 are all. However much besides a Christian intelligence 
 may reasonably infer or Christian hope habitually 
 expect, gathering it up from scriptural allusions or nat- 
 ural analogies, these only are the established verities. 
 They are taken out of the realm of doubt, or conjecture, 
 and are settled, as the hills are settled. On these the 
 Scriptures lay all the stress. Around and under them 
 they spread out all that immortal land. To the faithful 
 who seek by patient well-doing there shall be glory, 
 honor, and immortality ; — but tribulation and anguish 
 to every soul that loveth and doeth evil. And yet to 
 every Christian mind there must always be an intense 
 interest in the questions that arise about that future life. 
 It is not the intellect only, but the heart, that asks them. 
 "What kind of a life will it be ? What is heaven ? In 
 what part of the universe will it be found ? What will 
 be its appearance or scenery ? What can those occupa- 
 tions be that, — when this world and all its business and 
 all its resources, its lights and shadows, its cares and 
 comforts, have swept away into the common darkness, — 
 will come in to fill up and satisfy the desires of the soul, 
 forever and ever ? Who will our companions be ? How 
 much of what we know and feel, and call " ours," in this 
 present life, will in any form be restored or renewed to 
 us there ? Other kindred inquiries will occur to many 
 of you as having visited and revisited your minds, dwell- 
 ing there perhaps unanswered, till the silence became 
 oppressive. Meantime, modern science pushes forward 
 nearly all its investigations on the plane of physical 
 phenomena and terrestrial life. Enterprise, labor, dis- 
 covery, commerce, art, civilization, — these passionate and 
 vigorous interests tell us nothing of the spiritual world, 
 — which nevertheless girds and besets us all about, and 
 hangs close above us ; — they sometimes rather blind us 
 
WHAT IS HEAVEN? 309 
 
 to it, though they need not. And so, unless Faith lifts 
 her hand and opens the veil, our life, whether intellectual 
 or industrial, is all only a one-sided movement, and our 
 souls are bereft of their grandest strength and peace. 
 
 Now, the ]^ew Testament has its own way of meeting 
 all these questions. Instead of taking them up one by 
 one, and attempting to give us particular information, 
 — which we should, of necessity, from the difference be- 
 tween that other world and this, be unable to under- 
 stand, and which would do little for us but excite an 
 unhealthy curiosity and disqualify us for what we have 
 to do here, — it takes us by the hand and draws us 
 directly to Jesus Christ. It puts us into immediate 
 communication with Him. It points us to His person. 
 It persuades us that all the good we can hope for or 
 receive will come from Him. It assures us, by the cross 
 He bears, that all our sins, under which we were dying 
 an endless death, have remission and cleansing through 
 His sacrifice. It shows us in Him a Love that is 
 infinite in its tenderness and patience, — but at the same 
 time a Power to take care of us, a Wisdom to en- 
 lighten and guide us, and a Holiness to sanctify us, 
 in equal measure with that Love. Then^ when it has 
 drawn and fastened to Him our supreme faith, so that 
 we feel there is no really good thing that we can have 
 or desire but it will come to us through Him, it begins 
 to speak to us of the other world to come. It lets us 
 hear Him say, " Father, I will that they also, whom Thou 
 •hast given Me, be with Me where I am." Heaven 
 will be to he with Ilim^ forever, — with Him in a deeper 
 and larger and more perfect sense than we ever can be 
 here ; having a deeper knowledge of Him than is pos- 
 sible here, a clearer sight, a closer and more actual com- 
 munion, larger receptions of His spirit. Heaven will be 
 
310 WHAT IS HEAVEN? 
 
 to see more, and more constantly, the wonderful richness 
 of His character, its tenderness and grandeur, its purity 
 and holiness, its glory and beauty. Heaven will be to 
 comprehend more entirely what it was that He did for 
 us when He so loved ns as to give Himself for us, and 
 what the suffering and the sin were from which His 
 sinless suffering saved us. Heaven will be to be made 
 like Him, fashioned into that mysterious and most 
 excellent living image. " We know not what we shall 
 be, but we know that we shall be like Him, for we shall 
 see Him as He is." 
 
 Mark how the doctrine opens by this method. Heaven 
 is not, then, as it is often represented, a mere appendage 
 or supplement to this life, affixed to its end. ]^or is it a 
 foreign territory with which we become acquainted by an 
 outside description, and then enter by a second existence. 
 It is rather the perfecting and widening out of that life 
 of Christ within the discijple^ or of the disciple's life with 
 Him, — whichever way we express it, for it is really both, 
 — only in conditions of greater freedom and power. 
 This life was '' new " whenever we chose to take up our 
 Christian privileges, and to treat them as realities. 
 But whenever it began, once begun it is everlasting. 
 Heaven is the great part of it yet to come, and we know 
 it is by far the best part, because it will be more Christ- 
 like. His spirit and His will must act with unhindered 
 and unlimited power, through all hearts. The obstacles 
 and drawbacks of sin and sorrow, remorse and suffering, 
 of bad passions and misunderstandings, of weakness and 
 guilt, of parsimony, pride and conceit, of disease and 
 death, will have come to an end. You have held 
 between your fingers in April a little black powder 
 rubbed from the pods of a lily ; and you have seen, at 
 midsummer, the superb blossom that seems as if it might 
 
-WHAT IS HEAVEN? 311 
 
 have been transplanted from Eden. That heavenly life 
 80 grows out of this Christian life here, as the perfect, 
 splendid flower grows out of the small, plain seed in the 
 dirt, — yet not by any law of material nature, but by the 
 law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. Heaven is not 
 a place to which Christ goes as a foreigner, tin ding it 
 heaven already. He makes it heaven. It will be heaven 
 to any one of us only as we have Him^r^^ in our hearts. 
 Heaven to us is included in Christ, as the less is included 
 in the greater. It is the unfolding or flowering out of 
 the energy of His Light and Love. We are not to speak 
 of " going to heaven," as if that were the first thing ; but 
 of becoming one with Christ, — and then going to heaven 
 will come in, in its time, as a part, the perfect part of 
 that. Once united in living sympathies and aftections 
 with Him, so that we live for the same holy and blessed 
 things for which He lives, heaven comes of course. 
 
 Christ himself says in His prayer that it is now, — not 
 merely that it will be, — eternal life to know the Father 
 and the Son. He tells His followers that He goes to 
 prepare a place for them, that they may be with Him 
 where He is. He says, " He that eateth My flesh and 
 drinketh My blood hath eternal life." Everywhere He 
 teaches that immortality is not a gift conferred from 
 without, as when we are transported from one country 
 to another, but that it grows up in the soul as the neces- 
 sary fruit of faith and holiness. St. John says you may 
 know whether you have eternal life by knowing whether 
 you believe in the Son of God. None of the apostles 
 has any conception of heaven and its happiness, except 
 in direct connection with the presence of the Eedeemer. 
 The glimpses we have in the Apocalypse of heavenly 
 employments always disclose Him to us as the Life of 
 the place. 
 
 fTJiriVBRSITri 
 
312 WHAT IS HEAVEN? 
 
 It may be inquired, whether this would not somehow 
 confine or narrow down the range of the heavenly 
 enjoyments. Would there not be a wearisome monotony 
 in the unvaried celebration, through eternity, of any^ 
 the most glorious King, the most enthusiastically loved 
 and admired Leader, or even of a Divine Deliverer ? 
 But it needs to read Scripture with only a moderate 
 intelligence to correct any such impression. The sacred 
 writers never meant to say that the total and uninter- 
 rupted occupation of the future state will be a literal 
 ofi*ering of vocal praise, in song, to the Saviour. They 
 freely picture that life under strong imagery. Worship 
 will be there, as here, the highest and most satisfying 
 act of the spirit. Think of the immortal sublimity of 
 those celestial liturgies; of the great harmonies that 
 will lift up the multitude of souls that no man can num- 
 ber, and of the real " marriage supper" ! It will be the 
 highest sense of satisfaction and rapture that we ever have 
 in these services and sanctuaries on earth, multiplied and 
 intensified ten thousand fold ; and then it would not be 
 strange if it were more frequent or longer continued. 
 But we must remember that we shall remain social 
 beings there, and carry all our individuality along with 
 us, and have all the powers and faculties there that we 
 have here. Of course they must be used. There is not 
 the least reason to doubt that our actual employments in 
 heaven will not only be loftier but far more diversified 
 and wide-spread than they are here or than we can even 
 conceive of their being made here. When any soul 
 becomes inspired and enlarged with a personal devotion 
 to the Saviour in this world, that certainly does not 
 restrict its energies, or make its movements monotonous. 
 On the contrary, every capacity is quickened by this 
 grand affection. And so in heaven. Christian love 
 
WHAT IS HEAVEN? 313 
 
 being the motive of every act, the acts themselves may 
 be infinitely various; and, thankful service to the 
 Saviour being the delight of that Eternal Day, the 
 service may show itself in such differing ministries as 
 the busiest and most useful Christians here are not able 
 to imagine ; and there shall be among them things that 
 God hath prepared for those that love Ilim which eye 
 hath not seen, or ear heard, or heart conceived. 
 
 And yet, my friends, if we take any one of those 
 great changes in our condition which we should all alike 
 agree in considering the most desirable as we pass from 
 the earthly to the heavenly state, and dwell upon it, we 
 shall see how it must proceed directly from the influence 
 and the power of the presence of Christ, judging only 
 by what He revealed Himself as being and doing in 
 this world. We should all desire, for example, an 
 increase of the powers of life and love and motion. See, 
 then, how when He was on earth He wrought just that 
 invigorating and quickening effect on every soul that 
 gave itself to Him, illuminating ordinary intellects in 
 such a way that they became the teachers of all ages, 
 turning mechanics into masters of the minds of scholars 
 and- thinkers, making a few fishermen the famous men 
 of the world, and establishing among jealous nations 
 and races a brotherhood that outlasts all their revolu- 
 tions. We should desire exemption from what hurts 
 and afflicts us here, especially from disease and death. 
 Consider how much of the Saviour's time on earth was 
 given to the removal of these evils, and especially that 
 there is no trace of any such thing on earth as the restor- 
 ation of life to the dead, since the world began, except 
 through His interposition. We should long for a society 
 where mutual charity would take the place of selfish- 
 ness, strife, and over-reaching, as the principle of social 
 
314 WHAT IS HEAVEN? 
 
 commerce and advancement. And how plain it is, from 
 Christ's teachings and sacrifices here, that just that 
 blessed change must come in a society where His spirit 
 would be the unresisted law. We should hope to be 
 freed from sin. And who could doubt that He who 
 left heaven and came into the world on purpose to 
 cleanse and deliver it from sin would banish it forever 
 from that heaven which is fashioned after His own like- 
 ness, and is the fruit of His own spirit ? No night, no 
 tears, no suffering, no sin, — what better marks than 
 these could there be of a world where the compassion 
 of the Son of God reigns without limit and without 
 restraint ? 
 
 Observe, in the next place, how this doctrine harmo- 
 nizes with the fact that the Scripture representations of 
 the heavenly world differ so much from each other. They 
 differ because they are not literal but figurative; they 
 are figurative because their object is not to inform the 
 understanding but to animate the affections and inspire 
 a glorious hope ; and, for the same reason, these images 
 are not made to be consistent with one another. God 
 designs that we shall expect and desire the heaven He 
 has prepared, not because we know in detail what is 
 there, but because we trust Him, and believe that it is 
 a world where the law of Christ has unobstructed and 
 perfect sway. To kindle and sustain in us that faith, 
 His Word represents heaven under images which, in 
 their natural sense, are quite incompatible with each 
 other. It is a city of gems and gold, it is an open 
 country with trees and running water, it is a world with 
 no more sea and it is a sea of glass, it is a house and it 
 is an innumerable multitude of worshippers on a moun- 
 tain top, before the throne. These are the helps applied 
 to our feeble spiritual sense, through the imagination. 
 
WHAT 18 HEAVEN ? 315 
 
 which is the faculty most easily reached and moved, ac- 
 cording to the whole practice of Revelation, from end 
 to end. But we are not left to these uncertainties of 
 the imagination. Underneath these there is a fixed and 
 solid substance of revealed truth. To this truth every 
 separate image points, exhibiting some one or another of 
 its attractive faces. The truth itself is, that of that 
 society of redeemed souls, glad in their infinite joy, 
 Jesus Christ is the centre, the light, and the life. There 
 is no discord or division there, because He is love, — and 
 there, — as it is not here, — every spirit and the whole 
 place take their law and temper from Him. E'othing 
 that is defiled or that maketh a lie enters there, because 
 He is pure and true. If the memory of the miseries of 
 this life remains at all, such recollections will not be 
 painful ; the knotted problems will all be loosened and 
 dissolved in the celestial chemistry of some strange, new 
 light ; for He has pledged Himself that there shall be 
 no pain there. No sick-beds ; no watching all night for 
 the last breath of your child ; no anxious question what 
 that secret symptom means which looks like the begin- 
 ning of the end ; no broken friendships ; no lost love ; no 
 aching heart ; no bitterness of a rebellious and profligate 
 child ; they shall hunger no more. There will be no 
 wretchedness of unfulfilled desire, of failure to do right, 
 of unanswered afiection, of baffled aspiration and poor 
 performance, — because, having chosen Him before all, 
 and got clear of all the earthly competitions and short- 
 comings, we shall have enough in having Him, and shall 
 be satisfied with His likeness. 
 
 It is another and very practical blessing of the same 
 doctrine that it makes large room for the differing 
 notions and difiering degrees of sensibility that Christian 
 men may have, according to their constitutions and cir- 
 
316 WHAT IS HEAVEN? 
 
 cumstances, about that next world. If you find your 
 mind less disposed to dwell upon the pleasures there 
 than the duties here, that need not trouble the conscience, 
 provided only your devotion to your Lord is undivided, 
 and your life is consecrated to the doing of His will. 
 That, rest assured, is the main thing. Some of the most 
 godly, self-sacrificing, and Christlike Christians I have 
 ever known have never said very much about what is 
 to come after death. Heart and hands and mind were 
 all too busy doing the Master's work here, where it 
 needs to be done so much, day by day. Other Chris- 
 tians dwell largely on that future, and gather a needed 
 refreshment from the labor or the endurance of the pres- 
 ent by anticipating the glory that is to be revealed. Of 
 these, again, some fasten on one and some on another of 
 the scriptural aspects of that coming world, for their 
 consolation and encouragement, just as the Spirit of 
 inspiration, suiting the supply to every necessity, intended 
 they should. You meet these diversities constantly in 
 the biographies of saintly men. Robert Hall said once 
 to Wilberforce, "My chief conception of heaven is rest." 
 " Mine," replied Wilberforce, " is love, — love to God, and 
 love to every bright and holy inhabitant of that glorious 
 place." J^ow Robert Hall spent a great part of his time 
 under acute bodily anguish, and no wonder he longed 
 for rest. Wilberforce, a man whose whole energies, in 
 parliament and private life, were given to efforts for 
 the realization of the law of love in legislation and 
 society, naturally thought of the better country as a 
 social state founded on the same principle. Intellectual 
 Christians may long for the wider knowledge, when they 
 shall see no more as through a glass, but face to face. 
 Gentle natures, reading all secrets and learning all truth 
 through their hearts, long and thirst for such measures of 
 
WHAT IS HEAVEN ? 31 7 
 
 affection as they have waited for and never found among 
 men. The evening before he died, the devout and pro- 
 found German student, Spener, a reformer of his time, 
 court preacher of Dresden, and one of the founders of the 
 University at Halle, asked for the reading of the seven- 
 teenth chapter of St. Jolm, saying that it never could be 
 comprehended in this world, but that he was now glad 
 to be going where all would be explained. Poor people 
 may very well think of the abundance so often promised 
 them in the resurrection, — like a woman in consumption 
 I knew of, lying under a few rags on a heap of straw, 
 who answered to the visitor's question, " Is this all you 
 have ? " '' It is all, except Christ. It will do well 
 enough ; I shall exchange it very soon for His unspeak- 
 able riches." Strong-handed and enterprising people 
 may wonder whether there will be enough to do there, 
 and turn right eagerly only to the prospect of running 
 on the active errands of their King. The parents of 
 dead children cannot help looking day and night, to see 
 the sweet faces and kiss the bright foreheads that are 
 missing. 
 
 In all these varieties of expectation we find only the 
 permitted, harmless workings of a law of our nature. 
 They remind us of one of the serious sayings of Charles 
 Lamb, that "the shapings of our heavens are the modi- 
 fications of our constitution." They run into danger, and 
 encourage irreligion, and undermine faith, only when 
 they tempt us to put anything else in heaven before 
 Him who alone opens it to us, or makes it what it is; 
 when they dispose us to insist on anything whatever as 
 essential to our future peace save what He may see fit 
 to give us, or when they hide the one real and certain 
 glory there behind mortal forms. It is a false and not a 
 true Christianity which tells us first to be sure and get to 
 
318 WHAT IS HEAVEN ? 
 
 heaven, sending us to Christ only as a means to get there 
 and be happy. True Christianity calls us first to Christ, 
 for what He is, and then tells us in its gracious promises 
 that if we follow Him faithfully we shall be with Him 
 where He is forever, satisfied to awake in His likeness. 
 
 'No doubt, sad thoughts may pass through some of your 
 minds about some of the dead, and anxious thoughts 
 about some of the living, as to where this truth of the 
 Gospel may leave them, — and with what a gulf of separa- 
 tion between. For the first, we had better dismiss them, 
 committing all the departed, — and the more so, the more 
 we loved them, — in faith, in hope, in charity, to Him 
 who mercifully has all judgment assigned to Him, 
 because He is Son of man, and has borne our infirmities. 
 For the others, our anxioiis thoughts of the living that 
 we love best, lest there should be some dreary separation 
 hereafter from them, — only let these beget in us more 
 faithful intercessions for them, more consistent and 
 blameless lives to convince them, more of Christ re- 
 flected in our daily dispositions and conduct to draw 
 them after Him. There is -something excellent in the 
 quaint saying of one of the most heavenly-minded of 
 men : — " If I ever come to heaven, I may very likely see 
 three wonders there : the first, that I shall miss many 
 persons whom I expected to meet ; the second, that I 
 shall meet tliere many I never expected to see ; the 
 third, and the greatest wonder of all, that I shall be 
 there myself" But, after all, this doctrine is not one 
 that we can use to the best advantage for other men. It 
 searches, it warns, it ought to purify and quicken our- 
 selves. For, construct whatever other theory of immor- 
 tality we may, so far as we look to revelation for our 
 guide, and to Him who alone brings life and immortality 
 to light, we have no glimpse or ray of light on any other 
 
WHAT IS HEAVEN ? 319 
 
 heaven than that which is created for us by the Living 
 and Risen Redeemer of our souls, opened by His cross, 
 and entered through repentance and faith toward Him. 
 
 A few more holy Easter-times at most ; a few more 
 offerings of this struggling and broken worship, miugled 
 with mourning, — " missing some one at a sacrament " ; 
 a few more strains of that 
 
 ** sad mysterious music, 
 
 Wailing through the woods and on the shore, 
 Burdened with a grand majestic secret 
 That keeps sweeping from us evermore " ; 
 
 a few more bright or clouded sunsets fading along the 
 western walls of our earthly sanctuary, and then the 
 curtains will be lifted up. Then no longer as through a 
 glass darkly, but face to face; then the vision of the 
 Countenance which no eye hiath seen, — and the new song 
 before the throne, that no ear hath heard ! We know 
 not what we shall be, but we shall be with Him, and we 
 shall see Him as He is ! 
 
 ** Oh the rest forever, and the rapture I 
 Oh the hand that wipes the tears away I 
 Oh the golden homes beyond the sunset, 
 And the hope that watches o'er the clay I" 
 
WHY THERE WILL BE NO MOEE SEA. 
 
 Third Sunday after Easter. 
 
 ** And I saw a new heaven and a new earth; . . . and there was 
 no more sea." — Revelation xxi. 1. 
 
 There is this remarkable respecting the N^ew Testa- 
 ment disclosures of the future life : — for everything that 
 approaches definite details of description, we have to 
 depend on the language not of our Lord himself but of 
 His apostles. In the commdnications of both there is a 
 conspicuous reserve ; but it is most striking in Him who 
 is Himself the resurrection and the life. There is no ful- 
 ness of explanation. The picture of the Revelation is 
 drawn large ; there is no filling up of the severe, sparing 
 outline. However much there is for faith, there is 
 nothing for curiosity ; and a great part of the message 
 to faith is that we must wait. 
 
 This silence is the more significant when we connect it 
 with two facts : First, the whole historj^ of human thought 
 shows that there is an almost irresistible fascination in 
 that invisible country, lying as it does directly on the patli 
 before us, and closely related to the life we are living 
 now; and this interest has always been found to be 
 lively, in proportion as men's minds were active ; second, 
 we are urged up to these inquiries not only by the in- 
 tellectual problems that meet us but by the homely 
 troubles of the common heart ; we have to deal all the 
 
WHY THERE WILL BE NO MOKE SEA. 321 
 
 while with a world where the graves of the dead occupy 
 a large space in our scenery ; where the alarm-bells of 
 disease are ringing in some of our chambers every night ; 
 where memorials of the departed, who are felt to be 
 only departed, not annihilated, color the atmosphere and 
 change the look of almost every house, and where, 
 around the death of more than half of those who die, 
 there hangs a sad sense of incompleteness, capacities not 
 yet developed, powers not yet used, aspirations not 
 realized, and a work not done. Nevertheless, Revela- 
 tion does, lay a solemn stress on the fact itself of im- 
 mortality. It creates a conviction in every Christian 
 that he ought to pass through his whole course here with 
 the eyes of his faith and hope turned forward, — a puri- 
 fying influence from his future home perpetually breath- 
 ing upon him : — what St. Paul calls " the powers of 
 the world to come." 
 
 The farther we go on, however, in the examination 
 of the matter, as it lies in the Scriptures, the better sat- 
 isfied we shall be that the reserve spoken of has good 
 reasons. The scantiness of information is itself a kind 
 of instruction. "We find that whatever is essential to 
 the heginnings of a heavenly state is suificiently dis- 
 closed : and as we have nothing to do here with any- 
 thing else hut the beginnings, it becomes plainer and 
 plainer that we are under the safe leading of a strong 
 Hand, — which is a master of all the mystery, and will be 
 able to lift the veil as soon as we can bear the light that 
 springs and flames behind it. In other words, in the 
 New Testament, from Matthew to Revelation, just as in 
 the steps of our own growing experience, the increase 
 of information is gradual. 
 
 Look, for example, at the distinction, just alluded to, 
 between the teachings of the Saviour himself on this 
 
322 WHY THERE WILL BE NO MORE SEA. 
 
 subject and the comparatively enlarged expressions of 
 His apostles. Observe that there is an order, a very 
 striking and beautiful order, in the opening of the Truth. 
 In the words of Christ, as they are written down by the 
 four evangelists, only the fewest features of the great 
 resurrection doctrine are unfolded. They can be men- 
 tioned in a moment. One of these is that the faithful 
 will form groups of a single family, and yet be distrib- 
 uted into companies ; because, Christ says, it is all our 
 " Father's house," and yet 4:here are many " mansions " 
 in it ; this introduces the animating idea of variety in 
 unitj^, with personal characteristics, yet a single socie- 
 ty ; — that same grand result of diversity of operation 
 within one all-including bond of law which science has 
 been groping after so long, and which the ablest scien- 
 tific men now begin to think they can catch glimpses of, 
 as a single Force, in the kingdoms of nature. That 
 recognitions will take place among those who have been 
 spiritually and truly united here follows from every 
 scriptural principle and intimation. But the one great 
 fact on which all these others are made to depend, — that 
 around which they are all ranged, and out of which they 
 all grow, is that of our Easter-tide doctrine, that every 
 Christian has his eternal and blessed life directly from 
 his having been spiritually united with Christ before. 
 This is the intense personality of His power, as the Head 
 and Fountain of the whole spiritual creation. It will 
 not be a pantheistic absorption of finite spirits in the 
 Infinite: — the personality of every soul will be as 
 sacredly kept and guarded as that of the Eedeemer 
 himself; for every one is precious in Ilis sight. If I, 
 the Good Shepherd, He says, "know my sheep," "I 
 am known of Mine." It is a reciprocal intercouse, a 
 seeing and being seen, a giving and receiving, a rejoicing 
 
WHY THERE WILL BE NO MORE SEA. 323 
 
 of each with each. And yet such is the fulness and per- 
 fection of that divine life in Him, that all the immeasur- 
 able sphere, and all the countless differences of heavenly 
 occupation, will take their quality of blessedness, and 
 their peculiar light, from the glorious presence of Him 
 by whose love each soul has been counted worthy to be 
 saved, and is permitted to be there. 
 
 To draw out the more particular consequences com- 
 prehended in that truth, and to unfold its subordinate 
 aspects, must be left to the twelve apostles, after the 
 actual rising of Christ should have secured the doctrine 
 in their minds. 
 
 We pass on to their testimony, and we see the same 
 gradual order, only opening a little further. First these 
 apostolic witnesses, as in the Acts, content themselves 
 with preaching, wherever they can get a hearing, three 
 GREAT realities that are to convert the world and 
 regenerate the race, i. e., Christ the Living Man ; Christ 
 the One Sacrifice for sin, and Christ the Divine Head of 
 a spiritual and everlasting kingdom, in which all live from 
 Him. In their busy life of incessant activity and travel, 
 proclaiming this Gospel and planting the Church from 
 Jerusalem to Spain, there was room only for this, with 
 practical exhortations to repentance and faith, — illus- 
 trated as it all was with those tranquil martyrdoms where 
 they went cheerfully to death, not careful themselves 
 about the lesser features of the glory beyond, but count- 
 ing it enough to look up and see their Master, as He had 
 foretold, waiting to receive them to Himself. 
 
 The next stage we reach in their epistles. As they sat 
 in prison cells and thought out the sublime system of 
 this " Faith" which they were delivering once for all to 
 the saints, or as they saw the need of applying its funda- 
 mental principles to the agitated minds and practical 
 
324 WHY THERE WILL BE NO MORE SEA. 
 
 necessities of the clinrclies thej gathered, they were 
 able, through the Spirit's illuminatioiij to offer some addi- 
 tional light on the questions that were sure to arise re- 
 specting the Christian immortality. So we find St. Paul 
 writing to the Corinthians — who had thinkers among 
 them — as in last Sunday's evening lesson, more especially 
 of the nature of the spiritual body, and its analogies to 
 the terrestrial or fleshly body, telling them how we are to 
 be not unclothed biit clothed upon, indicating somewhat 
 the succession of events in the second coming and the 
 general resurrection, and giving also to the Church, to 
 kindle its hojpe through all ages, some magnificent 
 glimpses of the heavenly worship^ where there will be 
 " no temple," only because the whole new heaven and 
 new earth are one open temple, where the liturgies of 
 the unnumbered multitude are as the voice of many 
 waters, and the praise is unceasing. 
 
 Later still, however, just as the high strain of inspira- 
 tion is about concluding, St. John, standing last of the 
 twelve in this life, is sufiered to raise the curtain of that 
 which is to come a little further. "What he reports, 
 to be sure, is not all perfectly plain, at least to any eyes 
 that have searched it hitherto ; how could we, short- 
 sighted scliolars, and reading at best through a hazy and 
 clouded air, be foolish enough to expect it would be ? It 
 is enough that mysteries are set partly open there which 
 have stimulated the adoring wonder, and have fed the 
 faith, too, of all the generations since the beloved disciple 
 fell asleep. In this last Book of the Bible, the sketches 
 of the celestial country are made more clear ; we see a 
 likeness there to what is brightest and best in our familiar 
 landscapes here, which makes it seem more like a home 
 that we should be glad to move into and take comfort 
 in ; the ranks of the innumerable congregation become 
 
WHY THERE WILL BE NO MOEE SEA. 325 
 
 more distinct ; the anthems seem to grow louder as we 
 listen at the door set open ; and the very words of the 
 *' Thrice holy" of the great Supper are sent down to us, 
 so that we might begin to use them around our earthly 
 altars, in anticipation. It is a great deal, for example, — 
 considering how often our bodies ache, and how often 
 we have to watch over disease, and are tired out with our 
 work and with seeing how little our work comes to, — 
 to be assured expressly, and again and again, that there 
 shall be there none of the torments that distress us in this 
 flesh ; that we shall hunger no more, thirst no more, 
 burn with no fever-heats, never be weary, ache with no 
 more pain ; and that all these immortal liberties and 
 enjoyments shall be given us, in Him, freely, as fruits of 
 faith. 
 
 Now, it is among these most exhilarating and consol- 
 ing prospects that we come to the singular expression 
 of the text. St. John is faithfully reporting his vision ; 
 he tells, in the historic tense, what he had seen and 
 heard ; there could be no illusion about it. " 7, John^ 
 sawP Eyco Icoavvq^ eldou raora. The first heaven 
 and the first earth had passed away. A new heaven 
 and a new earth, — not a new "heaven" merely, but a 
 new earth as well, — have taken their place ; — this must 
 ])e to prove to us how close and real the connection is 
 between this life we are living now with that which is 
 to come after. But there is one unexplained change. 
 One of the features of these earthly landscapes, — one of 
 the most majestic and mysterious of them, — has van- 
 ished. " There was no more sea." 
 
 Where all the declarations of the Bible are so brief and 
 yet so significant, we cannot afford to let one of them 
 slip by, as if it were a mere superfluous metaphor. 
 There must have been, to this inspired and eagle-eyed 
 
326 WHY THERE WILL BE NO MORE SEA. 
 
 evangelist, some special and some religions meaning in 
 this absence of the sea. 
 
 I recall, as one clew to that meaning, the situation 
 where St. John saw the vision and wrote this Apoca- 
 lypse. As he grew old in his episcopate at Ephesus, 
 surviving all his fellow-witnesses and companions, — now 
 sixty years after the resurrection, — the fury of perse- 
 cution under the Emperor Domitian banished him 
 from his ministry, along with many noble men and one 
 consul of the empire, and drove him into exile. The 
 prison-hoitse that was found for him was a sterile, rocky, 
 island in the Aegean, or Greek Archipelago, and his 
 prison-wall was the '^ sea." There is an old Latin hymn 
 th:it says : 
 
 "Through Rome, infuriate city, 
 From Caesar's judgment chair, 
 They drag Christ's loved disciple, 
 
 The saint with silver hair. 
 To desert islands banished, 
 
 With God the exile dwells, 
 And sees the future glory 
 His mystic writing tells." 
 
 Travellers point out a wild cave or grotto, on the south- 
 ern side, midway up the desolate promontory, looking 
 out over the waters of the Mediterranean, near enough 
 to catch the roar and beat of tlieir waves against the 
 cliffs at the foot. It is not strange that tradition after- 
 wards associated John's figure with the eagles. Here 
 he received the " Revelation." He saw and heard such 
 things as were never given to man, before or since, to 
 see, or to hear, or to utter. He was in the Spirit on the 
 Lord's-day. The Master whom he had seen standing 
 by the Lake of Galilee in the day-dawn after the resur- 
 rection. His countenance now as the sun shining in His 
 strength, with the same voice that had comfortingly said, 
 
WHY THEKE WILL BE NO MORE SEA. 327 
 
 " Fear not," stands once more before Him. He is in the 
 midst of tlie seven golden lamps, and in His hand, an 
 emblem of the Churches, the cluster of those seven stars 
 of the "Pleiades," to which the Almighty pointed the 
 patriarch as the symbol of His everlasting strength, 
 among which astronomy has since found the one central 
 star around which the same Hand swings all the stars and 
 suns in the universe. "I, John, who also am your 
 brother, and companion in tribulation, and in the king- 
 dom and patience of Jesus Christ, was in the isle that is 
 called Patmos, for the word of God, and for the testi- 
 mony of Jesus Christ. And I heard behind me a great 
 voice, as of a trumpet, saying, I am Alpha and Omega, 
 the First and the Last, and what thou seest, write in 
 a book." 
 
 ]^ow in that mingling of divine and human together 
 which runs through the Bible, nearly every separate writ- 
 ing in it is stamped with the geography where it was 
 produced. And so the imagery of St. John, which 
 portrays the realities of the unseen world, is not less 
 true to those realities because its features are taken 
 from around that mountain of stone, sea-girt and solitary. 
 
 St. John writes of the blessed life of the new creation, 
 where holy souls are at rest, that there is " no more sea." 
 What was the sea, then, to him, — what is it everywhere, 
 — that he should choose it to symbolize something that is 
 1^71-heavenly ; — something that is to be done away with 
 when that which is perfect is come ? The sea is that which 
 sunders man from man. To St. John himself, as I said, it 
 was a prison-wall. He looked out across it, homesick, to- 
 wards the eastern line of coast where the friends he loved, 
 the dwellings of Ephesus, the Churches he had planted, 
 waited and mourned for him. Tliere is no such wall of sep- 
 aration on earth as the sea. It divides nation from nation, 
 
328 WHY THERE WILL BE NO MOEE SEA. 
 
 as well as land from laud. Whatever the original unity 
 of the race, it breaks that unity apart. That is the very 
 epithet that a Latin poet (Horace), who lived just before 
 St. John's time, applied to it, — the " dissociable " ocean. 
 It rolls in its immense barrier between kindred, between 
 friends, and no longing of love can bridge it. Every 
 voyager across it is practically an exile. The two for- 
 bidding, repellent shores cannot be drawn together by 
 any clamps. If you stand on a bluff and let your eyes 
 rest on any water where you can see no coast-line, 
 one of the first things in your mind will be of something 
 beyond ; something you cannot reach. So long as the 
 seas intervene, this is a divided world. The family of 
 souls cannot be literally one ; — the universal neighbor- 
 hood and brotherhood at which the Gospel aims cannot 
 be actually represented, till the first earth is passed away, 
 and there is no more sea. 
 
 But if there is one thought that lies nearer the heart of 
 the Gospel than any other, it is that of the perfect oneness, 
 or flowing together, and living together, of the nations 
 and souls of men. Prophets and evangelists promise, in 
 the new Christian age, a reconcili-ation of what was 
 estranged, — the absolute extinguishment of all the causes 
 of division. The blessed bond of that harmony began, 
 in fact, to be woven when Christ was born, and the 
 angels predicted peace at His coming, at Bethlehem. 
 
 The old political constitutions were framed on the 
 idea of exclusive rights. In Babylon and Persia and 
 the heathen empires of the West, no matter whether 
 Nimrod, or Tamerlane, or Xerxes, or Alexander, or 
 Caesar was on the throne, selfish power was always king, 
 and hate always prime minister. This very Domitian 
 hunted the Christians through his empire, from jealousy 
 of their rising commonwealth. He charged the two sons 
 
WHY THERE WILL BE NO MORE SEA. 329 
 
 of St. Jude with plotting to restore tlie old line of 
 David. They told him they were poor, hard-working 
 men, and held up their hands, rough and black with the 
 spade and soil. " What, then, is this kingdom ? " asked 
 the emperor. They answered, according to the annals, 
 in the words of our text : — " It is a kingdom far away. 
 We look not for it till the world is at an end, and our 
 King Cometh to make a new heaven and a new earth." 
 With Christ every human government was to come 
 under a new law, — disinterested charity. Instead of 
 military aggressions there were to be missions of the 
 Cross ; for hostilities, hands of help reached out ; for 
 battles, sacraments. One was a civilization of conquest ; 
 the other of sacrifice. 
 
 We know well enough how slowly the consummation 
 has advanced against wars, crusades, caste, slavery, the 
 complicated injustices and wrongs of a selfish society ! 
 Hereafter it will not be so. Hatreds, suspicions, op- 
 pressions, cruelties, quarrels, are all to be swept away. 
 Men will not crowd each other back from the places of 
 privilege. Women will not envy each other beauty or 
 love. Scholars will not rob each other's reputations. 
 The tongue will stop its poisonous, garrulous business of 
 detraction. There will be no " classes " in the celestial 
 society, except such as move on agreeing and merciful 
 errands about a common centre, obeying one impulse 
 of love. The spirit of Christ's mediation shall be the 
 reigning force. There shall be one fold under one Shep- 
 herd. All shall be like Christ,' for they shall behold 
 Ilim as He is; and sympathy Avill beget resemblance. 
 There shall be no more separating sea. Another heaven ; 
 another earth ; but " no more sea " ! 
 
 So much for the society at large. Think, too, of the 
 heavenly comfort it must bring to private hearts to have 
 
330 WHY THERE WILL BE NO MOEE SEA. 
 
 all the sorrows of personal separations ended. We know 
 liow mncli of the pain of affection, whose first instinct 
 is to bring hearts that are alike together, proceeds from 
 parting. In the perfect life to come, the pure and good, 
 being always with Christ, will always be consciously 
 and truly together. They "go no more out." To 
 those of us that travel a great deal, or take leave very 
 often of those we love, there is a special meaning in 
 that phrase. We know nothing, to be sure, of the 
 modes of movement or the means of intercourse there ; 
 but we know there can be none of those partings that 
 have sorrow in them, no sad farewells, no constrained, 
 untimely, and unwilling absence. A sick mother will 
 not wait in agony on one side of an ocean for news from 
 the bed of her dying child on the other. There will be 
 no empty rooms that feel empty, or deserted hearts. 
 There will be no melancholy embarkations, no looking 
 out after receding sails, no watching for the last breath. 
 Communion, fellowship, love, the presence of the loved, 
 will be perpetual. There will be no more dividing sea. 
 There is a second character of the sea which probably 
 likewise suggested it to St. John, for Christian comfort, 
 as an image of what is of the earth earthy, and must 
 therefore pass away before the coming in of an ever- 
 lasting satisfaction. The ocean is all a field of nothing 
 but barrenness. Those wide spaces of water, inter- 
 posed between the lands, two thirds of the earth's acres, 
 are bitter and fruitless. I^othing green or sweet or 
 nourishing grows on them. They are literally what 
 poetry calls them, — a " waste." IS^obody makes a home 
 on that restless, fluctuating floor. The sailor is a cease- 
 less fugitive. I^othing settles or abides on that restless 
 breast. All the life it ever sees or supports is a transi- 
 tional, passing life, — moving from one tarrying-place or 
 
WHY THERE WILL BE NO MORE SEA. 331 
 
 coast to another. What an image it is of the fickle 
 and transient elements of this world that now is, com- 
 pared with tlie fixedness and stability and blooming life 
 of that which Christ has opened ! 
 
 More than this ; there is a key to this second part of 
 the meaning of the text in the closing passage of the 
 chapter that goes just before. St. John has there been 
 representing the last judgment : " I saw the dead," he 
 writes, " small and great, stand before God ; and the 
 books were opened, and another book was opened, which 
 is the book of life, and the dead were judged out of 
 those things which were written in the books, according 
 to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which 
 were in it." The sea is a great graveyard. It is the 
 home of the drowned and buried that it has swallowed 
 up by thousands. One of its bravest vessels grinds against 
 a rock in the night, and instantly it becomes a cofiin, sink- 
 ing six hundred bodies, — and two nations are full of fright 
 and mourning. And it never allows affection to set up a 
 sign where the dead go down. There is no harvest from 
 it, except the harvest of the resurrection. But then, fol- 
 lowing this scene of the judgment is the new creation, 
 and when the evangelist comes just after to speak 
 of that, his mind goes back to the sepulchral sea. And 
 lo ! it is gone forever. There is no place in that uni- 
 verse of trustful joy for the hungry, insatiable, treacher- 
 ous waters. " Old Ocean's gray and melancholy waste" 
 will not be found around the " continent of living 
 green." In other words, dropping the figure, that new 
 world — the Christian home — is all a dwelling-place of life 
 —life everywhere ; life without sleep ; life forever. Deso- 
 lations and destructions are come to a perpetual end. If 
 there is any appearance of the sea at all in that Apoca- 
 lyptic imagery, it is the " sea of glass," on which the 
 
332 WHY THERE WILL BE NO MOKE SEA. 
 
 redeemed stand with their harps. Everything there must 
 be as useful as it is beautiful, and as fruitful as it is fair. 
 You may say there is a wild and wondrous beauty about 
 the ocean ; and no doubt in this material world it has 
 its uses ; but neither the Gospel in this world nor the 
 evangelic descriptions of the next recognize any beauty 
 that is not the source of peace, or life, or benefaction. 
 Heathen beauty, Greek beauty, cold, restless, faithless 
 intellectual beauty, must be baptized into the warm 
 " spirit of life " in Christ Jesus, or there is no room for 
 it in the heaven Christ opens. 
 
 ** Here below, imaginations quivering 
 
 Through our human spirits like the wind, 
 Thoughts that toss like waves about the woodland, 
 
 Hopes like sea-birds flashed across the mind. 
 Up above, the host no man can number 
 
 In white robes, a palm in every hand. 
 Each some work sublime forever working 
 
 In the spacious traits of that great land. 
 Down below, the Church, to whose poor window 
 
 Glory by autumnal leaves is lent. 
 And a knot of worshippers, in mourning. 
 
 Missing some one at the sacrament. 
 Up above, the shout of hallelujah. 
 
 And without the sacramental mist, 
 Wrapt all round us like a sunlit halo 
 
 The great vision of the face of Christ." 
 
 Brethren, we must endeavor not to let the poetic 
 dress of the doctrine blind us to its practical solemnity 
 and spiritual power. But we do discover, under the 
 image which the Spirit of God suggested to the seer at 
 Patmos, two of the principal characteristics of that 
 spiritual world where all of us, who are joined by faith 
 to Christ, will very soon be going. It will be a world 
 of undivided spiritual fellowship, and it will be a world 
 of living and fruitful action. In still simpler and more 
 
WHY THEKE WILL BE NO MORE SEA. 333 
 
 comprehensive words, it will be a world of love, and a 
 world of life. Botli are intimated in tlie prophecy that 
 there will be no more sea, — no cruel sea or barren sea, 
 no sea to divide or sea to destroy. 
 
 I spoke of this prediction as having a practical effect. 
 The best thoughts we can have about the future life are 
 thoughts that make us better men now, — more fit to live 
 under the eye of God, and in daily intercourse with our 
 neighbors, just where we are, — kinder and purer at 
 home, more just and honorable in business, more rever- 
 ent and humble in prayer, njore charitable in our judg- 
 ments of each other. The metaphors and poetry even 
 of an evangelist will amount to nothing, if we do not 
 come to this. Unless we are very thoughtless indeed, 
 there cannot fail to be a strong and salutary influence 
 breathing on us continually by remembering this : — that 
 we are so near, one day's march nearer every night, to a 
 world that is all love and all life, — without selfishness and 
 without death ; — and that world eternal. The prospect 
 itself, if we realized it, would shed some new sanctity, 
 it seems to me, over the life we are living. It would be 
 more quickening and more sanctifying than any sermon. 
 
 But something more than this is also true. Every- 
 thing that will belong to our Christian state hereafter 
 has its root and its beginning in our convictions and our 
 conscience, our affections and our habits, here. Your 
 individual interest in this subject, and in all that can be 
 said about it, depends on how much of the germ and 
 sentiment of the heavenly service is in you already. 
 Heaven will be only the outgrowth and completing of a 
 heavenly character formed on earth. No one of us can 
 plant the tree of life after he dies. 
 
 Property, business, houses, dress, and furniture, — the 
 banks, and the warehouses, and the dividends, — they all 
 
334 WHY THERE WILL BE NO MORE SEA. 
 
 seem strong enough, and half satisfying, — so long as there 
 is nothing to take our minds below the surface. But there 
 comes to us, one by one, a breaking up. God sends it, 
 because He loves us. A sickness, a death, a failure, a 
 broken heart or broken hope, shakes them all to pieces ; 
 and all at once the world feels hollow. Have you any 
 hold, then, on another inheritance ? What is that hold ? 
 Is there One stronger than the sea ? The Son of God has 
 walked in victory upon it. By Him we can conquer the 
 bitterness : — for love is of God, and he that loveth is 
 born of God, and knoweth God, and overcometh the 
 world. By Him we can get the better of the unfruitful- 
 ness: — "Herein is My Father glorified, that ye bear 
 much fruit." " The branch cannot bear fruit of itself, 
 except it abide in the vine ; no more can ye, except ye 
 abide in Me." " And even now, being made free from 
 sin, ye have your frait unto holiness, and the end ever- 
 lasting life." 
 
ALONE AT ATHEl^S. 
 
 Fourth Sunday after Easter, 
 
 ** Wherefore ... we thought it good to be left at Athens alone." 
 — I Theasalonicma iii. 1. 
 
 St. Paul is speaking of himself personally. What he 
 says here, in the evening lesson for this day, is that he 
 puts upon himself the sacrilice of solitude in a strange 
 city, simply because it comes in the line of his duty to 
 do so, as a preacher and a missionary of Christ to men. 
 To his tastes other appointments would be more agree- 
 able. Some familiar place would suit better his passion- 
 ate longing for sympathy. He is a scholar, and would 
 prefer retirement. He is the scarred and worn hero of 
 many hard battles, and would like to rest in the fellow- 
 ship of some peaceful household of Faith. That he 
 cannot do and be faithful ; and this, with any honest soul, 
 settles the question. Having formerly planted a Church 
 at Thessalonica, a post of importance as lying on the 
 great Koman road to the East, and a Macedonian sea- 
 port, he had afterwards journeyed westward, plunging, 
 with the cross in his hand, into pagan Europe. Arriving 
 at Athens, busy as he is, he remembers the affectionate 
 little band he had left behind. So cordial is his feeling 
 for them, that he determines to part with his only com- 
 panion, Timothy, who is like a son to him, and send him 
 back to " establish " them ; and with him goes this 
 
336 ALONE AT ATHENS. 
 
 to aching despatcli : " l^ow we live if ye stand fast in the 
 Lord." To that warm fireside-circle of spiritual life 
 this strong man's heart looks back across the separating 
 sea, homesick, no doubt, but not a whit the weaker or 
 less brave in God's work for that. 
 
 Turn a moment from that bright picture of primitive 
 Church-fellowship in Asia to St. Paul's loneliness at Ath- 
 ens. Launching on his missionary expedition from the 
 East, and sailing up among the islands of the Thessalian 
 Archipelago, he had brought the new truth, to proclaim 
 it in this capital of men's intellectual life. Li his per- 
 son, on his landing at the Piraeus, the morning light of the 
 new age rose on a second continent. Yet everything about 
 him was appallingly bleak, every face was unfriendly. 
 Any courage less valiant than that of the Son of God 
 in his heart must have quailed before the overpowering 
 splendor and despotism of the old heathenism, in the 
 very stronghold of its dominion. Athens was the brain 
 of the world. The apostle had come to it, as fearless of 
 its sophistries and arrogance as he had been of the 
 swords and dungeons of Syria. He had come to say : 
 "You classic Greeks, artists, poets, philosophers, are 
 seeking after wisdom ; but the foolishness of God is 
 wiser than the wisest of you. One God made you ; one 
 Saviour died for you. Your Olympus is a fiction. I 
 preach unto you Christ, and Him crucified, the wisdom 
 of God and the power of God ; your Saviour, if you will 
 be saved." 
 
 Without some common interests, cities are wilder- 
 nesses, and society is the saddest of solitudes. From the 
 moment St. Paul's feet touched the pier at the lower end 
 of the town, the monuments of the dominant mythology 
 began to lift themselves forbiddingly before him, to 
 make him feel himself " alone." His own heart burning 
 
ALONE AT ATHENS. 337 
 
 with loyal love for tlie Shepherd of Galilee and Lamb of 
 Calvary, the first objects that greet him, as he passes, a 
 stranger, up the principal street, are the statue of Nep- 
 tune with his trident, a sensual temple of the god of 
 wine, and sculptured images of Mercury and Minerva, 
 Apollo and Jupiter, with all the flaunting signals of an 
 idolatry rooted in the prejudices and habits of centu- 
 ries. Reaching the market-place, his sense of separation 
 only deepens at every step. The buildings are memo- 
 rials of a foreign history. Their walls are covered with 
 paintings that celebrate barbarous exploits, and illustrate 
 alien manners. Processions of disgusting ceremonies 
 meet him on the way. If he looks up, figures of reli- 
 gious falsehood are hung out along the carved ledges 
 and balconies. From the water-side, all the way up to 
 the Acropolis, the city is one vast museum of unhallowed 
 art, of an unclean civilization, of a Christless worship. 
 If he turns from the world of sight to the world of 
 thought, he finds the schools of unbelieving speculation. 
 Porch and Academy, Stoa and Gardens, strong in great 
 names to be sure, but distracted with debate between 
 doubt and delusion, and full of eloquent error. Tlie 
 most that he could hope from any of them was that, 
 after the glorious testimony to his Master at Mars Hill, 
 they would set him down as a fanatical adventurer, ad- 
 vertising an unheard of sect, — a " setter-forth of strange 
 gods." What was all this to the sorrowful, earnest, strait- 
 ened spirit which was there in the form of a worn and sun- 
 burnt traveller from Tarsus, secretly so absorbed in the 
 power of a holy affection for a Personage executed long 
 ago as a disturber of the public peace in the distant prov- 
 ince of Judaea, that he could say, " It is no more I 
 that live ; I have no life of my own ; Christ liveth in 
 me " ? The round of festal novelties, the decorations of 
 
 98 
 
338 ALONE AT ATHENS. 
 
 Attic taste, the splendid learning, the subtle wit, the 
 riches and refinements of a proud prosperity, — what 
 would they all be to one whose heart was in the unseen 
 court of the King of Kings, and who was willing to give 
 his body to be burnt, or his blood to bubble for the One 
 True God ? Deeper and darker his solitude grew. 
 And yet even there he could send away from his side 
 the single sympathizing friend that had followed him ; 
 he could banish himself into a completer exile, and be 
 utterly " alone at Athens," for the confirmation and 
 comforting's sake of the little band of Christians far off 
 at Thessalonica. 
 
 There opens out of this casual circumstance a matter 
 of general concern in personal religion. 
 
 In God's appointments for us there are two kinds of 
 loneliness : — one outward and physical, the other a lone- 
 liness of feeling, conviction, and character. Both of 
 them have important connections with our Christian 
 education and moral strength; and both have their 
 dangers. 
 
 1. First, the providential conditions of life are so 
 settled for very many persons that they have much less 
 than the average share of social communication. Some- 
 times by a shrinking turn of the constitution, or by shy- 
 ness or natural reserve, or by the lack of that magnetic 
 quality which draws up sympathy and confidence from 
 others, or by a fatal propensity to say the wrong thing 
 and repel instead of conciliating, or else by necessities 
 of residence or occupation, they are cut oif from society. 
 There is also a solitude of temperament, the inmost 
 heart all the while yearning and crying for companion- 
 ship, and yet strangely fettered, held back, and sealed 
 up in a dumb secrecy, which the will cannot find 
 out how to break through. There is a solitude of pride, 
 
ALONE AT ATHENS. 330 
 
 where social pleasures and advantages are voluntarily but 
 bitterly given up, to escape making an appearance in- 
 ferior to that of one's class, in the style of hospitality, 
 dress, or equipage, or of literary culture and accomplish- 
 ment. There is a solitude of obligation, created by the 
 sheer necessity of unceasing toil, by filial or conjugal or 
 sisterly devotion, — by poverty or pity imprisoning both 
 body and mind alike. And there is a solitude of bodily 
 infirmity or sickness 
 
 Among the perils of such a situation to Christian 
 character we must set down a tendency to too much self- 
 consideration. A continual confinement of attention to 
 ourselves, or to those who by belonging to us become 
 only a slight extension of self, belittles us. The soul 
 takes petty proportions, sees with a narrow vision, and 
 is warped to one-sided judgments. Finding nothing 
 beyond self to fasten upon, affection settles back and 
 stagnates or sours in the breast, till mere self-preser- 
 vation becomes the end of living. Religion, though her 
 hand is on the invisible world, will have hard work to 
 save such a life from contempt. It has been the snare 
 of all anchorites and monks and nuns. It is a spirit 
 directly opposite to the charity and cross of Christ. 
 
 In other cases, from the same cause, we see censorious- 
 ness. Rigid standards are applied to other people's 
 motives and conduct. Allowances are not madQ for un- 
 avoidable differences, and so, again, the first command- 
 ment, of love, is broken. 
 
 Along with these bigoted and intolerant ways of 
 thinking comes envy, a morbid estimate of your neigh- 
 bor's fortunes, and a cynical discouragement. You 
 have never had, you think, your fair chance in the world. 
 Companions that started with you at school have gained 
 brilliant successes. Past the invalid's still chamber, out 
 
340 ALONE AT ATHENS. 
 
 in the street, the children of health and wealth are 
 rolling away to luxurious gajety. It needs a singularly 
 steady faith in God's impartiality to keep down your 
 discontent. So Martha felt her solitude when she com- 
 plained to Christ, — " Carest Thou not that my sister hath 
 left me to serve alone ? " And so felt Peter when he 
 asked, " Lord, and what shall this man do ? " — contrast- 
 ing John's brighter lot with his own predicted desolate 
 martyrdom. 
 
 Add to these temptations that of a certain unwhole- 
 some daintiness or fastidiousness, which is apt to arise 
 from constant preoccupation with private tastes, and 
 is quite unlike the rugged readiness for Christian ser- 
 vice to all the ugliest forms of humanity, in the good 
 soldier of Jesus Christ. Grievances, in the long and 
 gloomy hours of retirement, are nursed and exagger- 
 ated. Suspicions grow rank and poisonous. The hand 
 is withheld from many a useful office, and the tongue 
 from many a cordial utterance. Opportunities for Chris- 
 tian benefaction are despairingly thrown away, and life 
 is miserably bereft of its true spiritual glory. 
 
 2. If now we look at the involuntary and moral 
 loneliness, we shall see that while this too has its dan- 
 gers, it may be made the occasion, as it was with St. 
 Paul, of great spiritual gains and victories. It is indeed 
 almost indispensable that, at some period of their lives, 
 souls which follow Christ should be stripped of the 
 support and separated from the countenance of com- 
 pany, and stand morally apart, without leaning on 
 human arms or opinions about them; without popular 
 honor ; without much encouragement or sympathy, this 
 side of heaven. It is one of the crosses which brave 
 men, determined to be true at any cost, sooner or later 
 have to take up. It is a school where strong principles 
 
ALONE AT ATHENS. 341 
 
 are planted, strong convictions are nourished, and strong 
 energies are trained. Kules of action taken up merely 
 out of deference to prevailing notions fluctuate with 
 change of place and time. Those wrought into the con- 
 science in solitude are more apt to come at first hand 
 from God. Here is the test of courage, and of all real 
 characters. Can you live, work, suffer, stand out, move 
 forward, alone ? Can you go where everybody refuses 
 to go with you, and only the clear command of the 
 Holy Spirit calls? Can you stay at your post, and hold 
 your own, when the whole multitude, the class whose 
 favor you prize most, the set that claims you, some of 
 them perhaps as conscientious as yourself, decline, or 
 retreat ? This settles it whether you are merely a piece 
 of movable furniture in the halls of a worldly society, 
 a manufacture moulded by the hands of fashion, or a 
 living and independent soul, satisfied to walk with that 
 Man of men who had not where to lay His head while 
 He was showing the world the truth and love of God ; 
 satisfied to live with the apostle who thought it good to 
 be left alone at Athens, for duty's sake, and who tarried 
 another time at Ephesus because, around the door that 
 was opened to him to testify for Christ, there were " many 
 adversaries." 
 
 In all the biographies of human greatness we find this 
 proved by examples. I try in vain to think of one vic- 
 torious and memorable saint who has not had, some time 
 or other, the discipline of the desert, some seasons of 
 awful retirement to a mountain, in a night, — away from 
 where men are coming and going. It was there that 
 these leaders of the world's life have gathered gifts from 
 on high, have broken the bondage of ambition and 
 vanity, and have come so close to Christ that His own 
 sacrificial power entered into them. Men that have 
 
342 ALONE AT ATHENS. 
 
 been mucli in solitude have generally been tlie heroic 
 figures of history, — men coming out of the wilderness, 
 back from deserts, down from the mount, — Abraham 
 and Moses, Samuel and Elijah, David and John the 
 Baptist. Out of the Bible no less than in it, it is remark- 
 able how the master-men have been at some period 
 lonely men. They had to break friendship with the 
 average social morality, too honest for compromise, too 
 loyal for the buying and selling of conscience, too pure 
 for popularity, and therefore, after they had walked apart 
 in the world with the Man of sorrows and solitude, we 
 see tliem walking out of it at last with the triumphant 
 step of believers who had kept the faith, — conquerors 
 who finished their course with joy. 
 
 Hence, too, the defect you are sure to find in people 
 that have never accepted or created for themselves these 
 intervals of seclusion. They may be stirring characters 
 but thin, loud but shallow, wanting in reverence and 
 steady power, over-anxious about results and appearances, 
 over-deferential to the popular cry, leaning upon social 
 judgments, appealing to social maxims, never quite easy 
 " alone,'' — at home only in the " multitude " but afraid 
 of the " mount," shrill men, easy to find, and serviceable 
 in some ways, but with no deep, subtonic notes in their 
 manhood, and no heavenly signification in their faces. 
 Dr. Johnson, in his imaginary world of Oriental luxury, 
 describes a merry feast, inaccessible to care or pain, " at 
 which, nevertheless," he says, " there was not one guest 
 who did not dread the moment when solitude should 
 deliver him to the tyranny of reflection." A " tyranny " 
 perhaps to the cowards who dare not face their own 
 consciences ; but, if society makes them afraid of self- 
 knowledge and uneasy before God, society itself is the 
 tyrant. Most gay companies have more or less of this 
 
ALONE AT ATHENS. 343 
 
 covered foreboding and unrest in them: no music 
 drowns it, and no smiles can make it beautiful. It is the 
 earnest, hearty workmen, with God and for God, who 
 know how to use society and how to welcome solitude, — 
 how to take with equal joy active service for Christ in 
 the world, or retirement with Him when He says, 
 " Come ye apart" ; how to be refreshed with fellowships 
 at Thessalonica, and to be left at Athens alone. 
 
 If it is true, as seems to be generally agreed, that the 
 evangelist's expression, " Many were coming and going, 
 and there was no leisure," pictures in one vivid phrase 
 the manners of our own times, — if it is an outward- 
 living and fast-living and self-indulgent generation, — a 
 noisy and showy age, then the Church never needed 
 more than now to repeat her Lord's great doctrine of 
 religious retirement and private prayer. The more 
 engrossing our tendencies to secular arrogance and a 
 mere surface morality, varnishing vice instead of uproot- 
 ing it, the more watchfully you who are Christians 
 ought to guard the sacred retreats of meditation and 
 worship. This nation could hardly have been what it is, 
 or done what it has, if our ancestors had brought up their 
 sons and daughters in the glaring public parlors and 
 refectories of a vast hotel. Strong character is a separate 
 thing; and it requires a separate, individual nurture. 
 Promiscuous intermixtures never produce it. It might 
 very well be defined as the power of standing alone ^ sin- 
 gle-hearted principle ; independent abiding by the right- 
 eousness of God. And how we see the want of it 
 everywhere, wherever men or women meet together; 
 wherever majorities browbeat an unpopular foith ; 
 wherever the sound of many feet tempts you to join a 
 crowd in doing evil ; wherever you are likely to be a 
 loser in money, or to be laughed at, or voted down, for 
 
344 ALONE AT ATHENS. 
 
 not doing as those about you do, — staying away in your 
 little Athens of hostility and desertion; — wherever 
 Christ is on one side saying, " Come after Me, live with 
 Me, suifer for Me," and the world is on the other side 
 saying, "Here are mirth and ease, and here are wine 
 and meat, and favors and good offers and fine establish- 
 ments, and flattering notices of the public press." 
 Righteousness never counts her companions. This is 
 the heroic loneliness of all God's great ones from the 
 beginning, — of Jacob left alone through the long night 
 of his agony, wrestling with the angel, till he had power 
 with God and prevailed ; of Moses receiving his com- 
 mission to emancipate and organize a nation, alone in the 
 mountains ; of Elijah, when he cried, " Lord, they have 
 killed Thy prophets, and digged down Thine altars, and 
 I am left alone, and they seek my life " ; of Daniel in 
 his exile, watched by an idolatrous monarch, kneeling 
 three times a day with his face towards Jerusalem ; of 
 St. Peter when he answered the rulers, " Whether it be 
 right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more 
 than unto God, judge ye " ; and higher yet, of Him who 
 trod the winepress of His redemption so divinely and 
 awfully alone as to exclaim to the most faithful of His 
 followers, " All ye shall be scattered, every man to his 
 own, and shall leave me alone ; and yet I am not," — 
 never am, and never can be, utterly " alone, because the 
 Father is with Me." 
 
 So St. Paul's striking expression opens its meaning. 
 In three particulars, in order, we shall have the breadth 
 and the point of the instruction. 
 
 First, the God of our lives puts into all of them some 
 solitude, for a purpose of His own. l^othing else would do 
 as well. He arranges it for us that we cannot be always 
 in anybody's company. He keeps curtains about us, and 
 
ALONE AT ATHENS. 345 
 
 drops tliem very often. Friend after friend departs. 
 Something happens that tells you there is a space of 
 mutual misunderstanding or want of understanding 
 between you and the nearest and dearest heart on earth. 
 There is a night between every two days. He ordains 
 Bickness, and shuts us in chambers, and sends us on 
 journeys, and beckons away from us all our companions. 
 Is it not plain that this is because the deepest and holiest 
 exercises of the Spirit are where no human presence is 
 by ? Look back along your years past. If repentance 
 ever took hold of you with its solemn hands, and held 
 you still, and bade you look up for mercy ; if the great 
 choice between God and self was ever made, was it not 
 when you were alone with your Saviour? The spot 
 where the old selfish nature is cast down, and the soul 
 passes from spiritual death to spiritual life, — the prodigal 
 rising out of his hunger and husks, — is a solitary spot. 
 Before the Spirit has done His deepest and best work in 
 you He will have you all to Himself. The question of 
 everlasting love is a private question : Wilt thou be 
 Mine forever? Tbe Bridegroom must stand at your 
 heart's door when no human form, or face, or voice, can 
 come in between you and Him. Each succeeding strug- 
 gle, when we get the better of a besetting sin, when we 
 wrestle with a fierce tempter and finally cast him behind 
 us, when we make the terrible sacrifice which carries us 
 clear of some entangling alliance or corrupting but fas- 
 cinating acquaintance and sets our feet on a rock, or 
 when God himself puts out His hand and cleanses us by 
 some unsought sufiering, — is solitary work. Conversions 
 are solitary. Great griefs are solitary. The heart breaks 
 " alone." When each one of us will hear a voice saying, 
 " Come, walk with Me in the valley of the shadow of 
 death," or a voice saying, " Come, walk with Me on the 
 
346 ALONE AT ATHENS. 
 
 liigli places of purity and sacrifice, — arise and depart, for 
 this is not your rest. Turn ye, for why will ye die 
 eternally ? " — it will be as if all mortal shapes had van- 
 ished from our sight. Salvation is an individual matter, 
 and the starting towards it is in a desert place, — peni- 
 tence, humiliation, self-surrender. Perhaps it is because 
 in such separation from society there is an unwonted 
 openness and honesty of mind which any human listener 
 or looker-on would disturb. In this regard our com- 
 munion with Christ only obeys the law of all lofty and 
 delicate friendships. Intervention is interruption ; and 
 even the best society on earth is not good enough to 
 divide your intercourse with your Master. 
 
 Secondly, loneliness sometimes becomes lonesome- 
 ness ; — the excessively secluded life is embittered by a 
 craving for sympathy. That would have been St. Paul's 
 feeling at Athens, and he would have thought it not 
 " good " but bad to be left there, but for the one Divine 
 Friend who stayed with him. It is in His felt presence 
 and affection, and nowhere besides, that those hearts are 
 to find their consolation which are imprisoned in an 
 unwilling separation from their kind. However throng- 
 ed the streets, or however brilliant the season, these 
 uncheered souls are all around us. Say what we will, 
 and bear it nobly as they may, it is a daily crucifixion ; 
 and if we are not touched by it we are not Christlike. 
 It is small comfort that you are not " interrupted " in 
 your monotonous isolation, if all the while you have an 
 aching imagination of a possible interruption which 
 would call out every energy and aspiration within you 
 into generous action. By far the greater number of us 
 have hours when we long for nothing so much as to hear 
 some fellow-soul say, — " I know how you suffer ; I see 
 your struggle ; bear up ; struggle on ; one heart at least 
 
ALONE AT ATHENS. 34:7 
 
 answers to yours." There are constitutions finely tem- 
 pered which need continual protection, but have it only 
 under coarse, sordid hands, — lacerating wherever they 
 touch. There are self-distrustful, timid creatures, tor- 
 tured with a despairing sense of failure and fatigue, who 
 get never an encouraging look or reassuring accent. 
 Oh, this is a loneliness that makes every other meaning 
 of the word weak, — colder than Polar winds, and 
 bleaker than Siberian deserts. "What is the comfort? 
 Only one. For all these the Man of Sorrows is the only 
 companion, and His hidden love the only consolation. 
 What would Athens have been to Paul but for his 
 Saviour ? Draw nigh, O every solitary soul, to Mary's 
 Son ! Let Him draw nigh to you ; He understands the 
 most reserved. He knows your unutterable secret with- 
 out the telling, infinite in tenderness. He has watched 
 your silent war, and waited with your waiting, and 
 carried griefs just like yours. " If any heart will open 
 the door to Me, I will come in, and My Father will 
 come." 
 
 Take it finally for your encouragement in your more 
 secluded and least noticed services for Christ, that His 
 blessing rests upon you as graciously in your obscurity 
 as upon the most conspicuous of His workmen. Paul 
 the despised missionary at Athens is as sure of his Sav- 
 iour's presence and benediction as when the priests and 
 populace of Lystra are crowning him with garlands and 
 ready to worship Him with their sacrifices. We are 
 slow to learn that the spirit of the Gospel is no more 
 in the assembly of ten thousand than where one tired 
 laborer watches by the sick orphan child in his neigh- 
 borhood all night, or one daughter of fortune and cul- 
 ture cheerfully crucifies every taste, every Sunday, to 
 teach a group of unclean vagabonds how to pray to 
 
348 ALONE AT ATHENS. 
 
 their Father, and how to live purely for Christ. We 
 hurry into publicity, as if that were heaven, and are 
 impatient to count converts and see results, as if that 
 were salvation. Not among the thunders and blare of 
 popular acclaim, but away from crowds, in nooks and 
 corners of the earth, close down to the roots and foun- 
 tains of the world's welfare, are offered day by day the 
 worthiest sacrifices of Christian love. The most glorious 
 chronicles and monuments of Athens, — called " the gar- 
 den of great intellects," — are not in her letters, her tem- 
 ples, or her arms, but are in that little record of the 
 bent and friendless traveller who thought it good to be 
 left there alone, to lift the cross, to herald a kingdom 
 not of this world, and to preach, — " to the Greeks fool- 
 ishness," — Christ the wisdom and the power of God. 
 
 We reach then the one great principle which is the 
 same for both parts of our Christian life, — the hours of 
 retirement and the hours of action, — the soul in secret 
 and in society. There is such a thing, attainable to us 
 all, as a living heart of loving faith and faithful love 
 which beats steadily for God and man, whether in the 
 unsympathizing streets of a foreign city, or in the warm 
 circle and communion of kindred souls at home, — out 
 in the world, or around the altar. When Christ said to 
 the weary disciples, " Come ye apart and rest," did He 
 say, " Stay apart ? Scorn society ? Escape, like a senti- 
 mental hermit, from mankind, because mankind are 
 bad"? ISTever that. "Eest awhileP But when the 
 noisy comers and goers, fainting, sinning, dying, needed 
 His gracious ministries again, he broke up His rest and 
 went back to feed their hunger, to heal their sick, to 
 wash their feet. When the people pressed upon Him 
 out of their cities, and cried to Him, He had compassion 
 on them, and came down from the mount, because tlipy 
 
ALONE AT ATHENS. 349 
 
 were as sheep having no shepherd ; and then Master and 
 disciples went on their way of work together. Our 
 religion is one half the loving adoration of God; the 
 other half is the loving service of the brother whom we 
 have seen ; our fellow-man. Get down on your knees, 
 alone, or you will begin no work aright ; and then up, 
 and be doing ! 
 
 Our Lord gave it for the Creed of His Church that 
 faith justifies. He gave it for the life of His followers 
 that faith without works is dead. 
 
THE HUMAN SOCIETY IN THE CITY OF GOD. 
 
 I^ifth Sunday after Easter. 
 
 "Thus saith the Lord of hosts: There shall yet old men and 
 old women dwell in the streets of Jerusalem, and every man with his 
 staff in his hand for very age. And the streets of the city shall be 
 full of boys and girls playing in the streets thereof." — Zech. viii. 4, 5. 
 
 I FIND this remarkable prediction in one of to-daj's 
 lessons, in the midst of a passage where a great Plebrew 
 prophet is encouraging his countrymen in one of their 
 dark days with promises of a bright time to come, when 
 the desolations of war and famine shall be repaired, and 
 a prosperous population will flow back into the empty 
 liighways. The dear old capital, -the centre of their 
 reverential affections and seat of their worship, beauti- 
 ful for situation and holy for its history, will put on its 
 thriving look again, and be the same blessed home to 
 them that it was before. The words used are so vivid 
 that the writer seems to become an inspired artist ; — 
 with a few clear strokes and strong colors he paints a 
 fascinating picture of that coming glorj^ of his nation, 
 so that we, standing here so many hundred years 
 afterwards, find it as fresh as if the artist's hand were 
 just moved aside from the canvas. How thoroughly 
 human the figures and impressions of that Bible-picture 
 are ; and how lifelike they represent our religion to be ! 
 For observe, first of all, this was the city of God, — a 
 
THE HUMAN SOCIETY IN THE CITY OF GOD. 351 
 
 city that He has fashioned and filled after His own de- 
 sign, just as He wished it to be. This future Jerusalem 
 was no mere mortal metropolis, built by human ambition, 
 or populated by some sordid colony that had said, " Go 
 to, now ; let us go to such a city, and buy and sell, and 
 get gain." It was to be modelled after a heavenly pat- 
 tern. It was to embody the Divine ideal of a perfect, 
 pure, and happy state. In the verse before, the prophet 
 had told us this in the plainest language : " Thus saith 
 the Lord : I am returned unto Zion, and will dwell in the 
 midst of Jerusalem ; and Jerusalem shall be called a city 
 of truth; and the mountain of the Lord of hosts the 
 holy mountain." There is no mistake, then, in the city's 
 composition, and no accident in its arrangements. If 
 the Lord does not mean to have old men and old 
 w^omen in it, they will not be seen there ; if boys and 
 girls are found playing in the streets of it, we may be 
 sure they did not stray in as vagrants, or get dropped 
 there as foundlings ; they are there by the express 
 appointment of the Father of all the families of the 
 earth. 
 
 We may take these sentences, therefore, as a graphic 
 outline of what God would have a Christian state of 
 society to be, not in heaven, but in this world. In 
 the scriptural imagery, or symbolism, Jerusalem is a type 
 of the Christian Church. Where the Gospel of Christ 
 has done its perfect work, where Christianity has realized 
 itself in social institutions, and has penetrated all our 
 private and public life with its practical regulation, there 
 the whole of our being will come under its control ; all 
 its periods, from childhood to old age, will take the stamp 
 and bear the fruit of this holy and gracious power in the 
 heart; every capacity in us will be invigorated to its 
 best exercise by Christian faith ; our common work, — the 
 
352 THE HUMAN SOCIETY IN THE CITY OF GOD. 
 
 handiwork of the husbandman and mechanic, the in- 
 tellectual work of the scholar, the housework of woman, 
 the shop work of the trader, — will be better and safer and 
 happier work for being done in the name of Christ, for 
 the sake of Christ, out of that living union of the heart 
 with Him which makes Him the real life and power of 
 all our daily service, — done by a Christian will, with a 
 Christian purpose, in a Christian spirit, with Christian 
 hands and brain and feet. 
 
 And thus you have the subject before you. It seems 
 to me to be greatly needed. There is, here in the midst 
 of us, and everywhere about us, a painful and almost 
 unaccountable separation between the vague notions 
 about religion that float loosely through men's minds 
 and those great interests and employments which occupy 
 them from morning to night, six days of every week. It 
 is as if a farmer should dig a deep trench, or build a 
 high wall, between his granary and his table — spending 
 the bulk of his time in gathering in his harvests, but 
 then locking them up in barn and cellar, forgetting 
 that they grew for the daily nourishment of the body. 
 Our faith is really the bread of our life. This Word of 
 God, what is said of it ? " Men shall not live by bread 
 alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the 
 mouth of God." Moses wrote that on the threshold of 
 one great religious dispensation in the world's history, 
 and Jesus Christ repeated it, at His temptation, at the 
 opening of another, and He added, " I am the Word and 
 I am the Bread." The substance of the creed you confess 
 is not like a pew in church, or a Sunday suit that is put 
 on and oiF, to be seen or occupied only when the labor 
 and struggle and trial of life are interrupted ; it is just 
 as much meant for our soul's food as the corn which 
 God's sunshine, soil, and air have ripened all Summer 
 
THE HUMAN SOCIETY IN THE CITY OF GOD. 353 
 
 is meant to sustain the bodily forces that till and gather 
 it. This Church is meant to open straight into your 
 homes. The ideas you receive from tlie pulpit are not 
 merely for the attention of the moment, for criticism, or 
 entertainment, or a topic of conversation as you walk 
 home from the sanctuary when the service is over. They 
 are the seed-grain that is scattered on the ground, not to 
 die there, or be caught away by birds, but to sink in, to 
 act on the heart and be acted on by it, in the sj)iritual 
 chemistry of assimilation and reproduction, to take root 
 and get fastened there, to bear the blade and the ear. 
 These prayers and sermons that he has heard ought 
 to be found in every worshipper, a part of himself, 
 absorbed into the constitution of His character. If not, 
 how are they much better than the Chinaman's praying- 
 mill, or the counted beads on the Romanist's rosary ? I 
 know of nothing in the whole religious condition of the 
 people more wanted than some sliarp sword of the Spirit 
 to cut this curtain asunder that hangs between our 
 abstract and speculative religious belief and our ordinary 
 intercourse with men, hiding the one from the other, — 
 some storm of holy light that shall smite through this 
 artificial, half-atheistic wall of partition between a pas- 
 sive faith and an active operation of that faith, in 
 secret dispositions and out-of-door doings. The men 
 and the children in the street, as the text says, should be 
 the constant signs and witnesses of the kingdom of God 
 within them, — men about their business, children at 
 their play, so toiling and trafficking, or so playing, if you 
 please, as to make it plain that the stamp of the regener- 
 ation is upon them, the image of Christ within them, all 
 citizens together of the great unseen city and common- 
 wealth of new-born souls, baptized into Christ, and 
 bound to His resurrection, having their conversation in 
 
 33 
 
354 THE HUMAN SOCIETY IN THE CITY OF GOD. 
 
 heaven and here at the same time. There is nothing in 
 our domestic habits, that I know of, too small to bear 
 this stamp and seal of the law of Christ, nothing too 
 commonplace to be a test of sanctitication. If every 
 disciple's love and loyalty to Christ went into the least 
 of his transactions, making his speech gentle and pure, 
 his bargains immaculate, his temper as even as that of 
 Him who when lie was reviled reviled not again but 
 suffered patiently, his whole treatment of the world a testi- 
 mony to the cross, why then yon could judge a man's faith 
 as you judge the growth in your orchard. Give the com- 
 parative anatomist the smallest bone of a bird, a fish, or 
 a quadruped, that has been buried a thousand years, and 
 out of that fragment between his fingers lie is able to 
 describe the entire creature, to name and classify it, and 
 draw a likeness of the living body. If we Christians 
 were as much alive with Christ as the apostles were, — as 
 we certainly ought to be alive with Him who died for 
 us, and who if He becomes our indwelling Saviour 
 changes us from glory to glory, — we should hardly need 
 our written covenants and formal professions ; for every 
 hour's life would be an embodied article of our creed. 
 Then there would not be, as now, three classes of men, 
 — unrenewed men on the one hand, true Christians on 
 the other, and between these, a set of professing Chris- 
 tians whose whole Christianity stands in their profession ; 
 there would be only two armies, each under its own 
 leader and banner — for Christ or against Him. In fact, 
 every hour of our life is an embodied article of our 
 creed; though it may not be the same creed that the 
 tongue repeats. The tongue may say : " I believe in 
 God the Father Almighty." But what if your life only 
 says to your neighbors, I believe in myself and this 
 world, in good bargains and paying investments, in 
 
THE HUMAN SOCIETY IN THE CITY OF GOD. 355 
 
 getting the most I can and making it more, or in enter- 
 tainments and dress and admiration ? Is it likely that 
 either your neigbors or God will be deceived ? 
 
 They are not deceived. And this reminds us that the 
 case is really worse than we have yet put it. We have 
 spoken of inconstant and inconsistent religionists. 
 There is another class which is largely created by them. 
 In all these villages and cities there are a great many 
 men who treat the whole system of positive Christianity, 
 both doctrine and ordinance, with indifference. They 
 live by the side of Christian institutions very much as 
 they would live by neighbors speaking another language 
 and following different pursuits. They pass the church 
 door, but never go in. A Bible lies on their table or 
 shelf somewhere, but it is let alone as if it had no mes- 
 sage in it for • them. They hear the ringing of the 
 Sunday bell, but it stirs no Christian gratitude and sig- 
 nifies no Christian hope ; the notes ring out and die 
 away, freighted with no hallowed associations, kin- 
 dling no premonition of " the rest that remaineth for the 
 people of God," — as unmeaning to these souls for which 
 the Eternal Shepherd came as they are to the ears 
 of the dumb cattle that eat and sleep on the Summer 
 sod, and are buried under it. They never acknowledge 
 any acquaintance with Revelation, in the street, nor 
 invite it to their houses, till that one guest pushes in 
 which they hold at bay as long as medicine and fear can 
 do it ; and then, inconsistently enough, they ask in, to 
 meet that dark stranger on the way to the graveyard, 
 the minister of the risen Christ, whom they had dis- 
 owned all their lives. Now, no believer in the reality 
 of his Faith, whether he be minister or layman, can look 
 this strange problem in the face without painfully ask- 
 ing the question, again and again. What does it mean ? 
 
356 THE HUMAN SOCIETY IN THE CITY OF GOD. 
 
 How does it come about? What can break up this 
 strange and heathenish unconcern ? The faith in Christ, 
 the trust in God, the expectation of immortality, the 
 love of the Church, for which we care more than for all 
 the rest of life together, is nothing to those brothers and 
 sisters, who, nevertheless, are made just as we are made. 
 Solve us this mystery, O science or philosophy, and we 
 will crown you as the pwphets and interpreters of the 
 secret things of the mind of man ! 
 
 I do not pretend to suggest here the whole explanation. 
 If we believe the Scripture, which knows a great deal 
 more of us than we know of ourselves, the sad reason 
 for much of it is the natural disrelish, in a selfish and 
 self-indulgent character, for an unselfish, disinterested 
 service; the natural man discerneth not the things of 
 the Spirit of God; a life of appetite and accumulation, 
 i. e., has nothing in common with the glorious inspiration 
 of the spirit of the Cross. Grant this, yet it does not 
 cover, by any means, all the cases. Kow and then one 
 of that sort of men breaks the silence, and gives you, 
 frankly, a difierent account. You find there has grown 
 into his mind, — perhaps from mistaken and one-sided 
 instruction, a settled impression that this whole matter 
 of religion lies aside from his life, and apart from its 
 vital interests. With those that have it, he tells you, — 
 and he sincerely thinks so sometimes, — religion is a 
 class-concern, or a periodical and occasional concern, at 
 any rate a partial and narrow concern. It lays hold 
 only on a peculiar and exceptional faculty in the mind. 
 It takes a man, if at all, by unusual ways, ways over 
 which his will has no control. It comes to some, and 
 not to others, and those others must be excused. It is 
 like the arbitrary gifts that make a man a mechanician 
 or a poet, — that fix the complexion of his face or the 
 
THE HUMAN SOCIETY IN THE CITY OF GOD. 357 
 
 color of his eyes. It lies off from the great body of 
 his manhood or his business, — and is therefore not to be 
 gone about, bred in, and made a part of every man's 
 substance and best life, by any intelligible, practicable 
 means. There is much of this sentiment abroad, and 
 it kills, in not a few, all effort to be Christians. 
 
 Let us meet it as directly as we can. Nothing will 
 be more convincing, in exploding the error, than a daily 
 demonstration, in our own persons and conduct, of the 
 opposite truth. "We turn and look into the face of 
 Christ as He walks the world in the majesty and beauty 
 of His holiness. Is there anything there that looks like 
 a class-piety, an occasional or intermitted sanctity, a faith 
 for some exceptional souls, a limited salvation ? 'No. 
 All our humanity, every faculty, power, capacity, affec- 
 tion of it, is taken up into Him. His blessed incarna- 
 tion. His coming in our flesh, includes everything that 
 is in you and me. Until every element and fibre, every 
 faculty and power, in us, is reached by His redemption, 
 touched with the beauty of His righteousness, and made 
 new by His transforming grace, we are not entirely His, 
 — not complete Christians. He speaks, on the mount 
 and along the hill-sides and highways and lake-shores of 
 Judaea. Do you gather from anything He says that His 
 followers are to have two divided lives, serving mammon 
 a part of the time and God a part, the world with their 
 business energies, and God only with some sentimental 
 states brought out at special seasons? Does He say, 
 Come unto Me, a part of you who labor and are heavy 
 laden, — or. Let here and there one come? Does He 
 say that He died for a portion of His Father's family? 
 Which one of our faculties, of intellect, heart, or will, 
 does He set apart, and say, My coming and My Gospel 
 and My righteousness have nothing to do with that ? 
 
358 THE HUMAN SOCIETY IN THE CITY OF GOD. 
 
 Analyze the very essence and marrow of the Chris- 
 tian , life. What are the parts of it? Faith, Hope, 
 Charity. Is any one of them a class-possession ? Chris- 
 tianity is too divine and bountiful a blessing to be so 
 hedged in and misapprehended. It intends that every 
 man and woman and boy and girl shall be the better for 
 it, and every corner and instant in the character and life 
 of each shall be the better. It comes to make better 
 workmen as well as better believers, better men for the 
 life that now is and for that which is to come, — better 
 citizens and neighbors, better husbands and fathers, 
 better parents and children, better boys and girls. It 
 would make strong men more manly, pure women more 
 pure, light-hearted children lighter-hearted, because the 
 love of Christ casts all fear out. The unseen city it is 
 silently building is a city of truth, the mountain of the 
 Lord of hosts, the holy mountain. Old men and old 
 women shall dwell in it, and it shall be full of boys and 
 girls playing in the streets thereof. It comes down^ to 
 be sure, like a bride, out of heaven, from God. But 
 although it descends from above, it is human in its 
 adaptations ; it is a dwelling-place for just such people 
 as we all are ; human feet walk in it ; human voices are 
 heard along its avenues; human comfort lights its 
 windows. The Gospel is sent into the world just as the 
 world is. It is not some other race, but ours, in its own 
 flesh and blood, in its habitations and occupations, that 
 the Saviour comes to teach, to purify, to redeem, and to 
 train up for His future service, — that heavenly labor 
 which is perfect rest. 
 
 Accordingly, we must expand our ideas and give them 
 life, by corresponding convictions of the way. of coming 
 to Christ and being made one with Him in this world. 
 The pathways that run up to that Jerusalem are not all of 
 
THE HUMAN SOCIETY IN THE CITY OF GOD. 359 
 
 one pattern, or graded after one scheme. It is enough that 
 each one starts just where each one of us who is to travel 
 it is found, and that they all end at the same Master's 
 feet. It is a very simple road. Theology becomes only 
 a blind guide when it complicates and mystifies it, and 
 puzzles the unsophisticated mind with metaphysical cross- 
 examinations. Do you want to be a Christian ? Then you 
 have already begun to be one, — but you have only 
 begun. Do you wish that Christ were even now dwell- 
 ing in yoUj with His glorious, animating, and satisfying 
 presence, giving peace and power to your heart ? Then 
 have no misgivings or doubts that the motions of His 
 Spirit are already stirring your soul, and that all you 
 have to do is to renounce the sin that prevents His per- 
 fect entering and abiding, and believe that He is waiting 
 to bless you with life everlasting; — repentance and faith. 
 Do you say, in your timidity, that you wish you hated 
 sin more ? Be encouraged ; what is that wish but the 
 hatred and the repentance, in their first, feeble, incip- 
 ient stage ? What those feelings need is religious nur- 
 ture, to grow, to strengthen, to have food and air and 
 light and exercise. That religious life is yet but a little 
 child, like one of the children in the streets of the new 
 Jerusalem, — and it needs to be treated as little children, 
 with their little life, are treated. Where shall this be 
 done? Outside the Saviour's fold, or within His fold? 
 Put the question in another form : are the flock and the 
 lambs fed out in the wilderness among the briars and the 
 rocks, where, — as I remember seeing it once in a very 
 striking picture, — the poor creature lies caught and 
 tangled, torn and bleeding, in the thorns, with the vul- 
 ture wheeling slowly in circles up in the air, waiting for 
 him to die, and the strong sea beating the rocky preci- 
 pice below, and the shepherd is seen slowly climbing up, 
 
360 THE HUMAN SOCIETY IN THE CITY OF GOD. 
 
 and looking everywhere, his own hands bleeding with the 
 briars, his own feet torn with the edges of the rocks, — 
 is that the place for the saved wanderer to be fed, to be 
 healed, and grow strong ? 'No. The Shepherd lajeth 
 it on His shoulders rejoicing, and carries it home. That 
 is the place. Where is the Christian's home, but the 
 Church ? But you say you are afraid you have not faith 
 enough to enter there. Listen to an old singing saint 
 who knew the human heart through and through : 
 
 " He that lacks faith, and apprehends a grief 
 Because he lacks it, has a true belief; 
 And he that grieves because his grief 's so small, 
 Has a true grief and the best faith of all." 
 
 The greatest part of salvation on our part is in the being 
 willing to be saved. The great road to heaven is the 
 taking up of the work, just as we take up any practical 
 and earnest work, into which our whole heart goes. I 
 fear we cover the matter up, and spoil the simplicity of 
 Christ, with over-much will-work and system-building, 
 and over-many requirements that Christ never laid 
 down. I fear it more and more, the longer I live. The 
 great ideas that the modern mind of Christendom needs 
 to grasp and realize are the simplicity of the conditions of 
 Christ's salvation, the practical character of faith, the fit- 
 ness of Christianity to all the relations and positions of 
 human life, the need and value of the Christian training 
 of the young, and the using of the visible system of 
 Christ's Church for that end. I join the Master at the 
 beginning of His ministry. I see how natural and 
 plain it all was. He showed Himself to men, and they 
 loved Him. He spoke to them, and called them by 
 their names, — Philip, E"athaniel, Andrew, Peter, James, 
 and John. One by one they turned and hearkened. 
 He said, Follow Me. They followed Him, attracted to 
 
THE HUMAN SOCIETY IN THE CITY OF GOD. 361 
 
 Him, and seeing something in Him that drew them on. 
 He began to teach them, and as soon as He began, what 
 He told them of was the kingdom, — the home, the family 
 circle of Faith, where they were to learn to live and love 
 and grow in Him, and become one in Him ; the city of 
 old and young. Oh if those unbelieving and indif- 
 ferent men and women could only see how plain the way 
 is, and how full of human joy and blessedness that 
 divine city is, and how suited its ordinances of prayer 
 and scripture and sacrament are to call out all that is best 
 in them, and build them up into free and strong and 
 noble souls, they could not stay away, or wait outside. 
 They would say this day, "As for me and my house, 
 we will serve the Lord." 
 
 Yes, as for me and my house ! The children were 
 seen by the prophet in the streets of the new Jerusalem. 
 Christ has work for all of them to do, — gladness for all of 
 them to feel. The city is wide and wide open. The old 
 men and old women are there, — every man with his staff' 
 in his hand for very age. It is a healthy place then, a 
 place to live long in. Between these two extremes, — the 
 old man leaning on his staff and the boys and girls playing 
 in the streets, — all the periods of human life are com- 
 passed, and so our blessed Faith is suited to them all. 
 It is a comprehensive Faith. It comforts, guides, en- 
 riches, sanctifies them alL The city is a place by itself; 
 a holy place ; yet it gathers into it all souls that will 
 come in by the door. You know who it was that said, 
 " I am the Door of the sheep ; by Me if any man enter 
 in, he shall go in and out and find pasture." 
 
 Blessed are they that do His commandments that they 
 may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in 
 through the gate into the city. The Spirit and the Bride 
 say, Come, and whosoever will, let him come! 
 
THE HEAYENS OPENED. . 
 
 Ascension Day, 
 
 "And behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it 
 reached to heaven; and behold the angels of God ascending and 
 descending on it." — Genesis xxviii. 13. 
 
 ** Verily, verily, I say unto you, hereafter ye shall see heaven open, 
 and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of 
 Man."— >S^. John i. 51. 
 
 *'No man hath ascended up to heaven, but He that came down 
 from heaven, even the Son of Man which is in heaven." — St, John 
 iii. 13. 
 
 You are struck, first of all, in these transactions, with 
 the fact that they all lie entirely apart from everything 
 known to ns in common history, or ever experienced on 
 the level of this world. The heavens, generally shut up 
 in close reserve and inexorable silence, are set open 
 to the eyes of men; beings called angels are visibly 
 passing and repassing ; supernatural creatures are coming 
 on errands to Christ and going from Him, He being at 
 home in the midst of them, at once their object and 
 Master ; and finally this Lord himself is shown coming 
 from heaven, and going up into it. Highways such as 
 run between two of our earthly cities we see travelled 
 both ways between this planet and the new Jerusalem. 
 Outside of Kevelation, we shall all say at once, there 
 is nothing like this. 
 
 Materialism is our first danger. Church building and 
 
THE HEAVENS OPENED. 363 
 
 the Lords's Day, prayer itself, ministry, creed, ordinances 
 and sacraments rest on a belief in a supernatural world 
 fall of supernatural life, or else tliey are a slowly perish- 
 ing pretence. If that faith in unseen beings and an 
 unseen country dies, however silently or gradually, the 
 whole ftibric of what we call religion becomes a solemn 
 unreality. 
 
 Before joining the several passages just repeated 
 together, and drawing from them the comforting instruc- 
 tion of their joint doctrine, we will look at them a 
 moment separately. Each of them pertains to a human 
 person and place, and while what is written in them all 
 alike is surpassingly sublime, the record of each one has 
 a beauty peculiar to itself. 
 
 In the first, one of the principal characters in the 
 earliest period of the world, a patriarch, being on a 
 journey undertaken in obedience to God's special 
 command, sleeps, after the Oriental fashion, in the 
 open air, either under a light awning, or with no other 
 tent than the sky, the stars in sight. The contact of 
 this man with the sights and sounds of material nature 
 is as direct and free, therefore, as that intercourse of his 
 bpirit with God which this out-of-door condition of things 
 about him symbolizes. On one of these nights of Jacob's 
 rest, the time comes when a promise is prepared for liim. 
 In an age of the future so far away that his thought can 
 grasp no clear conception of it, — when the sinful and 
 sorrowing race of men shall have learnt, by long trying 
 and by many tears, how little it can do of itself, when 
 the bad choice of the first pair has borne bad fruit enough, 
 and when the time appointed of the Father is fully 
 come, — then a descendant of this Jacob shall be born, 
 of such a new and universal power of life to save men, 
 that in Him all the nations of the earth shall be ever- 
 
364 THE HEAVEN6 OPENED. 
 
 lastingly blessed. This was the magnificent truth sent 
 down through that Eastern midnight sky into the shep- 
 herd's mind. No doubt his idea of that wonderful sal- 
 vation would be narrow with the narrow range of his 
 shepherd-life and the scanty populations then scattered 
 between the Caspian, Mediterranean, and Arabian Seas. 
 Still it must have been to him even there a prospect 
 inexpressibly glorious and inspiring. See, then, with 
 what brilliant and yet simple heralding, — such as be- 
 fitted the religious economy of that early time, this 
 communication was made. There are no books, no sanc- 
 tuaries, no pulpits, no anointed prophets yet ; but there 
 is that eternal and all-illuminating mind of the Jehovah- 
 angel, out of which all true prophets are afterwards 
 to be inspired, all true sanctuaries to be built, and all 
 sacred Scriptures to be written, — the " Word that was in 
 the beginning with God, and was God." He brings the 
 message, in his own way ; and it is a way answering to 
 those childlike times on the earth when God's great 
 men led their flocks over the plains. Jacob " went out 
 from Beersheba, toward Haran. And he lighted upon a 
 certain place, and tarried there all night, because the sun 
 was set ; and he took of the stones of that place, and put 
 them for his pillow, and lay down to sleep. And be- 
 hold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it 
 reached to heaven; and behold the angels of God 
 ascending and descending on it. And the Lord stood 
 above it, and said. The land whereon thou liest, to thee 
 will I give it and to thy seed. And in thee and in thy 
 seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed." 
 l^ow see. It is just as if, out of that thick darkness of 
 the night, when mortal voices are still and the public 
 daylight is veiled, the Creator carved out a temple for 
 Himself, and opened a hidden window of Jacob's soul, 
 
THE HEAVENS OPENED. 365 
 
 and conveyed to him His assurance of His love. The 
 " angels " that run to and fro on the ladder-steps are 
 only the carriers of the message. He does so always to 
 belie\dng and obedient hearts, only without sight or 
 sound. In the very earliest of all writings, the Life of 
 Job, supposed to date back before the age of Moses and 
 his books, and quite independent of them, it is written, 
 " In thoughts from the visions of the night, when deep 
 sleep falleth on men, then a spirit passed before my 
 f:ice ; it stood still, but I could not discern the form 
 thereof; an image was before mine eyes, and I heard a 
 voice." Gradually these open visions became infrequent ; 
 they hovered awhile on the border-land of life, and so 
 disappeared. Whether because man grew artificial, and 
 his senses more gross and confused, or because it was 
 necessary that other perceptions should be brought into 
 play, at any rate the ladder was drawm up, and the 
 angels were concealed. It is very certain that in the 
 glare of intellectual light their forms generally become 
 less shining. But the faith in their reality never lost its 
 place in the old Church. Every devout Hebrew sang 
 with David, " Praise the Lord, ye angels of His, ye that 
 excel in strength." Chosen and ordained prophets, like 
 Ezekiel, could say, ^''By the river of Chebar the 
 heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God." The 
 unseen pathway between heaven and earth was still 
 trodden by angels. They kept their heavenly watch and 
 their human charge, — ascending and descending, till the 
 Son of Man came, who commands their legions, and 
 makes them His ministers. 
 
 So we reach the second passage. This Son of Man has 
 come. At the very beginning of His course, standing on 
 the threshold of His kingdom, when Haas yet discovers 
 His real divinity to only a few open-minded and clean- 
 
366 THE HEAVENS OPENED. 
 
 hearted men like Nathaniel, — an Israelite in whom there 
 is no gJ-iile, — He is careful to say, " Hereafter ye shall see 
 heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and de- 
 scending upon the Son of Man." That deeper sense, 
 which the deeper readers like Origen and Augustine, 
 and Luther and Tholuck, have never failed to recognize, 
 is this. Our Lord's coming into the world flings for- 
 ever apart the folded gates of the invisible. It throws 
 the two worlds open into each other. It is the very 
 reality which the ladder Jacob saw long before in 
 Syria, with the condescending and climbing angels on 
 it, typifies and prefigures. From the moment of Christ's 
 baptism, the outset of His sacrificial and saving min- 
 istry, all the bars and partition-walls, and to the eye of 
 faith even the veils of the holy place, are taken out of 
 the way. A train of spiritual glories is from that hour 
 set in motion, which will go on breaking and brighten- 
 ing over the earth, in gifts of the Spirit, in the awaking 
 of love and trust in human hearts, in righteous conduct, 
 and in the gathering of nations about His cross, which 
 will have their consummation and crown only when He 
 comes again with His saints. This, then, is your Chris- 
 tian privilege, you who believe and follow the Lord. 
 And as there was a promise then, so there comes 
 another promise : " Hereafter ye shall seeP It is a con- 
 stantly increasing clearness, and culminating splendor, 
 as the great plan of revelation proceeds. While the 
 kingdom goes from strength to strength, its children 
 move on from glory into more complete glory, — which 
 is only their better knowledge of Christ and nearer 
 likeness to Him. As they grow in that. Christian peo- 
 ple will see that the whole heavenly world is actually in 
 Christ's service,.even when He is on earth. You notice 
 that in the text " ascending " is put before " descend- 
 
THE HEAVENS OPENED. 367 
 
 ing," as if these holy ones started from here, and 
 went up first, — which only signifies that the person of 
 Clirist, wherever that is, is the real centre and starting- 
 point of all spiritual life and spiritual fellowship. The 
 stream of life flows outward and upward and onward 
 from Him. He is the bond between things terrestrial 
 and things celestial. Time and space are lost in that love 
 and life. The going up and going down are but images 
 of the eternal unity, where the true tabernacle of God 
 is with men, and the separating and disordering power 
 of sin is forever broken down and cast out. Hereafter 
 ye shall see it, if not now, — ye who believe and live 
 righteously. The flow and reflow of that blessed love 
 and beatific light shall be unceasing, — without hindrance 
 or cloud, — because He fills the universe who is all in all, 
 the very fulness of God. And, as far as we are inwardly 
 with Him, we are with His angels, — whether we see them 
 or not, — moving with their motion, climbing when they 
 climb,hearkening with them to the voice of His Word, min- 
 istering to Him with them in the satisfying communion. 
 Pass on and observe the progress of the doctrine. Jesus 
 has entered on His public teaching, and is persuading a 
 politician to accept the mysteries of the new kingdom, in 
 the only way they can be received ; viz., on the simple 
 faith of Divine authority, coming in by the new birth of 
 water and the Holy Ghost. They are talking of regen- 
 eration. Our translation, by the way, conceals the 
 special signification. " Except a man be born again," 
 we read. But Christ says, "Except a man be horn 
 from above {avcodzv), by a power coming down into him 
 from the world of life above him." Nicodemus repre- 
 sents the educated and fashionable class : — he is one of 
 the prudent sceptics of a half-secularized and comfortable 
 Church ; and like the Nicodemuses of the trade and 
 
368 THE HEAVENS OPENED. 
 
 politics and learning of our days, he is so well satisfied 
 and so much, occupied with the life that now is, that he 
 understands neither why anybody should want any other, 
 or be born into any better. Christ says to him : O poor 
 rich man, your intellectual acuteness and logical practice 
 have never let you in at the open door, where this 
 spiritual perceptions play at their pleasure, and God's 
 truth is known. "Art Thou a Master in Israel, and 
 knowest not these things ? We speak that we do know, 
 and testify that we have seen. ISTo man hath ascended 
 up to heaven, but He that came down from heaven, 
 even the Son of Man which is in heaven." The heaven. 
 Christ gives to His followers, or into which He immedi- 
 ately receives those that join themselves to Him by 
 faith, is a present heaven, always present where He is 
 present. See how the walls of time and space spring back 
 and vanish away before this One Lord of our souls. How 
 the curtains of our little tent where we tarry for a night 
 are lifted up, and these outward heavens roll together as a 
 scroll ! It would be something to stand at Jacob's side 
 in the pasture, and see the ladder and the angels. But 
 here we have a grander privilege. Heaven comes down 
 amongst us, and we are its citizens already. Are we 
 living so ? Everywhere the Living Head carries the 
 living members with Him. He comes down to us, that 
 we may rise by Him. The ascension is immediately 
 followed in the actual ISTew Testament order, as in the 
 Church's year, by a sending down from the place 
 whither Christ has gone before of heavenly gifts upon 
 His people ; and most of all the one great Whit-Sunday 
 gift of the Comforter. These gifts are impartial and 
 universal, making Christians strong, safe, and joyful. 
 They are the angels' footsteps on the ladder, coming 
 down among men. "Unto every one of us is given 
 
THE HEAVENS OPENED. 
 
 grace according to the measure of tlie gift of Christ." 
 Every one. There is but one Family, and one Com- 
 munion. Our common dwellings and daily work are 
 encompassed with the infinite glory of that heavenly 
 presence, which once condescended to the smallest 
 duties, and washed poor men's feet. This is what the 
 {Son of Man has done. This is the transfiguration of the 
 Christian's life, wrought by the coming of Christ in our 
 humanity. To believe it is life eternal. 
 
 There are three great conclusions that leave their 
 blessed burden of religious consolation on our hearts. 
 
 First, to the believer heaven is actually ojpened / not 
 opened merely in the sense of having a passage set into 
 its wall through which, by and by, our souls may creep 
 in to get their first acquaintance with its life, but open 
 for immediate intercourse and a personal communication^ 
 if we will, — spiritual gifts coming down to us out of its 
 silent streets, as actual as if we saw on shining stairs 
 those radiant bearers of them that brightened Jacob's 
 dream. The full truth shines out. We are not shut in 
 from the influences of our Lord's Spirit, here^ where we 
 need tliem so much, — fighting temptation, or bearing 
 hardship and pain and sorrow. The heavens over us 
 are not brass, even if the earth under us seems some- 
 times to be iron. The fainting and weary soul of the 
 disciple has her refreshment. All her fresh springs are 
 near at hand. AVorking on, as w^e may often think, 
 to little purpose, sufiering with no clew to the mystery 
 of our pain, finding the ordinary path parched as Baca, 
 and our own spirits almost as dry, nevertheless heaven 
 lies around us. Now and then its dew moistens our 
 thirst. We are able to hold on our way by its invigora- 
 tion. Life is not the horrible mockery it would be if 
 this world were all. The land we are travelling through 
 
 24 
 
370 THE HEAVENS OPENED. 
 
 is not comfortless or forgotten of its Father ; it is a part 
 of Emmanuel's country. "I will not leave you comfort- 
 less, I will come to you." And so, with all its sicknesses 
 and graveyards and the crimes that are worse than either, 
 — this world where we are, to a Christian resident in it, 
 is an outer room at least, and one of the many mansions, 
 of God's house. 
 
 Secondly, this opening of heaven to us, both here in 
 these leginnings of the better life and hereafter, is made 
 for us only by one Lord, who is at the same moment and 
 forever the Lord of angels and the Friend and Master 
 of men, — who fills the universe with His holy life 
 because He has in. Himself the fulness of God. Blessed 
 and glorious as the fact is that in these days of the Son 
 of Man, and to the members of His body, the heavens 
 stand open, He is certainly most blessed and more 
 glorious who has opened thetn. And hence how plain 
 it is that whether we are moved by thankfulness for 
 Avhat He has done for us, or by a hope of peace here- 
 after, our first business is to come to Him,, in the only 
 way that we can come, the way He has Himself marked 
 out. If we are in any doubt— He being out of sight — 
 whether the service is genuine. He has shown us marks 
 that we can test it by. He has left His representatives 
 among us, and said distinctly, " These My poor people, 
 — ignorant and forlorn, sinning and sorrowful, lost, and 
 most lost in not knowing that they are lost at all, — I 
 leave with you; ye shall have them always with you; 
 by this shall ye know that ye have been discipled by 
 Me, if ye love them, and love each other. Inasmuch as 
 ye serve and visit them, for My sake, because I have 
 loved you, ye do it unto Me." Do that service, and then 
 you are yourselves angels ; for angels are but messengers 
 and ministers. You, too, wait on the Son of Man, who 
 
THE HEAVENS OPENED. 371 
 
 has put from Him the kingdoms of the world, and the 
 temptation of bread, and the flattery of ambition. Do 
 that, and jour own feet climb the ladder. You ascend 
 with Christ in heart and mind, whither He goes before. 
 Because He lives, ye live also. No matter if, like the 
 patriarch, you have to take the stones of that place where 
 you are, — hard and cold, — and lay them for your pillow, 
 — behold, the pathway of light opens up none the less. 
 The angels travel it both ways : they come down bring- 
 ing God's help as well as go up with the burden of your 
 prayers. You have been given by His Church to be 
 His, and where He is there you shall be, and that is 
 your heaven and your home. 
 
 And whatever helps you in Christian living, helps 
 you also to realize spiritual things more clearly. In- 
 creased watchfulness helps, a larger and freer faith 
 gained through the habitual exercise of the faith we 
 have helps ; so do a pure and upright practice. Church 
 worship, and cordial communions by the Body and 
 Blood. Prayer helps, and helps the more, the more 
 unaffectedly and naturally and trustingly we use it ; for 
 nothing, more than these petitions and praises sent up- 
 ward, with the certain answers sent down, can be like 
 the ascending and descending messengers between us 
 and our Lord. Make great ventures in that heavenly 
 interchange ; let your supplications and your alms come 
 up together before God, and prove Him whether, in the 
 old image of the prophet, the windows of heaven are not 
 open, pouring ^''ou out blessings^ Live like Christ your 
 Brother, and Christ your risen King will give you service 
 and honor in His kingdom. He is Master and Lord. 
 
 " Of the angels He saith, He maketh His angels spirits 
 and His ministers a flame of fire. But unto the Son He 
 saith, Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever." 
 
imPEOFITABLE GAZTOG-. 
 
 Sunday after Ascension, 
 
 '^ Am) while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as He went 
 up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel; which also 
 said, Ye men of Gralilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven?" 
 —Acts i. 10, 11. 
 
 The question put is not a question of curiosity but of 
 correction. It comes not from an inferior knowledge 
 needing to be enlightened, but from a liiglier knowledge 
 having light to give. The " two men in white apparel," 
 according to the habit of Scripture language, are divine 
 messengers. They make a part of the grand super- 
 natural array which the common scenery of the earth 
 put on as the Lord was leaving it. The supernatural 
 is most natural ; just as, when God makes His deepest 
 revelations to us, the mystery of faith becomes the 
 plainest reason, and there is nothing so irrational as not 
 to believe. The best philosophy is the largest. The 
 material world without the spiritual is but half a uni- 
 verse. When we get to the bottom of the matter, — as 
 perhaps not all line modern theologies do, — we shall see 
 that there is a spiritual world without us because there 
 is a spiritual world within us ; that among the laws of 
 the system we live in is the law of the spirit of life in 
 Christ Jesus, — as natural and orderly in its divine 
 operation as the law of the life of the wheat and the 
 
UNPROFITABLE GAZING. 373 
 
 eagle, and that we want the Church as much as we 
 want a house for the body, and a table for our food. 
 From the entrance of the Saviour into the garden, the 
 night before His crucifixion, on through the following 
 forty-three days, the spiritual world and the material 
 world seemed to have the doors between them swung 
 open, and to become one. So at Gethsemane, so around 
 and within the sepulchre on the morning of the third 
 day, and so on the mount at the ascension. If we be- 
 lieve the history, or credit the great fact of the incarna- 
 tion, at all, is not this just as we should expect ? He 
 in whom the realities of both heaven and earth were 
 united and embodied ; He who could say, — even while 
 He was here amongst us, handling this world and 
 handled by it, hungering and sleeping, aching and weep- 
 ing, and working and loving, as we do, — " The Son of 
 Man is now in lieaven," i. e.^ has His interior and secret 
 life abiding there, — He is passing back personally into 
 the unseen communion, where all His friends, down to 
 us gathered here this morning, are to follow Him. You 
 ask me why I believe in any New Testament miracles. 
 Eecause I see the greater miracle before me, — Christ of 
 Nazareth, — alive, grander tlian all this world's men, and 
 yet lowlier, saying out that He comes forth from God, 
 and goes to God, and is one with God, and that no man 
 Cometh unto the Father but by Him, — saying it as sim- 
 ply as my child shows me the flower found in the gar- 
 den, — ^yet so saying it that all the scribes and proconsuls 
 and philosophers and critics of eighteen hundred years 
 have not been able to break the authority, or explain the 
 secret : — this more than all else, tlfe best " evidence," 
 is why I believe, and cannot help believing. Surely it 
 will be nothing strange if the common order is dis- 
 turbed to let a higher one in ; if this striking together 
 
374 TJNPKOriTABLE GAZING. 
 
 of the two spheres sets free the life that lives in the one 
 as well as in the other. For the time, either the film by 
 which human eyes are ordinarily holden is thinned, or 
 else the veil that hangs before the mysteries of the holy 
 place is lifted up ; — and who knows but these are really 
 only two different expressions of one and the same 
 fact ? — so that the home of the Christian family below 
 and the home of the Christian family above appear, — as 
 they actually are, — opening into one another. 
 
 We go to the mount of the ascension, my friends, thus 
 to bring back help for our life, in the lower levels where 
 we are living it, this week, and henceforth. 
 
 Hemember that this question, " Why stand ye gazing 
 up?" is the first thing in the order of events, and in the 
 Bible narrative, after the closing of Christ's earthly 
 ministry. Only a little breathing space was to be given 
 them first to gather up their energies; and even that 
 was not to be an interval of idleness. They were to go 
 at once to Jerusalem, as the chosen head-quarters of the 
 great warfare for the world's conversion, and their waiting 
 there was to be like the waiting of the still midsummer 
 elements, before the mountain winds sweep down and 
 the tongues of fire leap out, — a busy waiting, — a prepara- 
 tion for this long campaign of many ages. They were 
 to occupy the ten days from Ascension to Pentecost, 
 with its mighty wind and flame, in making ready inces- 
 santly for the coming of the Holy Spirit to inaugurate 
 their work. They were to be earnest and constant 
 in prayer and praise. They were to read and settle in 
 their minds the definite doctrines and precise directions 
 their Master had committed to them during the forty 
 days, pertaining to the constitution and discipline of the 
 new kingdom they were to set up among men. They 
 were to fasten and cement the bonds of a visible unity 
 
UNPROFITABLE GAZING. 375 
 
 and worsliip between the members of the body, because, 
 it is written, they continued " with one accord^^ in their 
 " prayer and supplication." Especially they were to fill 
 up the vacant place in the apostolate, made by the 
 defection of the traitor, with the formality of a solemn 
 election. I^othing could be done till the organization 
 was complete, after the pattern shown in the mount. 
 
 Thus their business had been marked out clearly 
 before them, as every Christian's business is clearly 
 marked out before him from the time that his baptismal 
 and confirmation vows are laid upon him and the Spirit 
 is given him, onward. But how is it ? The apostles are 
 not turning to that business ; they are still resting in a 
 kind of sentimental trance between their commission 
 and their ministry. The eleven had not yet com- 
 prehended the new duty of the hour, because they 
 had not turned forward from the past to the future. 
 They were living as some Christians do nowadays, — in 
 their feelings more than in their convictions and their 
 will, in fruitless memories not in daring hopes, — eyes 
 turned towards the sky where a past glory had vanished, 
 not with their hands turned faithfully towards the men 
 for whom that Master had hecome a man and had died. 
 Indulged any longer, this would become a mere life of 
 religious sentiment, not a life of religious service, — and 
 so not a healthy life at all. How long they had been 
 gazing up into heaven w^e are not told ; it may have 
 been minutes, it may have been hours. At any rate, it 
 required a voice from God to rouse them and send them 
 to their work. That proved to be with them, as it always 
 has since and always will with useful Christians, a life 
 of intense, incessant, laborious activity :- the daily work 
 that witnesses for Christ, — Christ that died ; Christ that 
 is risen ; Christ that ascended and ever liveth to make 
 
376 UNPROFITABLE GAZING. 
 
 intercession ; Christ in His eternal humanity ; Christ in 
 the heart of His Chnrch. 
 
 If those eleven men that had companied so long with 
 Christ needed to be startled out of a false indulgence in 
 the mere idle luxury of feeling, most of us certainly need 
 it much more. It makes the whole matter real to our 
 sympathies to watch the gradual unfolding and ripening 
 of the full measure and stature of manhood, — which is 
 likeness to Christ, — in men that had just our tempera- 
 ments, our weaknesses, and the same inward and outward 
 difficulties to contend wdth that we have. I have no 
 doubt that if these disciples that we now rightly call 
 saints, — James and John, Peter and Thomas, Philip and 
 Matthew, — were to appear in our cotemporary society, 
 as they were at any point in their biography previous 
 to the Day of Pentecost, we should be surprised at their 
 resemblance to the men we met in these streets yesterday ; 
 and after that time the visible difference would lie chiefly 
 in their having a more single-hearted and enthusiastic 
 devotion to Christ than the men that we are accustomed 
 to see. It must have been meant to be so, or they 
 would not have been chosen from the average social 
 condition and ordinary associations as they were. Their 
 very faults and doubts are encouraging,- when we see 
 how steadily they struggled against them and rose over 
 them; how, instead of fostering doubt, and growing 
 ridiculously vain over their scepticism, as some frivolous 
 deniers do, — as if to put self-will before God's authority 
 were some mark of intellectual vigor, instead of a wrong 
 to intellect and heart alike, — they rather longed for faith, 
 crying, " Lord I believe, help Thou mine unbelief ; and 
 when we see how patient their Lord was with them, so 
 long as He saw sincerity and the germs of a genuine truth 
 in them. So in this particular case : a mother is not more 
 
UNPEOFITABLE GAZING. 377 
 
 gentle with the lingering or straying steps of the child 
 she attends along the street than the heavenly Master was 
 with these apostles, who were letting their personal feel- 
 ings detain them from their appointed task. Probably 
 our personal religious preferences and pleasures, our 
 tastes for some emotional stimulus or intellectual enter, 
 tainment in religion, are, in kind, to us, very much what 
 the absorption in Christ's merely external presence was 
 to them. It is something that must be put aside as soon 
 as it interferes with the more substantial business of 
 carrying Christ's truth ont in self-denying habits into 
 the living world. I hear a man say it makes him " feel 
 better " to say his prayers ; so far so good ; but how far 
 does the good feeling go, and the power of the prayer 
 keep him company, as a law of regulation to his lips and 
 a purifier of his conduct and conversation, among the 
 people that he meets who tempt him and try him ? 
 I was reading lately in the life of one of the most spot- 
 less and brilliant of modern religious devotees and ora- 
 tors, — from whose eminent honor in breaking up the tame 
 monotony of the prevalent continental piety nothing 
 ought to be detracted, — Lacordaire, — this remark, and 
 it is mentioned by the biographer as a sign of high per- 
 fection : " I desire to be remembered only as one who 
 believed, who loved, and who prayed." Well, it is true 
 the Son of Man has not yet on the earth so much believ- 
 ing, loving, and praying that these graces can be over- 
 valued; but why say only these? Taking the world 
 around us as it is, ought there not to be an equal desire 
 to honor the Lord in an active following of His steps and 
 proclaiming Him in life? Taking Christianity as it is, 
 must not a religious system which truly represents it be 
 as conspicuous for its action as the mediaeval Church was 
 for its contemplation, or the Wesleyan for its emotion, or 
 
378 UNPROFITABLE GAZING. 
 
 the Puritan for its introspection ? We need never be 
 afraid that in that hearty and holy fidelity to Christ we 
 shall lack His real presence. Invisible to sight He will, 
 in the constant freshening of the disciple's living heart 
 through the doing of His will, be only the more present 
 to His faith. 
 
 And this is the other requirement contained in the 
 angel's question. The eleven, we may say, are dropped 
 suddenly from their high privilege to the same position 
 with ourselves. They must walk, henceforth, as you 
 and I here must, not by the light of an outward leader, 
 but, what is a great deal better, by a secret and steadfast 
 trust in Him who is forever with us by an inward pos- 
 session, by His gifts and ordinances in His Church, by 
 His intercession within the veil. There is for all of us 
 also a " Jerusalem," a " Judaea," a " Samaria," if not an 
 " uttermost part of the earth," — some well-dressed city 
 with its ragged fringe of want and wickedness, some 
 country district with its neglected and untrained fami- 
 lies, some sophisticated brain that has gone astray from 
 the old standards and home of the Faith and set up its 
 Gerizim rivalry, — some that you can minister to by 
 your charity and win back by your witnessing, if that 
 witnessing is only as zealous as Peter's, and as patient 
 as Paul's, and as loving as John's. They, no more than 
 you, " by their own power " or holiness, made any lame 
 creature leap and walk ; it was by a JN^ame that is as 
 ready to be taken on your tongue as theirs, as mighty 
 for you as for them, and through a faith in that Name 
 w'hich you can have without measure, though now you 
 see Him not. 
 
 If, then, the question of the heavenly men be put into 
 some paraphrase for ourselves here, this would be its im- 
 port. Reduce your privileges to Christian practice, and 
 
UNPROFITABLE GAZING. 379 
 
 your faith to action. Life is not given us for specula- 
 tion, or gazing, or mere deliglit, even though the rehsh 
 be rehgious, — not for reverie and dreaming, even though 
 it were the reverie of devotion, or a dream of Paradise. 
 This world, our own little corner of it, wants sacrifice 
 and labor, running feet and open hands, busy thoughts 
 and gentle tongues, — all for Christ and the honor of 
 His Church. The world's ways are not clean ; there is 
 too much oppression of the weak by the strong, of the 
 fatherless and widow by cunning and power, of the 
 nobler spirit in man by the meaner senses of him. 
 There is too much cruelty in its habitations ; too much 
 darkness on its face ; too much filth on its breast. 
 Come and work for it. Its surface is rough, and wants 
 much levelling down and casting up to make it smooth 
 for the Messiah's feet. Believe in Him, and for this 
 end. Confess Him before men, to follow Him in these 
 pathways among the multitude; worship Him in sin- 
 cerity, that you may gain inward power and love and 
 light and grace for this faithful witnessing from on 
 high. Wait for Him by watching at the gate, by work- 
 ing in the field. Why stand ye gazing up into heaven ? 
 Without departing in the least from the direct force 
 of the text we find in it, thirdly, a demand, on divine 
 authority, that our Christian life, as to its inward supplies 
 and the steady operation of its energies, should be 
 independent of any particular external support, so that 
 it may be only the more completely and religiously 
 dependent on God himself. Not that we are to cast 
 away any outward prop so long as God's providence 
 holds it in its place and comforts us by letting us lean 
 upon it; but that we should not be perplexed or dis- 
 heartened when any such help that has been familiar to 
 us is taken away by Him, or enfeeble ourselves by letting 
 
380 UNPROFITABLE GAZING. 
 
 our integrity, or onr purity, or our prayers depend on it 
 instead of depending directly on Ilim. It would be great- 
 ly useful to us to take it up as a matter of careful and 
 honest inquiry, how far our Christian character would 
 be undiminished and unhindered by the striking away 
 from it of all human safeguards. Try it to-day upon 
 yourself. Take out all the considerations of social 
 respectability and the good opinion of others, especially 
 of those to whom you have a seltish motive for appearing 
 well ; take out all reference to the effect of a moral or 
 a religious standing, or your business success, or the 
 accomplishment of your' professional ends ; take out the 
 check imposed on your worse propensities by the dread 
 of domestic misery, of public disgrace, or of a loss of 
 confidence; let go prudence, self-preservation, fear, in- 
 terest; part with all those manifold and half-conscious 
 restraints that are piled up about your religious perform- 
 ances, — the current proprieties that bolster up your 
 invalid virtue ; in short, let the simple allegiance of your 
 soul to God stand out alone, unshielded, undraped, 
 unbraced by any mortal device or accessory ; how much 
 of it would there be left ? how staunch and steadfast 
 would it stand ? how long would it hold out ? how con- 
 stant would be your worship here ? how spotless and un- 
 bending your warfare with " the unspiritual god of this 
 world " ? Oh for the rooted life, the grounded principle, 
 the settled faith ! So we are told of an old Christian 
 hero, — and it is true of them all, — that the secret of his 
 spiritual greatness was that he inwardly united himself 
 to the cross, made it through life " his refuge, his remedy, 
 his passion " ; and that the cross which he upheld, of it he 
 was upholden^ until it became part of his very frame and 
 structure, even as the old fighter of the northern myth- 
 ology " felt his arm and sword grow together in the 
 
UNPROFITABLE GAZING. 381 
 
 combat, welded into one by the blood that oozed from 
 his wounds, and then knew that every blow he dealt 
 told sure." IS'o character is perfectly sure till it has this 
 mystical interlocking and inrooting in the living sac- 
 rifice. 
 
 There is no danger, my friends, that our eyes or our 
 hearts will be turned too much upwards, heavenwards, — 
 provided we look there, in faith and prayer, for the light 
 and the strength to do our Christian service here. At 
 present this is our place ; and the judgment before us is 
 a judgment for deeds done in the body. Let us waste 
 no time in vain regrets for what we have lost, or in 
 equally vain longings for what we cannot have, or what 
 would only dwarf and enfeeble us if we could. These 
 eleven men, when they were bidden to stop gazing into 
 heaven and go to their work were not turned away from 
 heavenly things to earthly things, — very far from that. 
 It was exactly the opposite. They were to stop looking 
 into the air, that by a truer and God-appointed road 
 they might travel, in God's time, higher up into the 
 Christian heaven. They were to rouse themselves from 
 a dream, that they might work out their salvation and 
 the salvation of the world. They were to cease wasting 
 their time on the empty cloud through which the 
 Saviour's form had gone, that they rather might find 
 and follow and possess forever the living Saviour him- 
 self, in doing by faith the substantial service of His love, 
 for His sake. 
 
 To that end, the present line of living, however 
 agreeable and prosperous, the present residence or occu- 
 pation, however delightful, or the present apparent 
 helps, however prized, as soon as they become tempters 
 to sluggishness, must be given up, — a sacrifice to Him 
 whose sacrifice for us is the only assurance of life. All 
 
382 UNPKOFrrABLE GAZING. 
 
 true religious power and progress are attained by 
 frequent breakings up of familiar and dangerous securi- 
 ties, bj moving forth away from them into less agreeable 
 surroundings, less easy roads, less sweet-tasting • diet. 
 " Why stand ye gazing np into heaven ? " Hence God's 
 personal providence with us is continually pushing us oh, 
 loosening our feet, changing the scene, displacing one 
 or another scheme, or vision, or staff, or companion. 
 He does it for what he would make of us, — better men, 
 — and for the farsighted love wherewith He loves us. 
 He does it because He will not let our feet cleave to the 
 dust, our hearts grow thin and weak, our faith dwindle 
 and die out ; — the dropping of every such dear delusion 
 liberates our real life, increases our durable riches, re- 
 plenishes our strength, sets us forward, lifts us up. How 
 many of you here are satisfied as you are ? How many 
 have not some secret suffering and sorrow, either for 
 what you have had and lost, or else for something that 
 you have not and are longing to reach ? Answer that, 
 and I shall not need to argue with you about this way of 
 pain and parting being God's common way. That we 
 do not see it oftener is only because we are blind to the. 
 deeper working of His hands, bent upon our little plans, 
 and too eager for ourselves. 
 
 The summing up of the whole lesson, this morning, 
 then, is this : Inquire whether the attitude of your soul 
 is visionary or practical; your great aim in life self- 
 indulgent or self-sacrificing; your daily desire and en- 
 deavor the mere enjoyment of the hours, however re- 
 fined, or the ready going upon Christ's errand, the faith- 
 ful witnessing to Him, everywhere, always, be it near or 
 far, be it easy or hard, be it with human sympathies 
 sustaining you or in the solitude of that obedience which 
 treads the winepress all alone. On this it depends 
 
UNPROFITABLE GAZING. 383 
 
 whether you waste your life's best faculty and vision 
 upon a cloud, and then sink, a lost thing, into the dark, 
 or whether you shall be endowed with immortal power 
 from on high, and be taken up also yourself, into the 
 Eternal Light, there continually to dwell. 
 
LEADINGS OF THE HOLY SPIEIT. 
 
 Whitsun-Day, 
 
 *'I WILL lead them in paths that they have not known; I will 
 make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight." 
 — Isaiah xlii. 16. 
 
 "As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of 
 God." — Romans viii. 14. 
 
 Both Isaiah and St. Paul are speaking of good men, — 
 men that believe, and pray, and work, from the only right 
 motive. Both affirm the reality of a very intimate and 
 tender connection between such men and God, existing 
 constantly, even here in this world. There is a pervad- 
 ing, loving care on the one side, and a trusting depend- 
 ence on the other side. There is a leading and a heing 
 led, — with a privilege mysteriously grand and gracious 
 growing out of that relation on the part of those who 
 are led. So far the two writers agree. Bat every 
 thoughtful reader is still aware of a certain difference 
 in the impression coming to him as he reads. The 
 prophet says, speaking in Jehovah's name, " I will lead 
 them in paths that they have not known ; I will make 
 darkness light before them, and crooked things straight." 
 The Apostle says, " As many as are led by the Spirit 
 of God, they are the sons of God." Each declares a 
 divine promise. What is it, then, that distinguishes the 
 second from the first? 
 
LEADINGS OF THE HOLY SPIEIT. 385 
 
 Isaiali represents tliat more advanced and ripened 
 stage of religious culture, in the elder Church, where 
 the original meaning of the revelation at Mount Sinai 
 had begun to come out into a clearness approaching that 
 of the Gr03pel-daj. The dawn was mounting into the skj, 
 though the day-star had not yet quite risen. The con- 
 ception of God's character had become, at least among 
 the purest minds, more simple and satisfying. There 
 was more of the graciousness of His fatherhood min- 
 gling with and balancing the fearfulness of His sov- 
 ereignty. The idea of a free forgiveness to the believ- 
 ing and penitent heart, which is the central comfort of 
 Christianity, was modifying the old regimen of inex- 
 orable statutes and animal sacrifices. Men were getting 
 underneath the letter to the spirit of the command- 
 ments, and the nation that had bowed its head so long 
 over the stone tables of the Law began to feel the fresh- 
 ening fore-tokens of the pentecostal wind which swept 
 through the chamber at Jerusalem amid the tongues of 
 fire. It heard something from the lips of those later 
 prophets that sounded like the anthem of peace and 
 good-will at Bethlehem. You have only to read the 
 first chapter of Isaiah's Book to see this, with its con- 
 trast of the fat and blood of beasts with the inward 
 washings, the new heart, the justice and liberty, the 
 snow-white cleansing of the scarlet sins which were 
 to come. Worship had become more spiritual. More 
 confiding impressions of the unseen Father were cer- 
 tainly stealing into the worshipper's soul. Hence comes 
 that promise of divine guidance, personal and gentle, 
 wliich breathes itself into words so beautiful in the text. 
 " I will lead them in paths that they have not known ; 
 I will make darkness light before them, and crooked 
 things straight." There cannot be a human heart 
 
 25 
 
386 LEADINGS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. 
 
 among us that is not moved by these assurances, because 
 there is no one among us all that has not found out by 
 rough experience that there are crooked things in his 
 life which 7ieed to be made straight, and dark places 
 which need to be made light ; that there are spots where 
 the ways part, with no guide-post, leaving the judg- 
 ment and conscience perplexed, and where one is al- 
 most certain there must be paths better than that one 
 he is walking in, safer if not smoother, and running to 
 a better end. This common need of heavenly leading 
 puts us into one company with those wandering He- 
 brews, and makes us prize the promise that was so 
 comforting to them. 
 
 In fact, if we inquire of our own nature, we shall prob- 
 ably learn that this instinct which desires and follows 
 leadership, even apart from religion, is nearly universal 
 with men, and that religion takes advantage of it and 
 employs it to train our best attachments and confidences 
 Tip to heaven. With all his self-reliance and self-will 
 man likes to trust and follow a leader, — identifying him- 
 self with his strength and skill, and making him, as it 
 were, a part of his own foresight and individual energy. 
 It appears among bands of youth, in those literary and 
 athletic games which anticipate the serious competitions 
 and conflicts of maturer years. It appears in tribes of 
 travellers, in exploring parties and discovering voyages, 
 in political combinations and social reforms, and especially 
 in the military spirit which makes the general to be. 
 half the army, gathers up the temper of a hundred 
 thousand soldiers into the breast of one captain of cap- 
 tains, sways them all with the courage of his command, 
 and in some manner spreads out the personalitiy of his 
 own will till it reaches to the remotest private in the 
 ranks. This natural deference to a master-spirit, like 
 
LEADINGS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. 387 
 
 the natural filial sentiment, or the natural feeling of 
 hope and veneration and loyalty, is one of the prepared 
 elements in us on which revealed religion lays hold, to ele- 
 vate and sanctify it, and then to bind us by it more firmly 
 and blessedly, in the bands of a spiritual piety, to God. 
 The next step in the doctrine, however, rises far up 
 above all our natural and human ties ; for it shows us 
 this guiding love of the heavenly Father as entirely 
 independent of anything that we think, or do, or feel. 
 It leads us in paths that we had not known. The 
 love is undeserved and condescending. It comes out 
 to us before we go after it. It is like a hand of 
 compassion reached down to us out of an inpenetrable 
 cloud, — a seat of mercy where our sight cannot pene- 
 trate or any claim of ours be held. " I will lead them 
 in paths that they have not known." It deals with us 
 as a mother handles a child just beginning to know 
 only her face or her voice. A little farther on the 
 same prophet clothes the thought in other phrases of 
 equal beauty. " There is no God besides Me ; I have 
 called thee by thy name, I have surnamed thee ; I 
 girded thee though thou hast not known Me.'^ We 
 were too infantile, in the childhood of our spiritual life, 
 to know God when He took us up, put His arms around 
 us, quieted the fierce cry of our passions, and carried us 
 to Christian rest. There must have been a great deal in 
 the national memories and the daily temple thanksgiv- 
 ings of those people to lend a vivid significancy to these 
 words. They were always thinking of the time when 
 they were all together but a weak bondman in Egypt, and 
 the eternal kindness came down to unfasten their fetters, 
 and bore them, as their great earthly leader says, " on 
 eagles' wings "across the wilderness. Every man has 
 been treated like that Israel. Who of us cannot recall 
 
388 LEADINGS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. 
 
 some trying time when the utter dismay came over him 
 of not knowing what way to take, — the sun gone down, 
 human helpers away or feeble, human advisers indif- 
 ferent or undecided? But God was there before us, and 
 •when w^e waited on Him we found He was waiting for 
 us. It is when we are least capable that His love is 
 most busy in our behalf, and when we are farthest from 
 being sufficient to ourselves that His preventing good- 
 ness comes in ; and then, very often, the one path which, 
 of all those that opened, was the least inviting, was the 
 one into which He led our unwilling feet. 
 
 I just used the words His preventing goodness. It is 
 an Old Testament expression which has been preserved 
 in the old English of the Prayer Book, — as we pray in 
 the Easter collect for God's special grace " preventing " 
 us. It is a curious example of the degradation of the 
 meaning of words that whereas to our forefathers the 
 term " preventing," i. e., literally going he/ore^ bore with 
 it the idea of God's going before His children only te 
 do them good, to open their way and help them on, to 
 guide them and attract them forward, in the modern 
 usage an exactly opposite, a harsh and hindering sense, 
 has been put upon the same term, — to " prevent " mean- 
 ing now to keep back, to distract, to fail and baffle one 
 in his purpose. We return now on Whitsun-day to the 
 old and gracious acceptation : " Let thy tender mercies 
 prevent us." God goes invisibly before His child, like 
 the good shepherd of the Eastern pastures before the 
 feeblest and timidest of his flock, to reassure the alarmed 
 and doubting, to take the briars and stones and to scare 
 the beasts out of the way, to straighten what is crooked, 
 to hold a lamp over the dark passages among the rocks, 
 to lead those that have faith enough to be willing to be 
 led in paths that they have not known. 
 
LEADINGS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. 389 
 
 From this promise we pass over to that given iis by 
 St. Paul. " For as many as are led by the Spirit of God 
 they are the sons of God." We see at once that there 
 is an advance into another plane of religious thought. 
 Instead of Jehovah we are told of "the Spirit," 
 "the Holy Ghost," and that the leading is by Him. 
 Then, instead of being taught of a mere outward change 
 wrought by this leading, as in the material world around 
 lis, — paths opened, the dark made light, and the crooked 
 straight, lo ! there is a transformation of our whole 
 interior nature and condition. They who were before 
 merely creatures and servants, or children only as by 
 creation, become children in a new and profounder way, 
 as coming into a spiritual union and a certain filial, 
 birthright likeness to God. IS'othing is denied or taken 
 away that Isaiah had said, only much is added, — as 
 Christ said of the entire Gospel-system when compared 
 with the old Law ; — not a particle is destroyed, but all is 
 fulfilled, — i. e., filled fall, rounded out, or made com- 
 plete. To be led of the Spirit, as a Christian disciple 
 is, is something far richer and higher than to be guided 
 on, in hope, and in the day-dawn, as the best Israelite 
 was. 
 
 If we ask what especially is signified by being "led 
 by the Spirit," the first part of the answer depends on 
 the use of words, as used by a man, St. Paul, who uses 
 them with unsurpassed precision and power. In his 
 exact Greek there are two terms for " leading," which 
 correspond respectively, in a striking way, to these two 
 views I have presented, as conveyed in the two parts of 
 the text. The one signifies a violent and rather irreg- 
 ular act of propelling a body, — a driving or pushing on, 
 as by winds, or waves. This St. Peter uses when he 
 speaks of the moving of the minds of the Old Testament 
 
390 LEADINGS OF THE HOLY SPIKIT. 
 
 saints by the mind of God. The other, employed in the 
 text, refers to an even, constant, unbroken force, acting 
 not less powerfully on the mind because it acts gently 
 and steadily : — the leading of a Spirit who abides always 
 at His gracious work on the heart, in His chamber with- 
 in it, and does not come and go. You can illustrate this 
 for yourselves by any mother walking with a little child, 
 or shepherd with sheep. The hireling, who only follows 
 after, and, when the charge wanders or falls into danger, 
 hurries up and catches hold irregularly, pushing the body 
 here or there over a hollow or through a thicket, does not 
 lead^ — as that blessed Comforter leads whom the Saviour 
 promised to send, choosing the tenderest possible images 
 to describe the gift, and especially insisting, "He shall 
 abide with you forever, even the Spirit of Truth." 
 This is that Spirit whose coming into the Church and 
 into the believer's heart we commemorate and celebrate 
 to-day. 
 
 What then is the peculiar privilege of those who are 
 80 led, and are willing, in the yielding up and surren- 
 der of their hearts, to be so led, by this faithful Spirit 
 of God ? They are called by the noblest of all titles, and 
 it declares the most exalted of all honors. " They are 
 the sons of God." Is this possible ? How can it be ? 
 
 There is One only-begotten Son of God, brought 
 once into the world, for the one mediation and redemp- 
 tion, becoming also the Son of Man, born of Mary, our 
 humanity being forever taken up into His divinity and 
 glorified by it. It is only our spiritual imion with Him, 
 in a personal ingrafting and adoption by repentance and 
 faith, water and the Spirit, that we, in an accommodated 
 and secondary sense, yet a most vital and precious one, 
 are made also "sons of God." Our sonship to God 
 comes only through Him who is the Son, only-begotten 
 
LEADINGS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. 391 
 
 and dearlj-beloved ; just as through Him, our great 
 Kino" and Priest, all true Christians are said in a sense 
 to become '^dngs and priests unto God." Hence the 
 expressions " Spirit of God " and " Spirit of Christ " 
 and " Holy Spirit " are often used as equivalent. Christ 
 gives the Comforter. When He is received into the 
 heart, ingrafted there by faith, a new blood pours itself 
 along the veins ; a new nature is born ; a new man is 
 created, — a man of God, a son of God, in the image of 
 Christ. Hence too, on the name " Spirit of God," 
 wherever introduced, there is a kind of Gospel accent, 
 — something that suggests, and is suggested by, the 
 mediation of Jesus, — an evangelic power, a sweetness, a 
 richness and unction, altogether peculiar to the religion 
 of the Cross. 
 
 Thus, my friends, between the two members of the 
 text, Isaiah's and St. Paul's, both inspired from the 
 Word of God, there is just that difference, and just 
 that advance, that there is between the two systems or 
 dispensations, — between him who might be greatest 
 born of woman under the Law, like John the Baptist, 
 and him, as Jesus says, who is least in the true kingdom 
 of heaven ; — the same that there is between the old 
 Jewish Pentecost, or Feast of Weeks, falling seven 
 weeks after the Passover, and our glorious Whitsun-day, 
 or Christian Pentecost, following at the same interval 
 after our Lord's resurrection. The one is all that faith- 
 ful men could have, in the leading of God's hand, in 
 finding darkness made light, and crooked things straight, 
 without the supreme glory of Christ's manifestation in 
 the flcsli. His sacrifice, and all tlie Gospel powers and 
 splendors of His reconciliation. The other, dear brethren 
 in Christ, is what we are permitted, in the wondrous 
 mystery of God's grace, in His Gospel and His Church, 
 
392 LEADINGS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. 
 
 to have by our membership, our incorporation and son. 
 ship in Him. 
 
 Here " the Spirit" is not a mere influence exerted on 
 character, as by a foreign benefactor ; it is an inwrought 
 and essential principle of the believer's life. He is a 
 new creature, a son (and the apostle in one place makes 
 it still more personal by saying that the believing woman 
 is a daughter) of the Lord Almighty. And as there are 
 two New Testament terms, in the original, to signify 
 two kinds of leading, so there are two terms to signify 
 children. One has reference to mere natural descent or 
 begetting, irrespective of any tender, filial feeling. The 
 other, used when sons of God in Christ are intended, 
 inchides an affectionate and sacred dependence, or loving- 
 ness of the child's and the parent's hearts. So, you are 
 more or less influenced^ doubtless, by the life of any emi- 
 nently great and unselfish man whose biography you read, 
 or whose career you watch. The force of such an example 
 enters in among the other forces that mould a character. 
 But here, in sonship, there is something deeper and 
 more interior than that. The tree may take an influence 
 from the sun, and that foreign influence tends to make 
 the tree tall, vigorous, green, and fruitful. But the tree 
 is not the child of the sun. The tree gets the nature of 
 its life, what makes up its whole characteristic quality, 
 by secret channels from a seed. If it is altered at all, 
 afterward, it must be by a graft, taking away the old 
 and brino:ino^ in a new vital element. The law of the 
 Spirit of life in Christ is not merely an external impulse 
 giving us a movement in a particular direction; it is 
 rather a silent, inward, secret element, transforming, 
 regulating, and sanctifying everything; it is j)Oured 
 into the Church by the Holy Spirit, to quicken and 
 revive it, and by secret visitation, by word and prayer 
 
LEADINGS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. 393 
 
 and sacrament, it is granted to every heart that seeks 
 it. 
 V/With this comes a special characteristic of our service 
 to Christ. It is not a service of compulsion or restraint, 
 rendered "grudgingly or ot necessity." That would be 
 no Whitsun-day religion. It is labor in a free and joyous 
 spirit, such as befits the thankful receivers of an unspeak- 
 able gift in its true character. It is not done for wages, 
 in view of a futm^e settlement or emolument, still less to 
 avert a future scourge. It is done in liberty, from a 
 choice of the heart, and therefore, as all such service is 
 done, with double energy and ejQaciency. Wise em- 
 ployers always select workmen that love their work. 
 This distinction between sonship and servantship runs 
 through all that pertains to a Christian's obedience. 
 God gives Himself to those that are led by His Spirit. 
 It is His highest gift : no other is perfect, and no other 
 could satisfy this perfect love. 
 
 And so we are brought finally to understand why it is 
 that the apostle, just after he has written these sublime 
 words of the text, — "As many as are led by the Spirit of 
 God, they are the sons of God," — and before he goes on 
 to write, "The Spirit itself beareth witness with our 
 spirit, that we are the children of God, and if children, 
 then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, 
 that we may be also glorified together," puts in this sen- 
 tence: " For ye have not received the spirit of bondage 
 again to fear, but ye have received the spirit of adoption, 
 whereby we cry, Abba, Father." Did the question 
 ever arise, in reading this chapter, why that unusual 
 Chaldaic word, "Abba," is left there untranslated? 
 Probably because, like the familiar words in our English 
 that are most easily pronounced by the very youngest 
 lips, it expresses the childlike feeling in the childlike 
 
394 LEADINGS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. 
 
 form, and is therefore untranslatable. St. Paul, the 
 robust and intellectual man, would say to us, " When 
 the Holy Spirit that Christ gave, as on this day, — the 
 great promise of the Father, — has been really welcomed 
 in its living and loving energy into your hearts, you will 
 speak in your prayers to your Father as little children 
 supplicate their parents from whom they took their life, 
 and expect the warmest love" ; and it is to answer that 
 earnest human need that the Spirit was sent. 
 
 These sublime truths, of the higher offices of the Holy 
 Spirit on Christian men, furnish a key to the interpre- 
 tation of a very difficult passage in the second of St. 
 Peter's General Epistles. His words are these : " Grace 
 and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge 
 of God, and of Jesus our Lord, according as His divine 
 power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto 
 life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him that 
 hath called us to glory and virtue ; whereby are given 
 unto us exceeding great and precious promises, that by 
 these ye 7night he partakers of the divine nature^ 
 Human thouglit can be lifted no higher than that. It 
 carries us up to the mysterious boundary between the 
 finite and the infinite mind. True Christians do become 
 *' partakers of the divine nature," if not in its essence 
 yet in its spiritual qualities, in such relation and measure 
 as the difference of capacity admits, not in the infinity 
 of the attributes of deity, but in the holy character and 
 pure afi*ection that pervade their action. This is the 
 actual sonship in which the covenanted and genuine 
 disciple stands toward God. It is not that literal and 
 eternal sonship in which He is who is " Begotten of the 
 Father before all worlds," and the " Only-begotten.'' 
 But it is obtained through Him ; we reach it by the faith 
 which is a spiritual union with Him ; it is real, conscious, 
 
LEADINGS OF THE HOLY SPIKFr. 396 
 
 practical, and transcends all other possible honors of onr 
 estate in its glory. It is a life going on now in every 
 new-born and obedient heart. It brings iis into the 
 circle and the sympathy of the privileged Family. In 
 other language, repeatedly employed in the New Testa- 
 ment, it is our '' adoption," — the ^* adoption of sons," by 
 *' the spirit of adoption " ; and so great is the inward 
 change wrought with the outward incorporation that it 
 is called a second " being born," — born not of corrupti- 
 ble seed, but of incorruptible. You were of the family 
 of the flesh and its sellish impulses ; you are now of the 
 family of the Spirit and its holy constancy. " That^ 
 which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born 
 of the Spirit is Spirit," — and it is the Spirit that accom- 
 plishes the regeneration, — that Holy Spirit which we 
 therefore praise and celebrate and magnify this day. 
 He came and led us in paths that we had not known. 
 He made darkness light before us, and crooked things 
 straight. As many as are led by the Spirit of God, 
 yield themselves to that attraction, and are willing to 
 be so re-born and re-fashioned, — these find it out. To 
 them the blessed, peaceable secret is opened. It opens 
 more and more as they are led on, till they know as 
 they are known. 
 
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