THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 
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 JOHN D. DOUGLAS. 
 
 SERMONS AND POETICAL REMAINS.
 
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 JOHN D. DOUGLAS. 
 
 SERMONS AND POETICAL REMAINS, 
 
 WITH A 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 
 
 By EDWARD COYLE, L.F.P.S.G., L.S.A., 
 
 INTRODUCTORY NOTE 
 
 Rev. WILLIAM P. DICKSON, D.D., LL.D., 
 
 PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY, GLASGOW UNIVERSITY. 
 
 GLASGOW : 
 PRINTED BY ROBERT ANDERSON, 22 ANN STREET. 
 
 1887.
 
 
 D EDICA TION. 
 
 To thee, the mother of that zvorthy son 
 
 Whose life these faulty pages may record, 
 
 To thee, now witnessing the victory won 
 
 By him, who more than conquered, lacking sword, 
 
 Save that which love might wield — the bloodless brand 
 
 Of deeds made deathless by a stainless hand, 
 
 Of words in highest wisdom, nobly grand — 
 
 Of thoughts that glowed with goodness, and which shone 
 
 As stars in the dark firmament : alone 
 
 To thee, brave one, whose sad and sonless heart 
 
 Bears well the stroke, praying amen, amen, 
 
 Till God shall give thee back^ no more to part, 
 
 Thy son ; to thee, I say, to thee again, 
 
 With tears, I dedicate my quid ring fen. 
 
 1022543
 
 INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 
 
 HORTLY after the lamented death of Mr. 
 Douglas, when the present Memorial Volume 
 had been projected by some of his friends, 
 it was suggested that I should write a few 
 lines of preface to it. He was one of my most distinguished 
 students, and I could not but have a hearty sympathy 
 with the desire to do honour to his memory; but, while 
 no words of mine were needed to bespeak a fitting 
 reception for the book on the part of those who had 
 personally known him, and who were looking forward to 
 its publication with sorrowful interest, I had little reason 
 to believe aught that I might say likely to reach or 
 influence any considerable number of those to whom his 
 name was that of a stranger. It was desirable, however, 
 in view of one of the objects contemplated by the 
 issue of the volume, to extend its appeal beyond the 
 mere circle of personal friends; and under these circum- 
 stances it has been felt that there should be prefixed to 
 it such a statement of the facts as to the earlier 
 distinction and high promise of Mr. Douglas, as might 
 seem fully to warrant the action of his friends in giving 
 to the world — under all the disadvantages of posthumous 
 publication — some specimens of his ordinary work. 
 
 The arrangements of the Divinity Hall here, which 
 Mr. Douglas entered in the session of 1879-80 and 
 attended during the two following sessions, brought him 
 into earlier and longer contact, if not into closer relations, 
 with myself than with his other teachers; and hence to
 
 Yin 
 
 me falls the duty of placing on record the more salient 
 facts of his career in the Hall. Well known previously 
 to his fellow-students, he soon attracted my attention by 
 his appearance, bearing, and work. It was the usage at 
 that time that a portion of the prizes should be assigned 
 in accordance with the judgment of the class as to the 
 general standing and merits of the competitors, and that 
 another portion should be awarded by the Professor 
 according to the relative excellence of the work in the 
 written examinations. In his first session Mr. Douglas 
 thus gained by the votes of his fellow-students the first 
 prize for general eminence, while the results of the ex- 
 aminations led me to award to him a similar honour. In 
 his next session (1880-81) he received the second prize 
 for general eminence and the second prize for written 
 examinations; but he retained the same relative position 
 at the head of the students of his own year, for in this 
 case the two divisions of the Senior class (second and 
 third year students) were at that time associated in 
 examination and in the prize-lists, and the first prize, 
 as might have been anticipated, went to a student who 
 was by a year his senior. In the third session of his 
 attendance he was again successful in carrying off the 
 first prize for general eminence. 
 
 Ili, position was equally distinguished in the class oi 
 Church History, where he gained in 1879-80 the first 
 prize in the junior division, and in 1880-81 the first 
 prize in the senior division, as well as a special prize 
 for "an examination on the writings of the Apostolic 
 fathers." 
 
 In the class of Biblical Criticism he obtained the first 
 prize of 1880-81 by the votes of the class, and the third 
 prize I'M- .nul written examinations."
 
 In his first session he wrote for me an essay on the 
 " Place and Significance of Prophetism in Israel" which 
 I have noted as " the best of those given in on the 
 subject," and in the following session one on " Sacrifice 
 under the Old Testament," which I have marked as 
 " meriting the highest commendation." 
 
 These results, extending over different years and 
 different fields of study, amply suffice to indicate the 
 foremost place which he occupied among the students of 
 his year in the judgment alike of his fellows and of his 
 professors; and his dispositions rendered him not less 
 esteemed than his gifts. It sometimes happens that high 
 academic attainments and honours are not attended by 
 other requisites essential for success in the practical 
 work of life, but in the case of Mr. Douglas there can 
 be no doubt that the striking success and acceptance 
 of his ministry formed the fitting complement of his 
 brilliant college career. It may be hoped that those who 
 have had opportunity of following his course, whether as 
 student or as pastor, will welcome such help as this 
 volume supplies towards preserving him in remembrance; 
 and that, imperfect as are the conditions under which 
 its contents appear — without thought of preparation or 
 touch of revision for such a purpose — they will furnish no 
 unworthy glimpse of the methods and of the spirit in 
 which he sought during his brief day of work to serve 
 the Master in the Church. 
 
 WILLIAM P. DICKSON. 
 
 13 The College, 
 
 iOW, /in:, , [887.
 
 PREFACE 
 
 In presenting this Memorial Volume of the late Mr. 
 Douglas to his many friends it may be superfluous to 
 say anything by way of introduction. But as I am 
 afraid that more has been expected than this volume 
 may be found to supply, I feel that I owe it to the 
 memory of my friend and to myself to make a short 
 explanation. 
 
 First, as regards the Biography, the gathering of 
 material has been a work of great difficulty. Though I 
 have applied to numerous friends, I have not obtained 
 such a collection of facts as would have enabled me to 
 furnish a fuller sketch. Fortunately, it was my privilege 
 to know Mr. Douglas intimately, and the want of 
 information from other sources has not been so much 
 felt on this account. Yet it would have been more 
 satisfactory, had I been enabled to draw more fully 
 from the recollections of other friends. I am, how- 
 ever, happy to say that several have helped me in 
 this matter, by supplying me with many interesting 
 incidents, and correcting others which had been imper- 
 fectly communicated. 
 
 The Verses which have been selected are given almost 
 literally as Mr. Douglas wrote them. It was deemed 
 best to give those pieces which most reflected the man 
 himself, and doubtless his friends will approve of this 
 course rather than of a more general presentation. 
 
 The Sermons, a part only of what he has left behind, 
 can hardly be spoken of as selected. As a friend — a
 
 clergyman — who kindly looked over the collection with 
 a view to making a choice, said — " It is very difficult to 
 select, they are so uniformly excellent." I have therefore 
 taken such as seemed best to illustrate some views of 
 Christian life held by the preacher, on which he laid 
 special stress, or as were suggested by particular associa- 
 tions connected with the occasion on which they were 
 preached. 
 
 Amongst the gentlemen who have helped me I 
 should mention the Rev. John Smith, M.A., B.D., Parish 
 Minister, Partick; the Rev. John Barr Service, M.A., 
 B.D., Parish Minister of Bolton, near Haddington; and 
 the Rev. Joseph Rorke, U.P. Minister, Berwick-on- 
 Tweed. 
 
 To William Wilson, Esq., J. P., ex-Preceptor of 
 Hutchesons' Hospital, I am also much indebted. Not 
 only has he taken upon himself the financial respon- 
 sibility of this work, but in many other ways he has 
 rendered ready and valuable help. 
 
 Lastly, though perhaps this acknowledgment should 
 have been made first, I have been greatly assisted by 
 the host of kind-hearted ladies, who were amongst the 
 most enthusiastic of Mr. Douglas' admirers. To their 
 exertions the success of the subscriptions for this 
 volume is largely due. 
 
 EDWARD COYLE. 
 
 on Terrace, 1 >owanhill, 
 June, iSSj.
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 Pi 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Birth of Mr. Douglas— His Mother— Father— Character— Mother in 
 charge of an Orphanage— Mr. Douglas' Early Days— Description 
 of him as a Child— His love for Children— The Boy Teacher— His 
 brother Willie— Their Mutual Attachment— Willie's Illness— John's 
 attention to his Sick Brother— A Spiritual Comforter— The Little 
 Singer— Willie's Death— Great Grief of John— Frequent Visits to 
 the Grave— Lines written when fourteen, on a Rose which grew on 
 Grave— First School Experience— St. Matthew's Parish School — 
 Excellence in Drawing— Prize sent from London— John's Shyness- 
 Love of Books— Development of the Religious Spirit— Love of the 
 Bible — Nightly Reading— Illness during School-days — Summer 
 Holidays— Attention to his Brother— Devotion to his Mother— 
 Thoughtfulness for others— Corrie, 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 End of School-days— Begins Work— Wilson and Matheson's— Message 
 Boy— Promotion— The Corresponding Clerk— Faithfulness to Business 
 —Thoughts of Ministry— Undecided— Influence of Sermons— Entries 
 in his Diary— Love of Books— Skill in Reading— Extensive Reading 
 
 . His careful use of Leisure Time— Acquisition of Shorthand — 
 
 Shorthand Teacher— Young Men's Society for Religious Improve- 
 ment—His connection with the Society— Begins to study Latin- 
 First Meeting with the Biographer — Mathematical Class-Room — The 
 Evening Walk— Uninterrupted Friendship— Unity of Aim— Young 
 Men's Sabbath Meetings— His Defence of King Saul -The Evening 
 Literary Class— Saturday Afternoon Excursions— The Incident at 
 Crookston Castle— Connection with the Young Men's Evening 
 Meeting — Interest in Evangelistic Work of Young Men's Society— 
 His Kindness towards Poor Children— The Volunteer— His Appear- 
 ance in Uniform— Practice at the Ranges— Observations of the 
 Adjutant— Comparison with Mansie Waugh— Attendance at Extra 
 Mural Classes— Our Teacher— His Peculiarity— The Stammering 
 Student— John to the Rescue — Bothwell— Meeting our Old Teacher
 
 — The Rev. Mr. Edwards — His Ordination — " Olrig Grange" — 
 Memorial Sonnet — Mr. James Cleland Burns — Prize Essay Competi- 
 tion — Public Libraries Act and Charity Organization Society — First 
 Prize won for Essay on Libraries Act, and Second for Essay on 
 Charity Organization Society — Winner of First Prize for Essay on 
 Gothenburg Licensing System — Presentation of Prizes in City Hall — 
 Writer of Jubilee Hymn for Young Men's Society — His Modesty — • 
 Dr. Wylie's Anti-Papal Class— Winner of First Prize two successive 
 years — Evening Rambles— Conversations — His love of Treadling — 
 Admiration for the Early Fathers — Latin Hymns — Favourite Glasgow 
 Preachers — Pulsford — The Cathedral — Robertson of St. Andrew's 
 — University Chapel — Admission — Principal Caird — " Light, more 
 Light," - - - - 6 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 College Life — Combination of Business and Study — Enthusiasm — 
 Reverence of University Traditions — Application to Study — Self- 
 imposed Restrictions against Sleep — Sleeping wrapped in a Blanket 
 in the Arm-chair — The Cord on the Bed-post — Mr. Disraeli and 
 the Lord Rector's Chair — Mr. Douglas' Energy in furthering the 
 Candidature — Sonnet addressed to Mr. Disraeli — Second Session at 
 College — Wholly given to Study — Presentation of Books by his Ware- 
 house Friends — Prizeman in the Latin Class — Secretary of the Pro- 
 testant Association — Excellence in Philosophy and Logic — Professor 
 Caird's Observation — First in the Essays in the Logic Class — Serious 
 Illness — Gradual Recovery — His Landlady — Xon-graduation in Arts 
 due to his Illness — Divinity Classes — His Application — Sympathy with 
 Fellow-Students — Reminiscence of Theological Class — Mr. Douglas 
 First Prizeman — His Distinguished Divinity Course — Second to 
 None of his Year — Testimony of an old College Friend — End of 
 Session — Prizes — Home — Mother— Incidents related by Gentleman 
 owning a Warehouse — Lochranza — Popularity among the Yisitors — 
 His Landlady — Her Peculiarities — His Reading — A Morning's Scene 
 on the Loch — Mr. Douglas' Sympathy and Help — The Sick Child — 
 The Highlandman — His inquisitiveness — Mr. Douglas' Shrewdness 
 — Friendships formed at Lochranza — Thoughtfulness for his Mother, 17 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Kilmun— Description of the District— Yillage of Rashfield— Of Kilrmin 
 Parish Church— Ecclesiastical Ruins — Vault of the Dukes of Argyle 
 — Position of the Assistant Minister — Mr. Douglas appointed — Effect 
 
 of his Ministry — Co-operation with the Parish Minister of Strone 
 — Pastoral Visitation Gratitude shown- Care foi old Women — 
 Glasgow Excursionists— Visitation of the Poor al Powder Mills— 
 Ho pii 'liiy of Pari bioners -The Effect of his Ministry— Friendships 
 formed — Dr. Hutcheson Stirling, - - 2S
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Foulden — Description of the Village — Historic Associations — Mr. Douglas 
 elected Minister of the Church — Pleasure in the Work — Home for 
 his Mother — The Ordination — Presentation of Books and Gown — 
 Extract from his Speech in reply — First Sermon in Foulden — "Abide 
 with Me" — His Work in the Parish — Sympathy with his Brethren in 
 the Ministry — -Plea for Church Soirees — Presbytery of Chirnside — 
 Mr. Douglas' Popularity with the Presbytery — Sabbath Services, 
 &c. — Kitchen Meetings — Bible Class — Library — Young Men's 
 Guild — Defence of the Church — Lecture on Disestablishment — Song 
 of the Kirk — Letters to Friends — Letters to the Biographer, - - 33 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Bellahouston Parish Church — Sketch of its Plistory — Opened on the 
 2nd of August, 1863 — Summary of the Changes — Changes in the 
 Church — Mr. Porteous elected in 1864 — His early Death — Election 
 of Mr. Porter in 1865 — His Transfer to Maybole — Introduction of 
 Instrumental Music — Bellahouston created a Parish, quoad sacra — 
 Rev. Daniel Wright elected Successor to Mr. Porter — Purchase of 
 Manse, 11 Ibrox Terrace — Presentation of Organ to Church — 
 Erection of Church Halls — Gift of Misses Steven — Death of Mr. 
 Wright — Election of Mr. Douglas in May — Induction in June — 
 Sojourn with the Biographer — Overhaul of the Manse — Visitation in 
 his Parish — .Satisfaction with his Flock — His influence on Home 
 Life — Eagerness for his Work — Responsibilities of Charge — Satis- 
 faction of the People — Revival of Work in the Parish — Sabbath 
 School — Bible Class — -Young Men's Guild — Prayer Meeting — Pulpit 
 Preparations — Arrangements for the Day — Bellahouston Ministry of 
 Four Months — Unwillingness to leave his own People — Letters to 
 Friends — His last Saturday — Sabbath, Preached twice — Very ill on 
 Sunday night — Sketch of Illness — Death — Commemorative Verses — 
 Sympathy with his Mother — Funeral — Extracts from Sermons, 
 Letters, &c. , alluding to the Death, ------ 64 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Descriptive Sketch — Appearance, Dress, Gait, Face, Head — Douglas — 
 1 )ante — Winsome Manner — Love for his Mother — Respect for Women 
 — The White Cross Movement — "Blessed are the pure in heart" — 
 His Personal Friendships; Strong, Lasting — Love of Home — Powers 
 of Conversation — Reading— Liberal — Views about Books, discrimina- 
 tive — Scott, Dickens, Shorthouse — Poetry — Himself a Poet — Words- 
 worth, Shakespeare, Milton, Shelley, Tennyson, &c. — Philosophy 
 extensively read — German Philosophy — Kant, Hegel — Preferences for 
 German Philosophy — Appreciation of all shades of Philosophic 
 Thought — Locke, Reid, Hamilton, &c. — Differs from Reid — Res- 
 pect for Hamilton — Bishop Berkeley — Admiration of him both as
 
 Philosopher and Man — Theology — 'Wide Reading — Catholic Views — 
 Respect for English Church — Rejection of Renan's, Strauss', and Baur's 
 Views — Dorner's and Mailer's Works appreciated — English Church 
 Writers — Butler, Hooker, Paley, Trench, Herbert, Robertson of 
 Brighton, Newman— Caird, Chalmers, Guthrie, Candiish, Ker — Mr. 
 Douglas as a Preacher — Careful Pulpit Preparation — Ready Utterance 
 — Choosing of Texts — Preparatory Reading— Facility in Writing — 
 Ease of Committal — Arrangement of Service— Manner Impressive — 
 Not Demonstrative — Apt in Illustration — Chaste in Style — Parish 
 Work — Rapid Organization — Power over the Young — Bible Class — 
 Young Men's Guild — Sabbath School— Pastoral Work — Regret for 
 the little he could do — Sympathy with the lapsed Masses — Regret 
 at Selfishness of the Rich — God's House like God's Acre — 
 His Mental Powers — Retentive Memory— Argumentative Power — 
 Power for Assimilating Knowledge — Analytical Power — Judgment — 
 Imagination — Discretion — Synonyms — Religious Character — Special 
 Excellence — " Receiving the Kingdom of God like a little Child " — 
 Private Devotion — Christian Charity — Not Censorious — The Love of 
 Christ the Magnet for Drawing all Men — " The Path of Duty was the 
 Way t > Glory," .......... 
 
 POETRY. 
 
 The Passing Year, - - 101 
 
 Prayer for Light, - - - - - - - - - - - 102 
 
 On finding some Initials cut on the Grass, o'ergrown shortly afterwards, - 103 
 
 A Brown Study in the Divinity Class-room, ------ 104 
 
 An Epitaph, 105 
 
 The Sailor's Grave, 105 
 
 Sonnet — A New Year, - 106 
 
 The Peace of Death, ic6 
 
 A Reverie, 107 
 
 To 1 lie Imagination, 108 
 
 To a Bird; 109 
 
 To a Friend going Abroad, 109 
 
 " Put on the Whole Armour of God," 110 
 
 •• ["o Livi i l hrist," 11 1 
 
 " To 1 tie is < rain," 112 
 
 C1 The Time is Short," 113 
 
 " The Vision of Jacob," 114 
 
 t — Principal Tulloch, 115 
 
 Sonnet— Our Memorial, 116 
 
 The Cathedral, 116 
 
 !" 117
 
 XVI 1 
 
 SERMONS. 
 
 01 
 
 I.— Children of Light, ll 9 
 
 " Walk as children of light."— Ephesians v. 8. 
 
 II.— The Attraction of the Cross oe Christ, - 13° 
 
 " And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men 
 unto Me."— John xii. 32. 
 
 III.— Christ the Resurrection and the Life, - 140 
 
 " I am the Resurrection and the Life."— John xi. 25. 
 
 IV.— The Divine Gift of Sleep, J 49 
 
 " He giveth His beloved sleep."— Psalm exxvii. 2. 
 
 V.— Idle Words, - " x 5 8 
 
 " Every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account 
 thereof in the day of judgment."— St. Matt. xii. 36. 
 
 VI.— True Freedom, - - 167 
 
 " I will walk at liberty: for I seek Thy precepts."— 
 
 Psalm cxix. 45. 
 " The truth shall make you free."— St. John viii. 32. 
 " Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty."— 
 
 2 Cor. iii. 17. 
 " The perfect law of liberty."— St. James i. 25. 
 
 VII.— The Call of Abraham, ... - - - 174 
 
 " Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy 
 country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, 
 unto a land that I will show thee."— Gen. xii. 1. 
 " By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place 
 which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; 
 and he went out, not knowing whither he went."— Heb. xi. !S. 
 
 VIII.— Emmanuel.— A Christmas Sermon, - - lS 5 
 
 " They shall call His name Emmanuel, . • . God with us. - 
 
 St. Matt. i. 23. 
 
 IX.— The Idem, of a Young Man's Life, and how it ma. 
 
 SERVED BY RELIGIOUS ASSOCIATION.— A SERMON INTRODUC- 
 
 roRY to the Young Men's Guild, Bellahouston, - 194 
 
 " If thou wouldst be perfect."— St. Matt. xix. 21. 
 " Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is m 
 Heaven i> perfect."— St. Matt. \. 48. 
 
 X.— t; >d' I .'i •■■ 1 1 d Presence, - - - - - 205 
 
 ■• Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not. — 
 
 Gen. xxviii. 10.
 
 Will 
 
 PAGE 
 
 XI.— Crucified with Christ, 213 
 
 " I am crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I that live but 
 Christ that liveth in me; and that life which I now live in 
 the flesh I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God, 
 who loved me and gave Himself up for me." — Gal. ii. 20. 
 
 XII. — Night, the Teacher, 221 
 
 " Night unto night sheweth knowledge." — Psalm xix. 2. 
 
 XIII. — The Secret of Endurance, 230 
 
 " He endured, as seeing Him who is invisible."' 
 
 XIV. — Missionary Sermon, 238 
 
 " Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations." — 
 
 Matt, xxxviii. 19 (revised version). 
 
 XV.— Christian Manliness, 252 
 
 " Quit you like men." — I Cor. xvi. 13. 
 
 XVI.— The Christian Idea of the Future, - - - - 260 
 " It doth not yet appear what we shall be . . . but . . . 
 
 we shall be like Him." — 1 John iii. 2. 
 •' Till we all come . . . unto a perfect man, unto the 
 
 measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ." — Eph. iv. 13. 
 
 XVII.— Earth's Increase God's Gift.— A Service for Harvest 
 
 Thanksgiving, 266 
 
 " God gave the increase." — 1 Cor. iii. 0. 
 
 XVIIL— Samuel's Prayer, 276 
 
 " Speak, Lord, for Thy servant heareth."— 1 Samuel iii. 9. 
 
 XIX.— The Heavenly Home, 2S5 
 
 " In my Father's house arc many mansions." — John xiv. 2. 
 
 XX.— The Single Aim, - - - - 295 
 
 " This one thing I do."— Phil. iii. 13. 
 
 XXL— The Divine Parsimony, - - - 304 
 
 " Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost."— 
 
 John vi. 12. 
 
 XXII.— TlIE LONELINESS OK CHRIST, AM) ITS LESSONS, - - J 1 1 
 
 " Ye shall leave Me alone; and yet I am not alone, because the 
 Fathei is with Me."— John xvi. 32. 
 
 XXIII.— Sowing and Reaping, 3 21 
 
 '• Be nol deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man 
 •weth that shall he also reap."— Gal. vi. 7.
 
 XIX 
 
 I ',1 
 XXIV. — The Purpose ok the Christian Church and Ministry. 
 
 — An Ordination Sermon, 328 
 
 " And He gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, 
 evangelists ; and some, pastors and teachers ; for the perfecting 
 of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of 
 the body of Christ: till we all come . . . unto a perfect 
 man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of 
 Christ." — Eph. iv. 11-ij. 
 
 XXV.— The Necessity ok a Missionary Spirit in every Chris- 
 tian, 337 
 
 " I was an hungered, and ye gave Me no meat: I was thirsty, 
 and ye gave Me no drink : I was a stranger, and ye took Me 
 not in : Naked, and ye clothed Me not : Sick, and in prison, 
 and ye visited Me not." — Matt. xxv. 42-43. 
 
 XXVI.— The Cloud ok Witnesses. — A Sermon for All Saints' 
 
 Day, - .... - - 346 
 
 " We also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses." 
 
 — Heb. xii. 1. 
 
 XXVII.— The Fading Leaf, - - 355 
 
 " We all do fade as a leaf." — Isaiah Ixiv. 6. 
 
 Extract from Minutes of Chirnside Presbytery, - - - 366
 
 BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 John Donald Douglas was born on the 31st July, 
 1854, in George Street, Glasgow. At the time of his 
 birth his mother had been six months a widow, her husband 
 having died from an attack of inflammation. Though left 
 alone, and with small resources to fight life's battle, Mrs. 
 Douglas succeeded by her energy in maintaining herself 
 and her sons. Her husband, who belonged to a family of 
 Argyleshire farmers near Oban, not caring for an agricul- 
 tural life, and being of an active temperament, came to 
 Glasgow and began business. A period of depression in 
 trade shortly after he came to the city seriously taxed his 
 resources; and the losses sustained by him, and the worry 
 consequent upon them, were generally thought to have 
 induced and aggravated the illness of which he died. He 
 was a man remarkable for the gentleness of his disposition 
 — shrewd, and highly intelligent. His strong affection for 
 his wife was marked by those who were intimate with him, 
 and when he passed away, it was not only with great sorrow, 
 but with deep solicitude at the thought of leaving his young 
 partner. At an early period of her widowhood a few friends 
 who took an interest in orphan children and appreciated 
 her qualities asked her to take charge of some, a labour of 
 love which she heartily undertook, and accomplished with 
 a kindly heart and much good sense, and for which, we 
 believe, she has merited and received the grateful acknow- 
 ledgments of man}% now successful in the world, who
 
 were under her care. In her widowhood Mrs. Douglas was 
 greatly comforted by the child who had been sent to her, 
 as if in return for a lost husband. The memories so dear 
 to a young wife were treasured and embodied in the new 
 object of her affections, who, by his cheering presence, 
 greatly lightened the burden of her lonely life. 
 
 The days of John's boyhood were uneventful. Cared 
 for by a devoted mother, he became, as he grew up, a 
 favourite with all who knew him. His chubby face, 
 regular features, beautiful dark eyes and hair, made him 
 personally attractive ; while his bright intelligence and 
 affectionate disposition won for him an immediate entrance 
 to the hearts of all. In early life the love for children, so 
 marked in maturer years, was conspicuous, and drew forth 
 the affection, especially of the little ones trained under his 
 mother. The girls would vie with each other in the per- 
 formance of kindly offices, while the boys would equally 
 show their friendship by sharing in his youthful sports. 
 He was looked up to by them as a natural leader when 
 any more serious enterprise was engaging their attention. 
 When very young the instinct of the future preacher 
 showed itself by amateur attempts in the nursery. Here 
 he would sing some child's hymn, sometimes helped by 
 the others, and thereafter address his juvenile flock, who 
 usually listened with gratified attention, till his mother 
 and friends, who chanced to be listening unobserved, were 
 led by some incongruity of incident to betray their pres- 
 ence, when the preacher would blushingly collapse for the 
 time. 
 
 One of the early privileges of his life was the possession 
 of a brother older than himself. Willie, as he was called, 
 was much attached to John, who in turn was wholly devoted 
 to him. They were inseparable companions, and their 
 hours of play were always spent together. Willie was of 
 a mechanical turn of mind, and often during his juvenile 
 operations the younger lad would stand by and admire the 
 creations of the little mechanician, who was really very 
 clever in making toy engines and the like. Their com-
 
 panionship was drawn closer by the prolonged illness which 
 ended in Willie's death. At the bedside of his invalid 
 brother John would sit patiently, anticipating his little 
 wants, and attending to him with a thoughtful devotedness 
 remarkable in one so young. It is fresh in the memory of 
 many who knew them how John ministered to his brother's 
 wants, not only in material, but also in higher things. He 
 would often sing, standing at his brother's sick-bed — 
 
 " Salvation and immortal praise 
 To our victorious King ! 
 Let heaven and earth, and rocks and seas, 
 With glad hosannas ring.'' 
 
 While the patient sufferer would look lovingly up to the 
 little singer, as if he regarded his voice as coming from that 
 heaven to which his young life was passing. The death of 
 this brother was a great blow to the sensitive nature of 
 John. Often would he wander alone, and sit at his brother's 
 grave. On one of these occasions, when but a lad of four- 
 teen, he brought a rose that had grown there home to his 
 mother, and wrote the following simple, but expressive, 
 lines: — 
 
 "The rose shall fade and die, 
 
 But, with the coming spring, 
 The rose shall rise to life again 
 
 And beauty to earth bring. 
 
 " And so did'st thou, my brother, 
 Though buried in thy grave, 
 Burst the frail bonds asunder, 
 For thy Saviour died to save. 
 
 " And on angel's wings descending, 
 From thy home in heaven above, 
 Shall bring thy weeping mother 
 The message, ' God is Love.' 
 
 " Yes, for lovingly He gave thee, 
 And loving took away — 
 The flower, though blooming fair on earth, 
 Could last but for a day.
 
 " So lovingly He took thee, 
 
 And placed thee in the sky, 
 In regions fair of purest bliss, 
 Where thou can'st never die." 
 
 The first school experience of John was under the in- 
 struction of a lady, who kept an infants' school close to his 
 mother's house. Here, at four years of age, John was sent, 
 often carried by some of the elder girls who were under his 
 mother's care. From thence he passed to St. Matthew's 
 Parish School, where he obtained a thorough training in 
 elementary English education. His chief excellence in this 
 school was in drawing, and for this he obtained a prize, of 
 which, as coming all the way from London, the boy was 
 justly proud. In other departments he reached a general 
 excellence, and also won prizes. While at this school he 
 was noted for his shyness, and began to manifest that love 
 for books which became a passion in his after life. The 
 religious spirit of the boy, already indicated, soon displayed 
 itself in other forms. From the time that he was able to 
 read he took a special pleasure in Bible stories, and early 
 formed the habit of reading the Book before going to bed. 
 During his school-days he was laid aside by a sharp illness, 
 from which he soon recovered, and returned with renewed 
 ardour to his books. 
 
 Several pleasing incidents of his summer holidays have 
 been preserved. At these times, during the long illness of 
 his brother, he would devote himself almost unremittingly 
 to his service ; and while at the coast would draw him 
 about in a perambulator, and devise plans for his enjoy- 
 ment. One of the most prominent features of his boyhood 
 as well as of his whole life, was his devotion to his mother. 
 It seemeci as if his own happiness was bound up in hers. 
 She was often assured of presents, that the extravagant 
 mind of the boy would promise for her gratification. The 
 kindly thoughtfulncss of the lad early displayed itself. 
 One summer, while at Corrie, in Arran, his mother sent 
 him, with a favourite domestic, to get milk at a farm-house 
 iome distance along the short'. While they were still a
 
 considerable way from their destination, a sudden storm 
 arose, and the boy insisted on his companion waiting 
 under the shelter of a rock until he should himself run, 
 vessel in hand, and bring the milk. Thus passed away, 
 in uneventful incident, the early days of his life. Not- 
 withstanding the inauspicious circumstances in which it 
 began — a humble home, and amidst plain surroundings — 
 he grew up, under the care of his mother, already giving 
 to those about him the token of the career before him. 
 
 " The rank is but the guinea stamp, 
 The man's the eoud for a' that."
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 SCHOOL-DAYS being ended in 1866, this promising youth 
 entered at the age of twelve the well-known firm of Wilson, 
 Matheson, & Co., Glassford Street, Glasgow. It has always 
 been the rule of this old established house that their em- 
 ployees should begin with the most elementary duties. 
 Accordingly, John took up work as a message boy. Having 
 seldom gone elsewhere than to school from his mother's 
 house, he often found himself perplexed in errands to the 
 remoter streets of the big city, and more than once would 
 make his way home to his mother with a feeling akin to 
 despair over his undelivered parcels. The difficulty w r as 
 soon ended, for volunteers were obtained who were always 
 delighted to assist Johnnie in his troubles. He rapidly 
 passed through the various stages of service in the packing- 
 room and warehouse till at length he found himself in the 
 more congenial atmosphere of the counting-house. Here 
 his skill and facility in composition soon attracted the 
 notice of the observant heads of the firm, and John was 
 assigned an important post as corresponding clerk. For 
 sevcral years he continued to hold this office, and he dis- 
 charged its responsible and difficult duties to the entire 
 satisfaction of his employers. The work came to his fluent 
 hand as more a pleasure than a task. His neat and 
 beautiful handwriting, coupled with his command of appro- 
 priate expression, made him a model correspondent. 
 
 Shortly after his entry on work with Messrs. Wilson, 
 Matheson, & Co., thoughts of preparing for the ministry 
 dawned on him, but for a time he remained in suspense, 
 ig ever diffident of himself and of what he could do. 
 At length, what had been at first an Impracticable dream 
 passed into the form of a solid purpose, and ultimately of
 
 a fixed resolution. Sermons heard in church on Sundays 
 seemed to be like chords drawing him on irresistibly to the 
 work, and we find in his diary the following interesting 
 entries: — 
 
 " Sunday, July 17th, 1870. 
 
 " And now another week has fled, and mingling with the regrets 
 of the past rise the hopes of the future. O may I be indeed suc- 
 cessful in redeeming the time. I heard two sermons preached 
 to-day, one in the forenoon by the Rev. Mr. , formerly mission- 
 ary in our Church; the other by the Rev. Mr. , present 
 
 missionary. The first sermon was on the Parable of the Talents, 
 and showed, however little the influence we had, if we used it well 
 we would be rewarded proportionately with those who, though 
 they did much, had greater influence, since he who had but two 
 talents and gained other two was rewarded like him who had 
 gained five. The afternoon discourse was from 1 Peter ii. 24, on 
 the vicarious nature of the atonement, but it failed in eloquence 
 or attractiveness. It is a truth we must all acknowledge, viz.: — 
 The substitutionary nature of the Atonement, but is more powerful 
 when habited in a poetic dress and set to music. I have since 
 been considering Psalm first. We too often come short of what 
 we anticipated, and this day hath not given to me the full and 
 perfect rest and peace which I have felt before. True it is our 
 harps remain too oft unstrung, and sin causes them to send forth 
 dissonant notes, yet while I am now burying the dead past the 
 future rises before me. O may I be led by the Spirit of God to 
 spend it aright, and while I am allowed to take from the golden 
 treasury of time another season of grace, may I be able when 
 called to give an account, to do it with joy, and not with grief. 
 May I take this portion of light from the great lamp, and may 
 it be a light to me in the coming week — 
 
 " 'Let us not be weary in well-doing, for in due season we 
 shall reap if we faint not.'— gal. vi. 9." 
 
 •' Sunday, 24th July, 1870. 
 
 " 1 have this day solemnly determined to devote myself to the 
 Christian Ministry, and I pray God to help me in this, for our 
 sufficiency alone cometh from Him. I am conscious that I have 
 a great deal to learn ere I can do this. Yet the forms of departed 
 great ones gather around me, and when I remember the difficulties
 
 they had to contend with, my path appears comparatively easy. 
 But, above all, I trust to the Providence of God, knowing what 
 He willeth shall be done, and He who made the great mountain 
 become a plain can also make me to overcome all difficulties. 
 Yet if it be God's will that I am not to enter the sacred office, 
 may I acquiesce, knowing what He willeth is best. I am con- 
 scious that I may serve God otherwise, yet I feel as if called to 
 this, as if He who called Peter of old to be a fisher of men also 
 called me. O may I be worthy of this vocation, and, having put 
 my hand to the plough, may God keep me from turning back. 
 I heard a sermon this forenoon on the Parable of the Woman 
 who lost the Piece of Silver. Some of the thoughts on the analogy 
 between the coin and the soul were very beautful. The sermon 
 was most excellent, and I felt as Thackeray is said to have done 
 when reading ' Little Dorrit,' ' There is no use of me writing any 
 more.' Our own missionary preached in the afternoon on the 
 Parable of the Vineyard. Truly I may say that God has been 
 good in awaking me unto such a high and holy object. For I 
 feel that I was just beginning to flag. May He ever keep this 
 desire in me, and enable me to pursue it aright. O may God 
 guide me in the coming week and make me realise His presence 
 more, for Jesus' sake. 
 
 " ' At eventide it shall be light.' " 
 
 A characteristic feature of the thoughtful clerk's life at 
 this period was the assiduity with which he turned his 
 spare time to good account. In the warehouse, if a few 
 minutes of lawful leisure occurred, a book, for he always 
 carried one with him, would be opened and some part of 
 its contents greedily devoured. His skill in reading books, 
 so as to extract the pith of them, was early apparent. 
 Among his intimate friends the ease and rapidity with 
 which he went through book after book, was the subject 
 of frequent comment. His evening hours were assiduously 
 employed. While others, occupied during the day as he 
 was, would spend their evening leisure in walking or other 
 outdoor amusement, lie would be closeted at his studies, or 
 if, as sometimes happened, he walked with a friend, the 
 occasion would be turned to account in discussing some
 
 subject of recent thought or reading. Amongst his earliest 
 and most valuable acquisitions was his mastery of Shorthand. 
 Under a teacher he had lessons for six months, but after- 
 wards perfecting himself by his own steady application he 
 became a certificated teacher of Pitman's system, and was 
 himself one of the most successful instructors in the art. 
 The boy teacher (for he was little more than a lad when he 
 began to teach classes) presented a striking contrast to some 
 of his pupils, who were grey-bearded men. The Shorthand 
 classes were carried on in connection with The Glasgow 
 Young Men's Society for Religious Improvement, now the 
 United Young Men's Christian Association. This society, 
 among other benefits conferred by it, had educational classes 
 in the evening, anticipating in this respect the action of our 
 School Board. It was in these classes that the young teacher 
 of Shorthand began the study of Latin and made his first 
 acquaintance with Mathematics, a subject in which he took 
 comparatively little interest, and consequently attained no 
 special excellence. We can well recall our first meeting 
 with him some seventeen years ago in the mathematical 
 class-room. There was something very attractive in the 
 face and features of the youth, and when we had come to 
 know him, a closer intimacy more than confirmed the first 
 impressions. The walk home that evening — for we both 
 lived in the same district — was the first of a series, as 
 pleasant as they were profitable, extending over a long 
 term of years. Our ambitions were alike. Both were 
 looking forward to the Ministry as their sphere of future 
 work, and throughout the changes of years, eventful to us 
 both, never did unkindly word or look pass between us. 
 
 Amongst the many good effects of the Young Men's 
 Society none was more marked than that exercised by 
 the Sabbath meetings. While but a lad John had joined 
 one of the branches, for so the meetings of the society were 
 called. It was held on Sabbath morning, in Cambridge 
 Street. Here he made his first attempt at essay writing, 
 and, with much trepidation, delivered his maiden effort. 
 Subsequently he joined the meeting known as the George
 
 10 
 
 Square Branch of the society, one of the largest and most 
 successful in the connection. On Sabbath morning, at eight 
 o'clock, about fifty young men, including Mr. Douglas, met 
 to read essays, and discuss in a reverent spirit Scriptural 
 topics. One who was afterwards an intimate friend of his 
 first met him in this class. The occasion of their meeting pre- 
 sented him in a characteristic light. He was always known 
 to take the weaker side. The subject of essay had been 
 King Saul, and the essayist had been dealing rather hardly 
 with the fallen monarch. When it came to Mr. Douglas' 
 turn to criticise, he made a very happy little speech, in 
 which he defended the unfortunate king from the severity 
 of the strictures which the essayist had passed upon him, 
 pointing out that most of us placed in a like position 
 would probably have done no better, but worse, than 
 Israel's first monarch. Annexed to this branch was a 
 week-night literary class, in which Mr. Douglas often 
 took part by leading off in a debate or reading a paper. 
 In summer, when weather on Saturday afternoons was 
 favourable, excursions to places of interest in the vicinity 
 of Glasgow were arranged. Once we visited the ruins of 
 Crookston Castle. We found the gates open, and, with- 
 out fear of trespass, the company of youths trooped in to 
 look at the crumbling remains of departed glory. We 
 were not long within the enclosure, however, when we 
 discovered our mistake. The keeper, who was with an 
 excursion party that were having a pic-nic in the grounds, 
 came up and demanded of us what we were doing there. 
 Some of us made a brief excuse and quietly slipped out, 
 but Douglas, who was last, and who felt that no moral 
 wrong had been committed by our presence among the 
 ruins, answered with patriotic spirit that we were " looking 
 at a national monument." The keeper, unable to appreciate 
 such a sentiment, angrily exclaimed, " N national moauu- 
 ments, Vll naational moanument yel" and, suiting the action 
 to the word, struck him on the ear with an egg that he 
 had been carrying in his pocket. Great was the indigna- 
 tion of the company at this insult to one so popular, and
 
 11 
 
 a council of war was held to discuss the advisability of 
 retaliating in kind. It ended, however, in what was, doubt- 
 less, the best way; we considered that " discretion was the 
 better part of valour," and, after emptying the vials of our 
 collective wrath on the absent head of the offending keeper, 
 we turned for home, resolving that we should not come- 
 back to a place where public spirit was so little appreciated. 
 In addition to the morning meeting of which we have spoken, 
 he attended, but for a short time, an evening meeting known 
 as the Naismith Branch, and presided over by myself. Into 
 the evangelistic work of the Young Men's Society he threw 
 himself with hearty zeal, more especially into that of the 
 Forenoon Sabbath School, held for years in 12 Trongate, 
 and known as the Old Town Hall. Here the untrained 
 children of Saltmarket, High Street, and Bridgegate were 
 gathered in and taught the elementary truths of the Gospel, 
 while some who had never been at school were instructed 
 in reading. His sympathy with the poor, neglected children 
 found practical expression in many ways. 
 
 Towards the end of his business life he joined the First 
 Lanarkshire Volunteers. He was strongly imbued with 
 the spirit of patriotism, and from a sense of duty, not less 
 than from a feeling that the exercise would help his physical 
 development, he heartily assumed the new character. There 
 was, no doubt, some incongruity in the aspect of the thought- 
 ful youth as he appeared in regimentals. When he was out 
 firing at the ranges, the adjutant, who did not know him 
 personally, was struck with his appearance. At target 
 practice our hero was not specially distinguished. Some- 
 times he would make amusing allusions to the exploits of 
 Mansie Waugh, and suggest comparisons between himself 
 and that noteworthy personage. One line Saturday we 
 went together to the ranges. Firing at the three hundred 
 yards distance, we were equally successful in striking the 
 hillside against which the target rested, or, it might be, of 
 shooting over it altogether, but the target itself suffered 
 little at our hands. 
 
 In 1873, the training which we had been receiving in
 
 12 
 
 classics not being what we desired in prospect of entering 
 the University, we went together to a public institution for 
 Greek and Latin. The morning hours, from seven to nine, 
 were the only ones we could devote to the class, and I well 
 recall how, in the dark, cold winter, our youthful love of 
 sleep was sorely taxed by the effort at early rising. Still, 
 with my friend, when books and lessons were concerned, 
 the task was comparatively easy. Our teacher was some- 
 what peculiar. An ardent politician, it was not difficult, 
 when the lesson for the day was not too well prepared, to 
 divert the Latin lecture into a discourse on politics, and 
 not seldom, we fear, was the ruse resorted to. One of our 
 fellow-students, a man of about forty, who was endeavour- 
 ing to make up for lost time by sustained application, but 
 who was not able to keep pace with us, often came into 
 collision with our teacher. A halt in our class-mate's 
 speech, which increased his difficulty in mastering Latin, 
 often made our irascible chief lose his temper, or resort to 
 ridicule, after a fashion not soon to be forgotten. At such 
 times the tact of Douglas would show itself by suggesting 
 a question bearing on the lesson, or in some other ingeni- 
 ous way, he would come to the rescue of the unfortunate 
 student without offending the teacher, with whom he was 
 a great favourite. Ten years afterwards, when walking 
 together at Bothwell, we chanced to meet our classical in- 
 structor of former days. His perplexed look, when we 
 introduced ourselves as old pupils of his, is still before me. 
 One of us jocularly remarked, as if to assist the old man's 
 memory, " Don't you remember, he was the clever fellow 
 and I was the dunce?" He replied, piercing us at the same 
 time with his steel-grey eyes, "You were both clever enough 
 if you had wrought harder." In the spring of 1874 we came 
 under the tuition of the Rev. Mr, Edwards, an Aberdeen 
 gentleman, who was about to proceed to India as a mission- 
 ary. We spent a few months under his care, and enjoyed, 
 not only the benefit of his know ledge of Latin, but also the 
 privilege of his society. The connection soon deepened into 
 friendship, and the day of his ordination to his sacred work
 
 13 
 
 in St. George's Church was of great interest to us. As a 
 small memento of our friendship, we made him a present 
 of Dr. \V. C. Smith's poem, " Olrig Grange," in which 
 Mr. Douglas inscribed the following beautiful sonnet: — 
 
 " As oftimes travellers from some far-off shore 
 
 Bear with them some memorial of their stay, 
 That so, when sunny skies and hours are o'er, 
 
 That keepsake, poor, may on them cast a ray 
 From out the brightness of a vanished day. 
 
 Even thus, we fondly hope, this nameless song, 
 However far the traveller may stray, 
 
 Like a sweet echo will our names prolong ; 
 And as it held our converse for a time, 
 
 When, like a river, it flowed full and free, 
 So may the past speak forth in every line ; 
 
 Even as the shell, far sundered from the sea, 
 Doth still remember his abode most fair, 
 
 And murmurs, as the ocean murmurs there." 
 
 About this time Mr. Douglas was a most energetic 
 member of the Young Men's Society for Religious Im- 
 provement. Mr. James Cleland Burns, a gentleman well 
 known in our city, had offered to the Association the sum 
 of £20, to be competed for in the form of essays, the sub- 
 jects being the Public Libraries Act, and the Charity 
 Organization Society. Both of these questions were then 
 comparatively new to the people of Glasgow, and Mr. 
 Burns was anxious to have them thoroughly discussed. 
 Mr. Douglas entered the competition with quiet, but well- 
 sustained effort. He wrote on both subjects, and won the 
 first prize by his essay on the Libraries Act, and the 
 second in the other competition. His paper on the former 
 of these subjects was justly regarded as one of the best con- 
 tributions to its discussion, and was afterwards published. 
 Again Mr. Burns offered prizes for the best essays on the 
 Gothenburg Licensing System, and again Mr. Douglas 
 carried off the first prize. The night on which the prizes 
 were presented for the Public Libraries Act, and Charity
 
 14 
 
 Organization Society, was an eventful one in his life. The 
 occasion was the Jubilee Soiree of the Young Men's Society. 
 In the chair sat the late Mr. Graham, then M.P. for the 
 city, and on the platform was a company, embracing some 
 of the best of Glasgow's citizens. In the course of the 
 evening Ave all stood and sang a Jubilee Hymn, written by 
 our friend for this special occasion: — 
 
 " O Thou, whose hand paternal, 
 
 Through all the changing years, 
 Hast led us ever onward, 
 
 Dispelling darkening fears, 
 Around Thy throne of glory 
 
 Our song this night we'd raise ; 
 Thee, Father, Son, and Spirit, 
 
 Unitedly would praise. 
 
 " We thank Thee for the brightness 
 
 Shed o'er us from above, 
 Thy Spirit's cheering presence, 
 
 Thy Son's exceeding love. 
 O, let our glad hosannas 
 
 Rise upward to the skies, 
 As from Thine ancient altars, 
 
 The grateful sacrifice. 
 
 " We thank Thee for the loved ones, 
 
 Once with us, now no more, 
 Who've crossed the narrow river, 
 
 And found the happy shore; 
 Their works are ever with us, 
 
 Their lives have lasting speech, 
 And call us upward, onward ! 
 
 To their estate to reach. 
 
 " The years lie long before us. 
 
 We lift our hearts to Thee ; 
 O! grant us Thy salvation, 
 
 Let us Thy mercy see. 
 Our God, our hope for ever, 
 
 ( ) ! guide us, and defend ; 
 As in the past, be with us, 
 
 On even to the end."
 
 15 
 
 Such public acknowledgment in various forms might 
 well have turned the head of one so young, but in nothing 
 did Mr. Douglas show to better advantage than in the 
 modesty and sense with which he received his honours. 
 It was about this time that he attended Dr. Wylie's Anti- 
 Popery Class, held in Holmhead Street, on Saturday even- 
 ings, during the winter. This class numbered among its 
 members graduates in Arts and students of Divinity, some 
 of these among the best of the University. It was quite 
 usual for some distinguished graduate to carry off the first 
 prize of £10. Mr. Douglas had not attended any college 
 classes at this time, although preparing for them, but was 
 still engaged in business. To the astonishment of his class- 
 fellows, he carried off the first prize — an achievement which 
 he repeated the following year. Such a feat had not been 
 known before in connection with the class. 
 
 One of his favourite enjoyments was an evening walk. 
 Our homes were near to the well-known Glasgow Green, 
 and many an evening, in the quiet moonlight, would we 
 wander by the banks of the winding river, while the plans 
 for the coming time were eagerly discussed, and the heroes 
 of history passed in review. Nothing more captivated the 
 mind of Mr. Douglas than the fame of the great preachers 
 of the Ancient Church. Eloquence in any form had a 
 special charm for him, and the utterances of Augustine, 
 Chrysostom, and St. Bernard were treasured in his memory 
 and quoted with delight. He took pleasure in the musical 
 flow and roll of some of the Latin hymns, and would often 
 quote, translate, and comment upon them. His intense 
 love of music drew him to some churches which he might 
 not otherwise have visited. On the Sabbath evenings he 
 often went to Dr. Pulsford's church, drawn by the double 
 attraction of the music and the discourse. Dr. Pulsford 
 was ever a favourite with him, on account of his mysticism 
 and his deep spirituality. The Cathedral was also a fre- 
 quent resort. Many a time would he wander, having gone 
 a little earlier for the purpose, among the magnificent pillars, 
 and admire the marvellous skill that could rear such a
 
 16 
 
 glorious pile of masonry. St. Andrew's Church (Dr. 
 Robertson's), contiguous to his home, was also frequently 
 visited. The masculine vigour and shrewd common-sense 
 of the preacher, Dr. Frederick Lockhart Robertson, made 
 the service both pleasant and profitable. His ideal preacher, 
 however, was then, as he remained to the end, Dr. Caird. 
 On every occasion when it was possible he sat listening in 
 rapt admiration at the feet of this master of pulpit eloquence. 
 An incident which occurred before he went to college 
 illustrates the delight which he took in this great preacher's 
 ministry. There was to be a service in the University 
 Chapel, and the students were only admitted by ticket. 
 He was not then himself a student, but knowing one who 
 had promised to him his matriculation ticket for the 
 occasion, he quietly awaited his arrival at the college gate. 
 The student failed to appear, much to Mr. Douglas' 
 annoyance. Fortunately, another friend was found who 
 obliged him with the use of his ticket. A notable incident 
 on that occasion was the fact that, just when the preacher 
 had introduced Goethe's dying words, u Light, more light," 
 the gas, which till then had been lowered, instantly re- 
 sponded to the preacher's call.
 
 17 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 The time had now come when Mr. Douglas was to begin 
 that course at college to which he had so long looked for- 
 ward. With characteristic caution he sought to combine in 
 the first session study and business. The Junior Humanity 
 was the only class he took in the winters of 1874-75. It 
 met at the early hour of eight, and was over at nine, and, 
 through the kindness of Messrs. Wilson, Matheson, & 
 Company, he was enabled to retain his situation through- 
 out that winter and the following summer. His devotion 
 to study, if possible, increased by his attendance at college. 
 He seemed at once to catch the spirit of enthusiasm engen- 
 dered by university life, and the ennobling stimulus of its 
 time-honoured traditions. He linked himself as a loyal 
 son to a new mother, and felt a genuine pride in his rela- 
 tionship to what he was fond of designating as his Alma 
 Mater. He often talked of the famous names connected 
 with its Chairs, and the illustrious succession of its Lord 
 Rectors. Usually he would sit till far on in the night or 
 early morning alone in his little study, conning his grammar 
 or finding his way through some perplexity of construction 
 or translation. Rising at half-past six, for he had a walk 
 of about three miles to college, his hours of sleep were too 
 limited ; still he would speak of himself as one who slept 
 too long. Many little plans would he try by which he 
 might steal from the night the desired hours of study. He 
 usually sat when at his books in an old-fashioned arm- 
 chair. Once or twice he remained in his chair wrapt up in 
 a blanket, endeavouring by two or three hours of sleep to 
 supply the wants of the day. We need hardly say that the 
 plan was a failure. Again he would tic one of his hands to 
 the bedpost, that when he attempted to turn in sleep the 
 pulling of the cord might awaken him.
 
 18 
 
 It was during this session at college that the first election 
 of Mr. Disraeli to the Lord Rector's chair took place. Mr. 
 Douglas, who had early espoused the cause of Conserva- 
 tism, threw himself into the heat of the contest with great 
 enthusiasm. The meetings of Conservative students for 
 promoting the candidature of one whom our friend regarded 
 with unbounded admiration were faithfully attended, and 
 by his voice and pen he contributed to the return of the 
 illustrious statesman. Among his literary efforts made 
 at this time is the following sonnet addressed to Mr. 
 Disraeli: — 
 
 •' Praise to thy name, illustrious chief, 
 
 Were praise not vain offered at such a shrine, 
 Like wild excess of sweet'ning nectar'd wine, 
 
 Painting the rose or gilding blooming leaf! 
 
 Long shall thy work survive thee, and thy name 
 Be in the years to come our children's boast; 
 And with the great and noble, with that host 
 
 Of deathless names enrolled in book of Fame, 
 
 Thou shalt abide revered of loyal men, 
 Though calumny, detractive aye and rude, 
 Swaying the mind of a base multitude, 
 
 Assail thy greatness with envenomed pen : 
 Thou art above it, far as is the sun 
 Shining serene with light of duty done." 
 
 At the great meeting held in the City Hall in November, 
 1873, when Mr. Disraeli delivered what many competent 
 authorities consider his greatest political oration, Mr. Douglas 
 was present. Wc sat together near the reporters, and were 
 both amused and delighted with the whole proceedings. 
 The amusement was supplied in part by the homely chair- 
 man, Mr. Baird of Cambusdoon, whose burly figure presented 
 a striking contrast to the elegant presence of the great 
 statesman; and whose quaint vernacular was all the more 
 entertaining as a prelude to the eloquence that followed. 
 Mr. Douglas was very much struck, amongst other things, 
 with the epithet used by the chairman in describing Mr. 
 Disraeli as a man of "consoomate ability" Often would he
 
 19 
 
 afterwards speak of the scene as the most striking he had 
 been privileged to witness. The tall, spare figure bent for- 
 ward in graceful attitude reminding one of some model 
 of classic Grecian art; that wondrous face so powerful in 
 expression and formed so exquisitely ; those eyes that 
 sparkled with the fire of the highest oratory; and that great 
 brow crowned with these clustering curls, so familiar to all 
 who knew him, made a picture unique in its kind; while 
 the flowing sentences, conveying with musical cadence the 
 measured thoughts of the statesman, completed the effect. 
 
 In the prospect of a second session Mr. Douglas resigned 
 his post in Messrs. Wilson, Matheson, & Co.'s. The first 
 session was an experiment, and now that he was about to 
 set himself with all his heart to the work of preparation for 
 the ministry, he felt that he must give an undivided attention 
 to his studies. The many friends that he had made in the 
 warehouse resolved not to let him go without some token 
 of their regard. A goodly sum was subscribed, and the 
 question as to what might be the best gift was eagerly dis- 
 cussed. There were various suggestions, but it was pointed 
 out that the most appropriate gift would be books, and the 
 argument was clenched by some one saying that if they 
 gave him anything else he would only sell it and buy books. 
 So it was arranged, and on an autumn evening in 1875 his 
 warehouse friends met to bid him a kindly farewell. One 
 of the firm occupied the chair, and made the presentation in 
 a few graceful words. 
 
 In the winter of 1875-76 Mr. Douglas took the senior 
 Humanity and Greek classes. He worked with his custom- 
 ary diligence, and, though suffering from the disadvantage 
 of not having had an early classical training, succeeded in 
 carrying off one of the Latin prizes. In this part of his 
 curriculum, however, while acquitting himself well, he did 
 not reach that high excellence attained by him in other 
 departments. In the classes which test most the native 
 powers of a man, and which depend less on the cultivation 
 of youthful memory, he found his congenial sphere. Un- 
 fortunate!}*, when he took the Moral Philosophy class, he
 
 20 
 
 had an illness which prevented him from regularly attending; 
 but, as this did not occur till the session was well advanced, 
 he had time to show what he could do. In the few examin- 
 ations at which he appeared he stood in the first class, and, 
 as Professor Caird informed me, " he would doubtless have 
 been a prizeman had he been able to attend." In the Logic 
 class he attained high distinction, being on more than one 
 occasion first in " the essays " over the whole class. A 
 paper by him on the Imagination was commented on by 
 the professor in terms of the highest praise. 
 
 At the end of his Arts course he was again seized with 
 illness. While at the coast in the summer, acting as tutor 
 in a gentleman's family, he walked a considerable distance 
 to see some friends from Glasgow staying there. The d ay 
 was sultry, and the walk was relieved neither by rest nor 
 by refreshment. The effort was too much for him, and a 
 blood-vessel gave way internally, which induced Haemoptysis. 
 A few weeks of prostration followed, during which he was 
 confined to bed. Several physicians saw him, among others 
 the late Dr. Scott Orr, who had known him from childhood, 
 and as there was no organic disease discoverable, his re- 
 covery, though slow, was complete. During his convalescence 
 he spent several weeks at Bothwcll, whither I accompanied 
 him to relieve the tedium of his stay. When the weather 
 was good we had most enjoyable walks along the banks of 
 the Clyde, which here arc very beautiful, or we sat among 
 the historic ruins of the ancient Castle, musing over its 
 departed glory. It was this illness that hindered Mr. 
 Douglas from presenting himself for examination with a 
 view to the Arts degree. 
 
 The following touching letter written to his mother about 
 a year afterwards will be read with interest : — 
 
 "Sabbath Evening, 21st November, 1880. 
 
 " I do not know that I have any reason to apprehend death as 
 near, but I wish, in case I might die suddenly, or without having 
 the opportunity of speaking to her, to say these last words of 
 comfort and farewell to my dear mother. 1 feel that it will be a
 
 2] 
 
 comfort to her, and the knowledge that I have written them here 
 for her will be, and now is, a comfort to me. 
 
 ki In my illness, now fourteen months ago, when I thought that 
 I might possibly die, what made the thought of death so painful to 
 me was the fear of the grief it would be to my mother. God, in 
 His great mercy, spared me then; but in case death might come 
 on me unawares, I want to say these words, which will help you, 
 my dear mother, not to grieve — which will, I hope, turn your grief 
 into joy. For, my dear mother, I can humbly say that I have 
 learned to look on death without fear. 
 
 " I wish to live, if it be God's will, and especially if I be strong 
 enough to support you; but I am learning to know and believe 
 that what God sends is always best, and if He sends death to me, 
 it is best for me, and for you all. And I die most firmly and 
 humbly trusting in the infinite goodness of God, our Heavenly 
 Father— in the love and all-saving grace of our blessed Saviour, 
 the Lord Jesus Christ — and in the all-comforting power of the 
 Holy Spirit, the Comforter. 
 
 " I know that there is very much in my past life that I would 
 wish undone, and that I have wasted many opportunities for good, 
 ' But, if we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us 
 our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.' I have not 
 spoken with you, my dear mother, on these things, because I think 
 they should lie between ourselves and God. I know you have had 
 little time for meditation on them. I had fondly hoped one day 
 to have given you a quiet and peaceful home, but if it be not 
 granted to me, I hope that what money I leave behind (for I 
 always thought of it, my dear mother, as yours, which, indeed, it 
 is), with what money you have of your own, will help you and 
 .Mr. Smith to retire, if not from work altogether, at least into 
 some peaceful employment. But remember, my dear mother, 
 that God our Father sympathises with us in the trials and diffi- 
 culties of our situation, and will not lay on us more than we can 
 bear. ' Cast your burden on Him,' assured that He careth for 
 you. To His love and care (which never fail), and to the grace 
 of our Lord Jesus Christ, I commend you. In bidding you fare- 
 well I rejoice, and let this rejoice you too, that it is only for a 
 while. We shall meet again, ' Where there is no parting, neither 
 sorrow nor tears.' I thank you, my dear, dear mother, for all 
 your love and care of me. I wish I could have been of more use
 
 to you, and have given you less trouble. But God will reward 
 you; and, remember, He loves you far more than ever you loved 
 me, and it is those whom He loves that He chastens. Give my 
 kind love to -Mr. Smith,* and thank him for all his kindness to me, 
 and all his kindness to you. May you be happy in each other, 
 and may God bless and guide you. Give my kind love to all my 
 dear friends, especially to Coylef and Kennedy, t Thank them for 
 all their kindness to me, and tell them I hope we shall all meet 
 in Heaven. God has been very good to me all my life long, not 
 only in giving me your kind love, but also in keeping me from 
 evil companions, and giving me so many kind friends. I had 
 hoped to have lived and served our Lord in the Church on earth, 
 but I trust to be found worthy to serve Him in the Church above. 
 And remember, my dear mother, that we are ' All one in Christ 
 Jesus our Lord.' 
 
 " ' I am the resurrection and the life' (saith Christ); ' he that believeth in 
 Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth, and 
 believeth in Me, shall never die.'— John xi. 2J-26. 
 
 " ' Let not your heart be troubled. In My Father's house are many man- 
 sions : if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for 
 you.' — John xiv. 1-2. 
 
 " ' Sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that 
 Jesus died and rose again, even so them also that sleep in Jesus will God 
 bring with Him.' — / T/ics. iv. 13-14. 
 
 " 'They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; neither shall the 
 sun light on them, nor any heat. For the Lamb which is in the midst of the 
 throne shall feed them, and shall lead them to living fountains of waters : and 
 God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.'— Rev. vii. 16-17. 
 
 "'And there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying; neither 
 shall there be any more pain.' — Rev. xxi. 4. 
 
 • l My last words, my dear mother, are, I die in peace, and in 
 the sure hope that in God's good time you and my other friends 
 will come to meet me, as I now believe I go to meet Willie and 
 those whom I knew here and who have 'gone before.' Be sure 
 you do not grieve for me; and the peace of God, which passeth 
 all understanding, keep your heart for ever, through Christ our 
 Saviour. Amen. 
 
 •• Farewell for a little while. 
 
 " ' 'Tis sweet, as year by year we lose 
 Friends out of sight, in faith to muse, 
 I low grows in Paradise our store.' 
 
 — Christian Year" 
 
 * Mr. Douglas' stepfather. f The biographer. 
 
 + The Parish Minister of Portpatrick.
 
 23 
 
 In the Divinity course, which was even more congenial 
 to him than that of Arts, the time passed rapidly. During 
 this period he formed some of his warmest friendships. 
 Among his fellow-students were several who now hold good 
 positions in the Church, and who will recall with pleasure 
 the recollections of these friendly days. His breadth ol 
 sympathy brought him into contact with all classes of 
 students. He was the friend, and, so far as he could, the 
 helper of the dull and commonplace ; while with the more 
 gifted, like himself, he was a special favourite. One friend, 
 and one who made Mr. Douglas a shelter in time of trouble, 
 was remarkable for his fitfulness. He found college life 
 very irksome, but his relatives desired to make him a 
 minister, for which office he had little aptitude. He would 
 be absent one day and present another, the time of attend- 
 ance being given to the writing of apologies for days of 
 absence, instead of following the lecturer. On this youth 
 Mr. Douglas was known to bestow much sympathy and 
 friendly consideration. With the diligent and talented 
 Mr. Douglas found himself at once in his proper sphere. 
 His modesty precluded any tendency to jealousy ; never 
 once was he known to boast. An incident, not of college 
 life but of earlier days, which well illustrates this may 
 here be mentioned. About the year 1873 a class for theo- 
 logical study was taught by Mr. James Orr (now Dr. Orr, 
 U.P. minister of Hawick, then a brilliant young licentiate 
 awaiting a church). It was in connection with the Young 
 Men's Society. Students of divinity attended it, and others 
 of considerable talent and culture. Mr. Douglas was a 
 keen competitor in the examinations, the results of which 
 were not allowed to be known till the end of the session. 
 One evening in early spring, a number of students were 
 walking home together, among them Mr. Douglas, and — as 
 was very natural — the conversation turned on the possible 
 issue of the competition. One youth ventured to suggest 
 that in one of the examinations he would be found first, 
 though he admitted that in another Mr. Douglas might 
 lead. The latter contented himself by quietly observing
 
 24 
 
 that they had better wait till the examiner declared the 
 results. The time came, and it was announced, to the 
 -ratification of his friends, that in all the examinations Mr. 
 Douglas held the first place. 
 
 Throughout the years of his Divinity course Mr. Douglas 
 sustained a brilliant part. In every class except Hebrew 
 he found himself in the place of honour, and when he was 
 licensed it was the opinion of his professors that he had no 
 superior among the men of his year. With one who is now 
 an honoured minister of the Church, Mr. Douglas frequently 
 competed for the first place ; now one would take the lead, 
 then the other, and again they would be bracketed as equal. 
 None of the students carried away with them more hearty 
 good wishes from their professors. The testimonials which, 
 when a candidate for churches, he procured aptly show this; 
 and the kindly relations which ever after subsisted between 
 him and his former teachers were a standing proof, if such 
 were needed, of the deep regard in which they held him. 
 As one of his old class-mates said, when speaking of him — 
 " He was so completely the gentleman that it would be im- 
 possible not to respect him at first sight, and not to love 
 him when known." His life was a happy illustration of 
 the couplet often quoted by him from his favourite poet, 
 
 Tennyson — 
 
 " And thus he bore without abuse 
 The grand old name of gentleman. 
 In his college days, when the end of the session came, 
 and with it the list of prizes, it was very pleasing to witness 
 the modest gratification with which he would carry the 
 tokens of his triumph home to his mother. He would lay 
 them out before her on the table, and, with sparkling eye 
 and blithesome voice, would put his arm round her neck 
 and kiss her, while saying that these were all for her. A 
 gentleman who was intimately acquainted with him for 
 many years tells us that, on one- occasion when he had 
 unexpectedly gained a money prize, he went at once to 
 look out some specimens of material for ladies' dress from 
 which his mother might make her selection, to be paid for
 
 25 
 
 out of his prize-money. In the latter days of his student 
 life, Mr. Douglas spent a summer at Lochranza, Arran, in 
 connection with the Church of Scotland Mission Station. 
 Here in the quaint little church he ministered from week 
 to week, when Glasgow visitors brought to that sparsely- 
 inhabited part of the Western Highlands a temporary 
 increase to its population. Among the people he visited 
 diligently, and many even of the " stiff Free Kirkers," as 
 they were reputed, would drop in occasionally to hear one 
 whom they were pleased to call the young evangelical 
 minister. His abode was quietly situated on the side of a 
 hill, and his aged, but amiable, landlady was as " Hielan' " 
 as her native heather. She regarded her inmate with 
 what seemed a mingling of superstition and reverence, and 
 ministered to his wants with an almost embarrassing pro- 
 fusion of civility. 
 
 Along the shore of that sheltered loch he would often 
 spend the fine afternoon, book in hand, and sometimes he 
 might be seen similarly occupied on the side of one of the 
 neighbouring hills. 
 
 One morning in July we went out early to combine the 
 pleasure of reading with the enjoyment of the bracing air. 
 A ripple was on the water of the loch, and a small fishing 
 smack, manned by four brothers, was gliding into the little 
 harbour. The sky suddenly changed its bright aspect, and 
 clouds rapidly gathered. From the hills there came a rush 
 of wind ; the sea roughened, and the man at the helm, un- 
 equal to cope with the fickle blast which seemed to blow 
 from various points, allowed the boat to turn, so that a 
 broadside, if we may so speak, caught the little craft, upset 
 her, and left the four men struggling in the water. The 
 scene, as witnessed from the shore, baffles description. The 
 aged parents of the men, with their wives and sisters, 
 had been watching them coming in, and had seen what had 
 happened ; many others saw it also. In a moment a wild 
 shriek arose, and all rushed to the shore. A boat was quicks- 
 manned and rowed out, the distance from the beach not 
 being more than a few hundred yards. Soon the struggling
 
 26 
 
 men were got into the boat, and the sturdy rowers swiftly 
 hurried them to their home, which was not far from the 
 place of landing, and on the other side of the Loch from 
 where Mr. Douglas resided.. With all haste he, along with 
 his companion, who was then a medical student, went round 
 to see what help might be rendered. The kindness shown 
 by him on that occasion made a lasting impression. While 
 his friend saw to the treatment of the soaked and shivering 
 men, he spoke words of comfort to the anxious parents who, 
 with natural instinct, dreaded the consequences of the im- 
 mersion. Fortunately, three of the men were little the 
 worse ; the fourth, who was delicate, had an attack of con- 
 gestion of the lungs, from which he slowly recovered. 
 
 One night we remember a walk of two miles with him, 
 in the drenching rain, to see a poor fisherman's child, who 
 was reported ill, and to whom he desired to bring help at 
 once. Mr. Douglas urged his reluctant friend to go with 
 him. The little sufferer was found needing more a mother's 
 care than a doctor's prescription; but such advice as was 
 fitting was given, supplemented by my friend's kindly word. 
 One of the characters of the place, who was a strange mix- 
 ture of simplicity and shrewdness, held Mr. Douglas in 
 much esteem, and when they met, the Highlander was sure 
 to enter on a long chat, and, quite unsolicited, would in- 
 form the young minister all about the new arrivals and 
 their church connections. One of his peculiarities was to 
 know the Glasgow residences of the visitors. But Mr. 
 Douglas, who had learned from others that he had a habit 
 of going to the city and renewing acquaintance with friends 
 who had been unwisely communicative, exercised a judi- 
 cious silence, though often hard pressed for the secret. 
 Here Mr. Douglas formed many valued friendships with 
 people of other denominations. One old gentleman, who 
 had been staying there during the summer, a highly re- 
 spected United Presbyterian elder in Glasgow, became very 
 much attached to him. This new acquaintance was quite 
 an acquisition, especially in such a place. Though he had 
 been assiduously engaged in business, he was a great lover
 
 •27 
 
 of books, and had read not a few of the best. His conver- 
 sation, though homely, was highly intelligent, and ever 
 after a sincere friendship subsisted between them. Mr. 
 Douglas' mother visited him frequently in this place, and 
 great were the preparations made for the due reception and 
 befitting comfort of one to whom he was throughout life 
 so devotedly attached. The following is the only letter 
 which has come to our hands of the many written at Loch- 
 ranza. It was written to a friend of his mother's, one who 
 had nursed him when a child : — 
 
 " Lochranza, Arran, 2nd August. 
 
 " Dear J—, 
 
 " I was very glad to receive a letter from you, and to hear 
 that you are well and liking your change to Crieff. I am glad to 
 say I am liking my stay here very much, and my health is keeping 
 excellent. I think a great deal of Lochranza. It is very pretty, 
 and is bracing, and there is always something fresh about the sea. 
 I have had some very nice excursions here. I was down at the 
 south end of Arran, preaching for the parish minister of Kilmorie. 
 He was up here preaching in my place. His parish is very nice, 
 and I stayed nearly a week at the Manse, and found them very 
 pleasant people. My church is doing about as well as could be 
 expected. We have a pretty fair attendance of visitors, but as our 
 church is very uncomfortable, while the Free Church is very nice, 
 we are at a great disadvantage. However, I don't put myself about 
 for that. I try to do my duty as well as I can in preaching, &c, 
 but if the people go to the more comfortable church I don't blame 
 them, and I don't think it matters which they go to. I noticed 
 
 Dr. death, about which you speak. You know, I suppose, 
 
 my mother had no great liking for him. But there is an old Latin 
 proverb which says, ' Think nothing of the dead but good,' and 
 while I think he acted shabbily at times, yet even the best of us 
 trip sometimes, and I believe, on the whole, he was a good man. 
 Hoping you will continue to enjoy your stay, and that we will 
 have good weather, 
 
 " I am, with best wishes, 
 
 " Sincerely yours, 
 
 "JOHN D. DOUGLAS."
 
 28 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The parish of Kilmun, where Mr. Douglas began his 
 labours as a minister, forms an extensive tract of country, 
 stretching from Loch Long half-way across the district of 
 Cowal. It is a mass of hills, intersected by a few glens. 
 From the head of the Holy Loch, the valley of the Echaig 
 runs directly north, dividing the parish into two. This glen 
 forms a curious depression between the hills, and reaches to 
 within a short distance of Loch Fyne, indicating that pro- 
 bably in some distant era the Holy Loch reached much 
 further inland than it does now. Near the shores of the 
 loch the valley joins Glen Masson, and Glen Lean on the 
 western side ; while a few miles further up, Glen Finnart, 
 opposite, running at right angles to the course of the river, 
 extends from Loch Eck to Loch Long. These solitary 
 glens hardly have a human habitation, if we except Glen 
 Lean, where the powder mills, once in operation there, have 
 gathered round them a small village. The shore along 
 Loch Eck forms a solitary stretch, with only the little wax- 
 side inn, the frequent resort of fishers who come here in 
 summer, while on the other side of the loch may be seen 
 small white farm-houses nestling on the hill-side. At the 
 small farm of Rashfield, about two miles from Kilmun, there 
 is a curious survival of what was formerly not uncommon 
 in Scotland. The farm is held by several families who 
 till the land together, and when harvest comes divide the 
 produce by lot. One might suppose that jealousy or greed 
 would interfere with the common labour and the sharing of 
 the produce, but the arrangement works well, and the fami- 
 lies live in harmony and comparative comfort. This little 
 old-fashioned hamlet stands near the centre of the glen, and 
 form a picturesque and striking contrast to the stately 
 houses a little way off.
 
 KILMUN PARISH CHURCH
 
 29 
 
 The village of Kilmun itself stands near the head of the 
 Holy Loch, and on its eastern shore. The crofters and 
 fishermen of former days are gone, and the village depends 
 almost entirely on its summer visitors. It consists of one 
 long row of houses, following the windings of the shore. 
 At the upper end of the village stands the church, on 
 a gentle elevation. The approach to it is formed by 
 an avenue of stately trees, and close beside the modern 
 building are the remains of an ancient tower. This ruin 
 is all that is left of what was once a flourishing ecclesi- 
 astical institution. In close proximity to the church is 
 the burial place of the house of Argyle.* 
 
 The position which an assistant holds in Kilmun is ex- 
 ceptional. Owing to the geographical features of the two 
 parishes — their separation by a loch about a mile broad — 
 it is impossible for the minister resident in Dunoon to 
 exercise due supervision over both, so that, except when 
 he appears once a fortnight in the pulpit, the care of 
 Kilmun is left almost entirely in the hands of the assistant. 
 This arrangement, while involving greater responsibility, 
 also affords a better opportunity than is usually given to 
 
 * This historic spot has gathered round it many interesting reminiscences. 
 One of these we may record, as it was often humorously alluded to by our 
 departed friend. About a hundred years ago, a well-known Glasgow gentle- 
 man, afflicted with jaundice, came down to sojourn at the little inn. While 
 enjoying this pleasant retreat, some of Neptune's sons, who had possibly been 
 at the Lazaretto on the opposite shore, found their way to the same resting 
 place. They were rather noisy inmates, and disturbed the repose of the invalid. 
 Unwilling to leave, he called the landlord, and requested him to find some 
 place where he might sleep. After some thought, the puzzled landlord replied 
 "There is no place — unless you go up beside the dukes." " Well," said the old 
 gentleman, nothing affrighted, ' ' if you make it comfortable, I have no objection." 
 At midnight, the roving tars, strolling along the shore, bent on fun, espied the 
 church bell hanging on a tree in the graveyard. With frolicsome glee they set 
 it a-ringing, little dreaming that living mortal was near. The sleeper, awakened 
 by the noise, was seen springing forth from the ducal mausoleum, and was at 
 once supposed to be a visitor from the other world. One sailor fainted, while 
 the other two took to flight, our hero following as fast as he could. The ter- 
 rified men arrived at the inn, panting and breathless, and were recounting their 
 story to the astonished landlord, when the object of their dread appeared. On 
 learning he was taken for a ghost, he laughed — and laughed so — that he was 
 d of the jaundice.
 
 30 
 
 assistants for preparation in prospect of a full parochial 
 charge. 
 
 At the time of his license, in the early summer of 1882, 
 Mr. Douglas was appointed assistant to the united parishes 
 of Dunoon and Kilmun. He entered upon his new duties 
 with ardour, and with the firm resolve that the work should 
 not suffer for lack of diligence. 
 
 Mr. Douglas laboured for fifteen months in Kilmun, and 
 notwithstanding the shortness of his ministry, made a last- 
 ing impression. His genial manner won easy access to all 
 classes, some of his warmest friends and admirers being 
 members of other denominations. During the winter he 
 spent at the sea-side he combined with the minister of 
 Strone in holding a joint prayer-meeting, and in various 
 other ways he united in efforts with this friend for carrying 
 on the work of their respective parishes. At Benmore 
 (Mr. Duncan's) he conducted alternately with the Free 
 Church minister a fortnightly prayer meeting, and thus 
 happily illustrated, what he often publicly declared, that he 
 could see no proper reason why the ministers of the various 
 evangelical denominations could not heartily co-operate 
 in the work of the Church. In the pastoral part of his 
 duties he was singularly successful, and in one or two 
 noteworthy incidents his labours were followed by much 
 good. An aged couple, long resident in the parish, 
 unable to attend Church, received special attention. The 
 husband was seized with a lingering illness, which ended in 
 his death, and during the long course of suffering, Mr. 
 Douglas proved himself a helper in time of trouble. Daily 
 would he sit at the bedside of the dying man, reading the 
 Scriptures, imparting judicious counsel, or leading in devo- 
 tion, and such was the power that the young clergyman 
 had obtained over the afflicted one, that the old man would 
 long for the pastoral call, and wish it extended when made. 
 After his death, the gratitude of the widow was fittingly in- 
 dicated in the following manner. One day, as Mr. Douglas 
 was about to visit Glasgow, he dropped in, on his way, to 
 give a word of condolence. The old lady received him
 
 31 
 
 gladly, and going to a drawer, brought out the gold watch 
 of her late husband, asking him if he would take it to the 
 city, and have it repaired. It is unnecessary to say that he 
 willingly undertook to do so. On his return, he brought it 
 back with him, and called on his way home to leave it with 
 its owner. She asked him the charge, and paid him, then 
 joining the watch to the chain, just as they had been worn 
 by her husband, she put the latter round his neck, request- 
 ing him to wear them for her sake, and remarked, "You 
 have been to me like a son." In a letter written to a friend 
 at the time of this lady's death, who did not long survive 
 her husband, Mr. Douglas remarks, " I shall ever remem- 
 ber Mrs. 's kindness, and the lessons I received from 
 
 her patience and faith." The following incidents also illus- 
 trate the loving nature of his work : — A poor woman of 
 eighty had a son who had been absent for many years. 
 Returning to the parish, he refused to contribute to her sup- 
 port. The Parochial Board had given her an allowance dur- 
 ing her son's absence, but on his return they discontinued it, 
 and she was left to starve, and had it not been for the charity 
 of some considerate neighbours, would probably have done 
 so. Mr. Douglas exerted himself on her behalf, and went 
 to Dunoon to use his influence with a member of the Board 
 who was known to him. The result was that the poor 
 creature got back the small sum, and was allowed to end 
 her days without knowing actual want. Her gratitude was 
 great ; whenever she spoke of Mr. Douglas her eyes would 
 fill with tears. One Saturday afternoon, during the Glas- 
 gow Fair Holidays, some of the city excursionists, who were 
 visiting the place, and had become tipsy, were about to 
 fight. Several of the residenters, not accustomed to such 
 encounters in their quiet little village, were standing by, 
 interested spectators of the scene. Mr. Douglas, who had 
 been close at hand, stepped forward, touched the arm of 
 one of the would-be combatants, and saying a soft word, 
 instantly put a stop to the proceedings. The onlookers, 
 knowing their minister, and being ashamed at his finding 
 them ready to look on such folly, slunk quietly away.
 
 32 
 
 At a little distance from the shore there were a number 
 of desolate houses, which had at one time been occupied 
 by workers in the powder mills already alluded to. Here 
 there lived a number of the very poor of the place, who 
 found the no-rent privilege a sufficient attraction for re- 
 maining in these homeless habitations. Mr. Douglas visited 
 these poor ones frequently, giving them of his slender sub- 
 stance, as well as pointing them to the home in heaven. 
 While thus going about doing good, his life was often varied 
 by the hospitality of his parishioners. There are very 
 warm hearts in this little sea-side village, and when the 
 duties of the day were done, our friend would make his 
 way into one of the many homes that were ever ready to 
 receive him. His conversational powers were of the highest 
 order, and not less for his personal worth than for his agree- 
 able company, he found every door open to him. 
 
 The effect of this brief ministry it would be difficult to 
 estimate. Never sensational, he, by quiet but powerful 
 influence, made his way into the affections of the people, 
 and when he left to go to Foulden, he carried away with 
 him the love and good wishes of all. His Bible-class at 
 Kilmun presented him with an appropriate tribute of their 
 affection, and parents reserved their offspring, born after he 
 left, for baptism at his hands. 
 
 So much was he attached to his friends in his first parish, 
 that he often spent his holidays amongst them, generally 
 taking up his residence at Woodsidc, Stronc; and among 
 other friendships formed during his visits there was the privi- 
 lege of becoming acquainted with Dr. Hutchcson Stirling, 
 the Philosopher, whose writings he greatly admired, and the 
 honour of knowing whom he highly esteemed.

 
 33 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 The scene now changes to Foulden, a peaceful and pic- 
 turesque parish in the south of Scotland. The clean ap- 
 pearance of the village, with its one long street of well-built 
 houses, and the peaceful beauty of the whole scene com- 
 mand the attention of every visitor. The little church, 
 covered with ivy, and the village churchyard, overgrown 
 with grass, are of special interest to the antiquarian and 
 historian. In Foulden Parish Church (not the present build- 
 ing, but an earlier one) the commissioners of the English 
 Queen met the representatives of the Scottish people, to 
 make amends for the execution of Mary Queen of Scots. 
 This, in itself, endows the locality with an unfailing interest. 
 The churchyard is crowded with moss-covered grave- 
 stones, each telling its own short story. Around few, how- 
 ever, gather such an interest as that of which the following 
 is a copy: — 
 
 " Heir lyeth ane honorabil man, Georg Ramsay, in Fulden 
 Bastel, who departed 4 Jan., 1692, and of his age S4. 
 
 " Fyfe fostring peace me bred, 
 From thence the Merce me cald, 
 The Merce to Mars's lavis led, 
 To byde his battels bald. 
 Weried with yares and sore opprest, 
 Death gave to Mars the foyl. 
 And now I have more quyet rest 
 Than in my native soyl. 
 Fyfe, Merce, Mars, Mort, these fatal four. 
 Al hafl my dayes hes dreven our." 
 
 Even further back than this historic stone can we trace 
 the existence of this ancient parish. At the time when 
 the dispute between Bruce and Balliol about the Scottish 
 Crown disturbed the national peace, Foulden must have
 
 34 
 
 been of some importance, as the name of its priest is found 
 in one of the state records. The whole country round is 
 one great battlefield, upon which the bloody contests of the 
 Scotch and English were fought. Not far from Foulden 
 is the historic Halidon Hill, and not many miles away lies 
 the black field of Flodden, while here and there, scattered 
 all over the country, are spots made famous by deeds of 
 valour. 
 
 On Monday, 21st March, 1883, Mr. Douglas was elected 
 to be the Minister of this Parish. With this appointment, 
 he gained the goal of his ambition, for now he was to enter 
 upon the duties and responsibilities of a Parish Minister. 
 
 On Wednesday, 9th May, the ordination and induction 
 took place. Many of Mr. Douglas' Glasgow friends, in- 
 cluding several young clergymen, old class-mates, were 
 present. The little church was well filled, and the sermon 
 was preached by the Rev. Macduff Simpson, who delivered 
 an eloquent discourse. Several of the Glasgow and local 
 Ministers were present and assisted in the ordination. The 
 usual presentation on such occasions, of a gown and books, 
 was made. We arc happy at being able to give the very 
 appropriatc reply made by Mr. Douglas on this occasion. 
 Having donned the robe, he said, " that he had to thank 
 them heartily for their very kind gift. He should be with- 
 out all feeling, and without an)- reverence, if he were not 
 very much impressed by the solemn services of that day, 
 and by the fact, that he had now been admitted to be 
 a Pastor of the Church of Christ, and a Minister of the 
 Church of Scotland. He felt very deeply, that on entering 
 on this office, he was undertaking a duty which would de- 
 mand his utmost efforts, in order to discharge it well and 
 faithfully. It was, as his brother in the Presbytery had 
 charged him, a most solemn and serious office which he 
 had now undertaken, and it was one which he felt he would 
 be quite unable to perform, or the responsibilities of which 
 lie would be unable to bear, unless he felt, as his other 
 brother in tin- Presbytery, who had so ably and so elo- 
 quently preached, had told them, that in this as in all things
 
 35 
 
 there was help for him, as for all of them, from a source 
 higher and better than any human aid could be. But 
 while he humbly trusted that in all his efforts there, he 
 should look to the aid with which no effort could be fruit- 
 less, he also felt very much indebted to them that, at the 
 outset of his career with them, they had, in this very kind 
 manner, shown their sympathy and their help, and had 
 already, though he was a stranger, bound him to themselves 
 by such an act of kindness. He trusted that God might 
 spare him long to labour there amongst them all, and he 
 trusted that as he came among them with very much less 
 experience than many of them had, tfiat they would be 
 forbearing with him, and that they might strive together 
 to build up that parish, and to build up each other in all 
 spiritual grace and gifts. He had again to thank them 
 most heartily for their kind gift." 
 
 On the first Sunday after the induction, he preached in 
 the evening, to a crowded church, from the text " Abide 
 with us" (Luke xxiv. 29). In his closing remarks he said 
 that he had spoken there that day for the first time as their 
 minister, and if there was any text more appropriate than 
 another for their opening service, any prayer specially be- 
 fitting at that time, any verse of Scripture which was a suit- 
 able motto for both preacher and congregation, surely it 
 was the aspiration of the text, " Abide with us, O Lord." 
 As long as it should please the Great and Divine Head of 
 the Church they were called to be together, and he was 
 charged to be especially with them in their times of per- 
 plexity and trouble. They were called to be with each 
 other most especially in the study of the Bible. They 
 could not read the Bible too earnestly and constantly, but 
 all the preaching and reading of it would be alike in vain, 
 unless they both came to it in a spirit of prayer. If he 
 needed anything to solemnize him at that time, surely he 
 would find it in the thought that, as their minister, he was 
 called upon to be specially with them in their hours of 
 bereavement and death. It was in such an hour that 
 even - minister must realize how mocking and useless his
 
 36 
 
 office would be, unless he were but the humble instrument 
 to point the dying Christian to the unfailing help of the 
 Great High Priest — Christ. They ought to pray that He 
 might abide with them in all their relations with each 
 other, to elevate and sanctify them, and that He might 
 specially abide with them in the service of that Holy Place. 
 It was their duty and his duty to make the service of the 
 House of God beautiful and attractive, but the finest ser- 
 vice, and most eloquent sermons were worse than useless, 
 unless Christ's presence and power breathed and lived in 
 them. He was set there as their minister, and he would 
 desire at all times to remember that the word meant, 
 literally, their servant. But as it was said by the great 
 parliamentary orator of the people's representatives, so it 
 was true of the people's minister : ' It was his duty to 
 sacrifice his repose, his pleasure to you, and in every case 
 to prefer your interest to his own ; but his free and unbiassed 
 judgment, his enlightened conscience, he dared not sacrifice 
 to you, nor to any man. These he does not derive from 
 your pleasure ; no, nor from the laws and constitution, — 
 they are a trust from heaven, for the abuse of which he is 
 deeply responsible.' The Christian minister must never 
 make popularity his guide, cither in what he says or what 
 he does, for were he to do so, he would degrade and dis- 
 grace his office. While he trusted and hoped they would 
 live in harmony together, while it was his office to promote 
 peace and concord, they would remember he would fail still 
 more grievously in his duty, if he shrank from doing or 
 saying that which he believed to be right, from fear of 
 giving offence. An offence might be a stumbling-block, 
 and all offences, as Christian men, they should avoid; but 
 what seems a stumbling-block might often, in reality, be a 
 stepping-stone to raise them up to a noble Christian life. 
 While he must ever remember he was their servant, he 
 must never let that make him forget that he was still more 
 emphatically the servant of Christ. He reminded them 
 that he claimed no sacerdotal exclusion. They were all of 
 them — it was their birthright as Christian men and women
 
 37 
 
 — ' kings and priests unto God.' On them, as well as on 
 him, depended whether all the virtues of the Christian life, 
 whether purity and kindness, and charity and truth, should 
 make that little corner of God's world beautiful and holy. 
 
 Into the work of his parish Mr. Douglas entered with 
 steady enthusiasm, mastering the details of his duty rapidly, 
 and striving, by careful attention to what people call trifles, 
 to make the church an efficient instrument for promoting 
 the glory of Christ. Nor did he restrict himself to the 
 labours of his own parish A good neighbour, he was ever 
 glad to assist his brethren in the ministry whenever that 
 was practicable. In the pulpits of the other clergymen of 
 Berwickshire he often appeared, and frequently in dissenting 
 churches. At social gatherings connected with churches he 
 was often present. The congregational soiree, so little ap- 
 preciated by many now, he regarded as a useful means for 
 promoting the social aspect of Christian life. A friend — a 
 Benvick clergyman, to whom we are largely indebted for 
 information concerning his Foulden ministry — has kindly 
 sent us the following interesting summary of an address, 
 given at a social meeting, on the " Benefits of Soirees." 
 
 " I. — They suggested the truth that Religion is to penetrate and 
 leaven the whole life; that its object is to lead us, not only 
 to sanctify the Sabbath, but to sanctify the whole week. 
 
 "II. — The meeting together of ministers and members of different 
 churches suggested the idea of church union, and also led to 
 promote it. 
 
 " III. — Soirees suggest the truth that every one in the church has 
 a place and work of his own to do. A soiree owes its success 
 to the presence and efforts of all, conjointly. So the church 
 needs every man and woman, boy and girl, to do something." 
 
 Foulden is connected with the Presbytery of Chirnside. 
 Mis brethren in the Presbytery showed their regard for his 
 ability by entrusting to his editorial care the supplement 
 issued by them in connection with Life and Work. 
 
 While he conducted with his accustomed zeal the ordinary 
 services of the Church — including" Sabbath evenine lectures,
 
 38 
 
 kitchen meetings in remote parts of the parish, and weekly 
 prayer-meetings — he devoted special attention to the young. 
 His Bible class was numerously attended and proved a 
 great success. He established a Young Men's Guild, and 
 mainly by his efforts a village library was founded. 
 
 The following extracts from letters to a fellow-student, 
 written in the early days of his Foulden ministry, show 
 that he had conceived a high ideal of the preacher's vocation, 
 and that he was prepared to expend both time and pains in 
 realizing it in himself and others : — 
 
 •• My dear K , 
 
 ' ; I wish to make a beginning right off with 
 our correspondence and mutual study, so I send herewith (along 
 with " Life and Work") three sermons. Now, I send them as a 
 start for our mutual exchange, which is to be one sermon a week. 
 Criticise them thoroughly ; be fearless in expression ; and let us 
 chiefly point out faults. That is the way by which to help each 
 other. The end, remember, we have in view is to stimulate to 
 excellence in preaching and preparing our sermons. Our judg- 
 ments should be (i) What is the character of the sermon as a 
 whole ? (2) Its general defects ; (3) In what other way might the 
 subject have been better wrought out? (4) What special points 
 does it fail in ? — illustration, reasoning, explanation of text, theme, 
 warmth, force of application ; (5) Accepting scheme adopted, how 
 better to work it out ; (6) Special defects of particular parts or 
 divisions; (7) Ditto of language; (8) Is introduction or con- 
 clusion, especially latter, faulty ? 
 
 " Now, I think if we try to work out on this theory we will succeed 
 in doing a mutual good. As to sermon study, we should agree to 
 these rules — (1) Read one of Robertson's* daily ; (2) Write out one, 
 at least, weekly ; (3) Try to make one or two sketch outlines 
 weekly, which we would exchange with each other; (4) If possible, 
 try to run through (just scanning to see style, Szc.) some one 
 volume of sermons or speeches every week; (5) Read Bible at 
 least half-an-hour daily ; (6) Try to go through one book of the 
 Bible weekly, with, perhaps, a short commentary, but SO merely as 
 to understand it. If you approve these rules you might say so, and 
 if you like, you might admit any intimate friend you think of to 
 
 Robertson <>f Brighton,
 
 39 
 
 co-operate. Our motto should be ' The Best Work,' and here is 
 ' Nil sine labore.' Now I look to receive yours in return. As to 
 study — Plato's Republic, let us go through that together ; I have 
 begun the Introduction and will go on. Along with that, what do 
 you say to our reading ' Ideal Commonwealth ' (in Morley's series), 
 and Shakespere — ' The Tempest ' and ' Measure for Measure ' — 
 as both dealing in a way with Government both in the Individual 
 and the General." 
 
 " I was glad to hear you had been down at Blairmore, and quite 
 envied you your days in ' Fairyland.' I have preached twice since 
 I came here — once with paper, and once without. I am more 
 and more convinced that the latter is the right way, though it 
 makes one feel he should give twice the preparation he does. 
 1 am beginning to feel I shall have much more time for pre- 
 paration here, and reading. I am getting books from the College 
 Library, to read and study at least four or five hours a day. Let 
 us first of all get the best historical and critical knowledge of the 
 Look we have to interpret — the Bible ; and as the New Testament 
 is the most important part of it, as it is, at least, its culmination, 
 we are to direct our attention specially to it. That is, first, we 
 must read and study the life and times of Christ — the orthodox 
 books, Larrar and Geikie, Neander, Ebrard, Lange ; the critical 
 or negative, Ewald, Keim, Renan, Strauss, and all lights, orthodox 
 or negative, we can get — for the life of Jesus is the centre and 
 foundation of Christianity, and just now is the engrossing subject 
 of all schools. Then comes the life of Paul, as the greatest of the 
 Apostles ; then the other Apostles, and the early Church. Then 
 we must turn back to the Old Testament, as that from which 
 Christianity sprang, and without which we cannot understand it. 
 We should read on these only the ablest books and the newest, if 
 possible — at least, all the great books. Then we must study the 
 history oi the Church as it developed itself through the centuries ; 
 and not merely Church history but, side by side with it, secular 
 history, for there we shall find the explanation of many Church 
 movements. We must seek to know and understand not merely 
 such events as the Reformation and the Methodist Revival, we 
 must seek to understand likewise the Renaissance and the French 
 Revolution. That will bring us at once to Philosophy and to its 
 fundamental questions— What is Truth? What is Right? What-
 
 40 
 
 ever we believe to be the basis of things, the one far-off event to 
 which all moves, we shall seek to find its expression and history 
 in these two spheres — Nature and Man; that is, we are brought to 
 Science and Literature. Then, as we shall probably find that it 
 is the office of Religion to make men intelligent and good, and 
 our duties as Teachers of Religion to direct them in that, we are 
 at once brought to Political and Social questions — to Sociology. 
 Thus you'll see we cannot aim at being the best, the ideal minister, 
 without wide and careful study. But we will find, probably, that 
 Hebrew, Greek, and Latin are the least necessary things. The 
 results of these can be got, for the most part, at second-hand j but 
 History — of the Bible, of the Church, of the World— Philosophy, 
 Science, Sociology, Literature, these we must make our own, or 
 be for ever incompetent, ignorant teachers, who may make the 
 unthinking laugh, but will surely make the judicious grieve." 
 
 Interesting glimpses into his life at this period, showing 
 
 the subjects which chiefly occupied his thoughts, are also 
 
 afforded by the following passages from letters written to 
 
 the biographer: — 
 
 " The Manse. 
 
 " Foulden, 23rd October, 18S4. 
 
 " My Dear C , 
 
 " Many thanks for your parcel, which came duly to hand. 
 Miller's 'Philosophy of Law' I have only partly read, but what I 
 have seen of it I like. Hegel I have not got much done to, but 
 I am charmed with the Milton, and as for ' Paradise Lost,' I am 
 at the sixth book, and the man who says it is dull 'he hath no 
 music in his soul.' I am glad you got Morison's ' Mark,' and I 
 am sure you will find it good. I am glad you enjoyed the con- 
 ference you speak of so much, there is great need always for the 
 deepening of the Spiritual life. I feel it sadly myself. 
 
 " I had a visit of the vicar of Berwick a week or two ago, and he 
 told me they are to have another mission week there in November, 
 and invited me to join them. 1 mean to go at least to one meet- 
 ing. 1 hope, if grace and strength is given, to try and do my 
 winter's work here at home better than I have done. I have got 
 ill my lectures for the library arranged for, and a catalogue of the 
 books into the printer's hands. 1 mean myself to give a course of 
 Sunday evening lectures on the unfamiliar books of the bible, 
 beginning with [eremiah. 1 am also going to have a fortnightly
 
 11 
 
 prayer meeting in the village, and similar meetings in the cottages. 
 As for my study, I hope to redeem the time with it better than I 
 have done. I am reading Farrar's 'Early Days of Christianity' 
 (you should get it, it is very good) ; his ' Witness of History to 
 Christ ' is also good. By the way, I have had my attention called 
 to a noble society in connection with the English Church. I 
 wrote for pamphlets, and I now send some to you. It is called 
 ' The White Cross Army.' You'll see at once its object. I wish 
 to introduce it into our own parish, but have not as yet decided 
 in what way. One thing I feel convinced of, that every man, above 
 all, every Christian, should do something to stem this fearful tide. 
 I think, too, this puts it on its true footing, shows the awful un- 
 manliness of those who do not 'keep themselves by God's grace 
 from the evil.' Don't you think you could do something with this 
 in your mission ? There is a noble book I am reading just now 
 from Berwick Library, 'Sister Dora.' You should read it. It is 
 the record of a true human life lived in this nineteenth-century 
 England, and yet as grand as the legend of any saint. In fact, I 
 always feel inclined to say 'Saint Dora.' I look forward indeed 
 to the time when I will be in Glasgow again, and will have the 
 pleasure of seeing you. I do not know, however, when that will 
 be. I must stay at home and work." 
 
 ••Foulden Manse, 
 : Berwick-on-Tweed, 5th June, 1S85. 
 
 " My Dear C , 
 
 " I hope you will not think me so unmindful as I am 
 afraid 1 must appear. Before your letter came, however, I was 
 away at the General Assembly, and you can understand I had no 
 time then for any communications. I hoped after the Assembly 
 to have had a few days in Glasgow with you and other old friends, 
 but various urgent matters in the parish called me home here direct 
 from Edinburgh. 
 
 " Remember me most kindly to your dear mother. Tell me 
 how she is keeping. I hope you are both bearing up, believing all 
 things are working together for good. How true Cowper's beauti- 
 ful hymn— how impossible to get beyond it— yet how blessed that 
 we can rest in that, not happy or even contented, but hopefully in
 
 42 
 
 very pain and sorrow, waiting for the dawn of light and rest — 
 'God moves in a mysterious way." 
 
 " I am sitting down to study again, ashamed of past idleness, 
 and, I hope, heartily desirous to do better. Do let me have a line 
 from you soon, and I shall try to send you a long and full letter ; 
 and believe me, with fullest sympathy and prayer, 
 
 " Ever yours, 
 
 •JOHN D. DOUGLAS/' 
 Note. — When this letter was written my mother was lying on her death-bed. 
 
 •• My Dear C . 
 
 '•' I am sorry to have been so long in returning these 
 books, but they required a longer time to get through than I 
 thought, though I am sorry to say I read some of them very 
 hurriedly. Matheson's book is rather long drawn out, but still 
 very good. Balfour's very interesting, as showing that science has 
 no greater validity than religion, but equally rests on belief, though 
 I don't assent to a lot of his arguments. I must ask you, how- 
 ever, to hand these in to Mr. G — — , and get me some of the 
 following. I would like one each of these different divisions : — 
 
 " (i) Philosophical — Green's Latest work on Ethics; Lecky's 
 History of European Morals ; Carpenter's Mental Physiology ; 
 Caird's book on Comte. 
 
 " (2) Theological — New book on Jacob Boehme ; Godet's De- 
 fence of Christian Faith; Arthur's Fernley Lecture, Difference 
 between Physical and Moral Law ; James Hinton's Philosophy 
 and Religion ; Mill's Essays on Religion ; Milman's Latin Chris- 
 tianity. 
 
 •' Any good new commentary on the Book of Revelation of St. 
 John, or work dealing with it generally. Motley's History of the 
 United Netherlands, or any good book in general literature. I 
 hope to get a long letter from you telling me all about your read- 
 ing. I've not got as much done as 1 would have liked, but I've 
 finished Froude's History, am going through Motley's, and am at 
 the divine Plato going through the Republic. 1 have just started 
 Pascal's Thoughts. By all means read it — it is a splendid and 
 noble book, a work to waken thought and hold it."
 
 43 
 
 During his ministry in Fouldcn an agitation in favour of 
 the Disestablishment of the Church was set on foot by the 
 dissenters all over Scotland. In the defence of the Church 
 of his fathers Mr. Douglas nobly bore his part, both in 
 public meetings and in the local press. The following 
 address, which he delivered at Coldstream in March, 1886, 
 may serve as a specimen of his utterances on this question. 
 He said: — 
 
 ' : Mr. Chairman, Ladies, and Gentlemen, — I have very great 
 pleasure in coming before you to speak on the subject on which 
 you have asked me to address you. I know that it is said by 
 some that in upholding the Church ministers are only actuated by 
 selfish motives, and are merely defending their private interests ; 
 that, in short, we are mere hirelings and mercenary partisans, 
 and that our support is, as it were, purchased by a bribe. It is 
 insinuated, if not broadly stated, that we would do better if we 
 kept silence altogether, and that as our evidence is so interested 
 no one should receive it. Now, Sir, though I should hardly 
 stoop to answer such a calumny did I not know what advantage 
 is taken of popular ignorance on this matter, allow me to say that 
 I know no class so entirely impartial on this matter as the parish 
 ministers of Scotland, for there is no class who, as far as their 
 mere private interests are concerned, have less to lose than we. 
 So far from Disestablishment attacking our emoluments, it would 
 in many cases have increased them, and the Bill which was 
 drafted and presented to Parliament offered a distinct bribe to 
 every minister of our Church. Disestablishment cannot touch 
 one penny of our revenue ; the whole existing race of clergy are 
 secure of their life-interest ; and were we only actuated by the 
 selfish motives attributed to us, we might take our ease secure, 
 that whatever disasters befell our Church, we would be unharmed. 
 But I am sure there is not one minister so unworthy the Church 
 he belongs to as to make this selfish security the guide of his 
 conduct. And I say, Sir, we are in our place when we put our- 
 selves at the head of our people in resistance to a measure which. 
 though it cannot touch ourselves, would inflict a most disastrous 
 blow on the Church we love and the land we honour. I shall 
 never forget the eloquent words addressed some years ago to the 
 ministers of our Church by the late venerated Dean Stanley — 'It
 
 44 
 
 may be yours,' he said, 'to be the last generation of the ministers 
 of the national and historic Church of Scotland, but even if it be, 
 let it be your ambition to fall like the soldiers of Isandula, with 
 the colours wrapped around you, and greater even in your 
 disaster than any of your predecessors in their success.' I do 
 not believe that we shall be the last' parish ministers in Scotland; 
 I am not the least afraid of the contest, if there is only a fair field 
 and no favour. But a thousand times rather would I see our 
 Church overwhelmed than afraid to defend her right ; better, far 
 better, to be defeated than disgraced ; and disgraced we should 
 be if our ministers were either afraid or ashamed to resist the cry 
 for Disestablishment, and to show how utterly hollow and mis- 
 chievous is the agitation for it. There are several principles 
 which the Church of Scotland embodies, and on which her 
 defence may well be rested ; for they are not only the source 
 of much of her greatness, but they are in themselves dear to 
 many even beyond her pale. There is, first of all, the principle 
 of Establishment. By means of our Church there is a national 
 recognition of religion, and our Church is the Established Church, 
 because she is in alliance with the State. Now I submit that 
 there are only three ways in which the State can treat Christianity. 
 ' ; It may determine to persecute it ; it may make it a crime in 
 any of its citizens to profess that religion at all. That was how 
 the Roman empire acted towards our religion ; and that was how 
 many modern states, following that evil example, have acted to- 
 wards certain forms of Christianity ; that was how the American 
 colonies, for example, though they had no established Church, 
 persecuted the Quakers. Persecution of religion has nothing to 
 do with the establishment of religion, and has often prevailed, and 
 may prevail again, where there is no national recognition of religion 
 at all. Leaving aside the position of the persecution of Chris- 
 tianity, there are left only the alternatives of establishing religion 
 or ignoring it altogether. Those, therefore, who uphold Dises- 
 tablishment must accept the latter alternative — that is, they must 
 maintain a most complete and absolute indifference to religion on 
 the part of the State. Now, on what grounds can they rest — what, 
 on the very face of it looks such a suspicious proposal? It cannot 
 surely be on the grounds of religion itself j and yet, those who 
 make this proposal are, lor the most pan, believers in Christianity. 
 But 1 would like to know where they find warrant for their asser-
 
 45 
 
 tion that the State shall in no way give any recognition or coun- 
 tenance to religion; that the nation, in its collective capacity, must 
 entirely ignore it and pass it by. If they quote such texts as those 
 where Christ declares 'My kingdom is not of this world,' they 
 must be aware that these were directed, not against those who 
 were seeking to bring the State into alliance with the Church, but 
 against those who would have substituted the Church for the State 
 altogether. But it seems to me no attempt can be more foolhardy 
 than to prove from the New Testament that the state must be an 
 entirely secular and irreligious thing. It is alien, I venture to 
 submit, to the whole tone and tenor of every sacred book. St. 
 Paul sees even in the heathen Roman Governor 'a minister of 
 God ;' civil duties are to him also religious duties; and this wholly 
 novel doctrine of two utterly separate and alien powers, which are 
 never to touch and mingle, which are to enter into no relations at 
 all, would have seemed to him a perversion of his teaching, as it 
 has been rejected by every great Biblical scholar and Christian 
 teacher, at least until very recent times. But I say, moreover, 
 that the attempt at an absolute isolation of Church and State is 
 impossible; it cannot be carried out in its entirety. The State is 
 something more than the policeman, it is the whole organised civil 
 life of men. Now, can you divorce all the concerns of that life 
 from religion ? I say you cannot. Religion is like the all-encom- 
 passing air, it must and will find an entrance. It mingles with 
 our laws, our administration of justice, our public education, our 
 social statutes ; and to say that the State has nothing to do with 
 religion is either to misuse words or to utter a transparent absur- 
 dity. But here I will be told, perhaps, of the claims of what is 
 called 'religious equality,' that word we hear so much of from 
 many who never stay to enquire what it means. Now, sir, I 
 believe in religious equality, I am an advocate for it, and what 
 is more, the church for which I have the honour to speak to-night 
 has always been its defender. There is no church which has a 
 more stainless record in this respect than our own. She has never 
 persecuted. Her hands are unstained with blood, which is more 
 than some unestablished churches could say, as the history of 
 America can testify. Religious equality means, and can only 
 mean, that no one shall be persecuted or made to suffer in his 
 civil life for his religious opinions, and this the Church of Scot- 
 land has always upheld : and it was the reproach made against
 
 46 
 
 her by the first secession that she would not persecute. There is 
 the fullest and truest religious equality in the land ; in the sight of 
 the law all men are equal ; no matter what religious belief they 
 profess, they have the fullest and most perfect civil freedom. 
 What is meant, however, by those who use this phrase so much, 
 is something altogether different from the natural meaning of the 
 words. It is the old claim for an absolute indifference towards all 
 religion by the State. But this is not religious equality at all. 
 Because there is some national recognition of religion, how are 
 men thereby unequally or unjustly treated? It is a common benefit 
 which is thus conferred on all alike. If some refuse to receive that 
 benefit — which the great majority yet hold to be such — where is 
 the inequality when there is no one interfered with? If the great 
 majority of the citizens of a country think it a right thing to have 
 a national recognition of Christianity, how are they unjust to you, 
 when they leave you perfectly free to refuse to join in the recog- 
 nition? Are not you tyrannical, if, because you do not see the 
 good of this, you determine no one else shall ? If the inhabitants 
 of a city think it a good thing to celebrate the Queen's birthday, 
 and recommend all shops to be closed on that da}-, wherein are 
 they unjust to the republican shopkeeper who is quite at liberty 
 to have his shop open all day long? Or, because he will not 
 recognise the day, is that to be a reason why no other shall be 
 allowed to do so? But those who cry out for this so-called 
 principle are themselves untrue to it. If the State is to have 
 nothing to do with religion, are they prepared — as they must be 
 on these grounds — to see the Sabbath abolished, to have oaths in 
 courts of justice cease, to have the Bible and all religious teach- 
 ing banished from the schools, to have the throne made free to a 
 Papist or an infidel, to have the law of marriage swept away? Yet 
 they must do all those if they are to carry out their principle; nay, 
 they must go as far as the Society of French Infidels would do, 
 and erase the very name of God from the reading-books of the 
 children ; and they must make that Professor, who is a prominent 
 advocate of Disestablishment, and who yet teaches the Science 
 of Religion in Edinburgh University, shut up his class. The 
 truth is, that this principle has only one logical meaning, and it 
 was so understood by every great thinker, and especially by every 
 great Scotchman, at least, till very recent days ; it means— and so 
 they would have called it— National Atheism. Yes, we are told
 
 47 
 
 that the State must foster and encourage art, she must enact laws 
 to preserve the public health, she must administer education, she 
 must touch and mould the life of her people in a thousand ways. 
 But there is one subject on which alone her voice is never to be 
 heard ; every national gathering is to be dumb on this only, for 
 this there is to be no great public edifice, no public official shall 
 utter a syllable on this forbidden question ; this shall be the one 
 only subject which, as a nation, we shall perfectly and entirely 
 ignore, shall banish from every school, and thrust aside from every 
 relation of the national life. And what subject, may I ask, is this 
 that is to be accursed from the national life of men ? Is it some 
 dreadful and daring impiety, or some degrading or polluting history? 
 Nay, sir, it is religion, which all men have hitherto believed to be 
 the very blessing and glory of a nation's life, her most indispen- 
 sable support — her cheap yet supreme defence. And, I ask, what 
 else is this but to proscribe Christianity altogether, and, as far as 
 may be done in modern times, again to persecute her. 'These 
 be thy gods, O Israel;' this is what is really covered by an artful 
 phrase. But I have more confidence in the countrymen of Knox 
 and Chalmers than to believe they will ever adopt what both these 
 great Scotchmen would have esteemed the basest national apostasy. 
 " I maintain, then, that the State must, in some way, recognize 
 religion, that it ought, in some form, to be in alliance with the 
 Church, and I submit, that, in the Established Church, you have 
 what meets the case; what may be improved, if you see fit, but 
 what, on no account, ought to be swept away. And here I come 
 to a point which is sometimes raised — I mean the spiritual inde- 
 pendence of the Church. We are told by some that the Church 
 is in bondage to the State, that she is not free and spiritually in- 
 dependent. Now this is a question often raised, more especially 
 by our friends of the Free Church, and as I know some members 
 of that church may be present, I wish especially to address myself 
 to them. And in doing so, I need not say that I wish to speak 
 with all honour and respect of the Free Church, There is no 
 feeling more general in our own Church, especially, I am sure, 
 among her ministers. I speak for the younger generation of 
 these, I believe, when I say we honour and love that Church 
 hardly less than our own. It was said lately by a great Free 
 churchman, 'there are no sects in Scotland, only parties.' We 
 do not feel to the other two Scottish Churches, as that they
 
 48 
 
 are alien Churches at all ; they form part with us, of the wider 
 Church of Scotland. In great measure, we have a common 
 history; there are proud and sacred memories we all alike hold. 
 We can never forget that these Churches came out of ours ; we 
 are not only not enemies, we are brothers, and here, too, 'blood 
 is thicker than water.' Of the Free Church especially, we exult 
 in her great men and her great deeds. We claim a share in these 
 too; they are ours as well as hers. I will go further, and say, 
 and I say it with two of the greatest leaders of our own Church of 
 the present day, that while we believe the Free Church was not alto- 
 gether infallible in 1843, we acknowledge, with sincere regret, the 
 mistakes of those who formed the dominant party in our own 
 Church. We cheerfully and willingly ackowledge the good the 
 Free Church has done in a thousand ways; but surely the way to 
 make up an old quarrel is not to re-open it again — surely it is 
 always better to — 
 
 ' Let the dead past bury its dead.' 
 A great many things have happened since 1843; and, above all, 
 that which most incontestably was the fountain and spring of all 
 the trouble, the law of Patronage, has been swept away. We 
 believe our Church is now as free as it is possible for any Church 
 to be made. It is a great Free churchman, the Lord Justice- 
 Clerk Moncrieff, who, as late as 1S70, said, from his own seat 
 on the bench, ' Within their spiritual province the Church Courts 
 are supreme, as we are within the Civil.' It is a great Free 
 Church minister, Dr. Fraser, of London, who, only a year ago, 
 wrote, ' To tell me, that the Church of Scotland, as now existing 
 and administered, is a creature or slave of the State, seems to me 
 either speaking foolishly or bearing false witness.' 
 
 " But there is a second principle which our Church embodies, 
 and that is the principle of Endowment. This is not the same as 
 the former, for an Established Church might yet not be endowed, 
 and we have a case of this, I believe, in the National Church of 
 Russia. Those who object to our Church, however, do so largely 
 on this ground, and with many people disestablishment means 
 simply disendowment, the stripping the Church of her possessions. 
 You know that our Church is supported by what are called 'teinds,' 
 that is, sums of money which in the different parishes are collected 
 from the landlords. Now, man)' people seek to represent this as a 
 tax, but I deliberately and carefully state that not one penny of
 
 49 
 
 taxation goes to support our Church. That the teinds arc not a 
 tax, is shown by the fact, that were the Church disestablished 
 to-morrow, those who pay teinds would still continue to pay them, 
 though they would then be applied to other purposes. The teinds 
 represent the Church's property, and the Church is by far the oldest 
 proprietor in the country. These endowments of the Church 
 were never given by the State ; they were the fruit of the private 
 liberality of the members of the Church. No one who has the 
 smallest claim to be heard on this subject can deny this. The 
 Church is now upheld by the free gifts of her people in olden 
 time, precisely as the other Churches are already gathering 
 accumulated funds, and forming endowments. And it has been 
 calculated, that if all the free gifts, such as are given to our 
 Church now, had been allowed to accumulate since the Refor- 
 mation, the income of the Church would be three or four times as 
 large as all the teinds. And though these teinds come down 
 through Roman Catholic times, remember the Scottish Church 
 was always a separate and independent Church, and though she 
 reformed her faith then, she did not cease to be the Church of 
 Scotland, and she held her property as the same National Church. 
 Now, it is these endowments disestablishment would take away ; 
 and I say, nothing could be more unjust, for, on precisely the 
 same grounds, you could confiscate the Sustentation Fund of 
 the Free Church, the endowments of the U.P. Church, or the 
 accumulated savings of any Friendly Society. And to show you 
 how clearly dishonest and oppressive it would be, let me remind 
 you that the only Disestablishment Bill ever brought forward 
 proposed to take from our Church not only these old endowments 
 but even all the money given and the churches built within the 
 last forty years, at a cost of over two million pounds, all subscribed 
 by our members within living memory. The Liberation Society 
 has itself acknowledged by this conduct that all the endowments 
 of the Church are the outcome of the same free-will offerings, and 
 in taking these away, they are attempting what can only be called 
 confiscation and injustice. 
 
 "And I want you to think on the advantages which flow from 
 endowment to the people of the Church and of the whole country. 
 It is by this means that you have in every parish in Scotland a 
 church in which the poorest, equally with the richest, has a right 
 to sit ; and a minister, whose sacred and appointed duty it is to 
 
 D
 
 50 
 
 care for all, and be their spiritual friend. Endowment is, I 
 contend, the only way in which you can give, all over the country, 
 an independent position to the ministers of a Church, and set 
 them free from the harassment of finance, that distracts them 
 from their religious calling. And in case you think I am pre- 
 judiced in this matter, I shall refer you to the testimony of two 
 of the greatest Nonconformist ministers in the last generation, 
 and in this. The celebrated John Angel James speaks more 
 than once of the humiliation and hindrance ministers have to 
 undergo, who are dependent entirely on the voluntary gifts of a 
 congregation ; and Dr. Donald Fraser of London has well said, 
 ' Those who have had much to do with the raising of funds in 
 non-endowed churches, know too well that under the voluntary 
 flag there is a great deal of practical involuntariness, and that 
 adequate support for religious objects is not obtained without 
 anxious effort and importunity. It is a piece of infatuation to 
 deny the utility of endowment for the maintenance of churches, 
 among the poor in large cities, and in sparsely-peopled districts 
 in the country.' The same testimony comes to us from America, 
 where in a report to the Pan-Presbyterian Council at Philadelphia, 
 in 1880, we read, ' Oh, if many of our men of means only realized 
 how the inadequate support of most of our ministers is producing, 
 all over the land, burning brains, and aching hearts, and broken 
 spirits, and crushed energies, and prostrated powers, and physical 
 wrecks, and disqualifying men for the taxing, burden-bearing life 
 of their pastors, they would more cheerfully lay their means on 
 the altar of the Lord.' Now some may think that in all this, I 
 am arguing simply, for the good of my own class. But remember, 
 what affects your ministers, affects yourselves. If you lower their 
 position, you necessarily weaken the religious teaching and service 
 offered to you. As was said in America, 'You can easily get a 
 preacher for fifty dollars, but then he will only be a fifty dollar 
 preacher.' I know, and most heartily acknowledge the high 
 character and devotion of the ministers in the sister Churches in 
 Scotland, many of whom I count it an honour to be able to call 
 my friends. Hut remember that in Scotland we have always, in 
 all the Presbyterian Churches, maintained the standard set us 
 in the position of the old Chun ii, and what it would he if that 
 were altogether swept away, and we became a -chaos of warring 
 sects,' no one who believes in the high position of the clergy, as
 
 51 
 
 securing a lofty standard of character and attainments, will like 
 to contemplate. 
 
 " Let me only add a word as to the relation of endowments to 
 free education. It is said that by disestablishing the Church we 
 could get the means to give free education. Now, sir, I protest 
 that it is altogether mean and unfair to try to excite the people 
 against the Church, by holding out to them a bribe; I can call it 
 by no other name than the basest political profligacy. If the 
 Church should be destroyed, let that be advocated on its own 
 merits, but to incite to its destruction by talking of the plunder to 
 be secured is to appeal to the lowest passions, and is worthy only 
 of the leader of a mob. Free education may be a good thing in 
 itself. I believe it is, and that it has much to be said for it ; but 
 Disestablishment would hardly pay one-fifteenth of its cost, and 
 only after twenty or thirty years had gone ; and the great majority 
 in our country parishes who saved a shilling in this way would, at 
 least, lose ten by the disendowment of their Church. 
 
 " But allow me to point you to a far nobler and more excellent 
 way of doing away with the distractions and divisions of our 
 religious life. There is no one, I believe, but regrets the present 
 state of the churches in Scotland. It is both a scandal and a 
 shame that those who agree so entirely, not only in the funda- 
 mentals of Christianity, but even in all its minutest points, should 
 continue to be divided from each other ; that every little parish 
 and village should have its three competing churches, wasting the 
 religious power of the country, and turning what ought to be a 
 service of brotherhood — the common assembly of the Sunday — 
 into an expression of our division, and almost an incentive to 
 hate. It is high time for the Scottish Churches to come together, 
 but it is insanity to speak of it being accomplished by Disestablish- 
 ment. That is opposed by the Established Church, which numbers 
 at least the half of the Presbyterians, and it is not less offensive to 
 many in the other Churches too. How can that be the means of 
 union which would revive all the old quarrels with tenfold bitter- 
 ness? The Establishment is not the obstacle to the union. 
 Many in the U.P. Church, many even of her ministers, believe 
 in it ; the whole of that Church was willing to leave it 'an open 
 question ' only a few years ago. The Free Church is committed 
 in her standards to the principle of the establishment of religion, 
 and I believe the great majority of her people are true to that. 1
 
 02 
 
 by no means say the Established Church is to gain all ; no one 
 wishes the other Churches to come, as it were, in submission to 
 her. On the contrary, it is we who are willing to let them have 
 the victory, and we would, I am sure, all of us in the old Church 
 be ready to make any sacrifice of our pride and position to be 
 united again with our brethren. In defending the two great 
 principles of Establishment and Endowment, in writing over these 
 our resolute ' no surrender,' we are defending what they, too, are 
 vowed to, and what they, too, would benefit by. But I repeat 
 again, nothing would be so calamitous to all the interests of 
 religion as Disestablishment; and it would put an end, utterly 
 and for ever, to all thought and hope of union. The arguments 
 by which it is maintained will not bear a moment's examination 
 by any candid and common-sense mind. I hold in my hand a 
 leaflet extensively circulated by the Liberation Society at the 
 election time, and entitled ' The Good of Disestablishment.' 
 They have evidently gathered together all the arguments they 
 could set in array against the Church, and yet, I venture to say, 
 I could get any clever school-boy to demolish them all. They 
 set out by saying that ' this would put the Established Church on 
 the same footing as the Apostolic Church.' Now no Church can 
 be as the Apostolic Church, because this is not the Apostolic age, 
 and almost every circumstance of the Church has altered. I 
 should like to know what existing Church is on precisely the 
 same footing as the Apostolic. The only thing in which the 
 existing Church can be as the Apostolic is in her inward and 
 spiritual life, and it is a mere slander to say that in that respect 
 our Church may not be as near that pattern as any other. But in 
 almost every respect of form and organization no one of the other 
 Churches can set up any exclusive claim to be a repetition of the 
 Apostolic Church. Again, it is said, ' Disestablishment would do 
 away with an unfair distinction among the Churches.' I have 
 already shown you there can be no unfairness where all are at 
 liberty and none are oppressed. But I am astonished to hear it 
 said that the good of one Church can be the evil of another. Arc 
 not all Christian (marches part of one Church? Are they not 
 seeking one end? Are they not members of the one mystical 
 body, and if one is aided or advanced ought not all to rejoice? 
 but it is said again 'Disestablishment would benefit the Estab- 
 lished Church. 5 And here, I am sorry to say, 1 encounter what I
 
 53 
 
 can only call by no milder term than most glaring and complete 
 misstatements. It is said our congregations cannot choose their 
 ministers, nor own their churches, nor manage their affairs with 
 independence. A cause that lias to stoop to untruths like these 
 must be very weak indeed. But the next reason is most extra- 
 ordinary, and reverses the last altogether. The last spoke of our 
 own Church being benefited by Disestablishment ; but here it is 
 said that 'churchmen have, and use the advantage; and dissenters 
 must suffer, or go over to Establishment.' How these manifest 
 contradictions can be reconciled I leave to the author of a paper, 
 in which every sentence begs the whole question which does not 
 utterly misrepresents it. 
 
 " I have detained you too long; but let me only say, in conclu- 
 sion, that I have no fear for our Church, nor the cause she 
 represents, if those who uphold her are only true to themselves, 
 and let their voices be heard, and their influence felt. But remem- 
 ber, on our side at least, this is no mere ministers' battle. We 
 would be recreant cowards — we would shame all our gallant and 
 devoted predecessors, if we shunned the contest forced upon us, 
 and were not willing and ready to defend those sacred principles 
 to which we are so solemnly vowed. But remember, it is with 
 you, it is with the people of Scotland, this issue really rests ; it is 
 for you, under God, to determine whether this dear old land shall 
 lose her ancient Church, and her public recognition of religion, 
 that which, by our greatest nobleman, has been so well and truly 
 called 'the national flag.' I cannot believe it, you would be un- 
 worthy your name, and would shame your ancestors, if, because 
 this cause is assailed, you should therefore forsake it ; if, because 
 this principle is amid the tempest, you should tremble to raise and 
 uphold it. Rather, if you have Scottish hearts at all, will the 
 danger and the storm only deepen your devotion and loyalty ; 
 even as it is said of the Swiss peasant, that the tempest that sweeps 
 his native land only makes it the more beloved. 
 
 'And as a child, when scaring sounds molest, 
 Clings close and closer to the mother's breast, 
 So the loud torrent and the whirlwind's roar, 
 But bind him to his native mountains more.' 
 
 " But our Church, in spite of all factious opposition, and while 
 resolutely defending her position, not for any mere selfish ends of 
 her own, but for the sacred blessings she can thus confer on the
 
 54: 
 
 nation at large, shall never, I am sure, forget her high and spiritual 
 functions amid the clamour of political strife. I am confident 
 that this shall be the aspiration and endeavour of all her ministers, 
 and of all her people, that, undismayed by this tempest that rages 
 round her, she shall rise in spiritual temper and religious earnest- 
 ness far above it all : — 
 
 'As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form, 
 Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm. 
 Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread, 
 Eternal sunshine settles on its head.' " 
 
 About the same time Mr. Douglas delivered an address 
 on the Endowment Scheme before the Parochial Associa- 
 tion, Whitsome. It is in place here as a sequel to what has 
 gone before : — 
 
 " I have been asked here to-night to speak to you on one 
 of the special schemes which the Church has appointed and 
 recommended to the support of all her people as essential to 
 the discharge of her great mission. I think it a good thing that 
 you as an association and a parish should thus seek to fix your 
 mind on the several methods and purposes which are laid before 
 you by the Church — should seek to understand them, to learn 
 their claims upon you, to see what recommends them to your 
 support, and so be able to give them at once an intelligent and 
 enthusiastic assistance. I think this is what we want very much 
 in all our parishes and congregations. Too many in our Church 
 are content simply to be appealed to for their aid, and to give 
 that, be it much or little, hardly caring or knowing almost at all 
 for what they give. Now I believe that is not the true way of 
 (anying on the great works of a Church. I think the Church 
 would address all her members in the words of the orator who 
 said — ' I do not ask for your assistance, I do not ask for your 
 money, I ask for your understanding and attention, and if you 
 give me these, if you once realize the claims this cause has upon 
 you, it will not be in your power even to withhold your help.' 
 This scheme is one of the most important works carried on by 
 the Church, and it is an attempt, as its very name denotes, to 
 carry out the principle of Endowment But what do we mean by 
 that principle? Well, its application involves these three things: — 
 (i.) That in each congregation there is a yearly sum forthcoi
 
 55 
 
 independent of all changes and accidents, and however poor the 
 locality may be, for the support of the ordinances of religion 
 there. Without this the fountain of Church life might there fail 
 just when it was wanted most, 
 
 ' Like a summer-dried fountain 
 When the need was the sorest.' 
 
 This, however, converts what might only be an intermittent and 
 temporary stream, into an unfailing spring. (2.) It assigns to 
 each congregation a definite field of labour and responsibility. 
 Instead of spreading its energies over a wide field, and possibly 
 squandering them in contact or competition with others, it con- 
 centrates them within an appointed circle. (3.) Lastly, for all 
 within that district it makes the congregation, especially in its 
 minister, responsible. He is not the minister of those only who 
 choose to go to him. It is his duty to go to all others who are not 
 in attendance on religious ordinances. He is to be the spiritual 
 guide and friend of all in his parish who do not reject his minis- 
 trations. Now, I think these principles will commend themselves 
 to all as a most efficient way of carrying on the religious work 
 entrusted to the Church, but we shall see their full value later on. 
 Meantime I wish just to say a word on the History of this scheme. 
 I believe about the first great name connected with it is the ever- 
 memorable one of Chalmers. You know that about the beginning 
 of the century the population of our country began to show a large 
 and rapid increase. The introduction of steam led to a great 
 activity in manufactures ; villages grew into towns ; towns and 
 villages sprang up where before there had only been uninhabited 
 fields. All this was good for the country, and the foundation of 
 much of our commercial greatness ; but meantime it had one evil 
 effect. The people were getting beyond the ordinances of religion, 
 the old churches and the existing staff of ministers could no longer 
 serve them. The General Assembly set itself to remedy the evil, 
 and to reach those who were getting into a churchless state. Then 
 Dr. Chalmers threw himself into the work, and many chapels were 
 built. But there came unfortunate ecclesiastical strife within the 
 Church, and the disastrous secession of 1843. The Church was 
 still staggering under this blow when one noble-minded man came 
 forward to devote his life to this work. The Free Church had no 
 doubt largely added to the church accommodation of the countrv 
 by the churches she had at once proceeded to build. Still, in spite
 
 56 
 
 of it all, there was much religious destitution in the land, and in 
 poorer districts especially many were beyond church attendance. 
 Dr. James Robertson, an eloquent debater, a respected scholar, and 
 Professor in one of our Universities, headed the new endeavour of 
 the Church, which was not only to plant churches where required 
 by the people, but also to make these like the old churches of the 
 country by giving them a perpetual endowment and assigning to 
 their care a district — making them, in short, for Church purposes, 
 what the old parishes were, as the term quoad sacra now given to 
 them implies. At first Dr. Robertson carried a proposal to endow 
 and equip 50 such new parishes. Then he proposed a further 100, 
 though he did not live to see the completion of these, for he died 
 in 1S60, worn out by his increasing labours on behalf of this 
 scheme. Dr. Smith of North Leith, another gallant worker, threw 
 himself into this task, and in 1876 he was able to announce that 
 250 new parishes had been erected and endowed. The magnitude 
 of this work will be appreciated when it is recollected that the 
 mere endowment of each parish costs ^3000, and the cost of 
 building and equipping the church is often another equally large 
 sum. And yet this had been done in 250 places all over Scotland, 
 and in the thirty years of depression that followed '43. I don't 
 know any nobler thing that any Church has ever done; I don't 
 know any prouder memory, even in all the splendid deeds of our 
 Scottish history. Since 1S76 another 100 churches have all but 
 been endowed so that the Church is stronger, and our country 
 advanced in religious teaching and good works, by 350 new 
 parishes, costing considerably over two million pounds. Remem- 
 ber, however, this work is not yet done, it must still be carried on. 
 There arc still poor districts where the people are far from church, 
 there arc still new towns and villages rising where it is our duty to 
 carry the means of grace to our fellow-countrymen. Surely we 
 shall not suffer what has been so nobly begun to fail and languish 
 now. The noble work and the proud memories I have spoken of 
 would only be our disgrace if we failed now to go and do likewise. 
 
 ' What arc monuments of bravery, 
 
 Where no public virtues bloom? 
 What avail in lands of slavery. 
 Trophied temples, arch, and tomb ?' 
 
 1 to you to give your heartiest and best support to this 
 great scheme — because (1), ft belongs to the Self-Preservation of the
 
 • >, 
 
 Church. These new parishes represent the fresh branches which 
 the immemorial tree of our National Church puts forth. They 
 are a sign of her vitality and growth. They prove that she is still 
 sound heart of oak within ; that she can weather all coming storms 
 as she has faced the tempests of bygone centuries. But as a tree 
 preserves her life by the new shoots and branches and leaves every 
 spring gives her, so we need these new parishes to carry out and 
 sustain the life of the Church. The people of Scotland — your 
 own children it may be, or yourselves— must find wherever they 
 go over the old land, a congregation of the old Church to welcome 
 them and care for them. But all we who belong to the old parishes 
 should especially care for this. By the liberality and patriotism of 
 our forefathers we have a Church which cost us nothing, where the 
 rich and poor are entirely equal, where the minister is bound to 
 go on religious service to every soul within his parish. Shame on 
 us, if, enjoying these gifts as we do 'without money and without 
 price,' we do nothing to extend them to those who, though poorer 
 than we, have no such advantages. But (2) again, This scheme 
 embodies a long and widely-tried principle. If there is one thing 
 sure it is that the only successful way of bringing a whole country 
 under the power of religion, giving it a nationally-wide Christian 
 character, is by making the Christian Church to be both territorial 
 and endowed. In this way every one is reached by continuous 
 religious instruction, and nothing is left to chance. It was the 
 parish schools and the parish Churches that gave to Scotland its 
 generally religious character ; and it was only by carrying out and 
 extending this principle that men such as the great Chalmers had 
 hope for the future of Scotland. Unhappily our disastrous Church 
 divisions have crippled this work not a little ; but even yet it is not 
 too late for all the three Scottish Churches, none of which reject 
 this great method, to join together for its perfect fulfilment. I 
 have only time to point out to you in a word how (3) this principle 
 is National not Sectarian, it seeks the good of all and not only of 
 the members of one Church; how it (4) Strives for a permanent 
 and not a mere passing good. Every Church so equipped abides a 
 centre of good influence, a fountain of blessing, above all accidents 
 of change and time. And (5) lastly, I say this scheme is founded 
 on a generous principle. As he who plants an oak is said ' to look 
 forward to future ages and plant for posterity,' so this scheme con- 
 templates not the good of the passing generation alone, but of the
 
 58 
 
 remotest ages of our countrymen. Surely this should animate us 
 if any generous feeling can touch our heart at all. Long after we 
 have been gathered to our fathers, long after the brief memory we 
 have left behind shall have faded into forgetfulness, the religious 
 influence we have exerted in our life, and especially through such 
 schemes as this, shall be a living power and blessing in the homes 
 of men ; they shall look back with grateful remembrance to their 
 unknown benefactors in that far distant time. But unknown to 
 them, no deed of religious charity and goodness is unknown or 
 will be unacknowledged by Him who has said, ' Even a cup of 
 cold water given to a disciple in my name shall not lose its reward. 
 Inasmuch as ye did it to one of the least of these my brethren ye 
 did it unto Me.'" 
 
 The following song for the Kirk was written about the 
 same time: — 
 
 ' ; I repeat, the Church is the national flag if ever there were a national flag 
 raised in this country." — Speech of the Duke of Ar gyle. 
 
 " The dear old Church our fathers loved, 
 
 For which our heroes fell, 
 That kept the faith through blood and death, 
 
 We'll guard and keep thee well. 
 Thy foemen shout ; but, loud and stout, 
 
 This shall our answer be — 
 No stone shall fall from that fair wall 
 
 Our fathers raised for thee. 
 
 " The Church which taught to every Scot 
 
 That he was Freedom's son ; 
 That counted kings as idle things 
 
 When they'd oppression done ; 
 That made our land so brave and grand — 
 
 The first in History's tale; 
 Each patriot heart shall take thy part 
 
 Whatever foes assail. 
 
 •• Our fathers' graves we must forget, 
 Unlearn our mother's name, 
 Each noble thought from thee we've caught 
 Abandon in our shame,
 
 59 
 
 " The Sacred Word from thee we've heard 
 Must from our mem'ry cease, 
 Ere we join hand with that dark band 
 That war against thy peace. 
 
 " Shame on his coward Scottish heart 
 
 That will not man thy wall ; 
 From hall and cot each loyal Scot 
 
 Shall rally at thy call. 
 The purple heath they dyed in death 
 
 For thee, our fathers bold — 
 O double shame, who bear their name, 
 
 If now our hearts were cold ! 
 
 " Too long thy sons have sundered been, 
 
 But better days have come, 
 All quarrels old are dead and cold, 
 
 All former strife is dumb ; 
 And this alone by us is known, 
 
 Thou art our mother dear ! 
 Our fathers' Kirk, our nation's work, 
 
 Destruction never fear."' 
 
 The death of the Rev. Daniel Wright, minister of Bella- 
 houston, in the beginning of 1886, presented Mr. Douglas 
 with an opportunity for coming nearer to his native city. 
 He became a candidate, and, as will be found recorded in 
 the next chapter, was elected to the vacant charge. 
 
 On Sabbath, 27th June, 18S6, Mr. Douglas preached his 
 farewell sermon in Foulden, choosing for his text Pro- 
 verbs hi. 6, "In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He 
 shall direct thy paths," and in closing his discourse spoke 
 as follows: — 
 
 " Brethren, I have chosen this text to-day, not only because it 
 contains a lesson at all times valuable and important to us, but 
 also because it seemed to me specially appropriate for the last 
 sermon I shall preach to you as your minister. Both for you and 
 for me at this time— for me in my departure from this familiar 
 scene, and my entrance on an untried field of duty, for you in
 
 60 
 
 losing one, and in looking forward to receiving another, minis- 
 ter — I desire to leave this as the special impression and belief 
 that, through the mere accidents, and possible mistakes, even of 
 human choice, there is a Divine purpose working — that we are 
 not the disposers of our own destiny, that there is a ' Divinity 
 that shapes our ends, rough hew them how we will;' that ' in all our 
 ways we should acknowledge Him, and that He will direct our 
 paths.' But, in saying this, I do not wish to shelter my own re- 
 sponsibility under mere pious platitudes. In all action there is a 
 human element as well as a Divine, and I do not mean to assert 
 that I may be free from all blame in leaving you, or that I have 
 certainly done the best and wisest thing. If I did, I should really 
 be asserting my own infallibility, and I should be disregarding in 
 a most flagrant way that very humility the text specially enjoins. 
 I can only repeat what I said elsewhere. I do not go from you 
 because my present parish is not large and honourable enough. 
 A far abler and more devoted minister than I might worthily live 
 out all his life in such a field as this, as many have indeed done. 
 I did think, however, when many circumstances seemed to point 
 to this change, that it might be that I might do more and better 
 work in my new parish, for the entrance on a new field of work 
 gives one the opportunity of not only profiting by one's former 
 experience, but even by the very mistakes and faults one may 
 have made in an earlier stage. Besides, I have now for three 
 years had the rest and quiet of this lovely parish, and I think it 
 only right I should take my share of the more heavy work that 
 falls to the minister of a city charge. I think, too, I may, without 
 any presumption, read in this transference a higher choice than 
 my own, for while it was the dream of my life to spend my days 
 in the country, and though I think few things more enviable than 
 an existence lived among those quiet fields, some of my friends 
 and fellow-students thought I was wrong, and that I ought to 
 discharge my ministry in the city. Much as I love my native 
 town, I did not at that time agree with them, nor did I think it 
 possible I should ever leave a country parish for it; even a few 
 months ago I would have looked on that as utterly improbable, 
 and in the combination of circumstances which has brought about 
 this entirely unlooked for resolution, I recogni/.e that overruling 
 Providence which works even through <>ur very mistakes and 
 failures His own high ends. And if 1 think I do not leave you
 
 61 
 
 from ambitious reasons, neither, I believe, am I led by mercenary 
 motives. As far as ministers are men with domestic responsibilities, 
 they must have regard to the adequate means of livelihood for 
 themselves and their families ; but I believe no minister worthy 
 the name ever made an increase of income the sole or chief 
 reason for going to another field. I can quite honestly say, I 
 have not been determined by such a consideration, for had my 
 resolution turned on that, it was in my power to make quite 
 another choice and other arrangements than I have done. But 
 when I have said all this, brethren, I do not mean to say I am 
 altogether and entirely blameless in leaving you. It is difficult 
 even in the court of one's own conscience to scan every possible 
 motive and determine every spring of action. I may have been 
 too fond of or too ready for change. I may not have looked 
 sufficiently to your interests. I may not have had a single 
 enough regard for the requirements of the Church of which I am 
 the servant. Wherein I have failed in these things, wherein I 
 have been unwise, or too ready to consent to change, I express 
 my regret and ask your forgiveness. But I do feel, without, I 
 hope, being too presuming and self-confident, that I can look on 
 this change as, in large measure at least, the call of duty. I can 
 honestly say at this crisis of my life, that I have tried to make that 
 my guide, and that I have tried to guard against being influenced 
 by light and frivolous or selfish reasons. I have, therefore, to say 
 to you all my words of farewell. And my first expression must be 
 that of thanks to all here, and to all in the parish. I feel I am a 
 debtor to you all, for from every one of you have I received kind- 
 ness, and I have not even a single unpleasant memory to carry 
 away. The last three years of my life, in every outward circum- 
 stance and event, have been the most tranquil and serene I have 
 ever enjoyed ; and I owe it to you all, whether belonging to this 
 congregation or not, that you have made my work, as minister, 
 so pleasant and so encouraging. From many of you I have 
 received kindnesses I cannot forget: by all I have been received 
 with unfailing consideration and goodwill. I can only leave with 
 you my thanks, and the assurance that you have made the work 
 of my first parish seem altogether a pleasure and not a task. I 
 wish also to offer to you my regrets: for it is impossible for any 
 of us to look back on a large space of our lives and not see much 
 we could have wished otherwise. Least of all; brethren, am 1
 
 62 
 
 able to look back on my duty among you with any entire com- 
 placency. I am afraid I have failed in my duty often: I know 
 there is much I could have wished better performed; things 
 undone I ought to have done; things ill done that might have 
 been well done. For all these I offer you my heartiest apologies 
 and regrets. As I trust they may be forgiven by a higher author- 
 ity, so I hope you will extend to them your pardon also, and that 
 I may learn from my failure and faults here to do better and more 
 faithful work in my new parish. I have to say also that I will 
 carry with me many remembrances. It is impossible for me ever 
 to forget Foulden, or its tolerant and kindly people. You and it 
 are now part of my life. The first parish and first ministry is 
 unforgettable. I carry with me also memories too sacred likely to 
 be forgotten. I have been associated with some of you in the 
 solemn moments of your lives, in your hours of gladness and of 
 grief. I have stood with you at the cradle and at the grave of 
 those you love. I have heard last words of parting. I have 
 spoken to you teachings for your first Communion; witli you all 
 I have shared the sacred bread of life. And now I add to you 
 my last words of counsel and advice, and I join with them my 
 earnest prayers and wishes for your welfare. I do not, for my 
 part, look on the severance of the ministerial tie as a light and 
 common thing. I do not think we ought to have a commonplace 
 estimate of any of the relations of life. The more deep and 
 reverent our conceptions of these, the better and truer is our life. 
 And in so far as we feel this parting are we reminded by it of the 
 transitoriness and changefulness of life. How true is the old 
 pious saying, 'All goeth but God's will.' It is the teaching of the 
 text, ' In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy 
 paths.' Let us try to grow in deep reverence and recognition and 
 delight in the will of God. Let us seek to be guided by the 
 Spirit of Christ, let us try to make the commonest and highest 
 detail of our existence to bear a high and religious character, let 
 us acknowledge God in the thousand little unnoticed things that 
 fill so much of life to most, and then He will direct our paths — 
 the great events, the decisive changes of our existence will take 
 form and colour from Him — the outcome of all our days and 
 years will be that lie will make our end, the final issue and goal 
 of our being, to be right and good — to be in accordance with that 
 great law and purpose on which the basis of the world rests. Yes,
 
 63 
 
 this can be our resolve and hope, ' In all thy ways acknowledge 
 Him, and He shall direct thy paths.' 
 
 ' All is of God. If he but wave his hand 
 The mists collect, the rains fall thick and loud, 
 Till, with a smile of light on sea and land, 
 Lo ! he looks back from the departing cloud. 
 Angels of time and change alike are His, 
 Without His will they cross no threshold o'er ; 
 Who then would dare or wish, believing this, 
 Against His messengers to shut the door.'"
 
 64 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 On a gentle elevation, near to the main road between 
 Glasgow and Paisley, stands the Parish Church of Bella- 
 houston. It is now some four-and-twenty years since the 
 long-felt want of a Parish church in the district was fitly 
 supplied by this edifice. Ibroxholm, the district for which 
 the church was originally designed, is a suburb of Glasgow, 
 composed in great part of detached villas, thereby combin- 
 ing the social advantages of urban with the freedom and 
 healthfulness of rural life. Besides the villas, there are rows 
 of middle-class dwellings, which supply the want of the 
 locality, while at no great distance the homes of working 
 men furnish the other element of a community in which all 
 classes are represented. At a meeting held on 21st March, 
 i860, the first committee for the erection of the church was 
 nominated; and at another, held on the 3rd February, 1862, 
 it was reported that a site had been generously granted by 
 Moses Steven, Esq., of Bellahouston, and a plan of the 
 church was submitted. At a meeting, held on the follow- 
 ing June, estimates, amounting to nearly three thousand 
 pounds, for building the church, were accepted, and it 
 was arranged to proceed with the work at once. Before 
 the church was completed it was found that the cost would 
 exceed the original estimates, but the additional sum re- 
 quired was soon obtained. On the 2nd August, 1863, the 
 church was opened, Dr. Leishman, of Govan, preaching in 
 the forenoon, and Dr. M'Culloch, of Greenock, in the after- 
 noon. In the following year the Rev. Air. Porteous, of 
 Innellan, was unanimously elected as the first minister of 
 the church, but this gentleman never entered on his new 
 charge, having died ;i short time after election. Nearly 
 a year elapsed before a successor was appointed, but at a 
 meeting of qualified electors, held in the church on the 23rd
 
 ^^Oi^o - Ks~ ^-JdL^^c^^i
 
 65 
 
 November, 1865, the Rev. George Porter, assistant to Dr. 
 Watson, of Dundee (now Dr. Porter of Maybole Parish), 
 was unanimously elected to the office. In the early days 
 of the church the musical service had no instrumental aid, 
 and the want being very much felt, it was resolved, at a 
 meeting held on the 3rd of April, 1866, that a committee 
 should wait on the Presbytery to obtain permission for the 
 use of either an organ or harmonium in the public worship 
 of the church. The request was readily granted, and soon 
 after a harmonium was introduced. Hitherto the church, 
 though a creation of the Establishment, had received no 
 parochial organization, and proper steps were taken for the 
 disjunction and erection of the new parish quoad sacra of 
 Bellahouston, which was sanctioned by the Court of Session 
 on 26th February, 1868. The successful ministry of Mr. 
 Porter terminated in August, 1870, when he was appointed 
 to the Parish of Maybole. A committee to look out for a 
 new minister was then chosen, and, after careful delibera- 
 tion, the Rev. Daniel Wright, of Jamestown, was elected as 
 Mr. Porter's successor. During the ministry of Mr. Wright 
 several important improvements were carried out. Amongst 
 these may be mentioned the purchase of the Manse, 1 1 Ibrox 
 Terrace, at Whitsunday, 1873. Early in 1874 a gentleman, 
 Mr. Holms-Kcrr, who took a deep interest in the church, 
 offered an organ, which was gratefully accepted. Though 
 the church was sufficiently large to meet the ordinary re- 
 quirements of public worship, the absence of hall accom- 
 modation for Sabbath-school and other purposes was much 
 felt. Accordingly, in 1885, it was resolved to erect halls in 
 connection with the church, and the movement was greatly 
 stimulated by the munificence of the Misses Steven, who 
 not only gave the site, but also contributed a thousand 
 pounds towards their erection. The halls were built during 
 Mr. Wright's ministry, but he did not live to see them 
 occupied. On the last Sunday of December, 1885, Mr. 
 Wright conducted the evening service in the church, and 
 on the morning of the following Thursday he died from 
 congestion of the lungs. Once more a co mmittec was 
 
 E
 
 66 
 
 appointed to look out for a minister. The applications 
 sent in were, as is usual in such cases, very numerous, and 
 supported by a mass of testimonials, which increased the 
 difficulty of making a selection. At length it was agreed 
 that six of the candidates should be heard in the church, 
 and one or two in neighbouring parishes. The result was 
 the unanimous election of the Rev. John D. Douglas, of 
 Foulden, on the ioth May, 1886. Nothing could be finer 
 than the spirit in which Mr. Douglas conducted himself 
 during his candidature, under circumstances of special deli- 
 cacy, for his name had been mentioned and very favourably 
 received in connection with another charge then vacant ; 
 and the conditions in the contest at Bellahouston neces- 
 sitated a certain rivalry not always free from temptation to 
 excitement and jealousy. The Rev. T. B. W. Niven, of 
 Pollokshields, Moderator during the vacancy, and W. R. 
 Grieve, Esq., were appointed to prosecute the case before 
 the Presbytery of Chirnside, to which Foulden belongs. 
 After they had briefly stated their case, the Rev. W. Dobie, 
 of Ladykirk, moved, and the Rev. J. A. Robertson seconded, 
 the proposal of translation. The utmost regard for Mr. 
 Douglas, and best wishes for his welfare and success in the 
 new sphere of his ministry, were expressed by his brethren 
 in the Presbytery. Mr. Douglas, in reply, said " that he felt 
 very much the kindness of the remarks that had fallen alike 
 from the representatives of the Glasgow Presbytery and 
 Bellahouston congregation, and from his brethren and 
 friends in the Presbytery of Chirnside. He came there a 
 few years ago quite a young man, untried and unacquainted 
 with many of the details of ministerial work, but found 
 ready and valuable assistance from his seniors, and from 
 the members of the Presbytery generally the utmost kind- 
 ness and help. 
 
 " He did not feel, in accepting the call now placed in his 
 hands, he was doing any slight to the parish he was leaving. 
 The parish of Foulden was worthy of the best labour he 
 could have given it his whole life long; and he did not go 
 from Foulden because he thought the sphere not large
 
 67 
 
 enough or honourable enough. He felt he would have 
 been honoured in spending his whole life at Foulden, but 
 this call came from ;i parish which was in many respects a 
 more important parish, and which had had the services of 
 men whom he could not hope to equal. He might also say- 
 he was a native of Glasgow, and was educated in Glasgow ; 
 and he looked on Glasgow with peculiar favour. Indeed, 
 he thought there was no other place on earth to be com- 
 pared with it. He thus felt the advantages of being so 
 near his native city and his own Alma Mater. But he 
 would not put personal grounds as the cause of his choice. 
 There was really a higher power moving them ; and he 
 was encouraged to believe that under God he might be 
 able to do more work in the parish of Bellahouston than 
 he could hope to do in his present charge, and looking to 
 the unanimity of the call, he had no hesitation in accepting 
 it. He parted with sincere regret from his friends and 
 neighbours in the Presbytery of Chirnside." 
 
 On the 29th of June Mr. Douglas was inducted to his 
 new charge. The day was bright and beautiful, and every- 
 thing seemed to make the occasion auspicious. Friends 
 came from distant places, and the gathering, particularly of 
 young clergymen, was such as one seldom sees even on an 
 induction day. There was also a large attendance of the 
 congregation, and of friends from the district. The service, 
 excellent in tone and spirit, was conducted by the Rev. J. 
 Hay of Port-Dundas. After the induction many friends, 
 accompanied by the young minister, dined in the George 
 Hotel, where speeches, appropriate to the occasion, ex- 
 pressed the satisfaction of all concerned in the event of 
 the day. In the evening a meeting of the congregation, for 
 the purpose of receiving the new minister, was held in the 
 newly-built halls, which, on this occasion, were used for the 
 first time. The usual presentation of gown and books, to 
 which was added a purse of sovereigns, was made in the 
 course of the evening. Several suitable addresses were 
 delivered by brother ministers, notable amongst which were 
 the kindly suggestions of the Rev. Dr. Cameron, under whom
 
 08 
 
 Mr. Douglas had formerly served at Kilmun, as to the way 
 in which a young minister should be treated by his flock. 
 At the close of the day the friends of Bellahouston parted 
 in high expectation of the great things God would do for 
 them by the hands of his servant. The manse, which had 
 been vacant for several months, was in much need of re- 
 pair, and it was arranged that the new minister should 
 not occupy it till it had undergone thorough restoration. 
 During the interval Mr. Douglas took up his abode with 
 me for nearly two months. Though his temporary home 
 was some two miles from his parish, and on the other side 
 of the Clyde, yet he went daily to his district, and visited 
 usually for several hours, returning late in the evening, 
 often, we fear, without duly attending to his bodily 
 wants. And here we may say what those who have had 
 the pleasure of Mr. Douglas' presence in their homes will 
 doubtless be able to confirm, that his quiet Christian influ- 
 ence amidst the family life, his chastened and instructive 
 conversation, his unobtrusive demeanour, and, above all, 
 his power as he led in prayer at the family altar, will not 
 soon be forgotten. His eagerness for organizing the work 
 of his new parish led him to overtask himself. He felt the 
 grave responsibility of a city charge, and yearned to meet 
 it to the utmost of his power. Hence the rapidity with 
 which the several departments of church work were ar- 
 ranged and set in motion. The people were delighted with 
 the energy which he displayed, and entered heartily into 
 the projects initiated by their minister. During the few 
 months of his being allowed to work in Bellahouston, he 
 reconstructed the agencies of the church and created new 
 developments of church life. The Sunday School, under his 
 personal superintendence, had its numbers greatly aug- 
 mented. A Bible Class was begun, with much promise. 
 As in Foulden, so here, a Young Men's Guild was formed, 
 which numbered at its first meeting a large proportion of 
 the youths of the church, and which has gone on prosper- 
 ing ever since the minister's decease. A weekly Prayer 
 Meeting on Thursdays was revived, and the good attend-
 
 69 
 
 ance showed how heartily the service was appreciated. 
 For his pulpit work in Bellahouston he prepared with even 
 more than his usual care. He seemed to feel that, as the 
 new charge brought increase of responsibility, so it required 
 a fuller preparation. While staying in Ashton Terrace his 
 custom was, when the Sabbath work was over, to select at 
 once his topics for the following Sunday. The forenoons 
 of the days were given to reading and study, and as the 
 Sabbath approached, the well pondered thoughts would 
 find effective expression in his carefully-written sermons, 
 which were usually completed by the Friday, Saturday 
 being chiefly given to their revision and to other parts of 
 the service. The afternoon and evening he devoted to 
 visitation, while to the morning hours of study were often 
 added hours at night. Though only for four months 
 minister of Bellahouston, he had succeeded in visiting a 
 great many of his flock and, as has been amply testified 
 since his death, won his way speedily to their hearts. After 
 coming to Glasgow many invitations from brother ministers 
 were sent requesting an exchange of pulpits, and to a few of 
 these he consented ; but so zealous was he for the work of 
 his own congregation that, as a rule, he refused. He felt 
 that his first duty was to build up and bind together the 
 people to whose service God had appointed him. 
 
 He gladly assisted his ministerial friends when he could. 
 A little before his death he was invited to preach in Edin- 
 burgh, on a week-day, at a service preparatory to the 
 Communion. He consented, but the arrangement was 
 likely to interfere with his prayer meeting, held on Thurs- 
 day. He was anxious to return in time to conduct it 
 himself, but feeling he might not be able to accomplish 
 this, he wrote to me as follows : — 
 
 " 1 1 Ibrox Terrace, Wednesday. 
 
 •My Dear C , 
 
 '• Just a line, as I am in a great hurry. Do, like a good 
 fellow, be here to-morrow, Thursday, by at least 7.30; our meeting 
 begins at eight o'clock prompt. Kindly be prepared to give us
 
 70 
 
 something of your best, at the same time as little of a sermon 
 and evangelistic address as a biblical study. Only avoid, perhaps, 
 the parable of the vine, as I had it last week. I mean myself, if 
 at all possible, to come home in time for the meeting. Also 
 (unless I feel too exhausted by my preaching and railway journey 
 that day) I would like to take the meeting myself. It is still so 
 new and so much an experiment that the people may wish that 
 and expect it ; and if I feel equal to it I would be more com- 
 fortable. At the same time, as I am uncertain what may come in 
 the way, I want to have you to fall back on. Of course, with 
 another I could not say this, but you, my alter ego, will not be 
 offended. Now, do kindly be here, and I shall try also to be here, 
 at least by 7 or 7.30 to-morrow. — Ever yours.' - ' 
 
 A dear friend, a country clergyman, had lost his young 
 wife, and had asked him to conduct the funeral service. 
 At the time he was busy with his visitation and church 
 arrangements, and he would gladly have gone, but felt in 
 duty that he could not do so. He wrote to him a letter 
 of sympathy, which, for its delicacy and suggestiveness, 
 is very interesting : — 
 
 " Bellahouston, 1 1 Ibrox Terrace, 
 " Glasgow, 4th October, 18S6. 
 
 " My Dear D , 
 
 '• I am sorry it was out of my power sooner to write you, 
 and say how sorry I was to be unable to be with you to do the 
 last sad offices to your wife. I write this to express to you my 
 deep and sincere sympathy with you in your loss. Though I had 
 not the pleasure of knowing your wife, I know how much you 
 must miss her, and how great a trial you must feel her death. 1 
 know how I would shrink from the pain of losing one so near, and 
 yet it is the task, sooner or later, we have all to hear. And I 
 believe it is best for us — that our love is all the greater and purer 
 for the shadows that seem ever hanging on it; and we can still 
 cherish it till Death, coming to ourselves, restores us all he took 
 from us. You will pardon me saying so much, but I have myself 
 been led to look in the face of the shadow. May God comfort 
 and aid you, and even in your sorrow give you His peace. 
 ■' Ever yours sincerely. 
 
 •JOHN D. DOUGLAS."
 
 71 
 
 We also give two letters written to a lady friend residing 
 at Strone: — 
 
 " 2 Ashton Terrace, Dowanhill, 
 "Glasgow, 29th July, 1886. 
 
 • My Dear Mrs. H. A , 
 
 " I had hoped to have the pleasure of seeing you this 
 week. Mr. K. purposed availing himself of your kind invitation, 
 and I had hoped to accompany him. At the last moment, how- 
 ever, he was called away to Fife, and I found so much to do at 
 Bellahouston I could not get away. I hope, however, to have an 
 opportunity ere the summer altogether goes. Meantime I am 
 very busy with visitation, &c, in my new parish, and my removal 
 to the Manse will, I hope, take place in little more than a week. 
 I am liking the church very much. I find the people also, all 
 most kind and agreeable, and the musical service is extremely 
 good. I found, in one of my calls yesterday, a family of which 
 the mother had been brought up under Rev. Dr. K. in Paisley, 
 and they had his photograph hung up in the room. 
 ■' Yours most sincerely, 
 
 "JOHN D. DOUGLAS." 
 
 " 2 Ashton Terrace, Dowanhill, 
 "6th August, 1886. 
 
 " My Dear Mrs. H. A , 
 
 " I am quite ashamed that I have not replied to your 
 kind letter before, but I have been so very busy, and I was waiting 
 to see if I could pay you a visit, or at least take a run down for a 
 day, and I waited to get time enough to write a good long letter 
 — as I am afraid I am not going to find the leisure, I must write 
 even at the risk of sending you a very hurried note. I am still 
 busy at making calls, and then living so very far away, and having 
 to see the manse put right, and the removal all to arrange, you 
 will know how one gets no time for anything else. I felt it a 
 great disappointment not going down a few weeks ago. Even 
 then I was too busy to get away, but when Mr. K. came to me 
 to ask me to pay with him his promised visit, I did all I could 
 to try and arrange, though I did not feel comfortable, as I was 
 leaving a good deal undone. I am still very busy in the beginning
 
 of the week. The Manse is now about all ready, and I hope to 
 get removed from Foulden. These and other things will occupy 
 my time, but you may depend on my taking the earliest oppor- 
 tunity to avail myself of your kindness, and have the pleasure of 
 visiting Woodside. 
 
 " With very kindest regards, in which Dr. C. joins, 
 " I am, 
 
 " Yours most sincerely, 
 
 " JOHN D. DOUGLAS." 
 
 The work of the church being thoroughly organized, and 
 preparations for the labour of the winter having been com- 
 pleted, he felt that before entering on these a little rest 
 might be taken with advantage. Accordingly, only a week 
 before his death, he arranged to make a visit to his friends 
 at the coast. He stayed a few days at Woodside, Strone. 
 On the day of his arrival, the gardener was cutting down 
 trees. As he looked on the leaves lying scattered about, 
 he thought of the text " We all do fade as a leaf," and he 
 then selected the subject which turned out to be that of his 
 last sermon. As an interesting coincidence, it may be 
 mentioned that many years ago the late Dr. M'Culloch, 
 of Greenock, while visiting in the autumn at Strone, 
 chose the same text — a fact which was mentioned to 
 Mr. Douglas by his friends, and which doubtless had 
 something to do with the selection of the subject so 
 fitting for his last sermon. It was a time of pleasant 
 rest, blended with healthful recreation. His friends were 
 delighted to see him again. During this visit he per- 
 formed his last baptism. The parents, anxious that Mr. 
 Douglas should baptise their child, had deferred the 
 ceremony till his coming. Amongst the few visits that 
 his limited time allowed him to make, we would mention 
 that made at Finnartmore, the summer home of Dr. F. L. 
 Robertson. Mr. Douglas was photographed by the young 
 ladies, who take a great interest in this pleasing art. The 
 doctor's gown and hood were at hand, and Mr. Douglas play- 
 fully suggested that he should put on these articles for the 
 occasion, remarking that he was D. D. already, these being
 
 73 
 
 the last two initials of his name. Accordingly, the photo- 
 graph found at the opening of this chapter was taken. It is 
 a very good likeness, and is specially interesting as having 
 been done so near to his death. He would have prolonged 
 his stay, but his engagements would not permit him to do 
 so, and having promised to return soon, he came back to 
 town. 
 
 On Saturday evening, 6th November, he was sitting- 
 alone in his study, having finished his last sermon, based 
 on the text, " We all do fade as a leaf." — Isaiah lxiv. 6. He 
 was jaded and worn, and the exhaustion of body had reacted 
 on his mind. I had called, and finding him thus depressed, 
 urged him to accompany me and spend an hour with a lady 
 and gentleman who were to have tea at my house. He was 
 reluctant to comply, but at last consented. A pleasant after- 
 noon was spent, and the four friends being well known to each 
 other chatted on till the evening was advanced, and when 
 the time of separation came, the lady asked, " When shall 
 we four meet again ? " We thought nothing of the phrase, 
 so often used when friends part, but I promised that I 
 would call soon, and take Mr. Douglas with me. So we 
 parted, not here to meet again. On Sabbath morning he 
 was unrefreshed by the night's rest, but he went through 
 the Church services without any appreciable sign of weak- 
 ness. In the afternoon, he was more worn, and towards 
 evening he felt ill, but said nothing about it, as he was 
 resolved to preach. Many who were in Church observed 
 the exhausted appearance of their Minister, as he delivered 
 his last sermon, from the text, which seemed as if put into 
 his hands for the occasion, "We all do fade as a leaf." 
 The sermon will be found in the collection at the end. 
 After service, he informed some of the church friends in 
 the vestry that he did not feel quite so well as usual. He 
 hastened home, and laid himself down upon the sofa in his 
 little sitting-room. Here I found him, complaining of 
 severe internal pain. He was put to bed, and placed under 
 treatment at once. Throughout the night the symptoms 
 abated, and in the morning he seemed a little better, but
 
 as evening wore on, an unfavourable change took place. 
 Monday night was restless, and marked signs of great 
 nervous depression appeared. On the morning of Tuesday, 
 again there seemed to be a slight improvement, but as the 
 day advanced we were deprived of that encouragement. 
 Tuesday night was like its predecessor, but more pro- 
 nounced in its character. On Wednesday the vital power 
 was clearly ebbing, still unremitting efforts were continued, 
 in the hope that the dreaded catastrophe might be averted. 
 Towards midnight, it became evident that he was to be 
 called hence, and it was my painful duty to inform him. 
 " My dear John," I said, " you are going to leave us." He 
 answered, as with an angel's resignation he looked at me, 
 " It's all right, my clear fellow, I am ready." His father 
 and mother were in the room, and with them the little 
 domestic so long in the family. I made to them the 
 terrible announcement as best I could. It was half-past 
 twelve, midnight darkness was in the room, thick and deep, 
 it could be felt. Over our hearts it crept, with icy coldness, 
 and we all felt as if we would join him in his departure. 
 Yet it was not all black, there was light in the dwelling, for 
 on that dying bed lay one who was passing a conqueror 
 through the domain of the King of Terrors, and on his brow 
 was written, as he himself had entered in his diary of long 
 ago, "At eventide it shall be light." He called his mother, 
 and laying his hand on her head, patted her fondly, and 
 prayed that God would keep and bless her, his dear, dear 
 mother, the best of mothers, and grant her to join him in 
 heaven. Having spoken like words to the rest, he prayed 
 for the Church, pleading that God would find for them a 
 faithful minister, to carry on his work in that parish. 
 Addressing me, he said, " Give a book to each of my 
 friends," and to the little company, " I wish you four to be 
 together." When he had thus spoken, a short time of rest- 
 lessness supervened. He tossed from side to side, com- 
 plained of the cold, but at length became soothed, and 
 lying with his face turned towards the window, composed 
 as if for sleep, his eyes looking steadily forward, as though
 
 he were already gazing on the realities beyond, he entered 
 the Great Unseen, " like one that wraps the drapery of his 
 couch around him, and lies down to pleasant dreams." 
 
 Sleep, sleeper, sleep ! thy well-earned rest 
 We would nor grudge nor disallow ; 
 
 Obedient to thy Lord's behest, 
 Repose upon His bosom now. 
 
 Sleep, sleeper, sleep ! nor shall we say 
 Thy life was short, thy call too soon ; 
 
 Life's length runs never by the day, 
 God's call is ever opportune. 
 
 Sleep, sleeper, sleep ! the rolling year 
 Will give us back what now we mourn ; 
 
 Loss yield to gain, and every tear 
 To pure and sparkling crystal turn. 
 
 Sleep, sleeper, sleep ! the ' tender, true,' 
 
 Like Douglas of another's muse, 
 Who wrote unwittingly of you, 
 
 And told the world before, thy dues. 
 
 Sleep, sleeper, sleep ! my peerless friend, 
 Why should I beg thee back to me ? 
 
 Since thou dost rest, I'll bide the end, 
 And keep the tryst I made with thee. 
 
 Sleep, sleeper, sleep ! nor may thy dust 
 Cry clamorous for its sainted soul : 
 
 And my sad heart no more distrust, 
 But leave his peace untroubled, whole. 
 
 Sleep, brother, sleep ! sleep, noble son ! 
 
 Sleep, patriot heart ! sleep, loyal friend ! 
 Sleep, till our world his eoursc hath run. 
 
 Sleep, till our race hath reached its end.
 
 76 
 
 Sleep, scholar ripe ! thy books laid past ; 
 
 Sleep, gentle shepherd of the sheep, 
 Sleep till He comes — the First, the Last — 
 
 Who ; giveth His beloved sleep.' 
 
 Till then, sleep on in peaceful sleep ! 
 
 Let angels hush thy slumb'ring dust ; 
 And Zion's Watchman safe will keep, 
 
 In solemn guard, that sacred trust. 
 
 Then wake, no more to sleep in death, 
 Resplendent with God's glorious form, 
 
 Rise, glowing in immortal breath, 
 
 And hail with joy the deathless morn. 
 
 The unexpected and terrible event came like a shock 
 to the people of Bellahouston. It was hardly possible to 
 realise the fact that the young and beloved minister, who 
 in so brief a time had found his way to so many hearts — 
 who had given such promise, and from whom so much 
 was expected — was dead ! Yet, it was so ; within four 
 short days, the servant, who had ministered to God's people 
 on earth, was called to His service in heaven. He, as in 
 Milton's lofty line, who had learned 
 
 ' ; To scorn delights, and live laborious days,"' 
 
 fell, in his three-and-thirtieth year, by "the blind Fury with 
 the abhorred shears" that "slits the thin-spun life." Great was 
 the grief, not only among his own flock, who were anguish- 
 smitten, but also through the district for miles around. 
 Many were the expressions of sympathy that poured in 
 upon the disconsolate and childless mother. He was her 
 all — almost her idol — and to part with him was more bitter 
 than to part with life. Everything that friendly service could 
 do was done to soften the hard blow. Friends and strangers 
 vied with each other in their efforts, personally or by letter, 
 to comfort — if that had been possible — the comfortless. 
 
 On Sabbath, the 14th November, the church was closed, 
 and the clay was observed, as befitted a time of mourning, 
 in the seclusion of home. On the following Sabbath,
 
 77 
 
 November 21st, funeral sermons were preached in the 
 church. In the morning the Rev. David Millar, of St. 
 John's Parish, Glasgow, under whom Mr. Douglas sat while 
 a student, and with whom he also laboured as church mis- 
 sionary, preached an earnest and impressive discourse from 
 John xi. \-cv*c 11 — "Our friend Lazarus sleepcth." In the 
 evening the Rev. John Barr Service, of Bolton, Haddington, 
 conducted the service. Mr. Douglas had been intimately 
 associated with Mr. Service while in Kilmun; their parishes 
 joined, and thus a strong and lasting intimacy sprung up 
 between them. He preached from the text 1 Cor. xi. 1 — 
 " Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ." In 
 closing he said: — 
 
 " I first became acquainted with Mr. Douglas when, on leaving 
 college, he was chosen assistant to Dr. Cameron, and came to live 
 near me at Kilmun. Since then our friendship has been close and 
 valued, and though we were afterwards chosen to distant parishes, 
 time and distance only drew us closer together in sympathy and 
 mutual respect. He regretted much that his lot had been cast so 
 far away from his friends, and one pleasure that he promised him- 
 self in coming amongst you, was that he might renew the pleasant 
 companionship of former days — a pleasure which has proved short- 
 lived indeed. It was impossible to know Mr. Douglas without 
 loving him, and being infected with his own hopeful, joyous, and 
 earnest spirit. Though his ministry here was so short, I was not 
 unprepared for the spectacle I witnessed last Monday, when a 
 whole people mourned for their lost friend, with no formal grief, 
 but with hearts stirred to their depths. He carried with him an 
 atmosphere of sweetness which did good to all who breathed it, 
 and awakened a similar feeling in them. His conversation carried 
 the same pure, sweet tone as did his preaching — equally free from 
 foolish jesting and pedantic display; and when his deeper feelings 
 were stirred in those long and solemn conversations we occa- 
 sionally had, when the inner spirit that our cold Northern nature 
 hides from display came shyly into view, I was sometimes startled 
 and abashed at the lofty and noble nature it unfolded, feeling how 
 it rebuked my own coldness and weakness. His mind was ever 
 active in the pursuit of truth and virtue. It was Catholic in the 
 real sense of that word, going out on all sides after what bore the
 
 stamp of Christ's spirit, rejecting no truth because it may have 
 come from a contaminated source, but accepting all that was in 
 conformity with God's spirit, which he felt to be present every- 
 where. His preaching and conversation showed a cultivated mind, 
 which delighting not in controversy, obeyed the apostle's injunc- 
 tion and thought on those things which were pure and lovely and 
 of good report ; while his writing had a literary grace and finish 
 which displayed a familiar acquaintance with whatever is best in 
 literature. But what most of all characterised him, and shall ever 
 remain with me as the spiritual likeness of my friend, was his 
 purity, sweetness, and charity. His was one of those rare and 
 happy natures which turn instinctively to the light rather than to 
 the darkness. When he had occasion to reprehend any sin, he 
 did it with firm but gentle accent, which indicated rather that the 
 conception of the sin had entered into his mind, than that it had 
 any hold upon his nature. His mind easily threw off the contam- 
 inations of life and thought that are so prevalent in those days, 
 passing like a sunbeam unpolluted by the corruption among which 
 it moves. In his thoughts and judgments he ever remembered 
 the charity that beareth all things and thinketh no evil. 
 
 ' Strict to himself, of other men no spy, 
 He made himself no circuit judge to try 
 The lighter conscience of his neighbour by.' 
 
 He followed the example of his Master, seeking to drive out evil 
 by teaching and doing good more than by threatening and de- 
 nouncing wickedness, though he did not refuse to do that, even 
 at much pain to himself, when duty called. He felt that the world 
 was to be saved by preaching the glad tidings of great joy, that the 
 spirit of love was the conquering force in Christianity, that by 
 holding up to man's view in word and life Christ Jesus, and Him 
 crucified, he was more truly doing the work of his Master than by 
 combating directly the errors and sins of man. But now he is 
 gone, where his own bright spirit shall be pained no more by the 
 visions of darkness and vice which here we see. We remain with 
 one sweet, brave heart fewer to help and encourage us; yet though 
 our hearts ache, and our eyes are dim with tears, we shall not mur- 
 mur overmuch because our loving Father has taken to Himself 
 him whom we would gladly have kept a little longer. Shall we 
 not rather acquiesce in the feeling expressed by a hymn which he 
 read with d appreciation the week before lie died —
 
 79 
 
 ' Sleep on, beloved, sleep, and take thy rest ; 
 Lay down thy head upon thy Saviour's breast ; 
 We love thee well ; but Jesus loves thee best. 
 
 Good night. 
 
 ' Calm is thy slumber as an infant's sleep ; 
 But thou shalt wake, no more to toil and weep ; 
 Thine is the perfect rest, secure and deep. 
 
 Good night. 
 
 ' Until the shadow from this earth is cast, 
 Until He gathers in His sheaves at last, 
 Until the twilight gloom is overpast, 
 
 Good night. 
 
 ' Until the Easter glory lights the skies, 
 Until the dead in Jesus shall arise, 
 And He shall come, but not in lowly guise, 
 
 Good night. 
 
 ' Until made beautiful by love divine, 
 Thou in the likeness of thy Lord shall shine, 
 And He shall bring that golden crown of thine, 
 
 Good night. 
 
 ' Only good night, beloved, not farewell ; 
 A little while and all His saints shall dwell 
 In hallowed union indivisible. 
 
 Good night. 
 
 ' Until we meet again before His throne, 
 Clothed in the spotless robes He gives His own, 
 Until we know, even as we are known, 
 
 Good night.' " 
 
 As indicating the deep impression made on the young of 
 the parish by the death of their minister, the following 
 simple and touching lines, written by one of his Sabbath- 
 school, a young lady of 14, will be read with interest: — 
 
 " ' We all do fade as a leaf.' 
 " Alone in a darkened chamber, his noble head laid low, 
 Lay one of God's own workers, with his beautiful marble brow, 
 Touched by his Master's fingers, shining with radiant love ; 
 But 'twas only the empty casket, for his soul had flown above. 
 
 " Sleeping, yes, only sleeping, till the judgment day shall come ; 
 Let not your hearts be troubled, for his Father hath called him 
 
 home, 
 Home to the glorious beauty of the golden city above, 
 Where naught can ever enter but joy, and peace, and love.
 
 so 
 
 " He was so faithful and earnest — working through good and 
 through ill — 
 Guiding the rich or lowly, obeying the Master's will ; 
 Following in His footsteps, looking towards his Lord, 
 Arid now, when the toil is over, he has gone to meet his reward. 
 
 " Yet, still it is hard to lose him, his grieving flock will say ; 
 But he's only gone before us; and until the judgment day, 
 We will live in hopes to see him; but his earthly work is done — 
 He is praising his Father in heaven, and our pastor's crown is 
 won ! ' " 
 
 The day of the funeral was Monday, 15 th November. A 
 number of friends met in the Manse, where a service was 
 conducted by the Rev. Dr. Leckie, Ibrox U.P. Church, and 
 Rev. J. T. Graham, Dean Park Parish Church, Govan. A 
 service was also conducted in the Church, a large congre- 
 gation having assembled for the purpose, and the people 
 melted into tears as the oak coffin, covered with wreaths, 
 was carried up the aisle, and laid on the communion table. 
 After the service, the lengthy cortege slowly formed, which 
 consisted of numerous carriages, followed, for a considerable 
 distance, by many people on foot. The road was lined with 
 spectators, the shops in the district were closed, and the 
 blinds of the neighbouring houses were lowered, while the 
 bells tolled their melancholy accompaniment. Even nature 
 seemed to mourn, for all the way to the cemetery, the 
 heavens wept, and while we were consigning the remains 
 of our friend to their last resting-place, the showers fell, 
 as if to join the sad offices of earth with the sympathy of 
 heaven. Not only in Glasgow, but in many places in 
 Scotland, did this unexpected calamity spread a feeling 
 of the profoundest sorrow, which found expression in a 
 variety of forms. The Presbytery of Chirnside, of which 
 Mr. Douglas had been for three years a member, recorded 
 in their supplement to Life and Work, the following 
 expression of their sympathy: — 
 
 " Extract from t/ie Supplement for the Parishes of Chirnside 
 Presbytery, December, 18S6. 
 " Our readers must have learned with deep regret the early
 
 81 
 
 death of Mr. Douglas, formerly minister of Foulden. He was 
 known in almost every parish in this Presbytery, and was much 
 liked wherever he was known. He came to his parish well equipped 
 for the work of the ministry, and entered upon his duties with 
 greater energy and success than most young men are given to 
 experience. With a humble idea of his own personality, yet 
 magnifying his office, he was not restrained by that morbid 
 modesty which causes many young ministers to hold aloof when 
 they might most usefully assert themselves. He had a deep- 
 rooted faith in the Christian Church as the vehicle of Salvation 
 to all the ends of the earth. Whilst appreciating other forms of 
 church government, he was convinced of the special fitness of 
 Presbyterianism to the genius of the Scottish people. Whilst 
 giving due credit to the sects which have parted from the Church 
 of Scotland, he believed that in that Church's connection with the 
 State there was an untold and unspeakable benefit to the nation. 
 He was therefore proud to be a minister of the Church, and he 
 rejoiced in the mission to which, in the good Providence of God, he 
 had been called. There never seemed to be any doubt in his 
 mind that God had given that Church its place in the land, or 
 that God had given himself his place in that Church. Thus it 
 was that he at once entered on the work of his parish, feeling 
 that, though small, its interests were to him of paramount impor- 
 tance. It was the one part of the vineyard to which he was 
 directly responsible, and it was his constant desire and endeavour 
 that it should prosper in his hands. But, whilst doing his best 
 for his own parish, he was always ready to help elsewhere : and, if 
 other congregations knew how excellent his services were, the 
 ministers of those parishes knew also how willingly and heartily 
 those services were rendered. If he took a prominent part in 
 discussing the question of Disestablishment, it was because he 
 believed the assailants of the Church did not realize what they 
 were doing, or what great injustice to the deserving poor was 
 involved in their proposals. When Mr. Douglas left Foulden, he 
 was peculiarly sensitive lest the parishioners he was leaving might 
 fancy that he had no interest in their welfare. We believe he 
 held them very dear even to the end. Any Christian minister 
 worthy of the name has always a warm feeling for his first parish, 
 which no future associations can ever chill. Mr. Douglas went 
 to Bellahouston in the same spirit of enthusiasm with which he
 
 82 
 
 came to Foulden. He felt able for more active and stirring work 
 than any he had yet been privileged to do. He felt that his three 
 years of quiet country duty had been preparing him for other 
 things. He believed that God was calling him to labour in 
 another portion of His vineyard, where the divine Spirit would 
 attend him and the divine blessing help him as they had done 
 before. Not in any self-sufficient spirit did he return to the. city 
 where he had been brought up, and which he still loved with all 
 his heart. He went in all humility and with great anxiety, doubt- 
 ing much whether he were sufficient for such things, but never 
 doubting that it was his duty to quit himself as best he might, 
 believing that God would assuredly perfect his strength .in His 
 servant's weakness, and leaving the issue trustfully in his Master's 
 hands. We have heard how he laboured in that new sphere. 
 We have heard how he gave himself to the work. We have heard 
 how he persevered in it even after his fatal illness had laid hold 
 on him. We have heard how he left the pulpit to go home and 
 lie down and die. We know now that his was the right sort of 
 enthusiasm — not a fitful flash, but a steady glow — never failing 
 until that moment in which the enthusiasm of loving service was 
 exchanged for the peace and gladness of heavenly rest. We may 
 mourn in sympathy for his now childless mother, bereft of a son 
 who was loving and good and true: but we may not mourn for the 
 son himself, who has exchanged the story of Faith and Hope for 
 the fulness of divine love. No better lot can fall to any minister 
 of the Christian Church than to be called away in the midst of 
 activity and usefulness. The living man may think that the work 
 of the Kingdom needs him still — that his heart and hand can ill 
 be spared; but the dying man knows that God's work goes on for 
 ever — that another worker will arise where he has fallen — that the 
 glory of proclaiming the gospel is handed on from man to man — 
 and that his own life is not ending prematurely, but simply 
 because God's purpose in it has been fulfilled. 
 
 <; We have ventured to say these things in the name of the 
 Presbytery, within whose bounds by far die greatest part of Mr. 
 Douglas' ministerial life was spent. It is especially fitting that in 
 these pages we should give a few thoughts to his memory. His 
 heart was much set upon the commencement of this -Supplement ' 
 to Life ami I Vork, as a likely mean;; of stimulating die life and 
 work of the parishes within our bounds, and he gladly undertook
 
 83 
 
 to edit it when as yet it was only a doubtful experiment. It must 
 have been uphill work, and sometimes disappointing; but his 
 characteristic faith stood him in good stead here as elsewhere. Up 
 to the last day of his connection with the Presbytery, when the 
 bustle of preparation for departure might have excused him for 
 delegating the work to other hands, he continued to take charge 
 of the 'Supplement,' and the last number which he edited was 
 the most successful of the whole. At his earnest request a copy 
 has been sent to him every month since he left us. He felt sure 
 that the ' Supplement ' would live, and he desired to watch its 
 progress. He was to have sent an occasional contribution to its 
 pages whenever leisure would permit; but he was so overwhelmed 
 with work, or, rather, he so overwhelmed himself with work, that 
 that leisure never came. And now his pen is laid aside for ever. 
 But though he may not now address us by either tongue or pen, 
 he has not lived for us in vain. All of us who knew him, or 
 heard his voice, or read his words, will continue to thank God for 
 his brief and loving ministry." 
 
 The following formed the close of a Sermon preached in 
 Fouldcn Church on 14th November by his successor there, 
 the Rev. John Reid: — 
 
 :i Brethren, I cannot close my discourse to-day without reference 
 to your late minister, the Rev. John D. Douglas. He has been 
 uppermost in all our thoughts ever since we read a fatal para- 
 graph in the newspapers regarding him. Not many weeks ago 
 his voice was heard within these walls; and doubtless its familiar 
 tones awakened many a happy memory, and rekindled many a 
 glowing aspiration after that higher life which Christianity reveals. 
 But the ways of Providence are unsearchable, and sometimes 
 those who are doing the best work for God and their fellow- 
 men are cut off in the midst of their usefulness. This has been 
 the case with Mr. Douglas. He is dead; but he dies revered by 
 all who knew him. His kindness, his amiability, his unfailing 
 attention to the calls of duty, his thorough Christian principles 
 have won their way to many a heart. It is not for me to speak 
 of his abilities, these are widely known and have been thoroughly 
 recognised and valued in this quiet parish where he began his 
 ministry. Yet he is not entirely lost to us. Death cannot kill 
 the loving memory of his goodness, or tear from the heart the
 
 84 
 
 heavenly seed which his hand has planted. He is with us still in 
 the work which he has done, and we feel assured that a more 
 than earthly reward is his. ' They that bring many to righteous- 
 ness shall shine as the stars for ever and ever. 
 
 3 1} 
 
 In the Parish Church of Swinton, on Sunday, 14th Novem- 
 ber, the Rev. Mr. Gordon, preaching from St. John i. 47, 
 " Behold an Israelite, indeed, in whom is no guile," said: — 
 
 "In closing these remarks, I feel that it would be inappropriate 
 to do so without a brief reference to one who has exercised to a 
 "reater or less extent an influence on your lives, and who has 
 passed away in the week that has gone. I allude to Mr. Douglas, 
 the late minister of Foulden. By his hands I was set apart to 
 labour among you in the work of the holy ministry. Not infrequently 
 have you heard his voice speaking to you from this pulpit, and 
 on the evening of a recent Communion Sabbath you may recall 
 how ably and earnestly he addressed us from the far too 
 appropriate text 'We all do fade as a leaf.' Knowing Mr. 
 Douglas as an intimate personal friend, it is difficult for me 
 to speak of his attainments, or to add my tribute of affection 
 to his memory. But this I will say, from frequent converse 
 with him, that his was a spirit singularly frank and open, a 
 mind true, genuine, and clear, that his ruling characteristic 
 was that of simplicity like unto Nathanael, in whom was no 
 guile. Oftimes the poor have spoken of his kindly heart, and 
 in the hour of distress they never turned to him for sympathy 
 in vain. But much as he loved Foulden, the place and the 
 people, much as he was loved by them, his active spirit yearned 
 for the larger life and fuller activity of a city pastorate. It 
 was with great pleasure that his friends heard that he had 
 obtained a call to a charge in a rising suburb of Glasgow. It 
 was my privilege to be present at his induction, and never saw 
 1 proceedings more enthusiastic, or welcome more hearty 
 extended to any minister. Little is it to be wondered at that if, 
 on that bright June day, we predicted for him a happy and 
 brilliant career, and congratulated the people on the pastor of 
 their choice. But tin' Lord had need of him, and we say this 
 in simple faith, for to mortal eye many of us could have been 
 better spared from the work. But when we raise our thoughts 
 on high, and behold Him who doeth all things well, while we
 
 85 
 
 ask the Divine consolation for the bereaved friends and sorrowing 
 congregation, we will take courage in our Christian path. 
 Though the labourer in the vineyard faint and grow weary, yet 
 the golden vintage will be gathered in ; though the soldier fall 
 in the battle, yet the Lord's victory will be gained ; and though 
 the great and good die, though one generation passeth away 
 one after another, yet the word of our God abideth for ever." 
 
 In the Parish Church, Dunoon, on Sabbath, 14th Novem- 
 ber, the Rev. Dr. Cameron, with whom Mr. Douglas had 
 been assistant prior to his going to Foulden, said — 
 
 " I know that the minds of many of you, may I not almost 
 say of all of you, are tinged with sadness to-day. Two days 
 ago we were all startled with the sad intelligence that one who 
 was much beloved by us all, and who so faithfully and power- 
 fully preached the gospel of Christ in this pulpit as my coadjutor 
 and assistant, was suddenly called home. Little more than three 
 years ago, it was my privilege to introduce Mr. Douglas to the 
 beautiful country parish of Foulden, and only in July last he 
 asked me to perform the same duty again when he was inducted 
 to the parish of Bellahouston, in Glasgow. During the time he 
 was here, I need not tell you how acceptable he was in his pulpit 
 ministrations, how faithfully and zealously he performed all the 
 other duties of his sacred office. We loved him much, because 
 he was a most lovable man— one upon whom God had bestowed 
 noble gifts, which he nobly dedicated to the Master's service. 
 Personally, my intercourse with him was not only most pleasant, 
 but most profitable. He was so well read, so intelligent, so 
 guileless, so gentle, I would almost say one that gave you a true 
 idea of Apostolic saintliness. When I left him in his new parish 
 a few months ago, his soul was fired with the truest and noblest 
 ambition that can animate the soul of man— the ambition to be a 
 true preacher of righteousness, and to serve the Lord Christ in 
 the important field to which he was called. He complained that 
 in his former sphere he had too little work. In a note I had 
 yesterday from the Convener of the Committee that recommended 
 him to the congregation he said that everything was so prosperous; 
 he seemed as if he had entered on his proper sphere, where a 
 career of eminent usefulness was opened up to him. But God 
 decreed otherwise. He preached in his own pulpit on Sunday
 
 86 
 
 last with his wonted fervour, and to-day he lies cold in the sleep 
 of death. I regret much that our solemn services here next 
 Sunday will prevent me from acceding to the request presented 
 to me last night of preaching his funeral sermon. It would have 
 been a painful duty to me, but had I been free, I should have had 
 a melancholy pleasure in bearing my humble testimony to the 
 sterling worth of my dear and much-loved friend, and of ex- 
 pressing my heartiest sympathy with his mourning friends and 
 relatives, and especially with his fond mother — of whom he often 
 spoke in the most affectionate terms — in their sad and sore 
 bereavement. His last words were that he was going home, and 
 that he knew that higher work was before him there. Let us 
 try to lay the solemn lesson his sudden removal is teaching us 
 seriously to heart — work while it is day, remembering that neither 
 youth nor talent can save us when our hour has come." 
 
 At the close of the forenoon service on Sabbath, 14th Nov., 
 in Dean Park Parish Church, Govan, the Rev. J. T. Graham 
 made reference to the lamented death of Mr. Douglas. 
 In preaching from the 39th Psalm, 9th verse, " I was dumb, 
 I opened not my mouth, because thou didst it," he said: — 
 
 " In saying these words we can not but think of one who 
 only last Sunday was in full health, but now rests from his 
 labours, and for whose loss not a few are this day seeking, I 
 trust, in their sorrow to say these words of our text from the 
 heart. To-day the doors of a neighbouring parish church are 
 closed and the voice of upraised supplication is silent there, 
 out of loving respect to the memory of its departed minister, 
 whose career, so full of bright promise, already bearing fruit, 
 God has seen fit to close in death. Only about four months 
 ago was he chosen their minister by the hearty and unanimous 
 vote of the congregation, and so soon has it pleased God to sever 
 the bond between pastor and people. As members with them of 
 the body of Christ, His Church, we would sorrow in their loss, 
 and offer them our loving sympathy. Not altogether unknown 
 to you was their late pastor. No longer since than this day 
 five weeks you were interested and edified by his winning and 
 ounseL On Sunday last he performed the full duty 
 in his own church, and the final text in which he was per- 
 mitted to set forth divine truth to his people was one it has
 
 87 
 
 pleased God he should solemnly illustrate in a way little dreamt 
 of then, the exhortation of Isaiah, ' We all do fade as a leaf.' 
 Not till he became minister of Bellahouston was I privileged 
 to meet him, but all who knew him will agree with me that 
 after each interview we felt we had met with a Christian, a 
 scholar, and a gentleman. Regarding his ministry, the brief 
 space of four months in his new parish affords us little material 
 for comment, but even in that short time we can recognise the 
 same energy and success attending his work here as in his former 
 quiet pastoral parish. Already he had organised numerous branches 
 of church work, drawn around him many young people in Sunday 
 school and Bible class, with an ever-increasing and appreciative 
 congregation, and now after a short illness of three days, the 
 busy hand and brain are stilled, the proposed plans and work 
 are left standing as an unfinished structure where no sound of 
 axe or hammer is to be heard.'" 
 
 On Sunday, the 2 1st November, the Rev. J. A. Robertson, 
 of Whitsome, preached in Fouldcn Parish Church, from 
 Acts ix. 6, "Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?" and ist 
 Samuel iii. io, "Speak, for Thy servant heareth." Referring 
 to the unexpected death of their late minister, he said: — 
 
 " When it was arranged that I should preach here to-day, there 
 was no thought of anything special in the service; but when your 
 present minister, a few days ago, requested that I should take 
 special notice of a sad event which has recently taken place, 
 and which is now weighing upon all your spirits, I had to 
 bethink myself in what connection I should make the reference. 
 I could not think of using a discourse already on hand, and 
 merely adding to it a lew remarks regarding our departed friend. 
 I felt that in some way the whole sermon should be permeated 
 by his spirit, setting forth the lesson which his own life con- 
 veyed. And when, on turning over the pages of the Bible for 
 some appropriate text, my eye fell upon that great question of 
 the Apostle Paul, I felt at once that here was the proper theme. 
 I did not wish to speak to you of death, or to suggest thoughts 
 which might make you sad and spiritless; but, knowing well 
 that you were sad and depressed already, I wished to speak to 
 you of life and action, a life of faith in God, and work to be 
 done for Him. It seemed to me that in this way I should
 
 88 
 
 best do honour to your late minister, and should also best 
 impress you with the lesson of his life. The picture which I 
 would fain hold up to you is that of the pure-minded, high- 
 souled, warm-hearted, and faithful man of God, one who desired 
 to spend and be spent in Christian effort, for the glory of God 
 and for the good of men. You know better than I can tell 
 you how anxious he was for your spiritual welfare, how earnestly 
 he gave himself to his pulpit preparations, how full his sermons 
 were of thoughts both beautiful and manly, how thoroughly 
 they were imbued with the spirit of faith, and hope, and charity, 
 how they set the gospel before you as the message of a true 
 redemption which should purify the soul from sin, and fill it 
 with Christian spirit and divine life. You know that his preach- 
 ing always encouraged what was good in you, and always showed 
 whatever was evil. You know that he both dreamed of, and 
 aimed at, a life of Christian brotherhood, in which all who 
 named the name of Christ should dwell together in peace and 
 unity. You know how pleasant he was in your homes, not 
 because he set himself to be pleasant, but because it was utterly 
 foreign to his nature to be otherwise. You know how true 
 he was in word and deed — even, some would say, to the verge 
 of simplicity, but for the certainty that it was not the result 
 of weakness. You know, too, how, whilst he did not disdain 
 to share of your hours of gladness, he counted it his greatest 
 privilege to be present with you in your hours of sorrow, 
 imparting gleams of consolation and comfort which you received 
 the more readily because they were the outcome of his own faith. 
 You know how he could adapt himself alike to the expanding 
 intelligence of childhood, and to the decaying energies of 
 advancing age. You know, in short, how thoroughly his heart 
 was with you, and how, in turn, he heartily rejoiced in your 
 expressions of regard for him. And, when he left you, I am 
 confident that he left no enemy behind him, and am prepared 
 to believe that every one in the parish had become his friend. 
 His nature was a rare combination of gentleness and manliness. 
 I have known lew men who have so laid hold in so short 
 a time of all the people with whom he came in contact. I have 
 known few men whose death has called forth such universal, such 
 strong, such unmistakable expressions of regret. One minister 
 wrote to me, ' I am sure you would be shocked to hear of the
 
 89 
 
 death of poor Douglas. I can scarcely realise it, and, when I do, 
 it is to awaken feelings of profound regret that our Church has 
 lost such an able and efficient minister.' Another wrote, ' You 
 would be shocked greatly to hear of poor Douglas' death. 
 It came to us here like a thunderbolt. We had no idea of any- 
 thing wrong, and the first intimation was the unrelieved announce- 
 ment in the newspaper. It is very sad and strange to see one in 
 whom there was so much good, and whose life was so full of 
 beauty and promise, so soon taken away.' And so it goes on. 
 Almost every letter I have had during the last week has been in 
 the same strain, the strain of lamentation over a loss which was 
 felt to be personal, but which was felt to affect the whole com- 
 munity as well. We all loved him, we all follow him with our 
 keen regrets, we all think, it may be, that his place cannot easily 
 be supplied. Not thus, however, does his life speak to us. It 
 exhorts us rather to follow in that cause which made himself so 
 true, and gentle, and bright, and lovable. It admonishes us to wait 
 ever on the high behest of God, asking with Saul — ' Lord ! what 
 wilt thou have me to do?' and saying with Samuel, 'Speak, Lord ! 
 thy servant heareth.' Let our regrets be transformed into seeds 
 of holiness, which shall grow up and blossom, and bring forth 
 fruit in an after life. Thus shall we best do honour to the youthful 
 man of God who has passed so suddenly away." 
 
 We have also much pleasure in giving an extract from 
 a letter sent us by the Rev. Mr. Milne of Gourock: — 
 
 " I was a member of the Presbytery of Chirnside when Mr. 
 Douglas was elected minister of Foulden, and took part in his 
 ordination to that holy office. He entered heartily on his duties 
 in that quiet country parish, and soon became a great favourite both 
 there and in all the parishes of the Presbytery. About six months 
 after Mr. Douglas' settlement I was translated to my present 
 charge. I saw him frequently since and had arranged with him 
 to assist me at my last Communion (12th December). In reply 
 to my request that he should do so, he wrote to the effect that he 
 had been very busy since he came to Eellahouston, and had been 
 declining all requests to preach elsewhere, but that he could not 
 decline mine, but would be with me on the day named, expressing 
 a desire to obtain good supply for his own pulpit. At a meeting 
 of my Kirk-Session on 10th November, I was asked whom I was
 
 90 
 
 likely to have to assist me at my Communion, and my elders were 
 
 all greatly pleased on hearing it was to be the new and popular 
 
 minister of Bellahouston. You will easily understand our great grief 
 
 and dismay when we read in the newspapers of the 12th that he 
 
 had died on the nth of November. Mr. Douglas was not much 
 
 known in Gourock, but it had become pretty generally known 
 
 that he was to be at our Communion, and his sudden death came 
 
 as a great shock upon us, and has left a deep impression — the 
 
 subject being referred to in other Churches besides my own. 
 
 Your congregation will deeply deplore the loss of such a minister 
 
 as Mr. Douglas — so genuine, so unassuming, so devoted, and so 
 
 considerate to all. His ministry, either among yourselves or at 
 
 Foulden, has not been long, but it has been to some purpose. 
 
 Measured by the amount of work done — measured above all, if 
 
 that were possible* by the impression made — it might be found 
 
 equal to the longest. His enthusiastic spirit has passed into 
 
 many and has generated a like enthusiasm in them, and they will 
 
 carry on and extend his work, having received even a diviner and 
 
 more powerful impulse from his death. 'Being dead he yet 
 
 speaks ' — speaks more impressively than ever before. 
 
 ' We live in deeds not year.s, in thoughts not breaths, 
 In feelings, not in figures on a dial. 
 We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives 
 Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.' " 
 
 Many other expressions of sympathy were sent to Air. 
 Douglas' mother, and from these we shall give two selec- 
 tions. One gentleman, who knew him well, says, " I had 
 frequent opportunities of meeting Mr. Douglas, both in 
 public and in private. The Church, nay, the world, is 
 poorer for the loss of your son. Let the memory of his 
 bright and manly career be some consolation, until, in God's 
 good time, you are called to meet him where partings are 
 unknown." Another friend, a clergyman, and old college 
 companion, writes to a lady, a friend of Mr. Douglas', who 
 was greatly distressed on hearing of his death, "What a good 
 man lie was! I never knew any one like him. He will live 
 in mind-, made noble by his presence." We might add, were 
 it necessary, many other testimonies to show to those, who 
 had no personal knowledge of our friend, that the language 
 ot this narrative is justified by the excellence of the man.
 
 BELLAHOUSTON PARISH CHURCH
 
 :H 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 AFTER this brief sketch of the chief events in the life of 
 Mr. Douglas, it only remains, that we should attempt to 
 convey to those who had not the privilege of knowing him 
 some outline of what he was as a man— of his leading- 
 characteristics, physical, mental, and moral. 
 
 The personal appearance of Mr. Douglas was striking. 
 Above the average, considerably, in height, his slender 
 form made him seem taller than he really was. He 
 generally walked with a swinging step, umbrella or stick 
 in hand, like a man who had business to do. His favourite 
 dress was the clerical black, which so well became him — a 
 long coat ending a little below the knees, together with a soft 
 broad-rimmed hat, which well agreed with his dark com- 
 plexion and handsome face. His head was much above 
 the average in size, and impressed the observer with its 
 proportions, especially as to the upper part, which was 
 elegantly vaulted and covered with a rich profusion of 
 dark brown, almost black, hair. His face was such as one 
 seldom sees, and it attracted the notice of an artist who 
 chanced to be present at his induction to Bellahouston, 
 when many young clergymen were assisting. His brow, 
 well-formed and manly, though not unduly large, under 
 his clustering hair, the hazel eyes glistening with intelli- 
 gence, and in animated discourse shining with a special 
 lustre, the characteristic nose, large, but proportionate, 
 the well-formed mouth with its moustache and carefully 
 trimmed beard, presented a striking combination. A lady 
 said of his face that, when she looked at Douglas, she was 
 always reminded of Dante. His manner was as winning 
 as it was artless. Naturally and without effort he seemed 
 to please everyone. 1 [e was able at once to win his way to
 
 92 
 
 the heart of the child, and to attract the less impressible 
 affection of the aged. To all ranks and classes he was 
 equally accessible and equally courteous. His social instinct 
 enabled him to enter with hearty sympathy into whatever 
 concerned his friends. His love for his mother formed one 
 of the most prominent features in his character. From his 
 earliest days he looked up to her with affectionate trust 
 and veneration, and in numberless ways displayed the 
 depth of his filial devotion, laying in his boyhood plans 
 for making his mother happy, and in more mature years 
 ever ready to direct his movements and modify his projects 
 in subservience to the same guiding aim. This affection 
 for his mother early imbued him with profound respect for 
 woman's place and dignity, and made him shrink from 
 aught approaching levity or jest in dealing with such 
 topics on the few occasions when less scrupulous com- 
 panions ventured to trench on his sensitiveness. He often 
 remarked on the place given to women in the Gospel. 
 When some years ago the White Cross movement was 
 brought into prominence he heartily entered into its war- 
 fare against impurity. He often dwelt upon the principle 
 and promise of the Beatitude — " Blessed are the pure in 
 heart: for they shall see God." 
 
 His friendships were many and lasting. No one who 
 found a place in his heart ever lost it, save when a rare 
 case of gross ingratitude compelled a change of feeling, 
 and even then there was little resentment. His friends 
 vied with each other in their regard for him, and apprecia- 
 tion of the privilege of intimacy with him. His love of home 
 amounted almost to a passion. Though his desire for 
 knowledge excited a longing for travel, he could not be 
 drawn away for any length of time from the familiar 
 faces of his own fireside. His conversational powers 
 were remarkable. Ever diffident of himself, and con- 
 siderate towards others, he would quietly and gradually 
 take part in the conversation till the company would be 
 content ofi n imply to listen. Ill's varied culture set off 
 his natural powers to the best advantage. The absence
 
 93 
 
 of affectation, and his freedom from pedantry, prevented 
 the too common errors of brilliant conversationalists from 
 marring the pleasure of his gift. His reading was wide 
 in its range. He held liberal views as to the kind of 
 books that should be read ; while he evinced discrimination 
 in his method of reading, skimming with a rapid glance 
 lighter literature, but reserving for more thoughtful perusal 
 what seemed of greater weight. Scott was his favourite 
 among novelists, and there was nothing in his writings 
 with which Mr. Douglas was not familiar. The quaint 
 and powerful portraits of character drawn by this master 
 hand, and the inimitable descriptions with which his 
 writings abound, were to Douglas an unfailing source of 
 delight. A lecture on Sir Walter Scott, delivered by 
 him in various places, was one of his happiest efforts, 
 and showed how deeply he had drunk at the charmed 
 fount of the wondrous wizard. Among later novelists 
 the works of Dickens probably made the deepest impres- 
 sion. The writings of John Shorthouse, on account of their 
 metaphysical character and finish, afforded great enjoyment, 
 more especially "John Inglesant." 
 
 In the domain of poetry Mr. Douglas took a peculiar 
 pleasure. He was himself a poet, and the poetic taste early 
 unfolded itself. While he was yet a lad Wordsworth's ode 
 on the "Intimations of Immortality" charmed him, and 
 in his evening walks he would often quote the magnificent 
 introduction and recite other parts of the poem. Words- 
 worth retained a place of honour in his affections to the 
 last. His admiration for Shakespeare rested on an intimate 
 acquaintance with his creations. Among the tragedies 
 " Hamlet " was his favourite, while in the comedies the 
 " Merchant of Venice " held a similar place. He specially 
 appreciated the " Sonnets," many of which he had com- 
 mitted to memory. Milton's minor poems greatly impressed 
 him. The ode on "The Nativity" was very precious to 
 him. and he always recited it as Christmas came round. 
 " Lycidas " was also a great favourite, as was Shelley's 
 beautiful creation written in memory of the unhappy
 
 94 
 
 Keats. Of living poets his favourite undoubtedly was 
 Tennyson. Admiring Browning, Swinburne, and Long- 
 fellow, he still found in Tennyson the highest expression 
 of the English poetry of the nineteenth century. " The 
 Idylls of the King," " The Princess," and, emphatically, 
 " In Memoriam," were thoroughly mastered and freely 
 quoted with an accuracy which astonished those who 
 heard him. Nor did he less heartily appreciate other 
 forms of literary power, as shown in his devotion to such 
 writers as Ruskin and Carlyle. 
 
 In Philosophy he read deeply, and found a congenial 
 field in comparing and contrasting the masters, ancient 
 and modern. Though not sufficiently familiar with the 
 language of Germany to study the works of the great 
 thinkers in the original, he was, by means of translations, 
 well acquainted with the theories of their several schools. 
 He was thoroughly familiar with " Kant's Critique of 
 Pure Reason," and with the new departure in philosophy 
 initiated by him he evinced no small sympathy. Of the 
 later Germans, Hegel most attracted his attention. His 
 germ thought, which has been well named a splendid par- 
 adox, "that being and non-being arc the same thing," would 
 be frequently discussed by him when in the company of 
 kindred spirits. Yet he never attached himself to any 
 philosophical school. He seemed to feel that in the various 
 systems there was more or less of truth, and while showing 
 an inclination to the German as opposed to what is known 
 as the Scotch School of Philosophy, he retained the position 
 of an inquirer rather than of one who had made up his mind 
 to take a side. All kinds of philosophical writings he 
 eagerly devoured, from the mysticism of Jacob Boehmc to 
 the pantheism of Spinoza. Descartes he admired, and the 
 well-known starting point of his philosophy, cogito ergo 
 sum, commended itself strongly to the mind of Mr. Douglas, 
 though many of its developments he challenged. Among 
 ish writers, Locke had a strong hold on his esteem ; 
 the early part of his Essay on the Human Understanding 
 was specially interesting to him. For Reid, Stewart, Brown,
 
 95 
 
 but particularly Hamilton, he cherished deep respect, 
 though, while appreciating the undoubted service which the 
 first of these great men had rendered in vindicating the 
 truths of common sense, and in successfully combating 
 the sceptical subtleties of Hume, he disputed his division 
 of first and contingent principles, and spoke of his classifi- 
 cation as Reid had himself spoken of that of the Peripatetics, 
 as redundant rather than deficient. Sir William Hamilton, 
 through whom he first became acquainted with German 
 philosophy, was carefully studied. The profound subtleties 
 of Bishop Berkeley in the development of his theory on 
 the non-existence of matter impressed Mr. Douglas deeply 
 with his philosophic power ; and, while dissenting from 
 the conclusions to which many since Berkeley's day have 
 pressed his theory, he regarded the great founder of that 
 school as towering high in speculative faculty above his 
 contemporaries. His admiration for Berkeley rested not 
 only on his philosophical gifts, but also on his personal 
 worth. The philosopher's piety and consistent Christian 
 charity made him doubly esteemed. 
 
 In theological literature, as in philosophy, Mr. Douglas 
 was widely read. Confining himself to no particular school, 
 he studied all forms of theological thought, and to this 
 fact may be attributed in great part his large and Catholic 
 views on essentials and non-essentials of Christianity. For 
 example, he never could see the wisdom of differing over 
 forms of church government; and though a loyal son of 
 the Church of Scotland, he regarded with hearty esteem 
 the sister church on the other side of the Tweed. Indeed, 
 many of his friends, less liberal in view than himself, would 
 regard with feelings akin to alarm his breadth of sympathy. 
 The man}- phases of Continental theology he had carefully- 
 passed in review. The flippant romancing of M. Renan, 
 the destructive criticism of Strauss, and the a priori his- 
 torical criticism of Baur, he examined only to reject as 
 incompatible with Christian faith. Dorncr's System of 
 Christian Doctrine he warmly appreciated as being one 
 of the best books in modern Christian literature, so also
 
 96 
 
 Julius Mliller's great work on the Doctrine of Sin.* He was, 
 however, more conversant with British theologians. The 
 great writers of the English Church, such as Butler, Hooker, 
 Pale)', and later, Trench and Whutely, he faithfully perused. 
 The devotional and sermon literature, in which this Church 
 is rich, he found a pleasing and profitable field of study. 
 The saintly Herbert, to whom, in poetic taste and refined 
 sentiment, as well as in the shortness of his life, Douglas 
 presented a certain resemblance, was a great favourite, and 
 from his quaint and rich treasure house he was fond of 
 drawing refreshment. Among sermon writers, Frederick 
 Robertson, of Brighton, probably most influenced his 
 thoughts, but he felt also the spell of Newman's magnetic 
 power, and to both he was largely indebted. In an earlier 
 part of this sketch we named Principal Caird as his favourite 
 among living preachers, but none the less did he admire 
 the gifts of Chalmers, Guthrie, and Candlish. He gladly 
 embraced every opportunity of hearing the thoughtful Dr. 
 Ker, so recently gone to his rest, and, in common with 
 every competent critic, regarded his published sermons as 
 among the best of their kind. 
 
 And this leads us to speak of Mr. Douglas as a preacher. 
 For the pulpit he made careful preparation. His readi- 
 ness of utterance might have tempted one less scrupulous to 
 trust to the resources of the moment, but the sermons 
 which form the bulk of this volume — written, it is to be 
 remembered, without the faintest idea that they were to 
 be published — amply prove this care. His custom was to 
 note texts as he went through his daily course of Scripture 
 reading, and from these he would choose his subject, often 
 several weeks before the sermon was required. Frequently 
 two or three themes would engage his attention about the 
 same time, and when such was the case, a course of pre- 
 liminary reading laid a basis for reflection. When the time 
 for writing came, his facility in throwing of a discourse was 
 
 *Theweel ill he had been engaged in re-reading that able 
 
 n Apologetics, "Modem Doubt and Christian Belief," by 
 ire ( hri tlieb, Prof* oi of Theology, Bonn University.
 
 97 
 
 remarkable. Sometimes it was accomplished at a single 
 sitting, and so thoroughly had he mastered both the 
 thought and the expression that after reading it over once 
 or twice he could repeat it almost verbatim. His taste 
 was particularly apparent in arranging the musical part of 
 the service, alike as regards the compositions chosen, and 
 the music to which the}' were sung. He bestowed special 
 attention on the preparation of his prayers, often writing 
 them in full, and committing them to memory. Before 
 going to the pulpit he usually spent some time alone. His 
 delivery was impressive, with gentle and graceful gesture, 
 without any attempt at display, and its effect was height- 
 ened by the serious face and the bright eye of the speaker, 
 carrying home the conviction of his earnest purpose and 
 great sense of responsibility. The thoughtfulness which 
 marked his discourses, the apt illustration which came 
 ready to his hand, and the chaste style in which his ideas 
 were clothed, showed that their author had carefully pre- 
 pared the matter and wisely chosen the manner of his 
 message. 
 
 Into the details of the work of his parish he heartily 
 entered. The four months of his last ministry show this. 
 In that short time he had thoroughly organized the work 
 of the church, and had just set the machinery in motion 
 when he was called away. His power of influencing the 
 younger part of his flock was remarkable, as was apparent 
 from the Bible Class which he successfully instituted, the 
 Young Men's Guild which he created, and the Sabbath 
 School which flourished under his superintendence in Bella- 
 houston. His pastoral work was a pleasure, not a task. 
 He delighted in visiting his people, and always returned 
 from this work gladdened by their kindly reception. A 
 frequent source of regret, to which he gave expression 
 among his friends, was the little, as he termed it, which he 
 was able to do. He felt keenly on the question of the lapsed 
 masses, and blamed the Churches for their shortcomings in 
 regard to these. Especially he regretted the practical 
 effect of the division of society into classes, whereby the
 
 98 
 
 poor and ill-clad are virtually excluded from attending the 
 ordinary diets of Church worship. The Church, to him, 
 was emphatically the home of the poor, and the exclusive- 
 ness of the wealthier classes in constituting Christian con- 
 gregations, from which their poorer brethren are virtually 
 kept out, greatly grieved him. In God's house he felt 
 there should be no difference. It was to him like " God's 
 Acre," the equal property of all without regard to wealth 
 or station.* 
 
 As may be gathered from what we have said, the mental 
 powers of Mr. Douglas were of no ordinary kind. His 
 memory was retentive. This power proved of great service 
 to him in his class examinations, which, as is well known, 
 depend greatly on the capacity of the student for repro- 
 ducing the lectures he has heard. For grouping and 
 forcibly presenting the points of an argument he was 
 noted, and in the University Dialectic Society he was 
 known as one of their readiest and best debaters. He had 
 a striking power of digesting and assimilating knowledge. 
 His mind was no mere storehouse in which knowledge lay 
 deposited, but an active plastic power which transformed 
 his acquisitions into a part of himself. His analytical 
 power, as might be expected from one so well read in 
 logic, was great, and to this gift might be ascribed the 
 fresh and felicitous arrangement of his discourses. Texts, 
 which the ordinary preacher would pass by as little sug- 
 gestive, would be seized and developed with telling results. 
 His power of argument enabled him to press his points 
 home, and though he liked not mere polemical display, 
 his sermons bear marks of the most careful reasoning. 
 
 His judgment was as accurate as his imagination was 
 rich. In private life this was well shown. The faculty to 
 
 A > illustrating his keen sense of common right and privilege in God's House, 
 an incident which occurred shortly before his death might he mentioned. One 
 v he observed, during public worship, in Bellahouston, a stranger standing 
 withoul a book while the congregation was singing a hymn, and coming down 
 from the pulpit he handed i" the \i itor his own. This becoming example he 
 el on another occasion in the same church.
 
 99 
 
 which we have before alluded of avoiding offence to others, 
 and the happy distinction of having no enemies, were largely 
 due to this gift. He could firmly stand to his principle and 
 yet succeed in retaining the goodwill of those who differed 
 from him. Where the diplomacy of others would fail, his 
 discretion would carry him through. His philosophical 
 excellence sprang from this trinity of gifts — memory, 
 imagination, and judgment, all of which he possessed 
 in remarkable measure. As might be expected, he showed 
 a keen appreciation of the shades of difference in the sig- 
 nificance of synonyms, and of words generally. Even in 
 conversation this was indicated, where often he would go 
 back on a sentence to substitute one expression for another 
 that seemed to his audience to serve the purpose well 
 enough, but which to him was lacking in exactness or 
 point. 
 
 Of Mr. Douglas' religious character it seems superfluous 
 to write. Yet we may be allowed to say that, however 
 excellent in intellect, it was in this that his life shone forth 
 most conspicuously. The simplicity of the Gospel had a 
 charm for him which no philosophical subtlety could rival ; 
 child-like in the openness of his nature, he was a happy 
 illustration of the Gospel condition of receiving the king- 
 dom of heaven like a little child. Strongly would he insist 
 on the need of not merely knowing Christ as presented to 
 us in the written Gospels, but of having Him treasured in 
 the heart, and of living Him in the life. To him Christianity 
 was a thing to be translated into action rather than dis- 
 cussed. The loud profession ever pained him, and his daily 
 walk and conversation made prominent the spirit, while 
 they exhibited the form of Christian faith. He would con- 
 secrate lengthened periods to private devotion. With him 
 it was a law, as indeed with every earnest Christian it must 
 ever be, to spend long seasons alone with his Master. His 
 heart was the home of charity. The love of Christ was not 
 to be selfishly enjoyed, but was regarded as a thing too 
 precious to be held back from others. Remarkable for the 
 absence of a censorious spirit, his custom, when anyone was
 
 100 
 
 blamed, was to suggest qualifications calculated to mitigate 
 if not excuse, and when that might not be done he would 
 exercise the chanty of silence. He felt that, while every 
 effort should be expended to uplift the fallen and reclaim 
 the outcast, the endeavour should be made in a spirit 
 conscious of our own weakness, and ever alive to the 
 sad possibility of our failure. Hence in his sermons there 
 is a marked absence of denunciation. He felt that the love 
 of Christ was the magnet by which the uplifted Son of 
 Man was to draw all men unto Him, yet he did not fail 
 when called to declare the truth concerning the sad alter- 
 native awaiting those who wilfully reject the Gospel. 
 
 Thus have we endeavoured to trace the character of one 
 whose memory will continue to flourish in the hearts of his 
 friends. More might have been said, and what has been 
 could have been said otherwise and better; but enough, we 
 hope, has been attempted to meet at least in some measure 
 the wishes of the many who will cherish this volume for 
 the sake of him who, though dead, yet speaketh. 
 
 "The path of Duty was the way to glory: 
 He, that ever following her commands, 
 On with toil of heart and knees and hands, 
 Thro' the long gorge to the far light, has won 
 His path upward, and prevail'd, 
 Shall find the toppling crags of Duty scaled 
 Are close upon the shining table-lands 
 To which our God Himself is Moon and Sun."
 
 101 
 
 POETRY, 
 
 THE PASSING OF THE YEAR. 
 
 Again another year has tied. 
 
 And numbered with the silent dead 
 
 The hours, which once we held our own ; 
 All that we prized as fond and dear, 
 Died with the slowly dying year — 
 
 The year is gone ! 
 
 Tolling for the dying year, 
 
 The bells were sounding loud and clear 
 
 Across the snow. 
 Like a dirge for the departed, 
 Like the songs of those who parted 
 
 Long, long ago. 
 
 Tis thus the thread of life runs out. 
 
 'Tis thus the long and madd'ning route— 
 
 The fear and pain — 
 Pass like a vision or a dream. 
 Float down the swiftly flowing stream 
 
 Toward the main. 
 
 Lost in Eternity*s great ocean, 
 
 Time's grievous turmoil and commotion 
 
 Sink down to rest ; 
 Like bubbles rising in the stream, 
 Like flitting fancies of a dream 
 
 Which once the soul distressed.
 
 102 
 
 PRAYER FOR LIGHT. 
 
 " Christ shall give thee light." — Eph. v. i4- 
 
 From darkness and distress, 
 From sorrow's thick'ning press, 
 
 We cry to Thee ! 
 Lord of all lovingness, 
 Pity our joylessness, 
 And from our wretchedness, 
 
 O ! set us free ! 
 
 Dark is the night, and cold ; 
 Far from Thy blessed fold. 
 
 Lord, we have strayed ! 
 O ! do Thou, Shepherd kind, 
 Temper the stormy wind, 
 Guide us Thy way to find, 
 
 Lend us Thine aid ! 
 
 Dark flows each little rill, 
 Gloomy the glade and hill 
 
 When sinks the sun ; 
 Darker our hearts, more chill, 
 Till Thy blest light doth fill, 
 Bright'ning our lives until 
 
 Day is begun ! 
 
 Sun of our souls, arise, 
 Dawn on our weeping eyes, 
 
 Glad'ning our sight ; 
 Fairer than summer skies 
 I'.hi ihing ;it sweet sunrise, 
 O, Thou, all good, all wise. 
 
 Grant us Thy light !
 
 L03 
 
 ON FINDING SOME INITIALS CUT IN THE 
 GRASS, O'ERGROWN SHORTLY AFTER- 
 WARDS. 
 
 Distinct upon the verdant grass 
 
 Initials fair appeared to view ; 
 Nor was it deemed they soon would pass, 
 
 But long to memory would be true. 
 
 But showers fell, and soft winds blew, 
 And sunshine sweet above them shed ; 
 
 Swiftly concealing grass up-grew— 
 No longer can the name be read ! 
 
 But other letters— names unknown — 
 Are traced upon the yielding sod, 
 
 Soon in their turn to be o'ergrown, 
 And by the heedless foot downtrod. 
 
 It needs no preacher to unfold 
 
 This parable, or rightly scan 
 How truly hath the tale been told— 
 
 How hollow are the hopes of man. 
 
 We trace our name upon the heart 
 Of loving friend, and hope he'll keep. 
 
 However long or far we part, 
 
 The name we deem we've carved so deep. 
 
 But sorrow's rain and joy's soft light 
 Will overcome the letters traced ; 
 
 And other names, with new delight 
 
 Are cherished, where ours first were placed. 
 
 So, too, we hope to write our name 
 
 On History's fair storied page 
 And trust to have bestowed, by fame. 
 
 An everlasting heritage.
 
 104 
 
 Tis vain ; we have not carved on stone, 
 But only on the yielding grass ; 
 
 And swiftly shall it be o'ergrown, 
 Ere even a few short years can pass. 
 
 To earth our fleeting names can't cling ; 
 
 As well, when Summer days are fled, 
 Ask her from out her store to bring 
 
 The flowers the early Spring had shed. 
 
 A BROWN STUDY IX THE DIVINITY CLASS- 
 ROOM. 
 
 Ah, me ! what changes time will bring 
 Ere twenty summers come and go, 
 
 And hearts, that now arc light as spring. 
 Be heavy as the snow ! 
 
 What glorious visions have we now ! 
 
 What triumphs in the future lie ! 
 But then we'll bear the wrinkled brow 
 
 And sadly sobered eye. 
 
 Some few may gain the petty height 
 They deem a huge Olympic hill ; 
 
 No fairy-land will greet their sight, 
 But all be tame and still. 
 
 The crowded church, the local fame, 
 
 The learned ease, the cosy life: 
 These some ma)- reach, but all the same, 
 
 Fruitless will seem the strife. 
 
 Yet most will miss this tinsel prize, 
 And draw what seems a sorry blank ; 
 
 No crowd to admire with upturned eyes, 
 No buzz of wealth and rank.
 
 105 
 
 But some poor charge, obscure and lone, 
 And life — a rather humdrum thing — 
 
 'Mid round of petty cares be thrown 
 From Summer on to Spring. 
 
 Yet, could we see what then we'll be, 
 What wiser would it make us now ? 
 
 It could not make our soul more free, 
 Or more uncloud our brow. 
 
 Whate'er come, then, enough we know ; 
 
 For now, at least, 'tis pleasant weather 
 Then cheerily on our way let's go. 
 
 Right cheerily together. 
 
 AN EPITAPH. 
 
 He did no deed, he sang no song of fame, 
 He merely kept unstained a humble name ; 
 Yet, all unmarked, this rustic grave holds here 
 A man, to his few friends, perchance, more dear 
 Than theirs to them who raise the splendid column 
 And mourn their dead with every rite most solemn. 
 
 THE SAILOR'S GRAVE. 
 
 On the landward edge of the beach, Lochranza, a sailor is buried, with 
 one of the large stones of the shore to mark the spot. 
 
 Lone dweller in this seaside grave, 
 
 It seems not all a fate unblest 
 That here, beside the beating wave. 
 
 Laid thee in Death to rest. 
 
 For thou wert of the sea, her song 
 Was household music to thine ear; 
 
 Spite of the storms you braved so long 
 She moved you more with love than fear.
 
 106 
 
 And now in Death thou licst here, 
 
 Where the sea breaks the livelong day, 
 
 And the rude stone that marks thy bid- 
 Is wet with salt sea spray. 
 
 A NEW YEAR. 
 
 Look on the worst that years' mischance may bring thee- 
 Pain, sickness, sorrow, death of all you love ; 
 
 Call up each fear, whose spectre form doth fling thee 
 To weak complaining, like the timid dove, 
 Then say, all these my soul I raise above ; 
 
 I shall not stoop my head to craven fear, 
 Come even what will, I only go to prove 
 
 What men have faced before, without a tear. 
 Who knows the worst is ready for it all, 
 
 Who bravely meets his foe doth victor stand ; 
 Or in the contest, if he vanquished fall, 
 
 He passes painless to the happy land, 
 
 Where all the brave and true have entrance given 
 To truer worth, and nobler life of heaven. 
 
 THE PEACE OF DEATH. 
 
 O Death, though all men dread thee, 
 
 And shrink from thy icy hand, 
 Though never a wish hath led thee, 
 
 I i'h for thy shadowy land ; 
 Where the noontide is as the night is, 
 
 Nor ever a flower blows, 
 And never a song of delight is, 
 
 Put a dreamless, unbroken repose.
 
 107 
 
 All pale are the cheeks of thy sleepers, 
 
 But they turn not, and start not, or fret, 
 And who of their memory arc keepers, 
 
 And who even their name doth forget, 
 They ask not, they care not, they're quiet 
 
 From love, or from hate, peace, or strife- 
 Trie uneasy passions that riot 
 
 In those that are prisoned in life. 
 
 Oh free blows the wind o'er the grasses, 
 
 And fair are the flowers on the grave, 
 And the sunshine and shadow still passes ; 
 
 But darkness not brightness they crave ; 
 For they rest from the strife and the fever, 
 
 The care and the sorrow of breath, 
 And calmness shall clasp them for ever, 
 
 At rest in the Kingdom of Death ! 
 
 A REVERIE. 
 
 O would I had the power divine 
 In words so sweetly sad to flow, 
 
 That weary souls who hopeless pine, 
 My song might ease of half their woe ! 
 
 O would I had the poet's skill 
 
 To touch the secret source of tears, 
 
 Or sing a song, wherewith to fill 
 With gladness all the coming years ! 
 
 'Twas thus I mused as, lorn and sad, 
 I wandered up the woodland way, 
 
 And all the neighbouring wood was glad 
 With birds full-throated in the May:
 
 108 
 
 And all the flowering way was spread 
 With many a blossom fair and sweet, 
 
 Though few the feet that by them tread, 
 And careless all the eyes that greet. 
 
 Ah, soul, why idly thirst for fame, 
 Why yearn to sing a noisy song ? 
 
 The poet's crown how few may claim, 
 For life how brief! and art, how long! 
 
 But if, indeed, to thee some spark 
 Of poet-feeling hath been given, 
 
 If lay of thrush, or hymn of lark- 
 Can raise thee, listening, nigh to heaven; 
 
 If woods, or clouds, or wayside flower — 
 The blue-eyed speedwell in the May — 
 
 Hath o'er thy spirit such a power, 
 Its gloomy thought to charm away; 
 
 Then sing thy song, and dream thy dream, 
 And care not who thy verse may praise, 
 
 And be not sad, though critics deem 
 All poor and impotent thy lays. 
 
 Enough, thou know'st the world is fair, 
 And nature lov'st as mother dear; 
 
 Enough that even till whit'ning hair 
 Her child thou art, her son sincere. 
 
 TO THE IMAGINATION. 
 
 Power divine! in dullest days, 
 
 When friends arc few, the few cold-hearted, 
 When from out life's weary ways 
 
 Light and son", have both departed,
 
 10'J 
 
 Ah ! how sweet with thee to wander 
 
 In a land for ever bright ; 
 Ah ! how blest with thee to ponder 
 
 Over scenes that know not blight. 
 
 Memory brings but sad annoyance, 
 
 Friends that failed us, love grown cold, 
 Even when dawned the days of joyance, 
 
 Ah, how soon their bliss was told ! 
 But with thee joys live for ever ; 
 
 To thy lofty palace towers 
 Cometh grief and treason never — 
 
 What once we gain, is ever ours. 
 
 TO A BIRD. 
 
 (On seeing one from the window of the Hebrew Class-room. 
 
 O bird that wing'st thy happy flight 
 Through skies so blue and clear, 
 
 Would I could share thy glad delight ! 
 For I am prisoned here 
 
 Where words of weary learning flow ; 
 
 Yet, after all, what do we know ? 
 
 Thou know'st the sky is fair at morn, 
 
 When glows the rosy east ; 
 Thou never bear'st a heart forlorn ; 
 
 Thy happy life has ceased 
 Ere care for future, thought of past 
 Can o'er thy soul its shadow cast. 
 
 TO A FRIEND GOING ABROAD. 
 
 The years fly in, the years fly out. 
 The varied seasons come and go. 
 
 And days and weeks in headlong rout. 
 Time's gifts or grudgings show.
 
 110 
 
 My garden's sweets are freely shed, 
 The hawthorn tree its blossom shows ; 
 
 Anon, all flowering joys are sped, 
 The hawthorn's white with snows. 
 
 And so, dear friend, time says we part, 
 Who met some merry years ago ; 
 
 But still we'll keep the constant heart, 
 Though time may come and go. 
 
 He takes the weakest things he lent — 
 The song, the jest, the jovial feast ; 
 
 But loves, with life itself are blent, 
 He cannot touch the least. 
 
 Full soon strange skies will o'er you spread, 
 And ocean's length between us roll ; 
 
 Distance makes not old memories dead, 
 Nor ebbs nor flows the soul. 
 
 Farewell, and be yours peaceful days ! 
 
 Good-bye, God be thy constant guide ! 
 And so, whatever sport time plays, 
 
 His worst we may abide. 
 
 "PUT ON THE WHOLE ARMOUR OF GOD." 
 
 Soldier of Christ, the armour take 
 
 Which God himself hath given to thee; 
 
 Sleep not, for still thy focmen wake, 
 And long the strife till victory. 
 
 Bind truth around thee; sternly true 
 Be every word, and thought, and deed; 
 
 Strive nobly still the right to do; 
 Pure be thy life, as pure thy creed.
 
 Ill 
 
 Where want and woe and vice abound 
 Be thine to help, to bless, to raise; 
 
 Swift be thy feet on such work bound, 
 And goodness crowd thy busy days, 
 
 Keep faith unmoved, though doubts assail, 
 Trust God, and every cloud shall fly; 
 
 Bright be thy hope, though all else fail, 
 His promise God will justify. 
 
 Let God's true Word ne'er from thee go, 
 But keep thy life, thy memory fill, 
 
 That sword shall pierce with one quick blow, 
 The countless hosts of baffling ill. 
 
 Watch still, and pray, nor ever tire ; 
 
 Keep lowly heart, and gentle speech ; 
 Christ guards thee in the hottest fire, 
 
 No foeman's dart thy life can reach. 
 
 Brother, put on and ever wear 
 
 God's armour for life's battle-field ; 
 
 Guarded by love and faith and prayer, 
 To sin and shame thou can'st not yield. 
 
 "TO LIVE IS CHRIST." 
 
 Oh ! brave and noble words ! well worthy Him 
 Who met unmoved the shipwreck and the storm, 
 
 Who faced the cruel mob, the tyrant's whim, 
 A hero heart within a feeble form. 
 
 " For me to live is Christ," thy watchword given. 
 
 Proved through the stress of well-nigh thirty years, 
 Through exile, sickness, wandering, torture driven, 
 
 The world to thee a pilgrimage of tears.
 
 112 
 
 And well they wore it, noble hearts and true, 
 Heroes and saints of God in every land, 
 
 Unmoved by pain or scorn, who sought to do 
 The work that God entrusted to their hand ! 
 
 The years have fled, they slumber in the dust, 
 
 Their souls have passed beyond this earthly strife ; 
 
 But their brave watchword now is given in trust 
 For those who hold from God their place in life. 
 
 Oh brothers ! life's too noble to be spent 
 In self and sin and pleasure's weary quest, 
 
 Our life is God's, to Him let it be sent, 
 
 In all fair deeds and Christ-like virtues drest; 
 
 Our life-long motto guarding us from shame, 
 
 Filling our souls with light, our homes with peace ; 
 
 Let it be still, oh Christ, Thy sacred name, 
 Till in our turn we too from warfare cease. 
 
 "TO DIE IS GAIN." 
 
 As in some grand cathedral, when the sound 
 Of deep-voiced organ peals in music loud, 
 
 All lower thoughts in that sweet sea arc drowned, 
 Unearthly hopes upon our fancy crowd. 
 
 The world seems far away and dulling cares 
 
 Xo more upon our rising spirits press. 
 High as the music soars, our vision fares 
 
 Till joy seemed almost pain in its excess. 
 
 So fall thy words in music on our ears, 
 
 Oh saint of God ! oh hero brave and pure ! 
 
 Who through the earthward slow-revolving years. 
 Long in God's Heaven hast found this promise sure.
 
 n:; 
 
 To die, how hard ! and leave the sunny earth, 
 
 The song of birds, the flowers, and woodland sweet. 
 
 The child's pure face, the happy school-boy's mirth — 
 Ah ! we must turn from these with heavy feet. 
 
 With heavier heart the joys of home forego, 
 Look sad farewells on faces loved as life ; 
 
 Oh who this bitterness but shuns to know, 
 This awful hour with every sorrow rife. 
 
 Yet what if all this loss but seeming be, 
 And it be only gain that comes in death, 
 
 If naught pass from us but our misery, 
 
 And stilled alone the sadly labouring breath ! 
 
 If still the earth be loved, but fairer known, 
 And all remembered of our mortal years, 
 
 Only our visions purer, clearer grown, 
 We see the gain in loss, the joy in tears. 
 
 If all the life-long loves be with us still, 
 But purified from earthly doubt and dross, 
 
 In truer faith and nobler wish and will, 
 
 We'll learn, oh Death ! thy name is gain, not loss. 
 
 "THE TIME IS SHORT." 
 
 Oh strong young soul, rising in high desire 
 
 To mingle in the strife, 
 And through the midst of battle-dust and fire 
 
 To win the Perfect Life, 
 Gird on thy sword and speed thee to the fray, 
 
 Though man}' be the foe; 
 "Short is the Time" till those who watch and pray 
 
 God's triumph-song shall know. 
 
 Mourner, whose feet the churchyard gate have passed 
 Leaving thy loved dead, 
 
 H
 
 114 
 
 At the lone days before art thou aghast 
 
 Now love and hope are fled ? 
 Hear the birds singing on the lifeless bough 
 
 This still unsorrowing song — 
 Short is the time, though all be winter now, 
 
 God's summer comes ere long. 
 
 Bending beneath life's bitter cross of care, 
 
 Hating the weary days, 
 Oh! doubting, hopeless heart, learn this glad air, 
 
 And turn thy plaint to praise. 
 What though the way be long, the song-birds fled, 
 
 The sky a cheerless grey, 
 Short is the time till stoops the resting head 
 
 To rise in God's bright day. 
 
 As they who watch in darkness for the day, 
 
 As children 'mid their tears, 
 So the swift hours, unknowing of delay, 
 
 Drag heavy with our fears ; 
 But from God's holy place this whisper low 
 
 Comes with its breath of peace — 
 Short is the time till all your earth-born woe 
 
 In God's sweet home shall cease. 
 
 THE VISION OF JACOB. 
 
 He passed from out his home, his father's tent; 
 
 His mother's smile for years he should not see; 
 Alone, with staff in hand he fared, till spent 
 
 The hours of light, and faint his energy. 
 
 He sank to rest, with heaven to roof him in. 
 Thick set with stars, and sleep upon him stole; 
 
 Yet ne'er ma)' waking eyes tin- glory win 
 That filled with awe sublime his seeing soul.
 
 11 r> 
 
 In glorious trance he saw the rocky way 
 Raised as a golden stairway high to heaven, 
 
 And thronging bright, from where he sleeping lay, 
 God's angels go and come on service given. 
 
 Lord, as we lay us down on life's hard road, 
 With sorrow spent and weary with the way, 
 
 When, friendless all, Time's ever weary load 
 
 Has changed the morning light to evening grey: 
 
 When life is but a rocky desert bare, 
 
 And sleep is all the comfort we can hope, 
 
 Then do Thou send Thy glorious vision there, 
 And turn to heavenly ways the mountain slope. 
 
 Open our eyes to see Thy glory shine, 
 
 Filling with God-like grace life's common way ; 
 
 Thy angels, with their messages divine, 
 
 Though changing, let them ever with us stay. 
 
 SONNET. 
 
 Written shortly after the death of Principal Tulloch. 
 
 If gold doth rust, what, then, should iron do?" 
 
 So spake our earliest singer long ago 
 In that great song, where for all time he drew 
 
 This noble priest who Christ's own life did show. 
 And sore we need his words ; for, to our woe 
 
 And lasting shame, even in these later days 
 God's Church is all with party strife aglow, 
 
 Faction's fierce tongue brawling in all her ways. 
 The scholar's calm, the catholic temper sweet, 
 
 The loving eyes that see the good in all, 
 How seldom in the temple's court we greet : 
 
 Sooner we'd find them where the traders brawl. 
 And now our later Lcighton's head is low — 
 
 Tulloch, with thee what wide, wise thought did go!
 
 116 
 SONNET. 
 
 OUR .MEMORIAL. 
 
 "Wherever this gospel may be preached in the whole world, there also 
 ?hall this be told, for a memorial." — Matt. xxvi. ij. 
 
 " They dream't not of a perishable home 
 
 Who could thus build." So spake our poet wise,* 
 As overhead and far as eye could roam 
 
 He saw the splendid arch and column rise 
 Of some cathedral, which dead ages reared. 
 
 But we, alas, shall never leave behind 
 Such fair memorial of our faith revered, 
 
 By no such deathless work be borne in mind! 
 O dull of soul, even to the least is given 
 
 The power to build what Time can ne'er destroy ; 
 Not churches raising high their spires to heaven, 
 
 But deeds of kindness, gifts of purest joy; 
 And these through all the years unmoved shall stand — 
 
 A great rock's shadow in a weary land. 
 
 ' ; Wordsworth. 
 
 THE CATHEDRAL. 
 
 If these should hold their peace, the stones would cry out. 
 
 Spake the porch — With arms extended 
 
 Call I all to enter in, 
 For God's house is wide and spacious, 
 
 And, than years in haunts of sin, 
 Sweeter far an hour, when ended, 
 
 Spent its holy gates within. 
 
 Spake the nave — With lofty arches 
 Upward thus I've nobly striven ;
 
 117 
 
 So in life, as on it marches, 
 To the soul is oft'time given, 
 
 Through a gateway small and lowly, 
 Entrance into highest heaven. 
 
 Spake the windows — Saint and martyr, 
 Prophet, angel, here we stand. 
 
 Deem not, then, ye wander lonely, 
 Evermore a shining band 
 
 Watch you, and will leave you only 
 When you clasp the Master's hand. 
 
 Spake the spire — With cross uplifted 
 Here I stand from day to day, 
 
 Clouds and darkness round me drifted, 
 Hang awhile, then pass away. 
 
 So, brave soul, thy cross upbearing, 
 Soon will dawn thy crowning day ! 
 
 "REJOICE!" 
 
 Philippians iv. 4. 
 
 '• While there is light in the air and birds are singing I shall walk forth this 
 earth with a glad and joyous heart ! " — (From the last speech of the late Rev. 
 Dr. Norman Macleod.) 
 
 Still in mine ear these noble words are ringing, 
 Soothing my soul with more than. music's art — 
 
 While light is in the air and birds are singing 
 I'll walk this earth with glad and joyous heart. 
 
 What though awhile in darkness v/e may wander 
 Where crowded cities shut out God's fair sky, 
 
 Still, we in thought see fields of light out yonder 
 Where oft' the lark his carol sings on high.
 
 118 
 
 What though awhile our path seem sad and lonely, 
 And sorrow's cup be filled e'en to the brim ! 
 
 Hope on, faint heart ! His way is goodness only ! 
 Is not thy pathway all alight with Him ? 
 
 Why would'st thou weave life's web of sombre colour ? 
 
 Why would'st thou still to mourning tune thy voice? 
 See! oft a bright thread lights that pattern duller! 
 
 List ! all creation calls thee to rejoice ! 
 
 God's way is light! God's will is holy gladness ! 
 
 Clouds are earth-born, they cling not to His heaven ; 
 Rise o'er thy grief, repining is but madness ! 
 
 Take thou the joy that to thy heart is given !
 
 119 
 
 SERMONS. 
 
 CHILDREN OF LIGHT. 
 
 " Walk as children of light." —Ephesiam v. 8. 
 
 THE possession of a certain character is always a call to 
 duty. It is this which is perhaps the sole advantage in the 
 inheritance of a noble name and in belonging to an ancient 
 family, that where there is any moral susceptibility at all 
 it lends an additional stimulus to noble conduct, and may 
 lead a man to shrink from vices as not only degrading to 
 himself, but as dishonouring the memory of illustrious an- 
 cestors. It is the same influence which the affection of 
 patriotism ought to have upon us. Where there is a deep 
 love of country, and a knowledge of the heroic events and 
 struggles of the past, a man feels that he possesses a larger 
 life than his own, and realizes that any deed of dishonour 
 not only disgraces himself, but casts a blot on the fair fame 
 of his native land. 
 
 Again, there arc certain professions which, in virtue of 
 belonging to them, make an appeal to men to uphold a 
 certain character. And here the appeal is even stronger 
 than in the former case. For when a man acts in a manner 
 unworthy the name he bears, or the country to which he 
 belongs, we feel, indeed, that he has dishonoured more than 
 himself; but still, as he could not choose to what family 
 he should belong, or what country he should call fatherland. 
 we regard it as a lesser degree of guilt, as a case in which 
 a man has failed to rise to the call made upon him by
 
 120 
 
 others, not one in which he has been deliberately false to 
 a vow made by himself. And so we regard it as a far 
 deeper crime when a man has been untrue to the standard 
 of a calling he has voluntarily adopted. When we find a 
 soldier displaying cowardice, when we find a judge accept- 
 ing bribes, when we find a teacher fostering ignorance, 
 or a clergyman encouraging impiety, we not only revolt 
 as at things in themselves evil, but we have a kind of 
 moral horror that men should fail in that which it was the 
 deliberate choice of their life to uphold. 
 
 Or again, when men have been admitted to the intimate 
 companionship of a master-mind, advanced to the closest 
 intimacy, sharing his daily thoughts, we look that the char- 
 acter of the master should be repeated in the disciple, and 
 that, if he cannot equal his master's genius, he should at 
 least follow it, and that when death causes his teacher and 
 friend to let fall the pencil or pen, if he cannot wield them 
 with a like power, he must never turn them into hostile 
 weapons, to sully his master's fame and spoil his master's 
 work. But when it has been otherwise, when the chosen 
 disciple not only sets himself in antagonism to his master, 
 but to his master's life-work, and tries to undo and cast 
 down all that his master has sought through laborious years 
 to upbuild, we feel that we have reached the deepest moral 
 degradation — for it is not the mere life of his master he is 
 assailing, but that which is the very life of his life — and he 
 is untrue, not, as in the former cases, to a relationship he 
 did not himself choose, nor to the general and abstract 
 traditions of a profession, but to a personal example and 
 love, of which, for years, he had been the chosen and 
 favoured recipient. 
 
 Now, my brethren, in all these cases I have supposed 
 a certain duty follows in tin: possession of a certain charac- 
 ter; that is, the mere relationship gives rise to the duty, 
 and is, in itself, an inspiring call to it. And such a relation- 
 ship the- text assures us we bear, and the appeal it makes 
 to us is based on the possession of such a character. Wc 
 are to let our light shim: before men that they may see our
 
 good works, and so glorify our Father in Heaven. This 
 character involves all the three relationships which I have 
 used as illustrations. 
 
 In the first place, my brethren, we are "children of light" 
 in virtue of our Christian birth and training. As men by 
 birth are made members of a noble family, or natives of a 
 famous country, we were all born into the Christian Church. 
 In our unconscious infancy we were signed and scaled as 
 Christ's in our baptism, and around our earliest years were 
 shed the blessed influences of a Christian home. The great 
 truths of Christianity were ours as soon as our dawning 
 reason could grasp them. With our maturer years we 
 learned these doctrines for ourselves, but we can no more 
 go back to a time when they were not in some measure our 
 own, than we can recall a time when we first consciously 
 learned to love our parents. 
 
 Everyone who has received a Christian training is, in this 
 sense, a " child of light." If he lead a sinful life, he cannot 
 do so lightly — for he must sin against light ; and just as the 
 stronger the light is, the deeper is the shadow which it 
 throws, so the clearer the light of Christian teaching has 
 been, our sin is the blacker. 
 
 But we arc " children of light " in virtue, also, of our 
 voluntary profession. We arc not merely Christians by 
 our birth, we are so by personal choice. We are members 
 of the church no longer by parental constraint, but of our 
 own will — for we have deliberately renewed our Christian 
 vows again and again at the Sacrament. 
 
 This, my brethren, as it implies a deeper profession, im- 
 plies a heavier responsibility and a more urgent call. They 
 are greatly to blame, indeed, who refrain from coming to the 
 communion service of Christ, from the idea that it saxes 
 them from a deeper vow, and so gives them a larger license 
 to sin. For they are wrong altogether in their idea that 
 they thereby escape being members of the church. They 
 wcre made such in their baptism, when, by the hands of 
 their parents, and in the presence of the Church of God, 
 they were dedicated to a life-long service of Christ. I do
 
 122 
 
 not say how cowardly it is to refuse to renew that vow, and 
 that it is already giving the battle to the enemy thus to 
 secure the retreat beforehand. But, in place of incurring 
 less guilt, they are deliberately heaping on themselves more, 
 for they arc consciously disobeying a command of God, 
 and neglecting what Christ has given as an especial means 
 of grace, not from any modesty or humility of self-distrust, 
 but in order that they may have, as they fancy, a greater 
 freedom to gratify their evil lusts. 
 
 But while they lessen no responsibility who wilfully and 
 wantonly abstain from renewing their Christian vows, yet it 
 is none the less true that those who thus renew them are 
 taking upon them a deeper profession. They are volun- 
 tarily adopting as their own the Christian character and 
 aim; and if their lives are not accordant with that, we must 
 pass on them the same condemnation as we award to a 
 soldier who is a coward, or to a judge who is unjust. 
 
 But we are — at least I should fain hope we all are — 
 " children of light," not only as regards outward privilege and 
 profession, but in the sense that we have shared in personal 
 communion with Him who is the " Light of the World." 
 At least at times in our life surely there has come to all of 
 us that reviving breath of the Spirit of God when Christ 
 has been to us, not one whom we see in the distant past 
 through the mist of the centuries, or away in the far-off 
 heavens where our faith can scarcely carry us, but He has 
 been so real to us that all earthly things have been dim 
 beside Him, and we have lived and talked with Him as 
 truly as the disciples did on the Galilean shore, or in the 
 home at Bethany. 
 
 Now the Communion with Christ, as it admits us to 
 a higher privilege, entails on us a heavier responsibility. 
 Who is the man on whom the whole Christian world 
 looks with the utmost loathing? It is neither Caiaphas 
 who plotted the death of Christ, nor Pilate who authorized 
 it, nor the soldiers who accomplished it, though legally, 
 theirs was the greatest guilt; but it is Judas, who, admit- 
 ted to the closest communion with his Master, chosen as
 
 123 
 
 one of his constant companions, receiving His daily solici- 
 tude and love, could prove deaf to every call to loyalty 
 and devotion, and wantonly betray Him. 
 
 We, too, have often shared Christ's Communion, as you, 
 my brethren, have so lately done ; but the unwatchful 
 disciple may still go from receiving the bread and wine 
 from the very hand of Christ, only again to betray Him to 
 His enemies, who may crucify his Lord afresh. May God 
 avert from us all this shameful guilt, that we may never 
 know the burning remorse of the betrayer of Christ, nor 
 share his lasting infamy ! 
 
 But now, my brethren, suppose, to revert to our former 
 illustration, a man is in danger of acting a part unworthy 
 the character and position he bears, is not one of the best 
 ways of recalling him to his duty simply that of reminding 
 him of all that is involved in his character? It is so that 
 on many a battle-field, the mere name of the family or 
 country to which the soldiers belonged has been the most 
 inspiring of all war-cries, because it came to them laden 
 with the memories of the past, and reminding them of the 
 bravery they must show, if they would be worthy the name 
 they bore. And so, my brethren, if we seek to grasp all that 
 is involved in the character and title we bear of "children of 
 light," it may help us to rise to a higher life, and to " let 
 our light shine before men, that they may glorify our 
 Father in Heaven." 
 
 First, then, as " children of light," we must let our light 
 shine before men by being hopeful and cheerful. Light, 
 seems to have an instinctive effect in raising men to more 
 happy and hopeful thoughts, and many can trace an alter- 
 nation of their spirits, according as the day is dark or 
 bright. 
 
 Were it possible for us to exist in a world where there 
 was no light — in such an one as Milton has described in 
 his famous poem — even if everything else were to remain 
 the same, all the joy and hope would be crushed out of 
 existence. A writer of the present day tells us that he 
 once allowed himself to be shut up in a dark cell, in order
 
 124 
 
 to try what the effect of it was upon prisoners, and though 
 he knew he was only to be in it for a very brief time, and 
 had no sense of crime to oppress him, yet it plunged him 
 at once into the most dreadful despair, and he never was so 
 glad as when his self-imposed task was ended, and he once 
 more beheld the light. Now, my brethren, we are " children 
 of light," because Christianity has taken away all possible 
 darkness from life by the assurance it brings us of God's 
 unfailing love and Christ's protecting care. It has assured 
 us that everything happens to us under God's Providence, 
 and that that Providence can never send us anything really 
 evil. Trouble may come upon us, but it is but a passing 
 and temporary discipline which will issue in a higher good 
 Death itself is no evil, since it cannot touch our true life, 
 nor really separate us from those we love. Not only we 
 ourselves, but the whole world is the object of God's love, 
 and all things are moving on to the end when God shall be 
 all in all. 
 
 Now, my brethren, if this is the light which Christ sheds 
 on us _and I have said nothing which all Christians do not 
 acknowledge — we ought never to be otherwise than full of 
 cheerfulness and hope. I know it is only too common to 
 speak of religion as inducing gloom, and I will not deny 
 that there is a kind of religion which may plunge a man 
 into morbid melancholy, if it docs not consign him to the 
 madman's cell. But I would no more allow such fanaticism 
 to be Christianity than I would allow the flaring light of a 
 furnace to be the life-giving light of the sun. The former 
 is like the beacon-fire on a hill, dispelling the darkness only 
 with an uncertain and flickering light, and filling men's 
 hearts with fear; but Christianity is like the morning sun, 
 that without noise or bustle dispels ever}- shadow of dark- 
 ness, and awakens man to the cheerful task of his morning's 
 labour. 1 repeat, then, my brethren, that we are to let our 
 light shine before men, by walking in cheerfulness and 
 hope. 
 
 But again, if we are to let our light shine before men, we 
 must walk in purity. Even material light seems in some
 
 125 
 
 strange way to have a power for goodness in the world, so 
 that men shrink from doing in the blaze of day, what they 
 feel no remorse to perform in the dark of night. Darkness 
 and night are the congenial time CI had almost said the 
 necessary condition) of evil deeds. The daylight is the 
 time for honest work, or for peaceful thought in the sunlit 
 fields; but night and darkness summon the aliens of 
 society to their work of crime, and rouse the evil passions 
 to revel and debauchery. 
 
 But, my brethren, as it is said of Heaven, that " there is 
 no night there," so the light of the Christian life on earth 
 never sets. As "children of light" no hours of darkness 
 must come to rouse the evil passions of our souls. We 
 may be surprised into momentary sins — and every day, as 
 it closes, we should feel that we have failed and come short ; 
 but we shame our character, if evil ever becomes a habit of 
 our soul. My brethren, let us examine ourselves, and see 
 how far we are true to the character we bear. As every 
 clay you throw open the windows, that the health-giving 
 sunlight may flood every corner of your house, so we are 
 not true " children of light," unless we seek to let the truth 
 of Christ shine into every corner of our soul. 
 
 I think it was related of some one who was accused of 
 plotting treason, that he built his house of glass as^ a 
 challenge to his accusers, and as a token that he had nothing 
 to conceal. And as " children of light," we must make 
 our life transparently good. We must have no darkened 
 chambers in our house, no secret sins in our souls. A light 
 that is placed in a lantern, the glass of which is so dimmed 
 and dusty that it can scarcely transmit the rays, is of no use 
 to anyone ; we can say, " the light is there," but we cannot 
 say " it gives light." And a Christian who cherishes any 
 sinful habit, is such a useless light; for one evil habit will 
 make quite ineffectual the goodness of an entire life. As 
 "children of light," then, we must seek to walk in purity. 
 
 But, again, we can only be faithful to this character by 
 "walking in truth." "I have no greater joy than to hear 
 that my children walk in truth;'' so writes the "beloved
 
 126 
 
 disciple " in one of his latest epistles, and so we believe our 
 Lord Himself would have spoken. 
 
 When the Persians were at the height of their glory, it 
 was said that they owed their greatness to the education 
 they gave their youths, and that consisted of three things 
 " to ride on horseback-, to shoot with the bow, and to speak 
 the truth." I know not whether it may be still so, but this 
 was long the boast of our own nation, and of one of our 
 great heroes it has been sung — 
 
 •• He never sold the truth to serve the hour, 
 
 Nor paltered with Eternal Cod for power." 
 " Truth-teller was our England's Alfred named ; 
 
 Truth-lover was our English Duke. 
 
 Whatever record leap to light. 
 
 He never shall be shamed." 
 
 When one is walking in darkness he can see nothing of 
 anything around him ; when one is walking in mist he can, 
 indeed, see, but everything looks different from what it 
 really is ; but full and clear sunlight shows us the exact 
 position and character of all around us. And as " children 
 of light " we must neither be like the darkness which hides 
 nor like the mist which distorts, but like the sun which 
 reveals things as they are. 
 
 But this duty of truth refers to more than the mere 
 words we utter ; for it may be said that no one can tell 
 the truth who does not also live it. Nay, I think you will 
 find, my brethren, that any vicious habit, any falsehood 
 that is in our action or life, will sooner or later force a man 
 to falsehood in speech. 
 
 But to i: let our light shine before men," we must not 
 only speak the truth and try to live it, but we must delight 
 in all truth and seek after it, for truth is our light. 
 
 It is strange how birds and flowers not only need the 
 light, but seek after it, and delight in it. If you put a 
 flower in a dark cellar, where the Light comes feebly 
 through a chink in one side of the wall, you will find that 
 the flower begins to grow towards that spot, and will twist
 
 L27 
 
 and distort itself to reach it. And so, I am told, in winter 
 time you will see the birds gathered at sunrise on the 
 eastern side of the hill, that they may sooner hail the dawn. 
 And if we are true "children of light," like the birds and 
 the flowers, we shall strive after all truth and all knowledge. 
 Above all, we shall seek to know ourselves as we really 
 are — our faults and our failings; and we shall delight in all 
 we can learn about God, and about the world He has made. 
 
 But again, to " let our light shine before men,'' we must 
 do good to others, and that without ostentation. Life on 
 earth depends on many different conditions, but there are 
 two especial requisites — light and air. Take either of these 
 away, and all life would die. Hut light is, above all, the 
 most important. Without it, all growth would cease, no 
 breezes would blow, no water would run. Yet though it 
 does most good, it is the quietest thing in the world. The 
 air murmurs even in the gentlest breeze, the water may be 
 heard flowing even in the stillest river; but sunlight, though 
 scientific men tell us it, too, flows in waves, makes not the 
 smallest sound. A spect of dust causes intense pain to the 
 eye, yet millions of particles of light can touch it without 
 the least discomfort. And when we think of the immense 
 rapidity of light, for it travels some millions of miles in a 
 second, its absolute quietness strikes us with amazement. 
 Now we must imitate the light in not only doing good to 
 others, but in doing it quietly, it is Christ's own law. " Let 
 not thy left hand know what thy right hand docth." The 
 " children of light " must be unostentatiously kind and good. 
 
 I shall only refer to one other characteristic of light, 
 which must be repeated in the children of it: it is its 
 universally beautifying influence. You all know that the 
 beaut}- of the world around us not only is revealed by the 
 light, but is actually created by it. The bright and beauti- 
 ful colour of any object, is simply owing to the quality of 
 light it absorbs; and what we call the colour of the object, 
 is simply the light it retains. But the highest kind of 
 beauty we know — the beauty of a landscape, is simply the 
 creation of light. The gleaming of the waters, the shadows
 
 128 
 
 on the hills, the tints of the clouds, which unite to form a 
 glorious picture to the eye, these are simply due to the 
 light; and the poet is as scientifically as he is poetically 
 true, when, in his hymn to Light, he says: — 
 
 " Thy nimble pencil paints the landscape as thou goest." 
 
 But not only does light make lovely, things which in 
 themselves are really so, but, as a great writer has said, 
 there is no object so foul that intense light will not make 
 beautiful. On a day of brilliant sunshine, you may see the 
 muddy pools on the roadway gleaming in gold, and the 
 full moon can throw a halo of softened splendour on the 
 most commonplace scene. 
 
 Now, as " children of light." we must spread around us 
 moral beauty; we must bring out the good that is in others, 
 not the evil. It is strange, the different estimate of the 
 people around them that two persons will form. One will 
 find hardly anything but good, another will find hardly 
 anything but evil. And we say, " Oh, it is because the one 
 is too slack in his estimate, and the other is too severe." 
 But has it never struck you that the explanation may be 
 quite different, and that both may be quite correct in their 
 estimate; but the one has had the power of evoking only 
 the evil, and the other only the good, that is in others? 
 
 However that may be, we, my brethren, must bring out 
 all around us moral beauty and loveliness. We shall not 
 fail to do so if we simply exercise the silent power for good- 
 ness which belongs to every " child of light." Hope and 
 expect the best things from others, and you will bring out 
 the best; and do not speak so much words of fault-finding, 
 but let the silent influence of your life be the best rebuke 
 to evil. And let this influence for goodness, this true love 
 to others, flow out to all, just as the sun shines as gladly on 
 the dusty city-lane as on the sweet hillside, and enters as 
 brightly the lonely garret as he does the palace garden. 
 
 And, as a great writer has said, that the true test of a 
 cultivated man, is that you could not exchange words with 
 him when taking refuge from a shower together, without
 
 I 29 
 
 seeing that he is a man of culture, so, my brethren, we arc- 
 not true to our character of "children of light" unless even 
 the most casual acquaintance feels that we are " walking in 
 light- 
 In aiming after all the qualities I have spoken of, after 
 Cheerfulness, Purity, Truth, Quiet Goodness, and Elevating 
 Influence on others, we are only, my brethren, striving after 
 some of the virtues which belonged to our Redeemer in 
 such perfection that He was and ever will remain the 
 Light of the World. Were we to strive after even one of 
 these virtues, alone and unaided, the task might seem hope- 
 less; but we are "children of light" simply because Christ 
 has already kindled His light in our souls, and He w^ho has 
 lit the light can alone keep it burning. And so we are 
 "children of light " only as we walk every day in fellowship 
 with Him who is the Light. 
 
 Last Sunday, my brethren, you celebrated, in outward 
 and visible form, this Communion with Christ; and as the 
 poet tells us how at the feast which his great ideal, King 
 Arthur, made to his Knights, 
 
 ' : He beheld 
 From eye to eye thro' all this order flash 
 A momentary likeness of their King,'' 
 
 so may it have been at your Sacrament, for surely none 
 could partake of that most impressive of all services with- 
 out being stirred with a longing after an earnest Christian 
 life. But the likeness to your King must not be a mere 
 " momentary " one, which dies away when you pass from 
 Communion Table or Church, to mingle in the world's 
 strife. Xay, just as light shows most intense amid surround- 
 ing gloom, it must be amid the world's sins and sorrows, 
 amid the daily strife and conflict of evil that you must 
 prove — if you prove at all — that you are " children of light," 
 "burning and shining lamps," reflecting the glory of Him 
 who is the only true and lasting Light of man.
 
 130 
 
 II 
 
 THE ATTRACTION OF THE CROSS OF 
 CHRIST. 
 
 " AND I, IF I BE LIFTED UP FROM THE EARTH, WILL DRAW ALL 
 
 men unto we."— John xii. 32. 
 
 These words, we are expressly told by the Apostle, were 
 spoken by Christ, with reference not only to His death, but 
 to the special mode of it ; " This He said, signifying what 
 death He should die," and they are, therefore, peculiarly 
 appropriate for our consideration on the evening of the day 
 in which you have again partaken of that Solemn Sacra- 
 ment which commemorates our Lord's death and dying 
 love. 
 
 How early our Lord foresaw the cruel and shameful 
 death He was to die we do not know, for this is one of 
 those points in which it is difficult, if not impossible, for us 
 to adjust the relations of His manhood and His divinity, 
 or to see how, without ceasing to be a true man, He could 
 yet partake in the superhuman insight of God. 
 
 And so, all through the crowded work of His three event- 
 ful years, we may believe that Jesus was looking forward to 
 that decease He was to accomplish at Jerusalem ; that the 
 popularity which at first attended Him — "the bright Gali- 
 lean spring," as it has been called — the thronging crowds 
 and the murmured praises, could not make him forget the 
 needful, yet painful, death ; that when the disciples were 
 dreaming of thrones and honours, He knew that His only 
 elevation should be to a cross, His only honours those 
 offered in disdainful mockery by a ribald soldiery and a 
 jeering crowd. 
 
 But when Christ spoke the words of our text, the long- 
 anticipated passion was close upon Him, for they were 
 uttered, probably, on Palm Sunday, the last Sunday He 
 was ever, as a man, to spend here on earth.
 
 131 
 
 Some Greeks had come desiring to sec Jesus, and were 
 brought by two of His disciples to their Master; and the 
 thoughts of Jesus ran at once on that subject which, for 
 both His own and His disciples' sakes, was at this time the 
 deepest thing on his mind. Instead of taking any direct 
 notice of the strangers, or speaking about them to the dis- 
 ciples, 1 [e sought to convince them of the necessity of His 
 death by drawing, as He so often did, an illustration from 
 nature — "Verily, verily. I say unto you, except a corn of 
 wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone ; but if 
 it die, it bringcth forth much fruit." 
 
 These words have, no doubt, a closer connection with 
 the visit of the Greeks than at first sight appears. There 
 were many Greeks dwelling in the land of Palestine, but 
 as far as we know Christ does not seem to have come into 
 contact with them. He confined Himself, as He directed 
 His disciples to do at first, to " the lost sheep of the house 
 of Israel." It was not that He did not care for the great 
 Gentile world, but that He could only save them by first 
 seeking the Jews. 
 
 And now, when two of these Gentiles came in this solemn 
 hour of His fate and sought to see Him, when, moved by 
 somcthing they may have heard about Him from the crowd, 
 or, roused by some words they had caught from His own 
 lips, they asked with reverent curiosity one of His disciples 
 to lead them to his Master, then there seems to have rushed 
 across the soul of Jesus a flood of various emotions. lie 
 saw in these few Greeks the first fruits of the Gentiles. 
 They were members and representatives of a race which, 
 in some respects, far outrivalled his own; a race gifted with 
 the love of the beautiful, and the capacity for knowledge, 
 and the search for truth; and here He was standing who 
 alone could gratify these desires, who could fulfil the dreams 
 of their poets about a Son of Man who should be also a Son 
 of God ; who was the ideal good and suffering One of whom 
 their greatest philosophers wrote. If He could just go to 
 these lands and isles of Greece, of which he could almost 
 see the faint, far-off traces from the shores of His native
 
 132 
 
 land, He would there be free from the prejudices that so 
 hindered His work in Palestine, and become at once what 
 the prophet voice spoke over Him in His infancy, when, by 
 the aged Simeon, it called Him "a light to lighten the 
 Gentiles." Nay, it is not irreverent to suppose, with more 
 than one commentator, that over the soul of Jesus, which 
 was human in all innocent susceptibilities and longings, 
 there may have rushed the wish that His life might be pro- 
 longed, so that He could go to these darkened lands, which 
 were waiting so eagerly for the light; so that He could 
 stand in the streets of Athens as He had done in those of 
 Jerusalem, and proclaim Himself as the Light and Life of 
 Men. 
 
 But no, it was not to be, that glorious work was not for 
 Him, it was to be given to one who was even now a young- 
 zealot and disciple of His bitter foes; for Him, that very 
 week should bring but the hours of agony, and the death 
 of shame. For we cannot believe it was any physical fear 
 of death, which so many of the saintly, and some of the bad, 
 have met with calm brow and undaunted heart, that so 
 moved the soul of Christ that He spoke even aloud among 
 the crowd, " Now is my soul troubled;" and shall I say ? 
 " Father, save me from this hour; but for this cause came I 
 unto this hour." 
 
 No, it was no fear nor foreboding of any pain or torture 
 which could so move the soul of Christ; but it was that He 
 whose heart was throbbing with love to the whole world, 
 should for hours be abandoned by every friend, and see 
 nothing but hatred round him, hatred so deadly that it 
 could gloat upon His torture and death; it was that He, 
 the infinitely gentle and pure, should sec. raging for hours 
 round Him, the worst passions of the worst hearts; it was 
 that He, who clung to life, not because it had pleasure or 
 case to offer Him, but because He could do so much for 
 God and man, shrank with natural human feeling from the 
 approach of death, as if it were putting a period to all His 
 ions. But this feeling was but momentary — a passing 
 cloud in the brightness of the sky. For Christ saw, and
 
 1 33 
 
 taught His disciples to see, that His very death was the 
 means of hastening and perfecting His work; that it could 
 not stop it, but only accelerate it; that just as a seed 
 unburicd in the ground contains its life within itself, and 
 abides alone, but, buried in the cold dark earth, it multiplies 
 itself; so His descent into Death's darkness, should not 
 quench, but increase His power to lighten the world. For 
 as the seed spreads itself into all the fruit it bears, so that 
 instead of one seed you have a hundred, so Christ by His 
 Spirit would spread Himself in every disciple, and instead 
 of one Christ there would be thousands; instead of only 
 the little country of Palestine, every corner of the earth 
 should see the Salvation of God. Nay, even the cruel and 
 shameful death which awaited Him, and in which His 
 enemies thought they should not only wreak their vengeance 
 on Him, but make Him a scorn and derision for ever, — 
 yes, even that death should be a triumph, that Cross should 
 become a throne, that hated and despised symbol should 
 become the most honoured and sacred sign in the world, 
 and to that Cross the eyes of men, in ever increasing crowds, 
 through all the coming centuries, should be turned in deep- 
 est awe and worship, — " I, if I be lifted up from the earth, 
 will draw all men unto me." 
 
 The Cross of Christ is the centre of attraction to the world ; 
 His whole life and work should move us ; but what teaches 
 us especially is "Christ crucified:" it is not merely Christ, 
 but Christ uplifted on the Cross, which draws all men. 
 
 This is so, because, in the first place, we see in the cruci- 
 fixion of Christ the most awful suffering borne by the 
 holiest and gentlest with the utmost patience. There is 
 something in suffering which moves and draws the human 
 heart as nothing else can. The suffering even of the lower 
 animals moves and touches us, leads us to sympathise with 
 them as we never do at other times. Even our enemies, 
 whom we only too readily hate as long as they are pros- 
 perous, we find we no longer so regard when they are 
 brought low. If no other feeling checks us, the sense of 
 fairness and manliness then restrains our tongue. To hate
 
 134 
 
 them now would seem like striking one who cannot protect 
 himself. It is the same feeling which prompts the well- 
 known and generally respected advice, " Concerning the 
 dead, speak nothing but good;" the suffering they have 
 passed through would make our rude attack a profanity. 
 
 Now, if this is so with those to whom we are utterly in- 
 different, or even hostile, how must suffering enhance the 
 influence over us of those whom we respect and love. Let 
 anyone think of the great characters of real or fictitious 
 history; however much you admire them, it is not till they 
 have suffered that your heart is drawn to them. Columbus 
 in chains, Joan of Arc at the stake, Livingstone dying in 
 the African jungle, Cranmcr amid the flames, these move 
 us as the other parts of their lives, however great, cannot do. 
 Nay, let anyone look back to his own domestic history. 
 When did you most respect and love your departed friends ? 
 Not, surely, in the hours of their gaiety and pleasure. No, 
 but it was when God had laid upon them the heavy burden 
 of illness — when the soul of the sick one was alone with 
 God in that sacred presence-chamber of affliction — then it 
 was that you reproached yourself for any former neglect of 
 duty and affection, and felt a certain awe as in the presence 
 of one upon whom God had laid His sacred baptism of 
 suffering. 
 
 But when the suffering descends on one whom we not 
 only respect and love, but when it comes all undeserved — 
 when the martyr is slain by those whom he had given his 
 life to bless, when the missionary (like the young and 
 saintly Bishop Pattison a few years ago) is shot to death 
 by the arrows of those whom he lived only to benefit and 
 save — then the influence of the suffering one upon us is still 
 greater ; we not only love, but we reverence him. Now, 
 it is true that Christ suffered all through 1 lis life. It is not 
 in I lis death upon the cross, but in one of His great days of 
 healing and teaching that the evangelist St. Matthew sees 
 fulfilled the words, "lie bore our griefs, and carried our 
 sorrows." 
 
 liut in His crucifixion, there was concentrated the most
 
 1 35 
 
 awful suffering of body and of soul. I need not recount 
 these details, for surely they ought to be in every Christian 
 memory. But think of His agony in the garden — his be- 
 trayal by one of His own chosen disciples — the flight of 
 all the twelve — the thrice-repeated denial of His best and 
 most devoted follower — think of the six times repeated 
 trial — how lie was hurried from hall to hall, from Annas 
 to the Sanhedrim, from the Sanhedrim to Pilate, from 
 Pilate to Herod, from Herod back to Pilate again — how He 
 saw none but callous hearts around him, determined on 
 His guilt; heard nothing but the testimony of false wit- 
 nesses, and the jeers of cruel foes — think of the shame and 
 insults, the buffeting, the scourging, the mocking, now by 
 Jewish servants, now by Roman soldiers — think of the 
 platted thorns, the seething crowd of enemies, and their 
 cruel yell, " crucify, crucify ! " 
 
 Then follow to the last scene of all — see the torture of 
 the crucifixion on a body already so worn and pained — ■ 
 think of the pierced feet and hands, the throbing brow, the 
 whole frame tingling with pain, and then, think how the 
 sense of all his His love rejected, all His kindness forgotten, 
 all the sin which raged around, so pressed and saddened 
 His heart, that with one piercing cry He yielded His life, 
 and thus actually died, not of His cruel wounds, but literally 
 of a broken heart, a heart broken by the world's sorrow and 
 sin, and shall we not say, was there ever sorrow like unto 
 His sorrow, was there ever suffering like unto that of 
 Christ? And when we think how patiently it was borne — 
 how no complaint fell from Him — how when reviled, He 
 reviled not again — how in the midst of all He could give 
 forgiveness to one disciple and comfort to another — could 
 give hope and salvation to a dying sinner — home to a 
 sorrowing mother, and prayer and forgiveness to His 
 murderers; when we remember that He who was so cruelly 
 used was not only holy and good, but the holiest and best, 
 that His life was one long benediction, unstained by a single 
 sin, can we wonder that the Cross of Christ is the greatest 
 magnet in the world, that it is drawing to itself, with resist-
 
 136 
 
 less power, the hearts and lives of men, and that the words 
 of Jesus are ever more and more fulfilled, " And I, if I be 
 lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me." 
 
 But, secondly, the Cross of Christ draws the world, be- 
 cause in it we have the greatest proof of the love of God. 
 
 I have spoken of the death of Christ as the death of the 
 holiest and the best, and we must never forget that Christ 
 suffered not only with a true human body, but also with a 
 true human soul. But the pale Sufferer who hung upon 
 the Cross, was more than man, He was God under the 
 limitations of man, entering into human life, tasting its 
 deepest needs, and meeting its cruellest death. 
 
 There is mystery here, my brethren, but we must not 
 therefore disbelieve it, for we live and walk in a world 
 of mysteries, and not even the wisest man can tell the 
 mysteries of his own being, or even how the meanest flower 
 grows. As our greatest living poet sings, — 
 
 " Flower in a crannied wall, 
 I pluck thee out of thy crannies; 
 I hold thee in my hand, 
 Root and flower and all in all : 
 Little flower, if I could understand 
 What thou art all in all, 
 I should know what God and man is." 
 
 We cannot understand how Christ upon the Cross should 
 be at once suffering man and saving God; but that it is so 
 our own heart affirms, for this satisfies its needs as nothing 
 else can. Only think then, my brethren, that God suffered 
 for us a humiliation so deep, a sacrifice so great that hardly 
 would friend have endured it for friend, or mother for child ; 
 and then can we ever doubt the love of God, even when He 
 lays upon us suffering and sorrow? Rather will not we say 
 with the great Apostle, "who can separate us from the love 
 ofChrist: j " "He who spared not I lis own Son, but delivered 
 1 iiiii for us all, how shall lie not with Him also freely give 
 us all things? For I am persuaded that neither death, 
 nor life . . . nor things present, nor things to come
 
 L37 
 
 . . shall be able to separate us from the love of God, 
 which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Yes, the Cross of Christ 
 draws the world, because It is the crowning proof of God's 
 love. 
 
 But lastly, and in a word, the Crucifixion of Christ draws 
 the world because in it we see at once the horror of sin, 
 and the hope of conquering it. When, my brethren, do we 
 learn the awfulness of sin ? Not when we see some old 
 and hardened sinner sinking under it, but when we see 
 some young and beautiful child, with face that has not yet 
 lost the sweetness of heaven, surrounded by all the dark 
 vice and crime of some foul city lane. 
 
 And so we must look at the Cross of Christ, if we would 
 see what sin is. Once there came to this earth of ours a 
 heart that was perfectly stainless, a soul that, not for one 
 brief hour of morning, but all through its day of life, re- 
 flected the clear sky of heaven. This life breathed nothing 
 but blessing, spoke nothing but truth, felt nothing but love. 
 How did men receive it ? Did they worship it, reverence 
 it, admire it? Did they at the worst neglect it? Alas! 
 my brethren, they scourged it, they mocked it, they nailed 
 it to the Cross. 
 
 But you say it was the Jews did that. Xo, my brethren, 
 it was sin did it — your sin and mine. The Jews were only, 
 so to speak, the representatives of the world. This sin of 
 the world is one huge ocean of guilt and shame, rolling on 
 from one generation to another, from which we all receive 
 and to which we all give. It rose against Christ and 
 sought to overwhelm Him ; and though only one part of 
 the world's guilt assailed Him, that part represented all. 
 For even- sin and evil of men's lives was there, assisting in 
 crucifying Jesus. Ingratitude and avarice were there in 
 Judas, cowardice and time-serving in Pilate, calumny and 
 slander in the false witnesses, idleness and cruelty in the 
 Roman soldiers, every dark vice and passion in the crowd 
 which yelled "crucify!" and which surged around His Cross. 
 
 1 am, then, stating no theological dogma, but a deep re- 
 ligious truth, felt ever most deeply by the saintliest souls
 
 138 
 
 that your sins and mine, in common with the whole world's 
 sin, nailed Christ to the Cross. And would we know what 
 sin really is — would we learn a deep horror of it — let us 
 simply look on that agonised and pale sufferer, and think, 
 had there been no self-indulgence and idleness, no lying 
 and wrong, that would never have been; and in so far as I 
 have shared these, my sin had part in the world's crowning 
 guilt 
 
 But side by side with that horror of sin the Cross of 
 Christ gives us a hope of victory over it. By that death of 
 His He taught us not to sink in hopeless despair over the 
 sins of the past. God's love could accept the devotion of 
 the future as cancelling the past ; Christ's example and 
 spirit could make, even of a crucified robber, a dying saint. 
 I have spoken of the Crucifixion of Christ as drawing 
 the world, because it shows the sufferings of the holiest 
 and the best, the infinite love of God, the horror of sin, and 
 the hope of victory ; and I might go on to show how Christ 
 crucified has drawn, and is drawing, the love of millions ; 
 how — to quote the words, not of a preacher nor a theo- 
 logian, but of the most famous soldier of modern clays, the 
 great Napoleon — "Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, founded 
 great empires ; but upon what did the creations of their 
 genius depend? Upon force. Jesus alone founded His 
 empire upon love, and to this day millions would die for 
 Him. Here is a conqueror who draws men to Himself for 
 their highest good, who unites to Himself, incorporates into 
 Himself, not a nation, but the whole human race." 
 
 Yes; Christ is drawing the world. He is drawing all of 
 us by the attractive power of His Cross, but it is possible 
 for us to resist that power. Other forces are drawing us 
 too; the love of sin and the love of self— all our lower 
 and baser nature urges us away from Christ. Which power 
 shall we follow? in which direction shall we be drawn? 
 
 Remember, my brethren, they who are not with Christ 
 
 are against Him; if we will not be drawn to Him, we must 
 
 be drawn t<> His enemies, and our whole life shall not only 
 
 me act of basest ingratitude to the Divinest love, but
 
 139 
 
 in the words of the great Apostle, we, in a moral sense, 
 shall be renewing the world's crowning crime, for we will 
 be "crucifying the Son of God afresh, and putting Him to 
 an open shame." 
 
 Will we not rather, my brethren, pray the prayer of the 
 Psalmist— "Draw us, O Christ, and we will run after Thee. 
 We will run the way of Thy Commandments, when Thou 
 shalt enlarge our hearts."
 
 140 
 
 III. 
 
 CHRIST THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE. 
 
 " I am the Resurrection and the Life."— John si. 25. 
 
 EVERY one knows and can appreciate the difference be- 
 tween what we call an abstract truth and a fact, between 
 an opinion and a matter of firmest personal certainty, 
 between a belief which we have gathered from various 
 quarters, but which has nowhere any living- centre, and that 
 which is so embodied in some one whom we have known 
 and loved that it is sacred and real to us as his very person. 
 And when we enquire in which of these two ways the truth 
 of immortality has been given to us, how it is that we can 
 answer that persistent question, " If a man die, shall he live 
 again?" — what grounds we have for confident hope that 
 those dear ones who go from us are not lost to us, but only 
 gone before us to the Blessed Life — the words of our text 
 come to tell us that it is in the latter and not in the former 
 vvay, it is as a most sure fact, as a firmest personal certainty, 
 and as the very heart of the most sacred and real of all 
 lives, that we can hold the truth of the existence beyond 
 death — " I am" so speaks our Lord, " the Resurrection and 
 the Life." 
 
 Perhaps to many of us these words of Christ have only 
 appeared as another way simply of stating what we would 
 express by saying, "I declare to you the truth of the Resur- 
 rection and Immortal Life," and it may have appeared to us 
 only a biblical and oriental mode of expression, that Jesus 
 should, by His language, seem to claim to be part of His 
 own person. All He means, we are apt to imagine, by say- 
 ing"]! am the Resurrection and the Life," is perhaps simply 
 to draw attention to His testimony in favour of them. Now 
 this idea of our text is utterly wrong. It misses its whole 
 force and point, for you may see by the least careful read- 
 in;;, that what Jesus wished to convex' was not a simple
 
 Ml 
 
 belief in the resurrection, which Martha already possessed, 
 and had given expression to, but that He Himself was. as 
 it were, its embodiment and guarantee. Hence, when 
 Martha says, " I know my brother shall rise again in the 
 resurrection," her words do not content Jesus, but He 
 immediately seeks to correct them by lifting her up to 
 a higher and surer faith, centering in Himself, and so 
 emphatically says, " It is / that am " (for that is the full 
 force of the original words) " the Resurrection and the Life." 
 
 Before I try to unfold to you the meaning of this declara- 
 tion of our Lord, let me endeavour to make clear to you 
 the great advantages which belong to what I may call this 
 personal embodiment of truth. 
 
 Have you not noticed how all truths require to be 
 associated with some person before they impress us much ? 
 Take, for instance, the most familiar facts of history or 
 geography — say the life of Queen Elizabeth or Napoleon, 
 the battle of Trafalgar, or the massacre of St. Bartholomew, 
 the natural features of India or China — now is it not the 
 case that you may read about all these in books, or may 
 hear about them in a casual way, without their making 
 much impression upon you? But suppose something arises 
 which brings you, as it were, into personal contact with any 
 of these — if, for example, you read in the British Museum 
 some letter which Elizabeth wrote in one of the great crises 
 of her life ; or if, in our own Scottish Museum, you actually 
 look upon one of the medals struck at the time to com- 
 memorate the slaughter of St. Bartholomew ; if, in the 
 course of a voyage, you land at that small rocky island 
 where Napoleon was imprisoned after Waterloo ; or if you 
 were to see in Portsmouth the old flagship of Nelson, and 
 the very spot marked out where the hero fell with his 
 mortal wound ; if, finally, some dear friend were to return 
 after years of absence in a foreign country, and were to 
 describe to you his travels and adventures there — in all 
 these instances do you not sec at once how much more 
 powerful would be the impression made upon you, how 
 what seemed dim and unreal would have acquired a new
 
 142 
 
 force and reality for you ; and in each case you can see 
 this new force was owing to your personal contact, as it 
 were; what had been an abstract truth, or a truth dimly 
 conceived at second-hand, had now become a vivid per- 
 sonal experience. 
 
 Now, if this be so in regard to mere outward events, 
 how much more true is it when applied in the sphere of 
 morality and religion. Here it almost seems as if we could 
 gain nothing except through contact with others. If it 
 were possible to isolate any human being completely from 
 all contact with his fellows, do you think he could have 
 any idea of the virtues of truth or charity, of purity or 
 self-denial? I, for my part, believe it would be utterly im- 
 possible. I believe it is no more possible to have a human 
 being moral or religious, or even reasonable, apart from the 
 fellowship and influence of others, than it is to have a limb 
 which is not part of a living human body. We grow in all 
 our life out of the family and the state as the branch grows 
 out of the tree, and that is why God has set us in the mem- 
 bership of the Church, for a religious life, entirely apart and 
 alone, is both impossible and inconceivable. But suppose we 
 have obtained some moral and religious knowledge, in what 
 way, I may ask, docs it ever become real to us ; how is it 
 that we ever learn to believe in truth and honour, in purity, 
 in mercy, in forgiveness, in trust and love towards God ? I 
 believe, in every case, it is by seeing them embodied in an 
 actual human life. The child receives its first lesson of 
 reverence and religion when it sees father and mother bow 
 themselves in prayer ; and in after life it is the spectacle of 
 goodness, which we can neither disbelieve nor explain 
 away, that makes religion a reality beyond dispute. The 
 blood of her martyrs has ever been the seed of the Church. 
 When arguments have failed to convince, when church 
 services have been powerless to attract, the lives of her 
 saints have laid irresistible hold upon men. 
 
 Once, brethren, goodness was embodied in the very 
 highest form in an actual human life. All that you could 
 conceive of stainless inward purity, of an elevation of soul
 
 143 
 
 above the slightest influence of low desire, was there; it, 
 moreover, was a truth that never faltered under the slightest 
 shadow of a lie, a purpose that never swerved aside from 
 the pursuit of the noblest aim, a gentleness so sweet that 
 it could fondle little children and speak blessing in death, 
 a love so wide and untiring that it gave its whole existence 
 freely up for others, a forgiveness so pure and brotherly 
 that it drew the outcast to noble repentance and renewal, 
 and a piety so elevated that it made life one long prayer — 
 one unbroken communion with God. Such a life as this 
 was once actually lived on earth. It is no dream, though it 
 more than fulfils all the highest human conceptions. It is 
 nineteen centuries old; yet all that I have said as to the 
 character of that life is the most indisputable fact in history. 
 Men have differed as to the interpretation to be put on that 
 existence — whether He should be called Son of Man or Son 
 of God; but no one, however he has scrutinized it, no one 
 who has the smallest right to be heard has ever doubted 
 that that life was, in the highest sense, holy and divine. 
 
 We should expect that life to influence men as no other 
 life has ever done, and so, by the confession even of infidels, 
 has it been. But I do not now draw your attention to the 
 influence, which, beyond all question, the life of Christ 
 should have on every human soul; I do not now insist on 
 how it has made goodness and God for ever real to us; I 
 do not now urge on you that this life must be ruling your 
 life, unless you have sold yourself to evil; but I point to 
 the emphatic testimony this life has given to the truth of 
 immortality; my text is the words of Jesus, "I am the 
 Resurrection and the Life." 
 
 And remember, brethren, if these words were mere words 
 of testimony only, they would carry a right to belief beyond 
 all other witness. To the Christian Church, believing in 
 Christ as the Son of God, they are like all His sayings, 
 most certainly true; to all men they come with the weight 
 of His spotless life and character in them. Hut they are 
 not words of mere testimony ; they share the peculiarity of 
 many other sayings of Christ, in that He docs not claim
 
 144 
 
 to speak or bear witness, but rather Himself to be the 
 living and actual embodiment of what He reveals, and just 
 as elsewhere He says, "I am the Light," and "I am the 
 Truth," so here He says," I am the Resurrection and the Life." 
 
 The life beyond death is not simply borne witness to by 
 Christ; this truth is not merely stamped with His authority 
 and approval, it is not merely something you cannot set 
 aside without casting discredit on His testimony, but it is 
 so inwoven with His very life, that you can only get rid of 
 the one by getting rid of the other too ; it is no abstract 
 truth, but part of His very being. 
 
 Let me try, then, to show you how the very life of Christ 
 contains in it this great truth; and first, I remark, the 
 earthly life and activity of Christ involves the immortality 
 of man. 
 
 Suppose we were to take no higher view of the earthly 
 life of our Lord than that which some have held — namely, 
 that He was a pre-eminently good Man, that He lived a 
 life of self-denial, and died a martyr's death — even then, 
 brethren (and remember this, at least, is what all must admit 
 of Christ), even then, the mere existence of Christ involves 
 our immortality. For what, on any supposition, do I see 
 in the life of Christ? I behold an activity most unwearied 
 in toiling for others, a self-denial that is ever giving itself 
 freely away, a love that seems to have no limit, and a for- 
 giveness that knows no end; and all this not directed to the 
 mere outward comfort of man, not to make His bodily and 
 earthly existence more tolerable. It is quite true that Christ 
 cured the sick, but He probably made main- more forsake 
 comfort and endure privation ; and He declared Himself 
 that He " came not to send peace, but a sword." If, there- 
 fore, there were no life to come, the whole life and activity 
 of Christ was a mistake. He would have disturbed men for 
 tuse ; He would be guilty of ruining the lives of His 
 apostles and messengers; and all 1 1 is own activity and 
 ir would be worse than thrown away. 
 
 But, more than that, there is another argument still. 
 Either Christ was God, or he was not If lie were, then
 
 145 
 
 if men arc not immortal God is in contradiction to Himself. 
 For what do I sec in Christ ? Do I not sec Him taking 
 infinite pains to fan into a flame the smallest spark of good- 
 ness in even the most sinful soul, and in countless parables 
 telling us that the great Father cares for even the obscurest 
 or most sinful life. In what horrible contradiction to all 
 this, then, would not the action of God in heaven be who, 
 if man is not immortal, sees with unconcern all the genera- 
 tions of men descending to death and nothingness? But 
 even if you take Christ to be only a man, the endless life 
 of men is no less a necessity. For otherwise, we should have 
 the monstrous conclusion forced upon us that a mere man 
 like ourselves was infinitely nobler and better than God, in 
 that, while God was deaf to all the hopes and prayers of 
 the creatures He made, while He mocked them with the 
 desire for a heaven and hereafter they should never see, 
 one of these could Himself live only to make others better, 
 and could give His own life away simply that they might 
 be lifted to a nobler life. 
 
 In truth we may say that every noble man, everyone who 
 lives a pure and elevated and self-denying life, is a proof in 
 this and other ways of man's immortality; and let us thank 
 God we arc never without such testimonies; that they are 
 sown, as thick as stars in the night, on every page of his- 
 tory. But all lives must yield in importance and goodness 
 to the life of Christ ; and, I say, here we have the first proof 
 of the truth of Christ's words, in that unless that holiest life 
 were the hugest mistake, unless man be better than God, 
 there must be for each a resurrection and a life to come. 
 
 But, secondly, Christ is Himself the Resurrection and the 
 Life, because His own rising from the dead is a demonstra- 
 tion of both. 
 
 Brethren, you have often heard it said that our religion 
 is above and beyond all others a historical religion. We 
 have not, as the Apostle says, " followed cunningly devised 
 iablcs;" the great events on which our faith rests were 
 done in the full light of history, and are as certain as any 
 past event can be. No one but a madman or a fool has 
 
 K
 
 146 
 
 ever doubted the actual life of Jesus. His life and deeds 
 are as assured a certainty as our own existence. Now that 
 life closed here with His triumphant resurrection from the 
 dead, and, though some have doubted that, it is beyond all 
 His other miracles one which it is impossible to set aside. 
 One of the acutest scholars of modern times, who has 
 examined the whole gospel history with a most jealous 
 and scrutinizing eye, has said, " the fact of the resurrection 
 of Christ cannot itself be called into doubt, any more than 
 the historical certainty of the assassination of Caesar." 
 
 I do not quote this testimony as if there were any here 
 who doubted the actual fact of our Lord's rising from the 
 dead, but to show you, that even as a fact of history, it 
 stands among the most established. But to the Christian, 
 it adds immeasurably to the words of Christ, that He who 
 claimed to be Himself the Resurrection, not only met death 
 and rose triumphantly from it, but met it in no accidental 
 way. He had looked at it long and fearlessly, He had set 
 His face steadfastly through all these years to go up to His 
 Cross; and it was in the full clear knowledge of death and 
 what lay beyond, having already in His thought anticipated 
 and overcome it, that our Lord could say, " I am the Resur- 
 rection and the Life." 
 
 But, lastly, brethren, this claim of Christ is most certainly 
 true, because it is He who is already in each Christian soul 
 the power of an immortal life. 
 
 I have tried to show how Christ could claim to be the 
 actual embodiment of our immortality, because in His own 
 earthly life there is involved the truth of our endless ex- 
 istence, so that unless you set aside the one, you must 
 accept the other; and again, because it is not only most 
 certain that He Himself rose from the dead, but that He 
 all along looked at death and saw the life which lay beyond 
 it. But these reasons would be insufficient to account for 
 the words of Christ, and would fail of giving full comfort 
 and courage to us, unless 1 could add, as 1 now do, that 
 Christ is already in each Christian soul, the power of an 
 immortal life. Observe that Jesus joins together the two
 
 147 
 
 ideas of rising again and continuous living — " I am the 
 Resurrection and the Life? — and by that He means that 
 death docs not even break or interrupt the life of a 
 Christian is clear, for He immediately adds, " he that liveth 
 and bclieveth in Me shall never die." The life Christ 
 possesses and communicates is something which death 
 cannot even reach. And if it be objected that this would 
 seem to limit immortality to those who are actually and 
 consciously Christian, I reply, that every man is, in one sense, 
 related to Christ, for lie is "the light that lightens every 
 man." And thus, even the heathen and sinful are immortal, 
 just in virtue (though they are ignorant of it) of their 
 relation to Him in whom alone is life and immortality. 
 But to the Christian this relation is clearly felt and known. 
 That our religious life is only possible by so close a relation 
 to Christ that we call it a "vital" or living "union" all 
 branches of the Church most firmly believe, and every 
 Christian has realised in his own experience. " I am the 
 Vine," said Christ, "and ye are the branches, without Me 
 ye can do nothing." " I am with you alway, even until the 
 end of the world." And so St. Paul speaks continually of 
 a man being " in Christ," and describes his own life by 
 saying, " It is no longer I that live, but Christ that liveth 
 in me." 
 
 Now this life which is already in each Christian as part, 
 and the deepest part of his very being, is already what I have 
 called the power of an immortal existence. What is said 
 of Christ is true of every disciple, " He could not be holden 
 of death." The resurrection is, in one sense, a future event 
 to us, but in another and deeper sense it is a present and 
 actual experience. In the life of prayer, and faith, and 
 aspiration ; in the nearness of Christ, in the endeavour to 
 be led by His spirit and follow His example; in all that 
 constitutes our deepest Christian experience, we are already, 
 brethren, lifted beyond the power of death. Death, as a 
 future experience, we know to be inevitable ; as a painful 
 and trying ordeal we can never speak of it lightly; as inter- 
 rupting much that was loved and sweet to us. we would
 
 148 
 
 avoid it if we could, just as Christ Himself prayed to the 
 Father " that He might let that cup of sorrow pass." A 
 painful experience — a trial, " the last enemy " — that our 
 natural feeling prompts us to think of it; but there its power 
 ends. We dare not, we cannot, as Christians, think of it as 
 a destruction, a loss, hardly even as a separation or a sleep. 
 The life we have within us even now is the certainty of a 
 victory over the grave. Every prayer we breathe, every 
 pure thought, every conquered temptation, every angry 
 temper checked, every thoughtful kindness for others, these 
 are the pulses of the life of Christ in our souls ; these are 
 the inspirations of the spirit of God ; and unless God Him- 
 self could die, unless Christ never rose from yon rocky 
 tomb, we must live on untouched by death — rather lifted 
 up by it into a fuller and higher life. The root buried in 
 the winter earth needs no prophesying that it shall rise into 
 flowering life in the spring. The life is already there ; it 
 already possesses within itself the power that shall raise it 
 above the mould into beauty and light. And our immor- 
 tality, brethren, is no guess, and no mere probability; we 
 already, in so far as we are living the Christian life, have in 
 us the living certainty of a deathless existence; we live in 
 Christ, and Christ in us, and He not only promises, but He 
 is, in Himself, "the Resurrection and the Life."
 
 149 
 
 IV. 
 
 THE DIVINE GIFT OF SLEEP. 
 
 "He giveth His beloved sleep. 1 '— Ps. cxxvii. 2. 
 
 To understand the original meaning and connection of 
 these words, we must look to the psalm in which they 
 occur. It is that famous sacred song of which the first 
 verse is blazoned in the arms of our own Scottish capital — 
 "Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain 
 that build it ; except the Lord keep the City, the watchman 
 waketh but in vain." This psalm probably belongs, not to 
 the triumphant time of Jewish history, but to those evil 
 days when men were made only too familiar with defeat 
 and oppression. But it was in these troublous times that 
 the grandest qualities of the people were often brought 
 out ; in the fiery furnace of affliction the hearts of these 
 ancient saints and heroes were refined to pure gold. It 
 was from some such saintly and heroic heart that this song 
 of lofty and noble confidence came. Those whom he 
 sought to inspirit and rouse had become despondent ; all 
 things were against them ; the times were evil and their 
 lot was hard. To them, as to the sceptical writer of the 
 book of Ecclesiastes in a similar time, all things seemed full 
 of trouble, and the burden of life was only "vanity and vexa- 
 tion of spirit." They were a small and oppressed people, 
 and it was vain for them to struggle to build a home for 
 themselves among the nations of the earth ; their house 
 would soon perish, and in some more devastating conquest 
 their very name would be swept away. What were they 
 that they should attempt to contend against these giant 
 Empires of the East? Their children were but a handful ; 
 their race must soon be utterly overthrown. 
 
 Mow natural these complaints were, and how apparently 
 utterly justified, ever)- one can feel who has read in history 
 the frequent story of a small people struggling against over- 
 whelming odds. To the Greeks, when the countless hosts
 
 150 
 
 of Persia moved down on them ; to our own Scots, when 
 England sought to master them; to the Dutch, when they 
 rose against the mighty power of Spain, it seemed almost 
 useless to contend against the overmastering tide. And 
 defeat after defeat— the overthrow and death of some of the 
 noblest leaders seemed to prove this, and to show how 
 hopeless was the struggle. And then it is that some great 
 patriot leader comes, and proves how truly he has been 
 called " a divine madman." In spite of all experience he 
 persists ; against hope he believes in hope ; he has the 
 noble confidence of the saints, and boldly adopts as his 
 their motto, "I believe because it is impossible;" "seest 
 thou that great mountain before us, it shall yet become a 
 plain." God is not always on the side of the big battalions ; 
 one true man shall yet chase a thousand: 
 
 " Freedom's battle, once begun, 
 Bequeathed from bleeding sire to son, 
 Though baffled oft, is ever won." 
 
 God is with the right cause, and shall make it ultimately 
 victorious, though only one solitary man were on its side — 
 an Athanasius against the world. 
 
 It is not to the whole psalm, but to one expression in 
 it that I direct you for our lesson to-day — "He giveth to 
 His beloved sleep." Our circumstances may not be similar 
 to those for which this psalm was written, but none the 
 less are the words appropriate for us. For, to say nothing 
 of the wondrous power the Bible has of laying hold on the 
 ever-varying circumstances of men by always addressing 
 itself to that in us which is eternal and unchangeable, the 
 feeling of those for whom this psalm was written is in 
 reality very near to us. Is not the outstanding feature of 
 our time just this, of dissatisfaction and unrest: do we not 
 now hear in many quarters the question put, " Is life worth 
 the living?" are not all classes filled with a vague rest- 
 lessness, and do not some share the belief that they are 
 unjustly oppressed? is it not the feeling of many that "they 
 rise up early and sit up late, and eat the bread of sorrow?"
 
 151 
 
 and is it not seriously questioned by some whether, indeed, 
 it be a good thing to sec our population increasing, and 
 whether one can look on playful children and not be full of 
 sadness when we know what is before them? And it is to 
 such thoughts and feelings the words of our text arc a 
 reply ; it denies not the sorrows and ills of life, it admits 
 the existence of trouble and toil, it acknowledges our ex- 
 perience of oppression and defeat ; yet, for all these, it 
 asserts we have a divine defence: there is a refuge for 
 trouble, a soothing gift of God for weariness and toil — " He 
 giveth His beloved sleep." Our subject, then, is the divine 
 defence and love shown in the gift of sleep. 
 
 I. — First of all, brethren, look at it in common slumber. 
 Every true view of life must sec in its commonest arrange- 
 ments the hand of God. Either we must take our stand 
 on the dreary creed of the atheist and say " there is no God," 
 or we must sec a divine hand moving in every detail of the 
 life of man. Christianity especially teaches us to call 
 nothing common or unclean; it turns the humblest task 
 into a religious duty; it shows us that a Christian spirit 
 can ennoble the meanest service, and boldly says " whether 
 therefore ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all in the 
 name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the 
 Father by Him." But there are some parts of human life 
 where we are able to trace a divine purpose of goodness, 
 just as there arc others where it is more difficult. As one 
 of our greatest Christian writers has taught us, we should 
 remember that from the nature of the case the present 
 world must largely be to us " a scheme or constitution of 
 things imperfectly comprehended." All the ablest thinkers 
 have ever taught that one of the first and most necessary 
 lessons for men is to know their own ignorance; to recog- 
 nise the limit of their powers, and not to attempt to pro- 
 nounce judgment on what they only know in part. Even 
 when a Milton attempts 
 
 " To vindicate eternal Providence, 
 And justify the ways o\ God to man,'' 
 he seems to be setting himself a task too large for even his
 
 152 
 
 splendid powers. No doubt Christianity teaches us that 
 "all things work together for good to them that love God;" 
 and this seems to me a truth absolutely inseparable from 
 any true belief in God. But then it is a faith to be held, 
 not a fact to be proved, for the conditions of the proof are 
 not within our power. 
 
 Here, however, we are concerned not with the whole life 
 of man, but with one part and aspect of it, and I say that 
 in common slumber we may see a divine gift — a proof of 
 God's goodness. Like all the other best gifts it is absolutely 
 universal. It is as the sunshine and the rain which God 
 sends alike on the evil and the good. Even as these it may 
 be partly within our power, it may be curtailed by the 
 pressure of work or broken by disease and sorrow; but 
 absolutely and altogether no one can rob us of it unless he 
 take our life too; it is one of the conditions so bound up 
 with our very existence, that its appointment irresistibly 
 speaks of the character of God. And if it be so, as assuredly 
 we believe, we should see in it some help afforded to our 
 higher life. For the divine plan of our life seems to be 
 that the lower exists for the higher — the body for the soul — 
 the natural life of man for the spiritual — the temporal for 
 the eternal. Sleep is a condition of man's physical nature, 
 yet it proves itself a divine gift of love by the aid it offers 
 to our nobler life. Think, for example, how largely sleep 
 withdraws us from the world of sense. One of the great 
 difficulties of religion, as every one knows, arises from the 
 importunities of our senses; we are inclined to gratify these 
 at whatever cost, to make them, and not our conscience 
 and reason, the masters of our life. Again, the world of 
 sense — the things we can see, and taste, and handle — is apt 
 to become all to us, and to shut out the impression of an 
 unseen spiritual world, which, though invisible, is neverthe- 
 less more real, as it is more important. Now sleep, with- 
 drawing us almost entirely from the world of sense, shows 
 us how closely mystery touches our common life, and is an 
 admonition that the world of sense is neither the only world 
 nor the highest.
 
 L53 
 
 But again, there arc many for whom this work-a-day 
 world is full of sadness. Times of trouble come to all, and 
 even when no special trial weighs on them many find what 
 the poet calls 
 
 " The weary and the heavy weight of all this unintelligible world," 
 the sense of the mystery and disappointment of life too 
 heavy for them. Now God docs not relieve us from this, 
 for it is part doubtless of the necessary discipline of life to 
 pass through it; but he intermits it; it falls off in sleep; 
 through that divine gift we bathe in the river of forgetfulness. 
 
 All the poets have joined in praising this aspect of sleep. 
 It "lays its finger on the lips of care, till they forget to 
 complain;" it is "the poor man's wealth and the prisoner's 
 release;" it "visits sorrow as a comforter." But yet one 
 other way in which sleep ministers to man's better life is by 
 breaking to a certain extent the power of habit. Through 
 sleep, instead of life running on in one unbroken course, it 
 is separated into days — and each morning we, so to speak, 
 make a fresh beginning. It is this which makes what one 
 has called the resurrection-feeling of morning ; the possi- 
 bility which, perhaps, all feel in some degree, of making a 
 new start, the call, as one great teacher of our own time has 
 
 put it — 
 
 " Lo, here hath been dawning 
 Another blue day, 
 Say wilt thou let it 
 Slip useless away." 
 
 When we think, then, on all these things, that it dulls the 
 importunities of sense, gives rest to weariness and forget- 
 fulness to sorrow, and makes almost all men feel how, with 
 each fresh day, the\- are called to a newer life, surely we 
 can appreciate the words of the text, and sec how sleep is 
 a divine gift. 
 
 But the language of the text means more than this. It 
 speaks especially of the religious man, and of such an one 
 when he is in despondency and trouble; besides, the words, 
 as literally rendered, should probably be "God giveth to 
 His beloved in sleep," and the idea taken in connection
 
 154 
 
 with the whole psalm seems undoubtedly to be that not 
 only is sleep itself a good gift of God — something which 
 may minister to man's higher life — but that in sleep God 
 is bestowing the defence and comfort that the good man 
 needs. There is a striking Persian saying, "God gives 
 sleep to the bad that the good maybe undisturbed ;" but 
 the thought of our text is deeper and truer, and more akin 
 to that noble saying of another psalm, " Behold He that 
 keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep." 
 
 But not only is God the unsleeping protector, especially 
 near to all who love Him, but to him who serves God, even 
 in sleep, all things are serving, and gifts are unconciously 
 descending on him. 
 
 It was with this great truth that the pious and patriotic 
 Psalmist could inspire and uplift a despondent people. 
 Their enemies were powerful, but since they were cruel and 
 unjust, their mightiest cities and fortresses were vainly 
 reared, and their army of sentinels could not avert the stroke 
 which the mighty Watchman in the skies and Ruler of 
 nations would send. And though they themselves were 
 dispirited and feeble, God had not only sent on them His 
 beloved His gift of sleep, but even while they slept His 
 forces of justice and goodness were working for them, and 
 all unseen His blessing was descending on their more faith- 
 ful and noble hearts — " He giveth to His beloved in sleep." 
 Brethren, this is a most necessary truth for us to learn. 
 To the man who loves God, who serves Christ, who seeks 
 to lead a brave, pure, and unselfish life, not only does sleep 
 come as a divine gift, but in the unconscious part of his life, 
 God, in ways unknown to him, is blessing him. You know 
 the child's beautiful fairy story, that on Christmas night 
 some good angel comes down and leaves gifts for him while 
 he slumbers. This old legend enshrines ;i divine truth, 
 " God giveth to His beloved in sleep." Our soul's salvation, 
 brethren, is infinitely nearer to the heart of God than to our 
 own. I do not say this to prompt you to be idle. Not one 
 of us can afford to be less resolute and watchful than we 
 are. Jjiit if we really knowour own hearts and the struggle
 
 I.,, 
 
 we arc engaged in, we should despair if we thought it 
 depended all on ourselves. " It was not I, but the grace of 
 God that was in me," said the noblest and most heroic 
 toiler, the greatest soldier and saint in the history of 
 Christendom. And that has been the experience of all 
 those who have fought the good fight of faith— that other 
 noble psalm has spoken the deepest experience of God's 
 people always — " If it had not been the Lord who was on 
 our side, the stream had gone over our soul." If we would 
 live an earnest Christian life we must have this to fall back 
 U p 011 — "God giveth to his beloved in sleep." 
 
 II. — I would end, but there is another, a deeper, more 
 blessed, yet still allowable application of these words. It is 
 one of the blessings we owe to Christianity that it has sub- 
 stituted for the other and harsher names of death the gentler 
 and more hopeful word, sleep. The likeness between death 
 and sleep has always been remarked, and one great English 
 writer has aptly said " Sleep is Death's younger brother, and 
 so like him that I never dare trust him without my prayers." 
 Though hurled to such a violent death, it is beautifully said 
 of the first Christian martyr "he fell on sleep," and the dead 
 arc spoken of as those "asleep in Jesus;" even our name for 
 a graveyard, "cemetery." means literally '-sleeping-place." 
 In this more solemn use of the word we may assuredly say 
 " God giveth to His beloved sleep." To those who have 
 lived a Christian life, death is not only softened to a sleep, 
 but it is a divinely-given sleep, in which richest gifts of God 
 arc concealed. No one ought to speak of the solemn close 
 of life with light bravado, but we are untrue to our faith 
 when we look on death with doubt and fear. It is in an 
 entirely Christian spirit that one noble English poet has 
 spoken of 
 
 •■ Dear, beauteous Death, the jewel of the just. 
 Shining nowhere but in the dark :" 
 
 and that one of the best and most devoted of modern 
 Englishmen said, " Dear, wise, kind Death, when will you 
 come and tell me all 1 want to know?" And I close with
 
 156 
 
 the words expressly written on our text by one of the truest 
 and noblest singers of modern days, the greatest of English 
 poetesses, whose life, so full of suffering, could neither still 
 her song nor stifle her faith: — 
 
 " Of all the thoughts of God that are 
 Borne inward into souls afar, 
 
 Along the psalmist's music deep, 
 Now, tell me, if that any is, 
 For gift or grace, surpassing this — 
 ' He giveth His beloved sleep.' 
 
 " What would we give to our beloved : 
 The hero's heart to be unmoved, 
 
 The poet's star-tuned harp to sweep, 
 The patriot's voice to teach and rouse, 
 The monarch's crown to light the brows ? — 
 ' He giveth His beloved sleep.' 
 
 " What do we give to our beloved ? 
 A little faith all undisproved, 
 A little dust to over weep, 
 And bitter memories to make 
 The whole earth blasted for our sake : 
 ' He giveth His beloved sleep.' 
 
 " ' Sleep soft, beloved ! ' we sometimes say, 
 Who have no time to charm away 
 
 Sad dreams that through the eyelids creep ; 
 But never doleful dream again 
 Shall break the happy slumber when 
 ' He giveth His beloved sleep.' 
 
 " O earth, so full of dreary noises ! 
 O men, with wailing in their voices! 
 
 O delved gold, the waiter's heap ! 
 O strife, O curse that o'er it fall ! 
 God strikes a silence through you all, 
 
 And, 'giveth His beloved sleep.'
 
 157 
 
 " His dews drop mutely on the hill. 
 1 lis cloud above it saileth still, 
 
 Though on the slope men sow and reap ; 
 More softly than the dew is shed, 
 Or cloud is floated overhead, 
 ' He giveth His beloved sleep.' 
 
 " Ay, men may wonder, when they scan 
 A living, thinking, feeling man 
 
 Confirmed in such a rest to keep ; 
 But angels say — and through the word 
 I think their happy smile is heard — 
 ' He giveth His beloved sleep.' 
 
 " For me, my heart, that erst did go 
 Most like a tired child at a show, 
 
 That sees through tears the mummer's leap, 
 Would now its weary vision close, 
 Would childlike on His love repose 
 Who ' giveth His beloved sleep.' 
 
 ' And friends, dear friends, when it shall be 
 That this low breath is gone from me, 
 
 And round my bier ye come to weep, 
 Let one, most loving of ye all, 
 Say ' Not a tear must o'er her fall ' — 
 ' He giveth His beloved sleep.' "
 
 158 
 
 V. 
 
 IDLE WORDS. 
 
 " Every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account 
 
 THEREOF IN THE DAY OF JUDGMENT." — St. Matt. xii. j6. 
 
 WERE I to come forward on my own responsibility to 
 address you on the importance of every word you speak — 
 were I to affirm that not the lightest word you utter is 
 without its influence upon your own and other souls — were 
 I to say that even for every careless, much more for every 
 evil, word, you shall have to answer to God on the great 
 day of judgment — it would be only too natural for you to 
 retort that these arc the words of one who knows nothing 
 of practical life — the words of a preacher who would turn 
 the whole world into a cloister, and that it is impossible 
 that the merciful God will call us to account for every 
 careless saying. 
 
 But, brethren, the words I preach from to-day are His 
 to whose authority the whole Christian world bows ; they 
 are His who read the human heart as never mortal did 
 before or since; they are His of whom is emphatically 
 recorded "He knew what was in man;" they arc His 
 whom all the ages adore as the merciful and forgiving, and 
 yet they declare, without any qualification, that "every idle 
 word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof 
 in the day of judgment." The scope, brethren, of this 
 solemn warning is as wide as it could be made. It con- 
 demns not only all words which arc positively and directly 
 evil, but all which are not clearly and consciously good. 
 The word "idle" might be equally, perhaps more correctly, 
 rendered "useless;" and thus all words come under the 
 range of Christ's condemnation which do not tend to good. 
 For here we encounter the lesson which meets us every- 
 where in Christian teaching, and with which every sound 
 moralist agrees, that there can be no neutral actions in our
 
 159 
 
 lives; there are no doings of ours of so little importance as 
 not to be reckoned cither good or bad; everything we do 
 bears its decisive character of right or wrong, as Christ 
 Himself says " He that is not with Me is against Me; he 
 that gathcreth not for Me, scattercth abroad." 
 
 I wish especially, however, to single out to-day some 
 classes of idle words which, though they are only too com- 
 mon among us, are yet worthy of special condemnation as 
 utterly inconsistent with the Christian character, and more 
 powerful for evil than we commonly think. 
 
 I. — And first, I instance Slanderous words. I do so 
 because if you look to the chapter you will find it was these 
 especially which were the immediate occasion of our text. 
 Our Lord had performed one of His many miracles, He 
 had wrought a cure more than usually striking, for He had 
 healed a poor demoniac who was both blind and dumb. 
 Evidently the crowd were greatly impressed, and began to 
 wonder if He who could do such mighty acts were not after 
 all really the Messiah. Some Pharisees, however, who had 
 come from Jerusalem full of enmity and party spirit, were 
 among the crowd. They were unable to deny the miracle 
 which had been, as it were, wrought before their very eyes, 
 but they were filled with double hatred at the effect it had 
 upon the crowd. In their own hearts they were almost 
 convinced that He who had done such a wonderful and 
 beneficent thing must be peculiarly blessed of God. Yet, 
 crushing clown this conviction, they took refuge in a lie too 
 transparent not to be visible to themselves — determined at 
 all hazards at once to retain their hold over the people and 
 to crush the influence of Jesus — the}- boldly invented the 
 monstrous slander, " He casts out the demons by the aid of 
 Beel/.ebub; it is by the existence of the supreme evil one he 
 has wrought this seeming miracle of good." No wonder 
 that this drew from Christ perhaps His most severely 
 solemn warning. He saw in their state of soul the highest 
 reach of wickedness, and pronounced it the one unpardon- 
 able -in. for they had blasphemed the Holy Ghost, and
 
 160 
 
 consciously and deliberately called good, evil. And as 
 Christ thinks on their awful state of soul — the dark, sus- 
 picious, cruel spirit of which this accusation was the 
 outcome — he sees the evil consequences that attend the 
 lightest ill word man can speak, and so gives to all ages 
 the solemn warning, " every idle word that men shall speak, 
 they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment." 
 
 Brethren, we shrink back in horror — the whole Christian 
 world does so — from those who drew from Christ this awful 
 rebuke, who already in their heart had determined to kill 
 Him, and who became afterwards His cruel murderers. 
 But this spirit did not die with these, it lived again even in 
 those who called themselves the successors and followers of 
 Jesus ; nay, it is only too active still in the hearts of many 
 who are to be found in every congregation. Look, for ex- 
 ample, at the so-called religious world, and is it not the 
 same spirit you sec at work there? When those who belong 
 to one Church or sect mislikc the good which is done by 
 those of another, and begin to suggest that, after all, how- 
 ever holy the action seems, the motive must have been 
 impure and evil ; when the bigoted Protestant or the 
 bigoted Catholic derides and despises the good done by 
 his brother of a different church ; when the Presbyterian 
 or the Episcopalian questions the purity of the motives of 
 those who have evidently accomplished some noble work, 
 because they do not belong to his own sect ; in all these 
 cases, brethren, we have the same spirit which Christ con- 
 demned. 
 
 Nor is it less so in the political world, where men arc 
 only too ready to cast all manner of evil insinuations against 
 those who differ from them in opinion. And though I will 
 be told this is a necessity of public life, I must refuse to 
 believe that a spirit which so clearly transgresses the law 
 of Christ is unavoidable. It may be a necessity for the 
 unscrupulous partisan to say all the evil things he can 
 invent or imagine of his opponents, but the public service 
 of the country would be all the more nobly done if every 
 one, from highest to lowest, had the manly honesty, not to
 
 1 01 
 
 say the Christian charity, to rejoice in every public benefit 
 by whomsoever accomplished, and never to soil the lips by 
 mean insinuations against any rival. 
 
 But, brethren, it is not in the public life of churches or 
 parties that the spirit of slander works its deadliest evil. 
 No, it is in the daily intercourse of man with man — it is in 
 the every-day life of the very humblest of us — it may be 
 even in the rural quiet of a country parish such as this. 
 And I charge you, beware of the slightest encouragement 
 you give to such a spirit — beware how you allow your lips 
 to form one single evil insinuation, one false accusation, 
 one uncharitable expression against anyone. Even open 
 violence and assault looks manly and noble in comparison 
 with the covert sneer and the whispered depreciation. If 
 vou can say no good about another, better be silent alto- 
 gether. 
 
 If you think you can reasonably suspect as not altogether 
 pure the motives of an action which the world admires, yet 
 remember how difficult it is even for the best to make the 
 springs of action perfectly clean. 
 
 "Go to your bosom ; 
 Knock there and ask your heart what it doth know 
 That's like your brother's fault : if it confess 
 A natural guiltiness such as is his, 
 Let it not sound a thought upon your tongue 
 Against your brother's name." 
 
 Think on what a slander is; the very word is significant. 
 It comes from the Greek word " o-KavSakov," a " stumbling- 
 block," so often used in the New Testament. He who 
 utters a slander is putting in his brother's way a stumbling- 
 block, something which will cause him to trip and fall. 
 He is coming under that terrible sentence of Christ's where 
 He said " He that casteth a <n<avSa\ov before one of these 
 little ones that believe in me, it were better for him that a 
 mill-stone were hanged about his neck and he were drowned 
 in the depths of the sea." Our common and careless 
 proverb says " words break no bones," but I say on the 
 
 L
 
 162 
 
 contrary, that a word is often more cruel, as well as more 
 cowardly, than a blow ; and that not once, but again and 
 again, a slanderous word, a whispered insinuation, an un- 
 charitable speech, a careless but cruel charge — such as, 
 God forgive us, we are all only too apt to give expression 
 to — has checked the spring of repentance, arrested the 
 growth of goodness, ruined a human soul, made shipwreck 
 of a whole life. Let us remember that the very name given 
 in the New Testament to the head of all evil means an 
 " accuser " or " slanderer," and let us determine, by God's 
 grace, to play no devil's part in life. Rather let us aspire 
 to earn the noble praise bestowed on a prince of our own, 
 by our greatest living singer — 
 
 ;t He spake no slander 
 No, nor listened to it." 
 
 II. Another class of "idle words" specially to be con- 
 demned arc profane words. I mention these, brethren, 
 because, like the former, they are immediately suggested 
 by the connection of our text (for it was profanity as well 
 as slander which lurked in the spirit of those Pharisees). 
 I know there are many who think that profanity is to be 
 greatly, if not altogether, excused because it is the result 
 of a habit, and the swearer will often be heard saying in 
 his defence "Oh, I did not mean what I said." But if this 
 excuse is to be admitted it excuses all crimes whatsoever. 
 There is perhaps no single enormity man has ever done, of 
 which it could not be pleaded with equal truth that it was 
 the result of habit, and that the offender did not clearly 
 know what he did. It is a habit for the liar to speak 
 untruth, for the thief to steal, for the sensualist to commit 
 impurity — a habit often no less gradually and unconciously 
 formed than swearing— but would that acquit them in any 
 court in the country, or docs it still the accusations of their 
 own conscience? Even the murderer very seldom realizes 
 what he is doing when he slays. Blinded by passion, 
 frenzied by fear or hate, he is no more clearly conscious 
 than the swearer is of the full measure of his crime. I
 
 163 
 
 admit there is a clear difference between the profanity, 
 which with so many is the result of an idle and careless 
 habit, an open deliberate blasphemy of God and good- 
 though I am fain to believe the latter but seldom 
 exists. None the less, brethren, is it needful to remember 
 that a sin is still a sin, though it be the result of habit — a 
 crime does not cease to be a crime because it is done in 
 passion and without a clear consciousness of its evil. 
 
 But it will be said that sin and crime are too serious 
 words to apply to such a light and trivial offence as swear- 
 ing. Thank God, brethren, the day has gone by— and 
 gone, let us hope, never to return — when it was thought 
 indispensable in a gentleman to season his speech with 
 oaths; when no one could hope to be accounted fashionable 
 who did not, even in his own house and before his own wife 
 and daughters, indulge in habitual profanity. 
 
 But if anyone think that the fact that it was once 
 approved of excuses or makes light the sin, let him re- 
 member that even in civilised and Christian countries 
 society has justified many intolerable wrongs, many deadly 
 sins. Poisoning was at one time almost allowed; assas- 
 sination was justified. The same age which approved of 
 swearing upheld slavery, enjoined the legal murder of 
 duelling, spoke lightly of adultery, derided public honour, 
 and praised as the first gentleman of Europe one who, if he 
 now sat upon the British throne, would be hurled from it in 
 instant revolution by the moral indignation of the whole 
 country. 
 
 But it will be said swearing, after all, docs no injury, for 
 God is too great to be offended by our words, and they can 
 do no injury to any other. No injury, brethren ? I grant 
 you our strongest, coarsest blasphemy cannot drop the 
 smallest soilure or stain on the bright floor of God's heaven, 
 much less can they rise even to touch His footstool any 
 more than all the accumulated smoke of all the furnaces of 
 earth can blot from the majestic sun one ray of dazzling 
 gold. 
 
 But swearing docs no injury ? Profane words have no ill
 
 164 
 
 results? Nay, brethren, put away that illusion. They in- 
 jure the soul from which they came; they -do the worst 
 injun- on all within their reach. 
 
 As the Romanists confessed when they burnt the martyrs, 
 that the smoke of them infected all on whom it blew; so, 
 be assured, is it with profane words. Why, even little chil- 
 dren — God help them — even those who have no more than 
 learned to speak, may be heard any day in our large cities 
 uttering- whole sentences of profanity, unconscious of what 
 they say. Would any father here think it no injury to fill 
 the mouth of his lisping child with dreadful oaths? 
 
 Were I addressing an audience of open unbelievers in 
 Christianity — were I speaking to any fair-minded sceptics 
 to whom God and Christ and all other holy names are 
 nearly, if not altogether, unmeaning and empty sounds, even 
 then I should have the fullest confidence they would join 
 with me in condemning swearing as an injurious and evil 
 habit. But I cannot forget I am addressing a Christian 
 congregation, and that the vice I am condemning is in- 
 dulged in by men at least nominally Christian. And I will 
 not say to you, if you have any love and reverence for Christ, 
 you must try to keep His solemn command, " swear not at 
 all;" but I would simply ask you to remember that these 
 names which in swearing you drag into your idlest conver- 
 sation, which you use in those passionate moments of which 
 afterwards you are ashamed, which you associate with all 
 dishonouring and polluting things; these names which you 
 thus do all you can to soil and degrade with the ignoblest 
 to which words can be applied, these names are what ? 
 Some idle sounds, some quite unmeaning expressions, terms 
 hateful and despised by all men? 1 Nay, brethren, quite 
 Otherwise. They are the names at which countless genera- 
 of men have bowed in adoration, which are sacred 
 every day on the lips of the dying as the one hope and 
 mi left to them in the whole- world, which you your- 
 selves first learned at your mother's knee when she taught 
 you to lisp your earliest prayer, which, even now, if you 
 have any religion at all, are dearer, more reverent and be-
 
 1 65 
 
 loved than any other words. C) brethren, it is no light sin 
 to use such words in vulgar swearing, for yon are thereby 
 
 striking- at the very heart of all reverence and all religion! 
 
 When the splendid Cathedral of St. Paul's was being 
 built in London by the great Sir Christopher Wren, that 
 famous architect had a notice placarded all over the works 
 saying that, as that building was meant for the service of 
 God, any workman indulging in swearing would instantly 
 be dismissed. Hut, brethren, since the whole world is the 
 house of God, swearing anywhere is profanity no less than 
 if it were in cathedral or church; and I call upon you, as 
 Christian men — nay, I appeal to you simply in the name 
 of true manhood and reverence — never, under any provoca- 
 tion or passion, indulge in swearing yourself, or give it the 
 smallest countenance in others. Listen to one of the wisest 
 of living teachers — to one of the noblest of English writers, 
 whose life is as pure as his eloquence is lofty: — "One thing," 
 says Mr. Ruskin, " One thing I know, and if you live for it 
 you shall know it also, that in reverence is the true joy and 
 crown of life — reverence for all that is great among the 
 living, glorious among the dead, and sacred and adorable in 
 the Powers above us which never die.'' 
 
 Brethren, 1 must come to a close; I have already de- 
 tained you too long; and yet I have only spoken of some 
 classes of idle words, and our text warns us against all. 
 But no thoughtful, no religious man, least of all no Christian 
 preacher, can pass from such solemn words as those of the 
 text without wishing to impress on your heart one thing 
 more. You are assured that for every idle word you shall 
 certainly answer to God in the great day of judgment. 
 
 Brethren, bethink yourselves, this is no idle tale ! A few 
 years more and, like the countless generations before us, 
 we too will have gone from this life to that other world 
 where each human soul shall be judged for the deeds done 
 in the body, and then for even' lightest evil word we shall 
 have to answer. Do you say that it is impossible that any 
 record can exist of the countless words of earth's countless 
 millions? do you imagine that not all the recording angels
 
 166 
 
 could keep so vast a reckoning-, and that the world itself 
 could not contain the books that should be written ? I 
 might reply that all things are possible with God, and that 
 neither you nor I can rightly speak of the mysteries that 
 lie beyond the veil of the present life. I might show you 
 how every religion has taught the truth of a retributive 
 judgment, that almost every great thinker admits its neces- 
 sity, that every conscience anticipates it, that every page 
 of Scripture declares it. But I can do more. Yes, brethren, 
 strange though it be, I can point you even now to the very 
 volume in which, even as you utter them, every idle word 
 is recorded against you; for I am stating what more than 
 one illustrious thinker has held to be almost proved when 
 I say that each mind (though unknown to itself) retains in 
 its memory the record of every word it has uttered and 
 every deed it has done, and that when quickened by the 
 shock of death we pass into the life beyond, every dimmest 
 trace that memory holds shall stand clearly out in letters 
 of flashing light, so that even from the record in our own 
 souls God may judge us for each idle word. 
 
 And science, too, tells us that when we imagine, as we do, 
 that our words die the moment they are uttered, we are 
 entirely wrong. You have seen a boy throw a stone into a 
 pool, and after it has fallen into the water you have noticed 
 the wave spread out in circle after circle. Now so it is 
 with each word we utter; only the wave of sound we have 
 set agoing can never come to an end, and, utterly beyond 
 our power though it be to trace them, we know that there 
 is a sense in which it is scientifically true that every word 
 spoken from the beginning of time still exists. I know 
 that the fields of science and religion are quite distinct, but 
 do we not see here an echo and confirmation, if any such 
 were required, of Christ's own words, " Every idle word 
 that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the 
 day of judgment !"
 
 1G7 
 
 VI. 
 TRUE FREEDOM. 
 
 " I WILL WALK AT LIBERTY: FOR I SEEK TlIV PRECEPTS." -/". :... 45. 
 
 "The truth shall make you free." — St. John viii. 32. 
 
 •• Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty."— 2 Cor. Hi. 17. 
 
 "The perfect law of liberty."— St. James i. 2j. 
 
 I HAVE chosen these varied verses as our one text to-day 
 because they all agree in setting before us freedom as the 
 one great need of life, and are unanimous in describing its 
 character and the way in which it is to be attained. 
 
 It requires no words to convince anyone that freedom is 
 a most desirable thing. When, some fifty years ago, our 
 country at last decreed that the slaves in our colonies should 
 be released from their thraldom on a certain day, we are 
 told that such was the excitement among them that on the 
 evening before no one thought of sleep, and many climbed 
 a lofty hill where they could catch the earliest rays of the 
 returning sun, and waited eagerly during the long night for 
 the first sign of the morning that was to make them for 
 cver freemen. 
 
 Every heart responds to the words of one of our earliest 
 Scottish poets — 
 
 " Oh, freedom is a noble thing." 
 It is this which lights up the otherwise gloomy and blood- 
 stained page of history ; it is this which rouses us to warmest 
 admiration of the great heroes and warriors of bygone- 
 times. The brightest pages of old Greek and Roman story, 
 the great deeds in the life of modern Europe, the undying 
 memories of our own land, all derive their glory and un- 
 fading interest from this, that they were struggles for liberty . 
 And the longer and more dreadful the contest was — when 
 lather had to bequeath it to son, when in it men counted 
 not their own lives dear to them — so the greater does our
 
 168 
 
 admiration and interest grow ; for we feel, and rightly feel, 
 that no price was too high to pay, no sacrifice too dear to 
 undergo, for that highest of all mere national and social 
 possessions — liberty ! 
 
 But it is not on the battlefield alone men have been pur- 
 suing freedom. As our great patriot tells us, 
 
 " Peace hath her victories 
 Not less renowned than war,'" 
 
 and bloodless battles have been fought and won to secure 
 and extend the liberties of all. In our own day, especially, 
 this has been one great idea generally diffused and acknow- 
 ledged; and now there is no one, in our own country at least, 
 who does not stand in full and complete possession of the 
 utmost civil liberty. 
 
 To-day, brethren, I speak to you of another and still 
 nobler freedom ; of a liberty still more necessary for you and 
 still more to be prized. In the case of political freedom, 
 we indeed " reap where we have not sown ; " " other men 
 laboured, and we have entered into their labours." Read 
 history and you are struck with wonder, with admiration, 
 and. if you have any soul in you at all, with overpowering 
 gratitude to the departed great, when you see by what slow 
 and painful efforts, at what cost of life and labour, at what 
 sacrifices on the scaffold and the stake, in battlefield and in 
 exile, our civil and religious freedom was secured. But 
 there was a price greater still, a liberator more august than 
 these, a sacrifice far more complete and enduring paid to 
 secure this higher freedom of which 1 speak. What do we 
 mean by freedom in the ordinary sense of the word? We 
 mean the opposite of slaver)-; we mean that no one has a 
 right to tyrannise over another; that to sell men as cattle 
 or to whip them as brutes is a crime of the highest degree 
 against our manhood and the God in whose image it was 
 made. \\C mean that no one should be insulted because 
 of his position or birth, or ill-treated because of his opinions; 
 that, in so far as the)- refrain from injuring others or them- 
 selves, each rational human being should be allowed to
 
 169 
 
 follow the mode of life which they choose themselves, and 
 that no one should be permitted to put any restraint or 
 hindrance upon them. To be free, in short, is to be per- 
 fectly untrammelled in the ordering of our outward life. 
 But let me ask any of you, is this the highest conceivable 
 freedom; is this the one indispensable condition for man; 
 is this the one blessing which can turn all life to sweetness 
 and fill it with songs of victory? Were anyone to tell you 
 "now you are free, no one can tyrannise over you, no one 
 can compel you to what you refuse, you are master over 
 your outward life, therefore all the discord and dissatisfac- 
 tion of existence are forever abolished to you," would not 
 these words sound to you as bitter irony ? Would not you 
 be driven to reply, and rightly too, " It is not my life with- 
 out me but my life within that is the chief concern ; after 
 all, freedom or slavery only touch my outward actions, and 
 only some of these. But this world in which I live every 
 hour and moment of my existence, this heart, and mind, 
 and soul, who is to give me freedom there, who can make 
 me there master and lord of my life? When I feel within 
 myself the struggle of good and evil; when every hour of 
 my existence 1 pass in a more or less keen encounter of 
 temptation ; when conscience accuses me, and duty appeals 
 to me, and contrariwise. Passion masters me, and habit 
 lords it over me; when daily and almost hourly my 
 experience is 'the good that I would I do not: but the 
 evil which I would not, that I do.' I find a law in my 
 members warring against the law of my mind and bringing 
 me into captivity to it: is not the overpowering cry forced 
 from my lips — ' O wretched man that I am, who shall 
 deliver me from the body of this death?"' 
 
 Brethren, in nothing is the truth of Christianity made 
 more apparent, in nothing does it better authenticate its 
 divine message, than that it laid its finger precisely upon 
 this inward slavery as the curse of human life, ami set itself 
 to amend this as the indispensable condition of all human 
 improvement It was not that it was careless ^\ civil liberty, 
 that it had no regard for outward political freedom.
 
 170 
 
 Do not believe those who tell you (as some do in the 
 present day) that the Church is the enemy of freedom, and 
 that Christianity has done nothing" for men's liberties. Of 
 all calumnies and untruths this is the greatest. In our own 
 country it is especially disproved, for it was the Scottish 
 Church and not the Scottish State that repeatedly fought 
 the battle of freedom, and that under God was the means 
 of securing it not only for our own land but for our united 
 empire. 
 
 But it has been so everywhere. Almost every great 
 liberator and patriot in Christendom has been animated by 
 religion, and every great movement for freedom in modern 
 times could be traced back to the Reformation, the very 
 soul and heart of which was religious. It was the ideas, the 
 beliefs which Christianity implanted in the world, which 
 made freedom inevitable and gave it its overpowering 
 strength. Whenever, and so far as, men received the teach- 
 ing of Christ, slavery became impossible, women ceased to 
 be degraded, children to be despised, kings could not 
 tyrannise, class could not lord it over class. Christianity, 
 in so far as it wins its way, brings with it inevitably and 
 irresistibly the true gospel of liberty, equality, brotherhood. 
 
 But, brethren, the worst slavery is in the soul within ; 
 and if it were not there it could never come into the world 
 without. It is from the heart, as Christ taught us, all evil 
 thoughts and passions come. Two of the greatest thinkers 
 of all time — two of those who read the human heart as 
 almost no mere uninspired men have ever done — Plato and 
 Shakespeare, unite with all Holy Scripture in describing 
 the natural state and condition of man's heart and life as 
 one of grievous disorder and degrading slavery. 
 
 O, my brethren, in so far as any one of you here has 
 shut out the grace of God, and is living without the power 
 and presence of Christ in his daily life, you are a slave, far 
 more degraded, tasting a worse and more bitter bondage 
 than chains and whips ever brought. And it is in God's 
 name I bring you 1 lis message of freedom; it is to His Son, 
 our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, 1 point you as the great
 
 171 
 
 Liberator. He declares His own mission to be "to preach 
 deliverance to the captives and set at liberty those that are 
 bound." Receive His truth into your heart and you are 
 free; abide in His spirit and you have liberty; walk in His 
 precepts and you have emancipation. For, brethren, this is 
 the indispensable condition of true freedom, this is what 
 favours its very nature and life, this is how Christian liberty 
 is secured in a man's soul. 
 
 Freedom, even in the outward political sense, is not the 
 mere absence of all conditions and restraints. That would 
 be not freedom but lawlessness, not liberty but licence, and 
 it could only issue in anarchy worse than any tyranny. 
 The true freeman is devoted to the laws of his country, 
 and not only joyfully submits to them but identifies his 
 freedom with them, and joins, in one expression, " laws and 
 liberties " as the object of his devotion. 
 
 It is likewise with inward spiritual freedom. All the 
 verses in our text agree in teaching us its one indispensable 
 condition. The Psalmist says, " I will walk at liberty: for I 
 will seek Thy precepts;" Christ says, " The truth shall make 
 you free;" St. Paul says, "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, 
 there is liberty;" and St. James speaks of "the perfect law 
 of liberty." 
 
 Now this which is variously called a body of precepts — 
 the Truth, the Spirit of the Lord, the perfect law — is but 
 one and the same thing, though we may give it many 
 different names. But what it is we best know when, in 
 accordance with the most frequent representations in the 
 New Testament and the deepest experience of the Saints 
 of all ages, we think of it and call it nothing else than the 
 Living Christ in the soul of man. He who had this power 
 present in his heart and life, he only is in any real sense a 
 Christian, and he only knows what it is to be truly free. 
 For in so far as Christ lives in us we are nut receiving some 
 foreign power into our being, but we are then first and most 
 truly recovering our own selves. The spirit vi Christ which 
 breathes itself into our nature — the precepts he inspires us 
 to love and follow — the truth he makes us in our inmost
 
 172 
 
 soul believe as the foundation of all reality — the law by 
 which henceforth we feel in our noblest wills bound — these 
 are not something which compel us by their authority or 
 their might to do what is contrary to our real nature, and 
 which carry us somewhere in a different direction from 
 what our life would properly seek ; on the contrary, we feel, 
 as we go on, that we thereby realise our nature in its fullest 
 and highest degree, and our life attains a fulness, a power, a 
 sense of reaching its true end such as without this would be 
 impossible. For, brethren, Christ is, if I may so speak, your 
 true self; in His manhood he is the perfect example and 
 ideal of your true life; in His Godhead He is that spirit 
 in whom your spirit has always lain, and from which you 
 cannot go, and by loving submission means self-control, the 
 law of Christ, the highest and fullest liberty. But he who 
 by becoming Christ's slave (according is the Apostle Paul's 
 favourite expression) has reached the noblest freedom, is 
 not only free in his soul within ; not only do evil passions 
 cease to make him their sport, and evil habits no longer 
 hold him in degrading slavery; not only are every malice 
 and lust being cast out from the restored and purified 
 temple of his spirit, but he is free over his outward life too. 
 
 How many a man is a slave to things outside him — 
 incapable of any real sense of freedom — ruled as remorse- 
 lessly by things which are not himself as ever any poor 
 slave was by his driver. Do we not know men and women 
 whose business, whose daily round of work, whose money, 
 whose social engagements, whose pleasure, whose infirmity 
 of temper, whose ill-health of body, or the apprehension 
 of some future evil, as poverty or sickness or death, really 
 rules over them as with a rod of iron — is master of them 
 almost entirely, body and soul ? 
 
 Alas, my brethren, none of us have far to seek for such; 
 almost none of us realise what it is to be really free as 
 Christ would have us, with the glorious liberty of the child- 
 ren of God. 1 Ie who is Christ's freeman is free of the whole 
 universe. Over every conceivable accident and chance and 
 experience of life he is by Christ's spirit master and lord.
 
 17:: 
 
 Poverty or wealth, sickness or health, joy or sorrow, hope 
 
 and fear, these are alike his servants, to be ruled by him; 
 he has a right to say with the grand Christian stoicism of 
 St. Paul, " None of these things move me." " All these 
 things are mine, whether life or death, or things present or 
 things to come, all are mine, and I am Christ's, and Christ 
 is God's.' 
 
 • • That man is free from servile bands 
 Of hope to rise or fear to fall: 
 Lord of himself though not of lands, 
 And having nothing, yet hath all."
 
 174 
 
 VII. 
 
 THE CALL OF ABRAHAM. 
 
 "Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy 
 
 COUNTRY, AND FROM THY KINDRED, AND FROM THY FATHER'S HOUSE, 
 UNTO A LAND THAT I WILE SHOW THEE." — Gen. xii. I. 
 
 " By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a 
 
 PLACE WHICH HE SHOULD AFTER RECEIVE FOR AN INHERITANCE, OBEYED; 
 AND HE WENT OUT NOT KNOWING WHITHER HE WENT."-&/'. xi. S. 
 
 It is with no ordinary feeling that one stands at the source 
 of some mighty river. Amid the quiet hills, far away from 
 the bustle of men, we look with a kind of wonder on the 
 tiny streamlet which a child might cross, and it is not 
 without an effort that we can realise that this is the be- 
 ginning of that mighty current which in its onward course 
 is to determine the rise of wealthy cities, and bear on its 
 broad tide the commerce of half a nation. 
 
 It is with a similar feeling that we read the words of our 
 text. For here we stand by the source of one of the 
 mightiest currents of the history of the world. No nation 
 has exerted so mighty and enduring an influence as the 
 nation of Israel. Our religion, and with it much of our 
 civilisation, comes from them ; and as Christ Himself said, 
 " Salvation is of the Jews." And yet but for the incident 
 referred to in the text that nation would have had no 
 existence. 
 
 Rightly did the children of Israel speak of Abraham as 
 the father and founder of their race. It was not merely 
 that he was their ancestor: for that they owed no special 
 gratitude to him. It was that he, by his migration from 
 the distant East, separated them from the idolatry and 
 : of the nations beyond the Euphrates, and so 
 determined in great measure their future destiny. 
 
 A i we look back from the clear light of our present 
 standpoint, we can see how large a place Providence had
 
 L75 
 
 assigned to the Jews in the education of the world. In the 
 nation which was to descend from Abraham " all families 
 of the earth were to be blessed." The New Testament 
 enshrines the one pure religion which is destined to mould 
 into goodness the whole future of man. And yet in a sense 
 the New Testament came out of the Old, and the Old 
 Testament is simply the outcome of the best part of the 
 life of the descendants of Abraham. Humanly speaking, 
 then, it may be said that we would have had no Old Testa- 
 ment and no New Testament, we would have had no Jewish 
 Church and no Christian Church, but for that decisive act of 
 Abraham by which, leaving his father's country and home, 
 he led the way to the Promised Land, and laid the founda- 
 tions of the chosen race. 
 
 Historians are fond of showing us on what small events 
 the great currents of history turn; they show us how the 
 decision of a single battle saved Europe from being a mere 
 dependency on Asia, again prevented Christendom from 
 being made Mahommedan, and again saved the liberties 
 of modern Europe from being riveted anew by the old des- 
 potisms. And similarly we may point to this wayfarer as 
 he sets out from his far eastern home, and with no irrever- 
 ence we may say that he carries with him the fortunes alike 
 of the Jewish nation and the Christian Church, for in that 
 journey of his we sec the beginning of both. 
 
 But it is not to excite a passing wonder at the large 
 issues which hang on seemingly trifling events that I have 
 placed this text before you ; it is that we may learn to 
 exercise in daily life that spirit which prompted this de- 
 cisive act of the great patriarch. For the writer to the 
 Hebrews sees in this event, which laid the foundation of 
 their nation, no mere accidental impulse; and as little docs 
 he view Abraham as a mere passive instrument in the hands 
 of an unseen Providence. Rather does he sec in it an 
 illustration of that principle which, in common with every 
 Testament writer, he believed to be the spring of all 
 true religious life, for it was " by faith Abraham, when he 
 was called to go out into a place which he should after
 
 176 
 
 receive for an inheritance, obeyed ; and he went out, not 
 knowing whither he went." 
 
 Were an artist to seek to paint an historical picture sym- 
 bolical of Faith, I do not know that anywhere in the whole 
 range of history, sacred or profane, he would find a finer or 
 more suggestive subject than this. There in the foreground 
 stands the Eastern chief, a man no longer young. Behind 
 him lies the rocky citadel, Ur of the Chaldees, where he 
 has hitherto dwelt with his kindred. Around him spreads 
 the vast Mesopotamian plain. Before him rolls the great 
 river, the Euphrates, which, when once he passes over, he 
 will never more re-cross. Yet there is no hesitation or fear 
 in his look, though he is leaving all he knows and loves for 
 a far-off and unknown land He feels that he is called of 
 God. that God is the Guide of all his life, and he faces 
 that unknown future in the calm strength of faith. The 
 greatness of this act we see when we regard it as an instance 
 of obedience — when called, Abraham obeyed. 
 
 Tradition tells us that the kindred and family of Abraham 
 were idolaters; and there is a beautiful story in the Koran 
 which tells us how he himself rose to a purer faith. "When 
 night overshadowed him he saw a star and said, " This is my 
 God." But when it set he said, " I like not those that set." 
 And when he saw the moon rising he said, "This is my 
 God." But when the moon set he answered, " Verily, if my 
 God direct me not in the right way I shall be as one of 
 those who err." And when he saw the sun rising he said, 
 "This is greater than the star or moon." But when the sun 
 went down he said, " O, my people, I am clear of these 
 things — I turn to Him who hath made the heaven and the 
 earth." Wc may take this story for what it is worth, but it 
 is certain that, however he may have gained it, there had 
 come to Abraham the ennobling thought that there was a 
 God in whose hands were all his ways, and to whose will 
 he owed unhesitating obedience. And so, when this call 
 came t<> him to leave his father's house and his native land, 
 it found him ready. 
 
 In what manner this call came to Abraham, and how he
 
 177 
 
 knew it to be a call from God, we are not told. A great 
 commentator has even pointed out that there is a second 
 account of it in Genesis, which would seem to place it on a 
 purely natural basis — which simply tells us that"Abram 
 took Sarai his wife and Lot his brother's son and all the 
 substance that they had gathered and they went forth to go 
 into the land of Canaan." This would seem to ascribe 
 the migration of Abraham to that impulse which seems to 
 prompt nations and individuals to leave their old seats for 
 "fresh fields and pastures new." But even if it were so, do 
 you think it was untrue in the historian to record, or a 
 mistake in Abraham to believe, that this was a call from 
 God? But it was just this which was the very essence of 
 Abraham's faith, that he felt that in his migration he was 
 doing no self-willed act, but simply obeying the unseen 
 leading of God. And this is what we, my brethren, must 
 get to learn and believe with all our hearts, that we are not 
 the disposers of our own destiny; that there is a God to 
 whom we owe obedience — a Providence that " shapes our 
 ends, rough hew them how we will." 
 
 The events and circumstances of our lives we may view 
 in a purely secular way, or we may regard them as arranged 
 by Providence, as so many calls of God to which we owe 
 obedience, just as we might describe this migration of 
 Abraham as a purely natural occurrence or as a call of 
 God. Now, which of these ways of looking on our life is 
 the wiser, which the truer ? There is a sense, perhaps, in 
 which both arc true. It is true that the leading events and 
 circumstances of our lives are so far quite natural, in that 
 we can trace the origin of them, and see that they have 
 occurred in accordance with the natural course of things. 
 But that should not prevent us from, it should rather only 
 impel us to, belief in divine guidance which works through 
 all natural events; for a law has neither meaning nor 
 existence except as the expression of a personal law-giver, 
 father we must look on ourselves as the sport of chance in 
 a world without a God, or we must look on the varied 
 circumstances and events of our lives as so many calls from 
 
 M
 
 178 
 
 Him. We all of us acknowledge the existence of duty — 
 that the humblest and the greatest of us are alike every 
 moment of our lives under this great power, which declares 
 what we ought to do — that, as one of our greatest statesmen 
 has said, " Duty is a power which rises with us in the morn- 
 ing and goes to rest with us at night, is as the shadow 
 which cleaves to us go where we will, and leaves us only 
 when we leave the light of life." Not the most trivial act 
 in daily life, not the most careless word we utter, not the 
 most hidden thought or secret desire, but is under the scope 
 of duty — it either ought or ought not to be done. 
 
 But what is duty to a religious man — nay, how can you 
 justify it to reason at all — save as that which the poet called 
 it, " The daughter of the voice of God ?" Take God away 
 from the world ; let it be proclaimed to-morrow that religion 
 is — what some of us in our guilty hearts would fain have it — 
 a grand delusion ; let men everywhere believe there is no 
 God, and write, as they did in the mad frenzy of the French 
 Revolution, above the gates of our cemeteries, " Death is an 
 eternal sleep," and it will be impossible for you to show 
 why men should not lie, and cheat, and murder — why 
 anyone should be pure, or forgiving, or loving. With the 
 overthrow of religion all must perish ; if there is no God, 
 there is no such thing as duty. And so, my brethren, to 
 you who believe in God there comes in every summons to 
 duty a call as truly from Him as this call to Abraham. 
 The smallest and most commonplace task in life — your 
 every morning's work, however trivial a routine it may 
 seem — that is God's call to you as certainly as if an angel 
 spoke it. Surely this is enough to redeem even the most 
 despondent of us from the feeling that we arc of no use 
 in the world. Docs the soldier think his post unhonourcd, 
 however humble, who has been ordered to hold it by the 
 general? And shall we think that life obscure or useless 
 to which we have been called by none other than God? 
 Does there stir in one of us the wish to emulate the great 
 and good who have gone before us — would we save our life 
 from meanness, and shame, and sin — would we be followers
 
 179 
 
 of them who, through faith and patience, now inherit the 
 promises? then, like every great saint in the Bible, we must 
 be ever ready to obey the call of God ; the motto of our 
 life must be, " Speak, Lord, for Thy servant hcareth," and 
 with us " to hear must be to obey." And believing that 
 duty is but a name for the command of God, we must live 
 but to do it, and to covet no other epitaph than that which 
 was written by his brother over the grave of one of the 
 noblest of modern Englishmen, the man who died to save 
 India for England, the great and good Sir Henry Lawrence, 
 " Here lies one that tried to do his duty." 
 Yes, our laureate sings — 
 
 " Not once or twice in our rough island story 
 The path of duty was the way to glory ; 
 He that walks it, only thirsting 
 For the right, and learns to deaden 
 Love of self, before his journey closes, 
 He shall find the stubborn thistle bursting 
 Into glossy purples, which outredden 
 All voluptuous garden roses. 
 
 " Not once or twice in our fair island story 
 The path of duty was the way to glory; 
 He that, ever following her commands, 
 On with toil of heart and knees and hands, 
 Through the long gorge to the far light has won 
 His path upward, and prevailed, 
 Shall find the toppling crags of duty scaled 
 Are close upon the shining table lands 
 To which our God Himself is moon and sun." 
 
 But, in the second place, this act of Abraham's, like every 
 great example of faith, shows a spirit that lived not for the 
 present but for the future. There is implied in the scripture 
 story that the thing which Abraham was called to do was 
 neither easy nor pleasant. It is true that the people of 
 these early times did not lead the settled life that we do ; 
 but, on the other hand, they had hardly any communication 
 between distant countries, and to go to a far-off land was 
 almost like going to another world. And if they clung less
 
 180 
 
 than we do to the sense of nationality and the love of their 
 native land, they had a more intense feeling of kindredship, 
 and with them the family embraced not one but many 
 generations. Yet Abraham was to leave all this behind 
 him — he was never again to greet his father and his breth- 
 ren, nor to see their tents glisten on the rocky steep. He 
 was to cross the great river, which, like all ancients, he must 
 have regarded with a shuddering awe, and which was a far 
 more effectual separation to him than Atlantic or Pacific 
 is to us. Yet, whatever struggle there may have been, we 
 read of no hesitation, still less of disobedience. The voice 
 that called him was God's, and, whatever the sacrifice, that 
 was enough for him. 
 
 But it may help us to realise the motive which doubtless 
 sustained Abraham, and the deeply religious character of 
 what seems a mere secular journey, if we bear in mind that 
 the home and country Abraham was called to leave was at 
 least largely the abode of idolatry. 
 
 We know very little of the religious life of the kindred 
 and country of the patriarch, but from slight notices in 
 Scripture and current tradition it seems that they were 
 largely, if not altogether, idolatrous ; and it was that the 
 higher faith to which Abraham had attained might be pre- 
 served by his isolation in a strange land that he was required 
 to leave his home, and thus he was the first in that long roll 
 of heroes to whom the bitter trial has come of choosing 
 between two of the dearest feelings of the human heart. 
 Bitter, indeed, must be the experience and keen the struggle 
 when one has to choose between leaving his native land, 
 bidding an eternal adieu to every well-known scene, gazing 
 for a last time on the winding river and encircling hills, 
 leaving kindly neighbours and familiar streets, for a land 
 where all is strange, the manner foreign, and the tongue 
 unhomely — to choose between these and abjuring his faith 
 and trust in God, forswearing what he believes to be His 
 very truth, and embracing and owning a lie. Yet to the 
 tia i oul there can I)'- no choice; God must be before 
 everything; "Truth, it will cry, though the heavens crush me
 
 18] 
 
 from following- it; no lie, though a whole earthly paradise 
 were the price of my apostasy." It was so that the Hugue- 
 nots, to the number of some fifty thousand, left their fair 
 France for our bleak shores rather than abjure their faith 
 in God. It was so that, more than two hundred years ago, 
 the little ship, the ".May Flower," carried away from E 
 land two hundred of her noblest hearts, who loved her as 
 only patriots can love their native land, and who never till 
 the end of their life ceased to think with tenderness and 
 speak with pathos of the green lanes of their fatherland. 
 They faced unflinchingly the stormy ocean, the keen winter, 
 the almost unbroken forest, the treacherous Indian, the hard 
 settler's life, because they would not give up their faith in 
 God; because that to them a call as divine as Abraham's 
 had come, saying, as to him, " Get thee out of thy country, 
 and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a 
 land that I will show thee." 
 
 To us, my brethren, such a call will probably never come ; 
 in all probability we will never be called to make such a 
 sacrifice; but if we would live the life of faith we must have 
 this spirit which impels us to sacrifice present comfort and 
 ease at the call of God, which prompts us to live, not for 
 the gratification of the passing moment, but for the eternal 
 future, which leads us to crush even the dearest feeling of 
 our heart when we must do so to keep our faith and purity 
 unstained. There is not a soul in this congregation to whom 
 there will not come in life, perhaps not once merely, but 
 often, the call to leave some pleasure, perhaps even allowable 
 pleasure, at the call of duty and God. We may be called 
 to abandon some pleasant vice, to forego some alluring- 
 occupation, to face misconstruction, calumny, and scorn ; 
 we may be called to leave the familiar land of gaiety and 
 pleasure for the dreary and unknown land of pain. Yet it 
 we have any spark, I will not say of the spirit of Abraham 
 or of the grace of faith, but even of common manhood in 
 us, surely we will do this ! For surely it is true what one 
 of our greatest writers has said, that " it is not to taste sweet 
 things, but to do noble and true things and vindicate him-
 
 182 
 
 self under God's heaven as a God-made man, that the 
 poorest son of Adam dimly longs. Show him the way of 
 doing that, the dullest day-drudge kindles into a hero. 
 They wrong man greatly who say he is to be seduced by 
 ease; difficulty, abnegation, martyrdom, death, are the 
 allurements that act on the heart of man. Kindle the inner 
 life of him, you have a flame that burns up all lower con- 
 siderations." 
 
 How dead, then, must he be to all nobleness, not to say 
 of faith, how unworthy the name, not merely of Christian, 
 but of man, who lives, aye as many even in our churches do, 
 for selfishness and pleasure, whose life is never heightened 
 and solemnized by a call from God, for the heart is so gross 
 and the ears so dull, they never hear the voice of Heaven. 
 As Christian men and women, we must never thus sink into 
 living for the present, for when we do so we have lost our 
 faith. The very essence of faith is that it never rests in the 
 present, it is ever pressing on to what is before. It never 
 asks " what present pleasure can I grasp," but " for what 
 goodness can I prepare." Do not think that Abraham 
 found, in the land to which he went, pleasures that more 
 than compensated him for the fatherland he lost. Till the 
 end of his life he was a wanderer, and the only land he 
 possessed in the country promised as an inheritance was 
 what even the poorest may claim — a grave. But it was the 
 very essence of his religious life that he realised that he 
 was a stranger and pilgrim here, and that his best inheri- 
 tance was that city which has no earthly foundations, 
 "whose builder is God." Would we have the spirit of 
 Abraham, the grace of Christian faith, then we must live, 
 not merely for a future, but for a future which shall never 
 dawn on our present life, and which will never take the 
 shape of earthly compensations. Our hope must be fixed 
 on that eternal life which is with the saints of God ; the 
 goal of our endeavour, the supreme object of our desire, 
 must be the life of perfect purity and unselfishness to which 
 death only can introduce us. Thus and thus only shall we 
 imitate the faith of Abraham.
 
 183 
 
 I have only time to allude to one other aspect of this 
 commanding example of faith, and it is one especially 
 appropriate to us who are about to pass into another year: 
 it is that here we sec Abraham facing the unknown future 
 with calmness and courage, — "he went out, not knowing 
 whither he went." You may say that there was nothing 
 very wonderful in this; it is what every one of us have to 
 do every day we live. There is not a morning we go forth 
 that we may not encounter any accident, and ere the day 
 be over fall a victim to sickness, to bereavement, or sorrow. 
 
 ' ; For surely morning never wore to evening 
 But some heart did break. 
 O father, whoso'er thou be, 
 That pledgest now thy gallant son ; 
 A shot, ere half thy draught be done, 
 Hath stilled the life that beat from thee. 
 O mother, praying God would save 
 Thy sailor, while thy head is bow'd ; 
 His heavy-shotted hammock shroud 
 Drops in his vast and wandering grave." 
 
 This possibility of momentary calamity is indeed true for 
 all, but wc cannot claim credit for always facing it, for it is 
 only at times we realise it. Now, he can have no credit 
 for courage who does not know the danger he faces. 
 
 In one of the Peninsular battles an officer rode at the 
 head of his regiment past the general and his staff with a 
 cheek that was deadly pale. Some one commented on it to 
 Wellington as an instance of evident cowardice. " It is 
 quite the reverse," said the great general, " he is the bravest 
 man of all, for he knows his danger yet he faces it." And 
 this is the special merit of this act of Abraham's, lie knew 
 his danger; he realised how utterly uncertain the future 
 was, for he went out not knowing whither he went; yet he 
 had no fear, because he felt that he could not go where 
 God would not be his guide and defence. It was so in the 
 almost similar experience of a man far removed from the 
 time of Abraham, the Scottish traveller. Mungo Park, the
 
 184 
 
 first to penetrate the interior of Africa. " Whatever way I 
 turned," he writes, " nothing appeared but danger and diffi- 
 culty: I saw myself in the midst of a vast wilderness, in the 
 depth of the rainy season, defenceless and alone, surrounded 
 by savage animals and men still more savage. I was five 
 hundred miles from the nearest European settlement. At 
 this moment, painful as my reflections were, the extraordin- 
 ary beauty of a small moss irresistibly caught my eye. I 
 mention it to show from what trifling circumstances the 
 mind will sometimes derive consolation; for though the 
 whole plant was not larger than the top of one of my 
 fingers, I could not contemplate the delicate conformation 
 of its roots and leaves without admiration. Can that Being, 
 thought I, who planted, watered, and brought to perfection 
 in this obscure part of the world, a thing which appears of 
 so small importance, look with unconcern upon the situation 
 and sufferings of creatures formed after his own image? 
 Surely not ! I started up, and disregarding both hunger 
 and fatigue, travelled forward, assured that relief was at 
 hand; and I was not disappointed." 
 
 Let us have faith, my brethren, that spirit which we see 
 in Abraham and in every saint of God, from the earliest 
 on to the latest days, and not even when the future presses 
 on us, in its darkest anxiety or terror, shall we fail or be 
 dismayed. Our own or another's sickness, anxiety for those 
 whom we love better than life, even the dark shadow of 
 death summoning us into the great unknown land, these 
 shall strike no fear into the soul that is filled with faith in 
 God, which knows and trusts in the unfailing love of the 
 father in Heaven, which believes that on the very throne 
 of the universe sits the Friend and Redeemer of all, the 
 Lord Jesus Christ. Such souls have an atmosphere of 
 peace around them amid the wildest earthly storm. " They 
 have but to will, and round them, wherever they are, rises, 
 as it were, an invisible temple; their hearts can kneel down 
 there, and they have an audience of the great, the merciful, 
 the untiring Counsellor and Consoler." God grant we may 
 so live and so die in the rest of faith ! Amen.
 
 is;, 
 
 VIII. 
 EMMANUEL— A CHRISTMAS SERMON. 
 
 "They shall call his name Emmanuel, . . . God with us." — Matt. i. 23. 
 
 The birth of Jesus Christ, brethren, was at the time an 
 almost unnoticed event. 
 
 If the heir to some mighty king is born in our day, we 
 know how the intelligence will be flashed over land and 
 sea till nearly the whole world is acquainted with the news. 
 Even in the age in which Christ came, the birthdays of the 
 Roman Emperor and his family were known and celebrated 
 over the whole civilized world. But, just as Jesus said, the 
 Kingdom of Heaven came without outward observation, 
 so it was with His own coming. There was no parade of 
 outward pomp; there was nothing in any way to attract 
 the general notice, or to signalize even to a Jewish crowd 
 the day of Jesus' birth. 
 
 In the land of Palestine — a very small and rather despised 
 part of the great Roman Empire, in the little village of 
 Bethlehem, nestling on the top of one of the Judean hills; 
 in the rude shed where the cattle were fed and tended, a 
 child was born from a poor peasant mother, who had 
 travelled that week eighty miles from her village home at 
 Nazareth; and this is all, from the earthly outward side — 
 this is all as the world then knew it, that marked the birth 
 of Christ. On the morrow after that first Christmas, the 
 great world awoke to its cares and duties and pleasures, 
 unconscious of the slightest difference — the tide of human 
 care and woe, of human pleasure and pain, rolled on, as if 
 not the smallest incident had occurred to affect its mighty 
 stream. And yet, however strange it seem to us, this silent 
 unnoticed entrance of Christ into human life was the only 
 fitting advent he could make. It could not have been 
 otherwise, for he came to lead a life that should be a perfect
 
 186 
 
 example to all men, and it could not be such if it did not 
 partake of that obscurity which is the lot of the great 
 majority. He came also to appeal to the chosen nation, 
 and through them to the world, not from the stand-point of 
 authority and power, but from that of godlike innocence 
 and sweet attractive grace, and outward show would have 
 hindered, not helped, His purpose. His great life-work of 
 redemption and sacrifice made it necessary that Christ should 
 not only be a man, but a poor and even despised man, and 
 that poverty and obscurity had to begin even at his cradle. 
 But need I tell you, brethren, that that was only one aspect 
 of the coming of Christ ? To the eye of sense and to the 
 great world this was the common event of a common day — 
 an incident unknown, or if known, unnoticed; but to the 
 eye of faith, to the privileged few whom God admitted, as 
 if for a moment, to an insight into His mighty purpose, 
 this was the event for which all ages had been waiting. 
 
 Yonder, on the grassy slopes, the shepherds' eyes are 
 flooded with more than earthly radiance, while other than 
 earthly voices raise the first and only song the Heaven has 
 taught the earth ; yonder in the desert steeps, the eastern 
 sages are pursuing their long and toilsome journey, just 
 that they may visit this wondrous and royal child; and 
 yonder in the courts of the Temple, gleaming bright there 
 on the sacred hill of Jerusalem, two aged servants of God 
 wait, whose lips shall soon speak in inspired song, while 
 they hail this new-born child as the consolation of Israel 
 and the desire of all the nations. And, brethren, faith was 
 right, as it ever is, and sense and sight were wrong, or 
 rather simply blind, as they always are. The birth of Jesus 
 was the one great, supreme event in the world's long and 
 troubled history. 
 
 At this very time, in this very week, from hundreds of 
 millions of men from over a fourth of the widespread 
 human race, in almost every corner of the globe, but chiefly 
 in the great centres of civilization and power, the voice 
 of praise and thanks shall be ascending to God, and count- 
 less hearts shall be rejoicing just over this very event — the
 
 187 
 
 birth of Christ. Nay, even in this age of doubt, when all 
 things are questioned, the very sceptic joins thus far in the 
 Christmas hymn, and readily assents as to an indisputable 
 historical fact that the coming of Christ was the greatest, 
 as it has been the most beneficial, of the events of time. 
 Can we wonder then that when Christian hearts turn back 
 to the birth of Jesus, they should look upon it, not as it 
 really happened in all its poverty of outward circumstance, 
 but as the eye, not only of faith, but even of history, sees 
 it ? And so, when the Evangelists wrote their inspired 
 record of the life of Jesus they see in His birth the fulfilment 
 of the grandest promises given to the nation ages before; 
 and St. Matthew, the first of these, sees in it especially the 
 accomplishment of the glorious promise uttered by the 
 greatest of the prophets seven centuries before, " They shall 
 call His name Emmanuel, God with us." We need not 
 stay here to enquire into the original meaning and scope of 
 this prophecy. It doubtless had a message, as almost 
 every prophetic message had, to the events of the prophet's 
 own day, and may have been applied to quite another 
 child than Christ, one of whose life we know nothing at all. 
 Probably it was meant at the time as an encouragement to 
 the nation of Israel when threatened with an alarming 
 invasion, by reminding them, in this significant name, that 
 as God had been with them in their past history so He 
 would not fail them now; that their confident watchword 
 in battle and trouble could still be "God with us." But, 
 brethren, whatever the original use of these words, there 
 can be no doubt as to their meaning in Christian times; 
 nor has the Church ever deviated from her faith that in the 
 fullest and highest sense they were only fulfilled when 
 Christ was born; and at this Christmas time, when all 
 branches of the Church unite in turning their thoughts 
 especially to the coming of the Saviour, and when our own 
 Church, in place of condemning, rather encourages the 
 remembrance and commemoration of what no Christian 
 heart should ever forget, I do not know what better subject 
 we could have for meditation than this, that in Christ's
 
 188 
 
 coming we have the fulfilment of the splendid prophecy, 
 " They shall call His name Emmanuel, God with us;" and 
 I shall try to show you how truly and fully the old promise 
 was kept by speaking briefly of these three points in the 
 coming of Christ: — (i) Its certainty; (2) Its character; (3) 
 Its continuance; or in other words, by leading you to see 
 how Christ has made God the truth, the love, and the life 
 of our heart — made us realize His reality, His kindness, His 
 nearness as we never could have done but for Him. 
 
 I. The certainty of Christ's coming, or how He has made 
 God real to us. 
 
 I need hardly say, brethren, that when the Evangelist 
 sees in Christ's coming the fulfilment of the prophecy 
 " God with us," that is (as I believe) God with the whole 
 human race, he could never have meant that God had ever 
 been absent from man ; nor that when I say Christ's coming 
 made God real to us, I do not mean that God was ever 
 unreal in the sense of non-existent. There is one truth 
 we must hold as the most certain and fundamental of all, 
 for without this 
 
 ' ; The pillared firmament is rottenness 
 And earth's base built on stubble," 
 
 and all life and thought a hopeless chaos— that there is not 
 an atom of matter nor a moment of time which is not full 
 of God, that " in Him," as the great apostle says, " we live 
 and move and have our being." Ay, even wicked men, even 
 the dark ages of history, even we when our lives may be 
 evil and vicious, cannot be sundered from Him. God is with 
 us always, everywhere. As well ask a speck of dust to rise 
 and carry itself somewhere where it will not be part of this 
 boundless universe, and acted on by its mighty and cease- 
 less laws, as to dream that any human soul can ever be 
 where God is not with it. To escape from our own shadow, 
 to silence our own thought, to cut ourselves asunder from 
 our own past — these are easy compared with the attempt 
 to no longer have ,; God with us." How then can this be 
 a mark of Christ's coming which is inevitable in human
 
 189 
 
 life ? Let me try to make it clear to you by a single 
 illustration. You know modern science has taught us that 
 there is a power diffused throughout our world which we 
 call electricity. It is present everywhere, even in our own 
 bodies; it sleeps in the dew-drop as well as in the thunder- 
 cloud. Now you know this power must have been always 
 present in the world ; the constitution of the universe and 
 the life of man would have been impossible without it. 
 Yet it is only within almost living memory that men have 
 begun to know this marvellous power, and see the difference 
 this knowledge has already made; look at the inventions 
 which have almost revolutionized human life — the telegraph, 
 the telephone, a thousand contrivances which have become 
 an important part of our very existence. Now here you 
 see, brethren, the difference between a power everywhere 
 diffused and always acting, yet almost or altogether un- 
 known, and the same power, in no degree altered, yet 
 known and used. And this is the illustration of the 
 difference between " God with us " since man's creation, 
 and " God with us" through Christ's coming; or, as I have 
 otherwise put it, it is Christ's coming which has made God 
 real to us ; here is the grand certainty on which we can 
 rest. 
 
 There were and are other ways of knowing God. The 
 heathen religions, amid their idolatry and cruelty, were 
 a-groping after God; the Jewish religion, in its inspired men 
 and great events, revealed Him; all good and noble men 
 have brought Him near; the world speaks of Him; our 
 own heart and conscience confess Him. But, oh brethren, 
 how dim, uncertain, unsatisfying arc all these compared 
 with Christ ! Here in a human life as real as our own: here 
 in a man with like passions to ourselves; here in one who 
 filled every stage of human existence from helpless baby- 
 hood to strong manhood; here in one who toiled and rested, 
 smiled and wept, rejoiced and sorrowed, lived and died as 
 any of us; here in one whose history we know, can see 
 amid all the vicissitudes of his course, amid friends and foes, 
 in success and failure, can follow from point to point, almost
 
 190 
 
 from day to day, of His life; here, brethren, is God. And 
 does not this make God real to us ; do we not feel that we 
 know Him now as we never could do before; in this have 
 we not a certainty as fixed as our own existence; is not 
 this Emmanuel "God with us?" Yes, well may our 
 modern poet sing, 
 
 ' ; And so the word was flesh and wrought 
 With human hands the creed of creeds. 
 In loveliness of perfect deeds 
 More strong than all heroic thought, 
 Which he may read who binds the sheaf, 
 Who builds the house, Or digs the grave." 
 
 Christ's coming has made God the very truth of our life. 
 God is no longer a dim dream, a difficult thought only the 
 wise can grasp; He is the centre of all history, visible and 
 plain in every action of Christ ; He is the great reality. 
 
 Consider II. — The character of Christ's coming, or how 
 He has made God's kindness clear. 
 
 The life of Christ revealed God, made God real to us, 
 made God be with us, as nothing else had ever done; this 
 has been our first point. But our second is at least as 
 important. In what aspect did Christ reveal God? His 
 coming was the coming of God ; He was " God manifest in 
 the flesh;" what, then, was the character of His coming? 
 There arc three ways in which you may study the life of 
 Christ to obtain the answer to this. Every aspect of 
 Christ's life reveals God ; you must therefore look at these 
 three points of view which exhaust it all. Consider these 
 three things then which sum up the whole life of Jesus; 
 His circumstances, His words, His actions. Now, all these 
 three are in wonderful and beautiful harmony, they make 
 one and the same impression upon us. Think of the cir- 
 cumstances of Jesus' life. We don't usually read men's 
 character from their circumstances, for in great part these 
 are beyond their control, but Jesus voluntarily chose His. 
 Recall these to your remembrance, 1 lis helpless babyhood, 
 His sweet childhood, His obedient and obscure youth, His
 
 191 
 
 manhood of poverty and toil, His death of suffering and 
 shame. Recollect His words, all of them tender, compas- 
 sionate, merciful, unless to those whom it would have been 
 the worst unkindness not to have aroused by stern rebuke. 
 Think on the parable of the Prodigal Son, the " Come unto 
 me all ye that labour," the beatitudes, the oft repeated "thy 
 sins are forgiven, go in peace." Lastly, remember the 
 actions of Jesus; His miracles, not one of which but was of 
 mercy and healing; His dealings with the outcast; His 
 love for His disciples; His tenderness with children; His 
 forgiveness even of His murderers; and what, let one ask, 
 is the one impression which all these views of this wondrous 
 life make upon us ? Is it not that of a love that seemed 
 boundless, a tenderness whose healing touch reached the 
 most hidden feeling, a sympathy which at once flew to help 
 the humblest soul within its reach? And this, brethren, 
 was the life of God; It was a man's life or it would not 
 have been real to us ; it was God's life or it would not have 
 been a revelation; yet double though the life was it had 
 but one character, and the character it unfolded to us was 
 the character of God. Verily " the law was given by Moses, 
 but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ; God so loved 
 the world that He sent His Son;" God is Love. Here 
 "God is with us" as He never was before; Christ's coming 
 has made Him the very love of our life, which we must 
 receive or be for ever dead to our true existence; and the 
 conclusion of all hearts is in the words of the modern 
 singer — 
 
 " So the All-great is the All-loving too, 
 So from the thunder comes a human voice, 
 Saying. " Oh heart I made a heart beats here. 
 Face my hands fashioned see it in myself, 
 Thou hast no power nor can'st conceive of mine, 
 But love I gave thee with Myself to love, 
 And thou must love me who has died for the 
 
 Consider lastly. III. — The continuance of Christ's coming, 
 or how He has made us realise the nearness of God.
 
 192 
 
 There is one thing in which the life of Christ is different 
 from every other life; it has not passed away. And yet I 
 feel as if I must immediately recall these words, and say 
 that here too Christ is like all other men. For in so far as 
 we live truly our life never passes away. In the circle of 
 men whom we touch by our life, we live on indestructible 
 by time or death. Moral influence cannot be destroyed, 
 it ceases only when its range is completed. The patriot, 
 the poet, the artist, the philanthropist, live often their truest 
 life after they are laid in the grave. Often a man begins 
 really to live only when he dies. But beyond all others 
 this was true of Christ; but only because His life was 
 beyond all, The parting promise of Christ was " Lo I am 
 with you always to the end of the world." This does not 
 only mean He would be a presence and influence always 
 near us. It reaches even to the human life He lived here 
 on earth, so that it never passes away. Let me try to show 
 you what I mean by an illustration. You have a friend 
 whom you have honoured and loved for years. You know 
 the tone of his voice, the light of his eye, the smile of his 
 face. These form part of his very self to you, and without 
 these he could not be to you what he is. Yet these arc all 
 part of his material body, which, as a material thing, has 
 changed many times since you knew him, nay, is constantly 
 changing. But what keeps these always the same is the 
 spirit, the life within, and that is why in the life beyond 
 death, I believe with the greatest writers on this subject, 
 we shall not have the smallest difficulty in recognising and 
 knowing each one of those whom we have loved and known 
 here, because, however, the bodily appearance be spiritual- 
 ized and changed, the soul being the same will give to it 
 the same easily recognisable expression. Now, brethren, 
 it is so that the life of Christ, the human earthly life by 
 which we know Him, never passes away. The spirit of 
 Christ — Christ Himself — still lives, and that: makes ever 
 fresh and present to every Christian heart the life lie lived 
 on earth. This is the reason, I believe, why the gospel is 
 simply a record of Christ's earthly life. For to the faithful
 
 193 
 
 soul that is not an old history, something past and done; 
 it is a present reality, something which cannot pass away. 
 This is the deep meaning which lies in the celebration of 
 Christmas, in the desire to bring before us, in Church 
 commemorations, the great events in the life of our Lord. 
 It is a true and proper desire; for remember, that to God 
 there is no past; all is one eternal now, and to us, in so far 
 as we are spirits made in God's likeness, it is even the same. 
 Thus, brethren, the earthly life of Jesus makes God ever 
 present, ever near. When I think of God I think of Him, 
 and ought to think of Him, in and through Christ; and 
 when I think of Christ I should think of Him as if I had 
 bent over His cradle with the shepherds, or listened to Him 
 with the disciples, or seen Him with the woman after He 
 had conquered death and risen from the tomb. Thus 
 Christ's life is to us something that never passes away; 
 through His constant nearness we must feel God ever near; 
 He is to all the countless generations of men "Emmanuel, 
 God with us." Brethren, let this thought dwell in your 
 hearts at once as a testing power and a glad promise. 
 " God is with us," Christ has made Him the truth, and the 
 love, and the life of our existence. But only in the pure 
 heart and loving soul can God truly dwell. Try, therefore, 
 to make yourselves, each one, " The Temple of God." And 
 so the joy of Christ's Coming will be always yours. " God 
 will be with you " — in temptation to deliver, in doubt to 
 convince, in sorrow to comfort, in sickness to tranquilize, 
 in death to make you live for ever. " If God be for us, 
 who can be against us ?" " All things are yours, and ye 
 arc Christ's, and Christ is God's."
 
 194 
 
 IX. 
 
 THE IDEAL OF A YOUNG MAN'S LIFE AND 
 HOW IT MAY BE SERVED BY RELIGIOUS 
 ASSOCIATION. 
 
 A sermon introductory to the Young Men's Guild, 
 Bellahouston. 
 
 " If thou wouldst be perfect." — St. Matt, xix, si. 
 
 " Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in 
 Heaven is perfect." — St. Matt. v. 48. 
 
 It has been well said by our greatest English author of 
 these days, "The situation that has not its ideal has never 
 been filled by man." That is, as I take it, however com- 
 monplace and even menial the life and outward calling of 
 anyone may be, and however ordinary be his own talents, 
 it is yet possible for him so to live out his life that it may 
 rise into the very loftiest heights of moral grandeur and 
 worth. 
 
 But to-night I have to speak to you of one life and 
 situation which it is impossible not to feel has this end 
 open to it. The life of a young man — even in the most 
 prosaic and unbelieving time — must have its ideal ; for that 
 very season of life is itself ideal ; even in the dullest soul 
 fancy and imagination arc there alive; youth has its dreams 
 as inevitably as age has its cares; and that is the reason 
 why a late statesman was wont to say, "Youth is genius." 
 But can it be said that there is any general agreement as 
 to the kind of life which tin's period admires — is there such 
 a general consent in youth that we can reduce all to the 
 one type and speak of the one ideal commanding all; 
 is it not the case that men differ as much in their ideas and 
 desires at this as at any later period in life, and that all that
 
 195 
 
 is really common to them is a kind of vague restlessness 
 and yet unsatisfied ambition? I believe it is true that there 
 is one ideal which in his inmost soul every young man loves 
 — that there is one life which, if he could only see it con- 
 stantly, he would follow unwaveringly — that there is one 
 goal which all that is best in him pants to reach and touch. 
 For it is the fundamental idea in all religion, one such com- 
 mon feeling and desire, that there is something which, if 
 they could only see it, the soul of each one would leap up 
 to in answering obedience and say— 
 
 •• Master, lead on and I will follow Thee 
 To the last gasp with love and loyalty." 
 
 It is this great truth which the greatest of the fathers set 
 forth in the well-known words, "O God, Thou hast made 
 us for Thyself, and our souls are restless till they rest in 
 Thee;" and which another gave expression to when he said, 
 "Men arc made for righteousness even as the trees of the 
 forest arc for light." But in youth this ideal is more com- 
 manding, because men are more open to receive it. The 
 power of the world has not yet made us materializing and 
 commonplace in our estimate of all things. As Wordsworth 
 says in his greatest poem: — 
 
 " The youth who daily from the East 
 Must travel, still is Nature's priest, 
 And by the vision splended 
 Is on his way attended.'' 
 
 And another great poet of our own day has drawn the 
 picture of this splendid vision that floats before the eyes of 
 youth — this ideal which is still the hoped-for life in the 
 heart of even- young man. He speaks of his youth as a 
 time 
 
 •• When I heard the days before me, and the tumult of my life, 
 Yearning for the large excitement that the coming years would 
 
 yield. 
 Eager-hearted as a boy when first he Laves his father's field.
 
 196 
 
 And at night, along the dusky highway, near and nearer drawn, 
 Sees in heaven the lights of London flaming like a dreary dawn ; 
 And his spirit leaps within him to be gone before him there, 
 Underneath the lights he looks at, in among the throngs of 
 
 men : 
 Men, my brethren, men the workers, ever reaping something 
 
 new ; 
 That which they have done but the earnest of the things that 
 
 they shall do ; 
 For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see, 
 Saw the vision of the world and all the wonders that would be ; 
 Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails, 
 Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales ; 
 Heard afar the world wide whisper of the south winds rushing 
 
 warm, 
 With the standards of the peoples plunging though the thunder- 
 storm, 
 Till the war drum throbbed no longer, and the battle flags are 
 
 furled 
 In the parliament of man, the federation of the world ; 
 There the common-sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in 
 
 awe, 
 And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law." 
 
 And in still nobler and higher strain he makes another sing 
 of his youthful days — 
 
 " When, wide in soul and bold of tongue, 
 Among the tents I paused and sung, 
 The distant battle flashed and rung. 
 
 " I sang the joyful psean clear, 
 And sitting burnished without fear, 
 The brand, the buckler, and the spear." 
 
 He speaks of youth, in all the ardour of its high and gener- 
 ous enthusiasm — 
 
 " Waiting to strive a happy strife, 
 To war with falsehood to the knife, 
 And not to lose the good of life ;
 
 L97 
 
 " To search through all I felt or saw — 
 The springs of life the depths of awe — 
 And reach the law within the law ; 
 
 ■• At least not rotting like a weed, 
 But having sown some generous seed 
 Fruitful of further thought and deed. 
 
 " To pass, when life her light withdraws, 
 Not void of righteous self-applause, 
 Nor in a merely selfish cause — 
 
 " In some good cause, not in mine own. 
 To perish wept for, honoured, known, 
 And like a warrior overthrown, 
 
 " Whose eyes are dim with glorious tears 
 When, soiled with noble dust, he hears 
 His country's war song thrill his ears ; 
 
 " Then, dying of a mortal stroke, 
 What time the foeman's line is broke, 
 And all the war is rolled in smoke.'' 
 
 But it may perhaps be said these are the idle and unsub- 
 stantial fancies of verse, utterly unpracticable and away 
 from the world of real life ; and that they are alien to, and 
 unauthorized by, religion. 
 
 Now, I would not quote these lines as I do if I did not 
 believe that the highest poetry of an age is always its highest 
 voice, and where it is true to its mission, it must speak as 
 this does the truest wisdom and the surest faith. 
 
 But, brethren, I do wish in this as in all things to appeal 
 to the authority of Christ, and by His words all I have 
 already spoken is more than confirmed. Once there came 
 to Christ a candidate for discipleship on whom He looked 
 with no ordinary favour. He was in all the glow and 
 attractiveness of youth — a youth ardent with generous en- 
 thusiasms and noble ambitions. He could answer proudly 
 when the great moral commandments are named to him,
 
 198 
 
 "All these have I kept from my youth up." But his soul 
 was still unsatisfied, and he yearned for nobler attainments 
 still; and though the further task imposed upon him proved, 
 at this time at least, too much for him, and he turned in 
 sorrow away, making what Dante calls "the great refusal," 
 yet Christ recognised the truth of his aspiration and set 
 forth the expediency and measure of his ideal when he said, 
 "If thou wouldst be perfect;" just as at a former time He 
 had laid this down as imperative for all, in words' that arc 
 perhaps to be read as both a command and a promise, "Be 
 ye therefore perfect, or ye shall be perfect, even as your 
 Father which is in Heaven is perfect." This, then, on the 
 highest of all authority, is the ideal of all men, but specially 
 commended to young men. It is perfection — it is the very 
 highest moral aspiration — it is the wish to exclude if pos- 
 sible the sense of failure from every part and aspect of our 
 Hf e — it is the idea, which the very word itself in the original 
 expresses, that life had reached its divinely-appointed end 
 — that our whole being is now in gracious harmony, and 
 that our existence has become a kind of noble music, in 
 which the discords are all passed away or only go to swell 
 the splendour of the general song. I may perhaps be told 
 that this is one of those dreams which youth may cherish 
 but wiser manhood ridicules. But, brethren, the authority 
 on which I found my statement is at least to all Christian 
 men supreme, and without appeal; and yet, even if we look 
 to all that is wisest and best in mere secular teaching, even 
 if we take the voice of the great writers of all ages, we arc 
 shut up to the same conclusion. Ask Plato, the wisest of 
 the Greeks, and is not the burden of his whole teaching just 
 this, that man must live not fur the world of sense and 
 appearance but for that ideal goodness and virtue which 
 makes him independent of all accident and misfortune. 
 And the wisest of Roman moralists and teachers, the 
 noblest of stoic philosophers, all agree in preaching this. 
 The vision of Dante, the greatest poem of Hal)- and per- 
 haps of the world, teaches the same truth, which his life 
 even more eloquently taught, that the man who lives for
 
 199 
 
 anything but a high and noble ideal is preparing for himself 
 a future Hell or Purgatory, and the words addressed to the 
 poet in the shades below give the moral of it all. 
 
 " If thou, he answered, follow but thy star, 
 
 Thou can'st not miss at last a glorious haven." 
 
 We might speak of how constantly the same truth is en- 
 forced by the greatest writers in our own literature, by 
 Shakespeare, for example, whose young men almost without 
 exception are all cast in the same mould of lofty aspiration, 
 and who makes his Hotspur say — 
 
 " Methinks it were an easy leap 
 To pluck bright honour from the pale-faced moon; 
 Or drive into the bottom of the deep, 
 Where fathom line could never touch the ground, 
 And pluck up drowned honour by the locks."' 
 
 Milton, perhaps the noblest and purest of our great names, 
 not only sets before us in his poetry this same life for the 
 ideal, "Living as ever in our great taskmaster's eye," as he 
 himself highly resolved when a young man of twenty-three; 
 but he nobly says that he who would write a poem must 
 first make his own life a true poem; that every young man, 
 without the vain ceremonies of knighthood, should yet feel 
 himself vowed and consecrated as a knight of God to all 
 that is chivalrous and pure. 
 
 I might multiply quotations and authorities without end, 
 for there is no great writer who does not set forth the neces- 
 sity of an ideal and lofty aim in youth ; but I simply ask 
 you to test these examples for yourselves, and to see if this 
 be not the teaching of those whom we unite in revering as 
 the greatest and wisest of all time — 
 
 " The dead but sceptred heroes that still rule 
 Our spirits from their urns.'' 
 
 With one voice they impress on us the indispensable neces- 
 sity of a noble purpose in youth, of a high and pure ideal 
 in the life of every young man ; and therein is unitedly the
 
 200 
 
 message which one of the latest of their number has thus 
 given expression to — 
 
 " So live that, when thy summons comes to join 
 The innumerable caravan that moves 
 To that mysterious realm, where each shall take 
 His chamber in the silent halls of Death, 
 Thou go, not like a galley-slave at night 
 Scourged to his dungeon, but sustained and soothed 
 By an unfaltering trust, approach thy tomb 
 Like one that wraps the drapery of his couch 
 Around him and lies down to pleasant dreams." 
 
 Now, this ideal life, this perfection after which we are to 
 aim, may be summed up in three things — the desire for 
 knowledge, the desire for goodness, the desire for usefulness. 
 No young man who has a spark of manhood in him de- 
 sires to be a fool, or a sot, or a sluggard ; but very often the 
 fear of ridicule, the want of a steady purpose, and not least 
 the lack of the contagion of lofty example and the support 
 of noble companionship, resign him to that dreary com- 
 promise, that half-way house to all these, that compound of 
 them all — the mere man of the world. 
 
 Young men, that is not your life. God has called you to 
 quite other work than this. Surely it was not for this end 
 your manhood was given ; 
 
 '•' Not for this, 
 Was common clay ta'en from the common earth 
 Moulded by God and tempered by the tears 
 Of angels to the perfect shape of man." 
 
 Not for this did Christ call and urge you to be perfect ; not 
 for this were you signed in your baptism for His servants 
 and soldiers till your life's end. If you resign yourselves to 
 that lower end, if you will not cherish your ideal and strive 
 to live up to it, if you admit any compromise with baseness 
 and resign yourselves to evil, then every noble life will re- 
 proach you: you will not be able to lift even a great book 
 but it will condemn you ; those names your country glories
 
 201 
 
 in will be your shame ; but worse still, your Christian faith 
 will become a ghastly unreality — that immortal jewel which 
 Christ died to save you will have thrown away as 'twere a 
 careless trifle ; you will have 
 
 " Thrust to endless shade 
 What was so gloriously made." 
 
 There are many ways in which you may be supported 
 and helped in your endeavour ever to keep before you this 
 ideal life, what St. Paul calls " your high calling." I would 
 not have you to forget any of these ; I would not have you 
 undervalue or disparage one of them. Above all, it is 
 Christ who Himself must really do all for you ; He is to you, 
 as to all men, the Author and Finisher of your faith. But 
 I speak to-night of the special service you may derive from 
 religious association among yourselves. I would be most 
 ungrateful to stand here and not to record how much I have 
 myself owed to this principle. To no society or organiza- 
 tion, not to college — hardly, even, to the Christian Church 
 itself — do I owe more than to this. I do not speak this in 
 any egotism, for my experience has, I know, been shared 
 by many, but in order to give to what I say the weight and 
 emphasis of personal testimony. And it is not so much 
 what any individual society does or has done ; it may be 
 easy to criticise and find faults with any of them, and there 
 may be aspects from which they may be made to appear com- 
 monplace or even ridiculous ; but take them even at their 
 weakest, and is it not almost an immeasurable encourage- 
 ment and stimulus to nobility of life to feel " Here is a 
 society of young men, gathered together for religious im- 
 provement, vowed to seek after an earnest life, aiding each 
 other in the endeavour to acquire knowledge, and unitedly 
 sucking to accomplish some good work for the service of 
 others." I confess it seems to me impossible to conceive a 
 society with a nobler aim. It is indeed almost literally the 
 aim of the Christian Church itself; and it is very largely 
 the aim which Universities and other noble institutions 
 have set before them.
 
 202 
 
 And now at last this movement has been taken up by 
 our own Church. She has rightly and wisely said, "We 
 see the incalculable good which comes from the religious 
 association of young men, and we now wish to make that 
 part of our Church organization, and to have in every parish 
 a meeting of the young men, and thus to obtain all over the 
 Church the union of our youth as it were in one great army 
 — the Young Men's Guild." In the few years which this 
 movement has had it already numbers over 300 branches, 
 and more than 10,000 members. I cannot believe that our 
 parish alone will make no response. I cannot believe that 
 among young men, many of them with greater leisure and 
 more opportunities than falls to the lot of most, few or none 
 would be found to join in a movement which appeals to all 
 that is noblest and most generous in youth. As your 
 minister at least I feel I should be false and recreant to my 
 duty if I failed to urge you to this. Believe me, there are 
 few things that will so aid you to live that ideal life after 
 which every generous youth longs, and to which every 
 Christian young man is so solemnly vowed. While I speak- 
 there comes irresistibly into my mind the memory of many 
 whom I have known in such an association as this, now 
 scattered to all parts almost of the world, and some who 
 have passed 
 
 '• To where beyond these voices 
 There is peace." 
 
 And in hardly a single case have I known the influence to 
 fail ; of very many in my own personal knowledge I can say 
 that it imparted to them a zeal for knowledge, quickened 
 the desire for information, led to that Loving intimacy with 
 our great writers which is one of the most lasting as it is 
 one of the most elevating of all our pleasures. It led to a 
 real moral earnestness, made religion a ruling power in the 
 life; diffused the glow of a humble yet most real piety, 
 gave character of genuine and informed yet unostentatious 
 Christianity to the whole man. And while it thus sweetened 
 and ennobled the whole tone and temper of life, it made it
 
 203 
 
 impossible for them to think only of themselves and not to 
 go forth in loving service to the needs of others. I urge 
 upon you the benefit you may derive for your own life — 
 the quickening of your intellectual, your moral, your religi- 
 ous existence by means of such an association. I speak 
 from personal experience of the stimulus you will gain for 
 study, and the lasting and noble friendships you may form. 
 But I would not have you to consider these the only or even 
 the chief inducements; all that is best in you refuses to be 
 roused by merely selfish appeals ; nay, God Himself does 
 not call you to save your own soul except as you desire, 
 and are willing also to take your part in saving the souls of 
 others. It is for this reason I appeal to you. The Church 
 needs her young men; the world even, the nation you glory 
 in and love, makes the same appeal. 
 
 When in the Old Testament the Jewish nation and Church 
 were sunk in general apathy and disorder, Samuel instituted 
 the Schools of the Prophets, which were largely associations 
 of young men, and to them may we trace the spiritual life 
 that never henceforth faded; and in the early Christian 
 Church we read of the young men as forming, according to 
 more than one great scholar, a Society or Guild. Wc need 
 the same help now, for it is true, in one aspect at least, 
 what a late brilliant statesman has said that " almost every- 
 thing great has been done by youth/' Remember what he 
 has also said, " The youth of a nation are the trustees of 
 posterity." Think on the great heritage you have received 
 in your Church and your nation, and be true to both. Take 
 to heart the words of our living historian when speaking 
 of men like Sir Walter Raleigh and Sir Humphrey 
 Gilbert, among the noblest and bravest of Englishmen — 
 forgotten worthies, he says — "Life with them was no 
 summer holiday, but a holy sacrifice offered up to duty, 
 and what the Master sent was welcome." Imitate those 
 who have made this little land forever famous and beloved 
 — imitate them by cherishing a lofty ideal — imitate them 
 by loyal devotion to your Divine Master Christ, who is 
 1 [imself vi>uv Ideal.
 
 204 
 
 God grant that all of us, but especially you, my young 
 brethren, may be followers of the saintly and noble, and as 
 a band of brothers may you take your share of hardness 
 and suffering as good soldiers of Jesus Christ. Never may 
 you have to speak of your lost ideal this sad confession 
 which a living poet makes a dying man express: — 
 
 ' ; God bends from out the deep and says, — 
 
 I gave thee the great gift of life; 
 Wast thou not called in many ways? 
 
 Were not my earth and heaven at strife ? 
 I gave thee of my seed to sow ; 
 
 Bringest thou me my hundred-fold ? 
 Can I look up with face aglow 
 
 And answer — ' Father, here is gold.' 
 
 " Mine held them once, but flung away 
 
 Those keys that might have open set 
 The golden sluices of the day, 
 
 I clutch the keys of darkness yet j — 
 I hear the reapers singing go 
 
 Into God's harvest; I that might 
 With them have chosen, here below 
 
 Grope shuddering at the gate of night. 
 
 " O glorious Youth, that once was mine ! 
 
 high ideal ! all in vain 
 Ye enter at the ruined shrine 
 
 Whence worship ne'er shall rise again ; 
 The bat, the owl inhabit here, 
 
 The snake rests in the altar stone, 
 The sacred vessels moulder near, 
 
 The imaiie of the God is L r one."
 
 205 
 
 X. 
 
 GOD'S UNREALIZED PRESENCE. 
 
 "Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not."— Gen. 
 xxv Hi. 1 6. 
 
 I DO not mean to say anything to-day, brethren, on that 
 wondrous vision which God vouchsafed to Jacob, or on the 
 important bearing it had upon the Patriarch's life. I wish 
 rather to take these words which burst from his lips when 
 the vision had died away and he awoke, and to show what 
 lessons they carry for the life of every one. For be assured 
 of this, that one of the most necessary things for all of us 
 in reading the Bible — and I would say it is a quite indis- 
 pensable requisite in those whose office it is to teach the 
 Scriptures — is to be able to see how, without distorting 
 or straining the narrative of their lives, we are able to 
 bring home to ourselves with instructive effect the ex- 
 periences of even the most ancient saints. I know that the 
 best qualification for this is that spirit of genuine piety, of 
 humble receptiveness, which may be the property of the very 
 poorest, and which, no matter how humble our attainments 
 be, will be assuredly granted to any of us who diligently 
 and prayerfully seek it. But there arc two considera- 
 tions that, even to the most sceptical, should completely 
 justify this application of ancient words — it is the acknow- 
 ledged fact that wc arc here dealing with two things that 
 know no change — the nature of man and the nature of God. 
 Man has changed, it would seem, in almost every respect, 
 even since the date of the latest book of the New Testa- 
 ment; but all the while his essential nature (and it is with 
 that religion deals) is the same now as it was in the days of 
 the earliest of the race; and we know, as the surest truth in 
 reason and religion, that no change can possibly affect the 
 being or character of God. It is because of these two great
 
 206 
 
 facts that all Scripture is full of wisdom — " Profitable for 
 doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righte- 
 ousness." The dull, the careless, or the unbelieving may 
 sneer or cavil at the Old Testament especially, and wonder 
 why we should be supposed to study the history of persons 
 or the records of actions which are so far away from our 
 own lives. And while there are doubtless other reasons, 
 for the Bible serves many purposes, and while it is also well 
 to bear in mind that not even in the Old Testament have 
 we the accidental accounts of unimportant actors in God's 
 great purpose in the world, for every view of inspiration 
 implies their careful selection, yet surely it is a sufficient 
 reply and a clear vindication of the value of the Scriptures 
 to say that not even a light and trivial event is unimportant 
 to anyone which shows him something of his own nature 
 or instructs him as to that Mighty God in whom all of us 
 alike "live and move and have our being." 
 
 So reading them there, brethren, there is one most impor- 
 tant truth these words of Jacob special!}' remind us of, and 
 that is, the unrealized presence of God. Jacob was a 
 religious man, much in the same sense in which the word 
 may be applied to every one in such a congregation as this. 
 Possibly his religion was a real and earnest thing to him, it 
 is almost certain that, with all his faults, it was in his heart 
 and not merely on his lips, touching his conscience and not 
 merely teaching his creed. Yet none the less he was far 
 from a perfect man. Even judged by the standard of his 
 own times he came short. He was far inferior to Abraham, 
 whom, indeed, he never equalled in patient trust on God 
 and noble generosity to man ; he was inferior, probably, to 
 his own father Isaac; inferior certainly to what he himself 
 became in later years. I le was almost fresh from the com- 
 mission of a sin, which, with its true impartiality, the Bible 
 records against him, showing us how he who afterwards 
 became the "Israel," or "Prince of God," stained himself 
 with lying, unbrotherliness, self-seeking, and fraud. Still 
 Jacob was the son of religious parents, and like all of us 
 here he had been instructed in the truths of religion. Un-
 
 207 
 
 doubtcdly the circle of such truths must have been far 
 smaller then than now; one thing, however, he must have 
 heard even from his childhood, just as we, too, have been 
 taught it — it was the great and inspiring truth of the en- 
 compassing presence of God. That was something which 
 we cannot but imagine the grandson of Abraham and the 
 son of Isaac must often have had impressed on him. Yet 
 what do we find? Jacob has left his home for possibly the 
 first time in his life; he has performed the first stage in his 
 long journey; he sinks in weariness to sleep, and God sends 
 a vision to comfort his sad heart. And what are the first 
 words that burst from him when he wakes? They are not 
 merely inspired by the mingled awe and delight with which 
 the vision filled him ; they are not merely the irrepressible 
 expressions which that wondrous sight demanded. No; 
 there is in them a conscious touch of sorrow and repentance. 
 They tell us that he accepted this wondrous grace which 
 God had shown him as an encouragement and blessing, but 
 also (what all God's blessings should be not less to us if our 
 conscience were only tender to feel them so) as a reproof. 
 Yes, he says (if we may be allowed to amplify his language), 
 I now see what formerly I was blind to. I now remember 
 what I should never have forgotten. Strange that I should 
 have failed to realize what yet I have long known. I 
 thought myself alone and friendless, helpless, and forsaken. 
 I regretted bitterly that I was leaving every familiar face, 
 and that henceforth all around me must be foreign and 
 strange. O fool that I was, and slow of heart not to believe 
 and remember that by the Mightiest and most Loving I 
 was not and could not be forsaken; yes, "Surely God was 
 in this place, and I knew it not." 
 
 Brethren, have not all of us passed through the same 
 experience? have not all of us had the same confession to 
 make? Let any man look back on any long period of his 
 life, or when he has come through some severe trial or great 
 crisis, and if he have any spark of religious feeling in him, 
 will not his deepest feeling be that God was with him there, 
 and yet that he failed at the time to see Him or to notice
 
 208 
 
 Him as clearly as he now recognises His presence? En- 
 grossed by the pressure of outward trouble or sorrow, he 
 has been wholly taken up with the earthly and human 
 surroundings; and not till it has passed away and become 
 part as it were of his vanished life does he recognize that 
 Presence that was closer to him than all beside, and that 
 Power which was really sustaining him in the struggle; and 
 it is with a sense of what he has lost by not earlier seeing 
 this that the same confession is forced from him, "Surely 
 the Lord was in this place, and I knew it not." For surely 
 it is a great loss to us that we do not sooner and more 
 readily feel the encompassing presence of God — that this 
 is so often unrealized till our trouble has left us calmer and 
 more open to the great realities ! 
 
 In all the deeper and more difficult experiences of life, of 
 what simply priceless benefit it is to be armed with all the 
 best advantages we can. command. When any of those 
 experiences come to us that, are necessary and inevitable to 
 everyone — when we are laid low by sickness or encountered 
 by strong temptation, when we are entering like Jacob on a 
 new and untried life, or like him are made to feel utterly 
 helpless and alone, when we arc crushed by disappointment 
 or beset by fear — what of all things is most necessary for us, 
 what can bring to us the surest relief and minister the most 
 effective strength and comfort ? I do not underrate other 
 advantages and aids. It is well for us if at such a time we 
 are surrounded and cheered by the presence of kind friends, 
 by the shelter of a peaceful home. Still better is it if we 
 arc spared the reproofs of a conscience avenging itself upon 
 us for our former deafness to its warnings; if the chain of 
 evil habit docs not gall us and sting us with a sense of 
 slavery to the lowest and worst instincts of our nature ; if 
 our memory docs not again and again bring before us that 
 which we would give the world to be able to undo. Oh 
 blessed, thrice blessed, arc they who have been so kept by 
 God's good grace that in the darkness of an evil time they 
 are not delivered over to the deeper darkness of an evil 
 heart, and the consciousness of an evil life! But beyond all
 
 209 
 
 these we need One surer and more effective Help ; One 
 more prevailing Presence. After all, friends can go only a 
 little way with us. "The world's a room of sickness where 
 each heart knows its own anguish and unrest;" and how- 
 ever pure the life and sweet the memory, in the hour of 
 trouble these arc themselves disturbed and incapable of 
 giving relief. There is in such a time only one thing which 
 cannot change, which, all the brighter and calmer for sur- 
 rounding darkness and storm, can give to the soul an instant 
 and effective peace. 
 
 One great traveller tells us of an earthquake that visited 
 a country he passed through: "Houses were falling, trees 
 were moving, the very mountains were reeling, and when 
 he went to the harbour the sea had fled and the ships were 
 on dry ground. One thing alone was untroubled ; when he 
 looked up to the sky it was calm and unmoved." So is it 
 that in all the storms of our life the one feature that knows 
 no disturbance is this grand truth of the encompassing 
 presence of God. And as the Psalmist said, " Therefore 
 will not we fear though the earth be removed, and though 
 the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea. God is 
 in the midst of us, we shall not be moved ; God shall help 
 us, and that right early." 
 
 But how may this encompassing presence of God be made 
 effective for our help ? May it not be said that, since this 
 is a thing which does not depend on ourselves, it is quite 
 beyond our control ? If God's presence really never goes 
 from us, and is always encompassing us round, no effort of 
 mine is required to bring it, just as no effort of mine could 
 drive it away. Now, in one sense this is all true. That 
 which God is in Himself He is apart from man's will ; and 
 since He fills every part of His creation, He fills also the 
 life of each man with a presence that can suffer no eclipse or 
 withdrawal. It is well for us to settle in our own soul this 
 surest conviction that God's nearness and presence depends 
 not on our varying religious moods. We ma}- be faithless 
 or worldly, and have no thought of any cxistcncc^that is not 
 visible and outward l<> the sense, but none the less is it true 
 
 o
 
 210 
 
 of every spot where human feet have gone, " Surely the Lord 
 was in this place though we knew it not." Man, as the old 
 German so piously puts it, is the true Shekinah of God. 
 Wherever there is a man, there is the visible and outward 
 token of the unseen but all-encompassing Divine presence. 
 But not the less must it be said that, as far as we are con- 
 cerned, nay, as far as it truly is, there is another side to the 
 picture. God, truly, is only where He is felt to be; to have 
 to say, " The Lord was in this place, and I knew it not," is 
 really to confess that, as far as you were concerned, God 
 really was not there. The things that are in the outward 
 world exist altogether apart from our seeing them, or having 
 knowledge of them through our senses. The murmur of 
 the sea, the music of birds, the odour of flowers, the sweet 
 and varied colour and light of the landscape, these you do 
 not think of as created by man, they are there, you say, 
 independent of him. And yet to the deaf has music or 
 sound an existence? does the blind man ever know what 
 you mean by light or landscape ? And so to the soul that 
 has made itself blind and deaf to the presence of God, for 
 it there is no such thing. The atheist may be right, for him 
 there is no God: "He goes backward, but he cannot find 
 Him, and forward, but He is not there." No flood of light 
 can reach the brain where the nerve of sight is hopelessly 
 diseased ; the loudest sounds never startle to the lightest 
 tremor the utterly deaf. If for us long tracts of life, great 
 events in existence, have brought no sense of divine nearness 
 and help, it has not been because God was not there, but 
 simply because we knew Him not. God does sometimes 
 rouse by a vision or startle by a dream those who, though 
 they know Him, have awhile forgotten Him ; but to those 
 who wilfully shut Him out of their life, the inevitable judg- 
 ment we see working in all things shall surely come; what 
 thc\' will not, ere Ion;; they shall find they cannot do; as 
 they do not like to retain God in their knowledge, that 
 knowledge will become for them impossible; the world for 
 them will be emptied of God. God may be in their place 
 of life, bm they shall never know h ; they will reach that
 
 211 
 
 lost and dreariest state when impiety and despair become 
 joint-tenants of the soul — " Without God and without hope 
 in the world." 
 
 How, brethren, may we avoid this last and worst state — 
 how may the presence of God be made real and constant 
 to us ? by what means shall we make the eye of the soul 
 clear and undimmed, its ear quick and keen, to catch the 
 encompassing of that Divine Being that, though so near, 
 may yet for us be so far ? Is not the answer clear ? You 
 live a varied life — you are a being of many parts ; you live 
 a great part of your life amid tilings and scenes that touch 
 and move you through the senses. But you cannot meet 
 with God there ; He is not a stone that you may touch or 
 a scene you may look on. And yet there are those to whom 
 this outward life of sense is almost the whole of their exist- 
 ence, Take away from some men their senses and bodily 
 appetites, and you would leave them almost absolutely 
 nothing. A great philosopher of our day has told us that with 
 very many the dress actually is the man ; so with others it 
 is the shop, the trade, the scene of dissipation. There is 
 hardly the smallest residue of life of the man's being these 
 do not absorb. The wonder is not — when we look at the 
 character of our lives — that we find the thought of God's 
 presence so difficult, but that we arc able to reach it at all, 
 for it is only iu the religious life we can meet with God ; it 
 is the soul, not the sense, that sees Him ; He speaks only in 
 the still small voice which is audible alone to the ear of faith. 
 Enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut the door on 
 the excitements and importunities of sense, pray to thy 
 
 Father. 
 
 <; Speak to Him, then, for He hears. 
 And spirit with spirit can meet — 
 Closer is He than breathin 
 
 Ami nearer than hands and feet." 
 
 Strive to make thy life pure, for only the pure in heart 
 see God. Love thy brother as tin-self: for he that lovcth 
 not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God 
 whom he hath not seen. Meditate in the Divine Word of
 
 212 
 
 Scripture ; for in that quiet sacred spot, withdrawn from the 
 world's din, the saints of every age have met their God. 
 Make your own heart a temple, for God designed it for 
 that, though we turn it into a robber's den, and you will 
 always have a shrine in which to pray. Lastly, remember 
 though you have a body you are a soul, and live in the 
 latter, not the former, making it " a mansion for all lofty 
 forms," not " a cage of evil beasts." 
 
 He who so lives, brethren, the life of prayer and sacred 
 meditation, of purity and brotherhood, of inward peace and 
 elevation above base desire, shall seldom or never have 
 to confess, " The Lord was in this place and I knew it not." 
 In the cool of the day, when the turmoil is over, the Lord 
 may walk in the garden of his soul with a closer and dearer 
 presence ; but there shall be no barren wastes in his exist- 
 ence, no godless intervals in his life. For him even the 
 Valley of the Shadow of Death shall have no darkness, for 
 he shall have God's presence as the rod and staff of his 
 journey, and whatever worlds and lives he passes through, 
 always shall it be true of him that he shall dwell in the 
 house of the Lord for ever.
 
 213 
 
 XI. 
 
 CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST. 
 
 "I AM CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST; AND IT IS NO LONGER I THAT LIVE 
 
 but Christ that liveth in mi:; and that life which I now 
 live in the flesh i live in faith, the faith which is in the 
 Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me." — 
 Gal. it. 20. 
 
 The Apostle Paul is perhaps the most important represen- 
 tative of Christianity, and as he certainly was the most 
 prominent actor in the early Church, his writings form 
 no inconsiderable part of the New Testament. He planted 
 the greatest number of churches, and his history is recorded 
 with a fulness of detail that is not given to any other, even 
 among the Apostles. More than others his very personality 
 seems lost in the cause which was everything to him, so 
 that when we find him, as in the passage before us, giving 
 vent to what seems a mere personal felling, we may be sure 
 that his words have no mere individual reference. Never 
 was there one so fitted to be the representative and expon- 
 ent to others of Christian truth. His transparent candour, 
 his courage, his zeal, his freedom from local prejudice and 
 prepossession make us feel that when he speaks of himself, 
 he does not speak merely for himself, but as the spokesman 
 and representative of the Church or of the race.. And thus 
 it is in the passage before us. He has been showing 
 historically, as he is afterwards to do doctrinally, the in- 
 sufficiency of the law, and the impossibility to attain through 
 it the higher life. And as he proceeds to show how that 
 life is possible, the full tide of feeling rises in his soul and 
 makes it impossible for him to speak abstractly, but bears 
 him on to an exultant outburst of personal experience and 
 conviction — " I have been, I now am, crucified with Christ. 
 My life is so united to his that I look upon my former 
 striving after mere legal righteousness as if it had been
 
 214 
 
 killed when he was slain; and all mere personal desire and 
 selfish longing I put away from me as part of the dead past. 
 In truth, it seems as if it were no longer I that live; a higher 
 and a holier one is living in me, and that is the Christ 
 whose spirit is my inward law, as His life is my outward 
 example. It is true, I must live as other men; I am subject 
 to bodily conditions and appetites as they arc. But, though 
 I must yet live in the flesh, my truest and deepest life is in 
 what I feel and do through that faith which makes me one 
 with my dear Master and Lord, who now loves me, and 
 who proved His love in the past by giving Himself up for 
 me." But though we cannot help looking on these words 
 as they were illustrated in the noble life of him who spoke 
 them, they are evidently meant to apply to every Christian 
 man, for they state the only way in which, whether for Paul 
 or for any of us, the higher life can be reached. How shall 
 we make that life ours ? how shall we avoid that dreary 
 sense of failure which takes away all the joy of living? by 
 what rules are we to be guided in life? what aim arc we to 
 set before ourselves, and how arc we best to pursue that 
 aim ? Consciously or unconsciously, are we not all putting 
 these questions to ourselves — arc we not all, every day we 
 live, making experiments to discover the true solution of 
 this problem ? And yet wc have not far to look for it. 
 There can be but one true method of life, and that wc are 
 not free to choose or to refuse. As Christian men and 
 women, we are already committed to it, dedicated and 
 vowed to it in our Christian baptism. The rule of life for 
 all of us is in the words " I am crucified with Christ." 
 
 Long ago, beneath the blue of Syrian skies, in the sacred 
 land of Palestine, amid a society so different and yet so like 
 our own, a life was lived whose influence was to draw to it 
 all other lives. It was the life of God; for here wc believe 
 Cod, who is never far from any one of us, and who is the 
 Father of our spirits, since I [e made us in I lis own likeness — 
 here God, never far from man at any period of his history, 
 drew still closer and I I imself became man. And so all nature 
 knew this Divine < >ne, and waves were silent at I lis voice,
 
 215 
 
 and disease and death fled affrighted before Him. And 
 yet it was none the less the life of a true man. All human 
 conditions he bowed to, all the limitations of our life limited 
 Him. Me lay in helpless infancy like any human babe: 
 he grew up in stainless, yet natural innocence, a holy, yet 
 real child; to the quiet obscurity, the simplicity, if not 
 poverty of village life he submitted. And when his great 
 work of public teaching was begun, his life was one long 
 self-denial. Hunger and weariness pressed him, sorrow 
 pierced His heart, failure saddened His life, and the life- 
 long self-renunciation was closed by a death of agony amid 
 jeering enemies and a sullen crowd. And that life, my 
 brethren, is no old historic fact, it is an ever-present reality. 
 Christ did not lie mouldering in that rock-hewn tomb! 
 He is here now; He has been with the Church through her 
 long history. The Church is not builded on Him as on 
 some old tradition, but lives with His life, which is her 
 inspiring breath. That life touches us more closely than 
 any life can do; it is more than our example. To this life 
 we turn as something which is near us, which, though we 
 have not already attained to, is in a sense our own, " We 
 are crucified with Christ;" never can we think of our lives 
 apart from His; never can we dare to feel that we are free 
 to make what we like of ourselves. These words do not 
 mean that we are to practise outward austerities; that we 
 are to forswear the sweet charities of home, to refuse the 
 simple pleasures of life, and to practise a course of rigid 
 asceticism. To him who uttered them they no doubt meant 
 much of this. Paul's fidelity to Christ, his zeal in his great 
 mission, the surrender of his whole soul to the Master he 
 loved, compelled him to give up home and kindred, to be 
 an outcast and a wanderer, to fill a Roman prison, to die 
 by a Roman sword. But few are required to tread that 
 hard pathway now, for such cruelties arc, for the most part, 
 no longer possible. And yet the self-surrender of Christ's 
 followers should be none the less; the principle of the 
 Christian life has not changed though the opportunities fol- 
 ks manifestation have altered.
 
 216 
 
 There are two things now, as then, implied in this ideal 
 crucifixion with their Master of all Christ's followers. 
 There is implied, first of all, that every one takes the 
 life of Christ as his pattern and ideal — seeks to make the 
 spirit that breathed in the life of his Master the guiding 
 principle of his own. The life of Christ reached its climax 
 in His crucifixion, for we believe that great catastrophe 
 to have been so far voluntary in that it was contemplated 
 by our Lord from the first as a thing He would have 
 to endure, and was submitted to by Him in order that 
 through His cross He might reconcile us to God. Thus 
 He who was the Son of the Highest, who shrank from 
 no humiliation and suffering in his love for us, did not 
 shrink from the last and worst bitterness of all, but met 
 mortal agony and death's darkness on our behalf. But in 
 the cross, looked at in another way, we see no exceptional 
 act, but only the intensifying of what all through His life 
 characterised Jesus. The rule of His life was to ever deny 
 himself for others. The miraculous power He so freely 
 exercised for them, giving through it food to the hungry, 
 health to the sick, sight to the blind, and even life to the 
 dead, he never once used on His own behalf, nor would he 
 stoop to seek refuge through it from weariness and hunger, 
 from sorrow and death. And even apart from this marvel 
 of self-restraint, more wondrous than any miracle, how full 
 of self-forgetting love was the life of Jesus ! How patiently 
 He bore with the dulncss of His disciples; how thoughtfully 
 he consulted for their welfare; and, though himself the 
 holiest and the best, with what tender eagerness he welcomed 
 the outcast and the sinful ! Nor did the Church ever forget 
 this crowning example of her Master. She placed charity 
 as the highest and most indispensable of all virtues — she 
 taught that a self- forgetful love was the fulfilling of the law; 
 and not by precept only but by example also she sought 
 to illustrate this principle of her Lord. The Apostles and 
 fust preachers of the Church chose a life of voluntary 
 poverty, and in an age of the most callous selfishness, when 
 those who were greatest in power and place ransacked sea
 
 217 
 
 and land, violated every law of God and man to swell their 
 selfish and criminal pleasures, the members of the Church 
 showed such an enthusiasm and self-forgetting love as 
 stirred even those torpid souls to tardy admiration, and 
 provoked the wondering exclamation, " See how those 
 Christians love one another!" Yes, as this same Apostle 
 wrote "the love of Christ constrained them," so that no 
 sacrifice was too great, no interest too dear, no terror too 
 appalling for their devotion to others. And, my brethren, 
 this must still be the law of the Christian life. Our cruci- 
 fixion with Christ implies that for us too the supreme law 
 must be not self-gratification but self-sacrifice. But our 
 crucifixion with Christ implies something more than the 
 taking of His life as our supreme example. This indeed 
 would be all that would be possible were Christ no more 
 than other great and good men; if, like them, all He 
 bequeathed to the race were a historic example. But it is 
 not so ! Through the " grave and gateway of death," Christ 
 departed only to return in a fuller presence; and not only 
 is He with the Church, her invisible but supreme guide, but 
 to every Christian soul he is more close and near than 
 earthly adviser or friend— the light of all its seeing, the 
 strength of all its life, the indwelling deity in the temple of 
 the heart. 
 
 (2) And thus our crucifixion with Christ implies further, 
 the surrender of our wills to his. At first sight nothing 
 seems more reasonable, nothing more desirable, than that 
 a man's own will should of itself shape his destiny, for 
 we associate with the idea of restraint a sense alike of 
 discomfort and injustice. But to have no higher law in life 
 than our own will would not be happiness, but the most 
 utter misery. It would be to stand at the mercy of every 
 accident, to be the sport of every gust of passion, and so 
 far from thereby realising the end of our existence, it would 
 be the most certain way of missing it. In that state, so far 
 from being free, we would be the slave of every outward 
 circumstance. As a wise and loving child seldom thinks in 
 what he does of gratifying his own selfish desires, but seems
 
 218 
 
 prompted in all things by the unspoken wish that he reads 
 in his father's face, so that his father's will, rather than his 
 own, seems to rule him; as one waiting on an invalid learns 
 to look for his orders by anticipation of the needs of the 
 sick one, and never thinks of referring to his own will or 
 desire ; as a brave soldier on the battlefield seems to lose 
 all consciousness of his own will and to find all his prompt- 
 ings to action in the commands of his leader, so, my 
 brethren, ought it to be with us in our relation to Christ. 
 This presence of Christ, my brethren, we learn to recognise 
 through faith. For here manifestly we cannot "walk by 
 sight." With the eye of sense none of us have ever gazed 
 on Christ, nor have words from Him ever fallen on our 
 outward ears; and so perhaps at first it strikes us with a 
 sense of unreality when we talk of his abiding presence. 
 But the most real things are not those we look upon, nor 
 are those most with us whom our eyes behold. Our friends 
 are often nearer to us when distance or death has for ever 
 taken them from our eyesight. 
 
 " No distance breaks the tie of love; 
 Brothers are brothers evermore." 
 
 And so it should not surprise us that it is He, who has 
 never taken bodily shape to us, we should yet be asked to 
 accept and obey as a presence more real and more abiding 
 than any mortal could be. And this we can do through 
 faith — through that inmost feeling in our nature which tells 
 us that in Christ arc solved all the contradictions and per- 
 plexities of our life, that His life as we read it in the gospels 
 must be as true as it is divine, that His spirit, which has 
 inspired all the nobility and holiness we know of, must be 
 that too which has prompted our every holy thought or 
 noble deed, that either lie is, and is the Master and Guide 
 of all, or else 
 
 " The pillar' d firmament is rottenness 
 And earth's base built on stubble." 
 
 Yes, my brethren, either this faith on the Son of God who 
 loved us with a love so -real that He gave Himself t<>
 
 •219 
 
 suffering and death for us, is true, or life is a perplexing 
 and barren enigma. God is an unknown, perhaps impos- 
 sible, existence, and death is a terrible leap into the dark of 
 annihilation. But speaking, as I do, to a Christian con- 
 gregation, I do not surely need to argue as if the truth of 
 that faith were in question, into which you have all been 
 baptized, which is entwined with your dearest duties to the 
 living and your holiest remembrances of the dead; nor do 
 I need to remind you that if you abandon that faith you 
 are and must be without God and without hope in the 
 world. Rather is it mine, my brethren, believing in your 
 dedication to and your faith in Christ, to remind you of all 
 which that implies. For we are only too apt, from the 
 society around us, and from the floating maxims of worldly 
 policy and carelessness, to adopt an opinion of life and of 
 its duties as false as it is low, to give to religion' but a portion 
 of our time, and that the smallest; to offer to our Master 
 Christ the wretched service of a divided and half-hearted 
 allegiance. Let the light of this text of the word of God, 
 let the burning words of this brave Apostle, fall upon all 
 such false and timid views and shrivel them up for ever ! 
 " Ye arc crucified with Christ.'' Your whole life, not the 
 mere shreds and patches of your time, is His. His presence 
 rises with you in the morning and goes to rest with you at 
 night, is as the shadow which cleaves to you go where you 
 will, and will not leave you even when you leave the light 
 of life. And your every preference of selfish advantage to 
 truth and candour, your every gratification of lustful pleasure, 
 your every unkindness to another, are not only injuries to 
 your own nature in its highest and best part, but they arc 
 insults, wanton, and open insults to Christ your King; for 
 you, whose life has been crucified with His, arc, with the 
 very powers lie has redeemed to a nobler service, putting 
 I lim to an open shame and again nailing Him to the cross. 
 God forgive us all, my brethren, for such sins in the past. 
 God save us from them in the future! May He so inspire 
 our thoughts, and rule our desire, and mould our wills to 
 submission to His, that we shall learn to conquer the love
 
 220 
 
 of self, and each one of us take up our cross and follow 
 Christ. That cross may be different for each, for no one 
 life is altogether the same as another. To one it may be 
 the bridling of a passionate and pleasure-seeking nature, to 
 another the doing of irksome and common-place and unre- 
 quited service, to another the endurance of long years of 
 sickness and pain. To none will it come with the accom- 
 paniments of earthly honour and applause, for however 
 we may reverence the symbol, the reality of the cross is 
 still in trial and suffering. But what matter this, my 
 brethren, when we are suffering with Christ, when we arc 
 treading the road by which He went, and where we can 
 still discern the footprints of every brave follower of the 
 Master, of every noble and blessed benefactor and saint ! 
 
 " For all through life we see a cross, 
 
 Where sons of God yield up their breath ; 
 There is no gain except by loss, 
 
 There is no life except by death. 
 There is no vision but of faith, 
 
 Nor glory but by bearing shame, 
 
 Nor justice but by taking blame, 
 And that eternal passion saith, 
 
 ' Be emptied of glory and right and name.' ,;
 
 221 
 
 XII. 
 
 NIGHT, THE TEACHER. 
 "Night unto Night sheweth Knowledge." — Psalm xix. 2. 
 
 WHEN one thinks of what the mention of night at first 
 suggests, it seems as if nothing could be further from the 
 truth than the words of the text. A thick darkness — all 
 the varied objects which day revealed, at one stroke blotted 
 out, the familiar roadway turned into an unknown and 
 perhaps dangerous path, and the most elementary know- 
 ledge of persons and things quite unavailable, is not this 
 what we may most naturally associate with the term? 
 Sight, the queen of the senses, becomes at once as paralyzed, 
 and touch and hearing have lamely and imperfectly to do 
 her office. If, then, we were required to say what night at 
 first brings to our minds, would we not think of it as the 
 absence of all knowledge, and do we not in popular language 
 still associate night and darkness with ignorance and error? 
 And yet, if we only think for a little, we must see that 
 this conclusion cannot be true. Night is not only natural, 
 but like all in nature, it is of God. It is just the other side 
 of day ; for as has been long ago observed, God has made 
 everything in pairs over against each other, as heat and 
 cold, summer and winter, light and darkness, joy and sor- 
 row, and day and night. We learn each best through its 
 opposite, and we cannot say of one of these that it alone is 
 necessary or good. 
 
 It must have been observed, too, by every careful reader 
 of the New Testament, that while it calls on us to "rejoice 
 with them that do rejoice," and even to "rejoice evermore," 
 yet it speaks constantly of sorrow and suffering as being the 
 instrument of ;i finer and nobler joy, and one which works 
 out a far more complete and enduring blessedness, giving 
 rise to the paradox which has been expressed by our j
 
 English thinker, that "adversity is the blessing of the New 
 Testament." 
 
 Now it is so in our text, that the inspired Psalmist fixes 
 not on day, as we would naturally expect, but on night, as 
 the great instructress of man. He does not deny or dis- 
 parage the benefits of day; that would be impossible for 
 any servant of God to do with any divine gift. But he 
 seems to give to night the nobler and higher place, exalting, 
 as we so often find the Bible doing, that which is compara- 
 tively despised, to the greater honour, for while it is "day 
 unto day that uttereth speech " it almost seems as if the 
 other were the more effectual and convincing teacher, for it 
 is "night unto night that sheweth knowledge." 
 
 But that we may understand of what the Psalmist here 
 speaks, it is necessary to say just a word as to the Psalm. 
 Like very many of these inspired utterances, it seems to 
 mingle together the outward visible world with the inward 
 spiritual world in a way which, at first sight, we are apt to 
 think confusing. Beginning with speaking of the outward 
 sun and sky, in the course of a few verses it is dealing with 
 man's soul and God's enlightening spirit. But, brethren, 
 the confusion is in ourselves, not in the Bible. It is because 
 we are careless and coarse and shallow that we find this 
 language hard. All deep thinkers, all poets, all who lead 
 earnest and thoughtful lives, speak and think as the Bible 
 does here. They sec in the outward world, not dead matter, 
 but a living picture, nay, a mighty spirit, which connects 
 itself by closest tics with our own soul. The sky is not, as 
 so often it is to us, a mere vacant expanse, the stars arc not 
 mere flaming lights. When, for example, our great poet 
 turned up the daisy with his plough, and broke into the 
 most touching song over it, lamenting the death of "the 
 bonnie gem," and thinking how unlike the cruel tearing of 
 the harsh ploughshare was to the gentle pressure of the 
 sweet neighbour, the lark, bending it in the dewy morning; 
 is he not more true, did he not see with a liner and clearer 
 eye than if he had trodden the flower heedlessly into the 
 clay? To me it seems beyond all question that such poetic
 
 or inspired souls as these sec nearer into the great heart of 
 things, nearer into the mighty heart of God, than we who 
 pass them idly by, and think that all outside ourselves is 
 some dead and soulless thing which we call matter. Have 
 you ever thought, brethren, that our Lord Jesus Christ 
 Himself, who was the living Truth, and must have seen 
 deeper into the secret of this wonderful universe than any 
 other, always speaks with the deepest reverence of what we 
 call the material world, and gives to it almost a spiritual 
 character? You remember how He spoke of the lilies and 
 the birds as giving us a striking example of a high spiritual 
 grace. He delighted to identify Himself with what we call 
 common material things, saying, "I am the Bread of Life," 
 " the Living Water," " the true Vine." But to us who accept 
 the great Christian doctrine that all things live, and move, 
 and have their being in God, not only should nothing be 
 common or unclean, but everything should have, as it were, 
 a spiritual side, so that the whole world, material though we 
 call it, should be to us what it has ever been to every pro- 
 found thinker, and to every great Christian, a living parable, 
 a speaking voice, that everywhere utters the name of God, 
 and touches with a spiritual and elevating influence the 
 feelings of the soul. 
 
 It is thus, as it seems to me, we get near to the divine 
 lesson uttered by this inspired saint of God. That kingly 
 poet-soul of David bursts into song, as again in thought he 
 lies on these Judean hills and feels the sunshine pouring- 
 far and wide its golden flood. To him the sun is not a 
 mere globe of fire, it is rather a living thing that he can 
 love — a glorious king coming out of his bridal chamber in 
 flashing crown and jewelled robe; or like some grand tire- 
 less hero exulting as he girds himself for the arduous battle 
 or chase. Not that David was an idolater or a fool, but he 
 was trying to express those deep thoughts, almost inexpres- 
 sible in human language, that nature is not dead, but divine 
 and alive, and that the glory of the sunshine is to even- 
 pious and poetic soul nothing less than the outflowin 
 the life and love of God. And so it is no transition to him,
 
 224 
 
 when immediately afterwards, without any pause or break, 
 he goes on to speak of the inward and more spiritual sun- 
 shine of God that enlightens, and converts, and saves the 
 soul. But the thought of sunshine and day brings with it, 
 by natural association, the thought of night; and if he valued 
 the one, he did not, therefore, undervalue the other. He 
 could not do this. How often when a shepherd boy he had 
 lain on the lone hillside, when night, with its solemn silence 
 and twilight, stole down. We hardly need his psalms to 
 tell us how this quiet time awed and filled his young soul; 
 and then, in the deepening darkness, as star after star came 
 forth, or as the fair round moon with her soft ctherial light 
 touched every rock to silver, his own words tell us how he 
 was forced to consider these wondrous "heavens, the work 
 of God's fingers, the moon and the stars which He had 
 ordained," and to consider the still more wondrous life of 
 man, whom God had made "but a little lower than the 
 angels," and with this experience, Ave cannot wonder that it 
 was on night, rather than day, that he fixes as our great 
 instructress, "Night unto night teacheth knowledge." 
 
 And this is the subject on which I wish us to meditate 
 for a little — on some aspects of Night as our teacher. And 
 following the example of the psalmist, I shall begin with 
 the more outward and material sense of the word, and speak 
 first of " Tlic Night of Stars." 
 
 Of all branches of science, astronomy is perhaps the most 
 wonderful and most elevating. Other departments of know- 
 ledge tell us about the things that lie close beside us, and 
 never raise our thoughts above our own dwelling-place; 
 but this marvellous teacher at once lifts us in thought to 
 the far-off heavens, and there shows us our own world, a 
 mere speck- amid the countless world of stars. And yet, 
 brethren, but for night this wondrous science would have 
 had no existence. As long as day lasts, we might deem 
 that we ourselves filled the whole of creation. It is only 
 when night fulls that the darkness reveals the host of stars 
 that tell us how small a part this earth of ours is of the 
 mighty universe of God. It is quite true that we have no
 
 225 
 
 right to suppose that David knew the wondrous truths of 
 modern astronomy. Unless, indeed, they had been super- 
 naturally revealed to him, he could not possibly have known 
 them. But even apart from any knowledge of these, there 
 is something awe-inspiring and sublime, something that fills 
 the soul of man with great and noble thoughts, with a true 
 and pure knowledge, in the world of stars which night 
 unveils, and so it has been well said, even by a modern 
 writer, "If the stars should appear but one night in a thou- 
 sand years, how would men believe, and wonder, and adore, 
 and preserve for generations to come the remembrance of 
 the city of God which had been shown." And another great 
 modern teacher has said, "Had no star appeared in the 
 heavens, to man there would have been no heavens, and he 
 would have laid himself down to his last sleep in a spirit of 
 anguish, as upon a gloomy earth, vaulted over by a material 
 arch — solid and impenetrable." No wonder, then, that 
 since it was night alone that unveiled to him this great 
 vision, which daylight had obscured, that it is to night the 
 psalmist turns, as even a more effectual teacher than day. 
 The very darkness which had seemed as if it would make 
 all knowledge impossible, was thus the instrument of a 
 higher knowledge. And we, brethren, who have learned so 
 much in modern times of the greatness of God's boundless 
 universe, through these orbs of heaven — we, who by our 
 wonderful instruments and the genius of our great men, 
 have been able to tell the distances of these stars, to weigh 
 them, and to mark their speed, and even to tell the materials 
 that compose them, — who have been able in thought to go 
 away to these distant heavens, and look down on our own 
 little earth, and sec her dwindle to the minutest speck — 
 who have learned that in comparison with these other 
 worlds that we know and can see it is infinitely less than a 
 grain of sand to the mightiest mountain range — we, I say, 
 who have been able to gain all this elevating and instructive 
 knowledge by the very darkness of night, may well recog- 
 nise in night our great instructress, and be able to say with 
 the Psalmist, "Night unto night sheweth knowled; 
 
 p
 
 22G 
 
 But in the second place, think on The Night of Solitude. 
 It is night, brethren, that chiefly causes man to be alone, 
 that sends him in upon himself. In daytime usually we 
 are in the company of others, or the objects of business and 
 care which daylight reveals, draw off our thoughts from our- 
 selves. But with the advent of night, we are sent home to 
 our own bosoms; God sends His friendly darkness to shut 
 man in from his daily distractions. I have no doubt that 
 it was largely to this experience that David referred in this 
 text. When a shepherd boy, he had been many a night 
 alone on the hillside, and in the darkness he had felt his 
 solitude, and learned from it more than society could have 
 taught him. In our modern civilisation night does not thus 
 make us alone, yet I believe that this is still God's purpose 
 in the recurrence of darkness. Believe me, brethren, no 
 man can live a true life who is not sometimes alone with 
 himself; solitude has something to teach us which nothing 
 else can. It was not for nothing that Christ, when He was 
 teaching us the true life of prayer, laid emphasis on this, 
 "Thou, when thou prayest, enter into' thy closet, and when 
 thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father in secret'' I 
 think it one of the hardships, I might also say one of the 
 injustices, of the life of the poor, that they can hardly obtain 
 in their own home this solitude and quiet. In this, as in 
 so many things, we are practical atheists and materialists, 
 for we build our houses as if they were only to lodge human 
 bodies, forgetful that they have also to train human souls. 
 But at the worst, we have all the open air of God's night, and 
 in that sacred solitude we can learn to pray and be alone. 
 And when we look to the life of Christ, we arc struck with 
 the frequency with which He Himself chose the solitude of 
 night, often going away to the lone hillside and remaining 
 all night in prayer with God. Surely a life that is never 
 alone, a soul that never seeks the darkness to be alone with 
 God, is hardly to be accounted human — it is certainly not 
 yet Christian. Well has our noblest poet said that "solitude 
 sometimes is sweet society;" the quiet loneliness of night, 
 brethren, will give a knowledge, a strength, and a wisdom
 
 227 
 
 — especially if it rise into prayer — which day and company 
 can never bring; and the experience of every holy and 
 earnest life has ever been that of David, "Night unto night 
 sheweth knowledge." 
 
 " Night is the time to pray; 
 
 Our Saviour oft withdrew 
 To desert mountains far away, 
 
 So will His followers do ; 
 Steal from the throng to haunts untrod, 
 
 And hold communion there with God." 
 
 There is another night, brethren, that of Sorrow. Not 
 In itself an actual period fixed by time, it is yet as night 
 to our spirits, surrounding us with darkness and shutting us 
 into solitude. In whatever form it comes to us, no human 
 being naturally loves sorrow — we w r ould all of us avoid it if 
 we could. And yet wc all know it is unavoidable. It 
 follows on joy as certainly and surely as night on the day. 
 But if what I have said be true, we should look upon it as 
 like the night, necessary for us, and carrying also a secret 
 blessing. Indeed, brethren, this is the deeper meaning I 
 would have you read into the text : The night of sorrow is 
 our great teacher. If Christ's life teaches us anything, if 
 the lives of those who have best followed Him have any 
 lesson, it is this, that 
 
 " The path of sorrow, and that path alone, 
 Leads to the land where sorrows are unknown." 
 
 Truly has it been said that "sorrow seems sent for our in- 
 struction, as we darken the cages of birds when we would 
 teach them to sing," and "as night brings out the stars, so 
 sorrow shows us truths." The conclusion from this is not 
 that wc should go to that sorrow halfway, by being despon- 
 dent or melancholy, but that we should prepare for its 
 arrival, even as wc anticipate the coming of night, by culti- 
 vating faith in God, and a patient, trustful, and hopeful 
 spirit. Then shall wc be able to say with Christ Himself, 
 " I have been made perfect by suffering." It is "Night unto 
 night that sheweth knowledge."
 
 228 
 
 I have spoken, brethren, of the Night of Stars, the Night 
 of Solitude, the Night of Sorrow, as all alike divinely- 
 appointed teachers of man; there is but one other I must 
 name, it is the Nig] it of Separation or Death. I have 
 shown you all through the deep truth of the text that 
 night is a nobler teacher than day — that the gloom we at 
 first dread is more friendly to us than the light — that God 
 has made that which seems to take away from us what 
 we long for, the means in reality of bringing it to us in 
 richer abundance — it is the darkness that shows us the 
 infinite boundlessness of the world of light — it is solitude 
 that gives us the truest and noblest companionship, the 
 friendship of our better self, and the endearing communion 
 of God — it is sorrow that leads us into the noblest and most 
 lasting joy. And so, brethren, it is death which brings us 
 nearest to life — he who does not know death does not know 
 life. Suppose, for an instant, there had been no death, 
 that men had gone on for ever in this earthly, worldly life, 
 without anyone being called away into the mysterious 
 darkness beyond, apart from all other things that make 
 this undesirable, as we know it is impossible, how much 
 poorer and lower would have been our idea simply of life — 
 how much less would we have known of life ? For, brethren, 
 what do we mean by life? Not eating, and drinking, and 
 sleeping, and waking, and rising and walking, and common- 
 place talk. An animal does nearly as much — you could 
 almost make a mere mechanism to do nearly the same. 
 No; by life we mean something more than this, though 
 these things must fill up a great deal of life to all of us, and 
 to many they are all but the whole of it. But it is those 
 things that come much more seldom into life, that yet give 
 it all its greatness. It is love, and duty, and devotion, and 
 self-denial, and prayer, and hope, and faith, that elevate 
 even the common things of life and make the whole of it 
 noble. And these would have almost no existence but for 
 death. It is that solemn background that makes great and 
 spiritual this life of ours. If we had not seen the loved, 
 and the noble, and the true, go over these yet inaccessible
 
 229 
 
 mountains— if we did not hear voices speaking to us from 
 that far land — if we did not believe in a "city of God, 
 eternal in the heavens," and that we would there be able to 
 reach a nobler and purer life — if, instead of having our 
 affections and our thoughts raised to a boundless world of 
 the great departed, the ennobled and glorified spirits of all 
 time, who in the nearer presence of God and Christ are 
 living out a beautiful and stainless life — if, instead of all 
 this, we had been limited altogether to this poor, worldly, 
 present course of things, then life would have wanted its 
 truest and noblest meaning, we would have been like men 
 who, afflicted with perpetual daylight, had never known the 
 stars. 
 
 " Oh, wondrous lights of death, the great unveiler, 
 Lights that come out above the shadowy place ; 
 Just as the night that makes our small world paler, 
 Shows us the star-sown amplitudes of space ! 
 
 " Oh, strange discovery, land that knows no bounding, 
 Isles far-off hailed, bright seas without a breath ; 
 What time the white sail of the soul is rounding 
 The misty Cape — the promontory death ! ; '
 
 230 
 
 XIII. 
 
 THE SECRET OF ENDURANCE. 
 
 "He endured, as seeing Him who is invisible." — Heb. xi. 27. 
 
 The chapter from which our text is taken has been well 
 called the muster-roll of the heroes of the Jewish Church. 
 The writer of this epistle is addressing his Jewish fellow- 
 countrymen. He is showing them that the Christianity to 
 which they had become converts, but from which they were 
 now tempted to apostatize, was not the contradiction or 
 destruction of their ancient faith, but rather its develop- 
 ment and completion. As he goes on in his argument he 
 is led to insist on the necessity of faith, which had been the 
 secret of all true religious life even in Old Testament times, 
 but which was now, under the higher revelation of Christ, 
 altogether indispensable. And so in the beginning of our 
 chapter he gives a description of what faith is : it is " the 
 substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not 
 seen;" and then at once to illustrate this account of faith, 
 and to show how it had been the source of all that was 
 grandest in the life and struggles of the past, he proceeds 
 to call up name after name of God's saints and heroes who, 
 simply through their faith, had achieved such mighty things 
 and made such a lasting impression on their time. Abel, 
 Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, all these are 
 made to pass in review before us as examples of this mighty 
 principle, till at last, feeling as if the number of those who 
 crowded upon his recollection were far more than he could 
 separately cite, he simply points to that great cloud of 
 witnesses who were constant even to torture and to death, 
 overcoming opposing kingdoms and defeating mightiest 
 kings, because animated by irresistible faith. 
 
 But there are two names in this splendid catalogue that 
 seem to stir this Hebrew Christian's heart more than all the 
 others, for he dwells on them longer and more lovingly — 
 Abraham and Moses. No wonder these should have held
 
 231 
 
 his attention and admiration. They arc the greatest names 
 in his country's history. The one was the ancestor of his 
 race, the other the founder of his nation; and they are per- 
 haps the noblest characters we meet in the pages of the Old 
 Testament. More than that, however, they were specially 
 notable instances of the elevating and sustaining power of 
 faith, for as danger and difficulty deepened round them 
 this sacred principle within only became more intense; and 
 so of Moses especially the sacred writer goes on to say, 
 "he endured, as seeing Him who is invisible." 
 
 And this, brethren, is what I wish to speak upon to-day — 
 The Secret of Endurance ; and I have chosen this text 
 because, while it can never be inappropriate, it comes, I 
 think, with special fitness now, on the threshold of this new 
 year in which we are called, as it were, by the very voice of 
 Time to new efforts at self-improvement and self-conquest, 
 to new aspirations after devotion and faith; and in which, 
 as we look back at the failures of the past, the one thing we 
 at once desire and despair of is just perseverance, steadfast- 
 ness, endurance. 
 
 Brethren, we need not despair. There is a way to con- 
 quer our irresolution and confusion and weakness. The 
 life of Moses, as read by this inspired writer, tells us how 
 failure may be avoided, not only in his case, but in every 
 case: a Jic endured, as seeing Him who is invisible;" and for 
 us, too, it is the sight of the Invisible that is the secret of 
 endurance. And this is so because, in the first place, it 
 shows us the Personal God who works with us. 
 
 Again and again in history we read of men venturing 
 alone and single-handed into the camp or court of an enemy, 
 and in almost every case they did so with perfect impunity. 
 Though no one was with them, they knew, and the enemy 
 likewise knew, that the whole power of their country was 
 behind them, and that any insult or outrage offered to one 
 of her children would be at once avenged by the united 
 force and arms of the land. And so, even in modern times, 
 we arc strong with far more than our own strength. Wc do 
 not need to carry arms for our own defence against the
 
 robber or the private enemy. We arc strong because we 
 look to that invisible power we call the Law, and because 
 we know, and all men know, that any outrage will at once 
 be warded off or avenged by all the resources of civilization. 
 
 Now, brethren, as far as such an illustration may, this 
 will perhaps suggest to your thought how the sight of the 
 Invisible brings us endurance. The sight of the Invisible 
 is the sight of God — of that living personal Father of the 
 souls of men, who has been revealed in Christ. When 
 through faith, aspiration, prayer, I behold Him, I know 
 that He is working on the side of all my efforts after good- 
 ness, and, as far as He is concerned, these cannot fail. He 
 desires my righteousness, my eternal well-being, my full 
 and complete salvation, as much more than even I myself 
 do in proportion as He is greater and better than I. As 
 long, therefore, as my will goes with His, no power in the 
 universe can harm or thwart me. 
 
 We may see this truth working in the very material 
 universe. How feeble man is in himself. Before the mighty 
 force of nature he is, as he has well been called, a quivering 
 reed. But let him put himself in harmony with God's will, 
 as revealed in material laws, and how irresistible he becomes! 
 The wind blows his mighty ships, the sea upbears them ; the 
 steam drives his iron carriages; the telegraph carries his 
 messages with the speed of thought ; when well and securely 
 built, gravity and cohesion will uphold his mightiest build- 
 ings, and preserve for thousands of years his colossal 
 monuments. As long as we obey and observe these laws, 
 nothing can oppose or defeat us. Properly construct and 
 keep a telegraph-wire, and it must carry your message; 
 nothing can possibly prevent the engine from working when 
 the boiler is full, or the ship from sailing when the wind 
 blows fair behind. Now, these outward illustrations are 
 both a parable and a proof of spiritual things. That will 
 of God, which is supreme and irresistible in nature, is not 
 less so in the life of man; as it is in the world, so it is in 
 the soul. I know if God be on my side, or if I be on 
 God's side, I must surely prevail.
 
 233 
 
 But can I know this? Can I pierce the veil which hides 
 the Spiritual and Eternal ? Or is there any vision granted 
 of the Mighty Power which rules the course of time* 
 Yes, brethren, there is ; the united testimony of the Church 
 of God tells us it is so ; the experience of the countless 
 saintly and noble ones, of whom the world was not worthy, 
 up to that Supreme and Holy One, who could calmly say, 
 "He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father," assures us 
 that if there is one certainty on earth it is this — that we can 
 see the Unseen, not with the physical eyesight, which can 
 only touch and reveal physical objects, but with the spiritual 
 nature, which is our true self. By faith — that deepest and 
 yet most natural thing in us — we know God just with the 
 same certainty as we know ourselves or our fellow-men. It 
 needs an effort to acquire and retain this knowledge ; it is 
 only possible as we live the life of faith and pure endeavour; 
 we lose it when we live in sin; as Christ said, only the pure 
 in heart could see God. But an atheist or unbeliever no 
 more disproves God than a blind man disproves the sun. 
 And they who live as God calls us all to live, they see God, 
 and that sight gives them the power to endure to the very 
 end, because it is the sight of One who is working in us, 
 and with us, and who cannot possibly suffer our eternal 
 well-being to fail; who, when our will submits to His, bends 
 all our other things resistlessly to the working out of His 
 purpose of goodness to us. 
 
 J kit, again, the sight of the Invisible is the secret of 
 endurance because it robs temptations of allurement and 
 dangers of terror. How easy it would be to do right if 
 there were nothing to tempt us to do wrong ; how certainly 
 we should hold to the path of duty if there were no dangers 
 and difficulties in the way. But it is this which makes all 
 our moral and religious life essentially a struggle ; it is this 
 which leads the Scriptures to speak of it so constantly under 
 the figure of battle and warfare that we are continually beset 
 by opposition in our endeavour to reach the perfect life, and 
 become in heart and soul followers of Christ. The New 
 Testament sums up the opposing forces we have to meet
 
 234 
 
 under the threefold term of the world, the flesh, and the evil 
 one ; that is to say, the evil which besets us in society, the 
 evil which comes from our own lower and baser selves, and 
 that great principle and power of evil which seems every- 
 where active in the life of man. The danger to our endur- 
 ance comes from these ; by one or other, by all of these, 
 every man is tried ; and again and again we see even those 
 who began well and promised fair overcome in total ship- 
 wreck of their life and faith. We do not even need to go 
 to the experience of others ; we have only to look back on 
 our own lives, and we may each feel how difficult it is to 
 persevere That evil habit we know we have formed, which 
 we yet hate and despise, how often have we resolved to 
 guard against it, and yet how often it has reasserted its 
 power over us ; that besetting sin, which in our inmost 
 heart we have vowed to forsake, are we not shamefully con- 
 scious still that we have not broken its power ? Look at 
 our resolutions for prayer, for a higher and purer life, for a 
 nobler and more unworldly spirit ; how often is the prophet's 
 description true of them, they arc like " the morning cloud 
 and the early dew," the hot day of care and business seems 
 to sweep them quite away. 
 
 Now, brethren, the true remedy for this is in the text. 
 Learn to look at the Invisible, have the eye of your mind 
 and soul ever turned to God, and at once these tempta- 
 tions lose their power to hinder or to harm you. You 
 remember, in the famous poem, how the true and prayer- 
 ful knight had the power to see, through all her apparent 
 beauty, the foul and evil sorceress. And in real life you 
 remember how Joseph saw no charm in the sinful tempta- 
 tion, because he was looking at the Invisible, and at 
 once put aside the base invitation with the noble words, 
 " How can I do this great evil, and sin against God." Some 
 one has said, if we could only sec our temptation, not as it 
 comes to us, but as it goes from us, it would have no power 
 to draw us from the path of duty. Hut all these allure- 
 ments to evil are like those of whom we read in many an 
 old fable, they present to us a lair and smiling face, but by-
 
 235 
 
 and-by that falls from them as a mask, and we sec only the 
 hateful and distorted countenance. Could the drunkard 
 see in the fatal glass the shattered body and the imbecile 
 mind ; could the sensualist see in degrading pleasure his 
 soul made lower than a brute's, and his memory filled with 
 an undying remorse ; could the slanderer hear in his evil 
 whisper the breath that closes against him all nobler hearts ; 
 could the unneighbourly and uncharitable sec in the hard 
 measure they deal out to others the cold contempt and 
 neglect they are preparing for themselves ; could all of us, 
 brethren, just see the other side of sin — not its false and 
 fleeting attraction, but its fatal and lasting shame and loss — 
 we would not dare to do it, we would be so overpowered by 
 the horror of it that we would not even sec its charm ; we 
 would be like some innocent child, to whom the thought of 
 murder is something so utterly awful that it cannot under- 
 stand how human hands could ever possibly kill. 
 
 Does this elevation of mind seem to you something quite 
 impossible and unreal ? Do you doubt if by anything we 
 could ever be so made that at once we would only see the 
 repulsiveness in the sins that now attract, and be filled 
 with horror of that which, even while we put it aside, we 
 still hanker after? Let me ask you to think over the facts, 
 the indisputable facts, of real life. Have you not read of, 
 nay, have you not even known, those who have reached 
 such an elevation of soul that you felt at once it was a 
 moral impossibility for them not only to fall into any gross 
 and open sin, but who were even free from those smaller 
 sins we hardly visit with condemnation. There have been 
 men — I have known such — who would, I believe, have 
 found it impossible to tell a lie ; whom almost no bribe 
 would have induced to take a mean or unfair advan- 
 ; who never uttered an uncharitable word against 
 another, nor gave encouragement to a single envious or 
 hateful thought. There have been men whom the single 
 occurrence of one low desire has pained and humbled more 
 deeply than others would have been at the detection of an 
 < .pen crime. There have been those who have for long years
 
 236 
 
 lived only for others in irksome yet uncomplaining service ; 
 who, uncheered by any thought of praise, unprized, perhaps, 
 by those they served, and altogether unknown by the great 
 world, yet never let almost a thought stray aside from the 
 hard path of self-denial in which they have walked. I do not 
 mean that those have never known temptation, and never 
 fallen into sin. It is quite otherwise. In this life, those 
 whom we reverence as the very saints of God are just those 
 who have felt more deeply than all others the presence of 
 evil in themselves, for the more alive the conscience becomes, 
 the quicker it is to feel the slightest sting of evil thought; the 
 more pure and beautiful the temple of the soul, the more 
 foul and dreadful looks the slightest speck of sin. But I 
 do say that to such souls the sins that almost make up the 
 lives of ordinary men — the only sins that the great mass 
 of mankind reckon sins at all — these, to such as I have 
 described, have almost no existence ; they seem for them 
 to have no power of allurement left in them ; if they come 
 across their path, they are brushed aside at once as too 
 horrible and hateful to tempt to a single glance. And yet 
 those who have reached this height have not only been 
 men of like passions with ourselves, but in not a few cases 
 they have been brought to it from a former life of shame 
 and sin far deeper and darker than any we have known. 
 Do you ask the secret of their noble purity, and their splendid 
 perseverance ? It is the open secret of the text, " They en- 
 dured, as seeing Him who is invisible." They had seen God. 
 And just as one who looks awhile at the sun, when he turns 
 his gaze aside, can see no object on the dull earth, because 
 the light still fills his eyes, so they have found no attraction 
 in the world's pleasures, because the vision of God has 
 made these all coarse and mean. 
 
 Or let me take one other illlustration. You all know how 
 one commanding affection or passion so fills the heart 
 that no room is left for any other desire or fear. The 
 mother, whose heart is filled with the one thought of saving 
 her child from slavery, leaps on the floating ice of the broad 
 river, where the boldest man is afraid to follow her; the
 
 237 
 
 patriot holds his hand unflinchingly in the flame, just to 
 let his country's fbemen sec how unconquerable his brethren 
 arc ; the martyr thinks it a light thing that he should be 
 torn to death by the wild beasts of the arena, rather than 
 he should drop a grain of incense on the heathen altar. And, 
 brethren, there is such a master passion that can fill our 
 heart as that all other feelings will more and more give 
 way before it. '• To sec Him who is invisible," is but 
 another expression for love to Christ, who has revealed the 
 Invisible to us, and who is Himself at once the Image and 
 Fulness of God. 
 
 Oh, brethren, let your new year's resolve and prayer be 
 for an entire and unceasing love to your great Master and 
 Saviour and Lord ! Resolve to be earnest in prayer, to be 
 watchful over your heart, to study the Scriptures, to amend 
 your faults, to love and serve and think nobly of others. 
 But let the beginning and end of all these resolutions and 
 endeavours be faith and love to Jesus. Personal devotion 
 to a personal Saviour is the secret of all noble Christian 
 endurance, and I have not another gospel to preach, nor 
 could I dare to preach it if I had. " There is no other name 
 given under heaven among men whereby we can be saved." 
 Love Christ, and the love of what is sinful will inevitably 
 die ; fear God, and you will assuredly have no other fear. 
 
 Over each of you, as you stand on the threshold of this 
 year, over that unknown future that lies as an untrodden 
 and unseen path before you, over all the chequered light 
 and shade of coming joy and sorrow, success and failure, I 
 dare, in God's name, to pronounce that, if you try to hold 
 fast this devotion, you cannot possibly fail ; that if this 
 love be cherished by you, nothing will move yen; that if, 
 with an increasingly steadfast gaze, you look up to Him 
 who, though unseen, is ever visible and near to the eye of 
 faith, you shall have pronounced over you, perhaps by 
 earthly lips, but certainly by heavenly spirits, these splendid 
 words of triumph, the epitaph written by the pen of inspir- 
 ation over the noblest of God's ancient saints — 
 
 " He endured, as seeing Him who is in invisible."'
 
 238 
 
 XIV. 
 MISSIONARY SERMON. 
 
 "Go YE THEREFORE, AND MAKE DISCIPLES OF ALL THE NATIONS." — 
 (Revised version). — Matthew xxviii. ig. 
 
 WHEN the Duke of Wellington was commanding officer in 
 India, he was asked by an English chaplain whether he should 
 advise him to preach to the Hindoos. The great soldier asked, 
 " What are your marching orders ?" and the chaplain replied 
 by quoting the words of our text. "Then," said Wellington, 
 " carry out your instructions ; your only duty is to obey." 
 And in appearing before you to-night to plead the cause of 
 Foreign Missions, I might content myself with repeating to 
 you these " marching orders " from an authority which all 
 acknowledge, and of pointing you to the two alternatives of 
 cither supporting Foreign Missions or proving disobedient 
 to the Great Captain of your salvation. For surely it is 
 not now necessary in any branch of the Christian Church 
 to argue that Foreign Missions are a duty; and, if it were, 
 it would only be necessary to follow the example of our 
 own great founder, Erskine, and repeat the words which he 
 uttered on the floor of the General Assembly, over a hun- 
 dred years ago, when urging the church's duty to the heathen 
 — "Moderator, rax me that Bible," for in that book to which 
 all appeal, and which all receive, you have an unanswerable 
 argument for this great cause. Indeed, the wonder now 
 is, that churches which received as their supreme and 
 infallible standard the New Testament, should ever have 
 been blind to their duty here, when every one of its pages 
 contains some implicit or explicit command to spread the 
 Gospel. Open the sacred Book, and you find <>n almost the 
 first i f the New Testament), the account of these 
 
 heathen, not sought by a missionary, but coming from a 
 f r land themselves to seek the Greatest Teacher of all.
 
 239 
 
 Turn to its latest page, and almost its last words are these, 
 "The Spirit and the Bride say 'come,' and let him that 
 hcarcth say ' come,' and let him that is athirst ' come,' and 
 whosoever will, let him take the Water of Life freely." 
 And every page between that first and this last, is resound- 
 ing with appeals to Christians to be no selfish and niggard 
 enjoyers of light themselves, but to spread over every land 
 the glad radiance of the truth. And in the New Testament 
 we have not merely precepts but example to appeal to. 
 Every saint who is held up to our imitation there was a 
 missionary. All the Apostles were essentially such, all 
 their companions and followers were such too. They never 
 shrank from proclaiming the truth, however hostile their 
 surroundings, or inopportune the occasion; and ofttimes 
 their most successful sermons were preached with their latest 
 breath, and their executioners became their converts. 
 
 But the Great Master of all was Himself the Greatest 
 Missionary, though we might choose to call Him a Home 
 Missionary rather than a Foreign. From the beginning 
 of His public ministry to the close of His life, He continually 
 engaged in what was essentially mission work. Look at 
 the long preaching circuits He engaged in. Look at His 
 eagerness to teach the crowd. Look at His absorption in 
 His work, which made Him oblivious of hunger and weari- 
 ness. And when He is about to depart from earth, what is 
 the request which, as the dearest of all, our Master and 
 Saviour leaves to His disciples and Church? What is the 
 request which, as the nearest to His heart, is the last on His 
 lips? What is the order which, as His latest utterance, the 
 Church must look back to as His most urgent command? 
 It is the words of our text, " Go ye therefore, and make 
 disciples of all the nations." 
 
 I have said I should be content to rest the cause of 
 Foreign Missions on an appeal to authority; but though 
 that ought to be conclusive, I do not mean to rest my 
 appeal to-night on commands, however numerous and 
 urgent ; for an appeal to bare authority, even though it 
 be the highest authority, is, at best, unsatisfactory. It is
 
 240 
 
 naturally distasteful to us, because it seems to override our 
 freedom, and it does not appeal to the intellect and to the 
 heart Now, God always treats us as reasonable beings. 
 He does not lay bare commands upon us. He allows us 
 for the most part to see the reasonableness of the command. 
 And so I shall best proceed to-night in the development of 
 our text by asking, " Why is it that we should support 
 Foreign Missions ?" and " What reasonable ground is there 
 for the command laid upon us to ' make disciples of all 
 the nations ?'" 
 
 1. The first reason I have already urged, via.: — That it is 
 the plain command of Christ and Holy Scripture; but I pass 
 on to what is more properly a reason, and say, 
 
 2. It is because men cannot live without religion. The 
 sceptics of the last century used to deride religion as some- 
 thing altogether artificial and unnecessary — invented by 
 the cunning of priests and kings for their own private and 
 pernicious ends. Such an opinion is now abandoned by 
 every educated man as utterly untenable. Religion is 
 natural to man, and native with him almost everywhere. 
 There may be some tribes so utterly degraded as to have 
 none, at least none that we can readily recognize; but their 
 position is so low, and their number so few, that we can 
 afford to disregard them. In all ages of history, then, in 
 all lands of the world, from the savage bowing to a shape- 
 less stone in some primeval forest to the splended rituals 
 of Egypt, the matchless statues of Greece, and the gorgeous 
 festivals of Rome, the same truth is borne witness to — 
 religion is a necessity for man. Bacon quotes a saying, 
 " He who would live in solitude must be either a god or a 
 beast ;" that is, he must be something more than human, or 
 less than human, who can support a solitary life. And so 
 we may say, lie who would do without religion must be 
 more than man or less than man. For what is religion 
 from the human side but an attempt to answer these great 
 questions, " What am I ?" " Whence am I ?" " Whether am
 
 241 
 
 I going?" questions that force an answer from every 
 human soul. Even those who, in our day, cast aside all 
 historical revelations of religion have been driven to create 
 for themselves a fictitious worship of humanity, and (to 
 quote the words of a living theologian) "This century has 
 seen more than one man relegate God to the limbo of dying 
 superstition, only to make the memory of a woman the centre 
 of a religion infinitely lower and less human." Yes, my 
 brethren, as long as man is fronted by the mystery of the 
 world and the sorrows and sins of his own life, as long as 
 
 •• The weary and die heavy weight 
 Of all this unintelligihle world,'' 
 
 hangs upon his heart; as long, in other words, as man has 
 an imagination to carry his thoughts "wandering through 
 eternity," a conscience to burden him with the feeling of 
 his own wrong-doing and failures, a memory speaking of 
 the departed beloved, whom on earth he will sec no more ; 
 as long, in a word, as man is man, so long will religion be 
 a necessity, and the deepest necessity, of his nature. Not 
 long ago, when famine was desolating China and India, 
 every city and town in England was eager to send relief; 
 and yet the prophet will tell you there is another famine, 
 " not a famine of bread, but of hearing the word of the 
 Lord." It is on behalf of those stricken with that famine 
 I appeal to-night. Shall it be said of you that you were 
 generous, even to excess, in supplying the " bread that 
 perisheth," and that only when the appeal was for the bread 
 which came from Heaven, you counted it an idle cry and 
 gave it no heed ? 
 
 3. But a further reason, and one involved in tlic last, is 
 that Christianity is the one absolute and true religion. Our 
 ccntury has seen an extraordinary interest directed to the 
 study of heathen religions, so that we are now better able 
 to compare Christianity with these than at any former time. 
 And in doing so, it is not at all necessary to look on any 
 ill of these heathen religions as so many inventions of 
 
 '•J
 
 242 
 
 the devil and snares of Satan. It is not only more kindly, 
 but more Christian — not only more scientific but more 
 scriptural — to regard these as, in great measure, so many 
 gropings of the human spirit after God. It is so St. Paul 
 speaks to the Athenians, when he tells them that the 
 unknown God of their ignorant worship was He whom he 
 came to preach, and that everywhere men were feeling after 
 God, if haply they might find Him. And we may believe 
 with the poet — 
 
 " That the feeble hands and helpless, 
 Groping blindly in the darkness, 
 Touch God's right hand in that darkness, 
 And are lifted up and strengthened." 
 
 But whatever measure of truth there may be in these 
 heathen religions, Christianity stands to these, not merely 
 in a relation of superiority, but in absolute and complete 
 superiority. Even if Christianity were only better than 
 these, it would be our duty to displace them. But it is 
 contrasted with them, not merely as better, but as the only 
 good ; not merely as truer, but as the only true. Take the 
 four great existing religions of heathendom, with all of 
 which our own nation is in most immediate contact, and 
 all of which are professed by our fellow-subjects. 
 
 First of all there is Brahminism, prevalent largely in our 
 Indian empire, which not only admits to its temples 
 licentious practices as sacred rites, but which has fastened 
 on Indian life the degrading system of caste, and made 
 woman the very slave of man. 
 
 Then there is Confucianism, the national religion of 
 China; and while there is much in the life and words of 
 the sage who founded it that is admirable (as in that notable- 
 saying of his, "Heaven is character,") it is, at best, a religion 
 of cold prudential maxims, with little influence on the daily 
 life. 
 
 Then we have Mohamcdanism, also professed by many 
 of our Indian fellow-subjects. But whatever there may be 
 that is admirable in the life of Mahomet, and though we
 
 243 
 
 may believe that God would not have suffered it to displace 
 a corrupt Christianity unless it were better than that cor- 
 ruption, yet no one who looks on the degradation of woman, 
 the vice of polygamy, the blind fatalism, the gross mis- 
 government of Mohamedan countries, can doubt that there 
 we have a religion which, as judged by its fruits, must be 
 pronounced wanting. 
 
 There is one other heathen religion, to which the greatest 
 interest of all attaches, and that for two reasons. It is still 
 the religion professed by the greatest number of the human 
 race ; four hundred millions — nearly a third of the human 
 race — are Buddhists. And of all who have ever lived out- 
 side the pale of Christianity, the life of Buddha is, perhaps, 
 the most elevated and captivating. And yet, what is this 
 religion in its purest and most enlightened followers? A 
 religion of despair ; a religion which echoes the sad words 
 of the Greek poet, " The best thing is never to have been, 
 and the next best thing is that, having been, we should 
 quickly cease to be." Think of that most touching story 
 of which we read in the life of its founder, and just because 
 it sets his character in the most amiable light, it makes all 
 the more clear the utter hopelessness of his teaching. One 
 of those poor little child-mothers, still so common in India, 
 came with a baby on her breast to ask Buddha to cure it. 
 He saw it was past all earthly cure, for it was dead, but the 
 mother was too young and inexperienced to know it. "Go," 
 he said, "and bring me a mustard seed from a house in 
 which no parent, or child, or brother, or sister, or servant 
 has died, and I will cure the child." The poor mother's 
 face lighted with joy as she went on her errand. But after 
 a wear)' and fruitless search she returned to say that nowhere 
 could she find a home where Death had not been. And 
 this was all the comfort even the gentle and sympathetic 
 Buddha could give, that her sorrow was but the common 
 lot — that death had seized the child, and death was every- 
 where. How one thinks of another Teacher, to whom not 
 a mother, but a sister, came bewailing her loss, and of the 
 far different words which He uttered, " I am the Rcsurrcc-
 
 244 
 
 tion and the Life. He that liveth, and believeth in Me, 
 shall never die." And by as much as a gospel of hope is 
 better than a gospel of despair, by so much is Christianity 
 better than even the best of heathen religions. 
 
 4. But, again, I ask your support to Foreign Missions 
 because Christianity is the great agent that civilizes, elevates, 
 and unites the world. Christianity is a power which operates 
 not only on individuals, but on nations. The godliness it 
 evokes has promise, not only of the life to come, but of the 
 life that now is, and hence Christianity is the great civilizer. 
 I do not deny that there have been great and powerful 
 civilizations outside Christianity, but they were deficient in 
 many of the most valuable elements of modern life, and 
 modern civilization is essentially the creature of Christianity. 
 It was Christianity which first and effectually conjoined the 
 two elements of order and liberty, of subordination and 
 equality, and without these any high civilization is im- 
 possible. It proclaimed a respect for established order, 
 unless it were flagrantly in the wrong, but at the same 
 time it declared that the human conscience must have no 
 other master than God. It recognized the necessity of 
 different ranks and conditions in life, but at the same time 
 proclaimed the brotherhood of all men, and the equal stand- 
 ing of every soul in the eye. of Him who is no respecter of 
 persons but the inflexible Judge of all. And if you will 
 read modern history you will find that civilization followed 
 in the track of the missionary. It was so in our own country. 
 It was so in German}', in Denmark, in all Northern Europe. 
 And in modern days we have seen a notable instance of 
 ii where, in less than a generation, the cannibal tribes of 
 Fiji have, owing to the almost unassisted efforts of the 
 missionary, become orderly and civilized, and are now an 
 integral portion of the British empire. But if Christianity 
 civilizes, it also elevates communities. There is much in 
 professedly Christian countries that all must deplore; but 
 let anyone compare th'e tone, say of English public life, with 
 that of even the best ages of Greece and Rome:, and in the
 
 245 
 
 reverence for what is just and true and pure, he must con- 
 fess a great advance. Let the Roman satirist of the most 
 cultivated age tell how "every vice had reached its zenith, 
 and virtue was not only rare, but non-existent;" let the 
 lives of Rome's greatest public men be read, and the latest 
 historian has to accuse even Caesar, and Cicero, and Cato 
 of following private and personal ends; and then let our 
 own great dramatist be heard in the advice he makes one 
 English statesman give to another, and which, we believe, 
 no distinguished public man of our own day would be 
 ashamed to read : — 
 
 " Love thyself last. Cherish those hearts that hate thee : 
 Corruption wins not more than honesty. 
 Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace 
 To silence envious tongues. Be just, and tear not ; 
 Let all the ends thou aim'st at be thy country's, 
 Thy God's, and truth's. Then, if thou fall'st, O Cromwell. 
 Thou fall'st a blessed martyr ! " 
 
 Yes, if our public life has been purified and elevated; if 
 it be possible to read elevated sentiments like these as 
 serious advice and not as satire ; if no man need now aspire 
 to eminent office whose character is not free from public 
 stain ; if English politicians arc uncorrupt, and if for gener- 
 ations English judges have been unbribed, to what do we owe 
 it if not to the diffusion of the Christian sentiment? And 
 what other agent than Christianity has ever aspired to the 
 blessed place of the world's peace-maker? Milton has sung 
 of the birth of Christianity — 
 
 " No war, or battle's sound. 
 
 Was heard the world around.'' 
 The idle spear and shield were high uphung. 
 
 The hooked chariot stood, 
 
 Unstained by hostile blood; 
 The trumpet spake not to the armed throng; 
 
 And kings sate still with awful f 
 
 As if they surely knew their Sov'reign Lord was by.'
 
 246 
 
 And whatever measure of historical fact there is, it is alto- 
 gether spiritually true. For the birth of Christianity was the 
 birth of peace, and the prevalence of Christianity it is which 
 will make men ashamed of war. Even now it is teaching men 
 the brotherhood of nations ; it evokes pity for the captive 
 and vanquished ; it has led, in some few instances, to the 
 preference of arbitration to war ; and where this could not 
 be effected, it has sent to the field of battle the Red Cross 
 Legion for the succour of the wounded, and before that 
 sacred symbol of humanity the guns of both belligerents are 
 turned aside. Let only Christianity be made potent over 
 the lives of men, and before it both private wrong and 
 public warfare will disappear, and it shall not be vain to 
 wish for a time 
 
 " When the war-drum throbs no longer, and the battle flags are 
 furled, 
 In the parliament of men, the federation of the world." 
 
 And inasmuch as the cause for which I plead to-night 
 is the diffusion of Christianity, I appeal to you to support 
 it as the cause of the world's civilization, elevation, and 
 peace. 
 
 5. But I ask your support for the further reason that Cod 
 seeks human help to spread the Gospel. It is quite conceiv- 
 able that God might have dispensed with this appeal to 
 human instrumentality ; it is quite conceivable that He 
 might have abstained from using the agency of men. Some 
 angelic messenger, some overwhelming revelation, might 
 have been sent to every nation, and to every individual. It 
 is sufficient for us, however, that such has not been the case. 
 Nor would such a proceeding have been in accordance with 
 the ways of Providence. Everywhere God works unresting, 
 but also unhasting, as lie to whom ";i thousand years are 
 as one day." Everywhere He appeals to the natural reason 
 and mutual help of man. He hides His healing medicines 
 for man's diseases in plants and stones for man's ingenuity 
 to find. He leaves the means of guarding against danger,
 
 247 
 
 and saving labour and weariness, the laws of science, and 
 secrets of invention, hidden, and yet revealed, in the stars 
 above and the earth around us. All things are given to 
 man, but only in so far as he has industry, patience, charity. 
 Nor is it otherwise with religion. This, too, God has given 
 to all, but only the>' who seek ever find. He has entrusted 
 to human agency its development and diffusion. But this, 
 my brethren, makes your responsibility all the more. To 
 these heathen you stand almost in the position of God. 
 You have the light for which they in the darkness are grop- 
 ing; the comfort for which, in their sorrow, they are yearn- 
 ing. It is given to you, humanly speaking, to help or 
 hinder the divine cause ; for even the Apostle terms you 
 fellow-labourers with God. Let none think themselves of 
 too little account to help in this. Think of the Apostles, 
 with one exception unlettered fishermen, going forth to 
 conquer a world. Against them they had all the power, 
 the pomp, the prejudice of the mightiest empire, yet in 
 three centuries their cause was triumphant! Think of 
 Luther, "the solitary monk that shook the world ! " Against 
 him were arranged the wiliest of Popes and the mightiest 
 of Emperors, and he was but a peasant's son ; yet the cause 
 of Luther is now the cause of the civilized world. Think of 
 Livingstone, a poor weaver boy, yet his name and labours 
 are now imperishably associated with a whole continent. 
 These all conquered because their cause was God's, and 
 their trust was in Him; and, brethren, it is to that same 
 cause I summon you to-night, it is "to the help of the Lord 
 against the mighty;" and just the more you feel your 
 weakness and insignificance arc you called to this, for the 
 Church has ever conquered through what Milton calls "the 
 invincible might of weakness." 
 
 6. But I appeal to you again for the missionary cause 
 because our country is especially called to this work. Brethren, 
 we belong to the greatest empire the world has seen. In 
 comparison with the empire of Britain, even that of Rome 
 seems small, for we rule over a larger and wider territory
 
 248 
 
 than fell to the ancient mistress of the world in her most 
 powerful days; and something like a fourteenth of the whole 
 human race now speak the English language, and follow, 
 more or less, English custom and laws. I do not speak this 
 as an idle boast. If I did, no time or place could be more 
 inappropriate than the present. I do so that you may ask 
 yourselves what is the duty which follows this destiny; what 
 greatness of responsibility is entailed by this greatness of 
 empire. A distinguished German scholar has written a 
 book which he entitles, "God in History," and the truth, 
 which is the foundation of his work, is one which even the 
 mere historical student is driven to admit. No nation ever 
 existed merely for itself. No great nation ever existed 
 whose influence was not felt through all times, in some 
 possession which the world shall never lose. Every nation- 
 ality should adopt the daily watch-word of the monk 
 Bernard, "Bernard, for what art thou here?" Greece has 
 perished. You may stand in ancient Athens and see 
 nothing round you but the broken columns and keyless 
 arches of her deserted temples ; but Greece lives on in the 
 undying thought of man, in the sentiment of beauty, and 
 the love of art. Go to the banks of the Tiber, and to where 
 the Roman Forum stood, you see the same spectacle of 
 desertion and decay. Has Rome perished ? It is the 
 Roman law which still rules the civilized world. These 
 great nations, small in their original extent, great only in 
 their unconscious mission, were called by God to a mighty 
 work-. Does our country seem less wonderfully called? 
 Look on the map of the world at these small specks, these 
 little islands hid in the northern seas, and then follow their 
 history; see them obtaining the dominion of the great 
 Indian continent, colonizing America, settling Australia, 
 opening up Africa. See them gaining the lordship of the 
 seas, taking the lead in commerce, in manufactures, in 
 science, and then ask what is the goal to which our history 
 points us? What is the possession which Britain has to 
 bequeath to the world? It can be none other than the 
 Christian religion. 1 do not mean by that, that we have a
 
 249 
 
 monopoly of Christianity, or arc in ourselves more religious 
 that other men. But the vast extent of our Colonial pos- 
 sessions, the empire we have won in the East, the ramifica- 
 tions of our commerce, the wide extent of our language, all 
 give us unrivalled facilities for giving to all lands some 
 spiritual possession. And what is the dearest gift we can 
 bestow? What is that which is to England what her lan- 
 guage was to Greece, and her laws to Rome, the deepest thing 
 in her national life, at once the source and the expression 
 of her greatness? It is her religion. The struggle for 
 political freedom was inspired by religion; religion prompted 
 our two great revolutions; we were fighting the battle of 
 our religion when we won our first great naval victory; 
 religion laid the foundation of our Colonial empire. Even- 
 great reform has had its religious side, its religious advo- 
 cates, its religious arguments. Religion freed the slave, 
 gave us our Factory Laws, and urged our national education. 
 Religion, if she has not animated and controlled, has never 
 been spurned or derided by any of our great men. The 
 names that we boast of in science, in art, in politics, in war, 
 are, for the most part, those of religious men; while our 
 litcrature in its purity and its reverence is distinctly religious. 
 I do not ask you to accept this on the authority of one 
 whom you may regard as a special advocate, but study your 
 country's history, or listen to perhaps her greatest states- 
 man, and hear him declare that "Britain's energies have 
 grown from her social and religious soundness.'' Yes, 
 
 •■ Vain mightiest fleets of iron framed. 
 Vain these all-conquering guns, 
 Unless proud England keep unstained 
 The true hearts of her sons." 
 
 This is the destiny the finger of history clearly points to, a 
 assigned to Britain by the great Ruler of nations. She has 
 been set in the centre of the world, dowered with empire, 
 Idened with freedom, lightened by knowledge, only that 
 she may give to others what has been the talisman of her 
 own safety and glory — the truth and peace of Christ.
 
 250 
 
 /. Did time permit, I should have urged upon you other 
 arguments for this great cause, that thus you ivould incite 
 your efforts with the most devoted and heroic workers the 
 world has seen, the noble army of missionaries. I know there 
 are those, even in the Churches, to whom missionary is a 
 term, if not of reproach, at least of compassionate contempt; 
 but these cavillers only manifest their ignorance and poverty 
 of soul. No name has been so illustrious in the service of 
 humanity, no name less stained by ignoble ends, no name 
 has been worn by so many pure and devoted heroes, as this 
 despised name of missionary. All titles of honour grow 
 pale and poor before that which has been worn by a Columba, 
 a Xavier, a Carey, a Martyr, a Duff, and a Livingstone; 
 and you ought to count it an honour and a privilege that in 
 however faint and far-off a way, you may associate your 
 efforts with theirs. 
 
 One other argument I shall only mention, for surely it 
 needs no words of mine to urge it. I say, 
 
 8. Gratitude to God and devotion to Christ should impel 
 you to support this cause. Before every Christian soul there 
 should be ever present the picture which some here may 
 have seen, the figure of Christ wearing the thorny crown, 
 and underneath the inscription, "I did this for thee; what 
 hast thou done for Me?" 
 
 A word in conclusion. I have spoken of the greatness 
 of our country, and you may think we have been equal to 
 the enormous wealth when you hear that in fifty years 
 Britain gave over fourteen million pounds to missions. But 
 in that same time we spent 1,200 millions on war. One 
 thinks with the poet, 
 
 " Were half the power that fills the world with terror, 
 Were half the wealth bestowed on camps and courts, 
 ( riven to redeem the human mind from error, 
 There were no need of arsenals or forts." 
 
 I am not here to deny that any, or all, of these wars were 
 inevitable; but, speaking of war, I am reminded of that 
 better warfare in which every one before me is a dedicated
 
 251 
 
 soldier; and I tell you the cause for which I plead to-night 
 is none other than the "forlorn hope" of Christianity. You 
 know what that means. Some almost impregnable part of 
 a fortress has to be attempted, some commanding height in 
 the enemy's position has to be won. In the dead of night the 
 little band of heroes who have volunteered for the task — "the 
 forlorn hope" — silently gather together man by man. In 
 breathless silence they leave the rest of the army, whom 
 they feel they shall probably never see again. The silent 
 march begins, and soon they are lost in the darkness. What 
 deep anxiety there is in the heart of every soldier left be- 
 hind; how the moments seem to drag like hours till the 
 roll of musketry and the gleam of light announce that the 
 storming has begun. There is not in the whole army a 
 coward so great as not to shoulder his musket, and fix his 
 bayonet, and march eagerly to the relief of his comrades, 
 fighting the distant foe. And I say, shame on you, shame 
 on every Christian congregation, shame on every Christian 
 man, who is not forward and ready with heart and hand, 
 with money and sympathy, to assist and encourage those 
 who, giving up country and home and comfort, have gone 
 forth into the darkness of heathendom to fight the battle 
 for Christ !
 
 252 
 
 XV. 
 
 CHRISTIAN MANLINESS. 
 
 •■Quit you like men." — / Cor. xvi. ij. 
 
 Tins text well justifies what has been said of the writings 
 of St. Paul, that " His words are not dead things but 
 living beings with hands and feet,"' that they are, as was 
 said of Luther's, " half battles." What a splendid and 
 rousing call is this, and how different from what many 
 would expect from a teacher of religion — " Quit you like 
 men." This is the cry we would think to hear from some 
 great soldier on the field of battle, as he leads his men right 
 up to the hostile guns, or, as amid the deluge of shot and 
 shell, he leads some wild and forlorn hope. It is the word 
 which would rise to the lips of some brave seaman, as the 
 deadly hurricane swoops down on the devoted vessel, and 
 he calls upon his crew to follow him as he springs forward 
 to clear the wreck of fallen spars and mast, heedless of the 
 tempest that storms over the ship. It would be natural to 
 the brave man, who, when some deadly explosion has 
 occurred in the mine, takes his life in his hand as he goes 
 down to rescue those who may yet be alive; or to him 
 who, amid some fearful pestilence, when hundreds are dying 
 daily, calmly goes forward at the call of duty, heedless of 
 all infection, to relieve and succour the sick; or, yet again, 
 to him who, when a conflagration is raging in some vast 
 building or town, heads the volunteers who risk- the flame 
 and the falling ruins to rescue the women and children 
 from an awful death. Hut if it requires a high and noble 
 courage to • one a right to use these words, then 1 
 do not know anyone who had a better claim to them than 
 St. Paul. And if it be the example and not the mere cry 
 of the leader that proves contagious to his followers, I
 
 253 
 
 do not know that any influence should be so powerful as 
 his. I have read the biographies of great soldiers and 
 sailors. There are deeds of daring that have been performed 
 on flood and field, at the mere memory and recital of which 
 the heart thrills and the checks flush; but nowhere, not 
 even in the lives of our greatest warriors and heroes, has 
 there been exhibited a courage more true, a devotion more 
 noble, an -endurance more inflexible, than that of this weak 
 and broken man, who was yet the irresistible leader and 
 great Apostle, and who with such a good right thrilled his 
 converts, and still thrills the whole Christian Church, with 
 this rousing trumpet-call — "Quit you like men!" But, 
 brethren, I dare not treat these words as merely the message 
 of even the greatest of the Apostles. If I did so, I would be 
 untrue to the faith of the whole Christian Church, that a 
 Greater than any mere human voice speaks to us in the 
 words of Scripture. It is nothing less than the Might}- 
 Spirit of all grace and truth, it is the Divine Father and 
 Watcher of each human soul, it is the Lord and Master each 
 Christian is vowed to serve, Who speaks this individual 
 appeal by His servant's lips; and as if it came direct from 
 God to each of us, so we must receive these words — " Quit 
 you like men." I most earnestly wish to impress these 
 words upon all here to-day, because it seems to me they 
 give emphatic utterance to one of the great necessities of 
 religion we are all too much in danger of forgetting. If 
 there is one thing the Church needs to-day, it is manly 
 Christians. All around us we sec too many examples of 
 those who, in their religion, are hardly ever else than un- 
 manly and weak. They seem to think that religion only 
 exists for the calamities and sorrows of life, the}- seek it only 
 when oppressed with disaster or grief, or they use it only to 
 indulge their feelings, or merely to mourn over the insta- 
 bility of this world, and to indulge in anticipations of the 
 life to come. Xo wonder that, with such examples only 
 too current among us, many should think in their secret 
 heart that religion has little to do with the life of a strong 
 and eager man. or that to make any profession of it should
 
 254 
 
 be thought hardly consistent with the exuberance of 
 youthful strength and activity, and that the very last word 
 that should be employed to denote and recommend our 
 faith ought to be this of manliness. 
 
 Xow I uphold, on the contrary, not only that manliness 
 and religion are not opposed, not only is our Christian 
 Faith not alien to the spirit of active youth and resolute 
 manhood, not only is all that we admire in the brave and 
 heroic character not incompatible with deep and real 
 devotion to our Lord and Master, Christ ; but that if any- 
 one wishes to secure this noble quality of character, and is 
 ambitious to drive out of his life all poor and cowardly 
 weakness, and to fill his soul with a rare and unflagging 
 courage, then there is no better, no other way he can secure 
 it than by becoming a disciple in the school of Christ. If the 
 Christian Church were but filled with the faith of her 
 Master, then we should see, as we have before seen in dark 
 days, persecution, and distress, not men alone but even 
 women and children who, in resolute faith and lofty 
 courage, were worthy to be ranked with the noblest heroes 
 of any land or time. Nay, I go further, and say that if we 
 seek after the most perfect and noble manliness, it is only 
 possible as we become sincere and earnest Christians, and 
 they who become such cannot fail to reach this character 
 so rightly prized. And it is my duty to-day to enforce on 
 all, not only the excellence of such a quality as this, and 
 how religion thereby commends itself to the young and 
 strong who covet this distinction, but to show that to all, 
 without exception, their Christian Faith and life demands 
 that they excel in this — that to be without this quality is to 
 be without a proper Christian spirit, that all of us must 
 receive and obey the apostolic precept, "Quit you like 
 men." 
 
 In seeking to unfold to you the nature and the necessity 
 of Christian manliness, I take it that there arc three things 
 that will be generally allowed to constitute the manly 
 character — strength, courage, and endurance; and if I shall 
 show you that these are secured in their best and highest
 
 255 
 
 form by those who come under the influence of our holy 
 religion, 1 shall have proved how inseparably we must con- 
 nect these two things — manliness and Christianity. 
 
 i. First of all, then, the quality of the manly life. The 
 very word we use goes to show this. A man, as dis- 
 tingushed from a woman or a child, is the strong one ; and 
 in the rude and early life of the world this made his value 
 and use. Me could fell the oak, and strike down the wolf 
 or bear, and face and conquer his enemy in the battle. He 
 who excelled in strength was able also to excel in these 
 things, and was praised and honoured beyond others ; 
 and no quality was more coveted by rude and savage men 
 than this of strength. But we have got far beyond that 
 stage which places a high value on such mere physical or 
 bodily force in itself. You know we have now a far higher 
 and nobler idea of strength than this, which is simply the 
 notion of the savage. It is well that any one should have 
 bodily vigour and strength. They who have it should esteem 
 it a good gift of God, to be valued and treasured for the best 
 ends ; but the strength most necessary for the good of the 
 world is not mere vigour of muscle and limb. As an ele- 
 ment of manly character, strength means simply the power 
 of service, the energy of action ; he who has most of this 
 excels in this respect in manliness. I wish you to notice 
 this particularly, that what we admire and honour is not 
 strength in itself alone, but rather the ends and uses to 
 which that is put. He who has great strength and uses it 
 for low ends is in no respect manly. 
 
 " It is excellent to have a giant's strength, 
 But it is tyrannous to use it like a giant." 
 
 But what Christ has taught us especially to admire and love 
 is the strength of weak things. It is said of the great re- 
 ligious heroes, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, that "out of 
 weakness they were made strong ; " and St. Paul's own 
 experience was, "when I am weak, then am 1 strong." In 
 other words, Christianity has given us a new and higher 
 ideal of strength. 1 le is truly the strong man whose whole
 
 256 
 
 being has been subdued by the Spirit of Christ — whose 
 passions are under the control of a pure and resolute will — 
 whose aim in life is to spread around him the highest and 
 truest goodness — whom you feel you could perfectly trust 
 in the most difficult situation to consider first the truest 
 interest of others and himself only in so far as he could 
 further these. Such a man was St. Paul, who acknowledges 
 himself that "his bodily presence was weak ;" and yet look 
 at his work, and see how grand and colossal it is. Such a 
 man, of a spare and little figure, was Wesley, yet he was, and 
 still is, a mighty influence for good over the whole religious 
 life of England and America. Such have been many of the 
 greatest men that have ever lived, for very often a great and 
 strong soul has dwelt in a small and feeble body. In every 
 true estimate of strength, one such man as these is worth 
 more than a whole army of giants ; his power is nobler and 
 truer than ever wielded by the most physically powerful. 
 Even on the battlefield itself it is strength of will and of 
 soul that tells most. The famous Napoleon, the greatest 
 conquercr of modern times, was a little man, with a pale and 
 delicate look; and more than one great general has actually 
 had to be carried to the field as an invalid. But in religion, 
 brethren — in that which makes your truest and highest life — 
 in that which alone gives you an enduring title to manli- 
 ness — remember almost nothing depends on mere vigour of 
 body. "Be strong in the Lord and the power of His might." 
 " He that ruleth his spirit is better than the mighty." The 
 noblest thing in a man — that which makes him a man and 
 not a brute — is his mind and soul ; make these strong and 
 pure, as the influence of Christ ruling in them can alone do, 
 and then in the noblest sense you will be able to "Quit you 
 like men." 
 
 "In the world's broad field of battle, 
 In the bivouac o! I 
 Be not like dumb driven cattle. 
 Be a hero in the strife." 
 
 2. But coura /en more emphatically an element of 
 
 manliness. He who faces danger and difficulty, he whom
 
 257 
 
 terror will not turn aside from the path of duty, is most 
 truly a man. Now, where shall we learn this so well as in 
 the school of Christ? The secret of cowardice is in two 
 things — a doubt as to the power that rules the world, and a 
 selfish regard for ourselves in that which is least noble in 
 us. The coward yields cither because he is afraid some- 
 thing will do him harm, or because he fears he will lose 
 something he values — his pleasure or his life. Now he who 
 is truly a Christian is delivered from the dread of both of 
 these. He cannot but believe that all things arc in the 
 hands of God the Father, who has said that the very hairs 
 of our head arc numbered, and who makes all things, with- 
 out exception, work together for our good; and he cannot 
 love self in its low and evil sense since he loves Christ. 
 Every religious man must be courageous in the highest 
 sense, and he who is not religious wants the best support of 
 bravery. 
 
 When one of our English ships was sinking, in one of our 
 earliest attempts to discover the North Pole, our admiral 
 cheered his men with the memorable words, " Courage, my 
 lads, we are as near heaven by sea as by dry land!" When 
 the noble Sir Walter Raleigh was about to be beheaded, 
 the executioner asked how he wished his head to lie on the 
 block, and, with a gentle smile, he answered, " If the heart 
 be right, it matters not how the head is laid." When an ex- 
 plosion had taken place in a Cornish mine, the men were 
 making their escape from the fearful death, but there was 
 little room, and one of them had to be left behind ; and at 
 once one gallant fellow chose for himself this living death 
 because, as he calmly said to his comrades, " I am read}- to 
 die." 
 
 Now, in all these instances, what prompted this courage 
 and gave it its rare and noble quality was the living power 
 of religion. And 1 might add to these a thousand other 
 examples, but I have surely said sufficient to show that he 
 who has the living power of Christ dwelling in his soul 
 cannot fail to be brave; a cowardly Christian is a contra- 
 diction in terms. But do not think we need courage only 
 
 R
 
 258 
 
 at rare moments in life — only when some great danger con- 
 fronts us. Every day we rise we must encounter some 
 temptation ; we have countless foes to fight, all the harder 
 because they are spiritual and unseen. We have the evils 
 of our own heart and temper to subdue ; we have the sins 
 that have become habits in us to root out and displace. 
 Every Christian man and woman must learn a manly 
 courage. It was with rare insight that Bunyan, in his 
 " Pilgrim's Progress," made the type of the Christian life 
 a warrior armed and ready for battle. We need, each one 
 of us, the inspiring call addressed to the leaders of the 
 armies of Israel — "Be strong and of good courage; fear not, 
 neither be thou dismayed, for the Lord thy God is with 
 thee whithersoever thou goest." 
 
 3. The last element I name in manliness is endurance. If 
 we admire strength, and if we admire courage, then we 
 should still more admire endurance, for this is just strength 
 and courage prolonged for a great time — holding on to the 
 very last, and determined not to give up. When we read 
 in history of a great inventor, like James Watt or George 
 Stephenson, enduring failure after failure, yet still persevering 
 in his great discoveries; or when we read of a reformer like 
 Wilberforcc, urging year after year the liberation of the 
 slave, and still undaunted by every refusal till at length his 
 great end is secured, do we not feel that these men arc the 
 splendid examples of our race, do we not say with proud 
 emphasis of such as these — "This was a man." 
 
 But, brethren, this quality or power of endurance is one 
 which religion specially confers. It teaches us we have a 
 great work to do, which lasts as long as our life, and which 
 must be carried on every hour of our existence : and it 
 animates us with the thought that in this great work we 
 have the mightiest of ;ill assistance— nothing less than 
 the living power of the Spirit of God and tin- indwelling 
 nee of Christ The great cud to which each human 
 being is summoned, to which each Christian is consecrated, 
 is the salvation of his soul — the uplifting (for so I take that 
 to mean) of the whole power and spirit of ;i man into the
 
 259 
 
 light and peace of Christ— the rescuing of the entire being, 
 body, soul, and spirit, from the contagion and control of 
 evil. This is the life work of each one of us — which 
 makes solemn and sublime the struggling existence of the 
 very poorest. Oh brethren, to the eye of God and angels 
 one poor human soul is greater than all the worlds that mil 
 through space, and the conflict that goes on in your little 
 world between sin and goodness is the object of a deeper 
 concern than the mightiest of mere material revolutions in 
 all the systems of suns and stars. Learn then the true value 
 of your life. God is your salvation, your forgiveness and 
 freedom is only through Christ. But you must assist in 
 your own salvation, you must be a partner in it with God. 
 And to do this you must cultivate a manly and resolute 
 spirit ; you must be strong, courageous, and enduring ; you 
 must bring your religion into the practical concerns of your 
 daily life; and you must remember God has called each one 
 of us to do a brave man's or a brave woman's part in this 
 world ; you must try to make your own life, and the life 
 of your home, and the life of your trade, more true, and pure 
 and gentle, and unselfish, and so to fulfil this summons of 
 the apostle of your Master — " Quit you like men." 
 
 <; Take thou no care for aught save truth and right ; 
 Content, if such thy lot, to die obscure ; 
 Wealth tails, and honours ; fame doth not endure. 
 And loftiest souls soon'st weary of delight. 
 Keep innocence ; be all a brave man ought ; 
 Let neither pleasure tempt, nor pain appal; 
 Who hath this, he hath all things, having naught, 
 Who hath it not hath nothing, having all. "
 
 260 
 
 XVI. 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 " It doth not vet appear what we shall BE . . . BUT . . . 
 WE SHALL BE LIKE Him." — I John Hi. 2. 
 
 " Till we all come . . . unto a perfect man, unto the measure 
 
 OF THE STATURE OF THE FULNESS OF CHRIST." — Eph. iv. IJ. 
 
 There is no pleasure perhaps so great as that of speculat- 
 ing on the future which awaits something in which we feel 
 an interest, and whose beginning or growth we are privileged 
 to see. Suppose we are admitted to the studio of some great 
 artist, and see him sketching the first faint outline of what 
 will doubtless grow into some famous picture, with what 
 delighted wonder we think of the subject he has chosen, 
 and fill up the yet blank canvas in our imagination, and 
 remember how for hundreds of years after we arc dead this 
 picture will be a treasure and a delight in the homes of 
 men. Or if one sees the foundation laid of some colossal 
 building which it may take years or centuries to build — how 
 he again and again imagines what sort of spectacle it will 
 present when it has risen in all its glory of tower and spire 
 and lofty wall. Or if, again, we sec a ship launched, as it 
 glides down, gay with Hags and streamers, into river or 
 bay, how the commonest mind is impelled to forecast its 
 future — to wonder to what far lands it will sail, what storms 
 it may encounter, and what its final end will be — whether it 
 will anchor for the last in some quiet haven, or go down in 
 darkness and horror in some awful hurricane. The truth is, 
 brethren, everything that exists has a future, and in propor- 
 tion to tin- value and interest which belong to it that future 
 interests us. Even the lifeless things of earth have a history, 
 and though it is only the poet who may think of such a 
 theme, yet he is appealing to a universal feeling when he 
 asks what sights yon grey stone on the hill-top, or yon
 
 261 
 
 rugged oak in the park may have seen in the centuries they 
 have been there. Now, if all this is the natural feeling of 
 our mind about things which, however great, are not in 
 themselves endowed with life, how much more real and 
 earnest must that feeling be as to that which is not only 
 alive but which shares the highest life, and which is the 
 closest to our sympathy and care ! What parent does not 
 think often and earnestly of the future of his child? what 
 friend does not, at times at least, question the life which lies 
 before his friend? what human soul docs not, in some 
 thoughtful time, wonder what will come to it in its future 
 course here, and what will meet it beyond in the great here- 
 after? We are hardly worthy of the name of human, not to 
 say Christian, if such thoughts have not come tons; and 
 they arc not idle or useless — mere imaginations which come 
 and go and leave no trace behind. On the contrary, it is a 
 very large part of religion, it concerns the deepest things 
 in our life and conduct, how we think about the future. 
 Not to think at all about it is to be a brute, and is almost 
 impossible to the dullest human being. To think about 
 the future is not, however, all that is needed. It is possible 
 to think about it in a stupid and careless and altogether 
 wrong way. In truth, in this as in other things, there is 
 only one right way; and yet I believe I am correct when I 
 say that many, very many, Christian people think about 
 the future in a way that is contrary both to truth and 
 Christianity. Am I not right in saying that if we would 
 put our thought about the future, both of ourselves and of 
 those in whom we are interested, into words, it would be 
 something like this, " to-morrow shall be as this day;" we will 
 go on much as we are now, we hardly hope for any great 
 good fortune, but we do hope no great calamity may over- 
 take us. And as to the end — well we have a vague trust 
 thai Cod is too good and merciful not to admit us to 
 Heaven; though what we shall do there, or what kind of 
 place it is, or how we shall be fitted to it, we have no idea. 
 We rest content in this merely, that we shall get rid of all 
 our annoyances. Now I may be wrong, but I imagine I
 
 262 
 
 am right, when I say that this is the creed as to the future 
 of the vast majority of Christians — of our neighbours and 
 ourselves. I do not mean to say it is the creed which they 
 would repeat in church or if they were talking religion, but 
 it is their creed none the less, for a man's true and only 
 creed is what he lives by, as one has said, it is " his working 
 theory of life." Now I say, as calmly and carefully as I 
 can, that this creed, this creed of the great majority of 
 Christians as to the future, is nearly all wrong, and has 
 hardly a single Christian idea in it. It is wrong and un- 
 christian because it has too little hope, and what hope it 
 has is fixed rather on chance, and what with all reverence I 
 call, an easy good-nature in God. It is wrong and un- 
 christian because it makes a clean break at death, which it 
 thinks and speaks of as the end or period of man's life, an 
 idea and term utterly false, I believe, to the New Testament. 
 And, lastly, it is wrong and unchristian because it makes 
 Heaven a place utterly unreal, and says at once far too much 
 and far too little about it. Now I am aware these arc 
 sweeping statements to make, but the proof of them I offer 
 is just in our text. To the Christian idea, expressed in 
 these words taken from the two Apostles, St. Paul and St. 
 John, life — the future of each man and woman — is full of an 
 almost boundless hope. Not only their life hereafter, but 
 their life here, is, if they arc true to their Christianity, an 
 ever-ascending scale of growing worth and blessedness. 
 Death, instead of being a break in this life, does not even 
 interrupt it; in place of making an end of what was 'Mir; 
 on here in our existence, it carries it forward and nearer to 
 that end towards which all that was deepest in us here was 
 leading. Lastly, Heaven, in place of being some utterly 
 unreal state we reach by some happy accident, where we 
 shall have as much lazy enjoyment and freedom from 
 annoyance as we could wish, and which has little or no 
 relation to the life we have been leading before— Heaven is 
 just the completion of that earnest, aspiring life we have 
 been living in our inmost hearts, the surrounding that life 
 with all which it has been seeking after and the helping H
 
 263 
 
 forward in infinitely noble progress, and, consequently, they 
 who have not cared for that life, and who have never lived 
 for it, are not so much shut out from Heaven as that they 
 shut themselves out; in fact, though they stood in the midst 
 of it, it would have no existence for them any more than it 
 has here and now. 
 
 Now all this may not seem to you contained in our text, 
 but if you have patience with me for a moment, I hope to 
 show you that it is, and that, moreover, it is the idea and 
 teaching of all the New Testament. St. Paul is clearly 
 speaking" about the future, and it is the future which com- 
 prehends both each individual and the whole race, both the 
 life of earth and the life of Heaven. And how does he speak 
 of it; what is the one idea which gathers into itself and 
 unites all there? Listen, "Till we all come in the unity of 
 the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a 
 perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of 
 Christ." Turn now to St. John, he is thinking of the future 
 too, but, like St. Paul it is a future that runs on uninter- 
 ruptedly from earth to heaven. He has just spoken of the 
 glorious privilege bestowed on each human being, if they 
 will but have it and keep it, to be in fullest sense the sons 
 of God, rising into His life and sharing the blessedness; and 
 as he thinks to what a great height this noble life may reach 
 in the far future, he feels that words are all too poor to 
 describe what only the heart that has reached it can realize, 
 he sees there is only one thing by which we can faintly 
 imagine what the grand end of God's purpose for us is " It 
 doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we shall be like 
 Christ." 
 
 Now, brethren, observe both Apostles in one of then- 
 grandest and most impressive passages, when they speak of 
 the future, use exactly the same idea to express it. namely, 
 the having become like Christ, the having grown up to 
 what Si. Paul calls the fulness of our manhood. Observe, 
 too, the one Apostle connects this with the idea of our 
 perfection — of having reached the fulness of our true nature, 
 of having been true to the destiny and purpose which God
 
 264 
 
 appointed for us; and the other connects it with the idea 
 of blessedness — of the very highest and purest happiness 
 which God can bestow on a human soul, of the most lasting- 
 joy and delight which the heart of man can receive. Notice, 
 too, both Apostles speak of this as forming the very heart 
 and soul of heaven — without this, heaven is impossible and 
 inconceivable; this is what makes it heaven. All St. John 
 can speak of our future (though it was he who wrote the 
 book of Revelation years before), all he can imagine of it is 
 this central, yet to him all-sufficient idea, " we shall be like 
 Christ." And when St. Paul looks to the end of the long 
 purpose of God, and to the issue of the labours of himself 
 and others as " pastors and teachers," and to all the strivings 
 of earnest human souls, it is all summed up in this, "We 
 have reached the stature of perfect men in Christ Jesus." 
 
 Notice, lastly, brethren, how inseparably both Apostles 
 connect the life of earth and heaven. Death is not only no 
 absolute break, they do not even think of it at all. Life is 
 one, flowing on in one broad stream — the life in heaven only 
 the full outcome and completion of that which had its rise on 
 earth. They are one, just as a mighty river is one which you 
 may call by two different names, and which in the beginning 
 of its course, when it has rocks to encounter and is but a 
 narrow stream, is foaming and turbulent, but which, as it 
 widens out, nears the sea, flows joyously on in calm and 
 broad majesty. So the earthly struggle leads to the 
 heavenly rest; but both are nevertheless but the one life 
 with the one goal — " likeness to Christ." 
 
 To be "like Christ," to grow up to the perfect manhood 
 and womanhood, to the full and noble humanity of which 
 we see in Christ the complete measure and example — I 
 have no time to say, even if I could say, all that that means. 
 And it is not now necessary, because I believe there is not 
 one in this congregation so dull or ignorant as not to have 
 some idea, however faint and poor, of the glorious excellence 
 of the life of Christ. Now remember (for this is the thought 
 1 would impress on you , nol only IS this the pattern accord- 
 in;; to which your manhood or womanhood must grow, but
 
 265 
 
 this is to be your guiding and ruling idea about the whole 
 future, for yourself or for others, for earth or heaven. To 
 be growing like to Christ, so that in the far future the 
 process shall be in some sense accomplished, and you shall 
 have reached to 1 lis stature in noble life, this, brethren, is 
 God's end and purpose in us, this is the design of all these 
 chances and accidents, so called, in our life. This is its 
 beginning, however hard, is yet the entrance into God's 
 peace, and in its end is nothing else than the highest 
 blessedness and truest heaven. And I believe this life is 
 very near and very possible to every soul. I believe in one 
 sense it is already ours, and already begun in us. In so far 
 as God is the beginner and sustainer of that life, it has even 
 now an existence; for that I take to be the meaning of the 
 words, •• Behold what manner of love the Father hath 
 bestowed on us. that we should be called the children of 
 God." 
 
 But I dare not conceal the sad truth that what on God's 
 side may be real, on ours may have no existence. The day 
 may be full of sunshine, of the song of birds, and children's 
 happy voices — but not to him who is blind or deaf, or whose 
 heart is black with evil thoughts. And so, brethren, unless 
 we are consciously, earnestly, prayerfully, seeking to be 
 like Christ, unless we are with some effort and care seeking 
 to grow in noble manhood and womanhood up to that 
 divine height of Christ's humanity, our future here and 
 hereafter is shrouded in blackest night of sorrow and 
 failure. Not even the love of God can lighten and cheer 
 this, for, if the Bible be true, even God's love can save us 
 in no other way than this which we despise ; but for our- 
 selves and for others we may dare to hope the \ ery highest 
 and noblest things, if we only receive God's way of like- 
 mindedness to Christ. If we have any warrant to apply 
 this to others or ourselves, it is simply impossible we can 
 hope too highly or paint the future too fair.
 
 266 
 
 XVII. 
 EARTH'S INCREASE GOD'S GIFT. 
 
 (A Service for Harvest Thanksgiving.) 
 " God gave the increase."—/ Cor. Hi. 6. 
 
 FOR a long period, amid rain, or snow, or frost, the ground 
 is either lying at rest or being turned by the plough. Then, 
 when the days are lengthening and brightening, and the 
 voices of birds are once again heard, the seed is cast into the 
 earth. Through the long summer days it grows, till it is 
 the sun's own colour of gold ; and then, in the busy days of 
 harvest, it is cut and gathered and stored, till now at last 
 we stand at the beginning of another preparation-time, 
 having made the whole round of nature's year. 
 
 And I ask, are we to pass over in silence this long process 
 of labour and period of time? arc we to say nothing as to 
 this great part of our lives? is this large portion of our 
 existence to be looked upon as entirely secular, something 
 with which religion has nothing to do? You can only 
 believe that, brethren, when you cease to be Christian. For 
 if there is one thing certain it is this, that our religion claims 
 every part of our life for itself and seeks to penetrate every 
 sphere of our activity. A man's ploughing is a religious 
 and sacred thing as well as his praying, the field is a holy 
 place of God as well as the Church, the harvest is a mystery 
 of grace as well as the sacraments. "Call nothing common 
 or unclean," "Whether ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, 
 clo ;ill ill the name of Christ," "The earth is the Lord's, and 
 the fulness thereof," that, brethren, is the teaching of Holy 
 Scripture. In the Old Testament Church one of the great 
 festivals was the day of harvest rejoicing, when the first- 
 fruits of the earth's field were solemnly presented to God; 
 and it is in the very highest spirit of the New Testament
 
 267 
 
 that we, too, would bring the thought of harvest into our 
 worship, and join the field and the Church, our labour and 
 our adoration, in one service to-day. 
 
 There arc two duties which the thought of harvest sug- 
 gests at once to every Christian mind, and which I shall try 
 to set before you to-day. The first is that of Thankfulness. 
 Every religious and reasonable being must accept the pre- 
 cept of the great Apostle when he says, " In everything give- 
 thanks." Gratitude to God our Father is not to be, as it 
 were, a task which we fulfil at stated times, morning and 
 evening, in some brief prayer. It is to be part of our life, 
 an attitude of our spirit, a method of our existence; and we 
 are living a false and unworthy life when even in our passing 
 thoughts we lapse into a state and temper of soul, which is 
 morose, fretful, and ungrateful ; we lose thereby our noblest 
 peace, and degrade ourselves from our God-given dignity 
 as the followers and brethren of Christ. But if thankfulness 
 should always be in man's soul, there arc times when it 
 should reach a special intensity and find a definite utterance, 
 and such a time is this general call which comes to us in 
 an event so clearly marked and important to all here as 
 Harvest. 
 
 But there is another end we should acknowledge at this 
 time. God has placed us here in this world, making all 
 things to serve our use, for man is the head and lord of all 
 this lower creation. But man is not only master oi the 
 ear th_he has, what no other being here has but himself, a 
 mind and soul, an immortal spiritual nature, which grows 
 and is nourished like his body, and like it demands food, 
 but of a heavenly and spiritual kind. And God has pro- 
 vided for that, giving us not only "the bread from heaven," 
 but even making the common bread, the daily sights and 
 sounds of common life, minister to the soul as well as the 
 body, nourish the mind as well as stay our hunger, so that, 
 especially to any thoughtful and of necessity to every 
 Christian man, the whole earth is a parabl :m, and a 
 
 sermon all in one. There are two great religious duties 
 that this Harvest time brings— Thanksgiving, and the be-
 
 268 
 
 holding of the inward spiritual meaning and lesson of which 
 this is the outward picture; and I shall best, I think, help 
 you to discharge these by trying to make clear to you our 
 text, the pious words of the noble Apostle, so appropriate on 
 our lips, "God gave the increase." 
 
 You know the original connection of these words. The 
 Church which that noblest and greatest of missionaries had 
 planted at Corinth had got into a great many difficulties. 
 These early Christians, remember, were not the faultlessly 
 perfect beings many imagine. They were (as the Bible 
 says even of one of the most splendid characters in the Old 
 Testament) "men of like passions with ourselves." They 
 may perhaps have excelled us in enthusiasm and devotion, 
 and possibly in some respects they had an advantage over 
 us in being nearer to the time of Christ's earthly life, but 
 they had the terrible disadvantage of having just come out 
 of a state of heathenism such as it is impossible for us to 
 conceive of, and they were still living in a heathen city 
 which was a byword for wickedness, and whose open and 
 unblushing iniquity I dare not, even if I could, describe. 
 Brethren, we cannot think too highly of how much we owe 
 to God that centuries of Christianity lie behind us, and that 
 Christian principle is so much part of the very air we breathe 
 that we are under their dominion even when unconscious of 
 it. Well, we cannot wonder that these newly emancipated 
 heathen, even though evangelized by an apostle, should 
 have developed some very unchristian faults. Among 
 these was the vice of party-spirit, which, 1 am sorry to say, 
 even we, with all our better advantages, know only too 
 much of. It was to counteract these vices that St. Paul 
 wrote those two noble letters, the 1st and 2nd Epistles to 
 the Corinthians; and if anyone wants to see what wise and 
 brave words are, let him .stud)' these books. But how did 
 St. Paul meet this curse of partisanship— a viper brood, as 
 we know from man)' an experience, so difficult to kill? 
 These Corinthians had perverted their different preachers 
 and teachers into party-leaders, setting one against another. 
 How did St. Paul meet this? Listen, and you will see how
 
 269 
 
 truly he has been called by one great English thinker, the 
 noblest and most perfect gentleman that ever lived. 
 
 Though incomparably the greatest, and the one who had 
 founded the Church, he puts himself on a level with their 
 youngest and least known minister, and instead of con- 
 demning them for their partial appreciation of himself, and 
 without even almost at all attacking their partisanship as a 
 fault, he calmly effaces himself and his own services alto- 
 gether, that they might see how groundless the dispute was. 
 They, himself and his fellow-labourers, the human instru- 
 ments were nothing, and it was superfluous to quarrel over 
 them; nay, as in his noble courtesy he delights to say, they 
 belonged to the whole Church — Paul was the property of 
 the meanest slave. Party-spirit was impossible when they 
 recognized that through these different channels it was the 
 one great source of goodness that was blessing them — " I 
 have planted," so runs the words of noble self-forgetfulness, 
 "Apollos watered, but it was God gave the increase." 
 
 i. Brethren, all increase on earth is the gift of God — that 
 is the first lesson of our harvest festival to-day. It seems 
 to me we live and move in a world where all is miraculous. 
 When people tell me they arc staggered by the miracles in 
 the Bible, my answer is that I might possibly feel that as a 
 difficulty if I did not sec miracle everywhere around me. 
 The daisy at my feet, the bird soaring and singing in the 
 blue above me, the fading light on the purple hills, my own 
 body, my own mind, can I say I comprehend one of these 
 — docs not any little knowledge I get of them just show me 
 how much greater is my ignorance? And the greatest 
 marvel in the world is growth. Even where all things are 
 wondrous, this seems to me most wonderful. You take a 
 little hard grain of wheat, you bur)- it in the earth, and, 
 months after, for every single grain you have perhaps a 
 hundred. Or you take another seed, and, instead of planting- 
 it, you put it into the dead hand of a mummy. And for 
 thousands of years, while empires rise and fall, and count- 
 less generations come and go, it lies there passive as a 
 stone, and then, after all that long millcnium, you place it
 
 270 
 
 in the formless earth, and ere long you have a living thing 
 all grace and colour and light and perfume, vieing with the 
 costliest robe of a king. Do you understand this ? Is there 
 no mystery and marvel here? Because your own experience, 
 or some scientific knowledge, can tell you a little about how it 
 happens, what arc its various steps, and by whatever names 
 you may call them, are you in reality nearer to the heart 
 and secret of the mystery? The seed grows because it has 
 life in it; but what is life, and why should it have this 
 strange power in it of multiplying itself? No one can 
 answer ; all the greatest scientific teachers confess their 
 ignorance. Our own greatest and most powerful author of 
 these days says, "The wise man is but a clever child, spell- 
 ing out the hieroglyphic letters of the book of nature, the 
 lexicon of which lies in eternity." But here, brethren, 
 religion comes in and tells us it is God who works here and 
 everywhere — 
 
 " Nature is but the name for an effect. 
 Whose cause is God." 
 
 Even reason agrees in saying — there is really only one cause 
 in the world, and that must be Deity. We may trace some 
 of what we call the laws of growth, but even to reason law 
 has no meaning except as the expression of an active will. 
 Behind every movement of nature, as its living energy, is 
 the divine activity; and it is the profoundest philosophy, as 
 well as the truest piety, to say, "God gave the increase." It 
 is no antiquated doctrine then — no outworn superstition — 
 that sees in the whitening harvest God's gift; it is what all 
 reasonable, much more, what, all religious men must believe. 
 And if it be said that, if this is so, God must be the author 
 of scarcity as well as plenty. He must withhold as well as 
 give, for oftentime the harvest is scanty, and sometimes it 
 altogether fails, then my answer is, Be it so; I am quite 
 ready to accept even this conclusion. It is only what I sec 
 working everywhere in Providence. God does not wish to 
 n happy in any mere outward sense; lie wishes to 
 make us good. Sorrow and suffering and scarcity, I am
 
 271 
 
 quite prapared to admit, arc from God; but even experience 
 as well as faith tells me they may be blessings in disguise. 
 
 "The best of men 
 That e'er wore earth around him was a sufferer. " 
 
 And as one of our greatest thinkers nobly says, '"While 
 prosperity was the blessing of the Old Testament, adversity 
 is that of the New." Even though the harvest were scant}-, 
 it would still be the goodness of God ; and the truly religious 
 spirit ever speaks out in the grand words of the old prophet 
 — " Although the fig-tree shall not blossom, neither shall 
 fruit be in the vines ; the labour of the olive shall fail, and 
 the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off 
 from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls : yet 
 I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salva- 
 tion." 
 
 Therefore, brethren, this harvest increase is to you and to 
 all men — for this, a wide and common blessing — a special 
 call to what should be no mere grudging payment of a debt, 
 but rather, if we were wise to sec it, the chiefest and noblest 
 joy — Thanksgiving to our God. But the increase of the 
 harvest is a type and symbol to us of still nobler gifts. All 
 nature, as I have said, is, if we but rightly regard it, a 
 parable; and the cornfield is one of the oldest schools, and 
 both pulpit and text. You know how Christ used it in His 
 parable of the sower ; and here St. Paul is using the same 
 symbol when in reference to his own missionary work he 
 says, "I have planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the 
 increase." Your soul, brethren, presents the same wonder- 
 ful process as your soil. As into the one has been cast the 
 dry seed, and months after comes the living and multiplied 
 harvest; so into the other have been cast words, and sights, 
 and the myriad experience of years, and to-day, unless 
 choked by foul weeds, there is the harvest of goodness, 
 though scanty we feel at the best. And here, too, shall we 
 not say, that while some have planted and some have 
 watered, while we can recollect the noble book we read, that 
 dear friendship we formed, or that crushing trial, that deso-
 
 Iating sorrow, which flooded all our life with tears, yet these 
 influences in themselves alone cannot explain the harvest 
 that has come — no, it is "God who gave the increase." 
 
 2. But our second lesson is the need of human instru- 
 mentality. "God gave the increase" — that is a great and 
 a glorious truth ; but suppose I let it stand alone, may I not 
 turn it into the deadliest error? Must I not remember 
 along with it this, "Paul must plant, Apollos water?" Let 
 any farmer act on the one half of the truth, and because 
 God gives the increase, let him neither plough nor sow; you 
 know what the result would be. The ground would not even 
 bear nothing, it would have a crop of weeds; for nature, 
 brethren, — and remember nature is God — will not allow any- 
 waste places of idleness in her world ; and if man will not 
 fill them with what is useful to him, she will fill them with 
 that which is fair and good to her, though troublesome and 
 evil to him. But though no man acts thus foolishly in his 
 farm, how many do act so in their soul! "God gives the 
 increase," therefore I need do nothing — that is the living 
 creed of many. God in his Providence has made me out- 
 wardly a Christian, therefore I can trust Him to make me 
 inwardly Christ-like; as if a man were to say God has given 
 me a farm, therefore, without care of mine, He will give me 
 a crop. Never to pray, never to watch, never to stud}- the 
 Bible, never to scan our own life, never to control our pas- 
 sion, never to judge our faults, never to seek contact with 
 the noble in thought and reading, never to try and gaze upon 
 the Christ-like and divine — to live like a brute, to go round 
 and round in life's duties as dull and soulless as the very 
 clod, to care for nothing beyond mean tasks and coarse 
 pleasures, to be a slave of idle gossip and petty fashion, to 
 have no soul-life, no inner sanctuary and shrine of our being 
 to which we can retire, to malce that a lumber-room we 
 never visit which God meant for ;i temple where we should 
 hourly pray- supp< i ;e God send all the rain and dew and sun- 
 shine of heaven upon it. what harvest but thorns and briers 
 can possibly come from a field SO neglected as this! Brethren, 
 just because "God works in yon," you must work' "out your
 
 273 
 
 salvation;" just because He guards you, you must yourself 
 stand as a good soldier equipped in the Christian armour; 
 just because He gives you the increase, you must labour and 
 till the field of your spiritual and nobler life. It is because 
 you are too great, because He has made you like Himself, 
 that God will not treat you as a machine, which we never 
 consult and from which we ask no co-operation. You are 
 a man, with all a man's noble nature, and great responsi- 
 bilities, but if you will not act as a man, then — I say it in 
 all solemnity — not even God Himself can save you, since 
 you will not assist in saving yourselves. 
 
 3. One last lesson, brethren, it is this: The Purpose 
 of Earth's God-given Increase is man's Benefit and 
 Use. 
 
 Though only a portion of the community actually share 
 in the labours of harvest, yet the benefit, as you know, goes 
 out to all the world. Whatever other trades may be super- 
 fluous, this one at least is necessary; it is the oldest as it is 
 the most indispensable of human employments. Whatever 
 else man may do or forbear, he must till the ground. And 
 if some of you think, as you may be disposed to do, that 
 that work is a hard and materializing one, and that others 
 are more fortunate whose occupations are more quickening 
 and more akin to the mental and nobler part of man, I shall 
 only say that here we meet with the law universal in life, 
 the law which makes self-sacrifice part of the very condition 
 of existence. Every man who works — and the man who 
 docs absolutely no work has no right to live — "He sits," as 
 one great writer has said, "at the feast of life, and meanly 
 departs without paying his reckoning" — every man who 
 works is fighting some part of life's battle for others. The 
 soldier dies, not in his own quarrel ; the sailor meets the 
 storm and shipwreck in carrying the goods of others ; the 
 mechanic wears out his life in fashioning the implements 
 others need; the miner risks the explosion that we may be 
 warmed; the great author cuts years from his life by study 
 and thought that we may be enlightened ; the martyr is 
 tortured and slain that we may be free and good. It is the
 
 274 
 
 lesson the harvest teaches. It waves in abundance, not for 
 itself nor for those who sow and reap it, but that, far and 
 wide, men may not only have food to cat, but that on the 
 basis of this common life of the body, there may rise the 
 flower and crown of existence, the life of the mind and soul. 
 So in our separate individual lives, brethren, we must recog- 
 nise this great law of God, written even in the material 
 world, we live not for ourselves but for others. 
 
 " Heaven doth with us as we with torches do, 
 Not light them for themselves, for if our virtues 
 Did not go forth of us, 'twere all alike 
 As if we had them not." 
 
 St. Paul here nobly says he was the property of this con- 
 gregation of slaves — "Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, 
 all are yours." So has every great saint and hero spoken 
 and lived, not as his own; so did the Greatest of all, the 
 Divinest and Holiest Son of God ; " He came not to be 
 ministered unto but to minister, and to give His life a ran- 
 som for many." And the law of our life is the same. " He 
 that saveth his life shall lose it, he that loscth it for Christ's 
 sake shall keep it to eternity." " Except a corn of wheat 
 fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die it 
 bringcth forth much fruit." 
 
 " Oh awful, sweetest life of mine ! 
 That God and man both serve in blood and tears ! 
 O prayers I breathe not but through other prayers! 
 O breath of life, compact of others' sighs ! 
 
 With this dread gift divine, 
 Ah! whither go, what worthily devise? 
 
 " If on myself I dare to spend 
 This dreadful thing, in pleasure lapped and reared, 
 What am I but a hideous idol smeared 
 With human blood, that with its carven smile, 
 
 Alike to foe and friend, 
 Mocks the poor wretch who perishes the while?
 
 275 
 
 " I will away and find my Co 1. 
 And what I dare not keep, ask Him to tuke, 
 And, taking, love's sweet sacrifice to make, 
 Then, like a wave, the sorrow and the pain. 
 
 High Heaven with joy shall flood : 
 For me, for them, for all, a splendid gain."
 
 276 
 
 XVIII. 
 SAMUEL'S PRAYER. 
 
 "Speak, Lord, for Thy servant heareth." — / Samuel Hi. g. 
 
 Some of you may have read how, in what ma)' be called 
 the birth-hour of the Reformation, when Luther found the 
 Latin Bible in the Monastery at Erfurt and began to read 
 it, almost the first place he lighted on was the story of the 
 early days of the Prophet Samuel, and he was so fascinated 
 by the beauty and pathos of this that he determined at all 
 costs to have a copy for himself of this wondrous book. 
 And every one has felt the power of the narrative who has 
 read it with any care. The birth of the child, so earnestly 
 longed for ; his surrender, still in his tender years, to the 
 house of God ; the yearly visit of his devoted mother, with 
 her simple present of a little coat for the darling boy whom 
 she loves but cannot keep ; these are elements of true 
 pathos, which must touch every feeling heart. But a not 
 less beautiful chapter, and one which has inspired at least 
 one great artist, is that which gives rise to our text. It is 
 night, and the lamp burns dim in the Tabernacle of Israel, 
 where the aged priest and the gentle boy have alike lain 
 down to sleep. Suddenly, a mysterious voice seems to call 
 the child's name. Rising, with eager and loving readiness, 
 he goes to receive the command of the aged Eli, only to be 
 told he has not been called. He returns to his rest, but 
 only again to hear his name spoken, and again to wait on 
 Eli. The old man tells him he has not called him. Hut 
 when the third time the silence is plainly broken and his 
 name clearly uttered, and the child, confident he has been 
 called, waits once more on Eli, then the priest perceives it 
 is a higher voice than his that has called the child, and
 
 277 
 
 sends him back with this answer on his lips — "Speak, Lord, 
 for Thy servant heareth." And all through his life Samuel 
 seems to have been true to this noble beginning. The words 
 which had been given him as a child read like a motto of 
 his whole career. Down to the end, when he disappears from 
 view, sinking heavy with years and service, and carried to 
 his rest in a splendid funeral, he seems ever to stand before 
 us in the attitude of pious and dutiful attention, as if his 
 ear were only open to the voice of God and deaf to all 
 selfish and ignoble cries. Alone, of all the great teachers 
 of his country, he stands forth charged with no crime or 
 error ; he is the truest of patriots, the most incorruptible of 
 judges ; and it is with the indignant scorn of conscious 
 rectitude that, when he lays down his great office, he chal- 
 lenges the assembled people to convict him of having ever 
 been unfaithful to his duty, or of having received even a 
 single bribe. He was the founder, too, of that illustrious 
 order of the prophets, and they could not surely have had 
 a more appropriate beginning than from him who spoke the 
 words of the text, and whose very name means " one who 
 listens to God." For all who were true to their commission, 
 all the great and illustrious members of that goodly fellow- 
 ship, were men who, careless of consequences in the face of 
 tyranny and opposition and evil doing, stood up to speak 
 the eternal truth and ever living message of God to man. 
 Nay, even yet the spirit of the prophets is not dead, nor has 
 their succession ceased. Every Christian, and especially 
 every preacher, is a successor, and ought to be an imitator, 
 of that great order in the Jewish Church. It was, as has 
 been urged by more than one great authority, the free 
 school of the prophets, not the sacerdotal tribe of the 
 priests, which Christianity perpetuated in her ministry. The 
 spirit of Samuel lived on through all the successive ages of 
 his country's history in her noblest hearts: it lives still in 
 all that is truest and best in the Christian Church, and that 
 is sufficient justification for asking you to turn with me to- 
 day, for our instruction, to that earliest utterance in which 
 it woke to life—" Speak, Lord, for Thy servant heareth."
 
 278 
 
 Brethren, the history of Samuel must be repeated in every 
 human soul. For a while, indeed, parents and teachers stand 
 to the child almost in the place of God ; and it were well that 
 those who arc parents would realize this more than many 
 do, that not only do your children now receive almost all 
 their ideas of God through what they see in your character, 
 but that, even to the very end of their life, your faithfulness 
 or unfaithfulness in your religion, your piety or impiety, 
 will either keep or hinder them in every religious aspiration 
 and endeavour. But though for a while the parent or teacher 
 stands, as it were, between God and the child, there comes 
 a time, even to the youthful soul, when it hears directly the 
 call of God to itself, and then no parent or priest should 
 interpose. It is theirs rather to say, " My child, it is God 
 Himself who is speaking to you ; you must now try to receive 
 His message for yourself. God loves you far more than even 
 we do; He is able to teach you in ways far better and wiser 
 than we know; learn to wait on Him, to love Him and trust 
 Him, and let this be your constant prayer, ' Speak, Lord, 
 for Thy servant heareth.' " 
 
 Sooner or later, brethren, as everyone that has passed 
 childhood knows, there comes a time when we must look 
 away from human teachers to the Divine; when the beliefs 
 in which we have been trained, however true they are, 
 fail to satisfy us ; when difficulties begin to perplex us, 
 which we shrink from unfolding to any elder, but have to 
 try to fight out in the secret of our own heart. This may 
 be a time of danger and trouble, if you will, but by no means 
 of evil. It is, I believe, part of that divine training in which 
 God is leading the souls of men, but especially those who 
 in most dear to Him. It is as inevitable as it is valuable, 
 for it is the stage at which the child is giving place to the 
 man, at which the unquestioning trust and unreasoning 
 obedience SO natural and beautiful in the one must, if they 
 are not to fail in their purpose, give place to the conscious 
 faith and clear purpose of the other. It is God's call to the 
 young soul, and direct to God the answer must be given. 
 And happy, thrice happy, are those parents who have so
 
 279 
 
 trained their children that, when God's voice comes to them, 
 they meet it with loving welcome; and whatever they m ly 
 doubt, arc never able to disbelieve that goodness and purity 
 and truth the)- have been taught to reverence at home. I 
 question if, from any record of the lives of noble men, 
 honoured alike for their services to their generation and 
 their devotion to God, you will be able to find even a single 
 case in which they had not devoted and pious parents, or in 
 which they did not trace to them almost all they were. It 
 is the child of Hannah and the pupil of Eli who, when God's 
 voice calls him, has the reverence and readiness to reply, 
 " Speak, Lord, for Thy servant heareth." 
 
 But, brethren, it may be said the great difficulty in life is 
 not the want of this listening ear, but the absence of this 
 speaking voice. In the far ages of the past it seems as if 
 God were near to man. lie spoke to Samuel, He talked 
 with Abraham, He sent His visions to Jacob, His psalms to 
 David, His words to the Prophets. The world then seemed 
 full of God, but now we have but to repeat the old lament, 
 "I go forward but He is not there, and backward but I can- 
 not perceive Him." His voice then spoke loud and frequent 
 in the cars of men, but now it seems silent or altogether 
 dead. The feeling is natural, but none the less mistaken. 
 All of us, perhaps, have had the experience of that great 
 religious leader of our time — 
 
 '• I dreamed that, with a passionate complaint, 
 1 wished me born amid God's deeds of might : 
 And envied those who had the presence bright 
 Of gifted prophet and strong hearted saint"'- 
 
 but it is an error to suppose God can ever be far away from 
 any of the souls He has made. Even as regards His mani- 
 festation to those of former ages, we must remember that 
 the Bible compresses into a few pages the events of cen- 
 turies, and that those manifestations of God that seem so 
 frequent and many, arc only so because of the distance at 
 which we view them, just as stars which are sundered by 
 millions of miles appear to our limited vision, and, because
 
 280 
 
 of their very remoteness, as if they were close together. 
 But in reality, brethren, the manifestations of God arc really 
 infinite now, and the voices in which He speaks to us arc 
 countless and ceaseless. They are not perhaps of the same 
 outward and physical character, because the education of 
 man has advanced, his spiritual nature has grown. The 
 voice of God is not silent, though it speaks to each of us 
 now in more spiritual and inward tones. It is no longer 
 preceded, as it was to Elijah, by the earthquake and the 
 fire; but even to him it only spoke when it was a "still small 
 voice;" and we do not need, as he did, these terrible and 
 arousing signs to awake our attention, because our Christian 
 faith tells us God is never silent and never afar, that we live 
 and move and have our being in Him, that Christ dwells in 
 us, and that the Holy Spirit has His temple in our hearts ; 
 that all we need is the devout spirit, all we need is the 
 listening ear, all we need is the earnest prayer — " Speak, 
 Lord, for Thy servant heareth." 
 
 There is one thing that must have struck every one in 
 reading the lives of conspicuously religious men, that what 
 seems to be the root of all the virtue and nobleness of their 
 life, and what they themselves believed to be the spring and 
 source of all their goodness, was just this voice of God 
 continually heard for counsel and aid ; and that then- 
 spiritual life depended on the readiness, the obedience, and 
 devotion with which they listened to this divine utterance. 
 Need I say, brethren, that this was essentially the creed of 
 the apostles and founders of the Church. The idea that the 
 Christian soul is in constant communion with God in 
 Christ is repeated by St. Paul in every letter, and exempli- 
 fied in every crisis of his life. It is Christ that directs his 
 steps, whether to Jerusalem or to Rome, whether to freedom 
 or to chains ; it is He who strengthens him, He who enables 
 him to perform all things. The Christian's life is a life, even 
 now, "hid with Christ in God," or, to repeat the emphatic 
 words of St. Paul, " It is no longer he that lives, it is Christ 
 that lives in him." The writer of the epistle to the Hebrews 
 is no less clear. It is God in Jesus who is the Author and
 
 281 
 
 Finisher of our faith, who never leaves us, who is able to 
 perfect us in every good work, and through whom we offer 
 a continual sacrifice of praise. Turn to St. James, and he 
 tells you it is God that gives all wisdom in the soul, and 
 that administers every trying and painful experience. 
 Listen to St. Peter, it is God that keeps us by His power, 
 and that teaches us through 1 lis living word ; or to St. John, 
 and it is ''God that dwelleth in us and we in God, and that 
 His spirit teaches us all things, and brings all things to 
 our remembrance." Thus, every separate writer in the New 
 Testament strongly impresses on us that God is continually 
 teaching us, that He is in constant and living communion 
 with us, and that His voice is, as it were, never silent, if only 
 our car be attentive and our heart obedient. And if any 
 truth in religion can be said to be experimentally proved, 
 this may claim to be, for, brethren, there is a wonderful and 
 striking concord, 1 may say an entire and unbroken harmony, 
 in the testimony of every noble Christian life to this great 
 truth. Here men of all ages, of all countries, of all classes, 
 of all degrees of intellectual attainment, of every possible 
 shade of religious opinion, are in perfect agreement. These 
 saints of God, these representatives of the one Catholic 
 Church, speaking out of a life-long experience, and telling 
 the inner source of that activity which gained them the love 
 and reverence of their fellow-men, offer but one witness. 
 An Augustine in the fourth century — a Neander in the 
 nineteenth — a rude and unlettered evangelist like Matheson 
 — a cultured and scientific man like Forbes — a Luther 
 amid the storms of revolution — an Erasmus in his quiet 
 student's cell — a soldier like Havelock — a peaceful mission- 
 ary like Patteson — a statesman of olden time like Vane, or 
 of modern days like Peel — an eager enthusiast like John 
 Wesley — a quiet scholar like Sir Thomas More — a poet like 
 Milton — a man of science like Faraday — a Roman Catholic 
 like Montalcmbcrt — a Protestant like Kingsley — an Evan- 
 gelical like Newton — a Broad Churchman like Stanley — a 
 Trinitarian like Newman — a Unitarian like Channing — what 
 do these men. differing in so much else, agree upon as the
 
 282 
 
 deepest thing" in those lives they led, each so beautiful and 
 true — what but this, that God was ever speaking to them, 
 and that the health and comfort of the soul were in hearing 
 and obeying that Holy Voice. 
 
 Brethren, there are some inclined to look on this as fanati- 
 cism or mysticism — as inconsistent with sober reason, and 
 obnoxious to common sense and general experience. I 
 would ask them, if they are inclined to set aside the unani- 
 mous testimony of Scripture, to disregard the plain utterance 
 of every book in the New Testament, how are they to keep 
 their Christian faith as other than an idle tradition, and avoid 
 disbelieving the experience of every noble Christian life ? 
 I grant, brethren, that it may be mysterious to see how God 
 can be in constant communion with each human soul, and 
 that by inveterate habit we are only too apt to limit all 
 reality to that which the senses reveal. But is not every- 
 thing in nature full of mystery — all things, as the old saying 
 has it, run up into mystery — and is not the progress of 
 science itself what one has called it, a " constant disillusion 
 from sense?" We have here, it may be, "to work by faith, 
 not by sight;" to confess with the greatest religious poem 
 
 of our day — 
 
 " We have but faith we cannot know. 
 For knowledge is of things we see." 
 
 Modern scepticism may speak of God to us as " a stream 
 of tendency," or the " unknown something not ourselves 
 which makes for righteousness." But surely there is nothing 
 clearer, brethren, that either there is no God at all — a con- 
 clusion which, if not the universal reason, at least the univer- 
 sal religious sense of man rejects — or that God must care 
 lor the souls 1 le has made. And if He cares for them, how 
 can He ever cease to be speaking to them for correction, 
 counsel, and comfort? If we could conceive it possible 
 that God does not speak to men, that lie is not constantly 
 drawing near them with help and guidance, that the dark, 
 mysterious, and crushing sorrows of life shall not yet finally 
 be touched into peace by 1 1 is reconciling hand, then not 
 only is the Bible a monstrous fable, but every human father
 
 283 
 
 and mother who love their children and never cease to care 
 for them, and to follow them through time and space with 
 their loving words and hopes, is better and nobler, and far 
 greater in a moral sense at least, than this heartless power 
 that sways the universe. 
 
 Hut — since speaking in a Christian Church and to a 
 Christian congregation, I may safely leave the language of 
 discussion and controversy aside — how, we may ask, does 
 God speak to us, and how arc we to practice the spirit 
 of our prayer and learn to listen for His voice? Brethren, 
 the voice of God is the life of God, and that is everywhere 
 around us and within us. There can be nothing in the 
 whole universe in which God is not, and in which He does 
 not therefore speak. And everything which brings us near 
 to God — everything which quickens within us the love of 
 God — everything in us which subdues the power of evil — 
 must render us more keen to read hi is message, more quick 
 to hear Mis voice. Yes, let us hold fast and firm our Chris- 
 tian faith, that our God is no dumb idol, no helpless power 
 o'crmastercd by His own laws, no heartless Divinity, care- 
 less of each struggling life, but the living and loving Father, 
 whose care surrounds each single person, and whose voice 
 speaks to each separate soul. 
 
 There is a wondrous instrument which modern science 
 has invented, and by means of it sounds that the most 
 delicate ear could never have detected, and whose very 
 existence we had never dreamt of, become loud and clear. 
 And as it is in the natural, so it is in the spiritual world. 
 As, on the one hand, the loudest sounds have no existence 
 to the car that is deaf: as, on the other, with this aid of 
 science the attentive ear may almost realize the old fable 
 and hear the grass growing: so 3 if any of us imagine God 
 has been silent to us, be assured it is only we who have 
 been stooping our ears. 
 
 Oh, brethren, let us but listen, let us but have faith, let 
 us but be earnest and religious, let us but be prayerful and 
 sincere, and no day will ever come which will not bring us 
 a message from God — things that formerly were silent will
 
 284 
 
 surprise us by their sound. The Bible will become, what 
 it is to every earnest Christian, His living voice ; our 
 prayers will be a real communion with an answering God ; 
 our conscience will be a Divine oracle ; nature, even, will 
 speak of the Father as it did to Christ; nay, our very mis- 
 fortunes and sorrows will be changed into needful lessons of 
 our loving Guide ; in short, the whole of our life will be full 
 of voices. And when we pray the prayer of Samuel, or when 
 we utter the words of the Psalmist — "Be not silent unto me, 
 O God" — it will not be in the fear that God's voice can evcr 
 cease, but rather it will be a request that He would keep us 
 watchful and attentive, reverent and obedient, as he was 
 who first spoke our text ; so that, like him, this may grow 
 into a daily prayer, and become part of the habit of our 
 life; so that, with the joyous confidence and childlike spirit 
 of the great Prophet, we may ever learn to say, " Speak, 
 Lord, for Thy servant heareth."
 
 L'sr, 
 
 XIX. 
 
 THE HEAVENLY HOME. 
 
 "In my Father's house ark many mansions."— /<?//;/ ot». .?. 
 
 TllK discourse from which these words arc taken was 
 spoken by our Lord on the evening that preceded His 
 betrayal and death. He doubtless was seeking- to prepare 
 His dfeciples for what must have seemed to them the most 
 fatal and cruel bereavement ; and there are no words that 
 have come home so powerful in consolation to millions of 
 sorrowing hearts. Through the long ages this hymn of 
 hope has never ceased — •" Let not your heart be troubled ; 
 ye believe in God, believe also in Me." But the words of 
 the text have more than an occasional value. They are not 
 like symbols of mourning, only appropriate and useful at 
 certain solemn and infrequent periods. Jesus did not mean 
 simply to comfort His disciples for His absence. He was 
 rather seeking to give them that wide and elevating know- 
 ledge of the future life which would abide with them as a 
 continual aspiration and stimulus. And after all, brethren, 
 while the necessity of comfort in bereavement is very 
 pressing; while it is one of the keenest of all desires to 
 know what becomes of the dear friends whom Death has 
 taken from our presence ; while we would give all the 
 world to be assured of their continued and increased peace 
 and blessedness, yet God does not gratify that desire by 
 itself alone, lie is not like a mother who seeks to still a 
 crying child by giving it anything — it does not matter 
 what. He will not treat us as mere children. He knows 
 the pain of bereavement, just because it is severe, is 
 generally a passing one ; that because the sorrow is violent 
 it is impossible it should last Other duties and other friend- 
 ships claim us, and often ere the grass is growing green
 
 28 G 
 
 again our affliction has faded into the dimly-remembered 
 past. If, then, the comfort God gave us referred only to 
 our immediate loss, with our forgetfulness of that loss the 
 comfort would be forgotten too. As the necessities and 
 duties of life wear out the keenness of our grief, they would 
 make the brightness of hope to fade with it. But instead 
 of fixing our comfort down to the occasion of our sorrow — 
 o-iving us with the special bereavement some as special 
 message of consolation — God gives us a wide principle, a 
 universal message, something that refers not only to one 
 part of our life but to all ; which has to do not only with 
 Illness and Death, but with Life and Work. Instead of 
 simply saying to us, " Your friend will rise again " — Christ 
 says, " I am, everywhere and always, the Resurrection and 
 the Life ; " instead of giving a special promise of the par- 
 ticular blessedness of him who is departed, He gives us the 
 universal truth, " In my Father's house arc many mansions." 
 It would have been easy, brethren, for Christ to have 
 given to His disciples some particular revelation, limited to 
 Him and to them, referring only to that special bereave- 
 ment and meeting that particular sorrow. And this, per- 
 haps, was what they would have desired, as we know it is 
 what, in like circumstances, we too desire. Had He per- 
 formed some wonderful miracle ; had He opened to their 
 cyesight the inmost glories of Heaven ; had He shown 
 them, in some convincing and visible way, the future assured 
 happiness of Himself and them — that would have met and 
 comforted their trouble. Is not that how we feel in any 
 •-Teat trouble and bereavement? As we can think on 
 nothing but our sorrow, we want some comfort that will 
 refer to it alone. We wish a consolation that will have a 
 special .and immediate effect. We do not wish to wait a 
 l<.ii"; time till the sorrow has done its work, but at once we 
 
 seek 
 
 ■•To reach a hand through Time, and catch 
 
 The far-off interest of tears." 
 
 And when, in these circumstances, we are sent back on a 
 mere general truth — when the consolation offered to us
 
 287 
 
 partakes of the nature of some wide principle — we arc apt to 
 resent this comfort as unreal and quite inadequate to the 
 bitterness of our needs. 
 
 It is, however, because of the largeness of His love that 
 the consolations of God take this form. Xo wise doctor, 
 when you are suffering from sonic particular pain, will 
 direct all his attention to make that cease. On the contrary, 
 if it be not unbearable, he will even be willing to let it 
 continue for a time if it will help him to do what is the 
 true aim of his cailing — restore the health of your whole 
 body. So, brethren, does God deal with us. He does not 
 at once seek to relieve the sorrow of our heart, the pain 
 of our special bereavement. He rather seeks to raise our 
 whole nature, so that these very pains will become the 
 instruments of blessing. Christ gives no individual revela- 
 tion to the bereaved soul of His disciple, but he does better, 
 for He gives to all alike what ought to be a continually 
 inspiring and comforting view of the Life of Heaven. 
 
 Let me try to unfold to you then, as briefly as I can, what 
 is revealed to us of the Blessed Life to come in these words. 
 
 And first I speak of its Familiarity. 
 
 Everyone knows how our great dramatist has spoken of 
 the Hereafter as " the undiscovered country," and all of us 
 feel how true arc the words of the poet — 
 
 " I ask not whither is the spirit flown, 
 That lit the eye which there in death is sealed : 
 Our Father hath not made that mystery known, 
 Needless the knowledge, therefore, not revealed." 
 
 It is well to remember that the Bible tells us very little 
 of the actual life and circumstance of Heaven. Even the 
 glowing pictures we have in the Book of Revelation are not 
 meant to be taken literally — they are given, not to satisfy 
 our curiosity, but to animate our faith. We find it im- 
 possible to conceive a picture that shall satisfy us and 
 evidence its own truthfulness as to the life of the Future 
 Blessedness. There is so much that is beyond our present 
 experience, that imagination is totally unable to work upon
 
 288 
 
 it. We must fall back on the confession of St. Paul, and say 
 — "Now we see through a glass darkly;" and even with 
 the " Beloved Disciple," who was permitted to write the 
 Apocalypse, we must own, " It doth not yet appear what we 
 shall be." 
 
 Hut while it is well for us to keep in mind our ignorance 
 of so much of the life to come, so as to put aside all the 
 extravagant and erroneous pictures that arc sometimes 
 drawn of it, it is possible to push this principle too far. 
 Very many, it is to be feared, because some think foolishly 
 of Heaven and Hereafter, cease themselves to think of it at 
 all. They have no thought, and hardly any belief, about 
 the World and Life to come. But what we cease to think 
 about, we very soon cease to have any interest in ; and of 
 what we have utterly no knowledge we can have no belief. 
 Now, while God has seen it best for us to be left in 
 ignorance about the future Heavenly Life, it is not a total 
 ignorance. If we are ignorant of the facts and circum- 
 stances of it, we are not ignorant of its principles and laws. 
 We cannot make a picture of it, but we can make a pre- 
 paration for it. It is as if one were setting out for an 
 utterly foreign and remote country, and some one were to 
 come to him and say — " I can tell you nothing as to the 
 appearance of the country, I can show you neither a picture 
 nor a map of it, I am quite unable to describe its scenery; 
 but one thing I can do, I can tell you what sort of person 
 should go there, what life he should lead, and what things 
 he should learn as a preparation for it." Would we not 
 feel that that was the truest and most necessary knowledge 
 for us? And that, brethren, is the kind of knowledge God 
 has given us about Heaven — not something to satisfy curi- 
 osity, but something to animate faith, and direct our present 
 life and endeavour. Even if we had no other revelation 
 than that in the text— " In my Father's house are many 
 mansions" — we would have enough to animate us to high 
 thought and pure endeavour in following Christ. 
 
 I have said our text intimates that Heaven is a Familiar 
 Place. Yes, though we can draw no picture of it, though
 
 289 
 
 we can imagine almost nothing as to its situation, its mode 
 of life, or its appearance, yet it is not strange. Guard against 
 the idea of the mystery of Heaven making you think of it 
 as utterly foreign to you. l( you allow this to grow upon 
 you, from being strange it will become unreal, and so you 
 will cease to believe in it at all. Now, our text tells us that 
 Heaven is not a strange place. The words of Christ ex- 
 press and emphasize its familiarity. He calls it the Father's 
 House, or Home. He speaks of it as containing "main- 
 mansions" — "dwelling-places," or, as perhaps the words 
 are better rendered. " resting-places." 
 
 But I do not depend on the mere words of the text. I 
 rest more strongly even on the inner idea of it, and on the 
 teaching of the whole Word of God. Brethren, our common 
 ideas on this subject are altogether wrong, and just the re- 
 verse of what they ought to be. We think of the life of 
 1 [eaven as a dim. shadow}-, unreal kind of existence — of a 
 world of shades, or phantoms, or ghosts, of a disembodied, 
 cloud-like life, where we never really shall be at home ; 
 and we cling to this life because it seems to us so real, so 
 tangible, so familiar. Xow, we have just inverted the true 
 order of things ; it is this which is the unreal life ; it is here 
 we have the phantom existence ; it is now we are most 
 truly and most sadly from home. Have you ever thought 
 of that expression in Christ's parable where He says of the 
 Prodigal — " And when he came to himself?" Every sinful 
 man is a stranger to his own soul, and the best of us in this 
 world are never completely and truly at home with our- 
 selves. There are depths in our nature we do not know, 
 dark secrets in our heart we dare not disturb. There are 
 few of us that can support the burden of being long alone 
 with ourselves, and fewer still that would dare to unveil to 
 others every inmost thought that passes when in society. 
 And there are none of us ever truly at rest. We not m 
 desire activity and progress, but we long for change, just 
 because we feel we cannot be at peace, because we are 
 always dissatisfied. It does not need the language of 
 Scripture, then, to tell us, "This is not your rest ;" it is the
 
 290 
 
 hourly confession of every human life. Only in Heaven, 
 brethren, when sin no longer reigns in the soul, when no 
 breath of evil passion and envy disturbs the calm rest of 
 our spirit, when with the quickness of the glorified spiritual 
 life wc share each other's thoughts, or look into the depths 
 of our own mind, untroubled by the fear of finding any 
 gloomy and horrible thing, only then shall wc be truly ."at 
 home." God and Christ and the spirits of the good, and 
 those whom we have loved here, we shall know and share 
 the continual society of, beyond anything we could here do. 
 And whatever meets us of things new and strange in our sur- 
 roundings shall only excite our pleased delight, but shall 
 never disturb us with a sense of foreignness. We shall feel 
 in the depth of calm pure souls, in the overflowing light of 
 God's presence, that beyond anything that could ever be 
 said of Earth, this is true what I have said of Heaven, its 
 Familiarity. 
 
 But, secondly, the words of our text tell us of the Freedom 
 of Heaven. I must speak of this more shortly; but allow 
 me to say I do not mean by this the opposite of Slavery. 
 It is no doubt the fact that this is true of Heaven. Each 
 happy soul is there free from the tyranny of those low and 
 degrading desires, those foul bad habits, those imperious 
 passions, that are a worse and more degrading slavery than 
 whip and chains alone can bring. But every Christian soul 
 ought, in that sense, to be free here in this world, though 
 the fulness of his freedom, his perfect and complete eman- 
 cipation, will only be reached in the world to come. But 
 by Freedom I mean to draw your attention to this fact in 
 our text — that in the life of Heaven there is the utmost 
 possible diversity, that each soul is free to follow its own 
 path in a very much greater degree than on earth. 
 
 Here again wc meet with a very erroneous view, widely 
 current, which has been drawn from one or two texts. 
 Many people think and speak of Heaven as if there wc 
 would all be doing the same thing, and always doing it. 
 All of us have seen pictures of Heaven representing its in- 
 habitants praising God on harps; and ;i great writer has
 
 291 
 
 well said the only idea many people have of I [eaven is that 
 of a church where all will be gathered together through a 
 
 Sunday that will never end. Now there is a certain amount 
 of truth in these pictures. In the life of Heaven whatever 
 any redeemed soul does it will be a continual praise to God, 
 and the universal life and activity will be an endless worship. 
 But our text intimates that this life of praise and worship 
 will take endless forms and shapes. Christ does not speak 
 of Heaven as one vast room into which all arc gathered, 
 He rather describes it as an infinite domain in which there 
 arc countless different dwellings ; or, if we take the literal 
 word, " stations " or " resting-places," it would seem to in- 
 timate that each soul has its own special surroundings, 
 which constitute at once its labour and rest — for work there 
 brings no weariness — and that there may be an infinitely 
 varied progress on from one degree or resting-place to 
 another. 
 
 In other words, Heaven, in place of being a state where 
 our individuality will be crushed out, is one where it will 
 have infinite room for its expansion. It is here that men 
 arc so much reduced to one dead level that each man seems 
 very much a copy and repetition of every other. The true 
 man, the separate and special being, lies buried and hardly 
 alive under the accumulations of habit. It is sin, brethren, 
 and all that comes in its train, that does this. Poverty, 
 ignorance, vice, the tyranny of fashion, the selfishness of 
 parents, and the social state, and our own weak, bad wills; 
 it is these that reduce us all to one dead level of mean 
 unintcrestingness; and every man of us feels in his inmost 
 heart, "I am not the man I might and should have been." 
 When a great original man — a man of genius — rises up, he 
 becomes so just because he breaks through all these oppos- 
 ing restraints. But in Heaven these will be done away to 
 everyone, for they cannot exist in its perfect life. Each 
 soul will there follow its own free, God-appointed way; it 
 will be true there, as it is never true here, "As man}- men, 
 so many minds, so many lives." And I believe it will be 
 true that the life which here each man has longed for in his
 
 292 
 
 inmost soul, provided it be a noble and worthy life, he will 
 there reach and pursue. In what way it will be carried out 
 I cannot tell, for we know nothing of the circumstances of 
 the heavenly life, but I none the less believe that any pure 
 activity we have delighted in here we shall continue here- 
 after. The life to come will in one sense be a continuation 
 of the life here in all that is noblest and best in the present 
 existence of each. The scholar, the artist, the poet, the 
 musician will not surely find their life-long labours lost, and 
 their source of purest joy dried up. The man who delights 
 in serving others, and even sacrificing himself to them, will 
 not find himself totally deprived of the opportunity of what 
 we rightly call the divincst work and the purest joy. The 
 friend will not discover he can no longer love and serve his 
 friend, the mother's a flection and care will not become 
 superfluous and turn cold. Remember, we shall be the same 
 beings then as now, and all that is deepest and purest in us 
 must therefore continue the same. It is only the sinful 
 (which, thank God, is never our true nature) that will fall 
 off and die, just as the dead husk falls away from the 
 ripened fruit. Whatever we do will be done with such a 
 pure and happy and loving soul, that it will be the sinccrcst 
 praise and worship ; but what we do will be as infinitely 
 varied as heaven is infinitely large — each soul will pursue 
 its own special, happy life — the "Father's House has many- 
 mansions," and there we shall prove the glorious freedom 
 God bestows. 
 
 In the briefest possible way I must mention two other 
 facts of my text. And, thirdly, I speak of the Fulness of 
 heaven. I do not mean by that simply that the life of 
 heaven will be to each one the very opposite of the narrow. 
 cramped, and poor life we almost all have- here. It certainly 
 is the teaching of the text that the life of heaven will be a 
 noble, energetic, expansive life — there will be "many man- 
 sions" for each soul, many stations of progress, a large and 
 varied activity and blessedness. But I want to emphasize 
 the fulness of heaven in another sense, namely, the wide and 
 ample room it holds out for all. The Father's House is
 
 293 
 
 not a narrow place; it is wide as His own love, boundless 
 
 as J lis own compassion. Heaven is not a place reserved 
 for a select few of the race. If it were so, I, for one, would 
 not only have no heart to preach the Gospel — there would, 
 indeed, be no Gospel to preach — but, I say it solemnly, I 
 could not even believe in God. When anyone begins to 
 dogmatise on the large number who shall be excluded from 
 the future blessedness, he ought to remember that this is 
 just one of the points where even the theologian and the 
 preacher should confess their ignorance; where he ought to 
 remember the answer of Christ to the question, u Are there 
 \cw that shall be saved?" was, "Strive thou thyself to enter 
 the narrow gate." One thing I do hold with all my heart, 
 and it seems to me the clear teaching alike of all Scripture, 
 and of the revelation of God in Christ, that if any fail of 
 the blessedness of heaven, it is not because there is not a 
 place and a welcome awaiting them, still less is it because 
 the decree of God bars their entrance, it is simply because 
 they themselves have obstinately and wilfully shut them- 
 selves out. " In my Father's house arc many mansions." 
 
 Hut when I speak of the Fulness of Heaven, I must add 
 along with it one last word on its Fitness. Heaven is not, 
 brethren, a place to which we can go by accident or chance; 
 we cannot hope to be admitted to it simply because God is 
 too good to leave us outside. I say it with all reverence, 
 but I must say it, because I believe it to be the teaching of 
 Scripture, even God Himself could not put us in Heaven if 
 we have not, to some degree, the heavenly character. Almost 
 all the parables, and almost all the expressions of Scripture, 
 represent men, not as shut out from heaven by God's action, 
 but by their own. In other words, brethren, heaven requires 
 a fitness for it. That is specially intimated in our text. 
 Not only does Christ speak here of going "to prepare a 
 place" for His disciples, but the words of the text imply 
 they are themselves to be prepared for the place. Every 
 house has a relation to the character of the man who 
 inhabit it. There is a sense in which you can tell a 
 man's nature from his surroundings. But if there be in the
 
 294 
 
 world to come a special place for each — and you remember 
 how the Scripture speaks of Judas going "to his own place" 
 — then what that place is depends on what we now become. 
 Even the great Pagan philosopher, thousands of years ago, 
 could tell us, "Heaven is character;" and it is the certain 
 teaching of Scripture that unless in some degree there be a 
 heaven within us, there will never be a heaven around us. 
 "In the Father's house arc many mansions;" but he who 
 brought that saying of his Master to us was commissioned 
 likewise to write, "There shall in no wise enter into it any- 
 thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, 
 or maketh a lie ; but they which are written in the Lamb's 
 book of life."
 
 295 
 
 XX. 
 
 THE SINGLE AIM. 
 
 •• This one thing I do." — Phil. Hi. /j. 
 
 1 do not know that anywhere, even in the Bible, we may 
 find a more admirable motto with which to begin a New 
 Year than these words of St. Paul. And we may adopt 
 them as ours, for not merely does the apostle elsewhere 
 call upon us to be his imitators, but in this very place and 
 with reference to this very sentiment he urges us to be 
 likeminded with himself. And as the humblest soldier 
 who fought at Waterloo might boast his share in that 
 victory as well as Wellington, as the commonest sailor 
 who voyaged with Columbus might exult in the new world 
 discovered as well as the great admiral, so, though none of 
 us have got the spirit or can ever do the work of Paul, we 
 can set before us the same aim and record the same vow: 
 " This one thing I do, forgetting those things which are 
 behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are 
 before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high 
 calling of God in Christ Jesus.'' 
 
 These words imply that we should have one aim in life, 
 and that the highest. " One thing I do, I press toward 
 the mark (or rather goal) of my high calling." There is 
 .1 sense, indeed, in which it may be said that all men, 
 willingly or unwillingly, consciously or unconsciously, have 
 but one aim in life. Quite irrespective of the character 
 of his life, we may apply to every man the words of St. 
 Paul, "This one thing he does." When we look on the 
 lives of the men around us, it seems as if nothing were 
 further from the truth than this — their lives seem lost in 
 numberless petty details, they are "to one thing constant 
 never." But let us take a truer and deeper view of life, let 
 us look at it, not from amidst the bustle of the passing hour,
 
 296 
 
 but contemplate it from the serene height of the abiding- 
 future, and we shall find that each life, amidst and through 
 all its distractions, is and must be pursuing one aim, follow- 
 ing one tendency, working out one result. 
 
 The difference between the apparent distraction and the 
 real unity of our lives is the difference between the un- 
 finished and the finished picture, or between the picture 
 looked at closely and looked at from the proper distance. 
 Go into the artist's studio when the picture is still in process, 
 and you can only see a number of unsightly daubs — you 
 cannot recognise even the rudiments of a design; but look 
 on the picture when it is completed, and you will find that 
 every spot of colour has its due place, and they so combine 
 into a harmonious whole that you arc not even conscious 
 <>f their separate existence, you recognise simply the one 
 idea which the picture expresses. Or again, if you look at 
 a painting closely, you simply see a surface of various and 
 inharmonious colours — it is not till you have retired to the 
 proper focus that these resolve themselves into an artistic 
 unity. And so in life, during its bustle and hurry, harassed 
 by petty cares and amused by petty pleasures, we fulfil our 
 days and weeks, and at the end of each, if we think at all, 
 it is only to reflect how fragmentary each has been — we can 
 recognise no constant progress, we can trace no uniform 
 result. But this is only because we are standing too 
 near our work, and because that work is yet incomplete. 
 When we can get far enough away from our work, as, 
 for instance, at the end of a whole year of our lives, or 
 when we look upon the completed work — as we do when 
 we contemplate the life of one who is dead — then the idea 
 of life's unity becomes clear, the trilling tasks and pleasures 
 of days and weeks have been building up one character, 
 issuing in one result; we have been careful and troubled 
 about many things, ami yet, after all, there is but one thing 
 we have done If this account of our life be true, you will 
 see that no one fulfils the end of his existence, however he 
 may satisfy himself by merely irregular and occasional acts 
 ■ ,1' gi n< n i ity and goodness.
 
 297 
 
 \\ hat determines your life and mine is, not the separate 
 actions, but the whole tendency of it; and that tendency is 
 Straight onward either to God and Goodness, or to sin and 
 wretchednes. You may trace the course of two rivers, and 
 for a long time both may appear much the same. The one 
 sparkles as brightly as the other, flows as placidly by the 
 green meadows, murmurs as clearly over the shining pebbles ; 
 but the one river finds a clear and joyous entrance into the 
 ocean, and the other is lost amid dreary marshes and 
 shifting sands. And as with a river, so with a life — it is 
 not its course but its tendency which determines its charac- 
 ter. There may be fair, even noble actions in its history, 
 but all the same its course may be downward, not upward. 
 We are what we are, not by any isolated actions of our life, 
 but by our life taken as one whole. There is but one right 
 tendency, one true aim, one proper course, and to that 
 even- life must conform or be pronounced a failure. 
 
 It is remarkable that the word almost universally used 
 of sin in the New Testament means properly "a missing 
 of the mark;" and a sinful life is thus one which has failed 
 to reach the true aim which God has set before it. In 
 that Great Assize which will one day be held when "we 
 all appear before the judgment seat of Christ;" in that 
 "silent Court of Justice,'' which even now every man 
 carries about with him in his own conscience, there are not, 
 as at human tribunals, many offences and many pleas, but 
 all narrow themselves down to this — whether the goal of our 
 endeavour has been the heavenly calling of Christ, or the 
 earthly calling of the evil one; whether we have lived for 
 God or for the world, for holiness or sin. 
 
 As members of the Church, I need not remind you that 
 you, my brethren, have turned your eyes towards the goal 
 of Christ; but do not think you can reach it by simply 
 gazing at it when occasionally, as now, it is pointed out to 
 you. It would be strange if Christian perfection were so 
 easy to reach when every earthly attainment is so difficult. 
 Ask the painter if he gained his skill by sudden inspiration, 
 and he will tell you what years o\~ toil it has cost him to
 
 298 
 
 attain the power which appears so spontaneous. Look at the 
 poet, who of all men has been said "to be born, not made," 
 and see what care he will bestow upon the selection of a 
 single word, and how, in one of the greatest in our English 
 Literature, he will copy his verses fourteen times ere he 
 will commit them to the press. And if the results of genius 
 are gained only by such unremitting toil, think you the 
 results of goodness are to be won by those who will not 
 watch and wait? Nay, rather by as much as the attainment 
 of a noble Christian character is greater than the production 
 of a famous picture or poem, by so much must the ardour 
 of our endeavour exceed the disinterested earnestness of 
 the author or the artist. Look at any who have attained 
 the title to be called, I do not say saints and heroes in the 
 Church, but simply sincere Christians, and hear them tell 
 what constant self-denial and watchfulness they had to 
 maintain, and then let us ask ourselves by what strange 
 illusion it is that we hope to attain a place by their side 
 who only now and then cast a languid glance at the goal, 
 instead of straining, as they did, with eye and hand and 
 foot ever directed to it. 
 
 I would not have you misunderstand me, my brethren. 
 I were a most unfaithful preacher of the Cross did I 
 intend by these words to discourage you, to make you 
 believe that to be a Christian is difficult, if not impos- 
 sible, or to provoke the exclamation, " who is sufficient 
 for these things." There is one sense in which it is the 
 easiest of all things to be a Christian; it is simply to recog- 
 nise the love of God in Christ and to trust ourselves to that 
 love; it may be as sudden and as easy as passing from the 
 mist into the sunshine or from the darkness into the light, 
 to which indeed the Bible compares it. But this is only at 
 best the beginning of the Christian life; and while he is a 
 Christian in whom that life is begun, he only is a Christian 
 beyond all doubt who has preserved it through all the 
 assaults of countless foes unharmed till death. Now, to be 
 ;i Christian in the last sense can be no light ami easy thing, 
 nor does the Bible ever represent it as such. It pictures
 
 299 
 
 him as one who must be on the watch against countless 
 foes, who will be assailed from within and from without, 
 whom pleasures will allure and danger appal, who is never 
 safe, and must never for a moment lay aside his sword or 
 unbrace his armour. Or, to take the illustration which was 
 in the mind of Paul when he wrote our text, he is like one 
 of these runners in the famous athletic contests of Greece, 
 who, with eager eye fixed on the goal and with hand out- 
 stretched as if already in anticipation grasping the prize, 
 strains every nerve, thinks nothing of the course behind, 
 sees only that which has yet to be run, is body and soul 
 absorbed in the contest. 
 
 Either the experience of St. Paul, and of every Christian 
 saint, nay of every good man, must be set aside, or there is 
 but one safe course for us, and that is by adopting the motto 
 and imitating the language of the great Apostle, setting 
 before us the one aim of the Christian calling and pursuing 
 it constantly. To do this we need not abjure the world, 
 we need not earn the name of fanatic, we need neither 
 forswear business nor pleasure. It is enough if neither 
 business nor pleasure be ever made the excuse for doing 
 that which we could not do as Christians, or over which we 
 could not ask the blessing of God. We surely do not lack 
 examples that this is possible, for of many in our busy com- 
 mercial life it could be said 
 
 " There arc in this loud stunning tide 
 Of human woe and crime. 
 With whom the melodies abide 
 Of the celestial chime; 
 Who carry music in their heart. 
 
 Through busy town ami wrangling mart, 
 Plying their daily task with busier feet. 
 
 Because their secret souls a holy strain repeat." 
 
 To set one aim before us and to pursue that unremittingly — 
 if there is one thing which history teaches us to be indis- 
 pensable t<> success it is this. It is not in romance but in 
 the sober pages of biography that you will find it recorded 
 how one youth of comparatively humble rank thus made it
 
 300 
 
 his ambition to attain the rank of Prime Minister of England, 
 and he died one of the most illustrious of those who have 
 filled that high office; or how another, when playing among 
 the village boys, himself no better than they, determined if 
 he lived to regain the lordly possessions of his ancestors, 
 and he lived to add new lustre to their ancient honours and 
 to die in their old baronial castle. And no talents, however 
 great, will compensate for the lack of a continuous purpose. 
 Coleridge has been called " potentially the greatest English 
 poet of the nineteenth century," and yet he has really 
 accomplished less than any of his contemporaries. And 
 another great English writer has, for a similar reason, the 
 lack of a steady purpose, left almost no impress on our 
 literature, 'though he might have won a foremost place; 
 while the poet who is at once the glory and shame of Scot- 
 land, gives us, I think, the key to his sad life, when in one 
 of his letters he writes 
 
 •• I am still without an aim." 
 Now if this be true in regard to mere professional success, 
 think you it can be otherwise in our heavenly calling? 
 Think on the countless obstacles we have to overcome; how 
 we are tempted by suggestions from without, and deceived 
 by desires within ; what faults of character one after another 
 we must surmount; how we are tempted now to presumption 
 and now to despair, now to a false anxiety, and now to a 
 careless security; how every moment we live we must exercise 
 our free will in choosing, and how each choice is a possible, 
 nay actual temptation; how every day we live we have 
 countless opportunities of either helping or hindering the 
 cause of Christ, of denying or gratifying ourselves. Re- 
 member, too, what is the Standard set before us by Christ. 
 We are "to keep our garments unspotted from the world," 
 "we are to have our lamps ever burning," we are to be 
 " followers of them who through faith and patience inherit 
 the promises." We are never to think "we have already 
 attained, either are already perfect," and yet we are to 
 aspire to be "perfect even as the father which is in 
 I leaven is perfect."
 
 301 
 
 When we think on our high and heavenly calling, my 
 brethren, we shall not wonder at the summons to have but 
 one continuous and commanding aim, " to do but one thing," 
 
 but we shall rather wonder at our own careless idleness in 
 the past, when we sought to gain the prize of the Christian 
 life by giving a few minutes in the day, or a few hours in 
 the week, to the thought of it, whilst all the rest was sur- 
 rendered unreservedly to the world. But not only arc we 
 called to one commanding aim — "to do this one thing;" 
 we are likewise summoned to an oblivion of the past and 
 absorption in the future — "we arc to forget the things 
 behind and stretch forth to those before." What, it may 
 be said, could any advice be worse, any policy more suicidal, 
 than this — ''forget those things which are behind ? " It is 
 from the past we draw all our experience, and to give it up 
 were to surrender all the know-ledge we have gained ; besides, 
 our memory is part of our very selves, for it is only through 
 it we know we are the same persons, and to give it up were 
 to give up our conscious life, so that we cannot, even if we 
 would, forget the past. It is clear it is in no such sense that 
 the Apostle calls us to "forget the things which are behind." 
 We must remember the illustration he had in his mind, 
 and to which his words undoubtedly refer. He is thinking 
 of a runner, who, if he look back to see how much of the 
 course he has traversed, lessens his chances in the race. 
 And we too must "forget the things which are behind; for 
 to dwell upon them is to incur a twofold danger. There 
 arc- two senses in which to remember the past is to risk the 
 Christian life. If the contemplation of the past brings 
 before us a dreary record of failure, still more if it darkens 
 our soul by remembrance of some great sin. it may unnerve 
 us tor the work of the present, and deprive us of hope for 
 the future. Or if the past is bright with some great deed, 
 filled with the story of noble service, it may lead us to idle 
 away the present, or, despairing of ever equalling it. to raise 
 the despondent cry "the former days tter than 
 
 these." Now, in either ease it is our duty as Christian men 
 to forget the past. Whether it would fling a dark shadow
 
 302 
 
 of gloom upon our path, or tempt us to delay by turning 
 round to gaze upon its fading glories, we must alike disregard 
 it and hold our course right on. We are like the traveller 
 in the fairy tale who will be brought under a spell if we turn 
 to gaze behind us. Though voices, both of terror and 
 entreat}*, may call us, our safety consists in gazing right 
 before. We are done with the past for ever, and its good 
 and evil, its failure and its success, alike rest with God. 
 But, still more, my brethren, we must forget " the things 
 behind " because the Christian life lives in the future. It 
 has been well said that the heathen world placed the Golden 
 Age in the past, but Christianity places it in the future. 
 It is not memory but hope which is one of the Christian 
 graces, and that hope is not the fond and fleeting illusion 
 we find on earth, it is fixed fast and deep on the promises 
 of God, and is true as the Truth itself. Yes, my brethren, 
 we will dare to hope great things for ourselves and for all 
 men. Whatever our past failures may have been, " eye 
 hath not seen nor ear heard, nor hath it entered the heart 
 of man to conceive the things God hath prepared" for us, if 
 we will but love him. \\ natcver misery and sorrow have 
 covered the past life of man, he is not abandoned by God, 
 and the cry will yet be heard, "Arise, shine; for thy light 
 is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee." 
 
 As we go forth, my brethren, to this new year on which 
 we have entered, let us, in this sense, put away the past, 
 " forget the things behind," and stretch forth and press on 
 to the future. Above all, let us determine, by the grace of 
 God, no longer to spend our lives in idleness or to fritter 
 them away in trifles, or to squander them on our own lusts 
 and selfishness ; but, bracing ourselves up to a life of faith ami 
 prayer and Christian self-denial, determine to know nothing 
 save Jesus Christ, to do but one thing, to press on in His 
 heavenly calling. It ma)- be in this year — it must be in 
 some year not distant — that our life will come to an end, 
 and nun will talk over our course and pronounce in their 
 secret hearts for what one thing it was we Lived, and mean- 
 while we will go forth to receive or to be denied the prize
 
 303 
 
 which by our life we have gained or lost. But even here 
 and now we may begin to taste the sweetness of the Chris- 
 tian reward in making others happy and finding peace 
 ourselves ; in feeling the old and evil self dying from us 
 and the new and divine self becoming more alive. Remem- 
 ber, my brethren, there is but one prize in life — the prize of 
 the heavenly calling of Christ; all others are blanks. The 
 world's apparent prizes arc like that fair)- gold the stpries 
 tell of, that glitters for a while and then turns to dust, bring- 
 ing misfortune and evil on all who receive it. Be it ours to 
 seek for another prize, to say with the poet — ■ 
 £: I live for Him that loves me, 
 For all that I hold true, 
 For the heaven that smiles above me, 
 
 And waits my coming too. 
 For the cause that lacks assistance, 
 For the wrongs that need resistance, 
 For the future in the distance, 
 For die e;ood that I can do.
 
 304 
 
 XXI. 
 
 THE DIVINE PARSIMONY. 
 
 •'Gather up the fragments thai- remain, iiiat nothing be 
 
 LOST." — St. Jollll 77. 12. 
 
 FROM one point of view the most wonderful of all the 
 miracles of Christ were those in which, twice over, with but 
 one or two loaves of bread, He fully satisfied the hunger of 
 several thousands of men. I am not at this time, however, 
 seeking to dwell upon either of these miracles, but rather 
 to direct your attention to one incident common to them 
 both. On both occasions we read that, after the meal thus 
 miraculously supplied was over, they filled several baskets 
 with the fragments that remained ; and to show that was 
 not a mere accident, so to speak, we arc expressly told in 
 one of the accounts that the command to do so came from 
 our Lord Himself — " Gather up the fragments that remain, 
 that nothing be lost." Probably most people arc at first 
 struck with a sense of disappointment in hearing such a 
 direction given by Christ. Perhaps the)- have never put 
 their objection into words, hardly even have they allowed 
 it to form itself in their thoughts, but none the less they 
 dimly feel as if there were something almost unworthy of 
 the Divine Master in these words. Surely this was con- 
 cerning Himself with things too mean and small; did it not 
 display what we would call in other men a parsimonious 
 nature? was it worth)- of Him, who had just royally (cd 
 thousands from His own stores, who had proved in so 
 wondrous a way His power to make the creative forces of 
 nature do Him an instant and miraculous service, to look 
 closely after what became of the fragments of the feast? 
 What tin- multitude has admired at all times in the great 
 has been a lavish spirit. The wealthy and the- powerful win 
 popular applause when we see them most prodigal in using
 
 305 
 
 their means ; and whenever they begin to husband these, 
 to look closely after their expenditure, to take pains that 
 no smallest thing is suffered to go to waste, does it not at 
 once lead to the conclusion that they have become weaker 
 in power, to the loss of their popularity, and to the fixing 
 on them the epithet of mean and miserly? It cannot have 
 been without a regard to its effect upon them and us that 
 Christ gave such a command to His disciples; not only 
 must the thing have been right in itself — or be sure it would 
 not have been ordered — but it must have also contained a 
 lesson most valuable for all men, or it would not have been 
 made so prominent. 
 
 I purpose, therefore, brethren, asking your attention now 
 to a consideration of what I venture to call the Divine Tar- 
 simony; to examine for a little this instance of the frugality 
 of Christ, and to sec what lessons it has to teach us. 
 
 i. And, first of all, I say that parsimony seems a universal 
 law of the divine working. If you look up a dictionary you 
 will find that parsimony is defined as "carefulness in the 
 use of means," and though we often use it in a bad or un- 
 complimentary sense, as when we speak of a "parsimonious 
 man," the thing is in itself therefore very far from wrong. 
 Vet at first sight we would shrink from applying it to God- 
 it seems, as I have said before, something unworthy of Him. 
 Nevertheless, it must be true ; for if ever there was a time 
 when we must acknowledge the divinity of Christ, surely 
 it was at the time of this miracle. He who could feed 
 thousands with a few loaves must have controlled the crea- 
 tive energies, and have been no less than the Creator. And 
 when He gave afterwards the command of the text, here 
 we have at least one instance of divine frugality. And yet 
 we shrink from applying this to God in all the fulness of 
 1 lis power; we think it belonged to the necessities of Christ's 
 human life — it was part of His humiliation. When we think 
 of the greatness of the Ruler of the universe — of the vast 
 and illimitable extent of His power — how the mind of man, 
 though cultivated in the highest degree, and armed with all 
 the instruments of modern science, still feels utterly help-
 
 306 
 
 less to scan the extent of God's domain, and has to confess 
 in the words of Job, "Lo, these are a part of His works ; but 
 how little a portion is heard of Him;" then we conclude that 
 frugality, parsimony, carefulness, is the very last thing we 
 ought to say of One so great and so boundless in power. 
 
 We remember, too, in what way in history great kings 
 and emperors have shown to admiring peoples the extent 
 of their power ; how one would melt the costliest pearls 
 into the wine, and another would spend thousands of pounds 
 on a feast, and another would refuse to put on even the most 
 gorgeous garments a second time. We recall what we have 
 read of the crazes of modern wealth : how horses have been 
 shod with gold, and fortunes paid for a piece of crockery ; 
 and we think surely that parsimony, which here we despise 
 as almost always associated with poverty and meanness, can 
 never be really true of the Highest Majesty and the Infinite 
 Power. But, brethren, it is just so. Look to all the work- 
 ings of God, and you seem to hear everywhere an echo of 
 the words of Christ, "Gather up the fragments, that nothing- 
 be lost." Look at nature ! At first you think you see only 
 the most utter prodigality, the most gigantic waste. Of a 
 thousand seeds, only one comes to birth. In a million fishes 
 not one may reach maturity. Everywhere animals prey upon 
 each other, or disease sweeps them in thousands away. 
 In the primeval forest, trees and flowers and fruits perish 
 unseen and unused. The rivers and the rains sweep the 
 mountains into the sea, and the earthquake lays the loftiest 
 buildings in the dust. But with all this seeming recklessness, 
 not an atom is ever suffered to go to waste. Destruction is 
 an impossibility in nature. You burn a candle or a log of 
 wood, or you boil water till it evaporates in steam ; but the 
 man of science can tell you that not a particle of these sub- 
 stances have been lost, they have only been changed. This 
 law of the indestructibility of matter, as it is called, is one 
 of the surest in modern science, and it is even-where so in 
 nature. Nothing is too small for the care of God. Insects 
 far too minute to be seen with the eye are yet wonderfully 
 and beautifully made. Every power is made to serve many
 
 307 
 
 ends, like the sun, which not only directly gives light and 
 heat, but makes the wind blow and the waters run. Every- 
 where carefulness reigns. Nowhere is there waste ; nothing 
 is lost. And we, brethren, arc nearest to the divine life, 
 Ilkest to God in action, showing most the greatness of our 
 nature when we shun every extravagance, restrain idle 
 waste, and learn to husband carefully and to use only for 
 wise and noble purposes the means God has given us. The 
 prodigal and spendthrift is not only a fool, but he fails in 
 the very qualities he believes he shows ; he is neither 
 majestic nor powerful ; his very reckless profusion is the 
 sign of degradation and weakness. The very highest power 
 and noblest majesty is that whose principle of action is 
 this — " Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing 
 be lost." 
 
 2. But, again, the parsimony of God teaches us that all 
 waste is an immoral thing. It has often been the case that a 
 principle which is itself good and true has suffered because 
 of the evil and imperfect nature of those who have exhibited 
 it. Thus, when I speak of frugality, at once you arc led to 
 think of those who, in exhibiting this virtue, have lost nearly 
 every other good quality, and have rightly been despised as 
 miserly, that is, as the word literally means, miserable and 
 mean. I would have you therefore to forget these illustra- 
 tions of carefulness, and look away to the one perfect 
 example of it which you have in God. I have said that 
 frugality is a law of the divine life; that everywhere in the 
 government of the world by God we can discern abundance 
 but never waste; that with infinite supplies of life, the cup 
 of creative fulness always running over, there is nothing 
 suffered to be lost. But I go a step further, and say that we 
 arc clearly taught by this that all waste is an immoral thing, 
 that squandering is a sin, that to be without frugality is to 
 be destitute of what is required to make our life true, and to 
 bring it into accordance with the law ami nature of God. 
 But, in spe iking of waste, I do not wish you to think only, 
 or even chiefly, of money or material goods. Remember 
 what part money and material things play in life. They are
 
 308 
 
 not surely the chief things in any man's existence who lives 
 a better than an animal life. They are the things which 
 surround his life, and on which his life acts, but they are not 
 his life itself. His life is not made great because he has 
 abundance of these, nor small, because he has little of them. 
 On the contrary, the men whom we admire and love, whose 
 life has been greatest, and whom the world holds in dearest 
 remembrance, have almost all been poor men. Christ our 
 Lord Himself; many of His noblest followers; our two 
 greatest English poets; the greatest names in Italian and in 
 Greek history; these, and a thousand such, were all em- 
 phatically poor men. Do not think, then, that I am exalting 
 wealth, when I say waste is a sin. But what is waste? 
 Why would it have been a wrong thing, for instance, for 
 Christ to have allowed the fragments of bread to lie un- 
 gathered on the field? Because this would have been exactly 
 the same thing in its nature as what we call a sin, for it 
 would have been a direct violation of a divinely-appointed 
 law. Every material thing, whether food or clothing or 
 money (which represents in itself almost all articles) has a 
 certain use, was made for a certain end. In the last result 
 it derives that end from God, without whose creative and 
 sustaining power it could not be. When, therefore, men, 
 through carelessness or malice, interfere with anything 
 serving its true end or use, they are denying and contra- 
 dicting God, and their wastefulness is not only folly, but 
 disobedience and sin. If bread be scattered uneaten upon 
 the ground, if grain lie rotting on the field because no one will 
 pay the labourer to gather it, if in time of scarcity, food be 
 stored for a rise in price, and kept till it is almost useless, 
 then in this waste there is not mere foolishness, but direct 
 evil. But this law is of continual application in every 
 life. It condemns the prodigal who squanders, but not less 
 the miser who hoards, since both are perverting the only 
 true and divinely-appointed end of wealth, the nourishment 
 of men in health and temperance for good and noble lives 
 by thee material things. All luxurious living, all un- 
 necessary spending on ourselves that might go to the neces-
 
 309 
 
 sities of others, all selfishness which never thinks when it 
 pleases itself how its gratification is purchased, these are- 
 each forms of this sinful waste. But the same law applies 
 to other than material wealth. Our health, the natural 
 powers of mind and spirit God has given us, our time, our 
 opportunities for goodness, these are all things which to 
 waste is to sin. It is sad to think of the gigantic waste 
 going on everywhere. Thousands of lives are cut off every 
 year by purely preventible diseases, because society is too 
 selfish and careless to establish good public health. Millions 
 of pounds are spent in riotous living, while thousands of men 
 and women are dying of poverty and starvation. Life by too 
 many of us is lived out in poor gossip and miserable rivalries, 
 wasted in frivolous pursuits, or degraded into a narrow 
 mechanical routine. Blessedness, the one grand purpose for 
 which God made us, is unsought and unreached. Oh, 
 brethren, am I not right in saying that nearly each life is 
 sad with this criminal and most sorrowful waste? It is the 
 story of the prodigal repeated over again in society and the 
 individual : we have taken our portion of goods, and in selfish 
 blindness have spent them on mean ends, and now all our 
 reward is the famine of the soul and the bitter sense that 
 the meanest of God's creatures — the mere servants in our 
 Father's house — are happier and better than we. Let us 
 learn this lesson, that we cannot, as we so often impiously 
 boast, "do what we like with our own." Neither our time, 
 nor our health, nor our money, nor our work is ours, except 
 as the}- are first God's; and when we dare to spend them on 
 ourselves, to forget that we are stewards and not owner.--, to 
 put them to other purposes than those which God has 
 ordained, we are preparing a future of disappointment and 
 sorrow, we are setting ourselves against the Most High, we 
 are guilty of a waste that is grievous sin. we have been 
 unlike Christ, scattering where we should have gathered, 
 till all is lost. 
 
 3. But. lastly, the Divine Parsimony teaches us the infinite 
 value we should set on our life — the incalculable worth of 
 even tin- poorest human soul. I believe the cause t>f all
 
 310 
 
 waste is that which is the cause of every sin — selfishness. 
 Reach down to the beginning of every sin, from the most 
 respectable to the most disgraceful, and you will find they 
 all come from a common root — the love of self. But this 
 self is always " our old nature, which is corrupt according to 
 the deceitful lusts ; " it is never that better nature which is 
 created for righteousness through Jesus Christ. And so 
 the paradox is true that we waste in idle selfishness because 
 we don't think enough of ourselves. We take the world's own 
 low estimate, and, like Esau, are willing to barter our birth- 
 right for a mess of pottage. " Buying and selling, we lay 
 waste our powers." Professing the Christian belief, we 
 seldom really hold that we are each one gifted with a life 
 which is not only endless in its duration, but which is in- 
 dividually and separately dear to God Himself, and in which 
 there are almost boundless possibilities of nobleness. If we 
 really held this— if with heart and soul we grasped this as 
 
 true surely our lives would tell a different story than mean 
 
 and careless waste. And I say this is true, or there is nothing 
 true in the whole world. God knows, brethren, our lives arc 
 poor enough. Few of us have reason to think proudly of our- 
 selves — some can only look back on a record of failure and 
 folly. Yet, be it so; still, Christ came "to seek and to save 
 that which was lost." Our God and Father will not in the 
 world of nature suffer an atom of material existence to go 
 to waste, and He assuredly will not be less careful of a soul 
 that resembles Himself. Our life, anyone of us may think, 
 is but a poor wreck of what it might have been. The temple 
 of our heart is not the fair and stately building God's spirit 
 designed, but one in which foul weeds arc growing, while 
 the shrine is ruined and defaced. But He who would not 
 suffer the broken bread to lie ungathered on the ground, 
 has not less care over a wasted existence, and His call is 
 addressed to us not less than to His earlier disciples— 
 " ( rather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be 
 lost."
 
 311 
 
 XXII. 
 
 THE LONELINESS OE CHRIST, AND ITS 
 LESSONS. 
 
 "YE SHALL LEAVE Ml. ALONE; AND YET I AM NOT ALONE, BECAUSE THE 
 
 Father is with Me."— John xvi. 32. 
 
 THESE words of Christ, brethren, carry us back to the 
 solemn night of His betrayal, for they were spoken as almost 
 the concluding sentence in that discourse which was to be 
 the last the disciples should hear from these beloved lips 
 ere they closed in the awful agony of death. They were 
 spoken, probably, in that upper room where the Last Paschal 
 Supper and the First Christian Sacrament had been held, 
 and from which the guilt)- traitor, Judas, had stealthily 
 departed to meet the confederates whom he was to lead to 
 the garden where they were to apprehend the Saviour. 
 
 All through the course of that farewell feast, Jesus, ever 
 anxious for His disciples and careless for Himself, had been 
 seeking to prepare them for the shock and sorrow which 
 would come on them in His crucifixion. His discourses 011 
 that single occasion fill no less than four chapters in the 
 Fourth Gospel ; but judging from the brevity of the other 
 parts of the Gospel record, these may represent only a small 
 portion of His addresses, rousing them to consolation ami 
 courage. He had, doubtless, succeeded in preparing them 
 in some degree to meet the immediately-trying future be- 
 fore them. He had evoked from them a clear declaration 
 of their faith in Him as divinely-inspired and sent. They 
 seemed ready to meet the great shock and trial, for which, 
 in the kindest yet plainest way, lie had sought to prepare 
 them. Yet none knew better than Christ the difference 
 between words and deeds. And without doubting their 
 loyalty, and appreciating to the full their warm and loving
 
 312 
 
 spirits, lie knew how hard it was at once to leap to the full 
 height of the hero, and in a moment to throw off the pre- 
 judices and prepossessions of a lifetime; and in no spirit 
 of harsh suspiciousness, but with the same loving yet sad 
 kindness that prompted His warning to Peter only a short 
 time before, Jesus replies to their expressions of faith, "Do 
 ye now believe? Behold the hour cometh, yea, is now come, 
 that yc shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall 
 leave Me alone ; and yet I am not alone, because the Father 
 is with Me." 
 
 Brethren, these words give us a glimpse into the greatness 
 of that sacrifice Christ made for us in His death. It was 
 not the mere suffering on the Cross, severe and long-pro- 
 tracted as that was; it was not the insults and torture which 
 preceded it, numerous and great as these were. We must 
 remember, if we arc to estimate the whole life and death of 
 our Lord aright, that in the fullest sense of the words, " He 
 was made like unto us." Jesus was a man such as we, 
 possessed, as our catechism expresses it, not only of a "true 
 human body," but also of "a reasonable human soul." That 
 is to say, brethren, Christ felt and thought and suffered in 
 His mind just as any man, if he were sinless, would do. 
 Try then for a moment to realise what Christ must have 
 suffered from the union of two opposite necessities or ten- 
 dencies that met in Him, as never before they had been 
 realized in man. On the one hand, by the necessity of His 
 nature and position, Christ was compelled to live a solitary 
 life. I do not mean that He was like I lis great forerunner, 
 the Baptist; that lie was brought up in the desert, away 
 from all human society, and that lie voluntarily abandoned 
 the delights of human companionship. You know it was 
 quite otherwise. Jesus lived an entirely social life, growing 
 up in the intercourse of I lis home and village, and never, as 
 far as we know, till I lis thirtieth year, abandoning the 
 society of His family and friends. Even then, when He 
 came forth on I lis work of public ministry, and had neces- 
 sarily to lead an unsettled, He did not choose a solitary, 
 life. While John the Baptist had his favourite haunt in the
 
 313 
 
 southern and uninhabited part, close to the wilderness, Jesus 
 
 chose J lis in Galilee, the most populous part of Palestine, 
 crowded everywhere with villages and towns. Yet though 
 outwardly and by choice the life of Christ was the very 
 opposite to the life of the solitary, He was unavoidably 
 compelled to be really much alone. Everyone acknowledges 
 the truth which our great modern poet has expressed — 
 
 " To sit on rocks, to muse o'er rock and fell, 
 
 To slowly trace the forest's shady scene, 
 Where things that own not man's dominion dwell. 
 
 And mortal foot hath ne'er, or rarely been ; 
 To climb the trackless mountain all unseen, 
 
 With the wild goat that never needs a fold: 
 Alone o'er steeps and foaming floods to lean, 
 
 This is not solitude ; 'tis but to hold 
 
 Converse with Nature's charms, and view her stores unrolled. 
 
 " But 'midst the crowd, the hum, the shock of men. 
 
 To hear, to see, to feel, and to possess, 
 And roam along the world's tired denizen, 
 
 With none who bless us, none whom we can bless; 
 Minions of splendour, shrinking from distress ! 
 
 None that with kindred consciousness endued 
 If we were not, would seem to smile the less, 
 
 Of all that flattered, followed, sought, and sued; 
 
 This is to be alone ; this, this is solitude '. " 
 
 II ere, brethren, it is the voice of the disappointed world- 
 ling, of the votary of pleasure, or at least of the man in 
 whom selfishness mingles largely, that speaks ; and such 
 can be no representative to us of the mind of Christ. But 
 if the selfish and sinful are often compelled to feel alone 
 amid a multitude, it is no less true of the noble and good 
 that the}' often realize what another great poet calls the 
 city's 'crowded loneliness." for where there is a being 
 with aims in which as yet few or none can be brought to 
 take an interest one who has designs which are such that 
 they are beyond the comprehension of all but a very limited
 
 314 
 
 circle — one who finds much to repel him in the things which 
 almost all around him are eagerly seeking after, and who can 
 enlist almost no one to take a deep interest in those things 
 to which he has given up his whole heart — one, moreover, 
 who has experiences and feelings, in which, perhaps, none 
 but himself has ever shared — one who has dreams and 
 hopes which have never dawned in any soul but his — then 
 it is clear that such an one must live a lonely life, even 
 though he were never withdrawn from the crowd of men. 
 And such, brethren, has been the lot of almost every man 
 who has ever truly deserved the name of great. No matter 
 in what field he has been distinguished, no matter what is 
 the class of benefit he has conferred upon the world, it has 
 been only possible to him through isolation. Loneliness is 
 the penalty of distinction. Solitude is the price that must 
 be paid for even- new blessing bestowed on man. This is 
 true very often even of mere mechanical inventions. Read 
 the record of scientific and industrial discover}', and you 
 will sec at what a price many of the improvements that 
 are now welcomed and employed by everyone had to be 
 secured by their first inventors. It was so in the case of 
 the printing-press, of the steam-engine, of the weaving- 
 machine. The lives of Palissy, the Potter, of Arkwright, 
 the inventor of the spinning-machine, of Columbus, the 
 discoverer of America, to take only a few out of the host of 
 examples, were spent for years amid every opposition and 
 discouragement, and in the noblest part of their life and 
 endeavour they were made to feel that they stood quite 
 alone. But it is so in a much more special degree with those 
 who wish to reform, not some procedure of man's outer life, 
 but the inner world of his spirit and disposition; for here 
 the prejudice is far harder, and the opposition more intense. 
 Every great reformer, every devoted missionary, every pre- 
 eminent preacher, has felt that he must be for years, if not 
 for a lifetime, almost, or altogether alone. It was so with 
 the Prophets of the ( >ld Testament, down even to the last 
 and greatest — they were too often but a solitary "voice, cry- 
 ing in the wilderness." It was SO with Luther and with
 
 315 
 
 Knox, for, although they had their disciples and friends, 
 much of their battle had to be fought alone. It was so with 
 the heroic Henry Martyn, who died, after years of exile, in 
 a land thousands of miles away from his place of birth, 
 without a single convert. 
 
 And what was true in all these was true in our Lord, 
 but in a measure utterly beyond these examples. For the 
 greatness of Christ confessedly transcended all other ex- 
 amples, and the higher the greatness the more utter the 
 loneliness, just as the loftier the mountain is, the more barren 
 and cold is its summit. Then beyond all these examples, 
 Christ lived before His time. He had, that is to say, desires 
 and designs that more utterly transcended all the ideas and 
 wishes of his countrymen. You know how, though He had 
 selected twelve of the best and noblest, and sought to train 
 them as His disciples, He found even these, up to the very 
 time of His death, and in spite of His repeated instructions, 
 utterly unable to enter into many of His thoughts, so that 
 again and again He had to address them sadly, "Ye know 
 not what spirit ye are of;" "Do ye not yet understand, O 
 ye of little faith?'' 
 
 Christ, brethren, read the inmost secret of the heart of 
 man; its longing desires, which it could not itself interpret, 
 He plainly discerned. He looked into the future, and laid 
 there, solid and secure, His plans for all the coming ages of 
 the world ; and His purpose embraced in its design of bless- 
 ing, not a favoured few, but the whole human race. And 
 with designs so great as these, occupying not a part, but 
 absorbing the whole of His existence, Christ must have 
 stood, even in His mere human life, in the deepest feelings 
 of 1 lis heart, quite alone. 
 
 Now, while it has been said by one great English writer, 
 that to endure solitude a man must be "a god or a beast" 
 — that is, more than human, or less than human — yet it is 
 nevertheless true that there are certain great natures who 
 seem as if they could willingly and almost easily bear the 
 trial of loneliness. Such a character as the Prophet Elijah 
 or John the Baptist, or, in modern history, our own Reformer
 
 31G 
 
 Knox, these seem men, not destitute, indeed, of tenderness, 
 but with so large an amount of self-reliance, with so little of 
 the emotional or sensitive, at least on the surface of their 
 nature, made so rugged and stern as well by training as by- 
 temper, that they seem eminently fitted for heading an un- 
 popular cause ; and in the solitary life that falls to their lot 
 sympathy seems almost thrown away. It was quite other- 
 wise, however, brethren, with our Lord. I do not for a 
 moment mean that there was anything weak or yielding in 
 the character of Jesus. No; the greatest of His martyrs 
 and disciples, the most unbending and inflexible of re- 
 formers, were but imitators and followers of Him who 
 could hurl His repeated woes at the heads of the all- 
 popular Pharisees, and indignantly cleanse the temple from 
 the trafficking of all-powerful Sadducees, and never flinch 
 nor falter in His path of suffering, though he plainly saw it 
 leading up to a Cross. But with all this, the heart of Jesus 
 was the most tender and sympathetic. It has been pointed 
 out by one of the most gifted preachers of modern days, 
 that if we arc rightly to estimate the character of our Lord, 
 we are to remember that He possessed all the virtues and 
 graces of woman as well as of man — that He embraced in 
 His single person the whole fulness of human nature. If 
 He was strong and unyielding as the firmest and most 
 heroic man, He was tremblingly sensitive, quick and keen 
 in sympathy, desirous of the presence and support of kindred 
 and loving natures as the most tender woman. And this 
 gave rise to that other trait in His character, so strangely 
 blended with His loneliness, and which must have made 
 that so hard to bear. Compelled beyond all others to live 
 alone, none ever so yearned for sympathy. With but a few 
 as His avowed disciples, and these few so unable to under- 
 stand Mini, none ever so sought to gather up the whole 
 world of man in the arms of His brotherhood and love. 
 And at this time, brethren, when the greatest trial of His 
 life was approaching — on this very evening, when lie knew 
 with certain prescience that even I lis chosen few would 
 leave llim all alone — when He could only too well antici-
 
 317 
 
 pate that chorus of condemnation, that unanimity of hatred, 
 which was to surround Him on His trial and beset Him on 
 His Cross, how strong, how eager, how yearning - , must have 
 been the desire of Christ for the solace and sympathy of even 
 one kindly and feeling heart. Only a little hour after this, 
 when He was about to offer 1 lis prayer in the garden, I le yet 
 asked three of His disciples to be near Him, that even the 
 consciousness of their neighbourhood might comfort Him. 
 And surely it must have been not the least of the trials of 
 this time of suffering, surely it must have been with a heavy 
 and sinking heart, surely it must have been almost with 
 foreboding and dread, that Jesus uttered the sorrowing an- 
 ticipation, "Ye shall be scattered every one to his own, and 
 shall leave Me alone.'' Yet immediately, brethren, the soul of 
 Jesus is filled with a lofty courage. The moment He touches, 
 as it were, the depths of sorrow in these words, He rebounds 
 to the height of a splendid confidence. His very longing for 
 sympathy, and the failure to find it even in His chosen 
 followers, reminds Him of a sympathy, infinitely fuller and 
 more effectual than any human society could be; and He 
 hastens, as it were, to correct and amend His words with 
 the triumphant declaration, "And yet I am not alone, 
 because the Father is with Me." Yes, there could be no 
 solitude so irksome in which this would not be sweet society, 
 there could be no isolation so complete but this could mas- 
 ter and overcome it, nor could there be any loneliness so 
 crushing to the spirit but this would enable it even to 
 triumph and rejoice. 
 
 Brethren, we arc none of us called to be as solitary as 
 Christ was; His is an experience so transcendent as never 
 to be repeated by any other. Most probably, too, we shall 
 none of us ever be called to that experience of isolation 
 which is the penalty of greatness, for God, if He has set our 
 station in the humble and obscure ways of life, has made us 
 free from the loneliness in which all great men must do 
 their work. Yet none the less the lesson which Christ's 
 solitude teaches is not superfluous to any human soul. For, 
 brethren, after all, it is not only the world's great heroes
 
 318 
 
 that must live alone. The)' are called upon to do it in an 
 eminent degree. They are cut off from the sense of com- 
 panionship and neighbourhood which are the resources of 
 lesser men. But even the commonest man or woman must, 
 to some extent, lead a solitary life ; and not once, but again 
 and again, even the humblest of us here, even those of us 
 whose character seems most commonplace, and whose life 
 has been most uneventful, may address even his nearest 
 neighbour, even his closest companions and friends in the 
 very words of Christ, '■ Ye shall be scattered every one to 
 his own, and shall leave Me alone." 
 
 Let me instance, brethren, only a few of these experiences 
 in which every one of us must taste of solitude. Every one 
 is alone in sickness, in temptation, and in death. Take 
 sickness as an example. Happily, there are very few (none 
 of us here, I trust) who are really without human help and 
 sympathy. Kind friends attend us, and do all they can to 
 relieve our pain and to cheer our loneliness. But it is still 
 true that we are alone. Our sickness sends us in upon our- 
 selves in a peculiar way — we have thoughts and feelings, 
 hopes and fears, which others cannot share. Especially is 
 this the case when our sickness is serious, and threatens to 
 affect our whole life. Then thoughts rise up in our heart, 
 we can breathe into no human ear, not even the dearest. 
 Why God should thus deal with us, why we are laid aside 
 from the pleasure and activity of life, why we arc to be 
 condemned to years of lingering pain and helplessness, 
 why, either through a short indiscretion, or, it may be, 
 through no fault at all, all our life is to be clouded and im- 
 paired ; these arc doubts which we can tell to no one, and 
 which we arc left all alone to resolve. O brethren, in that 
 hour (and sooner or later, remember, that hour will come 
 to us all) let us take Christ's lesson to heart, "I am not 
 alone, because the Father is with me." Even now let us 
 prepare for that experience by learning how real is God's 
 fatherly love, and how surely 1 te meets our loneliness; how 
 they that trust Him, rest untroubled even in their worst ills; 
 how sickness itself becomes by this transfigured into blessed-
 
 319 
 
 ness and peace; how the invalid, in his very weakness, be- 
 comes often the strongest and most enduring force for 
 goodness, just as two of the sweetest and truest singers of 
 all England's poetesses sent forth their far-spread poems 
 and hymns from a sick room ; just as one of France's noblest 
 thinkers and writers was in almost constant pain; and just 
 as in all countries and in all ages many of the dearest saints 
 of God, most powerful over others for goodness, have been 
 
 ' ; The holy ones and weakly. 
 
 Who their Cross of suffering bore." 
 
 But we arc alone no less in Temptation, and this, remem- 
 ber, is no isolated experience, but the almost constant trial 
 of every soul. This battle we have to fight in our secret 
 heart is one which no fellow-man can cither overlook or 
 share. Alone we have to meet our spiritual foe; alone we 
 have to face evil suggestions, and conquer or yield ; alone 
 we have to listen to conscience upbraiding us for sinful 
 thoughts and desires we would not tell in an}- human ear. 
 But here, brethren, we are "alone, and yet not alone." That 
 secret world of temptation and struggle lies all open to the 
 eye of God. He has not ceased to watch with eager, loving 
 interest every varying fortune of the fight. Let us fall 
 back on the consciousness of this Presence in all future 
 temptations; let us be bold to tell to Him the secrets we 
 would shrink from uttering to any mortal; let us feel, when 
 again we are tempted, that we are " not alone, because the 
 Father is with us ;" and before His prevailing Presence, if 
 we but realize it and cherish it, the mightiest powers of 
 evil must ultimately flee in confusion and defeat. 
 
 Lastly, we are alone, all of us. in the hour of Death. It 
 is this, brethren, which perhaps makes the thought of our 
 departure so awful to almost every one. It is not the pain 
 of dying, for that is often far less than we have already 
 endured. It is the anticipation of loneliness ; that the 
 and kindest friends who surrounded us can only 
 accompany us a little way; and that beyond, through what 
 the oldest poetry in the world calls the "valley of the
 
 320 
 
 shadow," into what even to the Christian is so largely " an 
 undiscovered country," we must depart alone. And yet 
 surely not alone, "if the Father is with us;" not alone, if 
 Christ's presence fills the soul with peace; not alone, if the 
 Spirit of God is whispering courage and hope. It is thus, 
 brethren, that countless saints of God in all ages have felt 
 death to be almost a gladness and triumph ; for what to 
 human eyes seemed awful solitude, has been the nearest 
 presence of God. It is when all others leave us most alone, 
 that then, above all, " the Father is with us." 
 
 " Father ! what hast Thou grown to now ? 
 A joy all joys above ; 
 Something more sacred than a fear, 
 More tender than a love. 
 
 '• With gentle swiftness lead me on. 
 Dear God ! to see Thy face ; 
 And, meanwhile, in my narrow heart 
 O ! make Thyself more space."
 
 321 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 SOWING AND REAPING. 
 
 "Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man 
 
 SOWETH THAT SHALL HE AESO REAP." — Gal. vi. 7. 
 
 IN introducing" the great principle of the text, you will 
 observe that the Apostle considers it necessary to preface 
 it by a double caution or warning — " Be not deceived ; God 
 is not mocked." That is to say, however important and 
 evident this great truth may be there is some tendency, 
 some predisposition in the heart of man either to ignore it 
 or to misrepresent it; and we know from our own experience 
 that such is the case. Moral and religious truths arc not 
 like those of Science and the world of outward fact. What 
 is the correct theory of the movements of the heavenly 
 bodies — what is the truth or untruth of the law of gravita- 
 tion ; as to all these facts or laws of the material world we 
 have a still unprejudiced mind, for our own personal con- 
 duct is in no way involved in them. We can judge of these 
 as indifferently as a spectator can discuss the justice of a 
 criminal trial in which he is in no way involved. But when 
 we come to moral and religious truths, our position and 
 capacity for judgment are quite altered. Here we are no 
 longer indifferent spectators — we are all of us criminals at 
 the bar ; and though the conscience of the prisoner may 
 sometimes side with the judge, he is none the less disposed 
 to interpret the law in such a way as to screen himself. 
 This shows us the caution we should continually exercise 
 in arriving at any conclusions on morals or religion, for 
 according as we determine the truth, one way or other, we 
 cither condemn or we absolve ourselves. Even such an 
 abstract truth as the nature of God we cannot approach with
 
 322 
 
 unprejudiced minds, for we may determine it in such a way 
 as to throw upon the Creator some measure of blame for 
 our own wrong-doing — as when one of our greatest poets 
 writes, extenuating his own faults, 
 
 " Thou know'st that thou hast made me thus, 
 With passions wild and strong." 
 
 In fact, as every truth in morals or religion bears directly 
 or indirectly upon our own conduct, and according as it is 
 determined, one way or other, either aggravates or lessens 
 our guilt, you will see that we cannot come to the discussion 
 with a mind quite unbiassed. And so the Apostle feels it 
 necessary to give us an especial caution in the present 
 case; for this great principle, " Whatsoever a man soweth 
 that shall he also reap," is one which not only touches the 
 conduct of all of us, but it touches every moment of that 
 conduct. There is not a moment of the life of any man 
 which is not passed under the dominion of this great law ; 
 he can no more set it aside, even for an instant, than he can 
 escape from his own shadow. It rules his whole life, from 
 the most careless word he utters to the most deliberate and 
 long-planned crime he commits ; escape from it he cannot. 
 It is as universal and as resistless as the law of gravitation, 
 which, by one and the same mighty impulse, holds the 
 greatest suns in their place and moulds the dewdrop on 
 the humblest wayside flower. 
 
 Now this law, which holds us all so remorselessly to the 
 consequence of our past deeds, be they small or great, 
 trivial or important, is one which bears so hard upon us that 
 we try to escape from it, and we seek cither to forget it or to 
 explain it away. The careless and the trifling say it cannot 
 be so rigid as is supposed. It may be that our great sins 
 shall pursue us like avenging furies, but the careless word 
 or action of a moment cannot have a lasting effect. God 
 may reckon with us for our great debts, but he is not a 
 usurer to count the meanest farthing we owe ; and, whether 
 we reason in this way or not, most of us practically live on 
 in this belief, thinking ourselves sufficiently scrupulous if
 
 323 
 
 we trouble ourselves about great faults, but not seeking 
 to reckon the trivial sins and shortcomings of passing 
 moments, holding it quite impossible that so trifling 
 things could leave any permanent consequences behind. 
 Nay, my brethren, even religion has been invoked, con- 
 sciously or unconsciously by many, to do away in great 
 measure with this great principle ; and one truth of Chris- 
 tianity has been employed to explain away another. Do 
 not think, my brethren, I would dare to say a word against 
 the crowning truth of our holy religion — the possibility to 
 even the worst of repentance and forgiveness ; but when 
 this glorious gospel is used to explain away this other 
 equally certain truth, when we hear it said that a moment's 
 repentance — the belief in God's forgiving love — and all the 
 consequences of years of folly and sin are arrested and 
 thrown back ; that the few hours of penitence on a sick-bed 
 destroy the fruit of an entire life — all we can say in reply 
 to this is simply to reiterate the Apostle's words — " Be not 
 deceived ; God is not mocked : for whatsoever a man 
 soweth that shall he also reap." 
 
 But let us see what this great principle is, and whether 
 it is possible it can ever be set aside. In speaking of it the 
 Apostle uses language which belongs properly to the world 
 of outside Nature, because the things that belong to our in- 
 ward spiritual life being unseen, though not less real, have 
 to be spoken about in illustrations borrowed from what 
 takes place before our eyes. Just, then, as whatever a man 
 sous in his field he must reap the same, as it would be 
 impossible for him to sow one kind of grain and reap 
 another, so every part of our moral life, every desire and 
 thought, even- word and deed, produces its appropriate and 
 proper fruit. You know that it is impossible for a man to 
 sow barley and to reap wheat, to plant roses and to gather 
 thistles. And why do you know this? It is because you 
 know that what you reap is connected by invisible but 
 certain links to what you have sown ; that from the time 
 the seed sinks into the furrow, when it is scattered abroad 
 in the early spring, on to the time when the mellow harvest
 
 324 
 
 waves in the autumn days, there has been no break ; that, 
 could you see beneath the clods and watch the growing 
 grain during the spring and early summer, you would never 
 be able to say here there has been something new, some- 
 thing different ; that day by day all you would see would 
 simply be the seed expanding itself, shooting up into the 
 green leaf, lengthening its stock, developing its fruit, but 
 never by any possibility deviating into something else. It 
 is because of this you know that whatever kind of grain you 
 sow you must reap the same. But we may go further still 
 and ask, why is it that there is never any change — why is it 
 that on some night of summer the field of growing wheat 
 does not suddenly assume the appearance and properties of 
 barley, or the bright blossoms of the rose-tree be suddenly 
 changed into the white cups of the lily? Then the only 
 answer we can give to such a question is that not only 
 would it contradict and render useless all human experience, 
 it would introduce confusion into the realms of order and 
 law ; it would mean that we could no longer speak of such 
 a thing as the laws of Nature, and no longer trust to them. 
 But to all who believe (as every Christian must, and every 
 reasonable man should) that what we call the laws of 
 Nature are only God's methods of working — then, if such a 
 confusion we are supposing were ever to take place, it 
 would mean that the God of Nature had become unnatural, 
 that the God of Order had introduced disorder, that God 
 had contradicted, denied, mocked Himself. For it must 
 not be said or thought that a miracle is equal to such a 
 confusion as we have supposed. No miracle we read of in 
 the Bible is a violation of the laws of Nature ; nay, no care- 
 ful theologian or teacher will now speak of them as a breach 
 of natural law. When Christ changed the water into wine, 
 or made a few loaves suffice for the wants of thousands, He 
 violated no natural law but drew upon the hidden resources 
 of divine power. I lis action was beyond our knowlei 
 but it did not contradict any law that guides us in our daily 
 life. for the sake of sonic high, Spiritual end lie -the 
 
 Incarnate Divine One — gave to water, by the agency of
 
 325 
 
 laws unknown to us, the properties of wine; but this is 
 something quite different from saying that, for no such end 
 and in simple disorder, the growing grain might suddenly 
 be changed into something quite other than what was sown. 
 Now, my brethren, if God, in his constitution and ordering 
 of the material world, has ordained to everything its own 
 proper nature, and has caused that every seed shall produce 
 a corresponding fruit — do you think it can be otherwise in 
 the moral world, the field of Right and Wrong, the sphere 
 of man's daily life ? As every seed has a special nature, so 
 every action, be it small or great, has a determinate 
 character — it is either right or wrong. God has affixed to 
 every right action the fruit of blessedness, order, and peace ; 
 and every wrong action the fruit of unhappiness, disorder, 
 and unrest. You cannot conceive for a moment of those 
 consequences being reversed, for to do so would be to 
 introduce not merely disorder, it would be to introduce 
 wrong, and to make God the author not only of confusion 
 but of evil. Now, my brethren, every action must have 
 consequences. You cannot speak the simplest word, think 
 the most careless thought, or encourage the most passing 
 desire, without these having their effect. They may be 
 quite imperceptible to you, but the effects are there never- 
 theless. Look at the hour-hand of a watch, and however 
 you strain your eye you cannot detect the faintest sign of 
 motion, but you know that it moves, however slowly. Place 
 a stone under a falling drop of water, it receives not the 
 faintest impression; but leave it there for years, and you will 
 easily see the hollow. It is so with our life. We are only- 
 able to see the effect of trivial actions upon our conduct 
 when they have been often repeated. But just as the hour- 
 hand has been moving every moment, and as every drop of 
 water has been wearing the stone, so every trivial action 
 has been exerting its unseen influence. What we are each 
 i if us to-day j alike fur good and for evil, is the outcome not 
 of great virtues or great vices. Even when a man rises to 
 the one or sinks to the other, he never does so by a sudden 
 leap. The great deed that rouses us to admiration, or strikes
 
 326 
 
 us with horror, is simply the sudden outcome into light of 
 the accumulations of hidden good or secret evil. 
 
 I have dwelt too long on what may seem to many a 
 mere commonplace, but the solemn warning of the Apostle 
 shows us that this is a truth we are only too apt to set 
 aside. But some may object that I have spoken a mere 
 moral discourse, and have forgotten that God's forgiveness 
 is needed by the best — is not denied to even the worst. 
 God forbid, my brethren, I should fail to preach the gospel 
 of the forgiveness of sins through Christ ; but that does not 
 set aside this equally certain truth that every action has its 
 appropriate result, and that that result is unalterable, that 
 " whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." When 
 we repent and receive God's forgiveness, the whole spirit of 
 our life is changed ; but we have no right to say that a 
 single result of our former conduct is suppressed, and all 
 our experience points the other way. When the drunkard 
 or the profligate repent of their sins, not merely do they not 
 regain the health they have shattered in evil courses, even 
 the more spiritual results remain, and the polluted memory 
 and the pangs of remorse are never, in this life at least, 
 quite overcome. These may become by God's grace in- 
 struments for goodness — they may keep the convert humble 
 and lead him to a profounder horror of sin — but none the 
 less they serve to show that not even for the repentant can 
 God annul his great law — " Whatsoever a man soweth that 
 shall he also reap." 
 
 My brethren, let me impress upon you two very obvious 
 lessons from our text. The first is, that we cannot be too 
 careful, too watchful over every moment of our life. I do 
 not say that you cannot live as Christ's disciples unless you 
 consecrate your whole life to Him, and count nothing too 
 trifling or unimportant to be done in a Christian spirit, and 
 performed as to your Lord That is an important truth, 
 but it is not the one it is my present duty to enforce. That 
 truth is that your most trifling action has, and must have, 
 its lasting effect for good or for evil upon your own char- 
 acter and upon the world around you ; that you can neither
 
 327 
 
 escape its consequences nor alter its effect. If, therefore, 
 the great moral poet says — 
 
 •■ Guard well thy thoughts ; 
 Thy thoughts are heard in heaven." 
 
 we may further add — Guard your every word and deed, 
 for once they are uttered or done you have set in motion 
 something whose consequences you cannot calculate, and 
 whose effects you can never undo. 
 
 And the second lesson, my brethren, is that every moment 
 of our life we are building up our future, and that that 
 future takes its complexion from the present. As some 
 one puts it : — 
 
 •• The future comes not from before to meet us, 
 But from behind streams up over our heads." 
 
 Or, as the Apostle tells us—" 1 le that soweth to the flesh 
 shall of the flesh reap corruption ; he that soweth to the 
 Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting." These are 
 the only two possible goals towards which even- action 
 tends, and in one or other of which every life must issue. 
 For if there is one truth you can read written in clearest 
 letters on the whole history of man, shining like a halo 
 round the brow of saints, gleaming as in lurid flame from 
 the countenance of the criminal — a truth to which every 
 conscience echoes and every heart responds — which even 
 the sceptic, who denies a God yet admits " a Power that 
 makes for righteousness," is compelled to admit — it is this 
 truth of the text. Yes, we may deceive our own hearts, but 
 we can neither mock God nor arrest His divine laws, and 
 both decree that " Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he 
 also reap."
 
 328 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 THE PURPOSE OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 
 AND MINISTRY. 
 
 An Ordination Sermon. 
 
 "And He gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, 
 evangelists; and some, pastors and TEACHERS ; FOR THE perfecting 
 OK THE SAINTS, FOR THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY, FOR THE EDIFYING 
 OF THE BODY OF ClIRIST: TILL WE ALL COME . . . UNTO A FERFECT 
 MAN, UNTO THE MEASURE OF THE STATURE OF THE FULNESS OF CHRIST." 
 
 — Epli. iv. 11-13. 
 
 I AM, I believe, stating what most scholars agree to be the 
 special purpose of this epistle when I say that it sets forth 
 the character and purpose of the Christian Church. But 
 while this is the tenor of the whole epistle — and there is 
 hardly a verse which docs not bear upon this — it seems to me 
 that in our text we have an especially instructive and power- 
 ful concentration of the argument. Here, in one of those 
 long and impassioned passages, rising into grand climax, 
 which every master of eloquence knows so well to use, St. 
 Paul gives energy and point to all he has been saying as to 
 the nature and end of the Church. With the inborn humility 
 of the truly great, and grounding his appeal, not on his 
 authority and services, but rather on his helplessness, he 
 asks his converts to sink all idea of difference and pride in 
 the feeling of unity and the remembrance of the one Source 
 from which every endowment, intellectual or religious, flows. 
 Whatever gifts anyone enjoyed (and everyone had some
 
 329 
 
 power for goodness), these were not only held for the good 
 of the Church, but were derived immediately from her great 
 Founder. It was He who gave to each man his place and 
 work in life, and if He set some in various offices in the 
 Church, it was neither that they might feel a superiority to 
 others, nor attend to the improvement, spiritual or otherwise. 
 of themselves, but rather that they should be the means of 
 helping- the whole Church forward in a nobler life, till at last, 
 as the outcome and end of all our life and labour here, we 
 should have an ennobled humanity, and attain to that per- 
 fect manhood of which we have in Christ at once the pattern 
 and the promise. 
 
 We have, then, two great points before us — (i) The nature 
 of the Church's life, and (2) The end of her activity. 
 
 Now, as to the first of these, it might seem as if I had 
 wrongly taken the idea of the text, for if you look at the 
 verse you will see that St. Paul is speaking of the various 
 ecclesiastical officers, and it might appear that I should rather 
 speak on the orifice of the ministry than on the wider sub- 
 ject of the life of the Church. But not only would I rather 
 leave it to those who have greater experience and know- 
 ledge to speak on the duty of the ministry, but I hold I 
 am justified in taking the subject as I have done, for here 
 and elsewhere, as I have said, in this epistle it is the Church 
 which is the subject of the Apostle's thought, and the 
 ministry only comes in incidentally, as it were, and because 
 of its relation to that larger life. 
 
 Now, what is the idea here presented to us of that life — 
 what, in the Apostle's mind, is the nature of the Church ? 
 1 am not, brethren, going to plunge into the arena of ecclesi- 
 astical discussion ; even were it less profitless than it is, 
 neither my duty nor my text would allow me to attempt it. 
 To show which of main- rival schemes of government and 
 organization is the only one sanctioned by apostolical 
 authority, and to leave ourselves with the complacent idea 
 that we alone possess the true form of the Church, I leave 
 this to those who are abler than I am to make a text prove 
 anything they wish. And I doubt very much the wisdom of
 
 330 
 
 going away with the notion that either in church govern- 
 ment or anything else we are better than our neighbours. 
 If what has been called a "divine discontent" be the best 
 thing you can implant in a man, I see not how it can be 
 otherwise than good for a church to believe that, after all, 
 there may be many things in which it may attain to a more 
 excellent way. These words of St. Paul do not, as I con- 
 ceive, lend themselves to church controversialists at all. 
 Here, brethren, we breathe a calmer, purer air than that of 
 church courts. As when one leaves the noisy and dusty 
 streets of some busy town and climbs some lofty hill, the 
 sounds of bustling life below him die down to an almost 
 unheard murmur, and the sight of the blue sky and the peace- 
 ful landscape makes him forget the petty strife and divisions 
 of the market-place in the remembrance of the great ends 
 of our common humanity, so here we are lifted out of the 
 region of party church politics into a diviner air, and in the 
 clear height at which this great Apostle moves, we see what 
 is the true nature of the Church's universal life. That is 
 supplied by the word " unity," one of the key-notes through- 
 out this epistle. According to one conception in an earlier 
 part, he sees the whole Church growing up in calm and 
 harmonious beauty, as a living temple in which the Apostles 
 and great leaders formed, as it were, the foundation, but in 
 which every Christian, however humble, is present as a 
 necessary stone. According to another, he sees men united 
 in one loving family, of which Christ is the connecting soul. 
 But in our text this idea takes a more practical and in- 
 dividual application. No one, however gifted, is to separate 
 himself in thought from the collective lite. Each one is to 
 see that his virtues are not self-derived, and that it is treason 
 to humanity and to Christ to spend them on himself, or to 
 refuse to let them flow forth for the service and use of others. 
 If there were some gifted with great powers, or promoted to 
 high offices in the Church, they existed but for the good of 
 the whole, and the greater the power the more should be 
 the service, lie that was first was in this respect to make 
 himself last. In Christ's own words, "he that was greatest
 
 of all was to be servant of all." The idea of the Church 
 was that of unity, in which no one could live his true life 
 except as he lived in and for others.. And the higher and 
 more powerful the individual life, the more must it realize 
 this law of living in and with the life of all the rest. 
 
 Brethren, let us try to fix our thoughts on this idea of the 
 Church. We arc sometimes called on to adopt an attitude 
 of defence. No one can know anything of the literature of 
 our own time without being aware that in many quarters 
 the Christian Church is assailed as an institution which, even 
 if ever it was beneficial, has long outlived its usefulness; and 
 to a less extent, and in a subordinate degree, the Christian 
 ministry is decried as a body of men whose services are 
 only hurtful. I know not any other justification or defence 
 we can plead than the idea of the text. If the Church be 
 what that describes her, if the ministry be what that enjoins, 
 they need no apology beyond their existence — their life is 
 their defence. Has there ever been a nobler ideal anywhere 
 presented in the long history of man than this of the Chris- 
 tian Church ? Recollect in what a condition of the world 
 the Church had its origin. The unimpeachable witness of 
 the heathen historians and poets and satirists of the time 
 remains to tell us what the condition of civilized society 
 then was. Slavery, unredeemed by compassion ; super- 
 stition that ministered only to fear, and vice ; degraded 
 poverty, or a still more degrading pauperism ; amusements 
 in which the excess of cruelty and murder made their sport — 
 this was the condition of the poor. Scepticism, alternating 
 with the lowest credulity ; want of all private virtue and 
 family duty; the ideal of enjoyment, the most prolonged 
 sensual excesses — this made the life of the rich. The nations 
 had been bound together in an external unity by the Roman 
 conquests; but not only was there no real international re- 
 gard, but individual patriotism was all but dead; each lived 
 but for himself, and truth and honour and love seemed to 
 have lied the earth or to be remembered only to be scorned. 
 
 In such an hour the Christian Church had its birth, and 
 while it comprehended all within its scope, knowing no dis-
 
 332 
 
 tinction of race, and having slaves for the majority of its 
 members, it recognized as the law of its being that each 
 should not only not live all his life for himself, but that he 
 should find his true existence in living the larger life of the 
 brotherhood. I need not, for I could not, tell how that life 
 went on through the centuries. I need not say how, through 
 what Milton grandly calls "the irresistible might of weak- 
 ness," the Church grew and prevailed. I need not remind 
 you of her glorious but peaceful victories ; how she freed 
 the slave, stopped the brutalizing sports of the arena, raised 
 woman from the slave of man's passions to be his com- 
 panion and friend ; how she again made a home for the 
 family, again made private virtue to be respected and public 
 faith be kept, taught rulers their submission to a higher 
 Ruler, and for a time drove superstition and scepticism to 
 their native darkness. If, again and again, the Church 
 seemed to have forgotten her ideal, if she who freed the 
 slave imposed a worse slavery on the mind and soul, if she 
 who released the gladiator, lighted for seekers after truth the 
 cruel bonfire, let it not be forgotten that into the society of 
 the Church had been gathered great masses who never 
 learned or shared her spirit, and that when the Reformation 
 came it was that inner spirit that prompted the nobler life, 
 as it had never ceased to struggle for it. Even now, brethren, 
 what other society presents such a lofty ideal, an ideal felt 
 among great masses of men, and ever being anew manifested 
 in noblest fashion in those whom all revere. Look not at 
 the faults and errors of the Church which are not rightly 
 hers, for they are continually being condemned and cor- 
 rected by this her inmost spirit ; but look just at this idea 
 she is continually realizing more and more, the conception 
 she alone has been able to give birth to and sustain, of a 
 better and nobler human society, in which all men should 
 be bound together in true and lofty brotherhood, in which 
 "all incus good should be each man's rule," and in which 
 the spirit and life of Christ should be renewed in each 
 ii parate life and be the animating spirit of the whole human 
 race. And if I say one word as to the ministry, 1 do not,
 
 333 
 
 brethren, speak from any professional point of view, but 
 only to complete my argument and my exposition of the 
 text. No class or order of men stand less in need of an 
 apology, though, if such were to be offered, it would better 
 come from other than a young recruit. It needs not that 
 cavillers should point to the degraded priests of the dark 
 ages, or to the faithless pastors of modern days, it is the 
 ministry itself which has formed and hurled the keenest re- 
 buke at the head of such offenders, it is the outraged spirit 
 of the ministry which sits heaviest on their soul. Here, as 
 in all human societies, we must distinguish between the in- 
 dividual and the institution. It is the office of the ministry, 
 and not its representatives, we are to justify. But surely 
 in a Scottish church, and to a Scottish Congregation, that 
 justification is superfluous. We must deny well-nigh every 
 noble name in our history, we must forget every institution 
 which has advanced the national life, we must wipe out some 
 of the proudest pages in our records, we must unlearn 
 our civil freedom, we must cease to respect the piety and 
 purity of home, ere it will be possible for us to owe no debt 
 and to acknowledge no admiration to those who bore the 
 name of Christian ministers. 
 
 But now, for the purposes of our text, the ministry and 
 the Church arc one. Even those most highly and peculiarly 
 endowed with authority and power, the Apostles themselves, 
 only existed as members of the Church more highly gifted 
 than the rest, and because more highly gifted, therefore more 
 specially devoted to the service and use of others. If the 
 Christian ministry are set apart from their brethren in the 
 Church, it is only that there may be intensified in them that 
 spirit and service which is common to all. From them is 
 expected and required a higher Christian knowledge and a 
 nobler Christian life, and a more complete and constant 
 endeavour to realize that in serving others is the only true 
 and Christian existence. If the}- fail in this, they fail in 
 everything, and there is no justification for their being. 
 But there is no sacerdotal exclusiveness in the office of the 
 ministry, there is nothing deeper than an official difference
 
 334 
 
 between them and their fellows. You, brethren, are each 
 one of you in the truest sense of the word ministers too. 
 You are servants of the Lord Jesus Christ and of your 
 brethren. Your true life is impossible for you unless you 
 live a wider and nobler life than self. What the Protestant 
 Church wants now as a Second Reformation is just the 
 making living and real this great truth, that every Christian 
 man is really and truly a king and priest to God — that 
 each Christian soul is here and now called and consecrated 
 to a life-ministry. We threw down the tyranny of the 
 priesthood, and declared that no human authority should 
 interfere between the soul and its God; but we need now 
 to be delivered from the too prevalent idea that an official 
 minister is alone called to that life of consecration and 
 service which Christ Himself lays on each single soul, and 
 which forms the inmost spirit and abiding nature of the 
 Universal Church. 
 
 I have spoken so long on the nature of the Church's life 
 that it only remains to point, in a single word, to the end of 
 her activity. Thank God that end is given in words which 
 we believe to be instinct with divine truth, and no mere 
 uncertain dream and fond imagination of man. It is as if 
 for a moment that Mighty Spirit which moves the history 
 of man, before whom the generations rise and flee away as 
 wave follows wave on the deep, and to whose far glance the 
 lapse of a thousand years are but as the passing of a single 
 day, had, to the rapt vision of the apostle, withdrawn the 
 veil which hides the future issue of man's long history and 
 enabled him to see "that one, far off, divine event to which 
 the whole creation moves." Or, it is as if, like another 
 Moses near the close of his career, the Spirit of God had 
 taken this latter Prophet up to a loftier Pisgah, where he 
 could see the glories of that promised land of which he was 
 the pioneer, but which he himself was not to enter. This 
 \ ision of the latter days, this outcome of all earnest endea- 
 vour, this end and goal of the Church's activity, is nothing 
 less than a perfected humanity. The purpose of all Christian 
 life, from the inspired teaching of an apostle to the simple
 
 335 
 
 obedience of a child, is that "we should all come in the 
 unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God unto 
 a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness 
 of Christ." No Christian Church, no Christian man, dare 
 set up a lower or narrower end than this. Oh, faithless that 
 we arc, how often we have done this — taken a flower when 
 God had given us a world! We have sought to save our- 
 selves though others perished; or to save their souls, leaving 
 mind and body to brute and devil. Or we have sought 
 for heaven, willing to leave earth a hell ; to make pure the 
 Church, while society fell down to Mammon and Belial, to 
 lust and gold! Surely a better day has come. Surely in 
 the writings of those who lead the thought of the Church 
 and the world, in the new aspirations that are moving the 
 hearts of men, in the shamed silence which has fallen on the 
 noblest in all the Churches at our pitiful divisions and 
 quarrels, we may see the Spirit of Christ calling us to the 
 true purpose and end of Christianity. And, brethren, in the 
 circumstances in which we meet to-day, as a congregation 
 and a presbytery (for I do not disguise that I have had 
 these in view all along, as, indeed, I conceived it my duty to 
 have), in the new tie that is being formed to-day between 
 you and your minister, in the new fellow-worker who is 
 associated with us to-day, there is surely not one of us so 
 unsympathetic as not to be touched with earnest and solemn 
 thought. Surely this is a time, if any, when it is impossible 
 not to ask ourselves the meaning and purpose alike of the 
 Christian Church and Christian ministry. I ask your for- 
 giveness, I ask the forgiveness of my brethren, if in anything 
 I have spoken with the ignorance or presumption of youth. 
 But I feel I should have been untrue to the office given me 
 here to-day did I not try to place before you that ideal 
 which God has given to be the constant and guiding aspira- 
 tion of congregations and ministers. I have somewhere 
 read of an artist who kept ever before him in his studio one 
 of the great pictures of a departed teacher; and I have read 
 of at least one great author who, in the intervals of study 
 and writing, would take from his shelves his favourite
 
 336 
 
 volume, saying, " Give me the master." Before each of us at 
 our life's labour, may this divine picture constantly shine. 
 In our intervals of work, when we rest either from gladness 
 or sorrow, may this great promise of the Book of God cheer 
 our heart with the hope of a "new heaven and a new earth, 
 wherein dwcllcth righteousness "
 
 337 
 
 XXV. 
 
 THE NECESSITY OF A MISSIONARY SPIRIT 
 IN EVERY CHRISTIAN. 
 
 "i was an hungered, and ye gave me no meat: i was thirsty, 
 and ye gave me no drink: i was a stranger, and ye took 
 Me not in: Naked and ye clothed Me not: Sick, and in 
 
 PRISON, AND YE VISITED Me NOT." — Matt. XXV. 4243. 
 
 THE meaning of these words of Christ is sufficiently clear. 
 They tell us what kind of spirit we must possess, what sorts 
 of actions we must have performed, if we are not to find 
 ourselves shut out in the future life from the blessedness 
 of the saints of God. It is clear from this parable (and even 
 our own experience of life, is, of itself, sufficient to show us 
 this) that a man may make a zealous outward profession 
 of Christianity without being penetrated with its real 
 spirit, that one may even be placed in high office in the 
 Church, and be accepted among his fellows as its represen- 
 tative and exponent, of whom it is yet true that he has so 
 little of the spirit of its Divine Founder and Master that 
 Christ has never known him. And it is not too much to 
 say that it is the clear and explicit teaching of the parable 
 that every one is in this case — or, at least, has perilously 
 approached to it — in whose bosom the spirit of pity does 
 not dwell; who has not, in some measure at least, 
 
 •• A heart at leisure from itself 
 To soothe and sympathize;" 
 
 who has not, to some extent, made an endeavour to lighten 
 the load of human suffering. It is not, however, the teaching 
 of this parable, and it is certainly not the teaching of Scripture 
 generally, that all that is required in order to being religious 
 is a certain degree of sympathy with misfortune, that the 
 one sufficient test of a Christian man is the absence i 
 callous indifference to the sufferings of others. If it were 
 
 v
 
 338 
 
 so, I need hardly say, very few would fail to meet with 
 entire acquittal in the judgment, for there are few so hard- 
 ened as not to be ready to sympathize with evident pain. 
 This ready surface good-nature is present in almost all men, 
 it may even come from a selfish anticipation of our own lot, 
 and it is certainly quite compatible not only with entire 
 absence of anything specially religious in the character, but 
 it may even be found in men of notoriously wicked and 
 immoral life. 
 
 The text on which Christ lays so much stress is not this 
 easy, passing emotion, which costs us nothing, it is that of 
 active and persistent beneficence. It is not feeling a thrill 
 of unavoidable sympathy with the first apparent sufferer we 
 meet on the highway, and who, after all, may be an impostor; 
 it is not shedding idle tears over a thrilling newspaper story 
 of calamity which we have no call to share; it is that spirit 
 of practical self-denial which seeks to relieve the sorrow of 
 those who meet us in the path of daily duty; it is the cheerful 
 surrender of some part of our time, or money, or inclination, 
 to make the lives of others less dreary; and all this, not as 
 a matter of fitful emotion, but as a deep and regular prin- 
 ciple in our life. In short, brethren, unless the doing of 
 good, the work of active kindness, the habit of befriending 
 and assisting others less fortunate than ourselves, be wrought 
 into the texture of our lives, be what we regularly give up 
 some of our activity to, we are not, according to this parable, 
 entitled to hold ourselves Christian in any real sense at all. 
 We cannot try ourselves too closely and jealously by this 
 test, if we only bear two tilings in mind by way of caution, 
 so as not to make a wrong use of it. 
 
 First, remember you cannot force yourself into the habit 
 of doing kindness by the wish and endeavour to make 
 up, as it were, a sufficient quantity of good works. This 
 is the old legal spirit of sclf-rightcousncss condemned by 
 St. Paul, and requiring again to be burst asunder as an 
 intolerable yoke at the Reformation. The goodness so 
 produced, brethren, would never be real, it would be 
 half-hearted and affected, always glancing aside from the
 
 339 
 
 kindness it was doing to the reward it was earning; and 
 so neither making humble one's own spirit, nor bringing 
 a really helpful sympathy to the spirit of others. All 
 Christian doing of good — all really helpful beneficence — 
 must be, to a certain extent, un-self-conscious; it must 
 spring, that is, from some deep and genuine feeling in 
 the heart, prompting us irresistibly to charity and help. 
 In one word, our beneficence must be the outcome of 
 Christian faith and love and hope — the feeling of St. Paul, 
 " the love of Christ constraineth us," must be in some 
 measure our prompting motive. 
 
 And, in the second place, we must not tic ourselves to 
 hard and fast rules as to the form in which our Christian 
 philanthropy is to work. If we seek to confine ourselves 
 to a literal application of the words of Christ, we shall 
 probably utterly lose their spirit. Directly and literally, 
 simply to feed the hungry would, to many people, only 
 mean to give help to the unworthy, and to try to do ill 
 what the Poor Law can do much better; to give drink to 
 the thirst}- is, in our climate, hardly a necessity at all; to 
 clothe the naked is, again, a matter better overtaken by 
 Parochial and other societies; while to visit the imprisoned 
 is, to all but a very few, inadvisable. Are we then to 
 conclude there is no law of charity binding upon us ? does 
 this test wholly fail ? and having done nothing, may we 
 triumphantly claim its approval on the plea that the work 
 enjoined was already, all of it, being attended to ? Certainly 
 not. In this, and in other places in Scripture, it is not a 
 narrow literal fulfilment which is to be sought, but the 
 acceptance of the spirit of the command ; and if we have a 
 willing anxiety to obey, it is astonishing how close we may 
 come to fulfilling it even in the letter. If, instead of the 
 special cases stated by Christ, we put the general principle 
 underlying these words, you will sec how the possibility 
 and necessity of this test devolves at once on every one ; 
 no one anywhere can be without the means of accomplish- 
 ing something. Sympathy and help in suffering, active 
 kindness to others, self-denial that another's pain may be
 
 340 
 
 lessened, readiness to see privation, and sorrow, and 
 willingness to feel with it and relieve it — does not this sum 
 up the law of Christian charity in all ages, and are not the 
 opportunities for manifesting it simply infinite? He who 
 feels for a child's sorrow over a broken toy, and seeks to 
 rouse the little one to mirth — he who pities the solitude of 
 an old woman in her lonely garret, and tries to cheer it- 
 he who at home checks the passionate and hasty word, 
 though his temper be sorely tried, because it would wound 
 another's feelings — these are all fulfilling the law of Christian 
 goodness not less, though it may be in a lesser degree, than 
 those who found an hospital or give a dinner to the poor. 
 
 The great and essential point, brethren, is that we be in 
 possession of a truly Christian temper and heart, and that 
 we try to exercise these habitually — make them give colour 
 and shape to our daily life. And, believe me, there is not 
 an hour almost in which we will not find opportunity for 
 using them, not a day in which we may not be living out 
 that manner of life on which alone Christ here stamps His 
 approval. And I cannot urge upon you too strongly to 
 begin at home with this divinest charity. Let it come 
 constantly into your daily work, however humble and even 
 coarse that may be. Let this spirit sweeten your tempers 
 and refine your manners to true gentleness; let it make you 
 quick to sec the wants and sorrows of others, and ready to 
 give them a ready and helpful sympathy; let it create and 
 deepen in you a true self-denial, so that you will more and 
 more come to think how your conduct and life arc affecting 
 others, and not only, or chiefly, how they gratify yourself; 
 and then, brethren, you will not need to fear this searching 
 test of Christ. In communion with 1 Iim, in dependence on 
 His Spirit, you will be able to follow, though at a long 
 distance, His own holy and beneficent life, till at last you 
 receive I li . approval, " Inasmuch as ye did it to one of the 
 least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me." 
 
 And now, brethren, 1 turn aside from the general enforce- 
 m < nt of my text to one particular application of it — I make 
 what doubtless some of you think- should be the c\u\ of my
 
 34] 
 
 sermon the occasion of a new beginning ; and yet I feci I 
 am in strictest conformity with my text when I proceed, as 
 I now do, to urge on you the necessity of a missionary spirit 
 
 in i very Christian. At first sight my text may appear to 
 have nothing to do with tin's — or even, perhaps, you may 
 think it actually opposed to it. Does not, you may say, the 
 text urge on us practical help to those who are near to us, 
 and with whom we personally come in contact? and how 
 can I then speak of help to those whom we never saw, and 
 who are thousands of miles away? Does not the text speak 
 of relieving actual physical and social suffering in our midst, 
 not of sending theoretical enlightenment to distant regions? 
 It is just because of this apparent contradiction I have 
 selected my text ; it is just because I hope to show you 
 how utterly false is this common opposition of Home 
 Evangelization and Foreign Missions — of active Christian 
 kindliness at home, and an interest in the heathen abroad 
 — that I speak on the subject to-day. 
 
 Brethren, there is not only no opposition between doing 
 good here at home and sending the gospel abroad, but they 
 are one and the same thing, and I have ventured to call 
 them by one name, namely — the possession of a missionary 
 spirit. We require for practical church purposes to separate 
 our Home and Foreign Missions, but not only is the spirit 
 which works in them one, but the work itself is really the 
 same. Suppose you have a friend who lives in your own 
 house with you, and another, equally dear, who lives 
 thousands of miles away across the Atlantic — is it not the 
 one love you feel to them ? If you arc hard to the one, will 
 you not probably be hard to both? If both arc dependent 
 on your charity for aid, on your kindliness for making life 
 sweet to them, will you not exhibit the one character to 
 both, and cither fail or be faithful equally as that inclines? 
 Or will not a man who acknowl the great law of 
 
 Christian kindness and self-denial, equally exhibit it at 
 home and when travelling a thousand miles away? He 
 does not become another man or act in a different way 
 because he is in a different place— the law of doing good is
 
 342 
 
 not bound by geographical limits. I grant at once, brethren, 
 a man's chief and special duties lie very near him. Those 
 whom you meet habitually, and who are almost never from 
 your company, and to whom you are bound by closest ties 
 — these have the greatest claim upon you because your 
 debt of duty to them is the largest. Your goodness and 
 religion must be shown chiefly at home, because it is at 
 home you chiefly are. If you are not religious at home, 
 you certainly cannot be religious elsewhere — a home 
 heathen is only a street saint outwardly or by pretence. 
 But is religion never to go beyond home ? Are we never 
 to do good except to the narrowest circle in which we live? 
 Surely not ! I believe it must begin there, but it should 
 not end there — nay, the words of the Parable assure us it 
 must not end there. Christian kindness cannot end at home, 
 if it be there at all. A missionary spirit, brethren, means 
 just exactly what is described in the text — that is, a dis- 
 position to go out in friendly sympathy and help to those 
 whose lot is very hard ; and I am confident there is no one 
 in such circumstances as to make it absolutely impossible for 
 his thoughts, at least, to travel out beyond the sphere of 
 home. 
 
 Now, of that great suffering world which lies outside of 
 us, and makes an appeal to our help and sympathy by its 
 very existence, I speak to-day of that which is not only by 
 far the largest part, but which has also, in some respects, 
 the most pressing claims upon us. Do not think for a 
 moment I wish to dry up any spring of charity here at 
 home, but I am stating a plain fact when I say that, as a 
 country, we are immensely rich, and there is enough charity 
 already existent, if it were well distributed, to meet and 
 supply every case of deserving want, while the very law 
 provides that no one shall be denied food or shelter or 
 medicine who cares to ask it. 
 
 Let me remind you, in conclusion, brethren, that all around 
 the comfortable homes of our country, all around this peace- 
 ful society of ours, in which, if it were well arranged and 
 distributed, there is abundance for every one, there is a
 
 343 
 
 dark world — counting its hundreds of millions, and these are 
 our fellow-creatures, nay, the brethren of our very Lord — 
 which is in literal hunger and sickness very often, and 
 altogether in that most dreadful darkness and hunger of 
 soul which must be where there is not the smallest glimpse 
 of the hope and peace of Christ. 
 
 O ! brethren, what if the sentence be already gone forth 
 from the judgment seat of the Most High against our 
 country and our Church ? What if Christ already have said, 
 '• I gave you all the heart could desire. I set you in safety 
 and freedom in the inviolate sea. I bestowed on you the 
 largest empire and dominion ever given to man. I endowed 
 you with ample wealth, your commerce covered every sea. 
 Above all, I gave you a pure religion; I taught you its 
 supreme value, for all your national power and glory was 
 rooted in it. And yet, when those who belonged even to 
 your own empire, and furnished your own wealth, when the 
 heathen millions besought you from their darkness and 
 hopelessness to send them the blessings of your light and 
 peace, you turned but a deaf ear. You stinted no luxury 
 even to save those who were dying of the worst hunger. 
 You built splendid temples to Me, you sung My praises, 
 though in Mine ears they rung like blasphemy, for these 
 you left to perish, and yet they were not only Mine, they 
 were Myself — for I live over again in every child of misery; 
 and ' inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these 
 My brethren, ye did it not to Me! Yes, ' I was an hungered, 
 and ye gave Me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave Me 
 no drink: I was a stranger, and ye took Me not in: naked, 
 and ye clothed Me not; sick, and in prison, and ye visited 
 Me not.' I was hungering for the Bread of Life — you never 
 gave it: T was thirsting for Salvation — you never sent it; 
 I was a stranger — ye took Me not into the fold and home 
 of the Church; I was sick of a thousand diseases in body 
 and soul, I was in the dark prison of heathen despair — and 
 ye never visited Me !" 
 
 Brethren, have I said too much? No! I appeal to facts 
 to justify me. It is less than a hundred years since the
 
 344 
 
 first missionary society was formed in England. It is within 
 the present century that the first missionary to the heathen 
 left Scotland. We were heathen once ourselves — ay, not 
 so very long ago. Little more than a thousand years ago, 
 we were almost as hopeless savages as any for whom I now 
 plead. We were indebted then to strangers for our Christian- 
 ity. And even now, when the public conscience has been 
 quickened ; even now, when some of the saintliest and most 
 Christ-like souls have toiled so earnestly, as if they had to 
 atone singly for our criminal ease; even now, when we have 
 had such glorious names as those of Livingstone and Duff 
 to encourage and shame us into zeal, what have we done? 
 Last year, the members of our own Church, on one class of 
 luxury alone, spent over ten millions of pounds, while they 
 gave little over twenty thousands to missions. Brethren, do 
 not think I care to be pleading for money. It is a wretched 
 thing to be talking of it continually in the Church of God, and 
 nothing can be more degrading than to have to measure a 
 Church's piety by her pence. One of the greatest mission- 
 aries the world ever saw, said, "silver and gold have I none;" 
 the one offering marked by open divine approval was less 
 than a farthing. It is not our money God wants, but our 
 hearts ; it is not for a missionary collection I plead, but for a 
 missionary spirit. Let there be devotion to Christ, and love 
 to man, and the world will be converted; without this, the 
 most splendid offerings are worse than vain. But there must 
 be some outward evidence. Love that never gives is no love. 
 The spirit that shows no outward token of life is already 
 dead. What measure of life and love is it in the church of 
 Scotland, think you, when each member gives less than half 
 ;i farthing per Sunday to save the heathen. I do not ask 
 for money only, no, nor even chiefly ; not at all. If you give 
 because you arc compelled to give, because you feel shamed 
 into it, because you wish to save the credit of your Church, 
 then better a thousand times keep it, it would be false coin 
 in the treasury of God. What I plead for to-day, what I 
 feel deeply I should be utterly faithless to my solemn office 
 if I failed to say, what I am constrained to utter if I am to
 
 345 
 
 speak the truth of God, is just this — it is the inescapable 
 lesson of my text — there must be a missionary spirit in the 
 soul or there is no Christian life. Live for others — live 
 especially for the poor and the distressed — go forth in your 
 sympathy and help to all in darkness and sorrow; and, if so, 
 you cannot fail to remember the heathen world. You will 
 give to them your prayers, and what Christian requires to be 
 told that is the most precious offering of all? If we were 
 all a praying church, the walls of heathendom would fall as 
 quickly and certainly as those of Jericho before the shouting 
 Israelites. And then you will give your money cheerfully; 
 nay, you will learn the only noble way of giving, you will 
 deny yourself that you may give. Oh, what a small sacrifice 
 it would need to make even the poorest member of our 
 church give a shilling a year for foreign missions! for 
 winning the heathen to Christ! and yet that small sacrifice 
 would, as our report tells you, more than double our 
 mission income! No offering is worth anything that costs us 
 nothing. To give out of our superfluity is no religious service. 
 Ah, if we were all only to deny ourselves a little for Christ's 
 sake, how easily might our mission funds be twentyfold 
 increased. Oh, if we could but realize what only one heathen 
 life means — the darkness, the despair, the brutality.the hope- 
 less sorrow, the degradation of soul, that may be crowded 
 into even a single existence — and then see, as we might well 
 do, the Spirit of Christ pointing to that one, and saying, 
 "There stands not merely My brother, but Myself;" "inas- 
 much ye do it not to one of the least of these My brethren, 
 ye do it not to Me." And then, let that scene be repeated, 
 not by millions, but as it really is, by hundreds of millions 
 of heathen lives, and which of us can be deaf to the loud 
 cry rung in our ears, "Give, oh give us 
 
 •• The Gospel's glorious hope. 
 Its robe of purity, its eye of prayer, 
 Its feet of firmness on temptation's st< 
 Its bark that sinks not 'mid the storm of Death ! '
 
 346 
 
 XXVI. 
 THE CLOUD OF WITNESSES. 
 
 A sermon for All Saints' Day. 
 
 "We also are compassed about with so great a cloud ok witnesses." 
 
 — Hcb. xii. i. 
 
 ALMOST every one is agreed as to the thought which 
 prompted these words. It was the special mission and aim 
 of the inspired writer of this epistle to strengthen his fellow- 
 countrymen and fellow-believers in their Christianity. They 
 were exposed to many dangers. On the one hand, they 
 were beset by those who sought to lead them back into their 
 former Judaism, which must still have had a power over 
 them of old association ; and, on the other hand, they were 
 being already persecuted for their new faith, and might yet 
 have to meet the extremity of death if they did not aban- 
 don it. Situated thus between two fires — the old faith 
 seeking to win them back by presenting all that was fair 
 and attractive in it, and the new drawing down on those 
 who embraced it the scorn and violence of the powerful — 
 well might these poor Hebrews feel the need of some 
 strengthening and encouraging voice. And such was the 
 splendid trumpet-blast which God through His servant sent 
 them in this epistle. Beginning with an assertion of the 
 transcendent excellence of that Christ whom their new faith 
 taught them to believe in, it showed how all that was best 
 in their old faith had been not only realized in Him, but had 
 been raised and ennobled ; the old had not been lost, but 
 taken up and glorified in the new. That Jesus, who was all 
 to them, was Himself the substance of which the law had 
 only been the shadow. And they were not to be frightened 
 and driven back' from this glorious religion by trials, for Jesus,
 
 347 
 
 their Captain and Leader, had Himself suffered sorely, even 
 to death. Though the whole world seemed arrayed against 
 them, they must hold fast their good profession. They, as 
 Hebrews, least of all should faint because they could not 
 show they were right, because their vindication and success 
 lay in the far-off and unseen future. For that history of 
 which, as Jews, they were so proud— the great and noble 
 deeds of the Old Testament— were not all these done by 
 men who, like themselves, were only strong in faith ; who 
 were divided by others; who were alone, but for God; who 
 had to seal their testimony always by suffering, oftentimes 
 by death ? Then follows that memorable catalogue of the 
 worthies of the Old Testament— that stirring eleventh 
 chapter so well called the muster-roll of the heroes of faith. 
 Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Joseph, Moses, one after 
 another the noble endurance of their lives is told. 
 
 As one deeply versed in the Scriptures, and speaking to 
 those who knew and loved them well, he catches fire as he 
 goes on, and name after name, memory after memory, rises 
 before him. They crowd so thick and fast upon him that 
 he can no longer mention them — the heroes of whom they 
 might have heard their fathers speak, who met the sword 
 and flame and horrible torture and never flinched. Then, 
 as he speaks, he seems to think of that illustrious host as 
 like the great crowd of spectators that filled some of these 
 vast Roman amphitheatres, gazing down on the combatants 
 below. And as he thinks on the past life of the Church of 
 God, and the mighty host who had been faithful through 
 suffering and persecution, he calls out in an exultant and 
 encouraging outburst to his threatened and somewhat terri- 
 fied fellow-believers to take courage and hope from that 
 great throng that beheld them. " See you not," he seems 
 to say, how "we are compassed about with so great a cloud 
 of witnesses!" 
 
 Let me try to present to your thought to-day, brethren, 
 the place and value this great truth has tor the Christian 
 soul— that we, each one, arc compassed by the great cloud 
 of God's witnesses.
 
 348 
 
 First, look at the new importance it should give to the 
 life of the very humblest. Some of those to whom the 
 Apostle wrote were actually slaves — their market value 
 would probably have been less than a horse in the Roman 
 capital ; a piece of china sometimes sold for a price that 
 would have bought hundreds of these human cattle. And 
 yet, over a life so infinitely worthless and despised — over 
 this piece of mere live furniture, whose very name his unre- 
 garding master and owner did not know — this great evan- 
 gelist seems to see, hanging in a living crowd, watching in 
 breathless eagerness, the glorious host of the unnumbered 
 saints of God ! As in those games for which some splendid 
 amphitheatre, often accommodating many thousands, stood 
 in almost every ancient city, the combatant, as he looked up 
 from the arena below, saw the great sea of human faces 
 above him all around, forming in the distance over him, as 
 it were, a vast cloud, so the meanest Christian slave and 
 outcast, as he might be, was in reality surrounded, as by 
 some bright luminous cloud, with the numerous host of 
 those who, having fought the battles of God, had reached 
 the place of victory — the very least of them " was compassed 
 about with so great a cloud of witnesses." 
 
 Let us apply this same truth to ourselves. Lower than 
 those Hebrew Christians, many of them were, none of us 
 can be. Most of us have at least a higher station and 
 greater influence than they — and we, like them, are com- 
 passed by the cloud of God's witnesses. What raised and 
 ennobled their life should then be effective in us too. For, 
 brethren, they were important, these congregations of slaves, 
 though counted the mere off-scourings and refuse of society. 
 1 1 ere, as everywhere, the world's estimate was utterly wrong, 
 the view of faith was right. We look back across those 
 nineteen centuries, and who of that far-off time is it that we 
 remember and admire? Not those whom the men of those 
 ages esteemed great and powerful. We read the history of 
 the Roman emperors, but it is with scorn and loathing. 
 Even their great writers, their famed philosophers, we in 
 man\' points rightly disparage and condemn. Hut we turn
 
 349 
 
 with sincerest love and gratitude, we offer our noblest 
 admiration and thanks, to that scanty yet noble band, 
 almost all nameless and unknown save to God, who, by 
 their pure lives, by their constancy, unmoved even in torture 
 and death, by their self-sacrifice and Christian faith, really 
 turned the course of the world's history and became, under 
 God, the instruments of that civilization and peace and 
 goodness we now enjoy. Had they failed, had even one of 
 them turned aside (for what one did might not others also 
 do) the fortunes of Christianity, and with it of humanity, 
 might have been lost, and the very salvation of the world 
 might, as far as human instrumentality goes, have been 
 altogether missed. Can we wonder, therefore — is it not 
 rather most natural and true — that the Apostle should re- 
 present all God's departed saints, who themselves had 
 laboured and suffered for the world's salvation, as bending 
 in eager and rapt attention and interest over the battlefield, 
 where these early Christians were striving for Christ and 
 man ? And it is so with us. What these ages were to our- 
 selves, we arc to those that follow. Over us, too, broods the 
 white cloud of God's redeemed, spectators of our life's battle. 
 Xot one of us is unregarded, not one of us is esteemed as 
 too unimportant to be the object of utmost solicitude; and 
 we cannot tell how much may depend on the life's per- 
 formance of the very humblest and least gifted. 
 
 In our last war with China it so happened that an English 
 soldier fell into the hands of the enemy. He was com- 
 manded to prostrate himself before their authorities, but 
 though he was only a poor private, and though some Indian 
 soldiers taken along with him at once obeyed, he felt he 
 would be dishonouring his country and his flag and nobly 
 refused. The threat of death failed to move him ; the 
 dream of home and friends could not shake his proud and 
 patriotic resolve — 
 
 •■ \'o, honour calls ! with strength like steel 
 1 [e put die vision by, 
 
 dusky Indians whine and kn 
 An English lad must die.
 
 350 
 
 And thus, with eyes that would not shrink, — 
 
 With knee to man unbent, 
 Unfaltering on its dreadful brink, 
 
 To his red grave he went." 
 
 Now here we see a man of no importance, as it were, a mere 
 common soldier, one out of thousands, suddenly called upon, 
 and almost without warning elevated into a place of highest 
 moment. His country's honour depends on him, the eyes 
 of the civilized world are really upon him, and it was no 
 poetic exaggeration when it was sung of him by a great 
 English writer — 
 
 " To let his name through Europe ring, 
 A man of mean estate ; 
 Who died as firm as Sparta's king, 
 Because his soul was great." 
 
 And in the great army of Christ, brethren, it often happens 
 likewise. It was the story — the true story, I believe, — of a 
 poor Christian slave's life in America that more surely over- 
 threw the abomination of negro slavery there than the 
 mighty hosts of the Federal arm)-. It was the Christian 
 prayer and resolve of a poor Northampton shoemaker that 
 set agoing our modern Christian missions, which now cm- 
 brace an army of five thousand missionaries and over a 
 million of converts, and are slowly but surely changing the 
 entire fortunes of the world. A child's voice converted the 
 great Saint Augustine, perhaps the ablest and most devoted 
 man since the clays of the Apostles, and a writer whose 
 influence is still powerful fifteen hundred years after he has 
 gone. I cannot tell what influence for untold ages may be 
 slumbering in the soul even of the very humblest and weak- 
 est here ; but one thing I do know, that God can use, and 
 often docs use, the most apparently feeble instruments to 
 do a mighty work, and that in I lis eyes there is no one who 
 is of no use, nay, that so momentous are the issues that 
 hang on the Christian life of every baptized child of God, 
 reat and solemn arc its responsibilities and power for 
 good or evil, for aiding or hindering the work of Christ,
 
 351 
 
 that the very departed saints are hanging over it as a 
 mighty crowd of watchers. " We, every one of us, are com- 
 passed about with so great a cloud of witnesses !" 
 
 2. Hut, brethren, if there is a solemn and almost warning 
 lesson for us in the importance which our text assigns to the 
 life of each one here — if the message it brings us is that it 
 is an awful thing to throw away, as a careless trifle, a life 
 whose issues is so grandly watched — there is also a lesson 
 of highest encouragement and noblest hope in the thought 
 that " we are compassed about with so great a cloud of 
 witnesses." I cannot tell in what precise sense we may 
 understand these words. I see nothing to forbid the thought 
 that the vast host of God's saints may be altogether cog- 
 nisant of what goes on in the earthly struggle where they 
 fought so well. F cannot reject the saying of our noblest 
 poet, 
 
 " Millions of spiritual beings walk the earth unseen, 
 Both when we sleep and when we wake." 
 
 I know, as the surest teaching of our faith, that those whom 
 we call dead are those who are more greatly and truly alive ; 
 and reason as well as religion tells me that an essentially 
 spiritual being is elevated above the limits and restraints of 
 the senses. Unseen but real influences for good are doubt- 
 less flowing from the spiritual watchers of man's struggling 
 life. Heaven may often be very near to earth. The cause 
 or the soul that was dearer than life to one who has now 
 joined the host of the redeemed, it would be impossible to 
 think of as separated from its solicitude and its prayer, 
 simply because the soul which loved it has passed into the 
 better world. I know our prayers should only be addressed 
 to God, and that the Heavenly Father is Himself the 
 Watcher, and Lover, and Saviour of each soul that acknow- 
 ledges itself His child; but surely it should add a further 
 thrill of encouragement and hope to know that the whole 
 family of God who are in heaven regard with intensest 
 solicitude those members of it still on the earth. But there 
 is one sure lesson of encouragement as to which there cannot
 
 352 
 
 be even a shadow of doubt. The witnesses of God of 
 whom the text speaks are witnesses in a double sense. 
 They are not mere spectators, spiritual and unseen, of our 
 life, but they themselves when on earth were witnesses for 
 God. or (for it is the same word) God's martyrs. And in 
 this sense, brethren, what a lesson of encouragement and 
 hope is there for us here! The saints and heroes of God — 
 what a countless and illustrious throng ! It recalls the 
 scene in the apocalypse, when St. John gazes on a vast host 
 of white gleaming spirits— this very same cloud that com- 
 passes us — and to the question, " What are these which are 
 arrayed in white robes? and whence came they ?" the answer 
 comes, " These are they which came out of great tribula- 
 tion, and have washed their robes, and made them white 
 in the blood of the Lamb; and they are " a great multitude 
 which no man can number, of all nations, and kindreds, and 
 peoples, and tongues." Oh, when we think on the countless 
 o-ood and noble men and women, those whom the Bible 
 te lls of— those whom history delights to record— those 
 whose biographies we ourselves have read — those whom in 
 actual life we have been privileged to know and love — what 
 a summons comes to us from those innumerable saintly and 
 true lives — what a scathing rebuke they offer to our false 
 and weak, our discontented and selfish, existence. 
 
 Oh, brethren, put it from you as the worst and vilest lie 
 of the devil, which whispers sometimes in your heart — 
 
 "Virtue? to be good and just? 
 Every heart, when lifted well, 
 Is a clot of warmer dust, 
 
 Mixed with cunning sparks of I Iell ! " 
 
 Believe it not, unless you would make yourself one with 
 those who committed the unpardonable sin and blasphemed 
 the 1 toly Christ Himself by sneering, "He casts out devils 
 only by Beelzebub!" Rather on this, the first Sunday after 
 that day which, in a great part of Christendom, is specially 
 a iociated with the memory of the saintly departed, should
 
 353 
 
 we take up the language of a living poet who has earned a 
 just title as an acute reader of human character — 
 
 " One feast, of holy days the crest, 
 
 I, though no churchman, love to keep. 
 . /// saints — the unknown good that rest 
 
 In God's still memory folded dee]) : 
 The bravely dumb that did their deed, 
 
 And scorned to blot it with a name ; 
 Men of the plain heroic creed 
 
 Who loved Heaven's silence more than fame. 
 
 " Such lived not in the past alone, 
 
 But thread to-day the unheeding street, 
 And stairs to sin and famine known, 
 
 Sing with the welcome of their feet : 
 The den they enter grows a shrine, 
 
 The grimy sash an oriel burns, 
 Their cup of water warms like wine, 
 
 Their speech is filled from heavenly urns."' 
 
 Of this be sure, that the multitude of these is all but infinite 
 — each station, each calling, nay, each family almost, has 
 had some saintly and beautified life, some one who, with 
 almost no accomplishments, perhaps possessed of no 
 resources of money or power, condemned it may be to 
 almost entire usclcssness by some cruel illness, or carrying 
 within the heart some secret and crushing sorrow, has yet 
 lived here as a very angel of God and ministering spirit of 
 goodness, and when it has gone away from the sight has 
 been enshrined for ever in the memory, the one sacredest 
 spot in the heart, the thought of which is powerful through 
 long years, not only to touch with a healing sorrow, but to 
 nerve to a hoi}- resolve, many an otherwise careless or sinful 
 life. If there is one lesson the memory of God's saints 
 teaches us, it is the power for goodness that lies in the 
 very poorest life. Less than many of these were in position, 
 in gifts, in opportunities no one here can possibly be ; 
 greater than they became we can hardly even aspire. 
 
 The grandest words oi praise I ever read on any monu-
 
 354 
 
 ment, and they seemed to me the most true and touching, 
 was the inscription in the churchyard of my former parish, 
 over the grave of one I had never otherwise heard of — the 
 words of a son on his mother — " I thank my God upon 
 every remembrance of you !" Nobler words of praise and 
 love I never read, and yet they are such as the very humblest 
 here may earn — a priceless treasure each friend may leave 
 with friend. And I beseech you, brethren, by your own 
 sacred remembrances of the departed— by every noble life 
 that has even once touched yours — by the great cloud of 
 God's witnesses that now encompass you — by the greatness of 
 your own life, which is a spectacle to the world, and to angels, 
 and to men — lay aside every weight and the sin which doth 
 so easily beset you, and, looking unto Jesus, the Author 
 and Finisher of your faith, strive to live an earnest, pure, 
 high-toned, brave, and unselfish Christian life — be a follower 
 of the saints of God who, by their faith and endurance, now 
 inherit the promises — become yourself a partaker of the 
 inheritance of the saints*in light — leave, like them, a memory 
 and an influence that will still be sweet and treasured when 
 all else of your earthly existence shall have mouldered into 
 dust. 
 
 ' ; Oh, though oft depressed and lonely, 
 
 All our fears are laid aside ; 
 If we but remember only, 
 
 Such as these have lived and died ! "
 
 355 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 THE FADING LEAF. 
 
 "We all do fade as a leaf." — Isaiah Ixiv. 6. 
 
 EVERYONE is familiar with the words of our great dramatist 
 in which he makes the exiled Duke boast that he can find — 
 
 " Tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, 
 Sermons in stones ; " 
 
 and at this season surely even the thoughtless must feel 
 that they need enter no church, nor listen to any preacher's 
 voice, when along every highway they tread the voice of 
 every wind that blows seems to speak of the mutability of 
 all human things, and to re-echo the old words of the 
 prophet — " We all do fade as a leaf." 
 
 It is by a natural law of our being that we find something 
 human in everything around us. Man has not merely sub- 
 dued the earth, and made himself lord and master of it in a 
 material sense; he has dominated it in its spiritual aspect, 
 and turned all its sights and shows to spiritual uses, infused 
 into them a portion of his own soul, and made us feel it 
 impossible to look on any part of the Universe as mere 
 dead matter, but rather as something able to move and 
 touch us with something of human and spiritual fellow- 
 feeling. 
 
 Who of us, for example, can look on the sea and perceive 
 no more than a mere mass of fluid matter ? It is impossible 
 even to the dullest ! When we think of its storms and 
 calms; how it now glasses itself in the sunshine, and again 
 dark-ens into the fury of the gale; when we think how far 
 it extends, and how long it has rolled ; when we recall the 
 ceaseless moan of its ebb and flow, alike on the coast alive
 
 356 
 
 with traffic, and on the desert strand where only the sea- 
 bird mocks it, it is impossible for us to think of it except as 
 full of human suggestiveness — we even speak of it, both in 
 poetry and common language, as alive, calling it she, not it, 
 and recognise the beautiful truth of the words — 
 
 " Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow, 
 Such as Creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now." 
 
 Who of us dares to think of the sky as mere ether ; of 
 the stars simply as burning matter ; of the hills as mere 
 heaps of rock and earth ? In spite of all that Science can 
 tell, these things still remain to us great with a certain 
 spiritual power; and not merely in poetry, but even in 
 common life, they move and touch with almost human 
 tenderness. It may be only a poet who is able to say 
 
 " The meanest flower that blows can give 
 Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears," 
 
 but in times of quiet thought we all have felt how the 
 common things of earth can touch the deepest chords of 
 memory or hope, and stir us to a happy gladness, or hardly 
 less pleasing melancholy. 
 
 So, too, in spite of all the disenchantment of Science and 
 the deadening force of custom, how does the recurrence of 
 the seasons still touch and fill the heart ! Spring, Summer, 
 Autumn, Winter — these are not merely different conditions 
 of the physical earth prompting different occupations for 
 man, they will ever have a certain spiritual suggestiveness. 
 
 How strangely persistent in all human language, how 
 deeply fixed in the human heart, is the thought which 
 identifies the four seasons with the four ages of man. Look 
 how, even in ordinal")- language, we have transferred the 
 epithets from the one to the other. We speak of "smiling 
 spring" and "budding childhood." We talk of "lusty 
 summer" and "flowering youth." We speak' of "sober 
 autumn" and "ripe manhood." We talk of "pale winter" 
 and "hoary age." And so it can never be unfitting or 
 improper in the Christian preacher to avail himself of this
 
 357 
 
 correspondence between the outward world and man, and 
 to follow the example of the Bible itself in making the 
 course of the year preach a sermon to the human soul. 
 
 What lessons, then, arc there for us, my brethren, in the 
 season which we so fitly denominate " the failing of the 
 leaf?" What is the force and meaning to us of the 
 prophet's words — " We all. do fade as a leaf?" 
 
 First then, the text and the season alike impress on us 
 the sense of failure and sin. It is in this sense that the 
 words are first used by the prophet. He is overwhelmed, 
 despondent, almost in despair, at the thought of their sin- 
 fulness as a nation — ' : But we are all an unclean thing, and 
 all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags, and we all do fade 
 as a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us 
 away." When he thinks on the possibilities that lay before 
 them, the grandeur of the destiny that called them, the high 
 aspirations that were kindled, the lofty resolves for good- 
 ness that burned, and then thinks on the poor performance — 
 how the very good deeds they had done were so poor in 
 comparison with their high resolves, that they were as 
 unsightly rags compared to a seamless robe — then it seems 
 as if all their holy aspirations and bright hopes had faded 
 like the fading of a leaf: and as the wind drives the dead 
 leaves before it, so had their iniquities scattered their pur- 
 poses of goodness away. 
 
 And what comparison, my brethren, could be more apt ? 
 Look at a leaf in spring — how beautiful and fresh it is in its 
 early green, as it unfolds from its protecting sheath, and 
 how resolutely it clings to the tree which it adorns, how- 
 ever roughly the winds may blow ; and then look at the 
 same thing in autumn — a withered, lifeless thing, all its 
 beaut}' gone, driven before the wind, and falling helplessly 
 on the roadway, where the careless foot of the first traveller 
 will obliterate it in the mire. Is not this a symbol to us 
 of our own failure and sin ? We start in life full of high 
 hopes and aims. We will keep ourselves unspotted from 
 the world; we will know nothing of its meannesses, its 
 lying, its selfishnessj its impurities, its criminal pleasures.
 
 358 
 
 Life will be to us a noble battle-field, and we will quit our- 
 selves as knights, without fear and without reproach. But 
 how soon does this light of youthful innocence and holy 
 resolve fade away ! We sink down to the world's low level 
 — if we do not fall lower still — and the bright vision of our 
 early years passes into the common light of commonplace 
 day. 
 
 So, too, when our souls have been stirred to deeper 
 thoughts of Religion. When, overwhelmed by His love and 
 drawn by His goodness, we have taken Christ to be our 
 Master and Guide ; or when for the first time we have par- 
 taken of the Holy Sacrament and, before the eyes of all, 
 have thus taken our place in the Army of the Church ; with 
 what holy thoughts, with what earnest resolves after good- 
 ness, have not our hearts been fired ! And now, when we 
 ask where is the fruit of all this ; have we fought the battle 
 for which we girded on the sword so bravely — have we 
 endured the discipline for which we so ardently longed — 
 have we kept the faith we so deeply vowed ? Alas ! my 
 brethren, is there one of us who can do other than repeat 
 the sad words of the prophet — " We all do fade as a leaf, 
 and our iniquities like the wind have taken us away." 
 
 In the vision of the great Italian poet, Dante, he sees the 
 crowd of perished souls swept on before him, like withered 
 leaves before the autumn winds. And so, too, in the poem 
 of our own great Milton, he sees the evil angels lying 
 
 •' Thick as autumnal leaves that strew the brooks 
 In Yallombrosa." 
 
 And arc not these withered leaves, in their number as well 
 as in their decay, fit types of our own perished hopes and 
 unfulfilled aspirations? Yes, my brethren, if we have any 
 moral susceptibility at all, if we have any love and reverence 
 for goodness, if we have any devotion to Christ, the thought 
 of the past must provoke from all our hearts the confession 
 of the prophet — " We all do fade as a leaf, and our iniquities 
 like the wind have taken us away." 
 
 But, in the second place, the fading leaf of the text and
 
 359 
 
 the season is a symbol to us of the fleeting character of our 
 earthly possessions and circumstances. 
 
 " The glories of our birth and state 
 
 Arc shadows, not substantial things. 
 
 There is no armour against Fate ; 
 Death lays his icy hand on kings. 
 
 Sceptre and crown must tumble down, 
 
 And in the dust be equal made 
 
 With the poor crooked scythe and spade." 
 
 To dwell on the instability of fortune, on the fleeting 
 character of our pleasures and possessions, seems to be 
 uttering such mere commonplaces that we are apt to go 
 to the other extreme and to avoid the mention of these 
 altogether. Yet nothing could be more unwise ; for those 
 truths which are seen and acknowledged by all are just the 
 very truths we arc most apt to forget. Now it is one of the 
 chief lessons of Religion to teach us this, and no preacher i 
 doing his duty if the fear of uttering commonplaces keeps 
 him from reminding his hearers of such an essential fact. 
 We are not, my brethren, truly religious, we have not got 
 the true spirit of Christ, till we learn to " sit loose," as the 
 phrase is, to all the outward goods, possessions, and pleasures 
 of life. Youth and health, wealth and comfort, the civilities 
 and pleasures of life, these we must not despise nor under- 
 value, they are good while they last, and they may be made 
 really valuable if used in a Christian spirit ; but we must 
 learn to look on them as but fleeting and temporal'}' benefits 
 — they may be ours for a longer or shorter time, but they 
 cannot be ours for ever — and they are not the real goods of 
 life. When men arc erecting a building they put up a 
 scaffolding to enable them to get at the walls ; but the 
 scaffolding, I need hardly tell you, exists for the sake of the 
 building and for that alone, and when once the building is 
 finished it is taken down. Now, what would you think of 
 the builder who should be so engrossed with his scaffolding 
 that he should almost forget his building ; who should give 
 (uil>- the poorest material and the least time to his building.
 
 360 
 
 but who should lavish all his wealth and energy upon the 
 scaffold, making it of the choicest materials, and constructing 
 it, as if it, and not the building, were to stand for ever? 
 And yet, my brethren, if my parable has been right, should 
 we not say to each of ourselves — " Thou art the man " ? 
 For we are here each of us at the beginning of an endless 
 existence — and our present life is but the first act, the 
 prelude to the drama of an unending being — and we are 
 writing now simply the first page in a book whose leaves 
 are so numerous as to defy all computation. What we shall 
 carry with us into the next life, what shall defy the shock 
 and change of death — that, and that alone, we should esteem 
 the chief good of life, and the supreme object of desire. 
 Our character, our disposition, our spirit — that innermost 
 thing we call ourselves — that is the building we are all 
 erecting, and it is a building which shall stand for ever ; it 
 is as the house of God, "eternal in the heavens," no accident 
 can touch it, no change can reach it, even the supreme 
 catastrophe of death cannot so much as shake it. The 
 outward goods and possessions of life arc, at best, but the 
 scaffolding, by means of which we raise and lay the stones 
 on our inward character and being. Yet to how many of 
 us is not the scaffolding everything and the building 
 nothing ? Our health, our comfort, our wealth, our business, 
 our pleasures — arc not these everything, or almost every- 
 thing, to us ? We estimate our progress, our success, our 
 advancement in life, by these alone. And yet the building 
 that alone shall stand for ever is not in any, or in all of 
 these; it is in piety, in purity, in kindness, in the conquest 
 of evil habits, and the dominion over wrong desires, in trust 
 and love to God, in love and helpfulness to man. Yes, my 
 brethren, not of the wealthy and comfortable alone, but of 
 all of us, is it true that — 
 
 ■• The world is too much with us; late and soon 
 Getting and spending, we lay waste our powei 
 
 It is not that the world should be nothing to us, but that 
 we make it everything; and so it should be the unceasing
 
 361 
 
 office of the Christian preacher to reiterate the words of the 
 Apostle — " Use the world, but do not abuse it'' (or, as the 
 words should be rendered, "do not use it to the full,"), " for" 
 (and this is surely sufficient reason) "the fashion of this 
 world passeth away." Yes, my brethren, this is the lesson 
 you may read on everything your eyes have ever seen, or 
 your hands have ever touched ; they all re-echo the same 
 song, and its burden ever is — " Passing, passing away." It 
 is the same lesson which the withered leaves of the text and 
 the time have to tell us. A few months ago and in the 
 whole world of Nature what was brighter or fresher than 
 these ? How high they waved over our heads, as things 
 too lofty ever to be trailed and crushed on the soiling earth ! 
 The gentle winds of summer played with them ; the birds 
 built their nests beside them, and over them they sang 
 their songs. And now, stripped from every tree by ruthless 
 winds, they are not only brought low as the ground, but 
 they become a part of the common clay, and already almost 
 every trace of them is gone for ever. 
 
 But if the leaves wither and pass away, so do what we 
 consider the more enduring possessions of life; and money, 
 the often-esteemed supreme good, has by one great living 
 poet been symbolized in the scattered leaves — 
 
 •' A vast speculation had failed, 
 And ever he muttered, and maddened, and ever he wanned with 
 despair, 
 And out he walked when the wind like a broken worldling 
 wailed, 
 And the flying gold of the ruined woodlands drove thro' the air." 
 
 But, my brethren, every outward possession, every pleasure 
 which rests upon outward things, must decay and pass 
 away, for all that is material can only be for a time. In 
 the sight of Him to whom a thousand years are but as a 
 day, nay, in the sight of ourselves, as immortal beings, the 
 proudest and most enduring monument man can rear is 
 fragile and falling us the fading leaf.
 
 362 
 
 " The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces, 
 The solemn temples, the great globe itself, 
 Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve 
 And, like an insubstantial pageant faded, 
 Leave not a rack behind.'' 
 Yes— 
 
 " The stars shall fade away, the sun himself 
 Grow dim with age, and Nature sink in years ; 
 But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth 
 Unhurt amid the war of elements, the wreck of matter, 
 And the crash of worlds." 
 " We all " — in our possessions and outward life — " do fade 
 as a leaf;" it is only in our spiritual nature and attainments 
 that " our leaf fadeth not, and whatsoever we do shall 
 prosper and endure for ever." 
 
 But there is yet another lesson for us in the fading leaf. 
 Not only is it the symbol of our possessions, it is also the 
 symbol of ourselves ; all that is ours fades and perishes, but 
 we also " do all fade as a leaf." 
 
 My brethren, here again, 1 am afraid, I shall incur the 
 charge of uttering a mere commonplace, for what truth is 
 so widely acknowledged, or so patent to all, as that we 
 must all die? And yet it is a truth which none of us almost 
 ever voluntarily recalls, and when it comes on us unbidden, 
 we treat it as an unwelcome guest, whom we must get rid 
 of with all possible quickness. 
 
 At Egyptian feasts they had a custom of presenting a 
 mummy before the guests, that the sight might guard them 
 from excess of pleasure, by reminding them that death, too, 
 awaited them ; and among the Romans, when a general was 
 riding in triumph up to the Capitol, and the procession was 
 winding along, and the crowd were shouting in his honour, 
 a slave stood behind him in his chariot, whispering ever 
 and anon the words, " Remember, thou too art mortal." 
 
 These examples should show us that it is neither a use- 
 less nor an unnecessary task to remind ourselves of our 
 mortality, for as an acute writer has well said — 
 
 •All men think all men mortal but themselves."
 
 363 
 
 Let us then, my brethren, make these withered leaves 
 each Autumn strews around us what the mummy was to 
 the Egyptian guest and the slave to the Roman general. 
 They, too, whisper to us, " Remember, thou too art mortal," 
 and their message to us is, "You all do fade as a leaf." 
 
 Some leaves hang on to the tree on even to the next 
 Spring, and some men live for a long time even after they 
 have reached old age. But it is none the less true that all 
 leaves fade, and all men die. In the very oldest poem in 
 the world we find the same comparison — 
 •' The generations are 
 As of the leaves so also of mankind ; 
 As the leaves fall, now withering in the wind, 
 And others are put forth, and Spring descends, 
 Such on the earth, the race of men wc find ; 
 Each in his order, a set time attends, — 
 One generation rises, and another ends." 
 
 (Homer, translated by Worsley.) 
 
 But, my brethren, there is one point in which the com- 
 parison utterly fails; and, in place of a likeness, we have a 
 contrast. Leaves do not fail and wither in Spring, but even 
 the youngest and strongest may die, — 
 ' : Leaves have their time to fall, 
 And flowers to wither at the north wind's breath, 
 And stars to set, but all, 
 Thou hast rf// seasons for thine own, O Death !" 
 
 The time of our end is unknown, but however long-delayed 
 it may be, it is surely coming. A few years, and all of us 
 will have passed away from this present scene; and it will 
 be as idle to ask for a survivor as to enquire in Summer for 
 the snows of Winter, or the leaves of the former Autumn. 
 This is a rule to which there is no exception — " We all do 
 fade as a leaf." 
 
 My brethren, I have spoken, as I felt it my duty to do, 
 
 and as the text has instructed me, on the failure of our 
 
 resolves, the fleetingness of our possessions, the frailty of 
 
 our lives; but 1 do not wish you to derive from thence the 
 
 m simply that " All is vanity and vexation of spirit."
 
 364 
 
 The Christian preacher has forgotten his office if he ever 
 preaches despair. He is, and ought to be. a preacher of 
 the Gospel; and that word, I need hardly tell you, means 
 " good news," — hope, not despair. Therefore, my brethren, 
 if in the past we are all of us conscious of having failed in 
 goodness, let us resolve to be more earnest in the future; 
 and the greater our failure has been then the greater let our 
 earnestness be. It was nobly said by the great St. Augus- 
 tine (whose own life bore testimony to the truth of his 
 words) " We may make of our past failures and sins a ladder 
 by which to rise to future holiness and goodness." 
 
 And if all our earthly possessions and desires are fading 
 and fleeting, have we not a treasure beyond the reach of 
 Time, which neither moth nor rust corrupteth, and which 
 no thief can ever steal? I have read somewhere that a 
 mother who was jealous for the love of an only child, would 
 give him when from home simply the poorest playthings 
 and pleasures, that he might love all the more the costly 
 and lasting delights of his own home. And God has made 
 all earthly possessions fading and poor, only that His child 
 whom he loves — man, whom he has redeemed — may learn 
 to say, "O my Father, all these things fail to satisfy me; 
 they perish in the using; be Thou my lasting Treasure, the 
 Strength of my heart, and my portion for ever." 
 
 Yes, brethren, even the fading leaf, which I have used as 
 the symbol of decay, is rightly regarded as a type of hope. 
 For it docs not really die; it decays only to the outward 
 sense. Every particle of the leaf lives on, and could we 
 only follow it with our eyes, as we can do with our science, 
 that dead and withered thing which we trample under foot, 
 we shall find again becoming part of a living tree, and sharing 
 in the beauty and joy of Spring. And so it is with hope 
 not despair. We pronounce the words, " We all do fade as 
 a leaf," for, like the leaf, we change, but we cannot die. 
 •• There i i no death ! what seems so is transition. 
 
 This life of mortal breath 
 
 Is but a suburb of the life Klysian. 
 
 Whose portal we 'all I >eath."
 
 365 
 
 Yes, " Thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory 
 through our Lord Jesus Christ." In His name we can dare 
 to use the words of the Christian poet, when we feel the 
 shrivelling wind of Death on our beloved ones or on our- 
 selves — 
 
 " Take them, O Death ! and bear away 
 Whatever thou canst call thine own ! 
 Thine image stamped upon the clay, 
 Doth give thee that, but that alone ! 
 
 " Take them, O Grave ! and let them lie- 
 Folded within thy narrow shelves, 
 As garments by the soul laid by, 
 And precious only to ourselves. 
 
 >; Take them, O Great Eternity ! 
 Our little life is but a gust 
 That bends the branches of thy tree, 
 And trails its blossoms in the dust ! "
 
 366 
 
 The following interesting extract from the Minutes of 
 the Presbytery of Chirnside, which includes the Parish of 
 Foulden, sent to Mr. Douglas' mother, was forwarded while 
 the book was going through the press — 
 
 " At Chirnside, the twenty-sixth day of April, 
 eighteen hundred and eighty-seven years, 
 which day the Presbytery of Chirnside being 
 met and constituted, inter alia, 
 
 " Mr. Dobie submitted the Minute prepared by his Committee 
 relative to the late Rev. J. D. Douglas, which was approved of, 
 and ordered to be engrossed; and the Clerk was also instructed 
 to send a copy of the Minute to the mother of Mr. Douglas. 
 The Minute is as follows: — 'The Presbytery of Chirnside desire 
 to record their deep sorrow at the early death of the Reverend 
 John D. Douglas, minister at Bellahouston, in the Presbytery of 
 Glasgow, who had so recently left the bounds of this Presbytery 
 in the apparent enjoyment of full health, and with the prospect of 
 a hearty welcome by the members of his new charge. The 
 Presbytery very soon recognised in Mr. Douglas a young man of 
 much promise — of good natural abilities, which he had carefully 
 cultivated. He was well read in Philosophy and General Litera- 
 ture, and he combined with an accurate knowledge of Church 
 affairs considerable power and great fairness in debate. These 
 qualifications he devoted with much success, during his short 
 career as an ordained minister, to the promotion of the highest 
 interests of the Church of Scotland, and also to the spiritual well- 
 being of the congregation of the Parish of Foulden, among whom 
 he laboured with much acceptance for a very few years. The Pres 
 bytery would also give expression to their belief, which is shared in 
 by others, that Mr. Douglas, while forward in announcing his 
 own opinions when occasion required, was most tolerant of 
 others; and, further, that in his inner life he was, though com- 
 paratively young in years, full of faith in his ever-living and loving 
 Redeemer.
 
 367 
 
 " ' The Presbytery would also express their deep sympathy with 
 his mother in her sudden and very sad bereavement, and unite in 
 the prayer that the God of all Grace may be her stay and staff 
 through life.' 
 
 " Extracted on this and the two preceding pages, from the 
 Records of the Presbytery of Chirnside, by 
 
 "J. A. ROBERTSON, 
 
 " Presbytery Clerk."
 
 
 LIST OF SUBSCRIBERS. 
 
 NTo. of 
 ■ 
 Mrs. Allan, As I i 
 
 Rev. J. J. Mars Lang Aiken, Manse of A 
 F. Archer, 13 Ibrox terrace. 4 
 
 Mr. Anderson, Walmer crescent. 2 
 
 Mr. Abercromby, Paisley road. 4 
 
 M. Anderson, 42 Glassford street. 1 
 
 Mr. Alpine, 10 Abbotsford place. 1 
 
 1 r. Anderson, 2 Nithsdale place. 1 
 
 W. Andrew, Prospect, Uddingston. 1 
 
 Mrs. Hunter Airston, 3 Belhaven crescent, 
 
 and Woodside, Strone. 3 
 
 Alex. R. Anderson, M.A., 152 Morningside 
 
 road, Edinburgh. 
 
 F. W. Allan, 125 Buchanan street, Glasgow. 
 Lady C. Anstruther, Carmichael,Thankerton. 
 Win. Abercromby, Paisley. 
 
 A. Abercromby, 17 Afton crescent. 
 
 A. Abercromby. 2 Bellahouston t 1 
 
 Mrs. Abercromby, Dunacre. 
 
 Rev. Jno. Angel, Salop. 
 
 Robt. Addison, 12 Whitefield rd.. Govan. 
 
 IP Affleck, 44 Ingram sti 
 
 Jas. Anderson, 96 Kenmuir 
 
 Robert Anderson, 22 Ann Sti 
 
 Jno. gardens,. Glasgow, and 
 
 Roseland, Kim. 
 Rev. Arthur Allan. M.A.. Manse, Fairlie. 
 
 Dr. A. C. Boothman, 37 N. St. Mungo st. 
 Jas. Barras, M.I).. 4 ., G ivan. 
 
 Rev. G. Stewarl Burns, D.D., Cathedral. 
 Mr. Paid, Fairy Knowe, Blairmore. 
 
 gow. 
 W. Black, 42 ( rlassford sti 
 ]-.\<. Ballantyne, 7 Houston st., Greenock'. 
 P. S. ! ' iwnlie, 1 Carlton ten, \. \\ 
 Miss K. Birch, 7 Walmer crescent. 
 Jno. Burnetl (advocate), 20 Gt. Kin 
 
 I 
 R. Birnie, A hfo : . < rourock. 
 I . B rr, 1 Clifton 
 M . Barr, 3 Belhaven cres., and 
 
 Strone. 
 Rev. W. P. Brock, M.A.. rk. 
 
 Lillias i i haven ere 
 
 and Woodside, : 
 Rev. Arch I. Bi . i, by Edin 
 
 G. Bui Men. 
 Win. Burnett, Foulden villa] 
 
 Mrs. I ). Brown, Arden bank, Kilmun. 
 Win. Brown. Stn 
 
 II, Invereek, Kilmun. 
 Rev. Wm. Brownlie, 2 Derby terrace. 
 A. S. Baird, Hillside, Kilmun. 
 D. Brown, 4 Alexandria terrace, Govan. 
 II. Brechin, 120 North Montrose I 
 Jno. S. Bremner, 4 Mar-hall st., Edinburgh. 
 Mrs. Baird, School! rone. 
 
 Mrs. Black, 30 Windsor terrace. 
 Mrs. Barclay, 21 I cent. 
 
 Mrs. Barbour, Panic Head, Broxton, Chester. 
 Mrs. W. IP Barrett, 13 Rillbank terrace, 
 
 Edinburgh, 
 Rev. M. Bryce, Baldernock, Milngavie. 
 Geo. Boyd, 5 Osborne place, Govan. 
 A. Bryce, 521 < rovan 1 
 C. H. T. Brown, 135 Buchanan street. 
 Robert Brown, \\ 1 
 
 Jeannie Brown, Floravale, Ibroxholm. 
 I >. I). Baird, Union Bank, Govan. 
 Mr. Bisset, Kensington terrace. 
 Matthi :w, Govan. 
 
 Geo. Brow n. 8 [1 rox j Lace, Ibrox. 
 Jno. Bull 
 
 Jas. Bulloch, 23 Bruce road, Pi 11 ikshi 
 Miss Bruce, [9 Magdala cres., Edinburgh. 
 
 . P 
 Jas. Boyd, 32 Oakshaw street, Paisl 
 
 ne. 
 
 < lark, 156 ( Jeorge sti 
 . • . . i impton hou . 
 
 '.. Wi 1 ajkshields. 
 
 Morris Carswell, Murchia ho., P< '. 
 
 id. 
 Misses Clark, 710 Govan road. 
 John Clark, Wilton crescent. 2 
 
 Rev. Alex. Christie, Mordii wick- 
 
 uii-T 1 
 
 Colin ( . : . 
 
 and 10 I .\ 
 Wm. ( '. Caverhi I, 
 
 1 
 Wm. F. 1 
 Twei 
 
 ' tins. 
 Mi -. Cockbui n. Gn enfiel I, 
 Dr. Coats (Patl 
 P. 1 
 \. 1 ■ nnell, Kilmun. 
 
 5 Erski ter. . 1
 
 ■o 
 
 No. of 
 
 Copies 
 Bailie Colquhoun, 158 St. Vincent street. 2 
 Mrs. Cameron, South Bank, Kirkintilloch. 
 Rev. J. A. Clark, Coltness Manse, Newmains. 
 Thos. K. Cunningham, 16 Spittal street, 
 
 Edinburgh. 
 Rev. H. Cameron, Bridge street Manse, 
 
 Montrose. 
 Dr. Clark, Rockbank, Partickhill. 
 Robinson Ruddock Coyle, 2 Ashton terrace. . 
 R. Callon, Road Surveyor, Dunoon. 
 Lady Campbell, Blythswood. 
 Mrs. M. Coats. Ferguslie, Paisley. 
 Miss Connell, Woodbum, Strone. 
 Principal Caird, 12 The University. 
 Professor Edward Caird, University. 
 W. C. Crawford, 1 Lockharton gardens, 
 
 Edinburgh. 
 Prof. Calderwood. 7 Napier id., Edinburgh. 
 H. Cuthbert, 52 Gt. King st., Edinburgh. 
 Jno. Neilson Cuthbertson, 25 Blythswood 
 
 square, Glasgow. 
 Rev. G. L. Carstairs, 8 Sandyford place. 
 Rev. V. A. Colvin, Kilcreggan. 
 Miss Campbell, 29 Gibson place. Hillhead. 
 Mr. Chisholm, 4 Abercromby terrace. 
 R. Cniickshank, 4 Cecil street, Paisley road. 
 John Clark, 9 Milton crescent. 
 Miss I. Campbell, Auchincraig. 
 R. M. Cooper, Argyle street. 
 Rev. Jno. Cameron, D.D., the Manse, 
 
 Dunoon. 
 Tas. Carrick, 14 Glassfonl street. 
 "jno. Connal, 26 Carrington street. 
 Neil Carswell, 40 Argyle street. 
 Rev. M. Connell, Govan. 
 Miss Crawford, 58 Kelvingrove street. 
 
 Win. Dickie, llollybank, Pollokshields. 
 Win. Duff, 4 Hanover street. 
 Geo. Dunh>i>, Hazelbank, Blairmorc. 
 Nathaniel Dunlop, Craigend house, Kilinun. 
 T. Davidson, 29 Elmbank street. 
 Rev. D. Davidson, Dell ho., Campbeltown. 
 Rev. J. Davidson, Beaumont Manse, Cold- 
 stream. 
 Thomas Darling, Palace street, Berwick-on- 
 Twced. 
 
 R. Doyle, Town-< llerk, Berwick. 
 Miss CD ■ Foulden, 
 
 Rev. Jas. Douglas, (St. Stephen's Parish) 
 i'i Bellmont t< rrace. 
 
 A. Drew, Blaim 
 
 Rev. W. G. Di e, Biggar. 
 
 Mi. I larling, 1 5 Pari ' ircus. 
 
 Dr. Dennistoun, 1 (unoon. 
 
 Mrs. Dow, Braerannoch, Bellahouston. 
 
 |. I lempster, I [illington, < lardonald. 
 
 Wm. I '■ blea, Bellahou 
 
 Pro 1 ' 1 1 I >ii G wUi ity. 
 
 No. of 
 
 Copies. 
 Wm. Douglas (Messrs. Brown Bros., Wash- 
 ington street). 1 
 Tno. Dobie, Clydesdale Bank, Dunoon. 1 
 F. G. Dougal, IO Broompark terrace. I 
 
 A. Easton, Bellahouston. 2 
 
 R. Edmiston, Ibrox house, Ibrox. I 
 
 Mrs. Easton, Bellahouston villa. I 
 
 A. Eunson, 33 Damley street, Pollokshields. 1 
 
 Robert Falconer, Ibrox terrace. 2 
 
 Miss Fleming, George place, Gourock. 4 
 
 Rev. H. Fleming, Mordington Manse, 
 
 Berwick. 
 A. Ferguson, 10 Queen's terrace. 
 A. Fender, Deans, Foulden. 
 Miss Ferguson, Finnartmore, Kilmun. 
 M. P. Fraser, LL.B,, 91 W r est Regent st., 
 
 Glasgow. 
 Rev. James Fraser, Greenhill Church, Busby. 
 Councillor J. Filshill, Heath Bank, Lenzie. 
 P. Forbes, Coulter Mains, Biggar. 
 Miss Forbes, S Rothesay place, Edinburgh. 
 R. J. Forfar, 17 Afton crescent. 
 Tno. Ferguson, 74 Hutcheson street. 
 R. Falconer, 10 Ibrox terrace. 
 D. A. Finlay, Dumbredie. 
 D. Fullarton, 6 Buckingham square, Govan. 
 D. Fisher, Park villa, Dunoon. 
 Wm. France, 5 Bellahouston terrace. 
 W. P. Faulds, Westfield, Ibrox. 
 John Finlay. Carnarvon street. 
 
 Rev. H. Groves, M.A. (London), 5 Berkeley 
 
 terrace. 
 R. P. Graham, Gartmore, Pollokshields. 
 Mr. Gleug, Glengowan. 
 
 Rev. J. A. Gordon, Manse of Swinton. 1 hms. 
 Miss Gibson, 9 Blythswood square. 
 D. »'. Glen, Junr., 14 Annfield place. 
 Jno. Goodwill, Hazelwood, Dumbreck. 
 W. R. Grieve, 21 Princes sq., Strathbungo. 5 
 Samuel Greenlees. Campbeltown. 
 
 . 1 rray, Null dale Lodge. 2 
 
 Rev. J. T. Graham. 6 Brighton pi., Govan. 1 
 T. A." 1 Gardner, .]-: I Hassford street. 1 
 
 ]. J. Galloway, 13 Walmer crescent. 1 
 
 Mrs. Grey, 20 Cornwall street. 1 
 
 |. '11. W. Gibson, B.D., Man e oi 
 
 Carmichael, Thankerton. 1 
 
 |. B. Gilmour, 4 Eton terrace, Hillhead, and 
 
 Ard a, Strone. • 
 
 1 ,:!C, Rhuebegg, Kilmun. 1 
 
 A. < rilchrist, Dun 1 
 
 Mr. I Iray, I ii Bank, Pollokshields, and Elm 
 
 Bank, Strone. ' 
 
 T. I'.. I riffin, 10 Walworth terrace, Kent road. 1 
 r. E. Graham, I2() Princes st., Edinburgh. I 
 |. ( ',uy. i.l,. B. (advoi it I, 1 Scotland it. do. 1 
 Bailie < rray, Pollokshiel 1
 
 371 
 
 Copies 
 
 W. \\ . 5i dicitor, 151 St. Vincei 
 
 Mrs. ( Hen, 1 Barrhead. 
 
 Miss Gilmour, Carlibar, Pan 
 D. Grieve, [9 Abercom terrace, Portobello. 
 Mrs. Galloway, 15 Magdalacres., Edinburgh. 
 Mrs. Graham, 195 Bath street, Glasgow. 
 James Graham, 195 Path street, Glasgow. 
 Jno. A. Galbraith, 5 Bute gar., W. Hill] 
 Jas. L. Galbraith, 5 Bute gar., W. Hillhead. 
 Geo. A. Gibson, .NT. A., 3 Windsor terrace. 
 
 St. George's road. 
 Dr. Gardner, 1 Lendel terrace. 
 J. L. (lien, 21 Afton crescent. 
 Mrs. Glen, Glengowan, Pollokshields. 
 Mr. Gall, 7 Kensington ter., Paisley road. 
 Mr. Girdwood, 4 Ibrox terrace. 
 Mrs. Gillies, 5 Cecil street. Paisley road. 
 Jno. Garroway, Roseniount. 
 Mr. Grey, Bellahouston terrace. 
 W. Grieve, Ferry brae, Dunoon. 
 1'. Gibson, Lake Villa, Kilmun. 
 T. Glass, 4 Westminster terrace. 
 Rev. M. Gardner, The Manse, Mid-Calder. 
 Rev. W. S. Goodall, M.A., Greyfriars U.P. 
 
 Church. 1 
 
 Win. Hood, 1 Bercauldie ter. , Pollokshields. 2 
 
 Win. Hume, Stockwell street. 
 
 Jas. Henderson, 6 Govan road. 
 
 Jno. Henry, 5S0 Govan road. 
 
 J. P. Harrington, Glasgow. 
 
 H. Hutton, 4 Afton crescent. 
 
 J. L. Henderson, 14 Athlone gardens. 
 
 A. Rankin Horn, 14 Walmer crescent. 
 
 Jno. Hardie, 16 Walmer crescent. 
 
 Rev. |. E. Houston, B.D., 1 W. Bell .street, 
 
 I Hindee. 
 Rev. James Higgins, Manse. Tarbolton. 
 Jas. Hamilton, Darmead, Blairmore. 
 D. Hen le ter., Berwick-on-Tweed. 
 
 [. Hill, Hagg, Foulden, Berwick-on-Tweed. 
 Rev. D. Hunter, B.D., Partick. 
 Glen Henderson, Ashton terrace. 
 Jas. Henderson, 15 Elmbank place, and 
 
 Craig villa, Strone. 
 A. R. Henderson, 15 Elmbank place, and 
 
 Craig villa, Strone. 
 Andrew Hillcoat, Oakbank, Blairi 
 Rev. J. Hay. Kirn, by Greenock. 
 T. M. Hay, 13 Grindlay street, Edinburgh. 
 Jas. Highgate, Mossgiel, Blairmore. 
 M. I [owie, 1 Un. 
 
 Rev. P. II. Hutchinson, Cambuslang. 
 M. I lutchi . ' hields. 
 
 M. 1 [annah, I !aii nsm 
 Wm. Hodge, 99 Waterloo street. 
 
 T. 1 [ill, JI V. Meet. 
 
 Dr. Hunter. 2 I endel terrace. 
 f. 1 lutton, 1 -• I ox l rrace. 
 
 No. o 
 Copies 
 A. W. Hope, 5 Loudon terrace, Kelvinside. 
 
 Mrs. 1: L 
 
 Jas. Johnstone, Westmount, Pollokshii I 
 
 Rev. Dr. Jeffrey, 8 Berkeley terrace. 
 
 Gavin Jack, Newton, Fould 
 
 T. Jeffrey, Foulden villa 
 
 Mrs. Johnstone, Rutherglen. 
 
 Mrs. Johnstone, 6 Osborne place, Govan. 
 
 Mrs. Jack, Tennyson villa. 
 
 Jno. W. Jack, 8 Ibrox place, Ibrox. 
 
 Professor Ji ow University. 
 
 D. Johnston, 300 St. Vincent street. 
 
 Robt. Kilpatrick, 4 Annfield place. 
 
 M. Kerr, Crookston Hall. 
 
 J. T. King, Ravenslea, Pollokshii 1 
 
 A. R. Kelly, 45 Richmond grove, Manchester. 
 
 Miss M. C. Kelly, London. 
 
 Rev. J. Kean, Quay Walls, Per\vick-on- 
 
 Tweed. 
 Ex-Provost Kennedy, Partickhill. 
 Miss King, 17 Blythswood sq., Glasgow. 
 Rev. A. R. S. Kennedy, Gla 
 J. B. King, 1 Weymouth terrace. 
 Rev. J. R. Kennedy. The Manse, Port- 
 
 patrick. 
 Jno. Kenne ly, - North Ure place, Montrose 
 
 street, City. 
 Russell Kennedy. 2 North Ure pi., Montrose 
 
 street, City. 
 Mrs. Kirkwood, Carling lodge, Ibroxholm. 
 
 E. Kemp, Overbridt;e, Ibrox. 
 
 The Hon. James King, LL. D., Lord Provost 
 
 of Glasgow. 
 Geo. Keddie, 73 Ibrox street. 
 Rev. Ur. Kirk, of Hutton and 1 i 
 
 Berwick-on-Tweed. 
 
 Lindsay, Denholm cottage, I 
 
 shie; 
 
 II. Lang. Junr., Douneho., Pollokshii 
 W. G. Lang, St. Clair, Pollokshi 
 Jas. Loudon, The Laurels, Pollokshields. 
 Capt. Loudon. 
 
 Rev. J. Lindsay, St. Andrew'.- Parish, Kil- 
 marnock. 
 Rev. John Love, Manse. Midyell, Shetland, 
 Rev. Alex. Loudon, West Church, Galashiels. 
 Jno. Lang, 10S Douglas street. 
 Mrs. Leckie, Annfield place, Dennistoun. 
 Matthew Leggat, Hamilton, < (ntario, Canada. 
 Wm. 
 
 I 
 1.1 gan, 8 1 tayburn 1 :ick. 
 
 W . 1 . 2 - 
 
 D. T. Laing, 1 1 W aim 
 . (tin. Wes
 
 372 
 
 No. of 
 Copies. 
 Bailie Laing, Ibrox. i 
 
 Rev. T. Leckie, D.D., Baldroma terrace. i 
 Tno. Lye, Hawkhead. 3 
 
 Wm. Lang, Jessamine villa, Blairmore, and 
 
 Crosspark, Partick. i 
 
 Miss Jane Laird, Dailling villa, Kirn. i 
 
 Jno. Leslie, 32 Elmbank crescent, Glasgow. 1 
 
 Charles G. Murray, 119 Sword street. 1 
 
 D. Mowat, 30 Belmont gardens, Glasgow. 1 
 Rev. J. Muir (Govanhilf Parish), 24 Regent 
 
 Park square, Strathbungo. 1 
 
 Mr. Maclaren, Ardenshaw, Pollokshields. 1 
 Arch. Miller, 26 Carrington street. 1 
 
 Wm. Middleton, Cocklau, Ayton. 1 
 
 G. J. Millican, Harelaw, Chirnside. 1 
 
 Miss J. Millar, The Laurels, Pollokshields. 1 
 Wm. 'Mitchell, 555 Govan road. J 
 
 Wm. Macarthur, 20 Merryland street. 1 
 
 Rev. D. Millar (Minister of Queensferry), 
 
 Westfield, Winchburgh. I 
 
 Rev. D. Millar, B.D., LL.B., Manse, Mor- 
 
 dington, Berwick. 2 
 
 Councillor Macfarlane. 1 
 
 Mrs. Mathieson. 2 
 
 Mrs. Mowat. 2 
 
 Jno. Matheson, 42 Glassford street. 1 
 
 Mrs. Matheson, 10 Claremont terrace. 3 
 
 A. Montgomery, 42 Glassford street. 1 
 
 A. Murray, 42 Glassford street. 1 
 
 II. Main, 130 Elliot street. 1 
 
 Mrs. Mitchell, Jocksley, Helensburgh. 1 
 
 I no. Morris, 82 Hill street, Garnethill. 1 
 
 Rev. A. Milne, The Manse, Gourock. I 
 
 Mrs. Milns, Mansion house, Kilmun. 4 
 
 Alex. Macpherson, Broxwood, Sandbank. 2 
 Mr. Murison, Abbeystone, Rilimui. 4 
 
 W. Madden, British Linen bank, Berwick - 
 
 on-Tweed. 
 A. L. Miller, Sandgate, Berwick-on-Tweed. 
 Wm. Mason, Foulden village. 
 Rev. A. Macdonald, The Manse, Ullapool. 
 Rev. D. G. Manuel, B.D., Si. Andrew's 
 
 Church, Perth. 
 G. Millar, Invereck, Rilmun. 
 T. II. Millar, Vulcan Foundry, Coatbridge. 
 R. Miller, 13 Parkgrove terrace. 
 ]. F. Millar, (been Oakhill, Broomhouse. 
 |. Merci 1. Dunstrone, St rone. 
 |. Maitland, Stronc. 
 
 Mrs. Mitchell, Auchcngray, Kelvinside. 
 Rev. Dr. Mai leod, Man je, Govan. 
 Dr. S. Macvie, Chiin 
 
 nk. by I '!•' 1 
 A. Median, n Newton terrace, 
 [ohn Morri on, 82 Hill street, Garnethill. 
 Jno. Morrison, Senr., 6 Picardy p ice, 
 
 l 
 Provo ' A. Maclean, \ ouse, Partick 
 
 No. of 
 
 Copies 
 A. Maclean, Junr., 4 Broomhill avenue. 
 
 D. Macfarlane, Castlehead, Paisley. 
 
 Rev. I). J. Miller, The Manse, Jamestown. 
 
 James H. Meikle, 19 India street. 
 
 D. Myers, 157 St. Vincent street. 
 
 Jno. Morrison, 6 Brooklyn place, Govan. 
 
 Mrs. Matheson, Apsley villa, Govan. 
 
 Mr. Malloch (Fiscal), Brighton pi., Govan. 
 
 R. Murdoch, 10 King street, S.S. 
 
 D. C. Mitchell, 7 May ter., Mount Florida. 
 
 K. M. Miller, 1 Buckingham road. 
 
 L. Maxton, 1 Osborne place, Govan. 
 
 Robt. Morgan, 7 Osborne terrace, Govan. 
 
 Tas. Morton, 19 Princes street, Govan. 
 
 Jno. Martin, Argyle street, Dunoon. 
 
 T. Murray, Royal crescent, Crossbill. 
 
 Mrs. Millar, 10 Windsor terrace, W. 
 
 Miss Murray, Nithsdale, Kilmun. 
 
 T. Macfarlane, 10 Regent place, Shawlands. 
 
 Norval Macleod, 1 Dunkeld place. 
 
 Jno. B. Miller, 10 Sandy ford place, and 
 
 Rockbank, Strone. 
 Mrs. Morier, 15 Derby crescent, Kelvinside. 
 James M'Lean, Jan., 7 Alexander place. 
 Rev. W. C. Malcolm, Caledonian Church, 
 
 Argyle street, Newcastle. 
 Mrs. Miller, 7 Glinton terrace. Ilillhead. 
 
 T. M'Farlane, Braehead, Pollokshields. 
 
 R. W. M'Kinlay, Amelia villa. 
 
 Mrs. M'Kenzie, Calton Hill, Blairmore, 
 
 Wm. M'Onie, Heathbank, Pollokshields. 
 
 W. M'Lean, Ormiston house, Pollokshields. 
 
 Miss M'Intyre, 13 Ibrox terrace. 
 
 Chas. M'Creath, 630 Govan road. 
 
 Jno. M'Farlane, 2 Brighton road. 
 
 James M'Kay. Church Officer, Bellahoiistoii. 
 
 N. M'Lean, 42 Glassford street. 
 
 Miss A. W. M'Gufhe, 17 Walmer crescent. 
 
 Miss Isabella M'Guflie, 17 Walmer crescent. 
 
 J. T. M'Guflie, 17 Walmer crescent. 
 
 MissM. C M'Guffie, Delaware, Mansewood. 
 
 Geo. M'Farlane, Dunsloy, Bellahouston. 
 
 I in >. M'Donald, 12 Woodside crescent. 
 Ja . M 'William, 4 Kirklee gardens. 
 "II. G. M'Creath, Galagate, Norham-on- 
 Tweed. 
 
 Mrs. M'Coll, Heathbank, Rilmun. 
 
 Malcolm M'Millan, Strachur, Lochfyne. 
 
 Rev. Robt. M'Millan, Strathbungo Parish 
 < 'hurch. 
 
 Mr. M'Dougals, Blairmore. 
 
 M. M'Millan, Woodburn, Blairmore. 
 
 |no. M'Morland, 9 Athole gardens. 
 I 'I lougal, \\ Hand, Rilmun. 
 
 Ri .. M. M 'Arthur, M.A., Strone. 
 
 1 ouncillor M 'Farlane, I .angside. 
 
 II. M 'Pherson, .| Park Btreet, W, 
 
 Rev. 1). M'Farlane, Manse, Morven.
 
 373 
 
 No. of 
 
 Mrs. M'Farlane, Moraj h< 
 
 1 >r. M 'Vail, We tei a j 
 
 Jno. G. M 'Lean, 3 Westmin ter 
 
 Robt. M'Arthur, Clothier, Oxford .street, s.s. 
 
 P. M'Kissock, 63 St. Vincent ere 
 
 Mrs. M'Kinnon, Cothouse, Kilmun. 
 
 Miss C. M'Call, Sunnybeach, Strone, and 
 
 5 Florentine terrace, Glasgow. 
 R. Cowan M'Kinnon, Linnburn, Blairmore. 
 W. T. M'Auslin, no Buccleuch street. 
 Jno. M'Leish, 2 Harvey street, Paisley road. 
 M. M'Kinnel (Danker), Clydesdale Bank, 
 
 Paisley road. 
 
 D. A. M'Dougal, 11 Clifford street. 
 
 Miss M'Intosli, 47 Gibson terrace, Hillhead. 
 
 Rev. Gavin Miller, B.D., Manse, New Cum- 
 nock. 
 
 Hugh Mair, 130 Elliot Street. 
 
 R. M. M'Kinlay, Amelia villa, Pollokshields. 
 
 John A. M'Callum, St. Vincent crescent. 
 
 Rev. Hugh M 'Master. 
 
 Miss M 'Master, ioKierst., Pollokshields. 
 
 Miss M 'Kim, 2 Bellahouston terrace. 
 
 A. M'Neil, Dalmeny house. 
 
 R. M "Crone, 2 Ibrox terrace. 
 
 G. M. M'Kinlay, 97 West George street. 
 
 \Y. M'Kim, 2 Bellahouston terrace. 
 
 Mr. M'Fadzean, 11 Clifford.;;.. Paisleyrd. 
 
 Rev. M. M'Lellan, 154 Randolph terrace. 
 
 1 1. S. M 'Gregor, 56 Hill street. 
 
 G. C. II. M'Naught, 2 Darnley terrace. 
 
 Councillor M'Lennan, 42 St. Andrew's sq. 
 
 Councillor M'Kellar, 123 Stirling road. 
 
 Colin M'Kellar, 123 Stirling road. 
 
 M. M'Clelland, 2 Harvey St., Paisleyrd. 
 
 1 >. M'Millan, 194 Stobcross street. 
 
 W. M'Cowat, 478 St. Vincent stn 
 
 Robt. M'Kinlay, 2 Woodside crescent, ami 
 Rowavan, Strone. 
 
 Dr. M'Kee, Rosebank, Tollcross. 
 
 Jas. Nisbet, 5 Afton crescent. 
 
 Dr. Nairn, 12 Royal crescent. 
 
 Dr. John Nairn, 12 Rutland Place. 
 
 Geo. Ness, 15 Roslea drive. 
 
 M. <;. Neilson, Thorncliffe, Blairmore, and 
 
 Brentham, Poll kshields. 
 Miss 1 lelen Norris, Bellahoi 
 Rev. T. B. Niven, Pollokshields. 
 
 The Rev. Jno. t in, Tron l 'Lurch. 
 li . Ovens, Foulden gardens, Berwick. 
 Wm. Oatts, Christian Institute. 
 Rev. David Orr, B.D., Kilmun. 
 
 . R. A. Pe 1 1. toll. 
 
 T. Purves, Nunlands, Berwick-on-Tweed. 
 T. Purves, Bankhill, Berwick on-Tw 
 A. Patterson, M. 1 '., 22 India sti 
 
 E. Paton, 1 59 Ingram street. 
 
 P. Put I lumbreck. 
 
 Rev. Geo. Proi foot, Chapla in, Town'.-. 
 
 Hospital. 
 Mr. Pitkethley, 13 Lansdowne crescent, and 
 
 Seafield, Strone. 
 Councillor Pettigrew, Pollokshields. 
 Mi . Pearson, Hayston cottage, Kirkintilloch. 
 Jno. Paul, Cambuswallace, Biggar. 
 
 1 Pitt (Aikman & Co.), Prince's sq., 
 
 1 rla gow. 
 Wm. C. Paterson, 74 The Albany, Old 
 
 Hall square, Liverpool. 
 iMrs. Pritchard, Floravale, Ibroxholm. 
 Christina Pearson, 4 Middleton terrace, 
 
 Paisley road. 
 Mrs. Paterson, 6 Bellahouston terrace. 
 Miss Pearson, 2 Cecil place. 
 J . Proudfoot, Shaw street. 
 
 Wm. Russell, 139 Berkeley street, Glasgow. I 
 
 J. Richardson, Ellisland, Pollokshields. 3 
 
 Jas. Reid, 15 Montgomerie cres., Kelvinside. 4 
 Bailie Richmond, Broompark, Albert drive, 
 
 Pollokshields. 2 
 Miss E. Robertson, The Laurels, Pollok- 
 shields. 1 
 W. L. Rome, 460 Paisley n 1 
 Mr. Reid, R.B. 2 
 H. Ritchie, Greenock. 2 
 G. Rodger, 42 Glassford street. 1 
 J. Rowan, 22 Woodside place. 1 
 Rev. Dr. J. C. Russell, Manse, Campbeltown. 1 
 Rev. Joseph Rorke, North terrace, Berwick- 
 on-Tweed. 2 
 Rev. Jno. Reid, Foulden village. 1 
 Mrs. Robertson, Rivet bank, Kilmun. 1 
 M. Rohead, Kilmun. 1 
 Rev. Dr. F, L. Robertson (St. Andrew's, 
 Church), 204 Path street, and Finnart- 
 more, Kilmun. 3 
 R. W. Robertson, Esq., Rockingham, 
 
 Kilcreggan. 1 
 Rev. W. Reid, St. David's Manse, Kirkin- 
 tilloch. 1 
 Richard Rei 1, I . National Bank, Kirkin- 
 
 tulloch. 1 
 Mrs. Rindflesh, 5 Grosvenor place, Hilih. 
 
 Rev. A. Rutherford, 2 Windsor St., Dundee. 1 
 
 Professi pi Ri ib rts m, l - I iversity. 1 
 Mrs. Reid, Dunmore hous . . and 
 
 Woodend, Partickhill. 4 
 
 T. Reid, Kilmardinny. 2 
 
 A. A, A. Reid, 10 < !rown gaj 1 
 
 II. C. D. Rankine, 10 Carlton place. o 
 Mrs. Rankine, iu Carlton place; 1. 
 
 ihouston. 6 
 
 R. 1; . s Buckingham square. 1 
 
 Miss Russell, 5 Park view. Langside. 1 
 5, Ardvarre, Polloksh
 
 374 
 
 No. >> 
 Copie 
 
 Mrs. Robertson, 2 Lendol place, Paisley road. 
 
 M. Rogers, Cove. 
 
 Miss E. S. Ray, I Avondale pi., Paisley id. 
 
 Mr. Ross, Argyle street. 
 
 Tno. Robin, St. Germain, Bearsden. 
 
 Jno. Robertson, Strowan Lodge. 
 
 Mr. Ro>s, Argyle street. 
 
 Wm, Reid, Roslea drive. 
 
 Professor Stewart, Glasgow University. 
 Geo. Seatree, Brunswick square, Penrith. 
 Wm. Smeaton, 10 Knowe ter., Pollokshields. 
 Wm. S. Service, 5 Annfield place. 
 P. Stewart, 340 South York street. 
 Rev. Tno. Steele, Greenhead U.P. Church. 
 A. M. Stewart. Virginia buildings. 
 Jno. Smeaton, 519 Govan road. 
 Wm. T. Shaw, M.D., Albert villa, Cope- 
 land road. 
 Misses Steven, Bellahouston (copies amoun- 
 ting to £10). 33 
 Mr. Smith, Bellahouston. 3 
 Mr. Sim, Academy. 2 
 Mr. Swan, Walmer crescent. 2 
 R. Swan. 3 
 A. M. Stewart. 
 
 Tno. Smith, 42 Glassford street. 
 John Sutherland, 42 Glassford street. 
 "David Smith, 42 Glassford street. 
 Tas. Steele, 240 Dobbie's loan. 
 I). Swan, Braeside, Maryhill. 
 1). Swan, Senr., 15 Walmer crescent. 
 J. Stevenson, Architect, Berwick-011-Twecd. 
 Miss Smith, 6 Perron road, Lower Clapton, 
 
 London. 
 Jas. Shed, Schoolhouse, Foulden. 
 
 I . Smith, 586 Govan road. 
 Rev. W. Smith, Shieldhill, Blackbraes, by 
 Polmont station. 
 
 1. W. Smith, 28 Jamaica street. 
 \V. C Meele, LL.B. (advocate), 33 Dublin 
 street, Edinburgh. 
 . Smith, 18 Moray place, Edinburgh. 
 
 Rev. R. Simpson, Manse of Dunscore, 
 Dumfriesshire. 
 
 Rev. IIim. Somerville, M.A., lilackfriars, 
 gow. 
 
 James Speir, < >rchard I; Kilmun. 
 
 li . Shearer, 8 Royal crescent, \Y. 
 . R. II. Stevenson, 148 Renfield r< 
 
 R. G. Smith, J. P., George villa, Mid < lalder. 
 
 k. G. Smith, George villa, Mid-Calder. 
 
 Mi i Smith, The l do. 
 
 A. Stewart (gi ■ r), Copi land rd., < Slasgow. 
 
 Mrs. Schuthe, 2 Cleland pla . Pai lej road. 
 
 1 . 0. Smart, Bellaho race. 
 
 Mr. < '. |. Small, Ro e villa, I iro 
 
 [no. ( ira, Pari ickhil . 
 
 A. Sim, 9 [brox terrace. 
 
 Rev. J. s. Slo , The Manse, Aberlour. 
 
 No. 
 Copie: 
 Rev. James Steele, Bonnybridge. 
 Rev. Jno. Smith, M.A., B.D., Partick. 
 Wm. H. Seymour, Roslea drive, Dennistoun. 
 Geo. Schrader, 5 Crown circus, and Dunedin, 
 
 Strone. 
 Geo. H.Steven, 8 Eglinton drive, Kelvinside. 
 Mrs. Gardiner Smith, George villa, Mid- 
 
 calder. 
 Miss Smellie. 
 Dr. Scott, Rose cottage, Tollcross. 
 
 J. Thomson, architect, Berwick. 
 A. Thomson, Royal Bank, Ayton. 
 Wm. Thompson, 16 Merryland St., Govan. 
 Jas. Thompson, Blairmore ho., Blairmore. 
 D. Turner, Corrierain, Glenlean, Kilmun. 
 Mrs. Tolmie, Newton burn, Innellan. 
 Mrs. Turnbull, Dalilongart, Sandbank. 
 Mrs. M. Turner, Inverchapel, Kilmun. 
 J. INI. Threshie, Crosslea, Dumbreck. 
 J. J. Thomson, 3 Ibrox terrace. 
 M. Teasdale, 4 Alexandria terrace. 
 Messrs. Steele & Thomson, 39 Glassford st. 
 Rev. W. M. Taylor, Aberfoyle. 
 Miss J. Todd, Mid-Calder. 
 
 Professor Veitch, Glasgow University. 2 
 
 Joseph Williamson (Geo. Williamson & Sen), 
 
 Earls-Barton, 1 
 Geo. Wilson, 5 Meadowbank cres., Partick. 1 
 A. C. Williamson, 14 Broompark terrace. I 
 Miss M. C. Williamson, do. do. 1 
 Mr. Waddell. 2 
 Wm. Wilson, West Lodge. Pollokshields. 6 
 T. M. Wilson, 42 Glassford street. 1 
 A. Waddell, 42 Glassford street. 1 
 Mrs. Wood, Woodbank, Partick, and Beach- 
 wood, Strone. 2 
 Mr. Wood, Partickhill. 1 
 Rev. A. Cameron Watson, B.D., 2 Rose- 
 vale terrace, Partick. 1 
 Rev. E. Walters, 31 St. Vincent crescent. I 
 A. Walker, 55 Elmbank crescent. 1 
 Rev. R. W. Wallace, M.A., li Albert ter., 
 
 Aberdeen. 1 
 
 |. Campbell White, Esq., Overton. 1 
 Miss Williamson, 1 University avenue, 
 
 Glasgow. 1 
 
 (',. II. Wallace, Woodburn, Kilcreggan. I 
 
 Miss Warrack, 29 Devon sired. 1 
 
 Miss Walker, 2 Cecil street, Paisley road. I 
 
 J. Wilson, 10 Nelson terrace, Billhead. 1 
 
 Mr, Wilkie, 1 fawthornden. 1 
 
 Mr. Whitesmith, Loudon house, Kirn. 1 
 
 Rev. f. Wallace, 24 Bruce rd. , Pollokshields, 1 
 I. B, Wilkie, of Foulden, 10 Magdala en 
 
 Edinburgh. - 
 
 \a . Williamson, Victoria cres., Dowanhill. 1 
 
 Mr. Young, I a 1 Henderson farm. t
 
 NOTE BY EDITOR. 
 
 Care has been taken in revising the List of Subscribers, 
 but as it is almost impossible for a number of names, passing 
 through so many hands, to be printed without mistakes, any 
 Subscriber whose name has been overlooked might kindly 
 intimate the omission at once to William Wilson, Esq., |.P.. 
 &c, 42 Glassford Street, who will have the book forwarded.
 
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