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LIBRARY OF THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 
 
 
 
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 PRINCETON, N. J. 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 The Author. 
 
 
 
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COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 
 
 
 
By A. Z. CONRAD, D.D. 
 
 Jesus Christ at the 
 Crossroads 
 
 ““A Challenge uttered with prophetic 
 vision and fearless zeal.’’—Sunday School 
 Times. 
 
 “Dr. Conrad gives a clear and con- 
 vincing reason for his faith.” —Christian 
 Endeavor W orld. 
 
 “Goes through the controversy like 
 the Gulf Stream through the Atlantic.” 
 —Neil McPherson, D.D. (Springfield). 
 
 ‘“‘We thank God for this stentorian 
 voice from Park St. Church.’’—Leander 
 S. Keyser, D.D., in the Bible Champion. 
 
 “A trenchant, outspoken defense of 
 the fully inspired Gospel.’’—Religious 
 Telescope. 
 
 *“‘Will do much to settle the faith of 
 one disturbed by recent discussion.— 
 Biblical Recorder. 
 
 CLOTH $1.25 
 
 
 
Comrades of the 
 Carpenter 
 
 CRAIN OF PRINCES 
 ~) 
 
 
 
 
 gee hel 
 A. Z."CONRAD, Ph.D., D.D. 
 
 Pastor Park Street Congregational Church, 
 Boston, Mass. 
 
 New York CuHiIcaGo 
 
 Fleming H. Revell Company 
 
 Lonpon : AND EpINBURGH 
 
Copyright, Mcmxxv1, by 
 FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 
 
 New York: 158 Fifth Avenue 
 Chicago: 17 North Wabash Ave. 
 London: 21 Paternoster Square 
 Edinburgh: 99 George Street 
 
To Comrades of the Carpenter, and especially to 
 my Fellow Comrades in the Ministry of 
 The Word, this book is affection- - 
 ately inscribed 
 
Ke 
 
 AM ke 
 iat \ 
 
 be be ee 
 f : \ OF, 
 a? aT :' 4 
 
 eats 
 Oded 56 
 
 sie, 
 Be 
 Ay 
 
 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 _ REMOTENESS diminishes a sense of reality. God is 
 the sum of all reality. Only proximity can make God 
 real to the thought, and an available, contributive en- 
 ergy. To the little child God is both near and real. To 
 the adult He is likely to be pushed farther and farther 
 away, because of our absorption in material interests. 
 Then He becomes unreal, hazy, nebulous, unmeaning, 
 and by and by He is lost. Then prayer ceases, faith 
 gives place to doubt, and the atheistic drift is strong. 
 Is not a sense of fellowship with God a great need of 
 today? We might well sing, “ Nearer, my God, to 
 me.’ How can this become a fact of personal experi- 
 ence save through the Great Comrade, Jesus Christ? 
 
 Jesus Christ is the one supreme colossal figure 
 that looms up on the horizon of the thinking world, 
 dwarfing every other personality in contrast. He is 
 the adorable, inescapable, incomparable, transcendant 
 Personality of time and eternity. For three thousand 
 years He has been the controlling, commanding, out- 
 standing and baffling personality, holding the center 
 of the stage amid protest, violent denunciation, ridi- 
 cule, contempt, persecution and denial. One thousand 
 years, as the One who was to come, and two thousand 
 years as a historic reality. 
 
 Nearly two thousand years ago The Carpenter of 
 
 7 
 
8 FOREWORD 
 
 Nazareth, credentialed by Almighty God at the Jordan 
 River, stepped out before the world as a Teacher, with 
 supernatural power and with a program for the world’s 
 Redemption. He made such claims as would have 
 wrecked Him had they not been true. A weaponless 
 workman, He declared He would found a Kingdom 
 worldwide and endless. He was opposed by wealth, 
 scholarship and both political and ecclesiastical govern- 
 ments. He came to make God the realest fact in the 
 universe. He arrested the attention of the multitudes 
 and broke their hearts by His loving sympathy. 
 
 He went voluntarily to Calvary, to the tomb, and 
 then shattered His way out of the rock-hewn sepulcher, 
 vindicating every claim He had made, and killed death 
 itself. After nineteen hundred years He is still the 
 one commanding fact among men. 
 
 Today Comradeship with the Carpenter produces the 
 most heroic living, doing and dying, the deepest think- 
 ing and the largest love. He is the soul of all philan- 
 thropy.and the heart of all chivalry. His hands are 
 still outstretched to the belated and the forgotten. He 
 is still saying: “I will take the hindermost.” He does 
 it, and places them in the front rank of achieving men 
 and women. He does this by Comradeship. This and 
 this alone will bring man into vital contact with God. 
 
 The crime wave today appalls men. Courts and con- 
 stabulary seem helpless to cope with it. A vision of 
 God as the Great Reality, with which all men will have 
 to reckon, is the only thing that can bring about normal 
 conditions. A new sense of duty and a new vision of | 
 judgment to come must arouse and awaken the forces 
 
FOREWORD 9 
 
 that can stay back the demonized devotees of lust and 
 the multitude lost in the passion for pleasure. We 
 must get closer to God, by Comradeship with the Son 
 of God. Is it not just possible we who are uncompro- 
 mising evangelicals have made God distant by our fail- 
 ure to emphasize His human side? Ought we not to 
 stress the humanity of Jesus, so as to make Him seem 
 more really one with us, and thus get closer to God? 
 In “Comrades of the Carpenter” the controlling 
 thought has been nearness to God. In the Carpenter 
 we find a bond that is unbreakable. The Nazareth 
 workshop stands for a Divine and human sympathy 
 with the burdens, the toils and the tears of humanity. 
 
 We have desired to relate the sayings of the Car- 
 penter to the hopes, fears, purposes and problems of 
 today. If those who may read this message are helped 
 to see, hear and feel the nearness and the availableness 
 of God a little more perfectly, it will have accomplished 
 its purpose. “ This is Life Eternal, to know God and 
 Jesus Christ whom He hath sent.” 
 
 AL Gs 
 
 Boston, Mass. 
 

 
XII. 
 XII. 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CoMRADESHIP WITH THE CARPENTER. .  . 13 
 
 CHANGING LIFE’s INCLINE FROM Down ‘to 
 
 TT a ecole gas Neca Aa TOR Mt SUE Es MBE Der ME AR 
 WatTER, WINE AND A WEDDING . . .. . 37 
 Pe BATTOR FORMEREAD | 10) 90 e iy Ol! wee aS 
 IN THE FIELDS AND AMONG THE LILIES WITH 
 
 Re CARPENTERS 1 10 Nui Mitiicbe il Duin) Rema nico ny (ey 
 beri [rr nets COURS TY bile AG Tn viny Salah cay bean) GO 
 ERE SETA TS AN EGISTR Ya a Malina ae et San SU) 
 PEE LIGHT OF THE WORLD} di co. we ies AD 
 THE CARPENTER, THE GoopD SHEPHERD .. 103 
 THE CoMPULSIONS OF REDEMPTIVE Love. . 113 
 
 CIVILIZING, SOCIALIZING, CHRISTIANIZING 
 PEERED Me eu eae een aa Met ae ELAS 
 
 THUNDER, AN ANGEL OR THE VOICE OF Gop? . 138 
 
 MouNTAIN CLIMBING WITH THE CARPENTER. 148 
 
 XIV. A Court ScENE WITH THE CARPENTER- 
 
 XV. 
 
 So NS CORD ei aE aa Sa ROHR NR OUEN M6 Fs 
 
 In THE SHADOWS WITH THE CARPENTER. . 175 
 
 11 
 

 
I 
 COMRADESHIP WITH THE CARPENTER 
 
 THEN SPAKE THE CARPENTER: “ Henceforth I call you 
 not servants ... but I have called you friends” (Comrades). — 
 Joun 15:15, 
 
 IsoLATION is desolation. Seclusion is exclusion. A 
 life is largely measured by its contacts. A life with 
 few contacts is a life with few contracts but many piti- 
 ful contractions. Like the waters of a lake, inflow and 
 outflow are essential to sweetness. Aloneness is little- 
 ness. A hermit life is only half a life. Fellowship 
 multiplies power. ‘One shall chase a thousand, and 
 two shall put ten thousand to flight.” 
 
 If comradeship is important, the character of com- 
 rades is vitally significant. Walk with kings, and roy- 
 alty is yours. Walk with knaves, and rascality will 
 leave its finger-prints. Tell me who your companions 
 are, and I will tell you what you are. Soul fusion and 
 interfusion is one of the most important facts of life. 
 Friendship and fellowship change the whole trend of 
 human experience. Delights are doubled, and difh- 
 culties are divided, by sweet, sane associations. The 
 chemistry of the soil reveals itself in flower and fruit. 
 The quality of your friendships will color your thought 
 and mark your deed. Misplaced confidences bring de- 
 feat, discouragement and despair. Comrades whose 
 
 13 
 
14 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 
 
 character is exalted, immeasurably enrich life. David 
 was greater because of his fellowship with Jonathan. 
 Paul was the more powerful because of the friendship 
 of Barnabas. Luther was blessed by the sanguine and 
 ardent character of Philip Melanchthon. Calvin’s tre- 
 mendous intellectual energy was the more effective 
 through his associates. Personalities are complemental 
 and supplemental. When the disciples were commis- 
 sioned and sent forth, they went in couples, When the 
 Seventy undertook an evangelistic campaign each man 
 had his companion. Self-sufficiency invariably proves 
 to be self-inefficiency. What might Burns have become 
 had his Highland Mary lived! Moody was tremen- 
 dously helped by Sankey. Wilbur Chapman could 
 never have carried on his great campaigns for Christ 
 with the success ‘he did, but for companionship with the 
 enthusiastic, consecrated Alexander. 
 
 If all this be true of human comradeships, what shall 
 we say of Fellowship with God? How immeasurably 
 increased and enlarged, broadened and deepened is a 
 life which enjoys fellowship with the Infinite! What 
 the French call comaraderie is simply fellowship made 
 dynamic. 
 
 A distant Deity dismisses no doubts, dissolves no 
 difficulties. Right here we find the secret of the failure 
 of Christianity to measure up to its possibilities. God 
 has been pushed farther and farther away, until He 
 is dismissed altogether, by many. ‘The present-day 
 tendency is to ignore God as a factor in everyday life. 
 How can man fellowship with God? That was God’s 
 problem and not man’s. He solved it. How? Com- 
 
COMRADESHIP WITH THE CARPENTER 15 
 
 radeship with the Carpenter. Fellowship with God is 
 not a vagary, it is vital; it is not a dream, it is a de- 
 - terminer of destiny. Right now the greatest need of 
 professedly Christian people is a new sense of the ap- 
 proachableness of God. Remoteness has dimmed our 
 vision of Him. Prayer is effectualized through prox- 
 -imity. If God cannot be made contactual with us, then 
 all thoughts of Him are useless. Only a God with 
 whom we can associate is able to communicate to us 
 either His will or His power. 
 
 God is sovereign. Hold that as a precious and im- 
 mensely valuable article of faith. God is overawing in 
 the majesty of His being. God is commanding in His 
 Goodness and sublime in His Justice. In all of His 
 attributes the Eternal God is overwhelmingly great. 
 
 The amazing fact about the omnipotent, omniscient, 
 omnipresent God is Comradeship with man. He is not 
 distant. He is not a far-away disinterested Deity. 
 Heartfulness, hope, happiness, and Heaven are all em- 
 _ braced in the glorious fact that God is available through 
 fellowship. This is what gives life its relish and its 
 zest. Human empowerment is absolutely conditioned 
 upon closeness to God. 
 
 This is the order of human history: God—Cre- 
 ation—Man—Communion — Sin — Separation — De- 
 generation—Covenant—Communication— Redemption 
 —Regeneration. Time passed. Egypt rose, fell, was but 
 a memory. Babylon flamed forth, died, was forgotten. 
 Ephesus, resplendent and then a ruin. Greece, queen of 
 the earth but afterward a vassal nation. Rome, imperial 
 and imperious. Judaism, advancing, declining and ap- 
 
16 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 
 
 _parently dying. Idolatry, selfishness, sordidness, sick- 
 ness, sorrow, sin. Then came the Carpenter! Through 
 _ Him, God opened the way to Comradeship with man. 
 
 In the Carpenter of Nazareth, God became man’s 
 close friend and holy companion. You can imagine the 
 soliloquy of the Trinity: ‘‘ Man whom we created in 
 our own image has marred the image and broken the 
 bond of fellowship. He does not know Us. He does 
 not love Us. He will never know Us until We unveil 
 Our love for him. He has the marvels of our handi- 
 work before him in nature, but does not find Us. The 
 starry heavens declare Our wisdom but do not proclaim 
 Our affection. Man hears the voice of thunder, the 
 roar of the ocean, but does not find in them the music 
 of Divine love. Let us go to him embodied in form 
 like his own. Let Us walk with him, talk with him, 
 sorrow with him, suffer with him, then die for him. 
 
 “Then he will understand. Then he will discover 
 who and what and where God is. If We weep with 
 him, work with him, think with him, feel with him, 
 become a Comrade to him, then he will become a new 
 creature, and the longing of Our Own heart for fel- 
 lowship will be satisfied.” 
 
 Then came the Carpenter! A sweet maiden of Naza- 
 reth became the vehicle through whom God accom- 
 plished His historic entry into the world. The mystic 
 beauty of the Incarnation is entrancing. How natural! 
 How like God! How human! How Divine! With a 
 finesse and a directness dismissing all thought of im- 
 posture the sweet story of the birth and growth of 
 Jesus is told in the Gospel narrative. “ God manifest 
 
COMRADESHIP WITH THE CARPENTER 17 
 
 in the flesh!” Preparing for Comradeship with man! 
 Thus and thus only could He make us realize that He 
 knows childhood in all its tenderness; thus and thus 
 only could we appreciate His perfect acquaintance with 
 the struggles, the impulses, the aspirations of youth. 
 How else could God have come into the activities of 
 men when they are at the full noontide of life, so that 
 the business man might know that there are no bur- 
 dens he has to bear, no reverses he has to meet, with 
 which the Great Companion is not familiar? How 
 gracious and how good this coming of the Sovereign 
 Lord to make possible His own self-impartation to 
 man! When a deep realization of the fact that God is 
 in His world possesses the human heart, everything in 
 life changes. The outlook is different. A sense of 
 limitless ability seems to stir within the soul. Today 
 the emphasis has been placed on self-development, self- 
 dependence, self-exertion, as the whole need of man in 
 his life achievements. Such doctrine will never make 
 for the mightiest character. As well urge the man at 
 the lathe, with steel to be made into accurately fash- 
 ioned cylinders, to depend on his own muscle and not 
 upon the great dynamo which has been brought within 
 reach of his hand and into which he can gear himself 
 by the shifting of a lever. How stupid he would be not 
 to avail himself of the power of a thousand men and 
 thus become himself a thousand instead of one. ‘That 
 would be sanity applied. Ignoring God is far greater 
 folly than ignoring mechanical aids in our material 
 achievements. Why not avail ourselves of Omnipo- 
 tence in performing the herculean task of constructing 
 
18 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 
 
 character? Why not attach ourselves to Omniscience 
 and be wise? Contact with God is fundamentally im- 
 portant. It has become a reality with the Comrades of 
 the Carpenter. It was the Incarnation that eliminated 
 the seeming distance between God and man. 
 
 God thus consecrated Comaraderie forever. He 
 made true friendship a fountain of joy. 
 
 One cannot conceive of the workshop of Joseph as 
 cheerless or dreary. Good-will develops good-cheer. 
 Companionship at high levels, gives life radiancy. Dis- 
 parity of age could not prevent exhilarant fellowship. 
 Of all men, Joseph was the one person blessed by asso- 
 ciation with Jesus in the exuberance of His youth. 
 The young apprentice had a sympathetic teacher. 
 From childhood He knew the meaning of weariness 
 from work. He was interested, intelligent, energetic. 
 Joseph, as no other: save his young wife, held the 
 mystic secret of the Incarnation. During the period 
 of the unfolding of the life of the Divine Child, a bond 
 unbreakable, through comradeship, must have united 
 the lives of Joseph, Mary and Jesus. It was a three- 
 fold cord which is not quickly broken. What conver- 
 sations must have been theirs! What surprises! How 
 often the elder of the twain stopped the saw, the plane 
 or the hammer, startled by some unexpected expression 
 _ of other-world-wisdom from the lips of the boy blos- 
 soming into manhood. The growing consciousness of 
 His mission would inevitably express itself in extraor- 
 dinary utterance. Wisdom astounding and inspiring 
 would quicken the heart-beat of Joseph, and confirm 
 his faith in the reality of the supernaturalness of the 
 
COMRADESHIP WITH THE CARPENTER 19 
 
 source of the life of his foster son and the purity and 
 sweetness of his beloved Mary. How glad he was that 
 he had heeded the counsel of the mysterious messenger 
 who assured him of the absolute honor of her whom, 
 not strangely, he had doubted when unwedded mother- 
 hood confronted her. More and more now, he knew. 
 To the holy mother, the young Carpenter became more 
 a comrade than a son. How well she knew that the 
 mystery of His birth carried with it a two-world mean- 
 ing! Her love ripened into reverence. 
 
 Daily she would seek the shop of Joseph, that she 
 might be near enough to hear the conversations and 
 enjoy the comradeship which so enriched the lives of 
 Joseph and herself. | 
 
 The simple requirements of the carpenter’s craft of 
 that day were early mastered by the ardent Apprentice. 
 The workshop was for years a school-room as well. 
 Copies of the writings of the patriarchs, prophets and 
 poets of Israel were eagerly sought and became the 
 textbooks thoughtfully studied by Jesus. The hidden 
 meaning of the age-long promises found their fullest 
 exposition from the lips of Him who had come as the 
 fulfillment of the hopes of the centuries. 
 
 Years passed. The day came when Joseph laid aside 
 the tools of his trade, bade farewell to the beloved 
 mother and her son, and fell asleep. The comradeship 
 between Jesus and His mother grew strangely sacred 
 and inexpressibly sweet. Here, motherhood and son- 
 ship found their highest and holiest expression. From 
 the very moment of the Incarnation, motherhood took 
 on a sacredness it had never before possessed. Nothing 
 
20 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER ~ 
 
 so sanctifies motherhood today as the fact that God 
 chose motherhood as the method of His fullest mani- 
 festation of Himself to humanity. 
 
 The exalted character of the Carpenter had a twofold 
 influence upon his fellow townsmen. To the baser 
 sort this unexampled purity of life was a constant re- 
 buke, and awakened a secret antagonism. To the lovers 
 of truth and righteousness Jesus was sought for coun- 
 sel and comradeship. For ten years after He had 
 reached the age of twenty He was the Carpenter of 
 Nazareth. This explains why later on, when an un- 
 usual expression of wisdom and power amazed the 
 people, they said: “Is not this the Carpenter?” The 
 Nazareth shop was the center of influence. Here came 
 those who coveted fellowship with soul-nobleness and 
 who yearned for a fuller knowledge of things Divine. 
 
 Three decades had almost passed since the angels at 
 Bethlehem announced to wondering shepherds: “ Unto 
 you is born this day in the City of David a Saviour.” 
 Years had now passed since Jesus in the Temple had 
 uttered the significant word: “ Wist ye not that I must 
 be about my Father’s business?” The hour was 
 striking for the great venture. 
 
 For four hundred years no voice of a great prophet 
 had been heard. The silence now was broken. John 
 the Baptist, cousin of Jesus, spoke first. From the 
 desert there came a cry, resonant with righteousness 
 and poignant with purpose, “ Repent.” The echo of it 
 reached Galilee. How often Jesus had been in com- 
 munication and communion with His cousin John is © 
 not recorded. Some times, without doubt. The Car- 
 
COMRADESHIP WITH THE CARPENTER 21 
 
 penter heard the voice in the wilderness. It was the 
 signal for redemptive action. He needed no repen- 
 tance. He could say, as none other who has ever lived 
 could say: “I do always the things that please Him.” 
 But a wider comradeship must now be His. He was 
 born that God might walk with men. To John He 
 went, that He might be publicly credentialed. <A visible 
 and audible Divine manifestation declared the Divine- 
 ness of His Person and His mission: ‘“‘ This is my 
 beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” Once and 
 for all He was ordained for His Redemptive task. Son 
 of man, Son of God. Here we have the secret of 
 Comradeship between God and man. | 
 
 After ordination what next? Comradeship—on a 
 new and higher basis, with human personalities. An- 
 drew, then Peter, then Philip, then Nathanael, then 
 John, James and others of the Twelve. The circle 
 widened. Comradeship with the Carpenter trans- 
 formed crude, unlettered fishermen, craftsmen, pub- 
 licans, centurions, merchants into educated, cultivated, 
 influential, earnest leaders, advocates and even martyrs. 
 It cast a sacred spell over their lives ennobling and 
 empowering. These apostles and disciples walked with 
 Him, talked with Him, worked with Him, prayed with 
 Him, until, through Comradeship, they became like 
 Him. What a privilege to have seen Him, to have 
 heard Him, to have shared with Him deprivations, 
 growingly to have comprehended the marvelousness of 
 His matchless life and the glory of His sacrificial love! 
 They saw His sympathy and His sorrow. They stood 
 astounded at His wisdom and His power. They saw 
 
22 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 
 
 Him raise the dead, heal the sick, cleanse lepers and 
 communicate Himself to pleading human hearts. They 
 beheld Him under persecution. Some of them saw His 
 arrest and later saw Him go to His Cross. The Com- 
 radeship, seemingly broken by death, was gloriously but 
 blessedly resumed, when He fulfilled His own prophecy 
 and came forth from the tomb. Comradeship then re- 
 created them. They became the witnesses who fanned 
 the spark of faith into a flame of devotion. They con- 
 stituted the first Church. They were the pillars in the 
 new Temple of God. 
 
 What is Comradeship with the Carpenter today? 
 The power of the Carpenter to grip and hold the hearts 
 of men has not lessened one iota with the passing cen- 
 turies. The same ennobling and exalting influence is 
 exerted on the lives of those who make a Comrade of 
 the Carpenter today, as when He walked with His dis- 
 ciples in Galilee and Judea. The Exalted Christ wants 
 Comrades. He said: “ Henceforth I call you not ser- 
 vants, but I have called you friends.” The highest of 
 all human privileges is the privilege of fellowship, 
 Comradeship with God through Comradeship with the 
 Carpenter. It is this close association and communion 
 that will dissolve all doubts regarding His Saviour- 
 hood. We talk about Him, but do we talk with Him 
 and to Him as we should. A visualized Christ is an 
 available Christ. Contact with Jesus today is as neces- 
 sary as when His visible touch communicated health to 
 the sick, sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf and life 
 to the dead, during His sojourn in Galilee and Judea, © 
 twenty centuries ago. 
 
COMRADESHIP WITH THE CARPENTER 23 
 
 This is the Comradeship Jesus promised when He 
 said: “Lo, I am with you alway.” Men become in- 
 credulous, hesitant, doubtful regarding the Incarna- 
 tion, the Resurrection, and that marvelous miracle, Re- 
 generation, when they cease to enjoy the Comrade- 
 ship of the Carpenter-Christ. 
 
 What wonder that people cease to find any thrilling 
 joy in Christian life and service when the Great Friend 
 and Comrade is no longer thought of as such, but 
 vaguely conceived of as in the distant Glory, inter- 
 ested perhaps, but in no definite way a participant in 
 the affairs of life here and now! The nearness of the 
 Master needs new emphasis right now. The slogan, 
 “Get right with God,” is good. Another equally im- 
 portant is “ Get close to God.” Immanuel—God with 
 us—this is a soul-stirring thought. This is the soul- 
 thrilling Evangel for this hour when so many are 
 losing the idea of fellowship with a Personal God. 
 Only Comradeship with the Carpenter will develop a 
 sense of the Divine Presence indispensable to soul 
 transformation and satisfaction. It is thus He will 
 take you into His confidence and disclose the secret of 
 a happy, progressive Christian life. 
 
 Who best understands a little child—the anatomist, 
 who will describe every part of the physical frame and 
 discourse upon the function of each member of the 
 body; the psychologist, who enters into the wonders of 
 mental action and reaction; the philosopher, who coolly 
 calculates the why and wherefore of human conduct; 
 or the mother, whose maternal understanding and sym- 
 pathy gives her an insight into the very mystery of life 
 
24 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 
 
 itself? Who best understands the Carpenter-Christ— 
 the presumptive self-sufficient materialist who recog- 
 nizes only what he can weigh and measure and who at 
 the outset denies the possibility of anything beyond the 
 visible and tangible, or he who has discovered the great 
 secret of wisdom through Comradeship with the Car- 
 penter of Nazareth, now exalted and enthroned, yet 
 nearer than the nearest friend of earth? 
 
 If you have doubts, tell the Comrade, and He will 
 dissolve them. If you have grief, tell Him, and He 
 will share it with you. Make the Carpenter your Com- 
 rade, and the whole Gospel story becomes intelligible, 
 believable and natural. ‘The Comrade in White ” was 
 no myth, no illusion, no delusion. He was on the bat- 
 tlefield. He is on every battlefield of life today. He is 
 the Friend, Counsellor, and Comforter of His Com- 
 rades. He will be Comrade to those who trust Him, 
 love Him and obey Him. 
 
 For them there is nothing He cannot and will not do. 
 
I] 
 
 CHANGING LIFE’S INCLINE FROM DOWN 
 LOU 
 
 THEN SPAKE THE CARPENTER: “ Follow me.” 
 —JoHN 1: 43. 
 
 WHEN you stop to think of it, it was marvelous. 
 The fulfilment of every human obligation; the secret 
 of all power, the realization of every high ideal—all 
 told in two words! Who dare utter a word like 
 that to earth’s millions? It was marvelous when 
 you stop to think of it; if you do not think, then 
 nothing is marvelous. Yesterday, shavings; today, sal- 
 vation. The carpenter shop at Nazareth one day and 
 the next, Divine ordination for world redemption! 
 One day fashioning yokes, the next calling to Himself 
 yoke-fellows. 
 
 The claim to world leadership is a stupendous claim. 
 The ordinary man who would proclaim it would be 
 passed by as a poor deluded lunatic. Not so the Naza- 
 rene. Credentialed, immediately He sought comrade- 
 ship. It was all sublime. The baptism, the descent of 
 the Spirit; the Voice—the Divine acclaim: “‘ Thou art 
 my beloved son, in thee I am well pleased.” The sub- 
 limity of it all is equaled only by its simplicity. We 
 confuse and complicate Christianity. The Carpenter 
 was definite, direct, brief, but comprehensive. He 
 
 25 
 
26 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 
 
 offered no new philosophy of life. He did not talk of 
 “ New thought.” He did not propose a new Constitu- 
 tion. He did not present a royal octavo volume of in- 
 structions and directions. He indicated that the whole 
 requirement consisted in following Himself. To the 
 query: ‘‘ What shall I do to find rest and peace,” He 
 answered: “ Follow me.” “ How can I break with the 
 things that destroy me?” “ Follow me.” “ How can 
 I secure the favor of the Eternal God?” “Follow 
 me.’ “‘ How can I bear burdens that are crushing me, 
 meet disappointments that discourage me, rise above 
 appetites that are consuming me?” “Follow me.” 
 “Ts there nothing beyond this?”’ ‘‘ Nothing.” “ Are 
 there not mystical features in Christianity which must 
 be understood before I can be received into full dis- 
 cipleship?”’ ‘None; follow me.” These two words 
 tell the whole story of the ascending life. Christward 
 movements are always upward, never downward. Fol- 
 lowing the Carpenter means giving to life an upward 
 direction. It changes life from down to up. That is 
 the deep meaning of the Christian life. Simple? Yes, 
 but tremendously exacting, after all. | 
 The inauguration of new world movements is not 
 only interesting but thrilling. The greatest movement 
 in human history was being inaugurated when Jesus of 
 Nazareth, having been baptized, turned to the men 
 nearest Him and said: “ Follow me.” It was Ezekiel’s 
 vision of the tiny stream flowing from beneath the altar 
 and starting on its course of world irrigation. “ And 
 everything shall live, whithersoever the river cometh.” 
 At last it shall be broad, deep, ‘‘ waters to swim in, a 
 
INCLINE FROM DOWN TO UP 27 
 
 river that could not be passed over.”’ “ Despise not the 
 day of small things.” As Christianity began, so it has 
 been continued. The Carpenter presented Himself as 
 the solution of all of this world’s spiritual problems, the 
 solvent of all of its ills, the victory in every battle. 
 
 “Do you want truth?” “Follow me.” “Do you 
 want power?” “Follow me.” “Do you want right- 
 eousness?”’ “ Follow me.” 
 
 The Carpenter proposed nothing less than world 
 revolution through Comradeship with Himself. How 
 audacious! But He did it. Can you think of anything 
 more difficult than to establish a new religion? The 
 great Positivist complained because people were so slow 
 to take up with the religion of humanity. A shrewd 
 observer said: “ Live a perfect life, work miracles, heal 
 the sick and raise the dead, then go and be crucified, 
 then rise from the dead; and you will not lack for fol- 
 lowers.” Here we find a hint of what ‘“ Follow me” 
 involved. It is no easy half-hearted drifting with the 
 tide, without purpose and without effort. When the 
 Carpenter said “Follow me,” it meant the “ Me” 
 whose coming had been heralded by poets and prophets 
 for a thousand years. The ‘“ Me” whose birth had 
 been announced to the Nazareth Virgin. The “ Me” 
 whose coming had been attended by angel choirs. The 
 “Me” whose life had been untouched by a single sin. 
 The “ Me” credentialed by God Almighty, at His bap- 
 tism, as “ God’s only begotten Son.” The ‘ Me” who 
 was later to speak as never man spake; live as never 
 man lived, die as never man died, come forth from the 
 tomb in complete mastery of death, ascend to the Glory 
 
28 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 
 
 which He had with the Father before the world was. 
 “Follow me” did not mean following one who was 
 born just as other men are born, unannounced and 
 through natural generation. It did not mean following 
 one whose life was limited and moulded by the con- 
 ditions of the age in which he lived. It did not mean 
 following one who was somewhat superior, yet entirely 
 one of the human family, no more Divine than others. 
 It meant following the Christ of the Gospels into a life 
 of self-effacement, self-surrender to the will of the 
 Eternal Father; following Him through cloud and 
 storm and trial, to and through Calvary. Not all this 
 was unfolded at the moment. The Divine Unveiling 
 takes time. It was a gradual revealing that finally made 
 the Comrades know the Christ. 
 
 Watch the steps of inauguration of Comradeship 
 with the Carpenter. We are standing on the water- 
 shed of revelation. It is a moment weighted with two 
 eternities, the one already past and the other just being 
 born. The wilderness had been ringing with the word 
 of the Baptist, “ Repent.” He had reached the cul- 
 mination of his splendid and illustrious career. His 
 star, long in the ascendant, was just about to pass into 
 eclipse, or rather be lost in the glory of the greater light 
 of the Sun of Righteousness. The water courses will 
 now run in two directions, one toward the ocean of 
 God’s love and the other moving toward the gleaming 
 sands of time, to be for the moment swallowed up. 
 
 Three days in succession the proclamation of the 
 Great Arrival had been made in the mystic words: 
 “ Behold the Lamb of God.” Out from the sea of 
 
INCLINE FROM DOWN TO UP 29 
 
 eternity, God had landed on the shores of time, and 
 was standing now among men, offering Himself as the 
 sum of all Beatitude and the source of all Salvation. 
 Right then and there began the movement that has 
 filled the world with a new song of hope and has given 
 to man the power that makes for victory. Right then 
 began the teaching, the doing, the living and the loving, 
 that was to awaken humanity from its death slumber, 
 and its evil deeds, and by vivifying, and vitalizing, 
 transform deserts to gardens of beauty. Here is one 
 who will “ baptize with the Holy Ghost and with fire.” 
 
 How much hinges on an ordinary introduction! God 
 Almighty was introducing Himself to the world, in the 
 person of His Son. Is it possible to evaluate the mean- 
 ing of those moments? What did it mean to untold 
 myriads of men and women who have heard the Divine 
 Voice and have followed? 
 
 The two disciples heard Him speak and followed 
 Jesus. Whom did they hear? ‘The voice of John the 
 Baptist: “ Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away 
 the sins of the world.” ‘This was exactly what the 
 world had waited for, for generations. How glorious 
 is a positive true testimony! It was this witness of 
 John, heard by the two disciples of John, that led them 
 to follow Jesus. Whom did they follow? A man? 
 Yes. A prophet? Yes. An affable genial personality? 
 Yes. The One who had baffled the doctors in the tem- 
 ple while yet He was but a child? Yes. But was that 
 all? By no means. No, they followed Him who was 
 the embodiment of what John testified when he said: 
 “Behold the Lamb of God.” They followed—the 
 
30 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 
 
 Lamb of God. ‘That is what it means to obey the 
 command of the Carpenter, “ Follow me.” 
 
 They followed a great doctrine, but a doctrine in- 
 carnate. ‘They followed a living creed. To follow 
 Jesus is vastly more than to follow a man, even though 
 he be a superman, from whose lips flowed wisdom as 
 sweet waters flow from a living fountain; whose words 
 were as honey in the honeycomb. “ This is the Son of 
 God,”’ was the testimony. They followed then “ the 
 Lamb of God,’ the Saviour; “the Son of God” who 
 had come to bring a lost world back to God. ‘That is 
 what it means to “ follow me.”’ That is the true dis- 
 cipleship, which has been for nearly two thousand years 
 winning a world and building a kingdom. You are not 
 following Jesus unless you are following the Jesus cre- 
 dentialed by God at the Jordan, the world’s Redeemer 
 and, by that token, the world’s Friend. 
 
 That is a marvelous example presented in John the 
 Baptist, who watched his followers leave him and at- 
 tach themselves to the Carpenter without a pang of 
 regret. ‘‘ He must increase but I must decrease.” He 
 was willing to be forgotten, if only “the true light that 
 lighteth every man that cometh into the world” should 
 be followed. 
 
 Jesus saw the two disciples, one of whom was 
 Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, following. Inquiry is 
 always answered, if it be sincere. “ Whom seek ye?” 
 Had He met them before? More than likely. What 
 He now wished to learn was their motive. There are 
 thousands of professed followers of Jesus who have 
 been prompted by the fact that it is respectable to be a 
 
INCLINE FROM DOWN TO UP 31 
 
 Christian. There are others who desire to be in good 
 company and find it advantageous to keep in touch with 
 Christian people. Motive is everything. Why did you 
 unite with the church? Thousands read the Bible who 
 never find God. Curiosity, a desire to become better 
 acquainted with the philosophy and the psychology of 
 Christianity, has brought many people to an outward 
 profession, who do not see in Jesus Christ “ the Lamb 
 of God.”’ In response to the question of the Carpenter, 
 we hear for the first time, as applied to Jesus, the word 
 Master. 
 
 How different from the arrogant self-sufficiency that 
 repudiates the need of any master, and vainly supposes 
 that every man carries in himself all he needs for both 
 goodness and greatness. 
 
 That one word is the line of demarcation between 
 the two great classes, each of which claims a right to 
 the name Christian. One class, recognizing the Car- 
 penter as the Son of God, utters in seriousness and 
 humility the word ‘“ Master” or “Teacher.” It is a 
 confession of need. It is a declaration of readiness to 
 learn of truth eternal from Him who alone can speak 
 with authority of things Divine. The.other class re- 
 sent the idea that Christ can lay claim to adoration and 
 implicit obedience. A great character? Yes. One to 
 be worshiped? No. The difference is great indeed. 
 Jesus knew the one way to impress upon those who 
 were purposing Comradeship with Him that He could 
 not accept them as Comrades on any other basis than 
 obedience, was to ask them, and call from them the 
 truth regarding, their motive in following. “ What 
 
32 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 
 
 seek ye?’’ Men find what they look for. Some men 
 find the beasts of the jungle in Africa, while others find 
 missions and missionary work which is concerned, not 
 with animals, but immortal souls. When you study the 
 Bible what seek ye? Literature? Well, you will find it 
 at its best. Ethics? ‘Then you will find the one and 
 only true ethic. Salvation? You will not be disap- 
 pointed. Something to criticize or texts you can quote 
 to support some fancied mistake of Moses? You will 
 find that, too. You find what you seek in men and 
 women about you. It is preeminently true that you 
 will find in the Carpenter just what you look for. He 
 is the Lamb of God. He is the Son of God, whatever 
 you may find or fail to find. If you approach the Car- 
 penter of Nazareth with the word Master, He will 
 reveal Himself to you as the Mightiest among the 
 Mighty and the Holiest among the Holy. 
 
 They asked: ‘“ Where dwellest thou?” The sug- 
 gestion is the hope of further association and fellow- 
 ship. ‘They wished the intimate connection with this 
 new-found teacher, leader, Saviour, which would 
 unfold the great realities of time and eternity. 
 “Come and see.” ‘The royal invitation to an abiding 
 comradeship! 
 
 Thus at the very outset Jesus made it clear that what 
 He wants is intimacy with His followers. ‘“ Come ”— 
 this was the glad word of Him who was the full mani- 
 festation and expression of God. How different from 
 the conception of God entertained by the mass of hu- 
 manity when Christ came! God was feared but not 
 loved. He was thought of as bent on the punishment 
 
INCLINE FROM DOWN TO UP 33 
 
 and destruction of the disobedient. The idea that He 
 would be willing to enter into a real comradeship with 
 man, was never entertained. With open arms the great 
 loving Father, through His Son, cried: ‘“ Come!” 
 They followed. They stayed with Him. For two 
 days such fellowship was enjoyed as earth had never 
 before witnessed. Here was the beginning of Com- 
 radeship with the Carpenter which constitutes real 
 Christian living. Andrew could not enjoy this fellow- 
 ‘ship alone. Contact with the Carpenter awakens im- 
 mediately the sharing spirit and the sharing habit. 
 Fellowship with Jesus crucifies pride and selfishness 
 and develops a keen interest in those who do not know 
 the blessedness of companionship with God. This 
 sharing spirit is a Christian product. Was there a 
 hospital in the world before Jesus came? Were there 
 any retreats, asylums, homes for the unfortunate? 
 None recorded. In the records of great famines do 
 you find such works of relief as the Red Cross of our 
 day? Benevolence and charity are the result of com- 
 radeship with the Carpenter. One cannot walk with 
 Him, talk with Him, pray to Him, without imbibing 
 His Spirit of world-wide love. 
 
 Andrew was not content to enjoy this new-found 
 life alone. He rushed off to his brother, with the ex- 
 ultant cry: “We have found the Messiah!” He did 
 not argue about it. You have never known a man to 
 be saved by argument. He did not enter into a long 
 dissertation. “ He brought him to Jesus.” If that had 
 not worked, then Peter would never have become a dis- 
 ciple. It is the one and only way of convincing men 
 
34 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 
 
 that the Messiah is here. ‘Take them to Him. First 
 know you have found Him, then, by a warm testimony 
 and loving interest, lead another and then another to 
 Jesus. ‘‘ Win one more.” 
 
 When Simon that day went with his brother and 
 found Christ, a luminous truth broke upon the world. 
 It is this, that when one enters into comradeship with 
 Christ he is in very reality a new person. He has a 
 new name. ‘There is no distinction of which one should 
 be prouder than the distinction of being a Christian. 
 Jesus said to Simon: “ Thou art Simon, Son of Jona. 
 Thou shalt be called Peter, a stone.” ) 
 
 _A name stands for a personality. A new name means 
 a new personality. Jesus gives us His own name. We 
 become Christ-ians. Henceforth ye shall be called 
 Christ-ian, He says to the new believer. | 
 
 Who could have dreamed, when the two disciples 
 heard Him speak and followed Him, inaugurating the 
 new movement called Christianity, that the Carpenter 
 would win Comrades until, as now, five hundred mil- 
 lions rejoice to say: “I am a Comrade of the 
 Carpenter.” 
 
 Then Jesus found Philip. Here is the practical ap- 
 plication of the seeking shepherd. Divine concern for 
 comradeship, that is the blessed thought. He is still 
 seeking for Comrades. In the shop, the store, the 
 counting room, the farm, everywhere. What an en- 
 couragement to discipleship, that God makes it His 
 concern whether or not we know and love Him. Philip » 
 found Nathanael. One by one, the additions to the 
 circle are made. Personal aggressiveness in winning 
 
INCLINE FROM DOWN TO UP 35 
 
 men to the Master is what we mean by evangelism. It 
 is tremendously effective. The need was never greater 
 than today. Find some one. The most interesting 
 activity in the world, is bringing men into fellowship 
 with Jesus Christ. It is wonderful what can be done 
 with the most unlikely subjects. The saveableness of 
 every man must be an article of faith, or we will neglect 
 our opportunities. Philip announced the greatest dis- 
 covery a human being ever makes. He said: “ Thou 
 art the Son of God. Thou are the King of Israel.” 
 The genius of man is wonderful. The courage of 
 great discoverers is beyond praise. But human inven- 
 tion and human discovery reach their climax in the 
 discovery of the Nazareth Carpenter as the Christ of 
 God, the Saviour of the world. Following Jesus is the 
 highest privilege, with the largest rewards, to be found 
 among men. Follow Him. Follow Him to life, to 
 light, to truth, to glory! Follow Him when the road is 
 rough and the day is dying and dangers are on every 
 hand. Follow Him in your struggle for the best. It 
 is following Jesus that changes the incline of life from 
 down to up. 
 
 This is the great business of Christianity, to change 
 the course of life and give it an upward swing. How- 
 ever slight at the first, the upward incline will land him 
 who follows it at the throne, where a closer companion- 
 ship than earth affords will be the experience of every 
 Comrade of the Carpenter. The one great thing pro- 
 claimed at the very outset, when Christianity was just 
 beginning, was comradeship with God through the 
 Carpenter of Nazareth. In a new and wonderful way, 
 
36 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 
 
 man was being linked to God. It is the highway to the 
 Highest. 
 
 Follow Him, and you will think Divinely. Man 
 reaches his best in mentality when he “has the mind 
 of Christ.” Follow Him, and nobility of feeling, with 
 all of its exhilarations and noble enthusiasms, will fol- 
 low. Follow Him, and your will power will become 
 masterful. Follow Him in working, and service will 
 be sanctified and commonplace work become a holy 
 thing. Follow Him, in His solicitude for the happi- 
 ness and exaltation of mankind, and your life will be- 
 come a resistless appeal, winning a world to God and 
 ’ truth and duty and nobility and peace. 
 
 Amid the babel of voices today His voice is ringing 
 clear, “‘ Follow me.” 
 
Ill 
 
 WATER, WINE AND A WEDDING 
 
 THEN SPAKE THE CARPENTER: “ Fill the water-pots with 
 water, ... Bear to the governor of the feast.’-—JouN 2: 7-8. 
 
 THE most significant events of life are sanctified by 
 Divine recognition. ‘There was a wedding in Cana 
 of Galilee.” A Wedding—the event superlative. A 
 culmination, a consummation, an inauguration. Woo- 
 ing, winning, waiting, willing, then—a wedding! 
 What an event! The sum total of personality, mind, 
 heart, spirit—all in action. The divinest of emotions, 
 the sublimest purposing! Covenant, in its most holy 
 expression—all ordained of High Heaven! Eden! 
 “And the Lord brought unto the man the woman 
 which he had made.” “ And they twain shall be one.” 
 Blossoms, bells, blessings! A wedding! What word 
 of our language is more weighted with meaning than 
 the word home? The wedding is laying the corner- 
 stone of a great institution, a home. Corner-stones are 
 laid amid great ceremonial. But what institution can 
 compare with the home in its possibilities of weal or 
 woe? Every wedding means abounding joy, with an 
 inevitable sorrow when one or the other is called to the 
 Home eternal. Lights and shadows all along the way. 
 Trial and triumph, joys and jolts, and all vastly more 
 significant because two, and not one, experience the 
 successive events of life. 
 
 37 
 
38 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 
 
 The Carpenter and His Comrades at a wedding! 
 The social relationships of life are matters of concern 
 to Jesus Christ. Christianity is tremendously interested 
 in home-making and home-makers. What the home is, 
 that will the nation be. The home is the sacred center 
 of those emotions and principles that make organized 
 society progressive or retrogressive. A wedding 
 should always have the seal of religion. 
 
 Why Cana? Jesus was not born in a metropolis. 
 He was not raised in a conspicuous center of political 
 and social influence. Bethlehem His birthplace, and 
 Nazareth His home. It was to say, He proposed to 
 ’ enter the simplicities and commonplaces of life and 
 exalt them. Indeed, there is nothing commonplace to 
 the Carpenter, if it has to do with human happiness and 
 personal ennoblement. So He came to Cana. No mat- 
 ter how small the hamlet in which your life is spent, or 
 how humble the cottage where you abide, your Com- 
 radeship with the Carpenter may be as sweet and life- 
 giving as though you dwelt in a palace at the very 
 center of world influence. Many a cottage in a se- 
 questered valley, far away from the marts of trade, has 
 been the place selected of God for the fullest manifes- 
 tation of His love, and the place where He could de- 
 velop His leaders for splendid Kingdom movements. 
 How often Sir Walter Scott yearned for the simplici- 
 ties and blessedness of the little cottage where he began | 
 his wonderful career, after he had moved into the pal- 
 ace at Abbottsford! The Carpenter has the faculty of ' 
 sanctifying all with which He deals and of lifting to 
 high levels all He touches. It is not where you are born 
 
WATER, WINE AND A WEDDING 39 
 
 or where you live that signifies, but what is in you of 
 God and goodness, and what you do with the powers of 
 mind and heart with which you are endowed. 
 
 “The Mother of Jesus was there.” An occasion is 
 made eventful by the personalities represented. What 
 a touch of beauty is given to the story in revealing the 
 fact that Mary was present. How she must have 
 graced any and every occasion where she was an hon- 
 ored guest. What an atmosphere she would create! 
 We do not worship the Virgin Mary, but it is a ques- 
 tion whether or not we sufficiently venerate the Mother 
 of our Lord. Were we to think more of her pure 
 beautiful consecration to the holy task of motherhood, 
 would not chivalry be more common? Womanhood 
 might be treated with greater consideration, and a 
 kindly courtesy more practiced, were we to dwell on 
 the fact that God Almighty chose a woman to be the 
 agency of His coming to earth as the world’s Saviour. 
 
 There is a pitiful lack of gallantry today. The grace 
 and beauty of womanhood as such is forgotten, with 
 the result that the finer qualities of manhood have scant 
 expression. Man should be chivalric, kindly, sympa- 
 thetic, considerate of woman, because he owes life itself 
 to her, and also because he owes it to woman that God 
 was manifest in the flesh, uniting humanity and Divin- 
 ity in one sacred personality. The event at Cana has an 
 added beauty because “The Mother of Jesus was 
 there.” Have you ever noted that a large number of 
 the events and incidents narrated in the Gospels are 
 anonymous? ‘The wedding at Cana is anonymously 
 reported. Thus it may represent any and every wed- 
 
40 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 
 
 ding in the world. Just as we dedicate a monument to 
 “The Unknown Soldier,” so the wedding at Cana 
 represents any and every marriage feast and any and 
 every marriage altar, among all races and peoples. 
 Then came the Carpenter. Invited? Of course. 
 He and His comrades are honored guests. ‘Their ar- 
 rival is at a moment of embarrassment. Happy the 
 bride and groom fully conscious that Jesus has honored 
 the occasion by His approving presence. It will make 
 every difference with the feast and what follows. It is 
 doubtful if any marriage is a worthy marriage unless 
 the Carpenter has come to hallow the ceremony. No 
 ' sooner has Jesus arrived than an embarrassing situation 
 develops. The wine has given out! It is quite possible 
 to lose the wondrous beauty and mighty meaning of 
 this event in the life of Jesus by discussing the nature 
 of the wine at this wedding. How easy to lose the 
 soul-thrilling music of an Oratorio by centering thought 
 upon some one instrument in the accompanying orches- 
 tra, discussing what it is, by whom made, and just who 
 is playing it. You can lose entirely the splendors of a 
 wonderful landscape by occupying the mind in a con- 
 templation of the glass through which you are looking. 
 Wine was universally used, and Jesus conformed to 
 custom, unless there was some sufficient reason for 
 breaking with it. The wine failed. It represents the 
 emergencies of life in which we are inadequate to meet 
 conditions. Such experiences are sure. No matter 
 how carefully you have anticipated your needs, the 
 hour comes in every life when demand is greater than 
 natural supply. Some great and unexpected emergency 
 
WATER, WINE AND A WEDDING 41 
 
 reveals our weakness, our insufficiency. There will be 
 a time in life when the natural ardor of youth is not 
 enough. The wine of natural ability will have been 
 turned out, and there will be nothing to take its place, 
 unless you have been careful to have the Comradeship 
 of the Carpenter. It is a sad thing to come right up 
 against the impossible, with no Christ upon whom you 
 have been accustomed to call. Praying will seem 
 strange to you, because you have not learned the lan- 
 guage of prayer nor the way whereby assistance can 
 be secured. He is wise who carries his letter of credit 
 with him, so that his petition will be honored and his 
 wants supplied. 
 
 Instinctively in life’s emergencies men turn to God. 
 At Cana how came it that the eyes were turned to 
 Jesus? There was an attitude of confidence and 
 expectation. “ Whatsoever he saith unto you, do 
 it.’ The words of His mother. She knew. She 
 understood. | 
 
 To whom shall we turn in the moments of great 
 stress, disappointment and embarrassment, if not to 
 Him who has met every emergency of life for every 
 child of humanity since He walked among men? To 
 whom shall we look for direction if not to the great 
 Comrade? He will always be the one whose word is 
 finally authoritative. The appeal to Christ is always 
 successful and abundantly rewarded. Mary did not 
 say: “ Use your best judgment as to what is best to do. 
 Your own past experiences must be your authority. 
 You have in yourself all that is necessary to meet the 
 present need.’’ She knew better. It was not a ques- 
 
42 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 
 
 tion of natural resource but of Divine resource. 
 ‘“‘ Whatsoever he saith unto thee, do that.” It is the 
 safe course today, just as it was at the Cana wedding. 
 
 The direction is unmistakably plain. “Fill the 
 water-pots with water.’ Nothing could seem more 
 unlikely to meet the need of the moment. It is a ques- 
 tion of implicit faith and hearty obedience. Precisely 
 so it is with respect to religious duty. The underlying 
 reasons are not always apparent. Subordinate features 
 are not fully understood. There is much that is mys- 
 terious. What matters it, if the great main duty is 
 made clear? ‘There was nothing unreasonable about 
 the requirement. But there was nothing about it that 
 gave immediate assurance of success, beyond the fact 
 that it was Jesus who made the demand. The lesson is 
 that of implicit obedience and of great expectation. 
 What is rarer than obedience that does not quibble 
 over details and hesitate until the opportunity has 
 passed? ‘The striking thing in the little story, “ Taking 
 a Message to Garcia,” is that the messenger accepted 
 the commission without a single question, because he 
 trusted the wisdom of his chief. He went. He went 
 immediately. He went cheerfully. He delivered the 
 message, and his mission was a success. Ordinarily 
 request or command meets with: “ Why?” Our 
 obedience is not an irrational one. The Carpenter re- 
 quests nothing of His Comrades that is against reason. 
 He does not, however, give all His reasons. He wants 
 to be trusted. 
 
 “They filled the water-pots to the brim.” Large ex- 
 pectation! They wanted the largest and the best, and 
 
WATER, WINE AND A WEDDING 43 
 
 so asked for it. It is no mark of either faith or wisdom 
 to ask meagerly. When you ask favors of royalty you 
 expect them to be on a royal scale. 
 
 “ Thou art coming to a King— 
 Large petitions with thee bring.” 
 
 Expect the biggest, the greatest, the best, in your pray- 
 ers. That is an utterly false idea of prayer which 
 excludes belief in definite action on God’s part to 
 meet a human need. That is indeed the very essence 
 of the meaning of prayer. Of course, there is sub- 
 jective advantage, aside from the gift desired. Com- 
 rades of the Carpenter get into closer touch with Him 
 through petition. But they get much more than an 
 exalted feeling and a sense of nearness to Him. They 
 get what they need to meet any emergency of life. At 
 Cana when the wine failed what they wanted was not 
 a little better feeling and little closer Comradeship. 
 They wanted wine—and they got it. Hold to the 
 thought that the Carpenter today has within Himself 
 everything needed by His Comrades. Jesus was not 
 going about Galilee making wine for people promis- 
 cuously. Here was an opportunity to show once and 
 for all that God has an interest in the social relation- 
 ships of life. Here was a chance to make a definite 
 demonstration of what prayer will do for humanity. 
 He took advantage of it and taught the lesson. 
 
 The munificence of God is emphasized. He gives 
 abundantly above all that we ask or think. Jesus at 
 the wedding exceeded all expectations and went a long 
 way beyond the absolute need. 
 
44 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 
 
 Comrades of the Carpenter never despise the use of 
 means. Jesus utilized the water to accomplish His 
 work. That is an idle prayer which ignores all means 
 for healing and for meeting the needs of life. Every 
 means available should be employed. Up to a certain 
 point we must answer our own prayers. If the water- 
 jars had not been filled with water, there would have - 
 been no wine. Do your part, or stop praying. 
 
 How definitely we are taught that only the outpoured 
 life. can expect to enjoy the inflow of Divine power and 
 love! ‘‘ Bear to the governor of the feast.” Until they 
 did, the power was not working. It is useless to expect 
 anything of Jesus Christ today if we are simply to 
 make what we receive a felicity and not a force. We 
 receive just what we are willing to use to His glory. 
 Life may always increase in worth and in loveliness. 
 “Thou hast kept the good wine until now.” Cheering 
 thought. With the advancing years there may be a 
 growing value and worthfulness to personality. All 
 depends on the immediateness of our contact with Jesus 
 Christ. Only the Comrades of the Carpenter can ex- 
 perience this glad satisfaction of constant betterment. 
 The wine of life should have a better flavor as time 
 passes, and our gifts enrich humanity more and more. 
 Why should life grow stale and wearisome? It need 
 not. Perpetual youth, together with the added virility 
 which experience will bring, will reserve the best wine 
 to the last. 
 
 The Carpenter is still working this old-time miracle. 
 He is effecting transformations in the lives of His 
 Comrades. He is improving both the quality and the 
 
WATER, WINE AND A WEDDING 45 
 
 quantity of life. He pours His own vital forces into a 
 soul and, lo, the mind acts more vigorously and with 
 greater accuracy. Intellectually the wine improves with 
 years of fellowship with Him. He transforms ordi- 
 nary moralities into deep and lasting spiritualities. 
 Mind, soul and body, all find their best through the 
 inflow of the life of Christ today. 
 
 “This beginning of miracles Jesus did, and mani- 
 fested his glory.” Then the purpose of the miracle 
 was not to satisfy curiosity and not primarily to meet a 
 physical need. It had a high objective. It was to 
 authenticate what Jesus was saying and doing, and 
 would later do. The balance must be kept between the 
 humanity and the divinity of Jesus at that early and 
 initial stage of His ministry. His comrades must be 
 intellectually and spiritually stabilized. This miracle 
 did it for them, and opened the way for the greater 
 works Jesus was about to perform. 
 
 He manifested His glory. First, He then and there 
 declared Himself in full authority over the world He 
 had created. “ Without him was not anything made 
 that was made.” It is quite the vogue today in some 
 quarters to dismiss Jesus Christ as a working force in 
 His world. No mistake could be greater. It is easy to 
 forget, when we are dealing with material things, that 
 God is the God of nature and the Master of His Uni- 
 verse and all of its forces. Jesus Christ as the agent 
 of creation, by whose own energy the worlds were 
 made, has not lessened in His creative power, but sus- 
 tains the material world by the very energy that created 
 it. What is a miracle? It seems strange indeed that 
 
46 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 
 
 the world has stumbled over this matter of the super- 
 natural at it has. We need more and more to recog- 
 nize the fact that God indwells everything. Imma- 
 nency is the term we employ to indicate the hereness 
 and nowness of God. He has never left nature to work 
 out its own destiny. He stays with His world. The 
 whole universe is kept and unfolded by the very power 
 that brought it into being. It is a miracle when it is a 
 manifestation of God, with the evident purpose of 
 authenticating a message, credentialing a person, or ac- 
 complishing some benefit and conferring some blessing 
 that could not be given in the ordinary way. If the 
 will of God is in nature, as well as His energy, then 
 what more natural than that His will and His energy 
 will be exhibited in an extraordinary manner to meet 
 any need which could not otherwise be met? 
 
 Nature is plastic in the hands of Christ. It is obedi- 
 ent. When religion comes upon the scene of human 
 inquiry and human activity, it accomplishes what 
 science is not qualified to accomplish and does not pre- 
 tend to do. Miracle is the emergence of the energy of 
 God not ordinarily manifest, because not ordinarily 
 necessary. It is the emergence of what all along had 
 existed but had not needed expression. ‘The divine 
 energy was already in the water before Jesus turned it 
 into wine, but the occasion brought forth the result. 
 The energy of God which blossoms into miracle when 
 His glory and the good of mankind demands it is all | 
 the time in nature. In miracle it comes to light. It is 
 a creative energy just as really as the power expressed 
 when the world was brought into being. If you deny 
 
WATER, WINE AND A WEDDING Ay 
 
 the first creation, then of course you will doubt mir- 
 acle. Once accept the fact, which is a fact, that nature 
 and natural law are names for the usual expressions of 
 Divine power, and miracles will not trouble you. 
 
 There is a great social need today. Homes are rent 
 asunder by the exhaustion of the supply of the wine of 
 loyalty. The sacred covenant of marriage must be re- 
 stored to its God-given place. Jesus Christ in the home 
 is the solution of our social ills.) He and He alone can 
 soften the aspersions, increase the mutual loyalties, 
 beautify domestic relations, and give home its rightful 
 place as a civilizing and Christianizing force. The 
 comradeship of husband and wife furnishes the proper 
 basis for comradeship between parents and children. 
 Comradeship with the Carpenter is the one indispens- 
 able need, to make home what the word signifies, a 
 habitation where every spiritual beauty flourishes and 
 every natural impulse is itself spiritualized. 
 
 The sanctions of religion are tremendously impor- 
 tant at the marriage altar. The Miracle-working Com- 
 rade is a witness to every covenant, and when He is 
 made a Comrade in daily life, infelicities are forgotten 
 in the blessedness of cooperation and mutual beatitude. 
 
 It is easy to hang the legend, “God Bless Our 
 Home,” on the wall; it is quite another thing to de- 
 termine yourself to become a beatitude to every mem- 
 ber of your own household. Homes will never be 
 more than mere habitations until the covenant of mar- 
 riage is stamped with the signet ring of God Almighty 
 through His Son, the Carpenter-Christ. 
 
IV 
 
 THE BATTLE FOR BREAD 
 
 THEN SPAKE THE CARPENTER: “My Father worketh 
 hitherto, and I work.’—Joun 5:17. 
 
 Work—the dynamic word of the English language! 
 Speak it, and you hear the music of a million anvils. 
 Write it, and pictures portraying the progress of all 
 lands and all ages appear before your vision. Sing it, 
 and all the harmonies of music and all the beauties of 
 art furnish a Divine melody. It is a compelling word. 
 It is explosive, revealing inner potencies immeasurably 
 great. In it is locked up the story of world progress 
 since time began to be. It holds in its grasp the pres- 
 ent and the future. Go to the Avenue of Sphinxes in 
 Egypt, and look about you. An ancient and forgotten 
 civilization performed prodigies of labor, building 
 splendid cities, edifices that would honor any modern 
 metropolis. A forest of stone constituting the magnifi- 
 cent temples that stood on the banks of the Nile repre- 
 sented the limitless achievements of work. ‘Toiling 
 millions constructed the pyramids. Massive masonry, 
 which would be handled with difficulty even with all 
 the skill of engineering so well applied today, speaks of 
 herculean effort in bygone days. 
 
 The prone pillars which mark the ruins of Ephesus, 
 
 48 
 
THE BATTLE FOR BREAD 49 
 
 though mute, yet eloquently testify to the possibilities 
 of work. The fluted columns, with beautifully chiseled 
 capitals, still remaining on the Acropolis at Athens, 
 give us the secret of the preeminence of Greece in that 
 faraway day when Socrates taught ethics on a higher 
 plane of spiritual beauty than any man of his day, when 
 Plato discoursed on philosophy and furnished a basis 
 for the learned of the earth who were to follow him. 
 Physical, intellectual and moral work. That is the 
 secret. 
 
 From Phidias to Canova and then to Rodin the story 
 is always the same; not genius alone but indefatigable 
 toil, has produced the magnificent sculptures that adorn 
 our palaces of art. Visit the great Art Galleries of the 
 world, and, while acknowledging genius, we have to 
 recognize that every great canvas and every beautiful 
 piece of sculpture represents more of work than genius. 
 In every civilized nation splendid public libraries offer 
 the best thoughts of the best thinkers of all the ages. 
 Miles and miles of shelves hold the treasures of truth 
 that from time to time have been disclosed by men of 
 intellectual power. Here again the one commanding 
 thought is work. How little can we measure the un- 
 remitting toil that has produced the books representing 
 the wisdom and knowledge of the ages! 
 
 The British Museum represents man’s masterfulness 
 in a thousand directions, but it speaks loudly of labor- 
 ious days and nights in which multitudes have given 
 their best to humanity. The dominant note heard as 
 you walk through the magnificent collections of art, 
 and also the wonders of invention, mechanical devices 
 
50 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 
 
 of ten thousand kinds, is represented by that one short 
 significant word, work. 
 
 Ocean highways now connect nation with nation, 
 making the whole world one. The word transporta- 
 tion has in it a world of meaning. It is the key to the 
 larger civilization. You think at once of the massive 
 and splendid palaces of the sea which connect shore 
 with shore and bring distant peoples into neighborly 
 relations with each other. You see a continent threaded 
 with steel and woven together with paved highways. 
 You think of numberless engines, representing the 
 highest skill of mechanical engineers, trailing behind 
 them tens of thousands of cars weighted with agricul- 
 tural products and every kind of merchandise. All is 
 told in a single word, work. 
 
 The feeding of fifteen hundred millions of people 
 daily is a contract none but God Almightyy could un- 
 dertake. That is what He has pledged Himself to pro- 
 vide for. ‘The earth is indeed the mother of us all. It 
 is Divinely provided that earth always can and always 
 does furnish a sufficiency to satisfy the physical needs 
 of all the inhabitants of this planet. Dearth with 
 famine in one locality, is never so great that there is 
 not still an abundance if it were properly distributed. 
 The bow in the cloud, that became the signet ring of 
 the Almighty after the flood, has never pledged in vain. 
 But to make the wealth of earth available in feeding 
 and housing the inhabitants of the five continents, just 
 one thing is necessary—work. ‘Toilers on land and sea 
 are engaged in the stupendous task of making the avail- 
 able, the availing. What is the motive in all this pro- 
 
THE BATTLE FOR BREAD 51 
 
 digious toil? Not work for work’s sake, poetical as 
 that sounds, and possible as it might be in a perfected 
 world of perfected characters. ‘‘ Art for art’s sake,” 
 is a slogan that carries with it much of sentiment and 
 still more idealism. No, the hard fact is that, whether 
 in producing bread or making tools or constructing 
 machines or building highways, or even disimprisoning 
 angels from marble, or objectifying ideals on canvas, 
 the commanding and controlling thing has been bread. 
 Earth’s millions have always been engaged in the battle 
 for bread. It is this that sends the carpenter to his 
 bench, the machinist to his lathe, the architect to his 
 draughting, the merchant to his store, the manufacturer 
 to his factory, the student to his desk, and so on 
 through the long list of activities and occupations. 
 Artist and artisan have as a rule faced the stern neces- 
 sity of making a living, however much they may have 
 endeavored at the same time to make a life. However 
 unselfishly and however ideally men have fulfilled duty 
 and faced their tasks, the fact remains that, for the 
 multitudes, keeping soul and body together, with what 
 additional comforts and luxuries may be enjoyed, ex- 
 plains the world’s work. 
 
 A workless life is a worthless life. The struggle for 
 existence has been necessary, to overcome the lure of 
 luxury. Everything that moves inclines to stop mov- 
 ing. The ball you throw into the air stops when the 
 
 initial force is spent. Only a mighty incentive couldw” 
 
 keep humanity working. But when men cease to work 
 they begin to die. We are so constituted that only 
 work will prevent deterioration and finally death. The 
 
52 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 
 
 unworked limb hangs helpless at the side. Idleness and 
 parisitism are unforgivable crimes. Hence it is or- 
 dained—work or starve. The battle for bread is in- 
 sistent. It is fierce. It is a war that knows no 
 discharge. Burdens are heavy. Blistered feet on burn- 
 ing highways; calloused hands hardened by toil; bowed 
 forms and aching heads—these are the hard facts of 
 life. For centuries this toil was carried on with no eye 
 to pity and no voice to express sympathy, from any 
 visible Being above man. ‘Tears mingled with the tears 
 of friends and neighbors and kinsmen. The poor were 
 always exploited. The multitudes were made the sport 
 of the winds of circumstance; bodies were broken on 
 the wheel of servitude; work was a calamity that had 
 to be endured. God was not known. 
 
 Then came the Carpenter! Compassion, instead of 
 cold synicism and cruelty; sympathy, instead of sordid 
 selfishness; helpfulness, instead of heartlessness. In 
 the battle for bread nothing cheers, encourages, helps, 
 like knowing God cares. This is precisely what the 
 Carpenter proceeded to teach. When throngs of people 
 followed Him and His comrades, it is recorded: “‘ And 
 seeing the multitude he had compassion on them,” It 
 was a hungry multitude of workers whom Jesus saw 
 and on whom He had compassion. ‘There are few 
 things Jesus ever said that more endear Him to the 
 toilers of earth than His word of compassion and His 
 open and proud claim to be a workman Himself: “I 
 work.” “I have compassion on the multitude.” In 
 these words the Carpenter set the Divine seal on 
 honest toil. 
 
THE BATTLE FOR BREAD 53 
 
 The faculties and forces of man, physical, mental and 
 spiritual, can never be safely neglected. Moreover, one 
 form of toil is as good as another, and as worthy of 
 recognition as another, provided the purpose be right. 
 The man with the hoe is not the only worker. The 
 mechanic:cannot have all the glory of being a work- 
 man. Jesus was a Carpenter. That very fact endears 
 Him to earth’s toilers. Yes, but Jesus never worked as 
 hard in the carpenter shop, as He worked by the shores 
 of blue Galilee or among the Judean hills, proclaiming 
 and illustrating the love of God. It took vastly more 
 energy to heal the sick, allay fevers and raise the dead, 
 than to wield the axe, shove the plane or the saw. 
 
 And the Carpenter said: “ Come unto me, all ye that 
 labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” 
 His promise is to the honest toiler, seeking to fulfil a 
 mission in the world. No immunity from hard, weary- 
 ing labor is promised Christians. When the Carpenter 
 called His Comrades He said: “ Follow me, and I will 
 make you fishers of men.’’ They were still to be work- 
 men. He exhorted His followers: “ Work while it is 
 called today, for the night cometh in which no man can 
 work,” Diligence is an article of faith, with the true 
 Comrade of the Carpenter. The “ rest’? He promised 
 the weary, was the rest that comes from re-enforcement. 
 What He promised was a sympathy and an imparted 
 power which would lessen the burdensomeness of toil. 
 He particularly warned them not to expect loaves and 
 fishes to be multiplied in their interest, when they were 
 able to provide for themselves. 
 
 A manna-fed people soon became a restless people. 
 
54 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 
 
 Joshua could never have taken the land of Canaan with 
 a manna-fed army. ‘Today the Church can do nothing 
 with idlers and camp followers. God puts no premium 
 on leisure. The very thing most of us covet would 
 prove our undoing. The percentage of the scions of 
 wealth who achieve great things in the world is small 
 indeed. It is from the farm, the forge, the workshop 
 and the marts of trade, where men are at work, God 
 finds His leaders in important epochs. ‘The building 
 eras in the world’s history have been eras when work 
 has been recognized as the primary requisite to power 
 and honor. 
 
 Christianity can never discharge its duty without 
 manifesting a deep interest in the world’s workers. 
 Until we are able to ethicalize industry we shall not 
 
 have fulfilled our mission. The battle for bread is 
 
 needlessly severe, because industry has not been ethical- 
 ized. Competitions are fierce. Labor is not adequately 
 rewarded, except in certain trades. "The multitudes 
 have never had their full share. 
 
 But do not forget what has been achieved since Jesus 
 came. Then slavery was the rule and not the exception. 
 Labor was frowned upon. The workman was little 
 better than an animal of drudgery. Conditions have 
 vastly improved. It has remained for the Comrades of 
 the Carpenter to teach and preach and urge the applica- 
 tion of the Golden Rule, the very best rule the mechanic 
 ever carries. The Golden Rule in industry will never 
 be effected by legislative enactments. Laws can assist 
 in alleviating barbarous conditions, but they can never 
 bring about that good will without which work will still 
 
THE BATTLE FOR BREAD 55 
 
 be done at great sacrifice of peace and comfort. With 
 proper economic conditions, there would be no unem- 
 ployment problem. The Church cannot be silent in the 
 face of unrequited toil. A living wage must be a con- 
 cern of the Church of God. Too readily we excuse 
 ourselves from the unpopular task of protesting against 
 inequalities and cruelties. If the Comrades of the 
 Carpenter do not take a hand in bringing about better 
 conditions and better rewards for the toilers, then no 
 one will do it, and the compassion of the Carpenter 
 will find no practical expression. 
 
 We often hear that the working classes are not in- 
 terested in the Church. Two things may be said: first, 
 that it is not true, since workmen are the mainstay of 
 the Church today. The Church would speedily go 
 down if she had to depend on those who sneer at labor 
 for her support. The Church is on the whole a work- 
 man’s church. By this term, of course, we include 
 women as well as men. The second thing to be said is 
 that if workmen are not interested in the Church, it is 
 an evidence of inexcusable stupidity, because the 
 Church is now and has always been the best and the 
 only true friend the workman has had. The compas- 
 sion of Jesus has found expression, all through the 
 years, in His followers. No one appreciates the hon- 
 orableness of toil as the comrades of Him who said: 
 “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.” 
 
 Comradeship without sympathy is impossible. It is 
 just because the Incarnate Son of God experienced the 
 trials of the shop that today He can become the shop- 
 mate of men who are doing the work of the world. 
 
56 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 
 
 If Jesus had not toiled, He would never have been 
 understood. A “ fellow-feeling”’ is created where 
 another endures what we endure, suffers what we suf- 
 fer, wearies as we weary, weeps as we weep. All these 
 experiences Jesus passed through. ‘That is why we 
 know He is “ touched with the feelings of our infirmi- 
 ties.’ He understands, when you return to your home 
 at night wearied with the day’s toil and sometimes ask 
 yourself: ‘‘ Does it pay?’ He understands, when the 
 body is bent and the hopelessness of it all looms up so 
 large that enthusiasm dies. He worked. He, too, was 
 weary. It is: “ Come—I will give you rest,” that has 
 encouraged unnumbered multitudes to renew the battle - 
 for bread, day by day, and falter not in the fulfillment 
 of duty. It wonderfully lessens the arduousness of 
 toil to know that Divine sympathy will express itself in 
 empowering and re-creating of body and mind. 
 
 Work must be honored as it has never been. More 
 and more toil must be applauded, crowned. Save your 
 contempt for the man who looks down on work and the 
 worker. He it is who adds to the weight on the shoul- 
 ders of labor. A larger fellow-feeling for all who are 
 handicapped, and yet who continue in the race, should 
 be ours. 
 
 There should be no stratification of mankind; but if 
 there is stratification, let it be remembered that the 
 honest laborer doing the day’s work without a grouch | 
 is at the very top. The approval of the Carpenter was 
 for the one who builds, the man or woman who is 
 adding something to the wealth of the world by toil. 
 The unrecognized and the undistinguished toilers are 
 
THE BATTLE FOR BREAD 57 
 
 pulling the world’s chariot of progress forward. Greet 
 them with a cheer! Day’s work, alone, determines the 
 wealth of nations and the growth of individuals. 
 Loaves are not for loafers. The laborer in any and 
 every field of labor is worthy of his hire. Equal pay 
 for the same service, is the Gospel rule. A square deal 
 for every human being must be the goal toward which 
 the Church presses her claims in behalf of all. A free 
 field and a fair chance, that every man may claim. To 
 this end, we must Christianize governments. To this 
 end, we must humanize and Christianize industry. 
 There is no “well done” for drones and drifters. 
 Idleness makes life futile, fruitless and flabby. The 
 Carpenter would make comrades of all who accept Him 
 and who purposefully invest their energies in the in- 
 terests of a better world. 
 
V 
 
 IN THE FIELDS AND AMONG THE, LILIES 
 WITH THE CARPENTER 
 
 THEN SPAKE THE CARPENTER: “Consider the lilies of 
 the field, how they grow.’—MartrHEw 6: 28. 
 
 THE Carpenter was no obscurantist. He spake in 
 parables. His parables were capable of diverse inter- 
 pretations. They concealed the truth from him who | 
 purposed to use it for the Master’s destruction. They 
 revealed the truth to him who desired to avail himself 
 of its blessings.* 
 
 The parable is an amplified proverb. It is illustrative 
 and presents difficult truths in a pictorial language, easy 
 of comprehension. Everything in the Book of Reve- 
 lation indicates the desire of God Almighty to make 
 Himself understood. He wants to be personally 
 known. From His first communication until the pres- 
 ent hour, every method of which the human mind can 
 conceive has been employed by the great Father to 
 make His children know Him. Poetry, prophecy, 
 theophany, symbol, parable, all have been employed to 
 make the will of God known to man, and the very 
 being of God sufficiently understood by man, to insure 
 a real companionship. 
 
 Among the first acts of the Carpenter were mani- 
 festations of a kindly and sympathetic interest with 
 
 58 
 
IN THE FIELDS WITH THE CARPENTER 59 
 
 humanity in its sorrow and suffering. At the very 
 outset, He proclaimed the goodness of God. The diff- 
 culties of making Himself known to His comrades 
 were tremendous. He must employ a language which 
 they could well understand. The teaching of the Car- 
 penter is singularly free from technical terms and what 
 might be styled “ theological language.” There is a 
 very beautiful directness about all the utterances of 
 Christ. It was not merely the fact that His Comrades 
 _of that hour were unlearned, but that those who were 
 to become His Comrades through all the coming centu- 
 ries would need the same simplicity and directness in 
 teaching which He then employed. He made it very 
 apparent that truth could be revealed only to those 
 who are ardently and sincerely seeking it. He also 
 made it clear that in His parables and metaphors and 
 symbols, the very passion of His Soul was to reveal 
 God, and not to conceal Him. Any temporary obscur- 
 ation resulting from the method of the Carpenter was 
 only with the purpose of a later and a larger illumina- 
 tion. He said: ‘‘ There is nothing hid which shall not 
 be made manifest.’ He boldly and unhesitatingly pro- 
 claimed Himself as the supreme light of the world. 
 What He said and what He did were only expressions 
 of what He was. What He was, was ‘‘ God manifest 
 in the flesh.” ‘There is much that is mystical and to 
 the natural mind obscure in the Bible, but everything 
 that is essential to the complete unfolding and ultimate 
 perfection of character, is understandable by the aver- 
 age mind. This wonderful Teacher called attention to 
 the fact that a definite intellectual concentration is the 
 
60 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 
 
 ad 
 one thing that can ever make revelation real to him 
 who reads it. Hence He says: ‘“‘ He that hath ears to 
 hear, let him hear,” and He also says: ‘‘ Take heed 
 what ye hear.” ‘There is so much that is untrue which 
 purports to be true that only a discriminating quest for 
 truth wi!l discover it. 
 
 In Shakespeare’s description of the poisoning of 
 Hamlet’s father, the murderer is represented as pouring 
 the fatal substance into the ear of the victim while he 
 is asleep. People are in danger of being asleep men- 
 tally and spiritually, during which period of somno- 
 lence the poison of untruth, unbelief, heresy, may be 
 poured into the spiritual ear, with just as deadly effects 
 to the soul as were the contents of the vial to Hamlet’s 
 father. It is not unusual for people who have become 
 dissatisfied with their spiritual attainments to seek relief 
 in directions which only aggravate and do not alleviate 
 the difficulty. There is only one antidote for untruth, 
 and that is truth. The only way of assuredly finding 
 the truth is to seek it at its central source. There is no 
 substitute for truth. 
 
 We are told that in Jamaica the inhabitants were at 
 one time suffering great injury on account of the de- 
 structive work of innumerable armies of ants. They 
 were told relief could be found by importing the “ rifle 
 ant,’’ since these ants would destroy completely the in- 
 sects which were working such havoc. No sooner, 
 however, had the “ rifle ants” made way with the com- 
 mon pest, than they in turn began to devour everything 
 in reach. ‘They were more voracious than those that 
 had preceded them. In Scripture language, “the last_ 
 
IN THE FIELDS WITH THE CARPENTER 61 
 
 state of the people was worse than the first.’’ People 
 whose Christianity has been formal, nominal, and 
 largely a pretence, leaving them with no real soul- 
 satisfaction, but making them simply miserably re- 
 ligious, have often turned to new cults, have adopted 
 untried theories and speculations. But all to no avail. 
 The final result has been that even the remnant of 
 belief which they had has been by this method com- 
 pletely destroyed. 
 
 The Christian life is primarily a revelation, then a 
 revolution, then a responsibility and, finally, a law of 
 life and an expression of love. The teachings of the 
 Carpenter were all in the nature of a revelation, through 
 direct instruction and then by Comradeship. 
 
 It is interesting to note that in illustrating truth for 
 the benefit of His Comrades, the Carpenter took them 
 to the things with which they were most familiar. He 
 never used human art, or mechanical devices, but di- 
 rected their thought to the birds, the flowers, the fields, 
 the fruits; to animal life, to nature in some form of 
 its manifestation. His wisdom in this is to be found 
 in the fact that from childhood to old age, people find 
 a marvelous beauty in the parables of Jesus. In one of 
 His charming parables their attention is directed to the 
 ordinary process of seed-sowing, cultivation and har- 
 vest. He stressed esvecially seed-sowing. In inter- 
 preting the parable, He tells them that the seed is the 
 Word of God, the soil their own hearts, and that they 
 have a responsibility which cannot be delegated. In 
 His great world-commission the Carpenter made it 
 clear to His comrades that this world cannot be saved 
 
62 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 
 
 by magic, but by a process as simple as, and very much 
 like, seed-sowing and harvesting. God’s Word, per- 
 fect though it is, must have a chance to grow. ‘The 
 seed must be selected with care, and the soil must be 
 kindly receptive. 
 
 The most wonderful thing which nature unfolds, 
 when we are in true Comradeship with the Carpenter, 
 is the lesson of growth. Jesus called attention to the 
 fact that after a man has sown the seed, he can do 
 absolutely nothing to accomplish its germination, that 
 its growth is entirely independent of human activity; 
 that its flowering and fruitage are through a process 
 entirely beyond the reach of man. It springs up and 
 grows, he knows not how. He is leading them by 
 steady degrees to a recognition of that most mysterious 
 of all things results of which we observe; namely, 
 growth. A seed is one of the most interesting of all 
 objects in nature. Its potencies remain undestroyed 
 through centuries and millenniums. Wheat taken from 
 the mummy-wrappings in Egypt has, under the chem- 
 ical influences of the soil and the appeal of the sun, 
 revealed the fact that that mysterious force within it 
 was beyond the touch of time. Sunshine and shower 
 can alone call out and up those potential forces in a 
 seed placed there by the Infinite Creator. Germination 
 and growth are God’s part, and no effort of ours can’ 
 in the slightest degree aid it. Growth is the command- 
 ing thought with father and mother when a little child 
 comes into the home. Weighing the baby has all the 
 significance of a religious ceremonial. It is an act 
 often repeated. ~ 
 
IN THE FIELDS WITH THE CARPENTER 63 
 
 One of the most vivid recollections of childhood is 
 standing against the door-frame at various intervals 
 to discover the joyous reality of growth. The slightest 
 addition to one’s stature during childhood is an occasion 
 for exclamation and satisfaction. Arrested develop- 
 ment is one of the saddest of human experiences. 
 How much more important all this is when related to 
 mental growth. When school studies begin, we quickly 
 become interested in the evidences of growth. Marks, 
 supposed to indicate rapidity or tardiness of intellec- 
 tual unfolding, are watched with even greater interest 
 than were the marks upon the door-frame. At first, 
 we are interested that our marks declare that we have 
 “passed.” Later, this is not sufficient. We want to 
 know that we have surpassed. Nothing brings more 
 consternation to a student than to find that for the 
 moment he has come to an impasse in any distinct line 
 of study. But there is something greater yet. It is 
 spiritual growth. 
 
 The Carpenter took His comrades first to the fields, 
 then to the lilies of the field. Here was growth, re- 
 sulting in beauty. Brilliancy and loveliness are both 
 characteristic of “the lily of the field.” The primary 
 purpose of the lesson seemed to be to prevent the undue 
 agitation and worriment so characteristic of the people 
 of Christ’s time, and of every time, incapacitating men 
 and women for the largest service of life. Divine in- 
 terest in human development is the underlying thought. 
 God cares constantly, cares tremendously, whether or 
 not His children are growing. If growth is the great 
 concern in life, it is important to know its conditions 
 
1 
 64 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 
 
 and its secret. The Carpenter taught that there is a 
 human side to growth which may not be neglected. 
 Fach one must provide the proper environment for the 
 seed and then plant the seed itself. God does the rest. 
 The protest was against man undertaking to do what 
 only God can do. The promise was a Divine cooper- 
 ation guaranteeing the gradual unfolding in sweetness 
 and beauty of any life surrendered to sacred influences. 
 The one environment which is calculated to cause the 
 spiritual seed to germinate and grow is Comradeship 
 with the Carpenter. This and this alone makes possible 
 what we call self-realization. 
 
 Right here we find Christ’s doctrine of Evolution, 
 which is definitely and distinctly His own. It is sim- 
 ply this, that what God has potentially put in, He super- 
 naturally calls out. Nothing is unfolded that is not first 
 infolded. What is in the seed is not pushed out from 
 within, but is pulled out by influences and forces out- 
 side the seed. The seed does not germinate and become 
 the shoot, the stem, and then a reproduction of itself, 
 except through the call of the sunlight and the shower. 
 Neither in the natural or the spiritual world do the 
 germinal powers of the seed find expression, until called 
 out from above. ‘The blade, the ear and the full corn 
 are not pushed up from below. They are pulled up 
 from above. Of course the germ of life is within. 
 Every great development in the vegetable and the ani- 
 mal world represents a careful application of the laws 
 and principles of life and growth. Unaided nature does 
 not at any time or anywhere improve on the past. 
 Nothing in God’s universe surpasses itself by virtue of~ 
 
 \ 
 
IN THE FIELDS WITH THE CARPENTER 65 
 
 anything naturally inherent. The farmer has faith in 
 the fertility of the soil and the effect of the sunshine 
 and showers. He selects the seed and by selection 
 secures improvement. Spiritually we must have faith 
 in the fertility of the soil, in the drawing power of the 
 Holy Spirit, to bring to beauty and fruition God’s 
 Word sown in the heart. 
 
 The lily of the field, gorgeously arrayed, did not 
 reach its wonderful beauty in a moment of time. No 
 more do we secure immediately a full manifestation of 
 the Christian graces. Those qualities of character most 
 admired are the result of cooperative effort between the 
 Carpenter and His Comrades. The one thing which 
 brings the lily of the field to its beauty, is obedience to 
 the laws of life, health and growth. We lay great 
 emphasis upon the fact of law, in nature. We observe 
 that in the natural world everything that acts, acts law- 
 fully. Everything that moves, moves lawfully. Every 
 chemical compound follows a definite law. Science 
 reveals to us the fact that from the infinitesimal all the 
 way to the immeasurable, there is motion unremitting, 
 and that this motion is definitely according to fixed law. 
 In other words, the great thing about nature is not law, 
 but obedience to law. It is the fact that every seed that 
 fulfils its purpose and reproduces its own kind, does so 
 because implicitly obedient to law. The rhythmic 
 movement of heavenly bodies is due to the implicit 
 obedience with which all material substance fulfils the 
 purpose of its creation. In human life discord and in- 
 harmony are due not to the fact that they are not under 
 law, but to the fact that, being under law, they are not 
 
66 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 
 
 obedient to the law of their being. When the Car- 
 penter pointed to the lily of the field, He was simply 
 saying that God is concerned for the unfolding of life 
 at its best and its most beautiful, and that this can be 
 accomplished by unfailing obedience to spiritual law. 
 Here, however, is the great difficulty. How can this 
 obedience be assured? Something is woefully wrong 
 with human nature. Man does not grow as he should 
 in loveliness, attractiveness, Godlikeness. Not only can 
 we not expect perfection in a moment of time, but we 
 cannot expect it at all, without complete conformity to 
 the will and power of God. The insignificant becomes 
 the immense, the imperfect becomes the perfect, 
 through a process of constant appropriations of divine 
 power, through contact. It is close Comradeship with 
 the Risen Christ today that insures the development of 
 a character like His. We become unreasonably impa- 
 tient because our growth is not more rapid. Our con- 
 cern need not be the rapidity of our growth but a 
 relationship with God so close that He can do the grow- 
 ing in and for us. It is ours to be saturated with truth 
 as God has presented it in His Word, and then to exer- 
 cise due diligence in our effort to express the Christian 
 graces. The rest we must leave to Him. It is so 
 ordered that we can work out our salvation if we have 
 permitted God to work it in, through a sympathetic 
 concern and a loving devotion to those who come within 
 the reach of our influence. We need not think for a 
 moment, however, that our energetic engagements and 
 enthusiastic activities in what we call service, will do 
 the work for us. It positively will not. It is only in | 
 
IN THE FIELDS WITH THE CARPENTER 67 
 
 the closest fellowship with Christ, in quiet meditation 
 and worshipful devotion, together with the purposeful 
 activity of a truly Christian sort, that we will ever know 
 the joy of real Companionship with the Carpenter- 
 Christ. Such a fellowship raises the temperature in 
 which the seeds of truth may develop. Radiating 
 righteousness is the great business of the disciples of 
 Jesus. It is just because of the gradualness of Chris- 
 tian growth that we can keep our courage, believing, 
 with the great Apostle, that though we have not fully 
 attained and are not yet perfect, we can grow up until 
 we know something “ of the measure of the fulness of 
 the stature of Christ.” The full corn in the ear may 
 seem to us a long way off, but if there is growth, even 
 though slow, which looks toward a final perfection, we 
 can be content. It is ours to entertain the confident 
 belief that He who has begun His good work in us will 
 carry it on unto perfection. To live with Christ among 
 the lilies, to walk with Him among the flowers of the 
 field, to watch with Him the falling sparrow, to think 
 with Him of the eternal realities which underlie the 
 visible, and which proclaim unfailingly the goodness 
 and greatness of God, is sure to result in a spiritual 
 _unfolding which will win eternally God’s “ well done.” 
 
 Nature fairly overflows with God. The habit of in- 
 terpreting the messages written on the petal of a flower, 
 the wing of the butterfly, the leaf of the tree; the habit 
 of translating the songs of the birds and the hum of 
 insects or the rumble of thunder will greatly enrich life. 
 It will impress us with the nearness of the Great Com- 
 panion. It will awaken a desire for efflorescence and 
 
68 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 
 
 songfulness in our own lives. Nature is a wonderful 
 book. ‘T'o study it devoutly increases its glory a thou- 
 sand fold. Walking with Christ among the lilies is the 
 highest of all privileges and will make clear to us the 
 secret, the blessedness and the soul satisfactions of soul 
 growth. 
 
 a i a 
 
 : ind 
 en 
 
VI 
 
 THE TRUTH QUEST 
 
 THEN SPAKE THE CARPENTER: “He that doeth the 
 truth cometh to the light.’—Joun 3:21. 
 
 IF THE truth quest were as earnest as the youth 
 quest, all the world would be wise. The truth passion 
 was the supreme passion of the Carpenter. He was 
 the embodiment of truth so completely that He could 
 say as no one else could say who has ever lived: “I am 
 the truth.” It stood in His thought for the ultimate 
 reality of all things. The great question of the ages 
 has been Pilate’s question, asked by him in sarcasm but 
 by all the world in seriousness, “ What is truth?” It 
 is the question of philosophy, seeking to solve the prob- 
 lem of existence. It is the question of science, seeking 
 to solve the relations of things. It is preeminently the 
 question, in seeking to solve the mystery of duty and 
 destiny. Interrogation and investigation are as natural 
 to the human mind as are hunger and thirst to the body. 
 Every necessity of life commands and commends in- 
 quiry. We are constituted with physical appetites for 
 food and mental and spiritual appetites for knowledge. 
 The neglect of the natural appetite will diminish and 
 destroy us. The neglect of our spiritual appetites in 
 the nature of intellectual and spiritual aspirations will 
 diminish and destroy them. Food hath no value except 
 
 69 
 
70 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 
 
 as it is appropriated and assimilated. Not repression 
 nor depression should characterize our attitude toward 
 our appetites, but direction. The Carpenter encour- 
 aged the spirit of inquiry. So should His comrades. 
 He did not sympathize with critical curiosity but He 
 constantly led out and on in the quest for truth. Study 
 for entertainment’s sake is one thing, and study for 
 purposes of intellectual and spiritual growth is quite 
 another. The accumulation of facts does not always 
 result in wisdom. Entertainment is not edification. 
 The edifying influence of truth depends much upon 
 the objects in view. 
 
 The innate desire to know is practically universal, 
 and of immeasurable benefit. A little child is a bundle 
 of interrogation points. The wisdom of a child’s in- 
 quiry is vastly beyond the wisdom of parental knowl- 
 edge. You wonder what could have ever suggested 
 some of the questions which children ask. When we 
 cease to ask questions, it is because we are more willing 
 to be ignorant than to seem ignorant. We are obliged 
 to confess ignorance by our inquiries for the sake of 
 becoming wise. Most people are hindered from intel- 
 lectual attainment by pride. Truth has to be wooed in 
 order to be won. It will not respond to any mental 
 coquetry. It does not offer itself to superficial or in- 
 different thinkers. Knowledge is expensive. No mat- 
 ter what university you attend, you have to pay a tui- 
 tion. You do not always pay in dollars, but you pay. 
 In the great university of life tuition comes high. It is 
 after a multitude of mistakes and many confessions 
 that we learn how to gain and use intellectual power. 
 
THE TRUTH QUEST 71 
 
 The widening horizon of our day increases the range 
 of learning, but multiplies the strain on mind and heart. 
 Fortunately, however, facilities increase with the in- 
 creased demand for acquaintance with a multitude of 
 subjects. Knowledge costs in actual work, in concen- 
 tration, but more especially in its humiliating confes- 
 sions of ignorance, as we pursue our quest for truth. 
 
 The difficulties of education are by no means small, 
 but the difficulties of spiritual wisdom are vastly 
 greater. It is much easier to confess ignorance intel- 
 lectually than to acknowledge our lack of wisdom in 
 ethical and spiritual matters. The Carpenter’s words 
 are a striking rebuke to the agnostic. ‘‘ He that doeth 
 the truth cometh to the light ;’ therefore, if we do not 
 have the truth, it is because we have not done the 
 truth. The logic of it is inescapable. Deceptive ap- 
 pearances add to the difficulties of spiritual knowledge. 
 In the spiritual realm, things cannot be taken at their 
 face value. Questions of motive, purpose, program, 
 introduce a multitude of factors which make judicial 
 sentences difficult. 
 
 On the western plains we have often looked out on 
 what appeared to be an open sea. We could hardly 
 make ourselves believe that we had not come to a large 
 open lake. Mountains seemed to stretch upward in the 
 distance. Villas appeared to have been builded along 
 the banks of this lovely body of water. Islands stood 
 out here and there like beautiful jewels on the bosom of | 
 a bride. The scene was beautiful beyond description. 
 While we looked, it has rolled itself up like a scroll and 
 disappeared. It was a mirage. In like manner, there 
 
72 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 
 
 are many spiritual propositions, religious sentiments, 
 and doctrinal structures which seem wonderfully at- 
 tractive. When we know them more thoroughly they 
 prove to be the vapor of disordered imaginations; the 
 fancies of speculative minds; the delusions of dreamers. 
 Because much spiritual truth does not lend itself to 
 description and definition, we foolishly think it not the 
 truth at all. The impalpable ether is filled with forces 
 which, though invisible, are among the mightiest poten- 
 cies of earth. Because a thing is intangible, does not 
 lessen its reality. Because of the elusiveness of spiri- 
 tual truth, many people decline to believe that spiritual 
 knowledge, such as pertains to the natural world, is pos- 
 sible. But it is. ‘ The things which are seen are tempo- 
 ral, the things which are not seen are eternal.’”’ We have 
 to learn to get in, under and behind the visible and the 
 tangible to discover the permanencies, the changeless 
 realities, which are of real worth in the world. 
 
 We have not yet, however, touched upon the greatest 
 hindrance to spiritual knowledge. It is to be found in 
 the stern requisite stated by the Carpenter. “ He that 
 doeth the truth cometh to the light.” In ethical and 
 spiritual relations, we only know what we actually prac- 
 tise. Experience is equivalent to demonstration. It is 
 the practise of the presence of God which enables us to 
 know Him. Comradeship with the Carpenter is nothing 
 less than the practise of the presence of God. It is the 
 practise of prayer, or the doing of prayer, which puts 
 us in possession of the great truth that humanity is 
 linked up with Divinity, and that God can work — 
 through natural causes and gain supernatural results. 
 
THE TRUTH QUEST 73 
 
 It is the practise of virtue, or doing virtuously, which 
 acquaints us with the reality and the splendor of virtue 
 itself. It is doing the moral law which unfolds its 
 loveliness to us. It is doing the beatitudes that gives 
 value to the deliverances of the Carpenter upon the 
 Mount. Any theoretical understanding of the truth of 
 religion falls short of being in us and to us a power for 
 righteousness. It is much easier to think about religion 
 than to be religious. Dissertation is much easier than 
 doing. When, as is usually the case, a love for the 
 merely pleasurable reaches the proportion of a passion, 
 it is easier to let the higher truths alone than to dis- 
 cover them by practise. The high rate of tuition in 
 gaining spiritual knowledge leads to its neglect. The 
 reason why truth lingers so long in the shadows and 
 remains neglected is because humanity hesitates to do 
 the truth. 
 
 Spiritual truth is spiritually discerned because spiri- 
 tually practised. An honest pursuit for knowledge is 
 possible only to spiritual minds. A sordid materialism 
 acts upon the spiritual vision exactly as a cataract acts 
 upon the natural vision. The natural man has very 
 little spiritual truth simply because he will not engage 
 in the pursuit of spiritual knowledge by doing spiritual 
 things. The Bible itself may be diligently studied yet 
 neither understood nor assimilated. We are hindered 
 by our unwillingness to practise the truth we do know 
 and hence fail to acquire the larger truth which might 
 be ours were we willing to pay the price. Until we are 
 ready to say: “I will walk confidently in the light of 
 larger knowledge wherever and whenever it presents 
 
74 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 
 
 itself to me,’ we shall not make much headway in our 
 truth quest. A determination to do the truth, then, 
 must be as final as our passion to know the truth. 
 Prejudice perverts knowledge. Bigotry blinds. The 
 high pursuit of spiritual knowledge requires a fair mind 
 and a free field. 
 
 We are endowed with a religious faculty. The mind 
 working in certain directions is called a faculty. For 
 example, one cannot enjoy music if the musical faculty 
 has been entirely neglected. No more can you enjoy 
 art unless the art faculty has been developed, giving 
 appreciation of form and color. We have a religious 
 faculty which enables us to lay hold of and make use of 
 religious truths, but this faculty may atrophy, exactly 
 as any other faculty may die from disuse. You may 
 reach a clear conclusion that an Infinite Being must be 
 and is, and yet have no comforting, strengthening 
 knowledge of God. Active employment strengthens 
 any faculty. Drift away from the sanctions of the 
 Church; ignore God’s Book and trample upon His day; 
 and your religious faculty becomes either atrophied or 
 petrified. The tree in the forest covered over with lava 
 sometimes turns to stone. The religious element in 
 personality covered with accumulations of worldliness 
 or even of abstract intellectualism will just as surely 
 turn to stone. The reverse is true. By doing the truth 
 the religious faculty is nourished, exercised, made 
 vigorous, fulfils its mission, lifts us to the heights, 
 
 Sympathy and charity were enjoyed by the Carpenter 
 in the pursuit of spiritual knowledge. Proclivities, 
 aptitudes and abilities differ in different people. View- 
 
THE TRUTH QUEST 75 
 
 point vitally affects an individual in his search for 
 truth. The governing purposes of life lead to conclu- 
 sions widely different in various individuals. There is 
 a wide diversity of opinion regarding much which we 
 call religion. People equally honest do not interpret 
 the Word of God the same way in all particulars. This 
 accounts for denominational differences. When the un- 
 important is magnified, the things fundamentally im- 
 portant are likely to be neglected. No one denomination 
 has all of the truth or the best method. For these rea- 
 sons, it becomes increasingly important to keep in clos- 
 est touch with Jesus Christ as our great Leader and 
 Teacher. It is not our business to require that every 
 one should see things exactly as we see them. Not 
 every shrub and flower in God’s Eden of revelation will 
 appear just the same to everybody, nor is it necessary 
 that there should be this absolute uniformity of thought. 
 Probably no fruit has exactly the same flavor in every 
 mouth. ‘This practise of sympathy and charity does 
 not for a moment do away with the fact that truth is 
 truth, and that great principles are abiding and un- 
 changing. Even though the flavor of a fruit may 
 differ, the fact of the fruit remains. Unless the taste 
 is entirely abnormal, the distinction between sweet and 
 sour should appear to all. The eye which is not en- 
 tirely defective recognizes the distinction between the 
 beautiful and that which is ugly. In spiritual things, 
 though the Comrades of the Carpenter may differ 
 widely, yet on the important question of the great work 
 of the Carpenter-Christ, and His matchless character, 
 there should be no difference. Substantials and funda- 
 
76 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 
 
 mentals in spiritual things are not difficult to discover 
 to those who do the truth. While insisting without 
 compromise upon the greatest of all truths, salvation 
 through sacrifice, we should cover with a mantle of 
 charity the erroneous positions of our fellow-men. A 
 strong faith can afford to be tolerant. A marked fea- 
 ture of the life of Christ was its tolerance. He knew 
 nothing of “liberalism ’’ which has as its only dimen- 
 sion, latitude. He was too great for that. In charity 
 and in tolerance no one has ever surpassed the Carpen- 
 ter. The most vigorous thinkers, people with uncom- 
 promising convictions, have usually manifested both 
 tolerance and sympathy for those who differ from them 
 in religious matters. Nothing develops charity and 
 sympathy like the practise of truth. Its very difficulty 
 engenders kindness, toleration, consideration. 
 
 The rewards of a sincere pursuit of spiritual knowl- 
 edge are beyond estimate. The Carpenter said: “ Who- 
 soever cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast out.” It 
 is only another way of saying that the search for God 
 which is honest and persistent will never go unre- 
 warded. Refreshing, invigorating, convincing Revela- 
 tion is one of the most satisfying rewards in the honest 
 quest for spiritual knowledge. Another of the rewards 
 is the sense of liberty which comes from a conscious 
 possession of the truth. We are like explorers in a 
 new country, rich in the variety of its flora and fauna, 
 its mineral wealth and its magnificent scenery. Who- 
 ever becomes a Comrade of the Carpenter is greeted 
 over and over again with delightful surprises from un- 
 expected quarters. Spiritual truth never becomes com- 
 
THE TRUTH QUEST 77 
 
 monplace, and never becomes obsolete. It is adapted to 
 all times and to all conditions. This is why the truths 
 taught by the Carpenter become to His comrades an 
 inexhaustible mine of wealth. No honest seeker for 
 truth can possibly neglect that great inexorable fact in 
 the world, the Bible. It isa Book with which men have 
 to reckon, whether they would or not. The command- 
 ing thing about the Bible is it portraiture of the Car- 
 penter of Nazareth, unique, commanding, striking, 
 sublime. From Him have issued the influences most 
 contributive to the happiness, the healthfulness and the 
 holiness of mankind. The surging spiritual influences 
 radiated from the personality of Jesus Christ never les- 
 sens, and never becomes less potent in power to purify 
 and to exalt humanity. 
 
 In our quest for truth, we soon discover that we get 
 new truth from old teachers, and old truth from new 
 teachers. New communications of truth are usually 
 old truth in a new dress. Every now and then some 
 individual or group of individuals proposes to guide the 
 world to a fuller knowledge of God by some new 
 method. Often this proposition is accompanied by re- 
 flections upon old methods and old-time doctrines. It 
 does not take long, however, to discover that wherever 
 a truth is to be found under a new name, it is as old as 
 eternity ; and usually in some preiod of the world’s his- 
 tory the same sentiments in almost the same phrase- 
 ology have already been offered to the world. 
 
 The greatest of all truth is undoubtedly what the 
 Carpenter designated as “ saving truth.” There can be 
 no richer reward for a painstaking effort to know the 
 
78 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 
 
 truth through the practise of truth than we find in 
 the exhilarating freedom experienced when salvation 
 through sacrifice becomes a reality in life. The diffi- 
 culties of life are lessened, the delights are increased, 
 the trials of life are successfully defied, the triumphs 
 of life are greatly multiplied, when with a conviction, 
 born of discovery, we can say: “I know that my re- 
 deemer liveth.” The first great business of the Church 
 is to lead the world to a knowledge of saving truth. 
 The second great business of the Church is building 
 character through truth. It is tremendously important 
 to be sure that we have the plan of the great Architect, 
 and it is equally important to know that we have 
 adopted it, in our building processes. We have learned 
 much when we have learned the sources of power. The 
 ideals of life presented in the Gospels are very beauti- 
 ful, but very exacting. ‘The Comrades of the Carpenter 
 are always conscious that in Him they have the perfect 
 ideal. To become like Him must become the supreme 
 purpose of life. Comradeship with Christ leads us at 
 last to the possession of wealth which neither dimin- 
 ishes nor dims. It is infinitely greater to live in the 
 thought world with the Carpenter than to live in the 
 world of things with unbelievers. 
 
 The greatest of all truth is that which has to do with 
 the Life Everlasting. Who can give us the sure word 
 and the final word here? Threescore years and ten, or 
 a little more at the longest, and we are through with the’ 
 things with which we have to do here. What then? 
 No one has ever appeared on the earth who gave any 
 real evidence of the truth relating to the life after 
 
THE TRUTH QUEST 79 
 
 death save Jesus of Nazareth. He talked with perfect 
 familiarity of the things beyond the ken of human un- 
 derstanding. He talked convincingly. 
 
 Eternity is a tremendous word. Its meaning none 
 can fathom. The mind is staggered by the thought of 
 endlessness. Any truth respecting the endless life 
 should be a matter of the profoundest concern. Here, 
 if anywhere, we can only rest in certainties. Happy 
 guesses do not interest us. Speculation brings no peace. 
 We want to know what is to be the soul’s experience 
 in the endless life. None but the Carpenter ever even 
 pretended to be able to speak assuringly about eternity. 
 It is not a matter of importance to truth who accepts 
 or rejects truth. It is what it is, despite doubts, denials 
 or hearty acceptance. It cannot be slain. It asks no 
 favors and declines all compromises. It bears the seal 
 of the Eternal. It cannot be laughed out of court. It 
 is as resistless as the tides and constant as God. It is 
 unmoved by threats or tears. It is dignified but never 
 distant. Its doors are closed, but the key hangs within 
 the reach of every interested inquirer. Its power and 
 beauty can only be appreciated when it is received. Its 
 castles do not yield to bombardment but gate and port- 
 cullis respond to the touch of a child. It comforts, con- 
 soles, counsels, admonishes, commands and inspires, 
 and finally crowns. ‘To His comrades Jesus Christ 
 offers to unfold all secrets necessary for peace and 
 comfort and character construction. He is the Truth. 
 Nothing is truth that contradicts His life or His teach- 
 ing. Walk with Him here, and you will enjoy fellow- 
 ship with Him forever and ever. 
 
VII 
 CELESTIAL REGISTRY 
 
 THEN SPAKE THE CARPENTER: “ Notwithstanding, in this 
 rejoice not that the spirits are subject unto you, but rejoice 
 rather because your names are written in heaven.’”—LUKE 
 10: 20. 
 
 THIs reverses the appeal often heard today: “ Pay 
 no attention to Heaven, concern yourself only with the 
 duties of today.” The truth is, he concerns himself 
 most about the duties of today who has in mind the 
 conditions of eternal fellowship with God. Elation 
 over self-achievement is as natural as breathing. It 
 readily leads to the presumptive attitude of entire self- 
 sufficiency. Man is not naturally humble. Pride is a 
 predominant characteristic. “Is not this great Baby- 
 lon that I have builded?”’ This was the attitude of a 
 man who was riding swiftly to a fall. The Carpenter 
 taught that every man rides to a fall who is engrossed 
 in the glory of his own achievements. The campaign 
 of the Seventy had just ended. They were comrades 
 of the Carpenter appointed by Him to make once and 
 for all this declaration to the world, that Comradeship 
 with the Carpenter means the exercise of a power like 
 His and the living of a life like His. The things He © 
 had done, they were to do. This was to prove forever 
 that Christ is communicable. They did it. It worked. 
 With a glad surprise and a sense of the glory of 
 
 80 
 
CELESTIAL REGISTRY 81 
 
 achievement, the comrades returned to the Carpenter. 
 The success which attended their efforts was so great 
 that it produced auto-intoxication. They found them- 
 selves in possession of powers super-normal and super- 
 natural. They had been sent forth under explicit direc- 
 tions. They were not left in doubt. Human need of 
 any kind was not to claim their attention. The chief 
 feature, however, of the Great Commission was this, 
 the promise of continued comradeship. This comrade- 
 ship meant an abiding power, through an abiding Pres- 
 ence. The sick were healed; incarnate evil fled at their 
 approach ; the discouraged and overwhelmed were filled 
 with cheer; joy flowed like a river wherever they went; 
 the trophies of their victories were both material and 
 spiritual. Thus, at the very beginning, the Carpenter 
 taught that there is no interest of humanity that is not 
 to be the concern of the Church of Christ. Their ex- 
 ultation was unbounded. Intense enthusiasm was domi- 
 nant. Unrestrained joy burst from their hearts in an 
 exultant utterance: “ Lord, even the devils are subject 
 unto us through thy name!” The great Leader saw 
 the perils of success. A hundred can stand failure 
 where one can stand success. He recognized the inevi- 
 table disaster which would follow mistaken zeal. He 
 saw that the successful manipulation of supernatural 
 energy might easily produce an emotional vanity. They 
 were glorying in the mere fact of achievement for 
 achievement’s sake. The fact of extraordinary mani- 
 festation of power was uppermost in their hearts. 
 
 It is the moment for warning. It is given. Spiritual 
 fervor must have as its objective Divine glory and 
 
82 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 
 
 human beatitude. ‘The Carpenter promises His com- 
 rades ever-increasing power; assures them that they 
 will be impervious to attacks of evil; promises that the 
 serpents of this world and venomous scorpions from 
 the realm of darkness which lurk in unregenerate hu- 
 man nature will be powerless in their efforts to destroy 
 them. What they had done was only an earnest of 
 what the Comrades of the Carpenter were to do through 
 all the ages. “Greater things.” This is the cheering 
 promise never cancelled, never abrogated, always ful- 
 filled. Watch the comrades now. You can see the 
 sparkle of the eye, the brightness of countenance, the 
 erectness of form, the sense of self-superiority, together 
 with eagerness of outlook. It is at this juncture the 
 Carpenter interjects His word of caution, rebuke and 
 admonition. ‘ Notwithstanding, in this rejoice not that 
 the spirits are subject unto you, but rejoice because 
 your names are written in Heaven.” It is as though He 
 said: “ You have been successful, as I knew you would 
 be, in the humanitarian work that has claimed your at- 
 tention; men have watched you and marveled; you 
 have startled and surprised entire communities; you 
 have awakened sincere inquiry for truth; you have 
 gained worldly applause ; you have become conspicuous ; 
 you have had abundant evidence that you have received 
 and used power divinely imparted to you. Beware! 
 You are beginning to delight in power and popularity. 
 Love for yourselves is taking the place of loyalty to 
 God. Victory for its own sake is nothing. Victory for 
 the Father’s sake and humanity’s sake is everything. 
 There is one thing immeasurably better than any spec- 
 
 —_ 
 
CELESTIAL REGISTRY 83 
 
 tacular demonstration of power. My own indwelling 
 in your hearts, and the resultant growth of the Chris- 
 tian graces is immeasurably important. Let your 
 glorying be in the fact that God Almighty has accepted 
 you through Me. Rejoice that your names are written 
 in Heaven.” 
 
 The supreme question, then, is the question of Divine 
 registry as an indication of Divine relationship. Not 
 the Hall of Fame represents the greatest wisdom or the 
 greatest work. No human scroll furnishes evidence of 
 true eminence. Blessedness and felicity through time 
 and eternity have in them no selfishness. ‘They only 
 mark the greater ability to contribute blessing. 
 
 The striking and the spectacular are always interfer- 
 ing with the profound and the permanently real. A 
 passion for notoriety, for reputation, for applause is 
 apparent oftentimes even among Comrades of the Car- 
 penter. Sometimes personal ambition does not go be- 
 yond the household, or again is limited by the social 
 relations of the community. The more ambitious are 
 satisfied only with nation-wide or world-wide notoriety. 
 It is indeed human to be elated by conspicuous success. 
 If permitted to go unchecked, ambition of a selfish sort 
 becomes a dominating power, leading to the sacrifice of 
 principle and the paralysis of piety. Political power 
 often turns the heads of men; social recognition not in- 
 frequently unbalances the mind, breaks up friendships, 
 develops haughtiness, destroys influence. Nothing is 
 more sacred than personal power, and nothing is more 
 perilous than its employment for unworthy ends. We 
 dare not be too much occupied, in our thinking, with 
 
84 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 
 
 that which is merely transactional. When we empha- 
 size doing more than being, we are likely to become 
 self-centered, 
 
 Peter walking the wave was a fine demonstration of 
 the exercise of a contributed power, until he began to 
 glory in the achievement. Then he began sinking. 
 With his eye on the Carpenter, he was successful. 
 While he recognized the mysterious blessing of true 
 Comradeship, he was a success. Rejoicing in his own 
 abilities, he became quickly a failure. Successes for 
 their own sake bring no happiness. Successes as a 
 means to the production of holiness and happiness are 
 like Jacob’s ladder, and angels of God descend and 
 ascend upon them. ‘The Carpenter had to contend with 
 a bold, bald materialism, rampant in His day much as 
 itis in our own. We live in a time when a new empha- 
 sis is given to the transactional rather than to the con- 
 ditional. The loaves and the fishes are important, but 
 not supremely important. When they are given undue 
 recognition, Christianity declines. The Carpenter never 
 taught the neglect of the tabernacle of flesh, but He per- 
 petually taught that it was only a tabernacle, and that 
 there was something more sacred still at the Inner 
 Shrine. Alleviating the conditions of the poor, secur- 
 ing better housing, better feeding, better sanitary con- 
 ditions is a part, but only a subordinate part, of 
 
 Christianity. Philanthropy itself may become spec- | 
 
 tacular and demonstrative to the almost total neglect 
 of the spiritual and eternal. Organization and enter- 
 tainment have the call today. Once more the Carpenter 
 speaks to His Church: “ Minister to the needs of the 
 
CELESTIAL REGISTRY 85 
 
 bodies and minds of men; rejoice, if you will, in the 
 larger efficiency through organization, to lessen the ills 
 of humanity, but remember that human nature is never 
 changed by externalities; remember also that the su- 
 preme need in this world is the transformation of indi- 
 vidual lives by regeneration, which will enable them to 
 live on a higher level, physically, ethically, spiritually. 
 Rejoice in your celestial registration.” By this is 
 meant no mere self-satisfaction in being saved, but a 
 realization that only through divine approbation can the 
 greater tasks of life be efficiently performed. 
 
 It is protested that there may be too complete a satis- 
 faction in the mere fact that one’s name is written in 
 Heaven. Not if you understand the real significance 
 of salvation. ‘There is no selfishness in the humility 
 and penitence which secures pardon for the sins of the 
 past, the purposefulness to live on the high plane pre- 
 scribed by the Carpenter for his comrades in the future. 
 To have one’s name written in Heaven means simply a 
 perpetual approval by God Almighty. The supremest 
 cause for human happiness lies ever in the consciousness 
 that we are under the smile of God. We are the trus- 
 tees of divinely given wealth. At the conclusion of a 
 term of service, the accounts of a treasurer are audited. 
 If correct, a word, ‘“‘ Approved,” signifies the faithful- 
 ness of the trustee of public treasure. Embezzlements, 
 forgeries, counterfeits, these prevent having the name 
 written in the record, “‘ Approved.” The name written 
 in Heaven, as Jesus presented it, signifies loyalty to 
 duty, enthusiasm in service, and full obedience to the 
 Divine command. 
 
86 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 
 
 As a voter you go to record your conviction in the 
 selection of men for office. ‘The election clerk, how- 
 ever, scans the roll for your name, and it is not there. 
 He finds that you are of alien birth. You have not 
 been naturalized. He tells you you are not an American 
 citizen. You answer: “ Very true, but I concluded to 
 take my chances with the rest.” He answers: “ There 
 are no chances. Conditions are explicit; obligations are 
 absolute; you have not fulfilled the conditions, your 
 name is not in the registry; you have no vote.” This is 
 quite as reasonable as to ignore the explicit directions 
 whereby we become “naturalized” through regener- 
 ation, and thus qualified for permanent Comradeship 
 with the Carpenter-Christ. Celestial registration de- 
 mands repentance, the acceptance of the Carpenter- 
 Christ as Saviour, Intercessor and Advocate, which 
 results in Comradeship and hence in enrolment in the 
 register of Heaven. Righteousness, heart purity, 
 Christlikeness, result from trust in, and companionship 
 with, Jesus Christ. 
 
 One of the great ocean liners is preparing to start on 
 its transatlantic voyage. ‘The decks are crowded, and 
 just as the ship is to put out to sea a man approaches 
 the purser, and demands a room. ‘ Your name, sir?” 
 It is given. “ You are not registered. There is no 
 place for you.” “ Yes, but I have secretly entertained 
 the purpose of making this trip for a long time.” 
 “Your secret avowal is of no significance. Your men- 
 tal intention has not sufficed. You have not fulfilled 
 the conditions of registration. There is no place for 
 
 bd 
 
 you.” It is not enough to entertain the foolish thought 
 
CELESTIAL REGISTRY 87 
 
 that you can take your chance on the next life. There 
 are no chances to take. ‘“‘ With the heart, man believeth 
 unto righteousness ; with the mouth, confession is made 
 unto salvation.” 
 
 No greater mistake could be made than to assume 
 that Christianity anywhere or in any way endorses 
 selfishness or self-seeking. The concern for right rela- 
 tions with God in order to salvation is at the same time 
 a concern for right relations with God in order to 
 service. A service to be effective must have a noble 
 objective. Whoever engages in the sublime task of 
 making a life, rather than making a living, will appreci- 
 ate the deep meaning of the exhortation of the Car- 
 penter to His Comrades. One of the most cheering 
 facts revealed by Jesus Christ is the fact that the past 
 can never so dominate the future that change will be 
 impossible. Christianity is filled with a boundless hope. 
 A Comrade of the Carpenter invariably has outlook. 
 What has been called, ‘ The Hell of the Irreparable,”’ 
 has no terrors for him. He knows a wide-open future 
 makes possible the correction of the mistakes of yes- 
 terday. The past is not altogether irreparable. A very 
 common and commonplace proverb is: “ There is no 
 use of crying over spilled milk.” Like most proverbs, 
 this has its foundation and origin in a Bible utterance. 
 We find it in a parable Joab spoke to King David. 
 Among other things, he said: ‘‘ Concerning Absalom: 
 All have to die. Why lament over the death of Absa- 
 lom? He must die some time, and at any rate it can’t 
 be helped.”” Then this metaphor was used: “ The past 
 is as water spilled on the ground, which cannot be 
 
88 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 
 
 gathered up again.” It is useless to worry over spilled 
 water. This contains only a partial truth. It is never 
 commendatory in an individual to utterly ignore the 
 past. There is, indeed, much use in lamenting over 
 both the irreparable and the reparable past. They 
 teach us to avoid a repetition of the mistake. Sensitive 
 consciences may readily become too morbid over a past 
 which is beyond control. On the other hand, the edge 
 of conscience may be completely dulled, and the great 
 lessons already taught be lost. 
 
 Life consists largely of cutting channels through 
 which thoughts, feelings, desires, deeds of every nature 
 may pour. The full expression of personal life must 
 ever be under the guidance of a wisdom supernatural, 
 and under the impulse of a power supernatural. The 
 only way this is ever made possible is through intimate 
 association with God. It was for this great purpose 
 the Carpenter came, expressing to the utmost degree 
 who God is, and what He is willing to be to those aspir- 
 ing to the best which life affords. 
 
 We are carving a character. At any period of life, 
 we are like the sculptor who has been working on mar- 
 ble. At successive periods the chips are all swept out 
 of the workroom, but the statue remains. We are not 
 through with the past. We never will be through with 
 it. Whatever can be corrected should be corrected. 
 That which is beyond our reach must be taken confi- 
 dently to the great Comrade, with the request that the 
 mantle of His mercy shall cover it. There is no mis- 
 taking the fact that the surest guarantee of terrestrial 
 progress is celestial registration. Every man needs 
 
CELESTIAL REGISTRY 89 
 
 cooperation with God. No one is of himself sufficient 
 to realize his own best ideals until in Comradeship with 
 the Carpenter. The Church today must ‘“ watch her 
 step,” or she will be guilty of such absorption in tem- 
 poralities, in program-making, in the artificial and the 
 transient, that she will forget that the ultimate objective 
 in the Christian religion is spiritual transformation and 
 perfection. The tremendous success of our great mis- 
 sionary enterprises has been due in the past to the deep 
 spirituality that has characterized the Comrades of the 
 Carpenter in fulfilling the Great Commission. No one 
 would decry the advantages and importance of educa- 
 tion for belated and benighted races. No one should 
 disparage the effort to bring about better conditions of 
 living. Nevertheless, let us remember that the inhab- 
 itants of pagan lands may become sufficiently civilized 
 to engage in the practises and enjoy the privileges of a 
 material Christian culture, and yet be lost. The con- 
 cern of the missionary must be, if he is faithful to his 
 commission, that those who come under his influence 
 shall have “ their names written in Heaven.” ‘This is 
 precisely the thing which in many circles is decried and 
 denied. It is true, nevertheless, and deserves peculiar 
 emphasis in this materialistic age. 
 
VIII 
 
 THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 
 
 THEN SPAKE THE CARPENTER: “I am the light of the 
 world.” “Ye are the light of the world.’—JoHN 8:12; 
 MatrHew 5: 14. 
 
 Licut is the symbol of all that is desirable. It is 
 almost synonymous with life. It represents to the mind 
 cheerfulness, safety, happiness. Darkness stands in 
 our thinking for the cold, the cheerless, the difficult, the 
 dangerous. We shrink from the unlighted. We em- 
 ploy every device to prevent the “ unfruitful works of 
 darkness,” by lighting our streets at night. The pioneer 
 often builded fires, and kept them blazing through the 
 night, to ward off the beasts of prey. Light represents 
 mental illumination, hence wisdom. Light guides our 
 footsteps and prevents stumbling. At divided road- 
 ways lights are placed to direct the traveler. Only the 
 lighted way is the safe way. Beacon lights warn the 
 mariner of danger, or invite him to a safe harbor. 
 Light means life at its brightest and best. The imagery 
 employed by Jesus to declare His relation to life and 
 truth, and then to describe the marvelousness of Com- 
 radeship, could not more forcefully have revealed the 
 illustriousness of His own life or the splendor of a 
 life whose main characteristic is Comradeship with 
 Himself. 
 
 90 
 
THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 91 
 
 In the great quadrangle, just outside the Temple, 
 there were brought, on the occasion of the Feast of 
 Tabernacles, two tables upon which were placed two 
 large candelabra. Their immense lights could be seen 
 far out over the city. They were designed to represent 
 the pillar of fire which guided the children of Israel 
 during their wilderness wanderings on their way to the 
 promised land. In nothing had the goodness of God 
 and the Divine majesty manifested itself more than in 
 the wonderful pillar of fire. It declared the presence 
 of the Infinite and also His unfailing interest in their 
 progress, The utterance of Christ must have been won- 
 derfully striking, with the bright lights shining as He 
 spoke, when He said: “I am the light of the world.” 
 The Carpenter’s proclamation was a startling claim to 
 distinction. 
 
 The autumnal period of His ministry had been 
 reached. The time had come for the fullest revealing 
 of the nature of His mission and also for a declaration 
 of Himself, in the utmost sublimity of His personality. 
 In the springtime period of Christ’s teaching He said 
 little about Himself. He demonstrated, but did not 
 declare. He worked miracles, and thus said: God is 
 here, among you. He let them draw their own infer- 
 ences regarding His Divineness. Springtime is the 
 time of gaiety and gladness. Every cascade is singing 
 its song of jubilee. Every opening bud is a promise of 
 bloom and beauty. The autumn is different. It is 
 serious. It speaks of culminations and the fulfilment 
 of promise. The forests are royally appareled. It is 
 the harvest time. Strength and richness combine. The 
 
92 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 
 
 utterance of autumn is sonorous, deep, grand. In the 
 teaching of Jesus a pictorial vividness characterizes the 
 closing period of His matchless life. Metaphor and 
 symbol grow majestic. The arrows of thought fly 
 more swiftly, and pierce more deeply. Every day now 
 is a triumphal march toward Calvary. Every conflict 
 issues in victory looking to that last great victory over 
 death itself. All the sayings of the Carpenter are 
 weighted with the wisdom of God. His latter-day 
 utterances lead us into the Holy of Holies of His life 
 and love. As the time drew near for His physical de- 
 parture He seemed to be especially tender and con- 
 cerned for His Comrades, then with Him, who should 
 come into that sacred relationship in following years. 
 He drew them close to Him, as a hen gathers her chick- 
 ens under her wings when she sees a hawk approaching. 
 The little company of Comrades contributed to Him 
 something His great heart craved. You cannot read 
 sympathetically the life of the Carpenter without dis- 
 covering His yearning for companionship. 
 
 We might almost say that the happiness of God is 
 not complete without fellowship with mankind, for 
 what did He not do to show His own yearning for the 
 love and Comradeship of His children by creation? 
 The Carpenter took every consistent means to increase 
 and intensify the devotion of His followers for Him- 
 self. He does the same today. The Divine craving 
 for comradeship never lessens. In every successive 
 representation of Himself as the fulfillment of Messi- 
 anic hope, Christ more distinctly portrayed the office of 
 the Messiah as life-giving. He saw the hopelessness of 
 
THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 93 
 
 His task in dealing with those whose prejudices were so 
 intense that they would distort all He said. But He 
 knew His Comrades were coming to understand Him 
 more and more perfectly. In the symbols employed by 
 Christ we find truth portrayed in such a way that all 
 people of all ages can understand Him, He was the 
 universal Man. ‘This explains the up-to-dateness of 
 the teachings of Jesus. There is no especial interest in 
 historic fact, unless it is pertinent to the problems of 
 our own day. 
 
 With a sweep as wide as the universe, with trumpet 
 tones destined to resound through the ages He had 
 already proclaimed Himself the “ Bread of Life,” the 
 “Water of Life,” and now with unprecedented earnest- 
 ness He calls Himself “The Light of the World.” As 
 the sun is the center of the solar system, so He claims 
 to be the center of every true philosophy of life and 
 every true religious system of life. There is no mis- 
 taking that Christ intended to represent Himself as 
 being unique. Yes, but vastly more than that word 
 signifies. ‘Transcendently great! ‘The incomparable 
 One! The Way! The only way to life and blessed- 
 ness. The Truth! Yes, the personification of all truth. 
 Every political, social, philosophical and religious sys- 
 tem that is not Christocentric is wrong. It is contrary 
 to the clearest conditions of progressive achievement. 
 As the earth is dependent on the sun for its beauty and 
 its fruitage, so in the moral and spiritual world the Sun 
 of Righteousness contributes all. 
 
 Light is the symbol of perfect holiness. A light beam 
 is the purest of all pure things. The Psalmist ecstat- 
 
94 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 
 
 ically cries: “ The Lord God is a sun.” Again: “ Who 
 coverest thyself with light, as with a garment.” In 
 saying, “I am the light of the world,” the Nazareth 
 Carpenter declared what no sage or poet or prophet 
 who had ever lived would have dared to say. What 
 would more quickly have repudiated any sort of 
 claim to recognition, on the part of Moses or David 
 or Isaiah or Elijah, than such a statement as this? 
 Think for a moment of what would happen to any 
 modern teacher who would say to an assembled audi- 
 ence: “J am the light of the world.” He would be 
 hissed from the platform. Not so with Jesus Christ. 
 In view of His life, there is nothing incongruous 
 about it. 
 
 Light is the symbol of health. Sin is disease. Law 
 is the condition of health, and sin is violation of the 
 law. Violate the conditions of health, and disease is 
 sure. We are physically dependent on the sunlight. 
 Light is the great enemy to disease germs and the great 
 friend of health. Comradeship with the Carpenter has 
 exactly the same effect on the soul that a sun-bath has 
 on the body. It gives everything that we call health. 
 It is one of the characteristics of evil that it conceals its 
 own deadly nature until it has undermined moral health. 
 One of our philosophers defined life as “ the sum of the | 
 forces that resist death.” Whenever the death forces 
 gain the ascendent, it is all over. Of such a man we 
 say, even while he is among us: “ He is a dead man.” 
 Light sends its healing power, kills the death germs, and 
 the life forces gain the ascendent. All this has its 
 counterpart in the spiritual realm. 
 
THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 95 
 
 Light, again, is the symbol of wisdom. We say of 
 an educated man: “ He is enlightened.” Christ is the 
 source of highest wisdom. Nothing was more striking 
 than the way in which the disciples of Jesus became 
 educated by association with Him. He was their in- 
 structor by precept and example. They surpassed a 
 hundred fold the educated and cultivated men of their 
 day in spiritual insight, in everything that is called 
 wisdom. All the accumulated knowledge of the ages 
 amounts to nothing, if it does not help men to know 
 God and duty and destiny. As the Light of the World, 
 Jesus illuminates the understanding spiritually and 
 makes clear what would otherwise remain forever in- 
 accessible and unaccountable. 
 
 Light is also a symbol of power. The pulling power 
 of the sun is seen every springtime. It has power to 
 awaken life in every seed. It lifts the juices to the 
 treetops and clothes them with living green. It smites 
 the frozen clod and prepares it for the seed sowing. It 
 leaps to the top of the ice castle and brings it down 
 humbly to the ocean. Light has greater dynamic force 
 than lightning. The sun, and not the detonating thun- 
 der, speaks most eloquently of power. Who can ex- 
 plain the power or influence exercised by men devoid of 
 special mental training of the schools or the influence 
 of social culture? ‘The Galilee fishermen illustrate to 
 the world the possibilities of the highest education and 
 culture through companionship with Him who is the in- 
 tellectual, the emotional, the spiritual light of the world. 
 As the Light, Christ becomes the one safe guide 
 through the world-mazes so baffling and often so dis- 
 
96 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 
 
 couraging. The sovereign cure for worry is illumina- 
 tion through association with Christ. 
 
 “He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness,” 
 said the Master. These are perilous times. A very 
 babel of directions sounds in the ears of the traveler. 
 Like the approach to an Oriental city where a hundred 
 appealing solicitors are seeking patronage, so are the 
 offers of leadership today. There are many voices but 
 only one Guide. You can feel safe only when under 
 Divine escort. ‘The Carpenter remains the Light of the 
 World today just as when He spake to the Comrades of 
 that morning hour of Christianity. He will leave no 
 one in doubt as to moral duty who will stand in the sun- 
 light of His smile. The lighted life is the confident 
 life, the expectant life, the assured life. Directions are 
 easily determined after sunrise. Uncertainties regard- 
 ing the Carpenter vanish as you enter into Comrade- 
 ship. To know Him is to love Him, and to love Him 
 is to walk an illuminated highway. The most beautiful 
 lace is made in a dark room where there is clear white 
 light concentrated on the pattern. These rays of light 
 are indispensable. Even though there are still some 
 perplexities, if we have the light of the Sun of Right- 
 eousness directly on the pattern, we may be content and 
 pursue our work with assurance that something beauti- 
 ful and fully approved will result. The lighted life is 
 the constructive life and the comprehensive life. There 
 is a disposition to refer to the Christian life as creed- 
 bound and grooved. Nothing could be farther from 
 the truth. Viewing a landscape in the moonlight is - 
 utterly different from looking out upon it in the broad 
 
THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 97 
 
 sunlight. The wider view and the more satisfying 
 view of all truth is where the sunlight of the personal- 
 ity of Jesus shines upon it. The life of breadth and 
 beauty comes from walking with the Great Companion 
 up the steeps of life, illuminated by His presence. 
 The complemental truth was forcefully uttered by 
 Christ. “ Ye are the light of the world.” What greater 
 compliment could have been paid to His Comrades of 
 that time and all time? Here, then, is the opportunity 
 for the life illustrious. No life need be insignificant 
 and unworthy after such an assurance. It was a decla- 
 ration that every child of humanity has a chance to be- 
 come illustrious in the eyes of God. How few there 
 are who can ever hope for anything like fame, here! 
 Not one in ten thousand can receive the plaudits of men. 
 and be called great. But that need dishearten no one. 
 There is something greater. You can shine as the stars 
 forever and ever. ‘ Ye are the light of the world.” It 
 was to Comrades the Carpenter spake those cheering 
 words. It is to the Comrades of today, the obligation 
 and responsibility together with the high privilege of 
 shining comes. Again we hear Him say: “ Let your 
 light so shine before men that they may see your good 
 works, and glorify your Father who is in Heaven.” 
 Here is a conspicuousness that has in it no pride, no 
 conceit, no presumption, no selfishness. We hide away, 
 while yet we shine, just as the lantern carried at night 
 does not reveal itself but the objects about it, so also 
 the shining life. The service of shining is the sub- 
 limest of all services. Until we become luminaries we 
 can scarcely claim to be Christian. The greatest need 
 
98 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 
 
 of humanity is illumination. Let the light shine, and 
 truth will easily be discovered. The history of world 
 progress is the history of illuminated highways. Only 
 the light can make the road safe. 
 
 When Gertrude Ederle was nearing shore after 
 swimming the English channel recently, bonfires and 
 every sort of illumination were employed, that she might 
 know exactly where to land, and the shortest and safest 
 course be taken. How many there are struggling amid 
 the breakers who need the light we can and should give 
 them. A few days ago a great airship, the Los Angeles, 
 after a voyage across the sea, hung over Boston, and 
 tested out radio stations, then proceeded to Lakehurst. 
 The one important thing was a lighted way and a safe 
 landing. 
 
 Jesus Christ delegated to His Comrades the task of 
 reflecting His light and thus lighting the way for hu- 
 manity in its hazardous journeys of life. We are the 
 legatees of a rich history. Our greatest indebtedness is 
 to those who have let their light shine, as civilization 
 has been unfolding. Leadership above all else must be 
 a leadership that lights the way. We need today lumi- 
 naries who draw their own light from the Central Sun. 
 The world owes nothing to those opaque bodies that 
 might have been luminous, but refused to permit the 
 Sun of Glory to shine upon them. 
 
 The secret of seeing and enjoying the bright side of 
 life is worth possessing. We have not far to seek. The 
 bright side of life is the side upon which we shine. 
 How many there are nursing their misfortunes and 
 living ever in a shadowed world! Not even the twilight 
 
THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 99 
 
 zone represents the hazy, murky, dismal atmosphere in 
 which they move. Their song, if ever they sing, is a 
 dirge. No oratorios of praise escape their lips. The 
 light is shining, but they do not reflect it. Their clouds 
 have no silver lining. That is never true of the Com- 
 rades of the Carpenter. He shines upon all who intrude 
 nothing between Him and them. Insensibility to the 
 Great Light is the saddest of all conditions. Many of 
 the most learned in worldly wisdom have lost sensitive- 
 ness to the Sun Supernal. Flowers emit fragrance, but 
 they have no sense of smell. Fruits have their delicious 
 flavors, but they cannot taste. 
 
 The bright side is not discovered, it is made. A 
 search for the bright side of life is a vain search. It is 
 as absurd as for a bird to search for the air and the 
 blue sky. You cannot buy it, yet it is within reach. 
 You cannot by searching find it, yet it is yours just by 
 shining. Let God’s sunshine into your heart, and you 
 have to shine. It reflects itself. That is exactly what 
 Jesus meant when He said, ‘ Ye are the light of the 
 world, Let your light shine.” Shine, or shrivel. 
 Shine, or be sorrowful. Shine, or sink. The choice is 
 yours. Your wealth will never make you a luminary. 
 Your social position will never make you a light. Why 
 go from room to room with an unlighted candle, hoping 
 to at last find a room where there is light? Why not 
 light the room you are in? 
 
 The sun is always on the bright side of life. When 
 Alexander’s horse became uncontrollable in the hands 
 of the groom the great general cried: “ Turn his head 
 toward the sun.” He did, and the steed was calmed 
 
100 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 
 
 immediately. He had been affrighted at his own 
 shadow. ‘The cure for timidity is facing the sunshine. 
 Looking Christward relieves the soul of all terror. The 
 cloud-piercing mountain is always bright on the sun- 
 ward side. The deepest valley is still flower-covered on 
 its sunward side. He who refuses to become a lumi- 
 nary makes a dark spot, with its chill and danger. It is 
 true that heavy clouds hang over many lives. ‘There 
 are business clouds and domestic clouds and social 
 clouds and moral clouds that chill the world. All the 
 more must we let our light shine to overcome the deadly 
 influence of darkness. Light alone can bring good 
 cheer and hopefulness. The Carpenter’s Comrades have 
 no right to live lives of gloomy discontent. We of all 
 people have reason to be happy. The warmth of the 
 Comrade Divine should give the heart a tropical beauty 
 in which every kind of flower and shrub and even 
 Heavenly exotics can thrive. 
 
 There is no folly greater than the folly of frowning. 
 It kills the light. A scowl on the face is an evidence 
 of a scowl in the heart. Kindness will develop kind- 
 ness. Shining will result in more sunshine. Smile and 
 others will answer. You cannot get honey from a rock, 
 and you can as little get good cheer from a soul that has 
 not learned the secret of shining. Urbanity of conduct 
 and gentleness of attitude beget health. There is poison 
 in anger. A sound body is impossible for any great 
 length of time where there is an unsound heart. 
 
 The light we send forth is a reflected light. If we 
 stand away from the Sun, what chance have we of shin- _ 
 ing for others? As lights in the world commending 
 
THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 101 
 
 Christ, the comrade of Christ must have good will for 
 all. He must practice agreeableness, soul-nobility, 
 magnanimity, courtesy, for all these are simply rays of 
 Divine sunshine which come from Jesus Christ direct 
 to the human heart. The light we send forth must be 
 far more than the light of knowledge. Intellectual il- 
 lumination is a part, but only a part, of our service of 
 shining. It means a whole personality bathed in the 
 sunshine of Divine love until it fairly glows with the 
 Divine. It is a peace-giving, joy-producing thing. It 
 makes the heart magnetic and tremendously increases 
 power of attraction. It is remedial. It heals broken 
 hearts. It is balm that quickly cures wounds made by 
 human cruelty. The Great Light of the World must 
 shine right into our hearts if we in turn are to be of real 
 service to others. Electricity is generated through 
 swift-moving contacts. Only contact with Christ can 
 generate in the human heart electric power of a spiri- 
 tual nature that can be converted into light. Our light 
 is developed by using what we have. 
 
 In the city of Chicago some years ago a little boy 
 stood one day where the sunshine was streaming 
 through the window in such a way that the rainbow 
 colors appeared on some little slippers his mother had 
 just given him. He was radiant with delight. “ Look, 
 mama, what is this?”’ She answered: ‘‘ That is God’s 
 smile, and I hope when you come to be a man you will 
 always stand in God’s smile.” Years passed. The boy 
 grew to manhood. He acquired large wealth. He 
 builded a palatial home of his own choosing. His 
 mother had passed on. Her possessions had been care- 
 
102 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 
 
 fully preserved. Now they were to be moved into the 
 new house. He would entrust the work to no one. 
 The first object that arrested his attention as he opened 
 the trunk containing his mother’s special treasures was 
 the little slippers he had worn when his mother had told 
 him the prismatic colors upon his feet were God’s 
 smile. In her own handwriting she had penned a little 
 story of the incident and had concluded with: “I am 
 afraid my William has gotten far away from God’s 
 smile. God grant he may return again, and stand in 
 the smile of redeeming love in the Sun of Righteous- 
 ness.” He stopped reading, faced himself seriously, 
 and said: “ Yes; far, far from God’s smile. But here 
 and now I return, and will seek the sunshine of His 
 love, until again the prismatic colors reflect themselves 
 in my life.” He turned over his business to his associ- 
 ates. He began at once to let his light shine on other 
 pathways, and used his great wealth to bring happiness 
 and health and hope into the lives of his fellow-men. 
 He became a Comrade with the Carpenter, and radiated 
 Christ’s love wherever he went. 
 
 Shine, until all of life shall become one splendid 
 _ manifestation of Divine Glory. Get under God’s smile, 
 Breathe in it; bathe in it; live in it. 
 
IX 
 
 THE CARPENTER, THE GOOD SHEPHERD 
 
 THEN SPAKE THE CARPENTER: “I am the good shep- 
 isle 4 pope shepherd layeth down his life for the sheep.’— 
 oHN 10:11. 
 
 For striking symbolism, beautiful imagery, sublime 
 simplicity, no discourse by any one in any language is 
 comparable to the Carpenter’s discourse to His Com- 
 rades on the “ Good Shepherd.” No modern preacher, 
 if he could, would dare to go before his congregation 
 with such a simple statement of truth. Only the great 
 can be simple in expression and at the same time have 
 length and breadth and depth in their utterances. We 
 think of a learned discourse as one that proceeds on the 
 sesquipedalian plane, with technical language and high- 
 sounding phrases. It must enter the domain of meta- 
 physics and deal liberally in “the psychology of the 
 group” and “resident forces.”’ It must quote frequently 
 from Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, Ovid, Sophocles, Vir- 
 gil, Tacitus, and then come on to the patristic fathers 
 and the School-men and Reformers, with a sufficient 
 flavor of technical scientific terms to give the appear- 
 ance of wide reading and deep thinking. If he does 
 these and kindred other similar things to conceal his 
 ignorance, the speaker will be sure to win a swivel- 
 headed approval, even though not one single noble im- 
 pulse has been awakened and not one intelligent purpose 
 
 103 
 
104 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 
 
 developed in any one of his hearers. The Carpenter 
 could be profoundly simple. He was Himself the em- 
 bodiment of all truth, and knew how to present it. A 
 striking feature of all the discourses of Jesus Christ is 
 their definiteness; their directness; their applicability 
 to the common needs of the common people. There is 
 a universality about the truth He taught giving His 
 utterances perennial freshness. Of all the discourses 
 of the Carpenter none surpasses the Good Shepherd in 
 attractiveness and comprehensiveness. A child reads it 
 with open-eyed wonder, while the most learned man 
 revels in its inspirations and illuminations. 
 
 It begins like the prelude of a beautiful Oratorio. It 
 is sweet and soothing, but it moves on in stirring notes, 
 surprises and soul-thrilling variations. There are the 
 thunders of condemnation, then the lute-like melodies 
 of a lullaby; then, again, the piercing voice of warning 
 in the piccolo. Our eyes rest on running brooks and 
 well-watered plains. We see green pastures and flow- 
 ing fountains, rugged mountain-sides and deep cafi- 
 yons. ‘The approaching wolf and the masked lion 
 appear. But foremost is the Good Shepherd in all the 
 benignity, the courage, the tenderness of His being, 
 caring for His sheep. 
 
 The imagery and symbolism are kaleidoscopic. The 
 figures change, but the outstanding truth is never lost. 
 After we have viewed the various scenes, after we 
 have listened to the sweet or soul-stirring music, we 
 have one thought indelibly stamped on mind and heart; 
 namely, that we are under a Divinely protecting care — 
 and are safe. 
 
THE GOOD SHEPHERD 105 
 
 The Carpenter used the language that would most 
 forcibly present to His Comrades Himself. He was 
 the message He wished to give. Hence it was the ideal 
 discourse. That is the ideal address or sermon that suc- 
 ceeds in leaving the impression that Comradeship with 
 the Carpenter is the greatest thing in the world and that 
 it is possible for everybody today. It matters little 
 whether or not a single sentence can be quoted from the 
 sermon, provided Jesus Christ has been unveiled. The 
 eminent traditionalists had taken exception to the teach- 
 ing of Jesus, because He had not been ordained. But 
 He had. He had received His ordination from Heaven. 
 There are thousands of men today who have had a far 
 higher endorsement than any Council or Presbytery 
 could possibly give, and yet who are refused recognition 
 because they have not the tag of some school attached 
 to them. This is not to say that a scholastic training 
 with Divine ordination is not eminently desirable. It 
 is, but it is not all, nor even of highest importance. 
 
 The first figure employed by Jesus is the sheepfold. 
 In a country pastoral in character, subject to the 1n- 
 vasion of hordes of aliens and organized bands of ruf- 
 fians and infested with wild beasts, the sheepfold was 
 immensely important. It represented security for the 
 sheep. In a world infested with robbers and swindlers, 
 and where the rapaciousness of invisible hosts of evil 
 is a constant menace, a place of protection and personal 
 provision is also of primary significance. The sheep- 
 fold must be well builded and inaccessible to any save 
 the Shepherd. “ He that entereth in by the door is the 
 shepherd of the sheep. He that climbeth up some other 
 
106 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER © 
 
 way the same is a thief and a robber.” ‘The Porter is 
 God Almighty. The Good Shepherd is Jesus Christ. 
 The door is first of all the appointed way of salvation, 
 then it is the way into the sheepfold, for the sheep. In 
 the word “climbeth” we find a stirring suggestion of 
 the determined effort ever made to gain self-appointed 
 leadership. Why this constant effort to find some other 
 way of salvation than that provided by Jesus which is 
 so accessible and so satisfying? What tremendous ex- 
 ertion men are making to throw aside the true way and 
 try some new way of safety and life! Atheism and 
 infidelity work overtime to destroy faith in the one and 
 only Door. Trying to scale the battlements of glory is 
 so stupid, when the door is wide open and so easy of 
 entrance. The natural way is, after all, the super- 
 natural way. ‘The difficulties of unbelief are vastly 
 greater than the difficulties of belief. It requires an 
 immense amount of credulity to explain away the Bible, 
 but only common sense to receive it and apply it. Un- 
 belief always raises a thousand times more questions 
 than does belief, and unbelief cannot answer its own 
 questions. 
 
 The Carpenter declared Himself the appointed Shep- 
 herd, to whom all might come for shelter and safety. 
 To make the relation between Himself and His com- 
 rades the closer, He said: “‘ He calleth his own sheep 
 by name and leadeth them out.” It was as though He 
 said: “I will guard over the lives and the well-being of 
 My comrades. I know your names, and we will walk. 
 in that intimacy of fellowship whereby you can per- 
 sonally realize that you are individually the objects of 
 
THE GOOD SHEPHERD 107 
 
 my care.” What could be more comforting than this 
 definiteness of interest the Carpenter-Christ has in His 
 Comrades along life’s way? Embattled and storm- 
 bound pilgrims along life’s highway are never without 
 the watch-care of the Great Comrade. Those who talk 
 glibly of wholesale Redemption through a social gospel 
 would do well to study this declaration of the Master. 
 Dr. Horace Bushnell uttered great truth in small com- 
 pass when he said: ‘‘ The soul of reformation is the 
 reformation of the soul.’”’ One by one, is God’s way. 
 It works. Society is saved collectively by being saved 
 individually. “He leadeth them out.” There is no 
 safe guidance except Divine guidance. Too many are 
 following blind guides who have never even sought the 
 greater leadership of the Good Shepherd. When we 
 enter into the subtle things of the spirit, where we are 
 dealing with ultimate realities, what human wisdom 
 can be trusted? When Eternal Life is at stake let no 
 one speak to me who is not under the guidance of 
 Christ through comradeship. When the pulses feebly 
 beat and the lights are dimming we want some one who 
 has the ear of God, to comfort and prepare us. 
 
 We have not fully appreciated Comradeship with the 
 Carpenter, until we have heard Him calling us by name. 
 His messages bear the substitution of our own name in 
 all the promises and pledges He gives. “I will call you 
 by name; I will lead you out.” Out of the mazes, the 
 miasmic swamps, the dangerous pitfalls, the evil con- 
 spiracies, the jungles of evil beasts of prey; out of fear, 
 weakness, failure; into peace and happiness and prog- 
 ress and largeness and liberty and loveliness! The 
 
108 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 
 
 suggestion is of intensity and extensity. Breadth, 
 height, depth, greatness. 
 
 The application of the parable is the important mat- 
 ter. The Carpenter spoke in parables because they 
 could be easily applied by those who were sympathetic 
 and they could be so interpreted by Himself to His ene- 
 mies, that they could not assail Him. Even the haters 
 of Jesus were not worried, and did not interfere, so 
 long as He spoke in parables. People like to be lulled 
 to rest. A parable can be listened to with complacency, 
 because one need not apply it to himself in any un- 
 favorable way. Shooting arrows skyward frightens no 
 one. Artillery turned upon the open sea will-not dis- 
 turb the enemy. Party leaders understand that, and so 
 political platforms are couched in language that can be 
 variously interpreted. Great issues are avoided or dealt 
 with gingerly. A good deal of Christian doctrine is 
 handled in the same way. -Phraseology is used that 
 may satisfy Evangelical or Unitarian. As long as men 
 proceed on broad generalities, no one will be antagon- 
 ized. But what is the use of marking time in that 
 way? All error and evil ask is to be let alone. They 
 
 are always crying “‘ Peace, Peace,” but all the time pre- 
 
 venting peace by undermining truth. No man is worth 
 crucifying whose heart is not aflame and whose words 
 do not sometimes become scimiters. That is why most 
 public speakers are not disturbed. They are not worth 
 fighting. They do not say anything, they simply 
 talk. Well rounded rhetorical periods concerning the 
 “ Magna Charta’’ of some dead nation permit the de- 
 bauchee and the libertine to sleep quietly in the pew. 
 
 — 
 
THE GOOD SHEPHERD 109 
 
 The gambler and the drunkard are not aroused by 
 rhetoric. It is astonishing how quiet people will be, 
 under a vehement attack on the Jews! Men who all the 
 week have been guilty of betraying their Lord by vio- 
 lating every covenant they have ever taken do not even 
 wince when the minister excoriates Judas for his in- 
 famous betrayal of Christ. Men who have taken the 
 last pound of flesh, through mortgage foreclosure, and 
 have transferred another’s wealth to their own pockets, 
 do not bat an eye when, with intense vividness, the 
 scene is laid in Venice and Shakespeare’s Shylock is 
 hammered. As long as benevolences in general are 
 dealt with, and no appeal for money is made, all goes 
 well, but let the withering truth be personally applied, 
 then it is different. When denunciations of immorality 
 and parsimony and infidelity and dishonesty are made 
 to strike home, the question will be raised whether or 
 not a more ‘‘ A‘sthetic minister whose ideas are in ac- 
 cord with the times” is not better suited to “ our ad- 
 vanced people.” ‘There is a call then for more culture 
 and less Christ. David could exhibit a wonderful pas- 
 sion for justice until Nathan pointed his finger at him 
 and said: ‘Thou art the man.” He had then one of 
 two courses open; behead the prophet or repent. To 
 many, beheading is the less difficult. The very business 
 of truth is to unmask error. Some one must turn on 
 the searchlight, or the wold goes down in a maelstrom 
 of unbelief and uncleanness. The supreme office of 
 love is to burn its way through the veneer, the 
 paint and the varnish, externalities of every kind, 
 and show what lies back of all profession. Our mod- 
 
110 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 
 
 ern dilletantism enjoys a lukewarm applause and a tepid 
 approbation. 
 
 The Carpenter was the personification of kindness. 
 He knew that the world can be drawn but not driven to 
 the higher life. But He knew as well that just as long 
 as sin is masked it will never be feared and will never 
 be eliminated. When, however, He wanted to reveal — 
 the attractiveness of Comradeship with Himself, He 
 represented Himself as tenderly solicitous for and un- 
 changeably devoted to the interests of His Comrades. 
 He did not shrink from commonplace comparisons. 
 “T am the door.” Now He is on dangerous ground. 
 He is making application of the parable. Profession is 
 costly. When a person is willing to identify himself 
 with some great principle he will make enemies. Stand 
 in the midst of any concourse of people and proclaim 
 yourself a Comrade of the Carpenter, with all that im- 
 plies, and you will be known then to be opposed to 
 every form of deviltry that is disgracing your home 
 town, and you will be opposed. Knitted brows and up- 
 turned lip of scorn will greet your advocacy of some 
 important reform. More than that, if you stand as a 
 true Comrade of the Carpenter long enough, and fulfil 
 your duty, there will be those who will enter into a con- 
 spiracy, and will determine upon your financial, your 
 social, your moral crucifixion. 
 
 That was just what happened when the Carpenter 
 said: “I am the Good Shepherd.” When He began to— 
 talk about “thieves and robbers,” the cross stood out 
 clear-cut in the horizon. The Carpenter understood 
 just what He was hazarding, for before He finished the 
 
THE GOOD SHEPHERD 1 By 
 
 discourse He told what would be the outcome. He 
 dared declare that He and He alone could save man- 
 kind. “ By me if any man shall enter in, he shall be 
 saved.” ‘That is a tremendous word. What is it to be 
 saved? The shipwrecked mariner knows what it 
 means, when he has been delivered from an angry sea 
 and is at last safe on the shore. The sick man who 
 has been down in the shadows and through the skill 
 of man and the help of the Great Comrade has been 
 led back to health, he knows what ‘‘ saved” means. 
 The condemned man appointed for execution at sun- 
 rise and listening for the footfall of the officer who 
 is to lead him to execution, but who receives a par- 
 don at the last moment, he knows what “ saved” 
 means. But none of these know, as does one who has 
 _heard the invitation of the Carpenter to sacred Com- 
 radeship and has entered into sweet fellowship by 
 the 4 Door’ 
 
 Once more the Carpenter speaks. “He shall go in 
 and out and find pasture.’ All the yearnings of the 
 soul represented by hunger, satisfied! ‘This is the 
 promise. Intellectual aspirations for truth, emotional 
 awakenings calling for peace, spiritual outreach, all, all 
 satisfied. Sustenance in order to vigor, that is the 
 thought. Ask the great men of the past two thousand 
 years what “ pasture”? means. Ask the church fathers, 
 the Reformers, the statesmen. Ask Gladstone, John 
 Bright, Washington, Lincoln, Garfield, to whom they 
 were most indebted. Ask the really great leaders of 
 thought today where they look for mental, moral and 
 - spiritual food that builds character. They will all an- 
 
112 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 
 
 swer in a chorus: “ To the Carpenter-Christ, whose 
 comrades we have been through the years.” 
 
 As the final expression of love, the last word that 
 can be spoken in His call for Comradeship, hear Him 
 say: “I lay down my life for the sheep.” That is what 
 it cost to open the way for Comradeship with the Car- 
 penter. This is the full measure of devotion. He has 
 given it. Tenderness, gentleness, watchfulness, kindli- 
 ness, goodness, patience, unfailing devotion, these are 
 the characteristics of the Good Shepherd, the Carpenter- 
 Christ, the Great Comrade of all who answer the royal 
 invitation: ‘Come unto me.” ‘To be His Comrade is 
 vastly more than to believe He was born in Bethlehem, - 
 lived in Nazareth and died on the Cross. It is to walk 
 daily with Him in the home, on the street, through all 
 the common daily experiences of life as the Great 
 Companion. His saviourhood must become a reality 
 through submission to His will. Substitutes all fail. 
 Pharisaic pride and Sadducaic unbelief leave a great 
 aching void in the heart. Equally futile are the ma- 
 terialism and agnosticism and rationalism and panthe- 
 ism and atheism of our day. ‘They meet no deep 
 heart-need and answer no yearning heart call. Com- 
 radeship with the Carpenter is the greatest fact of this 
 moment. The splendid consummation will be realized 
 when the people of all nations, kindreds and tongues 
 who are in fellowship with the Great Comrade shall be 
 united under one Headship and crown Him King of 
 kings and Lord of lords; and He will rule from the 
 rivers unto the ends of the earth, and “ There shall be 
 one fold and one shepherd.’” 
 
Xx 
 
 THE COMPULSIONS OF REDEMPTIVE 
 LOVE 
 
 THEN SPAKE THE CARPENTER: “The Son of Man must 
 suffer many things... and be slain, and be raised the third 
 day.” —LukE 9: 22, 
 
 You can break with God, bt you cannot escape 
 Him. You may cauterize conscience, but you will not 
 be able to destroy it. You may paralyze your moral 
 sensibilities, but experiences will sensitize them again. 
 Truth can be stifled and strangled, but never de- 
 stroyed. You may bow justice out of the door, but 
 you can never weaken its rights and its powers. De- 
 stroying sin does not diminish its deadliness. A broken 
 mirror will not beautify a plain face. The barrier may 
 drive the stream to cover, but sooner or later it will 
 push out again into the open. You may forget God’s 
 Book, but you cannot change the inexorableness of the 
 laws therein. Changing the label does not make poison 
 pure. The flags, the band and the painted decks, give 
 no safety to a ship with decayed timbers. <A rejected 
 religion loses none of its rights through dismissal. The 
 laws of health may be broken, but the end is feebleness 
 and failure. Opinions of men alter no purposes of 
 God. Hidden reefs refuse to recede simply because the 
 captain is indifferent or defiant. We are creatures and 
 not creators. Defiance of God’s will writes its own 
 
 113 
 
114 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 
 
 doom. The triumphs of evil are quickly changed to 
 the terror of defeat. The capitalists of Gadara who 
 asked Christ to depart after losing the herd of swine 
 impoverished themselves when most they thought to 
 increase their riches. When Christ leaves, judgment 
 remains. ‘The heart of man is never satisfied with any 
 material acquisition. No man is so rich in fortune or 
 fame that he does not need Comradeship with the Car- 
 penter. Historians, true to truth, shadow the crowns 
 of kings and wreathes of heroes with stories of little- 
 ness, weakness, and meanness, revealing how impos- 
 sible it is for unaided human nature to reach any noble 
 ideal. Material acquisitions which cost the dismissal of 
 Christ, carry their own penalty. We must meet our 
 yesterdays. But how? Only the Cross answers the 
 question how we may meet our yesterdays without 
 dread. Sin must be dealt with adequately. It definitely 
 separates man from God. It must be eliminated. God 
 does that very thing through His Son. 
 
 Given a lost world and a pitying God, a saving pro- 
 vision and process inevitably follows. A world to be 
 lifted, what leverage is adequate? A usurper en- 
 throned, how can he be unseated and the sceptre of the 
 Eternal King recognized? A world engulfed and cor- 
 rupted, how can it be purified? A world enslaved, 
 whence and how is liberty to be experienced? Discord 
 and discontent, how attune the unstrung harp to 
 celestial pitch and produce divine melody? A world 
 sick in sin, where is the physician who can heal? Dis- 
 couragement, despondency, whence is lasting hope? 
 What transforming energy can operate to irrigate a 
 
REDEMPTIVE LOVE 115 
 
 desert and produce from a wilderness a garden of 
 beauty? Is it possible to convert weakness into 
 strength, sorrow into joy, despair into delight, guilt to 
 innocency? Nature converts clay into opal, black car- 
 bon into diamonds; why then cannot God effect the 
 greater heart transformation? 
 
 This was the Carpenter’s problem. The image of 
 God was lost through transgression, but not the con- 
 sciousness of God and duty. A universal belief in a 
 Supreme Being is scarcely open to question. A uni- 
 versal sense of dependence and need is a patent fact. A 
 universal consciousness of guilt is perfectly evident 
 from a universal, sacrificial effort to gain relief. Added 
 to these is the fact that there is a universal aspiration, 
 though sometimes feebly manifested, to gain divine 
 recognition and approval. All these things give confi- 
 dence that man can be approached successfully and 
 ultimately saved. 
 
 There are many influences tending to neutralize and 
 nullify man’s outreach for God and truth. The battle 
 for existence is fierce, persistent and absorbing. Whip 
 and spur drive the flagging energies. Ensnaring plea- 
 sures exert even a more deleterious influence. Myriad 
 voices sing their siren song. ‘The sweet note of truth 
 is lost. A thousand sensuous delights offer themselves 
 and plead for recognition. Selfishness asserts itself and 
 blights the brightest bud of promise. Self-indulgence 
 leads to auto-intoxication, then to paralysis, and finally 
 to death. 
 
 Into these conditions and facing these problems, came 
 the Carpenter. Salvation must be a fact, or creation a 
 
116 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 
 
 failure. The problem was God’s. No other could an- 
 swer it. The most striking feature of the teaching, 
 doing and dying of Christ is its inexorableness and in- 
 evitableness. With the steadiness with which the needle 
 holds to the pole-star, the Carpenter moved to the 
 Cross. There were no aberrations, no temporary de- 
 partures, no derelictions. He was clearly under an 
 inner control. A review of that matchless life leaves 
 no room to doubt the fullest freedom of action, together 
 with unquestioning compulsion, His first public utter- 
 ance was made while yet a child: “ Wist ye not that I 
 must be about my Father’s business?’ In His public 
 ministry the suggestion of an inner urge appears: “ The 
 Son of Man must suffer many things.” “I must preach 
 the kingdom.” “I must walk today.” ‘The Son of 
 Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men.” 
 “T must work the works of him that sent me.” 
 
 Here we have the explanation of the constant impera- 
 tive in the teaching, doing and dying, the Resurrection 
 and Ascension of Jesus Christ. 
 
 The Cross of Jesus is the central core of Christian- 
 ity. It was there redemptive love found its largest and 
 its final expression. ‘There is no incentive to repen- 
 tance, sacrificial devotion, complete consecration, com- 
 parable in cogency with the redemptive love of God 
 expressed in the sacrifice of Jesus for the sins of the 
 world. ‘The Carpenter could never have gained Com-— 
 rades save through the call of the Cross. Loving sacri- 
 fice makes an irresistible appeal. It comes weighted 
 with a father’s pity and a mother’s tenderness. Re- 
 demptive love opens the holy of holies in the heart of 
 
REDEMPTIVE LOVE 117 
 
 God to every child of humanity. It offers pardon 
 and peace for which it furnishes a rational basis. 
 No arbitrary decree of forgiveness could give peace 
 to a guilt-burdened soul. Before a sinful man can 
 have fellowship with God, unholiness must be 
 changed to holiness. The gateway through which 
 man must pass first is the gateway of repentance. 
 Every selfish instinct opposes it. Pride rebels against 
 it. Man will break before he will bend. Appetites 
 and tendencies of the natural heart rebel against it. 
 Only Redemptive Love can melt down the icy cita- 
 del of self-satisfaction and admit the King of Glory. 
 The sunshine is more effective in destroying a cita- 
 del of ice than a modern battery would be. Re- 
 generating grace is simply a deposit of redemptive 
 love in the human heart to transform and unfold 
 it. Christianity is distinctively re-creative. It stands 
 in bold contrast with self-repair. It is thoroughly 
 revolutionary. 
 
 The change from a life of simple self-indulgence to 
 one of self-abnegation and righteousness is unspeak- 
 ably great. It means conflict; war to the death; un- 
 compromising engagement to supplant evil with good. 
 Life is governed by its adopted ideals. Christianity’s 
 conception of success is unique. The Carpenter taught 
 His comrades that they must surrender in order to con- 
 quer, lose in order to win, die in order to live. But 
 ideals are tantalizing and disappointing unless we have 
 power to realize them. Precisely this is what the Car- 
 penter imparts to His comrades. This is one of the 
 unique features of Christianity. The Christian ideal 
 
118 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 
 
 carries within itself a divine potency. Ideals fix 
 eternity. 
 
 The task presented to the comrades of the Carpenter 
 is a sublime one. The redemptive compulsion must 
 have its counterpart in the Comrades of Christ, in 
 working out salvation. The cogent motive in all spiri- 
 tual activity is the glory of God and personal perfection. 
 The credential of the Christian is service and sacrifice. 
 A life whose motive and method are restorational, fur- 
 nishes absolute proof of the sincerity of its profession. 
 Only comradeship with Christ will insure an adequate 
 dynamic in the individual Christian. Christianity is a 
 religion of activity and achievement. It has been wisely 
 said: “ Christ found religion a rite, and He made it a 
 passion.” Redemptive love is the one irresistible dyna- 
 mic on this planet. This explains the unapproachable 
 superiority of the religion of Jesus. Thor, the god of 
 the Norsemen, had his hammer. Jupiter his thunder- 
 bolt, Vulcan his forge, but Jesus came with a new 
 weapon. The only sword He ever unsheathed was the 
 sword of Redemptive Love. With this He proposed 
 for Himself world-wide imperialism. He dared to 
 prophesy universal dominion. With an optimism au- 
 dacious as it was sublime, He predicted the capture of 
 a world that hated Him. After His death, when the 
 great Cause was in the shadow of temporary eclipse, 
 His Comrades, filled with the passion of Redemptive 
 Love, though thwarted in their plans, maligned and 
 maltreated, yet made bold to declare: “ The stone which 
 was set at nought of you builders has become the head 
 of the corner.” 
 
REDEMPTIVE LOVE 119 
 
 Redemptive love is the synthetic of all truth. In 
 human history extremes have followed each other with 
 unceasing regularity. The songs of Homer filled the 
 world with the expectation of prevailing and controlling 
 joy and promised a golden age of plenty. They had 
 hardly died away before the dirge of A‘schylus fore- 
 boded destruction and declared life not worth living. 
 The Hebrew prophets made hopefulness an article of 
 faith, yet with them Davidics are followed by Jere- 
 miads. History repeats itself. Leibnitz beheld a world 
 so beautiful that he could conceive of no better para- 
 dise. Schopenhauer cynically breathes lamentations 
 over the imperfections of the world and the failure of 
 life. Redemptive love prevents unreasonable optimism 
 and prohibits a pessimism which would paralyze the 
 nerve of human effort. | 
 
 Faith has a true rationale. It rests on reason and 
 experience. The consciousness of the indwelling of 
 Redemptive Love furnishes the Christian his deepest 
 joy and presents the grounds of sacrificial service. The 
 testimony of the Carpenter’s comrades wins the world. 
 Love experienced is the basis of love expressed. The 
 Carpenter was able to impart His spirit to His Com- 
 rades. He does today. Comradeship has repeatedly 
 meant imprisonment, obloquy, persecution, death. The 
 splendid triumphs of the apostolic period finds its only 
 explanation in the inner urge awakened by companion- 
 ship with Christ. The martyr spirit was conspicuous. 
 Progress was phenomenal. Nothing could stay the 
 wheels of the redeeming chariot of God. Within three 
 centuries the Comrades of the Carpenter lifted the ban- 
 
120 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 
 
 ner of the Cross above the Roman eagles. They com- 
 pelled the standards of all nations to dip to the new 
 ensign, which was “ Christ and Him crucified.” But 
 temporal successes in the Church have always strangely 
 led to a weakening of the compulsions of Redemptive 
 Love. After the apostolic period, the spirit of sacrifice 
 diminished. The Church became popular. The force of 
 arms and the imposing grandeur of ecclesiastical organ- 
 ization were substituted for the dynamic of redeeming 
 love. A spectacular religion supplanted spiritual ser- 
 vice. The decline continued for five hundred years. 
 The Carpenter had lost His Comrades. The transform- 
 ing power of the Church had gone. Subtle specula- 
 tions and empty sophistries covered the pearls of truth. 
 Casuistry obscured Christ. The discussion of arid 
 themes took the place of “ Christ and Him crucified.” 
 
 Then again came the Carpenter, and new Comrades. 
 We have the Reformation. Wycliff appeared and 
 undertook to arouse the inert mass which called itself a 
 church. It moved just enough to crush him. Huss 
 blew the bugle note of appeal for a return to Christ. 
 The sweet melody was soon silenced. Luther, the 
 monk of Erfurt, felt the inner stirrings of Redemptive 
 Love. Under its mandate, he inaugurated the new era. 
 “Every man his own priest, God approachable by all, 
 the Bible its own interpreter,’ these were the watch- 
 words. The wheel, the fagot and the rack were the 
 arguments which were faced unflinchingly. The new 
 era had begun under the compulsions of Redemptive 
 Love and has continued with cumulative power up to 
 the present. 
 
REDEMPTIVE LOVE 121 
 
 Only Christian nations are progressive. This is true 
 commercially, industrially, intellectually, ethically and 
 spiritually. All conceptions of life have taken on to a 
 greater or less degree a religious aspect. Art concep- 
 tions have changed. The masterpieces of Rabinowitz 
 and Holman Hunt owe their popularity to the fact that 
 they touch a sympathetic chord in the heart of human- 
 ity. Literary activity in distinctively religious lines is 
 prodigious. The works today passing through the 
 largest number of editions are such works as Charles 
 M. Sheldon’s In His Steps. The evangelical zeal of 
 today bears the stamp of a high order of intelligence. 
 There is an extraordinary interest in new editions of 
 the Word of God. Never were there so many men and 
 women of high intellectual standing seriously studying 
 the Bible. In the world of feeling, the compulsions 
 of Redemptive Love are multiplying philanthropies. 
 Sympathy is the watchword. The victims of tyranny 
 awaken pity and reclamatory effort. Childhood is 
 studied and better understood than ever before. 
 Hospitals, homes, asylums indicate the practical appli- 
 cation of Redeeming Love to the crying needs of the 
 unfortunate. 
 
 Christianity an expended force? What declaration 
 could be more absurd! Let the comrades of the Car- 
 penter waste no time in argument. The best answer 
 to Goldwin Smith and Anthony Froude is the magnifi- 
 cently cumulative energy of the Church today. It is 
 no novel thing for cultivated minds to assail the 
 Church. The Church’s answer must be her sympa- 
 thetic devotion to the teachings and ideals of the Car- 
 
122 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 
 
 penter of Nazareth. It is noteworthy that Christian 
 progress has been wholly and solely along the lines of 
 evangelical Christianity. ‘The missionary work of the 
 present generation has cost incalculable sacrifice, but it 
 has been done cheerfully. A victorious type of piety is 
 produced only when the heroic aspects of Redemptive 
 Love are faithfully set forth. The Comrades of the 
 Carpenter need not be unduly distressed, even though 
 apostasy has reached appalling proportions. Two 
 periods of atheism preceding this were virulent, abu- 
 sive, and comprehended a far larger number of think- 
 
 ing people than the present movements of infidelity. © 
 There are intermittent waves of unbelief which move 
 over the world like a pestilence. The activities of 
 rationalistic atheism today may temporarily retard, but 
 cannot permanently prevent, the advance of God’s 
 Church. Deism in England, atheism in France, ration- 
 alism in Germany are spent forces. Materialistic mod- 
 ernism of our own time is doomed to decay and 
 disappearance. We need unwearying patience. The 
 utmost fidelity is demanded. Love must still be the 
 commanding and controlling power. Objections of- 
 fered by the enemies of Christianity can never be an- 
 swered by holy maledictions. Close fellowship with a 
 communicable Christ can alone develop a redemptive 
 passion in the Church of God, which will produce a . 
 world-wide revival. The Carpenter-Christ ts here. 
 “From Edom with dyed garments from Bozrah, trav- 
 eling in the greatness of His power, Mighty to Save.” 
 
XI 
 
 CIVILIZING, SOCIALIZING, CHRISTIAN- 
 IZING THE WORLD 
 
 THEN SPAKE THE CARPENTER: “ Peace, be still... and 
 there was a great calm.’ “Come forth, thou unclean spirit, 
 out of the man.”—Mark 4:39; 5:8. 
 
 CREATION was accomplished without effort. Run- 
 ning the natural universe demands a perpetual exercise 
 of Divine power. He who created the world stayed 
 with it. He never abandoned it. Should He do so, 
 the result would be chaos. He who created the world 
 controls it. He left room for His especial personal 
 activity with the certainty of intervention whenever 
 circumstances demand it. Miracle is the exceptional 
 manifestation of God’s power. In the days of the Car- 
 penter, He was often dealing with the tempest of 
 natural elements. Crossing the Sea of Galilee on one 
 occasion with His Comrades, an opportunity offered 
 itself for the demonstration of His Divineness in con- 
 trolling wind and wave. The short voyage across the 
 sea revealed the fact that His Comrades are by no 
 means rendered immune from danger and difficulty 
 from the mere fact of comradeship. They were doing 
 precisely what He counseled. They were diligently 
 carrying out the program He prepared. It was in the 
 fulfillment of duty that they found themselves im- 
 
 123. 
 
124 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 
 
 periled. A boisterous wind sweeping down the heights 
 from the eastern shore lashed the waters to a foam- 
 ing fury. 
 
 Probably no sheet of water presents greater contrast 
 at successive intervals than the Sea of Galilee. No lake 
 could be more beautifully placid than is beautiful blue 
 Galilee when it ts placid. On the other hand, no body 
 of water of its size is more threatening than this when 
 lashed by the winds. Its waves rise almost to the 
 heights of the waves of the storm-swept ocean. The 
 changes are sudden and violent. On this occasion, the 
 boat was beginning to sink, and the terrified company 
 was amazed to discover Jesus sleeping soundly. Divine 
 power was there, but for the moment it was inactive. 
 
 Life itself is very much like that voyage. Many of 
 our journeys are taken after prayerful preparation. 
 Duty is clear. We are sure the Great Comrade is with 
 us, but suddenly and unexpectedly tempestuous winds 
 endanger our enterprise and imperil life itself. The 
 sleeping Christ in the Galilee boat and the weary Christ 
 at Jacob’s well show us how marvelous are God’s ways 
 in furnishing a basis for a true sympathy between Him- 
 self and us. How much better we understand Him 
 because of this Galilee storm and its results! We know 
 He understands us because, when living His human 
 life, He could sleep in the face of tempest, and because 
 He was weary at Jacob’s well. The Carpenter knew 
 what it was both to be sleepy and to be tired. That in 
 itself gives a basis of mutual fellowship. It makes His 
 relationship with us both close and comforting. 
 
 The comrades, just because they were comrades, had~ 
 \ 
 
CHRISTIANIZING THE WORLD 125 
 
 an available help right at hand. He quickly responded 
 to their challenge. It was one which has echoed and 
 re-echoed down the corridors of time to the present 
 moment, ‘‘ Carest thou not that we perish?” In the 
 stress of trouble, this is the immediate mental and spiri- 
 tual emotion. It is a question, then, as to whether or 
 not God knows and if He knows, cares. Hear His re- 
 sponse. It is prompt, it is positive, it indicates a con- 
 sciousness of absolute Divineness: “ Peace, be still.’ 
 This command was addressed to wind and wave. 
 
 In those words He proclaimed once and forever that 
 the tides of the ocean, the winds of Heaven, the electric 
 forces of the sky are under His absolute control. He 
 can use them at will. “‘He maketh the clouds his 
 chariot.” He rides on the wings of the wind. He can 
 handle all the forces of nature with Divine ease. Does 
 He do it? He certainly does, and in a larger degree 
 than we are accustomed to believe or understand. 
 There are Lilliputian minds, dreamers and unbelievers 
 with shrivelled faith, who undertake to explain away 
 the Gospel declaration, ““ The wind ceased and there 
 was a great calm.” A thousand problems are raised 
 whenever you try to dissolve away a supernatural fact 
 through a natural explanation. It complicates matters 
 tremendously to abandon the perfectly evident meaning 
 of God’s Word and impose your own ideas upon events 
 narrated. ‘The Comrades of the Carpenter knew what 
 happened. ‘They were there. They made a record of 
 it. We have the record. There is nothing startling or 
 strange about it when you know the Carpenter. The 
 trouble is, people who do not know Him undertake to 
 
126 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 
 
 interpret Him. The immediateness of the response of 
 nature to the command of the Carpenter settles forever, 
 in the minds of His real Comrades, the fact of His true 
 Divinity. If God’s only problem consisted in success- 
 fully dealing with the powers of nature, His task would 
 be simple indeed. In the natural world, obedience is 
 prompt, and without exception. He speaks, and it is 
 done. He wills, and nothing in nature can withstand 
 His will. Except for extraordinary reasons, God rules 
 His world along the lines of natural law. Divine en- 
 ergy is constantly operating along the lines of what 
 we call law. 
 
 But what is natural law? It is nothing more nor 
 less than God’s method of doing things. There is no 
 potency in law. It does nothing. Law is merely the 
 channel in which the stream of Divine purpose is flow- 
 ing. It is the path God travels. When conditions re- 
 quire it, the author of nature steps in and takes a hand 
 in its manipulation in unusual ways. He makes decla- 
 ration of His purposeful presence to accomplish some 
 specific thing. In the period when the Carpenter most 
 peculiarly announced the presence of God, He did this 
 again and again. ‘Those are the acts which we call 
 miracles. They were supernatural, but perfectly na- 
 tural to Him. In the stress of storm and trial in any 
 
 sort of peril or affliction, the Comrades of the Carpen-' 
 
 ter today are just as sure of an active response to their 
 appeal for help as were His fellow-passengers in the 
 Galilee boat. Nothing that is necessary or desirable 
 will the Carpenter withhold from His Comrades today. 
 Calm follows the appeal of faith. 
 
 ~~ 
 
CHRISTIANIZING THE WORLD 127 
 
 The Galilee storm was over. What next? Another 
 storm. How true to life! For the average individual 
 life is a series of storms of one kind or another. No 
 wonder the divinely inspired Prince and Poet cried: 
 “Oh, for the wings of a dove, that I might fly away, 
 and be at rest.” But this rest is not always granted in 
 the way we seek it. It is better oftentimes to ride out 
 the storm. It is a great thing, when the Euroclydon is 
 wildest, to be able to say, with the great Apostle Paul 
 to the terrified passengers upon the imperiled ship: “ Be 
 of good cheer.” No man knew better than he how to 
 face life’s storms. ‘The secret of his superlative opti- 
 mism lay wholly in his consciousness of comradeship 
 with the Carpenter. When we have finished one trial, 
 we ought to be the better prepared for the next, which 
 is likely to follow soon. Life is not so much imperiled 
 by a stormy sea as it is by becalmed waters. 
 
 The Galilee storm was followed by the Gadara storm. 
 Here was something different. The Carpenter and His 
 Comrades had reached their haven. Everything seemed 
 propitious. Imagine with what awe and reverence and 
 love this little group of disciples must have now looked 
 upon the great Teacher! They were spellbound at the 
 way in which He had spoken the storm into quiet! 
 They had reached their haven, and were prepared now 
 for a period of repose. Not yet; another storm. A 
 man wild in appearance and wilder still in his emotions 
 came rushing threateningly toward them. He uttered a 
 wild cry of recognition addressed to Jesus. “ What 
 have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of the Most 
 High God?” Dethroning demons is a most difficult 
 
128 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 
 
 undertaking even for God Almighty. Dealing with 
 the powers of evil incarnate is vastly more difficult than 
 manipulating the forces of nature. When God gave 
 man free will, He entered upon a terrific experiment. 
 The heart of man is the greatest battlefield in the world. 
 Here are witnessed the greatest defeats and the most 
 magnificent victories that are anywhere experienced. 
 The roar of cannon and the clashing of sabres is not to 
 be compared with the invisible contentions where man 
 rises to his greatest heights or falls to his lowest depth. 
 Light and darkness are forever in contention. Good 
 and evil stand with drawn swords or rush into combat 
 with clashing sabres. The stake is tremendous. It is 
 nothing less than eternal life or eternal death. The 
 rightful ruler of the soul of man is his Creator, but a 
 usurper is always near at hand to take possession of an 
 unguarded throne. 
 
 Demoniacal influence need not be doubted. It is a 
 reality even today. Whenever the powers of evil. are 
 in the ascendent it is, in a very real sense, demoniacal 
 possession. Something is dragging man down. He 
 has to fight to keep his feet. When you see a bather 
 disappear in the surf, you have no doubt about the fact 
 of the undertow. When you see men and women 
 morally going down, you cannot doubt that some force 
 is gripping them to destroy. It must be evident to any 
 observer that man, unaided, is not able to cope with the 
 deadly influences which seek to destroy him. If he 
 could do so, he would. ‘There are noble impulses in 
 every human life. It is very important to appreciate 
 that the most marred life has still the remnants of roy- 
 
CHRISTIANIZING THE WORLD 129 
 
 alty. When overpowered by evil, faith in the essential 
 dignity of human nature, together with faith in the love 
 and purpose of God, leads us to believe in the saveable- 
 ness of every soul. 
 
 The freedom which God gave to man is, after all, a 
 limited freedom. In view of the insistence of evil in its 
 effort to gain control of the human heart, liberty itself 
 is confined to a choice of masters. Evil or good will 
 be in the ascendent in the direct force of life. A de- 
 cision not to choose God is in effect to choose evil. The 
 citadel of the soul is never bombarded by the Infinite. 
 God accepts no sceptre which is not voluntarily prof- 
 fered. Indeed, constituted as He is, He could not if 
 He would. When He is not in control, Satanic forces 
 surely are. This may not be very apparent, yet it is 
 real. When life is evidently dominated by unholy in- 
 fluences we say, and very properly, that such an one is 
 possessed of the devil. We need not be timid, nor need 
 we shrink too much from using terms that best and 
 most definitely describe conditions, 
 
 The Carpenter was always facing the problem of get- 
 ting evil out of the human heart and getting good in. 
 During the two and one-half years of His public min- 
 istry, He was almost always in the storm zone. The 
 storm which confronted Him, represented in the de- 
 moniac, was fierce indeed. “Straightway there met 
 him, out of the tombs, a man with an unclean spirit.” 
 It is the nature of evil that it is first of all unclean. The 
 defiling influence of sin is appalling. It mars, it black- 
 ens, it pollutes, it degrades, it destroys. This demoniac 
 afforded an opportunity for Jesus Christ to assert once 
 
130 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 
 
 and forever His power over incarnate evil. Only by 
 the enthronement of Himself, which must be with 
 human consent, can the usurper be prevented from re- 
 turning and taking control. It is doubtless true that 
 demoniacal possession had peculiar and special features 
 at this particular time, when the achievement of salva- 
 tion for humanity was arousing the powers of darkness 
 to their utmost fury. The man with whom He now 
 had to deal is described as wild, uncontrollable and a 
 constant menace to society. It is in the nature of wick- 
 edness to dissocialize the individual. It makes of the 
 individual an outlaw, gradually, nevertheless really. 
 Enough of such people can threaten the very existence 
 of organized governments, which can never be main- 
 tained save through the righteous purpose of a major- 
 ity to protect the interests of all. This man was living 
 among the tombs. He was an anarchist. He was the 
 enemy of his fellow-men. His presence was a menace 
 to the entire community. He was opposed to law en- 
 forcement. He did not believe in constitutions. He 
 was against a government, no matter what that govern- 
 ment was. His continuous theme was personal liberty. 
 Wild as he was, he waxed eloquent when talking about 
 individual rights. He had become so imbued with his 
 opposition to government that ordinary restraints were 
 unavailing. 
 
 How better could lawlessness be described than thus 
 personalized? ‘The crime wave of today is only a vio- 
 lent demonstration of dissocialized men, who are bent 
 on the overthrow of the moral and social order. This 
 thing has its extreme expression in personal violence. 
 
CHRISTIANIZING THE WORLD 131 
 
 Whenever each man is bent on satisfying his own appe- 
 tites, gratifying his own desires regardless of the in- 
 terests of his fellow-men, he has become dissocialized 
 and thoroughly anarchistic. Every form of evil has to 
 a greater or less degree these same characteristics. 
 Anarchy is only incarnate evil, breaking down re- 
 straints, tearing asunder chains—only, instead of being 
 chains forged with steel, they are in the nature of 
 proper restrictions upon the lawless, necessary to make 
 communities safe. Civilization represents a sufficient 
 enthronement of righteousness, justice, goodness, to in- 
 sure a voluntary limitation of individualism and a full 
 cooperation for the prevention of violence at the hands 
 of the lawless and vicious. 
 
 The effect of the Carpenter upon evil was immedi- 
 ate and positive. Wherever He appeared opposition 
 was violent. Unrighteousness hates righteousness. 
 Nothing is so irritating to unholiness as holiness itself. 
 A revival is always the signal for an outbreak of 
 vituperative abuse of Christianity. This man, domi- 
 nated by the powers of darkness, knew Christ and 
 hated Him. The evil spirit within him engaged in a 
 sort of worship, but it was a loveless worship. The 
 prayer uttered was an importuning, agonizing request 
 to be let alone. Evil asks no assistance, it only asks to 
 be left to itself. That is precisely why it is not always 
 enough to proclaim truth, it is sometimes necessary to 
 attack evil. Worship which is devoid of love possesses 
 no quality which commends the suppliant to God. A 
 selfish prayer receives no acknowledgment or response 
 from the Almighty. 
 
132 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 
 
 In answer to the inquiry, “ What is thy name?” the 
 demoniac answered: “ My name is Legion, for we are 
 many.” The resources of iniquity are tremendous. 
 You never know how many or how great are the in- 
 visible powers of darkness in any community, where 
 law-defiers are combining to prevent their own over- 
 throw and to insure continuance in their iniquitous 
 work. One of the most disheartening features in all 
 moral reform work lies in the many-sidedness and the 
 almost limitless resources of incarnate iniquity. An- 
 other discouragement is found in the timidity and hesi- 
 tancy of those who claim to love truth and goodness 
 but who are unwilling to come out in the open and face 
 the Gadarene demoniac. What the organized forces of 
 society could not do in that particular community, Jesus 
 promptly did. He and He alone can still the tempests 
 of the mind and heart. He and He alone can dethrone 
 demons and completely reconstruct character. This He 
 does by personally taking complete possession of a life, 
 driving forth entrenched evil and enthroning Himself. 
 The first essential to a reconstructed character is not 
 simply a resolution to overcome and conquer some evil 
 power of the soul, but to avail oneself of Divine Power. 
 Indeed, the resolution to realize righteousness must 
 carry with it an invitation to Christ Himself to evict 
 the usurper and take possession of the throne. 
 
 When this is done the storm elements of life give 
 place to calm and constructive experiences. A restora- 
 tion to normalcy carries with it immediately a constant 
 comradeship with the Carpenter. Sinfulness is ab- 
 normal. Unbelief is not the normal condition of the 
 
 \ 
 
CHRISTIANIZING THE WORLD 133 
 
 soul. The normal condition of a life created in the 
 image of God is one of sympathetic relations and true 
 fellowship with God Himself. The results of that 
 Divine exorcism which overthrows evil in the soul 
 could not be more perfectly stated than in the descrip- 
 tion of the demoniac of Gadara after the evil spirit had 
 been ejected. ‘This is the record: “ And they came to 
 Jesus and behold him that was possessed of demons, 
 sitting, clothed and in his right mind.” In these three 
 facts we have presented the inevitable effect of Com- 
 radeship with Christ. “Sitting” is a description of 
 complete self-command. It is an attitude of self-repose 
 in which self-control is a predominant quality. It is 
 the attitude of royalty, dignified, masterful, contented, 
 commanding. This is precisely what Christianity does 
 to the individual life. It takes away restlessness, peace- 
 lessness, the spirit of rebellion, anarchistic indepen- 
 dence, and it produces the regal qualities of composure, 
 a sense of adequate ability, a spirit of cooperation and 
 willing obedience to law. Before this man had become 
 a Comrade of the Carpenter he was rushing restlessly 
 here and there, endangering those with whom he came 
 in contact, without self-command, dominated and di- 
 rected by the evil within him. 
 
 It is also recorded that he was found “ clothed.” 
 This is one of the distinctively civilizing evidences. It 
 suggests the discrimination between evil and good. It 
 expresses a sense of refinement and delicacy, always a 
 mark of civilization. Far greater than outward apparel 
 of course is the importance of what this word suggests 
 with reference to the soul; namely, the garment of 
 
134 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 
 
 righteousness which is by faith. In Paul’s great doc- 
 trine of justification by faith, he directs attention to the 
 fact that only the robe of righteousness proffered the 
 disciple by Jesus Himself prepares one for the presence 
 of God. Jesus likens the new qualities of character 
 which come from obedience to His will and appropri- 
 ated by faith, to a wedding garment which admits the 
 guest to the feast. 
 
 Civilizing processes are often attended with revolu- 
 tionary experiences. The demoniac was torn before he 
 was tranquilized. Men do not readily give up customs 
 and practices, which, however barbaric, have long been 
 practiced. Christian civilization is an enemy to every 
 form of unrighteousness. No civilization reaches a 
 very high altitude until it has felt the transforming 
 touch and the imperial edict of the Carpenter. When 
 Jesus spoke the word of exorcism, “‘ Come out of him, 
 thou unclean spirit,” this man was at once socialized. 
 Legislate as we may, increase the severity of punish- 
 ment as we will, our civilization will still be menaced 
 by vicious men until the commanding, the controlling 
 word of Christ meets with full response. The same 
 thing is true internationally. ‘The spirit of war is 
 demoniacal, and the champions of militarism seem to 
 
 fail to recognize that there are no chains which can bind 
 
 the war demon. Christianity is the one and only hope 
 of realizing a warless world. 
 
 It is definitely related that in response to the ex- 
 pressed power of the Carpenter this man was restored 
 to sanity. He immediately sought to become a Com- 
 rade of the Carpenter. He had found true mental bal- 
 
 \ 
 
 ee 
 
CHRISTIANIZING THE WORLD 135 
 
 ance. What is it to be in one’s right mind if not to 
 seek the companionship of Jesus Christ, and the devel- 
 opment of those qualities so manifest in His life? A 
 person is mentally unbalanced until regenerated. Un- 
 forgiven sin makes one incompetent to pronounce fair 
 judgment, and incapable of correct discriminations. 
 He sees, but he does not see things in their right rela- 
 tion. Christian mentality is the highest form of men- 
 tality. Intellectualism which is proud of itself and 
 ignores Christ is neither high nor deep nor broad. 
 Thinking God’s thoughts after Him gives a power of 
 discernment which is secured in no other way. Mental 
 stabilization is a product of Comradeship with the 
 Carpenter. 
 
 As might be expected, Christ’s act of dethroning evil 
 brought about an immediate collision between Him and 
 the swine-herders. It was violent. They besought 
 Him to depart out of their coasts, because He had per- 
 mitted the evil spirits to enter the swine—where, in 
 fact, they more properly belonged—and the entire herd 
 had rushed over the precipice into the sea. The capi- 
 talists of Gadara were much more concerned about 
 swine than in salvation. The saving of the man was 
 nothing to them as compared to their losses. They 
 besought Him to depart, and wanted Him to go at 
 once. When you touch either purse or pleasure, look 
 out for trouble. 
 
 Right here is the secret of the present-day difficulty 
 in law enforcement. The liquor problem would present 
 no great difficulty were it not for the purse passion and 
 the pleasure passion. It is not a question of personal 
 
136 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 
 
 liberty; it is a question of personal license. The men 
 who asked Christ to depart have had many descendants. 
 The Carpenter takes men at their word. When He is 
 told that Comradeship with Him is not desired, and 
 He is asked to leave, He departs. There is no petition 
 which invites poverty like the petition which requests 
 Christ to go away. 
 
 The Carpenter once and for all made plain that the 
 felicity of Comradeship with Himself is of secondary 
 importance. Christianity must be a force, rather than 
 a felicity, though it should be both. The man who had 
 been restored and saved was naturally exultant and 
 appreciative. Jesus made clear to him that his first 
 thought should be service rather than mere satisfaction. 
 He was told to go and tell his friends and neighbors 
 what great things the Lord had done for him. This 
 required courage, but it was the imperative condition 
 of a continuation of the very happiness he was experi- 
 encing. Fearlessness, aggressiveness and enthusiasm 
 in witness-bearing is necessary to the growth of Chris- 
 tianity. Comrades of the Carpenter must not only be 
 confessors, but witnesses to the blessedness of com- 
 radeship. It is through testimony that the cause of 
 Christ is to triumph. The Christian Church has as one 
 of its superb tasks the socialization of society. There 
 is only one method whereby this can be accomplished ; 
 that is, by Christianizing governments and ethicalizing 
 all the inter-relations of men. 
 
 When the individual members of society fulfil all 
 that is represented in this picture of the enthronement 
 of Jesus Christ: “sitting, clothed, and in his right™ 
 
CHRISTIANIZING THE WORLD 137 
 
 mind,’ the world will become a world of beauty and 
 blessedness. What a world this would be if right and 
 truth and goodness were in control! Instead of the 
 wail of sorrow, a song of joy. Instead of tears, love 
 and laughter; instead of anguish, exhilarant happiness ; 
 instead of broken covenants, loyalty, with good-will 
 and good cheer. No sleepless nights, dreading the 
 morning’s revelations. Instead of cruelty, caresses; 
 instead of envy and jealousy, applause and cooperation. 
 Work without weariness; hope with no disappoint- 
 ments; gloom lost in glory; society bound together with 
 the cords of sympathy. Then would swords be beaten 
 into ploughshares and spears into pruning-hooks. 
 Evil would be overcome with good. Chaos would be 
 changed to order; discord to harmony; dirges to David- 
 ics; trial to triumph. Only the wave-stilling, demoniac- 
 dethroning, death-mastering Carpenter-Christ, together 
 with His courageous Comrades, can ever make life 
 worth living for the multitudes who mourn, and who 
 suffer from the iron heel of cruelty and hate. He it is 
 who can change desert wastes to gardens of beauty, and 
 make soul-filling joy a reality in every life. 
 
XII 
 
 THUNDER, AN ANGEL OR THE VOICE 
 OF GOD? 
 
 THEN SPAKE THE CARPENTER: “ Father, save me from 
 this hour. But for this cause came I unto this hour. Father, 
 glorify thy name.’—JoHN 12: 27-28. 
 
 Her was the Carpenter. Was He more? How much 
 more? ‘The agelong question. Get the setting. The 
 occasion was the Jewish Passover. ‘The Carpenter 
 knew a price was on His head. ‘The inner urge was 
 irresistible. He went to the feast. To a great soul, 
 danger is no deterrent to duty. That explains martyr- 
 doms. ‘That explains human progress. Bethany first. 
 Beautiful, hospitable, soul-cheering Bethany! Here 
 comradeship found its fullest expression. Mutual un- 
 derstanding and good will constitute the basis for joy 
 at its fullest. Life is made up of lights and shadows. 
 The cheer of the lights makes possible the endurance of 
 the chill of the shadows. The Carpenter gratefully 
 accepted the anointing. In all human history the 
 breaking of bread together has been used to strengthen 
 the ties of fellowship. The supper at Bethany was the 
 brief respite before the impending tragedy. Then 
 came the great acclaim. Hosannah! Waving palms 
 and spread garments! The coronation of the Carpen- 
 
 ter? Not yet. Calvary first. - 
 
 138 
 
 a a 
 
THE VOICE OF GOD 139 
 
 The feast of the passover was now on. The Car- 
 penter met the challenge and was there, self-composed 
 and commanding. Then the eager inquiry. Certain 
 Greeks sought contact with the Carpenter: “Sir, we 
 would see Jesus.” Who were they? Proselytes of the 
 Gate, probably from Decapolis. Philip and Andrew 
 had been their neighbors. What more natural than 
 to seek introduction at the hands of old-time friends? 
 To the Greeks, Jesus was a notable teacher. But more. 
 How much more? Ah, that is the question of the 
 centuries. Thunder, an angel, or God? They knew 
 enough to want to know more. That is the beginning 
 of the larger life. Desire to know is the primary 
 requisite of larger truth. ‘“ Then shall ye know, if ye 
 follow on to know the Lord.” 
 
 What prompted the inquiry? Not curiosity. When 
 acquaintance means contempt and perhaps much more, 
 only a strong reason will lead to a request for an intro- 
 duction. We like to meet people of high social stand- 
 ing and who can benefit us. The Carpenter had no 
 standing with the Crown, though He was in favor with 
 a part of the crowd. ‘The petition was brief. That is 
 a good indication. Earnestness begets brevity. When 
 the house is aflame, “ Fire!” is a sufficient proclamation 
 of need. We take circuitous linguistic routes when 
 nothing is at stake. Prayers would be effective if con- 
 sciousness of real need prompted them. Here is the 
 cry of humanity’s inner voice ever since the Carpenter 
 taught and lived and loved and died. “ Sir, we would 
 see Jesus.” A needy world asks of the ministers of 
 the Word, “ Sir, we would see Jesus.” If they get a 
 
140 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 
 
 stone instead of bread, the pews are empty. ‘There 
 are no substitutes for Jesus. A modified, mutilated, 
 watered-down message answers no deep questions of 
 the soul. Only one course will attract, interest, satisfy 
 and sanctify, and that is to show Christ to those who 
 are asking for Him. Literature, beautiful poems, 
 human opinions, sophisms, novelties—none of these 
 bring any contentment. There is in the soul of man — 
 enough of the Divine to call for God. The best in the 
 soul is struggling to find Christ. The cry is stifled. 
 The inner suppliant is beaten down, choked, starved, 
 neglected, but still there is the cry: “ Sir, we would see 
 Jesus.” This is the need of nations, churches, indi- 
 viduals, a new discovery of the Carpenter, in order to 
 closer comradeship. 
 
 Then spake the Carpenter: He talked of being glori- 
 fied. He said the chronometer had struck the hour for 
 glory. How instructive the transitional hour and the 
 nature of tribulation! Through toil to rest! Through 
 trial to coronation! Through sorrow to joy! It is 
 always thus. We should have expected Him to say: 
 “The hour has come that the Son of Man must be buf- 
 feted, denied, neglected, tortured, despised, betrayed.” 
 
 The lesson emphasized to Comrades of the Carpenter 
 is this: Waste no time in vain regrets. He had none. 
 We have, but must dismiss them. Be not overborne by 
 the present. When trying experiences are impending we 
 are not to let the world close in on us. Through storm, 
 through fog, through hate, through every sort of oppo- 
 sition, we are to climb to life, to light, to glory. A short 
 segment of the circle does not reveal the final goal. Con- 
 
THE VOICE OF GOD | 141 
 
 summations reassure us. We must keep before our vis- 
 ion some glimpses of the ultimate glory, in order to bear 
 uncomplainingly the burden of today. What an inspira- 
 tion to live in the atmosphere of glory! The Carpenter 
 did, and expects His Comrades to. He did not linger 
 ever in the atmosphere of His Cross and its shadows. 
 
 “ He giveth more grace when the burdens grow greater; 
 He sendeth more strength when the labors increase. 
 To added affliction He addeth His mercy, 
 To multiplied trials His multiplied peace. 
 
 “ His love has no limit, His grace has no measure; 
 His power no boundary known unto men; 
 For out of His infinite riches in Jesus 
 He giveth, and giveth, and giveth again.” 
 
 “The hour has come.” Betrayal—Gethsemane— 
 Cross—Tomb—Resurrection—Glory! Do you sense 
 it? Can you see through? Napoleon took his army 
 across the Alps. ‘They fell by the way in hundreds. 
 He pressed on. Why? Italy! That is the way vic- 
 tories are won by Comrades of the Carpenter. The 
 student, the merchant, the mechanic, the accountant, the 
 clerk, the professional man—all, all gain power through 
 glimpses of the glory, ahead. The Carpenter was ever 
 uttering puzzling paradoxes. Lose life, and you find 
 it. Take hold by letting go, win by losing, multiply by 
 dividing, live by dying. 
 
 Which found his life by losing it—Paul, whose im- 
 mortal words have been the spiritual stimulus to cou- 
 rageous witnessing for nearly twenty centuries, or 
 Nero, execrated even in memory? Who lives most 
 
142 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 
 
 today—the great emperors who employed fire and rack 
 and sword to destroy Christianity, or the noble army 
 of martyrs who cried in death: “ Father, glorify thy 
 name’? Which lost and which saved his life—Bene- 
 dict Arnold or the hero of Valley Forge? Who has 
 more really found his life than Livingstone, Paton, 
 Taylor and a thousand other of the noble martyr mis- 
 sionaries of the Cross? Dan Crawford has just gone 
 to his reward; who is there among all the most eminent 
 among men of wealth and high position who can expect 
 the jewelled crown of Divine favor comparable to Dan 
 Crawford, who literally lost his life to glorify God and 
 proclaim to a benighted people in Africa the possibility 
 of Comradeship with the Carpenter? The “ Voice” 
 had spoken to him and through him. God was no dis- 
 tant deity to him. He walked with his Unseen Com- 
 rade, and was cheered on to his splendid task by the 
 consciousness that he was never alone. Among the 
 men of this generation Dan Crawford stands out as 
 one among ten thousand in beauty of life, self- 
 effacement, self-forgetfulness and in absolute accep- 
 tance of the Bible as “ This Voice.” 
 
 Either God came in the Carpenter, or He will never 
 be known. “ He that hath seen me hath seen the 
 Father,” said the Carpenter. It wonderfully aids us in 
 glorifying God to know that He was here in the flesh, 
 passing through all the experiences of human life, save 
 sin, But how necessary in the face of bitter trials and 
 outrageous persecutions and cruel suffering, that we 
 should know that He who bore our griefs and carried — 
 our sorrows is with us today! It makes the struggle 
 
THE VOICE OF GOD 143 
 
 up, less difficult. It makes service more worth while. 
 Comradeship with the Carpenter-Christ develops a 
 hatred of sin and a love for righteousness. 
 
 Nothing is more demonstrably true. Who are the 
 great national leaders most admired? ‘Those whose 
 premotion gives them no concern, but who lose life in 
 behalf of great principles and live for the people. Why 
 has Congress come to such a sorry pass? Because 
 with many the question of vote-getting swallows up all 
 other considerations. Self-seeking, political betrayals 
 of sacred trusts have been the experience of too many 
 Congressmen. 
 
 A few years ago in Tulsa, New Mexico, a successful 
 lawyer dreamed of a time when he might speak out and 
 let the people know conditions as they are. His wife’s 
 health failed, and he was ordered to Albuquerque. He 
 purchased a newspaper that had been instrumental in 
 putting Albert Fall into the United States Senate. He 
 began to tell the truth about how votes by thousands 
 had been controlled, through control of the water-holes 
 the farmers were compelled to use for their cattle and 
 other live stock. One day a man stalked into his office, 
 pointed to the newspaper and said: ‘“ Cut that out.” 
 He replied: “ Mr. Fall, I do not understand that an 
 editor can be dictated to as to how he shall run his 
 paper.” ‘Cut that out, or we will cut you out,” was 
 the reply. He found that five editors in succession had 
 been taken to the borders of Arizona and thrown out, 
 because they dared to tell the truth, What was he to 
 do? He did not falter. He still told the truth. It was 
 due to this same man, Carl Magee, that the warrant was 
 
144 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 
 
 issued at Washington for Albert Fall. He challenged 
 them to find out why it was that Albert Fall had been 
 able to spend three hundred thousand dollars on his 
 Three Rivers Ranch, when he had told Magee he was 
 dead broke at the time Magee purchased the paper. 
 Here were two men, one seeking promotion, the other 
 seeking to tell the truth. One saving his life, and the 
 other losing it in the interests of the people. What 
 followed? Every kind of persecution for Magee and 
 finally, through conspiracy, a trial for libel. The trial 
 was conducted in the Don country, one hundred and 
 sixty miles away, where perjured witnesses could be 
 obtained and where conviction regardless of justice 
 would be possible. It looked hard for the man trying 
 to be true to the people. He went. He was convicted 
 and sentenced. 
 
 In addition to imprisonment the judge fined him for 
 contempt of court. Before leaving for Los Vegos Mr. 
 Magee said to his wife: “ You have had to stand many 
 things; social ostracism, sneers, and many petty indig- 
 nities. The prison door is opening. Can you stand it 
 for your Carl to go to prison?” Hear the answer: “I 
 can stand it vastly better than I could stand it to see 
 you try to escape duty.” “That settles it,” he said. 
 He went. There are the two men. Which saved his 
 life and which lost it? Where do they stand in the 
 estimation of honest and honorable people? ‘The gov- 
 ernor of New Mexico freed Magee, saying: “ This 
 whole thing is a disgrace to New Mexico.” 
 
 He that loseth his life for the Kingdom of Christ 
 shall save it. The pity of it is that so few men recog- 
 
THE VOICE OF GOD 145 
 
 nize the truth of the Carpenter’s words. Compromise 
 kills honor. A stradler is a slacker. Popularity gained 
 at the cost of integrity has only a toadstool existence. 
 The Carpenter said: “Follow me.” It meant Geth- 
 semane for some of them, after their Master had gone 
 to His Cross. But He knew. He always knows. The 
 call for service is genuine today. It is a shame for a 
 man to die worth a million unless he has saved it for 
 the purpose of some great cause. A man who does not 
 “lose his life’ in the sense Jesus meant, by the outflow 
 of mind and heart and wealth in the interests of others, 
 is sure to lose his own soul. As a pool stagnates with 
 no outlet so does a human heart. Keep it, and lose not 
 only it but yourself. Nominal church membership is 
 both detraction and subtraction. Padded church rolls 
 mean a powerless church. Waters of the flowing foun- 
 tain keep sweet. 
 
 What shall our prayer be, for palliation or for 
 power? Which shall we choose, the removal of trouble 
 or power to endure it? Both. The Carpenter saw His 
 Cross. But He said: “ What shall I say? Father, save 
 me from this hour?” No, that He would not say. It 
 was for that very hour He had come into the world. 
 Redemption hinged on that hour. No. This was the 
 prayer: “Father, glorify thy name.” Here was His 
 victory. Already it was accomplished, when the de- 
 cision irrevocable had coupled with it a vision of the 
 Divine Glory. Then a supernatural word came: “I 
 have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.” Then 
 it was that: ‘‘ Some said that it thundered, others said 
 an angel hath spoken unto him,” but the Carpenter said 
 
146 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 
 
 “This Voice.” Here is the crux of the whole matter: 
 Natural or Supernatural? ‘The Bible, natural or su- 
 pernatural? ‘The Carpenter Himself, natural or super- 
 natural? Can everything which we call revelation be 
 explained on a natural basis or not? Was the Cross 
 merely a natural phenomenon? Was it thunder, an 
 angel or the Voice of God, proclaiming emancipation? 
 Comrades of the Carpenter are in danger of crying: 
 “ Lord, take away this task,” rather than: “ Lord, make 
 me equal to this task.” “He is not worthy of the 
 honeycomb who shuns the hives because the bees have 
 stings.” The recluse says: “ Let me get away from 
 this world, with its wickedness and misery.” Com- 
 rades of the Carpenter must say: ‘‘ Let me mingle with 
 the poor, the needy, the down-trodden, and help them 
 up.” This by no means demands that we lie supinely 
 on our backs while the wheels of avarice, hatred and 
 villification roll over us, unprotested and unmolested. 
 Nothing of the sort is demanded. We need not seek 
 heavy burdens for their own sake. ‘There is no virtue 
 in penance, but much in penitence. 
 
 What a prophet was Peter Forsyth of Hackney Col- 
 lege! He said: “‘ The great battlefield of the world in 
 the immediate future is that borderland between the 
 natural and the supernatural. There the Church will 
 gather. ‘There she will make her final determinations. 
 Some will retreat and move back into naturalism. 
 Others who recognize His voice, will move out and on 
 into the supernatural.” Here the Church of today 
 actually does stand. Some are retreating and moving 
 back into the natural. Others recognize “ This Voice,” 
 
THE VOICE OF GOD 147 
 
 and are standing for a supernatural religion with its 
 Redemptive urge and character-making power. As 
 they read the Bible, some say: “It thundered” (that 
 is, it is only the work of men). Others say: “It is 
 rather above the natural, yet of the same general kind.” 
 Others say: “It is the Voice of God. Hear and obey.” 
 The difference is as wide apart as the poles. When a 
 soul has been “born from above” some say: “ It 
 thundered.” That is, nothing has happened except a 
 new resolve. Others know the “ Voice” has spoken 
 and a deposit of Divine life has entered and the New 
 Birth is a reality. ‘To the materialist and the Modern- 
 ist, Regeneration is a myth. To the Supernaturalist it 
 is the realest of all human experiences. To reveal to 
 the world the fact of Comradeship with Christ so close 
 that His life and His love have found expression anew, 
 is the business of the comrades of the Carpenter. ‘The 
 great heroes of the faith all proclaim it. Paul and his 
 associates, the church fathers and martyrs declare it. 
 The Reformers reannounce it. The missionaries of the 
 cross affirm it. A communicable and communicating 
 God in Christ, ever available, always sympathetic and 
 always revealing Himself anew, is here. Our time calls 
 for undeviating loyalty and unswerving devotion to the 
 Carpenter-Christ, God’s Son, our Saviour. 
 
 Dante said: “ Give light, and the people will find the. 
 way.” Show the world “the Light of the World,” and 
 the people will find the way. ‘Tell the truth about the 
 Carpenter and Calvary and the people will find the 
 Way. Not thunder, not an angel but the Voice Divine 
 speaks in Christ: “I give unto them Eternal Life.” 
 
XIil 
 
 MOUNTAIN CLIMBING WITH THE 
 CARPENTER 
 
 THEN SPAKE THE CARPENTER: “Ye believe in God, be- 
 lieve also in me.’—JouHN 14:1. 
 
 In ALL of His discources the Carpenter stressed faith 
 as the one thing indispensable to efficiency and achieve- 
 ment. On the sea, when winds were contrary, He ap- 
 peared to the distressed comrades, walking on the wave. 
 His reassuring word, when they were frightened, was: 
 “Be of good cheer; it is I.” Peter undertook to meet 
 Him, walking upon the water. He failed. Why? The 
 Carpenter answers the question when He says. “O 
 thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?” Sal- 
 vation is promised to the believer, the man of faith. 
 An achieving life is represented by Jesus as a life in 
 which faith takes a commanding place. It is not some- 
 thing that can be worked up, but which can be received 
 asagift. By grace are ye saved through faith, and that 
 not of yourselves; it is the gift of God.” “ All things 
 are possible to him that believeth.” 
 
 We are face to face with the question as to just how 
 the sense of the presence of the Carpenter is to be ex- 
 perienced, and Comradeship established now. We have 
 little realization of how large a part the faith faculty 
 plays in the successes, the victories and the happiness 
 
 148 
 
 : 
 
 ee 
 
MOUNTAIN CLIMBING 149 
 
 of life. In religion we are precminently in the realm 
 of faith. Comradeship with Christ is possible only 
 through a faith that absolutely unites us to Him. 
 Again and again Jesus upbraided His Comrades be- 
 cause they lacked faith. “ How is it that ye have no 
 faith?” After the Transfiguration, when He came 
 down from the mountain and found the disciples won- 
 dering because they had lacked power to cast out the 
 evil spirit, He gave as the reason for their failure: 
 “ Because of your unbelief.” 
 
 It is lack of faith that today prevents multitudes of 
 professed Christians from enjoying true fellowship 
 with God. To far too many people, Christian experi- 
 ence is a hazy, unreal thing. The historic Christ, yes; 
 but the Comrade Christ, no. ‘ I cannot make this thing 
 real”’ is the constant regret expressed. If everything 
 depends on faith, and if the Carpenter stressed it as the 
 explanation of every victory of life, why not make a 
 study of what it is and how to obtain it! If we are to 
 enjoy mountain climbing with the Carpenter, faith must 
 visualize Him, and faith must link us to Him, and 
 faith must indeed effect a real fusion whereby our lives 
 are one with His. The exhilarant life is the life in 
 which we know ourselves linked up with the Life 
 Divine. It is on the Mount with God we have the 
 deepest sense of joy and inspiration. 
 
 We stood one morning, before a single ray of the 
 sun could be seen, on the top of Pike’s Peak. In the 
 chill of the morning we waited. Not one object could 
 be discerned beyond the immediate artificially lighted 
 surroundings. But we had faith in the coming of the 
 
150 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 
 
 sun. So we waited until the wonders of valley and 
 mountain should be unveiled. Our faith was rewarded. 
 Streamers of light began to rise above the eastern 
 horizon. The light increased until the eastern sky was 
 all aglow with a silver sea. Then in quick succession 
 panoramas of splendor appeared. The “sea of glass 
 mingled with fire” stood before us. Away down in 
 the valley the morning mists had caught the fires of the 
 heavens. One great billowy sea of molten gold spread 
 before us. Nature was transfigured. Time passed, and 
 in our vision we passed from the transfiguration to the 
 unfolded beauties of the broad valley. From our 
 vantage ground, with wide horizon we could see vast 
 stretches of mountain and plain. Yonder was the Gar- 
 den of the Gods, with its weird figures. Here and 
 there villages dotted the plain, and in the spaces between 
 were orchards and vineyards, rivers and glistening 
 pools. Everything at last stood out clearly defined. It 
 seemed as though the universe were ours. What an 
 unspeakable charm there is in wide horizons! We 
 became aware that the great thing about life is altitude. 
 It is altitude that gives amplitude. It is to such heights 
 the Carpenter was wont to lead His Comrades. He 
 does it still, but only where faith in Him secures a 
 real following. It is the glory of God to unveil Him- 
 self. The effect of Comradeship is altitude and ampli- 
 tude of life, mental and moral. Littleness can have no 
 place on mountain peaks. ‘The sublimities of life are 
 
 wide open to any one who walks the heights with the- 
 
 Lord of Glory today. The dim and distant become 
 distinct and near. The far-away is reachable. When 
 
MOUNTAIN CLIMBING 151 
 
 the Comrades of Christ stood in the midst of the angry 
 storm and their boat was sinking they were not as 
 alone as they thought themselves to be. Faith would 
 have, then and there, made the Master available to 
 them. They learned through that experience that 
 the Carpenter is solicitous though invisible, reachable 
 though seemingly distant, unpreventable though wind 
 and wave seem to prevent His approach, communicable 
 when discovered, and more than equal to every emer- 
 gency of life in which His comrades may find them- 
 selves. All this, through faith. In the Hero chapter 
 of Hebrews the one basis for every great achievement 
 of Hebrew leaders was faith. When Jesus was about 
 to leave His comrades as a visible presence, He well 
 knew how easy it would be for them to lose sight of 
 Him spiritually. It was just this He desired to prevent. 
 He begins His wonderful discourse on peace and power 
 with the words: ‘Let not your heart be troubled.’ 
 How could it be avoided, when every sort of distress 
 and trial was to be experienced? “ Believe in God, 
 believe also in me.” “ He that hath seen me hath seen 
 the Father.” ‘ To believe in God is to believe in me. 
 Weare one.” 
 
 If we are ever to stand on sacred summits of com- 
 manding sweep of truth and know things as they are, 
 it will be under the leadership of a regnant present-day 
 Christ. The Christ for today is the Christ who calls 
 men into intimate fellowship with Himself and saves 
 them. ‘The Christ for today is the Christ of deep and 
 soul-filling experience, through Comradeship. We 
 must hear His voice, see His face and know that we 
 
152 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 
 
 have grasped His hand and that He, and not our own 
 
 unaided wisdom or lack of wisdom, is guiding us 
 mountainward. ‘Talk of thrills! There are none like 
 those given in this world by comradeship, human and 
 Divine. The sweetest of all emotions is the emotion 
 of Comradeship with the Carpenter. That strange 
 mysterious inbreathing of the Great Comrade into our 
 very souls is what we may well pray for and secure. 
 But it is all a matter of faith, You may argue about 
 it until doomsday and never experience it. You must 
 take it, use it, possess it. It is yours for the asking— 
 in faith. 
 
 Well, then, what is faith? It is something that 
 makes available vast wealth beyond the tangible and 
 visible. It is something that makes Divine resource a 
 possession as positive as any material thing which we 
 call ours. It is the secret of prevailing prayer. ‘There 
 is a vast and discouraging distance between the goal 
 we are seeking and the distance we have covered. The 
 pursued and the attained are wide apart. The soul is 
 overawed by a sense of the potential mood. The pos- 
 sible is so wonderful yet so strangely far beyond us. 
 Then the imperative mood sobers us. We must, there- 
 fore we can. But how? ‘The ideal beckons us. Con- 
 trary winds and boisterous waves appall us. We are 
 in danger of sinking. Only faith can save us. In spite 
 of all dangers and handicaps the mountain-peak keeps 
 calling us. The ideal beckons to us. Unaided finite- 
 ness denies that our ideals are other than impossible 
 Utopias and points with fine scorn to our limited 
 resource. 
 
MOUNTAIN CLIMBING 153 
 
 Our conscious inability baffles us but cannot kill 
 purpose. How can a measureless need be met with 
 a measurable resource? Of course, that is out of the 
 question. What then? Faith. It comes to our res- 
 cue, Life’s manageable ideals demand it. There is an 
 intuitive belief that somehow, somewhere, there is 
 available a resource equal to the ideal. Consistency 
 necessitates it. The soul’s aspiration declares it. Jus- 
 tice asserts it. Who will believe that our highest and 
 holiest conceptions are but tantalizing Utopias or irri- 
 descent dreams? ‘Then indeed were we condemned to 
 endless peacelessness. No; it is not true. Faith an- 
 swers the soul’s unremitting cry for enough of Al- 
 mightiness to enable us to move on toward celestial 
 summits, where all the beatific glories of transfiguration 
 will become a normal experience of life. One thing is 
 sure, the world of sense does not satisfy our highest 
 aspirations. Even the thought-world leaves an aching 
 void. The things with which we deal in the material 
 world do not conduct us to the “tree of life’ without 
 whose fruit the soul is doomed to hunger on forever. 
 Only the Author of Life can contribute the essentials 
 to growth toward perfection. We are doomed to a life 
 of baffled endeavor unless somehow we can so connect 
 with the Author of Life as to have at command all the 
 resources of His own great heart and mind. 
 
 Christianity declares for a communicating, con- 
 tributing, empowering Deity. Vital connection with 
 Him is the supreme concern of life. If we fail here, 
 life is a wretched failure everywhere. Either com- 
 radeship or condemnation stands before us. Faith 
 
154 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 
 
 apprehends and appropriates the Divine. Faith estab- 
 lishes a connection between the measurable and the 
 Infinite. Its discoveries are real. Its testimony is true. 
 Its appropriations are our wealth. Our mightiest in- 
 centive to personal effort is the fact that every energy 
 af our own is supplemented by the measureless energy 
 of God. Not what we are, but what we are to become, 
 spurs us on. A sense of ability produces lasting satis- 
 factions and a sense of contentment. Power as a pos- 
 sibility is inspirational. ‘This faith cannot be “ worked 
 up.” You cannot say, “ Go to, now, let us have faith, 
 and move mountains.” ‘The faith does not come, and 
 the mountains do not move. It is a question of how 
 we will use the power when once it is given. It is 
 literally true, as the Carpenter told His Comrades, that 
 if we have faith as a grain of mustard seed we can 
 remove mountains. The fact is there is not permitted 
 a faith to be used for self-aggrandizement or personal 
 glory. Faith is a gift of God. It is given, when asked 
 for with a purpose to serve and to glorify God. Here 
 is the crux of the whole matter of faith. We refer, of 
 course, to Christian faith. God gives it just as far as 
 its exercise will glorify God and bless humanity. Not 
 
 a particle more of Christian faith can be yours than you’ 
 
 will use to connect up with God for holy purposes. 
 Faith is a continuous incitement to the heroic. It leads 
 to self-effacement and_ self-investment. How poor 
 would life be if its sole treasure consisted only of the 
 
 defined and demonstrated in the material realms! 7, 
 
 The reality of the larger wealth is not mechanically 
 demonstrable, but the fact that it is available is attested 
 
 Oe eT ee 
 
 is. 
 
MOUNTAIN CLIMBING 155 
 
 by the experience of every Comrade of the Carpenter. 
 The soul poverty that inevitably results from ruling 
 out Christian faith and its products is seen in the lives 
 of such men of ability and even genius as Schopen- 
 hauer. He reveals the poverty of unaided finiteness at 
 its best. He developed a philosophy that denied the 
 validity of faith. His destructive mood and false sys- 
 tem developed hopeless pessimism. ‘There was nothing 
 to relieve the oppressive darkness in which he found 
 himself at the end. Swift drifted into doubt, and lived 
 in a rayless, hopeless night with little incentive to effort, 
 none to sacrifice, and with nothing to gladden his heart. 
 Even Matthew Arnold cannot seem to relieve the 
 somber sadness which rests like a shadow on his heart, 
 because he has ceased to find any reality in Comrade- 
 ship with the Great Companion. His verse is like the 
 sighing of the winter’s wind among leafless trees. The 
 consequences of doubt, and the dental of faith, has 
 rarely been pictured with greater vividness than in 
 James Thompson’s City of Dreadful Night. 
 
 The nineteenth century began under a dark cloud of 
 atheism. It was intolerable. In that heavy poison- 
 weighted atmosphere, the best in man could not live. 
 It outraged the clear intuitions of the soul. The ag- 
 nostic mood took possession of many gifted minds. It 
 was a denial, as an active force, of all that lies beyond 
 the realm of the intellectually manageable, without the 
 aid of the Infinite. It utterly failed. Humanity rejects 
 all pessimistic philosophies. Accompanying agnosti- 
 cism was a crass materialism. Nature was severely 
 arraigned for her unethical operations. The leaders of 
 
156 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 
 
 scientific thought found no true basis for ethics. John 
 Stuart Mill was the exponent of naturalism; what did 
 it offer? Nothing that satisfied. But faith survived 
 all these deliverances and assertions of doubt. After 
 thirty years of supremacy, the scientific mood gave 
 place to the idealistic mood, and men began to breathe 
 more freely. Through all the changing moods of 
 thought, faith in the Great Comrade, has held her 
 ground. After the confusion of tongues and the noise 
 of battle faith has stood out in its glorious apparel 
 more resplendent than before the war against it. Ten- 
 nyson is at his best when sounding the note of faith 
 and, in wonderful poetic imagery, telling forth its © 
 beauty and power of achievement. Browning, the most 
 inspirational of the poets of his day, was inspirational 
 just because of his unswerving faith. The key to his 
 optimism is found in a single sentence in Pippa Passes: 
 “God’s in His Heavens, All’s right with the world.” 
 His unfailing faith in a Superintending Providence 
 was a perpetual incentive to noble endeavor to lift the — 
 world. These men who enjoyed Comradeship with the 
 Carpenter day by day made a contribution to the world 
 through their poetic works that will live long after the 
 deliverances of skeptics and the apostles of Naturalism 
 are forgotten. John Oxenham is a modern illustration 
 of a poet inspired and faith awakening. 
 
 Faith is not credulity. It has a true rationale. It is 
 always reasonable, if it is a true faith. Every frontier 
 terminal has this inspiring legend: “ Plus ultra.” An © 
 eminent canon of the English Church said: “ From the 
 platform of the done, we look out upon the undone.” 
 
MOUNTAIN CLIMBING 157 
 
 Let us say from the platform of the demonstrated, we 
 look out upon the undemonstrated, and claim it as our 
 possession. 
 
 The highest rung in the ladder of scientific knowl- 
 edge comes short of what we feel we must attain. It is 
 from this highest rung, faith bids us take our flight to 
 measureless spiritual wisdom and power. Christian 
 philosophers have all acknowledged a legitimate sphere 
 for the exercise of faith. We would not wish to advo- 
 cate a faith that ignores the criteria of truth, nor would 
 we dare try to exercise such a faith. The faith the 
 Carpenter enjoined is of the very essence of reason. 
 Faith reveals the naturalness of the supernatural and 
 the reasonableness of the superlogical. The more se- 
 curely faith is entrenched in reason, the greater will be 
 the inspirations and achievements resulting. What the 
 reason requires, in order to soul completeness, that 
 faith supplies. Let there be a full recognition of the 
 intellectual integrity of a faith that so relates man to 
 God that the entire realm of the spirit becomes as real 
 as the experiences of the natural world. The validity 
 of its testimony cannot be gainsaid. It has led the 
 multitudes who have exercised it, into saving and 
 sanctifying relations with the Invisible God. 
 
 The content of faith is simply this, belief in, and an 
 affectional devotement to Almighty God. That is 
 Christian faith. It carries with it the thought of per- 
 sonal commitment. Right here is its peculiar applica- 
 tion to the thought of Comradeship with the Carpenter. 
 Belief alone is not Christian faith at all. Until there 
 is an affectional element, together with personal devo- 
 
158 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 
 
 tion to its object, it is not Christian faith. Faith is an 
 effectuating force in the degree in which its content is 
 infinite. Faith can draw from no higher source than 
 its object. Its contributions are circumscribed by its 
 content. This opens up the whole question: “ Can and 
 will God communicate Himself to man as a Friend 
 and a Comrade?” 
 
 Revelation is corroborated by experience. Both say 
 God does connect with the human heart when condi- 
 tions are right. While man is “out of tune with the 
 Infinite’ there can be no cooperation: “‘ The achieving 
 Holiness of God Almighty made a true basis for a 
 restoration of harmony between man and God.” The 
 death of the Carpenter-Christ was a victory. It estab- 
 lished an irrefragable bond between the human and the 
 Divine. 
 
 The Love of God is the achieving holiness of God. 
 This leads us to the full content of an achieving faith. 
 It is nothing less than almighty, holy, atoning, redeem- 
 ing God. It is thus the Cross becomes the world’s 
 center. Faith advances and holds guarantees of vic- 
 tory in all obligations, because it appropriates the re- 
 deeming and life-imparting power of God. By the 
 victory and disclosures of Calvary, all vital truth be- 
 comes discoverable and appropriable, through faith. 
 The entire record of human achievement in history is 
 nothing more nor less than the record of faith’s un- 
 ceasing contribution. 
 
 Through the coming of Christ all valuations changed. 
 His concepts were revolutionary in His day. By pre- 
 cept and life, He wonderfully changed the ideals of life. 
 
 — 
 
MOUNTAIN CLIMBING 159 
 
 He gave larger and more intelligent answers to all the 
 great spiritual questions of life. He rested everything 
 on heart purpose. He set before the world new con- 
 ceptions of success. The laurel wreath He held was 
 for brows unused to worldly honor. His approbation 
 was for the nethermost and hindermost, who yet were 
 the most advanced through faith. He taught the world 
 the graciousness of sympathy, the sublimity of humil- 
 ity, the dignity of self-effacement and the high honor 
 which must always result from unflinching devotion 
 to truth and duty. 
 
 He taught a new kind of brotherhood, one which 
 knows neither caste nor color. He denounced false 
 ideas of independence that ignore the rights of others. 
 He gave a new conception of law, as something not 
 arbitrary or existing for the sake of the law-giver, but 
 something existing in the very constitution of things, 
 whose sanctions are wholly independent of Divine 
 decree. The splendid truth of the unity of the race 
 was declared by the Carpenter, long before it was an- 
 nounced as a scientific discovery. Is it strange, then, 
 that faith in Jesus Christ has played so large a part in 
 world progress? What has it not done for woman- 
 hood, childhood, manhood, citizenship, for music, art 
 and learning! Everywhere you find the footprints of 
 the Carpenter as you pass up the slopes of progressive 
 achievement. 
 
 It is one thing to have a vision of some desirable 
 achievement for the human race and quite another to 
 have the courage to undertake its realization. Here 
 again faith is the faculty that seems to give to man 
 
160 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 
 
 power of initiative. What great movement for two 
 thousand years is not credited to faith as the initiating 
 cause? Not one. Human ability shows at its best 
 when undertaking the impossible. What gives such 
 endeavor rationality? Faith. Not only initiative, but 
 persistency, requires a power above the normal and 
 unaided power of man. Men easily weary in well 
 doing. Persistency in the pursuit of high ideals neces- 
 sitates constant spiritual renewal. 
 
 Unless reénforced, initiative endeavor is quickly ex- 
 hausted. Most men leave unfinished buildings. Faith 
 comes to the aid of the man of high aspiration and 
 unites him to measureless power. Precisely this results 
 from that Christian experience which we call Com- 
 radeship with the Carpenter. Contact with Him re- 
 enforces, encourages for every great undertaking in 
 life. It has been clearly proven that no obstructive 
 philosophies of life can ever form a permanent barrier 
 to faith’s advance. The apostles of negation sing their 
 dirges, while faith sings her pean of victory. She is 
 ever working toward personal liberty and individual 
 worth. She multiplies her philanthropies, asserts her 
 humanism, and at the same time leads to spiritual 
 heights where companionship with God is her constant 
 joy. When the world becomes science-drunk, faith 
 saves it. When materialistic considerations absorb the 
 thought of man, and interest in art and music and 
 beauty seemingly dies, faith resurrects all, and men get 
 new glimpses of God. When science becomes sordid, 
 a new philosophy captures science, and then faith calls 
 both into service. The surface waves may conceal the 
 
 _—z 
 
MOUNTAIN CLIMBING 161 
 
 flow of the Gulf Stream, but it is there. What a world 
 would this be if faith directed the thought of genius! 
 Then Byron would not have lamented: 
 
 “ My days are in the yellow leaf— 
 The flowers, the fruits of life, are gone. 
 The worm, the canker and the grief are mine alone.” 
 
 Shelley would not have extinguished his light prema- 
 turely, and Voltaire would not have passed out in dark- 
 ness. The star of Hume would not have been covered 
 with a cloud. 
 
 Christ founded a Kingdom. Spiritual imperialism 
 is the ideal for the Church. How can it be realized? 
 There is but one answer: Comradeship with the Car- 
 penter. A triumphant faith that God is here, in the 
 spirit of Christ, to redeem and bless. 
 
 The reign of Divine Love will be realized when fel- 
 lowship with the Living Christ gives a Christly rhythm 
 to the heart-beat of humanity. Then will be realized 
 the dream of Goethe: 
 
 “ Hoary headed selfishness has felt its death blow, 
 And 1s tottering to the grave. 
 A brighter morn awaits the human sky, 
 When every transfer of earth's natural gifts 
 Shall prove a commerce of good words and works, 
 The thirst for fame, the fear of poverty, disease 
 
 and woe, 
 
 War with its million horrors and fierce hell, 
 Shall live but in the memory of time; 
 While man, with changeless nature coalescing, 
 Shall undertake regeneration’s work.” 
 
XIV 
 
 A COURT SCENE WITH THE CARPENTER- 
 JUDGE 
 
 THEN SPAKE THE CARPENTER: “Neither do I condemn 
 thee. Go thy way and sin no more.”—JOHN 8:11. 
 
 Ts was the most daring word ever spoken by the 
 Carpenter. He laid Himself open to the criticism of 
 friends and foes alike. His enemies would make it an 
 occasion for an unworthy standard of morality. His 
 friends would accuse Him of encouraging evil. The 
 storm was growing daily. Accusation, animosity, was 
 developing into conspiracy. The occasion furnished 
 the opportunity for the Carpenter to play the role of 
 Judge. The feast of tabernacles was at its height. 
 Following His counsel, the disciples had come to the 
 feast without Him. They found on every hand Jesus 
 was the one person talked about. Members of the San- 
 hedrin were venomous in their denunciation of Him. 
 He was an innovator, a disturber of the peace, a de- 
 stroyer of tradition, a self-appointed judge of the most 
 important religious organization on earth, a pretender, 
 a blasphemer, and so on through all the list of crimes 
 which their malice charged against Him. If He comes 
 to the feast, He will be arraigned and tried before the 
 high court. Will He come to the feast? His Comrades 
 hope not. They are appalled at the feeling of hatred 
 
 162 
 
 : 
 
A COURT SCENE 163 
 
 entertained about One who they know was guilty of 
 only one thing; namely, healing and helping His fellow- 
 men. Yet they seem not to have uttered any public 
 word in His defense. It is remarkable that, so far as 
 we know, Jesus was compelled to face every danger and 
 every charge against Him alone. No voice was openly 
 lifted in His behalf all through His life until His trial, 
 when Joseph and Nicodemus made bold to protest 
 against the treatment He was receiving. How lonely 
 He must have often felt when the storm of hate was 
 swirling about Him! 
 
 While the agitation is at its height, His Comrades 
 linger anxiously in the temple courts. The cruelty, the 
 injustice of all the accusations and harsh judgments 
 against their noble Master awakens indignation, yet 
 they dare utter no word against the rulers. They only 
 hope prudence will keep the Carpenter in Galilee. 
 
 Then came the Carpenter. All unexpectedly, right 
 in the face of threat and violent utterances, the Carpen- 
 ter walked into the temple, and immediately assumed 
 the role of Teacher of teachers. He knew He was, by 
 right of commission, the true Ruler of the Temple. 
 
 The agitation became more violent. His words were 
 so marvelous that His enemies were appalled. Officials 
 sent to arrest Him stood in amazement as He spoke. 
 Such teaching! How exalted, how divine! He made 
 His masterly defense of His act of healing on the Sab- 
 bath. He was His own advocate. The last day of the 
 feast came. Filled with a consciousness of His Mes- 
 sianic mission and His Divine power and authority, a 
 holy passion stirring in His soul, facing those who 
 
164 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 
 
 hated Him, He flung out the challenge: “If any man 
 thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.” What a 
 claim! ‘The world’s satisfaction in Himself! Wisdom, 
 peace, power, blessing, freedom from sin—everything 
 (desirable He declared to be in Himself. Where was 
 the answer? ‘The very boldness of His declaration 
 silenced caviling for the moment, and the officers sent 
 to arrest Him stood with bated breath and changed 
 their purpose. In the face of such a claim, a claim not 
 one could answer, they must decline to arrest Him. 
 They return to the Sanhedrin, and offer as the reason 
 for their failure to carry out the mandate of the ecclesi- 
 astical authorities: “‘ Never man spake like this man.” 
 Another way of saying: “ While He is a man, yet He is 
 much more. This is no merely human being who is in 
 the temple making for Himself such stupendous claims. 
 We dare not arrest Him.” 
 
 With a sneer of contempt, they were accused of 
 having been deceived by the arch-deceiver. Hear now 
 the angry debate: “ He is a good man and is interested 
 in the people.” “ He is a deceiver, and you have had 
 no education to warrant an expression of judgment 
 about Him.” “ What do you who have no theological 
 training know about it?” “ All scholars will tell you 
 He is either self-deceived or a deliberate deceiver.” 
 
 “ But He is a worker of miracles, and is that not an. 
 
 evidence that the Carpenter is much more than an ordi- 
 nary man?” “ Supposing the Messiah were to come, 
 would He accredit Himself any more fully than this 
 man has done?” “ Be silent! You also are led away 
 by His deceptions—can any Prophet come out of Gali- 
 
 
 
A COURT SCENE 165 
 
 lee? Read your sacred books, and you will be wiser. 
 Do you know of any intellectuals who accept Him as 
 Divine? What can the multitude know about sacred 
 truth? It is for scholarship to determine who and what 
 the Nazarene is.” ‘‘ Doth our law,” said Nicodemus, 
 “permit a man to be condemned unheard?” ‘ Mem- 
 bers of the Sanhedrin, it is time for us to take drastic 
 action. Do you hear what Nicodemus saith? He, too, 
 is being led astray. This thing can continue no longer.” 
 
 Evening came. The contention could not longer con- 
 tinue in the temple courts. Then, it is recorded: “ And 
 they went every man to his own house; but Jesus went 
 to the Mount of Olives.” ‘The feast of tabernacles had 
 ended. The lights were extinguished. ‘The multitude 
 went each to his own place of rest. He who owned 
 the world had no home—He went out into the great 
 open spaces, to be with the Father. 
 
 The great temple of nature was His place of peace. 
 There is a beautiful spiritual song: ‘“ I walk alone with 
 God.” Wonderfully it unfolds the truth of spiritual 
 comradeship. Bethany was just over the brow of the 
 hill. ‘There were His special friends. But in this im- 
 portant hour Jesus sought the closest fellowship with 
 the Eternal Father. He well knew what was awaiting 
 Him. The blazing anger of His foes would become a 
 greater conflagration. 
 
 Reactional recreations—important thought! The 
 multitude sought repose; Jesus sought reenforcement. 
 Human character wonderfully discloses itself. You 
 can tell a man’s character by the way in which he spends 
 his leisure moments. Vacations are more indicative of 
 
166 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 
 
 qualities of character than the ordinary line of activity. 
 What do men seek when the stress of obligation is 
 removed? When the day’s work is over, where will 
 the evening be spent? You may associate with a busi- 
 ness man day after day through the year and know less 
 about him than you will know in twenty-four hours on 
 an ocean liner. How will he spend his leisure time? 
 Some will spend their time communing with the God 
 of nature, as seen in the vast ocean with its mighty 
 waves and great heaving pulses, or as seen in the flam- 
 ing glory of a sunset at sea. Others will be occupied 
 with books. Others will be drinking and gambling. 
 The recreational reactions of men—a wonderful study! 
 Jesus again and again sought for relief from the stress 
 of self-giving. His moments of leisure were never 
 moments of license. ‘hey were not even hours spent 
 in self-satisfactions or indulgences. He spent His 
 leisure moments in the mountains with God. It is 
 necessary that the strain of toil have relief. A vaca- 
 tionless life is an overstrained life. The period of 
 leisure will tell you what you are. 
 
 Three men of professional prominence were on the 
 cruise to Egypt and the holy land some years since. 
 We knew them well. They had received a “ special 
 indulgence.” Within two years one was dead; in three 
 years another, and the remaining one lived on in 
 wretchedness. Sinful self-indulgence was the cause. 
 Their recreational reactions were wrong. Cairo was 
 their undoing. Ask yourself in the hour of leisure the 
 nature of your impulses. Ascertain whether the im- 
 pulse is for gratification or growth. If gratification, 
 
A COURT SCENE 167 
 
 then the result will be a time of arrested development. 
 Times of rest should be times of growth. Vacation 
 should mean recreation. Jesus went to the Mount of 
 Olives. God—goodness—power—preparation! 
 
 Morning came. Night had not changed the temper 
 of His enemies. He was ready; He had seen the 
 Father. Again the people thronged about Him. It 
 was hardly safe, yet they felt the irresistible drawing 
 of His wondrous personality. What was it in the Car- 
 penter that pulled people to Him? It was that inner 
 Redemptive Love, always active in His soul. The 
 threats of Pharisees and Sadducees could not hold back 
 the people anxious for more light and more love and 
 more life. Times do not change the drawing power of 
 the Carpenter. He is still the mightiest magnet on 
 earth. Hold Him up before the people in His true 
 nature, and they come in thousands to learn more about 
 Him. Nothing will constantly hold an audience, 
 through the years, but the one commanding Personal- 
 ity, Jesus Christ. His comrades catch His spirit and 
 feel the thrill of His love, and they, too, become mag- 
 nets, to draw people to them. 
 
 It is amusing to hear unsuccessful men discuss why 
 some men have large congregations. They will analyze 
 situations and personal qualities, all the time seeking 
 above all else to explain away any superior power in 
 the individual himself. The reason is within easy 
 reach. The Carpenter-Christ is presented in the wealth 
 of His Redeeming love and His measureless power, 
 and then the people find their greatest needs supplied 
 and their deepest questions answered. Why are so 
 
168 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 
 
 many scholastics shunned? Why are men, accounted 
 eminent, given a wide berth by the mass of the people? 
 Coldness! Lack of sympathy. No heart. Not so with 
 true Comrades of the Carpenter. A burning desire to 
 bless increases with the passing years when you walk 
 with the Carpenter-Christ today. 
 
 When morning came Jesus again entered the Temple, 
 and taught. The unhurried Christ! ‘He sat down 
 and taught them.” There is much in attitude. His 
 attitude was that of dignity arising from a sense of 
 power and wisdom. He knew the truth. He knew He 
 was pouring out beatitude. He had only two and a 
 half years to do the work of millenniums, yet He never 
 hurried. The clamoring voices of accusation did not 
 startle Him or change His speech. He was no trimmer. 
 He saw the urgency of human need, yet He never hur- 
 ried. He taught the world that haste is waste, but the 
 fevered world has never learned the lesson. We rush to 
 and fro as though everything hinged on what could be 
 done in the next ten minutes of time. He sat down 
 like a king, and taught them. We rush to public plat- 
 forms and seek to attract, entertain, captivate. He did 
 all without effort. He did it by offering something 
 worth while. What a curriculum! Not one line of 
 study calculated to benefit, enlarge, empower, omitted. 
 Not one. Not one of the graces neglected. No wisdom. 
 not touched upon. Is there ambition? He taught how 
 to turn it into aspiration. Is there sorrow? He taught 
 how to transform it into joy. With a clarity of utter- 
 ance such as no teacher in all the world could use, He 
 presented proposition after proposition, revelation after 
 
A COURT SCENE 169 
 
 revelation, all calculated to ennoble life. His vision was 
 clear and His mind balanced. So He taught. He does 
 today. It is the highest form of entertainment. He 
 taught truth relating to both worlds. With a familiar- 
 ity born of experience He discoursed on things Divine. 
 No man is ever wise until he has sat at the feet of the 
 Carpenter. 
 
 But He is interrupted. Something is ever interrupt- 
 ing the Great Teacher today. There is a noisy demon- 
 stration in the outer room. He turns, to discover a 
 woman being dragged before Him. Her hair is 
 disheveled. Her face bears the expression of distress. 
 She is making no protest. She is the picture of despair 
 and hopelessness. Her accusers make known the fact 
 of her sin. The evidence is narrated with zest. Judg- 
 ment is demanded. The Carpenter a Judge! It was as 
 though a court had been constituted, and He appointed 
 to preside as judge. He accepted the appointment. He 
 heard the accusation. The law was explicit: According 
 to the Jewish law, she must be stoned to death. A 
 throng had followed the poor creature and stood wait- 
 ing the action of the Carpenter. He is cornered. If 
 He pronounces sentence of death, then where is His 
 compassion, and by what means may He insure that it 
 will be carried out? If He declines to pass sentence, 
 He is a coward, and lacking in the noble qualities 
 claimed for Him. If He pronounces sentence in her 
 favor, then He is a menace to public morals, for He is 
 encouraging crime. Will He deal with the transgressor 
 justly? Yes, but if only justly, then there is no hope. 
 Will He deal mercifully? Then advantage will be 
 
170 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 
 
 taken of His merciful attitude, to denounce Him. Re- 
 member, He had come from the Mount of Olives, 
 where He had been in prayer. Happy the people who 
 have judges who pray. Trust a judge who comes into 
 the court room from the Mount of Olives. What does 
 he see in her accusers? A wolf pack. What wonder 
 that He had said to His comrades: “ Behold, I send 
 you forth as sheep among wolves.” Ferocity and 
 rapacity and pitilessness cannot be better symbolized 
 than in a hungry wolf. 
 
 A Russian painter has represented the viciousness 
 and mercilessness and terribleness of a wolf pack bear- 
 ing down upon the victim. A mounted Cossack on 
 furlough is nearing his cabin after a ride through a 
 lonely wood. He has heard that most terrible of all 
 cries, the cry of the wolf pack, and has ridden wildly, 
 plying whip and spur to his horse, and will soon reach 
 home and safety. It is a life-and-death matter. He 
 has fired his last shot, and some of the maddened beasts 
 have waited to tear and devour the wounded one, 
 while others are straining every muscle to reach their 
 prey. Their tongues are protruding from their mouths, 
 dripping with saliva. Beastliness and brutality is at its 
 very worst. Your heart beats in sympathy with the 
 imperilled Cossack, and you wonder whether or not he 
 will be saved. | 
 
 That is a true picture of thousands upon thousands 
 of victimized people in this world. Jesus saw the wolf 
 pack, in the accusers of the woman. Did they have any 
 zeal for righteousness? They cared only to carry out 
 their malicious designs. Where was the accomplice, _ 
 
A COURT SCENE 171 
 
 the partner in sin, of this woman? Why had he not 
 been brought before Him for judgment. The double 
 standard! The woman always cursed, the man permit- 
 ted to go free. That is intolerable to true Comrades of 
 the Carpenter. Social justice has never been done to 
 women. Man, because powerful, has been cruel. 
 
 The Carpenter-Judge looked first upon the woman. 
 Fie could not condone her guilt. He must sentence her. 
 But He saw criminals a hundred times worse than she 
 was, in her accusers. Only motive counts with God: 
 “ Let him that is without sin cast the first stone at her.” 
 It was a blow between the eyes. They fell back 
 stunned. One greater than Daniel has come to judg- 
 ment. They were exploiting their victim for their own 
 purposes. They were intent on incriminating Him 
 whom they had all unwittingly appointed Judge. Yes, 
 He pronounced her guilty. He sentenced her. But the 
 execution of the sentence must be in innocent hands. 
 Punitive judgment belongs to God alone. ‘These ac- 
 cusers thought only of punishment for their victim 
 and vengeance on the Judge. Restorational judgment 
 should occupy the attention of our courts. The “ Hole 
 of Calcutta’’ was representative of the prisons of the 
 world before John Howard Paine and Florence Night- 
 ingale undertook their humanitarian work of prison 
 reform. It was the beginning of a new and better 
 day. Salvation and not annihilation is the Christian 
 ideal in dealing with criminals. The pardon and parole 
 system may be abused, but conditions have vastly im- 
 proved, and thousands of men who had gone wrong 
 have been reclaimed. 
 
172 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 
 
 The Carpenter wrote upon the ground. It is the 
 only record we have of the writing of Jesus. What 
 did He write? Inasmuch as it was required of a Judge 
 to write out his sentence, why may the writing of the 
 Carpenter not have been the sentence He was about to 
 impose on this woman? ‘“ Neither do I condemn thee; 
 go thy way, and sin no more.” He sentenced her to 
 life and not to death. Here is mercy Divine. Did or 
 does Christ condone sin? Forever no, but He has 
 mercy on the sinner. 
 
 “Judge righteous judgment.” That demands a 
 knowledge we do not always possess. Then be gener- 
 ously magnanimous. Here was the sentence to life: 
 “ Sin no more.” Guilt? Yes, but another chance. It 
 was a sentence forbidding further sinning. That 
 meant life. No man ever yet won His way into Divine 
 favor by the high perfection of His own conduct. On 
 his knees in penitence is the road to Comradeship with 
 the Carpenter. The accusers of the woman taken in sin 
 were still very ceremonious. They went out in the 
 order of their age, ‘‘ from the eldest to the youngest.” 
 Ceremony, but no justice and no Christ. There is no 
 salvation there. 
 
 There is a “ day of judgment.” God is kindly merci- 
 ful. Comrades of the Carpenter have nothing to fear 
 in the great assize. Be not deceived. ‘‘ He that be- 
 lieveth on me hath everlasting life and shall not come 
 into condemnation.” The Great Comrade offers His 
 constant companionship as the supreme assurance of 
 “life everlasting.” Evil is intensely aggressive. It 
 stops at no boundaries. It recognizes no commands. 
 
A COURT SCENE 173 
 
 It respects no sanctities. It violates with impunity 
 every right of humanity. It is perpetually crowding 
 out and crowding back virtue and honor. With un- 
 limited audacity, it confronts incarnate holiness. It 
 usurps every available throne. As the savage dog, no 
 matter how long it is chained, will go its fullest length 
 and throw its power against it in an effort to reach its 
 victim, so likewise with evil, when dominating the heart 
 of man. Compromises never satisfy the powers of 
 darkness. Flags of truce are never honored. When a 
 question of right is under consideration, unyielding 
 right is the only safe attitude. The beginnings of all 
 sin are insignificant, but the spirit of compromise is the 
 signal for further encroachment and more tyrannical 
 dictation. One square foot of a dyke opened, and you 
 have endangered the entire area protected from the 
 sea. A tiny aperture in a dam means ultimately its 
 washing away and the devastating flood sweeping to 
 destruction all that lies in the pathway below. 
 Powerful as it is, evil is more than matched by 
 incarnate righteousness. The predictions of modern 
 unbelief that the Christian Church, and Christianity 
 itself, will pass away only reveal the mental and moral 
 folly of those who present them. ‘The man who goes 
 to a pebbly shore and stands throwing stones at the 
 stars with the expectation of stopping the rhythm of 
 the spheres is wise in comparison with a man who opens 
 his vials of wrath upon the Carpenter and His Com- 
 rades, expecting to destroy their power. More effective 
 is the barking coyote on the western prairie, trying to 
 retard the onward sweep of the lightning express, than 
 
174 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 
 
 are the criticisms, the sneers, the taunts and denunci- 
 ations of atheism to retard the onward sweep of the 
 chariot of God Almighty. You can more easily destroy 
 the effect of the sunshine upon the earth than you can 
 destroy the influence of the Comrades of the Carpenter 
 charged with His fervor and love. The affirmations of 
 men are easily discounted. The speculations of men 
 may be ignored, but the living, beating heart of a trust- 
 ing child of God is irresistible. 
 
XV 
 
 IN THE SHADOWS WITH THE CARPENTER 
 
 THEN SPAKE THE CARPENTER: “I am the resurrection 
 and the life. He that believeth in me, though he were dead, 
 yet shall he live, and he that liveth and believeth in me shall 
 never die.’—JOHN 11:25. 
 
 STEP softly. There is a shadow on the hearth. The 
 gaunt forbidding spectre, sickness, has cast a spell of 
 gloom. Have you seen Watts’ picture hanging in the 
 Tate Gallery, London, bearing the title, ‘The Man 
 with the Scythe’’? A cottage home of humble appear- 
 ance, with its little garden of flowers, is under the 
 shadow of an impending sorrow. A mother is seated 
 in the yard with her arm protectingly about the emaci- 
 ated form of her beloved child. She is shielding her 
 from “The Man with the Scythe,” who is passing by 
 the gate, hesitating as though uncertain whether or not 
 he will enter. The anguish on the mother’s face is the 
 striking feature of the whole painting. Death is the 
 man with the scythe. Sickness is his invitation to enter. 
 The mother well knows that if he turns and comes 
 within the gate with his scythe, she has no power 
 to prevent the reaping. Her darling will be taken 
 from her. 
 
 Sickness makes the whole world kin. The man with 
 the scythe is no respecter of persons. Bolts and bars 
 cannot stay him. Passionate love and devotion are 
 
 175 
 
176 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 
 
 powerless. When sickness enters the home no affecta- 
 tion, no denials, no imaginations can change the fact 
 that the shadow is there. Sickness in a mansion estab- 
 lishes the “ zone of quiet.” You must drive carefully 
 and noiselessly ; some one is sick. No blaze of electric 
 lights, no levity, no assertive indifference to conditions, 
 can take away the shadow cast by serious illness. 
 Everything is changed. Happiness is in eclipse. 
 Hilarity is impossible, if the mind is normal. It is the 
 time when self-sufficiency breaks down. When the sun 
 of health and prosperity brightens the path, indepen- 
 dence seems quite possible. Wealth, eminence, pros- 
 perity, give a sense of personal power. When the 
 shadow falls it is different. You can walk in the sun- 
 light alone, but in the shadow comradeship is sweet. 
 
 The Bethany home was in the shadow. ‘The Car- 
 penter had often enjoyed the hospitality of this home. 
 Here He had found sympathy with His mission. Love 
 interlocked the members of the home with Jesus. He 
 had here found rest and sweet repose when the burden 
 of the world’s sin rested heavily on His heart. Lazarus 
 had listened eagerly to His words. The two had be- 
 come comrades—with the full significance of the words. 
 Now the shadow has fallen, the first thought is of the 
 Carpenter. How can He be reached? If only He were 
 here! What no ordinary physician could do, He had 
 the power and the will todo. He had proven Himself 
 the Great Physician. Happy are those on such inti- 
 mate terms with the Carpenter today that His presence 
 is the first thought when the shadow falls. 
 
 “The sisters therefore sent to him, saying, Lord, he 
 
IN THE SHADOWS 177 
 
 whom thou lovest is sick.’”’ A touching, tender mes- 
 sage. He did not need to be reminded of the bonds of 
 love that held Him to Lazarus and to the sorrowing 
 sisters. Jesus was far away. He was holding a special 
 mission at the very place where He had first been cre- 
 dentialed by the Father. ‘‘ Many believed on Him 
 there.” It was time of revival, His cause was making 
 headway. He was gaining disciples. The shadow of 
 sickness and sorrow always commands the sympathy 
 and loving attention of Jesus Christ. He will surely 
 leave His work and hasten to the bedside of the sick 
 friend. ‘There is nothing which challenges faith like 
 the inexplicable delays of Divine Love. We read with 
 amazement: “ Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister 
 and Lazarus. When therefore he heard that he was 
 sick, he abode at that time two days in the place where 
 he was.” Astounding! Why not hasten at once? It 
 is, then, no evidence of a lack of interest or love if our 
 petitions are not promptly granted. He very particu- 
 larly loved the members of this Bethany household, yet 
 He delayed two days before starting to them in the 
 hour of their deep sorrow. Is it strange that they 
 expostulated when finally He reached Bethany: “ Lord, 
 if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.” He 
 was already dead when the messenger had first reached 
 Jesus, and Jesus knew it. Jesus had told His com- 
 rades: “ Lazarus is dead.” ‘There is something almost 
 other-worldly about the inner-urge of a great sorrow. 
 The first instinctive call of the heart in the hour of 
 overwhelming grief is for consolation through an un- 
 derstanding companionship. One who knows the 
 
178 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 
 
 meaning of Comradeship with the Carpenter, who has 
 heard His sympathetic voice speaking to the soul, who 
 has felt the quivering of His heart’s devotion, feels 
 the inner-urge. 
 
 “To Jesus, to Jesus. The storm is breaking! 
 The lightnings are shooting across the sky. 
 Come, Thou Great Companion!” 
 
 But He delayed two days. Was His friendship as deep 
 as they had supposed? Could it be possible that He did 
 not love them as He had seemed to love them? A hun- 
 dred questions may have arisen, for still He did not 
 come. ‘The last sad rites performed; still He delayed. 
 He had a purpose. He was about to make to the world 
 the greatest declaration ever received on the planet. It 
 must be made sure to all that Lazarus was dead. Hence 
 He waits that He may make a greater and better re- 
 sponse to the importuning sisters than would at first 
 have been possible. 
 
 When He delays today, it is for the same reason. 
 When prayers are unanswered for the moment, we need 
 not interpret it as Divine indifference. We misinter- 
 pret Providences. It is not easy for finite minds to 
 read the Infinite Mind. God knows. He never fails to 
 answer true prayer in His way, which is the best way. 
 He will always do the right thing at the right time, if 
 we trust Him. In our impatience and despair we are 
 ever trying to force God’s hand. We cry: “ Oh, that 
 Thou would’st rend the Heavens and come down;” 
 You can never hurry God. When the right time came 
 the Carpenter said: “ Let us go again into Judea.” The 
 
IN THE SHADOWS 179 
 
 comrades protested: “ It is dangerous to gothere. Stay 
 where you are safe. The Jews seek to kill Thee. A 
 price is already on your head.” But there is no swerv- 
 ing Him. Duty compels. His mission must be ful- 
 filled. A sense of obligation is the most commanding 
 thing in the world to a deep soul. Jesus felt the inner- 
 urge. It outranked all other considerations. Always 
 the redemptive urge was with Him. Jesus was not 
 rash, He had retreated from Judea once. Strategic 
 retreats have again and again won the war. The time 
 had not then come for the great tragedy. Now it was 
 arriving. He will go. 
 
 “Our friend Lazarus sleepeth, and we go to awaken 
 him out of sleep.”” Thus He softens the message which 
 is so hard to give. He calls death a sleep. When 
 Stephen was stoned we read: “ He fell on sleep.” Sleep 
 is the suspension of consciousness. So is death. After 
 sleep there is an awakening. So, also, after death. 
 Jesus used the word “sleep” to soften the crash and 
 crush of the word “death.” But He must not dis- 
 semble, even to soften the effect of the message, so 
 afterward He said: “‘ Lazarus is dead.” There is no 
 pronouncement in life that cuts to the very depths of 
 the heart like that. ‘“‘ Mother is dead.” “Father is 
 dead.” ‘‘ Husband is dead.” ‘“ Wife is dead.” You 
 ‘remember how it bore you to earth. Then He said to 
 His comrades: “I am glad I was not there.” He would 
 explain why later. Give God time, and He will inter- 
 pret His own ways with men. 
 
 The Son of God must master the grave even before 
 He entered it. Death had long enough dominated hu- 
 
180 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 
 
 manity. It must be once and for all mastered. The 
 time had come to convince the world that there is a 
 life that masters death. It must be demonstrated. 
 When the decision became irrevocable and the disciples 
 knew it, there occurred what for all time tells how 
 Comradeship with the Carpenter can develop the mar- 
 tyr spirit. ‘Thomas said: “ Let us beloved disciples, let 
 us go with Him, that we may die with Him.” They 
 would rather die with Him than to live without Him. 
 Has that spirit among men died? It has not. Thou- 
 sands of our Armenian brethren sacrificed life with 
 Him rather than to live without Him. The days of 
 martyrdom have not passed. Put to the test, millions 
 today would die for Him rather than to deny Him. 
 
 Individuality shows itself in sorrow. Martha heard 
 that the Blessed Comrade was coming, and hastened 
 to meet Him. Mary remained in the house, too over- 
 come in her sorrow to act. We are cruelly critical. Do 
 not be too critical of one who weeps. The cruelest of 
 all cruel ties is to criticize people for the way they take 
 their sorrows. With some, whose natures are san- 
 guine and eager, quiet and meditation seem impossible. 
 Their grief must find demonstration. To others, pub- 
 licity is impossible. They must have it out with God 
 alone. Let God lead you in your sorrow and, in 
 Heaven’s name, let others have their own individual 
 way of meeting their burdens. Martha met the Car- 
 penter hopefully: “ Even now whatsoever thou shalt 
 ask of God, God will give it thee.” “ Thy brother shall 
 rise again.” “I know he will rise again in the Resur- 
 rection, at the last day.” 
 
IN THE SHADOWS 181 
 
 Now let the wheels of time stop rolling for the mo- 
 ment. The Carpenter-Son of God is about to startle 
 the world with such a message as man has never heard: 
 “I am the resurrection and the life!” The deathless 
 life for those united with the Lord of Glory. That is 
 the supreme word of consolation. It has soothed more 
 sorrows than all other words of the Carpenter of Naza- 
 reth, the Christ of God. It has driven the cloud from 
 the sky at the open grave for uncounted millions. It 
 has made the tomb a gateway instead of a terminal. It 
 has lifted the eye from the grave to the glory. It has 
 set the star of hope in a sky that was black. Millions 
 upon millions and still other millions have stood silent 
 at the grave with tears streaming from their eyes, and 
 have been able to look up, because they have heard anew 
 the words coming from the battlements of glory in the 
 voice of the Eternal, Ever-living and ever-sympathizing 
 Christ, the Great Comrade of the sorrowing: “I am 
 the resurrection and the life—he that liveth and be- 
 lieveth in me shall never die.” Here is the guarantee 
 of a glad immortality. It is the assurance of vastly 
 more than continued existence after death. It is the 
 promise of the Life Everlasting. 
 
 Comrades of the Carpenter are comrades forever. 
 Fellowship with God forever—that is Heaven. 
 
 “Jesus wept”?! ‘The Saviour of the world in tears! 
 Wonderful spectacle for men and angels! Mary had 
 come, and was in tears. Grief awakens grief in sympa- 
 thetic natures. Never fear a sympathetic nature. 
 There is safety in tears. We misconceive the meaning 
 of tears. Weeping is a manifestation of strength 
 
182 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 
 
 rather than of weakness. That stoical and stolid cold- 
 ness which never sheds tears is not an evidence of 
 strength. Such a nature has little influence. Epoch- 
 making souls that have immortalized themselves in 
 great achievement have been kindly and have wept. 
 Tears are a revelation of the inner nature. Sorrow 
 and joy find expression in tears. They are the outlet 
 for strong emotions. They are a wonderful solvent. 
 They dissolve away mountains of difficulty, just as the 
 summer sunshine dissolves away icebergs that stand in 
 the transatlantic pathway. As water is the king of 
 solvents in the natural world, so tears are the king of 
 solvents in the world of thought and feeling. They 
 dissolve distrust and doubt. The ingathered grains of 
 sand create friction on the journal and retard motion, 
 so in domestic and social life the grains of pride, anger, 
 indifference and unkindness generate heat through fric- 
 tion and stop advance. ‘Tears are a great corrective and 
 solvent of these causes of friction. Tear-drops are 
 prisms. ‘They reveal the seven-hued bow of promise, 
 just as the drops of rain reveal the rainbow. The 
 most attractive qualities of life appear in the man with 
 strong emotions, and who is not ashamed to weep. No 
 one would disparage the desirability of intellectual emi- 
 nence. No more should we disparage the desirability 
 of emotional eminence—which means emotions under 
 control but not stifled. ‘Tears are passports to the heart. 
 You are rarely denied. the confidence of one who weeps. 
 You can find access to the hearts of many through the 
 avenue of tears, that would not otherwise be open 
 to you. 
 
IN THE SHADOWS 183 
 
 The fact that Jesus wept has made comradeship with | 
 Him closer and sweeter than it could ever have been | 
 otherwise. If He knows how to sympathize with us, 
 then we can draw closely to Him and give Him our 
 confidence and tell Him our griefs and our hopes. The 
 massiveness of an engine does not lessen the need of a 
 safety-valve, but rather increases it. The greater the 
 soul, the more the need of the safety-valve of tears. 
 “She is now safe,” said a physician of one whose 
 overwhelming grief had found no vent for many days 
 and whose mind was in danger. She was safe because 
 she was weeping. When Jesus wept, His tears were 
 variously interpreted. Some of the Jews sarcastically 
 said: “ Could not this man who opened the eyes of the 
 blind have prevented the death of this His friend?” 
 What was the implication? That He had not in reality 
 opened the eyes of the blind. Why not see the best and 
 not the worst? Even tears can be misinterpreted. The 
 misinterpretations of other people’s conduct fills the 
 world with trial, trouble and sorrow. Prejudice al- 
 ways misinterprets. So also does envy. There is no 
 act of life that cannot be wilfully misinterpreted or 
 ignorantly misunderstood. Interpretations of conduct 
 furnish an index to the one who is interpreting. An 
 inclination to believe and say the worst and not the 
 best, indicates a shriveled soul. Make large gifts to 
 some cause, and some pin-headed cynic will say it was 
 done ostentatiously, for the sake of parade. Dress 
 modestly, and you are a prude. Dress in the fashion, 
 and you are a worldling. Refuse large gifts because 
 you cannot afford them, and you are penurious. So it 
 
184 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 
 
 goes. Why be disturbed because of human opinions? 
 But be careful not to shrink your own soul by your 
 misinterpretations of other people’s conduct. Weep 
 when friends have departed, and you are either weak 
 or parading your sorrow for effect. Refrain from 
 tears, and your coldness and indifference is a mark of 
 cruelty. So through the long line of human conduct. 
 It is enough to know that Jesus, with His great deep 
 nature, suffered with the sorrowing. “ He bears our 
 griefs and carries our sorrows.” ‘There were some at 
 the grave who understood tears. They said: “ Behold, 
 how he loved him!” He who hates Christ will allow 
 no act of a professed Comrade of Christ to go unchal- 
 lenged. Christ works now through His disciples by 
 working in them. A denial of the Christian qualities 
 that really obtain in other lives is to deny Christ 
 Himself, 
 
 After the tears of Jesus there was a moment of sus- 
 pense. Readjustments take time. Now they are at 
 the tomb. For four days the friend and Comrade of 
 the Carpenter had lain in the tomb. Watch Him now. 
 Get the scene clearly. Sisters of Lazarus, friends, 
 neighbors, acquaintances, disciples, all are assembled, 
 and all are silent. Jesus has said: “I am the resur- 
 rection and the life.’”’ Can He demonstrate it? “ Take 
 away the stone.” There is objection, which is only 
 the more emphasizing of the impossibility of imposture. 
 “He has been dead four days, and by this time his 
 body is decaying.” ‘Take away the stone.” ‘There 
 are obstructions to the work of Christ that must be 
 humanly removed. God does not do for us what we 
 
IN THE SHADOWS 185 
 
 can do for ourselves. Until we are willing to do our 
 utmost, God does not and cannot do His utmost. ‘The 
 stone represented hindrances to the incoming of grace. 
 Until removed, power Divine remains unemployed. 
 Sin is an obstruction which we must be willing shall 
 be removed, before life will be declared. Insulate 
 yourself, and the dynamo will have no access to you. 
 Sin is a non-conductor. Unrepented of, it makes the 
 application of the powers of God impossible. Sunshine 
 is unavailing until it has access. Jesus stood at the 
 door of the tomb and would never have spoken the 
 word that raised the dead, had they not obeyed His 
 command to remove the obstruction. Then He cried: 
 “Tazarus! Come forth!” 
 
 What a moment! All eternity, for earth’s myriads, 
 hung on the response to that call. Had the Carpenter 
 failed here, He would have had no Comrades. Not 
 since the everlasting mandate had gone forth at cre- 
 ation: “‘ Let there be light,” had there been so impor- 
 tant an utterance as this. “ Lazarus! Come forth!” 
 Will he come? | 
 
 He awakens! He stands before them, living! It is 
 done! Death is already conquered! Out of the dark- 
 ness and chill of the tomb, into the brightness, the 
 gladness and the glory of God’s world, the dead came. 
 Out of the stillness, into the music of life, with its 
 inspirations, the dead came. 
 
 What, then, of the new birth? Cannot He that 
 called the dead to life call the soul, dead while seeming 
 to live, dead in trespasses and sin, to full effulgent, 
 glorious life? ‘Those who are entombed in pleasure, 
 
186 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 
 
 can He not bring them to the joys that are highest, 
 through His gracious power. Ah! the life everlasting 
 is no mere dream. It is the one wonderful soul- 
 cheering reality; among all the realities in the world, 
 the greatest. Here is the test of all religions: Can the 
 dead be raised? 
 
 Does it give life? Does the Carpenter-Christ raise 
 the dead? Does He give new life to His comrades? 
 Untold thousands who have trusted, and have been 
 transformed from death to life, give witness to the 
 power of Jesus Christ to raise from the tomb those 
 dead in trespasses and sin. 
 
 “TLoose him, and let him go.” Liberty! The glad 
 experience of twice-born men. Freed from the evil 
 that enswathes and enfolds, the Comrade of the Car- 
 penter pursues his way unhampered and unhindered. 
 
 He and He alone turns sorrow to joy, shadows to 
 the brightness of His own Glory. The shadows dis- 
 appear when we walk with the Great Comrade. 
 
 Printed in the United States of America 
 
PRAYER AND DEVOTIONAL 
 
 
 
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 Five Laws That Govern Prayer 
 
 Five Addresses delivered at the School of For- 
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THE LIFE BEYOND—PROPHECY 
 
 
 
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 Putting on Immortality 
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 Minister Central Presbyterian Church, Buffalo, N. Y. 
 
 “There Is No Death” 
 Addresses on the Life Beyond. $1.25 
 
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 the passing of loved ones. A _ well-seasoned argument 
 for continuity of life beyond the grave.’—Boston Herald. 
 
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 After Death—What Then? 
 
 Or, What Lies Beyond the Grave. $1.50 
 “A very helpful and valuable book. Dr. Evans gathers 
 the light that can be drawn from revelation and from 
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 and will be abundantly useful to many.”—Christian 
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 ~ Author of “Quiet Talks About Prayer,” Ete. 
 
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 Offerings 
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INSPIRATION from BIBLE CHARACTERS 
 
 
 
 
 
 HENRY SCHAEFFER, PhD.; S.T.M. 
 
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 The Call to Prophetic Service 
 From Abraham to Paul, Introduction by Cleland 
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 Pen-Portraits of the Prophets 
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 The Bible Status of Women 
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EXPOSITORY AND DEVOTIONAL 
 
 
 
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 | Searchlights from the Word 
 
 Being 1,188 Sermon-Suggestions; One from 
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 The Song of Meditation 
 With Introduction by James H. Snowden, 136 
 25 
 
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 MODERN EVANGELISM 
 CHARLES L. GOODELL, D.D, 
 
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 Life Service, Federal Council of Churches 
 of Christ in America 
 
 Motives and Methods in Modern 
 
 Evangelism 
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 Pastor of Tremont Temple, Boston, Mass. 
 
 Evangelistic Sermons 
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 evangelistic flames of his ministry.’’—Baptist Herald. 
 

 
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