LIBRARY OF THE University of California. GIFT OF }:..s ^....^AA^.C^i Class - A MANUAL FOR SUNDAYS. A FEW THOUGHTS FOR EACH SUNDAY OF THE CHURCH'S YEAR. BY F. C. W O O D H O U S E, M.A. AUTHOR OF "a MANUAL FOR LENT," ETC. ETC. I WAS IN THE Spirit on the Lord's Day." LONDON: WELLS GARDNER, DARTON cS^^ CO 2^ PATERNOSTER BUILDINGS, E.G. AND 44, VICTORIA STREET, S.W. W' ■^'' (3\ i PREFACE. When wc reckon up the large number of Sermons that are preached every Sunday, and add to them the constant stream of religious books that is ever issuing from the press, we might well doubt whether it is necessary or desirable to publish another volume for Sunday reading. There are, however, some considerations that seem to prove that we have not yet too many works of this kind. We live in stirring times ; truth is ever more and more apprehended ; new light is constantly being thrown upon old facts; the enemy ''girds himself with a new sword" to attack the faithful servants of GOD ; doubt takes forms hitherto un- known; difficulties in the way of Christian belief and practice arise which were not experienced in former times. All this seems to point to the necessity for books written in the full knowledge of these circumstances, and which will not be laid aside by disappointed readers, as utterly unsuited to their wants. It is also a fact that some books, without being deep or clever, will interest and instruct certain minds which are unaffected by other books that are 167218 iv ^vdaa. in literary power, learning, and spirituality unde- niably superior to them. As there are tastes which differ, and one man admires that which another does not care for, or even dislikes, so an author may, unconsciously, present to some readers an attractive aspect of common truths which another cannot give them. Thus Dean Goulburn says : ^' It is good that Divine Truth . . . should be exhibited under diffe- rent aspects, reflected under the various angles of incidence at which it strikes various minds. The aspect of it which comes home powerfully to one mind may be expected to attract and influence minds similarly constituted, . . . principally from the reader's finding his own mind to be in touch with the mind of the writer." If, therefore, an author finds by the general de- mand of the public, and by personal testimony, often from individuals entirely unknown to him, that his writings are appreciated, and are doing some little good, he may, perhaps, without pre- sumption, continue to give his thoughts to the world, and so ^Mn his vocation and ministry," be it never so humble, do some small work for his Lord and His Church; since in His Kingdom '^ He hath appointed to every man his work." CONTENTS. PAGE First Sunday in Advent— The Human and the Divine ./ i Second Sunday in Advent — The Right Use of Holy Scripture ....*/ 8 Third Sunday in Advent — Certainty • I7 Fourth Sunday in Advent— Ending and Beginning r 23 First Sunday after Christmas — Michael's Answer to Satan .■^30 Second Sunday after Christmas — " I would not live al way " v 35 First Sunday after Epiphany — Ideals / 41 Second Sunday after Epiphany — Always Something Wanting ,48 Third Sunday after Epiphany — The End of Destructions *^ 53 Fourth Sunday after Epiphany — Even as a Beast /^ 59 Fifth Sunday after Epiphany — The Most Precious Things . . . . ' . /^ 66 Sixth Sunday after Epiphany — Man and Satan . . . . . . . -74 Septuagesima — Life and Thought 83 Sexagesima — The Cherubim , , - 87 Contents. QUINQUAGESIMA — Love, or Nothing . First Sunday in Lent — Sin, a Madness of the Soul Second Sunday in Lent — Sin, a Leprosy of the Soul Third Sunday in Lent — Sin, the Blindness of the Soul Fourth Sunday in Lent — Sin, a Paralysis of the Soul Fifth Sunday in Lent — Sin, a Deafness of the Soul Sixth Sunday in Lent— Sin, the Death of the Soul Easter Day — The Angel in the Sepulchre First Sunday after Easter— Magdalen at the Sepulchre Second Sunday after Easter — The Good Shepherd Third Sunday after Easter- The Loss of Opportunities Fourth Sunday after Easter — The Ministry of the Holy Ghost Convincing of Sin Fifth Sunday after Easter — What "the World" Means for us To-day Sunday after Ascension — The Gifts of the Glorified Man Whitsunday- How God is a Consuming Fire Trinity Sunday — Heaven First Sunday after Trinity— Disadvantages Second Sunday after Trinity- The Evil of Peace . Cotttenta. vii I'ACJE Third wSunday after Trinity — Samuel's Life at Shiloh 235 Fourth Sunday after Trinity — The Perfect Man 242 Fifth Sunday after Trinity — The Pursuit of Peace 249 Sixth Sunday after Trinity — The Soul's Liberation from the Body . . . ( 254 Seventh Sunday after Trinity — The Secret of Man's Power / 261 Eighth Sunday after Trinity — False Prophets / 266 Ninth Sunday after Trinity — The Stewardship of Man / 273 Tenth Sunday after Trinity — The Hardened Heart / 278 Eleventh Sunday after Trinity — The Brook in the Way / 285 Twelfth Sunday after Trinity — The Prophetic Office j 292 Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity— " Go and Do " i 299 Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity— The Three Parables on Penitence .... 7 303 Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity — The Eftects of Sin ^ 309 Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity — A Dead Man /315 Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity — The Sea / 319 Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity — The Soul's Longing for Life / 327 Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity — God to us what we are to Him . . . . ' IZZ Twentieth Sunday after Trinity — The Collect for the Sunday / 340 viii dotttcnts. PAGE Twenty-first Sunday after Trinity — The Martyr Spirit z' 345 Twenty-second Sunday after Trinity — Resting Within the Hands of God . . . . '351 Twenty-third Sunday after Trinity— Coesar's Imj^e, and God's Image . . . . / 357 Twenty-fourth Sunday after Trinity — The Church's Husbandry 3^4 Twenty-fifth Sunday after Trinity — Autumn 37' Jir-st Suntiag in atiirent. THE HUMAN AND THE DIVINE. ERRATUM. Page I, Fi'rsi Sunday in Advent^ substitute the follow- ing for first sentence — In our Lord's miracle of feeding the multitude, there is a remarkable mingling together of the divine and the human. iidvc ci iiicuvcuuubiy cuiiipiex iiaiure, mai we cannot even understand. Yet the government of the world is, to a large extent, left absolutely in our hands ; and viii (Kotttcnta. Twenty-first Sunday after Trinity — The Martyr Spirit z' 345 Twenty-second Sunday after Trinity — Resting Within the Hands of God . . . . ' 35^ Twenty-third Sunday after Trinity— *c; .-. A w- Jirst Suntiag in ^tibent. THE HUMAN AND THE DIVINE. In the miracle of to-day's Gospel, as in all the other miracles wrought by our Lord, there is a remarkable mingling together of the divine and the human. It is His almighty power that increases the food, and makes it grow under His hand, so as to feed a multitude ; but He demands the gift of the store that His disciples had, before He will put forth His creative force. There is enough, and more than enough, for the host of hungry men and women; but He will have all orderly seated, in ranks and bands, before He gives them a morsel. And when the feast is over. He will have no waste. The frag- ments are carefully collected, to serve for another day's needs. Each loaf and fish must pass through His hands, but the guests receive their portion from the hands of the disciples. '^ Give ye them to eat," He had said at first ; and He makes them do it at last. It is their bread, after all, and they are the distributors ; their objections overruled ; their in- ability corrected by His superior power. And is not this but one instance of an invariable law, in all that we are cognisant of, in the dealings of God with man ? We find ourselves in the midst of a universe, called into existence, we know not how, only certainly without our aid. We ourselves have a marvellously complex nature, that we cannot even understand. Yet the government of the world is, to a large extent, left absolutely in our hands ; and * A Jfirat ^untran in ^titrcnt, we are masters of ourselves, to do, and to be, and to become, almost what we like. We acknowledge Almighty GOD to be our Ruler, LORD, and Master, yet we depend one upon another ; child upon parent ; man upon man ; country upon country. Human life is a perpetual giving and receiving. Civilisation and progress depend upon the carrying out of this prin- ciple. The savage is independent, like the wild beast ; the cultured man is dependent upon a thousand other men, and upon a dozen distant lands. Is it any wonder, then, that we find this same prin- ciple fundamental in the constitution of the Catholic Church ? We discover the divine and the human ever co-operating. We see human ministry, backed by divine power. We handle our own common things in the particular way that is commanded ; and they are no longer common ; they become endowed with the powers which we name supernatural. Why did not our LORD remain in the world — universal King, visible Head of the Church ? Because it would have violated this great law. He has put power into the hands of governments and bishops, just as He distributed that food first to His Apostles, and then left it to them to minister to the waiting and wanting crowd. In His parables He compares Himself to a king absent, having delegated his authority to his nobles ; to a great man, who leaves his steward in absolute charge of house, and ser- vants, and property ; to a lord, who divides his wealth among many subordinates, and then goes quite away, and leaves them practically independent, till he re- turns to reclaim his own, and to reckon with them respecting their use of his valuables. A great deal that we complain of in Church and State comes through the abuse of this delegated divine power. Our LORD warned us that it would be so. He spoke of buried talents, of unused pounds, of stewards idle, wasteful, immoral, tyrannical, wicked. JTtrst ^untran ttt ^trbcnt. But do not individuals abuse their personal liberty in the same way ? Medical men tell us that thousands do not die, but are murdered. People murder them- selves, by ignorance, by wilful indulgences, by abuse of their powers and functions. People are murdered by one another, by want of care, by selfish neglect, by sheer stupidity. So it is in Church and State ; so in parishes and in families. We all depend one upon another, and those who are in positions of authority cannot help doing much harm, or much good, to others, just according as they exercise their power, well or ill. Man's liberty and individuality are never effaced. We know but little of the secret workings of inspiration, but we do not doubt that prophet differed from prophet, and writer from writer ; each leaving the mark of his special disposition and character upon the divine message that he delivered. St. Paul and St. John had very different natures, dif- ferent educations, different views, different methods. They were both apostles, both instruments of the Holy Ghost in establishing the Cathohc Church ; but each worked in his own' way, free within a wide area of personal liberty. So it has been with the history of the Church. The Papacy was at one time a great blessing and a source of strength and unity; at another time so tremendous an evil that, but for the inherent grace of God, it would seem as if Christianity itself would have been corrupted and have perished off the face of the earth. In the same way kings and bishops have been instruments of incalculable bless- ing, or of terrible mischief, to the cause of religion, and to the spiritual life of many souls. Thus the divine and the human are found side by side, and it is hard to say where the boundaries are, where one begins and the other ends. It is the same within the Church in matters of detail. The two great Sacraments are especial yirat ^nntia^ in ^irbent. instances. The common elements, water, bread, and wine, are used as our LORD used the bread and fish in this miracle, by His command endued with supernatural powers by His overruling will. Human hands administer the most ordinary materials, but the Lord of all things and of all men is behind ; and He can do all things. Men say, *' I will have no man stand between me and my GOD; I want no priest, no rites, no forms." Be it so, if it is possible. But the whole analogy of life is against it. Everything, every person, depends upon some- thing, upon some one else. Wiser men sit down quiet and thankful till their fellow~men, com- missioned by their LORD, bring them the food they need; and they would think it unseemly to rush pell mell, or in single presumption, and demand to receive the Lord's gift at His own hand alone. '' I will go out into the sunny fields and look up straight to GOD and commune with Him, without church, or sacrament, or apparatus of worship." Well and good if you can. But, do not forget that there is some one else concerned in this matter besides yourself It does not rest with you alone. There is God's will to be con- sidered, and if it has pleased GOD to appoint another way, then any self-chosen method must be pre- sumptuous and ineffective. Let us think what GOD is, and what we are, and we shall be a Httle more modest. '' I will read my Bible at home, and so learn God's will and my duty. I want no teacher.'* And yet how came you by that Bible ? Did GOD hand it to you personally direct from heaven in the English language ? Did it not rather come to you through men's intervention ? Do what you will, there still stands some one, many a one, be- tween you and GOD. For this is His will, and no one can alter it. Next let us notice the preparation and attitude of those whom our LORD feeds and satisfies. They are eager for instruction; they forget their daily bread that they may receive the Bread of Life. Those whom our LORD fed went out of their way and tarried long with Him. And when He had com- passion, and would feed them, they just did as they were told, and in orderly patience waited their turn. Many Christians are never nourished and blessed in church, simply because they have no spiritual appe- tite. They do not hunger for the Bread that came down from heaven. There were five thousand fed by our Lord, but how many thousands were there who were not fed ? There were crowds going up to Jerusalem ; the majority toiled on unrefreshed. Our Lord says, ^' Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled." Many stay away from church because they have no appetite for spiritual food. Many come and go empty away for the same reason. But, " He filleth the hungry v/ith good things ; " they eat and are filled; their faintness is gone; they are ready now to go on their journey to Jerusalem to worship and to sacrifice. So it is in our churches. They are, after all, but resting-places by the way. We come and go. Presently our faces are no more seen, and others are there instead. But all have '' their faces set as though they would go to Jerusalem ; " they who distribute as well as those who receive the Bread pass away, and others stand in their place. It is well. It must be so. Our Lord Himself sent the multitude away as soon as He had fed them ; sent them all the same way, all to Jerusalem. In rank and order, no doubt, as they had sat down, so they were marshalled onwards; no confusion, nothing by chance. The particular disciple that broke the bread for some particular company did not remain always with that company ; his work was done ; he went his ^^irst ^utttran in ^biirnt. way, they theirs. Only all went to Jerusalem. There they met again. So Christian pastors do their work and pass away; but they and their people hope to meet again in the city of GOD. Shall we not try and regard our churches, our Sundays, our services, thus ? We, the set-apart ministers, shall we lift up ourselves because of our office ? God forbid. What are we but the disciples with hands full of food, given to us to distribute to our fellow-Christians ? What room for pride, then ? ^^ Ourselves your servants," " ministers of CHRIST," ^^ stewards of the mysteries of GoD," and you, all and each, ministers too ; for there is a priesthood of the Laity. Every one receives the gift ; every one ministers to his neighbour. Picture that crowd. The man receives the bread, and shares it with his wife ; the mother feeds her little ones, before she tastes herself; the sick, the aged, the blind, there is some kind hand to receive for them, to give to them. Yes, it is so still ; the true disciple, whose hands are full, does not go away and eat all by himself. He knows that he has received, simply that he may give to those whom His LORD intends to feed. What is that I see in your hands ? Money. Your master gave it you, not to be hoarded, not to be squandered, but to be well used. He gave to His disciples, that they might give to the multitude. He has given us all something ; we must distribute His gifts, as the disciples distributed the loaves and fishes. Here, in a nutshell, is the rule of Christian con- duct — mutual dependence, mutual help ; CHRIST'S rule for the Church, for each congregation, for each faithful soul. ^' To every one his work " — work for God ; work for others ; work for self ; and the last best done by those who do the other two most truly. Ah, high and noble rule of life ; sure road to happi- ness and peace — for selfishness is the chief cause of unrest. We go on learning our religion. Years JFirst ^untra^ in ^bhtnt. pass ; we have sufferings and disappointments ; we have joys and pleasant times ; we have dark times, and doubts and perplexities. There are changes, sad losses, tearful partings. Life seems very com- plex ; we get bewildered sometimes. And then there comes a quiet, soft light, and the mists clear away ; and duty seems plain and simple ; and all the mani- fold obligations and conflicting calls and claims seem to merge in one obvious rule of life — the old childish rule that a Christian mother taught us, as the Church, our true mother, taught her, ^' To do' to all men as I would they should do unto me." And there stands before us the Man CHRIST jESUS, our Pattern, our Helper ; ready to guide us ; ready to pardon our poor failures ; bidding us put our whole trust in Him in life's strange mazes, and in the dark and pathless valley of the shadow of death. Secontr Suntiag in Stibmt* THE RIGHT USE OF HOLY SCRIPTURE. The Church turns the words of the Epistle into a prayer in the Collect to-day, so especially drawing our attention to the right use of Holy Scripture. Following the Apostle, she tells us that the sacred Books are put into our hands ^' for our learning," z.e., in modern phraseology, for our instruction ; also to teach us patience, and to give us comfort. St. Paul is referring to the Old Testament ; the Church, of course, includes the New Testament in her adoption of his words. St. Paul quotes a prophecy respecting the suffering MESSIAH as an argument for patience under the ills of life, and for holding fast the Christian hope. The Church, with the full story of the Gospels in her hands, setting forth Christ in all the details of His life and Passion, may well bid us '' read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest," that CHRIST may be formed in us, and His likeness displayed in our words and deeds. When we read what devout men say respecting the Old Testament Scriptures, the love they express for them, the time they give to meditation upon them, night and day, the careful searching in them for their hidden treasures, the comfort and help they find in them, we are sometimes amazed, and fail to follow them, and to enter into their enthusiasm. The New Testament is so infinitely clearer, deeper, wider, that the Old Testament — except, perhaps, the Psalms — seems by comparison uninteresting, unedi- UNiVhRSITY GF ^£r0ntr ^utttrag in '^bbtnt fying; just as the living face makes the portrait look hard and cold ; just as the sun makes lamps and candles dim and dull. But St. Paul, with the full knowledge of the Gospel revelation, still writes of the comfort and instruction to be gathered by Christians from the Old Testament books. Our Church of England, more than any other Church, ancient or modern — and certainly far more than any of the Protestant sects — teaches her children to love the Word of God, and to become familiar with its contents. Besides the daily recitation of the Psalms, and the Epistles and Gospels for Sundays and holy days, there are four portions read every day in her public services. She has translated the whole Bible, and put it trustingly into the hands of all, knowing that although, like every other good thing, it may be misused and abused, yet esteeming its right use too precious to be foregone on that account. For assuredly the Bible has been, and is, misused — its meaning perverted, its words wrested to men's destruction, and to the Church's own grievous hurt. In old time the Gnostics, the Arians, the Pelagians, and all the other impugners of the Catholic faith, found, as they professed and believed, countenance for their novelties and errors in the Holy Scriptures ; and the wildest and most extravagant sectarian of modern times still comes forth, Bible in hand, boldly and confidently claiming it on his side, and that he alone understands its meaning, and has for the first time been its true exponent and teacher. Nay, more, Satan himself, when he confronted our LORD, backed his temptations by quotations from Holy Scripture, and his example has been followed many a time since. " The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose. An evil soul producing holy witness ^ Is like a villain with a smiling cheek, A goodly apple rotten at the heart." ^o ^tconh ^mha^ in '^bbznt And so it has been sneeringly said of the Bible — • " Hie liber est in quo querit sua dogmata quisque, Invenit pariter dogmata quisque sua." That is to say, every one turns to Scripture to look for support for his particular theory, and finds what he looks for. But surely this is not only a misuse of Holy Scripture, but a total misconception of its nature, and the purpose for which it has been given to us. It is not a storehouse of raw material, out of which any one who likes can construct a religion for him- self. Christ did not, hke Mahomet, write a book. He Himself is the revelation of truth and of GOD. His Church was founded and spread, long before a single book of the New Testament was written. Those books were penned by their authors, not to teach men the Christian religion, but for the comfort and edification of those who were already Christians. So St. Luke addresses his Gospel to Theophilus, who had *' already been instructed " as to all things which it contained. The Church's system is not categorically laid down in the New Testament, but the existence of such a system is assumed, and is alluded to as ^* the faith," '* the doctrine of CHRIST," and so on. And so St. Paul says, ^' I praise you that ye keep the traditions that I delivered to you ; " and of new questions as they arose, ^* The rest will I set in order, when I come." And St. John, " I will not with ink and pen write unto thee, but I trust I shall shortly see thee, and we shall speak face to face." The apostles and first missionaries of Christ did not set out with a book in their hands ; for books were scarce, and those who could read were few, and there was as yet no Bible for them to read ; but they went out in the power of the HOLY Ghost, to gather men into Christ's kingdom by faith in Him, and by being baptized into the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. St. Paul, when he enumerates the gifts of the Spirit, makes no mention of writers, or of books. When our Lord bade the Jews ^^ search their Scriptures," it was that they might find there His own credentials, as their sole Teacher ; not that they might find in them the truth for themselves, without a Divine Teacher. Indeed they had already failed to use their Scriptures rightly, for, unlike the Ethiopian eunuch, they had presumed upon their own judg- ment, and had not asked for a divine teacher to guide them. As time went on, and books were written, the Church decided which should be received as canonical, and which should be rejected. There were many Gospels, besides the four in our Bibles. There were many Epistles and other books, which were read in particular Churches, and gradually set aside, the Acts and Passions of martyrs, the lives of local saints, the letters of holy bishops and mis- sioners. It was the Church, by the power of the indweUing Spirit of GOD, that decided what was and what was not the Word of GOD ; and it was, and is, the Church alone, by the power of the same Spirit of God, that can tell the true meaning of Scripture. To hear some foolish people talk one would suppose that the EngHsh translation of the Bible had been handed down straight from heaven, written with the finger of GOD, like the tables of the old Law at Sinai. One memorable pronouncement remains still in print, to astonish all learned and thoughtful men. A Dean of the Church of England was the author of the astounding statement, that every book of the Bible, every chapter, every verse, nay, every word, was inspired, and to be received as the infallible voice of God ! Putting aside the difficulties that surround our study of the Hebrew originals of the Old Testament, and the variations between them and the ancient Septuagint version, we have no 12 ^er0ntr ^xitttra^ in ^totti. manuscript of any book of the New Testament older than the fourth century ; and the various readings, as any student knows, are numerous enough to show that no verbal inspiration is possible. Nor was it ever maintained by the primitive Church. The earliest Christian writers quote the Gospels quite loosely, without any regard for literal accuracy. It was men not books that were inspired, and the living Church never silenced her voice in deference to a dead book. It was not till the error of Papal Infalli- bility had been foisted upon the Church, and then rejected by the inexorable logic of facts and reason, that this novel theory of Bible Infallibility was in- vented. Men had so long accepted the fallacy that an infallible guide was essential to the Church, that when they could no longer so regard the Pope, they looked hither and thither for a substitute, and thought they found it in the Bible ; and what has been called Bibliolatry became an error, as Mariolatry had been an error before. Then came the age of criticism, and because this theory was found to be untenable, men gave up all belief, and railed against Christianity with rancorous bitterness. In the same way it had been assumed that the Bible was a scientific and literal record of the history of the earth, and of the primeval ages ; and when discoveries were made, or theories and systems invented, that seemed not alto- gether to agree with what men supposed that the Bible taught, then again there set in a fashion of scepticism, which threatened to end in mental chaos and ruin. It is to be hoped that this has passed away, and that a right view of the nature and use of the Holy Scriptures will save us from such misery, and them from dishonour. The belief in gravitation, and in the earth's motion round the sun, was once thought to be contrary to the teaching of the Bible. No one thinks so now. If the same amount of evidence is found in favour of Evolution, and other modern scientific theories, they will doubtless be accepted also, without prejudice to the Christian's reverence for Holy Scripture. So Charles Kingsley said — " Evolution only asserts that the Creator bears the same relation to the whole universe as to every indi- vidual man, whose body is developed by natural laws." And another writer says that the order of the work of the seven days might have been given in 5040 different ways, whereas they accord with the general system laid down by the present state of geological discovery. ^' The locks of Messrs. Hobbs are so made that no two are alike. A lock with fifteen levers may be varied 1,307,674,368,000 times. Moses has placed fifteen events in their proper order." And as regards textual accuracy, Tischendorf has said — "Providence has ordained for the New Testament more sources of the greatest antiquity than are pos- sessed by all the old Greek literature together." There is no historical event that can justly be believed, if we reject the narratives of the New Testa- ment. " The same degree of certainty is not required in historical as injudicial evidence, or we should be logically compelled to withhold our belief from nine- tenths of historical facts, about which we really have no doubt at all. Every day we act upon evidence which would be rejected in a court of justice." " The Bible," said that profound thinker, Mr. Hinton, " is as large as Nature, and as deep and simple, and must be dealt with in the same way. If you do not understand a fact in nature, you do not fidget yourself; so you need not expect to understand every passage of the Bible. It is not a book for one man, or for one age, but for all." And the late Professor Mozley wrote — " In human affairs it is considered the highest wisdom to accommodate instruction to the imperfect knowledge of the learner, and, at the same time, plant a seed of more perfect knowledge. This is 14 ^ecotttr ^untra^ in ^trhcttt. just the history of divine revelation. The morahty of a progressive revelation must be judged by the end to which it leads. The Law taught the ignorant and degraded Jews to become Christians. All other religious systems stopped short of any development in morals. Man's mind cannot be enlightened all at once by revelation. The laws of man's being require gradual advance. As well judge a sculptor by a broken chip of stone, as GOD by Old Testament incidents." " The eye, not the ear, is the organ to receive light ; so perhaps the understanding is not the faculty which receives from GOD the knowledge of His existence and His attributes, but the con- science, which judges the understanding, and is therefore its superior." '' The progress of the human race in spiritual knowledge, unlike its progress in scientific knowledge, has been due, not to thinkers intellectually gifted, but to prophets inspired by GOD ; just as the progress of spiritual knowledge in every human soul depends upon communion with GOD." ^^ Whatever Christianity revealed, it is certain that it left much unrevealed. It is by a slow process that the world learns all that the New Testament contains. Though the stars do not develop, astro- nomy does. Christianity may not change, but man's understanding of it may." ^' If the doctrine of the resurrection lay hid in the words, ^ I am the GOD of Abraham,' why may not other doctrines still lie hidden in equally obscure references ? " '^ The most searching criticism of the New Testament by sceptics has resulted in its establishment as historically accu- rate. The easiest thing would have been to have declared it a forgery, like the Decretals ; but no one dreams of this. Hence mythical and other theories are invented to explain it away." We come back then to that with which we started ; that the Bible is GOD'S Word to our souls, but that it must be used as GoD intended it to be used, with fear, reverence, humility; as Bishop Jewel says, " The Scriptures are the mysteries of GOD ; let us not be curious ; let us not seek to know more than God hath revealed by them. They are the sea of God ; let us take heed we be not drowned in them. They are the fire of GoD ; let us take comfort by their heat, and warily take heed they burn us not. They that gaze over hardly upon the sun, take blemish in their eyesight." God'S holy Word, if rightly used, read, marked, learned, and inwardly digested, will teach us patience with the ills of life, and give us comfort under their painful pressure. It is powerful and '^ quick," that is, it is endued with life, to adapt itself to circumstances and to different persons, and to enable them always to have " the hope ; " for such are St. Paul's words. Blessed are the eyes that see the things that we see. If prophets and righteous men found the Old Testament Scriptures so precious, what should they be to us, when the light of Pentecost illumines them, and we see Christ everywhere ? And what should the New Testament be that sets forth Christ evi- dently before our eyes, so that we seem to live in His company, see His face, and hear His words, till our hearts burn within us. So we read in one of the Homilies, " If one could show but the print of CHRIST'S Foot, a great number would fall down and worship it. But to the Holy Scriptures, where we may see daily, if we will, I will not say the print of His Feet only, but the whole shape and lively image of Him, alas, we give but little reverence, or none at all. If any could let us see Christ's coat, a sort of us would make hard shift except we might come nigh to gaze upon it, yea, and kiss it too ; and yet all the clothes that ever He did wear can nothing so truly, nor so lively, express Him unto us as do the Scriptures. Christ's images made in wood or stone or metal, some men^ 1 6 ^erDtttr ^utttra^ in ^trhcttt. for the love they bear to CHRIST, do garnish and beautify them with pearl of gold and precious stone ; and should not we, good brethren, much rather embrace and reverence God'S holy Book, the sacred Bible, which doth represent ClIRIST unto us more truly than can any image." " One thought of God, in undiluted splendour, Flashed on our feeble gaze, Were never borne by mortal sight. He knew it, and He gave, In mercy tender, All that the soul unwittingly doth crave, All that it can receive. He robed In finite words the sparkles of His thought, The starry fire englobed In tiny spheres of language, shielding. Softening thus The living, burning glory. And He brought Even to us This strange celestial treasure, that no prayer Had asked of Him, no ear had heard. Nor heart of man conceived. He laid it there, Even at our feet, and said it was His Word. O mystery of tender grace ! W^e find God's thoughts in human words enshrined, God's very life and love with ours entwined. All wonderingly from page to page we pass. Owning the darkening, yet revealing glass ; In every line we trace, In fair display. Prismatic atoms of the glorious Bow Projected on the darkest cloud that e'er O'ergloomed that world that GOD had made so fair, The Rainbow of His Covenant ; each one Reflecting perfectly a sevenfold ray, Shot from the sun Of His exceeding love, Strong and serene above. Upon a tremulous drop of tearful life below." Ef)irlr Suntiaj in Sltibent* CERTAINTY, In the midst of the doubt and intellectual confusion of the present day we are sometimes tempted to say, " Oh that I could have certainty respecting the great questions that concern me so nearly ! " And perhaps we envy those who saw and heard CHRIST when He was upon earth, and think that if we had lived then our present difficulties would not have vexed and troubled us, and that we should have en- joyed sure and peaceful belief. Yet a few moments* reflection and the reading of the record of those days of the Son of Man will speedily convince us that there is not much to choose between our own position and that of the eye-witnesses of the human life of God manifest in the flesh. There were many strong arguments against the opinion that jESUS of Nazareth was the promised Messiah. We must put aside our traditional con- ceptions to understand this fully. There were many difficulties that a Jew of those days would feel in acknowledging the claims of CHRIST, and the best- educated men of the day for the most part found those difficulties insuperable. The nation was long- ing for a redeemer, and was more than willing to accept any one whose claims seemed reasonable. There was ^^ much questioning," we are told, among anxious inquirers. Even at the last, when our LORD was before Pilate, the inquiry often before made, was repeated, '' Art Thou the CHRIST ? " How much is implied in the midnight visit of Nicodemus tp 17 13 1 8 Whtvh ^utttra^ in ^tthettt. Christ ! What heart-searchings there must have been, what study of the prophets, what keen watching and Hstening to the words and acts of our Lord, what racking of mind, what painful weighing of evidence, what real mental torture must have been endured, before that dignified master in Israel could bring himself to go secretly and humbly to that plain Man and open his heart's grief, and ask the one question that was to him life or death ! And what happened to Nicodemus was doubt- less the experience of many besides. Take St. Paul's case. " It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks," said our Lord to him. What did that mean, but that Saul of Tarsus was tortured by conflicting opinions, desire for truth and light, secret drawing towards CHRIST and His disciples on the one hand, and on the other hand traditional belief, the compelling influence of those whom he was bound to respect ? Then a little later this same St. Paul reads the heart of Agrippa like an open book. *' I know that thou believest," he said to him ; and the king cannot hold back his confession : ** Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian." "Almost" — how many, if they had spoken the whole truth, would have said the same then ; how many since that day have felt it ; how many say it in their hearts to-day ! What, then, does it all come to but to this, that certainty is hard to find in this great inquiry, hard in past times, hard now ? What does it come to but that cold mental effort, pure intellectual inquiry, forensic gathering and sifting of evidence, following general opinion, is not enough to ensure Christian faith? "Search and look," said the acute and learned men of the great council to Nicodemus; "out of Nazareth there ariseth no prophet." Many felt this and such-like reasons to be final, and that the way to belief in CHRIST was absolutely barred. And to-day the same thing is going on. Once men rested in papal infallibility; it broke down. Then they set up the infalHbihty of Scripture; criticism has upset this human and arbitrary theory of certainty. " The historical evidence of Christianity is imperfect," men say. ^' The intellectual proofs are faulty ; we do no disbelieve, but we suspend our judgment ; we are compelled to be agnostics." Well and good. But are men reasonable and con- sistent who so decide? If they will have nothing less than certainty, mathematical demonstration, unassailable proof, judicial evidence, what are they going to accept ? When will they feel justified in taking any decided step whatever ? Of what are we certain ? The evidence of our senses ? What can be more deceptive ? Put your stick into the water, your eyes tell you it is bent ; pull it out, it is straight. Which is the fact ? The sun seems to rise and set; science tells you that it is the earth that moves. Which will you believe ? You see external objects in certain positions; the optician tells you that your eyes invert all images. You see green and red ; another sees but one colour, and that neither green nor red. You say he is colour-bhnd. How do you know that he does not see correctly, and that you are deficient ? So with hearing, touch, taste. We might cite dilemmas enough about each. But Science is certain ! Is it ? What part of science ? There are several theories as to the sun's heat, its source, its maintenance; there is no cer- tainty about it. The nebular hypothesis is not a settled belief. There are constantly new theories. Every year something is discovered that upsets older positions. Space and time, we are told, must be infinite, yet either is unthinkable. All physical 20 Wh'ivh ^nnha^ in ^trhcttt. science is, after all, merely a probability. Every- thing that we consider true has originated in hypo- thesis. *^ The firmest of all conclusions are depen- dent on facts, which may have been otherwise in the past, and which may be otherwise in the future, and which may actually at this moment present a totally different appearance to other intelligent beings." Belief in gravitation is an exercise of faith. We accept the conclusions of astronomy, of geology, of evolution, of chemistry, on the testimony of others, but we have not proved them ourselves, and we can- not do so. *' So in mathematics, the science most trusted for exactness, it is found that a law some- times holds good only up to a certain point, and there ceases, from the breaking through of some higher law, a variable quantity depending upon another also variable, and the two changing gradu- ally together." ^' Geometry has familiarised us with reasoning on space of more dimensions than that in which we live, and of which alone we can conceive ; while analysis has necessitated the admission of so- called ' imaginary quantities,' the nature of which the imagination fails to grasp." '^ It is the characteristic of abstract thought, that, when followed out to its utmost limits, it almost invariably lands us in the region of paradox." Where, then, have we certainty ? To come down to the daily events of ordinary life, do we not con- stantly act upon imperfect evidence ? Have we ever anything more than probability for our guide ? So Dr. Newman says, '' Probability is the guide of life. Formal logical sequence is not the method by which we are enabled to become certain of what is concrete, but it is the cumulation of probabilities independent of each other, probabilities too fine to avail separately, too subtle and circuitous to be convertible into syllo- gisms, too numerous and various for such conver- sion, even were they convertible." ^hitb ^xtntta^ ttt ^irirent. 21 Children and inexperienced people are dogmatic and quite sure; we who have seen so many mis- takes are more cautious in our conclusions and assertions. We have learned that uncertainty is as much an attribute of the human mind as mortality is of the human body. We may rebel against the humiliating, degrading consciousness of the limits of our knowledge, but to do so is as unreasonable as to complain that we are absolutely confined to the limits of this small planet, when infinite space is about us. ''Whilst we accept gladly those most precious glimmerings of Himself which GOD gives us, we are by reason constrained to acknowledge that the greatest and sublimest part of GOD is un- known and unknowable to us. Just as a dog knows of his master only a very little, and yet that little is of more real importance to him than the large tracts of his master's nature which he cannot know, so that part of our Creator which we can dimly know is in truth a very small fragment, and yet this fragment is to us of inestimable value, and of more present importance than the vast unfathomable recesses of God's inner hidden being." Demand mathematical certainty for your belief, and you will lapse away into mere animal materi- alism. Trust to your poor, limited intellect for the foundation of your religion, and you will find both give way and end in idiotic nescience. Question the history of Jesus CHRIST, and you must question the existence of Julius Caesar, and have, with Whately, " historic doubts " as to Napoleon and his wars. The evidences of Christianity must be sought within, as well as without. The proofs of religion must be looked for in experience, more than in argument. We are like men rowing; we guide our course by what we see behind us. The heart, the conscience, the involuntary aspirations of something within us that is not carnal nor material, the intuitions that no 2 2 . Whivh ^uittra^ :tt ^trircnf. .one has taught us — these must be taken into con- sideration when we think of GOD, of ourselves, and of our destiny. And so St. Paul says that he *^ knows ; " and St. John declares that he is '' sure ; " and multitudes since them have believed in the unseen, as surely as they have believed in what we call the visible and tangible, and in much else of which we say, " I cannot prove it to you, but to me it is certain." Jesus took a little child and set him in the midst of His disciples, and said, '^ Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven." GOD is not found by cold, calculating, intellectual search, but by the instincts that He has implanted in our nature ; and those instincts may be perverted, distorted, killed. '^ My soul is athirst for GOD," said the old-world Psalmist, says the earnest nineteenth century man in the midst of the voices and din of our times, and the reply to both is the Son of Man's invitation, ^' If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink." We take Him at His word. We become His disciples. We follow Him, compelled by His mighty influence ; but as we follow, we fear, we ask ques- tions, we are tempted to draw back, as others do. But to whom shall we go ? If He will not give us all we desire, where shall we find a Master who will give us what He gives, who promises what He assures us of? Doubt says, ''I will not, because I am not sure ; " Faith says, '' I will, though I am not sure." And it is Faith that saves. Even know- ledge, we are told, '' shall vanish away ; " for as yet we know but in part ; we see but the reflection of things as in a faulty, distorting mirror. We find life to be a riddle, of which we have not yet received" the answer. But when all else fails and lapses away, Faith, Hope, Love, these the three, these abide. jFotirtfj Sunlias in ^t^htwt. ENDING AND BEGINNING, All things of which we have any knowledge have beginning and ending. Some thinkers, both of ancient and modern times, have maintained that matter is eternal. They say they can neither find any traces of its beginning, nor any signs that it will ever come to an end ; they can follow some of its wonderful changes, but they suspect that its quantity remains always the same. They cannot prove it, but they consider that, as far as human knowledge and reason can be relied upon, matter may be considered to be eternal, without beginning and without end. But we Christians cannot accept this unproved and unprovable theory. The Catholic Faith teaches that there are not three nor two eternals, but only one Eternal, the blessed and adorable Triune GOD. Eternity can be the attribute of One only. We see multitudes of things coming to an end ; we believe that the law is universal, and that all things come to an end. Nothing continues the same always. The duration may be long or short, but sooner or later tliere is a change, an end, and then another beginning. Suns and planets have long lives ; they pass through many changes, but each period of their existence has its beginning and its end. Great Babylon had world-wide dominion ; the city was vast ; whole generations of men gave their skill and strength to make it wonderful; its master stood upon its walls, that rose like mountains upon the flat plain of Euphrates ; he looked this way and that 23 24 JFourtlr ^utttra^ in ^bbBttt. way, and could see no power strong enough to give him alarm. Babylon seemed to defy destruction, and to be immovable, invincible. But Babylon came to an end. Rome was more mighty even than Babylon ; it lasted longer ; it had wider dominion ; men called it the '^ Eternal City." But the Roman Empire came to an end. We live our poor little lives, and they are but a series of changes. Childhood comes to an end, then youth. We live a few years here, a few there ; we have friends, habits, surroundings ; and then pre- sently all has come to an end, and our life is going on in quite a different way, and there will come by-and- by another change, another end ; men call it death. We are drawing near to the year's end ; and then there will be a new year, a beginning. We have gone all through the year's series of festival and fast, of commemoration and instruction ; and now we have begun again. A pastor works in a parish for a certain number of years ; then he is removed ; but the Church and the Church's work go on. There is an end; but there is at once a new beginning. So it is with all things. There is always a beginning or an ending in our affairs ; birth and death ; greeting and parting; somebody or something new, and so somebody or something passing away. So be it, for weal or woe, for so it must be. But let us try and get some helpful thoughts from all this, some spiritual instruction, something encouraging from that which at first sight seems to be rather depressing. Let us, then, take it for certain that our spiritual life and health are made up of a series of beginnings and endings. If we were other and higher beings than we are, this might not be so. It certainly is not the highest and noblest form of spiritual life that we can imagine. How much better we might have been than we are ! If we had pre- served our baptismal purity unsullied ; if we had - been able to use all the grace of Confirmation ; if every Communion had been a really good one, how- far should we have advanced by this time towards sanctity and perfection ! But we know how very different it has been with us. We have made good beginnings, and then, alas ! all has come to an end in some fall ; and we seem to have lost all we had gained. When we were confirmed we made good resolutions ; at Lent, on our birthday, after some illness, during a Mission — nay, at every Communion. Yes, day by day, as we have knelt at our bedside and examined ourselves as to what we have done in the day, we have made new beginnings ; and then, when we find that we have failed and broken down again and again, we begin to get out of heart, and to think that it is of no use, and that GOD will have lost patience with us, and that we may as well give up trying, for we never can be good. Now, we must not think so. It is a temptation. Some evil one whispers it, that he may keep us from repentance and salvation ; that he may make us Hke himself. There is a good deal of pride at the bottom of such thoughts. We were so sure of our good in- tentions ; we had such a high opinion of our abiHty to do what we wished ; we were quite certain that nothing would be able to overthrow us. And when we are down again, just in the old way, our wounded pride rankles, and we get angry with everybody and everything. We are very like ill-conditioned little children who, when they fall and hurt them- selves, lie screaming, or begin to beat something that tripped them up and hurt them. And so St. Francis of Sales, who, beside being a great saint, had a very bright and pleasant common-sense way of looking at things, when some one came to him with a long dismal tale of failure and falls, of broken resolution, and disappointed expectation of what he was going to do and to be, and asked what was th^ 26 yourtlj .^untra^ in ^trliettt. remedy for all this, expecting to hear a learned and abstruse system of conduct explained at length, Francis looked at him quietly, and with a half-sup- pressed smile, and said, ^'Well, there is only one thing to be done; you must just do what a little child does when it tumbles ; get up, and try again." Perhaps Francis, being a great saint, had learned the meaning and force of our LORD'S words more thoroughly than most people ; and we know that our Lord said that the best way to enter the kingdom of heaven was to become as a little child; and the little child that is well disciplined and trained picks itself up after a fall, and runs on again. This is just what we must do. There has come, perhaps, a disastrous end ; we must just make a new beginning. There is, in fact, no choice about the matter. If we are not going to give up our Christian profession and our hopes, what else can we do ? If the farmer has had a bad harvest, he sows another crop, and hopes for better things. When the disciples had been toiling all night, and had taken nothing, our Lord would only help them on condition that they let down the net once more. The blessed who are waiting safely for their resurrection are what they are because they were never tired of making new beginnings. Souls are not lost because of their falls and failures, but because they will not begin again. Peter fell ; but he kept near his LORD, and presently he caught His eye, and went out and wept bitterl}^, very much ashamed of himself, very penitent, very humble, quite ready to make a new beginning. And he was pardoned and restored. Judas fell ; but he was only mortified and angry. Despair followed, and he was lost. David, the Publican, the Prodigal, Magdalen, all these fell badly, miserably, but they repented ; that is, they made a new beginning, and God, in His mercy, forgave the sin, and blessed and helped them, when they tried to do better. IFourtlj ^untia^ itt ^triicnf. 27 Now, is there not great comfort for us, such as we are, in all this ? Every one gets out of heart some- times; every one is disposed to be weary in well- doing sometimes. There is no doctrine of the Gospel more consoling, more indispensable, than this, that if we have done wrong or failed we may make a new beginning. It is a peculiarity of Christ's re- velation ; it is the introduction of a new and unknown system into the world's affairs. Nature is inexor- able ; it makes no allowance for mistakes. What is done brings its consequences inevitably. There is no place for repentance, no opportunity for making a new beginning. And a great part of human affairs follows the same rule. Laws are made, and if they are transgressed, there comes the judge, and his sen- tence. The way of the world is to be hard upon a man when he is down. '^ You have made your bed, and now you must lie upon it." There are proverbs in all languages that tell people that sort of thing. But Jesus Christ, Himself Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, is greater than man, greater than nature. He is not tied and bound by narrow and unrelaxing laws. His command- ment is exceeding broad. He introduces the human element of pity. He works not like a machine, always in one monotonous and unalterable routine, the same for all ; but there is the Father's compas- sion, the weighing of circumstances, the considera- tion of each case on its own merits, the skilful and equitable adjustment of the lot of each reasonable creature, the remembering that we are but dust, the Creator's knowledge of His creature's weakness and infirmities, the loving Father's yearning over His child, ready to forgive, to make excuses, to receive the weeping penitent, the broken-hearted prodigal, to meet them half-way and more, to give them another trial, to encourage them to begin again. . So that, when we look back at our life, and ara JfourtlT ^ittttrag in ^titrenf. ashamed to see how many beginnings we have made, and are almost incHned to despair, and never to make another beginning, we must remember that these beginnings are not lost and wasted efforts. Where should we have been now if we had not made them ? They are foundations for yet new beginnings. The trees at this season have shed all their beautiful leaves, and they are lying thick upon the ground. It seems all waste ; but it is not really so. The leaves will keep the roots warm ; they will decay, and manure and strengthen their parent tree, and help it to produce a larger crop of leaves next spring. So our new beginnings arise from those old beginnings, that seemed to result in nothing but disappointing endings. We all know Bruce's story of the spider and its shattered web, and how its patient beginning all its spoiled work again gave the despairing traveller heart and hope and energy. Look at any of our old towns; dig down and you will find ruins, and ruins under them. The place has been sacked and burned and de- stroyed over and over again since the Romans first made their camp there; but men have set to work and built again, and turned old ruins into foundations of new structures. Sometimes, too, our beginnings were in the wrong direction, or were faulty in principle, and so it is well that they soon came to an end, for they could not have resulted in any good issue ; just as a badly set limb is some- times actually broken again by a clever surgeon, that he may make it as good as it was originally. The wise Christian man, then, avails himself of every opportunity to make a new beginning. Advent, Lent, changes, whether personal or in his surround- ings, yearly, daily, unexpected changes, all may be made occasions of new beginnings. There are always changes; all things come to an end; they, are always coming to an end; so there must be JFourtl; ^untra^ in ^bbtnt, 29 constantly new beginnings, if there is life, if there is to be progress, if we are to avoid stagnation, decay, death, destruction. Our Master's command is very broad ; it touches every one, every age, every circumstance in each man's life and experience; everything is provided for, everything is covered by it; it is never taken by surprise. The broad rule of Christian life is to make a new beginning, as soon as ever an end comes. Troubles seem often as if they were exceptions ; they look as if they were never coming to an end ; but they do end at last, sometimes in other troubles, sometimes only at death. Pleasures come to an end ; privileges, friendships, spiritual opportunities, particular kinds of work or employment. Some things last a longer, some a shorter time ; but none are without an end. We are always saying, '^ Well, that's done ; there's an end of that." Sometimes we are glad, some- times sorry ; but the next thought must be, ^' What have I to do now ? What have I to begin ? " As He hung upon the Cross, the Saviour of the world contemplated the work He had come into the world to do, and which He so earnestly desired to accomplish, and He cried with restful content, " It is finished." But then He began again a new work, for ^' He ever liveth, a Priest, to make intercession for us." There is no idleness in anything that GOD has made, nor in any creature that does His will. There will be some day an end of this life for each of us, as we see day by day the end coming to those side by side with us; and some people talk as if we were going to rest for ever after that. Well, I hope we shall rest from pain and sorrow and separation and sin; but we shall surely find a new beginning awaiting us beyond the grave, an active, progressive, busy life, with God's command- ment reaching over and around us still ; and in ful- filling of that commandment our duty and our joy. JFirst Suntias after Cljristma^. MICHAEL'S Al^SWER TO SATAN, Christmas ever brings to our minds the thought of the holy angels. When we have adored the Incarnate GOD, and can take our thoughts off from wondering at His humiliation and praising His love, we find ourselves face to face with the holy angels. When God became an inhabitant of the earth, then a door was opened in heaven, and the songs that never cease before the throne of the Eternal were heard for once here below. For once men's eyes were opened and the heavenly host was revealed, the glorious, beautiful, sinless elder sons of GoD, worshipping, rejoicing in the love of GOD and in the salvation of men. They will teach us how to keep Christmastide ; they will teach us how to worship, how to demean ourselves in the presence of the miracle of love which was wrought in the Incarnation. See how selfless was their joy. They mention only God and men. They marvel at the conde- scension of God ; they rejoice in the salvation of men. Their love to GOD was already all-absorbing, but a new phase of it created in them new ex- pressions, new songs. Man's salvation did not alter their condition of perfect happiness, but their sympathy was roused at the thought of man's re- demption, and their joy found its vent in hymns of gladness. But there is a deeper lesson than all this in the 30 yirst ^ttttia^ after dtijrxstmas. 31 angels' attitude with respect to the Incarnation. The angels were God's creation, long before man existed. They had their probation, as we have ours, and some of their number fell. It is believed by wise and holy men that this probation was in some way connected with man, and his redemption by the Incarnate Son of GOD. Michael the arch- angel was the leader of the hosts of the faithful and obedient angels, and perhaps we have in those words of his, recorded by St. Jude, ^^ The LORD rebuke thee," something more than a mere reply to the Evil One, when he disputed about the body of Moses. There seems to be in these words a declaration of faith, a policy, if we may so call it, that ruled and guided the angels that sinned not all through the long ages of the past, and which must still hve in their souls, and govern their thoughts and con- duct. May we not believe that to the minds of the angels the existence of evil was a difficulty and a stumbHng-block, as it is to us ; that they desired to look into this and other mysteries of Go I), and yet were not permitted to see and understand; and may we not imagine that when the temptation came to impatience, or rebelHon, or doubt of God's power or goodness or love, the reply to the tempter would be but this, " The LORD rebuke thee " ? Long after, when Abraham, the typical faithful man, was tried sorely, he in like manner waited patiently upon GOD in darkness and bitter pain ; so that his name ever after became the symbol of living, mighty faith, and a proverb arose from the memories of Moriah, '' In the mount of the LORD it shall be seen." It meant this — wait on patiently till God's time comes, and all will be well; bear bravely till the end, and the end will bring relief and joy; go on all the long way to the land that God points out ; go up the mountain to the very top, 32 yirst ^untra^ after Cljnstmas. there, and not till you are there, will you see the meaning of God's strange command, of GOD's hard task. So it seems as if Michael's words were justified to-day — '^The LORD rebuke thee." Michael knew not why evil should exist, why it should triumph, why man should fall beneath its sway; but he trusted GOD, who knew better than he, and he left the controversy in His hands. And now, at Christ- mastide, the mystery begins to be made clear. GOD has stooped from heaven to become Man. He has taken the matter into His own hands. He has ranged Himself, as a Man, on man's side, against the Evil One, and will give him his answer in tremendous blows upon his kingdom and power. ** The one rough word," with which the son of Sirach says GOD could crush out evil, was not spoken, but, instead, the Word of GOD was made flesh, and tabernacled among us. We see Him to-day, a silent Word ; speechless, yet not by weakness, but by love ; speechless, yet fulfilling the will of GOD ; speechless, yet the Saviour of men. But even then the magnificent trust of Michael and the holy angels did not end. It looked unlike a revelation of power and victory, when they saw their GOD humbled beyond all understanding, hidden in the poor little helpless body of a new-born babe. But they rested their whole weight upon GOD, and v/aited. Then came the flight into Egypt ; weakness, still, it seemed. There were danger and fear, but no signs of conquest ; nothing clear yet. Then the obscure life at Nazareth, the carpenter's Son; still no trumpet-call to bid them set on and vindicate God and truth and right. Then the three years' ministry ; miracles indeed, but even wicked men were not vanquished ; and where was the conquest of evil spirits, and of the vast empire of evil, through- out the works of GOD ? If any evil one whispered yitsl §^nnha^ after (Kbrhtntaa. 33 this in Michael's ear, the reply was still but this — " The Lord rebuke thee." Then came the awful events of Calvary ; awful indeed to the angels who knew Who it was that hung upon the Cross; awful beyond all that we can conceive to them, when they heard that cry, " My God, My GOD, why hast Thou forsaken Me ? " But still they endured, and waited, and the Resur- rection must have been to them even more than it was to the apostles. We might go further yet. The history of the Church ; the state of the world all along the Christian era down to this very day ; the terrible sight of souls rebelhng against GOD, and working out their own sure ruin, in spite of Bethlehem and Calvary; the agonising sight of the misery of multitudes through man's abuse of his power as GOD'S steward in the government of the world, of his misuse of his dele- gated authority, of his waste of precious gifts, of his perversion of mighty agencies. Still, surely the tempter might sneer and boast, and try to over- throw the angels' steadfastness by pointing out all these signs of seeming failure ; and still surely, day by day, whenever the doubt was suggested, perhaps this very day, the old reply has been made by angelic lips — '' The Lord rebuke thee." Nothing but this ; no argument, no reviling, no wavering of faith ; but only this — '' The LORD rebuke thee." Let the angels, then, teach us to-day. Let Michael give an answer for us to those who would think Gabriel's mission has failed, and who would throw a dark shade over the brightness of our Christmas season. They point out to us the growing power of evil. They say that now the victory will come, and that the name of GOD shall soon be blotted out, even from the memories of the people. They tell us that the Church is doomed, that Christianity is played out, that we have been deceived and deluded, C 34 yirat ^xtntra^ after Clrristmas. and that men are wiser now. Shall we not say too, to-day, standing by the Manger, '' ^ The LORD rebuke thee.' I cannot understand all this; I cannot answer your arguments ; but I believe in GOD ; I rest on GOD ; I love GOD, and I leave it all in His hands " ? Or does the tempter spoil our Christmastide by stirring up within us discontent at our lot, im- patience under our troubles, weariness under the monotony of a dreary Hfe ? Does he tempt us to despair because of our want of progress in the spiritual life and victory over faults ? Does he tell us that it is of no use to try to do right, or to resist those who would lead us downwards ? Then let us answer him, as Michael answered him, ^' ' The Lord rebuke thee.' Where I cannot see, I can still believe. Where my faith totters, my love holds fast. I kneel to-day in the stable at Bethlehem ; my God has done all that for me ; He will do more yet ; more than I can ask or think ; all that I need. I can find no master, no lord, better than He. I will cling to Him in spite of all in life, and com- mend my soul to Him when I come to die." SeconU Suntiag after Cfjrfetmag. «/ WOULD NOT LIVE ALWAY." Of late years books have been written, and much newspaper and other correspondence has taken place, on the question whether life is worth living. The inquiry is by no means a new one. The Greek philosophers held discussions on the same matter ; Gautema Buddha in India found himself involved in this great controversy; and if fanaticism and brutaHty had not destroyed the libraries of the old world, we should doubtless have been reading to-day learned treatises on human life and its characteristics, written when that mummy lately unwound in London was a living man, some four or five thousand years ago. The Book of Job is beHeved to represent men's thoughts at a period earlier than that which any other book of the Bible records, and we find in it discussions respecting this life, its merits and its disadvantages, and the net result is summed up in the conclusion, '' I would not live alway." Job does not mean that he has no belief in and desire for immortahty, for that we find him asserting and rejoicing in elsewhere. But he says that, from his knowledge and experience of human Hfe as it is, best and worst, he would not wish it to be in- definitely prolonged, that he would not wish to " live alway " here in this world, either because Hfe is not satisfactory, or because he has a sure faith in a life to come, which will be better and more satisfying. 35 36 ^errmtr ^un&a^ after Clrrtstntas* Let us then, on this, the first Sunday of a New Year, try and take a calm retrospective and pro- spective view of human Hfe, as it is now, and see whether we too come to the same conclusion as did wise and holy Job in his far-off age, and say, " I would not live alway." There have been pessimists in all ages of the world, men and women, mostly poor creatures, selfish, unloving, unloved, useless, godless people, who have taken a dark and despairing view of life. Such was Schopenhauer, called by his admirers '' the king of modern thought." This man declared that existence was an unmitigated evil, and that the world was the worst possible world. He pro- fessed that his constant aim was to acquire a clear view of the utter despicability of mankind. With all this, he was himself utterly selfish, immoral, and mean. His mother could not live with him, because of his persistent ill-temper and brutality. One of his greatest admirers declared that he was dis- tinguished by boisterous arrogance, and vanity in the worst sense of the word; that neglect exasperated him ; that he was ever suspicious and irritable. He was always in a state of morbid fear of death, misfortune, and illness. He was an atheist. He despised women. He ridiculed the idea of patriotism, and of pity for the poor and unfortunate. He was grossly sensual, and indulged freely in the coarsest animal pleasures. We may surely put aside the verdict of such men. With all their talents, they are scarcely human. There seems to be something diabolical in their nature. These apostles of the gospel of hate, then, may be disregarded by those who desire to be guided by the gospel of the love of GOD and of goodwill towards men. Human nature is not altogether bad. Human life is not all misery, or a mistake. The primeval curse does not always work. ^erotttr ^xttttra^ after (Klrriatmaa, 37 The sweet atmosphere of the lost Paradise is still sometimes wafted through its closed and guarded gates. Every one of us has spent many happy hours. We have loved and been loved. We have to-day many blessings, many joys. And yet we shall probably be quite ready to endorse what Job says elsewhere, that ''man is born to trouble, as the sparks fly upward." Take the very first stage of human existence. The new-born babe comes into the world weeping in pain. Life begins with tears and suffering. Who has not seen some poor little infant's face distorted with convulsions ; the fragile frame racked with agony, fighting for breath ? That period of fife is generally, indeed, placid and peaceful, but it is at best but a very low and imperfect kind of existence. None of us would say of it, otherwise than that thus at least, '' I would not live alway." Then comes Childhood. Poets and some others speak of this stage of life as if it were a period of careless gaiety and unmixed joyousness. It is said — " Ah ! happy years ! Who would not be a child once more ? " People look enviously upon the rude health, the buoyant spirits, the freedom from the worries, anxieties, and responsibilities that surround and oppress them, and unreasonably persuade them- selves that child-life is all pleasure. But is it so really ? What mean, then, those frequent tears ? What shall we say of the irksome duty of obedience, the struggle of the untrained nature against unin- telligible restraints and regulations, the constant crossings of the will and the incHnation, the gradual and painful bending and moulding of the wild and free spirit into the routine of custom and conven- tionalities ? 38 ^£j:0ttir ^ttntta^ after (Kljnatmas* Think of the slow acquisition of learning. What hard work it is, so unnatural, so distasteful, so tedious, so vexatious, so hopelessly long ! Not that there is not all this time much real pleasure and enjoyment. But the question is, should we like to ''live always" thus; should we be content to be always in a state of childhood, with its mental little- ness, its pains, and its joys ? Should we, grown-up men and women, with our knowledge of a higher life, be wilHng, if it might be, to *' live always " as children ? Next comes Youth. The troubles of childhood are now gone, but all relish for its pleasures has also gone. We cannot emerge from one condition and enter upon another, and carry its share of happiness with us. We have always to strike a balance between the good and the evil of our present cir- cumstances. '' Man never continueth in one stay." The greatest obstacle to present enjoyment is the restless, eager desire for something that is not ours. Youth is indeed a golden time, but much of its solid worth is flung away to clutch a shadowy boon that hope's flattering tale promises. So Youth passes ; and perhaps the much-desired advantages are gained, independence, marriage, posi- tion, honour. But what now ? What means the anxious expression on the faces of men and women ? What do they say of themselves and their life ? Are they quite satisfied ? Would they like to '' live always " just as they are ? Is there not ever just something wanting, this to be removed, that to be obtained, that feared possibiHty that lowers, that bitterness that each heart knows ? Lastly, there comes Old Age. Nature clings to life, but this is not so much from love of hfe as from fear of death. So old-world flattery addressed the favourites of fortune with the formula, "Live for ever." But, in sober earnest, who would ''live ^e£0ntr ^untra^ after (KIrnatmaa. 39 alway " with all the penalties of old age upon them ? Greek fable imagined one who had asked and obtained from the gods immortaHty, but had failed to ask and obtain perpetual youth, and so he lived on in misery ; and Tennyson well depicts him moaning thus : — " The strong Hours indignant worked their wills, And beat me down and marred and wasted me, And though they could not end me, left me maimed, To dwell in presence of immortal youth ; Immortal age beside immortal youth ; And all I was, in ashes ! " Thus, then, we have briefly sketched man's life in its successive ages, and we cannot find one of which we can heartily say, '' In this I would ' live alway.' " If indeed a man could always enjoy good health, perpetual youth, freedom from poverty and trouble, he might be content to live always in this world. But who can expect this ? Who has ever had such an experience ? It never has been ; it never can be. We must take the world as it is, and human life as many thousand years prove that it must always be, and with life as it is no one is really satisfied. The animals live and rest in the present. Man has another and a higher instinct which the animal does not possess, which blindly craves for something never yet attained. Many, alas ! are little better than dumb, unprogressive animals ; they try to make this world their home, and to find satisfaction in it; and they become ill-tempered, restless, savage, beast-like, because they fail. But the spiritual man is full of aspirations. The more his soul is educated and cultured, the more insatiable wants does he develop. The charms of nature cannot be fully grasped; they are not infinite, but in our most delicious moments we feel all-unable to rise to the complete enjoyment of what 40 ^ernntr ^ttttJra^ after (K5[natma«. we see and hear, sunsets, mountains, a starry night, music, the silent eloquence of a summer's day, a beautiful face, a heart-to-heart talk with a man whom we love and honour. And then there are the boundless fields of knowledge and discovery; the secret powers of the universe, its history ; our own nature and its undeveloped endowments; the wonders of life beyond this little world. Who that has ventured even ankle-deep into the margin of the limitless, unfathomable ocean of thought and know- ledge would say of this life, ^* I would live alway " ? Nor is this all. There are yet more and more noble longings which remain unsatisfied, inconsol- able here ; the desire for sinlessness ; the passionate yearning for soul-purity; the loathing of our own infirmities, our own despicable failures; a vague, glorious ideal self that we feel is strugghng for birth within us, kept down by the flesh, that cannot ex- pand into its full strength here in the midst of all this finite and feeble environment ; the groping in the sur- rounding darkness towards the far-off, dimly dis- cerned realm of light; the unquenchable belief in truth in the midst of delusions and the falseness that crushes us and sometimes almost stifles us into de- spair and unbelief; the mysterious capacities for love that have never yet found their proper sphere ; the profound conviction that there are those whom we could love without reserve, better than ourselves, whom we could honour and reverence, for whom we could live and sacrifice all we have and are, and in that sacrifice find hitherto unimagined joys. In a word, " My soul is athirst for GOD ; " and therefore of this life I must say, ^' I would not live alway." Jtrst Suntiag after ©pipljang. IDEALS. We might almost define man as a creature that conceives ideals. The animals have no ideals, no aspirations, no regrets, no disappointments. They remain the same always, and are content, and at peace. But human beings, as soon as they develop consciousness, begin to be restless with ardent desires after something that their imagination tells them is desirable. The little child can hardly be said to have an ideal, for its wants and wishes are so rapidly formed and forgotten, that it has much more in common with the lower animals than with the reasonable and reflecting man. But as the child's intellect develops, it very soon conceives ideals, and is most eager and impetuous in trying to realise them. Its ideals are neither lofty nor permanent, but they give rise to action and passion ; and the sad truth is soon dis- covered that human ideals are not usually attained. Disappointment and tears follow, but some new thought speedily dissipates them, and another object of desire engages the attention. Youth is the time of all others for the conceptions of ideals. All life, all the world, all possibilities, seem before the young mind. The blood runs hot and vigorously; the imagination is active; hope leads on joyously and confidently; the present is impatiently endured ; the future is clothed with every rainbow tint ; matter-of-fact counsels and grave fore- 41 42 yirst ^utttra^ after ^ptirl^an^. bodings are thrust aside as utterly unworthy of attention. Experience, and nothing but experience, teaches how mistaken most of these youthful ideals are. Generation after generation has the same experience, yet they are few indeed who learn wisdom by any other experience than their own, or who purchase prudence in any cheaper market than that of dis- appointment and suffering. Yet no thoughtful man would rob the young of their ideals. The young man or woman who has no ideal is not worth much ; for the power of origi- nating ideals is, as we have said, a characteristic that distinguishes man from the lower animals, and it abides with man all his life through. Without an ideal, man stands still or retrogrades. The savage man has his ideal, such as it is ; and every stage of civilisation, every rank and condition of life, has its ideals. One method of discovering generally what is the ideal of a people, is to find out what is their ideal heaven. The North American native hoped for happy hunting-grounds, freedom from hunger, and safe repose after congenial exertion. The hardy warriors of ancient Europe looked forward to suc- cessful fighting, good eating, and hard drinking. All the world over burial customs show that uncivilised races desired the occupations and pleasures of this life, without its pains and sorrows. We may judge, perhaps, truly of Mahomet and his religious system, by seeing that, in spite of what some panegyrists claim for- him, his ideal was a mere sensual Paradise, from which half the human race, even if all accepted his teaching, would be excluded. But keeping to our own country and our own times, let us think for a moment how important to each one of us is our own ideal. Take, for example, the case of marriage. Marriages are contracted for yirst ^uttJra^ after ^piirljatt^. 43 many reasons, but the ordinary marriage of affection is really founded upon an ideal. The man conceives in his mind the thought of an ideal woman, the one woman who can make him happy. Presently he thinks he discovers this ideal woman. Probably there are some features of his ideal in her, and passion, imagination, and hope persuade him that they are all there; and many an unhappy marriage has for its secret of failure the discovery that the ideal was so largely imagination, and so little reality. The same may be said of many women's disappoint- ments with their husbands. Ideal perfections do not exist, either in men or women, and those who flatter themselves that they have met with an instance and appropriated it to themselves have usually a very sad awakening from their dream. But even if the search for the ideal is disappointed in one direction, it is quite certain to be directed in some other. Every one at this moment has an ideal in their inmost heart. The mother broods over an ideal life for her child. The middle-aged man, sobered indeed by many a hope unrealised, but still uncon- verted from the human innate passion, dwells in quiet moments upon his ideal future, his ideal home, his ideal attainment. And no sooner is the search for and pursuit of an ideal disappointed in one direction than it is commenced in another direction. Even the old have their ideals. The worst of them, childish ideals revived, petty, selfish, self-indulgent thoughts and desires; the best of them, ideals in which those dear to them figure rather than they themselves, and hopes that reach on into another life, the fruit of a mature wisdom, the outcome of a life's experience that has sobered, not soured, and extended the horizon of hope, instead of perverting it into despair. So far we have considered present and individual ideals ; but there is another class that relates to 44 yirst ^utttra^ afttr (Bpip^attf . man's wider relations. Civilised man has always had ideals as regards states and governments, kingdoms and communities. Plato long ago com- mitted to writing the plan of his ideal Republic. Sir Thomas More wrote his under the title of " Utopia." Others have executed similar works. Men have tried many forms of government, and have elabo- rated various schemes of laws, but as yet the perfect system has not been discovered that will command the respect and obedience of all. We in our own day have seen kings and republics, emperors and constitutions, made and overthrown ; and still the work is going on, and we seem as far off an ideal system as ever. And now there is rising up in Europe a deep underground, widespread ideal, vague, unformed ; only, its promoters tell us that it will and must come, and that the seed-bed of its growth will be the ruin-heap under which lie buried all present governments, all civiHsation, all industry, art, science, all the fruits of man's labour and thought these many weary centuries. An awful prospect indeed ! — an ideal that seems to be nothing else than the fruit of a madman's morbid brain, the terrible offspring of despair and degradation, of hereditary crime, that has turned men into savage beasts that can do nothing but hurt and destroy ! But now, as regards the Church, how much may be explained, how much may be patiently endured, if we go on to the natural conclusion from all this, that an ideal Church does not exist, has never existed, and will never exist upon the earth ! The book of the Acts of the Apostles, the Epistles, and the Apocalypse show plainly enough that there was no perfect Church in the first age. History tells the same story on every page. Some sigh after the primitive Church ; some long after the mediaeval Church. They create an ideal Church, and imagine that it has existed. It is a mistake. yirat ^utttra^ after (Bpxjrlrait^. 45 Others originate sects, which are to be free from the evils they lament in the Church ; but other and greater evils spontaneously spring up in the virgin soil, and the ideal Church is still as unknown as the ideal state, or the ideal man or woman. There is but one more ideal that we can notice — our ideal self; not our surroundings, of which we have spoken, home or occupations or companions or other accidents external to ourselves, but our inner spiritual selves. Who has not an ideal self? Who has not dreamed of what he might be, could be, if, and if — if certain conditions could be obtained. One man's ideal is a poet, another a statesman, another a general, another a saint, another a sage, another a Solomon in his sensual luxury. We may learn a great deal about our real self, if we will gravely analyse this ideal self. Alas ! it is very often nothing but the joint creation of pride and selfishness. But not always. This ideal self may be the true spiritual man, cramped and prisoned in the natural man, as the butterfly is folded up in the chrysalis. Have not all men and women who have been great and good and useful first conceived their ideal self, and then by force of will more or less reaHsed it ? Tell me what is your ideal self, and I will tell you what you are. What is your ideal self? Is it something higher, purer, nobler, more spiritual, more loving, more self-sacrificing, than your poor real everyday self? Do you not merely day- dream about it, but strive to attain it ; not weakly lamenting your inferiority to it, as the woman, no longer young, vexes herself as she looks at her own portrait in the heyday of her charms, but as the youth who reads of noble deeds, and says, " I too will do the like " ? Do you feel within an unquench- able desire to rise, like the poor caged eagle that is ever spreading its wings for flight up to the clear blue ? Rejoice, then, and hope. In all the wide world of 46 yirat ^tttt&a^ after (Bfiipljan^. God's creation there has never yet been found an instinct that has not its proper fulfilment. As the young bird, taught by GOD alone, flies ; as the ant works in community ; as the insect provides for its coming transformations, so the soul of man yearns and prepares for its coming development, its higher unfettered life, taught by GOD alone, led on by faith, not by experience. CHRIST Himself blesses these aspirations. What He came into the world to teach itself gave rise to these supernatural longings, to these superhuman ideals. What is the source of noble ideals ? Is it not the stirring within us of faculties that cannot now and here find their proper field of exercise ? Is it not the straining for the birth of powers that this world of sense and change, these bodies of matter, cannot sustain, cannot gratify ? Was not man made in the image of GoD ? Has not the Pattern-Man been seen in the world ? He came, indeed, as a poor ignorant peasant, but in Him were all the possibilities of human perfection. The perfect king, the perfect magistrate, the perfect husband and father, were there in His per- fect human nature. As you may clothe the man with the insignia of any office, so, having the perfect man, all human vocations may be assumed. All fulness dwelt in the CHRIST, all goodness, all the special qualities that special callings demand. By Chrtst all good kings exercised their kingcraft ; from Him, as from an inexhaustible fountain, all wisdom has flowed, that has made men great in their several destinies, physicians, discoverers, scientists, saints. He hid His powers, but they have been revealed in His servants ; in one, one gift ; in another, another. All noble human characteristics come from the Man Christ Jesus. All the good that we are conscious of in ourselves is from Him, after His likeness. And He in us, by His Spirit, can make this grow and develop, till our ideal self is realised. yirat ^untra^ after Cptpljan^. 47 Wait, then, and hope, O aspiring soul of man ! Hold fast that shadowy ideal that seems so thin and intangible, and yet is so real to you, so inseparable from your inmost life. Material things are not so firm and certain, are not so abiding and true, as the things unseen and spiritual. This world, and the things in it, and we ourselves, are but the shadows of the great realities in the unseen universe. For this we look ; in this we believe ; the ideal city, the city that hath foundations whose Builder and Maker is God ; the ideal State, the Kingdom established in righteousness; the ideal Church, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing ; the ideal self, ourselves made after the image of CHRIST, the perfect Man, satisfied with His likeness. Seconti Suntias after CHptpfjang* ALWAYS SOMETHING WANTING. The Gospel story tells us to-day that in the midst of the supper at the marriage at Cana '* they wanted wine." So the wedding festival was spoiled, and the givers of the feast were shamed, and a shadow fell upon the brightness of their wedding- day for the bride and bridegroom. Perhaps they were poor, and this entertainment was a little beyond their means, "whose hoard was little, but whose heart was great;" perhaps more guests had come than were expected, for on such days open house is kept, and warm and generous hearts are lavish with invitations. But, come as it might, here was an unlooked-for disappointment, an annoyance, where all should have been pleasure and gladness. Probably it was the custom then, as it is now, to flatter and exaggerate a good deal on wedding- days; to speak only of the bright side of hfe; to ignore all unpleasant possibilities ; to '^ make believe," as children do in their play; and to assume that trouble and sorrow and disappointment do not exist, or that they will not affect the persons now be- ginning life together. But there, at Cana, as so often still, there broke in this discord in the marriage melody, an unwelcome matter-of-fact reminder that human life is, after all, not unmixed happiness, let people do and say what they may. Novels pour out in an endless stream from the press in which he and she are led through a variety of experiences, 48 ^erontr ^ntttia^ after ^piplratt^. 49 but the end comes alike in all, "And so they were married, and lived happily together ever after." People never seem to tire of reading this sort of thing. Our lending libraries are full of such books, and they are read by hundreds, while other books are read but by tens. Every one knows that the picture is not true to life; yet every one seems to conspire to keep up the delusion. Every one knows that there are unhappy marriages. Courts of law and common talk prove it by stubborn, disagreeable facts. Every one knows that for two persons to live intimately together, all their lives, having to bear with each other's faults and infirmities, to love and honour one another under all circumstances, to be fast-loving, inalienable friends from youth to age, is a very different thing from the novel ideal and wedding-day talk. None know this better than those who have most wisely and most happily married. Ten, or twenty, or thirty years of married life, they find, has not weakened the old love. There it is to-day, as it was on the wedding-day, and before; and there is added to it now respect, and confidence, and gratitude, which the experience of years has caused to grow up. The face may have lost its youthful charms ; the hair may have thinned and turned grey; but new beauties have been discovered; another, and a deeper admiration has arisen. Those two hearts are growing more dear, more necessary to one another, as life goes on. This is what happens in every true marriage. But for all that, every one knows that human life, under all circumstances, is a chequered scene, neither all pleasure nor all trouble; for its troubles are rendered bearable by counteracting comforts, and there are none of its joys without some alloy. Chil- dren do not understand this. Their little troubles utterly overwhelm them, while they last, which, happily, is not long ; and their hopes are so hot and so ^erotttr ^tttttra^ after (Bpiplratt^. eager, that all idea of disappointment or drawback is thrust away with resistless impatience. But the strange thing is, that these childish ideas linger on into what ought to be mature life. It is said that '' men are but children of a larger growth ; " and are we not very often astonished to see the childishness of men and women ? Old people are said to come to a '^ second childhood ; " and most truly ; for many of the faults of childhood reappear with the weak- ness and infirmities of old age — selfishness, curiosity, greediness, impatience, ill-temper, and such like. But are not childish faults apparent in other people all through life ; specially this hope of unmixed good ? No sooner is one hope disappointed than another is taken up. No wisdom is learned by experience. Hope's flattering tale is told over and over again, and always beheved. Men and women rest their whole weight upon one reed after another, that breaks under their hand ; and yet they never seem to learn that there is nothing in this world of ours that is made to be thus leaned upon. There is a saying, ^' You cannot put old heads on young shoulders ; " but very often we seem to see young heads on old shoulders; childish inexperience and unwisdom in those who ought long ago to have put away such childish things. People speak of their troubles as if they were quite exceptional, and demand sympathy and pity, as if some strange thing had happened to them ; whereas a little thought would tell them that there is nothing new in the matter, but only that which is common to man, an oft-told tale. Sickness, the loss of friends and dearer ones, disappointments, misfortunes, these always come unexpected to some people. They are never prepared for them ; and so they cannot bear them with any sort of patience or resignation. They live year after year in the world, yet never learn the plain, broad, unvarying features of human life ; they are always being taken by sur- ^ernnit ^utttra^ after (BptiJlratt^. 51 prise. And so some persons become soured and cynical, and say that life is not worth having, and exaggerate the evils of the world, as others magnify its good things. But this too is very like an ill-tempered, sulky child, who will not Hsten to kind friends and loving companions, but mopes apart, because some- thing has gone wrong and displeased him. We might have expected that our LORD, when He came into the world as one of us, would have set all this right. If He came to take away the curse, and to redeem us from the effects of the Fall, we might have thought that He would at the same time heal all the world's sores, and make all bright and sound again. But this was not His will. His ^^ hour had not yet come." He came into the world, and instead of doing away with the ills of human life. He simply bore them alongside of us. He felt pain, and poverty, and ignorance, and obscurity. He was hungry, and thirsty, and weary. He was disappointed with friends. He fell into misfortunes. He was at this wedding, for example, when the wine ran short. He was in the ship when the sudden storm came on. He stood and wept by the grave-side of one who was very dear to Him. But it will be said, He provided wine by miracle ; He assuaged the storm ; He raised Lazarus to life. True enough ; He manifested thus His Divine power ; He vindicated His mission ; He proclaimed Himself to be God. But how many died whom He did not raise ; how many storms were there that raged and destroyed, and He never spake the word, " Peace, be still;" how many sick were not healed; how. many sore, sad hearts had to bear their trouble to the end, though He was near, and knew all, and could have stopped the evil with a word, and yet did not ! He, and no one else, had the power to do away with Hfe's ills, and, except in a few cases, and for a special purpose, He never interfered, but let all go 52 ^ernntr ^KttJra^ after ^piplran^. on, while He lived in the midst of them, just as He had done before and has done ever since. The fact is, our LORD did not come to be the old world's hoped-for Saviour, to restore the golden age, and give man all he desires here upon earth. He did not come to be the Jewish Messiah, to conquer all nations with the sword, and set up a world-wide dominion of justice and peace. No; He came to be one of us ; one with us in our joys and sorrows ; to show us how to use these wisely, and to bear those patiently. He came to tell us the certainty of that which man always hoped for, another life, a better world, a reward for well-doing, a sphere in which to exercise the qualities gained, the character formed here, in this rough schoolroom. He came here but as a stranger and sojourner, like ourselves. His Home and ours is in our Father's House above. If His passing touch, His Hght word, when He pleased to use them, did such mighty things, and healed all the ills of life, what would He have us learn by this, but that in the land where He is King and LORD these sweet, mighty influences are ever coming forth from Him, and sheltering His beloved from all harm, and giving them all good things ? Here there is always some flaw in the best. Here nothing is perfect. The wedding-feast is marred by an unlooked-for want. At the marriage-feast of the Lamb there will be no wants ; for the guests of God will in Him possess all things, and they " hunger no more, neither thirst any more." EfjtrtJ cSuntiag after (Eptptans* THE END OF DESTRUCTIONS. We speak commonly of ^'The Psalms of David." Many of the Psalms were doubtless written by him, but others were probably by much earlier authors ; and besides that, that which they and David himself penned was almost certainly more or less the re- production of the words of men of still farther-off ages. The Psalms, then, hand down to us the thoughts, aspirations, and sorrows of many genera- tions of godly men. " One touch of nature makes the whole world kin ; " and the Psalms are alive with human nature, and therefore are still, and ever will be, valued by the thoughtful and the godly, for they come home to every heart that strains up- ward through life's varied experiences towards GOD. '' Deep answereth to deep." The sorrow that each heart knows, the joy that no stranger intermeddleth with, these are echoed from the Psalms in the inner recesses of the souls of men age after age. And as time goes on, and hght is given more and more, new depths are discovered, new truths, wider signification. David, in his Httle kingdom, gains a victory over some petty prince, who threatened him, and had long harassed his borders and laid waste his people's lands, and so he cries with restful thankfulness, ^' O thou enemy, thy destructions are come to an end ; " and he writes down his hymn of praise and thanksgiving, and it is stored in the national archives, S3 54 f^^irtr ^ittttra^ after Cpiplran^. and the Levite choirs bring it out again and again, and chant it as paeon of victory on many a jubilant fete-day. But this is not all. Just as the pebble dropped into the mirror-like pool raises a circling ripple that goes on widening and spreading till it has reached the very farthest limits of the water, so these local commemorations find a larger sense in world- wide interests, and in the aspirations of mankind, that are not bounded by the four corners of the earth, nor by the poor possibilities of this present life. There can never have been a time when men did not lament the evils of the world, the sorrows and disappointments of human life, the waste and de- structions of some unseen enemy of man and his peace. Men have had their theories about the origin of this evil, which have varied in different lands and in different ages, but poetry and prayer there must ever have been, expressing the yearnings of suffering man for deliverance, and the hope, more or less clear, that these destructions would end, that this enemy would be overthrown. As we look back over the ages, we can see plainer than the old-world men could see, that the reign of destruction is sensibly passing away. We read the great stone-book that lies under our feet, and which we in this last time have been counted worthy to open, and we find certain proof of the dominion of destruction in far-off, prehistoric times. The rocks tell little else but a story of destruction, of destructions one after another. Fire, ice, water, earthquake, all have wrought destruction upon the earth, till now their power seems to be well-nigh spent, and the earth is fit for human habitation. So, too, in geological eras there were fierce beasts on land and in sea. There was nothing but mutual destruction. Now these monsters are extinct, and fflrxrtr ^untra^ after ^pxplratt^. 55 their weaker successors, the beasts of prey of to-day, are gradually being exterminated, and we can foresee the time when they too will be absolutely extinct, and none but useful and gentle beasts will be found upon the earth. • Look, again, at man's history ; savage man but a higher kind of beast, a destroyer and little more ; old-world kingdoms chiefly devoted to war, great destroyers. Alas that we cannot yet say of the nations, ^' They learn war no more ! " But we are ashamed of ourselves for our wars ; we praise peace ; we count men great nowadays for other work than successful warfare. We begin to see that destroying is but a low occupation ; that creating and building up and improving are nobler employments for man. The child is a destroyer, but growth in wisdom makes us ashamed of childish ways, and we rejoice in construction, instead of destruction. So, surely, mankind at large has passed its barbarous boyhood, and is becoming full-grown, conscious of glorious powers, eager to use them. The good time has not come yet, but we look on in hope and faith, and say, *^ Destruction shall come to an end." Ah, it has been weary waiting ! Think, for example, only of that which the Psalmist dwells upon, the destruction of goodly cities, their very '' memorial perished with them." Traverse the wide world, and you will never get far away from ruins. Babylon, Nineveh, Persepolis, Greece, Rome, even America, the '^ New World," as men called it, is strewed thickly from north to its far-off south with wondrous stone monuments and earth-mounds, that tell of high civiHsation, advanced art; and then, destruction ! Islands in the midst of the ocean, hundreds of miles from any other land, possess ruins that tell us only this, that once men of skill and knowledge lived and thought and worked there. 56 ^hittf ^tttttra^ after (Bpiplratt^, But who they were, when they Hved, what their sculptured writing means, no one can tell us ; " their memorial is perished with them." Alas ! we sometimes fear that even in our own dear land this may yet be. There are awful elements of destruction working and seething in our midst. If these mad mobs of godless, senseless, debased men burst forth, and come on like a flood, or like a cyclone, or like a devouring fire, then down will go our boasted civilisation, the hard-won liberty and peace and security of Christian ages, and degrada- tion and ruin will reign supreme, and man will have once more marred God's fair world, and wrecked His good purposes. But we must come nearer home to learn the full bitterness of this law of destruction. Think of the great men that have lived, men of thought and genius, such as come but once in a century, two or three times in the history of a nation, and see the end of these men, painters, poets, musicians, archi- tects, philosophers, inventors ; there is but one end to all ; the wise and the great die as the fool dieth. Nay, how often does the master-mind pass away in life's fulness, while the clown or the useless trifler cumbers the ground for well-nigh a century. Think of Bishop Lightfoot, with all his store of learning, painfully acquired by a singularly gifted mind through many years of hard study, with all his marvellous administrative powers, never suspected till he became a bishop, with all the solid work that he did in ten short years ; what if he had lived on ten or twenty years more ? But no ; Death, the destroyer, lays his hand upon him at sixty-one, and the Church is left lamenting. Read the history of the Church, and weep as you read how her work has been hindered and marred by this enemy. Destruction. Disunion, bad men in power, low principles, human passion, deadly opposition of dogma against dogma, and theory against theory ; and the result, mere destruc- tion. ''An enemy hath done this." Godly men still recite the Psalms, and they find deeper meaning in their verses than ever their authors imagined, and they sigh for deHverance from the enemy, and pray that '' destruction may come to a perpetual end." But we must come closer yet. That which goes on in the world and in the Church has its counter- part in the godly man's heart. There is an enemy there too. There is this terrible power of destruction, working, wasting, growing. If it were not so, would there not be spiritual growth and manhood, instead of the puling infancy of so many of us ? Would there not be the likeness of CHRIST full-grown, seen and read of all men ? Where is baptismal grace ? Where the sevenfold Confirmation gift of the Holy Spirit? Where the strengthening of the Communion of the Body and Blood of CHRIST ? Where the results of prayer and resolution, of in- struction and warning and example ? Alas ! there has been the enemy's work again; tares sown, the good seed snatched away, trodden down, choked — Destruction ! What then ? Shall we despair, and give it all up ? Nay, that we will not. If we think so weakly, cowardly, stupidly, wickedly, the Word of GOD shall condemn us in the last day ; for thus it is put into our mouths to say, ''O thou enemy, destructions are come to a perpetual end ; " and the man of faith says the words, and by them is strengthened and braced up to action and to hope. Nature teaches it as in a parable. The old-world age of destruction has come to an end. The history of mankind teaches it. We have put away childish things, especially its destructiveness ; we are learn- ing to be men. Changes come slowly; growth is gradual, not to say tedious ; but there are promises, 5^ ®Irirb ^uttba^ after (Spiplran^. there are bright visions of a new heaven and a new earth, of purer bodies, of liberated spirits. There is the mystical foreshadowing of the end of the powers of destruction, Satan, Death, and Hell, hurled away out of GOD's creation, when they have done their Master's work. For in GOD'S world destruction is ever followed by renewal, higher, better, nobler creations. Now for a while we are in the midst of the conflict. The battle rages, the wounded are many, the dead lie on every side ; but we look up, and look on; we believe and rest in GoD. He is almighty. In His own time. He will put all enemies under His feet, and under our feet, if we are with Him, and He with us. jFourtJj Suntiag after (Kpipfjang* EVEN AS A BEAST. The Seventy-third Psalm is one of several in which the great unsolved problem of the providence of GOD is dwelt upon. Job, Ecclesiastes, and other writers touch upon the same perplexing question, and utter wails and complaints, because they cannot under- stand why the course of the world goes on as it does. The righteous suffer; the wicked are unpunished; God seems far off, indifferent, even unjust and un- loving, till the heart of the faithful is grieved, and the temptation comes that GOD'S service is hard and thankless, and that it would be well to give it up, and go the way of the world. In order to understand fully the intensity of this trial in the Psalmist's days, we must remember that men lived then almost entirely under a system of present reward and punishment. Moses, who had been thoroughly initiated into the Egyptian religious system, which brought the future life incessantly into the present, when he laid down the principles of religion for his people, in order perhaps to sever them the more completely from the errors and super- stitions in the midst of which they had so long lived, left out almost all reference to the unseen world and future retribution. He inculcated present obedience, and promised temporal prosperity, as a present re- ward, and warned the disobedient and rebellious that God would send speedy punishment, which would surely find them, and make them suffer. 59 6o JPnitrtlr ^utttrag after (Epxplratt^. This was really, however, a retrogression in spiritual knowledge; for Abraham and other primeval worthies had a clear faith in the unseen, and looked onward very much as we Christians are taught to do. Indeed both our LORD and St. Paul intimate that the Mosaic system was merely an interim dis- pensation, suited to the capacity of an ignorant and degraded people, till they should be educated slowly for better things, and for the Teacher who should give again the Truth long hidden, and display the light that had been obscured and veiled by ordinances and rites that were blindly performed, without a comprehension of their significance and meaning. Prophets and a few other enlightened men under- stood these things, and were in advance of their time in the knowledge of God's will ; but it was hard indeed for ordinary men to be contented and trustful, while God's ways were so incomprehensible, and His providence seemed to contradict His promises. So the Psalmist cries, *^ I was even as it were a beast before Thee ;" i.e., '' I could not understand Thy doings with the world or with myself any more than the poor dumb animal understands man's treatment of him. The young bullock for the first time yoked to the plough, the horse bitted and mounted, the dog that has to learn his master's wishes and to obey them, — I was like these; I could not speak to Thee; Thy words and ways were unintelligible to my poor senses. My instinct taught me to struggle for liberty, and my struggles were useless, and only brought me hurt and pain." Or we may take the comparison to refer to the narrow range of the beast's ideas. We may not, perhaps, go so far as Gazzali, who said that an animal is only a form through which a stream of matter is incessantly flowing, and that it resembles a cataract or a flame. But this at least seems certain, that the animal lives only in the present IFourtIr ^utttra^ after (Kpiplratt^. 6i moment ; its eyes are ever down upon the ground ; its thought is but to get food and rest; it has no hopes, no desire of progress, no noble discontent ; so that, as St. Augustine says, the sturdy bullock rejoices in its rich pasture, and in being allowed to feed and wanton as it pleases, not knowing that all this is but to prepare it for the sacrifice, or for the butcher. Like this is the man who lives a merely animal life, his mental powers uncultivated, his spiritual nature undeveloped, with no thought of God, no knowledge of himself or his destiny, and no desire for any. And now is all this obsolete, past, gone, and done with ? Is there now no trial of faith and patience, as we look out upon the world, as we go through life ourselves, and find out what it really is ? Is there no danger that we should cry out against God's providence, or be tempted to say, ''There is no God ; " or go plodding on, head down, beast-like, not understanding, and not wanting to understand ? Has it not been said — " Suppose a real angel came from heaven To live with men and women, he'd go mad, If no considerate hand should tie a blind Across his piercing eyes " ? And again, of what may be seen any day in the back-slums of any great town — " Faces ! O my God, We call those faces, men's and women's, ay, '] And children's ; babies hanging like a rag Forgotten on their mother's neck ; poor mouths Wiped clean of mother's milk by mother's blow, Before they're taught her cursing. Faces ! ah, We'll call them vices, festering to despairs, Or sorrows, petrifying to vices : not A finger-touch of God left whole on them, All ruined, lost ; the countenance worn out As the garment ; the "will dissolute as the act ; The passions loose and dragging in the dirt, 63 ymtxth ^utttrag after (^pxpljan^. To trip a foot up at the first free step ! Those, faces ! 'twas as if you had stirred up hell, To heave its lowest dreg-fiends uppermost In fiery swirls of slime." Our boasted nineteenth century civilisation, our progress, our inventions, our machinery, it all seems tending to a deadlock; and then to a crisis, to a reign of terror and destruction and misery, such as the world has never seen. And men cry out against God on account of this, so foolish and ignorant, blaming Him for what is man's fault, not GoD's : — " Our Father ! If He heard us, He would surely (For they call Him good and mild) Answer, smiling down the steep world very purely, ' Come and rest with Me, my child.' But ' No,' say the children, weeping faster, ' He is speechless as a stone. Do not mock us ; grief has made us unbelieving. We look up for God, but tears have made us blind.' " If we turn to the other extreme pole of nineteenth century life, the cultured, luxurious, artificial life of the rich, what is it, after all, but a kind of higher beast-life ? Selfishness, self-indulgence, pride, re- fined and subtle cruelty and injury of others, a living in the present only, getting the best possible for self, and utter indifference to the well-being of others or of their sufifering and endurances. These higher human animals are clothed in purple and fine linen, and fare sumptuously every day, but there is but the beast's heart within, as GOD and His angels see and judge. And when the nineteenth century prophet hfts up his voice against all this, in pulpit, by the press, by personal appeal ; and when good men and women labour and endure, and spend and wear themselves out, and feel that they can do so little, and that they ask in vain for help and sympathy, and even for a character for disinterested purity of motive, ynnrtlr -^uitira^ after (^piplratt^, 63 then there is the danger that the Psalmist speaks of, that the heart should be soured against men, and in rebellion against GOD. But there is another sense in which we may take these words. There is another and a better and a worthier attitude towards GoD in the presence of all this miserable state of the world and man's evil pravity. And it is still a state and condition of mind that may be described by this same symbolism, ^^ I was even as it were a beast before Thee." The animals sometimes, indeed, resist man's dominion over them, but how much more commonly do they submit silently, patiently ! Every day thousands die to supply man with food from their bodies. The sheep is stripped of its fleece, and yet is dumb before its shearer. The nest is robbed ; the young are taken from their dams ; the burden is piled upon the back ; the collar is adjusted that the toiling beast may give all his strength to Hfe-long work. Who has not wondered at the patient labouring horse or ox ? Who has not pitied and resented the ill-used animal, the hunted hare or deer, the poor panting thing that the gun has brought down, and that turns a sad, surprised look at its slayer with its beautiful eyes, before they glaze over in death ? Now we have got upon sacred ground. What does the ancient prophet say about the sheep dumb before her shearers, the lamb going to the slaughter, the hunted hart, with lolling tongue, rushing to the water-brooks, the stripes endured, the heavy burden carried, the death-blow voluntarily sub- mitted to ? "I was even as a beast before Thee ; " yea, even '^a worm and no man." It is of CHRIST, the Son of Man, that all this was said. It was true of Him ; and He gave us an example that we should follow His steps. It was GOD's ordinance that submitted the aniipal creation to man's dominion. 64 Wwxtth ^utttraf after (Kpiplyatt^. It was God's permission that gave, not the herb only, but the beast of the field to be man's food. Our Lord rode upon the ass's colt. His will brought the fishes into His disciples' net. Not a sparrow falls to the ground without our Father. Are not we too hke the beasts before Him ? Does He not expect us to submit to His will, as they submit ? Doth He not say it for our sake, that He cares for oxen ? Shall we not fulfil our destiny best, and gain the good things our Father has prepared for us most easily and surely, by yielding ourselves absolutely to His hand and will, as our LORD did in His human Hfe, which is our exemplar and pattern. The beasts are dumb, yet they may be our teachers. Look at your poor dog's honest appeal- ing eyes, when you punish him he scarce knows why. See how he trusts you, loves you, follows you, finds his joy in your presence and affection ! It is said that man is the dog's god. If the merci- ful man is merciful to his beast, are we not of more value to God ? May we not, in our ignorance of God's will and ways, under the heavy hand of affliction, when the dispensations of Providence are too hard for us to understand, look up silently to God, " as it were a beast " before Him, '^ with no language but a cry," appealing to His pity. His goodness. His power, by our helplessness, the deep of our nothingness calling to the deep of His un- approachable greatness ? A very eminent servant of GOD, upon whose spiritual utterances thousands have leaned, and found strength and help, once said that there have been times when, through utter exhaustion of mind and body, he could but say the Lord's prayer, or some simplest words. Just as Hezekiah in his extremity went up to the Temple, and silently kneeling, spread Rabshakeh's letter before the Lord, so it has per- haps happened to some of us. We have been yrturtlj .^untrag after CiJipiran^. 65 crushed to the very ground by some unlooked-for calamity, or some mental conflict, or some heart- breaking bereavement, and we could not even frame words of prayer, but could but just kneel before GOD, and silently sob, and let Him see for Himself our dreadful wound, that He, in His pity, might heal us, if He saw fit ; or if not, hold us up with His Hand, that we might not sink down into the depths of despair and utter ruin. Or have we not, Hke the Psalmist, gone in our dark misery to the sanctuary of God, and there found fight, or at least power to bear what had been laid upon us ? As the poor beasts, terrified by a tempest, seek shelter under some protecting rock, so righteous men of old tell us that they find their refuge in GOD, the Rock of their salvation. So Christian writers speak of the Heart and wounded Side of their LORD as their hiding- place : — " Rock of Ag-es, cleft for me, Let me hide myself in Thee. O pleasant spot ! O place of rest ! O royal rift ! O worthy wound ! Come harbour me, a weary guest, That in the world no ease have found." And when that last supreme hour comes to us, as we have so often seen it come to other poor mortals, and we lie speechless, motionless, our very mind and powers of thought held down and hampered by our body's exhaustion and coming dissolution, then may His mercy be with us, His Hand sustain us, His Spirit comfort us ; for then indeed we shall be but " as a beast before Him," and all the pride and glory of manhood will be gone, and there will be but the mute appeal of the creature to its Creator, " Thou who hast made me, have mxercy upon me." JFtftlj SunUas after ((fpipljang. THE MOST PRECIOUS THINGS. When we say that one thing is better than another, we do not necessarily mean that the one is bad and the other is good. "Better" is the comparative of " good." So when the wise son of David says, " How much better is it to get wisdom than gold, and to get understanding rather to be chosen than silver/' he does not say that it is a good thing to get wisdom and understanding, and a bad thing to get gold and silver, but rather, that it is a good thing to get gold and silver, but a better thing to get wisdom and understand- ing. In another place he says that wisdom is more precious than rubies. He does not mean to say that rubies are not precious, but he says that, valu- able as they are in this world, there is something still more valuable, and that is wisdom. We can better judge of the value of the one, by knowing the real value of the other. Now, in this world, as it is, is it not good to get gold and silver ? We cannot get on without money. It is not merely a question of happiness, but a question of life and death. We cannot live without food and clothing and a house of some kind ; and as the world is constituted, and human life goes on, we cannot get these things with- out money. GOD intends us to live. Human Hfe is a good thing in His sight, and therefore gold and silver, which are necessary for its existence and continuance, are good things also. Besides, money itself impHes progress and civilisation. Savages 66 JFiftlr ^untraf after Cptplran^. 67 have no money ; they barter one thing for another, and never can advance much till they understand the use of money. Then the getting of money usually implies industry and talent. Of course, money may be got by bad means, or spent for bad purposes, but we are speak- ing now of the use, not the abuse, of that which is in itself good ; of those who possess money, but do not allow money to possess them. The idle will not exert themselves to earn money; the sensual and vicious spend it, and waste it ; the stupid can- not do anything that will produce money; so, as a general principle, the getting of money implies that he who gets it is not idle, or sensual, or stupid, but that he is clever, hard-working, and useful to others, who are willing to pay him for what he can do for them. Do we not sometimes forget that JesuS Christ worked for His living ? He was paid for His labour. There were in Nazareth and the country round, ploughs and harrows, doors and windows, and all sorts of joiner's work, that had been made by His hand, and for making which His hand had been held out to receive the price, the well-earned wages of honest labour. The Bible does not say that money is bad, but that the love of it is the root of all evil ; and they often love it most who have least of it. Riches are not bad in themselves, but only when they are abused, just as any other precious thing may be abused. Abraham, and David, and Solomon were very rich, and their riches were given them by GOD as a sign of His favour. Riches are dangerous, just as any other precious thing is dangerous — rank, power, cleverness, beauty, strength. Every- thing that is best in man, and in this world, is dangerous, and will do harm if not rightly used ; but they are none of them bad in themselves, and 6S yiftl^ ^utttra^ after (Bpipljattf. may do great good, and are intended by GOD to do good. Think of all the most precious and beautiful things the world has ever seen ; they have all cost money. Take one instance. Think of the wonderful churches all over Europe. What an immense sum of money they have cost ! The grand cathedrals of England, France, Germany ; the exquisitely beautiful churches of Italy, with their marbles and mosaics, that make every other style of ornamentation seem poor by comparison. Or to come to works of mere utility. Reckon up what the railroads of the world have cost. How could our manufactories go on without money ? The water we drink, the food we eat, the towns we live in — all these demand money, and plenty of it, before they can be ours. There can be no question, then, that gold and silver are good and precious things. We may imagine some condition and some sort of ethereal beings to whom they would be useless, but we are concerned just now with this world, as it is, and with human beings like ourselves, and we see quite clearly that money is one of the most important and indispensable things in human life. We see, too, that if there is anything more important and more valuable than mone}^ it must be a very precious thing indeed. Now, the wise man says that wisdom and under- standing are such things. Let us try and see what he means. We have spoken of beautiful things, and of useful things, and we said that they cost a vast amount of mxoney ; but did the money produce them ? Money did not invent the Printing-Press, or the Steam- Engine. Money did not inspire the painter of the Madonna di San Sisto, or the architect of Cologne Cathedral. Nor is this all. There are other glorious things besides these. Money did not discover Vac- cination, or the art of destroying pain during dreadful yiftlj .^uttbaf after ^ft^httnjr, 69 operations. Money did not read the heavens and the earth Hke a book, or analyse the matter of the universe, from the vast and distant sun to the dust that floats in the air. Money has not made our great statesmen, or generals, or poets, the men whom the world will remember and honour as long as it lasts. Many of the world's greatest benefactors have not been rich, but the wisdom and the under- standing which they possessed have brought man- kind good things that no money can buy, for they are above all price. You cannot buy a Newton, a Shakespeare, a Stephenson, an Arkwright. These men came into the world, we know not whence, we know not how. Their wisdom and understanding are God's gifts ; they cannot be manufactured ; they cannot be purchased. No one can even reckon up the money value of that which men of genius have been the means of giving to the world. Money has been the useful drudge to carry out the splendid designs of great minds ; but by this very fact we see which is the greater and nobler. We see how much wisdom and understanding are better than gold and silver. But is this all that Solomon meant ? He was great and wise. He asked GoD to give him wisdom, and God showered upon him all His best gifts, and lavished upon him at once the varied endowments that ordinarily are doled out singly to a multitude of individuals, centuries apart. But what did this divine wisdom of his esteem most ? What did he ask for, when the Almighty's Hand was opened to give him whatever he desired most ? What did he, in his wisdom, select from all the treasury of GOD, as most worthy of man's possession ? What did the experience of his life teach him as to the com- parative value of God's gifts to man ? He asked of God wisdom. The wisdom that GOD had already given him made him desire more wisdom; for the truest wisdom is to know our own ignorance. 70 ytftlr ^utttrag after (Bpi|jlTatt^. And what is true wisdom ? Let Job's magnificent words tell us : " Where shall wisdom be found, and where is the place of understanding ? Man knoweth not the price thereof, neither is it found in the land of the living. The depth saith, It is not in me; and the sea saith. It is not with me. It cannot be gotten for gold, neither shall silver be weighed for the price thereof. It cannot be valued with the gold of Ophir, with the precious onyx, or the sapphire. The gold and the crystal cannot equal it, and the exchange of it shall not be for jewels of fine gold. No mention shall be made of coral, or of pearls, for the price of wisdom is above rubies. The topaz of Ethiopia shall not equal it, neither shall it be valued with pure gold. Whence then cometh wisdom, and where is the place of understanding ? GOD under- standeth the way thereof, and He knoweth the place thereof And unto man He saith. Behold the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to depart from evil, is understanding." It is a noble thing for man by wisdom to discover the laws of nature, the secret mysteries of creation. It is his truest honour to rule the world, to become more and more its master, to rifle its treasures, and use them for his own advantage; to discover its forces, and to turn them hither and thither, at his will, to work for him, and make him still more powerful ; to analyse his own wonderful nature, in its threefold organisation, and to develop, to improve, his faculties, ever advancing, ever improving. But the highest employment of wisdom is to trace all good things up to their Source, to be content with no second causes, but to push upward to the great Prime Cause of all things, to be athirst for GOD, and to be unable to slake the thirst in any other, any lower fountain. Solomon, the wisest of men ; Solomon, prince of peace, son of David, taught this. He preached the nobility of wisdom, and yiftlr .^unira^ after (Epipl^an^. 71 showed men how to get it. But a greater than Solomon has appeared, the Prince of Peace, the King of Righteousness, the Son of David, JesUS the Christ. He, we are told, is the Wisdom of GOD. He is the source of all wisdom ; by Him all things were made. He has revealed the true wisdom, that had been hid and lost, for He has taught us what God is, and how we may know Him ; and possess- ing Him, possess all things. And He, by His Hfe and His words, gave to the world a new and higher rule than the world had ever before known or imagined. He said, " Money is good, but it is better to give than to receive it. Riches are good, but holy poverty is better. Happiness is good, but self-sacrifice is higher and nobler." This wisdom was foolishness to human nature. He, who was its author and source, was rejected by the world. He was valued, and sold for thirty pieces of silver; but to those who believed on Him, He was precious. His disciples accepted His teaching, re- joiced in it, lived by its precepts, died to attest its truth. This wisdom gave new life to the world, that had wearied itself with lies. It constructed the wondrous temple of GOD, the Catholic Church, and built up a new and better civiHsation upon the foundation of its precepts. Nor was this all. The work of CHRIST was not in the world only, but in the individual heart of man. There, by His Spirit, wisdom builds her house; there that which is hid from the worldly-wise is revealed to His children, who become wise unto salvation. This is the true, the highest wisdom, to know God, and Jesus CHRIST, whom He hath sent. Riches can do much in this world, but we must leave them all behind, when we die. This wisdom is our support in death, and will live and grow, when we pass out of this world into the life beyond. Inven- 72 ^itth ^nnhmi aittv (Bft^h^nrr, tions of noble and beautiful things make men great in this world, but presently the earth and all that is therein will be burnt up, but the fire that tries every man's work will not hurt this true wisdom, and it will be still highly esteemed in that new heavens and new earth that will endure for ever. In St. John's visions of the unseen world, we read of gold and precious gems. We know that he does not speak of the treasures of this world, but of things more valuable, more enduring than they. The true disciples of jESUS CHRIST are laying up treasures there now, day by day, where no thief can enter. They may be poor here, but they will be rich by- and-by» Nay, they are rich now, " having nothing, yet possessing all things," for CHRIST is theirs, Whose are all things. Yes, godliness is great gain, for we brought nothing into the world, but we may turn all to gold in the better land whither we go, and " the gold of that land is good." It has been well said, that a man's riches consist, not so much in the greatness of his possessions, as in the fewness of his wants. The enlightened man has but one want, Jesus Christ. Other things are good, but this is better than all. Lovers and friends are dear; husband, wife, parents, children, health, money, good name, these are precious ; but there is One dearer than all, for whose sake all must be given up, if needs be. He gave Himself for us ; we must give ourselves, all we have, and all we are, to Him; and he that loses his life for His sake, the same shall save it. Judas sold his LORD for a handful of money. Still men lightly esteem Him and sell their rights in Him for a mess of pottage; but to those who believe. He is precious. Nothing can separate them from Him. Nothing would bribe them to give Him up. In times of old, fire and torture and wild beasts were tried to force the Chris- tian to give up his Lord, but they were tried in vairu yiftlr ^utttrag after (Bpt|jlratt|r. 73 In these days we are not persecuted thus, but there are round us powers that try hard to lead us away from our LORD; now force; now seductions; now the arguments of those who no longer serve Him. May He give us wisdom to choose Him as highest, best, the only good ! May we have strength to stand firm; faith to look up beyond all passing things; courage to say with that noble servant of God, St. Paul, ^' Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword ? Nay, for I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of GOD, which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord." Sixtl) Suntiag after C^pipfjang. MAN AND SATAN. The Church very emphatically draws our attention to-day to the remarkable statement of the Apostle in the Epistle, by quoting his pregnant words in the Collect. Men's opinions and theories, with respect to the powers of evil, have varied in different times, and in different conditions of civilisation, but the Bible and the Church maintain the same attitude, and hold the same unvarying doctrine with regard to Satan and his host. In the present day the tendency is to explain away, or actually to deny, the existence of evil spirits. Books have been written to argue against the possibility of a benefi- cent Creator allowing an evil power to have place in the midst of His work. The very idea has been declared contrary to reason, and to have had its origin in an age of ignorance and superstition. Ridicule has been called in to assist argument, and the follies and extravagances of popular legends have been gravely examined, to throw discredit upon the whole theory. There is no doubt that a vast amount of un- authorised statements has accumulated round the original behef, and that, in order to arrive at a true conclusion, these mischievous accretions must be un- sparingly cleared away. Poets, painters, emotional religious writers and preachers, mediaeval legends, and very largely Milton's '' Paradise Lost," all these have created a popular idea of Satan and his 74 ^istlr ^utit^a^ after (Kptpijan^. 75 angels which is strangely at variance with, and sometimes contradictory to, the teaching of the Catholic Church. The direct and dogmatic teaching of Holy Scrip- ture is by no means full and exhaustive. But the way in which the New Testament writers speak incidentally of Satan, his powers and his work, leads us to the conclusion that they had received from our Lord a definite and clear revelation, part of which is probably lost, and the remainder forms the tradi- tional doctrine of the Church. Thus, in Genesis we read only that the serpent tempted Eve ; in Revela- tion, St. John speaks incidentally of the Temptation being the work of Satan, as if it were an established fact. There cannot be a shadow of doubt that Holy Scripture and the Church maintain that Satan is a definite person, and that there is, besides, a multitude of spiritual beings whose nature is evil, and whose actions are hostile and injurious to man. Certain characteristics are ascribed to these beings, mental faculties superior to those of man, great knowledge of, and power over, the forces of nature, vastly long existence, rebellion against the laws and dominion of God, the will and the ability to seduce men from obedience to GOD, innate disposition to hatred, murder, lying, impurity, cunning, and, above all, pride. The unanswered question respecting the origin of evil does not find its solution in all this. The evil host is doubtless of inconceivable antiquity, but evil must have existed before them. They may or may not have been angels, for we may well imagine that there are multitudes of varieties of intelligent reason- able creatures, besides men and angels, as we know them. But it is but reasonable to suppose that, like ourselves, they had a period of probation, that they were free, and that they chose evil instead of good, probably through pride, and lust for liberty from 7 6 ^liEtlr ^utttran after ^pipljaitf. subjection to GOD. St. Jude speaks of other beings who fell in this way, and who, unlike the evil spirits, are enchained prisoners ; while Satan and those with him range freely throughout the universe. It has been surmised that Satan held sway in this earth long before reasonable man appeared, and that envy led him to tempt Adam, the new lord of the world, to obey him, rather than GOD, and so rendered him and his inheritance into his power, so that Satan became, by right of conquest. Prince of this world. He claimed this power and right in the presence of our Lord during the Temptation, and our LORD did not contradict him, or deny the fact ; and the whole creation groaneth and travaileth, waiting for redemp- tion from its usurping master and lord. There are, too, mysterious words respecting ^^ war in heaven ; " as if the hosts of evil tried to vanquish the obedient sons of GOD there by force, and so get possession of them and their domain, as they had conquered man, and seized his inheritance. Holy Scripture evidently assumes that the whole universe is peopled with spirits good and bad, and that our spirits live among them, just as our bodies live in the midst of healthful air and gases, and of noxious vapours and disease germs. We have to undergo and to resist the influence of ''principalities and powers, the rulers of the darkness of this world, of spiritual powers of wickedness in heavenly places." And so they are spoken of in Scripture as bring- ing trouble upon God's servants, as deceiving the whole world, as able to rule the elements, and bring injury and destruction upon men. If we think of the knowledge and experience that such intelligences must have, after thousands of years of existence, we can imagine how vast must be their power. They must be conversant with the secrets of nature, and the occult laws of the universe, just as the holy angels must be, and are so described Mi£th ^Utttra^ after (Bptpljan^. • 77 in Scripture. They understand human nature per- fectly, and can doubtless do easily that which would seem to us miraculous. The early Christian writers, who were familiar with heathenism, as it was before Christ came, do not hesitate to assert that evil spirits procured human worship, under the form and title of the gods, and that by their means oracles were given, and wonders of all kinds were performed. And modern travellers, in the remote regions of the world, Du Chaillu and others, and modern mission- aries. Bishop Calloway, for instance, give appalling accounts of the terror that savage peoples feel of evil spirits, and how they try to propitiate them by sacri- fices, just as in old times men ''offered their sons and their daughters to devils," their most precious posses- sions, to ward off the anger and injuries of the demon gods. This seems to be the natural condition of un- cultured man. He has lost the knowledge of the great and good GOD, but he believes in powerful and malignant spirits, and tries to bribe them to spare him. Intellectual progress leads men to just the opposite error. Ignorance tends to superstition, culture to scepticism, to materialism, and Sadducism, denying all spiritual existences. So it has been said that Satan's masterpiece of stratagem is to persuade men to deny his existence, while he leads them to become like himself, in pride, and in rebellion against GOD. He must possess vast intellectual power, enormous knowledge of the laws and the powers of the universe, and it is evidently possible for men gifted with similar genius and similar scientific learning to be filled with pride and self-sufficiency, and to cease to acknov/- ledge and to worship the great GOD. In an intellec- tual age the seductions of a high intelligence that is alien to GoD must be most dangerous, as they are most natural. The desire for knowledge was the im- pulse that formed the basis of man's first temptation ; it will probably be also the temptation of the last age 78 ^isllr ^Utttra^ after ^jxtp^att^. of mankind. The period before the Flood seems to have been distinguished by vast knowledge, material progress, boundless luxury and sensuality, and in- timate commerce with the spirits of evil. Our LORD and His apostles speak of the time before the final judgment as similar in every respect. We can well understand that there may be mental intoxication as well as bodily, mental luxury, mental sensuality, mental and intellectual perversion and ruin, by ex- cessive indulgence, by a want of proportion and economy, a neglect of one set of faculties, while another set is abnormally developed and made monstrous, overlying and injuring jfunctions which are necessary to healthy Hfe and well-being. Know- ledge is good, but Satan's special characteristic is the perversion of good into evil. He is most dangerous when he seems to be an angel of light. We see, then, by reasoning backward, that intellec- tual greatness might lead spirits of majestic attributes into a revolt from the dominion of GOD, just as we see the possibility of the wickedness ascribed to Satan and his host by the awful wickedness of which human nature is capable ; and from this we can easily pass on to conceive such a period as is spoken of in Scripture, when, the belief in GOD being generally thrown away, the world shall see such a reign of evil as has never before been known, and when lying wonders, and direct dealing with power- ful spirits, shall produce " signs and wonders which, if it were possible, should deceive the very elect." It is easy to scoff at all this, and to propound the dilemma, either that GOD is not almighty, or that He is not all-loving, if He permits all this. There is surely a third alternative, that we are not in a position to judge the case, not knowing all the circumstances. We are surrounded with mysteries, and this is but one of them. We know but a very little of our own history, and our own nature. We ^L^tlj ^uttbaii after (^piplrait^. 79 know nothing of the enormous universe, except a few facts, as we suppose they are, which we have lately discovered in this little, insignificant corner of the cosmos, and in the small fraction of time of which we can take observation. We know nothing of God, but the Httle that He has been pleased to reveal. It becomes us, then, to be modest. It is indecent and ridiculous for us to dogmatise. Our proper attitude is that of a devout agnosticism. Our wisest conclusion is to accept the position that our Lord assigns to us, and praises, that of little children, fearing, obeying, loving our Father in heaven. St. Paul tells us that life is at present an enigma, a problem which we cannot solve, a ques- tion of which we have not the answer. It will be doubtless plain enough one day when we see it all round. When the answer to a riddle is given, we say, "Of course; why could I not see that before?" Let us try and see, then, what the Apostle means when he says that " the Son of GOD was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil." We must at once clear away a misapprehension. There is here no declaration of a conflict between GOD and Satan, as between rival deities. The Mani- chean theory of a benevolent Deity, ever opposed by an equally powerful, malignant God, finds no support in the Bible, or the Church, though much popular religion is really based upon such a base- less figment; for which, again, Milton has to be blamed. Satan is but a creature, not a God. The Bible nowhere represents the Almighty fighting against Satan, as if he were a power worthy of His opposition. The '' war in heaven " is between Michael and his angels, and Satan and his angels. The war on earth is between man and Satan ; and Satan will at last be overcome by the perfect Man, Christ Jesus, just as Satan is daily fought and overcome by men and women and children. 8o ^txtlr ^utttia^ aft^r ^jjipljaitn. There are dim foreshadowings of this in old- world myths, such as that of Osiris. Man always hoped for a Saviour, a Leader, against evil. A thoughtful writer says : '^ Our Saviour's life and work impress me as things done by the way, just as a man upon some vast enterprise might scatter a few bounties in a village he passed through. Christ's work is to destroy the work of the devil, whose kingdom is invisible. Christianity stands up like some plant of foreign growth, which carries our thoughts to scenes far distant, and conditions of existence altogether dissimilar. What do we know of the unseen but most real world ? May it not have dread necessities ? May it not be, in a sense wide as the universe, necessary that He should suffer?" But be this as it may ; there remains the practical and blessed promise, " Resist the devil, and he will flee from you " — from you. You cannot be compelled, unless you will it so. Satan is mighty, but not almighty; and '^ I can do all things through CHRIST, that strengtheneth me." Satan can tempt, but he cannot force us. He may tell us that we '* shall be as gods," if we obey him. We will be *'as little children" rather, and say, ''Our Father, deliver us from the evil one," and so that wicked one shall not touch us. He gains dominion over souls by seduc- tion, not by force ; little by little, by leading men and women to foster the growth of passions like his own. S3 our Lord saw his work going on in the plotting of the Jews to slay Him, and said, " Ye are of your father, the devil; for he was a murderer from the beginning." He saw it, too, in the soul of Judas, and said, '' One of you is a devil ; " and in that of Peter, when He turned upon him and cried, '' Get thee behind me, Satan." So an apostle warns women not to be " slanderers and false accusers," as our translation has it, but as it is literally, '' Do not be devils ; " for ^iitl; ^Ktitrag after (Bpiplratt^. 8i such prostitution of the powers of speech is specially devil's work; for he accuses and slanders GOD to man, and man to GOD. His title ScafioXofi is derived from BLaPaWetv, '' to throw an obstacle ; " for he sets himself between man and GOD, maligning both, each to the other, now lying, now flattering; as he is represented in the temptation of Eve, and in the temptation of our Lord. But "the Son of GOD was manifested that He might destroy the works of the devil." In and by Him men and women, compassed with infirmity, triumph over this mighty spirit ; " out of weakness being made strong," "bruising Satan under their feet ; " with and in their Lord " crushing his head," treading on serpents, and suffering no hurt. The trials and sufferings, that Satan and the other spirits of evil are permitted to bring upon the faith- ful, do but redound to the glory of GOD, and the perfecting of His saints, just as fire purifies silver. And so Satan has been compared to a leech, that has no thought but to satisfy its lust for blood, while it is unconsciously draining away poison, and restoring a sick man to health. Probably God's rule will be restored little by little; not by His almighty fiat, but by man's acts; just as it was lost in the world by man's act ; the work of the new Adam undoing the work of the old Adam. Then cometh the end, the Judgment, "the Crisis," as it is hterally, the final separation of good from evil. Then the victory of CHRIST will be seen, in the triumph of His servants over their enemy ; and so St. John tells us how he saw the hosts of the saved, and that they had overcome Satan, " because of the blood of the Lamb, and because of the word of their testimony." Then at last the evil ones are cast into the abyss ; judged by the Man CHRIST Jesus, and His saints, men also, sitting with Him on His F ^i^tlr ^uttiia^ after CSptpljan^. throne. So will man have regained the lost kingdom, and *^when all things shall be subdued unto Him, then shall the Son also Himself be subject unto Him that put all things under Him, that GoD may be all in all." Then are revealed the new heavens and the new earth, with the holy city prepared as a bride, adorned for her husband, and a great voice is heard saying, " Behold the tabernacle of GOD is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people; and GoD Himself shall be with them, and be their GoD; and GOD shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain; for the former things are passed away." LIFE AND THOUGHT. The man who thinks is ever and again surprised to find how many men there are who do not think. He is naturally disposed to assume that other men are like himself, but he is constantly having his theory upset by some startling fact, which shows him that many men are either deficient in the reasoning faculty, or that they make little or no use of it. He sees mistakes made and errors accepted for truth. He sees men pass through life without taking the slightest interest in problems and questions which he cannot help thinking about every day. History repeats itself. Mathematicians can cal- culate about commercial panics, murders, suicides, accidents, diseases, because men live such routine lives that you may reckon upon their actions like the movements of a machine. It is this strange fact that makes it clear to CHRIST'S minister that he must not expect any great success in his mission. If he thinks only of the dignity of his message, of its importance to mankind at large, and to each reason- able and immortal being in particular, he feels certain that his office must command respect and attention, and he is disposed to resent it with heat and indig- nation when he finds either that he is w^ithout hearers, or that they are languid and indifferent. But when he calls to mind the persistent and invincible folly of mankind ; when he compares his own experience with the testimony of every one who has preceded him, his Divine Master Himself included, then his 83 84 ^Bptua^esima. surprise ceases ; he accepts his position, and knows that want of success must only stimulate greater effort, and more persistent earnestness. The Church too is prepared for all this. Empirical enthusiasts are all for trying some new scheme, in- augurating new sects, inventing panaceas, bringing out some novel method which is to convert the world all at once. The Church looks calmly on, having in her long experience seen all this attempted and fail many times. She has no faith in novelties and nostrums ; she has high authority for the conviction that, if men will not hear the old teachings in the old way, they will not be persuaded by startling appari- tions and frantic appeals ; and by the same authority she leaves men alone, sorrowfully indeed and re- luctantly, yet firmly and without relenting, knowing that each reasonable being is at last responsible to God for his conduct, and for the fate of his soul. So year by year the Gospel message is proclaimed, and men hear and accept it, or hear and reject it, or keep out of the way of hearing it, using their liberty, and taking the consequences. Year byyear the cycleof teaching is repeated, the sequence of fast and festival, of commemoration and preparation, is gone through. Prayer and worship, sacrament and ordinance, come in their due course, and men avail themselves of them, or not. The Church is bound to do this, but she is not bound to make men devout and holy ; that rests with men themselves, and they cannot be compelled. Now, to-day the Church is at a special point in her teaching and testimony. It is not one of the great festivals, yet it is an important starting-point. The great and fundamental truths of the faith are brought forward by her, one by one, in regular order and succession, that not one may be omitted, that each may have its due prominence and its fitting attention. At this season sin and its consequences form the theme of the Church's instruction ; sin, in. ^ejrtua0£ajma. 85 its origin and beginning, as revealed in the sacred record of man's creation and fall ; sin, in its personal character, as it attaches itself to the individual soul, and as it must be put away by conscious and indi- vidual action ; sin, as GOD regards it, and as He dealt with it in the tremendous act at Calvary. From Septuagesima till Easter this momentous mystery is dealt with by the Church, and she urges thinking and responsible and immortal men to join with her in her thoughts, her prayers, her meditations. And the Gospel to-day seems to give the keynote to all this, when it says to us, " Go ye also into the vineyard." Lents have passed ; generations of men have heard, and are gone ; but, like the lord of the vineyard, here again is the voice of the Church speaking to us, '^ Go ye into the vineyard." Others have had their day and their turn ; now they hear no more ; for them the Church's work is done ; her responsibility is over ; coming generations are pressing on, their day has nearly come, the Church is ready for them ; but for the moment she is occupied with us ; she looks each one of us in the face and says, ^' Go thou into the vineyard." What does she mean ? What would she have us do ? What is the vineyard, and where, and what must we do there ? The vineyard is human life, our life, our work. The Master has sent us into the world for a purpose. The Church reminds us of this, and bids us see to it. It is a wide and deep and broad subject, for no two men's lives are just alike. Life with its manifold phases ; life hurrying away so fast ; life transforming us, as we use it ; we are called to-day, and all through this season which begins to- day, to think gravely about life, about our own life. We began by saying that men do not think. How little do men think about life ! Men live, and they are so busy, or so idle, or so stupid, or so undisci- pHned, that they do not think. They take life as it comes, broken up into day and night, business and 86 ^eptuagcstma. rest, trouble and pleasure, youth and age, but they do not think about it as a whole, as a grave reality, as a personal responsibility. Now the Church says to us, "Will you think about it? Will you turn aside, and think about yourself, your life, as j^ou think sometimes about a matter of business, or a ques- tion of politics, or anything else that really interests you at a particular time ? " With some it is the first call, as with those invited to Confirmation. With others it is the third, the sixth, the ninth, or the eleventh hour of the short day of their passing life. And the state of the vineyard is different with each. With some everything has to be done ; Hfe is before them, a blank sheet of paper upon which they may write what they will. To others there seems nothing to be done, because they do not look into matters. If they will but begin to see for themselves, they will find mischief going on ; here pruning needed ; there weeds running rampant; there vermin and blight; here the fence needing repair. In the case of others Solomon's picture of the sluggard's vineyard is realised, and there is small hope of ever undoing past neglect. This vineyard yields a fine crop, but it is of wild grapes only ; that has changed its char- acter altogether ; some Ahab has rooted up the vines, and turned the vineyard into a garden of herbs. A clever, active man, but every faculty perverted ; life turned to a channel that GoD never intended for it. The man who works hardest in his vineyard knows best how much there is always to be done, and that he cannot afford to neglect it, or waste his time. It is the man who keeps away from his vine- yard who is under the delusion that nothing has to be done ; the man who does not think ; who is a stranger to himself; who has no aim and purpose in life, as to self-culture and progress ; who forgets his responsibility to GOD, and that his present Hberty will end in the inquiry as to how he has used it. THE CHERUBIM. What were the Cherubim, that were set as guardians of Paradise and the Tree of Life ? The inquiry is not one of mere idle curiosity. There seems to be some deep and fundamental truth shadowed forth in to-day's Lesson, instruction practical and evan- gehcal, Christ and His mediatorial office, sin and its pardon, the wonderful relationship between the eternal GOD and the created universe, with its mani- fold and unfathomed marvels. There is no further mention of Cherubim till the details of the Tabernacle are given. Then we read of two golden Cherubim overshadowing the Mercy- seat with outstretched wings and faces turned down- wards towards the Ark. And when Solomon's Temple was built, in the Holy of Holies, within the veil, in the silent and dark sanctuary, entered only once a year by the High-priest, there brooded two great mysterious figures, whose wings touched each side-wall, dimly seen through the clouds of incense, but to be touched with the sacrificial blood brought from the altar without. In the second Temple there seem to have been no Cherubim. The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews says of those in the first Temple, *^ Of these we cannot now speak particularly," as if the memory of them had partially passed away. In the Psalms, and in some other places, we read of the Almighty as ^' sitting between the Cherubim ; " and in the visions of Ezekieland of St. John there is 87 .^C£a0Esxma. much said of the Cherubim. For the first time some description is given of their appearance, and we find that they are beings of a nature utterly different from anything that we are acquainted with. They are de- scribed as partly human, partly animal, and they are winged like the angels. The lion, the ox, and the eagle, the perfection of the wild beast, the domestic animal, and the bird family, lend their characteristics to make up their attributes. They are full of eyes, within and without. They are called ^' The Living Ones," as if gifted with superabundant life, the highest vital powers of created nature. As we try and picture to ourselves these living creatures, so described, we find that they have more or less found realisation already in other and unex- pected places. In the colossal monuments of Egypt, of Assyria, of Persia, that have survived to our own da}^, there are seen sphinxes, winged bulls, eagle- headed creatures with human form and with sweep- ing majestic wings, impressing us, even now in their mutilated condition, and torn away from their digni- fied surroundings, with a sense of awe, as personi- fying strength, and all the perfections of the animal world, and standing as guardians at the precincts of the Temples. We cannot but think that there is here a memory of some primeval revelation, a dis- tortion of a truth half remembered. Just as there is a memory of the Creation, and of the Fall of man, of the Flood, and of other prehistoric events, among all nations, whose records remain to us in every part of the world, so there seem to be dim recollections of the Tree of Life, and of the guarding Cherubim. The strange animal-worship of Egypt, and of other ancient countries, most probably arose, partly at least, from such imagery. The bull, the lion, the eagle, were placed among the celestial constellations, and the sun's progress through them marked the seasons. The wonderful powers of nature, the instincts and •e^a0csima. 89 attributes of animals, were believed to indicate a divine indwelling, and to prove an incarnation of the Deity. We smile and pity, as we contemplate all this ; but is it not wiser, and more reverent, to search for the rudimentary truth amidst the super- incumbent mass of errors, with St. Paul at Athens, to claim fellowship and community of worship, even with those who worship ignorantly, and to confirm our own faith by the involuntary testimony of the wide world, and of mankind in every age ? For what seems to be the meaning of that which is told us of these glorious beings, as far as we can discern, as through a glass darkly, their nature and functions ? We commonly speak of angels, men, and animals, and we conclude that we have thus exhausted the possibilities of created life. But are we wise and reasonable in so doing? Look at the marvellous variety of animal life ; add to this those vast unknown fauna of geological ages, many of them, as Hugh Miller said, ^^as unlike anything now existing, as the monstrous figures upon a Japanese vase are un- like any creature that now walks the earth." Add, again, the infinite possibilities of life in planets and systems that differ from our own, and where shall we put a bound to the fecundity and variety of nature ? Where shall we find a bond to tie the hands of GOD, or a measure to define the limits of the mind of the infinite Creator ? The Indian Prince who would not believe that water could become solid as ice, is logical, compared with nineteenth century Christians, if they cannot accept the Scriptural testimony of creatures of God, other and higher than those that we meet with in our everyday walk. We are not Manicheans, who declare that all matter is evil. The Incarnation of the Son of GOD has taught us better. ^' GoD saw all things that He had made, and behold they were very good." All created things have a unity. Dead mineral matter, gases, vegetable life, the animal world. 90 MtiaQtmma. what are they but parts of the one creation, which culminates in man ? And with that creation GoD has inseparably joined Himself, when He became flesh and was made Man. And shall we despise the animals, as unworthy of the care of GOD ? Whence come their marvellous powers and instincts, but from the infinite mind of God ? We stand amazed, and full of admiration, at many of the senses and capabilities of the animals, which far transcend anything with which we men are endued. Why may there not be creatures of GOD that combine some of the human and some of the animal qualities, and so show forth the glory of their Maker, and fulfil some special work in the boundless economy of nature ? Why may there not be a future use and destiny in the lower orders of creation, not dreamed of in narrow philosophy ? The whole crea- tion groans and travails. St. Paul says there will be deliverance ; some new heavens and new earth, which our poor present senses cannot conceive. The animal cannot understand us. There is much that we cannot understand ; but that does not prove that other things do not exist, other intelligences, other modes of life, space of more than three dimensions, good things to be revealed, that eye cannot see, nor mind of man yet comprehend. We imagine, then, these mysterious Beings, for long ages guarding the entrance to Paradise and the approach to the Tree of Life. There they hovered, a proof that these desired, but unattainable, good things existed. Towards them doubtless the faithful turned in worship, and from their presence Cain and his descendants turned away, anxious to forget all that they implied. Till the Flood came, and swept away all traces of Paradise, they held watch and ward, and the memory of them seems to be traced in the mythological legends of terrible fire-breathing monsters guarding treasures and sacred places. ^esa^eshna. 9 1 And when once more GOD revealed Himself and taught the true way of worship, then Moses, accord- ing to the pattern shown to him in the mount, places Cherubim at the entrance of the holy place, where the approach to GOD was permitted ; and finally Ezekiel and St. John see mysterious visions of these exalted existences, very near to the awful presence of the ineffable and incomprehensible Deity. Then comes the Incarnation of the Son of GOD. He takes created nature into His Being ; Himself the beginning of all Creation. By His flesh He becomes one with the universe, human, animal, material; and so He stands as Mediator between GOD and man, a bridge to span over the gulf rent by sin between the crea- ture and the Creator, a ladder to reach from earth to heaven. He holds the keys of hell and of death. He opens and shuts. He dies to give Hfe to a dead world. As in Adam all died, so in CHRIST are all made to live. And just before He dies, out of the darkness. He speaks some memorable words. A penitent soul, type of all penitents, appeals to Him ; and to him, and to all of like faith. He says, ^' To-day thou shalt be with Me in Paradise." Paradise ! Man's home in the days of his purity ; Paradise, that had been lost ; Paradise, that GOD'S highest creatures had guarded, warning off all approach ; Paradise, now restored ; its gates flung open ; He the Door ; He the Way ; by His own Blood cleansing the sin of the world; the great High-Priest passing between the Cherubim, rending the veil, opening the kingdom of heaven to all believers. So St. John saw in his visions the Tree of Life, no longer fenced and for- bidden, but free to all, in the new heavens and the new earth, where there shall be no more curse, where God's servants shall serve Him, and see His Face, and where the Lord God giveth them light. ©uinquagesitna. LOVE, OR NOTHING. The word " Charity/' which is so especially brought before us in the services to-day, stands for what is usually translated Love. It is Love that St. Paul commends so highly. It is Love, he says, that abideth for ever. It is Love that is so indispensable to the Christian character, that to be without it is to be no Christian at all. Let us try and understand what he means, and we shall perhaps do so best by going back a long way in the history of mankind. However they may differ in some respects, Bible history and scientific theory agree in this, that man has progressed from a lower to a higher condition. Man is an animal, as far as his body and its instincts are concerned ; and thoughtful men, in every Htera- ture, liken men's lower passions to those of the beasts. The angry man, rushing upon his victim, is evidently like the beast of prey, thirsting for blood. The malig- nant, backbiting slanderer, who creeps unseen, and whispers the poisonous falsehood that ruins some one's reputation, is like the venomous, crawling snake. The peacock, displaying its gaudy plumage, is like an extravagantly dressed woman. The glutton and the drunkard are like the over-gorged vulture or the filthy swine. The idle and frivolous, who waste the precious years of youth, are compared to the gay butterfly that flits in the summer sunshine, but is. killed by the first autumn frost. In the same way, a better set of men are said to 92 (!Juittriua0£sima. 93 find their counterparts in other animals and their habits. The industrious, plodding worker, who has no time for pleasure, no taste for literature or the fine arts or the sciences, is not unlike the bee, that seems only to live that it may work, that works on and on, day by day, all its little span of life, and then dies and leaves all behind. The statesman, the man who is always engaged in public affairs, reminds us of the ant, or the beaver, working for his community, sacri- ficing himself and his personal feelings, that national or local projects may be carried into efiect. While the faithful subordinate, permitting a more powerful will to use his strength, in return for wages, is hke the horse or the ox, that patiently toils that man may grow his crops or travel on his business. But there is one general likeness between man, as he is by nature, and the animals ; and that is selfish- ness. The animal eats, sleeps, and breeds. Each animal takes care of itself, gets the best for itself; the weaker fares badly ; the sick and the aged are disregarded, and left to their fate. Nature has no pity; the strong have their own way; the fittest survive, and the rest are got rid of. Savage man acts very much in the same way ; and however much men may be advanced and civilised, this animal selfishness, this rule of '^ Every one for - himself," this instinct of self-preservation, lies not far beneath the surface. Each one of us is conscious of it. Circumstances bring it out. Look at a crowd panic-stricken, rushing out of a building that has caught fire. Where is your courtesy ? Where your gallant consideration for women ? Where your pity for children, for the weak and aged ? All are gone, and the mere instinct of self-preservation asserts itself, and carries all before it, blindly, cruelly. But it will be said there is love in human nature even at its lowest. All the world over, and in every age of mankind, the mother has shown love to her 94 CJuittquaij^sima. child ; love that is ready to suffer, to sacrifice self for the sake of the helpless fruit of her womb. Yes, it has always been so. But, after all, this is not very much. The most savage beast of prey, the lowest animal, displays exactly the same instinctive care of its young, the same fearless disregard of its own comfort, and even of its life, while it protects its off- spring. And we may go further than this, and yet not rise above animal instinct. The ant, the bee, all animals that are gregarious and live in numbers to- gether, recognise the individuals of their own com- munity as friends, while they regard all others as enemies. Just so savages are true to their own tribes, but regard all others as natural foes, to be fought with, and if possible killed and pillaged. And nations and individuals, that boast their civiHsation, display similar rules and practice. A man is very apt to have a different way of treating his own rela- tions, from that in which he considers himself entitled to act towards others. The typical Englishman thinks foreigners very inferior beings, and fair game for ridicule or overreaching. The seducer has no scruple in treating another man's wife or daughter as he would not like his own to be treated. The general, who is considerate for his own army, and is person- ally humane and kind-hearted, uses all his skill to slaughter as many of the enemy as he possibly can, without the smallest scruple. Now, man has been gradually educated to cast aside the mere animal principle of existence, the mere animal rule of Hfe and practice, and to take a higher rule ; and when the proper time had come, the Son of GOD Himself came into the world as a Man, and taught mankind the highest rule of life, the rule of love ; nothing absolutely new, but the ex- pansion and development of the natural rule of love. All love is elevating, even sexual love, as one of our oldest poets says — ^jdnqna^zmma. 95 " Such is the power of that sweet passion, That it all sordid baseness doth expel, And the refined mind doth newly fashion Unto a fairer form ; " or, as a living author has it, that — " There is no more subtle master under heaven, Not only to keep down the base in man. But teach high thought, and amiable words, And courtliness, and the desire of fame. And love of truth, and all that makes a man." The father loves his own child, but jESUS took other people's children into His arms, and lovingly blessed them, as if they were His own. A man cares for his own flesh and blood, his own community, his own countrymen, but Jesus taught that all men are brethren, that they have one common Father, and that brotherly love must be as wide as the world. Noble men had suffered, and even died, for their friends, for their fatherland, but Jesus died for His enemies, and for all the world, and bade His dis- ciples follow His example ; and in every age since, men have done it. " Love your friends, hate your enemies," was the old-world maxim, the motto of half-civilised human nature. But Jesus said, " 'Who are My enemies ? ' I know of none ; all mankind are My friends. Some are ignorant, some are mis- taken, some take part against Me, but they know not what they do ; they have been deceived ; they are My friends for all that. I love them ; I will suffer to bless them ; I will die to save them." And He did it. It would not have been of much use if He had come into the world and had done nothing but preach the gospel of love. Men were dull of hearing, slow to understand. But when truth and love were pre- sented before men's eyes in human form, when the life of love was lived before them, then they could not but comprehend ; and the world has comprehended it, and taken it as the ideal of Christian civihsation, 9 6 (^uinqnaQzsiuna. and of individual practice. It was this that conquered the world in the first age of Christianity ; and it is this alone that can be relied upon to convert men from sin and animalism still. CHRIST must be seen in men's lives ; Christ's love visible in the sacrifices which it makes. This never fails. In missions at home, and in missions abroad, this is the one secret of success ; the loving Spirit of CHRIST, seen, felt, ex- perienced, through the lives and actions, the char- acters and the endurance, of His true disciples. It is this that distinguishes Christianity from, and raises it above, all other reHgious systems. It is the fashion with some writers to compare the great teachers of the world with CHRIST, and some cannot see much difference between Him and Confucius, Buddha, Mahomet, Socrates, Marcus Aurelius, and others. The true test is that of love. Other systems have it not, or they confine its exercise to co-religionists, or to a narrow circle of the illuminated, leaving the rest of the world in darkness without compunction. It is the want of this principle that ought to teach men the ruinous character of Atheism, and Agnosti- cism, and Materialism, and Secularism, or whatever else modern antagonism to Christianity is called. It is going back to the principles of the brute creation. It is putting selfishness instead of love as the rule of life. If man is a mere animal, then there is no reason why he should not live like an animal. If there be no right and wrong, no future life; if happiness is the test of duty; if pleasure is the only proof of rectitude, then each will do what he likes best, and no one will have a right to complain if he is thrust aside, trampled down, or made miserable. The rule of nature is, that the weakest goes to the wall, and the fittest, i.e., the strongest, survives. Atheism destroys love, and so degrades man, and shuts out all brightness, all joy, all hope, all progress. The great antidote of sin is love of God, Who is (^uinqna^tzima, 97 holy, beautiful, true, loving. The soul yearns after God as its chief good, and therefore fears, avoids, hates sin, which separates it from GOD. The sweetest joys of life come from love — love of the beautiful, the noble, the lovable, sexual love, filial love, parental love, the love of gratitude, the love of pity ; all true progress comes from love, admiration for something outside self, higher than self, the raising of self to attain it. Love is the most power- ful of motives. No cable can draw so forcibly or bind so fast as love can do with only a single thread. Atheists are obliged to live decently at present, but if Christian civilisation were done away, no law but that of selfishness and force would remain, and man- kind would relapse into savagery. As plain men and women, then, who cannot follow subtle reasonings and fine-drawn theories; who have neither time, patience, nor incHnation for long dis- cussions and learned investigations, let us put aside other arguments, and rest our case upon this. Can that system be true and good, can it even be ex- pedient, which, if carried out to its logical results, would make man no better than the brutes ? But let us leave general principles, and come to personal conduct. St. Paul confesses for himself, *' If I have no love, I am nothing." The keynote of Christian civilisation and progress is love. The test of true religion in the individual heart is still the same ; it is love ; it is love of GOD, not fear of hell; it is love of others, not selfishness. Human nature is not destroyed, but raised, sanctified, made like the Divine Nature; for ^'GOD is love." The good within is developed, till it grows and expands and overpowers the animal and lower instincts and rules them, just as civihsed man rules fire and water and the powers of nature, and uses them as his servants and instruments to carry out his plans and do his will The most saintly Christian is the man G 98 (^uincpxsiQtsima, who has learned to love most. The faults that an}^ one of us has, come from want of love, or from weak love. We are below the Christian standard. There is human nature with its faults and failings unsub- dued. We are in the lower condition of mankind, Christians in name and calling, but never having risen to the Christ-like life, of love to GOD and love to men. Our life-work is to cultivate love. The work of the Church is to help us to do this. This is the meaning and object of the coming Season of Lent. This is taught us every time we come to Holy Communion ; it is the feast of love ; we com- memorate the sacrifice of CHRIST, Who gave Himself to die for love of mankind, for love of each one of us. We kneel side by side, young and old, rich and poor, the Queen and the humblest villager, we eat of one bread and drink of the same cup, to show that we are all equal in GOD's sight, all members of the same family, bound to love and help one another, as brothers and sisters are bound by the law of nature. And this brotherly love leads on to love of GOD. We love our brethren whom we see, and so we grow in love to GOD Whom we cannot see. The simplest, surest test of true religion is to see how far it has conquered the natural animal selfish- ness and savagery that is in us, making ^Uhe ape and tiger die," and making love to grow in their place. If it be asked what love is, and how it shows itself, St. Paul tells us to-day, and everything that he says shows a direct contrast to natural selfishness. ''Love suffereth long, and is kind ; " selfishness is impatient with others' faults, and unkind. ''Love envieth not;" selfishness grudges what others have, and wants everything for itself. "Love vaunteth not itself;" selfishness loves to talk of self, to boast of self, to praise self. " Love seeketh not her own ; " selfishness stands upon its rights, and forgets, or overrides, the rights of others. " Love thinketh no (S^uinquaQtzima, 99 evil ; " selfishness teaches people to suspect others, to be quick to see the faults of others, talk of them, magnify them, to imagine bad motives, and to impute them to others with unsparing words that sow mis- chief broadcast and work untold misery. Oh those dreadful tongues, that will talk so much to please themselves, when love would keep them bridled and silent and harmless ! ^' Love beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things ; " selfishness does none of these. We all hate selfishness when we see it in others ; let us learn to hate it in ourselves. Let us get away a little more this Lent from the selfish world, and frequent the company of Jesus CHRIST, the loving, perfect Man, the revelation of GOD. Let us read His words, think over His example, pray the HoLY SPIRIT to bring to our remembrance what He was and is. There is in each one of us some good ; it only needs to be cultivated, brought, out, developed. Just as study and schooling will bring out a child's talents and make them grow and expand, so that it can learn more and more, and by-and-by love learning ; just as an apprentice gradually acquires skill by practice, till his hand, that was so awkward at first, seems to work by instinct and do the right thing so easily, as if it never could go wrong, so we may be apt scholars in the school of CHRIST, so we may grow like Him, and the old Adam, the mere human nature, will be subdued and transformed into a higher, nobler, sweeter life. It is not at all wonderful that people are such poor Christians, that natural frailties and faults and in- firmities go on year after year, and are never over- come. What do they ever do, what time do they spend, what trouble do they give themselves, to conquer these things, to acquire higher qualities ? They give so many hours for so many years to learn a language or to play on an instrument; they take loo (@mitq[ua0csxma. pains to learn a business, or to acquire some know- ledge that will get them a living ; they do not grudge time or money or trouble for this object or for that, but what does their rehgion cost them ? What pains have they ever taken to make themselves better Christians ? How many hours, how much labour and self-sacrifice, do they bestow in any week or in any year ? How much have they given in their whole lives to the important work of learning their rehgion, overcoming their besetting faults, perfecting them- selves in the knowledge and the love of GOD ? Last year most of us spent nearly a third of our time, some seventeen whole weeks, in bed, sleeping, unconscious, doing nothing. We spent at least a whole month in eating and drinking ; at least a fortnight in dressing and undressing. Did we spend as long a time in prayer, in worship, in spiritual cultivation, in prepa- ration for our eternal hfe beyond the grave ? These are plain questions, and if we will put them to our- selves this Lent, and turn over a new leaf, and be a little more in earnest ; if we will take the guidance of the Church, and dedicate the time we have given to pleasure, or to mere idleness, to prayer and wor- ship, and learning more of CHRIST, and more of our- selves ; if we will take God at His word, and put ourselves in the way of the stream of His gifts and blessings, then be sure He will teach us something this Lent ; He will give us something that we need. And although we cannot expect, in so short a time, to be made Saints, like St. Paul, still we shall have taken one step onward and upward ; we shall have' done something towards gaining a little of that divine Love, without v/hich, St. Paul tells us, we are nothing. jFirst Suntiag in %tnt SIN A MADNESS OF THE SOUL. Among our Lord's miracles there are none more striking than those which relate how ^' He cast out devils." Modern sceptical criticism has endeavoured to prove that the demoniacs were merely madmen, and that our LORD stooped to the level of the super- stitions and ignorant opinions of His people and His day, and treated persons affected with mental dis- order, as popular belief regarded them, as if they were possessed of evil spirits. But there is not a little to be said against this. It was not the Jews only who beHeved in the exercise of diabolical power over men. We who live in Christian lands, where the power of evil is restrained by the presence of the HoLY SPIRIT of God ; where souls are dedicated to GOD, and made temples of the HOLY GlIOST from childhood; where the Cross still gleams upon the forehead of those who were once for all adopted as the children of God, of whom St. John says, '' Him that is born of God the wicked one toucheth not ; " where centuries of Christian civilisation have left their mark, and given a tone to everything, we can scarcely imagine what the world was before CHRIST became Man, and what liberty there was for evil ones to do their will. Satan calls himself, and is called, ^'The Prince of this world ; " and these remarkable words must have a meaning. A world that rejected GOD, and obeyed Satan, may well have fallen largely under his dominion. The cases of demoniacal possession mentioned in the Gospels almost all occur among the half-heathen population of Gahlee, not in Judea, 102 yirat .^uttba^ in S^ent. where GOD was known and worshipped. Probably much of the worship of heathen countries was, as St. Paul called it, a '^ worship of devils ; " probably too much of the mystery and marvel that gathered about the gods was not altogether imposture ; but there is reason to believe that supernatural events did actually occur, and that superhuman influences were really exerted. Pharaoh's magicians, we are told, were able to imitate the miracles of Moses; and Christian writers, who lived before idolatry and heathenism were forgotten, do not scruple to ascribe mighty and mysterious powers to the beings with whom inter- course was held. Thus, when JuHan tried to restore idolatry, he found the oracle of Apollo near Antioch had ceased to make repHes. After many prayers and sacrifices, an answer came, but to the effect that the church built near, with the bodies of martyrs preserved in it, rendered him dumb. So the girl that followed St. Paul jeering at Philippi, and who was kept by her masters to give supernatural in- formation by soothsaying, was not treated by the apostles as an impostor, but as one actually possessed by a spirit. So with the vagabond exorcists at Ephesus ; so with magical rites and wonders ; they were often real, and the work of evil spirits, who by their superior knowledge of the occult powers of the universe could effect what was impossible to ordinary men, and would so secure for themselves worship and obedience. The word ^^demon " means one endued with espe- cial knowledge, and there seems reason to believe that beings endowed with powerful intellects, hav- ing a clear insight into the secrets of nature un- known to us, may in spiritual form swarm around us, and be capable of influencing us in many ways ; and that we are in the midst of a conflict between good and evil, that is far wider than this Httle globe, and extends over time that we can scarcely imagine. UNlVEiw ©F yirat ^mttran itt li^ttt. 103 In our Lord's day there seems to have been a culmination in the power of evil in the world, and it was fitting that He should display His authority, by not merely ruhng the powers of nature, but by open conflict with and victory over the evil ones who meddle with men and their destinies. The primitive Church fully believed in demoniacal influence, and set apart a special order of men as '^ exorcists," to heal those who were affected by it ; perhaps showing contempt for evil spirits, by appointing mere novices in the Christian ministry to deal with them. Among heathen nations there is still a deep belief in the existence of evil spirits, and in their will and power to inflict injury upon man ; and learned and observant travellers relate remarkable instances of events inexplicable by ordinary causes. Nor do some, whose opinion demands attention, hesitate to say that even in our own country there may probably be cases still that are similar to those recorded in the Gospels, and that if one gifted with the primitive power of discerning spirits could enter our asylums, they would discover some unhappy ones whose condition could only be explained by supposing that they were under the influence of some power outside themselves. Just as in the cases described by the Evangelists, so in these, there is a double conscious- ness, a sense that some other will is handling the mental and bodily powers, and uttering words and causing acts which the human being can look upon from without, as not really his own. At one moment, the man bewails his misery ; at another, his lips speak what he has no power to originate, nor to withhold ; and his muscles act with furious violence, beyond their own capacities, and often to the injury of him- self. The symptoms of Deliritnn TremenSy in its worst forms, remind us very much of what is related of the demoniacs of the Gospels. Indeed, sensuality was always deemed one of the most common causes 104 yirat ^untra^ in ^znt of possession. Sensuality, in any of its forms, acts upon the nervous system fatally, and predisposes the man to spiritual degeneracy. *' Unclean spirits " are often spoken of as taking possession of human beings, and it seems likely that their presence had been courted by indulgence in impurity, which has a speci- ally debasing effect upon the soul. Baptism, and the other holy ordinances of the Church, have ever been esteemed as preservatives against the special attacks of evil spirits ; but, alas ! through modem careless- ness and neglect, many persons have never been baptized or confirmed, or have never received the Holy Communion, and so in a Christian country they are in the position of heathens, and are, like them, exposed to the unrestrained influences oi malignant demons. Sadducean scepticism may make light of these things; Materialism may demand to see what our faculties have no power to discern ; Rationalism may argue against the possibility of what is related, or against the value of the evidence; but the fact remains that mankind, in all ages and in all countries, have by long experience firmly held belief in the existence of spiritual powers, and in their ability to act upon ourselves. And for Christians there is the undoubted testimony of Scripture, and the words and actions of Him Who cannot lie. The Tempta- tion, which the Church brings before us to-day, was doubtless a real conflict with the mightiest of the spirits of evil, and not a mere subjective incident, and was part of the great work of Him Who was ''manifested that He might destroy the works of the devil." Our LORD, in His commission to His Apostles, gave them authority and power to '' cast out devils." St. Paul says distinctly that we have to meet, resist, and conquer *' principalities and powers" of the air, and to wrestle with spiritual beings that have not flesh and blood. yirst ^utttra^ in '^znt 105 The Church assumes the truth of these facts, when at baptism she requires a special renunciation of the Evil One, and reminds Christians that they must expect a life-long conflict with Satan ; and since he is not omnipresent, this implies that there are many tempters who do his work, and watch around Christian souls, to lead them from good to evil. It is vain to attempt to explain all this. It is foolish to inveigh against it, among many reasons, notably for this, that our very limited knowledge of the ways of God's providence, our ignorance of His eternal plans, our inability to see more than the present moment and a small portion of the history of this little world, which is but so insignificant a part of the creation, makes us quite unfit to form any sort of judgment of the designs and Will of GOD, of the mysterious conflict between good and evil, and of the infinite issues that are being worked out, in the course of ages of time, that stretch in bewildering vistas before and after our brief life, and even the whole history of mankind, and the life of the world itself. Let us turn, then, to the practical aspect of the question, as that which really most concerns us. There are several instances related by the Evan- gelists of the cure of demoniacs by our LORD ; and it is in the incidents of these cases that our spiritual instruction must be found. The most remarkable of these cases is that of the possessed at Gadara. We are told of this man, that he had his dwelling among the tombs, and that he was exceeding fierce, so that no man might pass by that way. A modern traveller in Palestine mentions a similar instance, and that he was attacked by a maniac, who lurked among the caverns in the rocks that were used as burial-places. Those who are under the power of Satan are bent on mischief and destruction. Wicked men are never satisfied, unless they are making others like them-* io6 Jfirst ^utttra^ in ^tnt selves, destroying the fair works of GOD, and spoil- ing what is beautiful and precious. Order and pro- gress are GOD's will ; and man at his best follows the same rule, but at his worst, influenced by evil spirits, he wars upon all established organisations and upon his fellow-men. Satan and his host have no injuries to avenge, and yet they hurt and destroy wherever they can. Does it not seem as if their in- fluence was at work in these days, when men can be found to spend money, time, and ingenuity for the purpose of scattering death and injury, and wrecking property, without any grudge against their victims, but animated by a dreadful determination to injure and destroy some one, they care not whom ? The demons make use of the man's voice to cry, ^' What have we to do with Thee, jESUS, Thou Son of God ? " There are many unknown powers in our nature which can be exercised under certain condi- tions. Men with strong will, can and do paralyse the will of others, and make them do and say just what they like. Such things are often done in public ; and whatever else may be said of them, they show that what we read in the Gospel is not impossible, and that powerful spirits may possess and command the faculties of the unhappy beings whom they haunt. This evil one using his victim's voice cries out in terror and helpless rage against CHRIST, Whom he recognises at once as the Son of GOD. Just as at the beginning light and darkness were separated, so were good and evil separated; evil hates good, is uneasy in its presence, and fears its own doom. Now let us notice Christ's method of cure. He disregards the demon's words, and addresses Him- self to the man, and asks him his name. The man had lost his own identity by the power of the possess- ing spirit ; our LORD recalls his mind by His question. It has been often noticed that, in a diseased condition, calling a person by name has a rousing effect. For ytrat ^utttra^ in Ifeitt. 107 instance, in somnambulism, swoon, states of terror, or unconsciousness. But the demon still will not allow the man to speak for himself; he replies again, and mockingly cries that his name is '' Legion ; " as if he would say, that just as the invincible phalanx of the Roman Legion carried all before it, so he had conquered that little world, and made the whole man his slave. And then with one word our LORD expels the mighty spirit; He, stronger than the strong. And presently the man is sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. In the other instance there are similar circum- stances. The possessed cries out, "What have I to do with Thee ? " and declares that it knows Him to be the Holy One of GOD. And then the power and malice of the spirit is seen in the fact that, though it is forced to obey our LORD'S command, it inflicts one last and parting injury upon its victim, so that he is believed to be dead. There is much to learn from all this ; but we must summarise it in fewest words. We see the power of evil spirits over us. That power, as we have said, is much curtailed by sacraments and the sweet in- fluences of the Cross ; but the evil ones are not far off, and if invited by man's will, and if there is a field prepared for them by sinful indulgence, and a door opened and kept open by free choice of things evil, then, if there be not actual possession, there will be diabolical temptation, and the man will become the slave of those special sins which have ever been attributed to evil spirits. We have three enemies, "the World," that is, evil men, evil example, the influences of human passions and temptations that belong to this life and its concerns ; " the Flesh," that is, the natural bent of our passions and impulses that clamour for gratification ; and " the Devil," that is, spiritual temp- tations, especially Pride, Rebellion, Envy, Lying, io8 JTirst ^uittra^ in '^tnt Malice, and such like. We say of the actions that come of these, that they are '' devilish." We see men and women, who seem to have lost the human character, and have become something that reminds us of the wild beast, but which has a still more terrible aspect, that seems to tell of an origin more evil than anything in this world. Like the demoniac, they have come to desperate condition ; beyond human control, " No man can bind them ; " beyond human influence and restoration, '' No man can tame them." There is a sense of utter miseiy and despair, often, as in the case of Judas, ending in suicide ; according to the old Latin saying, '' Those whom the gods destine for destruction, they first lead on to madness." We read of such persons, as, for instance, some of the later Romian Emperors ; men and women whom revolutions and times of terror have thrown upon the surface, criminals in modern times, the awful spawn of degraded humanity, in its last forms and developments of evil. We may see, in the Gospel record of possession, that characteristic of evil which begins to work long before the lowest depth is reached. '^ What have I to do with Thee ? " — horror, hatred of GOD, fear of His punishing hand. It has not reached its worst form in many, but for all that it is there; just as a disease may be discerned by a clever physician or surgeon, by subdued and premonitory symptoms, that are not noticed by ordinary observers. Keep- ing away from Holy Communion is such a symp- tom ; dislike of Church services and holy seasons ; inability to pray; indulgence in those special sins which we have said are diabolical in their nature ; evil thoughts cherished and dehghted in, — these tell a tale of a soul separated and separating itself from God, willingly prone to evil, likely to fall more and more under its influence. And how hard is it for such an evil-ridden soul ITirat ^unttajr in ^ent. 109 to be turned to GOD ! And yet these mighty acts of our Lord teach us that, by God's mercy, it may be so called back and brought to know itself, and to be made free from its cruel master. The voice of Christ is heard calling the sinner by name, remind- ing him of his baptismal calling, appealing to his Christian manhood, to free himself from degradation, slavery, and misery. The voice comes sometimes by Christian ministers, often by conscience, sometimes by some chance word or thought ; and when the man is willing, his Deliverer is at hand, and present^ he sits clothed and in his right mind at his Saviour's feet, willing to follow Him whithersoever He goes. We have been thinking of great sins and sinners, but let none of us put aside these thoughts, as if they did not concern us. The temptations of evil spirits come to every one of us. The sins that are specially diabolical, at least in their less gross and violent forms, are daily in our way ; and while we yield to them, we are not in our right mind ; we are transferring our soul's alle- giance to the enemy of GOD and man, and are bringing sorrow upon ourselves, and the shadow of death, having our dwelling among the tombs and with the dead, wounding ourselves, and likely to injure others. We are not yet so far gone that we cannot use our own faculties ; we can still see our fall, still long for restoration, still come to CHRIST the Restorer, still pray Him to pity and help us. This, then, let us do ; this Lent, nay, each day, before we sleep, each Sunday as we pass from out of the world within the church- door, each time we kneel humbly at the Lord's Table, each time we join in the Litany, and say, '^ From all blindness of heart, from pride, vainglory, and hypoc- risy, from envy, hatred, and malice, and from the crafts and assaults of the devil. Good LORD deliver us ; " so shall we ever keep near to our Lord, and that wicked one shall not touch us, for if we resist the devil he will flee from us. Seconb .Suntiag in %tnt SIN A LEPROSY OF THE SOUL, Last Sunday we considered Sin and its pardon, as exemplified in our LORD'S miraculous healing of those possessed with devils. Let us to-day look at the nature of Sin, and the means and method of its pardon, from another standpoint, as they seem to be set before us in the miraculous healing of Leprosy. If we have realised what our LORD was, we shall be prepared to believe that His revelation of Him- self, and of the Father by Him, was not confined to His spoken words. He says Himself that His acts were an integral portion of His mission. So when He had healed the ten lepers. He sent them to the •priests, as He said, ^^for a testimony unto them." The ancient ritual had been handed down for the restoration of the leper to the rights of citizenship and of the Temple, but no one had used them. For when had a leper been healed ? But now there come ten men, known and proved to have been lepers for years, now known and proved to have been freed from the incurable disease by Jesus. Similar miracles occurred many times. Therefore, when John sent his disciples to our LoRD, to ask Him whether He were the CHRIST, He bade them go and tell John what they had seen Him do ; and among these deeds He specially mentioned the cleansing of lepers. For, as the king of Israel said to Naaman, it was an accepted belief that GOD alone could cure a leper. Were not the priests, the scribes, the lawyers, bound to inquire whether this were not the Prophet like unto Moses, the promised Healer, prov- ing His commission by His more than human power ? But they understood not. Let us be wiser, and learn something from our LORD'S acts, which were revelations. His mighty works, which were parables, full of instruction for all time and for all men. We can hardly read what is laid down in Leviticus, respecting Leprosy, without seeing that there was in the mind of GOD something special and significant in its nature. It seems to have been selected by God as a type of Sin. The leper was looked upon as one specially chosen by Go I) for unusual suffering. Some learned Jews declared that MESSIAH would be a leper, because of the peculiar phrase in Isaiah, where He is said to be '^ stricken, smitten of GOD, and afQicted." The leper was to be treated as one already dead. His clothing was that of a dead body; he went about in perpetual mourning attire, celebrat- ing, lamenting his own death. Any one who touched him was rendered unclean, in exactly the same way as if he had touched a corpse. The leper was ex- cluded from the company, not only of his relations, but of all living men. All that belonged to him passed to his heirs, as if he were dead and buried. Now, this was evidently not because the disease was infectious, or more deadly than many others. Among other nations the leper lived with his family, and even held offices of importance, and transacted business, like any one else. So Naaman was the general of the Syrian army, and had his house and servants. It was only by the Levitical law that leprosy was specially fenced about with peculiar restrictions and disabilities. The disease itself had many phases. Sometimes it exhibited itself in a spot or deep-seated sore ; sometimes it covered the whole body with an affection of the skin so that th^ IT2 ^er0nir ^utttra^ in Sent, leper was '' as white as snow ; " sometimes the feet and legs were affected with fearful enlargement called *' elephantiasis ; " sometimes the flesh and bones were consumed by a cancerous corruption, so that parts of the body died, and dropped off. There were, indeed, appointed rites for the restoration of the healed leper to his civil and religious rights, but the disease was universally considered incurable. Perhaps these rites were ordained by GOD for no other purpose than to draw attention to the work of Messiah, when He came, doing deeds that no man had ever done before. The disease has its origin in hot and dry climates. Probably the Israelites were first afflicted v/ith it in Egypt. The forced labour, under the hot sun, in the dry and dusty soil, with hard fare and cruel usage, v/as likely to create an enfeebled condition of body, and so induce such a malad3^ Indeed, the Egyptians, in some of their records, after the Exodus, endeavoured to give that event an entirely different aspect, by saying that they had driven out the Israelites from their country, in disgust because they were a people hopelessly infected with leprosy ! The close intercourse that was established with the East by the Crusades, caused leprosy to be introduced into Europe, and in most towns of any importance there was a lepers' hospital. The mediaeval Church followed the practice of the Mosaic Law, and treated leprosy as a disease different from all others. The leper was clothed in a shroud, like a corpse, and when he was admitted into the lazar-house, the Mass of the dead was celebrated over him. The tenderness of the Church regarded the leper with special pity. Like the Israelite, it esteemed him as selected by GOD for a painful life, separated from its joys and brightness, and therefore deserving more than ordinary love and compassion, in company with the mentally imbecile, and other unfortunates. There are some very touch- ^etotttr ^utttra^ tit Sent. 113 ing legends, in which loving service to such unhappy sufferers was shown to be accepted by our LORD as if rendered to Himself. Now, we know that all the rites and ordinances of the Mosaic Law were symbolical, and that what is written is for our learning. By the Law is the know- ledge of sin ; it is the servant to lead us to the Teacher of truth. The sacrifices point to CHRIST with one hand, and to man's sins, that need pardon, with the other. So yet more mysteriously the rites that clus- tered round the leper symbolised the work of CHRIST, and were never understood fully till He came, and by His word or His touch cleansed, and in a moment restored to health, the doomed and hopelessly dis- eased leper. Sin clung to man. It lay deep within his nature, ou,t of the reach of all human skill. The better sort of men groaned under its presence, long- ing for release, trying this remedy and that, in vain. All over the world, and in every age, when men think, and know themselves, when they yearn after purity and spiritual progress, they find their way barred by inward defilement. ^* When I would do good, evil is present with me. Oh ! wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death ? " Adam was warned by GOD that if he fell into sin, in that day he should die. Satan told him that it would not be so. Adam sinned, and did not literally die. Satan seemed true, and GoD a liar. But Satan knew that he was playing with words, and deceiving. Adam lived on, but his soul was dead ; just as the leper lived on in the world for years, and yet was accounted dead by the people of GOD, according to God's own ordinance. So in the sight of GOD, and His Church and people, and the holy angels, the impenitent and unpardoned sinner now is dead while he liveth. The old lie is still uttered, still believed. Men and women revel and wallow in sin, and they say, '* We are none the worse, but a great deal the H 114 ^£contr ^utttJag xit Itettt. better, and happier, and richer for it." There is a vulgar phrase, used by those who lead the pure to evil ; they bid them come with them and " see life." This is the tempter's lie. The truth is, they go down to death. Sin is like leprosy ; its inevitable end is death. The leper died, as it were, once, when the disease came upon him ; he died, as it were, a second time, when he gave up the ghost ; which was from the first the certain result of his leprosy. So we are taught by GOD that there are two deaths for the sin- ful soul ; the first death is here, when sin has taken its hold ; the second death is when sin and death are hurled to their doom. The leper still lived in the world, saw the sun, ate and drank and slept, as other men ; but God'S Law counted him dead. So there are men and women living, working, smiling, pros- pering, like Naaman ; great, favoured, honoured ; only God esteems them dead. O strange and sad con- trast ! These lepers, one and all, knew their sickness, their misery, the inevitable doom of their disease, and when they saw the Saviour, they believed in His power and mercy, and called aloud, begging Him to heal them ; but sinful souls fear not, pray not, care not to be cleansed, even when cure is offered to them. All men are sinners; but some are pardoned, and some are not pardoned, because they do not wish it. And when the body is stripped off, and we shall know even as GOD knows, all will see that they arc, like the blighted Assyrian host, " all dead corpses " in the morning of light and life and resurrection. Do we ask, ^' How is this ? " It is so by necessity. Sin is a disease that is incurable by man. Sin is a debt that no man can pay. Sin is a disorder in the cosmos of law. Sin is a flaw in the perfection of God's works. Sin is rebellion against the will of Him Who must be supreme. Sin is death in the kingdom of life. Sin is darkness in the realm of light. It is a contradiction, an impossibility. It ^er0ntr ^untra^ tit Sent. 115 m m — ' — — cannot be tolerated by the perfect and all-holy GOD. It will flee from Him, and He must drive it from His presence. By unalterable laws, GOD and sin are incompatible. GOD cannot change; therefore sin must be infinitely separated from Him. There is a very close analogy between the body, and the soul ; that which disease is to the body, sin is to the soul. ^^GOD is not the GOD of the dead, but of the living." All this, and more, is taught by the words and the works of CHRIST. But we must keep ourselves just now to the ana- logies of leprosy. Leprosy came on gradually; so no one is a great sinner all at once. If a man touched a leper he partook of his defilement, and though he did not catch the disease, he lost his religious pri- vileges and needed reconciliation by the appointed rites. And who does not know the defiling power of sin and sinners ? The very knowledge of sin is debasing. Example, even familiarity with evil, is dangerous to purity and innocence : ^' With the fro- ward, thou shalt learn frowardness." There were many varieties in the symptoms of leprosy. All lepers did not look the same. Yet there was one law of GOD for all. So sinners vary in the nature €)f their sins and in their guilt; yet God counts all sinners, and the penalty of sin is upon all. All lepers were shut out from Jerusalem ; and into the heavenly Jerusalem there can enter nothing that is defiled. But let us hasten to happier thoughts. The heal- ing of leprosy by CHRIST tells of the pardon of sin, by Him Who alone can do both. There are only two instances of the cleansing of lepers given at length and in detail, and their circumstances arc significant, and full of meaning. The ten lepers were healed mysteriously. They were bidden, sick unto death as they were, to go and show themselves to the priests, to receive a certificate ii6 ^econtr .^untra^ ttt ^tnt — ■ — — — — a* of health. They obeyed the seemingly unreasonable command, and *^as they went they were cleansed." It was not their going that healed them ; yet if they had not gone they would not have been made well. So Naaman washed in Jordan, and his flesh came again as the flesh of a little child ; but the water of Jordan had no more healing in it than had the waters of Abana and Pharpar. What, then, healed these lepers ? It was obedience ; doing what they were told ; putting themselves in the way of God's power ; fulfilling the conditions laid down for fitting them- selves to receive God's gift ; accepting God's way, though they could not understand it. We must do the same. There is no other name whereby we must be saved but the name of jESUS. There is salvation by no other. We cannot save ourselves ; yet He will not save us against our will, without our co-operation. What we have to do is very little, but that little must be done. His way may seem unlikely ; His Sacraments may be argued against ; His Church may be found fault with ; and men may set up what they call purer, more reason- able, more intelligible systems. But it is perilous for man to take his own way, instead of God's way. It has never answered; it cannot possibly succeed. If we want to be cleansed from the leprosy of sin, we must do exactly what GOD has told us ; nothing else will do. Now let us take the other case, and we learn some- thing more. Our LORD healed this man by His touch. If Jesus had been only a man. His touch would not have done the leper any good, and it would have made Himself unclean. But virtue went out of Him, and chased away the evil humours, and made the sufferer well. In like manner, what was the In- carnation but the Divine touch healing humanity ? Our Lord joined Himself to our nature, and was not defiled, but Himself sanctified us. And now, to ^erotttr ^untra^ in Sfetti. 117 * the end, He is with us in His Church and Sacra- ments. He touches us by them, and we are healed. He has now ascended, and may be touched every- where, by all, spiritually and effectively. Greater things than He did are done, as He promised. His power is present to heal in those whom He sends in His name ; in ordinances, that He has appointed ; in lifeless means, that He has blessed and made life-giving. There is but one point more to notice ; but there is in it much consolation for us all. The demoniac was too far gone even to think of cure. The leper felt his misery, and cried aloud with wondrous faith, and asked our LORD for healing. The ten stood afar off, huddled together, Jews and Samaritans, forgetting their differences in their common misery, and cried piteously for mercy. The single leper worshipped and believed, saying, ^'LORD, if Thou wilt. Thou canst make me clean." Let us do likewise. We know our sinfulness ; we know our danger ; we know our Saviour. Down on our knees, then, let us call upon Him for pardon, and to us He will surely say, " I will ; be thou clean." Some may seem better, some worse, but for all alike there is the same Saviour. There is but one way of salvation. Young and old, rich and poor, gentle and simple, saint and sinner, the transgressor of one commandment, typified perhaps by the single leper, the grievous sinner who has broken every law of GOD and man, shadowed out perhaps by the throng of ten ; all alike must come to Christ, for in Him alone is hope for all and for each. Not once, nor twice, but day by day, as long as we live, we must cry, " Jesus, Master, have mercy upon us." Specially, at seasons like this, our LORD'S hand seems to be stretched out to us, and His voice is heard offering cleansing, not even waiting for our agonising cry. And when at last we come to die. ii8 ^econti ^uniraH in y^ttt. when death is doing its worst, and all is ruin, still faith will teach us to lift up our voice, inarticulate indeed, and unheard by human ears, but heard b}' Him, heard and answered: ''JESU, JESU, mercy." And then, when all seems wrecked by sin's curse, then, by His touch, we shall be made whole, and enter into life. 2Cijirtr Suntfas in ILcnt, SIN, THE BLINDNESS OF THE SOUL. Among the miracles of our LORD, the most numerous are those of giving sight to the blind. This is just what any one well acquainted with the East would have considered probable ; for blindness is far more common in Oriental countries than it is here. The heat and glare of the sun, the dust, the multitudes of flies, the practice of sleeping in the open air, and some other peculiarities of Eastern Hfe make diseases of the eyes the most common of all bodily ailments. It is said that in Cairo one person out of every five of the population is blind, besides those who are affected with ophthalmia and other complaints which often end in blindness. It is probable, therefore, that our Lord constantly met with blind persons, and it is recorded that He healed many ; and there are four ca^es the particulars of which have been handed down to us by the Evangelists. Medical and surgical knowledge and skill were not great in those old- world days, and blindness was usually as incurable as leprosy ; and therefore when our LORD sent back the Baptist's disciples to their master, He asserted His claims to be the CHRIST, not only by His power to cure leprosy, but by His giving sight to the blind. He was fulfilling the prophet's foretold attributes of Messiah ; and so, in the synagogue at Nazareth, He first announced His mission by reading the place where it was written in Isaiah that He was anointed 119 I20 ^h'tvh ^utttra^ in feitt. by the Spirit of God, among other purposes, ^'to give recovery of sight to the blind." And when one of the men whom He restored was arguing with the Pharisees, he justly said, that since the world began no one had heard of the opening of the eyes of one who had been born blind. The learned and devout among the Jews, therefore, were bound to inquire into the pretensions of this Prophet, who cleansed the lepers and opened the eyes of the blind. But pre- judice, and preconceived theories, and narrow, petty sectarian trivialities misled them ; so that, with an astounding and undoubted miracle before their eyes, they missed all its importance, and wandered into misapprehensions, because its Author violated some of their traditional and utterly unauthorised super- stitions respecting the Sabbath. We sometimes crave for miracles; let us learn from this that miracles will not compel men to believe; for seeing is not always believing. Our Lord's works, like His words, had different effects upon those who saw them ; just as the seed fell on different kinds of ground, and sometimes bore more or less fruit, and sometimes perished. Well may our Lord have turned upon the Pharisees and charged them with bhndness ; bhndness worse than that which He had just removed ; bhndness that affected, not the bodily organs, but spiritual bhndness, harder to cure than that of one whose eyes had never seen ; blindness which resisted even His power and His love. For, like leprosy, blindness was a type of sin. The blind were excluded, not only from the priest- hood, but even from the Temple services. The old prophets constantly used the simile, and said that their people were blind, unable to see what was plain enough to some. Abraham could see the coming Christ, and the city that had foundations, which God had built. The spiritually enlightened could see Christ in the offerings of the Law ; could under- stand the folly and wickedness of idolatry, and the certain doom of rebellion and disobedience to the declared will of GOD ; and could lament that many of their nation were more stupid than ox and ass, for these animals knew their master and their stable, while God's own chosen people could not discern His Hand, nor walk in His way, nor keep themselves safe and happy in His appointed home. So St. Paul, when he could not persuade his countrymen to accept Christ as the Messiah of the Law and the Prophets, can only explain their conduct by saying that blindness had come upon their souls ; and then he extends his lamentation, and bewails Christian blindness in words and terms that apply to us, if we have not the eyes of the soul enlightened. Let us, then, take once more the circumstances of the recorded miracles of our LORD, and see to-day how they preach to us that sin is a blindness of the soul, and how CHRIST alone can restore our spiritual sight. As we have already seen, the incidents of each miracle teach some special lesson, and what does not apply to one person is exactly appro- priate to another. So still the HOLY SPIRIT of GOD speaks by human lips that every soul may hear something suitable for itself; and, like the mani- fold audience at Pentecost, each may receive in language that he can understand the word of light and life. In the first miracle, two bhnd men follow jESUS, apparently asking in vain for His help, but un- daunted by His silence or refusal. They follow Him into His own house at Capernaum. Then He asks them whether they believe in His power to do this work of God, and when they say they do, He touches their eyes, saying, ^'According to your faith, be it unto you," and immediately their sight was restored. Here, as in the case of the lepers, there is a sens(^ 122 fijirir ^ixtttra^ in Sent. of want, a longing for, and a labouring after, the desired boon : — " Scarce half I seem to live ; dead more than half. O dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon, Irrevocably dark, total eclipse, Without all hope of day ! " Have we this sense of blindness ? Do we feel that we are deficient in spiritual light ; that we are not perfect men ; that others have faculties that we have not ? Do we want to be better ? Do we seek to be made better, to see our faults more clearly, to discern the beauty of hoHness, the unreality of things of time and sense, the sinfulness and the misery of sin ? Do we long for the power, which others possess, of seeing by faith, of realising the spiritual ? Or are we satisfied with ourselves and our condition, and while we are eager enough after the things of this life, we do not covet earnestly any one. spiritual gift ? These men persevered, in spite of discouragement and neglect ; and not getting what they sought, they boldly followed jESUS into His house, and thus at last gained their quest. In those days our LORD had but one house, in one obscure town in a corner of the world. Now His houses are numberless ; and in Christian lands they are not far from any man's door. Our LORD still meets petitioners in His house ; still hears, and heals ; still gives sight to the blind, by His word and His touch ; still specially works on the Sabbath, or rather the Lord's Day, so much better than the old Sabbath, which has passed away. If we are in earnest, we shall be frequent visitors to the house of GoD ; listening, communicat- ing, believing that He is able to do what we want Him to do for us. Next let us notice that miracle recorded by St. John at such length, by which the man born blind received sight. This was no blindness from accident or disease. The man had never seen. There was Wh'tvti ^untra^i iit fent. 123 organic fault from birth. This man was made to see by washing in Siloam. We cannot fail to perceive at once a parable here of the washing away of original or birth sin by holy Baptism. This man is not said to have asked Christ's aid ; it was given, before it was asked for. So our LORD will have little children brought to Him, before they know their need of a Saviour, and by Baptism be made partakers of an unasked blessing. But there is other teaching also in what our LORD did. Just as in His cleansing of the lepers He used unlikely means. He spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay, and said unto him, '' Go wash in the pool of Siloam, which is, by interpretation. Sent ; he went his way therefore, and washed, and came seeing." What was said last Sunday of GOD's choice of unlikely instruments and methods, in His providential ordering of Church ordinances and means of grace, is again taught here. If we feel our blindness, and desire its cure, v/e shall use our other senses to help us, just as the blind man could hear what our LORD said, and holding some one else's hand, could use his feet to walk to the pool of Siloam. The man was more humble than Naaman ; he went straight to the place of which he was told, and washed, as he was told. So let us be obedient to God's commands, and go His way ; for there is none other way given among men whereby we can be saved. Siloam means ''Sent;" the same as Shiloh, that is, CHRIST; for He is the Water of Life. Nor is this all; He said of His apostles, "As My Father has sent Me, even so send I you." The word '' apostle " also means '' sent ; " '' He that heareth you, heareth Me; and lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." There is still the pool of Siloam, then ; still Shiloh ; still CHRIST ; still the fountain open for sin 124 ^Iririr ^untraf in J^ttt. and uncleanness ; still those whom CHRIST has sent in His name to give sight to the blind. Some run who are not sent ; but the Church knows that she has received authority from her LORD, and she will act in His name and by His authority, till He comes again. But let us not fail to notice the after-incident in this miracle. The man was sent for by the Phari- sees, perhaps by the Sanhedrim themselves. His cure was thoroughly investigated. It is the only instance recorded of one of our LORD'S miracles being judicially and critically examined by competent and unfavourable authorities. The miracle cannot be denied, but the subject of it is abused, and cast out of the Jewish Church. Then our LoRD goes and seeks him, and tells him, in so many words, plainly and categorically, that He is the CHRIST. So is it still. The baptized Christian is CHRIST'S special care. He manifests Himself to him, leading him on by Confirmation and frequent Communion to a know- ledge of Himself. His eyes, which He has opened, are used to see the face of his Saviour. He believes, worships, and is taught, and blessed. The world rejects him, but CHRIST accepts him, and he wants no other friend. In the next miracle there are again some special incidents that are most instructive. St. Mark tells us that at Bethsaida a blind man was brought by others to our LORD. There are some who are sin- ful and impenitent, who will nevertheless not seek pardon. They must be brought to their Saviour by the intercession of others. Then we are told that Jesus led the man out of the town. Bethsaida was one of the cities upon which our LORD pronounced a woe, because it believed not, though many of His mighty works were done in her. So GOD, in His mercy, sometimes takes men away from companions, from business, €hitb ^untra^ itt Jfcttt. 125 from distracting and debasing influences, and then converts them. The loneliness of sickness, or trouble, or poverty, or unjust suspicion, or calumny, may sometimes do this. What a comforting picture for such an afflicted one, to see himself, as the blind man led by His Saviour's hand out of the crowd, into the quiet country-side, where alone with his Lord he may be healed ! Nor is this all. This man, alone of all the subjects of Christ's miracles, was restored gradually. At first he saw imperfectly, men and trees much the same; then at last everything clearly. There is much comfort for some of us here. We can see a little, but nothing is clear. We have perplexities ; nothing is quite certain to us, either about ourselves, or our duty, or our creed. We are not quite blind, but neither are we perfect in our sight; just as some are colour-blind, some short-sighted, and so on. We need not despair, then, but hope that He, Who hath begun the good work, will carry it on, and perfect it ; and that if we see now darkly, if much that we see is but a riddle that we cannot understand, that we shall one day see face to face, and that, like this restored blind man, the first face we see clearly will be the Face of our Saviour. For, like Elijah's servant on Carmel, we may look six times and see nothing, but the seventh time will reveal all we long for. And now let us try and learn something from the fourth and last miracle, the case of Bartimaeus at Jericho. Jericho was a cursed city, a city near which robbers prowled. When Bartimaeus had re- ceived his sight he left Jericho, and followed jESUS to Jerusalem. Like this, the sinful soul is a citizen of the world that is cursed, but when it is pardoned it becomes the disciple of Jesus, and He leads it on to Jerusalem, the city of peace. Then notice that this man was not only blind, but 126 Uk'tvt! ^itntra^ tit Ifeitt. poor ; poor because blind ; so that he could do nothing but beg. Alas ! are not many souls like this ? And some, like the Laodicean Church, do not even know their degraded state ; they are poor and blind ; yet, because the poverty and the blindness are spiri- tual, they are ignorant of their condition, and re- garding the body and this life only, they call them- selves rich and happy; and some say, '^ Are we blind also ? " and yet say it in mockery. Just as Judas said, " Lord, is it I that will betray Thee ? " and yet even then could not repent and turn from his sin ; or as David could not see himself in Nathan's parable ; for none are so bHnd as those who will not see ; and those who will not see, presently cannot see; for the god of this world blinds the eyes of his slaves, just as the Philistine lords put out the eyes of Samson. Love blinds ; especially self-love. Hate blinds; prejudice blinds; ignorance blinds; pride, party-spirit, custom and fashion, even learning, especially where it is in one branch of study only, — all these, and many more, strangely work, till men cannot see what is plainly before them, and which others see clearly enough at their side. " Faults in the life breed errors in the brain." While the pure in heart see GOD, the fool saith in his heart, *' There is no God ; " for his heart is foul, and darkness reigns there. But let us be like Bartimaeus. He was blind, yet he heard when Jesus was passing. If he could not see, he could hear ; if he could not see, he could cry aloud. So let us cry out of the deep, out of our darkness, alone, helpless, with none to lead us. Oh ! who is not so sometimes, lonely, friendless, in dark- ness of soul ? What can we do but cry, ^' Have mercy on me " ? Well, this miracle bids us cry, and keep on crying, and promises us an answer of peace. But we shall not find sympathy from many. Those about Bartimseus bade him hold his peace. '' Miser- f^Irtrir ^uttiJa^ :n l^ettt. 127 able comforters are ye all." ^' A man's foes are they of his own household." Those who would enter into life are hindered often by familiar friends. Let them cry so much the more a great deal, *' Thou Son of David, have mercy upon me," for He is the Friend of the friendless. '' The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force." It is those who " overcome " who receive the promises ; the men who will not be put down ; the martyrs, the soldiers, those whose faith removes mountains. Then jESUS stood still, and called him, and then those who had hindered him encouraged him ; for with the world nothing succeeds like success. But oh, how true and wonderful and blessed are those words, spoken by those who understood not what they said : " He calleth thee ; " He, the Saviour of the world, the mighty GOD, stands still for thee ; He calleth thee ! His whole thought is about thee, poor man, beggar, blind ; He occupies Himself with thee ! His other work waits that He may attend to thee ! Is not this the marvellous truth that dawns upon the penitent soul, and draws him in a tumult of wonder, gratitude, and love to his Saviour's feet ? *^ He loved me, and gave Himself for me." See it all pictured in Bartimaeus : ^' He casting away his garment, rose, and came to jESUS." The poor beggar-man flings away his one garment, all he has, reckless, only eager for a far better possession ; waiting for no helping, guiding hand, he rushes forward, heedless of imminent stumbling and falls, his ears guiding him, since his eyes cannot, with arms outstretched, with tears streaming down his poor face, and crying still, ''Thou Son of David, have mercy on me." Well may our LORD say, '' Thy faith hath saved thee." Faith cometh by hearing, not by sight. Faith may be bHnd, but it leads to Jesus; and He turns faith into sight. Oh, for faith like that of Bartimseus ; grace to cast 128 ^h'tvb ^ttntra^ ttt ^znt away all that would hinder our steps to our Lord's feet ; grace to forsake all, that we may be His disciples ; grace to fling away the tattered, ragged robe of our own righteousness, and present ourselves, without cloaking our sinfulness, to Him ! Oh for the earnest, eager rush towards Him, disregarding all else, fearing nothing, hindered by no one, not seeing, but '' as it were a beast before Thee," guided by an instinct that is not reckoned among the five senses, for it is implanted by God Himself, Who gives the eagle power to find his unseen food, and the dog to track his master by ways that he has never seen, and makes the magnet turn ever to its invisible pole ! Yes, the Christian's daily prayer is, '^ LORD, that I may receive my sight." ^^ Lighten Thou mine eyes, that I sleep not in death." Light was God's first gift to the world ; light was God'S last best gift to the world, jESUS CHRIST. Light is the symbol of conversion in the repentant soul ; light is the emblem of salvation to the glorified soul, as we read in the Epistle to-day, '' Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and CHRIST shall give thee light ; " light, more light ; light within ; light at eventide ; light in the dark valley ; Hght in the land where the Lamb is their everlasting Light. Be this our inheritance, and all our dark days shall be re- membered no more. JFourtlj Suntag in iLent, SIN, A PARALYSIS OF THE SOUL. As diseases are of many kinds, so are sins. The effects of diseases upon the body are not more varied than are the effects of sin upon the soul. We have tried to learn some spiritual lessons from our Lord's treatment of mental alienation, lepros}^ and blindness ; let us now see what is taught us in rijs miraculous healing of Palsy. The first case recorded is that which took place at Capernaum. A multitude thronged the house where our LORD was, listening to His teaching. The friends of a poor paralytic carried him to the place, hoping to ask our LORD to heal him ; but when they came to the house, they found it so crowded with eager and curious listeners that they could not get in, and the people were either unable or unwilling to make way for them to pass. They would not give up the gratification of hearing the new prophet's words ; no, not that a poor dis- abled fellow-creature might have a chance of health and soundness. The way of the world ! the selfishness of human nature ! Each was afraid that he would lose his place. Let some one else move ; why should he ? We know what all this means. But the poor man had some true friends, if these his neighbours and fellow-townsmen were thus un- friendly. The four who had carried him so far were not daunted by difficulties or stopped by the I 130 yourtlr ^uniraj in ^eitt. first rebuff. " Difficulty/' as it has been said, *' stupe- fies the skiggish, advises the prudent, terrifies the fearful, but animates the courageous to greater exertion." The bearers carried the helpless sufferer up the outside staircase common in the East, and removing some of the flat roof, let down the man into the midst of the audience, at the very feet of Jesus. Let us contemplate him, as he lies there. He scarcely seems to ail anything ; there are no hideous symptoms, as in leprosy ; his eyes are bright and in- telligent, as they are fixed with earnest gaze upon our Lord's face ; his own face is flushed with expecta- tion ; he looks well and healthful ; yet he lies there, unable to move. His limbs are sound, but their nerves and muscles are powerless to obey his will ; he tries to raise his arms, but they lie helpless, like logs of wood, at his side ; he would walk ; he puts forth the effort, but he is disobeyed by his own limbs ; he seems to be two persons rather than one. His body is hardly more his own than that of the pos- sessed. Is not this a true picture of that of which v/e read elsewhere ? The spirit is willing, the flesh is weak. Is it not very much what St. Paul describes, " The good that I would, I do not ; but the evil which I would not, that I do. I see a law in my members, warring against the law of my mind. O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this dead body ? " The double consciousness of man has been found out, wherever men have thought and reasoned. Have not we found it out ? Have we not wondered sometimes which is the true self, the self that is active, loving, generous, noble, or the self that is slothful, cowardly, mean, grovelling, despicable ? What great and heroic actions we Avere going to do, and there was nothing to hinder us, but some sort of spiritual paralysis was upon us, and we did not stir. Look at that man; talk to him; you are convinced that yourtlr ^uttira^ iti Stent. 131 » ' — ■ ■ he has an immense reserve of latent power. How he could preach ; how he could influence others ; what powers of persuasion he has ; what winning manners ; what Christ-like gifts ! Yet his life is a failure and a disgrace. He fritters away years in trivialities ; he lapses idly into gross indulgences ; he does no good to himself, or to any one else ; and his end is shame and ruin. Sin has paralysed some spiritual function, and spoiled another noble vocation. Those who knew him saw the mischief growing upon him ; he knew it himself, but he never strove against it ; perhaps he excused himself by saying the fault was in his blood ; his father was so before him. It may have been so ; and thus we see the far-reaching evil of a man's sin, that it is visited upon his children ; or the responsi- bility of those who train the young, if they do not help them in advance to master the sin that easily besets them, before it masters them. For, notice that it is the work of this man's friends that procures his cure. It was when our LORD saw their faith that He stopped His teaching, and restored the man who had lost all power, perhaps even the energy to make his case known to Him, Who alone could help him. Parents, teachers, friends, are taught here how much they may do for those who are tied and bound with the chain of their sins, hereditary or personal, or both. Our Lord turns to the man and says, " Be of good cheer ; thy sins are forgiven thee." He was doubtless downcast, and believed that he was suffering the due punishment of his bitterly regretted sins. Perhaps we are to understand that he had already truly re- pented, and that he had been long since forgiven by God ; for the temporal punishment of sin is often continued when the eternal doom is remitted. So it was with David ; with the disobedient prophet ; with the antediluvians, as St. Peter seems to teach ; with Moses ; and many more who, as St. Paul says, 132 ycitrtlj ^itntfag in irettt. suffer here that their souls may be saved in the great day. Then our LoRD gives the man vigour and health , and he goes away, carrying his bed, which hitherto had borne him ; and the crowd that would not make way for him in his misery were courteous enough when he was able to push for himself. The way of the world again ! The next miracle is one of the few related only by St. John, and is full of remarkable details. A man had been paralysed for thirt^'^-eight years, and la}- , Vv^ith many more sick folk, by the pool of Bethesda, friendless, pushed aside by those who had friends ; a whole lifetime of disease, helplessness, and dis- appointment, settling down into despondency and liopeless endurance. To this man, among the suffer- ing multitude, Jp:sus comes. This man alone He makes whole. Why did He not with the same word restore every one of those sufferers to health and usefulness ? Because His miracles were part of His teaching. He did not come to upset the course of the world, to remove every trace of evil ; the hour was not come for that. What He did v/as to manifest His power and His willingness to pardon sin, and to redeem the souls of those who trust in Him. So He s^js, even to this despairing cripple, '^Wilt thou be made whole ? " For although we come into being with- out our will, and go out of the world without our will, we cannot be pardoned and saved without our will. If we will not, GOD cannot. Sometimes the spiritual paralysis affects the understanding and the con- science ; the man does not know his misery ; he goes gaily on, yet is dead while he lives. The outward appearance is not changed ; only his judgment of right and wrong is inactive. He has neither the will nor the power to alter and amend his life. There are many incidents that are interesting and instructive; but we must only notice one or two. Jesus does not forget the man. Just as He had yourtlj .^uttiJan in S^nf. 133 searched out the man to whom He had given sight, so He follows this man, for He had not yet done with him. His case is selected, not for himself, but that by it the whole world may be taught. It was for us, then, for our instruction, that our ,L0RD found that man, in the Temple, a few days after his miraculous restoration to health. Notice, then, the man was in the Temple, the best and fittest place for one who had been so singularly favoured and had received such a special blessing ; and being in the house of Gou, the Son of GOD manifests Himself to him. GOD's house is the house of God's people. Hezekiah with his enemy's letter ; Hannah with her great sorrow and her great want; the publican with his repentance ; Simeon and Anna with their patient hope; Mary when she had lost her Divine Son, — all these betook themselves to the Temple, and there they all found relief. And shall we Christians not haunt the house of GOD ? And shall those who come in faith fail to find a blessing ? But let us specially notice what our LORD has to say to the man ; what He meets him on purpose to say to him, and through him to all the world, and to each soul : ^' Sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee." ^'A worse thing;" something worse than thirty-eight years' impotency ; a lost, wasted, helpless, useless life ; all the bright years of youth and manhood, which others enjoyed, which others spent in active work, in well-paid labour ; something worse than this, the result of sin ! We know but little of the world to come ; scarcely anything of the future of souls, of the effects of sin, of the punishment of disobedient, impenitent sinners. In the present day there is a tendency to water down all terrors; to understate God's judgments ; to hope where there seems small ground for hope, in what it has pleased God to tell us. There may have been mistakes formerly in the opposite direction, but let us to-day 134 y^urtlr ^unirag in Xcttl. . _ T beware of a reaction equally mischievous. This life shows us every day the terrible, widespread, long- lasting misery that one pleasant, passing sin will bring. Let us ponder our LORD'S words, " A worse thing ; " and let us be afraid of running the awful risk that creatures run who defy the laws of the Creator, and put themselves in the path of inevitable, crushing retribution. We have seen, we have felt, the natural consequences of our sins ; there is ^* a worse thing " yet, a longer period of consequences, a paralysis that will hold us down, as in chains, while happy beings soar upwards in glorious liberty, joyously exercising every faculty, growing in knowledge and in power, and ever advancing in spiritual manhood, in nearness and likeness to GoD. There is but one more miracle that seems to belong to this class of disease — the healing of the man whose right hand was withered. As we have already noticed, sin does not always entirely possess a man. Just as this man was sound everywhere except in his one hand, so we may see many a man with one besetting fault ; but very often that fault really spoils his whole character, just as the uselessness of a man's right hand will hinder him from getting his living and will spoil his whole life. It was the sin of Adam's right hand that ruined himself and the world. A sudden blow struck with the right hand makes a man a murderer, and turns a free and useful being into a felon, doomed to shame- ful and premature death. A few words written make a man a forger, with the cheerless life of a convict before him. Can we not carry out the analogy, and see that sins, that bring us before the tribunal of God, may in like manner, but yet more terribly, work out awful results ? In healing this man, as generally in His miracles, our Lord makes the patient do something himself. He says, " Stretch forth thy hand." We have already ymirtlj ^uniag in S^eitt. 135 dwelt upon this. We cannot save ourselves; we cannot do away our sins ; but what GOD has bidden us do, that we must do, if we will have His pardon. The gift is from GOD, but we must at least stretch forth the hand to receive it. At this Season there seems to be a special fitness in this act. When the great Atonement for all sin was made, the Saviour stretched forth His Hands upon the Cross. He hung paralysed, every limb immovable. His Hands stretched wide out; and through this stretching forth of His Hands we were made whole. So in the primitive Church Christians prayed with the hands stretched forth ; their attitude itself a Sacrament, pleading by the outstretched Hands of their Saviour upon His Cross. So, in prophetic action, Moses prayed with outstretched hands, and gained victory in the unequal fight for his people. So now before the Throne the Man Christ Jesus, the Priest, pleads for us, and for His Church, ever making intercession for us, who are fight- ing and struggling on, sorely beset. Yes, Christ's lightest word endures for ever. ^' Stretch forth thy hand," He said to a crippled sufferer one day in the synagogue at Capernaum, and the man was restored to health and vigour. But the act was not over. The word lives on. To each soul it is still spoken. To us, with our failings, our sins, our sorrows, our infirmities, our wants, our fears. He still says, '' Stretch forth thy hands ; " lift them up unto the Lord; pray with uplifted hands, and hearts that strain upwards. "They that are CHRIST'S have crucified the flesh." Their hands are outstretched, nailed to the Cross, helpless for motion and work, paralysed ; but the deep of their need calls to the deep of His mercy and love, and He makes them whole. JFtftf)