JESUS CHRIST 
 THE TRUTH-TELLER 
 
 A BACCALAUREATE SERMON 
 
 BY 
 
 1893 
 TRINITY COLLEGE 
 

 CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
JESUS CHRIST THE 
 TRUTH-TELLER 
 
 A SERMON 
 
 PEEAOHED IN 
 
 CHRIST CHURCH, HARTFORD 
 
 ON THE riBST STTNDAT AFTER TBINITT 
 
 June 4, 189S 
 
 BEFORE THE 
 
 Graduating Class of Trinity College 
 
 BT 
 
 Mxllmm $uJ» f ontington, §.§., §MS., 
 
 RECTOR OF GRACE CHURCH, NEW YORK 
 
 HAKTFOED, CONN. 
 Fbess op Ths Casb, Looewooo & Bbahtabb Co. 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924102767724 
 
SERMON. 
 
 Mastbb, we know that thou art true, and teachest the way 
 •of God in truth, neither carest thou for any man; for thou 
 regardest not the person of men. 
 
 Tell us, therefore, what thinkest thou ? St. Matt. xxii. 16-17. 
 
 Eeligion, as the New Testament presents it, is 
 largely a matter of personal confidence. The ques- 
 tion is, Are you willing to take Jesus Christ at his 
 word, or are you not? If you are, then you are a 
 believer, and all that remains is to see to it that your 
 life is made to square with your belief. If, for any 
 reason, you are unwilling to take Jesus Christ at his 
 word, there is still open to you a choice of creditable 
 ■epithets, but " disciple " you are not and cannot be, 
 for a disciple is one who accepts without demur the 
 master's word. These Herodians and Pharisees who 
 put the question of the text cannot have meant what 
 they said. Had they been sincere they would have 
 followed instead of opposing and trying to entangle 
 one whom in words they declared to be a fearless 
 teacher of the way of God in truth. But in spite of 
 their evident hypocrisy they do us a service by 
 
bearing witness to the moral estimate at which our 
 Lord was held by his contemporaries. 
 
 He stood before the public of his day as a teacher 
 whose honesty could not be impugned. The general 
 belief was that here was a man who could be counted 
 upon to tell the truth ; and, enemies though they 
 were, they did not venture to address Him otherwise 
 than in harmony with this view of his character. 
 " Master," said they, " we know that thou art true, and 
 teachest the way of God in truth, neither carest thou 
 for any man, for thou regardest not the person of 
 men. Tell us, therefore, what thinkest thou ? " 
 
 What I want to accomplish this evening is to per- 
 suade you, young men, or at least some of you, that 
 for us of these times there is no better wisdom than 
 to do sincerely what those people did insincerely, 
 namely, to take our hard questions of conduct to 
 Jesus Christ, and to use our utmost endeavors to dis- 
 cover what He thinks about them, how He would 
 meet them were he mixing in the social life of "our 
 day, letting himself be spoken to in homely phrase 
 by" anybody whom He happened to meet, shutting his 
 ears to no appeal, hospitable to every interrogation as 
 it came. There is, to be sure, no lack of teachers ; 
 we are overwhelmed with the multitude of our 
 counsellors, and yet in the face of it all something 
 prompts the cry, " Master, what thinkest thou ?" 
 
But look, for a few moments, before we go any 
 further, at these qualifications of a guide in matters 
 moral and religious as Pharisee and Herodian define 
 them for us in the text. They are these : (1) per- 
 sonal truthfulness, (2) adequate knowledge, (3) free- 
 dom from the bias that comes of fear. " Thou art 
 true," they said to Christ (recognizing his personal 
 sincerity), "and teachest the way of God in truth" 
 (recognizing his acquaintance with the facts), " and 
 regardest not the person of men " (recognizing his 
 entire freedom from timidity). 
 
 Now, setting aside all question as to the divinity 
 of Christ and his right to rule our thoughts on the 
 score of his having come down from heaven to do so, 
 is it not a great thing of itself that we should have 
 in Him one of whom even so much as this may 
 honestly be said, that He is truthful, competent, and 
 fearless. 
 
 No subject on earth is so important as religion. No 
 subject is really one-half so interesting, if men would 
 only think so. But whether you are vnlling to con- 
 cede that religion has interest or not, that it 
 has importance, and supreme importance, it is 
 scarcely possible for a sane mind to. deny. First of 
 all then, we want, in any one who undertakes to talk 
 with us about religion, frankness. If we imagine 
 1* 
 
that our teacher is designedly keeping anything back 
 because he is unwilling that we should know it, or 
 because he sees that the saying it may seem to 
 imperil his self-consistency, or because others may be 
 ' compromised by a too great outspokenness on his 
 part, or because artifice is habitual with him, 
 instantly it is all up with us as disciples. We cannot 
 consent to be learners in a school where the teacher 
 does not tell us what he really thinks. We want to 
 be able to say without a particle of hesitancy. 
 Master, we know that thou art true. 
 
 Many a man not conspicuous for talent, still less 
 for genius, has had greatness thrust upon him wholly 
 because of his personal truthfulness of speech and 
 honesty, which is but another name for truthfulness, 
 in action. His fellow-men have known that they 
 could count on him to tell them what he at least 
 believed to be the truth, and, without waiting for his 
 canonization, they have put him on their calendar of 
 the saints. 
 
 But in cases where the actual communication of 
 knowledge is the thing desired, mere sincerity of 
 itself does not suffice. Not only must our teacher be 
 truthful, more than this he must have the truth in his 
 possession. What does it matter how generous my 
 friend is if in my hour of want he turns out to be as 
 
pool' as myself ? There is still left, to be sure, the 
 possibility of sympathy, but the real need of the 
 moment is relief, and that he cannot give. These 
 men who came to Christ wanting to know what He 
 thought, were careful to assure Him that they not 
 only believed Him to be truthful, but that they also 
 were convinced that He had possession of the truth. 
 "Thou teachest," said they, "the way of God in 
 truth." By "the way of G-od" they meant what we 
 understand by ethics or morals, or, in other words, the 
 art of right living. By "the way of God" we under- 
 stand the path in which God would have us walk. It 
 is a simple figure of speech, and tells its own story 
 without efPort. But there is effort enough, as we all 
 know, when we try to find out for ourselves just how 
 the path runs. Christ HimseK has warned us that 
 it is a narrow path, and not half so easy to fall into 
 as another that He names. And even when a path is 
 well mapped out, if we are so unfortunate as to have 
 twilight shut us in while we are still only part way 
 on our journey, the need for some sort of a guide 
 becomes urgent. Only an hour ago the marks blazed 
 by the woodman's axe sufficed, but now it seems as if 
 without an articulate voice and a hand that may be 
 touched we should presently be lost altogether. 
 What a great thing it is to have somebody near who 
 
8 
 
 knows the way, and can teach the way " in truth" — 
 with accuracy, that is to say, and precision ; some one 
 who literally can bring us " out of the woods " ! 
 
 And so, just as there have been men who have 
 earned the confidence of their fellow-men by their 
 truthfulness, so there have been others who have 
 earned a measure, equally large, of gratitude because 
 of their mastery of the truth, their ability to guide. 
 In every department the clear-headed are a blessing 
 to their generation, but in no department are they 
 more conspicuously so than in this one we are talk- 
 ing about — namely, the conduct of life. The mind 
 of our time is grievously perplexed about many grave 
 questions of right and wrong. The air is full of 
 disturbing and upsetting talk as to matters which lie 
 at the very heart of human life. We are asked to 
 accept theories which, if logically followed out, would 
 land us in blank and utter irresponsibility. Not that 
 such theories have never been broached before; in 
 the long history of the human mind they have 
 appeared and reappeared a hundred times. It does 
 not require a very profound acquaintance with the 
 annals of speculative thought to be able to recognize 
 behind the masks of the spectres who are trying to 
 frighten us to-day, the faces of old enemies who have 
 been making war against man's hopes for centuries. 
 
9 
 
 But what is peculiar and distinctive about the fight 
 as it waged in our day, is the general acquaintance of 
 all sorts of people, young and old, with the state of 
 the field. Questions which in old times were the 
 special property of the schools of theology and 
 philosophy, are to-day argued for and against by 
 school-boys and school-girls ; and by the kindly aid 
 of the latest review even the lightest of the light- 
 minded are enabled to discuss points on which the 
 very existence of human society may be said to 
 hinge. 
 
 I am not speaking of this state of things for the 
 sake of denouncing it. One might as well seek to pro- 
 tect the shifting sands of our Atlantic seaboard from 
 displacement by declaiming against the waves, as 
 try to check by word of mouth these tides of thought 
 that from time to time sweep across the conscious- 
 ness of our race. Another hand than ours has set 
 them in motion and it alone can roll them back. I 
 am not petulantly fretting over things as they are, 
 I am simply asking you to see and to acknowledge 
 that things, being as they are, it would seem an 
 unspeakable privilege could we but find one able and 
 willing to teach us " the way of God in truth." 
 
 But not only must our teacher be truthful and 
 competent. His natural outspokenness and even his 
 
10 
 
 acquaintance ■with the facts in the case may fail us if 
 there be the slightest ground for suspecting him of 
 cowardice. Galileo was a truthful man by nature. 
 It is impossible for anybody successfully to prosecute 
 scientific research unless he be, at heart, a truth-lover 
 and a truth-seeker. In fact, of aU the debts owed to 
 modern science, none, I think, is more real or more 
 weighty than that entailed on us by the high estimate 
 science has taught us to set upon, the exactitude and 
 accuracy of nature's processes. Religiously inter- 
 preted, this accuracy, this exactitude, is our guarantee 
 for the absolute truthfulness of God. What He has 
 said He will do He will do, and the evidences to this 
 promise-keeping attribute of His lie all along the line 
 that reaches from the atom to the star. So, then, it is 
 more than the shame of a man of science, it is his 
 actual disability, and works in him an unfitness for 
 his calling, if he fail to entertain a lofty estimate and 
 to maintain a rigid practice of truthfulness. And 
 yet Galileo, naturally truthful as he was, showed 
 himself capable of being frightened into a falsehood. 
 So also did Oranmer, — for I would not seem by my 
 one illustration to be discriminating in favor of the 
 Church as against the University, — so also did 
 Cranmer, truthful witness, honest man that he 
 really meant to be, dissemble under the influence of 
 
11 
 
 fear. It is easy enough for us, living our comfortable 
 lives amid conditions which the efforts of these very 
 men and of men like them have made possible, it is 
 easy enough for us to criticise their unworthy timidity. 
 To that one of us who thinks he could have had the 
 courage to hold out his right hand to be burnt in the 
 flame as Cranmer did, because it was the hand that 
 had offended, to him let it be given to cast the first 
 stone. Nevertheless, pardonable as Galileo was under 
 the circumstances, pardonable as Cranmer was under 
 the circumstances, what we are looking for is some 
 one who under no circumstances can fail us. We are 
 reluctant to be hard upon those men because we 
 question whether we, in their places, should have 
 done half as well, been anything like as brave ; but 
 that is not the question — the question is. Whom can 
 we find to guide us with a guidance absolutely sure ? 
 Galileo dreaded the chain, Cranmer the faggots. Is • 
 there any one who, with all their love of truth and 
 more than all their knowledge of what is the truth, 
 is, at the same time, wholly a stranger to fear? 
 " Master," said the spokesman of the deputation sent 
 out to entangle Jesus in his talk, " We know that 
 thou art true, and teachest the way of God in truth, 
 neither carest thou for any man ; for thou regardest 
 not the person of men. Tell us, therefore, what 
 thinkest thou ? 
 
12 
 
 Young men, I preach to you to-night Jesus Christ 
 the Truth-teller. Your ears are more accustomed to 
 other designations of His work and office. You are 
 used to hear him spoken of as Mediator, Redeemer, 
 Messiah, Saviour, Son of God, High Priest — He is 
 all these, but back of all He is to be trusted as having 
 been, as being, to quote his own words about himself, 
 a man who has told us the truth. How can we 
 render Him the homage that is His due in those 
 other characters I just now recited unless, to begin 
 with, we have learned to put our whole trust in Him ? 
 Monarch He is no doubt, and Priest, but Prophet 
 Teacher, first of all, so far as you and I are concerned, 
 otherwise how should we have been made acquainted 
 with those still higher names of his, for we take all 
 of them on credit ? 
 
 Do you urge against me the difficulty of finding 
 out just what may be the mind of Christ with 
 reference to these hard questions of the day ? Do 
 you reproach me with having brought you face to 
 face with an oracle which after all is dumb, and 
 openeth not its mouth ? Do you say, " Oh, yes, it 
 was an easy thing to go and ask Him what He 
 thought when there He was, and anybody with a 
 tongue to speak could ask a question, and with an 
 ear to hear could catch the answer." I recognize the 
 
13 
 
 difficulty, but I by no means concede it to be a fatal 
 one. Eemember how many years after the Ascen- 
 sion it was that St. Paul used the expression, " We 
 have the mind of Christ." That phrase has precisely 
 the same meaning, precisely the same value to-day 
 that it had when it fell from St. Paul's pen. It is as 
 clearcut as the crystal whose sharp edges have 
 survived the wear of a thousand years. 
 
 The nineteenth century just as really as was the 
 first is in possession of the mind of Christ. That 
 mind has been put on record, and we have it, and 
 nothing short of such a revolution as shall destroy 
 literature and annihilate tradition can deprive us of it." 
 It is not necessary that a teacher should be present 
 with us in the flesh in order to our being put in pos- 
 session of his mind. In the Novum Organum we 
 have the mind of Bacon, and in the Principia the 
 mind of Newton ; why not in the Four Gospels the 
 mind of Jesus Christ ? Yes, it is there, and all we 
 have to do is to study it, and to work it as men work 
 a vein of ore when persuaded that rich as it may have 
 proved itself in the past, it hides still more abundant 
 treasure unexplored. 
 
 The more pressing of the questions of the day are 
 those that concern the soul. The mere cataloguing 
 of rocks and of those masses of molten rock, if such 
 3 
 
14 
 
 they are, we call the sta.rs, is comparatively a small 
 matter, when put alongside the problem of the destiny 
 of man. Nay, I go further, and letting alone the race 
 would venture to balance the value of the most 
 poverty-stricken soul that may have looked out on you 
 through human eyes during the latest week of your 
 life as you have been going to and fro upon your 
 errands — I say I venture to balance that against the 
 heaviest and most resplendent of all the uninhabited 
 worlds. 
 
 And what I say is this, that nowhere is there such 
 a treasure-house of information about the soul, its 
 needs, its distresses, its sicknesses, its aspirations, its 
 delights, as stands open to us in the mind of Christ. 
 Nor is what He has to tell confined to single souls. 
 Here are all souls. The race is one great family, 
 and more and more clearly we are coming, every day 
 we live, to see that it is no more possible to under- 
 stand one soul out of relation to all souls than it is 
 possible to understand heat out of relation with mo- 
 tion, or brute life out of relation with plant life. As 
 things are knit together so are souls knit together, 
 and as breaths conspire so do spirits breathe an atmos- 
 phere that is common to them all. Here, also, if we 
 would understand the truth we must turn to the 
 Truth-teller, and looking up to Him who knew what 
 
15 
 
 was in man, say humbly, but with an earnestness not 
 to be misunderstood, "Tell us, what thinkest Thou?" 
 Frank, competent, fearless, He will sooner or later, if 
 we ask aright, give us the answer that we seek. Do 
 not fancy that He is out of date, or likely to be super- 
 seded. The promise of all the years is His. While 
 the world stands He can be depended upon to teach 
 us "the way of God in truth." 
 
 Here for example, if you demand a test, is one 
 of the burning questions of present-day religion. Is 
 the power that keeps the universe in motion, wheels 
 the stars in their orbits, tints the plumage of birds, 
 and feeds the flow of rivers — is this a blind, uncon- 
 scious force, impartially cruel in its dealings with the 
 children of men, or is there fatherhood behind it, and 
 a providing care ? No thoughtful mind that has en- 
 trusted itself to the leadership of Jesus Christ will 
 complain of being dealt with ambiguously here, for 
 our Master betrays on this point neither reticence nor 
 reserve. This is a matter in which it is absolutely 
 necessary that we should know the truth, if we are to 
 be religious at all, and he tells it to us promptly. Of 
 the sparrows, you may buy five for a farthing, he says, 
 but not one of them is forgotten before God. The 
 inference is plain. Are not ye much better worth 
 caring for than they ? Yes, but can it possibly be 
 
16 
 
 worth our while to approach, with such poor stam- 
 mering words as we may coin, a majesty so high aa 
 this ? Is not prayer futile ? Nay, more than this, do- 
 we not conTict ourselTes of an intolerable vanity in 
 entertaining for a moment the thought of speaking ta 
 this Heavenly King? Again, we have an answer 
 from the same lips, " When ye pray say ' Our 
 Father.' " It is not, " If ye pray say, ' Force,' or 
 ' Law,' or ' Nature,' or ' changeless and unalter- 
 able doom,' " but it is, " When ye pray, (the habit- 
 being taken for granted,) say ' Our Father.'" 
 
 Nay, but I ask, you say to me, stronger assurance- 
 of the love of God than this. That in a certaim 
 sense and in a certain measure the Power unseen, 
 provides for the bodily wants of the creatures with, 
 which the earth has been peopled is credible enough. 
 That He giveth to the beast his food and feedeth the- 
 young ravens which cry, natural history might teach, 
 us without aid from Scripture, but their case is not 
 my case. They keep the law He has laid down for 
 them, they walk in the paths appointed, and in their 
 several orders, and after their manner, live as they 
 were meant to live ; but I, alas ! I am tormented with, 
 a conscience. I see and know that I have wronged 
 the Lawgiver. How can I think of myself as on. 
 speaking terms with this King to whom you would 
 
17 
 
 have me say Our Father, uninformed as I am of any 
 willingness on his part to forgive. Fire burns and 
 water drowns, irrespective of repentance. They par- 
 don no one, why should God pardon me? Here, 
 again, it is absolutely necessary for us to be rightly 
 informed if we would be at peace, but what of our 
 leader, our light-bearer, is He silent, does He refuse a 
 plain answer? Listen to Him, "Son, be of good 
 cheer, thy sins be forgiven thee." He is more than 
 prophet, it appears, this Christ of ours. He is ab- 
 solver. He has power on earth to forgive. Clearly it 
 is not without authority that He adds to the request 
 for nourishment, "Give us this day our daily 
 bread," the prayer for pardon, " Forgive us our tres- 
 passes." Surely He would not tell us thus to pray if 
 forgiveness were impossible. 
 
 But you ask for some evidence of divine love better 
 even than this, and you are right. The love which 
 manifests itself through the distribution of bounty is 
 good as far as it goes, for it is generosity as contrasted 
 with stinginess ; but even Nature shows us a parable 
 of love deeper than this. The mother bird fluttering 
 over her brood, and with unfailing and impartial care 
 filling each tiny throat, is a beautiful sight, and 
 images with absolute fidelity one aspect of parental 
 love, but the mother bird suddenly made bold to 
 
18 
 
 suffer, yes, to die, rather than let the nest and its 
 precious burden come to harm, is a symbol of some- 
 thing higher than Providence, whether divine or 
 human, it is the sign of sacrifice. For the love that 
 costs the giver nothing we have respect, we rejoice in 
 the possession of it, but does it satisfy the heart? 
 Does it come home to us as the very best thing^ 
 imaginable ? No, there is a love mightier than this,, 
 the love which many waters cannot quench, the love 
 which consents, nay which desires, in evidence of its- 
 own genuineness, to suffer. This is sacrificial love. 
 We can dream of nothing higher. 
 
 Now is there anything in God that corresponds to- 
 this ? If not, we are shut up to the disappointing con- 
 clusion, that in our human relations there is some- 
 thing more precious than we can ever hope to see 
 realized in our divine relations. If our fellow man 
 has something to give us better worth seeking than, 
 anything our God can offer, then is religion emptied, 
 of its supreme motive, the desire to find the very best. 
 Again I point you to our pillar of fire. Of his coming- 
 He says, " God so loved the world that He gave His- 
 only begotten Son." Sacrifice, you notice, at the very 
 outset, that sacrifice of which the manger is the em- 
 blem. But again, as the end approaches, this is what 
 we hear : " Except a corn of wheat f aU into the 
 
19 
 
 ground and die, it abideth alone, but if it die it 
 bringeth forth much fruit." " And I, if I be lifted up 
 from the earth, will draw all men unto me." And 
 this He meant of the manner of His dying. Sacri- 
 fice again at the very last, the sacrifice of the cross. 
 Herein, whether first or last, is a love worth the call- 
 ing such, for it is nothing else than unselfishness 
 incarnated. 
 
 There remains one other question still, the ques- 
 tion of the future — If a man die shall he live again ? 
 Will the leadership of Christ win for us the greatest 
 of all victories, the conquest of the fear of dying ? 
 He leaves us in no doubt upon the point. " I am the 
 resurrection and the life," he says, " because I live, 
 ye shall live also." Fountain of life Himself, He be- 
 comes the giver of it to all who will receive. Other 
 religions guessed at immortality, and dreamed of it; 
 Christ's religion offers it. Spiritualists commend 
 to us their ghastly caricature of heaven. Buddha, 
 the light of Asia, bids us take comfort in the thought 
 that as the raindrop falls into the great ocean, 
 and survives by being swallowed up, so the soul 
 shall find true peace and rest in an everlasting for- 
 getfulness. Comte urges us to expel the subject 
 from our thoughts, and to be content with the im- 
 mortality of the race. The Son of Mary, separate 
 
20 
 
 from them all, stands forth and says, "In my 
 Father's house there* are abiding places many. I 
 go to make ready one of them for you." 
 
 You see how generous is the territory in which, 
 under the leadership of the Christ, conquests may be 
 made and held. The being and the fatherhood of 
 God, the reasonableness of prayer, the possibility of 
 forgiveness, the measureless intensity of the love that 
 reaches us through sacrifice, the confident expecta- 
 tion of a life to come, are these gains on the side of 
 belief inconsiderable? Nay, are they not fruits of 
 victory for which we cannot too vehemently or too 
 fervently give thanks ? But you complain that this 
 cumulative argument of mine makes everything 
 hinge upon personal confidence in the testimony of a 
 single witness ; one, who in his day and time, called 
 Himself Son of Man. So it does. You are quite 
 right. I have no wish to evade the point. On the 
 contrary, I desire to urge it with all my might. You 
 say. What are the credentials of this Christ that we 
 should be called upon thus to recognize Him as Supreme 
 Pontiff of mankind ? His credentials, I answer, are 
 his words and his works. His words live for us in 
 the Gospels, fresh as on the day when they were first 
 spoken, germinant with life and prodigal of light as 
 never other words have been. His works ? They 
 
21 
 
 are around us. Christendom is His architecture. 
 Who has ever builded as He builds ? The city, to be 
 sure, is far from perfect. It has its empty spaces, its 
 half-finished streets and squares. Here and there 
 are pedestals for which the statues are not ready, 
 and niches waiting to be filled. In all directions 
 there is room for growth, and in many, room for 
 betterment ; but take it for all in all, was there ever 
 city like it, ever one so firmly founded, ever one so 
 generously laid out ? And all this marvellous Chris- 
 tendom, this unmatched social fabric is his work. 
 He made it as really as the great Tsar made Peters- 
 burg, or Constantino his eastern capital. Has he 
 not, as architect of such a city of God, some claim on 
 our attention, some right to be heard in those mat- 
 ters upon which, with xmmistakable authority in his 
 voice, he speaks ? I grant you that it is possible to 
 reject Him as your light-bearer, but is it wise ? 
 
 Trust Him, then, I say, both for His words and for 
 His works. 
 
 Gentlemen of the graduating class, I rejoice to be- 
 lieve that you are going out into life persuaded that 
 what Jesus Christ says is true. Such faith will safe- 
 guard you to an extent you little dream, and in ways 
 of which thus far you have had slight experience. 
 The huge battleship which, day before yesterday, 
 
22 
 
 under a clear sky, sank like lead in the mighty 
 ■waters, went down because she had lost her balance. 
 Could she have been held level for only a few moments 
 longer, it might have been possible to close the com- 
 partments and stop the leak ; but the instant she be- 
 gan to careen, the heavy armament of the upper deck 
 made righting her impossible. 
 
 On this ocean that we call our life, no land-locked 
 sea like the Mediterranean, but one that reaches far 
 out into the infinity, many are they who suffer ship- 
 wreck. It is not always the seamanship that is at 
 fault. Of the voyagers who come to grief there are 
 not a few who have had, as we say, every advantage, 
 who are versatile, who are accomplished. The trouble 
 is lack of balance. This needed element is the very 
 thing that faith in Jesus Christ supplies. Authority 
 is the force that gives stability to life. What we 
 need is to know ourselves to be under authority, 
 rightful authority. Steadied and balanced by this 
 central weight, we ride the waves in safety, for far 
 more reassuring than the famous "Fear not, you 
 carry Caesar," ought to be for you and me, " Fear not, 
 you carry Christ."