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 LIBRARY OF 
 
 LEWIS BINGLEY WYNNE 
 
 A.B .A.M., COLUMBIAN COLLEGE. '71 ,'73 
 WASHINGTON. D. C. 
 
 THE GIFT OF 
 
 MRS. MARY A. WYNNE 
 
 AND 
 
 JOHN H. WYNNE 
 
 CORNELL '98 
 1922 
 
THE AEK OF GOD. 
 
The City Temple, Holbom Viaduct, is the oldest Congregational Church 
 in London. It was founded in 1640 by the Key. Thomas Goodwin, D.D., 
 sometime President of Magdalen College, Oxford, and Chaplain to Oliver 
 Cromwell. The Memorial Stone of the present building was laid by the 
 Rev. Thomas Binney, LL.D., on Tuesday morning, May 19th, 1873 ; and 
 the building itself was opened for public worship on May 19th, 1874. 
 
 The history of the church is fully given in a most interesting volume, 
 " Memorials of the City Tenvple," by J. Billaksh, published by Daldy 
 fy Isbister, London. 
 
 The Second Volume of " The City Temple Pulpit," uniform in size and 
 price with this, will be ready on October 1st, 1877. 
 
THE ARK OF GOD: 
 
 THE TRANSIENT SYMBOL OF AN 
 ETEENAL TEUTH. 
 
 WITH VAEIOUS PULPIT MATTER. 
 
 {Being Vol. I. of the City Temple Pulpit.) 
 
 JOSEPH PARKER, D.D., 
 
 Author or "Ecch Deus," "The Paraclete," "The Priesthood of Christ," "A Homiletioal 
 Analysis of the Gospel of Matthew, " etc. 
 
 LONDON : 
 S. W. PARTRIDGE & CO., 9, PATERNOSTER ROW. 
 
 1677. 
 FS 
 
5</£5~£ 
 
 Hazell, Watson, and Viney, Printers, London and Aylesbury. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Pugs 
 
 THE AKK OF THE TESTIMONY 1 
 
 RELIGIOUS HELP IN NEW CIRCUMSTANCES 26 
 
 JUDAS ISCARIOT 40 
 
 TWO MOUNTAIN SCENES 66 
 
 PAGAN CONSTANCY 77 
 
 A PERSONAL REVIEW 103 
 
 READINGS IN THE BOOK OF PSALMS .. .. 113 
 
 PROGRESS OF MANHOOD 136 
 
 FAITH .... .. .. .142 
 
 CHRISTIAN LIFE AND GROWTH 149 
 
 MARY: NEEDLESS TROUBLE .. .. 162 
 
 JEREMIAH 170 
 
 THE SILENT LOOKS OF CHRIST 181 
 
 PRESENT TO HEAR GOD'S WORD .. 192 
 
 THE EARLY LIFE OF DANIEL 198 
 
 OUTLINES AND NOTES:— 
 
 The Mutilated Bible 217 
 
 The Futoke as Unknown yet Well Known 222 
 
VI CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 Solomon: The Variety of His Character 227 
 
 Prescribed Religion 230 
 
 Had ad: The Pressure of Destiny 233 
 
 Sudden Revelations . . . . - - ■ • 237 
 
 Tried Weapons 241 
 
 Manoah's Wife 253 
 
 Jonathan's Moral Courage .. .. 264 
 
 Life without Miracles 278 
 
 Hated for the Truth's Sake . . . . 281 
 
 What is Life ? 284 
 
 Control of the Imagination a Duty 296 
 
 Job's Comforters . . . . . . 301 
 
 Parables . . . . 317 
 
 HOMLLETICS :— 
 
 The Physiology of Preaching 332 
 
 Preparation of Sermons 337 
 
 Some Difficulties in Preaching 342 
 
 The Text Book . . . . . . 346 
 
 On Extemporaneous Outlines 349 
 
%ty SLxk of the TOtfmott]? : 
 
 THE TRANSIENT SYMBOL OF AN ETERNAL TRUTH. 
 
 ' ' Thou shalt put the mercy-seat above the arlt ; and in the arlt thou shalt 
 put the testimony that I shall give thee." — Exod. xxv. 21. 
 
 "And the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in 
 his temple the ark of his testament."— Rev. xi. 19. 
 
 rPHE object of this discourse is to show that, in a spiritual 
 sense, " the tabernacle of God is still with men upon 
 the earth," — that the ark of the covenant is yet in that holy 
 tabernacle, — and that the ark is now, as ever, at once the 
 terror and the hope of mankind. 
 
 The twenty-fifth chapter of the Book of Exodus supplies 
 minute information as to the construction and contents of 
 the ark. The children of Israel had been travelling in the 
 wilderness after their release from Egyptian bondage, and 
 had but recently received the formal law through the 
 ministry of Moses. Up to the time of receiving the com- 
 mandments they had worshipped under the open sky, and 
 all the host of heaven had seen the manner of their life. 
 In this chapter it is proposed to have an enclosure, a taber- 
 nacle, a place screened and roofed, how unsubstantially 
 
 1 
 
The Ark of God: 
 
 soever, which was to be known distinctively as the house 
 of God. This proposition was, indeed, the commandment 
 of God Himself : " And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, 
 Speak unto the children of Israel that they bring me an 
 offering: of every man that giveth it vrillingly with his 
 heart, ye shall take my offering, and let them make me a 
 sanctuary that I may dwell among them." But was not 
 this a movement towards limitation, instead of a progress 
 outward and onward towards wider spaces, even towards 
 infinitude itself? How if the Divine message had read 
 thus : " Speak unto the children of Israel that I am about 
 to enlarge the sphere within which their life has heretofore 
 been confined ; they shall now see the higher and larger 
 stars, and an ampler horizon shall gladden and satisfy their 
 vision " ? Instead of this, God proposes the erection of a 
 small house, by which He would seem to shut out all the 
 beauty and most of the light. For the moment, at least, 
 we are disappointed ; expansion, not contraction, would 
 have seemed more like the way of God. But think awhile, 
 lest we mistake proportions and meanings which lie out of 
 sight. What we call Infinitude — the quantity which over- 
 flows and confounds our imagination — must contract itself, 
 so to speak, if we are to get sight of it ; and in this sense 
 the building of the small house, called the Tabernacle, was 
 not a movement towards limitation, but towards concentra- 
 tion and intensity and tender nearness. A man may have 
 all the earth round about him, and yet have nowhere to 
 lay his head ; plenty of space, but no home ; a universe, 
 but no Sanctuary ; infinitude to roam through, but no 
 Father to speak to, and no Heart to rest in. All great 
 
The Transient Symbol of an Eternal Truth. 3 
 
 love has to make boundaries for itself ; to put itself into 
 little homely acts, and to use words which simple souls can 
 understand. The mother who would die to save her child 
 has to put her great love into a picture, a toy, a babble 
 better than all eloquence. The great ALL must break 
 itself up into the available Some ; it was but small consola- 
 tion to the petulant man in the parable to be told, " All that 
 I have is thine ; " he wanted some of it to be going on 
 with, — " a kid, that I might make merry with my friends." 
 So, even in our common life, we get hints of things that 
 are going on above. 
 
 This tabernacle was built for the reception of the Ark. 
 A wonderful tabernacle it was, as one glance at the speci- 
 fication will show — " Gold, silver, brass, blue, and purple, 
 and scarlet, and fine linen ; goats' hair and rams' skins 
 dyed red ; oil for the light ; spices for anointing oil, and 
 for sweet incense ; tables overlaid with pure gold,- dishes, 
 spoons, covers, all of pure gold." So God's house was no 
 poor hut run up in an hour or two ; but so delicate in its 
 richness and beauty as to be more a thought than a thing. 
 It was no creation of human fancy. Moses was no more 
 left to settle the plan and the furniture than Noah was left to 
 settle the colours of the rainbow. There was not a ring, a 
 knop, a loop, a socket, a coupling, or a pin, which God did 
 not specifically design. It was the same when He made 
 the larger house which we call Nature : there was none 
 with Him when He laid the foundations of [the earth, and 
 when He made a tabernacle for the sun He was alone. It 
 is wonderful, indeed, how little there is of man's own doing 
 anywhere. He has undoubtedly hammered a few things 
 
4 The Ark of God : 
 
 into shape, and brought together a few walls and roofs 
 which he calls cities ; but he borrows the foundation from 
 God, and the rivers are not his own, nor is the light other 
 than a visitor sent from God. It is pitiful to see man's 
 work exactly as it is ; pitiful to see the shortness of his 
 ladders and what trouble he has to set them up ; and it 
 sometimes makes one cry bitterly to watch him falling off 
 the very summit of his victories into the dust out of which 
 he came. He cannot bind the unicorn with his hand in the 
 furrow, nor doth the eagle mount up at his command. He 
 is a servant. Let him know his place and keep it. Take 
 your counsel from God, and ever listen for the voice which 
 savs — « And look that thou make it after the pattern which 
 was showed thee in the mount," — the mount of Suggestion, 
 where we may see in forecast, in gilded and wreathen 
 clouds, what God would have us build for His glory and 
 our own comfort. 
 
 As God made a tabernacle for the sun, so He made a 
 tabernacle for the ark, out of which streams a light above 
 the brightness of the sun. The ark of the covenant was a 
 box or chest, say fifty-four inches long, thirty inches broad, 
 and thirty inches high. This box, made of choice wood, 
 was overlaid with pure gold. The lid which covered the 
 box was called the Mercy Seat. Observe that particularly, 
 if you please. Over the lid, or mercy seat, were two golden 
 cherubs, one at either end, facing each other, and covering 
 the mercy seat with their expanded wings. God promised to 
 meet Moses at the mercy seat : " There will I meet with thee, 
 and I will commune with thee from above the mercy seat, 
 from between the two cherubims which are upon the ark 
 
The Transient Symbol of an Eternal Truth. 5 
 
 of the testimony," — a promise which explains the words of 
 the Psalmist, " Thou that dwellest between the cherubims, 
 shine forth ; " a tender reference to the olden time, a memory 
 of childhood full of pathetic meaning and tender retrospect. 
 Within the box were placed the two tables of stone on 
 which the ten commandments were written by the finger 
 of God : " I will write on the tables the words that were 
 written in the first tables which thou brakest, and thou 
 shalt put them in the ark." Thus furnished, the ark was 
 deposited in the inner place, in the holy of holies ; indeed, 
 in the First Book of Chronicles the holy of holies is called 
 " the house of the mercy seat." So much, then, as a help 
 towards an outward view of the ark of the testimony. A 
 box ; a box made of choice wood and covered with pure 
 gold ; a box set away in a holy and well-guarded place ; — 
 plain enough so far, yet around this box there shall gather 
 meanings deep as the springs of life, and histories full of 
 uproar and tragedy and progress ; and in the end the Ark 
 of wood shall be lost, but the Law and the Mercy which it en- 
 shrined or symbolised shall be felt to be in a still holier place 
 and in a more enduring sanctuary. Thus, the corruptible 
 shall put on incorruption. " And the temple of God was 
 opened in heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark 
 of his testament " (Rev. xi. 19). What we call History— 
 the shallow and insecure vessel which holds the dregs, but 
 allows the aroma to escape— says that the ark was destroyed 
 when the Babylonians set fire to the Temple, and declares 
 as a certainty that the ark was not contained in the second 
 Temple. Perhaps not. We need not be curious about the 
 merely material ark. It descended, in idea and purpose, 
 
The Ark of God: 
 
 out of heaven from G-od, and it was seen amid " lightnings, 
 and voices, and thunderings, and an earthquake, and great 
 hail," in the temple not made with hands, — uncontaminated 
 by the earth which it had blessed, and unchanged in 
 meaning by all the mutations and dangers of its eventful 
 history. Our subject, then, is — The Ark of the Testimony : 
 the Transient Symbol of .an Eternal Truth. 
 
 I. 
 
 The ark may be taken as symbolical of the Divine 
 presence, or the Divine plan in human life. It was a 
 visible form of an invisible power. Again and again in 
 private and public history we come upon a peculiar and 
 almost unthinkable Something which focalises and rules all 
 minor administrations ; a subtle Something, which makes 
 superstition tremble, and constrains religion to pray ; now 
 a hand upon the wall, now as the spell of a dream, a bene- 
 diction of heavenly sweetness, a judgment pure and terrible 
 as fire ; — Something which analysis cannot exhaust, and 
 which scepticism cannot deny. In the ark, for example, 
 you find law. See, too, the peculiar place occupied by law: 
 the ark is in the tabernacle ; not only in the tabernacle, 
 but in the most sacred part of that sacred place ; not only 
 in the holiest part of the holy house, but actually in the 
 midst of the ark is found the immutable law of Grod. Thus 
 we have law at the very centre and heart of things ! Not 
 an occasional flash, but a steady, ever-abiding, all-controllino- 
 force. Under all surfaces, far below all coverlets woven 
 and arranged by skill of man, deeper than all foam and 
 
The Transient Symbol of an Eternal Truth. 7 
 
 tumult and revolution, is to be found righteous and 
 inexorable law ! Some call it fate ; some, " a divinity 
 that shapes our ends ; " some, " God over all, blessed for 
 evermore." But there it is ! Creation is held fast together 
 at all points by the grip of law. Not a pebble slips off the 
 edge of the world ; not a bird wanders away to another 
 star, though it be the nearest light ; no drop of dew trickles 
 into forbidden places; and as for men, in their maddest 
 ambitions they do but strike the bars of their prison, and 
 awake by their frantic impotence the remonstrance, " Why 
 do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing ?" 
 Sometimes, indeed, the excellency of the wicked has 
 mounted to the heavens, and his head has reached unto 
 the clouds; yet out of this hidden ark there has come a voice 
 of doom — " Though they dig into hell, thence shall mine 
 hand take them ; though they climb up to heaven, thence 
 will I bring them down" (Amos ix. 2). Nor is this a boast 
 which cannot be tested. All history confirms it. To deny 
 the operation of this mysterious and sovereign law is to 
 take away the key without which history is an impenetrable 
 and confounding enigma. Human history is the visible 
 side of Divine revelation. You have law at the centre; and 
 you must obey that law in all material things, even though 
 you resist or despise its spiritual demands. You must build 
 your walls by the plumb-line, or they will be thrown down 
 by an implacable power. You may have an atheistic cha- 
 racter, but you shall not have an atheistic wall ; though 
 the bricks and the stones be banded with iron and cemented 
 with molten lead, yet will they be thrown down if you mock 
 the law which holds up the older masonry of the universe. 
 
8 The Ark of God: 
 
 In this matter, as in all others, peace can only come by- 
 righteousness. That which is at the heart of things is 
 right : not something fickle, eccentric, tantalising ; but law, 
 
 BIGHTEOUSNBSS, GOD ! 
 
 But, happily, the ark represents something more than 
 law; and every reflective man will acknowledge that in 
 the system within which we live, there is a mystery for 
 which some gentler name than law must be found. The 
 lid of the ark was the seat of Mercy. It signified propitia- 
 tion, favour, mediation, ground and medium of communion 
 with God. Study that tender symbol a moment, if you 
 please. Law, in coming up from the centre, comes through 
 the lid or covering of mercy ; it is, so to speak, attempered, 
 or it would come like a sword, or a fire, or a judgment 
 terrible in righteousness. On the other hand, starting the 
 movement from the outside, in our appeal to law we go 
 through the medium of mercy. We do not, dare not, 
 challenge the law in its own name or on its own merits. 
 " By the deeds of the law shall no flesh living be justified." 
 Our approach is through mercy, and our daily prayer is, 
 " God be merciful unto me a sinner." It is most instructive 
 to mark how a life founded as ours is on law, is continually 
 proving the presence of something other and sweeter than 
 law ; and it is humiliating to find how easily we exaggerate 
 that tenderer quality, so as to delude ourselves into the 
 belief that law is secondary and impotent. See how law is 
 made almost gracious. Take, as an illustration, the law of 
 hunger, — how terrible, how urgent, how inexorable is that 
 law ; how soon it assails the life with consuming fire ! 
 
The Transient Symbol of an Eternal Truth, g 
 
 Yet God has made our food more than a mere satisfaction 
 of hunger : He has provided things savoury and dainty in 
 pasture and vineyard, so that hunger brings with it enjoy- 
 ment and even religious gladness. That which would burn 
 us with unquenchable fire, is attempered and softened and 
 turned into an occasion and process of enjoyment. Yet 
 how true it is that this very attempering and softening of 
 law brings with it temptation and peril ! Hence, appetite 
 conquers reason, and the tender mercy of God becomes an 
 occasion of licentiousness and aggravated sin. Take any 
 law of your own nature ; see how severe and terrible it is 
 in itself; observe how it is graded and modified, so as to 
 become, not tolerable merely, but enjoyable in its operation ; 
 and then say whether we have not every one of us made 
 tie goodness of God an excuse for trespass and indulgence. 
 Thus, then, the ark is symbolical of something we our- 
 selves have known in life apart from specific religious 
 teaching, — something of law, and something of mercy; a 
 power of condemnation, and a power of recovery and heal- 
 ing ; a severity very terrible, and a goodness that yearns 
 over our life and offers us redemption. Whether we accept 
 the Biblical names and interpretations of these forces, or 
 laws, or phenomena, there they are, as broad and vivid facts 
 in our daily life ; and no sophistry of reasoning, or perver- 
 sion of fancy, can get rid of their solemn and pathetic 
 operations. The severe winter and the gentle summer ; 
 the stormy wind and the still small voice ; the bitter pool 
 and the tree which sweetens it ; the dark fear and the 
 sunny hope ; the herb that stings and the herb that heals, — 
 these things, known to our senses, strewn all over our life 
 
io The Ark of God: 
 
 as lessons we ought to learn, show us that this ark, even if 
 only a creation of fancy, symbolises with startling clearness 
 the reality, the grandeur, and the sweetness of life as we 
 know it. This, indeed, is the peculiar glory of the Bible, 
 namely, its marvellous forecast of things as they have 
 turned out to be, and its felicitous representations of the 
 times that were to come upon the world. He would be a 
 churl only, and an unjust man, who would deny at least 
 this literary tribute to the dreamers and seers of the Bible. 
 
 II. 
 
 We now pass onward to notice a few remarkable points 
 in the history of the ark. In doing this, we shall be more 
 careful about the spiritual teaching than about the mere 
 chronology of that history, and thus we shall secure closer 
 continuity of doctrine and illustration. As our song is to 
 be of mercy and judgment, it will be grateful to us first 
 to see how the mercy of the Lord was revealed amongst 
 His people. Thus : — 
 
 "And the Israelites departed from the mount of the 
 Lord three days' journey : and the ark of the covenant of 
 the Lord went before them in the three days' journey, to 
 search out a resting-place for them. . . . And it came to 
 pass when the ark set forward that Moses said, Rise up, 
 Lord, and let thine enemies be scattered ; and let them 
 that hate thee flee before thee : and when it rested he 
 said, Return, Lord, unto the many thousands of Israel " 
 (Num. x.). And again, though Moses died, yet the ark 
 remained a symbol of mercy in the days of Joshua : — " The 
 officers commanded the people, saying, When ye see the 
 
The Transient Symbol of an Eternal Tntlh. n 
 
 ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, then ye shall 
 remove from your place and go after it ; yet there shall be 
 a space between you and it, about two thousand cubits by 
 measure ; come not near unto it, that ye may know the 
 way by which ye must go ; for ye have not passed this 
 way heretofore." 
 
 Thus the law of human movement is turned into a 
 tender and minute direction by Grod's condescension. 
 Unquestionably there is a law of movement. We must 
 go forward. How? Into darkness? Into danger?. Into 
 thickening mysteries that bring with them sevenfold 
 darkness, and trouble that makes the soul afraid ? No ; 
 we are offered guidance, defence, and rest ! " The steps 
 of a good man are ordered by the Lord " ; " Thine ears 
 shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way." 
 The journey was only three days long, yet it must not 
 be taken without the foregoing ark. The people had not 
 gone a certain road before, and therefore they must be 
 accompanied by the sacred symbol of the Divine presence. 
 A flood was ahead of them (" for Jordan overfloweth all 
 his banks all the time of harvest"), and therefore the 
 mercy of the Lord must prevent and defend and mightily 
 save His chosen ; so " the waters of Jordan were cut off 
 before the ark of the covenant of the Lord." A wonderful 
 hint this of the place of what is called Providence, in 
 nature. The ark clears a space for itself everywhere. 
 Strange roads become as familiar scenes, and threatening 
 waters are dried up in the channels they have proudly 
 overflowed. "Why should we doubt the mere letter when 
 the spirit of such miracles is attested by evidence so acces-. 
 
12 The Ark of God: 
 
 sible and incontrovertible ? Christian missions alone fur- 
 nish a history radiant with this self-same miracle. Foreign 
 lands have become sweet homes under the benediction of 
 the sacred ark, and hearts that overflowed with contempt 
 and rage have opened themselves in wondrous submission 
 and love to welcome the Lord and His hosts. The same 
 miracle has turned our own life into a marvel and a joy, 
 times without number. Have we not been called to un- 
 known places, and thrown into combinations which have 
 baffled us by their intricacy, and forced into roads which 
 seem to end in darkness ? What of the days when we 
 were poor and friendless ? What of the first gate ajar that 
 tempted our feet into new pastures ? What of the first 
 great sorrow that threatened to swallow us up and to 
 destroy our life as with a flood ? Did we not then hear a 
 voice which said, " Ye have not passed this way before " ? 
 In proportion as we have been in difficulty and distress, in 
 peril and loneliness, and have seen the delivering hand of 
 God, do we read the record of these old miracles as a 
 familiar language, — not the less real and spiritually true 
 because of figures and symbols which to the unsympa- 
 thetic mind are mere creations of poetry. We ourselves 
 have seen visions, and have felt raptures, which poetry 
 alone could hope to express even in dim and imperfect out- 
 line. So much for what has been already known. Ahead 
 of us rolls the overflowing river. " What wilt thou do in 
 the swellings of Jordan ? " Arise, Lord, Thou and the 
 ark of Thy strength, and the waters that I fear shall flee 
 away, and the 'floods of Jordan shall be as heaps on either 
 side of Thy redeemed and rejoicing servant. 
 
The Transient Symbol of an Eternal Truth. 13 
 
 At this point of the history we touch the ark of the 
 covenant with sympathy deep and tender. We ourselves 
 have seen, felt, known, and handled this ark of God. Now 
 and again we have in impious venturesomeness gone 
 forward without it ; and what has come of our self-confi- 
 dence ? The imaginary rocks have been as bogs under our 
 feet, and our best devices have lured us into peril. The 
 river has not parted before us, nor has a way been found 
 for us in the desert. On the other hand, we have awaited 
 the rising of the ark, and have followed as it led ; and what 
 has been the result ? Progress, safety, rest ; mountains 
 have been thrown down, and fierce countenances have 
 softened into friendliness and welcomes ; we have entered 
 upon a way where no lion lay in wait, nor any ravenous 
 beast could be found, — the way of the Lord's redeemed, 
 upward without steepness, with heaven shining at its end. 
 Well may we say, therefore, that the ark has not been lost : 
 " in the temple of God is the ark of his testament " 
 (Rev. xi. 19). The wood and the gold have perished, but 
 mercy and judgment still rule us from the heavens. 
 " Lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, and an earth- 
 quake, and great hail," still have their place in this earthly 
 life ; but in God's temple is seen the " ark of his 
 testament." 
 
 As we have thus seen the goodness of the Lord, we may 
 now behold also His severity, as shown here and there in 
 the history of the ark. 
 
 (1) You remember the account of the fall of Jericho,, 
 and how usual it is to represent the overthrow of the city 
 as almost due (such is Hie popular impression) to the blast 
 
14 The Ark of God: 
 
 of " seven trumpets of rams' horns." Out of this circum- 
 stance has come much teaching about the possible success 
 of improbable instruments and agencies, as if it was only 
 necessary to have a ram's horn in order to do great wonders 
 in the wars of the Lord. The ark of the testimony was at 
 the taking of Jericho, and must be at the taking of every 
 stronghold. "And Joshua the son of Nun called the priests, 
 and said unto them, Take up the ark of the covenant, and 
 let seven priests bear seven trumpets of rams' horns before 
 the ark of the Lord." " And the ark of the covenant of 
 the Lord followed the priests." " And the rearward came 
 after the ark." " So, the ark of the Lord compassed the 
 city." It was not the tramp of priests, or the blast of rude 
 horns, but the ark of the Lord, that brought down the strong 
 wall. It is not our officialism, our music, or our noise, but 
 the name of Christ — the true ark of the covenant — that 
 must bring down the pride of heathenism and all the ram- 
 parts of ungodliness. ". My grace is sufficient for thee : for 
 my strength is made perfect in weakness." Be still, and 
 know that I am God : I will be exalted among the heathen, 
 I will be exalted in the earth." 
 
 (2) Recall a second instance. Israel went out against 
 the Philistines to battle, and pitched beside Ebenezer ; and 
 the Philistines pitched in Aphek ; and Israel was smitten 
 before the Philistines, and they slew of the army in the 
 field about four thousand men. In dismay, Israel sent to 
 Shiloh for the ark of the covenant, saying, " When it 
 cometh among us, it may save us out of the hand of our 
 enemies." So the ark was brought ; and when the ark of 
 the covenant of the Lord came into the camp, all Israel 
 
The Transient Symbol of an Eternal Truth. 15 
 
 shouted with a great shout, so that the earth rang again. 
 And the Philistines were afraid, and said, " God is come 
 into the camp." But the Philistines conquered Israel, and 
 there fell of Israel thirty thousand footmen. And the ark 
 itself fell into the hand of the enemy ; and the Philistines 
 took the ark of God, and brought it from Ebenezer unto 
 Ashdod, and set it in the house of Dagon their god. Israel 
 sent for the ark in extremity, as many a man sends for 
 God in the hour of fear and mortal distress ; but the ark 
 would not become the mere convenience of capricious and 
 disheartened men. If we stopped here, mistaking, as hurried 
 readers are apt to do, a semicolon for a period, we should 
 say that the ark was worsted, and that Dagon had triumphed 
 over Jehovah. But, lo, the strong god of Philistia was 
 found in the early morning " fallen upon his face to the 
 earth before the ark of the Lord " ! It was but an accident, 
 mayhap, so Dagon must be lifted up and set in his place 
 again ; but the second morning found Dagon in still sadder 
 plight, for. his head and both the palms of his hands were 
 cut off upon the threshold, and only the stump of Dagon 
 was left to him (1 Sam. v. 4). Many warriors have taken 
 Christ captive ; but He has troubled them until they have 
 cried with the Philistines, " What shall we do with the ark 
 of the Lord ? Tell us wherewith we shall send it to His 
 place." Some victories are the profoundest defeats which 
 any cause can sustain. When Christ and Dagon are 
 brought into close quarters, it is Dagon that dies ! A 
 man of Benjamin rent his clothes when the ark was taken ; 
 when Eli heard that the ark had been borne away, he fell 
 backward and died ; and the wife of Phinehas called her 
 
16 < : The Ark of God: 
 
 son Ichabod, saying, " The glory is departed from Israel, 
 for the ark of God is taken ! " Such is our shortsighted- 
 ness in looking upon the ways of the Lord. Unchristian 
 men do not know what to make of Christ, even when they 
 suppose themselves to have taken Him prisoner in some 
 fierce war of words. They seize Him as their prey ; they 
 condemn Him to exile or death ; yet there is something 
 about His name that troubles them, and there is a fire in 
 His words which gives them pain. " It is a fearful thing 
 to fall into the hands of the living God," said the falling 
 Dagon. "God is a consuming fire," say all they who 
 intrude upon His throne. How to get rid of Christ — the 
 living Ark — was the urgent question of His enemies ! 
 They besought Him that He would depart out of their 
 coasts. "Away with Him! crucify Him!" was the in- 
 dignant cry. He was slain, yet He is found in heaven ; 
 as the symbolic ark was burned by Nebuchadnezzar, yet 
 seen in the temple of God. In the kingdom of God, 
 Destruction is an accident, Ascension is a law. "Weep not 
 for the ark, weep for yourselves. " Behold, the Lord rideth 
 upon a swift cloud, and shall come into Egypt ; and the 
 idols of Egypt shall be moved at his presence, and the heart 
 of Egypt shall melt in the midst of it " (Isaiah xix. 1). 
 " Bel boweth down, Nebo stoopeth ; they stoop," they bow 
 down together," for the hand of the Lord is heavy upon 
 them. 
 
 (3) A third instance will confirm what has been said 
 about the severity of God. At the bidding of the priests 
 and the diviners, the Philistines sent away the ark, upon a 
 new cart, drawn by two milch kine on which there had 
 
The Transient Symbol of an Eternal Truth. 17 
 
 come no yoke, and by the side of the ark they put jewels 
 of gold as a trespass offering. Even then the Philistines 
 were not sure whether it was " a chance that happened " to 
 them, or a judgment direct from heaven. They set a test 
 that they might know this, and the test showed that God 
 had been amongst them of a truth. When the ark came to 
 Bethshemesh, the people were reaping their wheat harvest 
 in the valley, and when they saw the ark they rejoiced with 
 exceeding joy. But, alas, the men of Bethshemesh looked 
 into the ark of the Lord ; and the anger of the Lord was 
 kindled against them, and He slew of them a great multi- 
 tude. Is the Lord ever patient with our foolish curiosity ? 
 Can any man see God and live ? It is precisely here that so 
 many men are slain to-day. We go too near the sun, and 
 we are blinded by the glory we would analyse. God will 
 not submit Himself to our examinations ; hence we find 
 thousands of dead critics where there ought to have been a 
 living Church countless as the stars. in number ! Let there 
 be a space between us and the ark — " about two thousand 
 cubits by measure " — for " God is greatly to be feared in 
 the assembly of the saints, and to be had in reverence of all 
 them that are about Him " (Psalm lxxxix. 7). 
 
 4. An incident not remotely related to this scene at 
 Bethshemesh occurred when at the instance of David all 
 Israel went up to Kirjath-jearim, which belonged to Judah, 
 "to bring up thence the ark of God the Lord." The 
 bringing up of the ark was again the occasion of great joy. 
 The people had not enquired at it in the days of Saul. 
 David's proposition, therefore, revived an ancient and 
 precious memory, and gathered, as by the call of a battle- 
 
 2 
 
1 8 The Ark of God: 
 
 trumpet, " all Israel, from Shihor of Egypt even unto the 
 entering of Hemath." As the ark was borne away, " David 
 and all Israel played before God with all their might, and 
 with singing, and with harps, and with psalteries, and with 
 timbrels, and with cymbals, and with trumpets." At one 
 point of the journey the oxen stumbled, and to save the 
 ark from apparent danger, Uzza put forth his hand to keep 
 it in' its place. But the anger of the Lord was kindled 
 against Uzza, and He smote him, and there he died before 
 God. Will man attempt to eke out the failing strength of 
 Omnipotence ? Doth it become us to watch the stars lest 
 they fall, or to open the clouds at dawn lest the sun should 
 miss his way? Shall we appoint ourselves the special 
 guardians of the truth, and surround it with our defences, 
 lest God should have no foothold on His own earth ? God 
 is not to be worshipped with men's hands, as though He 
 needed anything, — "I will take no bullock out of thy 
 house, nor he-goats out of thy fields ; for every beast of 
 the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills." 
 " If I were hungry I would not tell thee, for the world is 
 mine, and the fulness thereof." "We have written books, 
 and endowed communities, and passed Acts of Parliament, 
 to keep steady the ark of God. Can we wonder that there 
 are so many dead men, who have a name, indeed, to live, 
 but in reality are plucked up by the roots? Sympathy 
 without meddlesomeness, reverence without self-exaggera- 
 tion, willingness to help without obtrusion of service, — 
 Lord, with this spirit baptize us every one in the pitifulness 
 of Thy great mercy ! 
 
The Transient Symbol of an Eternal Truth. 19 
 
 III. 
 
 We now come still more closely to practical applications. 
 Here and there in the course of the study we have indi- 
 cated one or two modern bearings of the subject, which 
 admit of obvious amplification. Let us look at one or two 
 others. 
 
 The Israelites had a visible symbol of the Divine presence 
 so long as they retained the ark in their midst. It was 
 something to look at, — something for the heart to stay 
 itself upon in the time of fear and trouble. But look at 
 our own case. Are we not left without a centre that can 
 be seen, and without a locality sanctified above all other 
 places ? We are truly in a great wilderness, but to what 
 shrine can we point men when they mock our faith, and 
 foretell a disastrous end to our pilgrimage ? Sometimes, 
 indeed, we find our hearts in a mood of intense longing for 
 the days that are gone ; they live backward through the 
 many and cloudy yesterdays until they come upon the 
 exciting times when Grod spake, as it were, face to face with 
 His loved ones ; when the guiding pillar went before the 
 host day and night ; when the ark was the signal of move- 
 ment and the pledge of security ; when the " fourth like 
 unto the Son of man " walked in the burning fiery furnace 
 with the faithful, and when the Son of God took little 
 children in His arms and blessed them. To have lived 
 then ! To have had the eye filled with His beauty and the 
 ear satisfied with the music of His sweet voice ! To have 
 touched the hem of His garment, to have stood within 
 His shadow, to have plucked and kept for ever some poor 
 
20 The Ark of God: 
 
 flower of the meadow pressed by His feet, — to have seen 
 something that was His ! So yearns the heart in tender 
 wish and sad regret. And to the world we seem to have 
 nothing. The rain is not ours, for it falleth on the just and 
 on the unjust ; the sun is not ours, for it shineth on the evil" 
 and on the good. We look into the great voids of space, 
 but no image makes us glad. And there is no rod in our 
 hand with which we can make scoffers afraid because of 
 the wonders of the Lord. Have we not, then, fallen on 
 mean times, — all poetry dead and gone, all music hushed for 
 ever ? To such questionings the Scriptures give a distinct 
 reply. They tell us that ours are the brightest and noblest 
 of all the days of time ! " If the ministration of death, 
 written and engraven in stones, was glorious, which glory 
 was to be done away, how shall not the ministration of the 
 Spirit be rather glorious ? For if that which was done 
 away was glorious, much more that which remaineth is 
 glorious." But the natural man seeth not this glory, 
 neither can he know it, for it is spiritually discerned. 
 " And it shall come to pass, when ye be multiplied and in- 
 creased in the land, in those days, saith the Lord, they 
 shall say no more, The ark of the covenant of the Lord : 
 neither shall it come to mind ; neither shall they remember 
 it ; neither shall they visit it ; neither shall that be done 
 any more" (Jer. iii. 16). Herein is that saying true, 
 "The hour cometh, and now is, when ye shall neither in 
 this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father." 
 The local has become the universal, and all things are 
 inscribed—" Holy unto the Lord." 
 
The Transient Symbol of an Eternal Truth. 21 
 
 That law and mercy are still at the heart of things is a 
 truth which is acknowledged in some form even by others 
 than Christian believers ; but by Christian believers it 
 ought to be ardently and gratefully maintained as at once 
 the glory and the security of life* 
 
 We know that there is law; — a law of continuity, for all 
 things remain from one generation to another, — the stars 
 do not burn themselves out with all their shining, nor is 
 the sea dried up by the fire of the 'sun ; a law of develop- 
 ment, for life changes, improves, and matures itself, subtly 
 but certainly ; a law of trespass, for who can take fire into 
 his bosom aDd not be burned, or trifle with poison and 
 save his life ? We know that there is law round about us, 
 and high above us. What is it that causes ambition to 
 break its billows into harmless foam upon the eternal 
 rocks of Truth and Right? What is it that drives the 
 diviners mad when they seek to misread the writing or 
 forge the signature of God ? What is it that throws down 
 the half-built tower, whose summits were to have reached 
 the stars ? We are shut in, watched, ruled ; and yet we 
 see no Hand moving amongst our affairs. We make our 
 plans, and our programmes read like music; but lo, we 
 never enter the City that lured us, or get near the Tree 
 whose fruit was to have made us wise. Wickedness swells 
 with rage, and comes against the righteous in the fury of 
 its strength; and lo, it staggers, and moans, and dies. The 
 winds blow high and the clouds shut out the light, yet no 
 star is lost, nor is any planet-ship wrecked in the wild 
 storm. If we should fear that some loss may have hap- 
 
22 The Ark of God: 
 
 pened in that upper sea, all the stars quiet us with the 
 words, "Do thyself no harm, we are all here." There 
 must be some meaning in all this, — in this infinite order, 
 this calm profound which underlies the storm, this ven- 
 geance that consumes, this life that cannot die ! What is 
 the secret ? Can any man name the spell, so baleful yet so 
 gentle ? Do not mock us with a word that we shall in- 
 stantly feel to be hollow and untrue. Speak to us a word 
 that shall, at all events, have a sound of reality in it, — 
 mysterious as if it came up from Eternity, sympathetic as 
 if it issued from a Heart of love. " And the temple of God 
 was opened in heaven, and theee was seen in his temple 
 
 THE AEK OF HIS TESTAMENT." 
 
 We know that there is mercy ; — mercy in the very " pro- 
 cess of the suns," for time turns many a bitter pain into a 
 hallowed recollection, and wounds thought to be incurable 
 have been staunched and healed, — mercy in the gifts of 
 nature, for in bread there is sweetness, and the meadow 
 and the garden are full of pleasantness, — mercy in social 
 life, for sympathy puts our misery to sleep, and friendship 
 revives our drooping strength, — mercy in returning slum- 
 ber, and mercy in the peacefulness of our awaking ; — 
 minor mercies, all of them, leading, star-like, to a larger 
 love, — leading to Bethlehem, to Gethsemane, to Golgotha, 
 and there merging their secondary rays in the ineffable 
 light, the infinite glory out of which they came. " It is of 
 the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed." " Accord- 
 ing to his mercy hath he saved us." There are times in 
 our life when the memory of sin is so vivid, and its burden 
 
The Transient Symbol of an Eternal Truth. 23 
 
 so grievous, that one cry only can express our necessity 
 and our pain, our self-helplessness and our hope — " God be 
 merciful to me a sinner ; " " Have mercy upon me, Lord, 
 according to Thy lovingkindness, according unto the multi- 
 tude of Thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions." 
 It is at such times that we feel the power of words like 
 these, '' The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin," 
 " There is a fountain opened in the house of David for sin 
 and for uncleanness." All the other mercies that have 
 been softening and beautifying our life, say to us in pleading 
 tones, " If we have thus quieted your fears, and set a lamp 
 for you in the time of darkness ; if we have found for you 
 unexpected help, and surprised you with unlooked-for glad- 
 ness, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who, through 
 the eternal Spirit, offered Himself without sppt to God, 
 purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living 
 God ? " If you would see Mercy written in largest letters, 
 " Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the 
 world ; " if you would see Mercy in its sublimest attitude, 
 look upon the uplifted dying Son of God ; if you would 
 hear Mercy's sweetest, gentlest tone, hear it as Jesus says, 
 " Him that cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast out." 
 What is the meaning of all the mercy which comes down 
 upon our weary life ? Is it a transient shower ? Are the 
 influences that quicken and bless us, merely fugitive and 
 accidental? Was the Cross the culmination of a rude 
 tragedy ? What does Mercy mean ? Is it a mere senti- 
 ment ? Is it a momentary suspension of discipline ? Or 
 is it Law in its highest mood ? Is it Righteousness weep- 
 in c ? Is it Majesty bowing down from the heavens that I! 
 
24 The Ark of God: 
 
 may find the lost ? Hear the answer which alone satisfies 
 the judgment and the heart — " The Temple of God was 
 opened in heaven, and there was seen in his temple 
 
 THE ARK OF HIS TESTAMENT." 
 
 And yet we are not left without a visible sign of God's 
 presence. So long as we have the Bible we have the Ark 
 of the Covenant. The most terrible yet the most gentle 
 of all books is the Bible ! Law is in it, and Mercy. It 
 plagues the house, or blesses it, as the house of Obed-edom 
 was blessed when he received the Ark of the Lord into his 
 dwelling. . It throws down the Dagon of false worship, of 
 dishonest trade, of false appearances. Yet how it over- 
 flows with mercy and promise and hope ! It is like a 
 river the streams whereof make glad the city of God. It 
 is quiet as a green pasture in the summer noon. It is 
 as a gentle rain on the tender herb, and as showers of 
 blessing on the fainting field. Yet what a sword it is, 
 and how like a fire it burns X Let the bad man look into it 
 for a text with which to sanctify his meanness or false- 
 hood, and it will scorch him with intolerable heat ! Let 
 the penitent look into it that he may know how to return 
 unto the Lord, and it will glow with welcomes and bene- 
 dictions ! Let a man fall upon it, and he will be broken ; 
 let it fall upon a man, and it will grind him to powder! 
 Verily this book is the Ark of the Testimony. The Baby- 
 lonian may burn the Book, but he cannot destroy the 
 Bevelation. The infidel may take the Book in some con- 
 troversial war, but it will trouble him until it be released 
 and sent away in honour. Like the Son of man, it is 
 
The Transient Symbol of an Eternal Truth. 25 
 
 here, yet it is in heaven. It fears not them that kill the 
 body. Fire will not consume it, nor will the sea hold it 
 in prison. Its name is Wonderful, and the government is 
 on its shoulder. "The temple of God was opened in 
 heaven, and in his temple was seen the ark of his testa- 
 ment." 
 
= 6 The Ark of God. 
 
 [The study of the history and symbolism of the Ark of the Lord which 
 we have just concluded will assist us in the analysis and application 
 of the individual texts which make up the narrative given in the 
 foregoing discourse. In that narrative the texts are given as the names 
 of cities are given in large maps ; in the two outlines which follow 
 they will be expanded as to represent some idea of the cities them- 
 selves. There are maps of England, and there are maps of London ; 
 in the former, London is but a name printed in capitals to indicate 
 geographical position and relation ; in the latter, London is spread 
 out in all the detail of its endless streets, parks, and squares. So 
 in the foregoing discourse the map is geographical ; in the two out- 
 lines it will be topographical.] 
 
 EelifftouiS ll?dp in |2rto Ciraimgftancegu 
 
 " Ye have not passed this way heretofore!' — JOSHUA iii. 4. 
 
 TT is very wonderful how the element of novelty seems 
 "^ to penetrate our whole life, so that though we are 
 surrounded by the old conditions we are always about to 
 do something new. The things which we do may be like 
 one another in certain broad features, yet they may be 
 contradistinguished by fine lines of difference so minute 
 and delicate, as to be seen only by the closest attention. 
 In the discrimination and right estimate of such lines lies 
 the difference between a life that is lived roughly and a 
 life that is finely balanced and critically calculated and 
 arranged in every detail and bearing. Actions that look 
 very like one another may be subtly and even vitally 
 dissimilar ; not obviously so, — and therein lies the fallacy 
 
Religious Help in New Circumstances. 27 
 
 of mere appearances. We often speak of the wonderful 
 variety that there is in nature ; for example, that no two 
 blades of grass are absolutely alike, and that one star 
 differeth from another star in glory. It is just so in 
 human actions and social relations ; it is the variety of our 
 life that cheers our days, and the delicate surprise which 
 challenges our wonder that keeps us in a state of pleasant 
 expectation. Life is not made up of great shocks and 
 revolutions, but of changes often imperceptible except to 
 the most patient and reverent attention. You say you 
 have gone down a certain road a thousand times ; possibly 
 so ; and yet you have not travelled that road twice under 
 precisely identical conditions ! Time, health, companion- 
 ship, mental mood, condition of feeling, work to be done, 
 ' — these, and innumerable other facts, have not, all of them, 
 fallen into exact re-combinations. Has there not always 
 been something which has made each journey different 
 from all the others ? Now it is just here that the wise 
 man parts from the fool : the fool lumps things, and talks 
 about them in rough averages ; the wise man observes 
 fibrous changes, and founds his reasoning upon punctilious 
 variations of purpose and method. The right use of this 
 observation leads to religious dependence and religious 
 aspiration ; thus the possibility of realizing religious help 
 in new circumstances is the subject of our present inquiry 
 and meditation. 
 
 1. " Ye have not passed this way heretofore," — therefore 
 do not go until you be assured of the Divine presence and pro- 
 tection. "What is the way ? Is it a new year ? Will you 
 
28 The Ark of God. 
 
 encounter unknown time in your own strength ? Is it a 
 new enterprise ? Dare you challenge the secret resources 
 of fortune without any help but your own? Is it a new 
 discipline ? It may destroy you if you have not bread to 
 eat that the world knoweth not of; The great historical 
 fact upon which you have to rest is that God has been 
 with His people in every possible variety of circumstance, 
 and that His love never changes. The Lord said to Moses, 
 " Certainly I will be with thee " (Exod. iii. 12). And to 
 Joshua He said, " As I was with Moses, so will I be with 
 thee " (Joshua i. 5). This is commonplace, you say. So is 
 bread ! It is a commonplace that is needful to the con- 
 tinuance of our very life. "We cannot live on that which 
 is merely sensational. It would do you good if you were 
 to turn the commonplaces of Christian truth into really 
 earnest life. This is one of them. Vivify it ! Hear how 
 the old sweet music runs — "Trust in the Lord with all 
 thine heart ; and lean not unto thine own understanding. 
 In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct 
 thy paths " (Prov. iii. 5, 6). " Commit thy way unto the 
 Lord ; trust also in him ; and he shall bring it to pass " 
 (Psalm xxxvii. 5). " I will instruct thee, and teach thee in 
 the way in which thou shalt go." " Thine ears shall hear 
 a word behind thee, This is the way, walk ye in it, when 
 ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left " 
 (Isaiah xxx. 21). Thus the so-called commonplace is the 
 commonplace of light, of summer, of the autumnal fields 
 and orchards, of daily bread ! The practical lesson is, " Pray 
 without ceasing." 
 
Religious Help in New Circumstances. 29 
 
 2. Ye have not passed this way heretofore, — it is quite 
 right, consequently, to take new ways and untried paths in 
 life. Apply this to the duty of exploring distant countries; 
 to the necessity, under every high civilisation, of entering 
 upon new enterprises ; and to the discussion of new 
 problems in politics and morals. Or the application of 
 the truth may be directed socially and nationally ; thus — 
 (I.) Socially : new companionships, new alliances, new 
 partnerships ; opening up our friendly, conjugal, and 
 commercial life. (II.) Nationally : new compacts, new 
 wars, new laws. We are bound by every consideration 
 arising out of stewardship and responsibility to try new / 
 paths and methods; otherwise our five talents will never 
 become ten, and life will become at once monotonous and 
 insipid. In this view of the case, how wide is the area 
 within which Prayer for heavenly wisdom and defence is 
 to operate ! 
 
 3. " Ye- have not passed this way heretofore," — there are 
 some particulars in which this must be true even of the least 
 eventful life. You will perhaps say that the most of lives 
 are uneventful, and that therefore the text would seem to 
 have very narrow personal applications. Uneventful, how- 
 ever is a relative term, and must be further defined before 
 we make any important admissions as to its proper use. 
 Undoubtedly some lives are full of rapid and startling move- 
 ment, and to outsiders they seem to be most enjoyable and 
 utterly satisfactory. They look like a variegated landscape, 
 with its sharp peaks, its massive hills, its undulating plains, 
 and its nestling valleys rich with pasture and orchards ; 
 
30 The Ark of God. 
 
 whilst other lives are apparently motionless, dull, inane, 
 and cold. Let us, however, specify a little, lest we con- 
 found things that differ. 
 
 First: Is it an uneventful thing for a young man to 
 leave his home that he may try to make his way in the 
 world ? " Ye have not passed this way heretofore." What 
 a world it is ! Full of temptations and hidden snares ; 
 men lying in wait to deceive the simple ; falsehood appa- 
 rently getting most of the prizes, and virtue often bruised 
 and contemned ! How entangled is the thicket, how 
 piercing the thorns and briars ! Will you not cry from 
 this time, " My Father, be the God of my youth " ? 
 
 Second : Is it an uneventful thing for a man to die ? 
 What is beyond? How do we become prepared for the 
 world unseen ? Is that world more sharply divided than 
 this; for here the wicked have some enjoyments, and the 
 righteous many pains ? Is it true that in this world we 
 really make the next ? Is it true that no soul returns from 
 the secret land to amend its ways, and find the path of 
 repentance ? Once over the invisible brink, do we come 
 again no more ? " Ye have not passed this way heretofore." 
 " Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last 
 end be like his." This is a journey we must all take ; we 
 may take it blindly, we may rush upon it madly, or we 
 ■may so live as to become enabled to say, " Father into 
 Thy hands I commit my spirit." 
 
 4. " Ye have not passed this way heretofore," — the sugges- 
 tion is not Imman, but Divine; it is God Himself that proposes 
 to guide and defend the lives of men. Before we pray He 
 
Religious Help in New Circumstances. 3 1 
 
 answers ! Consider how true it is that all the great pro- 
 posals which have made our life richer and better have 
 come from God, and in no degree from our own poor wit 
 or genius. " It is not good for the man to be alone," — that 
 is one. " Ye have not passed this way heretofore," — that 
 is another. " Come now, let us reason together," — that is 
 a third. And so on throughout all our life. Look atten- 
 tively through the Bible, and see how remarkably this is 
 confirmed. Our best suggestions are but "lame and 
 impotent conclusions." We have no primary light. " If 
 any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to 
 all men liberally, and upbraideth not." As God Himself 
 made the proposal, we may " come boldly to the throne of 
 grace," that we may ask for its realization in our own 
 experience. " Ask and it shall be given unto you." 
 
 Let us now vary the form of treating some of the sub- 
 jects referred to in the narrative. Take, for example, the 
 account of the passing of the Jordan as given in the third 
 and fourth chapters of the Book of Joshua. Instead of an 
 architectural structure, let us adopt the better form of an 
 expository reading : — 
 
 " And Joshua rose early in the morning . . . and came to Jordan, he 
 and all the children of Israel, and lodged there before they passed over." 
 
 It is sometimes good to sit down before a difficulty, that 
 we may calmly measure and estimate its whole scope and 
 weight. The children of Israel were kept three days in 
 
3 2 The Ark of God. 
 
 sight of the Jordan. Sometimes we rush upon our diffi- 
 culties in hot blood ; but the great solemn difficulties of 
 life are to be encountered with religious calmness. There 
 is all possible difference in moral value between blind force 
 and true strength. See, however, how faith is tried by this 
 long delay. We have been brought here for the express 
 purpose of crossing the Jordan : why did we not go through 
 it at once, and have three days' rest on the other side ? We 
 came three days since, and still the river is rolling; is 
 there something wrong ? surely there has been a miscal- 
 culation ; for three days we have been in suspense ; what 
 if the Lord be weak in this matter, and this be the day of 
 His humiliation ! The Lord does, indeed, seem to stop at 
 the very places we like the least. When Jesus heard that 
 Lazarus was dead, He abode two days still in the same 
 place, though two broken-hearted women had sent for 
 Him. And have we not passed through this very ex- 
 perience of lodging immediately in front of the supreme 
 difficulty of our life ? Let us not say that some strange 
 thing hath happened unto us, for truly this is the wonderful 
 way of the Lord. 
 
 " And Joshua said unto the people, Sanctify yourselves : for to-morrow 
 the Lord will do wonders among you." 
 
 And this '' morrow " is always coming upon prepared 
 hearts. The unsanctified man sees nothing of all the 
 mysteries of God. He is " blind, and cannot see afar off." 
 " Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." 
 Will the Lord come to those who have made no prepara- 
 
Religious Help in New Circumstances. 33 
 
 tion for Him, and will He hasten to houses whose door is 
 shut against His anointed ? " Blessed is that servant who 
 when his Lord cometh shall be found waiting." A beautiful 
 law is this, by which Joshua knows the secret of the Lord 
 a full day before it is known by others. " The secret of 
 the, Lord is with them that fear him." If the light comes 
 first to the mountains, need the valleys peevishly complain ? 
 As a matter of fact, some men are privileged beyond others 
 in insight, and that strange sympathetic anticipation which 
 often assumes prophetic dignity and certitude. Such men 
 are teachers sent from Grod. The spirit that is in them is 
 a spirit of rulership and command, and their supremacy is 
 allowed without being claimed. Wonderful is the gift of 
 utterance ; when the poet speaks, we feel that he has said 
 something which we wished to say to ourselves, and which, 
 being said, we know to be wholly true. So, too, there are 
 time-keepers appointed by God. Sometimes we do the 
 right thing at the wrong hour, and thus our blow is wasted 
 in the air. Our impatience would rush upon the Jordan, 
 and we should be drowned. Lord, teach us how to wait ; 
 and when Thy commanding word comes, may we all be 
 ready ! 
 
 " And it shall come to pass, as soon as the soles of the feet of the 
 priests that bear the ark of the Lord, the Lord of all the earth, shall rest 
 in the waters of Jordan, that the waters of Jordan shall he cut off from 
 the waters that come down from above ; and they shall stand upon an 
 heap." 
 
 Is it not true that in some cases we have actually to 
 plunge into a difficulty before we overcome and subdue it ? 
 It would be pleasant to us if all difficulties could be re- 
 
 3 
 
34 The Ark of God. 
 
 moved several years before we came to them ; but this is 
 not the way of the Lord ; we come within sight of the 
 difficulty; for three days or more the sound of the over- 
 flowing waters deafens our ears ; then we move towards 
 the difficulty ; we go close to it ; we come within a hair's 
 breadth of it, and still it is there ! In the strength of the 
 Lord we plunge into it, and it vanishes in the twinkling of 
 an eye. This should bring comfort to every one of us. Is 
 there a soul that has no Jordan in front of it ? Not one ! 
 Mark for your comfort that every life has its hours of 
 dismay, and its rivers that threaten to engulph ; and mark, 
 too, that when we go forward at the Lord's bidding 
 there is not a sea that can drown us, nor a fire that can 
 consume our life. " What aileth thee, thou sea, that 
 thou fleddest; thou Jordan, that thou wast driven back? " 
 In the distance, Jordan is a river of death; when touched, 
 it flees away like a coward that is afraid. See how reason- 
 able this is. Which is greater, the man or the difficulty ? 
 the immortal being or the transitory trial ? But our 
 greatness is from God, and our immortality is from the 
 Eternal. We must be right, or we cannot be strong. If 
 our providential road lies over hills and seas, the hills and 
 seas must give way. The hill will mock us if we are on the 
 wrong road, but it will become a plain before our feet if 
 we bear the messages of the Lord. " Tremble, thou earth, 
 at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the God of 
 Jacob ; which turned the rock into a standing water, the 
 flint into a fountain of waters." 
 
 "And the priests that hare the ark of the covenant of the Lord stood 
 firm on dry ground in the midst of Jordan, and all the Israelites 
 
Religious Help in New Circumstances. 35 
 
 passed over on dry ground, until all the people were passed clean over 
 Jordan." 
 
 The ark did not move until the last traveller had passed. 
 God's deliverances are not partial, but complete. " He 
 hath triumphed gloriously." When He triumphs, it is 
 " gloriously;" when He pardons, it is " abundantly; " His 
 tender mercies are a "multitude," and His promises are 
 " exceeding great and precious." When did the Lord only 
 almost deliver a man ? When were His answers less than 
 our lawful prayers ? " He is able to do exceeding abun- 
 dantly above all that we ask or think." The Psalmist re- 
 joiced in this very truth of the remaining ark being the 
 security against the flood ; he said of Zion, " God is in the 
 midst of her, she shall not be moved." The ark is in the 
 midst of Jordan, so the waters cannot come together. So 
 long as God is in the Church, the heathen rage in furious 
 impotence. That a man stand on dry ground is nothing in 
 itself, but that he stand on dry ground where the river is 
 accustomed to roll is the wonderful work of God. To have 
 water in the great city is a common mercy ; to find it 
 rolling from rocks in the desert awakens our surprise, and 
 brings upon us great fear. So in examining human life 
 — that which is commonplace in one history may be mira- 
 culous in another. A mercy that may startle me by its 
 unexpectedness, may be nothing to another man, because 
 of differences of condition, estate, health, and prospects. 
 So every life may have a Jordan of its own, a miracle of 
 its own, and a song of its own. Your children may eat 
 their bread without thankfulness because of its abundance; 
 another child may be moved to praise God because of bread 
 
36 The Ark of God. 
 
 unexpectedly given. Every life has its own miracle. 
 Speaking personally, I have no difficulty about this divi- 
 sion of the Jordan. God has divided many a river before 
 my own feet ; many a swelling stream, many a threatening 
 sea. Other men may try to explain miracles away, but to 
 me there is no miracle in the pages of Holy Writ which 
 does not fall short of the wonders which I have seen at the 
 hand of the blessed Lord. I would put this on record with 
 a heart full of solemn gladness. In the future I may lose 
 my standing in the Church by sinning grievously against 
 God ; yet this will be true for ever, that God divided rivers 
 before my feet, and found for me water in the driest deserts. 
 Praise be to His Name eternally ! 
 
 " And Joshua set up twelve stones in the midst of Jordan, in the place 
 where the feet of the priests which bare the ark of the covenant stood : 
 and they are there unto this day.'' 
 
 These were memorial stones. They were set up as a 
 sign of Divine goodness, and the very sight of them was 
 to keep in memory the holy story through all generations. 
 We impoverish our life by neglecting to preserve our best 
 memories. Thus we do injury to ourselves as well as 
 grieve the Holy Spirit of God. Our very tombstones may 
 be as pillars set in the midst of the last cold Jordan ! I 
 sometimes think they are, as I read upon them such words 
 as these, " Suffer little children to come unto me; " " The 
 Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away: blessed be the 
 jiame of the Lord; " " Not lost, but gone before; " " Them 
 that sleep in Christ will God bring with Him ; " " Blessed 
 are the dead that die in the Lord ; " " I am the resurrection 
 
Religious Help in New Circumstances. 37 
 
 and the life." " What mean ye by these stones ? Then 
 ye shall answer, That the waters of Jordan were cut off 
 before the ark of the covenant of the Lord," — and our 
 answer is, That the waters of a deeper Jordan were cut off 
 before the feet of our loved ones, and they passed on dry 
 ground right through into the City of Grod. 
 
 " And it came to pass, when the priests that bare the ark of the cove- 
 nant of the Lord were come up out of the midst of Jordan, and the soles 
 of the priests' feet were lifted up unto the dry land, that the waters of 
 Jordan returned unto their place; and flowed over all his banks as they 
 did before." 
 
 Are you, as students of history, sufficiently aware what 
 it really is that plays the most important part in the affairs 
 of nations ? You will be studying history without a key 
 if you omit the religious element from your investigations. 
 Take religion out of the world, and the old rivers of barba- 
 rism and manifold evil will overflow the land. It is the 
 unseen ark that keeps things in their places. It keeps the 
 sea within its line, and draws a boundary around the vol- 
 cano. Do you know what it is that is keeping you from 
 ruin this moment ? It is the ark you cannot see ! Let 
 that ark be withdrawn, and the floods will come upon you 
 and utterly destroy your house and your life. 
 
 We may now properly inquire, For what purpose was 
 this miracle wrought? Does God work such won- 
 ders in the sight of the people merely for the sake of 
 displaying His power and showing the terribleness of His 
 
38 The Ark of God. 
 
 Strength, or was there some purpose to be accomplished 
 worthy of a preparation so august and brilliant ? It would 
 not be difficult to show that no miracle recorded in Scrip- 
 ture was ever wrought merely for its own sake. There 
 was an object of corresponding magnitude or use to be 
 realized. Even more might easily be proved, viz., that 
 the object could not have been realized with success so 
 complete apart from the miracle. Miracles were not mere 
 sensations ; from a human point of view, they were neces- 
 sities. For what purpose, then, was Israel brought through 
 the perils of the Jordan? A wonderful sight met the eyes 
 of Joshua. A man stood over against him with a drawn 
 sword lifted high in the air. A shining and mighty figure ! 
 He revealed himself as captain of the Lord's host. Why, 
 Joshua thought that he himself bore some such character ; 
 who, then, was this armed and formidable warrior, so bright 
 that he seemed to be standing in the sun ? The spiritual 
 figure of which Joshua was the visible ! What are any of 
 us but types of powers unseen ? Was not the tabernacle 
 itself made after a pattern that was shown to Moses in the 
 mount ? Even so, we have our prototypes above us ; our 
 angels in heaven ; our mightier selves behind the veil. A 
 nameless man was this. Yet in reading the Scriptures we 
 come to expect him every now and then. Did he not 
 wrestle with Jacob ? Did he not speak to Manoah ? Did 
 he not stop up the way of Balaam ? Did he not go unto 
 Eli ? Did he not come to Daniel through the depths of his 
 sleep ? But never would he give up his Name ! If we 
 call him God, he ceases to be man ; if we call him 
 Immanuel, he will not charge us with folly. But why 
 
Religious Help in New Circumstances. 3 9 
 
 was a miraculous way made for Israel through the channel 
 of Jordan ? That a great city might be taken captive, and 
 a course of service be entered upon for the Lord. It is 
 for some stich purpose that we ourselves have been helped 
 over difficulty and peril ! "We have been taken wondrously 
 through affliction and loss and solitude, that we might do 
 valiant things for the Lord of hosts. 
 
40 Judas Iscariot. 
 
 3|tttia<3 3[0can'ot: 
 
 A STUDY OF CHAKACTER. 
 
 TT will help me very greatly in my delicate work of 
 -*- examining the character of the betrayer of our Lord, 
 if there be an understanding between us, that it is not 
 presumptuously supposed on either side that every diffi- 
 culty can be explained, and that perfect unanimity can be 
 secured on every point ; and especially if it be further 
 understood that my object is not to set up or defend any 
 theory about Judas Iscariot, but solemnly to inquire whether 
 his character was so absolutely unlike everything we know 
 of human nature as to give us no help in the deeper un- 
 derstanding of our own ; or whether there was not even 
 in Judas something that, at its very worst, was only an 
 exaggeration of elements or forces that may possibly be 
 in every one of us. We always think of him as a monster ; 
 but what if we ourselves be — at least in possibility — as 
 monstrous and as vile ? Let us go carefully through his 
 history, and. see. My purpose is to cut a path as straight 
 as I may be able to go, through the entangled and thorny 
 jungle of texts which make up the history of Iscariot ; I 
 propose to stop here and there on the road, that we may 
 get new views and breathe perhaps an uncongenial air ; 
 
jfudas Iscariot. 41 
 
 and though we may differ somewhat as to the distance and 
 form of passing objects, I am quite sure that when we get 
 out again into the common highways we shall resume our 
 unanimity, and find it none the less entire and cordial 
 because of what we have seen on the unaccustomed and 
 perilous way. First of all, then, let us try to get a clear 
 knowledge pf the character of Judas Iscariot, the disciple, 
 and apostle, and betrayer, of the Son of God. 
 
 I. Expository. 
 
 " Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil ? " 
 (John vi. 70). — Who, then, will say that the men with whom 
 Christ began His new kingdom were more than men, — not 
 bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh, but a princely sort, 
 specially created and quite away from the common herd 
 in sympathy and aim ? He chose twelve men who fairly 
 represented human nature in its best and worst aspects, — 
 they represented gentleness, ardour, domesticity, enter- 
 prise, timidity, courage, — and one of them was a devil. Not 
 a devil in the sense of being something else than human. 
 Judas was a man like the others, but in him there was a 
 pre-eminent capacity for plotting and attempting the foul- 
 est mischief. We are certainly not to understand that our 
 Lord chose twelve men who, with one exception, were con- 
 verted, intelligent, sanctified, and perfect ; nor is it by 
 any means certain that our Lord chose even the most 
 intellectual and influential men that it was possible for 
 Him to draw into His service. I do not know that we are 
 entitled to regard the Apostles as in all respects the twelve 
 
42 yudas Iscariot. 
 
 best men of their day ; but I think we may justly look upon 
 them as an almost complete representation of all sides of 
 human nature. And as such they utterly destroy the theory 
 that they were but a coterie, — men of one mean stamp, 
 without individuality, force, emphasis, or self-assertion ; 
 padding, not men ; mere shadows of a crafty empiric, and 
 not to be counted as men. On the contrary, .this was a 
 representative discipleship; we were all in that elect band; 
 the kingdom of G-od, as declared in Christ Jesus, would 
 work upon each according to his own nature, and would 
 reveal every man to himself. A very wonderful and in- 
 structive thing is this, that Jesus Christ did not point out 
 the supremely wicked man, but merely said, " One of you 
 is a devil." Thus a spirit of self-suspicion was excited in 
 the whole number, culminating in the mournful " Is it I? " 
 of the last supper : and truly it is better for us not to know 
 which is the worst man in the church, — to know only that 
 judgment will begin at the house of God, and to be won- 
 dering whether that judgment will take most effect upon 
 ourselves. No man fully knows himself. Jesus Christ 
 would seem to be saying to us — At this moment you 
 appear to be a child of Q-od : you are reverent, charitable, 
 well-disposed ; you have a place in my visible kingdom, 
 — even a prominent place in the pulpit, on the platform, at 
 the desk, in the office ; appearances are wholly and strongly 
 in your favour, yet, little as you suspect it, deep under all 
 these things lies an undiscovered self — a very devil, it may 
 be; so that even you, now loud in your loyalty and zealous 
 beyond all others in pompous diligence, may in the long 
 run turn round upon your Lord and thrust a spear into His 
 
Judas Iscariot. 43 
 
 - heart ! — Can it be that the foremost sometimes stumble ? 
 Do the strong cedars fall ? May the very star of the morn- 
 ing drop from the gate of heaven ? Let the veteran, the 
 leader, the hoary Nestor, the soldier valiant beyond all 
 others, say, " Lord, is it I? " Which of us can positively 
 separate himself from Judas Iscariot and honestly say — 
 His was a kind of human nature different from mine ? I 
 dare not do so. In the betrayer I would have every man 
 see a possibility of himself, — himself, it may be, magnified 
 in hideous and revolting exaggeration, yet part of the same 
 earth heaved, in the case of Judas, into a great hill by 
 fierce heat, but on exactly the same plane as the coldest 
 dust that lies miles below its elevation. Iscariot's was a 
 human sin rather than a merely personal crime. Indi- 
 vidually I did not sin in Eden, but humanly I did ; per- 
 sonally I did not covenant for the betrayal of my Lord, 
 but morally I did, — I denied Him, and betrayed Him, and 
 spat upon Him, and pierced Him ; and He loved me and 
 gave Himself for me ! 
 
 Of course the question will arise, Why did our Lord choose 
 a man whom He knew to be a devil ? A hard question ; 
 but there is a harder still — Why did Jesus choose you ? Could 
 you ever make out that mystery ? Was it because of your 
 respectability ? Was it because of the desirableness of your 
 companionship ? Was it because of the utter absence of 
 all devilishness in your nature ? What if Judas did for 
 you what you were only too timid to do for yourself? The 
 Incarnation with a view to human redemption, is the 
 supreme mystery ; in comparison with that, every other 
 difficulty is as a molehill to a mountain. In your heart of 
 
44 Judas Iscariot. 
 
 hearts are you saying, "If this man were a prophet, he 
 would know what manner of man this Judas is, for he is a 
 sinner " ? thou self-contented Simon, presently the Lord 
 will have somewhat to say unto thee, and His parable will 
 smite thee like a sword. 
 
 " The Son of man goeth as it is written of Mm : but woe 
 unto that man by whom he is betrayed." — I think we shall 
 miss the true meaning and pathos of this passage if we 
 regard it merely as the exclamation of a man who was 
 worsted for the moment by superior strength, but who 
 would get the upper hand by-and-by, and then avenge his 
 humiliation. These words might have been uttered with 
 tears of the heart — Woe will be the portion of that man 
 who betrays me ; yea, woe upon woe, even unto remorse 
 and agony and death ; the chief of sinners, he will also be 
 chief of sufferers ; when he sees the full meaning of what he 
 has done, he will sink under the intolerable shame, he will 
 give blood for blood, and be glad to find solace in death. 
 
 And if our hearts be moved at all to pitifulness in the 
 review of this case, may we not find somewhat of a re- 
 deeming feature in the capacity for suffering so deep and 
 terrible ? Shall we be stretching the law of mercy unduly 
 if we see in this self-torment a faint light on the skirts of 
 an appalling cloud ? I do not find that Judas professed or 
 manifested any joy in his grim labour ; there is no sound . 
 of revel or mad hilarity in all the tragic movement ; on the 
 contrary, there is a significant absenfie, so far as we can 
 judge from the narrative, of all the excitement needful for 
 nerving the mischievous man to work out purposes which 
 
Judas Iscariot. 45 
 
 he knows to be wholly evil. All the while, Judas would 
 seem to be under a cloud, to be advancing stealthily rather 
 than boisterously ; he was no excited Belshazzar whose 
 brain was aflame with excess of wine — though he, too, 
 trembled as if the mystic hand were writing letters of 
 doom upon the old familiar scenes : so excited is he that 
 a word will send him reeling backward to the ground, 
 and if he do not his work " quickly " he will become sick 
 with fear and be incapable of action ; as it is, he has only 
 bargained to " kiss " the Victim, not to clutch Him with a 
 ruffian's grasp. Then came the intolerable woe ! 
 
 This great law is at work upon our lives to-day. Woe 
 unto the unfaithful pastor ; woe unto the negligent steward ; 
 woe unto the betrayer of sacred interests ; woe unto them 
 that call evil good and good evil ; — to all such be woe ; not 
 only the woe of outward judgment — Divine and inexorable 
 — but that, if may be, still keener, sadder woe of self-con- 
 tempt and self-damnation. With such sorrow no stranger 
 may intermeddle. The lesson to ourselves would seem to 
 be this — Do not regard Divine judgment merely as measure 
 for measure in relation to your sin, — that is to say, so much 
 penalty for so much guilt ; it is more than that — it is a 
 quickening of the man into holy resentment against him- 
 self, an arming of the conscience against the whole life, a 
 subjective controversy which will not be lulled into un- 
 righteous peace, but will rage wrathfully and implacably 
 until there shall come repentance unto life or remorse unto 
 death. Shall I startle you if I say that there is a still more 
 terrible state than that of such anguish as Iscariot's ? To 
 have worn out the moral sense, to have become incapable 
 
46 jfudas Iscariot. 
 
 of pain, to have the conscience seared as with a hot iron, to 
 be " past feeling," — that is the consummation of wicked- 
 ness. That there is a judicial and outward infliction of 
 pain on account of sin, is of course undoubted ; but whilst 
 that outward judgment may actually harden the sinner, 
 the bitter woe which comes of a true estimate of sin and 
 of genuine contrition for its enormity may work out a 
 repentance not to be repented of. If, then, any man is 
 suffering the pain of just self-condemnation on account of 
 sin; if any man's conscience is now rising mightily against 
 him and threatening to tear him in pieces before the Lord, 
 because of secret lapses or unholy betrayals, because of long- 
 sustained hypocrisy or self-seeking faithlessness, I will not 
 hurriedly seek to ease the healthy pain ; the fire will work 
 to his purification, and the Refiner will lose nothing of the 
 gold ; — but if any man, how eminent soever in ecclesiastical 
 position, knows that he has betrayed the Lord, and con- 
 ceals under a fair exterior all that Ezekiel saw in the 
 chamber of imagery, and is as a brazen wall against every 
 appeal — hard, tearless, impenetrable, unresponsive — I do 
 not hesitate to say that I would rather be numbered with 
 Judas than with that man. 
 
 "It had been good for that man if he had not been born." 
 — Then why was he born ? is the question, not of impatient 
 ignorance only, but of a certain moral instinct which God 
 never fails to respect throughout the whole of His inter- 
 course with mankind, and which He will undoubtedly 
 honour in this instance. Take the case as it is ordinarily 
 put : Judas, like the rest of us, had no control over his 
 
Judas Iscariot. 47 
 
 own birth; he found himself in a world in whose formation 
 he had no share ; he was born under circumstances which, 
 as to their literal and local bearing, can never be repeated 
 in all the ages of time. So far as we can gather from the 
 narrative, Jesus spoke to him no word of sympathy, never 
 drew him aside, as He drew Peter, to tell him of prevent- 
 ing prayer, but to all appearance left him to be the blind 
 and helpless instrument of the devil, and then said, " It 
 had been good for that man if he had not been born." This 
 cannot be the full meaning of the words. Instantly we 
 repeat the profound inquiry of Abram, " Shall not the 
 Judge of all the earth do right ? " He may, and must, 
 transcend our understanding; He ■wall, by" the very nature 
 of the ease, dazzle and confound our imagination by the 
 unsuspected riches and glory of His many mansions ; but 
 He must not trouble our sense of right if He would retain 
 our homage and our love. Personally, I can have no share 
 in the piety that can see any man condemned under such 
 circumstances as have just been described; it is not enough 
 to tell me that it is some other man and not myself who 
 suffers, — a suggestion ineffably mean even if it were true ; 
 but it is not true ; I do suffer : a tremendous strain is put 
 upon my sensibilities, and I cannot, without anguish, see 
 any man arbitrarily driven into hell. Upon his face, 
 writhing in unutterable torture, is written this appeal, 
 " Can you see me, bone of your bone and flesh of your flesh, 
 thus treated, weighed down, crushed, damned, by a power 
 I am utterly unable either to placate or resist 'i " That man 
 may be my own father, my own child, my most familiar 
 friend ; and though he be a stranger, of name unknown, he 
 
48 Judas Iscariot. 
 
 has at all events the claim of our common humanity upon 
 me. I have purposely put the case in this strong way, that 
 I may say with the more emphasis that I see no such 
 method of government revealed in the narrative now under 
 consideration. If I saw anything like it in any part of the 
 Word of God, I should say, " My understanding is at fault, 
 not God's justice ; from what I know of His method within 
 the scope of my own life, I know and am sure that 
 righteousness and judgment are the habitation of His 
 throne, and that His mercy endureth for ever." I see 
 things that are mysterious, incomprehensible, baffling; I 
 come upon scriptures which utterly defy all scholars and 
 interpreters ; but this is the confidence that I have — " the 
 Judge of all the earth will do right." As to the particular 
 expression in the text, two things may be said : first, it is 
 well known that the Jews were in the habit of saying, " It 
 had been good for that man had he not been born," — it 
 was a common expression of the day, in speaking of trans- 
 gressors, and did not by any means imply a belief in the 
 final destruction or damnation of the person spoken of ; and 
 secondly, this passage has again and again exactly expressed 
 our own feeling in many crises of our own life : it must be 
 for ever true that non-existence is better than sinfulness. 
 When the lie was on our lips, when part of the price was 
 laid down as the whole, when we dishonoured the vow we 
 made in secret with God, when we rolled iniquity under 
 our tongue as a sweet morsel, — at that time it had been 
 good for us if we had not been born. Such, indeed, is the 
 only form of words equal to the gravity of the occasion; — 
 better we say, again and again, not to have been born than 
 
Judas Iscariot. 49 
 
 to have done this ; if this be the end of our being, then has 
 our life been a great failure and a mortal pain. I hold 
 that these words were spoken not so much of Judas the 
 man as of Judas the sinner, and that consequently they 
 apply to all evil-doers throughout all generations, and are 
 in reality the most tender and pathetic admonition which 
 even Christ could address to the slaves of sin. 
 
 We may get some light upon this expression by con- 
 sidering the fact that " it repented the Lord that He had 
 made man." In studying all such passages we must have 
 regard to the order of time. St. Paul said, " If in this life 
 only we have hope, we are of all men most miserable ;" — so, 
 if we break off our own life at certain points, we shall say 
 the same thing of ourselves ; and if we interrupt human 
 history, so that one fact shall not be allowed to explain 
 another, it would be easy to find sections which would 
 prove alike the disorder and malignity of the Divine 
 government. We know what this means in some of the 
 works of our own hands. Thus, for example : You under- 
 took to build a house for the Lord, and your heart was full 
 of joy as you saw the sacred walls rising in your hopeful 
 dreams ; but when you came to work out your purpose, 
 you came upon difficulty after difficulty, — promises were 
 broken, contracts were trifled with, the very stars in their 
 courses seemed to fight against yom, and at length, afte r 
 many disappointments and exasperations, you said, " It 
 repents me ; it gives me pain, it grieves me, that I began 
 this house." Such is the exact state of your feeling at that 
 particular moment. But other influences were brought to 
 bear upon the situation, resources equal to the difficulty 
 
 4 
 
50 Judas Iscariot. 
 
 were developed, and when the roof covered the walls, and the 
 spire shot up into the clouds, you forget your pains and 
 tears in a great satisfaction. You will say that God fore- 
 saw all the difficulty of building the living temple of 
 manhood, that the whole case was clearly before Him from 
 eternity; that is, of course, true ; but the pain of ingrati- 
 tude is none the less keen because the ingratitude itself 
 was foreknown. Take the case of Jesus Christ, God manifest 
 in the flesh, as an illustration; He foresaw all the triumphs 
 of His cross • — all heaven thronged with innumerable multi- 
 tudes out of every kindred and people and tongue — yet He 
 prayed that the cup might pass from Him, and He needed 
 an angel to help Him in the time of His soul's sorrow. In 
 magnifying God's omniscience we must not overlook God's 
 love ; nothing, indeed, could surprise His foreknowledge, 
 yet it grieved Him at the heart that He had made man ; 
 and He called upon the heavens to hear, and upon the 
 earth to be astonished, because His children had rebelled 
 against Him ! 
 
 " This he said, not that he cared for the poor, hut because 
 he was a thief, and had the bag, and bare what was put 
 therein.''' — It is more to the credit of the Apostles themselves 
 that this should be regarded as an after-thought than as 
 an undoubted conviction, or an established fact, at the time 
 that Judas sat with them at the Paschal Supper, or even 
 at the time that he asked why the ointment was not sold 
 for the benefit of the poor. This is the more evident from 
 the fact that the writer indicates Judas as the betrayer, 
 whereas at the moment of the test his identity was not 
 established. There is no mystery about the insertion of this 
 
jfudas Iscariot. ^ i 
 
 explanatory suggestion, for we all know how easy it is after 
 a character has fully revealed itself to go back upon its 
 separate acts and account for them by their proper motives 
 — motives unknown at the time of the action, but plainly 
 proved by subsequent revelations of character. This was 
 probably the case in the instance before us : else why did 
 the disciples allow Judas to keep the bag ? Why did they 
 not humble and exhaust him by an incessant protest against 
 his dishonesty ? And why did not our Lord, instead of 
 mildly expostulating, say to Judas as He once said ip 
 Peter, " Get thee behind me, Satan "? Here, then, is a great 
 law within whose operation we ourselves may be brought, 
 — the law of reading the part in the light of the whole, and 
 of judging the isolated act by the standard of the complete 
 character. Illustrations of the working of this law will 
 occur to you instantly. Let a man eventually reveal him- 
 self as having unworthily filled prominent positions in the 
 Church — let his character be proved to have been corrupt, 
 and then see what light is thrown upon words and deeds 
 which at the time were not fully understood. How 
 abundant then will be such expressions as these in re- 
 counting his utterances : — 
 
 " He advised prudence and care and very great caution 
 in working out Church plans; he counselled concentra- 
 tion; he deprecated romantic schemes : this he did (as we 
 now can see), not that he was a lover of Prudence or a 
 worshipper of Wisdom, but because he was a thief, and he 
 feared that bold and noble schemes would shame him into 
 reluctant generosity." 
 
52 Judas Iscariot. 
 
 " He urged that the Church should be built with the 
 least possible decoration or ornament; he spoke strongly 
 against coloured glass and elaborate enrichment : and this 
 he did (as we can now see), not that he was devoted to 
 Simplicity or absorbed in spiritual aspiration, but because 
 he was a thief, and feared that every block of polished 
 marble would increase the sum which his respectability 
 would be expected to subscribe." 
 
 " He denounced all heretical tendencies in the Christian 
 ministry; he knew heterodoxy afar off ; he never ceased 
 to declare himself in favour of what he supposed to be the 
 Puritan theology : and this he did, not that in his heart 
 of . hearts he cared for the conservation of orthodoxy, but 
 because he was a thief, and had a felonious intent upon the 
 reputation of independent thinkers whose shoe's latchet he 
 was not worthy to unloose." 
 
 All this comes out after a man has revealed himself as 
 Judas did. But let me also say that the "thief" may be 
 dictating our speech even when we least suspect it, 
 certainly where there may never be such a disclosure 
 as there was in the case of Judas. There are conditions 
 under which we hardly know what influence it is that 
 colours our judgment and suggests our course, — may it 
 not be the " thief" that underlies our consciousness, and so 
 cunningly touches our life as never to excite our suspicion 
 or our fear ? We know how subtle are the workings of 
 self-deoeption, and perhaps even the godliest of us would 
 be surprised to know exactly the inspiration of some of our 
 most fervent speeches, — surprised to find that though the 
 
yudas Iscariot. 53 
 
 outward orator seemed to be an earnest man, the inner 
 and invisible speaker is the " thief" that prompted Judas ! 
 Who, then, can stand before the Lord, or be easy in the 
 presence of His holy law ? It is under such inquiries that 
 the strongest man quails, and that the swiftest of God's 
 messengers humbly prays, " Enter not into judgment with 
 thy servant, Lord ; for in thy sight shall no flesh living 
 be justified." 
 
 " Then one of the twelve, called Judas Iscariot, went unto 
 the chief priests, and said unto them, What will ye give me, 
 and I will deliver him unto you " (Matt. xxvi. 14, 15). Why 
 should there have been any bargaining, or why should 
 there have been any difficulty about the arrest of Christ ? 
 We must look to an earlier verse for the solution. The 
 chief priests, the scribes, and the elders, had met for con- 
 sultation in the palace of the high priest, Caiaphas, and the 
 principal question was, not how they might take Jesus, but 
 how they might take Him '' by subtilty," by craft, deceit, 
 guile, as if they would have secretly murdered Him if they 
 could, — murdered Him in the darkness, and in the morning 
 have wiped their mouths as innocent men ! Judas would 
 appear to have gone to them secretly, and offered himself 
 as one who knew the haunts and times and methods of 
 Christ; and in doing so he showed the weak and vicious 
 side of his nature, his covetousness, his greed, his love of 
 money, — and herein his guilt seems to culminate in an 
 aggravation infernal and unpardonable. But are we our- 
 selves verily clear in this matter ? Are we not every day 
 selling Christ to the highest bidder ? When we stifle our 
 
54 Judas Iscariot. 
 
 convictions lest we should lose a morsel of bread; when 
 we are dumb in the presence of the enemy lest our words 
 should be followed by loss of domestic comfort or personal 
 honour; when we soften our speech, or hide the Cross, or 
 join in ungodly laughter that we may avoid an ungodly 
 sneer, we are doing in our own way the very thing which 
 we rightly condemn in the character of Judas. 
 
 " Then Judas which had betrayed Him, when he saw that 
 lie was condemned, repented himself, and brought again the 
 thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, saying, 
 I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood: and 
 he cast down the silver pieces in the temple, and departed, 
 and went and hanged himself" (Matt, xxvii. 3-5). Is there 
 not a tone in these words with which we are familiar? 
 Is there not, indeed, something of our own voice in this 
 mournful story ? Let us look at it carefully: — 
 
 " When he saw," — that, at least, is familiar ! Not until 
 our actions are set a little off do we see all their relations 
 and all their meaning ; in their progress we are too near 
 them to get their full effect ; if we take but one step back 
 we shall be affrighted by the very actions of which the 
 doing gave us a kind of frenzied joy. We make our own 
 ghosts. We shut the eyes of our minds whilst we are 
 doing certain things; and when the last touch is given to 
 the deed, we are taught by the bitterness of experience 
 that Temptation destroys our sight and that Guilt restores 
 it. Recall the case of Adam and Eve, — " And the eyes of 
 them both were opened " ! Very short and cloudy is the 
 sight of the body: how keen, how piercing, is the sight of 
 
Judas Iscariot. 55 
 
 a self-convicted soul ! Before that discerning vision the 
 air is full of eyes, and the clearest of all days is dark with 
 menaces and gathering thunders. 
 
 "When he saw that he was condemned? -1 — At that moment 
 the surprise of Judas himself was supreme and unutterable : 
 evidently he did not expect that this catastrophe would 
 supervene; he may, indeed, have said to himself — as a man 
 of inventive and daring mind would be likely to say — I am 
 quite sure, from what I have seen of His miracles, that He 
 will prove himself more than a match for all His enemies ; 
 He has done so before, and He will do it again; they said 
 they would cast Him down from the brow of the hill, but 
 He went through the midst of them like a beam of light 
 and when they took up stones to stone Him, their hands 
 were held fast by that strong will of His; He has provoked 
 them to their face, heaped up all their sins before them, 
 taunted and goaded them to madness, and yet He held 
 them in check and played with them as He listed; it 
 will be so again ; besides, He may just want a plan like 
 mine to bring things to a point ; I will put Him into the 
 hands of these men, then will He shake them off, proclaim 
 His kingdom, drive away the spoiler from the land of the 
 Hebrews, and we shall come into the enjoyment of our 
 promised reward. — Judas may not have used these words, 
 but in effect they are being used by sinners every day ! 
 This is the universal tongue of self-deception, varying a 
 little, it may be, in the accent, but in substance the same 
 all the world over; a putting of one thing against another, 
 a balancing of probabilities, an exercise of self-outwitting 
 cunning; a secret hope that something can be snatched out 
 
56 Judas Iscariot. 
 
 of the fire, and that the flames can be subdued without 
 undue damage, — this is the method of sinfulness of heart, 
 a method confounded every day by the hand of God, yet 
 every day coming up again to fresh attempts and renewed 
 humiliations. 
 
 " When he saw that he was condemned he repented him- 
 self.'' — Is there not hope of a man who is capable of any 
 degree of repentance, even when repentance takes upon 
 itself the darker shade of horror and remorse ? I know 
 what the word is which is translated " repented," and I 
 remember with joy that it is the word which is used of the 
 son who said he would not go, and afterwards repented and 
 went ; it is the word which Paul used of himself on one 
 occasion in writing to the Corinthians. But even if the 
 word be rendered " was filled with remorse and shame and 
 despair," I should say, " So much the better for Judas." 
 Under such circumstances I should have more hope of a 
 man who had absolutely no hope of himself, than of a man 
 who could sufficiently control himself to think that even 
 such a sin — infinite in wickedness as it must have appeared 
 to his own mind — could ever be forgiven. It is easy for 
 us who never experienced the agony to say what Judas 
 ought to have done : how he ought to have wept and 
 prayed and sought forgiveness as we now should seek it, — 
 we cannot intermeddle with his sorrow, nor ought we 
 harshly to judge the method of his vengeance. 
 
 " I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood." 
 — Not, " I was hurried into this by others ; " not, " Others 
 are as much to blame as I am;" but, " I did it, and I 
 alone." Not, "I have made a mistake;" not, " This is a great 
 
Judas Iscariot. 57 
 
 error on my part ; " but, " I have sinned," — the very word 
 which he might have heard in his Lord's parable of the 
 Prodigal Son, — the word which our Father in heaven 
 delights to hear ! " If we confess our sins, He is faithful 
 and just to forgive us our sins, for His mercy endureth for 
 ever." " If thy brother turn again, saying, I repent, for- 
 give him; " — Judas repented himself ! " How often shall I 
 forgiveNhjm. Seven times. Seventy times seven " ! And 
 shall I forgive him the less because his repentance has 
 deepened into remorse, and he has lost all hope of himself ? 
 Surely the more on that very account. And if he slay 
 himself because of his sin against me ? Then must I think 
 of him with still tenderer pity, nor cloud his memory with 
 a single suspicion. And here let me say, as to the spiritual 
 application of this matter, I have no faith in the moral 
 value of fine-drawn distinctions between repentance and 
 despair ; my belief is that until we reach the point of self- 
 despair as to our sin against Christ, we can never know 
 the true meaning or realize the true joy of repentance. 
 That Judas should have slain himself with his own hand 
 is, in my view of the case, wholly in his favour. It must 
 have appeared to him, indeed, to be the only course open 
 to him ; floods of tears he could never set against the 
 blood of an innocent man ; to cry and moan and weep 
 bitterly, would be just to aggravate the appalling crime. 
 With a stronger light beating on our life than ever Judas 
 was permitted to enjoy, guarded by all the restraints of 
 Christian civilization, living under the ministry of the 
 Holy Ghost, we are by so much unable to sympathise with 
 ihp. intr>WnV>l a v~ - 1 -- - 1 " - le self-control of 
 
58 yudas Iscariot. 
 
 the Betrayer of our Lord. So far as I can think myself 
 back into the mental condition of Judas, his suicide seems 
 to me to be the proper completion of his insufferable self- 
 reproach. And yet' that self-control was preserved long 
 enough to enable Judas Iscariot to utter the most effective 
 and precious eulogium ever pronounced upon the character 
 of Jesus Christ. How brief, how simple, how complete — 
 " innocent blood " ! If the proper interpretation of words 
 is to be found, as it undoubtedly is, in circumstances, then 
 these two words are fuller in meaning and tenderer in 
 pathos than the most laboured encomium could possibly be. 
 Consider the life which preceded these words, and you will 
 see that they may be amplified thus : " I know Jesus better 
 than any of you can know Him ; you have only seen Him 
 in public, I have lived with Him in private ; I have watched 
 His words as words of man were never watched before; I 
 have heard His speeches meant for His disciples alone; I 
 have seen Him in poverty, weariness, and pain of heart ; 
 I have heard His prayers at home ; I trusted that it had 
 been He who would have redeemed Israel from patriotic 
 servility ; I curse myself, I exonerate Him, — His is inno- 
 cent blood ! " How glad would the Jews have been if 
 Christ had been witnessed against by one of His own dis- 
 ciples ! They would have welcomed his evidence ; no gold 
 could have adequately paid for testimony so direct and 
 important ; and Judas loved gold Yet the holy truth 
 came uppermost ; Judas died not with a lie in his right 
 hand, but with the word of truth upon his lips, and the 
 name of Christ was thus saved from what might have been 
 its deepest wound. 
 
Judas Iscariot. 59 
 
 " Those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of 
 them is lost, but the son of perdition." — At the first glance 
 these words would seem to put the fate of Judas Iscariot 
 beyond all controversy, yet further consideration may 
 show how mercy may magnify itself even in this cloud. 
 Judas is called "the son of perdition;" true, and Peter 
 himself was called Satan by the same Lord. And if Judas 
 was "the son of perdition," what does Paul say of all 
 mankind ? Does he not say, " We are by nature the 
 children of wrath, even as others " ? But in this case " the 
 son of perdition " is said to be " lost ; " but does the word 
 lost necessarily imply that he was in hell ? " We have all 
 erred and strayed like lost sheep ;" "the Son of man came 
 to seek and to save that which was lost" and, " there is joy 
 in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that 
 repenteth [Judas repented himself], more than over ninety 
 and nine just persons that need no repentance." It is our 
 joy to believe that wherever repentance is possible, mercy 
 is possible ; and it is heaven to us to know that where sin 
 abounded, grace did much more abound. And are we 
 quite sure that there is no ray of hope falling upon the 
 repentant and remorseful Judas from such words as these : 
 " And this is the Father's will which hath sent me, that of 
 all which He hath given me [and that He gave him Iscariot 
 is clear from the very passage we are now considering] 
 I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the 
 last day " (John vi. 39) ? But there is still more light to 
 be thrown on this great gloom. Take this passage (John 
 xviii. 8, 9): " Jesus answered, I have told you that I am 
 he : if therefore ye seek me, let these go their way; that 
 
6o Judas Iscariot. 
 
 the saying might he fulfilled which he spake, Of them 
 which thou gavest me I have lost none." Now suppose 
 that the ruffians had answered, " No, we will not let these 
 go their way; we will slay them with the sword at once," — 
 would it follow that Jesus Christ had lost His disciples in 
 the sense of their having heen destroyed in unquenchable 
 fire ? The suggestion is not to be entertained for a moment, 
 yet this is the very " saying " which is supposed to deter- 
 mine the damnation of Judas ! As I read the whole history, 
 I cannot but feel that our Lord was specially wistful that 
 His disciples should continue with Him throughout His 
 temptation, should watch with Him, that in some way, 
 hardly to be expressed in words, they should help Him by 
 the sympathy of their presence, — in this sense He was 
 anxious to "lose none;" but He did lose the one into whom 
 Satan had entered, and He refers to him not so much for 
 His own sake as that He may rejoice the more in the con- 
 stancy of those who remained. But the whole reference, 
 as it seems to me, is not to the final and eternal state of 
 men in the unseen world, but to continuance and steadfast- 
 ness in relation to a given crisis. 
 
 " This ministry and apostleship from which Judas by 
 transgression fell, that he might go to his own place " 
 (Acts i. 25 ). — One reputable scholar has suggested that 
 the words " go to his own place " may refer to Matthias, 
 and not to Judas ; but the suggestion does not commend 
 itself to my judgment. I think we should lose a good deal 
 by accepting this interpretation. I hold that this is an 
 instance of exquisite delicacy on the part of Peter : no 
 
Judas Iscariot. 6 r 
 
 judgment is pronounced; the fall is spoken of only as 
 official and as involving official results, and the sinner him- 
 self is left in the hands of God. It is in this spirit that 
 Peter speaks of Judas : — 
 
 " Owning his weakness, 
 His evil behaviour, 
 And leaving with meekness 
 His sins to his Saviour." 
 
 II. Practical. 
 Such a study as this can hardly fail to be fruitful of 
 suggestion to the nominal followers of Christ in all ages. 
 What are its lessons to ourselves, — to ourselves as Chris- 
 tians, ministers, office-bearers, and stewards of heavenly 
 mysteries ? 
 
 1. Our first lesson will be found in the fact that when 
 our Lord said to His disciples, " One of you shall betray 
 me," every one of them began to say, " Is it I? " Instead 
 of being shocked even to indignation, each of the disciples 
 put it to himself as a possibility ; " it may be I ; Lord, is it 
 I ? " This is the right spirit in which to hold all our 
 privileges. We should regard it as a possibility that the 
 . strongest may fail, and even the oldest may betray his 
 trust. " Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed les^ 
 he fall." Do you suppose that there was but one betrayal 
 of the Lord once for all, and that the infamous crime can 
 never be repeated ? "I tell you, nay" ! There are predic- 
 tions yet to be realized — " There shall be false teachers 
 among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, 
 even denying the Lord that bought them j " — "Lord, is it 
 
f2 yitdas Iscariot. 
 
 I ? " It shall surely be more tolerable for Judas Iscariot 
 in the day of judgment than for that man ! Living in the 
 light of Gospel day ; professing to have received the Holy 
 Ghost ; ordained as a minister of the Cross ; holding office 
 in the Christian Church ; — it is impossible for those who 
 were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly 
 gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and have 
 tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world 
 to come, if they shall fall away, to renew them again unto 
 repentance ; seeing that they crucify to themselves the Son 
 of God afresh, and put Him to an open shame. " Lord, is 
 it I ? " " In the last days perilous times shall come ; men 
 shall be traitors;" — " Lord, is it I?" Governing our 
 life by this self-misgiving spirit, not thinking all men 
 sinful but ourselves, we shall be saved from the boastfnl- 
 ness which is practical blasphemy, and our energy shall be 
 kept from fanaticism by the chastening influence of self- 
 doubt. Looking upon all the mighty men who have made 
 shipwreck of faith and a good conscience — Adam, Saul, 
 Solomon, Judas — let us be careful lest after having preached 
 to others we ourselves should be cast away. It is true that 
 we cannot repeat the literal crime of Judas, but there are 
 greater enormities than his ! We can outdo Judas in 
 sin! "Whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of 
 man it shall be forgiven him, but whosoever speaketh 
 against the Holy Ghost it shall not be forgiven him, 
 neither in this world, nor in the world to come " (Matt, 
 xii. 32). We cannot sell the body, but we can grieve 
 the Spirit! There can be no more covenanting over 
 the Lord's bones, but we can plunge a keener spear 
 
Judas Iscariot. 6 3 
 
 into His heart than that which drew forth blood and 
 water from His side; we cannot nail Him to the accarsed 
 tree, but we can pierce Him through with many sorrows. 
 Judas died by the vengeance of his own hand ; of how 
 much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought 
 worthy, who hath done despite unto the Spirit of Grace ? 
 Judas shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall 
 condemn it, because when he saw the error of his ways he 
 repented himself, and made restitution of his unholy gains; 
 but we have rolled iniquity under our tongue as a sweet 
 morsel, we have held our places in the sanctuary while 
 our heart has been the habitation of the enemy ! It will be 
 a fatal error on our part if we suppose that human iniquity 
 reached its culmination in the sin of Judas, and that after 
 his wickedness all other guilt is contemptible in magnitude 
 and trivial in effect. Jesus Christ teaches another doc- 
 trine: He points to a higher crime, — that higher crime, the 
 sin against the Holy Ghost, He leaves without specific and 
 curious definition that out of its possibility may come a 
 continual fear, and a perpetual discipline. Grieve not the 
 holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of 
 redemption ! 
 
 2. Our second lesson is a caution against mere intel- 
 lectual sagacity in directing the affairs of the Christian 
 kingdom. It is admitted on all hands that Judas Iscariot 
 was far ahead of the other apostles in many intellectual 
 qualities, yet " Judas by transgression fell." How self- 
 controlled he was, how stealthy was his step, how lingering 
 and watchful his cunning ! Anfcl if Whately and De 
 
64 "Judas Iscariot. 
 
 Quincey be right in the suggestion that he merely wanted 
 to force the Lord to declare Himself the Prince ojf princes 
 and make Israel glad by despoiling the oppressor, it dis- 
 covers the instinct of statesmanship, and shows how his 
 strategic ambition sought to ensnare the Roman fowler in 
 his own net. Judas is supposed to have reasoned thus with 
 himself: This Jesus is He who will redeem Israel ; the whole 
 twelve of us think so ; yet He hesitates, for some reason we 
 cannot understand ; His power is astounding, His life is 
 noble; this will I do, I will bring things to a crisis by going 
 to the authorities and making them an offer j I believe they 
 will snatch at my proposition, and when they come to work 
 it out He will smite them with His great power, and will 
 avenge the insult by establishing His supremacy as King 
 and Lord of Israel.^-As a matter of fact we know that this 
 kind of reasoning has played no small part in the history 
 of the Church. The spiritual kingdom of Christ has suffered 
 severely at the hands of men who have been proud of their 
 own diplomacy arid generalship ; men fond of elaborating 
 intricate organisations, of playing one influence against 
 another, and of making up for the slowness of time by 
 dramatic surprises alike of sympathy and collision. It is 
 for this reason that I cannot view without alarm the 
 possible misuse of congresses, conferences, unions, and 
 councils : these institutions will only be of real service to 
 the cause of the Cross in proportion as spiritual influence 
 is supreme ; — once let political sagacity, diplomatic inge- 
 nuity, and official adroitness in the management of details, 
 become unduly valued, and you change the centre of gravity, 
 and bring the Church into imminent peril. Unquestionably 
 
"Judas Iscariot. 65 
 
 human nature loves dexterity, and will pay high prices for 
 all kinds of conjuring, and loudly applaud the hero who 
 does apparent impossibilities; and from this innate love 
 of mere cleverness may come betrayals, compromises, and 
 casuistries, which crucify the Son of God afresh. Judas 
 looked to the end to vindicate if not to sanctify the means ; 
 and this is the policy of all dexterous managers, the very 
 soul of Jesuistry, and a chosen instrument of the devil. I do 
 not pray for a leader, fertile in resource, supple and prompt 
 in movement ; my prayer is for a man of another stamp, 
 even for an Tnspirer, who, by the ardour of his holiness, the 
 keenness of his spiritual insight, and the unction of his 
 prayers, shall help us truthward and heavenward ; and 
 under his leadership we shall hear no more about seculari- 
 ties and temporalities, but every action — the opening of the 
 doors and the lighting of the lamps of the sanctuary— shall 
 be done by hands which were first outstretched in prayer. 
 Not the crafty Judas, but the loving John will help us best 
 in all our work ; not the man inexhaustible in tricks of 
 management, but the man of spiritual intelligence and 
 fervour, will deliver us most successfully in the time of 
 straits and dangers. Managers, leaders, draughtsmen, and 
 pioneers, we shall of course never cease to want, and their 
 abilities will always be of high value to every good cause ; 
 yet one thing is needful above all others — closeness to the 
 dear Lord, and daily continuance in prayer. 
 
66 Two Mountain Scenes. 
 
 'flEtoo fountain &cnw£. 
 
 " The devil talteth him tip into an exceeding high mountain ; and slicmetTi 
 him, all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; and saith 
 imto him, All these things mill I give thee, if thou milt fall down 
 and morship me." — Matt. iv. 8, 9. 
 
 rpO this proposition Jesus Christ returned an answer 
 -*- which caused the devil to leave him. He received 
 a great offer, and he declined it with holy sternness. It 
 was truly a great offer, — nothing less than " all the 
 kingdoms of the world and the glory of them;" and the 
 return to be made was sentimental rather than practical, 
 or at least would have been so regarded by any other 
 man than Jesus Christ. The offer was Empire, and the 
 price was Worship. Jesus Christ said No, and came down 
 from the mountain as poor as He was when He was taken 
 up. With what ease He could have had " the kingdoms 
 of the world, and the glory of them," and what good He 
 could have done if all things had been under His control ! 
 Yet he said No ; and in after days He who might have 
 been king of the world said, " The foxes have holes and 
 the birck of the air have nests, but the Son of man hath not 
 where to lay his head." So much, you say, for throwing 
 away the great opportunities of life ! Read again — 
 
Two Mountain Scenes. 67 
 
 "Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, into a mountain 
 " where Jesus had appointed them ; . . . and Jesus came and spake unto 
 them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth " 
 (Matt, xviii. 16, 18). 
 
 Put these two mountain scenes together, and consider 
 all that has happened between the one occasion and the 
 other. If you thus lay hold of the case in all its bearings, 
 some such thought as this will run through your mind — 
 You can take the world on the devil's terms, so simple, 
 so easy ; or you can say No to the devil, and come down 
 to poverty, to hard work, to sorrow, to sacrifice, and 
 through that rugged course you can find your way back 
 to the mountain clothed with larger power, even with 
 much of heavenly and earthly dominion put into your 
 hands. 
 
 And it comes very much to this in life. To every man 
 the devil is saying, Accept the world on my terms ; fall 
 down and worship me, and I will give you riches, fame, 
 power, or whatever you think will make your life happy. 
 Such a temptation comes in some form and in some 
 degree to every heart, does it not ? Now in direct opposi- 
 tion to this, Jesus Christ says — Take no thought for your 
 life ; seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteous- 
 ness, and all these prizes and honours, so far as they are 
 good, will be added to you : the devil took me up into an 
 exceeding high mountain, and offered me the kingdoms of 
 the world and the glory of them if I would fall down and 
 worship him ; I said No to his offer, and I came down 
 from the hill to live a life of sacrifice, patiently and 
 lovingly to do the work of Him that sent me j and in 
 
68 Two Mountain Scenes. 
 
 the long run I ascended another mountain, from which 
 I could see more kingdoms and greater than before," 
 and instead of the rulership of one world, all power 
 in heaven and in earth was given unto me : he that 
 would save his life shall lose it, he that will lose his 
 life for my sake shall find it ; that which thou sowest 
 is not quickened except it die ! 
 
 Considering the peculiarities of the human mind, so 
 far as we know them, the appeal of the devil has one 
 supreme advantage over the appeal of Christ — it is 
 not only addressed to the senses, but it promises instant 
 gratification : no time need be lost ; there i^ the prize, 
 and here is the direct road to its attainment ! Whereas 
 in the appeal of Christ we come upon all the difficulties 
 of delay and suffering, to which is added a scarcely 
 confessed suspicion of possible miscarriage and disappoint- 
 ment. The devil promises you for to-day ; and for to- 
 day Christ seems to promise nothing but tears and 
 thorns and crucifixion. " Wide is the gate and broad 
 is the road that leadeth to destruction, and many there 
 be that find it." See how true it is in all life that 
 when a prize is within view we are impatient of delay. 
 Thus, if you stifle the expression of your convictions, 
 you may have a certain honour almost instantly ; if 
 you utter and defend your convictions, you may have 
 to wait seven years for that same honour ! If you lull 
 your conscience into slumber, you make your fortune 
 in a twelvemonth ; if you obey your conscience, you may 
 never make a fortune at all! Truckle, and be rich; 
 resist, and be poor ; go with the world, and be flattered ; 
 
Two Mountain Scenes. 69 
 
 go against it, and be scorned. "Who can hesitate between 
 contrasts so broad ! 
 
 If we call in the moralist to help us in this difficulty, 
 he will probably direct our attention to facts as the best 
 elucidation of principles, and may challenge us to consult 
 the unquestionable and solemn testimony of human ex- 
 perience as a final authority within the region of reason. 
 He will be likely to tell us in the first place that all these 
 promises of short cuts to supreme position and influence 
 are lies. He will acknowledge, indeed, that there are 
 short roads to ownership, notoriety, and self-importance ; 
 but these he will carefully distinguish from the supre- 
 macy that is solid and enduring and beneficent. He will, 
 too, damp the ardour of the young by assuring them that 
 realities are often the exact opposite of appearances, and 
 may startle them still further by the assurance, which he 
 will be able to justify by many examples, that it is possible 
 for a man to be the slave of the very things which he seems 
 to own and rule. Look at the price required for the 
 supremacy offered to Christ — " If thou wilt fall down 
 and worship me " ! But consider what it is to worship 
 at the wrong altar ! It is to debase the affections, to 
 bring the best energies of the soul under malign in- 
 fluence, and to forfeit the power to enjoy the very things 
 which it is supposed to purchase. "Worship expresses, 
 though it may be feebly, the worshipper's supreme ideal 
 of life ; if, therefore, it be offered to an evil spirit, the 
 whole substance and course of life will be deeply affected 
 by the error. "What if the very act of false worship dis- 
 qualify the soul for relishing any supposed or undoubted 
 
70 Two Mountain Scenes. 
 
 joy ? Offer a man long draughts of the choicest wines if he 
 will first drench his mouth with a strong solution of alum, 
 and what are the choicest wines to him then ? They cannot 
 penetrate to the palate, they are absolutely without taste, 
 and they mock the appetite they were meant to gratify. 
 So, if a man put his moral nature under false conditions, 
 and create anarchy between himself and the principle of 
 eternal righteousness, no matter what fortune or honour 
 may accrue to him, his power of serene enjoyment is gone, 
 and he becomes burdened and plagued by his very suc- 
 cesses. This will be the first point insisted upon by the 
 moralist ; in the plainest words he will say — " The promise 
 is very great, but it is a lie to begin with, and the man 
 who sells his soul to get it will soon find that he is neither 
 more nor less than a dupe of the devil." 
 
 But what of the facts which seem to contradict this 
 theory of the moralist ? "I have seen the wicked in 
 great power, and spreading himself like a green bay 
 tree : their eyes stand out with fatness ; they have 
 more than heart can wish ; they are not in trouble as 
 other men." Do they not seem to have gotten the 
 kingdoms of the world and the glory of them ? In 
 answering this inquiry the moralist will insist that such 
 facts exactly illustrate what he has just said — viz., that 
 some men are the slaves of the very things which they 
 seem to own and rule. He will contend that technical 
 possession is not full ownership, and he will make his 
 appeal to final and decisive results rather than to tempo-: 
 rary appearances and relations. For example, he will 
 acknowledge that the wicked have been in great power ; 
 
Two Mountain Scenes. 71 
 
 but he will show that they have " passed away," and that 
 they have not been found even by those who most diligently 
 sought for them ; he will acknowledge that the wicked 
 have sometimes had more than heart can wish, but he will 
 prove that they have always been set in " slippery places," 
 and that their " end is destruction." He will not confine 
 himself within narrow limits in giving his judgment, but 
 will include within his survey spaces and times needful for 
 securing a just perspective. It is quite true that " if in 
 this life ODly we have hope, we are of all men most miser- 
 able ; " but if we bring considerations of eternity to bear 
 upon the discipline of time, even now we may have joy, and 
 may even " glory in tribulation also." 
 
 Now look at the other side of the case. Jesus Christ 
 resists the temptation to give His soul for gain, and He 
 goes down the hill poor, lonely, and apparently helpless. 
 He brings back nothing but His unimpaired integrity ; 
 He is whole of heart, — and that is all you can say about 
 Him, unless you add, what is really the same thing in other 
 words, that His faith in God and His idea of worship are 
 pure and wise. His course seems for a time troubled with 
 the frown and judgment of God, for few friends come to 
 His side, there is no joy in His lot, His work is hard, and 
 the return of His toil is poor. He calls Himself a King, 
 and men laugh at Him ; He says He is the Son of God, 
 and men take up stones to stone Him. Is it not, then, 
 quite plain that He lost His chance when He said No on 
 the hill, and that He must take the consequences of His 
 obstinacy ? A man who would so argue would seem to 
 
7 2 Two Mountain Scenes. 
 
 have a good deal of sound sense on his side ; at any rate, 
 he might refer to so-called facts with very emphatic con- 
 fidence. He might almost feel called upon to treat with 
 positive mockery the words of Christ, " Seek first the 
 kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these 
 things shall be added unto you," — for more obvious 
 irony never provoked the laughter of mankind. And 
 still the shadows thicken upon the gloomy scene ; poverty 
 is made poorer by loss upon loss ; and further on His 
 oldest friends drop off, and the disciple He loves the most 
 instinctively assumes an attitude of departure. Plainly 
 enough, this Man who set Worship above Empire sacri- 
 ficed His fortune to His sentiments, and lost a crown 
 to save an idea. If there be anything more on the dark 
 and downward way of His ill-luck, it cannot be other than 
 a Cross — a Cross with aggravations too ; and in its agony 
 He will learn that violent sentiments have violent ends. 
 So it would seem ! We are told that the earth is round ; 
 but there are great crags and pits on its rugged surface 
 for all that. We are told that Christ had a kingdom, 
 when it is quite certain that He had not so much as a 
 home. These are great contradictions, and it is simply in 
 vain for us to try to force a reconciliation ; reconciliation 
 can only be wrought, if wrought at ah, by time, often long 
 and dreary. 
 
 " The eleven disciples went away into Galilee, into a 
 mountain where Jesus had appointed them ; . . . and Jesus 
 came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given 
 unto me in heaven and in earth." — And there is nothing 
 
Two Mountain Scenes. 73 
 
 of boast or vaunt in the Lord's sweet tone. It is as if the 
 sown wheat had said in golden harvest, " Behold, I have 
 been brought up from the depths of death, and my life is 
 an hundredfold more than before." It is thus, through 
 all the ages, that the good man comes to his strength and 
 crown, — through pain and tears, through nights of gloom 
 and days of toil, and grief that makes the heart grow old, 
 and forsakenness that makes a man afraid of his own 
 voice, so weird and so mournful is life in its emptiness 
 and silence ! It is a long way, you see, and some men 
 die before they get a glimpse of its sunny end. How, 
 then, as to the truth of the doctrine that to be right is to 
 be rich? To test that doctrine you must get into the 
 very heart of the sufferer himself. He will show you the 
 compensations of a righteous life ; he will tell you how 
 sweet is the bread eaten in secret, how holy and all- 
 comforting is the approval of a good conscience, and how 
 infinite is the independence of the soul whose trust is in 
 God. In such a case the poverty is wholly on the outside : 
 the soul is clothed in more than purple and fine linen, and 
 is rich with more than gold. Outside, things are rough 
 enough undoubtedly ; the storm does not spare the roof, 
 nor do the rags keep away the biting wind, yet somehow 
 the man who is right has a quiet and thorough mastery 
 over the circumstances which fret and vex the mere surface 
 of his life. The king is within. The fountain of his joy 
 is not dependent on the clouds, but on " the river of God, 
 which is full of water." " The ungodly are not so, but are 
 like the chaff which the wind driveth away." 
 
74 Two Mountain Scenes. 
 
 Whilst all this is true, and is sealed as such by the 
 oath of a number which no man can number, it is also 
 outwardly true, so to speak ; that is to say, goodness rises 
 to its right position in the world and takes the throne , of 
 supreme and imperishable power. In the last result it is 
 goodness that conquers and rules. "The righteous shall 
 flourish like the palm tree, he shall grow like a cedar in 
 Lebanon." " He shall be as a tree planted by the waters, 
 and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall 
 not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green." 
 " Say ye to the righteous that it shall be well with him : 
 for they shall see the fruit of their doings." Now and 
 again life suddenly opens, and we see flashes and glimpses 
 of what is coming upon the world. In the midst of tumult 
 and blasphemy, so mad that we think there is no more 
 chance for goodness, we see such homage paid to right 
 as gives hope of its final conviction and universal sway. 
 There are conflicts in which character determines the issue. 
 In times of panic gaodne&s is relied upon. In affliction 
 and sorrow and ruin, it is the good man who is sent for. 
 When the fierce wind throws down strong walls, and the 
 whole air is black with cruel plague and pest, sparing 
 neither old nor young, neither woman nor child, he wh® 
 prays best is king. So, even in the outer world, and in 
 tangible and visible ways, goodness comes to recognition 
 and honour, in addition to its being accompanied by inward 
 and spiritual satisfactions. 
 
 After this course of thinking we should be able to set 
 down for human guidance on6 or two principles which 
 
Two Mountain Scenes. 75 
 
 seem, at least, to reach the highest point of certainty. 
 Such as : — 
 
 First : Eight ideas of worship will show the exact line 
 of personal denial and sacrifice. Be right in heart towards 
 God, and you will know what to do in the time of flattering 
 offers and splendid opportunities. 
 
 Second : It is through temptation that we learn the true 
 value of many convictions and habits. From our point of 
 view it may seem a small thing to give up worship that 
 we may win kingdoms ; it might seem indeed as if we 
 were getting the kingdoms for next to nothing. The devil 
 did not reckon so. He aims to get our worship, for he 
 who has the heart has all ! 
 
 Third : Self-denial, in the name and strength of God, 
 may be a long time in coming to fruition in honour and 
 dominion, — at least visibly, as we have just said. In the 
 case of Christ it took nearly three years to die and rise 
 and ripen, but in its ripening it filled heaven and earth ! 
 " If WE suffer with Christ we shall also reign with him." 
 
 Fourth : Whatever we have, much or little, of comfort, 
 or honour, or influence, let it be as a flower ripened in the 
 sun ; something coming up out of a deep true character ; 
 beauty added to strength. Woe to the bloom that is 
 artificial ! 
 
 In the long run, then, we shall get our right position ; 
 our sorrows will become our joys ; our sacrifices will be 
 turned into our victories ; and, truly, in a sense impossible 
 to express in words, we shall not serve God for nought. 
 To suffer in the right spirit is our daily difficulty. It is 
 
76 Two Mountain Scenes. 
 
 easy to suffer defiantly ; it is almost comfortable to suffer 
 ostentatiously ; but to suffer as if we were not suffer- 
 ing, even witb meekness, quietness, and long patience, to 
 enter into the " fellowship" of Christ's sufferings, and to 
 work out our course just as He did, who is sufficient? 
 Bravado will come to nothing. Selfish martyrdom will 
 have no holy resurrection. Morbid pride in the neglect 
 and disparagement accorded by the public will end in no 
 blessing. Unrepining resignation, deep and loving trust 
 in God, earnest diligence in all duty, loyal obedience to 
 every sign of our Father's will, — out of this discipline will 
 come sweetest joys, honours as the stars for number, and 
 peace deep as the calm of heaven. 
 
Pagan Constancy. 77 
 
 $ag;art Constancy, 
 
 CONTRASTED WITH CHRISTIAN CONTROVERSY. 
 
 "For pass over the isles of Chittim, and see ; and send unto Kedar, and 
 consider diligently, and see if there be such a thing. Hath a nation 
 ehanged their gods, which are yet no gods? but my people have 
 changed tlteir glory for that which doth not profit." — Jeremiah 
 ii. 10, 11. 
 
 rpHE text may be put into other words, thus : " Go over 
 to the islands of the Chittim, the isles and coast lands 
 of the far west ; then go to Kedar, away in the eastern 
 desert, — go from east to west, — and ask if any heathen land 
 has given up its idols (gods that are no gods), and you will 
 find that no such thing has ever taken place ; but whilst 
 the heathen have kept to their gods as if they had real and 
 strong love for them, my people, for whom I have done so 
 much, whose names are on the palms of my hands, whose 
 lives are dear to my heart, have turned away from me, and 
 have given up their living and loving God for that which 
 can do them no good." 
 
 There must be some way of accounting for conduct so 
 clearly unreasonable and ungrateful. We may perhaps find 
 
78 Pagan Constancy 
 
 our way to the secret step by step, if we notice one or two 
 things that we ourselves are in the habit of doing. If, for 
 example, I say. that there is now a book in my hand, you 
 who can see the book will at once agree with me that such 
 is the fact ; but if I add that it is a good book, you will 
 wait until you have read it before you say anything about 
 its value. Merely to say that it is a book is to secure 
 unanimity ; but to say that it is a good book is to open the 
 way for difference of opinion. So, also, if a man say that 
 he will train a young sapling in such and such lines, we 
 may admit that the work is easy and that success will follow 
 it in due time ; but if he- add that he will as surely train a 
 child as he will train the young tree, we may point out to 
 him that the one task is not so easy as the other, and we 
 may feel sure that facts will soon prove the truth of what 
 we say. 
 
 You see, then, that as a question rises in importance it 
 rises also in difficulty, and as it rises in difficulty it opens 
 the way for debate, and makes even ill-will between the 
 debaters an easy possibility. It is in the light of such facts 
 that I would first view the state of things shown in the 
 text. We are told in the text that the heathen has not 
 given up his god ; that, find him where you will, in the far 
 west or in the far east, he holds to his god (which is no 
 god) with a firm hand. Quite so ; let him have the full 
 credit which is due to him for doing this, but do not over- 
 look the fact that his god is not a god, for in that fact you 
 may have the key of the whole secret. His god is made 
 on a small scale, — it can be seen, it can be measured (in 
 fancy, if not in reality), it can in many cases be pressed to 
 
Contrasted with Christian Controversy. 79 
 
 the heart whose trust it has drawn out. It is, too, a god 
 that will stand a good deal of patronage; and men like in 
 some way (direct or indirect) to have their own god under 
 their own care. But take away the stone, or the wood, or 
 the sun, or the moon — whatever the god may be, and in its 
 place put a thought, or a Spirit, and at once you create 
 danger; you pass into that which is unseen, — so high, so 
 wide, so deep, that no line can be laid upon it ; and for a 
 religion that looked so simple and so direct, you set up a 
 religion that is ghostly and alarming ! Tell the pagan that 
 the true G-od is a Spirit whom no man has seen nor can 
 see, that He fills all space and all time, and you will stun 
 the man ; and as his mind awakens, difficulties will crowd 
 upon him, and new questions will bring new anxieties and 
 tortures to a mind which, never having had a doubt, never 
 really had a faith. The small god meant small difficulty, 
 the infinite Grod means infinite difficulty. No words can 
 tell all that is meant by His great name; where Speech 
 becomes dumb because it has come to the end of its mean 
 wealth, the music of God's Eternity but begins ; and where 
 Imagination falters, the cloud but begins to rise from Grod's 
 Infinity. Is it wonderful, then, that life should be harder 
 in Zion than in Kedar, or that infinite mystery should be 
 a heavy burden to finite strength ? 
 
 If we can make it quite clear that as a subject rises in 
 importance it rises in difficulty, we shall see one side of the 
 text in a hopeful light; and therefore I would keep you one 
 moment longer on the threshold of the great theme. You 
 have no difficulty with your hand, but what trouble you 
 have with your Jwart ! "Why ? Beeause the heart is so 
 
80 Pagan Constancy 
 
 much more than its servant the hand. Your words may be 
 well under your control, but what bit and bridle can hold 
 your thoughts in check ! You can fit the yoke to the beast 
 of burden, and by your will you can make it serve in the 
 furrow ; but that sweet child of yours, so fair, so bright 
 can wound, can break your heart ! So it is through and 
 through life. It is easy to be good at Kedar ; it is hard 
 sometimes to pray in Zion. 
 
 One more illustration will bring us to the subject: We 
 all know how much easier it is to keep up the form of 
 religion than to be true to its spirit. Say that religion is 
 a number of things to be done, some at this hour and some 
 at that, and you bring it, so to speak, within range, of the 
 hand, and make it manageable ; but instead of doing this, 
 show that religion means spiritual worship, a sanctified con- 
 science, and a daily sacrifice of the will, and you at once 
 invoke the severest resistance to its supremacy. Or say 
 that religion simply means a passive acceptance of certain 
 dogmas that can be fully expressed in words, which make 
 no demand upon inquiry or sympathy, and you will awaken 
 (if any) the least possible opposition ; but make it a spiritual 
 authority, a rigorous and incessant discipline imposed upon 
 the whole life, and you will send a sword upon the earth, 
 and enkindle a great fire. 
 
 Thus we come back to the same point ; that is to say, 
 to the doctrine that importance is the measure of difficulty 
 in all departments and phases of life : the man of renown 
 has more difficulty than the man of obscurity ; the man 
 who has deep convictions lives a harder life than the man 
 who is careless about vital questions ; horticulture is more 
 
Contrasted with Christian Controversy. 81 
 
 difficult than sculpture ; spiritual teaching is severer than 
 physical training ; the magician is applauded, the Redeemer 
 is crucified ; and, by the same great law, He who is God 
 over all suffers more than all other gods. " Pass over the 
 isles of the Chittim, and see; and send unto Kedar, and 
 consider diligently, and see if there be such a thing. Hath 
 a nation changed their gods, which are yet no gods ? but 
 my people have changed their glory for that which doth 
 not profit." 
 
 I. 
 
 In view of these hinis, and the whole line of thinking 
 to which they belong, I cannot but regard hopefully the 
 earnest and practical religious controversy of the day, 
 feeling as I do that such controversy arises, as if by a kind 
 of necessity, out of the very grandeur of the subject ; out 
 of the demands which religion makes upon the present life, 
 as well as out of the splendid destinies which it offers to 
 the contemplation and acceptance of mankind. 
 
 Earnest religious controversy seems to me to be but the 
 higher aspect of another controversy which has vexed 
 man through all time. The study of God is the higher 
 side of the study of man. It is a singular thing that man 
 has never been able to make .himself quite out, though he 
 has been zealously mindful of the doctrine that " the 
 proper study of mankind is man." He wants to know 
 exactly whence be came and what he is ; but the voice 
 which answers him is sometimes mocking, and nearly 
 always doubtful. He is not sure whether his years can 
 
 6 
 
82 Pagan Constancy 
 
 be numbered, or whether he has come down from imme- 
 morial time. His age puzzles him much. His choice lies 
 between thousands and millions of years. He is sensitive 
 on the question of time. Once he found a piece of pottery 
 deeply buried at the mouth of the Nile, from which he 
 inferred (not then knowing the history of Roman pottery) 
 that he must be, say, a million years old ; then he found 
 out — like other old-china dupes — that the pottery had been 
 turned off the lathe of some comparative modern, where- 
 upon he grew young again, and became modest with a 
 sense of relative juvenility. This modesty became him 
 well, and would have bloomed long but for the disturbing 
 fact that he found a flint hatchet in an out-of-the-way 
 place; and thereupon he resumed his antiquity, and gloried 
 in it in many expensive books. Nor has man been less 
 troubled about his body. He has founded colleges upon 
 it, and museums, and learned lectureships, and a profitable 
 profession with many costly branches. He has taken 
 himself to pieces, and written upon the dismembered parts 
 some long hard words ; he has made diagrams of himself, 
 ghastly woodcuts, and blood-coloured pictures : and still he 
 is a puzzle to himself ; a puzzle in life because he cannot 
 tell how he came to live, a puzzle in sickness because he 
 cannot tell how to get well again, a puzzle in death because 
 he does not know whether so much antiquity should be 
 inhumed or cremated. Once he was satisfied with the 
 absurd physiology of the "Timseus" (for even Plato was not 
 always divine), and then he laughed at the rude guesses of 
 the Greek. A strange course has man passed through, 
 take him body and soul together. His body ! He sprang 
 
Contrasted with Christian Controversy. 83 
 
 spontaneously out of the earth ; he evolved ; he developed ; 
 he began existence as a cellular tissue, and fell under 
 infinite obligations to an ethereal fluid; and, in short, he 
 can trace himself back to a "primordial form." When he 
 meets a certain animal he is not quite sure which of them 
 is expected to speak first, and suddenly his face brightens 
 with celestial light, as if " the divinity " had " stirred 
 within " him ! His soul ! According to one ancient 
 (Heracleitus) it " mutated," according to another (Empe- 
 docles) it "compounded," another (Anaxagoras) called it 
 Nous, another (Diogenes, not the cynic) called it Air, and 
 Pythagoras pronounced it a Number and a Harmony, — a 
 judgment in which nonsense is finely set to music. Now, 
 we are not here to ask any questions as to the soundness 
 or unsoundness of any of these theories ; at some of them 
 we may smile as at a child's antics, and some of them we 
 may remit for further consideration ; but looking at them 
 simply as parts of a history, they would seem to establish 
 the fact that Man represents a special majesty and gran- 
 deur, that his secret is itself a glory, and that not to be able 
 to answer this riddle is itself a tribute to the very powers 
 that are baffled. So the doctrine returns — little importance 
 means little interest, infinite importance means endless 
 controversy. 
 
 Is it wonderful that man, who has had so much difficulty 
 with himself, should have had proportionately greater diffi- 
 culty with such a God as is revealed in the Bible ? On the 
 contrary, I think it will be found that the two studies — the 
 study of man and the study of God — always go together, 
 and that the ardour of the one determines the intensity of 
 
84 Pagan Constancy 
 
 the other. In this view the text might read thus : — Pass 
 over the isles of the Chittim, and see; and send unto Kedar, 
 and consider diligently, and see whether the inhabitants 
 thereof bave studied the physiology and chemistry of their 
 own bodies"; but the philosophers of Christendom have 
 built themselves upon protoplasm. Kedar cared nothing 
 about humanity, and therefore it cared nothing about 
 divinity. When man is not deeply interested in himself it 
 is not likely that he will be deeply interested in God. It 
 will be found, I think, that every study that is keenly 
 pursued has a strong effect upon the study that is imme- 
 diately higher or otherwise greater than itself, as if no 
 subject were self-terminating, but, contrariwise, part of 
 some larger, though, it may be, imperfectly comprehended 
 question. ' Thus political economy writes itself up to, and 
 over the line which is supposed to separate it from, morals ; 
 and the moralist encroaches upon theology that he may 
 illuminate and justify his highest theories. Thus, in 
 every way, the higher and the lower, the universal 
 and the local, the eternal and the temporary, are 
 in continual interaction, and there is always something 
 beyond ! The individual fire seeks the universal sun ; 
 love of home rises into love of country; patriotism is a 
 peak upon the vaster hill of philanthropy; home missions 
 are the root of foreign evangelization — herein the afflicted 
 Psalmist sang sweetly, " Thy servants take pleasure in 
 the stones of Zion, and favour the dust thereof. So the 
 heathen shall fear the name of the Lord " (Psalm cii. 14, 
 15). It is the same law — the local spreading itself into the 
 universal, the waves of the little sea rising and spreading 
 
Contrasted with Christian Controversy, 85 
 
 until, in billow upon billow, they roll tbeir foam upon the 
 rocks of the INFINITE. 
 
 In the doctrine that the very greatness of God is itself 
 the occasion of religious controversy, and even of religious 
 doubt and defective constancy, we find the best answer to a 
 difficulty created by the words of the text. That difficulty 
 may be put thus : If the people of Chittim and of Kedar 
 are faithful to their gods, does it not prove that those 
 gods have power to inspire and retain confidence ? and if 
 the people of Israel are always turning away from their 
 God, does it not show that their God is unable to keep 
 His hold upon their occasional love ? Such a putting of 
 the case would be valid if inquiry be limited to the letter. 
 But if we go below the surface we must instantly strip it 
 of all worth as a plea on behalf of idolatry. Clearly so ; 
 for, not to go further, if it proves anything it proves too 
 much ; thus — the marble statue which you prize so highly 
 has never given you a moment's pain ; your child has 
 occasioned you days and nights of anxiety: therefore a 
 marble statue has more moral power (power to retain your 
 admiration) than has a child. Your clock you understand 
 thoroughly; you can unmake and make it again, and 
 explain its entire mechanism down to the finest point of 
 its action ; but that child of yours is a mystery which 
 seems to increase day by day : therefore you have more 
 satisfaction in the clock than in the child. So the argu- 
 ment in favour of Kedar proves nothing, because it not 
 only proves too much, but lands the reasoner in a practical 
 absurdity. 
 
 So I come back to the starting-point. I see the great- 
 
86 Pagan Constancy 
 
 ness of God troubling the nations as the ark of the testi- 
 mony troubled the Philistines. Even when men pronounce 
 God "inscrutable," they do not get rid of all uneasiness. 
 It must always trouble a thoughtful man to have anything 
 inscrutable pressing upon him and overlooking him. Yet 
 even to say that God is "inscrutable," or that there is 
 something " inscrutable " behind all force, is to be far 
 enough from the old blank atheism. Such a creed admits 
 of hopeful interpretation ; it limits human inquiry; it 
 humbles human pride ; it makes men silent, — and there is 
 a silence which is akin to worship. 
 
 (2) I must now claim to be mindful of the fact that 
 there is a controversy which is both immoral and unprofit- 
 able; yet even this vicious and clamorous debate is traceable 
 in some measure to the necessities of the case, for when a 
 depraved heart interprets religion you may expect immo- 
 rality, and when a depraved genius interprets theology you 
 may expect unprofitableness. The apostle, writing his 
 epistle to the Romans, says of some people, " they did not 
 like to retain God in their knowledge," and to get rid of 
 Him they would probably indulge in wicked controversy. 
 The text speaks of " that which doth not profit," and 
 reminds us of the danger of taking up controversies with- 
 out pith, substance, or spiritual nutriment in them. I need 
 not remind you that unprofitable controversy has been the 
 recreation of a certain order of mind — far from contemp- 
 tible as to capacity and acuteness — from the very beginning 
 of the world ; but I must protest against the encourage- 
 ment of such controversy in the Christian pulpit. One 
 
Contrasted with Christian Controversy. 87 
 
 would imagine that some ministers supposed themselves to 
 be called of God to make as many mysteries as possible. 
 I have no doubt that it is quite within the range of the 
 power of eccentric genius to turn the multiplication-table 
 itself into a metaphysical jungle, and to show by an endless 
 use of unintelligible words how dangerous a thing it is to 
 risk anything upon the seductive but malign proposition 
 that two and two are four. Do you know how exciting it 
 is to live next door to a young analytical chemist, and 
 candidate for membership in a microscopical society ? It 
 is a serious trial. His calls are alarming visitations. He 
 has just discovered that in the household water there is 
 something like "09 per cent, of lead : he has looked at the 
 household bread through a microscope, and he simply for- 
 bears to state what he has seen. Altogether, you feel, 
 when he has gone, that he has made a considerable sub- 
 traction from your comfort, and sent a general sense of 
 uneasiness through the family. It is much the same, with 
 more serious results, in hearing unprofitable controversy in 
 the pulpit. When it is all over, you have a confused im- 
 pression that you have been somewhere up in the clouds, 
 that you have heard words which, though it is quite lawful, 
 it is absolutely impossible to repeat ; you have, too, a 
 feeling that the less you have to do with religion the better, 
 that to believe it is to be mad, and that to deny it is to 
 occupy an exciting position somewhere between respecta- 
 bility and wickedness. Against such controversy I protest. 
 It is trifling with human life ; it grieves the Spirit of God. 
 Earnest controversy I would honour. Out of its friction 
 light will come, and warmth. In its very vehemence and 
 
88 Pagan Constancy 
 
 desperateness I would see the grandeur of a religion whose 
 aspects are innumerable, and the fascination of a truth 
 which is now like a star alone in the dark, and now like a 
 sun which can fill all worlds with light. 
 
 II. 
 
 The foundation of this argument isj that of all subjects 
 that engage the human mind, religion (whether true or 
 false) is the most exciting ; that in proportion as it en- 
 larges its claims, will it be likely to occasion controversy ; 
 and that, as the religion of the Bible enlarges its claims 
 beyond all other religions, assailing the intellect, the con- 
 science, the will, and bringing every thought and every 
 imagination of the heart into subjection, and demanding 
 the corroboration of spiritual faith by works that rise to 
 the point of self-crucifixion, the probability is that there 
 will not only be a controversy between man and man as to 
 its authority and beneficence, but also a controversy be- 
 tween man and God as to its acceptance ; and that out of 
 this latter controversy will come the very defection com- 
 plained of in the text, and will come also the vexatious 
 human controversies which may really be but so many 
 excuses for resisting the moral discipline of the Gospel. 
 This is the whole argument. Specially is to be noted that 
 the principal controversy is not between man and man, but 
 between man and God ; our hearts are not loyal to our- 
 Maker ; His commandments are grievous to souls that love 
 their ease. The God of grace, rich in all comfort and 
 promise, we do not cast off. We want such a God. But 
 
Contrasted with Christian Controversy. 89 
 
 the God of law, of purity, of judgment, terrible in wrath 
 and not to be deceived by lies, our hearts can only receive 
 with broken loyalty, loving Him to-day, and grieving Him 
 to-morrow. It is in this sad fact that I find the only satis- 
 factory explanation of the slowness of the spread of the 
 Christian kingdom. We are sometimes told that as rocks 
 take a long time to build, and forests a long time to grow, 
 so the kingdom of heaven requires a long time for its 
 establishment upon earth. I cannot accept the analogy. 
 Where does God blame the rock because it does not rise 
 more rapidly? When did God rain fire and brimstone 
 upon the forest because it was slow in growth ? On the 
 other hand, God never ceases to blame men for not loving 
 Him. Jesus Christ takes up the same complaint, and 
 mourns, even with broken-heartedness and many tears, 
 that men will not come unto Him for life. Not in rocks 
 and forests can we find the answer to such a difficulty; it 
 is to be found in the heart itself, in the solemn and appal- 
 ling fact that evil hates good, and resists it even unto the 
 death. Everywhere you see this obstinate resistance. To 
 say that the Christian religion cannot be true because it 
 makes such slow progress in the world, is to say more 
 than the speaker probably meant to affirm. 
 
 It is to say that honesty cannot be good, or else it would 
 be practised between man and man the world over ; purity 
 cannot be good, or at the mention of it all evil would be! 
 abhorred : temperance, candour, and good-will cannot be 
 good, or they would instantly prevail wherever they have 
 been made known. Evil hates goodness, hates light, hates 
 God ; and as truth cannot fight with carnal weapons, or 
 
go Pagan Constancy 
 
 force itself upon the world by physical means, it can only 
 " stand at the door and knock," and mourn the slowness 
 which it cannot accelerate. It is God's will that the rock 
 grow slowly, and that the forest hasten not its maturity ; 
 but it is surely not the will of the Lord that His children 
 should grieve Him long, and provoke Him to wrath 
 through many generations. 
 
 We have been speaking of the controversy respecting 
 the Unseen and Invisible God. There is a distinct effort 
 made in our day to turn the controversy out of historical 
 channels, and to fasten it upon abstract speculation. As 
 Christian teachers we must resist this effort, for we at all 
 events believe that the discussion concerning essential Deity 
 was started from a new centre when Jesus Christ came 
 into the world. Still, when philosophers tell us that God 
 is Unknowable, Unthinkable, Incognoscible, and Inscru- 
 table, we are bound to reply that they have only put into 
 uncoiith language what the Bible had already told us in 
 simple words. They say God is inscrutable ; the Bible 
 says, " Who can by searching find out God ? " They say 
 God is incognoscible ; the Bible says, " No man can see 
 God and live." They say God is unknowable ; the Bible 
 says, " No man hath seen God at any time, neither can see 
 Him." Here is the modern philosophy, four thousand 
 years old and more ! But the point upon which I wish to 
 insist is this : As distinctively Christian teachers, not mere 
 Deists, Theists, or natural theologians, but as believers in 
 the Christian revelation, specifically so called and known, 
 we are bound to look, not at a speculative Deity, but at 
 
Contrasted with Christian Controversy. 91 
 
 the God made known to us by Jesus Christ. To this 
 branch of the argument let us briefly turn. 
 
 Suppose a man should arise and make this claim on his 
 own behalf, " He that hath seen me hath seen the Father ; " 
 " As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father; " 
 " I and my Father are one." The man would not be 
 believed simply because he made the claim ; perhaps, 
 indeed, he would be stoned ; perhaps he would be thought 
 mad. If, however, we are at all interested in this speech 
 — so novel, so startling — our first hope will be that from 
 this man we may learn something about the Unknown 
 God. We must listen further. How few men listen well, 
 — how few listen with the soul ! We must ask him ques- 
 tions. His character must be tried as by fire; his life 
 must be watched with jealousy cruel as the grave ; and 
 every word he says must be stretched on the rack of a 
 fearless criticism, for strait must be the gate and narrow 
 the road to G-odhood. No man must be allowed to vault 
 the high barriers. Now it is only just to this man to say 
 that this is the very test which he wishes to undergo. He 
 does not thrust himself arbitrarily upon man ; he stands 
 at the door and knocks ! Could the meanest servant do 
 less ? When we cannot grasp all the meaning of his un- 
 familiar words — so much background have they, and so 
 vast a perspective — he says, If you cannot yet understand 
 or receive the word, believe me for the work's sake ; let 
 my wonderful work done in your own home, or upon your 
 own child, be as a telescope through which you may see 
 the High and the Lofty One. Thus we are constrained to 
 listen still ; and as we listen, sometimes we are quieted by 
 
92 Pagan Constancy 
 
 a tender music ; sometimes we take up stones to stone 
 him, because he says that God is his Father, making him- 
 self equal with God ; and sometimes, when we are weary, 
 and he speaks of Rest, we are tempted to throw our arms 
 around him, and cry upon his breast for very joy, — for it is 
 rest we need, we are so tired and so weak. 
 
 But mark, how we are likely to be loyal, because so far 
 the advantage has been on our side. A very subtle deceit 
 may delude us. Up to this point we have heard new 
 words, seen wonderful works, and received a promise of 
 Rest, and therefore we are prepared to be loyal ! But 
 wait ! The trial has yet to come. Now that we are 
 healed and comforted with reviving rest, he says, " I must 
 claim you, body and soul ; he that loveth father or mother 
 more than me, is not worthy of me ; except a man deny 
 himself and take up his cross daily, he cannot be my 
 disciple." So the religion to which Jesus Christ calls us- 
 is not a pleasant soporific, lulling us into dreamy repose, 
 and filling the scented air with glittering fascinations ; it- 
 is a cross, a yoke, a discipline, a service ; it means con- 
 tinual sacrifice for the good of others ; it sends us into all 
 the world to preach the gospel to every creature ; it 
 enjoins lowliness, patience, meekness, humbleness of mind, 
 longsuffering, gentleness, and charity, — and at that point 
 a great controversy sets in ; from that time forth many of 
 His disciples walk no more with Him ; some say, " This is a 
 hard saying : who can hear it ? " and all men exclaim, " Who 
 then can be saved ? " You see, then, how the argument 
 repeats itself. A small god, small controversy ; small claims, 
 small opposition ; great claims, and mighty rebellion ! 
 
Contrasted with Christian Controversy. 93 
 
 Why is it, then, that we do not wholly leave Him, saying, 
 " We will not have this man to reign over us ? " It is 
 because He touches our life as no other power can touch 
 it, and because our poor life requires to be so touched by 
 reason of its many infirmities. Whether he be a sinner 
 or not, one thing we know, and on that one thing we rest. 
 We have known the pain of sin and the bitterness of 
 sorrow ; we have lost our firstborn and seen Death at his 
 very worst ; we have been driven into impassable paths, 
 stripped, scourged, tormented ; we have been hungry, cold, 
 friendless ; we have stolen away to the grave by night, 
 and have had to grope for it in the dark, and then, when 
 we have been blind with tears, and wild with grief not to 
 be borne, then "never man spake like this man; " and if in 
 our grateful enthusiasm we have in return called Him 
 Lord and God, pardon us, for when you are in the same 
 anguish you may commit the same crime. 
 
 Speaking from a controversial point of view, we have 
 received this representative of God cautiously, and even 
 with keen and hostile suspicion. And this advice we are 
 prepared to give : Watch him, weigh his words, probe 
 every deed that he does, sum up into one large exaggera- 
 tion all the improbabilities arising out of his ancestry, 
 birth, trade, obscurity ; tell him that such garb of flesh is 
 unbecoming God ; mock him, that you may try his temper ; 
 smite him, that you may test his dignity ; take him by 
 surprise, that you may discover his resources ; question 
 him with hard and delicate questions, that you may entangle 
 him in his speech ; drive him out into the cold night, 
 that you may prove his fortitude ; call him mad, say he 
 
94 Pagan Constancy 
 
 has a devil, sell him for silver, crucify him, crucify him, 
 
 and — THE GrOD THAT ANSWERETH BY FIRE, LET HlM BE GrOD ! 
 
 You will understand me when I say that I thank G-od 
 that no name given under heaven amongst men has occa- 
 sioned, and is now occasioning, so much controversy as the 
 name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Alas ! there is a con- 
 troversy between our own hearts and Him, but it is not 
 now of that sad controversy I speak. I glory in the fact 
 that no name can excite the nations as they are excited by 
 the name of Jesus. In this respect it is better to live in 
 Christendom than in Kedar. Men do not know wharf; to 
 make of Christ. Their best books leave the secret un- 
 solved. They sell Him, and afterwards go out and hang 
 themselves ; they deny Him, and then go out and weep 
 bitterly ; they destroy the temple of His body, but He 
 builds it again in three days. You cannot get rid of 
 Christ : you exclude Him from your schools by Act of 
 Parliament, but He, passing through the midst of you, 
 says, " Suffer me and the children to meet ; let the flowers 
 see the sun ; " you find Him in statute-books, in philan- 
 thropic institutions, in literature ; you find Him now just 
 as His disciples found Him, in out-of-the-way places, doing 
 out-of-the-way things ; — " they marvelled that he spake 
 with the woman," — the eternal marvel, the eternal hope ! 
 He is speaking with the woman still ; speaking with her 
 in India, in China, in islands far out upon the sea ; pre- 
 sently ,He will take up her children in His arms and bless 
 them, and be Himself as the child that is born unto every 
 woman. 
 
 This le&ds me to say that how strong soever Christianity 
 
Contrasted with Christian Controversy. 95 
 
 may be in • force and dignity of pure argument — and in 
 that direction it has proved itself victorious on all fields — 
 its mightiest force for good is in its vital and inexhaustible 
 sympathy. Theology as a science no man will lightly 
 underrate ; but the controversy in which we are engaged 
 is more than a battle of sciences ; and I know of no 
 word which so fully expresses the infinite advantage of 
 Christianity in the encounter as the word sympathy. 
 Ghristianity can, of course, assume what we are pleased 
 to call scientific forms, but no scientific form can hold all 
 her truth and pathos any more than a bush could hold the 
 infinity of the living God, — a ray unloosed to light a man 
 to his great destiny. A science that distinguishes one 
 attribute of God from another, that attempts to show 
 where one ends and another begins, that determines their 
 relationship and interdependence, that arbitrates in sup- 
 posed controversies between Justice and Mercy, that holds 
 the light of critical explanation over mysteries which 
 even Christ never attempted to illuminate, — a science that 
 builds a house for God in some set form of words, and an 
 habitation for the Eternal in prescribed formularies that 
 can be duly enrolled in the High Court of Chancery, may, 
 by the spell of genius and the wealth of learning, secure 
 the attention and hold the confidence of educated men ; 
 but Christianity as a sympathetic religion, tender, hopeful, 
 patient, with morning light for ever falling on its uplifted 
 eyes, leaning with all its trust upon the Cross of the 
 atoning Son of God, calling men from sin, ignorance, and 
 death, is a figure the world will not willingly spare in its 
 day of anguish and sore distress. 
 
96 Pagan Constancy 
 
 III. 
 
 It will be interesting to observe how Grod Himself meets 
 the controversy which He deplores ; for in doing so we 
 may (1) learn a method of reply, and (2) see light arising 
 in an unexpected quarter, in reference to the controversies 
 of our own day. When Grod answers, His reply must be 
 the best ; and when He hopes, it must be upon grounds 
 that are sufficient. 
 
 (1) Look at the Divine challenge : " What iniquity have 
 your fathers found in me, that they are gone far from 
 me ? " This sublime challenge you cannot find in all the 
 sayings of heathen gods. And this is the invincible 
 defence of the Christian religion in all ages and in all 
 lands, — you hava Purity at the centre, you have Holiness 
 on the throne ! If this were the time or place, we could 
 collect from Greek and Roman history, and from other 
 pagan sources, an array of charges against the gods them- 
 selves, that would show the pertinence and the justice of 
 this high challenge. 
 
 Dr. Cotton, Bishop of Calcutta, tells us, in one of his 
 letters, of a youth whom he baptised, who gave as one of 
 the reasons of his abandoning Hinduism, " the crimes of 
 the gods " ! " What iniquity have your fathers found in 
 me ? saith the Lord." The gods of Olympus considered 
 themselves emancipated from the restraints of the moral 
 law; they boasted their superior intellectual power, but 
 cared not to conceal from men the tumult of their im- 
 morality. Amongst the Homeric gods you look in vain 
 or courage, justice, prudence, temperance, or self-control. 
 
Contrasted with Christian Controversy. 97 
 
 " What iniquity have your fathers found in me ? saith the 
 Lord." The Greek gave his god Titanic intellect, but 
 left him without a rag of character. The Greek made his 
 god immortal, but it was an immortal bacchanalian or an 
 immortal debauchee. " What iniquity hath your fathers 
 found in me ? saith the Lord." And if the gods of pagan 
 Rome were not the outcome of " an unbridled and irre- 
 verent fancy," the religion which they were supposed to 
 patronise was perhaps the purest selfishness the world has 
 ever seen. Hence- it has been truly said, "Ancient Rome 
 produced many heroes, but no saint." The pagan Romans 
 often took their gods into their own hands, and scourged 
 them in sheer spite. When Augustus saw that his fleet 
 was wrecked, he virtually deposed Neptune by solemnly 
 degrading the statue of that negligent god. When the 
 young and illustrious Germanicus died; the people stoned 
 the altars of the gods, because the gods had not spared the 
 life of one who might have been king. The pagans are 
 everywhere ridiculed by the fathers for satirizing in the 
 theatres the very gods they worshipped in the temples. 
 Those of you who have read Augustine's immortal work, 
 "The City of God," will remember with what fierce 
 eloquence he scourges the gods of pagan Rome. How 
 biting his tone, how keen his retorts, how broad his 
 sarcasm ! " Why," he sternly demands, " did the gods 
 publish no laws which might have guided their devotees 
 to a virtuous life ? " And again, " Did ever the walls of 
 any of their temples echo to any such warning voice ? I 
 myself," he continues, " when I was a young man, used 
 sometimes to go to sacrilegious entertainments and 
 
 7 
 
98 Pagan Constancy 
 
 spectacles ; I saw the priests raving in religious excite- 
 ment, and before the couch of the mother of the gods there 
 were sung productions so obscene and filthy for the ear 
 that not even the mother of the, foul-mouthed players 
 themselves could have formed one of the audience." 
 History, as you know, is full of such instances. Remem- 
 bering these things, you may see the force of the inquiry, 
 " What iniquity have your fathers found in me ? " . . This, 
 I repeat, is the invincible defence of the Christian religion 
 to-day. If you make it an argument, and elaborate it as 
 a philosophy, I see not what is to hinder you carrying the 
 battle to victory as a purely intellectual contest. But 
 there is something more, which must not be overlooked 
 by the Christian teacher. Grod is not only the High, but 
 the Holy One ; and those who seek Him must seek Him 
 in spirit and in truth. The watchword of Christianity is, 
 " Be ye holy as your Father in heaven is holy." Seek 
 " holiness, without which no man can see the Lord " — so 
 runs the Christian commandment. 
 
 Observe how Jesus Christ repeats the very challenge we 
 find in the text, — " Which of you convinceth me of sin ? " 
 (John viii. 46). And, later on, "If I have spoken evil, 
 bear witness of the evil " (John xxiii. 23). They had 
 accused Him often, but had convicted Him never ! I 
 apply this doctrine with timidity. I almost fear to apply 
 it, for who would wilfully slay himself, or bring judgment 
 upon a thousand men ? Yet the application is this : When 
 the Church is holy, the Christian controversy is ended in 
 universal and immortal triumph ! " Let your light so 
 shine before men that they, seeing your good works, may 
 
Contrasted with Christian Controversy. 99 
 
 glorify your Father which is in heaven." When we can 
 say, " What iniquity have ye found in us? " we may take 
 down the war standard, for the fight has become victory. 
 But if we bite and devour one another, if our good words 
 be few and our bad words be many, if we live in clamour, 
 in distrust, in bitterness, — what is it if with a strong logic 
 we have a contradictory life ? "Except your righteousness 
 exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye 
 shall in no case enter the kingdom of heaven." " Be ye 
 clean that bear the vessels of the Lord." I put this 
 weapon into the hands of young Christian soldiers as one 
 which has never been bent or broken in any war, — the 
 weapon of God's holiness. When men puzzle you with 
 high, bewildering arguments, say, God is good. When 
 their words are long and hard, and they run your im- 
 perfect skill to earth in hot logical chase, say, God is holy. 
 When they are violent, bitter, resolute in enmity, and 
 inflamed with rage, say, God is love. 
 
 2. Look at the divine hope. " In the time of their 
 trouble they will say, Arise, and save us ! " When the 
 prodigal began to be in want and no man gave unto him, 
 he said, " I will arise and go unto my father, and will say 
 unto him, Father, I have sinned." After we have been 
 hungered by unprofitable controversy, and after we have 
 seen into the deep places of the earth yawning under 
 our feet as graves from which there can be no resurrection, 
 probably we may turn our eyes towards the hills where 
 the Lord is, and desire Him to remember His former 
 lovingkindness. This is my hope concerning the young 
 
ioo Pagan Constancy 
 
 who leave the old paths. They are fond of change ; long 
 words have a charm for them ; contradiction and dispute 
 would seem to belong to the period of youth. I do not 
 give them up because they have gone away from us for a 
 season ; they will come again, and we .will be glad to see 
 their worn faces, with disappointment . written in every 
 deep wrinkle, turned towards their Father's; house. They 
 do not yet know life; they think they do, but they are 
 mistaken. The ploughshare has not been driven through 
 their heart, nor has their soul felt the entering in of the 
 iron. Be patient then, and hopeful, and you shall see the 
 wonderfulness of the Lord's way. 
 
 I hear your complaining, and I have sympathy with 
 your distress. " My son has turned from the old. ways ; 
 once the child read the Bible with me, and many a sweet 
 talk we have had about Jesus and God and heaven ; we 
 went to the house of God in company, and entered into 
 His service with delight ; but others got hold of him ; the 
 change was slow but sure ; he brought home books that 
 were, in my opinion, full of poison ; and he went down 
 in the tone of his filial love and trust, until now we never 
 mention the subject of religion : my prayers are lost, my 
 hope is blighted, my cup runneth over with sorrow." 
 
 Now wait a moment, that M r e may talk the matter over 
 still further. 
 Is he married ? 
 
 To a beautiful and gentle wife. 
 Has he children ? 
 
 Three as lovely little girls as ever lived. 
 Are they all well ? 
 
Contrasted with Christian Controversy, i o i 
 
 Never had a day's sickness in their house. 
 
 Is your son prosperous in business ? 
 
 Wonderfully so; it seems as if the world were under his 
 feet. 
 
 And he has quite given up religion ? 
 
 I fear so. I know he has no family prayer, and he 
 boasts that he never looks into the Bible. 
 
 How old is he ? 
 
 Something under thirty. 
 
 My friend, he will come again ! I will tell you when. 
 Some night he will come home later than his custom, 
 without the usual sprightliness, pallid, gloomy, and silent; 
 and little by little he will give his wife to understand that 
 he has lost everything, and that he is a beggar; and a great 
 groan will tell how true the story is. If a friend could 
 then say to him in a whisper, " Labour not for the meat 
 which perisheth," he would recognise an old familiar voice. 
 By-and-by, one of his lovely little girls will sicken, and 
 for many days and nights she will lie helplessly in an 
 upper room of the meaner house into which his poverty 
 has driven him ; and some dark night, when they are 
 alone, she will lay her thin little hand upon him and say, 
 "Father, can you help me, dear?" And then he will 
 turn his blanched face away in mortal agony, if haply he 
 may put the question to another Father, invisible, divine. 
 Then if a friend could whisper to him, " Suffer little 
 children to come unto me," he would recognise the old 
 sweet words. And by-and-by the lovely child will die ; 
 before doing so she may clasp her little hands, and he will 
 know what that clasping means, though it be done dumbly; 
 
102 Pagan Constancy. 
 
 and as she lies there, a lily just plucked, beautiful, silent, 
 pure, he will grope about for the Bible long disused, he 
 will find it, and an angel will show him where to read — 
 " They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more, 
 neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat ; but the 
 Lamb that is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, 
 and shall lead them to living fountains of water : and God 
 shall wipe away all tears from their eyes." And in that 
 hour the angel will say of your son, " Behold, he prayeth." 
 
 "In the time of their trouble they will sat, 
 Arise, and save us." 
 
A Personal Review. 103 
 
 " So mas Jw seven, years in building it." — 1 Kings vi. 38. 
 
 rpO-DAY I complete a seven years' ministry in the City 
 ■^ of London. You will agree with me that the time 
 suggests and justifies a careful review of our purposes and 
 labours during that period. No apology is needed for a 
 brief allusion to personal matters ; indeed, without such 
 allusion there could be no such review as is proposed. 
 After eleven years' ministry in Manchester, I came to the 
 Poultry Chapel under the distinct pledge that it was to be 
 sold, and a new church built with the price. That pledge 
 has been kept to the letter, and though in carrying it out 
 many a difficulty has arisen, yet those who have done the 
 work are one in heart this day, our trust is without a flaw, 
 and our praise to Grod is full and deep. When we sold the 
 Poultry Chapel, we had something like £50,000 in hand, 
 and the question was, Where shall we build ? In the City, 
 or in the suburbs? In a back street, or in a leading 
 thoroughfare ? We decided nothing hastily. Every step 
 was anxiously considered. We could have built a beautiful 
 meeting-house in the suburbs for £20,000, and endowed 
 it with £30,000, and thus have made ourselves comfortable 
 
104 A Personal Review. 
 
 for life. Instead of that, we determined to build in the 
 City. We soon found that the Corporation of London did 
 not give the City land away, and this fact took off much 
 more than the half of the sum with which we had to deal. 
 Then came the difficulty of treating a peculiar site. And 
 altogether we found ourselves at'last in debt to the extent 
 of £6,000. The whole scheme is not yet completed. Some- 
 thing more is required, which I will presently explain. 
 Taking everything into account — our present actual debt, 
 and the work that yet remains to be done — we want £1,200. 
 Towards this amount I shall, by means of outside friends — 
 please to observe that, by means of friends who do not 
 belong to this place, I shall contribute this day £500, leaving 
 £700 to be contributed this morning. My hope is that the 
 whole amount be given, and thus, at the end of seven years, 
 we shall get rid of the burden of debt. 
 
 1. In looking back, and giving an opinion as to the wis- 
 dom of what has been done, I wish to use words which I have 
 weighed well. Looked at in some aspects, our experiment 
 was a hazardous one. Everybody who could get away was 
 supposed to be leaving the City: City churches were being 
 taken down, and in every way the City was being emptied, 
 from a Church and Sunday point of view. Still, as the 
 result of seven years' work, I wish to say that if I had to 
 begin again, I should not only build in the City, but on the 
 very spot which we now occupy. The City is not deserted 
 on Sundays. Something like two thousand young business 
 people in City warehouses remain in town over Sunday. 
 Many of them attend places of worship, and lay themselves 
 
A Personal Review. 105 
 
 out to do good in many ways ; but others of them, on the 
 authority of young men themselves, spend their Sundays 
 in the most objectionable manner. The term is not too 
 strong. I say that when young men lie in bed until 
 noonday, smoking, singing foolish songs, playing at cards, 
 and neglecting every usage of respectable society, they are 
 spending their Sundays in an objectionable manner. Re- 
 move all places of Christian education and worship from 
 the City, and you give these young men a shadow of excuse 
 for their conduct ; but keep a genuinely gospel ministry 
 in their midst, encircle them with opportunities of mental 
 and spiritual improvement, fill the very air with direct, 
 sensible, and persuasive appeals, and you may possibly 
 bring them to reflection, and to a better life. This is the 
 ground of our appeal to Christian merchants. We say, do 
 not forget the City in which you make your money: when 
 you go to your beautiful country residences, remember 
 those your servants and helpers whom you have left behind. 
 We believe this appeal is wise and good, and we are glad 
 and thankful to say that it has been recognised, and in 
 some degree has been answered. 
 
 2. This church, occupying so prominent a position in a 
 leading thoroughfare, is bound to give some explanation of 
 itself. This is a Protestant church. I would not have 
 said this so emphatically but for the incredible and ridiculous 
 circumstance that it has been seriously asked whether all 
 Nonconformists are not Roman Catholics. In the next 
 place this is a Nonconformist church. It seeks to " render 
 unto Csesar the things that are Csesar's, and unto God the 
 
106 A Personal Review. 
 
 things that are God's." It says to legislators, statesmen, 
 and politicians, Attend to the protection of the country, give 
 all the people, so far as is possible, security of life and pro- 
 perty, arrange all questions of taxation and of international 
 intercourse, put down crime, give industry and commerce 
 every facility to consolidate and expand, but let religion 
 alone, leave religious conviction to the individual intel- 
 ligence and conscience, confine yourselves to things seen 
 and measurable, and leave theology to make its own way 
 and defend its own claims. As Nonconformists we heartily 
 pray, " God save the Queen," " God guide our Parliament," 
 " God bless our country." 
 
 As Protestant Nonconformists, we preach the inspira- 
 tion and final authority of Holy Scripture ; we declare the 
 infinite sufficiency of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ to meet 
 the whole difficulty of human sin ; we believe that Jesus 
 Christ is Emmanuel, "God with us;" that He gave 
 Himself for our sins ; that there is no salvation out of 
 Christ; that we are justified by faith and not by works, 
 and that "works are only good in so far as they spring 
 from faith and express the spirit of unutterable love. 
 We believe in the simplicity of Christ. We have no 
 ritual but of the simplest kind; we have no masonry 
 known only to the initiated ; cunning handling of 
 things, priestly pomp, official mediation, and sacramental 
 sacrifice, are, thank God, utterly unknown to the Pro- 
 testant Nonconformist congregations of England. I preach 
 the doctrine of human depravity, insisting by every form 
 of argument known to me that man has neither the will nor 
 the power to save himself : I preach Christ as the Only 
 
A Personal Review. 107 
 
 and Infinitely Sufficient Saviour of the world, and God 
 the Holy Ghost as the only Renewer and Sanctifier of the 
 heart. Believing that in theological questions metaphysical 
 genius finds at once its highest challenge and its keenest 
 disappointments, I yet eschew all that is merely metaphy- 
 sical, and confine myself in pulpit teaching to the setting 
 forth of those broad and living truths which the humblest 
 minds can accept, which our stricken and sorrowing daily 
 life needs, the consolations which diminish and sanctify our 
 sorrows, and the promises which spread their cheering 
 light over the whole space of our life, and shed upon the 
 grave itself the morning glory of resurrection and im- 
 mortality. 
 
 Our attitude towards other Christian communions is not 
 one of toleration, which is at best a doubtful term; it is one 
 of honour, confidence, and admiration, wherever the living 
 truths of the gospel of Christ are maintained and published. 
 Regarding the Church of England as a spiritual institution, 
 working for the evangelization of the people, and the godly 
 and comfortable nurture of those who have believed unto 
 the salvation of their souls, we heartily say, God bless her, 
 and send down upon her bishops and clergy, and all who 
 work under her guidance, all the grace and strength which 
 their apostleship and ministry require. 
 
 3. I have said that if I had to build in London again, I 
 would build on this spot. Let me tell you why. It is a 
 sacred locality. " The ground on which thou standest is 
 holy ground." Apart altogether from its general con- 
 venience, its three frontages, its command of north and 
 
!o8 A Personal Review. 
 
 south approaches, its basement full of schoolrooms, class- 
 rooms, and other offices, it gathers around itself a host of 
 memorable and pathetic associations. 
 
 Charterhouse Square is within a few minutes' walk of 
 the place wherein we are at this moment assembled. I wish 
 you to accompany me in fancy to that well-known square 
 on a dull day in December. There is a man dying there 
 who has suffered more perhaps than any ten men have 
 endured. The historian says that the most inhuman heart 
 would be moved by the mere catalogue of his sufferings. 
 Tell him that he has written much, and written well in the 
 name and cause of Christ, and he will meekly answer, " I 
 was but a pen in God's hands, and what praise is due to a 
 pen ? " When his sufferings increased to an intolerable 
 point, so as almost to force from him a prayer for release, 
 he would recover himself and say, " When Thou wilt, what 
 Thou wilt, and how Thou wilt." And to his sorrow-stricken 
 friends he would say, " Do not think the worse of religion 
 for what you see me suffer." Then would come visions 
 of heaven, rents in the darkness through which celestial 
 splendour glanced upon him in his prison. Then the old 
 sharp pain, in the agony of which he would say, " I have 
 pain; there is no arguing against sense ; but I have peace, 
 I have peace." That December night is very cold and 
 cheerless, and the poor tenement is but dimly lighted, and 
 in the chill and the gloom the good man said to his faithful 
 servant, " Death, death ! " Soon after, he turned to a friend 
 to thank him for his visit, and said, " The Lord teach you 
 to die ;" and the cold night passed, and the colder morning 
 dawned, and on the 8th December, 1691, there went Tjrp to 
 
A Personal Review. 109 
 
 heaven the pure and noble soul of Richard Baxter, author 
 of the " Saints' Everlasting Rest." " Let me die the death 
 of the righteous, and let my last end be like his." " The 
 righteous shall be had in everlasting remembrance." I 
 want to put in this building a window to the memory 
 of Richard Baxter, and to keep his honoured name 
 before the young people of this congregation from one 
 generation to another to the end of time. Will you 
 help me ? 
 
 This building is called the City Temple. The Church 
 worshipping in this building has been identified with the 
 City of London for two hundred and thirty-six years. The 
 Church was founded by Dr. Thomas Goodwin, the most 
 learned man of his day; Preacher to the Council of State, 
 Member of the Westminster Assembly of Divines, sometime 
 President of Magdalen College, Oxford, and Chaplain to 
 Oliver Cromwell. He died in the parish of Saint Bartholo- 
 mew the Greater, and he is buried in Bunhill Fields. He 
 died in his eightieth year. It was not dying. He said, " I 
 could not have imagined I should have had such a measure 
 of faith in this hour. My bow abides in strength. I am 
 swallowed up in God." I want to erect a tablet to the 
 memory of this learned and godly man, whose name con- 
 nects us as a Church with some of the most eventful periods 
 of English history. I want his memorial tablet to adorn 
 our vestibule, that we may be reminded of our best tradi- 
 tions, and be stimulated to serve Goodwin's Lord with a still 
 more glowing zeal. Will you help me ? We owe much 
 to such men. We are bound to preserve in honour their 
 noble and illustrious names. Such names are inspirations. 
 
no A Personal Review. 
 
 Blot them out of English history, and you make English 
 history poor indeed. 
 
 If you stand at the front door of this church and 
 look towards the east, you will see a place well known as 
 Snow Hill. In a room ahove a small shop there died a 
 man whose very name is part of the English language. A 
 rich man had differed with his son, and determined to 
 disinherit him. The man of whom I speak came to London 
 to plead the son's cause. " He had to ride through heavy 
 rain. He came drenched to his lodgings on Snow Hill, 
 was seized with a violent fever," and died in August 1688. 
 Mr. Bragge, the then minister of this church, was with 
 him in his dying hours, and saw him pass through the 
 gate Beautiful. For it was the author of the " Pilgrim's 
 Progress " that died there ; tinker, preacher, prisoner, 
 writer — John Bunyan ! I want a window to his memory 
 in this church. The atheist would let him die; the scoffer 
 would not care to prolong his memory; but there are 
 Christian men who have carried the burden, fallen into 
 the slough, passed through the Wicket Gate, fought with 
 Apollyon, and seen the land afar off, who will keep his 
 grave green, and write his name on the walls of the Lord's 
 sanctuary. This is not sentiment — it is honour to whom 
 honour is due, it is patriotism, it is gratitude to memories 
 that give England a foremost place in the assembly of 
 nations. 
 
 Looking from the rear of this building, you see the site 
 of the old Fleet prison. In that dungeon lay many whose 
 only crime was the enlightenment and tenderness of their 
 religious feeling. I want to write upon our walls the 
 
A Personal Review. 1 1 1 
 
 illustrious name of John Hooper. Speaking of his imprison- 
 ment in the Fleet, he says : "I had nothing appointed to for 
 my bed but a little pad of straw, and a rotten covering; 
 on one side of this prison is the sink and filth of the house, 
 and on the other side the town ditch, so that the stench of 
 the house hath infected me with sundry diseases. During 
 which time I have been sick, and the doors, bars, hoops, 
 and chains, been all closed and made fast upon me, I have 
 moaned, called, and cried for help." He was hurried away 
 to Gloucester, where he underwent the most cruel and 
 atrocious martyrdom, even of those cruel times. When at 
 the place of execution a box containing his pardon was 
 laid before him, and offered to him if he would recant, " If 
 you love my soul," said he, "away with it, away with it." 
 Will you let a name like that die ? Is the money ill-spent 
 that is laid out in giving that name an enduring memorial? 
 John Milton says, " There will one day be a resurrection of 
 great names," — let us do our part towards making that 
 resurrection a fact. 
 
 From our front door you look towards a place never to 
 be forgotten, the world-renowned market of Smithfield. 
 We are so near that famous locality that the smoke of the 
 torment of its martyrs must have hovered above the site 
 on which this church is built. I want to put up in this 
 building a memorial to Anne Askew. If you inquire who 
 Anne Askew was, I will tell you. " She was a Lincolnshire 
 lady, and greatly in favour with Katherine Parr, the last 
 of the wives of Henry VIII." She was taken before 
 Sir Martin Bowes, Lord Mayor of London, and being 
 questioned concerning transubstantiation, his lordship in- 
 
ii2 A Personal Review. 
 
 quired of his prisoner, " And what if a mouse eat sacra- 
 mental bread after consecration ? What shall become of 
 the mouse ? — what sayest thou, thou foolish woman ? I 
 say," continued his lordship, " that that mouse is damned.'" 
 "Alack, poor mouse!" was Anne's, only remark. In 
 course of time she was sent to the Tower, and put to the 
 rack, for reading the Scriptures and studying the writings 
 of Wycliffe and the later reformers. So terribly was she 
 tortured upon the rack that the Lieutenant of the Tower 
 interposed, but her tormentors did not cease " till her bones 
 and joints were almost plucked asunder." On July 16th, 
 1545, she was carried to Smithfield in a chair, " because 
 she could not go on her feet by reason of her great tor- 
 ment." There she was tied to the stake by a chain ; and 
 upon a scaffold near at hand sat the Lord Mayor of London, 
 accompanied by the Chancellor, the Duke of Norfolk, and 
 others of the King's council. Letters were offered to Anne 
 Askew, containing the King's pardon ; but she refused 
 even to look at them, saying, " I have not come hither to 
 deny my Lord and Master." » 
 
 Women of England ! will you let this sister's name 
 perish ? She was a woman, a sister, a child, — yes, truly a 
 child, for she was but twenty-two when from Smithfield 
 Market she ascended to heaven in a chariot of fire. 
 
Readings in the Book of Psalms. 113 
 
 Eeatimgtf in tlje Book of ^almjs. 
 
 THE FIRST PSALM. 
 
 " Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the 
 ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the 
 seat of the scornful." 
 
 These are cases in which without a figure " ignorance is 
 bliss." Observe that all the characters mentioned here 
 may have their excellences and their attractions ; for 
 example, the ungodly may be rich, the sinners may be 
 convivial, the scornful may be brilliant ; yet, blessed is the 
 man who has nothing to do with them ! Their conversation 
 may be rich, witty, sparkling ; but, blessed is the man who 
 never hears a word of it ! Again and again the poison 
 will be distilled through it. Under all that is fair, there 
 festers the evil purpose. Blessed is the man who keeps his 
 hands out of the fire ; blessed is the man who keeps far 
 away from the nest of the serpent;, blessed is the man who 
 knows not the language or the masonry of the wicked. 
 Nor is his a merely negative blessedness, though it ap- 
 pears to be so. The man's state is not to be looked at 
 merely as it is, but as it might have been; and so viewed, it 
 is a state of positive and incalculable blessedness. 
 
1 14 Readings in the Book of Psalms. 
 
 "But his delight is in the laio of the Lord ; and in his law 
 doth he meditate day and night." 
 
 These words are not to be taken in a narrow sense. The 
 picture is not that of a man sitting with an open Bible 
 perpetually before him. The idea is that of a man who 
 sees the law of the Lord in all nature, all history, all life, 
 everywhere and always, and delights to trace its beneficent 
 and almighty power. Eeading of the letter of course there 
 must be, — that is indispensable. But do not suppose that 
 "the law of the Lord" is simply so much letterpress : it 
 is a life, a presence, a government ; it is a voice in the 
 garden, the angel of a covenant, a fire blazing in the 
 wayside bush, a hand upon the wall, a star in the east, a 
 crucifixion, a spirit. There is a theology of P/rovidence as 
 distinctly as there is a theology of Redemption. 
 
 " And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, 
 that bring eth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall 
 not wither ; and wliatsoever he doeth shall prosper." 
 
 A man's life should be rooted in God, in God's law, in 
 God's service. It should not be as a plucked flower, but 
 as a flower unplucked growing in the eternal stem. Where 
 God is, there is no famine. Sever your life from God's 
 law, and you cannot grow, you cannot be at rest ; you 
 will be the victim of circumstances, affrighted by surprises 
 and disquieted by many fears. The good man, the student 
 and servant of Qod's law, is not only like a tree, he is like 
 a tree planted by rivers of water ; so long as the rivers 
 run, his roots are nourished ; he lives in the great scheme 
 
Readings in the Book of Psalms. 1 1 5 
 
 and system of things ; no vagrant is he, but a citizen, and a 
 householder. His likeness unto a tree planted by the rivers 
 of water is full of suggestion: a tree is permanent, is 
 fruitful, is beautiful ; its branches are for refreshment, 
 and its shadow for rest ; it answers the sun and rain ; it 
 waits for God, and puts forth its life at His bidding. Pros- 
 per, — in no mean or narrow sense, but really and ultimately. 
 If you say that the good man does not always prosper, you 
 may say the same thing about God Himself. The good man 
 prospers as God prospers. God complains that His law is 
 slighted, and His word disobeyed ; yet He says that His 
 law shall be set up in the earth, and that His word shall 
 not return unto Him void. Some adversities are temporary; 
 they may indeed be part of a process ; as truly as God 
 prospers will the good man prosper,— their purposes are 
 identical. The circumstances which suggest that the good 
 man's prosperity is uncertain, are like the hills' and valleys 
 which suggest that the earth cannot be a globe. They all 
 fall under a higher law, — an infinite astronomy. 
 
 " The ungodly are not so, but are like the chaff -which the 
 wind driveth away." 
 
 Who can gather again the chaff which has been driven 
 away ? Where is it ? Whose is it ? Who will claim it ? 
 Who will buy it? Who will care for it? Bat there are 
 appearances to the contrary. Some ungodly men seem 
 to be well established. They have property. They have 
 influence. " Their eyes stand out with fatness ; they have 
 more than heart can wish." These are appearances only. 
 At a little distance the chaff might be mistaken for 
 
1 1 6 Readings vn the Book of Psalms. 
 
 wheat. The distinction between the godly and the ungodly- 
 must be vital. Such is the distinction between wheat 
 and chaff; in wheat there are harvests for generations 
 through all time, in chaff there is nothing but emptiness 
 and rottenness. — Driven by the wind ! Carried here and 
 there without will or force of their own. To know whose 
 they are, you must know where the wind is, — the wind of 
 popularity, the wind^of success, the wind of Divine 
 visitation. 
 
 ' ( Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, 
 nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous." 
 
 These are the true and final tests of character. Put into 
 the hands of a sower a handful of chaff and a handful 
 of wheat, atid can the former stand in his judgment ? 
 There is a judgment ! There is a congregation of the 
 righteous ! At present, judgment is partial and uncertain, 
 and at present society is mixed; but the time of judgment 
 and separation is coming ! Man soon comes to the end of 
 ' his probation. Where are the ungodly of the last genera- 
 tion ? "What impression is produced by the recollection of 
 their names, — a recollection of self-will, self-indulgence, 
 self-promotion ; not recollection of purity, wisdom, sym- 
 pathy, or noble service. 
 
 " For the Lord hioweth the ivay of the righteous, but the 
 way of the ungodly shall perish.''' 
 
 Mark the three characters : the godly, the ungodly, the 
 Lord ! The question is not whether the godly is apparently 
 
Readings in the Book of Psalms. 1 1 7 
 
 stronger than the ungodly, but, what is the relation of the 
 Lord to them both? The final award is not with man, 
 but with God. The destiny of the righteous and the 
 ungodly is as distinct as their characters. There is no 
 blending of one into the other, — the one lives, the other 
 perishes. 
 
 Application : Are you blessed ? Do you distinguish be- 
 tween blessedness and transient happiness ? What is your 
 fruit ? Is yours a chaff life ? Whom God calls blessed ' 
 can never be desolate, whom He calls cursed can never 
 know true joy. 
 
 THE SECOND PSALM. 
 
 " 1. Why do the heathen rage (bluster), and the people 
 imagine (plot) a vain thing ? 
 
 " 2. The kings of the earth set themselves (in consulta- 
 tion), and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord, 
 and against his anointed, saying, 
 
 " 3. Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away 
 their cords from us. 
 
 " 4. He that sittethin the heavens shall laugh: the Lord 
 shall have them in derision. 
 
 " 5. Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex 
 them in his sore displeasure. 
 
 " 6. Yet have I set (invested) my king upon my holy 
 hill of Zion. 
 
 " 7. I will declare the decree : the Lord hath said unto 
 me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee. 
 
1 1 8 Readings in the jiook of Psalms. 
 
 " 8. Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen/or thine 
 inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy 
 possession. 
 
 " 9. Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt 
 dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. 
 
 " 10. Be wise now, therefore, ye kings: be instructed, 
 ye judges of the earth. 
 
 "11. Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with 
 trembling. 
 
 " 12. Kiss the son, lest he be angry, and, ye perish • 
 from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. 
 Blessed are all they that put their trust in him (who hide 
 in him)." 
 
 Why do the heathen rage ? Because they are the heathen. 
 The explanation of action is to be found in character. The 
 heathen are without religious intelligence, sobriety, self- 
 control ; therefore they rage — literally, they bluster — and 
 they foolishly suppose that noise is power. 
 
 Why do the people imagine a vain thing? Because 
 they are the people ; that is to say, they are a crowd, a 
 multitude, a mob ; they do not move from a social centre ; 
 they are the victims and the sport of any passion that may 
 be uppermost at the moment. 
 
 But why do the kings and the rulers take counsel to- 
 gether against the Lord? Because they are kings and 
 rulers ; that is to say, they do not know that all govern- 
 ments are inferior and subordinate to spiritual and Divine 
 dominion ; they resent every suggestion of the sort ; they 
 have all the pettiness but none of the genius of ruler- 
 
Readings in the Book of Psalms. 1 1 9 
 
 ship ; they do not know that rulership ought to come up 
 out of the spirit of obedience, and therefore that he who 
 cannot obey cannot rule. Their notion of rulership is that 
 of "breaking" and "casting away;" it is destructive, 
 negative, ruthless. They do not say, let us examine ; they 
 say, let us break ; not, let us argue, but, let us east away ! 
 And this spirit comes out of a false notion of Divine 
 government ; they designate that government by two ex- 
 pressive terms — viz., " bands " and " cords :" they think 
 that the Lord's government is tyranny and slavery ; to 
 them it is not the spiritual dominion of thought, reetitude, 
 sympathy, culture, discipline, but a dominion of bands 
 and cords, — that is, of merely physical and tyrannous 
 strength. 
 
 4, 5. The heathen and the people, the kings and the 
 rulers, are answered with contempt, they are laughed at 
 and derided ; and if this be not enough to change their 
 spirit and their purpose, they will be spoken to in wrath, 
 and vexed in sore displeasure. It is interesting and in- 
 structive to remark how creation first laughs at and derides 
 men who oppose it, and how in the next place it avenges 
 the insults which are offered to its laws. When Canute 
 rebuked the waves the sea laughed at him, and the waves 
 had him in derision : if he had set his foot upon the open- 
 ing mouth of the volcano he would have been engulphed 
 and lost. Let a man attempt to put down the wind, and 
 the only possible answer is derision ; let him attempt to 
 defy the lightning, and he may perish under its stroke ! 
 There is but a short distance between the derisiveness of 
 nature and its penal judgments. So, every attempt to 
 
1 20 Readings in the Book of Psalms. 
 
 rival the power of God is contemned, every insult offered 
 to His holiness is avenged. 
 
 6. There is but one King, and He is throned upon a 
 hill that is, beyond all other characteristics, holy. What is 
 the reason why masters should rule their households well ? 
 Because they have to remember that they themselves have 
 a Master. So kings are to reign under the King, and 
 power is to be established upon holiness. Any king who 
 supposes himself to be final must of necessity become a 
 tyrant, because final authority is inconsistent with limited 
 wisdom and restricted power. Finality can only belong 
 to completeness. 
 
 7-9. There is nothing in the economy of life and civiliza- 
 tion that is haphazard. Before all things, and round about 
 them as a glory and defence, is the Lord's " decree." Under 
 all disorder is law. That law is first beneficent, and secondly 
 retributive; it is beneficent because it contemplates the 
 recovery and sanctification of the heathen, and the utter- 
 most parts of the earth ; it is retributive because if this 
 offer of enclosure and honour is rejected, those who despise 
 it shall be broken with a rod of iron, and dashed to pieces 
 like a potter's vessel. In the study of the world's constitu- 
 tion and movement, look first of all at the Lord's " decree," 
 the Lord's idea and purpose. Settle it that the decree is 
 good, merciful, redemptive, and then judge everything in 
 the light of that fact. If you were judging of a national 
 constitution you would not pronounce it bad because of its 
 prisons ; you would, on the contrary, pronounce it good 
 for that very reason. You would know that there was a 
 strong authority in that land, and that the authority was 
 
s 
 
 Readings in the Book of Psalms. 121 
 
 good, becausa it imprisoned and rebuked the workers of 
 evil. So, the rod of iron attests the holiness of God : and 
 hell itself shows that virtue is honoured of heaven. 
 
 10-12. The threatening of Jehovah is neither an empty 
 taunt nor a lawless passion. When He speaks of breaking 
 the wicked with a rod of iron, and dashing them to pieces 
 like a potter's vessel, He is not to be compared with the 
 kings and the rulers, who said, " Let us break their bands 
 asunder, and cast away their cords from us." God's 
 threatening has a moral 'purpose in view, which is to turn 
 the kings to wisdom, and the judges to instruction: His 
 threatening is, indeed, an aspect of His gospel. Having 
 shown the wicked how terrible He can be — how easy it 
 would be for Him to break them and dash them in pieces 
 — He calls upon them to serve the Lord, to kiss the Son, 
 and to enjoy the blessedness of them that put their trust 
 in Him. He is not willing that any should perish. Judg- 
 ment is His strange work. Christ will either have men as 
 an inheritance, or He will have them as vessels which are 
 fit only to be dashed in pieces. Who scorn His grace shall 
 perish by His power ! 
 
 Application. — Inasmuch as moral qualities are the same 
 in every age, and inasmuch as God's kingdom is one and 
 His dominion unchangeable, let us (1) see the folly of all 
 rebellion against God; (2) notice specially the folly of 
 those who ought to know better (kings and rulers and judges) 
 setting themselves in array against heaven; (3) let us 
 measure and determine everything by the Divine " decree" 
 What God hath purposed must stand. Has He ever 
 
Readings in the Book of Psalms. 
 
 spoken well of wickedness ? Has He ever commended the 
 wicked man ? (4) Let us cherish the recollection that His 
 threatenings are intended to prepare the way for His 
 mercy. No man amongst you can say that he has not 
 
 been warned. 
 
 THE THIRD PSALM. 
 
 (Written by David when he was fleeing from Absalom. It was com- 
 pleted immediately on crossing the Jordan.) 
 
 1. " Lord, how are they increased that trouble me ! many 
 are they that rise up against me." 
 
 (a) When a man's enemies increase in number, the man 
 should bethink himself, for surely they will not increase 
 without reason, (b) On the other hand, the very fact that 
 the enemies are all but countless, may be a tribute to the 
 mans greatness. Something less than an army may de- 
 stroy a bulrush or a mushroom, (c) It is possible for a 
 man to create a host of imaginary enemies, and so to make 
 himself miserable without a shadow of reason. 
 
 2. " Many there be which say of my soul, There is no help 
 for him in God." 
 
 (a) In making statements of this kind a man should be 
 exceedingly critical, lest he unconsciously seek to tempt 
 God. This may, in reality, be less a complaint than a 
 challenge, (b) At the same time there are undoubtedly 
 many who suppose that affliction, or desolation, or trial, is 
 
Readings in the Book of Psalms. 123 
 
 a manifest proof of Divine displeasure. This heathenish 
 view of God is contradicted by the history of the Church 
 and the personal consciousness of good men. 
 
 3-5. " But thou, Lord, art a shield for me; my glory, 
 and the lifter up of mine head. I cried unto the Lord with 
 my voice, and he heard me out of his holy hill. I laid me 
 down and slept ; L awaked; for the Lord sustained me.'" 
 
 A vigorous realization of the spiritual above the material. 
 Strange as it may appear, it is when material forces press 
 against us with mightiest urgency that we see most of the 
 nearness and sufficiency of the spiritual world. The twelve 
 legions of angels seemed to be nearest Christ when His 
 enemies were triumphing over Him. These verses show 
 us how much a man may have when he actually has 
 nothing in appearance ; (a) he may have a sense of 
 security, — " Thou art a shield for me ; " (6) he may have a 
 sense of supremacy, — " The lifter up of mine head ;" (c) he 
 may enjoy the quietness and refreshment of sleep, — " I laid 
 me down and slept." He whose very desolateness is relieved 
 by such mercies may well exclaim — 
 
 6. " I ivill not be afraid of ten thousands of people, that 
 have set themselves against me round about.''' 
 
 This is really no great boast after all. Why should a 
 man shut up in a castle of granite dare the tiny sparrows 
 to invade his security? " He that is for us is more than all 
 that can be against us." Yet on the side of our personal 
 weakness this is truly no mean boast. When our children 
 are against us (as Absalom was in this case), when we are 
 
,524 Readings in the Book of Psalms. 
 
 poor, desolate, hunted, and persecuted in every way, it is 
 something to have such a view of God as shall become to 
 us a shield, a buckler, a strong tower, and a pavilion ; then 
 we do not compliment God, we felicitate ourselves upon 
 the unmerited possession and enjoyment of His favour. 
 
 7. Arise, Lord; save me, my God: for thou hast 
 smitten all mine enemies upon the cheek bone ; thou hast 
 broken the teeth of the ungodly." 
 
 Unless this prayer be the expression of the soul in its 
 highest and heavenltest moods, it is the most insidious of 
 impiety. A man is not entitled to exaggerate his own 
 cause when he is putting the case to God as between him- 
 self and his enemies. It is very natural for a man to think 
 that whoever is against him is a fool, a knave, and a wicked 
 person altogether. We never see all the aspects of a case. 
 In the wars of nations, each side commends itself to God, 
 assured that it is right, and that heaven will bring its 
 banners to victory. 
 
 8. " Salvation belongeih unto the Lord : thy blessing is 
 upon thy people." 
 
 Here the Psalmist happily escapes from the narrow 
 circle of his own affairs, and takes wing for the open 
 firmament of heaven. The distinction as to Divine favour 
 is not so clear between one man and another as the 
 Psalmist seemed to imagine, for the rain cometh down 
 upon the just and upon the unjust, and God is kind to the 
 unthankful and the evil. But the doctrine of this verse is 
 universally and for ever true. All true deliverance, or 
 
Readings in the Book of Psalms. 125 
 
 salvation, is from the Lord ; and the Divine blessing rests 
 upon God's people in a sense which they alone can 
 spiritually discern and appreciate. Whilst a man is con- 
 fused by the details of his own cause, he is at the mercy of 
 every change of circumstances ; but when he takes his 
 stand upon God's sovereignty and righteousness, he is rest- 
 ing upon a rock which cannot be shaken. 
 
 Application. — (1) Are your circumstances more trying 
 than David's ? (2) Will the defence which served for him 
 be unequal to your protection ? 
 
 THE FOURTH PSALM. 
 
 " 1. Hear me when I call, God of my righteousness (the 
 God by whom I am righted) : thou hast enlarged me when 
 I was in distress ; have mercy upon me, and hear my 
 prayer. 
 
 " 2. ye sons of men, how long will ye turn my glory 
 into shame ? how long will ye love vanity, and seek after 
 leasing ? 
 
 " 3. But know that the Lord hath set apart (hath signal- 
 ised) him that is godly for himself : the Lord will hear 
 when I call unto him. 
 
 " 4. Stand in awe, and sin not (equivalent to ' Be ye 
 angry, and sin not ') : commune with your own heart upon" 
 your bed, and be still. 
 
 " 5. Offer the sacrifices of righteousness (not such as 
 
126 Readings in the Book of Psalms. 
 
 Absalom offered at Hebron, 2 Sam. xv. 12), and put your 
 trust in the Lord. 
 
 " 6. There he many that say, Who "will show us any 
 good? Lord, lift thou up the light of thy countenance 
 upon us. 
 
 " 7. Thou hast put gladness in my heart, more than in 
 the time that their corn and their wine increased. 
 
 " 8. I will (now that I have crossed the Jordan, and come 
 safely to Mahanaim) both lay me down in peace, and sleep : 
 for thou, Lord, only makest me dwell in safety." 
 
 This is a fair-weather Psalm. David has been in 
 distress, and now the clouds have been blown away, and 
 the blue sky has returned ; so he does what many seldom 
 think of doing, he thanks God for deliverance and enlarge- 
 ment, and takes no credit to himself. In his high spiritual 
 delight he rebukes those who love vanity, and those who go 
 after lies or leasing. This is the inevitable operation of 
 piety : it must rebuke evil ; it cannot be silent in the 
 presence of wrong. People who had seen his distress had 
 questioned his religion, and in so doing had sought to turn 
 his glory into shame, and had exclaimed that vanity was 
 better than prayer, and that leasing was better than sacri- 
 fice. They pointed to facts in proof of their irreligious 
 doctrine ; they said, " Look at David ; he prays and faints, 
 he calls out for God, and God lets him die anions the 
 stones of the -wilderness ; let us then pursue vanity, and let 
 us take refuge in lies." 
 
 Now David's time has come, and the facts are all on his 
 side. He falls back upon experience, he becomes his own 
 
Readings in the Book of Psalms. I2J 
 
 argument, and his answer is so full, so wise, so firm, that 
 it may. be used as a defence by all who have proved the 
 goodness and helpfulness of Grod in their distress. Let us 
 put David's answer into modern words : — 
 
 1. You have mockingly said, " Look at David in his 
 distress ;" now that very captivity has been turned by the 
 Most High, I say, " Look at David in his enlargement and 
 thankfulness." My turn has come. You must not look at 
 a man's distress alone, and build an argument upon his 
 sorrow ; you must take into view the whole compass of 
 his life. Will you say that the earth is a failure because 
 of one bad harvest ? It is important rigidly to apply this 
 inquiry, because of the tendency of the human mind to 
 think more of trials than of mercies, and to magnify the 
 night above the day. 
 
 2. David continues : You have been judging by unusual 
 circumstances and special providences of trial, but you 
 should rest on great principles, and especially on the 
 principle that the Lord hath set apart him that is godly for 
 himself. Wholly so ; he is as much the Lord's when in 
 sorrow as in joy, in the wilderness as in Salem : you must 
 not regard sorrow as a brand or a stain ; it is religious ; it 
 is part of the great school-scheme by which God trains, 
 purifies, and strengthens men. 
 
 3. If you believe this, you will " stand in awe and sin 
 not; " that is, you will pray even in the storm, and you will 
 bow down in homage when the Lord passeth by in judg- 
 ment ; you will go into the blighted wheatfield and say, 
 " This is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our 
 eyes;" and desolation shall teach you the power of the 
 
128 Readings in the Book of Psalms. 
 
 Most High. " Commune with your own heart upon your 
 bed, and be still," — that is, examine yourself ; see how far 
 the explanation of outward disasters is in your own mora 
 condition ; reflect, and do not talk ; think, and be quiet ; 
 if you set up words against the Most High, you will vex 
 your own soul and grieve the spirit. Commune — talk to 
 yourself — reflect ; but do not speak aloud, or you will 
 become vulgar and profane. 
 
 4. You ask men, David continues, what you are to do in 
 loss and pain and sorrow. I will tell you : " Offer the 
 sacrifices of righteousness, and put your trust in the Lord;" 
 continue in the way of duty ; go to the sanctuary even 
 when you have to grope for the sacred door in darkness ; 
 seek the altar, and say, concerning God, " Though he sky 
 me, yet will I trust him." Your temptation will be to 
 omit the sacrifices and to divide your trust ; resist the 
 devil, hold fast unto the end, and you shall be lifted high 
 above the tumult of the crowd. People will say to you, 
 Who will show us any good ? Let your prayer be unto 
 the Lord. The question is shallow and impertinent ; it is 
 limited to one set of circumstances ; be not moved by it, 
 but let your prayer still and for ever ascend unto God. 
 Sometimes you will have no answer left but prayer. 
 Facts wiil be against you — logic will give you no help ; 
 but if amidst all opposition and difficulty you are still found 
 praying, you will confound and abash the unbeliever and 
 the mocker. 
 
 5. In the next place David says something which cannot 
 be understood by the mere letter ; it can be understood 
 only by those who have passed through the same experi-^ 
 
Readings in the Book of Psalms. 129 
 
 ence. He says : Thou hast put gladness in mine heart, 
 more than in the time that their corn and their wine 
 increased. The idea is, that in loss and poverty, and ap- 
 parent desolation, there may actually be more gladness, 
 more real and lasting spiritual delight, than in times of 
 prosperity. The idea goes further than this, and in another 
 direction. The good man, the man whose trust is in the 
 living God, has more gladness in his poverty than the 
 worldly, unbelieving, mocking man has in all his corn and 
 wine. There is a sufficiency that brings no content, and 
 there is a poverty that cannot dry the springs of the soul's 
 gladness. " A man's life consisteth not in the abundance 
 of the things which he possesseth." 
 
 Thus David retires from the controversy to lie down and 
 sleep, though his enemies be many and his foes be men of 
 might. He finds safety only in the Lord. Yea, when he 
 appears to have no home and no rest, he feels that he is 
 encircled by the everlasting arms. There is room in the 
 tower of God for thee, my soul ! Run away from all con- 
 troversy, and make thyself quiet in God ! 
 
 THE FIETH PSALM. 
 
 " 1. Give ear to my words, Lord, consider my medita- 
 tion (or moaning). 
 
 " 2. Hearken unto the voice of my cry, my King and my 
 God: for unto thee will I pray. 
 
 '' 3. My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, Lord ; 
 
 9 
 
130 Readings in the Book of Psalms. 
 
 in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will 
 look up. 
 
 " 4. For thou art not a God that hath pleasure in wicked- 
 ness : neither -shall evil dwell with thee. 
 
 " 5. The foolish shall not stand in thy sight : thou hatest 
 all workers of iniquity.. 
 
 " 6. Thou shalt destroy them that speak leasing: the Lord 
 will abhor the bloody and deceitful man. 
 
 ' 7. But as for me, I will come into thy house in the 
 multitude of thy mercy : and in thy fear will I worship 
 toward thy holy temple. 
 
 " 8. Lead me, Lord, in thy righteousness because of 
 mine enemies ; make thy way straight before my face. 
 
 " 9. For there is no faithfulness in their mouth; their 
 inward part is very wickedness ; their throat is an open 
 sepulchre ; they flatter with their tongue. 
 
 " 10. Destroy thou -them, God; let them fall by their 
 own counsels ; cast them out in the multitude of their 
 transgressions ; for they have rebelled against thee. 
 
 " 11. But let all those that put their trust in thee rejoice: 
 let them ever shout for joy, because thou defendest them; 
 let them also that love thy name be joyful in thee. 
 
 "12. For thou, Lord, wilt bless the righteous ; with 
 favour wilt thou compass him as with a shield. 
 
 This Psalm is a direct address to the Almighty, and as 
 
 such I propose now to consider it. I am not aware that 
 
 any special instructions as to exact form were ever given 
 
 . to man in view of his approaching God in personal 
 
 prayer. Keverence was enjoined, but no set form of 
 
Readings in the Book of Psxlms. 131 
 
 words was given ; every heart was left to find words for 
 itself ; whatever past expressed its sorrow and its need, if 
 spoken in truth, was acceptable to Grod. Now taking this 
 as an example of personal waiting upon Grod — separating 
 it from all merely local circumstances — what may we learn 
 of Personal Worship ? 
 
 (1.) Mark the directness of the speech. No priest stands 
 between the worshipper and his Lord. Every man must 
 state his own case. We pray for one another, but not 
 instead of one another. (2.) Mark the earnestness of the 
 speech. There is not one formal sentence from end to end. 
 The man means what he says. There is no merely literary 
 composition in his address ; it was the heart's passion for 
 the time being. (3.) Mark the intelligence of the speech. 
 The Psalmist shows this (a) by his conception of the character 
 of God (verses 4-6) ; Grod is righteous, severe, ineffable 
 in holiness, terrible in judgment ; (6) by his view of the cha- 
 racter and deserts of the wiched ; wickedness is something 
 more to him than an error of judgment, or an excusable 
 eccentricity, or a mere vapour which hardly shuts out the 
 best hopes of life. 
 
 If this is the kind of prayer which the Lord will hear, 
 then let us gladlv learn — 1. That one man will be heard : 
 2. That every man will be heard in his own way ; 3. That 
 no man who loves wickedness will be heard ; and 4. That 
 those who are heard and answered should be enthusiastic 
 in their joy (ver. 11). 
 
 Regarding this as an acceptable prayer, we may correct 
 some modern notions of worship; for example — (a) that 
 we may not tell Grod what He already knows ; (b) that we 
 
132 Readings in the Book of Psalms > 
 
 may not make a speech to Grod ; (c) that in prayer we 
 should be continually ashing for something. 
 
 Our worship should distinctly express our personality of 
 sin, trouble, and necessity; then it will always be new, 
 vigorous, and profitable. 
 
 THE SIXTH PSALM. 
 
 " 1. Lord, rebuke me not in thine anger, neither 
 chasten me in thy hot displeasure. 
 
 "2. Have mercy upon me, Lord; for I am weak 
 (withering): Lord, heal me ; for my bones are vexed. 
 
 " 3. My soul is also sore vexed (is in extreme terror and 
 dismay) : but thou, Lord, how long ? 
 
 " 4. Return, Lord, deliver my soul : oh save me for 
 thy mercies' sake. 
 
 " 5. For in death there is no remembrance of thee : in 
 the grave who shall give thee thanks ? 
 
 " 6. I' am weary with my groaning ; all the night make 
 I my bed to swim ; I water my couch with my tears. 
 
 "7. Mine eye is consumed because of grief; itwaxeth 
 old because of all mine enemies. 
 
 " 8. Depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity ; for the 
 Lord hath heard the voice of my weeping. 
 
 " 9. The Lord hath heard my supplication ; the Lord will 
 receive my prayer. 
 
 " 10. Let all mine enemies be ashamed and sore vexed : 
 jet them return and be ashamed suddenly. 
 
Readings in the Book of Psalms. 133 
 
 According to the Speaker's Commentary, " This is the 
 first of the Penitential Psalms. It was composed in a 
 season of extreme depression, probably when David was 
 dangerously sick, and receiving accounts which made him 
 anticipate an open outbreak of rebellion." The whole 
 Psalm has about it the air of a sick-bed : the Psalmist says 
 his bones are vexed, that he lies awake all night, and that 
 his eye is consumed because of grief; he speaks, too, of 
 death and of the grave. During his sickness David was 
 unable to discharge the duties of the kingly office; this 
 gave Absalom considerable advantage in exciting a revolt ;.' 
 so we have before our fancy a double picture of distress — 
 David shut up in his sick-chamber, and Absalom doing his' 
 utmost to set the kingdom against his father. Perhaps we ' 
 have been in the habit of thinking that the Psalms were 
 written at the window of a beautiful library, flowers 
 growing luxuriantly on the sunny walls, and the green 
 lawn stretching far away, brightened here and there by 
 birds of rare plumage ; we have looked upon them, it may 
 be, as the pious recreations of a morning hour, — entries in 
 a spiritual diary, relating only to the sentimental and 
 never to the practical side of life. The exact contrary is 
 the case. Some of these psalms are battles. Many of 
 them came out of heart-ache, and bitterness, and mortal 
 disappointment. They are pages of autobiography. They 
 are channels worn by the urgent streams of life. Never 
 think Qf them as mere literary recreations, or as the 
 effusions of a music-composer ; they are pangs of the 
 heart, they are letters addressed to God, they are the 
 san '"*■■''■ .... j despair. If 
 
4 34 Readings in the Book of Psalms. 
 
 it is worth while to explore the head of a river, it is 
 of infinitely greater consequence to find out the spring 
 and source of the streams which make glad the city of 
 God. 
 
 We may get the meaning and help of the Psalm by asking, 
 How did David conduct liimself in the, time of sickness and 
 trouble ? 
 
 1. First of all, he made his sorrow a question between 
 himself and God. He did not regard it in its earthward 
 aspect ; there was something in it more than mere bodily 
 pain, and something more than mere political disaffection. 
 Set it down as a stern fact that there is a moral secret 
 under the whole figure and movement of human life. 
 Wherever you find disorder you find sin. 
 
 2. Proceeding from this point, David seeks to make 
 things right between himself and God. It is no use to 
 trump up a peace with Absalom. It is a waste of time 
 to be arranging things that are secondary, until things 
 that are primary are established upon a footing righteous 
 and secure. My son Absalom has set himself against me; 
 I might excite public pity on the ground of filial ingrati- 
 tude ; but is there not a cause in myself ? Have I not 
 done wrong, and become infamous in wickedness before 
 the Lord ? Is not God employing Absalom as a scourge 
 to punish me for my own grievous rebellion against Him- 
 self ? Such questions bring the soul into a right temper, 
 and deliver it from the fretfulness of narrow views. It is 
 wasted labour to decorate the walls when the foundations 
 are giving way. In all trouble go first in self-reproach to 
 God, and get at the causes of th ings. 
 
Readings in the Book of Psalms. 135 
 
 3. In the third place, David feels that if the Lord's hand 
 be removed he can bear all other troubles. Sin is the 
 disease; discomforts, revolts, losses, are the mere symp- 
 toms ; remove the disease, and the symptoms will disappear. 
 
 (a) The pain of trouble is in the feeling that it is deserved ; 
 
 (b) take away the righteousness of the suffering, and then 
 suffering is as an open door into our life, through which the 
 angels come. 
 
 4. David approaches Grod in utter self-renunciation. 
 There is no word of self-defence as before Grod. This is 
 needful in all prayer that is meant to prevail. This state 
 of mind does away with the whole machinery of argument, 
 witnesses, criticism, and cross-examination; It resolves- the 
 question into one of mercy. 
 
 5. David prays the more earnestly because his afflictions 
 have brought him within sight of the grave and the world 
 unseen. He would not enter the valley without a sense of 
 forgiveness* Who would? We must enter that dark 
 valley, — we enter- it either forgiven or unpardoned. 
 
 Now the light returns. David knows that his prayer is 
 answered. The next work is easy. It is merely a question 
 of time. Be right, be right with Grod, and your foes cannot 
 touch you. 
 
 Are we right with God ?' 
 
136 Progress of Manhood. 
 
 ^rogregg of St^anijoolu 
 
 " It doth not yet appear what me shall be." — 1 JOHN iii. 2. 
 
 T)AUL says that if we have hope in this life only, we 
 "*■ are of all men most miserable. In some respects that 
 is perhaps too remote and speculative a truth for us to lay 
 hold upon in its entirety. We must find, not in dreams 
 only, but in facts, a ladder, the foot of which shall be upon 
 the earth, up which we may climb, little by little, until we 
 see greater spaces and brighter lights. I think we have 
 in our own daily life this very truth plainly and happily 
 set forth. This, indeed, is the very genius of our life. I 
 hope to be able to show that there is enough of progress 
 and development in our present existence to justify the 
 belief that man, living in God and loving Him, shall pass 
 on to capacities, services, and enjoyments, of which he can 
 have now only the most imperfect conception. If we 
 can establish the case within well-known limits, we shall 
 be entitled to view the solemn future in the spirit of holy 
 prophecy and hope. Look at the little child in his mother's 
 arms : its eyes beautiful, but vacant, or just sharpening 
 into attention and wonder ; its hands a cluster of dimples; 
 its head at all points of the compass in five minutes. Now 
 look at that man who, with eye of fire and voice of thunde 
 
Progress of Manhood. 137 
 
 binds an army together, and rules the will of a hundred 
 thousand men with a word : the little, comely, helpless 
 infant has grown into that mighty soldier, whose look is 
 equal to a hundred swords, whose voice is equal to a 
 cannonade. Who could have predicted such a man from 
 such a child ? Say, then, to every child, " It doth not yet 
 appear what we shall be ; " we must wait ; we must live 
 and work in the spirit of hope ; this child, or that, may 
 move the world to God and heaven ! 
 
 Look at the child beginning his letters and forming 
 words of one syllable. See him hesitating between C and 
 Gr, not exactly knowing which is which, and being utterly 
 confounded because he is not sure whether the word to 
 should have two o's or one ! Now look at the student 
 shut up in the museum deciphering and arranging the 
 most learned and difficult writings in all literature, vin- 
 dicating his criticism in the face of an enlightened continent. 
 The two are one. The little puzzled learner has grown 
 into the accomplished and authoritative scholar. " It doth 
 not yet appear what we shall be ! " If we follow on to 
 know the Lord and do His will, our strength shall be 
 equal to our day, and we shall be to ourselves a continual 
 surprise, and to the dignity of life a constant witness, and 
 a memorial not to be gainsaid. 
 
 Here is something which a child might hold in his 
 hand, and it is not half an ounce in weight ; no man 
 would give a farthing for it. Yonder is a great tree, 
 broad, high, spreading far, and lodging many a bird in its 
 hospitable branches. The two are one. What you saw 
 first was an acorn ; what you saw last was an oak. S 
 
138 Progress of Manhood. 
 
 may all other acorns say, " It doth not yet appear what 
 we shall be ! " we may yet grow into forests out of which 
 shall be built the navies of the world. 
 
 Fancy a child born under the most corrupting and 
 discouraging circumstances ; parents immoral ; poverty, 
 desolation, discomfort of every kind, the characteristics of 
 the house. No reverence, no chivalry, no pretence even 
 of religious form ; to be born under such circumstances is 
 surely to be doomed to continual depravity, wickedness, 
 and despair. Yet even there the Spirit of the Lord may 
 mightily operate, and out of that pestilent chaos may order 
 come, and music, and beautiful utilities. The dark mind 
 may be penetrated, the leper may be cleansed, the valley 
 may be exalted, and the crooked be made straight, and 
 the prey be delivered from the terrible. This has been 
 done ; it is being done now ; it is the daily Christian 
 miracle ; it constrains us by glad compulsion to exclaim, 
 " It doth not yet appear what we shall be;" 
 
 It is the joy of the Christian missionary to be able to 
 point to villages once the scene of cannibalism, and of 
 wickedness of every name, where there was no conscience, 
 no law, no mercy, no honour, and to show you houses of 
 Christian prayer, and to point out men who were canni- 
 bals singing Christian psalms and crying like children 
 under the pathos of Christian appeals. What wonder, then, 
 if within view of transformations so vital and astounding 
 we exclaim with thankful and hopeful surprise, " It doth 
 not yet appear what we shall be" ? 
 
 In the occasional displays of power on the part of gifted 
 individuals, we see some of the supreme possibilities of 
 
Progress of Manhood. 139 
 
 human exaltation. In the great singer whose tones hold 
 in blissful captivity the thronging multitude, hear the 
 finest expression of your own hoarse, rude voice; for it is 
 your voice ; it is human, and in all things human you have 
 rights and privileges ; it is yourself refined and elevated — 
 yourself redeemed and glorified. A few are trustees for 
 the many. When Aristotle argues and Tully pleads, when 
 Raphael paints and Milton sings, it is you, poorest man, 
 of uncelebrated or dishonoured name, it is you, realizing 
 your immortality, accepting your Divine sonship, holding 
 higher than any "banner proud" right up in the eye of 
 the sun the charter of your celestial descent and infinite 
 redemption. 
 
 I have heard the rocks- talk thus. When they have 
 seen parts of themselves taken away, and cunningly carved 
 into poetry; when they have seen themselves built into 
 majestic walls and lofty pillars, curved into arches and 
 rounded into swelling domes, they have said, See what 
 can be made of us ! It doth not yet appear what we shall 
 be ! The hand of art can find an angel's face in the un- 
 shapen marble, and the eye of genius can see in the 
 yet unblasted rocks minsters and abbeys that might make 
 an atheist pray. 
 
 So the text has wide reaches and meanings. It points 
 to new heavens and a new e&rth, to new humanities and 
 new services, to death destroyed and the grave overthrown, 
 to life upon life without sin or weariness, to day without 
 night, to joy without satiety, and to knowledge without 
 presumption. It is an upward way, a shining path, 
 a flowery road ; no lion shall be there, nor shall any 
 
1.40 Progress of Manhood. 
 
 ravenous beast go up thereon, it shall not be found there, 
 but the redeemed shall walk there, they shall obtain joy 
 and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away. 
 
 The practical expression of so inspiring a faith is obvious. 
 If you have this hope in you, you will set a high value on 
 human life. You do not know what that boy of yours 
 may yet be. You are bound to take the highest and 
 brightest view, and to work in that direction. Regard 
 him in his merely animal capacity, and your work will be 
 hardly worth doing ; but think of him as in germ a man, 
 a citizen, a thinker, a Christian, a philosopher, a teacher, 
 a leader, and your best sympathies, not your merely pa- 
 rental sensibilities, but your heart's truest concern, and 
 your life's best labour, and your most earnest prayer, will 
 converge upon every day of his existence. And under the 
 inspiration of this hope your own troubles will come to 
 have a new purpose and a blessed effect. The darkness 
 of the present will be gilded by many a keen ray darted 
 from the happy days that are yet to be, and that which is 
 rugged and difficult now will be smoothed by your joyous 
 forecast of an endless life. But if the future is to be 
 blessed, the present must be well employed. In a deep 
 sense, the present is the future. " Whatsoever a man 
 soweth, that shall he also reap." To-day is the seed which 
 to-morrow you will have to cut down with the sickle ! 
 
 Last night I saw a faint yellow light struggling with 
 feeble timidity against some half-angry clouds ; they 
 gathered against the light, as if determined to shut it out ; 
 and the pale moon seemed too languid for resistance : but 
 the breeze came to her help ; the thickening clouds were 
 
Progress of Manhood. 141 
 
 broken, and the moon seemed to take heart; brighter 
 and brighter were her mild beams, until at last she stood 
 up in the southern sky, the clouds all gone, like an angel 
 watching from afar the flowers which the sun had just 
 forsaken. So shall it be with our cloudy life, if we be 
 God's children. The clouds are not permanent. They 
 are but elevated shadows. The true light will pierce 
 them, melt them, scatter them, and we shall stand out 
 distinct as stars, higher than ever cloud ascended, re- 
 newed in lustre by the infinite glory of Grod. 
 
142 Faith. 
 
 fattf). 
 
 •' Can faith save him ? " — James ii. 14. 
 
 rpHIS is a question which, in various forms, has puzzled 
 -*- a good many people. It seems to have puzzled the 
 Apostle James. Paul says that Rahab was justified by 
 faith, and James says that she was justified by works. 
 Paul says : " By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered 
 up Isaac." James says : " Was not Abraham our father 
 justified by works ? " James will not have faith alone, 
 nor works alone , he will have faith made perfect by 
 works. 
 
 There is a popular notion of faith, and there is a true 
 notion of faith. The popular notion of faith is, that what a 
 man does not deny, he believes ; that he believes whatever 
 he is not prepared to contradict ; and that if he will main- 
 tain a doctrine in argument, he thereby proves that he 
 believes it. Now this may not be faith in the true sense 
 at all. It may be a step in the right direction; it may be 
 something very valuable. An intellectual conquest may 
 be represented by such acknowledgments and controversies. 
 It may be with such a man as it is with a grate well filled 
 with fuel to which the match has not been applied. It is, 
 
Faith. 143 
 
 so to speak, the material of faith ; but it is not faith itself, 
 any more than fuel is fire. 
 
 The true notion of faith is, conviction in action, princi- 
 ples operating in the life, sentiments embodied in conduct. 
 Faith is more than intellectual assent ; faith is an act of 
 the heart, — " with the heart man believeth unto righteous- 
 ness." A man may know the right and yet do the wrong ; 
 so a man may have a good creed and a bad life ; in which 
 case we may well say, Can faith save him ? 
 
 Then, again, the action of faith may be divided into 
 metaphysical and practical. A man may contend with 
 great intellectual subtlety and vigour for a certain theory 
 of the existence of the Divine Being, and may all the while 
 be living a most immoral life. So, he may stringently 
 contend for a certain view of the inspiration of the Scrip- 
 tures, and may condemn everybody as heterodox who does 
 not accept it, and yet all the while he may be robbing his 
 employer or slandering his neighbour. Can faith save 
 him ? Can intellectual orthodoxy save him ? What does 
 it amount to that a man has a clear knowledge of the 
 theory of banking when he is convicted of forging a 
 cheque ? Can faith save him ? Can knowledge of banking 
 be accepted as an apology for forgery ? By his very 
 knowledge he is condemned. By his very faith he is 
 damned. 
 
 Faith is practically nothing so long as it is merely in the 
 head. Head faith can save no man. This is exactly so in 
 daily life. There is no witchery or mystery in this doctrine 
 at all. Faith cannot save you in commerce, any more than 
 it can save you in religion. Faith cannot save the body, 
 
1 44 Faith. 
 
 any more than it can save the soul. So let us save Chris- 
 tianity from the supposed mistake of setting up a fanciful 
 scheme of salvation ; let us be simply just to the Son of 
 God, by showing that he requires only the very same 
 common-sense conditions of salvation that are required by 
 ourselves in the common relations of our daily life. 
 
 A man believes that if he puts his money into certain 
 funds he will get back good interest with the most assured 
 security. Yet at the end of the year he gets literally 
 nothing. How was that? Because, though he believed 
 it, he did not put any money into the funds. Can faith 
 pay him ? A man thoroughly believes that if he takes a 
 certain mixture, prescribed for him by good medical 
 authority, he will get better, he will be recovered from 
 his disease ; but he gets no better ; he gets worse ; be- 
 cause, though he believed in the mixture, he did not take 
 it. Can faith save him? A man wants to go to New 
 York ; he believes that ship is going ; he is quite sure 
 that ship will be there in less than a fortnight ; yet he 
 himself will not be there ! How is that ? He had faith. 
 He had not the shadow of a doubt. Yet there he is, in 
 England ! Can faith take him to New York ? Can faith 
 save him ? 
 
 Yet this is the very thing which people want to do with 
 religion ! They get a certain set of notions into their 
 heads ; they call those notions orthodox, and other notions 
 they call heterodox, and they expect that those notions will 
 save them ! It is lunacy. It is an insult to common sense. 
 It is wickedness ! The question is not whether those 
 notions are in our head, but, what effect have they upon 
 
Faith. 145 
 
 our life? Do they find their way from the head to the 
 heart, from the heart to the hand? Fine geographical 
 knowledge will never make a traveller. An exact know- 
 ledge of the chemical properties of water will never make 
 a swimmer. You must bring your faith to a practical 
 application. " Wash you, make you clean; put away the 
 evil of your doings; cease to do evil, learn to do well; 
 seek judgment; relieve the oppressed; judge the father- 
 less, plead for the widow." " Pure religion and undefiled 
 before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless 
 and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted 
 from the world." 
 
 If I really and truly, with understanding and heart, 
 receive the truths of the Christian religion, is there any- 
 thing in them, as such, likely to move my life in a practical 
 direction ? Are they too fine for earth ? Are they too 
 subtle and speculative for time ? As a mere matter of fact, 
 the truths of Christianity are infinitely •practical. They 
 touch life at every point. In the morning, they are a loud 
 call to duty ; in the evening, they are a solemn judgment 
 upon the day : when we go to business, they say, " Do unto 
 others as ye would that others should do unto you ;" when 
 we feast, they say, "Send a portion to the poor;" and 
 lest we should think there is one hour omitted from 
 their severe but righteous rule, they say, " Whether 
 ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory 
 of God." 
 
 Here, a peculiar danger discovers itself. The man who 
 wishes to avoid all that is most spiritual and holy in the 
 Christian religion, inquires whether he cannot do all these 
 
 10 
 
1 46 Faith r 
 
 duties as a mere moralist, without being what is distinctively 
 known as a Christian, a believer, a saint. He says he loves 
 justice and mercy, benevolence and sympathy, and asks 
 whether he cannot exercise or display them apart from 
 what is called " saving faith in Christ." He says the 
 Greeks had excellent maxims, and the Romans had admir- 
 able rules of conduct, and yet they knew nothing of Christ ; 
 why may not he be as they were ? 
 
 Let us consider that question. There is a conduct that 
 is philosophical, and there is a conduct that is spiritual ; 
 that is to say, there is a conduct that is based on logic, on 
 the so-called fitness of things, on self-protection, on social 
 harmony, on the music of individual and public relations ; 
 and there is a conduct based upon a spiritual conception 
 of sin, upon a realization of Divine oversight and Divine 
 judgment, upon a sense of self-helplessness and the con- 
 scious need of spiritual succour; and it is undoubtedly 
 open to us to consider the respective merits of each theory 
 of life. I accept the spiritual, because I believe it to be 
 vital and fundamental; it is not a clever theory, it is a 
 living reality; it is not a glittering and self-pleasing specu- 
 lation, it is a law, a judgment, an eternal quantity. Give 
 me a morality devised by human philosophy, and you give 
 me a morality that may be changed by human philosophy. 
 It may be very beautiful, but so may be an artificial flower ; 
 it may have all the appearance of a reality, but so may a 
 mirage; it may be noble, useful, beneficent, in its immediate 
 relations and uses, but if it spring not from the right source, 
 no sooner will the sun be risen with any heat than it will 
 be -dried up, and nothing will remain but the scorched 
 
Faith. 147 
 
 channel in which it flowed for a brief moment. I must 
 have a moral standard which I did not set up, and which I 
 cannot pull down; a moral law which will harmonise with 
 my nature, and yet for ever be above it ; a law that will 
 judge me ; a law acting through all time, applying in all 
 lands, over-riding all circumstances and accidents ; far 
 above me as the sun, round about me as the light ; not a 
 guess on the part of man, but a distinct and solemn and 
 final revelation from God. This I have in Christ Jesus ; 
 and if I accept it by a living faith, it will come out in a 
 holy, tender, wise, and useful life, and thus I shall be saved 
 by faith. 
 
 Beware lest your question about pagan morality be a 
 mere excuse for escaping spiritual discipline and obligation. 
 Jesus Christ recognised heathen virtue. He said it was 
 good as far as it went. He recognised the righteousness 
 of the scribes and Pharisees, and called upon us to exceed 
 it. He pointed out all the excellences of the ancients, and 
 demanded that where they were respectable, we should be 
 holy ; where they loved friends, we were to love enemies ; 
 where they saluted those who saluted them, we were to be 
 kind to the unthankful and the evil. 
 
 Now let me subject you to a practical test in this matter. 
 You have spoken well of heathen maxims and pagan ex- 
 cellences, and have asked whether they will not do in place 
 of Christianity. Let us see. We will let your heart speak. 
 You are about to die, and you must leave that five-years'- 
 old little girl of yours in the care of some one. There is 
 Aristides the Just; there is ; Solon, the Wise; there is 
 Lycurgus the Disciplinarian; there is. Seneca. the Moralist; 
 
148 Faith. 
 
 — and there is Jesus Christ. Any of them will take her. 
 Now, decide ! 
 
 The application of these reflections is very solemn. If 
 Christians had lived up to their faith, the infidel never 
 could have mocked their Lord and ^Master ! 
 
Christian Life and Growth. 149 
 
 C&rtgtiatt %iU ana (Brotortj. 
 
 " I will declare what Tie hath done for my soul." — Psalm lxvi. 16. 
 
 TXTE will now look at certain passages of Scripture 
 ' bearing on practical Christian life. Let me entreat 
 you to test everything by the holy Word. If I say any- 
 thing that is in the least degree doubtful, go at once to the 
 Bible, and if you can find a clear statement upon the sub- 
 ject there, accept that at once, whoever may be discredited 
 or superseded. What you and I want to find out is the 
 full meaning of God's word, — and that we must have at all 
 costs and hazards. As we have just been talking of what a 
 Christian is not, it may be well to follow that subject up 
 by looking at a very remarkable set of negatives given 
 by St. Paul in the fourth chapter of his epistle to the 
 Ephesians. I will pick out some of those nots for you, and 
 comment upon them briefly. For example — 
 
 "Walk not as other Gentiles walk." — There is to be a 
 marked difference between those who know Christ and 
 those who do not know Him. And yet, though this is so 
 apparently simple and plain, it is a point of supreme deli- 
 cacy: clearly so, seeing that the human mind delights in 
 ostentation, in the display of virtues as much as in the 
 display of jewels, and in provoking comparisons favourable 
 
150 Christian Life and Growth. 
 
 to the man making them. In proof of this, look at the 
 case of the Pharisee and the publican; all the things which 
 he claimed to be set down to his cjredit were good in them- 
 selves, but his way of claiming them and glorying in them 
 seemed to take away from them all dignity and value. 
 There is a great temptation to look at other people and to 
 say, " Well, I may not be perfect, but I could not do that 
 at any rate ! " This is the very spirit of the Pharisee ! It 
 is as tares among the wheat of good speech, and truly one 
 may say, "An enemy hath done this." Have you not felt 
 this temptation ? Has not a wave of spurious gladness 
 passed through your vain heart as you have marked the 
 inferiority of another man? So, comparing ourselves 
 amongst ourselves we become fools ! The difference be- 
 tween the good man and the bad man is a difference of 
 spirit ; they eat and drink at the same table it may be, yet 
 they are worlds away from one another; they are in the 
 same business, yet hardly in the same universe; they use 
 the very same words, yet the one is in meaning as high 
 above the other as the heaven is high above the earth. 
 You are not to say, " Look at me;" yet there is to be some- 
 thing about you so pure, so noble, so true, as to constrain 
 men to regard you as the very standard by which social 
 life is to be accurately measured. Now comes the sharp 
 question, Is your character penetrated by this heavenly 
 quality ? Such a question will turn every day into a day 
 of judgment, and will take out of us that black thread of 
 self-content and self-worship which binds us as with cables 
 of iron to the will of the devil. 
 
Christian Life and Growth. 151 
 
 " Put off concerning the former conversation the old man."" 
 — Put off your dead self ; throw away the winter husk and 
 sheath, and put on the spring loveliness. You remember 
 the case of the leper ; he dipped himself in Jordan seven 
 times, and his flesh came again like the flesh of a little 
 child. It is just so with men who have been cleansed by 
 the blood of Christ. Their old enjoyments are now 
 memories of offence and distress. They recall their old 
 habitudes with shuddering and deprecation, and they are 
 no longer known in the haunts where they once ruled. 
 It is remarkable that they are an offence to their former 
 companions, so much so that their entrance amongst them 
 would be as the coming of a cold shadow over scenes of 
 supposed brightness and gaiety. When we are living in 
 Christ we have literally become new creatures, so much so 
 that we have lost our original identity. Hence you will 
 hear about yourself such words as " How changed ! " " Not 
 at all like the same man," " Whatever has come over him ? " 
 Happy man who, by reason of Christian spirit and action, 
 elicits such remark ! The old decrepid, corrupt, world- 
 worshipping man has been cast off, and a new man — bloom- 
 ing in immortal youth, beautiful with more than earthly 
 loveliness, radiant with spiritual lustre — has taken his place. 
 There can, then, be no mistake or doubt as to the reality 
 of the change. Can your thoughts become at all confused 
 as to whether it was ugliness you saw or beauty, winter 
 bleak and bare, or summer genial and crowned with 
 flowers? So marked is to be the Divine life, so vitally 
 different from all that ever went before it. Do you know 
 whether it was a statue or a child that you saw in the 
 
152 Christian Life and Growth. 
 
 room ? Was it a ravenous beast or a loving and welcoming 
 friend that you met in the open road ? It is this same 
 sharpness of contrast which marks our old self and our 
 new self; and the answer must be as precise as the question 
 is distinct. 
 
 " Where/or" putting away lying, speak every man truth 
 with his neighoour." — This you may regard as an unneces- 
 sary caution or exhortation, for you would suppose that the 
 very first thing, a Christian would cease to do would be to 
 tell lies. So it is, in the common acceptation of the term. 
 But need I remind you that there is hardly anything so 
 difficult as to be truthful through and through in all our 
 speech and conduct ? To neither tell a lie nor act a lie, to 
 speak and to act the simple, pure, absolute truth, — who is 
 sufficient for these things? Not to laugh falsely, smile 
 falsely, cry falsely; not to leave a false impression, or 
 convey a doubtful meaning, or interpose a misleading 
 emphasis, — who is sufficient for these things ? Falsehood 
 is something infinitely subtler than can be expressed in the 
 vulgarity of mere lies. We may even speak the truth with 
 a false spirit ! We may distort the truth, suppress the 
 truth, discolour the truth, and yet all the while escape the 
 common charge of lying. We may be false in shaking 
 hands, in giving applause, in uttering censure, in going to 
 church, in singing psalms, in offering prayer ! You will 
 see, then, and will see more and more if you search into 
 this matter, that the exhortation to put away lying is neither 
 superficial nor unnecessary. What a vast abyss of false- 
 hood is found in what is called " business " ! How men 
 
Christian Life and Growth, 153 
 
 say one thing and mean another, how many final offers 
 they make in the same bargain, how they undervalue and 
 exaggerate, how they buy in one language and sell in 
 another; — why, virtue is thrown down in the streets, and 
 falsehood fills the broad highway with her deadly shadow, 
 'and no man's heart breaks because of dishonoured truth. 
 It is quite possible for a man to say, " I would scorn to 
 tell a lie," and to be actually telling a lie in making the 
 solemn statement ! Oh how infinitely delicate is truth ! 
 How exquisite and sensitive the bloom on her fair cheek ! 
 How thin the veil that saves her life from the sword of the 
 enemy ! 
 
 " Be ye angry, and sin not : let not the sun go down upon 
 your wrath : neither give place to the devil." — All these, 
 you observe, are negative instructions. See, then, how 
 much there is that is not to be done by the renewed man. 
 There is an anger that is murder; there is an anger that 
 is righteous; but even the holiest anger may come very 
 near being sinful wrath. Beware ! Your anger may be 
 ■ noble at the beginning, and mean at the end ! If you 
 brood over it, and nurse it, and turn it to purposes of 
 revenge, you will give place to the devil, and he will bring 
 you to ruin. Are we thankworthy when we are agreeable 
 in the absence of provocation ? Is it a great thing to be 
 amiable when things are going exactly as we wanted them 
 to go ? On the other hand, as I have told you already, there 
 is an amiability which is simple feebleness of character, 
 and there is a good temper which comes simply of sweet 
 blood and good digestion. To know the proper tempera- 
 
1 54 Christian Life and Growth. 
 
 ture of anger, to know just where to stop in the utterance 
 of malediction, to be the mouthpiece of holy law rather 
 than the medium of personal spite, — surely this knowledge 
 cometh forth from the Lord of hosts ! Set a watch on my 
 mouth, and keep the door of my lips, Lord, lest by hot 
 and vain words I bring Thy holy Name into dishonour ! 
 
 " Let him that stole, steal no more'' — Surely this is as 
 unnecessary an exhortation as to put away lying ! "Who 
 that mentions the name of Jesus, even with ordinary 
 respect, could think of putting out his hands to steal ? 
 But the exhortation is necessary ! We err if we think 
 that stealing is the act of the hand alone. It is just as 
 difficult to be honest as to be truthful. We may steal 
 without touching anything that commonly comes under the 
 head of property. We may steal time ! We may steal 
 reputation ? We may steal self-indulgence ! The question 
 is not one of mere accident; it is a question of having the 
 spirit of honesty dwelling and ruling in our inmost heart. 
 The spirit of dishonesty is a spirit of falsehood. No liar 
 can be an honest man. You may have heard men say, 
 " I may not always tell the exact truth, but nobody ever 
 knew me to commit an act of dishonesty." Now, not 
 to tell the truth is to commit theft ! You steal con- 
 fidence, you steal honour, you steal what coarse hands can 
 never touch, and your whole life is thus turned into a theft. 
 
 The Apostle adds other negative directions, such as, " Let 
 no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth," 
 and, "Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour 
 
Christian Life and Growth. 155 
 
 and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice." 
 You might think that he was giving lessons in the very 
 elements of morality; so he is; yet you will find that there 
 is one remarkable peculiarity about all the moral lessons 
 which are taught in the New Testament, which is that 
 New Testament morality can only spring from New 
 Testament faith, and lead onward towards New Testament 
 holiness. It is no external decoration. In so far as it is 
 external it is as a wedding garment adorning and accredit- 
 ing the Lord's welcome guest. 
 
 It would, indeed, seem to be so from one injunction, 
 which throws a solemn grandeur over all the rest. Turn 
 to the passage, if you please, and you will see what I mean. 
 The Apostle has been telling, men not to lie, not to steal, not 
 to be wickedly angry, not to speak corruptly, — common 
 decencies, you may say, or ordinary moralities; but he sudr 
 denly lifts them up from that low position, and makes them 
 glow with religious ardour by the injunction, " Grieve not 
 the Holy Spirit of Grod" ! So, then, this stealing is not 
 vulgar theft, and this lying is not vulgar falsehood; it is a 
 call to truthfulness and honesty meant to penetrate the 
 inmost heart, and to cleanse as with fire the most secret 
 recesses of the soul. 
 
156 Christian Life and Growth. 
 
 Christian "tilt anD (Brototf) (continued). 
 
 " I mill declare what he hath done for my soul" — Psalm Ixvi. 16. 
 
 TX7E are now prepared to look at the other side, and to 
 ' find out what a Christian is. We have seen clearly 
 what he is not. Now we ask what he is. In this same 
 chapter, Paul tells us ; so I shall quote his words, and 
 turn them into the speech of the day, which you know 
 best, as well as I can. First of all, Paul lays down a 
 wonderful principle — 
 
 " Unto every one of us is given grace according to the 
 measure of the gift of Christ." — That is to say, every man 
 has a gift of grace that is his own ; it may be little, it 
 maybe much ; but it is his as much as is the very life that 
 beats in his breast. It is a great mistake to suppose that 
 every man is as good, as strong, as wise, in Christ, as 
 every other man. There are those who are " least " in the 
 kingdom, and those who are " greatest ; " souls that 
 absorb much, and souls that take in next to nothing. Yet 
 every man has something, a special gift, a singular and 
 incommunicable grace; a pulse that separates him by 
 infinity from the proudest beast that would seem to 
 challenge his supremacy. Do not suppose that one man 
 is as much a man as any other. Some men are all life; 
 
Christian Life and Growth. 157 
 
 others grow very near to being minus quantities. If you 
 touch the hem of some garments you are the better for it ; 
 if you live seven years with other people you hardly know 
 why you were doomed to such companionship. Yet every 
 man has at least one spark of fire to mark him as a bush 
 in which God speaks. Blessed are they who see Christ in 
 every man, and hear him in all languages, and make it a 
 point to find out the one gleam of better things that is in 
 every human soul. Let every man find out his own gift 
 and work it out to its fullest possibility. Is it insight? 
 Is it sympathy ? Is it eloquence ? Is it activity ? Is it 
 courage ? Is it great human love ? The thing is to 
 connect all these, and each of them, with the name of 
 Christ as a distinct gift of His, to be used in His spirit and 
 to secure the ends which He approves. Take another 
 quotation : 
 
 " But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him 
 in all things, which is the head, even Christ." — Mark that, 
 word " grow," — it is full of hope and of comfort. We are 
 to be moved onward and upward by the great law of 
 progress. The law is not leaping, but growing ; we are 
 not to be prodigies, but honest and natural developments. 
 What is there that grows noisily ? There was no sound of 
 trowel or hammer in building Labanon and Bashan, those 
 great temples of cedar and dak. Little by little, is the 
 law of all growth, — growth of body and mind, seed and. 
 root. But we are to grow ! There is to be continual 
 accession of strength, continual purification of refinement,' 
 continual enlargement of horizon, until in the fullest sense 
 we rejoice in new heavens and a new earth, and a liberty 
 
158 Christian Life and Growth. 
 
 which 110 enemy can either trouble or curtail. Understand 
 clearly that the tree never grows so as to be independent 
 of its root. So we cannot bear fruit except we abide in 
 the vine ! Understand that the house which grows under 
 the hand of the builder never presses so heavily upon the 
 foundation as when it is wholly completed. So we shall 
 rest the more solidly upon the rock Christ, as our spiritual 
 character approaches completion. Other foundation can 
 no man lay ! I point this out the more distinctly that 
 there is a danger of supposing that this growth in Christ 
 may be lawfully followed by growing away from Christ. 
 Some have stretched liberty into licentiousness, and in the 
 swollenness of their unholy pride have thought to put 
 Christ into the second place. Against the vain talk of such 
 profane boasters I set up the law, " As the branch cannot 
 bear fruit of itself except it abide in the vine, no more 
 can ye except ye abide in me." Grow away from all mere 
 ceremonies as much as you please ; grow away from 
 narrowness, bigotry, literalism, and evil judgment; loose' 
 yourselves from the oldness and bondage and fear of the 
 iron letter ; but never think of taking the branch out of 
 the vine. What do you say to cutting off an arm and 
 letting it set up for a whole body on its own account? 
 If you are fond of experiments, will you dismember your 
 body and let each limb and joint do what it can for itself? 
 No, no, says the Apostle; "grow up into him in all things, 
 from whom the whole body fitly joined together and com- 
 pacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to 
 the effectual working of every part, maketh increase of 
 the body unto the edifying of itself in love." 
 
Christian Life and Growth. 159 
 
 I have to mourn some instances in which it has been 
 impossible to mark anything like growth. The soul has 
 learned its verbal lesson, and for years has repeated it with 
 mechanical precision. Religious doctrines have been re- 
 hearsed like the multiplication table, and religious enjoy- 
 ments have been gone through as melancholy duties. 
 What wonder that religion has been misunderstood, and 
 that an unnatural gloom has been allowed to gather around 
 the Cross ! Almost equally at fault with this want of 
 growth has been the absurd and even irreligious notion 
 that all growth must be uniform, so that there shall be 
 whole rows of Christians all of one height, one colour, 
 one shape, one weight ! No allowance is to be made for 
 constitution, for advantages or disadvantages, for species, 
 or for climate. How foolish, how wicked ! I took a 
 piece of a trimly-kept privet hedge out the other day to 
 walk with me through a famous wood, and very pertly did 
 the clean-shaved privet talk. " Curious kind of growth 
 this,'' said the hedgeling, looking up to great trees whose 
 massive and verdurous branches interlocked each other a 
 hundred feet and more high in the sunny air ; "this," said 
 the domestic privet, all shaven and shorn, " is the kind of 
 thins I cannot for the life of me understand ! " and the 
 gossiping little fool went everywhere abusing and censur- 
 ing forests older than the thrones of oldest empire ! And 
 so men cannot understand one another, and every man 
 will judge his neighbour by the insufficient standard of 
 himself. The fern has called the rose immodest. The 
 sparrow charges the nightingale with liking to hear her- 
 self. The mathematician says that the poet is romantic, 
 
160 Christian Life and Growth. 
 
 and the poet says that the mathematician is a bore; and 
 so men cannot understand each other. Now, herein ex- 
 actly is the beauty of the doctrine that we have all to grow 
 in Christ, and that Christ in whom we all grow can un- 
 derstand and bless us all. Our relation, you see, is in the 
 first place to Christ, and afterward to one another. It 
 was on this very principle that I settled a dispute last 
 summer. A fern told me that it was too bad to be always 
 shut up in a shady place, and that it wanted to grow beside 
 the red rose that was shining like the very eye of the 
 garden. The fern said, " I have as much right to be out 
 in the sunshine as the rose has, and I will be out." I 
 transplanted the little malcontent, and in one hot day the 
 sun struck it dead with his dart of fire. Now if we be 
 where Christ means us to be, in shade or in light, and will 
 grow according to His will, it shall be well with us ; but 
 if we touch that which is forbidden, we shall be made to 
 remember that it is written, " In the day that thou eatest 
 thereof thou shalt surely die." 
 
 Now think of this idea of place as having much to do 
 with our growing. One man will do best under a gloomy 
 ministry, where the soil is very damp and the clouds are 
 very threatening ; another man will do better under a bright 
 ministry, a hopeful, genial, summer-like ministry : one 
 man will thrive on " Night Thoughts " and grow strong 
 on " Meditations among the Tombs ;" another will want a 
 tune set in five sharps, and red banners streaming in the 
 hio-h wind. They are all right. "All flesh is not the same 
 flesh ; but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh 
 of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds." Yet we,., 
 
Christian Life and Growth. 161 
 
 all live at the table of the Lord. It is so with souls ; we 
 are very varied, yet we all find sustenance and defence 
 and progress in the all-inclusive heart of the blessed 
 Christ. 
 
 " Be renewed in the spirit of your mind : and put on the 
 new man, which after God is created in righteousness and 
 true holiness." — This calls us to the vitality of things : 
 here is nothing superficial, external, or transitory ; the 
 appeal is to the hidden life of the heart, to the very spirit 
 of the mind ! " The word of God is quick and powerful, 
 sharper than any two-edged sword." " Thou desirest 
 truth in the inward parts." " God is a spirit, and they 
 that worship him must worship him in spirit and in 
 truth." Are we pure in soul ? Are we without spot, or 
 wrinkle, or any such thing ? These are the questions that 
 slay our pride and put our boasting to death. Who can 
 stand when God is judge, or who may abide the day of His 
 coming! Yet, "there is a fountain opened in the house 
 of David for sin and for uncleanness," and " the blood of 
 Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin." Other men call us to 
 outward duties and are satisfied ; Jesus calls us to spiritual 
 life and holiness, and then He says the fruit will surely be 
 good. To work all this mystery of holiness in the heart 
 is promised the indwelling and re-creating Spirit of God. 
 Blessed Spirit, dwell in me ; purify me ; cleanse me to the 
 uttermost ; make me thy living temple, — a house holy unto 
 the Lord ! 
 
 11 
 
1 62 Mary; Needless Trouble. 
 
 Sl^arp : &zelihg0 ^rouble* 
 
 "■Pfiey have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid 
 him" — John xx. 13. 
 
 fjlHIS weeping woman, standing beside the empty tomb 
 -*- of Jesus Christ, is a typical rather than a unique 
 character in human history. Specially is she typical of 
 those people who are always missing the point in Christian 
 narrative and Christian doctrine. They are faithful, kind, 
 intelligent, deeply and richly sympathetic, but they miss 
 the point. They go long journeys in order to get wisdom, 
 but they always leave the principal thing behind them; 
 they put away the key so carefully that they never know 
 where to find it again, and their minds, though filled with 
 conflicting thoughts, have lost all power of grouping 
 events and shaping them into order and meaning. Mary 
 rushed into the details of a controversy instead of standing 
 a little way from it and catching its outlines and its 
 general bearings. There is very much practical atheism 
 in this devoted woman's talk. Though she is talking to 
 angels, yet she has left God out of her sobbing and tearful 
 speech, and consequently the words which ought to have 
 glowed with a sublime faith are only feverish with personal 
 disappointment, and more or less of peevish complaint. 
 She speaks as if the whole question lay between certain 
 
Mary; Needless Trouble. 163 
 
 other people and herself ; thus, " They have taken " and 
 " I know not." She is lost where millions of other people 
 have been lost ; that is to say, in the murky and noisy 
 region of second causes. She was calculating time by her 
 own ill-going clock, and not taking the hour from the 
 unchanging and truth-telling sun ; just what we are all 
 doing — and in the doing of which we bring ourselves to 
 disappointment and tears. 
 
 Many of us ought to take our stand beside Mar}'. 
 Those, for example, whq are unable to see the Divine 
 hand far above all human meddling and strife. To many 
 of us human history is but a disorderly and haphazard 
 movement, an undisciplined and scrambling race, a neck- 
 Or-nothing race, enlivened with rude wit or degraded by 
 ruder pleasures. Where is the religious eye that sees God 
 above it all, and that can trace His hand in all the gro- 
 tesque and riotous features of the course ? Mary said that 
 somebody had done mischief — had taken away her Lord ; 
 the idea never occurring to her that her Lord might have 
 taken Himself away; and thus she missed the point. She 
 saw the Jews, the Romans, the mad rabble, the cruel and 
 hilarious executors, clearly enough ; but the Divine hand 
 was hidden from her ej r es. And what is human history 
 without that hand ? A piece of mischief, truly — a gambling 
 speculation or a murderous fight ; but when that hand is 
 seen the whole spectacle is changed — it is a chaos out of 
 which order will come, and music and peace that will last 
 for ever. In the meantime we are victimised by our own 
 senses ; our eyes deceive us, and our ears and our hearts 
 
1 64 Mary :• Needless Trouble. 
 
 have lost the power of completely trusting God ; and so 
 life has become an enigma without an answer, and a fight 
 in which the strong man wins all, and that all is less than 
 nothing and vanity. That heart-broken, crying woman is 
 this day the centre of a vast multitude of people, all of 
 whom are equally blind to the Supreme Presence, though, 
 but few of them express their deprivation in tears of help- 
 lessness and sorrow. 
 
 The great company thus gathered around Mary may be 
 increased by the addition of the innumerable host who 
 in all ages have given themselves up to unnecessary grief. 
 Truly there was no occasion for Mary's tears. The angels 
 said unto her, " Woman, why weepest thou ? " Mary had 
 her answer ready, but it was an answer founded upon a 
 mistake. So we, too, have doubtless some explanation of 
 our grief, but our explanation may be but a fool's answer, 
 or a blind man's guess as to the things that are round' 
 about him. Are not God's angels often asking why men 
 weep and mourn and pine in heaviness of heart ? The 
 angels see the things that are hidden from us. In the dead 
 seed they see the coming harvest. Back of the bleak east 
 wind they see the fair spring ready to spread her flowers 
 at our feet when the unbidden and unwelcome visitor is 
 gone. We see the underside of the pattern which God 
 is weaving, they see the upper side in all the charm of its 
 celestial colour and all the beauty of its infinite perfection. 
 Over sin we may weep night and day, but over God's pro- 
 vidence no tear of grief is either pious or reasonable. No 
 doubt it is a providence full of mystery, a road of deep 
 
Mary: Needless Trouble. 165 
 
 declivities and sharp curves, with many a jungle and many 
 a den where beasts may lurk in cruel patience for the 
 prey; yet there is a foot-track through it all onward to the 
 summer landscape and the harvest plain. Why weepest 
 thou? Surely not over the child who has gone to the 
 care of the angels, and the sweet rest of the pure skies. 
 Surely not over the disappointment whose sharpness has 
 taught thee thy best prayers and mellowed thy voice to 
 the tenderest music. Why weepest thou? If for sin, 
 weep on ; if for God, your tears are not vain only, but 
 unnatural and impious. When Mary knew but part of 
 the case, she wept over it ; when she knew it all, her joy 
 became almost a pain by its very keenness. So shall it be 
 with ourselves in the revelations which are to come. We 
 cannot stop the tears now — they will come — they must 
 come ; but out of every tear shed over the unknown or 
 misknown way of Grod there will come a new and sur- 
 prising joy. 
 
 The company round about Mary may be increased by 
 another large accession ; those, namely, who can only 
 recognise Christ under certain forms and in certain places. 
 If Mary had seen the dead Christ in the grave, probably 
 she would have felt a sad satisfaction ; to look at the face 
 cold and pain-stricken, but still sweet with ineffable ten- 
 derness, would have brought a comfort welcome to the 
 bereaved heart. But the idea of death having been turned 
 to life never occurred to her. She little thought that this 
 water could be turned into wine, and that all the signs 
 and wonders of Christ's ministry could culminate and be 
 
'166 Mary: Needless Trouble. 
 
 repeated in the magnificent miracle of His resurrection. 
 Christ was infinitely larger in spiritual influence than 
 Mary had imagined, and He is infinitely larger and grander 
 than any Church has conceived Him to be. I would to 
 G-od I could adequately rebuke all theological and ecclesi- 
 astical narrowness. There are people who would rather 
 have a dead Christ in their own sect and ritual than a 
 living Saviour outside of their own approved boundaries. 
 There are others who care more for their own. idealised 
 pictures of Christ than they would for the living man 
 Himself, were He to look upon them face to face. Now, 
 upon this matter we may all have much to learn. For 
 my own part, I find Christ in all Churches where the 
 Christly spirit is. Christ is not a theory ; He is a divine 
 and infinite life, infusing Himself into our spirit and 
 history in innumerable and unnameable ways, covering 
 and absorbing all theories, and honouring all honest 
 thought, and reverent doubt, and pure aspiration. The 
 people who mistake a crucifix for a cross are not unlikely 
 to mistake a dead dogma for a living faith. Christ lives 
 in Unitarianism and in Trinitarianism, in the expiatory 
 atonement and in the sympathetic reconciliation, in the 
 resonant Christian anthem and in the sweet children's 
 song ; and until this fact is recognised, and not merely 
 recognised but illuminated and glorified, Christendom will 
 be rather a congeries of squabbling sects than a living 
 and indissoluble Church. But the devil of sectarianism 
 can only be expelled by prayer and fasting. As a Pro- 
 testant, I wish I loved Christ as some Papists have loved 
 Him. As a deeply convinced believer in the Godhead of 
 
Mary: Needless Trouble. 167 
 
 Jesus Christ, I wish I could know Him and preach Him 
 as some believers in His simple humanity have done; and 
 as one who subscribes with his whole heart the evangelical 
 creed, I wish I could get views of truth which have opened 
 upon men who have stood on the bare rocks and slippery 
 places of speculative doubt, or even of intellectual an- 
 tagonism. What man has seen all the truth of Grod ? In 
 what single pulse throbs the solemn eternity? Into what 
 sectarian hut has God crowded all the riches of heaven? 
 You may find Christ everywhere if you seek Him with a 
 true heart ; not, perhaps, just in the way you expected, 
 not nominally, not formally, but in all the subtlety of His 
 spiritual power, and all the tenderness of His recovering 
 and comforting grace. You will not suppose that we are 
 to be blind to each other's errors, real or fancied ; on the 
 contrary, we are bound to detect and expose those errors, 
 but we are to look for them with the eye of love, and to 
 refute them with the tongue of charity. Controversy 
 may be elevated into an instrument of high spiritual edu- 
 cation, or it may be degraded into a weapon for fighting 
 rude and godless battles. 
 
 Another addition may be made to the great crowd 
 already gathered around Mary; those, namely, who are 
 always talking about Christ as if He were absent : it is a 
 historical Christ they refer to — a Christ that once was, 
 but no longer is — a Christ taken away, hidden, or otherwise 
 lost. Now, at the very moment of Mary's complaint, the 
 Lord was looking at her and listening to her ! She thought 
 He was the gardener! How clearly this shows that though 
 
1 68 Mary: Needless Trouble. 
 
 we may think we know Christ, yet we know Him only in 
 one aspect, and if we happen to see Him in any other, 
 we actually know nothing about Him? This self-same 
 ■thing is occurring every day, infinitely to the disadvantage 
 of our Christian education and to the sad disproof of our 
 supposed growth in spiritual perception and sympathy. 
 We only know Christ in, one place, in one ritual, in one 
 theology, in one Church. Take Him out of these, and 
 He becomes a common man, unknown, and suspected of 
 stealing Christ, stealing Himself! Lord, pity our igno- 
 rance, and save it from becoming sin, and save Thy 
 preachers from the infinite disgrace of speaking to their 
 Lord as a suspected stranger ! Probably there is not in 
 all history so striking an illustration of not knowing 
 Christ except in one particular form and guise. Some 
 persons do not know Christ except from the lips of their 
 favourite preachers. Others do not think they have kept 
 Sunday properly unless they have attended a particular 
 place of worship. Some people can only see Christ in 
 church. I would see Him and hear Him everywhere; 
 in all history, in all communions, in commerce, in art, in 
 all the endeavours and enterprises of civilization. Ye fools 
 and blind, ye can read the face of the sky, can you not 
 discern the signs of the times ? 
 
 This is our first Easter morning in the City Temple. If 
 the place is not enriched with a great array of spring 
 flowers, it is not because we are insensible to beauty ; and 
 if we have not thrilling and triumphant music, as trumpet 
 and cymbal, and choristers learned in tone and emphasis, 
 it is not because our hearts are ungrateful. To some men 
 
Mary: Needless Trouble. 169 
 
 of high taste our very simplicity may seem to make the 
 risen Christ little better than a common man, and in this 
 humble guise they may not know the Lord; but if the Lord 
 Himself speak to them by name, they will forget all other 
 music in the infinite spell of His enchanting voice. 
 
1 70 Jeremiah. 
 
 " The words of Jeremiah, t/ie son of Hilltiah, of tlie priests that mere in 
 Anathoth, in the land of Benjamin." — Jee. i. 1-19. 
 
 TN the first chapter of the book which bears his name, 
 Jeremiah gives an account of his Divine call to the pro- 
 phetical office. I propose to look at that account for the 
 purpose of finding out, if we can, whether there was any- 
 thing in the call of Jeremiah which corresponds with what 
 we now find in the call of earnest men, and whether we 
 can be as certain of our heavenly call as Jeremiah was of 
 his. It is very remarkable that the ancient prophets 
 always kept steadily before them the exact way by which 
 they were led up to their office, and were always ready to 
 vindicate themselves by a plain statement of facts. It 
 is remarkable, too, that they could trace their heavenly 
 election as clearly as their earthly parentage ; so much so, 
 that, as a rule, they put on record both pedigrees, so to 
 speak, side by side; first, that which was natural ; after- 
 wards, that which was spiritual; and the one was as much 
 a living and indisputable fact as the other. Thus Jeremiah 
 said, "Hilkiah was my father, and the "Word of the Lord 
 came unto me," — two things separated by an infinite dis- 
 tance, yet both matters of positive and unquestionable 
 certainty. Jeremiah would have treated with equal in- 
 
Jeremiah. 1 7 1 
 
 difference or contempt the suggestion that Hilkiah was 
 not his father and that the Lord had never spoken to him. 
 Let us trace the history somewhat, and see what it teaches 
 to after -times. 
 
 " Then the word of the Lord came limto me, saying, Before I formed 
 thee in the belly I knew thee ; and before thou earnest forth out of the 
 womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.' ' 
 
 The two great blessings of election and mediation are 
 here distinctly taught. God did not speak to the nations 
 directly, but mediationally ; He created a minister who 
 should be His mouthpiece. Observation itself teaches us 
 that men are called and chosen of God to do special work 
 in all departments of life. The difficult lesson for some of 
 us to learn is that we are called to obscurity, and yet this 
 is as clearly a Divine appointment as is the choice of an 
 Isaiah or a Jeremiah. If you look at life, you will see that 
 the most of men are called to quietness, to honest industry, 
 and to what is mistakenly called common-place existence. 
 What of it ? Shall the plain murmur because it is not a 
 mountain? Shall the green fields complain that Mont 
 Blanc is higher than they ? If they have not his majesty, 
 neither have they his barrenness. To see our calling, to 
 accept it, to honour it, that is the truly godly and noble 
 life ! To feel that we are where God meant us to be — 
 following the plough or directing a civilisation — is to be 
 strong and calm. I insist that every man is born to 
 realize some purpose. Find that purpose out, and fulfil 
 it, if you would lovingly serve God. As a public teacher, 
 I have no difficulty in persuading any man that he is a 
 
172 Jeremiah. 
 
 Jeremiah or a Daniel, at any rate that, under certain cir- 
 cumstances, he might easily have turned out a Hannibal 
 or a Wellington. He is quite predisposed in that direction 
 of thinking, and if he would not go so far as openly to 
 avow it, he would yet intimate that he certainly does not 
 feel that his present situation is big enough for him. My 
 difficulty, on the contrary, is to persuade a man that the 
 lowliest lot, as well as the highest, is the appointment of 
 God ; that door-keeping is a promotion in the Divine 
 gift ; and that to light a lamp may be as surely a call of 
 God as to found an empire or to rule a world. 
 
 " Then said I, Ah. Lord God ! behold, I cannot speak : for I am, a child. 
 But the Lord said unto me, Say not, I awl a child : for thou shalt go 
 to all that I shall send thee, and whatsoever I command thee thou shalt 
 speak. Be not afraid of their faces : for I am with thee to deliver thee, 
 saith the Lord." 
 
 It is thus that fear and confidence make up our best 
 life. We are sure that God has called us, yet we dread to 
 set down our feet on the way which He has marked out 
 with all the clearness of light. Moses said he was slow of 
 speech; Jeremiah said he could not speak for he was a 
 child; and we in our lesser way have set up our feeble 
 excuses against the thunder of God. And yet. fear well 
 becomes our mortality ; for what is our strength ? and as 
 for our days, their number is small. We forget God, — 
 His almightiness and His eternity are put out of sight, 
 and therefore our hearts sink in dismay. And a deadly 
 error lurks here. We are apt to mistake our fear for 
 religious modesty, and by so much we cast indirect 
 reproach upon others. I will speak plainly to my own 
 
Jeremiah. 173 
 
 soul upon this point, well knowing that when I plead 
 inability to do God's work, I am in reality profanely dis- 
 trusting God's strength. Are not many of us standing 
 back with a wicked excuse in our mouths ? Are we not 
 pleading illness, or weakness, or inability, or incapacity, 
 that we may escape the heat and burden of the day? 
 With what resentment would we encounter the suggestion 
 of weakness were it coming from others ! And yet we 
 hold it up as a plea and a defence against the commands 
 of heaven ! Beautiful is modesty in its own place ; a 
 heavenly flower, sweet, tender, and precious ; but never 
 forget that there is something which closely imitates its 
 loveliest features, and that its foul name is — Hypocrisy. 
 
 " Then the Lord put forth his hand, and touched my mouth. And the 
 Lord said unto me, Behold, I have put my words in thy mouth; See, I 
 hare this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root 
 out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, to build,, 
 and to plant." 
 
 You made much of your own weakness, now what are 
 you going to make of God's strength? You may obsti- 
 nately persist in looking at your own small arm, or you 
 may piously turn to the almightiness of God, and draw 
 your power from eternity ; and upon your choice will 
 depend your whole after life. Get into the irreligious 
 habit of measuring everything by your own resources ; of 
 asking whether you are personally equal to this or that 
 task ; and in all probability you will cower in abject fear, 
 before the burden and servitude of life : but get into the* 
 contrary habit, — the habit of setting God always at your 
 
174 Jeremiah. 
 
 tight hand, and of being sure that Eight must prevail, 
 that the helping angels never tire, that though God's mill 
 grinds slow, it grinds exceeding small ; fix these great 
 facts in your heart, and then up the steepest road you will 
 walk with a firm step, and the coldest night-wind will 
 neither shorten nor trouble your song. 
 
 Observe the expression, " Behold, I have put my words 
 in thy mouth." The minister of God is to speak the 
 words of God. A Biblical ministry must of necessity be 
 the best ministry. It has been sometimes complained that 
 such and such a sermon was little more than a string of 
 texts from beginning to end. Let me say that if the 
 texts were to the point, they would make a better state- 
 ment of the truth and counsel of God than could be made 
 by the polished sentences of the most eloquent Apollos. 
 The deadly error into which we are apt to fall is that 
 we must say something original, and I blame the people 
 quite as much as I blame the ministers for this fatal mis- 
 take. They do not prize Scriptural teaching. They want 
 to hear something fresh, racy, piquant, startling. They 
 do not sit, Bible in hand, testing the speaker by the reve- 
 lation ; and what they ask for they get. They ask for 
 chaff, and they get it ; the great Biblical teacher is left 
 with empty pews ; his books sell slowly up to hundreds ; 
 whilst the vulgur declaimer, the savage bigot, or the frothy 
 rhetorician, is king of the mob and the idol of book buyers. 
 I charge you to honour the teacher who honours the Word 
 of God. Hold him in reverence as one who thinks nothing 
 of himself and everything of his Master. He may be un- 
 skilful in sentence-making, but his soul is aglow with the 
 
Jeremiah. 175 
 
 true fire, and if you make him your companion he will 
 satisfy and gladden you with infinite riches. 
 
 The tenth verse is as remarkable as the ninth : " I have 
 this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, 
 to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw 
 down, to build, and to plant." So terrific is the power 
 with which man is clothed by the Almighty ! Every age, 
 every country, has its supreme man ; its man who stands 
 nearest G-od, and gets the first hint of the Divine will. He 
 may, indeed, be despised, and have his prophecies thrown 
 back upon him in mocking tones, yet none the less is he 
 the minister of God. Others may be preferred before him, 
 yet there he stands, the interpreter of a will that must pre- 
 vail, the echo of a voice that must fill the universe with a 
 sense of its authority. The tenth verse sets forth under 
 a personal figure the majesty and omnipotence of truth. It 
 is not the mere man Jeremiah who is thus mighty even to 
 terribleness ; he is but representative and ministerial, and 
 if he tamper with his mission he will be dispossessed and 
 humbled. Grod never puts His own authority out of His 
 own power. He never parts permanently with a single 
 key from His girdle. He can scatter your riches, He can 
 break down your health, He can crumble away your 
 boasted position ; in a word, He can mightily and wholly 
 reclaim every gift His hand has given. Yet how He loves 
 to incarnate His will ! How He loves to find a tabernacle- 
 for His infinitude, to dwell in a flaming bush, to abide in a> 
 broken heart ! " Behold, I stand at the door and knock ; 
 if any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come 
 in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me." He 
 
i/6 Jeremiah. 
 
 gave Moses a rod ; He touched Isaiah's lips ; He caused 
 Ezekiel to see visions ; He moved Daniel by the spirit of 
 interpretation ; yet were they only His servants, mighty in 
 Him, but without Him they were as other men, poor and 
 weak. 
 
 " Moreover the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Jeremiah, 
 what seest thou 1 And I said, I see a rod of an almond tree. Then said 
 the Lord unto me, Thou hast well seen : for I will hasten my word to 
 perform it. And the word of the Lord came unto me the second time, 
 saying, What seest thou 1 And I said, I see a seething pot ; and the face 
 thereof is toward the north." 
 
 This power of spiritual vision is pre-eminently the gift 
 of God. This power of parables, making them or reading 
 them, is a deep mystery of the unseen kingdom. Is it not 
 the gift of sight that distinguishes one man from another ? 
 Isaiah saw the Lord seated upon His throne, high and 
 lifted up ; Jeremiah saw a rod of an almond tree, and a 
 seething pot whose face was towards the north ; Ezekiel 
 saw a whirlwind and a great cloud and a fire infolding 
 itself, and out of the midst of the fire as the colour of 
 amber ; Daniel had the knowledge and understanding and 
 interpreting of dreams ; Amos saw the Lord standing upon 
 a wall made by a plumb-line, with a plumb-line in His 
 hand ; he saw also the grasshoppers in the latter growth 
 after the King's mowings, and through a basket of summer 
 flowers he saw the nearness of the end of Israel ; Zechariah 
 saw a man riding upon a red horse, standing among the 
 myrtle trees, having behind him three red horses, speckled 
 and white ; and Malachi saw from afar the messenger 
 going swiftly forward to prepare the way of the Lord. 
 
Jeremiah. 177 
 
 " The things that are not seen are eternal." The prophet 
 may truly say, " I hear a voice they cannot hear ; I see a 
 hand they cannot see." How the earth and sky are rich 
 with images which the poet's eye alone can see ! What a 
 parable is spring, and what a vision from the Lord is 
 summer, laden with all riches, gentle and hospitable beyond 
 all parallel ! man, what seest thou ? Launch out upon 
 the sunny lake ; with Pilatus in the rear and the Ehigi in 
 front, with a distant glimpse of the snowy Wetterhorn, 
 with a thousand shadows playing upon the quiet waters — 
 what seest thou? With the mountains girdling thee 
 round, as if to shut thee up in prison, and suddenly open- 
 ing to let thee through into larger liberties — what seest 
 thou ? I see beauty, order, strength, majesty, and infinite 
 munificence of grace and loveliness. 
 
 Look at the moral world, and say what seest thou. 
 Think of its sinfulness, its madness, its misery untold, its 
 tumult and darkness and corruption, deep, manifold, and 
 ever-increasing. Seest thou any hope ? Is there any cure 
 for disease so cruel, so deadly ? What seest thou ? I see 
 a cross, and one upon it like unto the Son of man, and in 
 His weakness He is mighty, in His poverty He is rich, in 
 His death is the infinite virtue of atonement. I see a cross, 
 and its head arises unto heaven. I see a cross, and on it is 
 written, "The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from sin." 
 I see a cross stretching its arms outward from horizon to 
 horizon, and from it there comes a voice saying, " Turn ye, 
 turn ye, why will ye die ? Believe in me, and live for 
 ever." The man who sees that cross most clearly should 
 proclaim its existence to others; and he who has mcst 
 
 12 
 
178 yeremiah. 
 
 deeply felt its power should most loudly proclaim its excel- 
 lence. Blind are they who do not see it. It fills all the 
 widening circle of civilisation ; its shadow is upon every 
 cradle and upon every grave ; it touches life at every 
 point ; it is the crook in every lot, yet it is the answer of 
 every difficulty ; it is the trouble of every soul that is 
 corrupt, and the hope of every soul that yearns for pure- 
 ness and liberty. Oh, blind are they who cannot read 
 these signs of the times ! 
 
 And far away in the distance, what seest thou ? Across 
 the seething sea of time, standing high above all earthly 
 affairs, yet inseparably connected with them ? What is 
 that glistening and dazzling object? It is fairer than the 
 sun when he shineth in the fulness of his strength, and 
 marvellous is its fascination alike for the evil and the 
 good : the evil look upon it until their knees tremble and 
 their bones melt like wax, and the good look unto it, and 
 praise the Lord in a song of thankfulness and hope. What 
 is it ? It is a great white throne whence the livino- Judsre 
 sends out His just and final decrees ; it is the hope of all 
 who are good, it is the infinite terror of the heart that is 
 bad. 
 
 The man who sees all these things clearly will be in his 
 day as Jeremiah was in his. He will be the servant of the 
 Lord, and he will speak boldly of things unseen; he will 
 utter God's judgments touching wickedness, and he will be 
 as a defenced city, and an iron pillar, and brazen walls 
 against the whole land. And do you suppose that he will 
 escape persecution and suffering ? Will his word be 
 quietly accepted, or devoutly received? Never; his life 
 
Jeremiah. 179 
 
 will be a battle, his bread will be begrudged, his familiar 
 friends will become his enemies, and they who cannot 
 strike him with a sword will annoy him with an anonymous 
 pen. It is impossible for an honest prophet to escape 
 persecution. " If they have hated me they will hate you ; 
 if they have persecuted me they will persecute you," are 
 Christ's own keen clear words. "What then ? Shall we live 
 in a quietness for which we have to pay our convictions ? 
 Shall we fea'r those who lift up, arms against us ? God 
 forbid. " They shall fight against thee, but they shall not 
 prevail against thee, for I am with thee, saith the Lord, to 
 deliver thee." 
 
180 The Silent Looks of Christ. 
 
 'SThe Silent Hoofed of Cfirijst* 
 
 "And Jesus entered into Jerusalem; and into the temple; and wlien lm 
 "had loolted rmind 'about upon all things, lie went out." — Mark xi. 11. 
 
 nnHIS is one of the passages of Scripture that the reader 
 may easily pass without allowing his attention to be 
 sufficiently arrested. The singularity of this act will not 
 escape your notice now that the verse is read as a text. 
 Jesus Christ entered into the city, and into the temple; 
 merely looked round about upon all things, and went out. 
 The comprehensiveness of this act will make you feel as if 
 you were girt about with eyes. Jesus Christ entered into 
 the city and into the temple, and looked round about upon 
 all things. The great things, and things minute and ob- 
 scure and comparatively worthless. If He thought it worth 
 while to create the daisy, will it be beneath Him to stop 
 and look at the little beauty which He painted ? We do 
 not look upon all things. We look upon faces, surfaces, 
 transient aspects of things; but Jesus looks into spirit, 
 purpose, motive, heart, impulse, will, and all the secrets of 
 that supreme mystery amongst us called human life. 
 
 The silence of this act will almost affright you. Jesus 
 came into the city, looked round about upon all things, and 
 did not say one word. That is terrible ! When men speak 
 
The Silent Looks of Christ. 181 
 
 to me, I can in some measure understand what they are 
 aiming at. But there are some looks, even amongst our- 
 selves, that are mysteries ; there are some glances shot 
 from human eyes that trouble the beholder ! Can guilt 
 bear the lingering enquiring gaze of innocence ? Does 
 not the corrupt man fear the eye of the just man more 
 than he would fear lightning at midnight ? May not that 
 look mean so much, even if it be a look of unsuspicion and 
 of entire ignorance, so far as the immediate circumstances 
 are concerned? Yet it may mean so much; and that 
 potential mood is the hell of the. bad man. 
 
 You see, then, that our text leads us to look, not at the 
 miracles and words of Jesus Christ, but to study His looks, 
 as indications of His character. And it may be profitable, 
 after we have spent some time in examining the eyes of 
 the Saviour, to enquire haw we should return the looks 
 that are so full of meaning. This is the subject of the 
 morning, The Silent Looks of the Son of God ! 
 
 In reading the Evangelists, have you ever noticed that 
 Mark, above all the other writers, takes note of the looks 
 of the Saviour ? Different men see different phases of the 
 same object. Luke began his Gospel by saying that he 
 was going to tell Theophilus everything. Who. can tell 
 everything about the Son of God ! I speak not only for 
 myself, but for every minister in this house, and, I believe, 
 for the whole Church of God, in saying that, after we have 
 written our sermons and our books, the thing that strikes 
 us most is their emptiness. "We seem to have missed the 
 very point we intended to indicate, and when we have 
 ceased our talk and our effort, there comes upon us a 
 
1 82 The Silent Looks of Christ. 
 
 sense of having ill done what we aimed to do, and we feel 
 as if we had not yet begun the story that is as a centre 
 without a circumference. 
 
 " And Jesus looked round about " (Mark x. 23).— It 
 would appear that Jesus Christ's look was, then, a circular 
 look. Instead of fixing His eye upon one point, He fixed 
 His vision upon all points, and, as it were, at the same 
 moment of time. "And Jesus looked round about." 
 That is an action specifically by itself. "And having 
 looked round he saith unto his disciples, How hardly 
 shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom 
 of heaven I " The look of the preacher should mean 
 something. Earnest men should have a look peculiarly 
 their own. What, my friend, if thy sermon has failed to 
 take effect because thy face gave the lie to thy voice ? 
 There are looks and looks. When will men discriminate 
 between things that differ ? when will they cease to regard 
 all things as alike ? and when will the time come when 
 men can see meanings even in unlikely things ? I have 
 seen on the plainest faces looks that had soul in them. 
 I have seen poor people look at me, in telling the story of 
 their trouble, in a way that has gone to my very heart, 
 and melted it in tender sympathy with their sufferings. 
 I have seen persons to whom intelligence of a startling 
 nature has been brought — intelligence of broken fortune, 
 of expired friends — who could not say one word, and yet 
 I had rather seen a tiger than the look of disappointment 
 and shame and fear and pity that I have seen upon some 
 human faces. Go and tell a man who is laughing — inno- 
 
The Silent Looks of Christ. 183 
 
 cently laughing — that his only child has been found dead 
 on the roadside. The man does not talk to you, except 
 with his eyes and his face. There is no storm so terrible 
 as the darkening and the raining of grief ! Jesus Christ 
 accompanied His words with a look, and sometimes left 
 His look unaccompanied by a word. 
 
 " But when he had turned about and looked on his 
 disciples, he rebuked Peter." He looked them all into 
 attention, and then gave them the lesson. Is He not 
 looking here to-day ? Should there be any turned heads 
 amongst us, any indifferent eyes, any careless hearts ? I 
 thank God I believe that so many people as I see before 
 me would not come together at twelve o'clock without 
 earnestness in their hearts regarding this ministration of 
 the gospel. Observe the peculiarity of the occasion. 
 " When he had turned about, and looked on his disciples, 
 he rebuked Peter." The look was a general caution ; 
 the rebuke was an individual application. The look was 
 as a common judgment ; the rebuke was a personal law. 
 Jesus looks when He does not rebuke, but He never 
 rebukes without looking. My friend, thou would st see 
 more of the eye of God if thou wouldst drop the scales 
 from thine own. But I have given my subject as the 
 silent looks of the Saviour. Luke, in his twenty- second 
 chapter, indicates a remarkable instance of such looks — 
 viz., " The Lord turned and looked upon Peter." Did He 
 speak? No. Did He cry out, " Shame ! " No. What 
 did He do ? He turned and looked upon Peter, and broke 
 the man's heart. May He break our hearts in the same 
 
I 84 The Silent Looks 0/ Christ. 
 
 way ere He cut us in pieces with the sword of His anger, 
 and utterly slay us with the breath of His judgment ! He 
 had told Peter that before the cock crowed he would deny 
 his Master three times. Peter had just given the third 
 denial ; immediately the cock crowed. The Lord turned 
 and looked upon Peter, and Peter's heart of rock melted 
 into a river of tears. What was there in the look ? Does 
 the eye of Jesus look memories at us ? broken vows, oaths, 
 pledges ? Is the eye of the Saviour like a mirror, in which 
 a man may see himself? Is the eye of Jesus Christ terrible 
 as a sword of judgment, that it can cut to the dividing 
 asunder of the joints and marrow of a man ? 
 
 Mark gives us another silent look in his third chapter 
 and fifth verse. " And when Jesus had looked round 
 about on them with anger, being, grieved for the hardness 
 of their hearts, he saith unto the man, Stretch forth thine 
 hand." He said nothing to the individuals themselves ; 
 He only looked round about on them with anger. I have 
 heard of the sword that flamed in Eden, that moved from 
 the east to the west, and back again, night and day. But 
 oh, I could have run through that sword, methinks, com- 
 pared with this circle of fiery anger which now surrounded 
 the Son of God ! anger^ of the most terrible kind, — anger 
 arising out of grief. The anger of malice who cares for ? 
 The anger of mortified pride, vanity, ambition — who heeds 
 it ? The anger of mere selfishness, — what is the meaning 
 of that? But when grief turns to anger; when love itself 
 becomes wrath, — who can abide the day of its coming ? Is 
 there anything so terrible as " the wrath of the Lamb " — 
 that greatest contradiction in words, apparently, yet that 
 
The Silent Looks of Christ. 185 
 
 consummation of purest anger in reality ? " The Lord 
 looketh on the heart." The Lord is always looking. He 
 looketh from heaven, and beholdeth the children of men. 
 The Lord looked to see if there were any that feared Him, 
 and that honoured His name. There is no protection from 
 His eye. This is a terrible statement to be delivered to the 
 bad man ! You are never alone ! When you think you 
 are alone, your solitude is but relative. You can take the 
 thinnest veil and hide yourself from men, but who can hide 
 himself behind impenetrable curtains and screenings from 
 the eye of fire ? All things are naked and open unto the 
 eyes of Him with whom we have to do ! " Whither shall 
 I flee from thy presence ? " The question is unanswered 
 and unanswerable. God fills the universe, overflows infini- 
 tude, and thou canst not escape His eye ! I think I have 
 heard something before of this silent look. You may 
 recall it. When I read in the Apocalypse, as I have just 
 read our morning lesson about John seeing, on the Isle of 
 Patmos, eyes like a flame of fire, I felt that I had read 
 something like that before. Where ? Can you tell me ? 
 Young friends, who are supposed to have just read the 
 Bible, you who have the youngest, tenderest, freshest 
 memories, can you tell me ? Where ? You read some- 
 thing like it in the Book of Exodus. The eye of the Lord 
 never dims. If you have once read of it, you never can 
 forget it ; if you have once seen it, it is an eternal 
 presence ! 
 
 When the Egyptians pursued Israel, and there was a 
 halt made, a cloud came between the Israelites and the 
 Egyptians ; the one side was brightness — that is, on the 
 
1 86 The Silent Looks of Christ. 
 
 side towards the Israelites — and the other side was dark- 
 ness ; and the Lord looked out of the cloud and troubled the 
 Egyptians ! Have I your attention ? Do you follow me ? 
 The Lord looked out of the cloud and troubled the Egyp- 
 tians, and His glory struck off the iron from the wheels of 
 their chariots, and they were dismayed ! Not a word was 
 spoken; there was no thunder in the air. What was it 
 then that troubled haughty Egypt, proud of her resources, 
 fat with the marrow of her accursed victories over a bound 
 people, — what was it that troubled the haughty queen ? It 
 was a look, a silent look ! An argument could have been 
 answered mayhap: if not answered, it could have been re- 
 plied to. But a look ! — who could return it ? When the 
 lightning strikes a man, who can look at it ? Aye, when 
 the summer sun goes behind a cloud, as it were, and sud- 
 denly strikes down upon the lookers up, who can bear the 
 sting of his fire ? So, then, you will find that the eyes of 
 the Lord are often spoken of in the holy Book. Are these 
 eyes terrible then ? May any one look at them ? Herein 
 is the mercy of the Lord seen. What is terrible is also 
 gentle. " Our Grod is a consuming fire ! " " God is 
 love ! " " He numbereth the stars ! " " He bindeth up 
 the broken in heart ! " He walketh upon the wings of the 
 wind, and the clouds are as the dust of His feet, and His 
 utterance shakes the kingdoms and dominions of the 
 universe ! Yet not a sparrow falleth to the ground with- 
 out your Father's notice ! If the looks are terrible, they 
 can also be benign. Hear the proof of this : " I will 
 guide thee with mine eye." Lord, what is the history of 
 Thine eye? the eye that troubled Egypt, and struck off 
 
The Silent Looks of Christ. 187 
 
 the iron from the chariot- wheels of the host of Pharaoh ? 
 the eye that divided the waters, and made them stand back, 
 that the Lord might pass in the person of His chosen one ? 
 "I will guide thee with mine eye." The eye that makes 
 day, and summer, and beauty, and the eternal light ! 
 Behold the goodness and severity of God ! " I have 
 heard," said the Psalmist, "that power belongeth unto 
 God ! " And he trembled, and he took up his pen again, 
 and wrote, " To thee also, Lord, belongeth mercy ! " 
 Omnipotence in the hand of mercy is the idea of righteous 
 government. So the eyes of the Lord are very terrible. 
 Flames of fire are the only symbols by which they can be 
 likened amongst us ; but they are also gentle, melting with 
 dewy tenderness, yearning with unutterable pity ; looking 
 out for us ; watching our home coming, looking over the 
 hills and along the curving valleys, if haply they may see 
 somewhat of the shadow of the returning child ! 
 
 Will it not be profitable for us now to enquire : If such 
 be the looks of God the Father and the Son, how should 
 we return looks that are so full of significance and pur- 
 pose ? Are we not able to use our eyes to advantage ? 
 Hear the Word of #he Lord. " Look unto me, and be ye 
 saved, all ye ends of the earth." How ? Look not with 
 the eyes of the body, not with curiosity ; but with rever- 
 ence, with eagerness of heart, with determination of love, 
 with all the urgency and importunity of conscious need. 
 He asks us to look; to look at Himself; to look at Him- 
 self, not on the Throne of Judgment, but in His capacity 
 as Redeemer and Saviour of the world. Have you looked ? 
 Pause ! There is no need to be in haste. Have you 
 
"3 88 The Silent Looks of Christ. 
 
 looked 1 ? Observe our earliest lesson this morning — viz., 
 there is looking and looking. I have seen a dog look 
 towards the sun, but he saw it not ! The beast always 
 seems to be looking upon the flowers of the meadow, but 
 it is not seeing them ! Have you looked with your heart, 
 with your hunger, with your urgent need ? Have you 
 looked with that expectant, piercing look that means, " I 
 will see ? " " Yes," says one of my hearers, " I have 
 looked, and I have a comfortable sense of having seen the 
 Lord ; but I get so weary, and jaded, and worn out by the 
 difficulties, frets, temptations, and chafings of this earthly 
 life, that sometimes I do not know what to do." Then let 
 me tell you what to do. If, for a moment, I have the 
 advantage of you, I will use my advantage to teach and 
 comfort you, if I can. You are weary, worn, dispirited, 
 tempted, discouraged, and do not know how to go on. Go 
 on thus — looking unto Jesus ! You will see how the various 
 texts belong to one another, and constitute one piece of 
 solid religious teaching. Looking unto Jesus. Returning 
 the look of the Saviour. Not a hasty glance, but a steady, 
 importunate, eager, penetrating " looking for." And He 
 is only behind a veil. If you did but know it, there is 
 hardly a cloud between ! He will come from behind, and 
 say to the heart that has waited for Him, " For a small 
 moment I have forsaken thee, but with everlasting mercies 
 will I gather thee." It was better to have that small 
 moment. There may be a monotony of kindness, a mono- 
 tony of light. Better to have a momentary sense of 
 orphanage, and then to be embraced with a still fonder 
 clasp by the infinite love of the eternal heart ! 
 
The Silent Looks of Christ. 189 
 
 Look unto Jesus even through your tears. Tears are 
 telescopes. I have seen further through my tears than 
 ever I saw through my smiles. Laughter hath done but 
 little for me ; but sorrow and a riven heart have expounded 
 many passages in the inspired volume that before were 
 hard, enigmatical reading. Blessed be God, we can see 
 Jesus through our tears. He knows what tears are. 
 Jesus wept ! The eyes that John saw as a flame of fire 
 the Jews at the grave of Lazarus saw as fountains of 
 water. " And coming near unto the city, when he beheld 
 it, he wept over it." No man can fathom the depth of 
 that river, or tell the bitterness of that sorrow. You have 
 tears. Every man amongst us has his tearful times. But 
 we use our tears wrongfully if we do not lift up our eyes 
 and look through them unto Jesus in the heavens ! So 
 much for the comfortable side of this. Dare I turn to the 
 other side ? Surely, for I am a steward only. May I 
 say another word that shall not be so tender? Surely,. 
 for I am an echo, not a voice. Am I here to make a 
 Bible for the comforting and soothing of men, and not to 
 expound a Bible that looks all ways, and pierces all 
 things ? If I now speak with apparent harshness, believe 
 me that it is a cry of pain, that I may bring some men to 
 consideration and decision in a right direction. My subject 
 is the silent looks of the Saviour — the silent looks of God 
 — and the method in which men are to return the glances 
 of the Divine eyes. Let me say that those who will not 
 look now shall look ! The great sight shall not perish 
 from the horizon without their beholding it. Hear these 
 words — " They shall look upon me whom they have 
 
190 The Silent Looks of Christ. 
 
 pierced ! They would not look upon me, but they shall 
 do so ! " The great cross shall not be taken up and set 
 away in the heavens as a centre of holy fellowship without 
 those who despised it having one look at it ! What will 
 be the consequence of their looking? They shall look 
 upon Him whom they have pierced and mourn ! The look 
 was too late: the look was not in time. You have put 
 your fingers in your ears while the sweet music of the 
 Gospel has been appealing for the attention of your heart ; 
 you have shut your eyes when the King has come in to 
 show you His beauty. But He says He will not break up 
 this scheme of things without every eye beholding! Every 
 - eye shall see Him, and they also that pierced Him shall 
 look upon Him. Shall I add another word that no 
 human tongue is fit to speak ? How shall I utter it ? If 
 I could let my heart say it, I would. But it must be 
 spoken with all the incompetence and brokenness of the 
 voice. There shall be a cry in the latter time, and the cry 
 shall be this — " Hide us from the face of him that sitteth 
 on the throne!" Hide us! What from? "The sword?" 
 No. " The terrible phenomena ? " No. But from the 
 face — that anguished face, that smitten face, that insulted 
 face ! Oh ! I see the marks the thorns made ! I see the 
 red streaks upon it that I made when I smote Him in the 
 face and said, " Prophesy ! " Oh, hide us from the face of 
 Him that sitteth on the throne ! Shall it come to this ? 
 Is He not the fairest among ten thousand and altogether 
 lovely ? Is there any one whose beauty is to be compared 
 with His? .You say, "Our God is love." Yes, "Our 
 God is a consuming fire ! " You say, " The eyes of the 
 
The Silent Looks of Christ. 191 
 
 Lord are a comfort to His people." 80 they are. But 
 the eye of the Lord struck off the iron from the wheels of 
 the Egyptians on the night I have just spoken about. 
 
 We shall have to look; the only question is. how ? Are 
 we prepared for His coming ? How are we prepared for 
 His face ? By going to His Cross. He proposes that we 
 should meet Him in His weakness. He appoints the place. 
 He says, " Meet me where I am weakest ; when my right 
 hand is maimed, and my left, when my feet are pierced 
 with iron, and my side is gashed with steel, and my 
 temples are crushed with cruel thorns, — meet me there ! " 
 Then having met Him there, when the Son of man shall 
 come in His glory, and all His holy angels with Him, He 
 will be the same Saviour, as gentle and as pitiful as ever. 
 And now, the Lord's hands are His again, He will use 
 them for the opening of the door of His kingdom, and the 
 lifting up of all who put their trust in Him ! 
 
192 Present to hear God's Word. 
 
 present to t)ear (Boti'0 aaiortu 
 
 " Nam therefore are me all here present before God, to hear all things 
 that are commanded, thee of God." — ACTS x. 33. 
 
 T ET this be the spirit of our service to-night, and it is 
 impossible but that great good will be done. This is 
 my purpose, let it be yours. The text puts me into the 
 position of a messenger, and it puts you into the position 
 of listeners. The supposition is that I have been in deep 
 communion with God, that I have been studying His 
 word, and that 1 have a message immediately from Himself 
 to you. There is nothing unnatural in that supposition. 
 A minister of Christ should be a help to the attainment of 
 higher spiritual life and truth; his time is spent in the 
 study of the Scriptures ; he is protected from many of the 
 roughest collisions and controversies of ordinary life ; and 
 as he knows, or ought to know, much of the Divine will, 
 so he may claim to be a messenger from heaven so long 
 as he keeps clearly within the limits of the written word* 
 
 What is the purpose of the listener? "To hear all 
 things that are commanded thee of God." Not to be 
 momentarily entertained; not to be charmed, delighted, 
 or enchanted ; not to listen to assurances of false hope or 
 promise of comfort ; but to hear the distinct word of God, 
 
Present to hear God's Word. 193 
 
 though it be stem and rousing as a command. Now as it 
 is both impossible and undesirable to go over all the things 
 commanded of God, I propose to fix upon two of them, 
 and to make them as clear as I can. 
 
 My first message as a Gospel preacher you will find in 
 these words : " God commandeth all men everywhere to 
 repent." That is the starting-point of all holy progress. 
 Until we have repented, we have not begun to travel the 
 upward way. The very first step has not been taken. 
 You may have been debating, contending, speculating, and 
 passing on from one opinion to another, but if you have 
 not repented, you have been hammering cold iron, you 
 have been beating the air, you have been lifting water with 
 a sieve, — all is useless, because you did not start with a 
 right condition of heart. The man who deeply and truly 
 repents is broken-hearted, helpless, ashamed of himself, 
 borne down by intolerable sorrow for sin, cannot lift up 
 so much as his eyes unto heaven, says he will rise and go 
 to his Father. Now the soil is ready for the seed ; now 
 the heart longs for a message from heaven ; now all the 
 desires of the soul are gathered up into one fervent 
 prayer, What must I do to be saved ? To a man in such a 
 spiritual condition as that, the Gospel preacher has a direct 
 message. The Gospel preacher cannot answer curious 
 questions ; he cannot set himself up as the clever reader 
 of difficult conundrums ; he is not at liberty to read the 
 deepest mysteries of the kingdom in the hearing of the 
 mocker, or to cast pearls before swine; his message is to 
 the lost, the penitent, the broken-hearted, and to such only, 
 at the beginning. Repentance is the basis on which he 
 
 13 
 
194 Present to hear God's Word. 
 
 builds. Suppose a man has grievously offended you, etc. 
 (" Can do nothing with him.") 
 
 Do not begin by attempting to take repentance to pieces 
 intellectually, saying it consists of this and that ; you 
 must feel it to know it : there is no mistaking the fiery 
 shame which burns in the heart, the sting of remorse 
 which makes the soul sore with an incurable wound, the 
 river which gushes from the shattered rock of self-re- 
 proachful obstinacy ; you will know it when you feel it, 
 and not to be able to explain it may be the best proof of 
 its reality. 
 
 2. I am commanded of God to call men to belief, to 
 faith, to trust in Christ as the only Redeemer of mankind. 
 If your heart js in the right state, the next step is to go 
 out of yourself for help. You will find that help is not in 
 yourself. You will feel that your sin puts away the possi- 
 bility of self-salvation. You can do nothing. The out- 
 going of your soul must be for mercy ,-r-" God be merciful 
 to me a sinner," must be your prayer. The very act of 
 belief is a movement towards health of soul. It is equal 
 to the "Rise up and walk" spoken to the lame man; the 
 very attempt to rise bringing with it the power to do so. 
 Belief is a transaction. It is not a mere acknowledgment 
 of truth, jt is going over to truth, receiving it, embracing 
 it, loving it wjth unreserved affection. 
 
 The one word which Christ seemed to use more than 
 any other was " believe." It was to the faith-life that He 
 called mankind. He seemed to say — Come away from 
 everything you can see and touch and handle, and cross 
 over into another world called Faith ; when you are in the 
 
Present to hear God's Word. 195 
 
 act of crossing over you will seem to be losing everything; 
 you will feel as if there was nothing to grasp, and as if you 
 were calling your soul to live upon nothing ; but that 
 feeling is only for a moment, — take the step, and you will 
 at once enter into a great liberty. So much for faith as 
 an act of the mind. 
 
 But faith as an act of salvation has a great help on the 
 road ; we are to have faith in Him. " Whosoever be- 
 lieveth in Him ; " " Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ ; " 
 " I live by faith on the Son of God ; " and in calling us to 
 this faith, there are actually several appeals to the senses. 
 Herein is a mystery ; we have so many stepping-stones, 
 so to speak, over which we pass, and then at last we plunge 
 into the infinite sea of Divine love. In the process there 
 seems to be a physical reason behind every spiritual act. 
 Thus if I believe in Christ I do not believe in an abstrac- 
 tion, but in a man ; that is physical, — I do not believe in a 
 dreamer, I believe in a loorher; that is physical, — I do not 
 believe in a sentiment, I believe in a sacrifice; that is 
 physical, — I do not believe in pretension, I believe in 
 blood; that is physical. I want you to see therefore that 
 faith is not a blind assent, a kind of delirious ecstasy got 
 up on purpose to swallow mysteries : it is a high intel- 
 lectual and moral effort; it comes after a well-established 
 and splendid history; it is a confession of a great heart- 
 want; it is a sign of the loving and absolute acceptance by 
 the heart of the whole work and claim of the Son of Grod. 
 
 I call upon you to believe. " Blessed are they that have 
 not seen and yet have believed." Say, " Lord, I believe, 
 help Thou mine unbelief." "Believest Thou that I am 
 
196 Present to hear God's Word. 
 
 able to do this ? " " According to thy faith be it unto 
 thee." "All things are possible unto him that believeth." 
 " Lord, increase our faith." 
 
 Up to this point I am as sure as I am of my own ex- 
 istence that I have delivered the message of God. If I 
 begin to analyse " repentance " and to give a metaphysical 
 definition of " faith," I may use words of my own, and so 
 may obscure the word of the Living One; and I may 
 tempt you to ask questions and state objections, and ruin 
 yourselves by your own one-sided cleverness. The Gospel 
 is not an argument ; it is a declaration, it is a conditional 
 amnesty, it is a proclamation of the year of the Lord. 
 
 Let me ask you, then, are you really in earnest about 
 knowing the message of God ? Listen to me merely for 
 entertainment, and you will be disappointed; listen for 
 God's voice in mine, and you will hear it. Imagihe this 
 to be a great prison and yourselves to be prisoners. You 
 are bound here. There is not a man at liberty to do as he 
 pleases. Suppose that I have come with a message from 
 the Queen, saying, Every man here may be set free who 
 will confess his disloyalty and repent of it and seek the 
 Queen's pardon. I am a messenger. I have not come to 
 argue with you, but to state the terms. I may try to per- 
 suade you, and I may try to subdue your hardness; but 
 having done this, I return to the proclamation, and say, 
 This is the royal word, and I can tell you neither less nor 
 more. But suppose you do not believe that it is the royal 
 word ? That does not alter the fact of the case. Denial is 
 no argument. If I deny your honesty, I do not prove you 
 dishonourable. To deny that the sun shines does not 
 
Present to hear God's Word. 197 
 
 bring darkness upon the earth. The best thing you can 
 do is to put the offer to the test. Rise, and try to go out, 
 To sit still and argue is madness. Bring the matter to a 
 practical issue. Prove the message to be either true or 
 false. That is precisely what has to be done with the 
 Gospel. Bring the message to a practical issue. Repent, 
 believe, flee to Christ, and until you have done this you 
 word of denial goes for nothing ; until you have done thi 
 let God be true and every man a liar. 
 
I<j8 The Early Life of Daniel. 
 
 %%t (Eaclp tilt of SDanfel* 
 
 " And the king spake unto Ashpenaz the master of his eunuchs, that lie 
 should bring certain of the children of Israel, and of the king's seed, 
 and of the princes ; children in whom was no blemish, but well 
 favoured, and skilful in all wisdom, and cuimi/ng, m knowledge, and 
 understanding science, and such as had ability in them to stand in 
 the king's palace, and whom they might teaeh the learning and the 
 tongue of the Chaldeans. And the king appointed them a daily 
 provision of the king's meat, and of the mine which he drank : so 
 nourishing them three years, that at the end thereof they might 
 stand before the king."—T>&8. i. 3-5. 
 
 ^TEE how the fancies of men are as threads which are 
 ^ worked into the web of Divine Providence. Nebu^ 
 chadnezzar, in this case, displayed his taste — gave licence 
 to his fancy — in commanding that the children who should 
 be elected to this high honour- and privilege should be 
 children of the king's seed and princes. He was not 
 extending any favour to the common people. He wished 
 to have with him only the noble persons of the blood 
 royal, and those who had in them the kind of quality that 
 could be turned best to his own account. He did not 
 fully know what he was -doing. What man amongst us is 
 there who knows the whole meaning of any act that he 
 does ? He has a meaning which he knows tolerably well, 
 but behind every act there are outgoings, relationships^; 
 
The Early Life of Daniel. 1 99 
 
 purposes, connections, of which the doer himself little 
 dreams. And were those men comforted for their cap- 
 tivity ? They had been taken away from their own land ; 
 they were the slaves of Nebuchadnezzar the king, and the 
 king appointed them meat from his own table and wine 
 from his own vintage. Were the captives, then, satisfied ? 
 Were all old memories banished from their recollection, 
 all tender associations taken out of their hearts, and were 
 they amply repaid for their exile and their captivity by 
 eating of the king's food and drinking of the king's wine ? 
 Let me lay special stress upon this point, if you please, 
 for there is in it a great lesson to us all. It shows how 
 secondary advantages may accompany the deepest humili- 
 ations. If you look at the food and the wine only, you 
 will say, " These poor youths are well off \ truly they 
 cannot be said to be in captivity at all if they eat and 
 drink just what the king himself takesi" This is the 
 danger of taking a superficial view of our life and its 
 surroundings. We look at what we have in the hand ; 
 we see the bounties under which our table is groaning, 
 and we say, " Well, whatever may be said by preachers 
 and by moralists, after all we are doing tolerably well." 
 Please to understand that the men who were offered the 
 king's bread and the king's wine were slaves. If you 
 look at the advantages I describe, those advantages are 
 merely secondary and relative. Underneath all these 
 condescensions on the king's part and enjoyment on the 
 part of the exiles, there is the grim and terrible fact that 
 the men were not masters of their own time. And yet 
 how well off they seemed to be. The king sent then* a, 
 
200 The Early Life of Daniel. 
 
 portion of his own meat and of the very wine which he 
 drank. What more could they desire ? Nothing, if 
 they were mere animals. Regarding yourself as a mere 
 animal, what more do you want than to eat and drink, 
 and to be well clothed and sheltered ? Regard yourself as 
 a being possessed of spiritual life, and endowed with a 
 splendid destiny, and then tell me how far any food, any 
 wine can satisfy the inner appetencies — the hunger and 
 thirst of the soul. Take a man's freedom from him ; lock 
 him up in a chamber lined with velvet, and made glowing 
 and lustrous with the highest productions of art : what 
 are they to him ? Nothing, if he be more than an animal. 
 He says, "These are beautiful things, but I cannot see 
 them ; I cannot look upon them ; they mock me. I want 
 my liberty j I would rather be running on the wildest 
 hills of my native country than be mocked by all this ease, 
 and luxury, and light, and beauty, and music." 
 
 When I was in the United States of America, I heard 
 this statement :— A slave, who had served his master well, 
 was honoured in his master's will with his freedom, and 
 with the freedom of his wife and children, and with a 
 donation of 500 dollars; and when the will was read to 
 the man, he said, "What have 1 done that I should be 
 turned away from the old estate ; I will not have my 
 freedom and I will not have the dollars. I will remain 
 here and be what I have been for the last twenty years. 
 My old master and his wife were kind to us in our sor- 
 row and affliction ; what do 1 want with my freedom ? 
 Go into the North, where I shall be sneered at, and go 
 amongst strangers that don't care for me ! No, please 
 
The Early Life of Daniel. 201 
 
 let me remain on the old ground." And that was re- 
 peated as an argument for slavery. The reasoning pro- 
 ceeded in this wise : How could slavery be so bad a thing 
 as the abolitionists have pictured, when a man who had 
 offered to him his freedom, his wife's freedom, the free- 
 dom of his children, and a gift of money, deliberately 
 refused it, and even passionately rejected it? And at 
 first sight there did seem to be something in the reason, 
 but really and truly that reasoning tells against slavery, 
 not for it. Any system that could take out of a man his 
 instinctive love of freedom, any system that could so far 
 de-humanise a man as to make him prefer captivity to 
 slavery, is a system that has damnation written upon its 
 forehead by the finger of God. I am afraid there are 
 persons who are reasoning just so about the world, the 
 flesh, and the devil ; — people who say that preachers and 
 moral teachers generally take quite a false view of sin in 
 saying that the sinner has a hard time of it, and that the 
 way of transgressors is hard. "Ha, ha!" say they, "if 
 they knew what we have to eat and what we have to drink 
 — a portion from the king's table — they would talk dif- 
 ferently, and their sermons would be less gloomy." There 
 is something in the reasoning ; but as in the former case, 
 so in this, the reasoning tells against the sinner. Any 
 course of conduct that can make a man apparently happy 
 without God, that can take him down to that low point of 
 humanity which is satisfied with mere food and drink, is 
 a course of conduct which will end in the annihilation of 
 all that is noble and beautiful in human nature. 
 
 When the king's arrangements were made known to 
 
202 The Early Life of Daniel. 
 
 Daniel, and to those who were elected to stand with him 
 and to undergo this training, we read in the eighth verse the 
 following words : — "But Daniel purposed in his heart that 
 he would not defile himself with the portion of the king's 
 meat nor with the wine which he drank ; therefore, he 
 requested of the prince of the eunuphs that he might not 
 defile himself." In the first instance there was a religious 
 difficulty. Daniel had been brought up in the Mosaic 
 institutions, and, therefore, he had been trained to abjure 
 all meat that had been offered to idols, and all drink that 
 had been laid upon the altar of forbidden gods. He was 
 a religious man from home ! He was a man who took the 
 commandments into captivity with him ! Alas ! there are 
 some of us who can throw off our old selves and do in 
 Rome as the Romans do with a vengeance. Daniel, 
 driven into captivity, took his religion with him. When 
 we are thrown into difficult circumstances, do we take our 
 religious faith with us ? When we go to other countries, 
 do we take with us the old home training ? Do we repeat 
 the commandments as they were thundered from Sinai, 
 and do we re-pronounce the oath we took when we gave 
 ourselves to the Saviour, as He hung upon the cross, and 
 welcomed us to His love, and kingdom, and service? That 
 is a poor religion which can be put off like a garment we 
 are tired of for the time being, and can be put on again to 
 serve occasion. How independent man is who has risen 
 above the point of the merely animal life ! Temperance 
 all the world over is independence. Moderation means 
 mastery. There are some men in the world who will not 
 be pampered; Daniel was one of them ; his compeers 
 
The Early Life of Daniel. 203 
 
 belonged to the same class. There are men, alas ! whom 
 you can seduce from paths of righteousness and services of 
 duty by offering them wine when it is red in the cup. 
 If they are going upon the King's business and you hold 
 up wine in the air, and say, "Come, taste," the King's 
 business may perish. They are drawn aside ; they are 
 slaves of their appetites. Their arms are free ; their hands 
 are not bound ; their limbs have upon them no mark of 
 fetter or manacle \ but still, they are the bondsmen of 
 their passions. Is not he a strong man who can pass by 
 the well-laden table and say, " I will not sit down to the 
 feast because I have religious reasons. I have a vow to 
 keep ; I have an errand to accomplish ; I have a message 
 to deliver*'? 
 
 You remember when a young man went arm in arm 
 with John Wesley into a room that was well provided 
 with all luxuries for the table. He whispered to the 
 preacher, " There is not much self-denial here, Mr. 
 Wesley." "No," said that keen wit; "but there is a 
 fine field for its exercise.*' 
 
 In order to hold yourselves masters of your appetites, 
 begin early. It is no use a man of forty-five years of age 
 beginning to say he is going to turn over a new leaf j the 
 leaves won't be turned then. I think, perhaps, I may be 
 speaking discouragingly to some man who is making at 
 that time of life a resolution to be better. Well, to reso- 
 lution, to perseverance, to devout energy, it is possible, but 
 it is not easy. Young man, lay down your cigar ; it will 
 do you no good. Throw away your pipe ; it does not make 
 you manly, it only makes you a nuisance to other and 
 
'204 The Early Life of Daniel. 
 
 better people : and don't touch strong drink of any kind 
 whatsoever. This is the testimony that I have to bear : 
 that he who gives way to these things in his youth is com- 
 mitting suicide by inches. He is taking away his will- 
 power ; he is dulling his finest spiritual sensibilities. It 
 does not tell upon him all at once, he may live to be an 
 old man and say, " It is a very slow poison." What he 
 might have been he never thinks of ; he only sees what he 
 is, a tough, much-enduring man ; whereas, he might have 
 been a very prince and king, and guide, and friend among 
 the highest classes of the land. Be sure of this, you can 
 never do wrong if you are a temperate, you cannot be 
 wrong if you are total abstainers. You cannot get wrong 
 if you say, " No, I will not touch this. I will have few 
 habits, and they shall be simple, and pure ; such as can be 
 named in the hearing of the most virtuous, and practised 
 in the sight of the keenest moral critics." Will that, 
 then, save you ? It will certainly not damn you. Is this, 
 then, all the gospel I have to preach? It is the beginning. 
 It is far away enough; in fact, it does not touch the great 
 vital questions at all ; but seeing that I have to deal with 
 people of all kinds, I am obliged to give lessons elemen- 
 tary as well as intermediate and final, and to the young 
 men before me I would preach from this example of 
 Daniel, the duty, the beauty, the comfort, the grandeur 
 of the discipline that says, " The food is excellent, the wine 
 is the most delicious that ever was offered by the vintages 
 of earth, but I say ' no ' to them both, I will touch not, 
 taste not, handle not." It is something early in life (for 
 Daniel was quite a young man at the time the text speaks 
 
The Early Life of Daniel. 205 
 
 of him) to say " no " with a thrilling emphasis. You 
 talk about discipline ! Discipline is a manifold term : it 
 covers a great deal of ground. Let me ask you to attend 
 to the discipline of saying " no." I love to see the prac- 
 tice of manly sports of the right kind: running, leaping, 
 swimming, and divers gymnastic exercises. I rejoice ex- 
 ceedingly in all these athletic pastimes, and in all these 
 disciplinary sports and enjoyments. They have a great 
 purpose to serve, but there is a still higher discipline — a 
 discipline of the soul ; the discipline which enables a man 
 to look at a bodily advantage and to say, " I will not 
 touch it;" the discipline which enables a man to receive 
 an invitation, on gilt-edged paper and scented, to spend an 
 evening with sinners in their gluttony and their wine- 
 bibbing, and that enables him to put it in the fire. No 
 man can do so in a right spirit, without taking a step in 
 the upward direction. As a minister, visiting all parts of 
 the country for upwards of twenty years, I have never 
 gone anywhere that my being an anti-smoker was an 
 objection to my going : I have gone to many places how- 
 ever where my smoking would have been a deadly ob- 
 jection. You cannot go anywhere where discipline will 
 be a disadvantage to you, and where the power of saying 
 " no " to appetites and tastes will go against you ; but in 
 life you will be very often placed in circumstances where 
 your longings, your hungerings, and evil habitudes, will 
 stand in your way and injure your prospects. My hope 
 in this matter is in the young. As to the old, I have little 
 or no hope ; they are gone. They will hear our lectures 
 and sneer at them. We may speak to them about modera- 
 
206 The Early Life oj Daniel. 
 
 tion, but the devil has the better of them. They cannot 
 hear, for their ears are waxed heavy. 
 
 Daniel said to the man who was in charge, and with 
 whom God had given him favour, " Prove thy servants, I 
 beseech thee, ten days, and let them give us pulse to eat, 
 and water to drink. Then let our countenances be looked 
 upon before thee, and the countenances of the children 
 that eat of the portion of the king's meat ; and as thou 
 seest, deal with thy servants. So he consented to them in 
 this matter, and proved them ten days. And at the end of 
 ten days their countenances appeared fairer and fatter in 
 flesh than all the children who did eat the portion of the 
 king's meat." " A little that a righteous man hath is 
 better than the riches of many wicked." Sometimes we 
 say we do not know how very poor people can manage ! 
 Because we take a false estimate of life altogether. You 
 could do with nine-tenths less than you take to keep up 
 that pampered body of yours. I speak now about the 
 great majority of people in saying that they would be 
 better, cooler, healthier, and altogether improved, if they 
 could deduct three meals a-day, and make the remaining 
 meal nine-tenths less rich than it is at present. It takes 
 very little to keep life going, if we did but know it. God 
 has not founded society upon a basis that requires every 
 man to spend £5,000 a-year. He has so constituted 
 human life and human society, that very, very little will 
 do, and there is plenty on the face of the earth for every 
 man; if a man strains himself to be a glutton and a wine- 
 bibber, an absorbent of everything that comes in his way, 
 he has lost the Divine line of physical training, and is 
 
The Early Life of Daniel. 207 
 
 taking more than is meet, and not returning to society 
 an equivalent for what he consumes. What had these 
 young men ? Pulse and water. Why, some of us would 
 have thought, when we were in our teens, as Daniel and 
 his fellows were, that we were being starved if we had 
 only porridge. Ah ! that is the stuff for making men of 
 you. Depend upon it, your venison-fed men will go 
 down, and be quite exhausted and want to sit down on the 
 first stile, when the porridge-fed man goes on mile after 
 mile, and is as fresh at the end of the day as he was at the 
 beginning. God has been pleased so to make you, that it 
 requires very little indeed to keep your heart going, your 
 pulse beating in freshness, in vitality, in strength, and in 
 comfort. I am speaking now, remember, to the young. 
 When a man gets towards fifty years of age, I turn very 
 liberal with him. I am not a cynic : I am not an ascetic. 
 I do not limit and bind a man down to the merest elemen- 
 tary line. When a man gets over forty years of age and 
 has worked well up to that time, I can indulge him to 
 almost any extent. I then look at the thirty years he has 
 had of hard work and noble endurance, and I exclaim, " I 
 have nothing to say to you : you are now a full-grown 
 man ; consider yourself, consider your circumstances ; see 
 what is best for you, and do what is right in your own 
 eyes." But to the young I am a severe disciplinarian, 
 and I engage that twenty years after, they will come to 
 me and thank me for my discipline. Not one man, but 
 many men have come to me, almost to curse the memory 
 of their father and their mother, in that in early life they 
 allowed them to do just what they pleased. They were 
 
208 The Early Life of Daniel. 
 
 brought up to gratify every whim, they were allowed to 
 follow every inclination and every impulse, and then at 
 twenty-one they were men of no strength of character, 
 and were left to be the sport of all combinations of 
 circumstances. 
 
 See how right-doing is always willing to be proved. 
 Daniel was willing to take a space of ten days for the 
 proof of the proposition which he submitted to the men 
 who had charge of them. This is characteristic of all 
 right-doing. If a man comes before me with a right case, 
 sound through and through, he says, " Submit it to any 
 test you please. I leave it in your hands. Do in the 
 matter what you think is right." That which is honest 
 will bear probing ; that which is complete in its morality 
 will bear searching into. Now, this is precisely what the 
 Apostle Paul says to us about religion itself, and about 
 the whole sphere and scope of life, " Prove all things : 
 hold fast that which is good ;" and when I stand before 
 you as a Christian teacher, it is not to impose something 
 upon you, but to say, " This is the truth ; this is the doc- 
 trine which appears to me to be the Divine teaching. 
 I expound, I enforce, I apply. Now that I have done my 
 utmost, you go and prove it for your own selves." Oh 
 that men were wise that they would consider these things; 
 that they would reason with God and know the meaning 
 of that to which He calls them ! And so we read that, 
 "As for these four children, God gave them knowledge 
 and skill in all learning and wisdom: and Daniel had 
 understanding in all visions and dreams." I wish you 
 to dwell upon this for one moment, to show you that, 
 
The Early Life of Daniel. • 209 
 
 God interposes so as to quicken the intellect, so as to 
 give higher sagacity to the understanding, so as to make 
 a man mentally robuster and stronger. Grod has juris- 
 diction in the province of ideas. He can stimulate the 
 brain ; He can make us fertile in suggestion ; He can 
 quicken and expand our fancy ; He can give us intel- 
 lectual dominion. Religion has never failed to do this. 
 Every religious man is the more intellectual for his re- 
 ligion. He may not be very intellectual even with his 
 Christianity, but he would be less so without his faith 
 in God. 
 
 Young man, believe me, if you lack wisdom, ask of 
 God. He giveth unto all men liberally and upbraideth 
 not. I myself have been just where you are. I know 
 your difficulties and your trials. I have been exposed to 
 temptations ; put in slippery and dangerous places. I know 
 what it is to be short of an idea ; to be brought to that 
 pass that I did not know what my next step in life was to 
 be. All my counsellors have been struck dumb, my ad- 
 visers have abandoned me on the right hand and on the 
 left, and I have not known what to do ; and in that extre- 
 mity I have said to God, " Give Thy poor, wandering, 
 blind servant wisdom ; give him the key to this lock. 
 When my father and my mother forsake me, Lord, 
 take Thou me up. When friend and counsellor have aban- 
 doned me, oh! show me the right way;" and I have 
 never gone to God with that filial, simple faith without 
 leaving a burden behind and returning with a song. God 
 gives a man ideas in business. God gives the physician 
 ideas when he has to deal with a difficult case. It is not 
 
 14 
 
210 The Early Life of Daniel. 
 
 needful for the Almighty to turn the universe about, or 
 to overrule, or suspend, or destroy what are called " great 
 natural laws." It is only needful for Him to flash another 
 beam of light into a man's mind to turn him in another 
 direction in his thinking, and he will find that the laws of 
 nature need not be disturbed, because within their bene- 
 ficent working there lies the very suggestion he needs, 
 the very answer he wants. His own interpretation of the 
 laws of nature have been shallow and inadequate. What 
 is nature ? A handful of mud, a star, a world, a planet, 
 a man? Nature is the all-inclusive term, with God at 
 the centre, and every angel and every insect He ever 
 made grouped within the immeasurable circumference. 
 Have you difficulties in your business? Ask God for 
 wisdom. Have I difficulties in my ministry? Let me 
 go into my closet, and shut the door and pray to my 
 Father that seeth in secret, and I will come out with a 
 light flashing from my face as if I had seen God, or been 
 caught in the radiance of His throne. This is matter of 
 personal testimony. The day has come in which men 
 must speak for themselves, otherwise we shall have a 
 horrible, grim, comfortless negation. Let every man, 
 therefore, who has received a mercy at the Lord's hands 
 hold it up and say, " This is the Lord's doing, and it is 
 marvellous in our eyes." 
 
 The one point of application which I have before me 
 is this : we are in bondage, and the devil wishes to 
 pamper us. Joseph was in prison ; he had favour 
 with the keeper of the gaol, but that favour went but 
 a small way to comfort the heart of him who was 
 
The Early Life of Dcrniel. 2 1 1 
 
 groaning under undeserved captivity. Bad men have 
 great privileges. Vicious men seem to have the best 
 of it if we take into view one world only, or one set 
 of circumstances alone. I am aware that virtue often 
 sleeps on a hard pillow, and is sheltered by a roof that is 
 beaten upon fiercely and destructively by the wind and 
 the rain. I know that vice in some cases has all its 
 pockets full of gold and silver, and that godliness has not 
 known sometimes where to lay its head. I know that 
 my own feet have well nigh slipped when I have seen the 
 prosperity of the wicked, and known that there are appa- 
 rently no bands in their death. They are not troubled as 
 other men, and the drop that makes my cup bitter some- 
 times seems not to have fallen to their lot ; but I chide 
 myself for such poor thinking when I remember that I 
 see but a point and not the circumference, a part and not 
 the whole, an infinitesimal fraction and not the integer. 
 When I see all from the altitude of the sanctuary above, 
 I shall know that the men who have caused my com- 
 plaining and my distrust, have been set in slippery places, 
 and that they have been lifted up but a few inches that 
 they might be dashed to the ground with more terrific 
 violence. Am I under the impression that you have 
 nothing to show if you are unregenerate sinners and un- 
 godly men? You have a great deal to show. Very 
 probably you have gold and silver goblets, and orna- 
 ments, a great house, and troops of friends; and, looking 
 at your circumstances from one point of view only, those 
 circumstances appear to be decidedly in your favour; but 
 what of the ultimate issue ? I have heard of great houses 
 
212 The Early Life of Daniel. 
 
 coming down in the night time. I have heard of a man 
 M r ho was going to pull down his barns and build greater, 
 being lost in the dark stream called Night, which runs 
 between one day and another, so that on the day when 
 he was going to build, the architect could not find him, 
 and the builder called for him, but he made no response. 
 How is it with ourselves ? Have we little ? If the 
 blessing of God be upon it we have much. We may 
 be poor in this world's goods ; but if we are rich in faith 
 we are rich for ever. Are we well-to-do ? Then let us be 
 humble, helpful to others, benevolent, beneficent. Don't 
 let us praise ourselves as if we were makers of our own 
 prosperity. There are men in England to-day whose 
 wealth is almost boundless, who are as simple, modest, 
 gentle, noble as it is possible for men to be. The evil is 
 not in the prosperity but in the wrong use of it. The 
 evil is not in being rich, but in being proud, haughty, 
 self-sufficient. Young man, let me ask your attention 
 to this one point. You have the king's bread, you have 
 the king's wine, but you are in captivity, and don't be 
 deluded, blindfolded by secondary advantages, by relative 
 privileges, when down under all things is the grim, ter- 
 rible fact that you are a slave. What is it though a man 
 have a fine board, and a fine house, and fine surroundings, 
 if his soul be in captivity, if he be less a man than he is a 
 slave. Who can make us free ? Jesus Christ. "If ye know 
 the truth, the truth shall make you free. If the Son 
 shall make you free, then shall ye be free indeed." The 
 liberty of the sons of God is a glorious liberty. I invite 
 you to the cross, that you may become bondsmen of the 
 
The Early Life of Daniel. 213 
 
 Son of God. I invite you to the slavery of love. I ask 
 you to become prisoners of Jesus Christ ; slaves and ser- 
 vants of Him, who, " though in the form of God, thought 
 it not robbery to be equal with God, yet made Himself 
 of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a slave, 
 and became obedient unto death, even the death of the 
 cross." To be His slave is to be a freeman for ever. 
 [Printed from Reporter's notes of a Sermon preached in Exeter Hall.} 
 
OUTLINES AND NOTES. 
 
 [The following are little more than mere sketches of sermons, and are 
 intended for ministers, teachers, and other readers, who can see the 
 meaning of an indication without having everything done for them 
 in detail.] 
 
The Mutilated Bible. 2 1 7 
 
 W&z a^utflatrt Bible* 
 
 " He cut it with the penknife." — Jebemiah xxxvi. 23. 
 
 rjlHE man who did this was Jehoiakim the son of Josiah 
 king of Judah. Jeremiah received the word of the 
 
 
 *to 
 
 Lord, but being " shut up " he could not go into the house 
 of the Lord; he therefore sent for a man called Baruch, 
 and dictated to him what God had revealed during three- 
 and- twenty years; and Jeremiah sent Baruch to read the 
 roll " in the ears of the people in the Lord's house upon 
 the fasting-day." The report of what was written in the 
 roll got into the king's house, and first of all the princes 
 desired to hear it, saying unto Baruch, " Sit down now 
 and read it in our ears." Great fear came upon them, and 
 they said, ''We will surely tell the king of all these words." 
 They took the roll from Baruch, and advised Baruch and 
 Jeremiah to hide themselves and to let no man know where 
 they were concealed. The king having been made aware 
 of the facts, sent Jehudi to fetch the roll. " Now the king 
 sat in the winter house in the ninth month, and there was 
 a fire on the hearth burning before him." When Jehudi 
 had read three or four leaves, the king took the roll out of 
 his hand, and cut it with the penknife, and cast it into the 
 fire that was on the hearth until the roll was consumed in 
 the fire that was on the hearth (ver. 23). This treatment of 
 
2 1 8 The Mutilated Bible. 
 
 the Divine word did not occur in this case once for all ; 
 this self-same thing is being done every day in so-called 
 Christian lands; the penknife is as busy as ever; and I 
 propose to inquire somewhat concerning the excision and 
 the mutilation of the Divine testimonies. 
 
 1. It may be profitable first of all to spend a moment in 
 considering the object which God has in view in writing 
 His word and sending His written messages to mankind. 
 This object is most pathetically set forth in these memor- 
 able words : "It may be that the house of Judah will 
 hear all the evil which I propose to do unto them; that 
 they may return every man from his evil way; that I 
 may forgive their iniquity and their sin " (ver. 3). That 
 is why God has given us the Bible ! Not to bewilder us, 
 not to start us on courses of intellectual speculation, not to 
 tempt bur curiosity, not to found rival sects, but to bring 
 us to Himself to obtain forgiveness of iniquity and sin. 
 The one object of the Bible is the salvation of mankind. If 
 that could be kept in view, we should be spared endless 
 and useless controversies upon subordinate and incidental 
 subjects. 
 
 2. But, secondly, man is so unwilling to hear anything 
 unpleasant or disagreeable about himself that he gets into 
 a wrong temper before he actually knows what God's 
 object is. Jehoiakim only heard three or four leaves read, 
 and he was so annoyed with the delineation of the wicked- 
 ness of Israel and Judah, and with the judgments and 
 threatenings of God, that he cut the roll with the penknife 
 and ,cast it into the fire. Observe that. He did not hear the 
 whole roll. Did any man eVer destroy the Bible who knew 
 
The Mutilated Bible. 219 
 
 it wholly ? Many a man has thrown it into the fire who 
 has heard or read a part only, but I know not that any 
 man who has known the Bible wholly and thoroughly has 
 ever attempted to destroy it. 
 
 The difficulty is in the " three or four leaves." There 
 are men to-day who having heard three or four leaves of 
 Genesis have cut it with the penknife. They cannot get 
 over the six days and the talking serpent, so they cut the 
 roll with the penknife. Or if they begin another book, 
 tbey are offended by the extraordinary numbers of people 
 killed in war, and the romantic ages of the patriarchs; so 
 they cut the roll with the penknife. Or if they begin 
 elsewhere, they are offended by the descriptions of human 
 nature, its depravity, its helplessness, its horrible sin; and 
 having heard three or four leaves, they cut the roll with 
 the penknife. Now the Bible is pre-eminently a work not 
 to be read for the first time in sections of three or four 
 leaves ; it must be read in its entirety, that all its parts 
 may assume their just proportions and their appropriate 
 colour. Grant, indeed, as we must gladly do, that now 
 and again a single verse has led to enquiry and to enlight- 
 enment, and to salvation ; but the point is that in all such 
 cases there has been a diligent and profitable study of the 
 entire word. 
 
 3. It is very noticeable that though Jehoiakim cut the 
 roll and cast it into the fire., the words were all rewritten, 
 and the impious king fell under the severe and fatal judg- 
 irient of God, — " his dead body was cast out in the day to the 
 heat and in the night to the frost " (ver. 30). Men have not 
 destroyed revelation when they have destroyed the Bible., 
 
220 The Mutilated Bible. 
 
 " The word of the Lord abideth for ever." Look at the 
 history of the book called the Bible in proof of this. It 
 has been cut, burned, proscribed, deposed, and branded 
 with every form of opprobrium, — yet there it is ! The 
 pen-knife cannot reach its spirit, the fire cannot touch 
 its life. The history of the Bible is one of the proofs of 
 its inspiration, 
 
 4. The desire to cut the Bible with the penknife and to 
 cast it into the fire, is quite intelligible because in a sense 
 profoundly natural. The Bible never lures human atten- 
 tion by flattering compliments: it says the heart is deceit- 
 ful above all things, and desperately wicked; that there is 
 none righteous, no, not one ; that the thoughts of the hearts 
 of the children of men are evil, and that continually: it 
 says that there is no peace to the wicked; that though 
 hand join in hand the wicked shall not go unpunished; 
 that the wicked shall be turned into hell; and that every 
 man must be born again. What wonder that such a book 
 should be cut with a knife and cast into the fire ? What 
 wonder if the leper should break the mirror which shows 
 him his loathsomeness ? 
 
 5. This desire to mutilate the holy word shows itself in 
 various ways, some of them apparently innocent, others of 
 them dignified with fine names and claiming attention as the 
 last developments of human progress. Human nature shows 
 itself most vividly in the treatment of the Bible. Nothing 
 would delight human nature more than to be allowed to 
 use a penknife upon the inspired roll. Let us see what 
 would become of the Bible if this free use of the penknife 
 were allowed. The bad man I shall for the present ex- 
 
The Mutilated Bible. 221 
 
 elude ; we know what he would do with the knife. It 
 will surprise you more if you think what use would be 
 made of the penknife by people who have no wish really 
 to injure the Bible. 
 
 First. Look, for example, at the use made of the sectarian 
 penknife. The Arminian cuts out or cuts down the words 
 predestinated, elect, and foreordained; the Calvinist does the 
 same with the words "whosoever will; " the Independent 
 pares down the passage "he that believeth and is baptised;" 
 the Baptist uses his knife upon " I thank Grod that I bap- 
 tised none of you;" the Episcopalian cuts out little pieces 
 of Congregationalism, and the Congregationalist does the 
 same with Episcopacy. 
 
 Second. Look at the use of the philosophical penknife. 
 The letter is cut down to nothing, and revelation becomes 
 a question of consciousness, so that the inquiry is not so 
 much What is written ? as, What do you feel ? Not, 
 What is the law ? but, What is the state of your imagina- 
 tion ? Not, What are the facts ? but, What is the proba- 
 bility as suggested by reason and the higher criticism ? 
 
 Application. — From these reflections we may well learn 
 to hold the roll as inviolable, holy, sufficient, final. Let us 
 add nothing, subtract nothing : " For I testify unto every 
 man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, 
 if any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto 
 him the plagues that are written in this book ; and if any 
 man shall take away from the words of the book of this, 
 prophecy, Grod shall take away his part out of the book of 
 life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which 
 are written in this book." 
 
222 The Future considered as 
 
 •Efje future congitiereti m Unfcoton pet CLfllell 
 "Enoton. 
 
 " Forasmuch as thou samest that tlie stone mas cut out of the mountain, 
 without hands, and that it brake in pieces the iron, the brass, the 
 clay, the silver, and the gold; the great God hath made known to 
 the king what shall come to pass hereafter : and the dream is cer- 
 tain, and the interpretation thereof sure!' — Daniel ii. 45. 
 
 " Boast not thyself of to-morrow; for thou knowest not what a day may 
 bring forth. "— Peovbbbs xxvii. 1. 
 
 /"iUR subject this morning is thus divided into what 
 ^ would appear to be two opposite and irreconcilable 
 parts. The subject is the Future, and we are to find out 
 what is known and also what is unknown about it. The 
 Future is of intense interest to every one of us. What we 
 would give if we knew exactly what will happen to-mor- 
 row, or what will be the detailed result of our schemes, or 
 what will be the answer to letters involving our peace, 
 fortune, joy ! The future is so near and yet so far ! It is 
 the very next thing. we shall come upon, and yet it spreads 
 out over all the spaces of eternity : it is an hour ; it is an 
 everlasting duration, — it is measurable as a human span ; 
 it is as illimitable as infinitude ! It is the riddle which 
 vexes us beyond all others, because we feel as if we ought 
 to know an answer which must be simple and easy. You 
 
Unknown yet Well Known, 223 
 
 will see, then, that our subject touches every, man's life, 
 and ought therefore to compel every man's most religious 
 attention. 
 
 Let me suggest, in the first place, that we owe a great 
 deal both in the way of stimulus and in the way of educa- 
 tion to the very mysteriousness of the future. What 
 poetry is there in a straight line? What enjoyment is 
 there on a road that is never bent into curves or broken 
 into undulations ? It is expectancy — call it hope or fear — 
 that gives life a rare interest : hope itself sometimes brings 
 with it a sting of pain, and fear now and again brings 
 with it even something of weird pleasure. Hope turns 
 the future into a banqueting house. Ambition forecasts 
 the future with great plans of attack and defence. Fear 
 anticipates the future so as to get from the outlook restraint 
 and discipline. Life that has no future would be but a 
 flat surface, a stiff and cold monotony, a world without a 
 firmament, — a mere death's ground occupied by people 
 not yet quite fit for burying ! But with a future, it is a 
 hope, an inspiration, a sweet and gracious promise ; it is, 
 too, a terror, for we know not what is behind the cloud, 
 nor can we say what foe or friend will face us at the very 
 next corner! We live a good deal in our to-morrows, and 
 thus we spend money which does not fairly belong to us ; 
 yet how poor we would be if we could not turn oar imagi- 
 nation to some account, and mint our fancies into some 
 little gold just to chink in our bands that we may scare 
 our immediate poverty away ! What beautiful drives we 
 have had in the carriage which we are going to buy in a 
 year or two ! How often we have laid out the garden 
 
224 The Future considered as 
 
 which is going to be ours in ten years' time ! In our 
 childhood we set up fine houses with broken earthenware, 
 and before we outgrew our jackets and pinafores we had 
 made eternal friendships and set our proud feet on a con- 
 quered and humbled world ! And yet the future is 
 always in front of us, a shy but persistent coquet, vouch- 
 safing a smile but throwing a frown over it, and telling us 
 to come on, yet leaving us to topple over an unseen stone 
 and to fall into an unmapped pit which we could never 
 have discovered had it not first half killed us ! The past 
 has become a confused, dull, troubled noise, as of people 
 hastening to and fro in the night-time ; but the future is 
 a still small voice, having marvellous whispering power, 
 with a strange mastery over the will, soothing us like a 
 benediction, and anon chilling us like a sigh in a grave- 
 yard. The past is a worn road ; the future is a world in 
 which all the ways have yet to be made. I would bind 
 you, then, to a high general estimate of the future, as 
 being, by the very fact of its being future, a high educa- 
 tional influence, — an influence that holds you back like a 
 bit in your foaming lips, an influence that sends you forward 
 with the hunger of a great hope relieved by satisfactions 
 which do but whet the desire they cannot appease. Thank 
 God that there is a future ; that there are days far off ; 
 'that there are clouds floating in the distance, beautiful 
 enough to be the vesture of angels, solemn enough to be 
 the sheaths of lightning. 
 
 Passing from these general observations to more detailed 
 inquiry, you will notice that we know the great broad 
 features of the future, but next to nothing of its mere 
 
Unknown, yet Well Known. ' 225 
 
 detail. Mortality — destiny — the future moral state 
 of the world ; — but the detail, nothing ! 
 
 Still this ignorance of detail ought not to interfere with 
 our right apprehension and proper use of the future. 
 
 . We do not know what a day will bring forth, yet our 
 schemes are planned according to the probabilities of 
 years ! 
 
 Now give this a religious application. 
 
 The fact of our ignorance of the future should have a 
 deeply religious effect upon us : — - 
 
 DEPENDENCE. 
 
 earnestness (brief!). 
 
 God's administration of this one department of His 
 government, viz., all that is involved in our relations to 
 the future, fills me with adoring wonder — so much, yet 
 so little! — so clear, yet so dim! — so certain, yet so doubt- 
 ful! 
 
 I will hide myself in the Everlasting, and then the 
 future will come upon me without fear or burdensome- 
 ness ; even to-day I shall be master of to-morrow, and 
 death itself shall be but a nickering shadow on the sunny 
 way that leads up to heavenly places. I would live as one 
 who is called to immortality in Christ Jesus, and for 
 whom all the future has been graciously arranged. I am 
 no longer at the mercy of accident, casuality, or misfor- 
 tune ; my King, my Redeemer, He whom my soul trusteth, 
 has gone on before to prepare place and time for me, so I 
 will arise and speed after Him with burning and thankful 
 love, knowing that how devious soever the way, and how 
 
 15 
 
226 The Future considered. 
 
 bleak and cross-cutting soever the wind, there is sweet 
 home at the end, the gladness of which shall throw into 
 oblivion all hardship and weariness. I do not ask to know 
 the mere detail of the future. I know enough of time 
 unborn, to say unto the righteous it shall be well with 
 him; to say to the penitent at the Cross, that he shall 
 share the Lord's paradise ; to say to them who mourn, 
 the days of your tears shall be ended, and the time of 
 your joy shall be as a sea whose shore no man can find ! 
 Is it dark with thee, my friend? It has been quite as 
 dark with myself, and yet I have seen light descending on 
 the rugged hills and making those hills as steps up to 
 heaven. Art thou afraid of the coming days, lest they 
 bring with them edged weapons, pain, grief, loss, friend- 
 lessness, and desolation? Put thy hand into the palm 
 wounded for thee, the palm of the One Infinite Saviour. 
 He knows all — He is the treasurer of the future — the 
 great dragon is tamed by the anger of His eye — and 
 they who trust Him with all their love, shall be set 
 amidst the safety, the peace, and the glory of His eternal 
 Zion. 
 
Solomon. 227 
 
 Solomon; 
 
 THE WONDERFUL VARIETY OF HIS CHARACTER. 
 
 And Solomon loved the Lord, walking in the statutes of David 
 his father : only he sacrificed and burnt incense in high places.'''' 
 — 1 Kings iii. 3. 
 
 T OOKINGr at this text, the question which presses upon 
 me is, Which of these two characteristics will get the 
 upper hand in the long run ? 
 
 It would seem as if the first would, it is so distinctly 
 and fervently described, and the other is barely referred 
 to at all; and indeed it is a very, very small inclination 
 towards heathenism — the faintest possible inclination, and 
 almost excusable, for " the people sacrificed in high 
 places, because there was no house built unto the name of 
 the Lord." Still, there it is ; and I want to trace it that 
 we may see what will become of it in the long run. Will 
 he outgrow this defect ? Will he get quite away from 
 this class ? Is it the morning twilight growing towards- 
 splendour, or the evening twilight deepening into total 
 darkness ? 
 
 Let us see how well Solomon begins. Take his notion 
 of a king (vers. 7-9) : (a) God's servant, (b) Discrimi- 
 nation of moral qualities, (c) Good of the people. 
 
: 2 8 Solomon : 
 
 Now such a man as this must go in an upward direc- 
 tion ! 
 
 So he does : see his wisdom (women and child) ver. 28. 
 
 So he grows until there is none like him ! (iv. 34.) 
 
 Nobler things still will Solomon do; yea, he will build a 
 house for God ! 
 
 So the narrative rolls on. Never was man so wise, so 
 good, so rich, so great, as Solomon. Splendour is added 
 to splendour, until the whole firmament burns with glory. 
 Ethan the Ezrahite, and Heman and Chalcol, and Darda, 
 men of unusual wisdom and peculiar fame, were not to 
 be named with Solomon : his genius gave language to the 
 cedar, and made the voice of the hyssop to be heard in song; 
 as for his proverbs, they were an army for multitude, and 
 his songs were 1005. The king's throne was of ivory, 
 and twelve lions stood upon its steps ; and the king made 
 silver to be in Jerusalem as stones, and cedars were as 
 abundant as sycamore trees. And so human nature seemed 
 to be glorified in King Solomon ! 
 
 Oh, would to Grod the gate of heaven would open for 
 him now, and let him in ! 
 
 It bas been so with ourselves sometimes. Now, Lord, 
 lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace ! 
 
 From what great heights may men fall. How art thou 
 fallen, Lucifer, Son of the Morning ! 
 
The Wonderful Variety of his Character. 229 
 
 Take another extract from the life of Solomon. " When 
 he was old Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of 
 the Zidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the 
 Ammonites." 
 
 A picture of a man who has grown in the wrong direc- 
 tion ! Backwards — downwards ! A bright morning ending 
 in a stormy night. 
 
 What are these snowy leaves which strew the ground ? 
 Perished buds and blossoms of holy character. 
 
 1. Need of continual watchfulness. 
 
 2. Insufficiency of great occasions, and special efforts, 
 etc. (Solomon built an high place for Chemosh and 
 Moloch.) 
 
 3. The impossibility of serving two masters. 
 
 The question for the best of us is, Which shall triumph, 
 the good or the bad ? 
 
 Good young man — (1) but rather fond of excitement ; 
 (2) but rather self-sufficient ; (3) but rather close. 
 
 Which side shall triumph ? 
 
230 Prescribed Religion 
 
 i> 
 
 ^vmvibzis Eelffftotu 
 
 " They did eat tlie passover otherwise than it teas ■written." — 
 2 Gheon. xxx. 18. 
 
 ■OOON after the house of the Lord was cleansed 
 ^ Hezekiah sent to all Israel and all Judah, and wrote 
 letters also to Ephraim and Manasseh, to come to 
 Jerusalem to keep the passover. It appears that for a 
 very long time this had not been done by the people in a 
 body. What had been done was very partial and limited, — 
 very far, indeed, from being upon a national or universal 
 scale; but now it was proposed that the people should 
 come from every corner of the land, "from Beersheba 
 even unto Dan," and although many laughed the posts 
 to scorn in the country of Ephraim and Manasseh 
 even unto Zebulon, "nevertheless divers of Asher and 
 Manasseh and of Zebulon humbled themselves and came 
 to Jerusalem." The congregation was vast in extent. 
 Whether owing to the largeness of the number, to the 
 pressure and excitement of the occasion, or to other cir- 
 cumstances, many of the people did not pass through the 
 prescribed course of preparation, but " did eat the passover 
 otherwise than it was written." Technicality, routine, 
 prescription, ceremonial, and ritual, were disregarded or 
 
Prescribed Religion. 231 
 
 unobserved, but the great act was accomplished, the act of 
 eating the passover. And the good king prayed for those 
 of Ephraim and Manasseh, Issachar and Zebulon, who 
 had thus eaten, saying, " The got>d Lord pardon every one 
 that prepareth his heart to seek God, the Lord God of his 
 fathers, though he be not cleansed according to the purifi- 
 cation of the sanctuary." The end was reached, but there 
 was irregularity in the process : the passover was eaten, 
 but the introductory ritual was unobserved; and the event 
 happily shows that the less must always give way to the 
 greater, and that the healing of the Lord is not limited 
 by that which is incidental and temporary, for " the Lord 
 hearkened to Hezekiah and healed the people." This 
 explanation will show you what our subject is, and point 
 out the line along which our thoughts are to move. 
 ■ For Jewish festivals think of Christian ordinances, and. 
 apply the principle of the text to their observance. Take 
 the two great ordinances of Baptism and the Lord's 
 Supper. Baptism by water will save no man; neither will 
 eating and drinking the symbolical elements at the Lord's 
 Table. The vital baptism is the baptism of the Holy Ghost; 
 the saving act is eating and drinking the body and the blood 
 of Jesus Christ by faith. Far be it from me to deny that 
 a man cannot have the spiritual because he has not had 
 the material baptism, or that a man cannot have partaken 
 spiritually and savingly of Jesus Christ because he has 
 never attended what is known as the Sacrament of the 
 Lord's Supper. At the same time, I should distinctly teach 
 that those who have had the opportunity of fulfilling such 
 ordinances, and have neglected to do so, need to be prayed 
 
232 Prescribed Religion, 
 
 for as having omitted services which are full of spiritual 
 meaning and privilege. 
 
 It is, of course, easy to raise the contention that ordi- 
 nances are only symbolical and figurative, and that the 
 main thing is to realize the fact which is signified. That 
 is perfectly true. But the prior question is, Are these 
 ordinances appointed in Holy Scripture ? If so, nothing 
 but extreme necessity can justify their modification or 
 suspension. David was an hungered, ate the shewbread, 
 and the disciples under the same circumstances, etc. 
 
 Herein is the graciousness of God, that exceptions are 
 allowed and provided for, etc. 
 
 Apply this same thought to church attendance, etc. 
 
 To church membership, etc. 
 
 To various methods of thinking. 
 
Hadad. 233 
 
 ^atiati : 
 
 THE PRESSURE OF DESTINY. 
 " Nothing : liowbeit let me go in any wise." — 1 KINGS xi. 22. 
 
 T\AVID, and Joab the captain of the host of Israel, 
 J-^ wrought great desolation in Edom ; " for six months 
 did Joab remain there with all Israel, until he had cut off 
 every male in Edom." Amongst those who escaped was 
 a little child, comparatively speaking, an infant member of 
 the royal house. He was so little that he could not have 
 made his escape alone, but he was taken care of by certain 
 Edomites of his father's servants, and in their company he 
 fled into Egypt. Pharaoh was very kind to his royal 
 exile. " He gave him an house, and appointed him 
 victuals, and gave him land." With growing years he 
 came into growing favour, and by-and-by he married the 
 sister of the queen of Egypt. It would seem, then, that 
 he did well to escape from his own ill-treated country, and 
 to put himself under the protection of the mighty and 
 gracious Pharaoh. It came to pass, however, that Hadad 
 (that is the name of the Edomite) said to Pharaoh, "I 
 want to go home ; let me depart, that I may go to mine 
 own country." Pharaoh was astounded by the inquiry, 
 
234 Hadad: 
 
 and began to wonder whether Hadad had been unkindly 
 treated in Egypt, and in the frankest manner he said, 
 "What hast thou lacked with me, that, behold, thou 
 seekest to go to thine own country ? " A very proper 
 question; to which Hadad appears to have returned an un- 
 grateful and insufficient answer — " Nothing : howbeit let 
 me go in any wise." Here, then, is a man who has all 
 that position and wealth and security can give him, and 
 yet he pines for a land far away, where he has seen nothing 
 but cruelty and shame. It would seem that he did not 
 know when he was well off, and that he deserved whatever 
 reprisals were in store for him. We do often come to 
 rough conclusions about men and things, because we have 
 not the key to the secret. A study of this romantic inci- 
 dent may not altogether cleanse us of our folly, but it 
 should do two or three things for us which are of great 
 importance. We shall see this the moment we know the 
 secret of Hadad's wish to leave the land of his adoption 
 and his honour. You will find the secret in the fourteenth 
 verse of the chapter : — " And the Lord stirred up an 
 adversary unto Solomon, Hadad the Edomite : he was of 
 the king's seed in Edom." It was a Divine stirring ! It 
 was a restlessness sent from G-od ! It was a hunger 
 created in the heart ! It was tlie first look of Destiny upon 
 the young soul. 
 
 1. Men cannot always give an account of their impulses. 
 We seem to have everything, yet we want something else. 
 What that something else is, we perhaps seldom know, or 
 if we do know, we cannot put the want into words. We 
 have all Egypt, yet we are willing to leave it for Edom. 
 
The Pressure of Desti?iy. 235 
 
 (Recall the case of Eliab and l)avid, and David's answer, 
 " Is there not a cause ? ") 
 
 2. What we mistake, either in ourselves or in others, for 
 mere restlessness may be the pressure of destiny. We 
 blame some men roughly for desiring a change, and when 
 we question the men themselves as to their reason, they 
 tells us that they have been treated well, even handsomely, 
 yet they want to go ! Then we condemn them as un- 
 reasonable, and we predict many a judgment for them ! 
 Alas, how ignorant we are, and how cruel to one 
 another ! (Recall the case of Eli and Samuel. At 
 last the priest perceived that the Lord had spoken to 
 the child ! How often that is the very last thought 
 that occurs !) 
 
 3. We may judge of the value of our impulses by the 
 self-denial imposed by their operation. Consider what 
 Hadad had to lose ! The king was his brother-in-law : 
 Egypt supplied with the utmost liberalness his every want: 
 his son Grenubath was treated as the sons of Pharaoh : no 
 wish was leftungratified: yet he said, " Let me go in any- 
 wise." This law of judgment will disenchant many of our 
 supposed Divine impulses. " Except a man deny himself 
 and take up his cross daily," he cannot be moving in the 
 Divine direction. Remember in the cases quoted David 
 was impelled to toar, and Samuel to make revelations 
 which must have cost his heart no small strain. Are our 
 impulses towards self-enjoyment ? 
 
 4. Is it not by some such impulse that the good man 
 meets death with a brave heart ? How else could he leave 
 loved ones, home, manifold enjoyment, and social honour ? 
 
236 Hadai. 
 
 Yet lie pines for heaven. " I have a desire to depart." 
 " Oh that I had wings like a dove." 
 
 " To thee, dear, dear country, 
 Mine eyes their -vigils keep. " 
 
 God surely sends this home-sickness into our hearts when 
 He is about to call us up higher. 
 
 A mighty and wonderful thing, truly, is this stirring of 
 the Divine purpose in the soul. It is a " song without 
 words," a sounding far beyond the measurement of any 
 language. Let us rest quietly where we are until there 
 comes suddenly from heaven a rushing mighty wind. 
 " Abide in your lot until the end of the days." 
 
 5. Remember how possible it is to overrule our best 
 impulses. Pharaoh said stop, Hadad begged to be allowed 
 to go. Peter said, " That be far from thee, Lord," but 
 Christ called him an offence, and drove him behind. 
 " Grieve not the Spirit." " Quench not the Spirit." Is 
 not the Spirit of Christ urging every man to leave the 
 Egypt of sinful bondage ? " Come out from among them, 
 and be ye separate, saith the Lord." " Ye will not come 
 unto me that ye might have life." 
 
Sudden Revelations. 237 
 
 feuDtim Erijelatton&. 
 
 "And mlien I saw Mm, I fell at Ms feet as dead." — Rev. i. 17. 
 
 T)HILIP said, " Show us the Father, and it sufficeth 
 us." The infinite impertinence of this suggestion will 
 be seen when it is remembered that it proceeds on the 
 assumption that man's vision is quite equal to any revela- 
 tion which it is possible for God to make of Himself. 
 Philip did not say, " Lord, prepare our vision, and then 
 make us glad with a higher revelation than we have ever 
 seen ; " he took it for granted that the vision was perfectly 
 ready 5 that there was nothing wanting on the human 
 side ; that the only defect was on the side of God : as if 
 he had said, "I am ready; why, then, does the Father hesi- 
 tate to show Himself? " 
 
 It did not occur to Philip that he really was not ready ; 
 he did not think that any special readiness was required; 
 it did not occur to him that his eye could ever be dazzled 
 or destroyed by splendours yet unseen. I want to show 
 that this is, or easily may be, our own case ; that Philip 
 not only expressed the supreme desire of mankind, " Show 
 us the Father," but that- he committed the supreme mistake 
 of mankind in supposing that man could endure the 
 sudden and perfect revelation of God. Moses said, "Show 
 
238 Sudden Revelations. 
 
 me thy glory," but the Lord answered, " Thou canst not 
 see my face : for there shall no man see me and live." 
 Isaiah caught a glimpse of the King, and exclaimed, "Woe 
 is me ! for I am undone." Job said, " Now mine eye 
 seeth thee : wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust 
 and ashes." When in the transfiguration the disciples 
 saw Christ's face shine as the sun, and His raiment become 
 white and glistening, " they fell on their face and were sore 
 afraid." Philip, then, not only expressed the supreme 
 desire, but repeated the supreme mistake of mankind. We 
 think ourselves ready for any revelation, whereas the fact 
 is that our capacity for receiving revelation is distinctly 
 limited, and in this matter, as in every other, we are 
 straitened in ourselves and not in God, and partial reve- 
 lation is explained by the fact that God adapts the light 
 to the vision which has to receive it. 
 
 1. This is open to illustration from the common events 
 of human life : — 
 
 (a) Doctor's report of child's health. 
 
 (b) A view of the next seven years' trials, etc. 
 
 (c) We value a friend for his discretion in such 
 
 matters. 
 And yet you, who cannot bear these revelations, ask to 
 be shown the Infinite God ! A child who cannot bear the 
 twinkle of a candle, demands to look upon the noonday 
 sun ! 
 
 2. This is gracious on the part of God. Child : all the 
 books he has to learn, at once ! 
 
 See how many different languages he has to learn with- 
 
Sudden Revelations. 239 
 
 out ever going beyond English ! Every new department 
 has a language of its own. If he could hear them all at 
 once, he would enter Babel at a step ! 
 
 Observe : If we could see the last from the first, it 
 would make us impatient of all that lay between. Mark 
 the unhappy effects of such imputience : — 
 Imperfect knowledge ; 
 Restless temper ; 
 Immature conclusions. 
 A great part of the advantage is in the actual growing. 
 We want breadth as well as height (say in an oak) : — 
 The day dawns ; 
 The year develops ; 
 The harvest comes little by little. 
 We are, then, in the line of the Divine movement in 
 receiving revelation by degrees. This is the law. This is 
 God's way. 
 
 3. Any unwillingness to submit to this method of reve- 
 lation is proof of an unsound and presumptuous mind. 
 
 It would be accounted so in the family, in business, in 
 statesmanship. 
 
 In all things it is well to serve an apprenticeship. 
 The prodigal had his property too soon, and squandered 
 it. 
 
 Let us know that life is a continual revelation. We 
 cannot see over the wall that separates to-morrow from 
 to-day. But Christ says, " What is that to thee ? follow 
 thou me." We are revealed to ourselves little by little. 
 We can do things to-day which we could not have done 
 
240 Sudden Revelations 
 
 twenty years ago. We have riper minds, steadier vision, 
 calmer judgment. We can now condemn our own early 
 imprudences, and speak with proper harshness of our 
 impatience and audacity. Little by little, then ! Another 
 hint, another gleam, and so let knowledge come to us 
 even as the sun shineth more and more unto the perfect 
 day. 
 
 John could recline on Christ's breast, yet was dazzled 
 and overpowered by the suddenly revealed glory of his 
 Lord. There is a familiar side of Christ, and a side 
 unfamiliar. Some mountains are accessible on one side 
 only. 
 
Tried Weapons. 241 
 
 CtfeO aaieaponss* 
 
 " And the priest said,, The sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom, thou 
 slen-est in the valley of Mali, oelwld, it is here wrapped in a cloth 
 behind the epliod : if thou wilt take that, take it : for there is none 
 oilier save that here. And David said, There is none like that ; 
 give it me." — 1 Samuel xxi. 9. 
 
 rFHE world is old enough now to have laid by in store 
 ■^ weapons upon whose quality and strength it can pro- 
 nounce with the emphasis of experience. What occasion 
 is there for us to try new-fangled instruments of fantastic 
 shape and unproven temper ? Is there on old steel ? Are 
 there no historical swords ? Are we left altogether without 
 the spell of rousing memories ? Are there yet amongst us 
 swords whose touch is an inspiration, because they connect 
 us with the heroisms and victories of other days? It 
 appears from the context that David was flying from the 
 face of Saul, that he came in his course to Nob to Ahimelech 
 the priest, and made a statement of his case more or less 
 correct. At the conclusion of the interview, David told 
 the priest that he had no sword, and asked him for his 
 assistance under these destitute circumstances. " And the 
 priest said, The sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom 
 thou slewest in the valley of Elah, behold, it is tere 
 wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod ; if thou wilt take 
 
 16 
 
242 Tried Weapons. 
 
 that, take it : for there is none other save that here." All 
 the weapons of the enemy will one day fall into the hands 
 of the Church, and great will he the slaughter in the name 
 of the Lord ! Goliath never dreamt of the destiny of his 
 sword. It was Philistinian property, intended for Philis- 
 tinian purposes, and lo ! it was wrenched from his hand, 
 and reddened with his own blood! It is so with all evil. 
 It is always preparing a weapon for its own destruction, 
 and twisting a rope for its own neck. 
 
 What a companion and friend would this sword be to 
 David ! How it would link him with events gone far away ! 
 How he would speak mpathetic soliloquy as he looked upon 
 that sword ! Would not old stains come upon it and say to 
 him, " All that do wrong shall be put down, and every 
 foul tyranny shall be slain and hidden in the dust, where 
 no man can find it any mare " ? Would he not think of 
 the call of Samuel, and of the anointing oil, and of the 
 secret with which he had been entrusted; and as he 
 regarded the sword that was in his hand, would not his 
 soul feel the inspiration of a new impulse, would not his 
 lips be opened in a new and tender prayer at the throne of 
 the heavenly grace ? It is even so with ourselves. We 
 have old books in our libraries, the very touch of which 
 makes us young again; we have passages marked in books, 
 the very marking of which causes us to forget the years 
 that have taken away aught of our strength, and rouses us 
 to do, with the old prowess, the old and beautiful deeds. 
 Blessed are they who are rich in memories! who can 
 commune with old milestones on the road, and old stiles 
 where they have lingered, and old trysting-places, and 
 
Tried Weapons. 243 
 
 yellow old memories that have the keeping of life within 
 their grasp ! Are we living so as to lay up such memories? 
 Or is our life just a superficial scramble, leaving behind us 
 no footprints, no wayside marks, and never enriching our 
 hearts with one recollection that can destroy time and 
 make us young, as if we could draw upon eternity ? How 
 ignoble a thing for Goliath to have been slain with his 
 own sword ! To have the weapon wrenched out of one's 
 own hand, and thrust into one's own heart ! Well might 
 the eagle, on the poet's page, be made to mourn that out 
 of its own breast had been taken the feather which caused 
 the arrow to fly with a deadlier speed to drink the blood 
 of its heart ! It is always so. Whoever is doing wrong 
 will be slain with his own sword ; whoever is building 
 upon false foundations will be " hoisted with his owns 
 petard." You know the case of the minister whoj speak- 
 ing to his friends, in tones too solemn to be other than 
 artificial and untrue, said to them, " Do not read Shakes- 
 peare ; it is a waste of time to read the pages of such a 
 writer ; read other and better literature ; else what an ac- 
 count will you be called upon to give when you go to 
 that ' bourne from which no traveller returns ' ? " Goliath 
 slain with his own sword; and the minister quoting in 
 the pulpit the very author against whose writings he was 
 cautioning the young geniuses that waited upon his 
 ministry ! 
 
 I propose to treat this text with special reference to the 
 sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, and to con- 
 tend that in all the conflicts of life there is none like it for 
 routing the foe, and adding victories to truth. " The 
 
244 Tried Weapons. 
 
 word of the Lord is quick and powerful; sharper than 
 any two-edged sword ; piercing to the dividing asunder of 
 the joints and marrow; and a discerner of the thoughts 
 and intents of the heart." 
 
 I shall regard the Bible as more than one weapon. It 
 is a complete armoury, as we have just read in the sixth 
 chapter of Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians. You yourselves 
 in these latter days have seen some curious specimens of 
 cutlery. You have seen the boy with that wonderful 
 thing in his hand of which he is so proud. He says, 
 " That is the great blade for cutting wood and leather and 
 hard substances ; and this is a little blade for making pens 
 and cutting pencils ; and this is a lancet blade, and this is 
 a bodkin, and this is a piercer of another kind, and this is 
 a screw." And so he turns them all out under one haft. 
 It is even so with this better haft. I can turn all sorts of 
 blades out of it in every possible direction, and hold it up 
 like a complete armoury. I propose to do so this morning, 
 and to ask you to say whether in all the equipments of life 
 there is aught to be compared to the sword of the Lord. 
 
 There is none like it for variety of adaptation. I find 
 in the Word of Grod weapons that I can turn in every 
 direction ; weapons that suit every mood of my own spirit, 
 and every combination of circumstances by which I am 
 surrounded. I need not go out of the book for a single 
 answer. Whatsoever may be the peculiar gift of my mind 
 or tongue, I find in the Word of God — without consulting 
 any other author — the precise answer to every difficulty, 
 the right method of meeting every opposition, and the one 
 true solace that can get into the heart an(3 heal it with the 
 
Tried Weapons. 245 
 
 succour which it needs. Do I believe, as I thoroughly do, 
 that sometimes it is needful to meet spiritual and intel- 
 lectual opposition by the blade of irony ? Behold, I have 
 a blade in this book ; for did not Elijah taunt the priests 
 and worshippers of Baal saying, " Cry aloud, for he is a 
 god ! " And may I not, following his example, mock, 
 in many cases, those who with impotent rage are seeking 
 to summon another god than the Jehovah of the universe 
 to take the supreme seat in creation ? Yet there are some 
 people who do not understand what irony is. I saw a 
 marvellous illustration of this not many days agOi Some 
 mischievous person sent me a paper which ought never to 
 have been published, and in that miscalled " Christian " 
 newspaper there was an article marked for- my edification. 
 Not knowing but that a friend's hand might have marked 
 it, I looked at the article. It was a caution against inviting 
 Henry Ward Beecher to preach in London upon some im- 
 portant occasion. And the reason given for not inviting 
 that immortal preacher was this, that Mr. Beecher had 
 said, " When the pilgrim fathers went to the Western 
 World, they took with them several European prejudices, 
 amongst the rest a belief in the evil one ; " " but," Mr. 
 Beecher added, " ive, in New York, have found out that 
 there is no deviV The demented editor quoted these words 
 as if they had been seriously spoken, and appealed to 
 British Christianity whether a man who could so express 
 himself ought to be invited to preach a missionary sermon. 
 Oh the thick-headedness of some men, the impenetrability 
 of some hearts ! If ever there was a fine touch of irony 
 in the speech of any man, it was in the tone of Henry 
 
246 Tried Weapons. 
 
 "Ward Beecher when he said, ""We, in New York, have 
 found out that there is no devil." How are we to get 
 through this world, if people are sitting and hearing us in 
 this way, — turning our sentences upside down ; mistaking 
 irony for seriousness, and not having the dimmest notion 
 that we are ridiculing the men who profess not to believe 
 in the existence of a foe ? Let that writer write another 
 article as soon as he can against Elijah, wherever that 
 spirit may now be wandering — to warn all good intelli- 
 gences not to open the door of hospitality to him or invite 
 him to a moment's conversation, because once he said, on 
 the summit of Carmel, that Baal was a god ! 
 
 As for argument, where can I find a blade more keenly 
 argumentative? I engage to find in the Holy Scriptures 
 specimens of the keenest, most lucid, and persistent reason- 
 ing that can be found within the bounds of all literature. 
 And as for casuistry, cases of conscience which cannot be 
 settled, — the sword of the Lord is quick and powerful, pierc- 
 ing to the dividing asunder, getting into the most critical 
 parts of our life, searching out the intents and purposes of 
 the soul, — not dealing with broad, general statements only, 
 but dealing with the most subtle, recondite, difficult con- 
 ditions and experiences of the heart. No man need have 
 any difficulty in piercing any casuistical question to its very 
 marrow if he will only avail himself of the services of the 
 sword of the Spirit. Then, if aught might be needed to 
 ward off those who would give sorrow to the soul, enemies 
 that would plague the heart with much difficulty, infuse 
 into our troubled life much grief, — there is no blade that 
 can reach so far, and strike so keenly, and defend so com- 
 
Tried Weapons. 247 
 
 pletely, as the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of 
 God! 
 
 I would impress my young hearers with the comprehen- 
 siveness of the Bible ; with its universality of adaptation to 
 all the circumstances and necessities of human life. You 
 may accuse me of boldness for making this statement, yet 
 make it I must; for I fear a good, many young people and 
 others are going elsewhere for defence, instead of going 
 into the sanctuary of the Lord, where the weapons of 
 heaven are provided in rich and exquisite profusion. I find 
 many men going to hard books, to elaborate treatises, to 
 severe arguments, conducted by uninspired genius, in the 
 expectation of finding there the answer to some particular 
 difficulty. No, men write to me again and again, and say, 
 " What books can you recommend to meet certain classes 
 of objections ? " I say, I recommend the Word of God as 
 the best answer to every objection that can be brought 
 against it. Let the Word of the Lord be the defence of 
 the Lord. Let the Lord's oWn Word be the answer to the 
 suggestion of every devil and the seductiveness of every 
 tempter. I find in the Book of God all I need. I recom- 
 mend those who are going elsewhere for weapons with 
 which to fight the battles of life, to turn back to the old 
 armour set in order by the hand of the Living One 
 Himself ! 
 
 There is none like it for ease of carriage. There are 
 weapons that are very difficult to carry, but the sword of 
 the Lord is not one of them. There are weapons of war 
 very intricately constructed, and very difficult of manage- 
 ment, very cumbrous, and altogether oppressive; but the 
 
248 Tried Weapons. 
 
 sword of the Lord does not belong to that class. Consider 
 how little a book the Bible is, and regard that circumstance 
 as one of the finest proofs of its presumptive inspiration 
 and adaptation to the wants of man. Given the Encyclo- 
 paedia Britannica as a work of inspiration for the guidance 
 of men — and who could have read it ? Who could have 
 got through its mile on mile of lettered stationery ? Who 
 could have comprehended its genius and its scope? Instead 
 of the Word of God being the largest book in the library, 
 it is, in some respects, the smallest. " The kingdom of 
 heaven is as a grain of mustard seed;" " The kingdom of 
 heaven is like unto leaven which a woman took and hid in 
 three measures of meal." The Word of the Lord is short 
 as to extent, is compassable to magnitude. Yet, who can 
 exhaust it? It is like some of out own monosyllables, 
 pronounceable by the infantile tongue, inexhaustible by 
 the most stupendous intellect. I will give you one word 
 of the kind which is signified, — the word Love ! A little 
 child can say the word love, but is there an angel in 
 heaven that has touched the shore of that sea? So 
 the Word of the Lord is a little book — a sword easily 
 carried, very manageable indeed as to size; and yet, who 
 can exhaust it ? You can carry the Word of the Lord in 
 one hand ; you can carry it in your smallest pocket, you 
 can read it through from end to end, and keep the memory 
 and all the intellectual and spiritual faculties in concen- 
 trated attention while you pass through the exercise. 
 Have you ever tried this ? Are we not in danger, if I 
 may so say, of snapping off little pieces of the sword and 
 mistaking them for the whole weapon ? Are we not in 
 
Tried Weapons. 249 
 
 danger of taking the mere filings of the steel, and com- 
 plaining that the sword is without strength or edge ? Take 
 it as a whole ; abide by it in its entirety ; strike with the 
 whole force of it. It is possible to do this, not in the 
 letter, but in the spirit ; and when a man wields the whole 
 weapon, he never strikes but to kill the foe ; he never puts 
 out his hand but in omnipotent and complete defence. 
 
 There is none like it for universality of use. Children 
 can use it; sick people can use it; the poorest man can avail 
 himself of it; the busiest man may find a moment for its 
 exercise. Am I wrong in mourning any degree of dis- 
 position to take away the sword of the Spirit from the use 
 of children ? I should never exclude, directly or indirectly, 
 by the law of the land, the Bible from the common schools 
 of Britain. I would exclude the priest and the minister, 
 and the dogmatic teacher, and the sectarian zealot, but 
 never would I consent to have the Bible excluded from 
 our common schools by the law of the land. Let the Bible 
 be there. Thomas Guthrie, whose Life has just appeared, 
 tells us that as soon as the children could put letters and 
 syllables together in the elementary schools in Scotland 
 they were turned into the Book of Proverbs ; and he traces 
 a great deal of the sagacity and strength of the Scottish 
 character to this early training in that richest of all ethical 
 and philosophical books. Says he, " Think of a child being 
 put down to read such sentences as ' Tom has a dog,' ' The 
 cat is here,' when he might be reading such words as ' God 
 is love,' ' Train up a child in the way he should go ' ! " Do 
 not take the Bible away from children, but do not make a 
 task book of it. Do not gather around the memories of 
 
250 Tried Weapons. 
 
 childhood any evil recollections regarding your severity in 
 compelling them to commit to memory the sacred Word. 
 Make it the joy and privilege of their lives ; show them 
 how it is the richest of luxuries to be able to know what 
 God has said, and to be able to quote God's wishes in 
 God's own words. 
 
 I am not arguing as against those who have no venera- 
 tion for the Bible. For there are many men who do not 
 take my view of the Bible in the school who have as pro- 
 found a reverence for the Word of God as I could possibly 
 lay claim to. Still, there is this difference amongst us. I 
 insist that secularism is denominationalism, and I insist that 
 the Bible shall not be excluded from any common school, 
 directly or indirectly, by the law of the land. I am told that 
 the directors of the Bank of England, or some other com- 
 mercial establishment, do not read the Bible when they 
 nveet. That is true. But is there anything in the law of 
 the land to prevent their doing so ? If they were found 
 reading part of the Sermon on the Mount before raising 
 their rate of interest, what law of the land would be able 
 to pounce upon them ? This is my point. I do not say, 
 "You shall read the Bible, or you must read the Bible;" 
 but I say, " You may read it if you please." If the Bible is 
 a sectarian book, then the God of the Bible is a sectarian 
 God, and the Christ of the Bible is a sectarian Christ ! 
 
 The sick can use this sword of the Lord. It can be 
 wielded in sighs, in broken expressions; it can be hinted at, 
 it can be whispered; the weakest, frailest creature amongst 
 us, just trembling on the edge of the grave, can use the 
 sword of the Lord. And the poor man has a weapon 
 
Tried Weapons. 251 
 
 which he can use. He is not learned; he cannot speak 
 the language of many who assail his Christian faith; but 
 let him speak a word from the heart, steadfastly and 
 reverently, and in the long run he will slay G-oliath with 
 his own weapon, and be more than conqueror through 
 Him in whose Word his heart has believed. The busy 
 man, too, can use this sword. 
 
 What sword must we have ? It must be the sword of 
 the Lord. There is- none like that. It is one, it is simple, 
 it is complete, it is sufficient; it has the testimony of ages 
 written upon it. Who, then, amongst us, says that he will 
 take the sword of the Lord and fight the battles of life with 
 that ? I call the dead in innumerable thousands and tens 
 of thousands, to say with all the emphasis of infinitely 
 varied experience, " There is none like it ! " And they 
 have tested many; they know one sword from another, 
 the true steel from the false lead; and all history says in 
 our hearing this day, " If you want a sword that can do 
 execution, that has inspiration in its very touch, victory in 
 its very steel, take the sword of the Lord, for there is none 
 like it! " 
 
 You will need it, dear friends. I have need of it. We 
 have not the answer in ourselves, it is put into us by the 
 breath of the Spirit of the Lord. Life is a war, a fierce 
 and terrible fight. Some of us seem to have no rest night 
 or day ; we are besieged by the enemy; we are well-nigh 
 overwhelmed by the foe. What is our defence? The 
 sword of the Living Grod ! Grive me the sword of the Lord 
 and of Gideon — it smiteth down a host like one man, and 
 cleave th the bones of the mighty like straw; the helmet of 
 
252 Tried Weapons. 
 
 brass is as a covering of ivy before it, and tbe breastplate 
 of iron as a flimsy gauze. Ob, dear, dear sword ! Tbe 
 grand old veterans of otber days bave passed it on to us, and 
 we, witb added victories, ougbt to band it on to generations 
 yet to come. I speak in tbe fear of God, and in tbe sight 
 of tbe great wbite tbrone, in saying that every day the 
 Bible seems to be newer, deeper, richer, mightier than 
 ever it did before. It is the sum of all literature, the 
 consummation of all genius, a repository of consolation, a 
 solace of healing and redemption for all tbe ills and woes 
 and griefs of this poor life. Blessed are they who have 
 hidden this word in their innermost hearts ! 
 {From Reporter's Notes.) 
 
ManoaJis Wzfe. 253 
 
 9£anoafj'0 Mitt* 
 
 " But his mife said unto him, If the Lord mere pleased to Mil us, lie mould 
 v iwt have received a burnt offering and a meat offering at our hands, 
 neither would he have slwmed us all these things, nor mould as at this 
 time have told us such things as these." — Judges xiii. 23. 
 
 rpHIS is part of a family scene. It is quoted from a 
 -*• conversation which took place between husband and 
 wife. I propose to treat the incident in a familiar manner, 
 as showing us some aspects of family life, some methods 
 of reading Divine Providence, and some sources of conso- 
 lation amid the distractions and mysteries of the present 
 world. 
 
 We shall look at it as showing some aspects of family 
 life. Here is the head of the house in gloom. Is he not 
 always more or less in gloom, this same head of the hoase 
 all the world over ? Who ever knew a head of the house 
 that was not more or less low-spirited, worried by a hun- 
 dred anxieties, tormented by sudden fear ? Perhaps natu- 
 rally so: after all he is the head of the house; and probably 
 the lightning conductor, being higher than any other part 
 of the building, may have experience of thunder-storms 
 and lightning discharges that lower parts of the structure 
 know nothing about. As the head of the house you are in 
 the market-place, you see things in their roughest aspects, 
 
254 Manoah? s Wife. 
 
 you have to bear many a thing that you cannot explain to 
 strangers, and there is an under-current in your conscious- 
 ness which perhaps your truest friend has never seen, or 
 seeing, appreciated ; and therefore when I hear the head of 
 the house complaining in tones that have no music in them, 
 how know I but that the poor man has been undergoing 
 vexations and distresses that he does not feel at liberty to 
 explain ? At any rate Manoah took this view of the angel's 
 visit: "We have seen God: no man can see God and live — 
 we shall surely die." Here we have a wife comforting her 
 husband. Like a true woman, she let Manoah have his 
 groan out. There is a beautiful cunning in love. It does 
 not break in upon a sentence at a semi-colon. It lets the 
 groan get right out, and then it offers its gentle consolation. 
 If we had heard Manoah alone, we should have said, A 
 terrible thunder-storm has burst upon this house, and God 
 has come down upon it with awful vengeance ; and not 
 until we heard his wife's statement of the case should we 
 have any clear idea of the reality of the circumstances. 
 You complain of this word but; when a statement is made 
 to you and it proceeds fluently and satisfactorily, the 
 speaker says but, and you say, " Aye, there it is again." 
 We sometimes abuse this but ; it sometimes, however, in- 
 troduces all the light and all the music, and is found to be 
 the key, long lost, of the gate which had impeded our pro- 
 gress. But his wife said unto him — but a certain Samaritan 
 came that way. Therefore remember that help sometimes 
 comes after words that seem only to promise some greater 
 distress. Be the complement of each other. The husband 
 does not know all the case. Perhaps the wife would read 
 
ManoaWs Wife. 255 
 
 the case a little too hopefully. You must hear both the 
 statements, put them both together, and draw your con- 
 clusions from the twofold statement. People are the com- 
 plement of each other. Woe to that man who thinks he 
 combines all populations and all personalities in himself. 
 That must be a miserable man who thinks he is the only 
 man in the world. You would get more help from other 
 people if you expected more, if you invited more, if you 
 put yourself in circumstances that would justify the offering 
 of more. There is not a poor creature in the world who 
 cannot fill up the drop that is wanting to complete the 
 fulness of some other creature's joy. You would not be 
 half the man that you are except for your wife, and yet 
 you never say " Thank you " with any degree of hearti- 
 ness or sincerity. You listen to her suggestions with a 
 half contempt, as if she did not know what she was talking 
 about, and then you go and work out her idea and get the 
 profit of it, and say what a clever man of business you are. 
 That is not honest, it is not just — " Thou shalt not steal." 
 
 Here we have a husband and wife talking over a difficult 
 case. Is not that a rare thing in these days of rush and 
 tumult and noise, when a man never sees his little children, 
 his very little ones, except in bed? He leaves home so 
 early in the morning, and gets back so late at night, that 
 he never sees his little ones but in slumber. Is it not now 
 a rare thing for a husband and wife to sit down and talk 
 a difficulty over in all its bearings ? Have I not known 
 in the course of my pastoral experience a wife wronged 
 because of the husband failing to show proper confidence ? 
 The man has been in difficulties, wherever he has gone he 
 
256 Manoah's Wife. 
 
 has been pursued by a haunting dread, and he has suffered 
 all this alone; whereas if he had but stated the case with 
 all frankness and loving candour, who knows but that his 
 wife might have said some word which might have been as 
 a key to the lock, and as a solution of the hard and vex- 
 atious problem ? You will always find it an inexpressible 
 comfort to take your husband or wife, as the case may be, 
 into your confidence, and talk any difficulty right through, 
 keeping back no part of the case. " It soothes poor misery 
 hearkening to her tale." If we lived in more domestic 
 confidence, our houses would be homes, our homes would 
 be churches, and those churches would be in the very 
 vicinage of heaven. 
 
 Let us now look at the incident as showing some 
 methods of reading Divine Providence. There we have the 
 timid and distrustful method. Manoah looks at the case, 
 reads it, spells where he cannot read plainly, and then, 
 looking up from his book, he says to his wife, " There is 
 bad news for you : God is about to destroy us." There are 
 these same timid and doubtful readers of Providence in 
 society to-day. There are some men who never see the 
 sky in its mid-day beauty, who never see summer in July 
 at all, who really have never one day's true elevation of 
 soul. I do not blame such people altogether. We are 
 fearfully and wonderfully made. We cannot all read with 
 equal facility, and see with equal distinctness. There are 
 causes or sub-causes, intermediate secondary influences 
 arising from physical constitution and other circumstances 
 over which we have no control, which trouble our vision 
 even of God Himself. I put in, therefore, a word wherever 
 
ManoaWs Wife. 257 
 
 I can for those who are not constituted hopefully, who have 
 not been gifted with a sanguine temperament. There are 
 men amongst us whose life is a continual pain. It is pos- 
 sible so to read Grod's ways among men as to bring upon 
 ourselves great distress. Is a man, therefore, to exclaim, 
 " This is a punishment sent from heaven for some in- 
 scrutable reason, and I must endure it as well as I can ; 
 I shall never see the sky when not a cloud bedims its 
 dome"? No, you are to struggle against this, you are 
 to believe other people ; that is to say, you are to live in 
 other people's lives, to get out of other people the piece 
 that is wanting in your life. You are not to put ashes 
 upon your head and say, "There is nothing in the uni- 
 verse that I do not see." You are to call little children 
 and to say, " What do you see ?" and young men and say, 
 " How does life look from your point of view?" and you 
 are to live in other people. We are to walk by faith and 
 not by sight : we are debtors both to the Jew arid to the 
 Greek; and we must get from one another a complete 
 statement of the reality of God's way among the children 
 of men. This is the inductive and hopeful method of 
 reading Divine Providence. Some cynical people who 
 have no licence, and therefore ought to be arrested as 
 metaphysical felons, say that women have no logic. And 
 that sentence sounds as if really it ought to be true. It is- 
 so pat. It is one of those little weapons that a man can 
 pick up and use as if he had always had it. I think that 
 Manoah's wife was in very deed learned in what we call 
 the inductive method of reasoning, for she stated her case 
 with wonderful simplicity and clearness. " If the Lord 
 
 17 
 
258 ManoaKs Wife. 
 
 were pleased to kill us, he would not have received a burnt 
 offering and a meat offering at our hands, neither would 
 ae have showed us all these things, nor would as at this 
 time have told us such things as these." That is logic ! 
 That is the inductive method ! — the method, namely, of 
 putting things together and drawing a conclusion from the 
 aggregate. Thank God if you have a wife who can talk 
 like that. Why, if they had both been gloomy parties, 
 what a house it would have been ! They need never 
 have taken the shutters down, and summer might have 
 ignored their existence. But Manoah's wife was of a 
 hopeful turn of mind. She had the eye which sees flecks 
 of blue in the darkest skies. She had the ear which hears 
 the softest goings of the Eternal. She was an interpreter 
 of the Divine thought. Oh, to have such an interpreter 
 in every bouse, to have such an interpreter in every pulpit 
 in England, to have such a companion on the highway of 
 venture and enterprise ! This is the eye that sees further 
 than the dull eye of criticism can ever see, that sees God's 
 heart, that reads meanings that- seem to be written afar. 
 Have we this method of reading Divine Providence ? I call 
 it the appreciative and thankful method. Why, some of 
 us can take up our loaf and say, " Only this ! " and say it 
 in a tone that means practical blasphemy ; others can take 
 up a crust and say, " Praise God from whom all blessings 
 flow! This is God's gift. He cannot mean me to die, 
 or He would not have put this into my hand." A litany 
 in one sentence, worthy to find its place amid the halle- 
 jahs an d blessings of the better world. Who was it 
 that said, " When I look at those who are higher than I 
 
Manoah' s Wife. 259 
 
 am, I am tempted towards discontent, but when I go out 
 amongst the poor and compare their condition with my 
 own, my heart overflows with loving thankfulness"? How 
 dare we complain, the worst, the poorest in this house ! 
 Taking the average of us — and a low average — what man, 
 what woman is there here that ought not to join in heart- 
 felt praise to Almighty G-od for mercies innumerable as 
 the moments, delicate as the light, present as the living 
 air round about one's poor life ! Manoah droops, pines, 
 dies ; his wife goes out, gathers the flowers in the Lord's 
 garden, brings them back to him and says, " Manoah, be 
 a man; would G-od have given us these things if He meant 
 to kill us ? " And poor Manoah lifts up his drooping face 
 to the light. Put together your mercies, look at them as 
 a whole and say, Can this mean death, or does it mean 
 life ? and I know what the glad answer will be. 
 
 There are some sources of consolation amid the dis- 
 tractions and mysteries of the present world. Every life 
 has some blessings. I charge it upon you at this season 
 of the year to reckon up your blessings. Men eagerly 
 count up their misfortunes and trials, but how few remem- 
 ber their mercies ! One man says, I have no wealth. No, 
 but look what a pair of shoulders you have! Another 
 man says, I have but feeble health. True, but look what 
 investments you have! Another voice says, I am disposed 
 to be fearful and dispirited. But look what a wife you 
 have ! Every life has some blessing, and we must find 
 what that blessing or those blessings are. We must put 
 them together, and reason from the goodness towards the 
 glory of God. Amid these blessings religious privileges 
 
260 ManoaKs Wije. 
 
 are sure signs of the Divine favour. "We have, religious 
 privileges : we can go into the sanctuary; we can take 
 counsel together ; we can kneel side by side in prayer; we 
 can go to the very best sources for religious instruction 
 and religious comfort. Does God mean to kill when He 
 has given us such proofs of favour as these? Does He 
 mean to kill us when He has sent the minister of the 
 covenant to tell us glad tidings of great joy ? Let us find 
 in religious blessings proof that God means no evil to us. 
 We will persist in looking at a distress till it seems to be 
 the only thing in our life. We need to put two and two 
 together. Do not be losing yourselves in the midst of 
 details that have apparently no connection. Gather up 
 your life until it becomes shaped into meaning, and then 
 when you have seen things in their proper relationships 
 pronounce calmly upon the ways of God towards you. 
 Let us put away religious melancholy. Many people have 
 come to me saying, " I fear I have committed the unpar- 
 donable sin; I seem to have offended God for ever, and 
 put Him far away from me, so that I can never see His 
 face again." Wouldst thou have any anxiety about the 
 thing if He were clean gone for ever, and had drawn the 
 skirts of His garments after Him so as to leave thee but 
 the blackness of darkness ? By the very fact of thy concern 
 understand that God has not purposed to kill thee. Cry 
 mightily for Him ; say, " Oh that I knew where I might 
 find him!" "Why standest Thou afar off, God ?" 
 And if thou criest so, He will surely come again, saying, 
 " For a small moment have I forsaken thee, that with 
 everlasting mercy I might gather thee." 
 
Manoah' s Wife. 261 
 
 Let us learn from this family scene that great joys often 
 succeed great fears. Manoah said, The Lord intends to ki.l 
 us ; his wife said, Not so, or He would not have received 
 a burnt offering at our hands. And behold Samson was 
 born, a judge of Israel, an avenger of mighty wrongs. Is 
 it ever so dark as just before the dawn ? Are you not 
 witnesses that a great darkness always precedes a great 
 light — that some peculiar misery comes to prepare the 
 way for some unusual joy? If we could only lay hold of 
 life in this way, and read it, not with unreasonable expecta- 
 tion of deliverance and joy, but with hopefulness, we 
 should never become old, desiccated, or tuneless — to the 
 last we should wear like old silver, to the very last there 
 would be in us a light above the brightness of the sun. 
 Let us read the goodness of God in others. Many a time 
 I have been recovered from practical atheism by reading 
 other people's experience. When things seem to have 
 been going wrong with myself, I have looked over into my 
 neighbour's garden and seen his flowers, and my heart has 
 been cheered by the vision. 
 
 Oh, woman, talk of your mission ! Here is your mission 
 described and exemplified in the case of the wife of Manoah. 
 What do you want with your School Board and platform 
 experiences, and those mysterious abstractions which you 
 call your rights ? Here is your field of operation. Cheer 
 those who are dispirited; read the Word of God in its 
 spirit to those who can only read its cold meagre letter, 
 and the strongest of us will bless you for your gentle 
 ministry. Did not Paul write to the Church at Rome 
 saying, " Greet Priscilla and Aquila," putting the wife's 
 
262 Manoatis Wife. 
 
 name first, and that in no mere spirit of courtesy, but 
 probably in recognition of her supreme influence in 
 spiritual direction and consolation? Who was it in the 
 days of Scottish persecution ? Was it not Helen Stirk — a 
 braver Helen than the fiend Macgregor — who said to her 
 husband as they were carried forth both to be executed, 
 " Husband, rejoice, for we have lived together many joyful 
 days ; but this day wherein we die together ought to be 
 most joyful to us both, because we must have joy for ever; 
 therefore I will not bid you good night, for we shall 
 suddenly meet within the kingdom of heaven" ? Who was 
 it when Whitefield was mobbed and threatened, and when 
 even he was about to give way, — who was it but his wife 
 who took hold of his robe and said, " Greorge, play the man 
 for your God" ? Oh, woman, talk of your rights, and your 
 sphere, and your having nothing to do ! We should die 
 without you. The man is fit for murders, stratagems, and 
 spoils who is not a worshipper of woman — a worshipper of 
 his mother, of his sister, of his wife, of the ideal woman. 
 Have a sphere of labour at home, go into sick chambers 
 and speak as only a woman can speak. Counsel your sons 
 as if you were not dictating to them. Eead Providence to 
 your husband in an incidental manner, as if you were not 
 reproaching him for his dulness, but simply hinting that 
 you had seen unexpected light. Women have always said 
 the finest things that have ever been said in the Bible. 
 Why it was a woman that — I speak it with reverence — out- 
 witted the Lord Himself. He said " No " to her request. 
 And He was not accustomed to say that word, it fell 
 awkwardly from His dear lips. " I am not sent but unto 
 
ManoaKs Wife. 263 
 
 the lost sheep of the house of Israel. It is not meet to 
 
 take the children's hread and cast it unto dogs." But the 
 
 woman outwitted Him ! There was not a Scribe or Pharisee 
 
 who would not have been silenced, but she said, " Truth, 
 
 Lord : yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their 
 
 master's table." And He instantly yielded Himself as a 
 
 willing prisoner of love. The finest things that have ever 
 
 been spoken have been spoken from the heart. The brain 
 
 may write down its list, and a very fine list, too, but very 
 
 cold, and I will undertake to write sentences from the 
 
 heart which for wit, sparkle, richness, and divinity, will 
 
 cause the brain to double up its list and slink off. 
 
 {Printed from Reporter's notes.) 
 
264 Jonathan's Moral Courage. 
 
 iflonatljan'g amoral Coucap. 
 
 " So Jonathan arose from the table in fierce anger, and did eat no meat 
 the second day of tlie month; for he mas grieved for David, because 
 Ms father had done him shame." — 1 Samuel xx. 34. 
 
 TI^E are to understand that David was in great jeopardy 
 from Saul, the king of Israel. David himself was 
 very sensible of the peril of his condition ; so much so, 
 that he graphically described it to Jonathan in these 
 words—" As my soul liveth, there is but a step between 
 me and death ! " David was anxious to know whether 
 Saul was at all mollified towards him. So the two youno- 
 men, Jonathan and David, made a little plan between 
 them, by which they were to test the present condition 
 of the king's mind. The dinner was provided as usual ; 
 Saul took his accustomed seat ; but David was not present. 
 But Saul had self-control enough that day to say nothing 
 about the absence of David. The next day things were 
 established in their usual order, and still David was not 
 present. Saul now lost self-control so far as to ask Jonathan 
 why David, the son of Jesse the Bethlehemite, was not in 
 , his place ? Jonathan, according to a pre-arranged scheme, 
 made reply. Saul then lost self-control, took up a javelin,' 
 and hurled it at Jonathan ; and Jonathan arose from the 
 table in fierce anger, for he was grieved for David, because 
 
Jonathan's Moral Courage. 265 
 
 his father had done him shame ! I propose to enquire 
 into the moral meaning of this incident ; to see whether 
 there is anything in it that applies to our own circum- 
 stances. I think it impossible to read this story without 
 having the mind arrested at several points of unusual 
 interest. 
 
 First of all, here is the saddest of all sights — man 
 arrayed against man. Not man against a savage beast ; 
 but man against his own kind, smiting the face of one 
 made in his own image and likeness ; thirsting, as it 
 were, for human blood ! Is there any sight sadder than 
 that ? It is, too, the king himself arrayed against those 
 who are under him. It is no mean man. It is a man 
 with a great name ; and if great names should signalise 
 great natures, it was the greatest man in the kingdom 
 that was arrayed against a youth comparatively friendless. 
 This is the state of society to-day. We are, as amongst 
 ourselves, our own worst enemies. There is no fight 
 between dogs that is comparable to the controversy be- 
 tween husband and wife, parent and child, master and 
 servant, employer and employed. There are no wolves 
 in the forest that can tear one another so terribly as 
 men can tear one another by unkind words, by unjust 
 dealings, by taking sudden and unexpected advantage 
 one of another. When God looks down from heaven 
 to see the condition of His family upon earth, is there 
 anything that can grieve His heart with so keen a 
 pang as to see one man the enemy of another ? Are 
 we not mutual enemies ? Is there not an eternal feud 
 between man and man? I know you will stop me by 
 
266 'Jonathan's Moral Courage. 
 
 pointing out some accidental circumstances, which are 
 apparently pointing in another direction. I am as well 
 aware as you are of the accidents to which you refer. 
 But, given a state of society in which limits and restric- 
 tions are taken away such as now bind us to what 
 is at all events apparently right, is there not in our 
 Jiearts the very spirit of homicide? I know this is not 
 a popular doctrine to preach ; but yet I want to enquire 
 whether it is not true. We are watching one another 
 just now ; we are to some extent upon our good be- 
 haviour ; we live upon an island that is guarded and 
 defended by a thousand limitations ; but still, take off 
 all these artificial limitations, leave us to ourselves as 
 ourselves, and is it not the part of man to devour man ? 
 That part was played so consistently, and so urgently, 
 that the Apostle Paul actually feared that it would get 
 into the Church itself ; and therefore he said, " See that 
 ye bite not, nor devour one another ! " He was actually 
 afraid that the Church would be turned into a menagerie, 
 and that the menagerie would have no iron bars around 
 it, so that man would develop his fiercer disposition, 
 and bite and devour and slay his fellow-men ! I sigh 
 for the spirit of brotherhood ; I pray for the good time 
 when man shall see in man the image and likeness of 
 G-od ! When human nature is more highly valued, the 
 spirit of Christ will prove to be more thoroughly esta- 
 blished within us. Find a man that cares nothing for 
 humanity, and you find a man who will never " go 
 away into life eternal." Find a man who will divide 
 the last crust with a fellow pilgrim, and you find one 
 
"Jonathan? s Moral Courage. 267 
 
 whom Christ shall call into the prepared, kingdom, and 
 start on the line of immortality ! 
 
 Here we have not only the saddest of all sights, but 
 we have the rupture of the most sacred bonds. Who 
 is it that is offended in this case ? It is not a stranger ; 
 it is the son that rose in fierce anger, being grieved for 
 David and ashamed of his own father. " Fathers, provoke 
 not your children to wrath." Here is the natural order 
 of things inverted ! What is the natural order of things ? 
 That the young shall look up to the old ; that the old 
 should be the inspiration and the defence of the young ; 
 that the father should be as God to the child, and that 
 the child should look up with reverence and veneration 
 to the father. Here is a son getting up from his own 
 father's table in shame and grief! To such passes may 
 we come. Can you point to anything more pathetic, 
 anything more fully charged with the highest elements 
 of tragedy than this — that a son should get up in the 
 presence of a great number of people ashamed of his 
 own father ! How are you bringing up your children ? 
 You cannot leave them great fortunes, but you may 
 leave them good examples ; you cannot leave them an 
 illustrious name, but you may leave them a name that 
 they can pronounce in every company, and defy the 
 world to impeach. Your sons are taking notice of you. 
 For a son to rise from his own father's table, to go 
 out of the house ashamed of his own father, is a possi- 
 bility of which all men, heads of houses, ought to be 
 fully aware. Are there not to-day fathers of whom 
 children are ashamed ? Drunken fathers, indolent fathers, 
 
268 Jonathan's Moral Courage. 
 
 extravagant, thoughtless, imperious, self-willed fathers, — 
 the head of the house its only human curse ! The man 
 that ought to be " guide, philosopher, and friend," either 
 the terror of his household or the shame of his progeny ! 
 When fathers occupy their right positions, sons, in ninety- 
 nine cases out of a hundred, will be likely to occupy 
 theirs. A good example is never lost. For a time it may 
 seem to have no good effect ; but the period will come, in 
 living out this troubled human life of ours, when the boy 
 will remember whose son he is ; when the spirit of tradi- 
 tional piety may seize him ; when he will remember whose 
 mantle it is that has fallen upon his shoulders. Oh ! to 
 have a name left that you can pronounce without fear or 
 shame, that you can defend with both hands, is surely 
 to have an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that 
 fadeth not away ! When your son is ashamed of you, 
 know that the time of your destruction draweth nigh ! 
 
 Here, too, is the assertion of the highest instinct. What 
 is it that asserts itself in this case? It is the spirit of 
 right. " There is a spirit in man, and the inspiration of 
 the Almighty giveth him understanding." There is a time 
 in our life when we must put aside all parental authority, 
 traditional authority, ecclesiastical authority, parliamentary 
 authority, and do the right, as Jonathan did when he arose 
 on this occasion. What was it that stirred him to this deed ? 
 His father had done wrong, and he himself was deter- 
 mined to vindicate right. The voice of right ought to 
 be heard through all the noise and tumult and distraction 
 incident to human society. Have you had any experience 
 of this kind ? Oh, how it shakes a man ! I know of no 
 
Jonathan's Moral Courage. 269 
 
 finer sight than to see the spirit of rectitude filling out a 
 man's nature ; making his very weakness strength ; 
 giving a strange penetrating emphasis to a voice naturally 
 weak ; giving fire to the youth whom we thought incapable 
 of vehemence : the sight is grand, beyond all the imaginings 
 of poetry and dreams ! These are the men that keep the 
 world square. Men that get up from dinner tables and 
 say, " No ! I am ashamed of your evil doing ; and I 
 will not taste your bread ! " We, poor hounds, tarry 
 at the trough and satisfy our appetites, and slake our 
 thirst, but the man that is going out will save the world ! 
 Now and then it does us good, it heightens us with 
 a Divine elevation, to see a man who even under the 
 most restricted circumstances will assert the right. How 
 many people would have said, " Let dinner pa.^s quietly 
 over ; do not outrage the conventional decencies of do- 
 mestic society. Sit still. Be quiet. Eat your dinner, 
 and when it is over we will see what can be done." 
 But Jonathan took no such course. The bread was in 
 his mouth, but he said, " I will not swallow it ! " The 
 cup was in his hand, but he said, " I will set it down 
 ao-ain ! I cannot make thee a wise and true king ; but 
 I can do the next thing, — I can protest against thee, 
 and I will ; and see, I leave thee with the fire of shame 
 on my cheeks ! I am ashamed, not because of David, 
 but because of the king, my father ! " Thank God for 
 a man with a throat like that ! There are so many of us 
 that must have our dinner if all the Davids in creation 
 were wronged ! 
 
 I am afraid, however, that some of us are making 
 
270 Jonathan's Moral Courage. 
 
 distinctions which in the long run will be found to be 
 not only foolish but immoral and destructive. Do I 
 not hear now and then some persons making a distinc- 
 tion between what they term abstract right and practical 
 right? When the abstract right is trifled with, the 
 practical right must sooner or later be thrown down. 
 If any scheme of politics, education, government, social 
 regeneration, is not metaphysically right, it never can 
 be practically right in the long run. It may be ex- 
 pedient ; it may be apparently right ; it may do a little 
 useful work for the time being ; but if you are wrong 
 at the centre, wrong in the highest metaphysical thinking, 
 the outcome of your work will prove itself a failure. 
 Get hold of a man who is right in the abstract, rio-ht 
 in the soul, right in his theories ; and beware, my youno- 
 friend, of that man who says, " It's all very well, von. 
 know, in theory.'' If a thing be wrong in theory, it 
 never can be right in practice. It may be veneered, 
 painted, gilded, and done up for a price ; but it never 
 can be right out and out from the centre to the circum- 
 ference. Jonathan in this case made a protest on behalf 
 ,pf the abstract right, the essential right; and his voice 
 has gone through the generations like a thunderbolt ! 
 I thank Grod that we had such testimony, because it may 
 now and again touch the heroic nerve in young natures, 
 and prove that even yet there are men amongst us who 
 will not see wrong without crying shame at least, and 
 protesting against it. 
 
 Here we have a disproof of a familiar proverb. The 
 familiar proverb is, "Blood is thicker than water." 
 
"Jonathan's Moral Courage. 271 
 
 Jonathan says, " Right is thicker than blood. David 
 is no relation of mine physically ; but David is an injured 
 man ; and my father is the individual who is injuring him, 
 and I snap all ties that I may go and stand by the side of 
 God and proclaim myself in favour of the right!" Con- 
 sider no ties where righteousness is in question. There are 
 secondary rights, and there are primary rights. You are 
 your father's child, and you say you ought to be filial 
 and obedient. The spirit of righteousness says, " No ! " 
 Children, obey your parents — in the Lord" That is the 
 explanatory qualification. Whatever your father tells you 
 to do, if it be not " in the Lord," you have a right to resist. 
 Whatever your Government tells you to do that is not 
 " in the Lord " you have a right to protest against and to 
 resist to the utmost. I fear we are serving some sub-gods, 
 some under-deities, some little proxy kings, and forgetting 
 the one eternal, absolute Ruler. We are measuring our- 
 selves by false standards and not by the one great 
 judgment. Will you do wrong for your father's sake, and 
 call it filial obedience ? There is only one Father. This 
 term " father " that we use, we use only temporarily and 
 with qualifications. One is your father — God ! Let every 
 tie be broken; let it go so that you serve Him who is 
 clothed with righteousness, and who sits for ever in the 
 light ! Shall a man say, " If it had been anybody but my 
 father, I certainly would have taken another course." 
 ask you, what is the question in controversy ? If it be 
 a question of mere politeness, civility, honour due to 
 ace, attention required by the ordinary courtesies of life, 
 then I honour you for honouring your father. But if it be 
 
272 Jonathan's Moral Courage. 
 
 a moral question, a question as between right and wrong, 
 your father ceases to have any claim upon your conscience 
 if so be he indicate a course that is foul or questionable. 
 You are in partnership with your father, and will you 
 think to put down to his credit all the elements of the 
 management that are not exactly to your taste ? You 
 cannot do so. You aggravate your own guilt by doing it. 
 What am I then to do? To come out of it and to be 
 separate. To leave my own flesh and blood ? Yes ! To 
 be a stranger and an alien in the land ? Yes ! It is not 
 necessary that you should live, but it is necessary that you 
 should be true. Men delude themselves with these pro- 
 verbs; they say, "A bird in the hand is worth two in the 
 bush." Nothing of the sort, unless the question be one 
 that is very limited in its scope. " Blood is thicker than 
 water." The question is not between blood and water; 
 the question is between blood and God, blood and righteous- 
 ness, physical kinship and eternal alliance with the virtues 
 and the honesties of the universe. A man says, "You 
 know I must live." I know, my friend, just the contrary, 
 if it be a moral question that is involved ! There is no 
 need in creation for either you or me to live. It is a 
 perfect fallacy to say, " You know I must live." No ! I 
 must be good ; I must be right ; I must be honest ; I must 
 be true. There your music is of a pure kind, — the angels 
 march according to the beat of that rhythm. But when 
 you say that you must live, it is the grandest mistake you 
 can possibly make. Neither you nor I can be of the 
 slightest consequence to the universe as mere existences. 
 It is when there is virtue in us, life, nobleness, purity, 
 
Jonathan's Moral Courage. 273 
 
 divinity, — it is then that the universe cares for us, and will 
 keep itself together, as it were, for our convenience and 
 progress. Are any of you at this moment deterred from 
 doing right because your father is on the other side ? Tell 
 me. Kept in a wrong church, where the truth is not 
 spoken, because your father has a pew there ? Kept from 
 the open profession of Christianity, because your father 
 would feel annoyed if you said anything about it ? Are 
 you comforting yourself with this text from the fool's 
 bible — " Blood is thicker than water "? Then, if you have 
 given me a momentary advantage over you in electing me 
 as your morning teacher for this one occasion, let me use 
 what you yourselves have put into my hands, for the 
 purpose of saying, Give up your father, rather than give 
 up conscience, righteousness, truth, purity. Do not make 
 his shame public, if you can avoid it ; but let everything 
 be struck down, rather than the spirit of righteousness 
 shall be grieved or quenched. " Grieve not the Spirit ; 
 quench not the Spirit." Inasmuch as you have had bitter 
 experience of this kind of conduct from your father, see 
 to it that, in your turn, you give your children the benefit 
 of a right example. 
 
 Here we have the espousal of a noble policy. What was 
 the policy of Jonathan ? He espoused the cause of right 
 against might. David had no resources. Saul had every- 
 thing; and Jonathan said, " I know that he is the king, 
 that he is my father, and that he has life and death upon 
 his lips, so far as this existence is concerned ; but in the 
 name of the eternal right I defy him ! " Shall the example 
 be lost upon us ? Is there no weak cause you can espouse ? 
 
 18 
 
274 'Jonathan's Moral Cur age. 
 
 Will you do nothing to put down the evil side of that 
 foolish proverb, " Nothing succeeds like success " ? Beard 
 success in its own den, fight the most popular evils, es- 
 pouse the poorest and the weakest causes, if you believe 
 that they are inspired by one element of right. It takes a 
 strong man to stand alone. It is only a man here and 
 there that can raise a tune; almost everybody tries to have 
 a mumble after it is raised. But stand alone, young 
 friend ; stand alone, poor man ; stand with the right. Do 
 not stand with it presumptuously and self-displayingly, 
 with self-idolatrous demonstrativeness ; but stand beside it 
 because it is right, with all meekness and self-control and 
 purity and honesty. We are in the minority, but we are 
 in the minority of God. You know that I do not believe 
 in majorities, popularly so called. I believe that men 
 should be weighed as well as numbered. I would rather 
 have the support of one man of a certain kind than the 
 support of ten thousand men of a kind directly opposite. 
 If I could not have them both, I say, " Give me that one 
 man. ' If God be for us, who can be against us ? '" 
 
 Now came a very beautiful little incident. Jonathan 
 went out of the house, and took his way into the field by 
 appointment, took a little lad with him, shot some arrows, 
 called out to the boy words upon which himself and David 
 had agreed; and David knew that anger was determined 
 against him, "but the lad knew not the matter." There 
 are unconscious workers in society. We do not know the 
 full measure of all that we are doing. What are you 
 doing, my little fellow? "I am picking up arrows for 
 Jonathan, the king's son:" That is the end of his tale, so 
 
yonatharC s Moral Courage. 275 
 
 far as he knows it. Did he know that through him was 
 telegraphed to a breaking heart that the king was deter- 
 mined against him ? It is just so with us. We see part 
 of our work, the other side of it we know nothing about. 
 What a mysterious life, then, is this ! We are observed ; 
 we are set in order; we are made instruments in some 
 cases. We are called, with the consent of our will up to 
 a certain point ; and then, beyond that, we seem to be 
 utterly helpless, not knowing the influences that are shed 
 off the sides of our character, and the indirect results or 
 the moral meanings of what we are doing. I have been 
 comforted sometimes by people who did not know that 
 they were comforting me. Sometimes a very poor and 
 weak man, as the world calls poor and weak, has said 
 something to me that has enabled me to redeem years of 
 my life, bringing them back again so as to work with their 
 experience; and the man has gone away without knowing 
 that he has done anything. You give a child a book, — can 
 you tell what the influence of that is to be in after years ? 
 You smiled upon some young man who is grappling with a 
 difficulty. The smile cost you nothing. Yet seeing that it 
 fell from your heart as well as from your face, it fell upon 
 him like sunshine, and did another kind of work than that 
 which it was intended at the moment it should do. So 
 there is an unintentional and unconscious life. There is a 
 part of our life that is lived on purpose ; and there is 
 a part of our life we know nothing about. There is a 
 straight line ; and suddenly it sweeps off into poetry and 
 curvings. "No man liveth unto himself" in a far deeper 
 sense than is usually attached -to that passage. The boy 
 
276 Jonathan's Moral Courage. 
 
 was not living unto himself. He was doing a poor kind of 
 thing, without poetry or perspective in it, yet he was the 
 telegraph between two hearts ! My friends, this ought to 
 invest life with something very solemn. I cannot tell what 
 my work may do this morning. Why I was constrained 
 to select this passage I cannot tell. It has been before me 
 in my Bible for some time; and I have looked at some of 
 the marginal notes upon it and said, " Shall I take up this 
 subject or shall I not?" and last night something said to 
 me, '' Try it to-morrow." I do not know to whom I may 
 be speaking, or what application this subject may have ; 
 but the word of the Lord cannot return unto Him void ! 
 It has an application; and if there be a man here who is 
 trying to look as if it did not apply to him — thank God I 
 see none such — that man is very possibly smarting in his 
 conscience, a scorpion is stinging his heart, and we may 
 see some good of it by-and-by. Children, obey your 
 parents — let it be in the Lord! Fathers, provoke not 
 your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture 
 and admonition of the Lord. Servants, obey your masters, 
 but remember that One is your Master. Do not be 
 deceived by sub-titles, by secondary divisions, but look at 
 the primary, the essential, the everlasting. 
 
 What is the cure for all this social chaos, domestic 
 trouble, secret pain, this wrong-doing as between kino-s 
 and subjects, fathers and children, man and man? The 
 one cure is the Cross of Christ. Have I not preached that 
 with some consistency ever since you knew me ? Have I 
 ever given a second prescription for this malady of the 
 world? If I have, oh! allow me now to tear it up, publicly 
 
JomtharCs Moral Courage. 277 
 
 to tear it up, so that nobody can ever patch it together so 
 as to make one word of it through all time. The prescrip- 
 tion I will give is given to me. The prescription by which 
 I would abide according to the exhortation of Scripture, 
 the prescription which I would preach to all mankind is 
 this: "The blood of Jesus Christ, Grod the Son, cleanseth 
 from all sin." " If any man have not the- Spirit of Christ, 
 he is none of his." 
 
 Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. 
 Friends, we may veneer ourselves, and put ourselves into 
 transient attitudes, but the only way to get right outwardly 
 is to get right inwardly; the only one way to. have clean 
 hands is to have a clean heart ; the only way to be holy is 
 to have the Holy Spirit. You cannot hush society into a 
 perpetual rest; you cannot beckon men into righteousness. 
 You may say to Saul, " Saul, do not exclaim so to-day; 
 and let this meal pass without putting these questions to 
 Jonathan; see him, alone." He may for a moment heed 
 you, but you have not arrested the man. You must get 
 at his heart. So it is with all our social questions. You 
 may give men better dwellings, you may give them better 
 drainage, and better air. But never forget that, when 
 man did fall, he fell, not in a metropolitan alley, not in a 
 London sewer. He fell where the sunshine was broadest, 
 where the rivers were deepest and calmest. When he fell he 
 fall amid surroundings which God Himself had placed for 
 his convenience and gratification. The only cure is not in 
 change of circumstances, but in change of heart. May the 
 Livino- One carry this word into our lives! Amen ! 
 (From Reporter's notes.) 
 
278 Life without Miracles. 
 
 JLite tottljout S^iraclegf* 
 
 "John did no miracle." — John x. 41. 
 
 1\/TY purpose is to inquire how far it is possible to build 
 up a really good and strong character without doing 
 any works that are miraculous, romantic, or merely sen- 
 sational. The life of John the Baptist furnishes us with 
 an admirable study upon this subject. " Among them that 
 are born of women there hath not appeared a gi-eater than 
 John the Baptist ;" yet John did no miracle. He was "a 
 burning and a shining light ;" yet John did no miracle. 
 "He was a prophet, yea," etc.; yet John did no miracle. 
 " All that John spake of this man is true;" yet John did no 
 miracle. Now how far is it possible for us to win the 
 Master's approbation, and to come into a great estate 
 of honour and joy, without having any power in things 
 miraculous ? Some of us may think we are living a mo- 
 notonous and profitless sort of life, remarkable for nothing 
 but sameness and insipidity ; morning, noon, night coming 
 round and round without our ever doing anything that 
 strikes observers with amazement ; always working in the 
 same place, always surrounded by the same faces, always 
 tethered by the same short string. Now if I can send 
 one word of comfort into any heart that is mourning the 
 
Life without Miracles. 2jg 
 
 narrowness of its sphere and the monotony of its pursuits, 
 my object will be answered. I must own that human life 
 needs some such cheering. No doubt many people are 
 without ambition or aspiration, and they need no help, 
 but there are others to whom a word of interpretation 
 and comfort will be as refreshing water in the tiresome 
 journey of a commonplace life. Some of us, too, seem 
 always on the very point of really doing something worth 
 doing. It seems as if a miracle were the very next thing 
 to be done, and that we only miss the doing of it by a 
 hair's breadth. 
 
 We shall get some help in the direction of our morning 
 study if we answer this question — upon what kind of 
 life did Jesus Cheist set the seal of His blessing ? 
 
 1. He specially blessed the spirit and ministry of John 
 the Baptist ; and yet John did no miracle; 
 
 (a) It is possible to be true; (b) courageous; (c) self- 
 controlled ; (d) illustrious ; and yet to do no miracle. 
 
 2. That this approval was in no sense exceptional is 
 made plain by other parts of Jesus Christ's recognition of 
 man's life and work : 
 
 (a) Seventy returned ; (b) cup of cold water ; (c) em- 
 ployment of talents. 
 
 All this is made the clearer by a case on the other side — 
 " In thy name done many wonderful works," etc. 
 
 "When did Jesus Christ ever set a man in higher honour 
 in His kingdom simply because the man was a worker of 
 miracles ? 
 
 What, then, are the qualities which God most esteems 
 
 in us : 
 
 ? 
 
•r!8o Life without Miracles. 
 
 "A meek and a quiet spirit, which in the sight," etc. 
 
 " The Lord loveth a cheerful giver," etc. 
 
 Nowhere is the brilliant man singled out, etc. : " Many 
 that are first," etc. 
 
 (1) A word to the poor ; (2) women ; (3) nobodies. 
 
 What doth the Lord thy Grod require of thee ? Miracles ? 
 " To do justly," etc. 
 
 Covet earnestly the best gifts, and yet chakity above 
 all* 
 
Hated for the Truth 's Sake. 281 
 
 l?atxti Cor tfje ^rurij'g feafte. 
 
 " I liate him, for he never prophesied good mito me, hut always evil." — 
 Cheon. XYiii. 7. 
 
 A HAB king of Israel is the speaker, and the speech -was 
 made to Jehoshaphat king of Judah. The name of 
 the hated man was Micaiah. Four hundred men had told 
 the king of Israel to go up to Ramoth-Gilead, but some- 
 how Jehoshaphat felt that he would like additional testi- 
 mony. That was a very strange thing ! "When four 
 hundred prophets have said " Go," why should there be 
 'any desire to hear any other man ? Yet we know exactly 
 the meaning of this in our experience. Though we may 
 have heard many voices, yet we feel that we have not 
 heard the truth. We have heard a great noise, but no 
 music; we have been dinned by a great clatter, but no 
 word has got hold of our judgment or prevailed intelli- 
 gently and honestly over our conscience. Jehoshaphat 
 said in effect — There is a hollow sound in these voices ; I 
 miss the clear honest ring of simplicity and truth; the 
 men themselves don't seem to believe their own message, — 
 is there not another man somewhere who will speak to 
 us in a sober and earnest wav ? 
 
282 Hated for the Truth's Sake. 
 
 Now I think that in all this I see a wonderfully vivid 
 picture of the very life which is round about us to-day : 
 the accidents are different, but the substantial truth is the 
 same ; let us by heavenly help render this old story into 
 modern speech, and lay that speech to heart, though we 
 may suffer from it for a while. 
 
 1. What an appalling illustration is this of the fact that 
 men love to be flattered and encouraged even at the expense 
 of everything holy and true. " A wonderful and horrible 
 thing is commenced in the land ; the prophets prophesy 
 falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means ; and 
 many people love to have it so." "Which say to the 
 seers, See not ; and to the prophets, Prophesy not unto 
 us right things, speak unto us smooth things, prophesy de- 
 ceits ; get you out of the way, turn aside out of the path, 
 cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before us." 
 (2 Tim. iv. 3, 4.) 
 
 2. What a vivid illustration is this of the sublime function 
 of an incorniptible truth-teller ! 
 
 This is not Micaiah's first appearance before the king. 
 He had established his reputation as a G-od-fearing and 
 truth-speaking man, and Ahab's denunciation was in 
 reality Micaiah's highest praise. " Though I am a king 
 and he a poor man," etc. 
 
 (a) No wicked man should be quite easy in the sanctuary. 
 
 (b) Do you suppose that it is pleasant for a minister to 
 be always opposing any man ? 
 
 (c) A man is not your enemy because he tells you the 
 <fcruth. 
 
 Opposition will come. " Blessed are ye when men," etc. 
 
Hated for the Truth's Sake. 283 
 
 The truth-speaker will always create great opposition, 
 but he is the safety of society ! 
 
 3. What a striking instance is this of the Lord giving a 
 man up to the devices of his own wicked heart, and letting 
 him take his own ruinous way ! 
 
284 What is Life ? 
 
 Sailjat is Hilt ? 
 
 "What is your life ? "—James iv. 14. 
 
 WE have a life, — what are we going to make of it? 
 That is the question to which I ask your attention. 
 
 The life we have is short at the best ; the days run away 
 with our strength, and whilst we work and hope we grow 
 old. Our life is short, and it is far from sure. We may 
 die in a moment. A gasp, and we have gone. So far, 
 then, we have facts to deal with. Yet, though life is short 
 and uncertain, it is wonderful in power ; it can do won- 
 derful things ; it can work and suffer ; it can write the 
 " Paradise Lost ; " it can invent the telegraph ; it can sing 
 the " Messiah." It is short, uncertain, mighty : it is but 
 a pulse, yet it seems to come up from eternity, — it is but a 
 flash, yet it gleams with the blaze of the sun. How it can 
 love, and hate ! How it can pray, and blaspheme ! What 
 are we going to do with it ? 
 
 Let us look at a few ways, and make Our choice. 
 
 1. The money-making way : will that do ? 
 
 2. The mechanical way. (Technical knowledge.) Sup- 
 pose you take all the measurements of a house, but never 
 speak to the occupants ! 
 
 3. Pleasure. 
 
 Now all these ways of life have their right side. Under- 
 
What is Life? 28*5 
 
 stand that. We cannot live without money. We can get 
 but a little way on in life without knowledge. And every 
 one of us needs pleasure, and ought to have more relaxation 
 than some of us get now. But there are ugly circumstances 
 in life which mar all the success that is possible along that 
 line of movement. We have £50,000 a-year, but we 
 cannot add one cubit to our stature, or make one hair 
 white or black. We have vast estates, but we know not 
 who will inherit them. We know every science, yet we 
 cannot tell what will be on the morrow. We drink old 
 wine out of golden goblets, but whilst we taste it our pulse 
 stops, and we are living men no more ! We are watched. 
 Our very liberty is a prison. We never get our tower 
 quite finished ; in the act of putting on the pinnacle, the 
 whole masonry rushes down, and kills the man who built 
 it. We plant our fields, and the crops are eaten up by an 
 almost invisible insect : you could shoot eagles, you could 
 entrap elephants, but the very minuteness of this enemy 
 baffles you ; its power is in its very contemptibleness. 
 We grow up to manhood, and we hardly halt there a 
 moment until we turn the corner, and go quietly or hastily 
 on to old age. 
 
 It is the business of the Christian teacher to keep these 
 facts steadily before the public mind, and to draw the heart 
 away from cisterns that are broken, from charms that are 
 mocking, and to fix it upon things invisible, spiritual, 
 divine. If life were a plain surface, a measurable quantity, 
 an arithmetical table, with definite points and sums, the 
 whole case would be changed ; the battle would then be to 
 the strong, and the race to the swift, and the weak hand 
 
.186 What is Life? 
 
 would be numbered with the foolish mind. But life is a 
 mystery ; life is as exciting as a speculation, yet as solemn 
 as a fact accomplished ; life is a pain, a chase in the dark, 
 a force tethered to an invisible centre by an invisible 
 thread ; a day wasting whilst it shines, hastening to dark- 
 ness infinite, or speeding towards a morning cloudless and 
 imperishable. 
 
 The question is, What are we going to make of it ? And 
 this question loses none of its importance from the fact that 
 each life is but as a tiny island daily encroached upon by 
 the never-slumbering sea. 
 
 1. What we want in life is a supreme purpose worthy of 
 our powers. If our purpose is to be rich, the greatest 
 section of our nature will be simply untouched or perverted. 
 If our purpose is to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly 
 with God, our whole nature will be moved to its best 
 exertions, and will produce its best effects. Am I not 
 practically right in saying that in the vast majority of 
 cases life is simply frittered away ? It is not intentionally 
 wasted. It is not wantonly debased. Far from it. But 
 it has no centre, no method, no law of movement. The 
 morning has no duty specifically its own, nor has the 
 evening. The day ought to be as the year, with its spring, 
 its summer, its autumn, and its winter, — in the morning 
 sow thy seed, at mid-day let it ripen, in the eventide enjoy 
 the well-mellowed fruit, and at night draw thy snowy 
 coverlet around thee, and sleep until the spring-time wakes 
 thee. But we are always getting ready to begin ; we will 
 do something to-morrow ; we have a dream, and we must 
 wait to see how the airy thing will embody and shape its 
 
What is Life? 287 
 
 mystery ; we are looking out for a chance ; we are await- 
 ing an inspiration ; in short, we are missing the chance in 
 he very act of watching for it ! 
 
 2. We want next a right view of those trials and circum- 
 stances over which we have absolutely no control. We 
 should not regard them as lawless and haphazard, but as 
 having causes, and as being themselves under control and 
 direction. Take affliction as a mere accident, and it will 
 fret and chafe you; take it as part of a plan, ultimately 
 beneficent and triumphant, and it will make you think, — 
 perhaps it will make you pray. Look upon disappointment 
 as arising from a mere miscarriage of events perfectly 
 under your own management, and you will find in such 
 disappointment only a weapon for the wounding of your 
 heart ; but feel that disappointment may be as a door 
 shutting you out of the way where the tiger crouches and 
 the lion prowls, and then you will thank God for sending 
 a cloud upon your hope, and turning back the chariot of 
 your ambition. You will be as thankful for some dis- 
 appointments as ever you have been for some successes. 
 Understand that there is a power round about you which 
 you cannot outwit. It is not to be taken at unawares. It 
 is not like a match of one degree of cunning pitted against 
 another. Ask why you are baffled, — why you are not 
 allowed to scale the only wall which separates you from the 
 sunny land where the gardens bask in perpetual summer ; 
 and such questionings will lead you back into solemn 
 sanctuaries, and show you that the earth and all its affairs 
 are under the direction and judgment of God. 
 
288 What is Life? 
 
 "What is my life ? A mystery, — a cloud dark, yet edged 
 with light, like the outside of heaven with overflowing 
 glory ; like a great may -be, a possibility, a destiny, — a 
 ghost that may darken into a fiend, or brighten into an 
 angel. I cannot tell what my life is — it is so much, so 
 little ; it is a killing pain, it is a maddening joy, a de- 
 lirious gladness, a very hell of horror. Oh, 'tis so strange ; 
 it slopes up to heaven like an easy hill, and suddenly 
 breaks off ; and lo ! I must come down again, or fall into 
 mist, into gloom, into death. 
 
 What is my life — aye, what ? I want to know what 
 my life is. In the light it is comely sometimes; in the 
 darkness hideous ; now it is a valiant soldier, mighty in the 
 fray ; and now a mean coward, skulking in the darkness, 
 if mayhap it may steal and not be seen, and look as if in 
 prayer it had lost its worldliness and were clear set for 
 heaven. My life says, I will, and, I will not ; and how it 
 says either I cannot tell ; sometimes it is a tender mercy, 
 beautiful as the morning dew, and sometimes a great 
 cruelty, having no law but its own thirst. Like a pendulum 
 it swings from prayer to blasphemy, and back again to 
 prayer ; and if it would die at prayer I might go to 
 heaven, but if it stop at blasphemy I must go to hell, and 
 blaspheme there through the ages, and grow worse, and 
 still worse, until God Himself cannot know me as the child 
 baptized in His own Name, and held up in public prayer 
 in the old village church a million years before. My life ! 
 what is it? Is it eternity begun? Is it G-od set in 
 miniature ? Is it Divinity gone mad ? I fight, and win, and 
 
What is Life? 289 
 
 die! I plant the green vineyard and gather purple grapes, 
 and as the wine foams in the full flagon, I fall down and 
 cannot taste the inviting cheer. I build a high house, with 
 roof that wind can never stir nor storm blow through, and 
 when the blazing fire roars from the gleaming hearth, and 
 Comfort, rosy-faced, beams upon me from the pictured 
 walls, I'm sent for and thrust into the grave and prayed 
 over as a failure here, — perhaps a failure there ; handed 
 over to the resurrection, to the Great Unknown, to ghost- 
 land, and a cold stone with lies on it keeps my breast well 
 down in the cold earth. 
 
 What is my life ? A dream ? A stage with actors on't ? 
 A mockery ? An echo, not a voice ? A hollow drum struck 
 by an unseen hand, and beating its own death-march? 
 Once my life was a child's rollick, half-trick, half-dream. 
 I remember the coloured bubbles thrown from the pipe of 
 fun and rolling leisurely on the summer air, and I now 
 hear the child's laugh as they burst and went back into 
 the silent nothing. Life was a rope-dance, a swing, a 
 butterfly-chase, a mother's kiss, a tumble on the sea-sand, 
 a run for baubles, a pail, a spade, a horse of wood, a 
 whip, a hoop, — one mockery after another — a memory of 
 things that used to please — a dream just on the wing ! 
 
 What is /iny life ? A school, a slate, a book that never 
 made me wise just then, but afterwards ? Long days in 
 terror of the rod, a truant after hare-and-hounds, or feign- 
 ing sickness to get to wood and water, and where bird- 
 nesting made the day seem short — a clever cheating of the 
 
 19 
 
2go What is Life? 
 
 master, spectacled and wise in look, but sour as if crab- 
 poisoned, and irate with anger never more than half-asleep ? 
 A school, forsooth ! Partly a play-house. A slate and top, 
 a spelling-book and marbles, a grammar and cherry-stones, 
 geography and foot-ball. A strange mixture, yet good 
 enough. Work and play, light and shade, eternal friend- 
 ships, Paradise regained and kept for ever. But wasting 
 its own sweetness was that life ! A little chap all fun, a 
 boy all jacket, a great hulking lad, afraid to be seen lest 
 taken for a man, lest chafered as a boy. A round cipher, 
 not jet knowing whether the stroke would go up and 
 make him six, or down and make him nine. 
 
 "What is my life? A youthood bright with cloudless 
 hope ; a passion ; an eye at a telescope ; a picture nearly 
 living, with quivering joy throbbing through its colours 
 and making them palpitate with life. A hand upon a lock 
 easily turned, and the door opening upon green fields and 
 vineyards, and orchards blushing with the loveliness of May. 
 No pain or ache, no twist in the long string of pearls ; a 
 face at every corner beckoning me with sweet smiles ; a 
 wind southerly, and rich with promises and blessings ; a 
 wild strength ; a scornful laugh at difficulty ; a challenge 
 to presumptuous rivalry ; a victory ere the fight began. 
 youthhood ! It was then that destiny whispered to me ; 
 then the face came like a revelation, and the voice came 
 from a cloud, and the other life came which made mine 
 immortal. And childhood was forgotten; the white mice 
 the busy squirrel, the drawer full of childhood's treasure, 
 —all gone, all laughed at, as I stood at the top of the 
 
What is Life? agi 
 
 high ladder that overlooks the noble paths of manhood. I 
 could not die. Where could death strike me ? A breast 
 clad in the armour of perfect health ; a head that never 
 throbbed with pain ; a heart sound as forest oak, — these 
 laughed at death, and bade the monster throw his weapons 
 down and be a conquered ally. The doctor was for old 
 women and misborn men, with leeches, pills, blisters, mix- 
 tures as before : a slope into the grave, the paid servant 
 of Mortality and Ruin. Life was then a wild ha ! ha ! a 
 summer picnic ; a casket full of glittering jests and quips 
 and cranks ; a stealthy look at beauty j a long evening 
 . talk ; a moonlight stroll ; a row on a stream of molten 
 silver. It was all sweet nonsense ; words with double 
 meanings ; seriousness spoken as irony ; a pleading Will 
 you ? an answering, If you will. Such bond^making, 
 such oaths of fealty, such troth-plighting. my soul, 
 half blind with tearful memories, the 1'ong green lane is 
 passed, and what remains is stony, bleak, — a rough road 
 down into old age and helplessness ! 
 
 But can such summers die ? Can the colouring fade 
 out — the may, the lilac, the chestnut bloom, the labur- 
 num gold ? Will the summer birds cease their song 
 — the blackbird, the thrush, the nightingale ? I have seen 
 all, heard all, and they are just going. Why will they go ? 
 Why not always here ? Does it become too cold for them ? 
 Do they feel the warning chill, and think of flight ? Why 
 not think of me ? What will he do ? thy might say — do 
 when we have gone, when the flowers die, and the greeD 
 leaves wither, and the winged singers flee away ? 
 
292 What is Life? 
 
 And the friends that started with me, where are they? 
 The brown-haired lad, all smiles, and songs, and jokes ; 
 the mother whose embrace was heaven ; the kind ones ; 
 the hearts that loved me ; the tongues that never spoke 
 one word of bitterness ; — where are they all ? It is so cold 
 now that they are not here ! Are they waiting for me ? 
 Do they ever look for me from the sunny gate of heaven ? 
 Are they near me ? Do they expect me ? Shall we talk 
 old things over again, and be happy with immortal joy? 
 strange life ! so wild, so calm ; short as a span, long as 
 infinitude ; a low wail of grief, a psalm triumphant, a 
 victory supreme. 
 
 What is my life ? A sullied robe ; a crime concealed ; 
 a treason against God. I " know the right, and yet the 
 wrong pursue." I have sinned. I ,have grieved my 
 Maker. I have played the mean trick ; kept back the 
 price ; spoken the false word ; said Yes, meant No ; 
 thought of self first, others last and least. The prayer 
 has been upon my tongue, the loved sin under it. The 
 hymn religious has not cleansed the mouth that sang it. I 
 have bent my knee in prayer, and straightened it again to 
 fight. I have wept over sin, and done again the sin that 
 made me weep. I have stopped half-way home, and gone 
 back to have one more day with the devil. I see oaths, 
 vows, promises, lying behind me like tender blossoms 
 shaken from the branches by rough winds in spring-time. 
 My sin has taken all my strength away. I cannot look to 
 God, for I have mocked His love. I dare not pray, lest 
 God should strike me dumb for past unfaithfulness. If I 
 
What is Life? ■ 293 
 
 live, I shall get worse ; if I die, I'm lost. The circle round 
 me is fire ; I cannot force my way through the burning 
 cordon. My heart aches with the question, What shall 1 
 do ? If I fight the great flame with straw, how great a 
 fool I make myself! Would I quench it with my tears ? 
 It is but a dewdrop shed on Etna — an attempt preposterous 
 and wild. Back again, and still again, and once more, 
 and daily and incessantly the question comes, " What shall 
 I do?" 
 
 And the great answer is, Do nothing of thyself. All is 
 done for thee. The great Christ of God asks for no 
 help of thine. He is mighty to save. He bids thee come 
 to Him. Will be disappointed by thy reluctance. Yearns 
 to have thee ; calls for thee ; bids thee come. Come now, 
 with tears for sin. Come now ; down-broken, shattered, 
 blind, cursed, diseased to the bone, and festering in the 
 marrow. One touch of His heart's blood, and thou art 
 bern again ; thou art a child, the universe is thine, the 
 stars thy playthings, and the sky thy home. 
 
 What is thy life ? bruised one, think ! Why wilt 
 thou be stricken any more ? Why remain in the cold 
 bitter blast, when thy Father's house is ready, warm with 
 love, and musical with welcomes ? 
 
 My life ? A ship that started well. All canvas set. A 
 fair wind. A sea all sun. Then a cloud ; then a lurid 
 glare; then a lightning-bolt; and the ship staggered in 
 pain and fright. A great north wind, harsh, mighty, 
 
294 What is Life? 
 
 tempestuous, and then a sickening fear that I might never 
 reach the shore. Perhaps go down in mid-sea ; perhaps 
 perish in sight of land ; perhaps go in more lost than 
 found, a wreck to cry over. 
 
 My life ? A bright bird, tuneful, brilliant exceedingly ; 
 seeking the sun ; singing as I soar ; cleaving the wind and 
 getting higher, and singing more blithely and more still ; 
 when an arrow strikes me, and I fall bleeding to the earth. 
 Music gone j heart going ; nothing but my own blood 
 about me. 
 
 Jesus save me ! Christ redeem me ! Lord keep me I 
 I am weak and poor. My lies and prayers are so mixed, 
 I cannot separate them. I am eloquent and dumb ; rich 
 and poor ; dying and immortal ; — God help me ! 
 
 " A guilty, weak, and helpless worm, 
 On Thy kind arms I fall." 
 
Empty Places at the JLord's Table. 295 
 
 (lEmptp pia«0 at rtje ILocD'iS Rafale* 
 
 " David's place was empty." — 1 SAM. xx. 25. 
 
 I. Some absent who might be expected to be present. — 
 (a) Children of good parents, (b) Hearers of the Word 
 (Long), (c) Those who have proved the vanity of the 
 world for themselves. 
 
 II. Some apparently absent who are really present. — 
 
 (a) The timorous and fearful, (b) Those whose love is 
 greater than their hope. 
 
 III. Some present who ought to be absent. — (a) Hypo- 
 crites. (6) Schemers. 
 
 IV. Some absent on the most frivolous excuses.— (a) 
 Nothing worth hearing. (6) Inconsistencies of other 
 
 • people. 
 
 Application.— (a) Are we afflicted by such absences? 
 
 (b) How far are we responsible for them ? (c) The work 
 of the Church is not done so long as there is one absentee ! 
 
296 The Control of the Imagination 
 
 %fy Control of tfje imagination a spiritual 2Eutp* 
 
 " I shall ham peace, thovgh I malTt in the imagination of mine heart." — 
 Dbtjt. xxix. 19. 
 
 A N ineffectual attempt has been made to show that the 
 temptation of our Lord was not literal, and that the 
 account of it is to be read as a parable rather than as a 
 fact. According to the parabolical theory, we are not to 
 think of a real wilderness, a real temple, or a real moun- 
 tain, but to think of them as if they might have been real. 
 I do not see what is to be gained by this violation of the 
 letter, and for my own part I cannot approve it ; but I 
 take advantage of the suggestion for the purpose of showing 
 that certain temptations assail us as powerfuBy through 
 the imagination as if they assumed the most distinctly 
 palpable and tangible form. That is to say, I shall contend 
 as strongly for the reality of imagination as for the imagi- 
 nation of reality; or, more clearly, that we realize some 
 things that are imaginary, and we only imagine some 
 things that are real. 
 
 To the unhealthy imagination the ghost or spectre, or 
 whatever it may be that brings with it fear and trouble, 
 is real. Probably you would say to the sufferer, " This is 
 all fancy on your part, there is really no such thing as you 
 imagine ; and from your point such is undoubtedly the 
 
A Spiritual Duty. 297 
 
 case. Nevertheless, the ghost is real to the excited imagi- 
 nation of the sufferer. 80, we inquire, Do dreams come 
 true ? Why, they are true ! They are amongst our most 
 positive experiences ; we have undergone their torture or 
 their pleasure, as the case may be ; whether they shall pass 
 into other forms of reality, and so repeat themselves in 
 facts visible to others, is a wholly distinct question. You 
 see, then, a little more clearly the direction and scope of 
 this momentous subject, and how important it is not merely 
 to watch what are usually known as the dangerous sides of 
 our nature, but to keep under severe control the ever 
 accessible and easily captivated power of imagination. 
 
 Eve was assailed through her imagination when the 
 devil said to her, "Ye shall be as gods ;" and Jesus Christ 
 was assailed through His imagination when " the king- 
 doms of the world and the glory of them " were offered to 
 Him. And, indeed, if we take any temptation, excepting 
 (and even that doubtfully) the very lowest and coarsest, 
 'we shall be surprised to learn how subtly and mightily 
 imagination inspires and enforces it. An instance or two 
 may make this clear. A man is tempted to commit fraud, 
 say; well, it is not the mere money strictly in itself con- 
 sidered that he wants, but the independence, the ease, the 
 influence, or even the indulgences, which it is supposed to 
 seeure. The mere money (except the man be a miser), 
 considered simply as so much metal, is the very least part 
 of the thing that is desired ; he wants something beyond, 
 and that farther region is created and illumined by his 
 imagination. But take a less vulgar instance. Suppose 
 the temptation should be purely spiritual, so strictly con- 
 
298 The Control of the Imagination 
 
 fined to the individual consciousness as never to assume a 
 visible form or pass into outward gratification; call it, if. 
 you like, " rolling iniquity under the tongue as a sweet 
 morsel," a revelry in the heart of which no observer knows 
 anything ; then, truly, is the imagination the great instru- 
 ment of the devil. It turns the heart into a " chamber of 
 imagery," and makes the soul the drudge of its cruel 
 mastery. All day long the soul may be drained of its 
 strength, and the intellect and the will may be utterly 
 impoverished and wasted by incessant taxation. Yet every- 
 thing is hidden from the outer world ! A veil impenetrable 
 conceals the foul saturnalia ! 
 
 We sometimes say that it is the one grain of truth in a 
 false statement which enables the lie to live; if the state- 
 ment were wholly and absolutely false, it could be crushed 
 by a positive and unreserved contradiction ; but if there is 
 one element even of remote probability in it, or the faintest- 
 colouring of truth even in a point of less than secondary 
 importance, the statement may have a long and mischievous 
 life. Something of the same kind may be said about a 
 temptation; if it were to come to us in all its grossness, 
 and to force upon the calm steady eyes of our reason its 
 vilest aspect and purpose, it would probably have small 
 chance with most of us. But it comes otherwise ! It 
 comes through an imagination which throws its hideous- 
 ness into perspective and creates a halo around its imme- 
 diate advantages ; we are not going to sin ; we are only 
 going to know good from evil, and to be as gods ; we 
 are merely thinking of taking one hurried view into the 
 appalling abyss, — that is all. So we dupe our own hearts. 
 
A Spiritual Duty. 299 
 
 and light our way with the lamp of fancy into the darkness 
 where no lamp can burn. 
 
 It is imagination, too, that supplies a ready answer to 
 the reproaches of conscience. Good is to come out of the 
 evil. Imagination pleads that its purpose has in some 
 way miscarried, or the evil would certainly have been less. 
 Or, failing to verify these pleas, imagination projects itself 
 into the future and speaks confidently of compensations, 
 higher views, subtler alchemies that shall transmute and 
 purify the past. So we are blinded and duped by inces- 
 sant imaginings, and instead of building on a rock we 
 flounder in a cloud. 
 
 The sinful exercise of the imagination is not the less, 
 but probably the more, aggravated because of its supposed 
 secrecy. And it is most instructive to follow the course 
 of discovery revealed along the whole line of Bible history. 
 From beginning to end, God's eye has never been with- 
 drawn from the imagination of men ; He has not waited 
 for the overt act, — He has known the thought "afar off." 
 It will be interesting to prove this. 
 
 In Genesis (viii. 5) we read: "And God saw that the 
 wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every 
 imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil 
 continually." Here you have a public survey and a pri- 
 vate scrutiny. Anybody could see the general wickedness, 
 but God only could see the secret fountains out of which 
 it issued ; the point is, that He did see them. 
 
 In Genesis viii. 21 we read: " The imagination of man's 
 heart is evil from his youth." Yet every imagination is 
 known as truly as if it had embodied itself in the most 
 
300 The Control of the Imagination. 
 
 flagrant and glaring crime. David puts this very strongly 
 in his dying speech to Solomon (1 Chron. xxviii. 9), " The 
 Lord searcheth all hearts, and understandeth all the ima- 
 ginations of the thoughts.'' And a still more vivid view- 
 is given of this same Divine knowledge in the eighth 
 chapter of the prophecies of Ezekiel. The prophet him- 
 self saw only that which was outward, but the Lord saw 
 the inner life and the hidden deed. Ezekiel was brought 
 to a door in the court, and when he looked he saw a hole 
 in the wall, and when he digged in the wall he found a 
 door, and when at the bidding of God he went in, he 
 beheld every form of creeping things and abominable 
 beasts and all the idols of the house of Israel portrayed 
 upon the wall round about, and things worse and worse 
 were shown unto the prophet until he might have used the 
 words of Paul (Eph. v. 12), " It is a shame even to speak 
 of those things which are done of them in secret." So the 
 imagination cannot be concealed from God. " He that 
 planted the ear, shall he not hear? he that formed the 
 eye, shall he not see ? " " All things are naked and open 
 unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do." 
 
 The subject thus opened reminds us: — First: Of the 
 intense and awful spirituality of God and His judgment. 
 Second: Of the wonderful provision He has made for the 
 cleansing and inspiration of our innermost thoughts. 
 
 Judged outwardly, our character may draw to itself 
 very general and cordial applause, but judged spiritually, 
 who can stand ? " Create in me a clean heart, God, and 
 renew within me a right spirit." Out of the heart proceed 
 murders, thefts, adulteries ! 
 
Job's Comforters. 301 
 
 31ot)'0 Comforters* : 
 
 SCIENTIFIC SYMPATHY. 
 
 " Where are thy gods that thou hast made thee ? Let them arise if they 
 can save thee in the time of thy trouble," — Jebemah ii. 28. 
 
 '• Go and cry unto the gods which ye have chosen; let them deliver yon in 
 the time of your tribulation"— JUDGES x. 14. 
 
 " Thy calf, Samaria, hath east thee off." — Hosea viii. 5. 
 
 nnHERE was a man in these latter days whose name was 
 -"- Job ; the same was a follower of Jesus Christ, and his 
 delight was in the law of God, from whom was all his 
 expectation. Job went amongst men as one who ceased 
 not from prayer, nor hesitated to declare the sufficiency 
 and joyfulness of a life of faith in the Son of God. Day 
 by day he blessed his bread in the name of heaven, and set 
 the Lord always before him as the source of his strength 
 and the giver of every good gift. And unto Job were born 
 sons and daughters, and as for his wheatfields and orchards, 
 they were fruitful beyond measure. And it came to pass 
 that a sudden blight fell upon the whole fortune of Job, 
 and that Job himself was bowed down in weakness and in 
 great fear. His children perished out of his sight, and his 
 ground brought forth abundantly no more ; and it was as 
 if God had forsaken him in unexplained and terrible anger, 
 
•302 JoU s Comforters. 
 
 and given him over as a prey to the enemy. Yea, his wife 
 also spake not the word of sympathy, but talked of death 
 as the only release from grief so unendurable. Now, when 
 the new leaders of human thought heard of all the evil that 
 was come upon Job, they came every one from his own 
 place: Huxley the Moleculite, John Stuart the Millite, 
 and Tyndall the Sadducee. And when they lifted up their 
 eyes afar off and saw Job more a shadow than a man, they 
 whispered to each other, " This comes of religious faith," 
 and they hastened towards him with swift feet. So they 
 sat down beside the shattered man, and in less than seven 
 seconds Stuart the Millite began metaphorically to throw 
 stones at his bewildered head. 
 
 " Just what might have been expected," said he ; " this 
 comes of your star-gazing, and of reading the patriarchs, 
 instead of watching the markets. I always say that a man 
 brings all this sort of thing upon himself, and that as he 
 makes his bed, so he must lie upon it. Excuse me, Job, if 
 I don't speak in the old mealy-mouthed way. Be your 
 own God, and then pray as much as you like." 
 
 But Job answered and said : " Oh that my grief were 
 understood, and that ye could heal the pain that is in mine 
 heart ! for then would I bless you as those who speak wise 
 words. Behold, this cometh not of mine own hand ; for 
 wherein have I dared the Most High to overwhelm me ? " 
 
 Then answered Huxley the Moleculite and said : " Cease 
 from thy languishing, nor let thy repining any longer be 
 heard. Understand thou that this disturbance is entirely 
 molecular: by some means or other the molecules have 
 got into a disordered condition, and that singular whitv- 
 
Job's Comforters. 303 
 
 brown fluid found in the heads of human animals has 
 become a little addled, diluted, or otherwise injured, and 
 hence these phenomena. All animal life is more or less 
 subject to this visitation, and, viewed scientifically, yours, 
 Job, is a singularly beautiful case." 
 
 Whereupon Job moaned in the bitterness of his soul, 
 and cried, saying : " Oh that my children were about me as 
 in the days that are gone, and that I could recall the light 
 which made my home a scene of gladness ! If not, would 
 God I might die and be at rest ! My children ! my 
 children ! whence have ye fled from me ? " 
 
 Then answered Tyndall the Sadducee, and said : " Thy 
 children have melted into the infinite azure of the past, as 
 all living things must melt. They have gone again to the 
 dust ; but in their decomposition there will be liberated 
 gases and other elements, which, mingling with ditto ditto, 
 otherwise flying about, and on the outlook for whatever 
 they can extract from dead individuals, will contribute 
 somewhat to the nourishment of animals and plants ; and 
 in this way the children of Job will be of great use in the 
 chemic economy of nature." 
 
 Then was Job full of indignation, and his soul was over- 
 whelmed within him. " Miserable comforters are ye all," 
 said he ; " and yours is the wisdom of fools. Have ye seen 
 sore trouble, and has your day been suddenly turned into 
 night, or have your eyes stood out with fatness, and your 
 souls been long at ease ? Know ye what it is to be carried 
 away as with a flood, and to be thrown down by an irre- 
 sistible arm ? Your words are strange to me, and your 
 speech without savour." 
 
304 Job's Comforters. 
 
 Then answered John Stuart the Millite, and said : "Are 
 thy children more than the children of other men that they 
 should live for ever ? Reform the sanitary arrangements 
 of the country, return a thoroughly representative parlia- 
 ment to St. Stephen's, give women the franchise, and let 
 all leading articles be signed by the names of the writers, 
 and then we may look for better health, higher wages, and 
 more general comfort. This you may call utilitarianism, 
 but I call it common sense." 
 
 And Huxley the Moleculite said : " Why grieve for 
 children ? and why moan and groan over the inevitable ? 
 You should take a scientific view of all things. What my 
 friend the Sadducee has said is strictly scientific. We live 
 upon one another all through and through creation. We 
 find the origin of protoplasm in the vegetable world ; the- 
 plants drink the fluid containing carbonic acid, water, 
 and ammonia, and thus maintain themselves in vigour, and 
 then the animals in their turn eat the plants and perform a 
 high feat of constructive chemistry by converting dead 
 protoplasm into the living matter which is appropriate to 
 itself." 
 
 Thereupon, in paternal anguish and rage, Job smote 
 Huxley the Moleculite to the ground; and Tyndall the 
 Sadducee exclaimed, " Why this, Job ? " And Job 
 answered in bitter sarcasm : " The molecules ! And God 
 do so to me, 1 and more also, if I smite you not one and all 
 for your madness and cruelty. Oh, my children ! my 
 children ! " 
 
 But Huxley the Moleculite, and John Stuart the Millite, 
 and Tyndall the Sadducee, reasoned with Job, and besought 
 
Job's Comforters. 305 
 
 Irim to restrain himself, and offered to lend him their com- 
 plete works to wile away his childless hours and his con- 
 suming sorrows. Moreover, Tyndall the Sadducee answered 
 and said : " We are the founders of a new school, we are 
 the valiant leaders of a new age, and we are prepared to 
 suffer a good deal of advertisement, and are willing to risk 
 all the consequences of a remunerative circulation of our 
 books : let me speak to thee, I pray thee, nor let thine 
 anger be too hot." 
 
 Then Job answered, " Say on." And when Huxley the 
 Moleculite had retired from Job according to the square of 
 the distance which formerly separated them, Tyndall the 
 Sadducee opened his mouth and said, " What is thy com- 
 plaint, and what is thy desire, that we may answer thee?" 
 
 And Job answered ; " My complaint is that I am sore 
 wounded, and that my life is impoverished and filled with 
 woe. The delight of mine eyes is taken away, and no 
 longer is mine ear filled with music. They that knew me 
 turn away from me, and they that understood me are 
 numbered with the dead. Oh that I might have my request, 
 and that God would grant me the thing that I long for ! 
 Even that it would please God to destroy me ; that He 
 would let loose His hand and cut me off ! Is there not a 
 God in heaven, and is not He King over all the earth ? 
 Why is His hand heavy upon me, and for what reason 
 hath He shut up my soul in darkness ? Answer me, if ye 
 have understanding." 
 
 "We will answer thee," said the Sadducee, "and let 
 thee know the measure of our wisdom. We have stretched 
 our minds across cosmic spaces and cosmic periods, and 
 
 20 
 
3o5 Job's Comforters. 
 
 have seen the sufficiency of matter to grow and re-com- 
 bine, and produce startling effects ; we have seen nothing 
 indeed of which matter is incapable : it seems to be its 
 own secret and its own origin. Still there is an Inscru- 
 table Power somewhere ; we know nothing about it ; 
 neither does any man. There is, we own, a Secret which 
 we cannot make out; and our resolution is never to 
 attempt its explanation. For my own part I have not 
 even a theory of magnetism, much less a theory of the 
 universe. Let us keep within our own limits, and lay 
 down our work at the call of Nature. Be quiet. You 
 are in trouble; you have lost your children; your high 
 social estate is gone. Be it so ; take these things philo- 
 sophically, and don't let your courage fail you." 
 
 "Beside," added John Stuart the Millite, "as our 
 knowledge of Nature extends we shall get-more command 
 over disease, and even death itself. When public baths 
 are more known and appreciated, and the higher education 
 of women is advanced, I imagine we shall dry up nine- 
 tenths of the troubles of life." 
 
 " fools and hard of heart!" said Job, "have you no 
 more answer to my grief than this ? When a man's life 
 is desolate, will a theory of magnetism recover his comfort 
 and peace? When he has discovered the tomb in the 
 midst of his garden, will the ballot make his heart glad 
 with unspeakable joy ? You tell me there is a Secret in 
 the universe which you cannot explain ; but because you 
 cannot explain it, is it therefore impossible of explanation ? 
 There is a stone which I cannot lift ; does it therefore follow 
 that no other man can lift it ? Is there healing for my 
 
Job's Comforters. 307 
 
 body, and none for my soul ? Is there bread for my physical 
 hunger, and no food for the fiercer hunger of my heart ? 
 You mock me : you wish me to give the lie to my own 
 consciousness: you tempt me to commit spiritual suicide; — 
 miserable comforters are ye all ! " 
 
 " Still," said Huxley the Moleculite, with chastened 
 air, " we must be scientific. Let me lay it down that 
 matter and spirit are but names for the imaginary sub- 
 strata of groups of natural phenomena." 
 
 "And pray who told you that?" said Job. "You 
 chatter great words with glibness, and make fine speeches, 
 but you find for me no fountain in the wilderness, nor can 
 you assuage the swelling of my woe. Is there not some- 
 thing deeper in life than you have yet touched? A 
 wounded spirit who can bear ? Will not God hear me 
 when I cry, or will He hide Himself from my approach ? 
 Can a man live upon the wind, or satisfy himself with 
 hard words, or rest his head upon the sharp rocks ? Have 
 you had pain like mine, or have ye lived in gaiety, and sat 
 at the table of plentifulness ? When did the lion rend you, 
 or the wolf lie in wait for your appearing ? Ye know not 
 whereof ye affirm, else would your speech be chastened, 
 and your words be few." 
 
 Then up rose Tyndall the Sadducee, and hastily said : 
 " Should not the multitude of words be answered ? and 
 should a man full of talk be justified ? Let me ask Job a 
 question or two that may comfort him in a rational and 
 not in a sentimental manner. What is the vegetable 
 world but the result of the complex play of molecular 
 forces ? What is it which tears the carbon and the hydrogen 
 
308 Job's Comforters. 
 
 from the strong embrace of the oxygen? Is it possible 
 for the undeflected human mind to return to the meridian 
 of absolute neutrality as regards ultraphysical questions ? 
 Let Job consider these and a million similar questions 
 if he would be really comforted. Let him read Fichte in 
 the morning, and commit Emerson's poems to memory 
 on Sundays, and always keep by him a good translation of 
 Plato ; and above all things let him doubt those who pre- 
 tend to see in cholera, cattle plague, and bad harvests, 
 evidences of Divine anger. And now that I am speaking 
 I will make a clean breast of it at all hazards. Prayer is 
 wasted breath. The law of gravitation crushes the simple 
 worshippers in the Methodist chapel while singing their 
 hymns, just as surely as if they were engaged in a mid- 
 night brawl. Job must hold his feelings in control. Let 
 the Moslem give way to them in his battle-cry, and the 
 Red Indian wake the echoes of his hunting grounds with 
 such wild howls ; but when Job can attend scientific lec- 
 tures at the Royal Institution, or take a course of evening 
 lectures at the School of Mines, he ought to conduct him- 
 self in a rational way in time of misfortune, and show 
 himself to be a philosopher." 
 
 Then answered John Stuart the Millite, with unusual 
 warmth : " I, too, have been in trouble, but I needed no 
 sackcloth, nor scattered any ashes on my head. I took a 
 philosophic course. I mounted a philosophic steed, and 
 sped away from my trouble. If Job will hear me, he shall 
 know how to keep distress under his feet, and to defy the 
 threatening storm. What time I am afraid I flee to meta- 
 physics, and when conscience threatens to get the upper 
 
Job's Comforters. 309 
 
 hand of me I consider the functions and the logical value 
 of the Syllogism. When my father, who would never 
 allow me to have any convictions about religion, different 
 from his own, melted into the infinite azure of the past, I 
 comforted myself under such melting by testing Ber- 
 thollet's curious law, that two soluble salts mutually de- 
 compose one another whenever the new combinations 
 which result produce an insoluble compound, or one less 
 soluble than the two former ; and the comforting effect 
 of the experiments was remarkable, — so much so that in 
 an ecstasy of scientific surprise and delight I almost wished 
 that he had melted sooner, that I might have had longer 
 possession of this prize. Oh that Job would do something 
 of the same kind ! He would forget the past in a trice, 
 and be as happy as I am. Let me put you in. possession 
 of a secret, if by doing so I can rally the dejected Job. 
 When I die there will be found in my desk the manuscript 
 of my Autobiography, and so sustained was I by philo- 
 sophic reflection during its composition, that never once in 
 its pages have I mentioned my mother ! Nobody could 
 know from my Autobiography that I ever had a mother ! 
 That is what I call self-control ! Other people talk of 
 their mothers, and their mothers' influence, and their 
 mothers' prayers, and their mothers' example, but I never 
 own the relationship ; I keep on the airy highlands of 
 philosophy, and avoid the close and relaxing valleys of 
 sentiment. Once, indeed, I was about to give way to the 
 common folly, but I recovered my self-restraint by showing 
 the fallacious reasoning which has been founded on the 
 law of inertia and the first law of motion, and I never lost 
 
310 Job's Comforters. 
 
 my balance again. If Job would take some such course, 
 his grief would be for ever dissipated." 
 
 And to the same effect Huxley the Moleculite, who had 
 insensibly increased his distance from Job: " I have often 
 Steadied myself under a stunning blow by remembering 
 that protoplasm, simple or nucleated, is the formal basis of 
 all life. This has been a great comfort to me in many 
 distresses. When death has invaded the household of any 
 of my friends, I have always proved to them that all 
 living powers are cognate, and that all living forms are 
 fundamentally of one character, and they have invariably 
 thanked me for my sympathetic and consolatory expres- 
 sions. One dear old friend of mine, who suddenly lost all 
 his income in a railway crash, would, I believe, have died 
 of a broken heart, had I not asked him to compare in his 
 imagination the microscopic fungus — a mere infinitesimal 
 ovoid particle-^-with the gigantic pine of California, tower- 
 ing to the dimensions of a cathedral spire ; and my friend 
 no sooner complied with my request than in a wave of 
 victory, as Tyndall the Sadducee would call it, he was lifted 
 far beyond rolling stocks and permanent ways with their 
 fickle dividends and their treacherous attractions. It is 
 very pleasing to me to find that there is in science that 
 which will heal' a mind diseased.' Job, be encouraged 
 by our words ; rest upon them as upon a sure foundation, 
 and in passing through the various experiences of life 
 always remember that a nucleated mass of protoplasm is 
 the structural unit of the human body. This you will find 
 a catholicon for human ills." 
 
 Then Job arose from the ground and turned his face 
 
yob' 's Comforters. 311 
 
 towards the heavens, nor spake one word to those who 
 offered him stones for bread. In his eyes were standing 
 great tears, and on his countenance was the stamp of 
 unutterable grief. Then the Lord took up his cause, and 
 answered his comforters out of the whirlwind : — 
 
 " How old are ye, and what is the measure of your days? 
 Ye mighty men and mocking comforters, answer me, that 
 I may know the strength of your understanding and the 
 dignity of your judgment. What will happen on the 
 morrow ? And can you, who are unable to turn over a 
 single page of passing time, read all the volume of eternity 
 gone, and comprehend the measure and the reason of all 
 things ? Is the universe without a Maker, a Guardian, a 
 Friend? Are there no boundaries set to power, and is 
 there no watch appointed over ambition ? Can the eagle 
 soar quite into the sun, or build his nest amidst the forests 
 of the stars ? Can any man deliver his friend in the day 
 of death, or travel with him into the great waters and 
 return from the gulf? Is there no angel of mercy spread- 
 ing mighty but gentle wings over all the world, sending 
 the seasons in their course, the rains in rich showers, and 
 the fire to warm the earth all summer long ? Are there 
 no mysteries in life which make you pause and for a 
 moment turn your flippancy into, at least, an appearance 
 of sobrietv ? Know ye the invisible bonds which keep you 
 within an appointed sphere ? Can you shut your door 
 upon those powers which wither your pride and take away 
 all the sap of your strength ? You call me a Secret and 
 an Inscrutable Force, and ye deny My power to reveal 
 Myself to the children of men. Who are you that you 
 
312 Job's Comforters. 
 
 should set yourselves against Moses and David, Ezekiel 
 and Daniel, John and Paul ? You have told my servant 
 Job what you can do in the hour of human darkness and 
 sore distress, and behold your helplessness and the vanity 
 of your strength ! " 
 
 Then Job cried aloud, " Though He slay me, yet will I 
 trust in Him ! He hath been with me in six troubles, and 
 in seven He will not cast me off. Shall not the Judge of 
 all the earth do right ? Miserable comforters are ye all, 
 though ye are the men, and wisdom will die with you ! 
 When you have exhausted your petty science, what have 
 you told me that can touch the agony of my heart or bring 
 back the light of my house ? If your theory be right, why 
 should I suffer all this misery when in a moment I can end 
 all my distress ? If this chastening be for no higher good, 
 why should I not interrupt it by the instant destruction of 
 my consciousness ? You mock me, but you have no satis- 
 faction for my heart. You throw hard words at me, but 
 you have no balm for my healing. Ye are as a bowing 
 wall and a tottering fence: I will not lean upon you. The 
 Lord is my light and. my salvation. I had fainted unless 
 I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land 
 of the living. Lord, Thou hast brought up my soul 
 from the grave ; Thou hast kept me alive that I should not 
 go down to the pit. Thine anger endureth but a moment; 
 weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the 
 morning ! I said in my haste, I am cut off from before 
 Thine eyes ; nevertheless, Thou heardest the voice of my 
 supplications when I cried unto Thee. Lord, open the eyes 
 of these men that they may see my defence as Thou seest it ! " 
 
Job's Comforters. 313 
 
 And the Lord opened the eyes of the leaders of science, 
 and they saw, and behold the mountain was full of horses 
 and chariots of fire round about Job; and the Lord opened 
 their ears so that they heard voices other than of men, 
 saying, " The chariots of God are twenty thousand, even 
 thousands of angels : the angel of the Lord encampeth 
 round about them that fear Him, and delivereth them: 
 He shall give His angels charge over thee in all thy ways. 
 The Lord of hosts is with thee, the God of Jacob is thy 
 refuge." 
 
 And the heart of Job was lifted up in praise, and through 
 the sob of his woe there came forth Alleluias unto the 
 Lord. Yea, he magnified his God, and praised Him with 
 many psalms: "Bless the Lord, my soul, and all that is 
 within me bless His holy name. He healeth the broken in 
 heart, and bindeth up their wounds ; He is the God which 
 fed me all my life long unto this day, the Angel which 
 redeemed me from all evil. I know that my Redeemer 
 liveth, and that my loved ones are standing before Him, 
 glad in His light and beautiful in His holiness. Praise the 
 Lord ! " 
 
 And it came to pass that Job's three comforters — 
 Huxley the Moleculite, Stuart the Millite, and Tyndall 
 the Sadducee — gathered together their inaugural ad- 
 dresses at the British Association, their lectures at the 
 School of Mines and the Royal Institution, their disser- 
 tations upon the ballot and the higher education of women, 
 and returned with them to their several places. And it 
 came to pass as they journeyed that they came near to a 
 beautiful stream, spanned by a suspension bridge, nigh 
 
3 T4 Jib's Comforters. 
 
 unto which there nestled the thatched cottage of a ranger 
 in the woods. 
 
 " That," said Stuart the Millite, " seems to be an ideal 
 house, though so simple and unpretending. How clean 
 the place is, and sweet-looking, and how these tangled 
 flowers on the front brighten it and give it quite a jewelled 
 appearance ; and a beautiful peep of the river must be 
 caught from that western window." 
 
 And it came to pass as they drew near to the house that 
 the ranger in the woods leaned himself against an aged 
 tree, and seemed as if he did so in heaviness of heart. And 
 it was even, so, for lifting up his eyes and seeing three men 
 bearing many books, he said unto them: 
 
 " Be ye learned men who can tell us what to do when we 
 are dizzy and senseless ? " 
 
 " Perhaps indeed we can help you a little," said Huxley 
 the Moleculite ; " at any rate we are quite willing to 
 try." 
 
 " Come with me then, and see what is in the house. I 
 lost her mother but a twelvemonth since, and now she's 
 slipping away." 
 
 But Huxley the Moleculite and Stuart the Millite and 
 Tyndall the Sadducee shrank from the man, and in remem- 
 brance of the sufferer they had left they dared not to speak 
 of the sympathy of science. 
 
 " But mayhap you will pray with the child, and not pass 
 by her on the other side. In such books as yours there 
 must be something for broken hearts like mine. It is but 
 a step or two to the girl's bedside. Come ! " 
 
 " It would be but wasted time, my friend," said Stuart 
 
yoi's Comforters. 315 
 
 the Millite, " for we have no power over the laws of 
 nature." 
 
 " But cannot you speak comfortably to the child ? for 
 she says the river is very cold, and, bless her, her feet are 
 very young." 
 
 " You are not so very near the river, my friend," said 
 Stuart the Millite. Whereupon the man turned away, and 
 answered with a great sob. 
 
 And it came to pass as the leaders of science had gotten 
 away to the height of a distant hill, that they laid down 
 their books and rested a while. And presently Tyndall the 
 Sadducee opened his mouth and said : " We have been out 
 of our depth to-day, and perhaps we had no business along 
 this road at all. These books of ours are invaluable in 
 their places, and very likely they are indispensable to the 
 higher education of the world ; but there are two men 
 along this road who somehow need something that we have 
 not got to give them. It is no use concealing the fact, or 
 making it look less important than it is. I wish a great 
 poet would arise who could sing these woes to sleep and 
 charm us out of our ill-fortunes." 
 
 And it came to pass that the Lord turned the captivity 
 of Job and made him glad with new joy ; yea, He crushed 
 for him the finest of the grapes and gave him wine with 
 His own hand ; and upon his. wheatfields and orchards He 
 sent the benediction of sun and shower until their abun- 
 dance returned and was multiplied. And Job rebuilt his 
 altar and bowed down before God with all reverence and 
 love, and sang the praises of the Most High with a loud 
 
3 16 Job's Comforters. 
 
 voice, and made a joyful noise unto the Rock of his salva- 
 tion. And in the day of his prosperity, Job sent for the 
 books of Huxley the Moleculite, John Stuart the Millite, 
 and Tyndall the Sadducee, and read them all with an 
 attentive eye. Then he rose up and said : '' wise yet 
 foolish men ! your books are full of knowledge and in- 
 struction, and mighty men are ye in the fields of learning. 
 But have ye forgotten that there is a spirit in man, and 
 that the inspiration of the Almighty gives him under- 
 standing ? Know ye the way into the heart when it is in 
 ruins ? or can ye lift up those who are pressed down by 
 the hand of God ? Keep your learning in its proper place 
 and it will help the progress of the world ; but attempt 
 not with it to heal the wounds of the heart. Not to your 
 wisdom but to your simplicity will Grod reveal Himself : 
 ' He hath hidden himself from the wise and prudent, and 
 shown forth his beauty unto babes : even so, Father, for 
 so it seemed good in thy sight.' " 
 
 And the woodman's little girl ? Was the river so very 
 cold when her young feet touched it ? We cannot follow 
 far along that drear road, nor see far into that great dark- 
 ness. But there was no splash in the water; there was a 
 quivering in the arch which spanned it, from which the 
 ranger knew that his child had been taken, not through 
 the river, but over the bridge, to the mountains of myrrh 
 and the hills of frankincense. 
 
Parables. 317 
 
 ^arables** 
 
 fPHE lodgings looked very well from the outside, and the 
 clean old lady who had them to let seemed just the sort 
 of person who would tell the truth, the whole truth, and 
 nothing but the truth. She was a widow — husband had 
 been a solicitor ; she now lived in a large house in a blind 
 alley (solemnly quiet) and let lodgings. I stowed myself 
 away very hopefully in the top room but one, and promised 
 myself a long spell of writing. Towards evening I had 
 paper, pens, and ink all in order to begin chapter first of 
 my new book, and was looking towards the ceiling for my 
 first idea, when suddenly a brass band struck up, and shook 
 the blind alley through and through. I rushed downstairs 
 to know where this brass band was, and the calm old lady 
 replied that she had " omitted to mention " that the man 
 next door was a teacher of music, and that three evenings 
 a-week he was the plague of her life. Then, said I, my 
 time for writing must be early in the morning, and three 
 evenings in the week I must stroll in the fields. Five 
 o'clock next morning saw me astir. Again my eye was 
 on the ceiling, and to my horror I heard a noise overhead 
 that suggested that someone must surely be keeping a 
 factory up there ; yet the idea was absurd. But the noise 
 
3 1 8 Parables. 
 
 was like nothing else. I heard wheels going plainly. At 
 breakfast the calm old lady meekly said she had " omitted 
 to mention " that the lodger in the top flat was in the 
 habit of giving her child a ride at home every wet morning, 
 and when I said, " A ride in what? " she briefly replied — 
 "A perambulator, sir." 
 
 I was but a young man fresh from the hills, and did not 
 like to complain. It was only right, however, that I 
 should look out for other lodgings, and accordingly I 
 hasten off to a remote suburb. Dark when I arrive. Nice 
 house, with garden back and front ; rooms rather lofty, 
 and tidily furnished. Terms a guinea a-week, without gas 
 or coals. Liked the lodgings, and was just going to 
 conclude the bargain, when I sniffed something in the air. 
 " Something burning? " I inquired. " No, sir ; I omitted 
 to mention the brickfield." " How near is it ? " " Just 
 at the bottom of the garden, sir — quite omitted to mention 
 it for the moment." 
 
 In due time I was able to buy a horse. Bay, good 
 height, strong, and nice-looking. Price large, but not 
 too large considering ancestry, training, and personal 
 appearance. Paid the money and got receipt. " By the 
 way," said the seller, " I omitted to mention that this horse 
 never can be got to go down hill, and no power of man 
 can make it go over a brook. I am sorry that I omitted 
 to mention that." I was sorry too, for I was just logician 
 enough to see that it would be a fatal mistake on my part 
 to take a horse up a hill if it never could be persuaded to 
 come down again, and this would very much limit the area 
 of the horse's operations. 
 
Parables. 3 r 9 
 
 It was now time that I had a house of my own. I could 
 afford but one servant to begin with, and I made it my 
 business to look out for one that was good. In this re- 
 spect I was very fortunate. The young woman was quite 
 above the average: an early riser, a good cook, and ex- 
 tremely anxious to oblige. For something like a month 
 we were as happy as could be. One day my wife rang 
 the bell, but no reply was made; another ringing met no 
 better fate; nor did a third; whereupon my wife made her 
 way to the kitchen, and there found the damsel speechless 
 and nearly blind. It was afterwards found out that the 
 person who recommended the young woman had " omitted 
 to mention " that as a reformed drunkard the unhappy 
 creature occasionally gave way to the force of her old 
 habits. 
 
 The time had now come for me to be enlarging my 
 business and my income. Having heard of a profitable 
 opening, I went out to a fine oil-producing estate, and 
 there I saw with my own eyes the oil pumped up until 1 
 was afraid it would overflow the tank and run to waste. 
 In this magnificent business I embarked my little all ; but 
 upon further inquiry, as no profits were coming in, it 
 appeared that the foreign gentleman to whom I had entrusted 
 my money had " omitted to mention " that he had pumped 
 the oil out of a tank I could not see into the one which was 
 filled to the point of overflow. 
 
 But does not all this show a very nice spirit on the part 
 of society? There is an unwillingness to mention dis- 
 agreeable things. One tradesman does not like to mention 
 that his meat is unfit for human food; another does not 
 
3 20 Parables. 
 
 wish to wound your feelings by showing you how he 
 adulterates his goods; the debtor omits to mention that 
 when you see him again it will be in the Bankruptcy Court; 
 and the landlord omits to mention, until the agreement is 
 signed, that the last tenant died of an infectious disease. 
 And yet there are people who do not believe in original 
 sin ! Nice people who scout the idea ! People who say 
 there is no need for religious help or religious hope ! I 
 do not know how it is with others, but for my own part 
 the more I study human nature and its curious ways the 
 more I feel that nothing short of Divine power can reach 
 its corruption so as to destroy it for ever. " Create in me 
 a clean heart, Lord, and renew within me a right spirit." 
 " Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse 
 me from my sin." " Behold, thou desirest truth in the 
 inward parts: purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean ; 
 wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow." 
 
 " The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin." 
 
 A man who keeps an inn told me a thing last week which 
 some of you young friends will like to hear. He said that 
 seventy guests had come to his house, one after another, 
 and had acted in a very strange way. First of all, he had 
 never actually seen any one of them, but he had seen a 
 good many things that they had done. They were very 
 odd guests indeed ; they came and stayed and went at 
 regular intervals; they could be very harsh and they could 
 
Parables. 321 
 
 be very gentle; when they first came they quite forced 
 their way into the inn, whistling and screaming and tearing, 
 and shaking everything, and if he found fault with them 
 they nearly took him off his feet in their wild rage. At 
 other times they quite made a pet of him ; they gave him 
 flowers and birds, and took him away to see green hills 
 and lovely dells and streams; and then they sent him fruit 
 and wine and all sorts of good things; and last of all they 
 turned round upon him, though he had done nothing to 
 make them angry, and were as violent as ever; he would 
 try to please them and to keep them, but they would not 
 be pleased and they could not be persuaded to stay, and 
 away they went out of the house as roughly and unkindly 
 as they first came in. Last of all they began to speak to 
 him of a big brother of theirs, and they said he should see 
 him some day soon. And what do you think the man who 
 kept the inn found out? Why he found out that the 
 seventy guests had been quietly robbing him all the time ! 
 And more than that, they had done something to him to 
 pull down his strength: he could not run upstairs as he 
 used to do, nor go about his business as he did formerly, 
 nor do anything as he did it before they came to his inn 
 in such great numbers. As he was telling me all this 
 another man came up and heard the story, and when he 
 heard it he laughed and said, " Why, I keep an inn, and 
 the same guests have been in my house, and instead of 
 robbing me they have made me rich ! They did not behave 
 any better in my inn than they behaved in yours, but I 
 am bound to say they did not rob me, and that they gave 
 me more than they got from me ! " This was a very 
 
 21 
 
322 - Parables. 
 
 strange thing. To rob one man and to make another man 
 rich was as odd a thing as I ever heard in my life ! The 
 second man said that the guests had also spoken to him 
 about their big brother, and said how pleased they would 
 be to take him to their brother's house. I did not know 
 what to make of the stories of these two innkeepers, for I 
 saw they were not jesting with me but speaking quite 
 seriously. 
 
 What do you think I did? I went to the man who 
 lives in the tower of the City Temple and told him all 
 about it, and when I finished he said, — 
 
 " I have had five-and-twenty of these gentlemen up here, 
 and I don't care if I never see another of them." 
 
 "What," said I, "have they been robbing you, too? " 
 " Oh no, they have not begun that little trick just 
 yet, but I know quite well that they will rob me if they 
 can." 
 
 " Well," said I, " we must setA-a watch at the door." 
 " But they get in at the window ! " 
 " Then we must put iron-work around the window." 
 " But they come in with the air ! " 
 " Whatever do you mean ? " said I. 
 Then he took some pictures out of his drawer, and said, 
 "I will show you the portraits of these seventy guests. 
 Look here ! Ten of them are laughing, gambolling, sunny 
 little people ; ten of them are rather comnion-lookine 
 nothing at all particular about them ; twenty of them are 
 busy bustling men who hardly have a moment to spare ; 
 ten of them are getting just a little tipped with grey here 
 and there ; and the other ten, look at them ! five of them 
 
Parables. 323 
 
 lean, unhappy, and disagreeable ; and five of them rich, 
 pleasant, cheerful, and kindhearted." 
 
 "And where is the big brother? " 
 
 "Never would sit for his portrait. Too mighty and too 
 grand for that ! " 
 
 As I looked rather uneasy, he said to me, " Don't you 
 know the seventy guests and their big brother ? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Then let me tell you. The inn is the body ; the seventy 
 guests are seventy years ; they robbed the one man be- 
 cause he had nothing but a body ; they made the other 
 man rich in memory and richer still in hope ; and the 
 name of the big brother, whose portrait Las never been 
 taken, is eternity. 
 
 " Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, 
 while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, 
 when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them; while 
 the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars, be not 
 darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain : in the day 
 when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong 
 men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because 
 they are few, and those that look out of the windows be 
 darkened, and the doors shall be shut in the streets, when 
 the sound of the grinding is low, and he shall rise up at 
 the voice of the bird, and all the daughters of music shall 
 be brought low ; also when they shall be afraid of that 
 which is high, and fears shall be in the way, and the 
 almond-tree shall flourish, and the grasshopper shall be 
 a burden, and desire shall fail. Or ever the silver cord 
 be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher 
 
324 Parables. 
 
 be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the 
 cistern." 
 
 Do you know that there is in the tower of this church a 
 man young and very odd, who was found as an orphan in 
 a London cellar, put to school by a lady, and soon dis- 
 covered to be a rich, rough gem ? He says things from the 
 tower which I would hardly dare to say from the pulpit, 
 and yet he tells me that it was from the pulpit he got his 
 first start in ways that are thought to be strange. His 
 name is Adam Bell, and his talk is as quaint as his name. 
 He does not often come to hear me preach, and when he 
 does come he always finds fault with what he hears. 
 
 " You want to make things too plain," said he once ; 
 " as if people could be made to get the true sense of every- 
 thing when really we understand nothing at all. We can 
 pull awing to pieces, but that does not explain flying; and 
 we can cook a partridge, but that does not tell how the 
 nightingale learned music." 
 
 " You live too much in the tower,'' said I j " you should 
 come into the church and hear the preaching, and then you 
 might get some good." 
 
 " I go in the church when you have all left it, and I 
 talk a good deal to the pews and cushions. By-the-by, 
 shall I tell you what a strange thing I saw in the church 
 the other Sunday night ? It made me creep all over, and 
 sent a chill to my bones I have not quite got the better of 
 yet." 
 
Parables. 325 
 
 . " Tell me what it was." 
 
 '' I came down quietly from the Tower and stole into the 
 pulpit as soon as the doors were closed for the night. I 
 heard the last key turn in the lock, and down I came as 
 quietly as if my feet were made of feathers I had not 
 been five minutes in the pulpit until I saw two faces at 
 those semi-circular windows, one on the right hand, and 
 the other on the left ; and, though it was night, I saw them 
 as clearly as if it had been a sunny day. One of the faces 
 was very awful, and the other was the most beautiful 
 face I ever saw in my life : they were women's faces. 
 Oh, how they looked over the whole place as if in 
 search of somebody ! They did not seem to see one 
 another, or to know anything about one another. They 
 might have been there five minutes only, but it seemed 
 as if they were there five hours, and to my horror as 
 they walked away I heard two women's voices say, Adam 
 Belir 
 
 I told him it was a dream, and that in his vision he had 
 seen the evil angel and the good that watch the life of every 
 man. 
 
 " You should come to church, Adam," said I, " and hear 
 the upward way explained." 
 
 " So you think," said .he ; " but I care next to nothing 
 for preachers and preaching." 
 
 « Why not ? " 
 
 u The last preacher I heard took the liberty of discussing 
 God piecemeal; one sermon was on God's power, another 
 on His wisdom, another on His goodness, and so on and 
 so on. The learned prig.! " 
 
3-6 Parables. 
 
 " But surely," said I, " you do not object to theological 
 discussion ? " 
 
 " After a dose of what you call theology I always read 
 the parable of the Prodigal Son, to put the taste out of my 
 mouth. Do you know I am writing that parable upon the 
 west side of your tower, so as to catch the eye of all the 
 men who come into the City ? I tell you, sir, if you want 
 to preach to the whole world, and not merely to the well- 
 dressed end of one little parish, you must never go far from 
 the Prodigal Son, the Grood Samaritan, and that poor 
 woman who kissed Jesus Christ's feet, in the house of that 
 glass-eyed, india-rubber-hearted pedant called Simon the 
 Pharisee; I hate hjs very name, — an infinite charlatan, 
 and a most detestable beast ! " 
 
 " My friend," said I, " this is strong language to use 
 about a dead man." 
 
 " He is not dead, and never will be dead ! I see that 
 horrible old Pharisee everywhere, watching and mocking 
 the dear Christ, setting up his insane little problems, and 
 smacking his lips when poor women go headlong to the 
 devil." 
 
 " But," Adam Bell continued after a pause, " I will come 
 to hear the prayer if you will excuse me leaving before the 
 sermon ; but it will be on condition that you pray as I tell 
 you." 
 
 " Don't my prayers please you, then ? " 
 
 " Nobody's prayers please me." 
 
 " How so ? " 
 
 " They put Grod such a long way off, and talk to Him in 
 such a roundabout and ceremonious manner. As soon as 
 
Parables. 327 
 
 ever I hear your Amen in the pulpit, I begin a prayer of 
 my own in the tower. I pray for the people three and 
 four at a time, and not for the whole congregation at once. 
 I say : ' Lord, send many a pain with sharp teeth to bite 
 that man who says to the poor, Be ye warmed and be ye 
 filled, and keeps back the coal and the bread ; Lord, send 
 a ghost to frighten that man out of his wits who is going 
 to sell a broken-winded horse for a sound one ; Lord, keep, 
 that dear sweet-faced little girl from the deceitful and 
 cruel plotter; and, Lord, help that man in the pulpit to. 
 speak all the truth, whether the pews are well-let or 
 ill-let,' — that is the way my prayer runs." 
 
 I confess I thought this was a rough sort of man to have 
 for a co-pastor, yet there was a good deal of sense in his 
 blunt talk, and for the sake of the wheat I put up as well 
 as I could with the chaff. The man in the tower always 
 knows better than anybody else what to say and what to 
 do. He thinks that being a long way upstairs is equal to. 
 being a long way towards heaven. He is apt to- think that 
 the garret is a good deal nearer the moon than the cellar ; 
 and, in fact, there is a sense in which that is quite true. 
 Still I am willing that the man in the tower should remain 
 where he is, and talk of everything that is in his heart.. 
 Now and then he may hit upon something that will suit 
 our case very well, and now and then we may be able to. 
 show him how far he is wrong. As a minister, I court 
 criticism rather than shun it, if thereby the truth of Christ 
 may be made plainer. The preacher and the hearer ought 
 to live in confidence and sympathy, and this will be so 
 when the hearer is quite sure that the preacher is talking 
 
328 Parables. 
 
 straight out of his heart the things that he most lovingly 
 believes. In my heart of hearts I believe in the Son of 
 God ! I need Him every moment. His sweet words touch 
 me as no other words ever did ; they give me hope ; they 
 find me weak, and they leave me strong ; they are a shield 
 and buckler in the day of war. Lord Jesus, never forsake 
 me ! Lord, abide with me ! In the pitifulness of Thy 
 great mercy help me and save me, I humbly beseech 
 Thee J 
 
HOMILETICS. 
 
Homilelics. 351 
 
 U?omileticis. 
 
 A MEETING of ministers and students is occasionally 
 held in the City Temple immediately after the Thurs- 
 day morning service, for the purpose of criticising outlines 
 of sermons and discussing various questions bearing upon 
 ministerial work. The following pages are made up of 
 rough notes of what I have said at that meeting from 
 time to time, in the hope of benefiting students and 
 young preachers. It is understood that we are at liberty 
 to speak with frankness, and that whatever is said is said 
 in good faith. The meeting is absolutely undenomina- 
 tional. I do not know the names of one-tenth of the 
 attendants, nor do I ever ask a question as to any man's 
 Church relationships. I am bound to say, too, that I get 
 more good than I give. The genial criticism, the felicitous 
 suggestion, and the sound advice I have heard in that 
 meeting, have helped me much in my study and my 
 preaching. Distinguished ministers of our own and other 
 countries have visited us, and have often given us the 
 advantage of their criticism, and have left behind them 
 many pleasant memories. 
 
$$2 Homiletics. 
 
 The Physiology of Preaching. 
 
 If you want to preach well you must pay some atten- 
 tion to what I may call the physiology of preaching. 
 How do you breathe, for example? You should breathe 
 through the nostrils, and never through the mouth. If 
 you breathe through the mouth, you expose the throat to 
 the cold air, and so you dry it and expose it to congestion. 
 When you breathe, close the mouth, and inhale all the air 
 your lungs can hold through the nostrils. Breathe deeply. 
 Fill the lungs to their utmost capacity, and do this as 
 often as possible in the open air. Some people never 
 open their lungs to their full extent, and consequently 
 they work with only half their power, and soon become 
 exhausted. If I breathe properly during preaching, I am 
 as little tired at the end as at the beginning. To do this 
 you must pause in your sermon. People will of course 
 say that you do this for effect. Never mind what people 
 say; know what is right, and do it, and let time explain 
 apd justify you. Drink up the air ! Let the chest heave 
 again with the inflation : it is life, it is power ! Make 
 your lungs do their duty through and through. 
 
 How do you speak ? Do you make a rumbling noise at 
 the back of your mouth as if you had bronchitis and were 
 smothering your bronchial tubes with cotton wool? If 
 you speak with the wisdom of men and of angels, the 
 cotton wool will beat you. Speak from the tip of the 
 tongue. Use the lighter notes very much. The cry of a 
 baby will be heard throughout the largest church, and 
 
Homiletics. 333 
 
 babies do not growl when they cry. And don't speak 
 with your throat half-doubled as in reading very small 
 type in a very dim light. Stand erect, and let the throat 
 have room. If the chin be lifted to an acute angle, it 
 may be so much the better. Of course people will call 
 this theatrical, but don't you trouble yourself with their 
 wise remarks. They have a kind of right, I suppose, to 
 be insane if they like. The most eminent throat-doctor in 
 England says that no Roman Catholic priest or High 
 Church priest ever comes to consult him about a relaxed 
 or sore throat. Their reason is that they intone their 
 words, and so they save their throats a world of trouble. 
 But imagine any of us intoning ! Imagine me intoning 
 in the City Temple ! It would be theatrical, affected, 
 inflated, pompous, dramatical, and generally semi-damn- 
 able, and so forth. Well, don't intone, but speak as if 
 you had half a mind to do so, and then you will catch 
 some of the lighter and finer tones that are in your voice. 
 
 And now let me ask you a third question. How do 
 you use cold water inside and out ? Do you drink half a 
 tumbler of water at a time ? That is a mistake. Sipping 
 is the way for a speaker, and the way for anybody whose 
 throat needs a tonic. Take a sip of iced water every five 
 minutes if you want to have a throat to work with. It is 
 better than spraying the throat with bromine, or inhaling 
 pine oil, — both excellent things in their way, but not much 
 needed by the man who sips iced water. If my throat 
 wants a little special petting in a heavy service, I keep a 
 little raspberry vinegar in the pulpit. Some discerning 
 and agreeable people have observed this, and called the 
 
334 Homiletics. 
 
 coloured liquid claret. I have never corrected them, and 
 1 beg that you never will. Why spoil their omniscience ? 
 And as to the external application of water before preach- 
 ing, there is nothing equal to the cold sitz-bath. Mark, 
 cold. Not 70°, but cold as the weather runs. Give me 
 that, and I am physically master of any congregation that 
 ever assembled. I have come down to this place some- 
 times hardly able to stand, but one dip has made a man of 
 me again. I have the most perfect bathing arrangements 
 on these premises, and to them I owe no little of my com- 
 fort. First of all, take a good foot-bath. That is of great 
 importance. Stand in cold water : if you get a block of 
 ice, so much the better. Stand in it till the feet are red 
 and numb. Having done that, sit down in another bath, 
 and then get your bath man to pour a pail of ice-cold 
 water upon the last joint of the spine, get him to rub you 
 till you think he is tearing your skin off, and I guarantee 
 you will preach with vigour and comfort. I do something 
 like this every time I preach in the City Temple ; and if I 
 did not do it, the City Temple would soon be too much for 
 me. I never preach with comfort out of my own pulpit 
 on this very account. I believe in hydropathy rightly 
 administered. But where is it rightly administered? I 
 don't know. I have seen it administered in a most 
 ignorant and shameful way, greatly to the cost of the 
 unhappy patient. Is there a cloud upon your brow just 
 before preaching ? Lay a wet cloth on the forehead and 
 the cloud will go ! Is it not quite gone ? Then the ice 
 foot-bath will clear it off unquestionably. Don't doubt it 
 try it. 
 
Homiletics. 335 
 
 You will say, then, that I am very faddy about my 
 preparation for the pulpit. So I am. I won't see any of 
 my church officers before preaching. I will not speak to 
 any one between my study and my pulpit. Sometimes 
 very cordial strangers have stopped me in the street to 
 ask me how I am. I have pointed silently to my throat 
 and passed on ! And I think I have my reward. I am 
 sure I have it. And what I have proved, I now recom- 
 mend. 
 
 I hold that it is as much our duty to~ prepare the locly 
 for the pulpit as to prepare the mind. Not that I care for 
 mere bodily vigour in the pulpit, but because the body is 
 the medium through which the mind has to operate ; and 
 if the instrument be in disorder, the musical expression 
 will suffer. Besides that, the ease with which we do our 
 work has a great deal to do with the comfort of those who 
 hear us. When we are strained they are strained, and the 
 tax upon their sympathy is so much withdrawn from their 
 power of attention. 
 
 Another thing you should remember. Be as careful 
 after preaching as before it. Never speak in the open air 
 after preaching. Go home silently, sponge the throat and 
 neck with warm water, and eat sparingly. If you be 
 faithful in little things, you will be made ruler over many 
 things. Nature is very sensitive and honourable in these 
 matters. She gives you Jback all your care in amended 
 strength and exhilarated spirits. She has done so in my 
 own case, and therefore my testimony is as practical as it 
 is grateful. 
 
 My prescription for what is called a " great effort " 
 
'336 Homiletics. 
 
 in preaching, is this : Three weeks before the " effort " 
 begin a series of Turkish baths — say two a-week ; be 
 on the hills every morning as soon as it is light, — if in 
 summer, say by six o'clock ; in the week of the " effort " 
 take a plunge in the sea and several runs upon Beachy 
 Head; on the morning of the "effort" take the foot-bath 
 and the sitz-bath. And see the result! There will be 
 freshness in your breath, a ringing tone in your voice, 
 and a substance in your muscle not soon exhausted. You 
 will not enter the pulpit as a clammy, flabby old man with 
 a heckling voice and a wandering eye, but as a giant ready 
 for a giant's task. 
 
 Some of you will say that your throats are so strong 
 that you don't need any advice as to their maintenance. 
 There you are wrong. I once thought as you did. I 
 preached on the Sunday morning, preached in the open 
 air in the afternoon, preached again in the evening, talked 
 between the services and talked after them, and was no 
 more Mondayish than a thrush. But I had to suffer for 
 it afterwards. I had diphtheria; afterwards I had the 
 uvula cut ; and ever since I have had to coax my throat 
 to do its work. I warn you, therefore, and entreat you, 
 to be careful. " Prevention is better than cure." 
 
 Closely allied to this subject of physical preparation for 
 preaching is the subject of clear articulation. I have 
 touched upon this already. I have noticed in some of you 
 an indisposition to open the mouth when you are speaking. 
 In other cases the tongue seems to be used for the purpose 
 of keeping the words back. "Where there is any tendency 
 to thickness of voice, speak slowly, as if putting the shadow 
 
Homiletics. 337 
 
 of a comma after each word. Do not imagine that loud- 
 ness is clearness. Speak to someone sixty feet off ; speak 
 in a deep sonorous voice, and he will not hear you ; speak 
 in a light soprano, and he will hear every tone. It is not, 
 however, enough to be heard; you must be effective as 
 well as audible ; you must lighten and thunder with the 
 voice; it must rise and fall like a storm at times ; now a 
 whisper, now a trumpet, now the sound of many waters. 
 There is an orator's voice, and there is a bellman's. The 
 auctioneer talks ; the orator speaks. You will, of course, 
 meet many people, as I have done, who do not know one 
 voice from another ; to them it is enough if they hear so 
 many words. Do not be discouraged. Singers have the 
 same thing to complain of. Some day you will meet a 
 man who has studied the human voice, who knows its 
 mystery and loves its music, and his appreciation will 
 reward and cheer you. You will notice that deaf people 
 have an ugly way of sitting as far as possible from a 
 speaker, and complaining that they cannot hear him ! 
 They are very annoying people these, and exceedingly 
 ingenious in giving trouble to everybody. 
 
 [N.B. — I am only doing my duty in stating that Hanford's Bronchi- 
 tine is absolutely invaluable for the cure of inflammation or con- 
 gestion of the throat. I would on no account be without it.] 
 
 Preparation of Sermons. 
 
 Some of you have asked me from time to time to give 
 you an idea of my own method of preparing for the pulpit. 
 I hardly know how to answer you. For something like 
 
 22 
 
338 Homiletics. 
 
 ten years I never allowed a Tuesday morning to go by 
 ■without sitting down to write sermons for the following 
 Sunday. For some time, indeed, I was fortunate enough 
 to have a week beforehand, so that I escaped those Satur- 
 day fevers which excite many preachers. Probably 
 before Friday my two sermons were ready; written 
 very largely, almost wholly in fact. I shall never lose 
 the advantage of that prolonged discipline. As engage- 
 ments have multiplied upon me, I have not been able to 
 keep it up ; still, it helps me to meet some difficulties that 
 would otherwise be too much for me. There is one thing 
 in which I have perhaps excelled all my brethren — an 
 admirable thing, too, I call it — and that is in repeating my 
 sermons. I have never hesitated to say to my people, 
 " Next Sunday I intend to repeat the sermon you heard 
 on such and such a day." By repeating it, however, I do 
 not mean that I will use the same words altogether, but 
 the same main thoughts; perhaps aided by a new illustra- 
 tion or two, still substantially the same sermon. I have 
 not tried any little tricks upon the people in the way of 
 changing the text or turning the divisions upside down, 
 but have gone straight at the work of repetition in the 
 most openly avowed manner, and then if I did happen to 
 alight upon a new figure or illustration I got double credit 
 for it. The people said, " It was not the same sermon 
 after all ; we noticed several new points in it." 
 
 My plan of preparing sermons is to fix upon a text and 
 compel it to furnish a sermon. Some texts need compulsion 
 I assure you. I have written an introduction and got alono- 
 pretty well as I thought, but when I came to the divisions 
 
Homiletics. 339 
 
 the text said, " I will not be divided ! " Then I have been 
 put upon my mettle, in the best sense. I said, "You shall 
 be divided ; " then has come a very rough division ; never 
 mind that, work away at it; get another division, never 
 mind how commonplace, and make the most of it ; then, if 
 you like, lay the stubborn thing away for twenty-four 
 hours, and at the end of that time begin the whole process 
 over again, and you will find that it will come almost 
 easily into your hand. Take that outline of mine on 
 "Religious Help under New Circumstances." I don't 
 know when I have had a harder fight over any text. I 
 got through the introduction quite happily, and said to 
 myself, " This will turn out well ; " but when I came to 
 map out the mainland the difficulty began. I got the 
 first peg in pretty well, and then the text said, "No 
 more will I give you;" but I was not to be put down. 
 At last I got four points out of a text that was unwilling 
 to give me even one. That has often been my case. Now 
 I have become quite used to the subjugation of texts that 
 are at first very imperious and off-hand. The only way 
 (for me at least) is to write, write, write ; keep on writing 
 until you come to a point from which you get a view of 
 open country, and throw away all you have written and 
 beo-in from the line where the land began to show its 
 features and extent. Sometimes I write myself clear into 
 a subject, and then merely make a few notes for the pulpit, 
 leaving the choice of words absolutely and unreservedly to 
 the moment. Many a time I go into the pulpit of the 
 City Temple without knowing one sentence I am about to 
 utter. What my first sentence will be, or my last, or any 
 
34-0 Homiletics. 
 
 sentence between, I know no more than the ' door-keeper. 
 Am I, then, unprepared? Far from it. I am prepared in 
 body, by the process formerly described ; I am prepared 
 in mind, by knowing exactly the points I wish to esta- 
 blish and the line by which I wish to move ; and I am pre- 
 pared in heart by waiting lovingly upon Grod. I despise 
 mere sentence-making. I do not wish to be a pretty 
 phraseographer. I know well enough when the talk is 
 jagged and rough all over, but I know, too, that oil runs 
 off where acid bites. If I have to address a company of 
 academicians, whole pewfuls of Aristotles, Ciceroes, and 
 Euclids, I should wish to write every word, and to be very 
 wary in the turn of every sentence ; but to address an 
 ordinary congregation, made up of all sorts of people, 
 mainly struggling, tempted, tried, and broken-hearted, in 
 a scholastic and formal composition is, in my view, to 
 waste a great opportunity for doing good. There are 
 sermons which make you feel that the preparation is the 
 principal thing about them. Every sentence has been in 
 a mould. There is no easy, vivid, graphic talk, — I don't 
 mean gossip or twaddle, far enough from that, — all is 
 measured, or finical, or stilted, something that is unnatural 
 and uninteresting. I am going to say a bold thing. 
 Sometimes the sermon is prepared but the preacher is un- 
 prepared. I have known men who could hardly read their 
 own writing in the pulpit ! To say that the sermon was 
 not prepared would be incorrect, for there it is written out 
 in full ; but it may be quite correct to say that the man 
 was not prepared. He was uncertain about his own 
 thought, uncertain about his own purpose, uncertain about 
 
Homiletics. 341 
 
 his own writing ; and uncertainty is of course inconsistent 
 with full preparation. Prepare yourself as well as your 
 sermon: let your heart be made to glow through long 
 communion with God, and when the fire burns the tono-ue 
 will speak with new and startling eloquence. 
 
 In preparing a sermon bring your congregation ima- 
 ginatively around your desk. And don't write like a book, 
 but like a speech. There is a literary style and there is 
 also a talking style ; try the latter, and force yourself to 
 it. When I am writing a sermon, I read every sentence 
 aloud over and over again, just as if somebody was sitting 
 before me. My business is to make that somebody under- 
 stand a certain thing, and I must put it so plainly that 
 he ought to take in my meaning without any difficulty. 
 Don't hurry your imaginative hearer. Say the same 
 thing over to him without seeming to repeat it. Don't 
 let him see that you are making a dead set upon his 
 stupidity, but give him to feel that you are trying to 
 make somebody else see the thing you are aiming at as 
 clearly as he does. Believe me, the most of hearers are 
 stupid. They want humouring; you must wait for them, 
 you must stoop to them, you must coax them. See what 
 an advantage you have over them, and be reasonable. 
 For whole days you have had the subject before you, 
 you have studied it in devout quietness ; whereas they 
 knew nothing about it until they heard you give out the 
 text; and they could not throw off their cotton-spinning, 
 their shop-keeping, their banking, and their farming, all 
 in a moment Give them time. Don't expect them to 
 mount your rhetorical steed in a moment, and to canter 
 
 ~~ vm-tv. T-irimilpf.i<7 hills. 
 
342 Homiletics. 
 
 Believe me, too, that a great deal of our homiletical art 
 is lost upon our hearers. They don't live upon our nicely- 
 cut outlines, but upon our wisdom, our sympathy, and our 
 pathos. Suppose they should exclaim, " What a beautiful 
 outline!" It is after all pretty much like exclaiming 
 "What a beautiful frame!" — a poor compliment to the 
 picture it preserves. It is better that they should know- 
 nothing about the mere outline ; not know, indeed, whether 
 there was any such outline ; that the soul of the discourse 
 should so fill their understanding and their heart that they 
 have not a thought to bestow upon formal homiletics. 
 
 Some Difficulties in Pbeaching. 
 
 In looking forward to our meeting this niorning, I 
 thought it might be useful to say something about our 
 special difficulties as preachers, and to look at one or two 
 objections which are freely urged against us in our 
 ministerial capacity. It is often said that the Gospel is a 
 proclamation, and is to be treated as such in the pulpit. 
 Now of course the Gospel is a proclamation, but it is some- 
 thing more ; it is a doctrine, it is a sublime philosophy, it 
 is a spiritual revelation; and the stated minister must 
 know this and shape his ministry accordingly. It mav be 
 enough for the roving evangelist to expend himself upon 
 a few texts, and go up and down the land calling men to 
 repentance ; this is right, and most beautiful, and should 
 draw towards itself the prayers and hopes of all good men • 
 but where a minister stands in the same place year after 
 
Homdetics. 343 
 
 year for most of a lifetime, he must not merely proclaim, 
 he must expound and teach and edify. He is not at 
 liberty to treat his people like infants ; he must at all 
 events give them credit for common sense and for a desire 
 to grow in holy thought and purpose. Therefore he will 
 probably preach many a sermon in which there is simply 
 no proclamation (usually so called) at all, and which being 
 heard by a casual listener will be pronounced anything 
 but Gospel sermons. This is one of the difficulties of the 
 pastor's position, and must be regarded as such. An old 
 minister once wrote to me complaining that in a sermon 
 upon the first chapter of Ecclesiastes I had not stated the 
 doctrine of the Atonement. If an old minister can do any- 
 thing so foolish, what will not an old layman do? Be 
 faithful to your text, my brethren ; give its true meaning, 
 and bring out its distinct practical applications, and never 
 mind the critics who are unjust. 
 
 Another difficulty I find in preaching is this. My 
 hearers know as much as I can tell them about great 
 Christian doctrines. After, say, a ten years' ministry, 
 this ought to be true of a good proportion of them. And 
 yet, perhaps, they want what they call originality, novelty 
 of view, unexpectedness of vision amounting almost to a 
 revelation. If they don't want it for themselves they make 
 out that they want it for their children, and thus, in ways 
 direct and indirect, there is a constant appeal brought to 
 bear upon the minister, and possibly in his attempts to 
 respond to it he must overstrain and disquiet his mind. 
 You must resist such appeals. State the truth with all 
 care, and throw into its utterance all the heart you can, 
 
344 Homiletics. 
 
 and do not fret yourselves because of men who talk of 
 originality without really knowing its proper sense and 
 application. 
 
 A third difficulty comes out of the mixed character of 
 congregations. It is not easy to talk to a company made 
 up of old men and little children; rich men who live in the 
 heights of prosperity," and poor men who smoulder in the 
 valleys of adversity ; men of quick mind, and men of dull 
 apprehensions; minds that see the end of a sentence as 
 soon as they hear its beginning, and minds that can travel 
 only at the rate of two miles a day. And look at the variety 
 of moral moods: godly, impenitent, grateful, thankless, 
 joyful, gloomy, tempted, distracted, peaceful, despondent, 
 anxious, hopeful, and so on, — every possible phase of moral 
 feeling represented in every congregation. How can any 
 man be talking to them all at the same time ? 
 
 A fourth difficulty is that of preaching when one does 
 
 not want to preach. I tell you plainly that there are 
 
 times when I go into the pulpit when I would gladly go 
 
 ten miles the other way. But the " hour " comes, and the 
 
 "man" must come along with it. And how often it 
 
 happens that when one is in this anti-pulpit mood some 
 
 man turns out to be in the congregation that one would 
 
 have liked to have heard the best possible sermon : If he 
 
 had only been there last Sunday morning what a treat he 
 
 would have had ! But, of all the days of the year, he must 
 
 needs turn up when one is dejected, moody, and blurred 
 
 very much in mind and heart. Has the devil anything to 
 
 do with such coincidences ? 
 
 In view of all these difficulties let me tell you that there 
 
Homiletics. 345 
 
 is nothing on earth so pitiless as a congregation or a crowd. 
 What does a mass of people care for your ailments, your 
 moods, your fits, your pains and groanings ? Nothing ! 
 Every individual member of the crowd may be good- 
 natured, but when hundreds of men get together they seem 
 to lose all individuality of character and responsibility. 
 Never throw yourself on the indulgence of a mob. It has 
 none. 
 
 Have you ever noticed what a temptation there is to be 
 emphatic when we are consciously weak, as if we would 
 make up by a kind of mechanical fury what is wanting in 
 true strength ? In some cases this fury seems to trench 
 very closely upon profanity. Some men, indeed, do swear 
 a good deal in the pulpit. Imagine some of these men 
 going into the worst parts of the metropolis and preaching 
 in their peculiar fashion, their speech blazing and smoking 
 with such expressions as "fiends," "hell- fire," "damna- 
 tion," " infernal," " fire and brimstone," " undying worms," 
 or preaching, as I once heard a man preach, " the devils 
 will tie you down on fiery beds of hell and plague you 
 through all eternity ; " why, the dog-fighters, the drunk- 
 ards, the libertines, the habitues of the Seven Dials and 
 the dwellers in JBethnal Green might exclaim, " How hear 
 we every man in his own tongue," the wonderful slang of 
 the Church ! 
 
 There is one preacher who really seems independent of 
 all kinds of difficulties, and that is the climacteric man, or 
 the man whose speech is a verbal cataract ; start him over 
 the precipice of his text and away he goes plunging, 
 foaming, smoking, and splashing, in a way that is really 
 
346 Homileiics. 
 
 frightful. To get anything from him is very much like 
 trying to get a mouthful of water at Niagara. You say 
 there is surely water enough at Niagara, and I assure you 
 that there is actually so much as to make it quite impossi- 
 ble for you to get any ! Take your earthen porringer, or 
 your silver goblet, and try to get it filled at that mighty 
 cataract ! It is very much the same with a certain style 
 of speech. It rushes and foams and steams, and throws 
 itself up in snowy mists, but refreshment there is none. 
 You must go to the quiet rill if you are thirsty; you 
 must have less if you would have more. 
 
 The Text Book. 
 
 If you want to preach well — that is, richly and in- 
 structively — you must know the Bible in its wholeness. A 
 preacher is limited to one text-book, and that not a large 
 one as regards mere bulk. He should, therefore, have a 
 'clear view of its scope, and not merely be clever in the 
 treatment of particular texts. It is, you know, quite 
 possible for a man to be very adroit in trimming texts 
 and modernising ancient narratives, and yet to have little 
 notion of what, for want of a better word, I may call the 
 genius of- the Bible. Such a man will not see revealed 
 truth in its proper relationships ; he will lose all that is 
 valuable in perspective ; and his ministry will become a 
 series of exaggerations and theological deformities. In 
 these free talks of ours you always allow me to refer to 
 my own plans, so I may without impertinence tell you 
 
Homiletics. 347 
 
 how I act in the matter of biblical reading, or rather what 
 course I take so far as circumstances will allow. I always 
 try to tune the instrument in the summer. That is to say, 
 I aim at reading the whole Bible right through in my 
 holiday. Of course I cannot accomplish it, but I do what 
 I can in that direction. Go on through book after book 
 without pausing, read through the Pentateuch at a sitting, 
 and insensibly you get into the music of the writing ; you 
 are moved by its sweet or rugged rhythm ; and you are 
 stirred by a new and mighty spirit. Do you quite catch 
 my meaning ? I don't mean that you are to read the 
 Bible slowly through, say a chapter every day ; far from 
 that ; read the great epistle to the Romans right through 
 at once ; do the same with the minor epistles, and the 
 same with the Psalms. The other night I read the whole 
 book of the Revelation. It is a grand thing that Apo- 
 calypse if you go over the entire course of it at once. 
 There are glorious resting-places in it ; evangelical oases, 
 rich gospel plains. Beasts, dragons, locusts, vials, and so 
 forth, you will meet in abundance, and they will bewilder 
 you ; but here and there, and again and again, so unex- 
 pectedly and sweetly, you will come upon quiet, rich 
 glowing words full of Christ, with the shadow of the Cross 
 upon them; which will make you feel that the man who 
 wrote the book was under the Divine spell even when he 
 set down things which are full of ruggedness and strange 
 portent. The reading through of that weird book has 
 given me a better idea of its meaning than ever I got 
 from the consultation of commentaries upon particular 
 texts. We ought, as preachers, to have the "Word dwelling 
 
348 Homiletics. 
 
 richly in us. We should be biblical in the tone and pur- 
 pose of our mind; then we should know more than the 
 letter ; we should have the mind of Christ. 
 
 In the next place, let me suggest to you that it is 
 possible, under what I may call the direct inspiration 
 of the biblical spirit, to become most expansive in our 
 teaching ; so much so, indeed, as to awaken the alarm of 
 timid men who scrupulously bind themselves to the mere 
 letter. A teacher may appear to be going beyond the 
 Bible when in reality he is strictly developing and applying 
 its most liberal statements. Take an illustration. The 
 multiplication table is of course the basis of all multiplica- 
 tion, but what would be thought of a man who would not 
 inquire how much is twelve times thirteen because the 
 table distinctly ends at twelve times twelve ? He might 
 profess himself to be arithmetically orthodox because he 
 begins and ends precisely with the table. He might shake 
 his head with arithmetical sorrow at the man who by 
 multiplying twelve by twenty was attempting to make 
 himself wise above what was written. He might say, 
 Why not be content to begin where the table begins and 
 to end where the table ends? And why not wait until 
 you pass into another world before inquiring into matters 
 too high for you ? The fact is, as you know, that twelve 
 times thirteen is as really in the multiplication table as 
 twelve times twelve ; and that all possible arrangements 
 of multiples are in that table, and that the table is not 
 constructed as a limit but as a law and an example. It is 
 so, with all needful differences, with the Book which "we 
 have to unfold. It is small, yet it is immeasurable in vast- 
 
Homiletics. 349 
 
 ness. It has a literal beginning and end, yet its spiritual 
 applications are as wide as necessity and as enduring as 
 life. In its treatment one teacher limits himself to the 
 letter, another searches into the deep things of God ; one 
 talks to infants, the other talks to men ; yet both may be 
 perfectly right, though apparently so widely and vitally 
 separated. The thing to be remembered is that the infant 
 teacher should not damn the man who is getting into words 
 with two syllables. I acknowledge that I harve heard men 
 preach who certainly seemed to be a long way from the 
 theological multiplication table ; as, for example, they 
 were talking about "deep affinities," and "vital relations," 
 and "recondite conditions," and " the a priori spring of the 
 will ; " I do not know exactly where they were, but they 
 seemed to be a long way from home, yet to be enjoying 
 themselves in a romantic kind of way, — somewhat grim 
 withal, and solitary. 
 
 On Extemporaneous Outlines. 
 
 The texts which I gave to the students were first, " The 
 thing was done suddenly " (2 Chron. xxix. 36), and second, 
 " John did no miracle " (John x. 41). Sixteen outlines 
 were put into my hands for examination. The peculiarity 
 of the outlines is that they were written impromptu ; they 
 are, so to speak, off-hand outlines, making no claim to 
 completeness and finish, but giving a general notion of 
 each student's homiletical ability. I have had many oppor- 
 tunities of examining outlines of sermons, and I speak 
 
350 Homiletics. 
 
 deliberately in saying that the outliaes submitted by your 
 students are fully equal to the best I have ever seen. The 
 men who wrote these outlines have, in my opinion, got 
 hold of the right notion of sermon-making; and that, of 
 course, is one of the very first things which a minister 
 should have. He may be an excellent free-hand drawer, 
 and even a tolerable player on the flute, but if he cannot 
 •preach he had better go back at once to something which 
 he can do. 
 
 If I may pass from commendation to criticism, I would 
 venture most respectfully to suggest that in every case 
 the introduction is too long. The day of introductions, 
 like the day of miracles, is gone. I have no objection to 
 a beautiful carriage drive, but I do not care to find only a 
 cottage at the end of it. It is unfair to the cottage itself, 
 and altogether too ironical for practical life. I am aston- 
 ished, too, that the students should have found time for 
 such elaborate introductions, as some of them are evidently 
 alive to the advantages of condensation, notably those who 
 indicate John the Baptist by " Jno." I do not like that 
 abbreviation. It may be superstitious on my part, but 
 I must say that "Jno." has somewhat of an irreligious 
 appearance, which might be tolerated in the margin as 
 "a various reading," but not in the body of the text. 
 
 Two of the outlines are so startlingly alike in their 
 openings that an unpractised eye might have mistaken 
 the one for the other, and a suspicious and base-minded 
 examiner might have turned the coincidence into an 
 astounding immorality. It does not follow that the one 
 outline^ even in the point of striking similarity, -was taken 
 
Homiletics. 351 
 
 from the other, though it is quite possible that they were 
 both taken from a common source. Quite possible, if I 
 may judge innocent students by practised preachers ; but 
 I am bound to say that if one sentence was copied from 
 any author, living or dead, I never met with that sentence 
 in the whole course of my reading. If some of the sen- 
 tences are a little cloudy, it does not follow that the 
 writers are heretics, or even " wolves in sheep's clothing." 
 Many a cloudy morning has turned into a fine day. What 
 is a young man worth if he cannot now and then bam- 
 boozle the acutest of his seniors ? Why, his education 
 would go for nothing if he could not perform so tempting 
 a feat. I think a student, and even a minister, ought to 
 be allowed, say every twelve months, to say something 
 that nobody can understand. It would have a kind of 
 college look about it. 
 
 If I may say a word to the students themselves, it 
 would be first a word of hearty fraternal congratulation. 
 Your outlines are truly admirable; they show a cunning 
 hand and a long, shrewd head. May I ask a question ? 
 You can write a good sermon, but can you preach it? 
 Many a man would find himself famous if he could get 
 his sermons properly delivered by a brother who has not 
 a tithe of his own intellectual power or theological erudi- 
 tion. Let me tell you that the people look at the manner 
 as well as the matter of a sermon, and that part of your 
 business is to meet the people on their own ground, and 
 to find good china for good victuals. If y«ur preaching 
 is equal to your power of outlining a subject, I have no 
 fear of your ministerial future. 
 
352 Homiletics. 
 
 To this word of congratulation I would add a word of 
 respectful counsel, and I would endeavour to take the 
 counsel which I ask your permission to give : — When you 
 have got hold of a text, never try how hard you can make 
 it, hut how easy. I often imagine how the Apostle Paul 
 would look if he could come without recognition to some 
 of our services. To hear some short sentence of his cut 
 up into sections, would be enough to make him cry out 
 like the mother of old when Solomon proposed to divide 
 the child with a sword. I am sure he would be surprised 
 at many of the things which we credit him with having 
 said, and he would modify his opinion of the "contemptible- 
 ness of his speech " if he could hear some of our long, reso- 
 nant, procession-like phrases, which we say we somehow 
 got from him. It is a pity so to talk Paulism that Paul 
 himself would never recognise it. Paul was a sensible 
 man, and I fancy he would have a high opinion of sensible 
 preachers. Take care lest the people call out to us in our 
 mist-making processes, "Jesus we know, and Paul we 
 know, but who are ye?" 
 
 There is a kind of outline which is simply detestable, 
 and all the more detestable because it is so clever, so sharp 
 so novel. I will give you a strictly impromptu outline, 
 one about which I have not thought for a single instant 
 and I will be bound for it some people would think it very 
 original. Text — 1 Cor. ix. 24, " Know ye not that they 
 which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize ? " 
 The subject is evidently Races. (1.) Paul mentions the 
 races without one word of condemnation ; therefore it 
 cannot be wrong to attend them. (2.) Paul says, " know 
 
Homiletics. 353 
 
 ye not ? " as if he expected every one to be familiar with 
 the races ; therefore not to know about them is to fall 
 under the apostolic censure. (3.) Paul says one receiveth 
 the prize; therefore it is right to run for money, and in- 
 ferentially it cannot be wrong to risk money on the pro- 
 bable winner. (4.) Paul gives his own testimony about 
 the races ; therefore it is right for ministers to make 
 themselves acquainted with the recreations, enjoyments, 
 entertainments, and amusements of the people. Applica- 
 tion: — (1.) Have you a personal acquaintance with the 
 races? (2.) If not, why delay? (3.) It is not enough 
 to study the literature of the subject; nothing should 
 satisfy you but a personal knowledge, and a deep, per- 
 sonal interest. 
 
 Brethren, you may smile at this outline, but take my 
 word for it, the intentional exaggeration which I have 
 adopted only enlarges the terrible viciousness which is 
 unhappily characteristic of many actions which are ap- 
 plauded as very clever and most original. I care less 
 and less about mere architecture in outlines. Let us find 
 the simple meaning of the text, put it into modern words, 
 and apply it to the immediate wants of our hearers, and 
 our ministry will surely be blest. You have actual lives 
 before you when you are standing in the pulpit ; sinful, 
 sorrowing lives ; every heart bearing its own wound, every 
 soul chilled and threatened by its own supreme fear ; you 
 have prosperity, adversity, age, and youth ; and in Christ's 
 Gospel you have a word for every one of them. Find 
 that word. Pass it through the happy experience of your 
 own hearts, and then utter it, not as it would be uttered 
 
 23 
 
354 Homi kites. 
 
 by a sceptic, but by a thankful and; .v-triumpbaat ' be- 
 liever. ■ " ' ' 
 
 Your cleverness in striking off outlines may bring a 
 snare with it. Why should such clever designers think 
 about Sunday until late on Saturday afternoon? When 
 men can say, " Let there be light," and "there is light," 
 why should they be making tinder all the week long ? 
 
 Let me frankly say, therefore, on what ground I com- 
 mend so strongly the outlines I have examined ; it is 
 distinctly on the ground that you had so little time to 
 spend upon them. If they had been put into my hands 
 with the notice that you had had six weeks' warning- and 
 opportunity, I should have judged them by a very different 
 standard ; for what may be almost miraculous if done in a 
 moment, may actually be commonplace and even contempt- 
 ible if done in six weeks. Take my word for it, if you are 
 to succeed in the ministry as preachers, you will want 
 every minute you can secure for pulpit preparation. I do 
 not mean for the getting up of fine sentences. I do not 
 mean for word-play and word-dressing, a profane and 
 blasphemous theatricalism, but for the understanding of 
 your subjects, the getting into high and solemn tune all the 
 powers, sensibilities, and affections of your nature, and 
 the preparation of your heart to speak for men to the 
 " great King above all gods." I can never be too thankful 
 that through all the early years of my ministry I sat down 
 every Tuesday morning to the preparation of next Sunday's 
 sermons, and I allowed no other work to take me away 
 until the sermons were ready for delivery. The benefit of 
 that long-continued discipline I enjoy to-day. I am not 
 
Hamiletics. 355 
 
 ah extemporaneous outliner. This very morning I have 
 written the substance of a discourse which will not be 
 needed until next Sunday fortnight. If, therefore, I have 
 attained any success in the ministry, and any honour in 
 the estimation of my own people, it is, by the blessing of 
 Grod, only the harvest of a busy and painful seed-time. 
 There will come some weeks when you cannot make out- 
 lines or sermons. The mind will say, " No, not this 
 week." What is, then, to be done ? I answer frankly, 
 If you cannot make a good new sermon, preach a good 
 old one ; or preach a sermon of the very best kind 
 1 belonging to some other man. Why should we make 
 sermons every week in the year when there are so many 
 sermons ready-made to our hands ? The sermons of 
 Chalmers, and Wardlaw, and McAU, and Melville ; the 
 sermons of Robertson, and Bushnell, and Beecher ; great 
 sermons, like far-stretching acres of wheat standing in the 
 glow of the autumnal sun. Preach them. Get them into 
 your hearts, and preach them with all the enthusiasm of 
 love, and at the end of every discourse give the immortal 
 name of the immortal author. 
 
 THE END. 
 
arV1628 
 
 The ark of God 
 
 Cornell University Library 
 
 3 1924 031 185 378 
 olin.anx 
 

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