■^1 
 
 tihraty of C^he 'theological ^tminavy 
 
 PRINCETON . NEW JERSEY 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 Dr. Earl A. pope 
 
 Manson Professor of Bible 
 
 Lafayette College 
 
 BX 7233 .D84 T46 1899 
 Dwight, Timothy, 1828-1916. 
 Thoughts of and for the 
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 THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 THE INNER LIFE 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 THE INNER LIFE 
 
 SERMONS 
 
 BY 
 
 TIMOTHY DWIGHT 
 
 PRESIDENT OF YALE UNIVERSITY 
 
 STije ftitiflUom of ffioti is fajtthin 
 
 LIBRARY OF f'HlNCtTON 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 
 
 1899 
 
Copyris^ht, 1809, 
 By Dodd, Mead and Company. 
 
 John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A. 
 
TO 
 
 2ti)e 53rotf)£r])ooti of gale ^EnibErsttg, 
 
 Graduates and Undergraduates^ 
 
 I DEDICATE THIS VOLUME 
 
 AS A TESTIMONIAL OF MY KINDLY FRIENDSHIP FOR 
 THEM, AND OF MY INTEREST IN THEIR 
 HIGHEST WELFARE. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 THE thoughts expressed in these sermons are, 
 in accordance with the title which is given 
 to the vohinie, thoughts of and for the inner life. 
 Such sermons are perhaps less often presented to 
 hearers and readers in these now passing years 
 than those which deal with external work and ser- 
 vice and with the great activities of the Church on 
 behalf of men who are outside of its limits. The 
 inner life, however, does not lose its interest, or 
 its infinite worth, to the Christian mind. The 
 author hopes that some thoughtful Christians may- 
 find in what he has written a measure of useful 
 suggestion that may repay them for the time which 
 they chance to spend in looking over the pages of 
 the volume. Thoughts are among the richest bless- 
 ings which come to us in this world. Thoughts of 
 the inner life are often richer than those of the 
 outer Hfe. 
 
 The idea of the Christian life, which, in large 
 measure at least, underlies the suggestions of the 
 sermons, is that of a personal fellowship, a Divine- 
 human friendship, if we may use the term, between 
 the believer and Christ. This is the Johannean 
 idea, as set before us in the Fourth Gospel and 
 
viii PREFACE 
 
 the First Epistle, and is, to the mind of the writer 
 of these discourses, one of the most beautiful 
 and inspiring of all the thoughts presented to us 
 in the New Testament. 
 
 The sermons have, most of them, been preached 
 in the Chapel of Yale University to the audiences 
 assembled there from time to time. Two or three 
 of them have within themselves, as they are now 
 printed, the evidences, very strongly marked, of 
 their special purpose in relation to a company of 
 young College men. Two or three others bear in 
 them indications that they were written with refer- 
 ence to persons in a different sphere of life, or of a 
 more advanced age. These things, however, are 
 merely incidental, and, it is believed, will in no 
 case lessen the interest or helpfulness — if, indeed, 
 there be anything of this character pertaining to 
 them — which they may have for any reader. 
 
 The volume now goes forth whithersoever it will 
 — or whithersoever it may. May it bear a message 
 of peace and of love in itself. 
 
 TIMOTHY DWIGHT. 
 
 Yale University, April, 1899. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 I. The Unnamed Disciple i - 
 
 II. Each Man's Life a Plan of God 19 
 
 III. Thou shalt know hereafter 32 
 
 IV. What Good Thing shall I do 48 
 
 V. The Heavenly Vision 64 
 
 VI. In Nothing be Anxious 80 
 
 VII. The True Life of Man not in his Possessions 94 
 
 VIII. The Following of Christ 108 
 
 IX. Our Citizenship in Heaven 121 
 
 X. For my Sake 134 
 
 XL The True Seer 150 
 
 XII. The Transformation of Character . . . 166 
 
 XIII. Love is the Fulfilling of the Law . . . 182 
 
 XIV. Likeness to Christ the Beginning and End 
 
 OF our Sonship to God 198 
 
 XV. The Peace of Christ a Ruling Power . . 212 
 
 XVI. The Law of Liberty 228 
 
 XVII. The Passing of Life 242 
 
 XVIII. The Things that remain 258- 
 
 XIX. The Power of Personal Life 275 
 
 XX. The Gifts and Lessons of the Years . . . 290 
 
THE UNNAMED DISCIPLE 
 
 Otie of the two that heard John speak, attd followed Jesus, 
 was Andrew., Simon Peter's brother. — John i. 40. 
 
 THE words of this verse form a part of a brief 
 story from which as a centre or starting-point 
 the entire Gospel which the Church ascribes to the 
 Apostle John moves toward the fulfilment of its pur- 
 pose. The story tells of two disciples of John the 
 Baptist, who were pointed by him to Jesus as the 
 Son of God. They followed Jesus, and at His 
 invitation spent two hours with Him at the place of 
 His temporary sojourning. In that brief interview 
 they heard and saw enough to strengthen in their 
 minds the conviction that He was, indeed, what the 
 prophet-teacher had testified concerning Him, and 
 at its close they returned to their own lodgings. 
 This is all that the narrative relates ; but the writer 
 adds the statement, that one of the two was Andrew, 
 Simon Peter's brother. Of the other he says nothing 
 which may determine his personality. What does 
 the verse, as thus connected with the story, — what 
 does the story, as we think of the two young men, 
 suggest to us? 
 
 It is certainly interesting to notice, that, so far as 
 the Gospels give us any account of the ministry of 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 Jesus, these two young men were the first ones who 
 became His disciples. As that Jewish day closed at 
 six o'clock in the evening, and their two hours' 
 conversation came to its end, they constituted the 
 company of believers — the Christian Church. What 
 was their personal condition? How much did they 
 know? We cannot suppose that they had made 
 any considerable progress in the understanding of 
 the great spiritual truths which Jesus had come to 
 reveal. It was long after this that they were so 
 undeveloped and uncomprehending as to awaken 
 His astonishment at their slowness of heart to 
 believe. It was even at the very latest hour of His 
 life with them, that they continued to cherish the 
 thought of a temporal kingdom, and were filled not 
 only with sorrow, but with wonder and disappoint- 
 ment of their hopes, when His departure from them 
 to the heavenly world was revealed as a thing of the 
 immediate and certain future. They could have 
 heard but little from Him in those short hours — 
 only enough to give them some impression of His 
 personality and some passing glimpse into the 
 depths of His inner life. But they certainly saw for 
 themselves — this the narrative makes abundantly 
 clear to us — that which caused the declaration of 
 John the Baptist to become a living reality to their 
 own consciousness. He had said to them, the day 
 before, that a certain sign had been made known to 
 him, and that he had been told that, when that sign 
 should be manifested with reference to one among 
 the number of those who were coming to him for his 
 baptism, he could recognise by means of it the 
 
 2 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 Messiah, to prepare whose way was his appointed 
 mission ; — and he had added the statement that, 
 after a time, he had seen the sign appear as this 
 man was baptised. The interview with Jesus had 
 led them to beheve that John was right, and that the 
 Divine Spirit was with this extraordinary man. 
 But this was probably the sum of the impression 
 produced upon them. What the wonderful power 
 was which lay within His mind and heart, they 
 probably did not appreciate in any measure; nor 
 did they know, if they put themselves under His 
 guidance, to what He would lead them. We may 
 believe, also, that the faith which they had was not 
 secure against all dangers of the future. They could 
 scarcely, in those two hours, have gained a founda- 
 tion for their living, in whose security they could 
 themselves have had entire confidence. They had, 
 however, made a beginning, and it was a peace- 
 ful one for their hearts. There are some things 
 very instructive in their progress from that hour 
 onwards. 
 
 One of these is, that they came to Jesus again, 
 the next day, and sought to learn more of what He 
 might have to tell them. They went with Him to 
 Cana, where they saw the great miracle — perhaps 
 to Jerusalem, where He first entered pubHcly upon 
 His office. They suffered themselves to be won by 
 His words and teachings, and to open their hearts to 
 receive more and more. They did not give way to 
 doubts or questionings which might naturally have 
 arisen, but seeing in Him from the outset a helpful 
 
 3 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 friend, they trusted and waited. A little while after- 
 wards, they joined Him for their life's work, and 
 lived in His society. They entered more and more 
 fully into His living, and tried more and more com- 
 pletely to transfer the secret of that living to their 
 own souls. They found, as they moved onward, that 
 life became richer and deeper, broader and more 
 far-reaching, as they did this. In a wonderful way, 
 they discovered themselves to be ready to give up 
 all things for His sake. Still more wonderfully — 
 when the years had passed and, with them, He had 
 gone into the unseen — they learned that, in His 
 absence. He was nearer and more to them than He 
 had been even in His personal presence. As they 
 looked back from the time near the end of their 
 earthly career, they saw that the progress had been 
 unbroken and uninterrupted, and they believed, as 
 sincerely as men ever believe anything — they knew, 
 with as much confidence as men ever know anything 
 — that they had made no mistake in following the 
 impulses of that hour of their early manhood. And 
 then they died, in a calm, sweet, joyful hope of some- 
 thing better — of a reunion with the Friend whom 
 they had learned to love, and of being like Him 
 when they should see Him again. 
 
 Another thing is, that the two — so far as we get 
 any knowledge of them from the Gospels and in 
 their subsequent career — were very different men. 
 Andrew seems, probably, to have been a solid, 
 earnest, yet ordinary character ; a man to be trusted 
 and respected, but not prominent like his brother, 
 
 4 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 Simon Peter. He was one of the two. The other 
 was the writer of the Fourth Gospel and the one 
 who tells this opening story. The Christian Church, 
 in all the ages, has supposed him to be the Apostle 
 John. But he gives himself no name. The book, 
 however, reveals to us much of what he was and 
 brings us into a knowledge of his inner life. He 
 was, evidently, a man who dwelt largely in the 
 region of that inner life. He was contemplative, 
 introvertive, rich and deep in his thoughts ; finding 
 his delight in his own meditations ; watchful of the 
 workings of truth in his individual character ; with a 
 singular capacity for a pure friendship ; having deep 
 emotions ; fitted to teach the lessons of holy love ; 
 able to realise in himself, more than most men, the 
 highest ideal of the soul. He was worthy to be the 
 disciple whom Jesus loved. 
 
 But, notwithstanding the wide difference, what 
 they began to learn at that first meeting with Jesus 
 accomplished the same result for the two. It be- 
 came the origin of and starting-point for the peculiar 
 growth of character which they knew in their ex- 
 perience afterwards. It showed the same marvel- 
 lous power to work along the lines of Andrew's life, 
 which it manifested in the life of his companion. It 
 gradually made him more earnest, more trustworthy, 
 more devoted to good works, more ready to live , 
 for others, more confident that life belongs to the { 
 future rather than the present. If he had anything ' 
 of Peter's character and Peter's experience, — if he 
 resembled, even though with less of the same quali- 
 ties, his brother, as he may well have done, — he 
 
 5 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 found his earnestness and his impulses coming con- 
 stantly under the controlling influences of a new 
 power, and his life glorified by an ennobling princi- 
 ple. What it did for his associate the following 
 narrative tells too plainly, and the world knows too 
 well, to require it to be set forth anew. But it 
 moved in the region of his emotions, his impulses, 
 his love, his thoughtfulness, his rich, calm living, as 
 if it were adapted only to natures like his. It took 
 hold upon the ardor of his fiery passions, which 
 would, at the first, have called down fire from 
 heaven upon those who refused his message, and 
 made the latest and often-repeated exhortation of 
 his closing years, which he addressed to every 
 Christian believer within his influence, to be in the 
 words, Little children, love one another. It pene- 
 trated within the ambitious feeling of the earlier 
 manhood, whose desire and demand were for the 
 highest places in the new kingdom, and, by its grad- 
 ual yet silent energy, so transformed it into a loftier 
 sentiment that, half a century afterward, he was not 
 willing even to name himself in his own writing. 
 He was gladly ready to leave the world without the 
 knowledge of the author of the beautiful story which 
 he had to tell, if so be that it would only believe 
 in Him of whose kingdom and power and love the 
 story was designed to be full. 
 
 We can think of the two, at the end, and so of 
 Peter and James, of Nathanael and Philip, who came 
 to Jesus immediately afterward, as each one of them 
 feeling in his own soul and saying to himself, that 
 the energising force gained on that first day, which 
 
 6 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 had wrought such a change in character as the 
 years moved on, could have been fitted for no other 
 hfe so perfectly as for his own, — and wondering, 
 as we sometimes do when we are thinking, in the 
 joy of our own experience, of the best and truest 
 things of life, such as friendship, love, and home, 
 whether they can be to any other what they are to 
 us. But that they are to every one what they are 
 to us — only with a richer gift as the nature, which 
 is open to receive it, is richer and deeper — is the 
 very proof that they arc the truest and best things 
 in our living. And so that friendship with Jesus 
 was the most real of all things to each one of that 
 company while they lived, and when they died. 
 
 Another thing, which we may notice, is, that the 
 confidence of the two men in the reality of the 
 friendship and its life-giving force was the same, 
 and that all their life's progress, so far as their belief 
 in what Jesus taught them was concerned, was a very 
 quiet and restful one. They had stormy conflicts in 
 their lives, as all men have ; as all men engaged in a 
 good cause in such an age most peculiarly must 
 have had. They were exposed to the doubtings and 
 opposition of enemies to their faith. They may, 
 moreover, have seen many difficulties in the system 
 of doctrine to which they were committed, whose 
 full solution must be waited for until some coming 
 time or clearer day. They certainly had a terrible 
 trial of their belief when they saw all the old ideas 
 derived from their early education overthrown by 
 the crucifixion of the Messiah. They may, no 
 
 7 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 doubt, have been despondent; and have questioned 
 the reaHty of their own behef or love sometimes. 
 But it is manifest that, when they retired in thought 
 into that central place in their minds where their 
 faith in Christ and His teaching dwelt, they were 
 perfectly peaceful. Whether their faith was weaker 
 or stronger ; whether it was as at the first hour, or 
 at the last; it was /;/ itself calm and conscious of its 
 own foundation. They did not have to argue for it 
 with themselves, or strengthen it by contending 
 against other systems of belief, or spend their time, 
 on their own behalf, in supporting it and undertak- 
 ing laborious defences of it, or encourage their 
 hearts against the dangers of its possible failure by 
 making a continual outcry about it of any sort. So 
 far as it existed in their hearts, the wonderful fact 
 about it was, that it was something /^r tJicm to rest 
 upon, — and not something which needed, _/<?;' itself, 
 to lean tipon them — their confidence, their argu- 
 ments, or even their willingness to keep it alive 
 within themselves. It was wonderfully like the 
 truth, in this regard. It seemed to be wonderfully 
 near to the truth. 
 
 This was the fact, also, with the whole Apostolic 
 company in the subsequent years. The argumen- 
 tative writer of the Pauline Epistles, who seems as 
 if eager for conflict with any and every enemy, who 
 moves along the defences of the Christian system 
 as if the hero of a hundred battles, and tries every- 
 where to subdue the assailant and strengthen the 
 courage of the doubting by appealing to proofs 
 and evidences ; and, on the other hand, the medi- 
 
 8 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 tative author of the Gospel narrative, who tells 
 a simple story of what he saw in earlier years, 
 and leaves the strange facts and the deep thoughts 
 to make their own impression, are alike, when they 
 come to their individual faith. They are not 
 afraid of discussions with other men when necessity 
 arises, but they do not live on them or in them 
 within themselves. Different from each other as 
 they may be in every other regard, they are at one 
 here. And so are all the rest, Andrew and Peter, 
 Philip and his friend Nathanael, James the Lord's 
 brother and James the son of Zebedee, each and 
 all find something, as they first meet the Lord, 
 which becomes to their souls, and remains ever in 
 their souls, a firm foundation of character and of 
 hope — which bears in itself, for the personal life, 
 the gift of a calm and peaceful joy, when it makes 
 its first entrance into that life, and which knows 
 no fears for its own safety or dangers for its own 
 permanence ever afterward. 
 
 We may notice again, that the effect of the meeting 
 with Jesus upon the action of the two men was the 
 same. The narrative distinctly states, with respect 
 to one of them, that he went immediately to his 
 brother, and made known to him what he believed 
 himself to have found. It indicates — what is more 
 clear to the reader of the original than it can be in 
 our English Version — that the other did the same 
 thing. With the impulse which comes to every 
 generous, manly man, to give to another the knowl- 
 edge of what has proved a great blessing in his 
 
 9 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 own experience, they told their story to these mem- 
 bers of their households. Apparently, from the 
 records of the other Gospels, these two pairs of 
 brothers and their families had been previously in 
 the relations of friendship. We cannot wonder, 
 therefore, that the two who had the first opportunity 
 of a conversation with the man to whom John the 
 Baptist had pointed them, and who had been so 
 impressed by His personality and His words, should 
 have desired to bring the other two to meet Him 
 and to hear Him. Philip did the same thing for 
 Nathanael. 
 
 How naturally it was done ! How quietly, and 
 away from the knowledge of the rulers and the 
 world ! How far from the dreamings even of the 
 Jewish authorities, or the Pharisees and the scribes, 
 was the thought that a new power had begun to 
 work in the world on that afternoon. But the next 
 morning there were six disciples, where there had 
 been before none at all ; and the number was 
 never to be so small as on that second morning, 
 for eighteen hundred years. It was, on the other 
 hand, to grow and enlarge — until, after a season, 
 the Jewish authorities were to pass away — and, 
 after a longer period, the new power was to lay 
 hold upon governments and nations — and, when 
 centuries had elapsed, was to become the mightiest 
 force in the world. But the growth was to be con- 
 stantly in the same way. The one man — or each 
 one of the two men, if so it has chanced to be — 
 discovers the power for himself and in his own life. 
 He comes, by some means, into communication 
 
 lO 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 with Jesus Christ, into His society, under Plis in- 
 fluence. He gains what each of those men gained 
 on that afternoon, and he tells the story of his own 
 happiness to his friend. Who shall know it? Who 
 can prevent it? But the secret of the power is 
 there. 
 
 The Church began its history in the hours of 
 that first meeting. It took to itself in those first 
 hours, and in the hours that followed after them, 
 its Divinely given life and its ever-living forces. 
 By reason of these forces it put forth its power, as 
 the very necessity of the life to which they belonged 
 — a power which moved, like the forces of nature, 
 quietly but resistlessly — and the great work went 
 onward as with a Divine energy. The beginning, 
 we may well remember, was with the two men and 
 the one man, and in their coming together. The 
 first movement forward was with the two men and 
 their brothers, and in the words which were spoken. 
 The progress of the history has been like the 
 beginning. 
 
 Once more we may notice, that the two persons 
 in the story were, in a special sense, unknown men. 
 Not only were they obscure Galilean fishermen, 
 away from the centres of life and influence. Even 
 so far as the history presents them to us, they were 
 out of the world's view. One of them appears in 
 the Gospel narrative only in three or four places, 
 and of his life we have but little information, either 
 then or afterwards. The other withdraws himself 
 almost wholly from sight, and is the unnamed dis- 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 ciple. His personality becomes known to us only 
 by testimony from others, and by inferences which 
 we draw from what he says. Their inspiration 
 sprang from sources hidden, as far as possible, from 
 the notice of mankind. They doubtless thought of 
 themselves, that afternoon, as quite insignificant 
 persons, who had little chance or hope of wide in- 
 fluence. They had been attracted by the power of 
 John the Baptist's preaching, and had been aroused 
 to new and deeper views of life through what he 
 said. They now came to Jesus, because of what 
 John had told them, that they might discover some 
 good for themselves — perhaps, without a thought or 
 expectation of ever talking with Him again — almost 
 certainly without the idea of becoming preachers 
 of His truth and doctrine. But in those two hours 
 they received the beginning of a new life, and a 
 strange impulse to speak of it to their friends. They 
 began immediately the work of building up the 
 Church in the world. Half-unconscious they were, 
 no doubt, of what they were doing. But they were 
 doing ; — obscure men, as they were, setting in 
 motion forces which would never cease. 
 
 What an impressive scene, that on which our 
 thoughts are turning is, as we think of it thus. One 
 of the two that heard John speak and followed Jesus 
 was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. Andrew was 
 only Simon Peter's brother — and nothing in him- 
 self. And he was one of the two. Who was the 
 other, we ask instinctively, as we read the words. 
 With how much deeper interest — with an interest 
 and wonder how continually increasing and deepen- 
 
 12 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 ing — does the question repeat itself, as we read on 
 through the chapters and see what a man he was. 
 But the only answer is, He was the disciple whom 
 Jesus loved. He follows along the pathway of the 
 Master's life. He goes with Him in the bright 
 hours, and the dark hours. He finds his place next 
 Him at the last supper. He is with Him in the gar- 
 den, at His examination in the house of Annas, and 
 at the cross. He is the one for whom the longest 
 life and work seem to be appointed. But he never 
 tells us his name, or fully answers our question. 
 He moves our souls, and testifies for the Lord, not by 
 his position or the honours bestowed upon him ; but 
 simply by the story which he has to relate, and the 
 evident transforming and uplifting power of the 
 things recorded in the story upon his own character. 
 The unnamed disciple has had more elevating influ- 
 ence for the noblest minds and hearts, by the inci- 
 dental manifestations of what he was and M'hat 
 Christianity did for him, than any other man, per- 
 haps, that has ever lived. 
 
 I know of no little narrative in all the Gospel 
 story, which has more of suggestion in it than this 
 one whose closing words are in our text. And 
 especially are the suggestions those which encourage 
 confidence in our Christian faith. 
 
 As we look along the line of our own experience, 
 how remarkable it is, that, while sceptics and 
 doubters all about us are always discussing and 
 questioning — never themselves at rest, and never 
 suffering those who disagree with them, and believe 
 
 13 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 the Christian truth, to be in the undisturbed pos- 
 session of their faith, — every Christian behever 
 finds peaceful quiet in himself so soon as he accepts 
 the Christian teaching; that he does not find him- 
 self compelled to prop his faith by constant argu- 
 ments, or to strengthen it by showing his enemy's 
 weakness ; that he lets it take care of itself, and feels 
 sure that it will take care of him ; that he has the 
 same sense of restfulness in it, when he is seventy, 
 as when he is thirty ; that this is so in men of all 
 characters, and all ages, and all differences, so soon 
 as the faith comes to them, and they are near to 
 Christ. I think that the things which we can leave 
 thus in our souls, without supposing them to be in 
 danger unless we are always contending for them in 
 ourselves or with others — which every man who has 
 them is disposed thus to leave, because they seem 
 to him, at once and always, to have a firm founda- 
 tion — bear with them, in this very fact, the strongest 
 evidence that they are thus founded. The doubters 
 do not rest quietly in their doubts, and the mind 
 never does in negations. 
 
 And then, what a wonderful thing is influence. 
 It seemed but an accident that Jesus happened to be 
 passing in the neighbourhood of John the Baptist on 
 that afternoon, and that those two young men had 
 the opportunity of meeting Him for an hour or two. 
 But there went forth from His words and His pres- 
 ence a force which took hold upon them both. 
 The force moved them both to action, as has been 
 already said. In the case of the one, we have no 
 
 14 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 record of the later years, but we know that his new 
 influence began at once in the persuasion of his 
 brother, and we know that it went out everywhere, 
 wherever that brother carried the Gospel message, as 
 well as wherever hq carried it himself And thus it 
 reached beyond his knowledge of its limits, as well 
 as beyond our knowledge. The other of the two, 
 long years afterwards, when his associates of the 
 Apostolic company had passed away and life was 
 advancing far onward towards its ending for himself, 
 was moved — perhaps by the discussions of culti- 
 vated men around him in the city where he lived, 
 respecting God and His connection with the world 
 — to tell of his own life with Jesus. With no desire 
 to speak of himself, except as showing that he had 
 seen and heard the things which he relates, and thus 
 giving weight to his testimony, he presents much of 
 the record of his own history and of the explan- 
 ation as to how his life came to be what it was. The 
 little book goes out to those for whom it was in- 
 tended, and, by accident or Providence as we say, it 
 is preserved for the future. It goes hither and 
 thither, — and down the generations. A few years 
 ago, it opened its power in my soul, or yours. The 
 world put on a new aspect to our view, and seemed 
 under a heavenly influence all at once. Life grew 
 to us less external, and more internal. The Friend, 
 whom he met so long ago, appeared as a real pres- 
 ence to our thought. He spoke to us by His Spirit, 
 as He did with the voice to this writer and his 
 associate. New impulses came to us ; new faith was 
 awakened ; deeper life began. The old question- 
 's 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 ings passed away, and peacefulness followed. And 
 we tell the story of it all to those whom we love most 
 tenderly, as the best thing which we can give them 
 in life, and for life. One of the two was Andrew. 
 Who was the other? He was a man in the ages 
 long since passed away, who had a beautiful life in a 
 beautiful soul, and it was gained in Christ's presence 
 from Christ's teaching. It was the thought that 
 worked in his mind and heart, which constituted the 
 peculiar influence — and it matters little who he 
 was, or who we are. The greatest of Heaven's gifts 
 to us may be just this — that the influence came 
 forth from him and reached to our souls ; and, in the 
 future, the sower and the reaper will rejoice together. 
 And so the single thought or word — the mani- 
 festation of true life in the soul — which may go 
 forth from you or me, to-day or to-morrow; which 
 may be forgotten even by ourselves in a little while, 
 or of which, at the time, we may be ourselves uncon- 
 scious — may enter the life and thought of another, 
 and, as it works through him, may go forth into his 
 future influence and thus perchance find a permanent 
 lodgment in some mind, after a season, which knows 
 nothing of our having ever lived, and whose sphere 
 of thought may be in a far distant part of the world. 
 But it was a word spoken or lived for the truth, and 
 the one who gave it forth, and the one who shall 
 receive it, find in it, alike, the same testimony : that 
 Jesus Christ is the way, and the truth, and the life. 
 
 As a force, also, in the souls of both, it is and will 
 be the same thing. We may be apart from each 
 
 i6 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 Other in our employments, in our mode of earthly 
 living, in our associations, in our style of thinking, 
 in our vdews of Christian doctrine even, in many 
 respects. We may even misunderstand each other, 
 and, from a half knowledge of the truth on either 
 side, may contend, and pass condemnation, and 
 sometimes lose out of our hearts, for a season, the 
 love that believcth and hopcth all things. But the 
 energy of that something which we gained through 
 the Divine influence will enter into our souls under- 
 neath all peculiarities of our thinking or living — far 
 below the sphere of our misapprehensions of one 
 another and our earnest conflicts — and will move, in 
 each one of us, along the lines of individual charac- 
 ter toward the same ennobling of the soul, reaching 
 out ever towards the perfection of true life. Peter 
 and Paul contended ; the Apostles were but partially 
 enlightened in the early years ; the truth in its ful- 
 ness was beyond them. But Christ, the common 
 Master, was the same. The work which His life- 
 power did in them and for them was, also, the same. 
 The influence which they passed over to the future 
 was to the same great end. And the one thing, need- 
 ful for all, was accomplished equally, and by the 
 same power, for the humblest peasant in Galilee who 
 entered in the earliest days into fellowship with Jesus, 
 and for the most cultivated and honored saint who 
 may have died, the last year, in a Christian country. 
 The power was unto salvation in both cases alike. 
 
 I do not see how any thoughtful man, with his 
 heart open to purest thought and influence, can read 
 2 17 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 the simple story to which this suggestive verse 
 belongs, and doubt afterward the final triumph of 
 the kingdom ; or how such a man can fail to believe 
 that, in those early hours of communion with Jesus, 
 the author of the record discovered that which 
 transformed his living into an immortal beauty. 
 And if the record of the reader of the story in the 
 future is, like that of the writer of it, lost, as it were, 
 in the words : " And one of the two that followed 
 Jesus was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother," he will 
 still find for himself in the hour of his first friendship 
 with Christ the value of all life, and the glory of it 
 also. 
 
 i8 
 
II 
 
 EACH MAN'S LIFE A PLAN OF GOD 
 
 Verily, verily, I say unto thee, when thou wast yoiitig, thoji 
 girdedst thyself and walkedst whither thou wouldest: but 
 when thou shalt be old, thou shall stretch forth thy handsy 
 and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou 
 wouldest not. Now this he spake, signifying by what death 
 he shoicld glorify God. And when he had spoken this he 
 saith utito him, Follow me. Peter, turning about, seeth 
 the disciple whotn fesus loved following j which also leatied 
 back 07t his breast at the stepper and said. Lord, who is he 
 that betray eth thee? Peter therefore seeing him saith nnto 
 fesus. Lord, and what shall this ntan do? fesus saith unto 
 him, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to 
 thee? Follow thou me. This saying therefore weiit forth 
 among the brethren, that that disciple should not die : yet 
 fesus said not unto hitn, that he should not diej but, If I 
 will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee ? 
 
 John xxi. 18-23. 
 
 THESE verses of the closing chapter of John's 
 Gospel present before us some of the last 
 words of Jesus, which were addressed to two of His 
 most prominent disciples. With reference to both 
 of them the words apparently foretell something of 
 their future career, and especially somewhat as to 
 the manner of their dying. I propose to consider 
 them as they may offer directly or indirectly certain 
 thoughts and teachings. 
 
 19 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 The characters and work of the two men were 
 very different. Peter, as he is presented before us 
 in the New Testament, and according to the picture 
 which we form of him, was full of energy, ardent, 
 impulsive, ready for every new and worthy under- 
 taking, practical, a leader for other men of action to 
 follow. John, at least as we know him in his later 
 years, was quiet, calm, thoughtful, dwelling more in 
 the internal than the external, a lover of the truth 
 and meditating upon it, rather than one who found 
 his chief joy and satisfaction in the activities of the 
 world. It is certainly suggestive to thought, if we 
 notice what Jesus said to them, as connected with 
 these differences, — especially if we bear also in 
 mind what the future in each case proved to be, so 
 far as the tradition of the Church has made it known 
 to us. 
 
 In the first place, the manner of living and dying 
 which is predicted for each of the two men is in ac- 
 cordance with the character of each. The man of 
 fiery energy, and eager for action and conflict, had 
 begun his career by the carrying out of his own im- 
 pulses. He was the impersonation, as we may say, of 
 youth, in his younger years, — pushing his way for- 
 ward according to his personal will ; a firm believer 
 in himself and his own powers; arrested by no diffi- 
 culties or opposition ; determined to conquer and to 
 succeed. The future for him, according to the ordi- 
 nary laws of life, was to open toward greater conflicts 
 and harder struggles. His very method of working 
 would bring him into the midst of dangers and 
 
 20 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 enmities. He would rouse the evil passions of men, 
 and excite them to throw every possible hindrance 
 in his path, or even to contend against him with 
 their deadliest weapons. In an age like that in 
 which he lived and a work such as the one in 
 which he was engaged, a man of his character would 
 be peculiarly exposed to violent opposition. He 
 would be as a single man contending against a 
 thousand. The truth for which he strove was dis- 
 believed. It was rejected by men of every class. 
 It was hated by all who saw in it danger to their 
 own systems of faith, or to their personal success or 
 power. The career of such a man must be filled 
 with fightings. In any period of the world's history, 
 it must be liable to end in defeat for himself, if not 
 for the cause which he advocates. But, in such an 
 epoch as that in which Peter was living, defeat meant 
 death, and that by violence. Jesus predicted only 
 what might, not unnaturally, be expected, — that 
 the time was coming when, having grown old in the 
 conflict and in years, the ardent and active disciple, 
 who had in his earlier life girded himself and moved 
 whithersoever he would, would be overcome and led 
 forth at the will of others, even to execution. He 
 would glorify God by a martyr's death. 
 
 But equally in the case of the other disciple was 
 the prophecy of Jesus in accordance with the natural 
 movement and ending of a life like his. The calm 
 spirit, which thinks and loves, — which tells its 
 thoughts and shows its love, — awakens no violent 
 opposition. It dwells apart from strifes, even if it 
 dwells near the world's active life. It moves serenely 
 
 21 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 forward, and the years go by. If the hfe chances to 
 be lengthened out to extreme old age, and the mind 
 is in its full power at the latest season, the passing 
 on and the passing away may be but as the change 
 of the daylight hour to the beautiful evening time. 
 
 The suggestion of the text, in this view of it, I 
 think may be this : — that as, in the ordering of 
 Providence, we are born with varying characters 
 and gifts, and are assigned to different works for 
 God in the world, so we may believe that there is 
 a plan for every one, formed, and watched over, 
 and carried to its completion by the Divine Friend 
 who calls us into His service. How often we find, 
 in our individual experience, that we never escape 
 the besetment of peculiar difficulties or trials, which 
 other men around us either do not have, or grow 
 out of as the years move onward. We hope to 
 escape them — we wonder that we do not, it may 
 be — but we find them always with us. Is it not 
 the Lord's appointment — not as an arbitrary or 
 outward thing, but as a part and outgrowth of our 
 peculiar nature? Is not the true way of looking at 
 it this: that we — in our individuality of nature — 
 were made for the accomplishment of a special 
 Divine purpose ; for the showing forth of a Divinely- 
 formed character and life in one particular light; 
 and that all allotments of experience are wisely 
 fitted to realise the end? The work of Peter as a 
 disciple of Jesus was intended to be different from 
 that of John. He was to show the development of 
 true life in a different way. The career followed the 
 line of the native endowments. The trials and sue- 
 
THE INN-ER LIFE 
 
 cesses, the defeats and victories, as they were seen 
 in the progress of his hving and foreseen by the 
 Master, were in accordance with what was fore- 
 shadowed in that manifestation of the Divine pur- 
 pose which was seen in the making of the man. 
 
 We do not penetrate the heavenly wisdom, in- 
 deed, and we cannot say that this is a full account 
 of what we call the Providential dealing with us. 
 But may we not say that it is a partial one? And 
 if it is so, surely it takes up all our living, and every 
 part of our experience, into God's plan and pur- 
 pose — and brings us the lesson of trust and con- 
 fidence that the natural movement of our life, as 
 we call it, is under a supernatural guidance, and 
 that, in our allotment of every sort, and in the 
 dying at the end, we are guarded and guided by 
 a Father's love. 
 
 In the second place, we may notice what Jesus 
 says to Peter in answer to his inquiry respecting the 
 appointed destiny of his friend and associate. The 
 manner of his own dying had been foretold to him ; 
 and now, as he sees this friend approaching, his 
 mind naturally turns to the thought of his future. 
 What of this man — what shall be his experience? 
 The Lord answers. If I will that he tarry till I come, 
 what is that to thee? There is in this answer 
 nothing of definiteness, — at the most, only a sug- 
 gestion that John's life would be longer and quieter 
 than that of Peter himself But the main word for 
 the latter disciple is the pointed question. What is 
 that to thee? with the bidding, Follow thou me. 
 
 23 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 What is the lesson given here? Evidently, as a 
 first part of it, that curious inquiry into what may 
 He before our friends, or even ourselves, is not the 
 thing to occupy our minds. The appointed work 
 for us is, to follow the Lord, each one for himself. 
 Peter had, indeed, been told, as most men are not, 
 and even the other disciples were not, that a death 
 of violence was before him, and would come when 
 he should have passed within the limits of old age. 
 But the language used in giving him this assurance 
 was figurative in its character, and might naturally 
 suggest a career of trial and defeat, rather than its 
 ending only. Indeed the form of expression used 
 by the evangelist is such as to intimate that the 
 understanding of the words with reference alone to 
 Peter's death came to the minds of the disciples only 
 at a later period. As to the time and the particular 
 mode of dying, they were certainly indefinite. But 
 when the inquiry was turned to John's fate, the answer 
 was only with an if, and it revealed nothing beyond 
 the possibility of the Divine will. The if did not 
 gain its interpretation till the fact was realised — 
 nor, indeed, even then, for, if we may believe in any 
 measure the story which has come down to us, 
 many thought, after John had made the correction 
 which he gives, and after he had passed away, that 
 he was not dead, but was to live until the Lord's 
 second coming. Not questioning, but working, is 
 the Christian's duty ; — this is the first part of the 
 lesson. 
 
 And a second part seems to be this : — that, in 
 the working, duty lies in the pathway of individual 
 
 24 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 capacities and powers. Peter was called to follow 
 the Lord in the line where, with his natural charac- 
 teristics, he could best serve Him ; the line which 
 would end, indeed, in martyrdom. But he was not 
 to be planning for martyrdom, or thinking of it. 
 The prophecy which foretold it was, at the most, 
 to be an inspiration to him in his career — -for the 
 reason that the career was to end in a glorifying of 
 God after the manner in which Jesus Himself was 
 about to glorify Him. The following of the Master 
 was to be the object of his thought — a daily follow- 
 ing, according as the way of service should become 
 manifest, and the way in which the Master would 
 have walked, had He been in his place, should be 
 made known. Think not of to-morrow, or the end, 
 is the teaching — think of to-day, and its work. 
 How simple the bidding was : Follow me. How 
 peaceful it was — The future belongs to God; it is -^ 
 the object of His care and thought; it will be one 
 thing for one of his children, and another for an- 
 other ; and for both alike it will be but the following 
 out of that plan which He undertook to carry on 
 at the beginning. If each shall follow — to-day as 
 it comes, and to-morrow as it comes — the call of 
 the Lord, the ending will be provided for, and, 
 whatever it be, it will be a glorifying of God. 
 
 It is significant that this same bidding follows the 
 prophecy of Peter's death and the answer respecting 
 John's future. As if Jesus had said: When the 
 vision is given for a moment, and in a figure as it 
 were, of what is before thyself, let it only move thee 
 to a more earnest devotion to the duty which offers 
 
 25 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 itself at the same moment ; — and when the sight of 
 another's destiny is absolutely denied thee, still have 
 the same earnestness. And so His last words to 
 these two most intimate and beloved friends are the 
 words which He uttered at the beginning of His 
 public ministry : Live the right life to-day, and be 
 not anxious for to-morrow. 
 
 What a wonderful peace there must have been 
 in the inmost souls of these two disciples if they 
 guided their lives by these words in the years which 
 came afterward — the one moving on to his martyr- 
 dom, and the other to his quiet death and the falling 
 asleep that seemed to those about him to be another 
 thing than death, but both hearing the Lord's voice 
 daily, saying, " Follow me," for the present ; and, 
 "What is it to thee?" of the future. 
 
 A third suggestion of the text is as to the true 
 estimate which is to be placed upon different kinds 
 of life. The praise of mankind is always prone to 
 go towards those whose lives are passed, as we say, 
 on the scene of action — the leaders of men in the 
 struggle and warfare. But it is a striking fact, 
 worthy of serious reflection, that it was not Peter, 
 but John, to whom in the Divine plan the longest 
 life was assigned. And this longest life was not 
 mere living, but the accomplishing of a great work. 
 Peter followed the Master, and did an honourable 
 service, and glorified God, at its ending, by a death 
 which corresponded with his life. But we may not 
 forget that it was the meditative and thoughtful 
 disciple — the one whom Jesus loved, and who 
 
 26 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 leaned on His breast at the supper — to whom the 
 last work of the Apostoh'c age was appointed. After 
 Peter and Paul had fulfilled their mission, he came 
 to finish what they had begun. And the message 
 which he sent down the ages is the most precious 
 inheritance of the Church. Peter is an interesting 
 character, but we know little of what He taught or 
 thought, in its distinctive peculiarities, and compar- 
 atively little of what he did. But the thoughts of 
 John give us the setting forth of the deepest 
 mysteries of the Christian truth, and let us into the 
 innermost secret of Christian living, and open before 
 us the heart of God, and read us lessons for which 
 the thoughts of the other greatest Apostles are only 
 preparatory. Our vision of the future places, as all 
 Christian thinkers hold, the Johannean age as the 
 final one in Christian development, and the disciple 
 of love as greater than those of faith and of hope. 
 
 The world is governed more by men of thought 
 than by men of action — when we take the great 
 progress of the ages into account — and it is so 
 peculiarly in Christian history, and above all in 
 Christian experience. 
 
 But the teaching of the text, in this line of thought, 
 is also that, according to the true Christian esti- 
 mate, what seems the quiet, calm life, away from the 
 stir and strife of the world — withdrawn, perhaps by 
 necessity, from the great activities of mankind — is 
 a life as near, or even nearer it may be, to the heart 
 of Christ, than the one which is most conspicuous 
 in its Christian labours seen of men. It was the 
 meditative, loving disciple, whose work came after 
 
 27 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 the struggles and conflicts were over — the one 
 whose life was longest, partly no doubt because he 
 was outside of the tumult, and whose death was so 
 like a sleep, — it was this disciple, whom the Lord 
 loved, and to whom He committed the task of writ- 
 ing the story of His own Divine life among men, 
 which should bear witness most fully of the Divinity 
 and the humanity in their marvellous union. The 
 believer who thinks and loves stands on an equality 
 with the one who works and wars ; Peter and John 
 were together in that final interview recorded in 
 this Gospel. He may even have a higher standing ; 
 as John was living after Peter and Paul had passed 
 away. 
 
 We may also observe, in connection with the 
 thought of the future of these two men as that future 
 is hinted at in these verses, the importance to the 
 Christian work in the world of the union of the 
 two characters within the Church. The work of 
 Christianity is to bring the world towards the per- 
 fectness of God. But the work is to be accomplished 
 by human agencies and in human lives. The per- 
 fectness is therefore to be realised, not in any one 
 individual, but rather in the combining together of 
 the full developments in all. Each man is to mani- 
 fest what the Divine power in Christianity can do 
 for him. Were the more active virtues alone to be 
 seen, the end would be but half secured. Were they 
 not seen at all, the aggressive force upon the world 
 would be mainly lost. But God has joined the man 
 of energy and the man of quiet and thoughtful spirit, 
 and given to each his own sphere of working for 
 
 28 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 Him ; — and if they follow along the line of His 
 appointment, with no misunderstanding of each 
 other, the result is reached — all combining for the 
 common end, even as the writings of Peter and Paul, 
 on the one hand, and John on the other, have made 
 their way together into human souls everywhere, 
 and transformed them from the earthly into the 
 heavenly mode of living. And so the teaching of 
 these words is that those who believe are to grow 
 and work together, but not after precisely the same 
 pattern, or in the same way. 
 
 I think we may fitly notice, once more, what I 
 may call the incidental character of the words. The 
 meeting of Jesus with the disciples on this occasion 
 seems to have taken place almost by an accident. 
 They had come together for an ordinary occupation, 
 and apparently they were not thinking of Him, or 
 of His possible presence with them. In the early 
 morning, as they were in the disappointment of a 
 failure of their work, He stands upon the shore, and 
 gradually, and in a peculiar way. He makes Himself 
 known. He teaches them of their office and their 
 dependence upon Himself, and perhaps of the con- 
 fidence which they may have in His aid whenever 
 they put forth their efforts in His cause. This is 
 what comes first and foremost. Then he seems to 
 take this opportunity — because it chances to pre- 
 sent itself — to call Peter's attention to his three 
 denials, his threefold failure in love, and to ask him 
 to look into his own character. But the object is 
 not self-examination, but forgiveness; and so He 
 
 29 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 restores him fully to his office, committing to him 
 once more the care of the flock, and bidding him 
 feed and tend and shepherd all the sheep. Direct- 
 ing his thought in this way to his work and duty, 
 He easily and naturally speaks of what was awaiting 
 him in the future, and of the death which should 
 terminate his career. The allusion to the future and 
 the death of John was even more accidental, as it 
 were — occasioned simply by the fact of his happen- 
 ing to move along the path by which Jesus was 
 walking with Peter, and then by the chance question 
 suggested to Peter's mind by what he had heard 
 respecting himself. How prominent the thought of 
 the ending is as we look at the close of the chapter. 
 How secondary and subordinate, as we move towards 
 it from the begiiuiing. 
 
 Is it not so with the ending of every hfe? In our 
 ordinary thinking of this ending, it seems like the 
 one great event, which gathers about itself all 
 solemnity, and seems to include within itself the sum 
 of all the past and all the future. But when we move 
 forward in our thought from the beginning and 
 through the life, it becomes an incidental thing — the 
 natural ending of the life whatever it may be ; — the 
 subordinate, not the principal event — subordinate 
 to duty and service and character, which are the 
 principal things ; — the passage-way from a living in 
 one sphere of activity to a living in another. And, 
 in this view of it, does not the question which was 
 addressed to Peter respecting his fellow- apostle come 
 with a Divine emphasis, and a Divine tenderness, to 
 each one of us with reference to himself: What is 
 
 30 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 it to thee? We enter upon the duties and struggles 
 of our coming Hfe — and the call from the Master is, 
 Follow me. We know not the end, but it will be 
 the end of service to Him here, and the opening 
 of something higher and better than earth. 
 
 The writer of the Gospel closes the chapter in 
 which this story of the two disciples is found with the 
 words : And there are also many other things which 
 Jesus did, the which if they should be written every 
 one, I suppose that even the world itself would not 
 contain the books that should be written. We may 
 often wish that the words which He said might have 
 been all preserved to us. But those which we have 
 received are full of suggestion, and the thoughts of 
 Jesus grow in their greatness and power within our 
 hearts until they more than fill all the sphere of our 
 living. The one word : Follow me, fills all the 
 sphere of duty ; and the one word : What is it to 
 thee? commits the future to His keeping, and thus 
 may give to us, each and every one, a perfect peace. 
 
 31 
 
Ill 
 
 THOU SHALT KNOW HEREAFTER 
 
 Jesics ansiLiered and said unto him, What I do thou knowest 
 not now J but thou shalt understand hereafter'. 
 
 John xiii. 7. 
 
 THESE words, as we read them in the connec- 
 tion of the verses, have reference to the par- 
 ticular act of Jesus which is here recorded. They 
 assure the disciple to whom they are addressed that 
 the meaning of what had just been done, though not 
 recognised by him at the moment, would be unfolded 
 at a later time, and they thus suggest to him that 
 he should accept willingly and trustfully the service 
 which was offered, and should be content to wait 
 until the time of revelation should arrive. In them- 
 selves, however, and apart from the limitations of the 
 passage and the occasion, they involve, as we may 
 say, a great principle and law of our human life. 
 They set forth before us the divine method of pre- 
 paring the soul for its future, in one striking aspect 
 of it. They read us a lesson which life itself enforces 
 and emphasises as it passes on in its course. It is 
 in this latter view of the words especially — and yet 
 not without considering the former view also — that 
 I would ask for thought and attention at this time. 
 There are two leading suggestions which I would 
 mention as connected with the words. 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 The first suggestion which the words bring to us, 
 I think,- is that of the Christian idea of Hfe. It re- 
 quires but a small and brief experience to lead any 
 reflecting man to the knowledge and conviction that 
 much of what befalls him is be}'ond his present 
 understanding. The child's question, Why, is one 
 which arises in this regard, as it does in others, very 
 early in the child's thinking as to himself It is a 
 question which returns as the deeper thoughts of 
 later years impress the soul, more and more, with 
 the mystery of its movement along the line of its 
 development, and the equal mystery of its surround- 
 ings. The wonder of our being — what life means; 
 what it is and is to be ; what are the design, if 
 there be design, and the significance of the many 
 strange things that enter into it, or perchance destroy 
 it — becomes greater, the longer we study the 
 matter. It reaches out into the wonderful to a 
 longer distance, and to an obscurity which seems 
 more impenetrable, as we come nearer to the end of 
 what we think of as the allotted period of our living; 
 so that the man of sixty or seventy questions, and 
 meditates, and tries in vain to answer, many times 
 and in many places, where, at twenty or thirty, he 
 had not yet entered into the mystery, or had lost 
 thought of it in the eagerness of his action or his 
 hope. Thou knowest not now, is a truth which we 
 all learn from the beginning onward, whenever we 
 turn our thoughts inward upon ourselves, and then 
 look out from within upon the future and its relations 
 to the past and the present. 
 
 But the Christian idea goes beyond this. It does 
 3 II 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 not, indeed, reveal all things, and thus remove the 
 mysteries in the midst of which we are. This it 
 could not do, by reason of the limitations of our 
 vision. But it opens life to us as an education for 
 a future that follows it, and thus gives us the promise 
 which belongs to all education — that what is not 
 known to-day will be known hereafter — that the 
 steps forward which we take are steps bearing us 
 into the light, and so we have only to wait a little, or 
 to wait until the end, and the pathway which was 
 dark before us will be clear and plain behind us, — 
 and not simply plain in itself, but clear in its leading 
 to the end. 
 
 There is nothing more essentially connected with 
 education than this fact or law, of which we speak. 
 The beginner in any line of study or of art, as we 
 may all know by our own experience, must have 
 rules, and details, and imperfect and separate parts 
 placed before him. He must occupy himself with 
 these, and move in all his mental activity within 
 their sphere ; and make them, as it were, to be of 
 his intellectual life and force, long before he can 
 appreciate their full bearing upon the result which 
 he proposes to accomplish. The work may often- 
 times look forbidding and meaningless, as it is as- 
 signed to him to do, and he may be often ready to 
 turn aside from it as of no profit, or as never lead- 
 ing to anything of worth. He cannot see far enough 
 to understand what will come. But he must never- 
 theless hold firmly to the task, if he would not fail ; 
 — and if he does so, after a season the separated 
 things will begin to come together, and take their 
 
 34 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 places in what is greater and wider than themselves. 
 They will combine with each other, and form a 
 whole which in its turn, and when it has served its 
 separate purpose, will unite with something else, 
 formed perhaps after the same manner, and thus 
 will grow ever towards the end of perfect knowl- 
 edge. This is the way in which the mind always 
 works. 
 
 But it works hy the force of a promise. The 
 teacher does not say to the child, simply or as the 
 chief thing: You do not know the purpose and 
 meaning of what I do, when I set your mind upon 
 the rudimentary details, and call you to the learn- 
 ing of rules or the drawing of lines. This also is 
 not what we say to ourselves when, in later years, 
 of our own choice we begin for ourselves some new 
 study, which may seem harder to us even than did 
 the studies of our childhood. The word which we 
 address to our own minds, and which the teacher 
 utters to his young pupil, is a word of assurance: 
 You will understand by and by. There is no im- 
 pulse or moving power in the former word. It is, 
 moreover, understood well enough, and sadly enough, 
 by each one for himself, without the utterance of 
 it. But in this word there is hope and encourage- 
 ment. In it is mental life. The faith in the future 
 becomes the evidence of the things not yet seen, 
 and the mind moves forward under the inspiration 
 of the thought that the faith will be, at some time, 
 changed into realisation. 
 
 The same thing is true with relation to character. 
 The child, in the formative period, is necessarily 
 
 35 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 subjected to laws of conduct and of thought, the 
 significance of which he does not comprehend. 
 They may seem to his mind to be merely arbitrary, 
 and to bear upon nothing that is really good. And 
 not only is it so with the child. We all, as we pass 
 on to the years of self-control and self-government, 
 find ourselves limited in a similar way. So long as 
 we think only of the present and of the life which 
 belongs wholly to it, the meaning of the rules which 
 we obey is often lost to us — and men about us we 
 see continually so losing it, that they ruin them- 
 selves by their neglect and want of understanding. 
 But when character is looked at from the point of 
 view where we regard it as developing for the future 
 — its growth an educational process, and its value 
 to be seen in the manhood which is secured — a 
 new light shines for us. There may be still no ad- 
 equate apprehension of what the disciplinary rules 
 and duties mean; but the great fact that they point 
 forward, and draw a life-power from what is beyond 
 themselves, brings into them the element of prophecy 
 and promise. We can now say to those to whom 
 we would give our friendly help, or to our own 
 souls in the working of their inner life: Give obedi- 
 ence at the beginning, though you do not yet under- 
 stand. The rules will turn into spontaneous action, 
 after a season, and will find the explanation which 
 you ask for now, but are unable to discover, in the 
 living forces of a strong and noble character. 
 " Hereafter " is the great word of the mental and 
 spiritual life. It is the characteristic word, as we 
 may say, of such life, when viewed as having in 
 
 36 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 itself the element of growth, and as being, in its 
 early stages, a preparation for what is later. The 
 growing mind and soul cannot, from the nature of 
 the case, apprehend to-day, in its fulness, what may 
 be apprehended in some to-morrow, when there is a 
 larger development. But if there is an education in 
 each to-day for each to-morrow, and always for the 
 distant to-morrow, then the unknown of the present 
 seems to borrow from the knowledge of the future 
 an influence and vital power, which bear the man 
 forward intelligently and with confidence. 
 
 The Christian doctrine lays hold, as it were, upon 
 this thought, and makes life an educational period 
 preparatory to something greater than itself, yet like 
 itself. It conceives of the whole of the earthly life 
 as having a relation to the eternal future, similar to 
 that which the earlier part of the earthly life bears 
 to the later part. Life, according to its idea of it, is 
 one thing — one great and long development — one 
 grand movement from the beginning — never ceas- 
 ing, ever growing in its power and in its progress. 
 To-day is for to-morrow ; to-morrow for the next 
 to-morrow ; the next for still another ; and all for a 
 time which is beyond the boundaries of our earthly 
 planning or thinking — the time of perfected char- 
 acter in heaven. 
 
 In a peculiar sense and measure, therefore, does 
 it emphasise the " hereafter " of the text, and take 
 into itself, as what must characterise its whole con- 
 ception of our human living, this fact: — that the 
 future Is to understand the present, while the pres- 
 ent does not, and often cannot, understand itself. 
 
 37 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 If we are born for an eternal existence — if the few 
 years which we pass here are but the beginning of 
 an endless future, and as if the early childhood of an 
 ever-enduring manhood — surely we cannot expect 
 to discover, in the days as they pass, the meaning 
 of what meets us and bears upon our souls in these 
 days. But as siirely may we expect with confidence 
 to find it afterwards. Life is education, all of it. 
 Its significance is in the results of its growth. Its 
 reality is its future. Its time of realization is when 
 it can give, by reason of its progress, a look back- 
 ward. And the more distant that time is, accord- 
 ing to the true view of life, the more completely must 
 this law of education manifest itself as the control- 
 ling, all-pervading law. 
 
 It is of the necessity of the Christian idea of life, 
 that it bears this thought, of which we are speaking, 
 with itself. But there is more in the Christian 
 doctrine than this which has been mentioned. Life 
 according to its view is not only the educational 
 time, with all which this involves as bearing upon 
 our present thought. There is something additional 
 to this. The education is under the guidance of a 
 Divine teacher, whose plan takes into itself all things 
 from the beginning onward to the remotest future — 
 a teacher also who is full of wisdom, and full of 
 love. The mind which is moving forward through 
 the years with limited powers is, therefore, under 
 the direction and leadership of a mind which is 
 unlimited. The limited mind may not know indeed, 
 in the midst of the present experience, what the 
 
 38 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 teacher means or docs, but there is no darkness or 
 misapprehension in the unHmited mind. Jesus said 
 to Peter: What I do tJioii knowest not now. He 
 does not say: /know not now. On the contrary, 
 His words carry in them the suggestion and assur- 
 ance that He had this knowledge, and that He saw 
 the end from the beginning. If so, what must the 
 declaration have involved to the disciple's mind as, 
 after the surprise and bewilderment of that sorrow- 
 ful evening had passed, he thought of it in the light 
 of all that he had learned of Jesus. He must have 
 seen in it the promise of an all-seeing Friend, who 
 was watching over and carrying forward the plan of 
 his personal life. 
 
 This word was spoken, we must remember, at the 
 end, not at the beginning, of the three years of their 
 life together. It was spoken at a time when the 
 wonder of the great Teacher's wisdom, and of His 
 insight into the soul and its life, and of His clear 
 vision of the future, and of the working of the pres- 
 ent for it and towards it, and of His love for His 
 friends, had long been manifesting itself, and with 
 ever-increasing impressiveness. It was spoken thus 
 when the full light of Jesus' life was breaking in 
 upon the mind of the disciple. It must have meant, 
 therefore, to Peter's thought, that the progress and 
 growth of his own life were, and were to be, a true 
 education for the great future — with all the natural 
 movements, and all the privileges, and all the 
 promise, which such education, when under the 
 wisest and most loving teacher, can know as belong- 
 ing to itself. 
 
 39 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 And what is this privilege and this promise in its 
 highest form, but the certainty, that, as the man 
 goes forward out of the present, where he knows not 
 the meaning and deepest reaHty of that which he 
 experiences, he will pass into a future of under- 
 standing — a future, not immediate perchance, but 
 sure and blessed in its coming. The want of 
 knowledge in the present, therefore, has in it no 
 intimation of continued want. It cannot have such 
 an intimation, when the word of Jesus is spoken. 
 The darkness is not the deep darkness of the night 
 season, in which there is no prophecy or hope. It 
 is that which precedes the dawn of the morning, and 
 into which the illumination of the approaching day 
 seems to penetrate as each moment, in its passing, 
 brings on the promised time. 
 
 The Christian doctrine is blessing everywhere. 
 The gospel, in every aspect of it, is indeed good 
 tidings. It lays hold upon life, in all its parts and 
 possibilities, and shows it to be full of the goodness 
 and the gifts of God. It glorifies life everywhere, by 
 making manifest its relation to the future, and re- 
 vealing the truth that, once begun, it never ends, 
 but grows under the loving Teacher's and Father's 
 care continually, ever attaining new and larger 
 knowledge, greater and more ennobling virtue. 
 And so here, it enters with its glorifying power into 
 the limitations of our seeing and our knowing; and 
 by telling us that our life is education, and telling 
 us also who is the teacher, it seems almost to remove 
 the limitations themselves by its assurance and the 
 prospect which it opens. The childhood which is 
 
 40 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 growing up under the unerring care and guidance 
 of the loving Divine Teacher may be fettered in its 
 understanding and apprehension, because it is still 
 childhood. But the light is before it, and it may- 
 move onward hopefully, for the preparation to which 
 it is called is a preparation for manhood — a man- 
 hood in which the past and the present will alike be 
 full of brightness, and reality, and deepest and 
 divinest meaning. Not now indeed, but hereafter. 
 Yet the hereafter abides, while the now passes away 
 
 — and the blessing is ever with that which abides. 
 
 We may now turn to the second and remaining 
 suggestion which the words bring to us at this time 
 
 — that of the wonderful and beautiful way in which, 
 as these words show us, our lives are made to move 
 forward in this education, and by the Divine Teacher. 
 The plan develops itself in great wisdom, as we our- 
 selves are brought to understand it. 
 
 Sometimes, as in the case of Peter when the 
 words were first spoken, the unfolding of the mean- 
 ing is given, partially or wholly, in the immediate 
 future. Many have thought that it was given 
 wholly to this disciple in the words which were 
 added a few moments later. The washing of the 
 disciples' feet was designed to teach the lesson of 
 humility and service. If this was the fact in this 
 particular case, it illustrates much that comes within 
 the experience of every believer. How many times 
 the thoughtful man finds himself suddenly arrested 
 in his career for a moment, as Peter was, by what 
 seems a strange thing, perhaps a small one, afifect- 
 
 41 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 ing himself. He knows not what it means. But 
 it sets him upon thinking. The very strangeness 
 of it makes him thoughtful of its bearing upon his 
 character and inward Hfe; and even as he medi- 
 tates upon what it may possibly have to teach him, 
 the light shines clearly, and the lesson is read in 
 the light. He is ever afterwards, if he faithfully 
 learns the lesson, more of a true man in one part 
 of his living — it may be, a limited and narrow 
 one, but yet one part — than he was before. Peter 
 knew more of what this lesson of humility and 
 service would teach, at the end of that memorable 
 evening, than he did at the beginning of it; and we 
 may well believe that the knowledge never failed 
 him. Thus it is with all true men. There are 
 persons in every Christian company — younger and 
 older alike — who have realised such sudden for- 
 ward-movements in their own history, when some 
 unexpected thought or event has affected the life, 
 because it brought with itself a teaching imperfectly 
 understood, or perhaps wholly unknown before. 
 Character starts into new and higher development 
 from such starting-points, and the man gains strength 
 for the future from the revelation that quickly follows 
 a thing which, in itself, was at the most the wonder 
 of a moment. 
 
 But the meaning of Jesus' words, as addressed 
 to Peter, according to the view of many others — 
 and not improbably their view is correct — was 
 not exhausted in the simple application which He 
 then gave them. There may have been a deeper 
 and more far-reaching significance, which was to be 
 
 42 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 unfolded to the disciple by the events which fol- 
 lowed that evening, and by the later experiences 
 of the subsequent years. And if this be so, how 
 truly, again, it answers to Christian history every- 
 where. The strange, surprising thing, which hap- 
 pened at a certain moment, and which seemed to 
 find some explanation of its meaning soon after- 
 ward, proves to have a deeper significance than 
 was believed. Time and experience show that it 
 has a wider teaching, and that it enters, by its 
 lessons, into the individual character at new points. 
 The voice which it utters speaks after it was sup- 
 posed to have given its full message, and it is 
 heard in some other region of the soul's living. 
 The first thought dies away apparently, it may be, 
 when it has imparted its quickening influence to 
 the mind. But it becomes, in fact, the origin of 
 new suggestions, and new quickening power, until 
 the whole character of the man may be set forward. 
 A striking peculiarity of the teaching of Jesus, 
 which cannot fail to be noticed by every careful 
 student of the Gospels, is the suggestion of such 
 seed-thoughts, as we may call them. He said what 
 was above the present understanding of those who 
 heard Him, or what had wide-reaching application 
 beyond the teaching or the circumstances of the 
 hour. Nothing is more characteristic of Him than 
 this, as He appears before us in His conversations 
 with thinking men, or with His twelve disciples, 
 which are recorded in the Fourth Gospel. He 
 taught and spoke thus, because His teaching was 
 life-teaching y not that of the philosophers and the 
 
 43 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 doctors. Life-teaching, such as His, is always sug- 
 gestive. It is always intended to plant itself in the 
 soul as a power, and to reveal its vivifying force 
 whenever and wherever it may. Hence it is ever 
 creative, and always a blessing. Hence also, it 
 always carries within itself the promise of the here- 
 after — a hereafter which may begin with a first 
 explanation in a moment or an hour, but which 
 may become richer in its gifts of understanding 
 for years, or even beyond the counting of years. 
 
 What an emphasis must have been given to the 
 teaching of service and humility in the mind of 
 Peter as he carried the remembrance of this act of 
 the Divine Friend through his after life. How 
 much, and how many things, it must have opened 
 to him, as he told the story of the Master to the 
 churches which he established, and as he found 
 the greatness and honour of his apostolic office to 
 be in the sphere of humble service to the brother- 
 hood. Thus it was with the other disciples. John's 
 character, which was so rich and beautiful that it 
 has challenged the world's admiration, was, as we 
 may not doubt, the growth out of such seed- 
 thoughts. The richness of his inner life was the re- 
 sult of what Jesus had done and said, as this worked 
 its way into the recesses of the soul with a con- 
 stantly new manifestation of that which was hidden 
 within itself at the first. And this is the beautiful 
 thing in the growth of all purest life. We are 
 placed by the Divine teacher in a school of thought 
 and character, as it were. We are assured that our 
 life is to be an education, pointing by the necessity 
 
 44 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 which pertains to it as such, to the future, and then 
 we are left to the influence of the events, and the 
 teachings, and the thoughts, which may be sent 
 to us by the Master's will. Each one of these 
 may become a seed for growth. Each one of them 
 may be taken by us into our inmost souls, and may 
 abide there as a force for the developing and per- 
 fecting of character. They may be forgotten for a 
 while, or may seem to have finished their work for 
 us. But they remain with perpetual life ; and, like 
 the half-forgotten knowledge or study of the past, 
 they waken again for new influence and new uses 
 when, in some unexpected hour, the soul's experi- 
 ence or need moves near them. And when they 
 are thus awakened, the understanding of what they 
 are, and what they have in themselves, becomes 
 more complete ; and the hereafter stands in yet 
 more glorious contrast to the now of the beginning. 
 
 The thought of a verse like this is often under- 
 stood as applying exclusively to the sorrowful 
 things of life. But that to which Jesus here applied 
 the words was no sorrowful thing. It was loving 
 service. It was humility, one of the sweetest of all 
 the virtues. Jesus was teaching lessons of char- 
 acter. He was, in all His words, giving the Divine 
 idea of life. He was telling how the soul grows 
 through the promise of the future — the assurance 
 of knowing hereafter what it does not now know — 
 and not only this, but of knowing the meaning of 
 what now comes within its vision, or its experience, 
 with a depth of knowledge which passes far beyond 
 
 45 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 our present understanding. This is the way in 
 which we are educated, according to the Christian 
 method, and the Christian conception of hfe as an 
 education. It is a wonderful way of growing indeed, 
 and a beautiful one. Nothing can be thought of 
 that is better or happier — a way in which all our 
 experiences, and all that is done with us, or for us, 
 by the Divine Teacher and Father may become 
 more and more suggestive of the thought and feel- 
 ing which strengthen character, and more and more 
 full of meaning and of light, as the years move for- 
 ward in their course. All things must work together 
 for good for those who are in such an education for 
 a perfected life in the future. 
 
 But one of the chief wonders of this wonderful 
 process is seen in connection with the sorrowful 
 things. In these things, some of the greatest forces 
 for the building of lofty character are found. They 
 tell the soul more of its deepest emotion, and its 
 richest life, than the joyful things do; for truth, as 
 it bears on the soul's growth, lies very near to 
 tender feeling, and to that sense of dependence 
 which comes with loss or trial. But the sorrowful 
 things, like the joyful ones, point to the revelation 
 of the hereafter, and when they are taken into the 
 soul's thinking and its learning, they work towards 
 the light. Nothing is more true in Christian ex- 
 perience than this. The man who, as the years 
 have passed, finds himself already having attained 
 to some large measure of true manhood, will always 
 bear witness, that in these things was the largest 
 influence which worked to the realisation of the 
 
 46 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 end ; and the testimony will also be, that, in this 
 way and for this reason, the sorrowful things 
 became joyful ones in their result, and for the 
 hereafter. 
 
 Thus as we leave our meditation at this time on 
 these words of Jesus let us carry in our remem- 
 brance what they reveal of the Christian idea of 
 life and of the promise of the ever-opening future, 
 and let us place ourselves under the guiding wis- 
 dom of the loving Teacher, who always repeats to 
 each one of us, in our limitations and our imperfect 
 present knowledge : " What I do thou knowest not 
 now, indeed, but thou shalt understand hereafter." 
 
 47 
 
IV 
 WHAT GOOD THING SHALL I DO 
 
 And behold one came to hifn and said, Master, what good 
 thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life? Aftd he 
 said tento hitn. Why askest thou 7)ie concerning that which 
 is good? One there is who is good: but if tho7i wouldest 
 enter into life, keep the commandme^its. He saith 7into him, 
 Which ? A nd Jesus said, Thoti shalt not kill. Thou shalt 
 not comtnit adultery. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not 
 bear false witness. Honour thy father and thy mother : and, 
 Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself The young man 
 saith unto hifn. All these things have I observed : what 
 lack I yet f Jesus said unto him, If thou wouldest be per- 
 fect, go, sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou 
 shalt have treasure in heaven : and come, follow me. But 
 when the young man heard that saying, he went away 
 sorrowful J for he was one that had great possessions. 
 
 Matthew xix. 16-22. 
 
 THE person who is represented in this brief story 
 as coming to Jesus is brought before us in a 
 very interesting hght. He is a young man of high 
 position, — Luke speaks of him as a ruler, — and of 
 lovable character. He is one who has evidently 
 studied the questions which most deeply concern 
 us as men ; the questions relating to the true life of 
 the soul. He believes in the good, and naturally 
 turns to one in whom he has seen the evidence of 
 genuine goodness, or of whom he has heard as 
 
 48 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 teaching the way to attain it. He is honestly try- 
 ing, and has been trying in the past, to lay hold 
 upon the blessing according to the rules which 
 have been set before him. He has meant to do 
 right, as he thinks, and thus to be right. He has, 
 in one sense at least, observed and kept the com- 
 mands of the Divine law, as revealed to his mind. 
 But with all his doing and effort, he has not found 
 inward peace. The assurance of the life eternal, 
 which he seeks, has eluded his seeking. The 
 question of all significance is not yet answered. 
 
 Jesus often, in His ministry, met with doubters 
 and enemies. He was compelled to set His truth 
 before those whom He knew were unwilling to 
 receive Him, and to subdue within them a strong 
 opposition, before He could secure them for Him- 
 self. But here was no sceptic, and no open adver- 
 sary. Here was a man who was so hopeful of 
 finding in Him something to help and satisfy his 
 soul that, as one of the evangelists tells us, he ran 
 towards Him with all eagerness as He was going 
 forth on His journey. He would lay before the 
 new Teacher the want and difficulty which he felt, 
 and would trust that, perad venture, a light would 
 come from the words that should be uttered, which 
 would guide him safely to the desired end. Such, 
 I think, may be regarded as his real position. He 
 was, as one has said, an honest, though erroneous, 
 seeker after truth and life. 
 
 His education, however, had been under the 
 Pharisaic influences of the time, and while he 
 seems to have realised that there was something 
 4 49 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 beyond the mere perfunctory righteousness which 
 many of these teachers taught, he still centred his 
 thoughts, as they did, upon doing, rather than being. 
 The gift of eternal life, to his mind, was to be the 
 reward for the doing of some good thing; and as 
 he did not seem to have attained it as yet, or the 
 sure hope of it, as the result of what he had already 
 done, he would learn, if possible, what the thing, 
 till now unknown, was, which, being done, should 
 carry within itself the rich promise of the future. 
 " What good thing shall I do?" was his question. 
 The good things to which I have devoted myself in 
 the past have not proved sufficient. What is it that 
 remains? Tell me where I shall find it, and the 
 doing on my part shall be ready, in order that the 
 happiness may follow. 
 
 The sincerity of the young man's spirit, and the 
 rectitude and innocence, as men call it, of his life, 
 were such that Jesus loved him, as the truest souls 
 love all that is beautiful in character, even though 
 the divinest beauty is not in it. But while He was 
 thus moved towards affection for him, He saw that 
 the essence of true living was not to be found in 
 him, because he rested in the doing, and his thoughts 
 did not go out beyond it, or into the deeper life 
 within. 
 
 There are lovable and yet restless souls every- 
 where, I am sure, whose position in this regard is 
 like that of the young ruler. They have seen the 
 right, and in a sense desired it. They have set be- 
 fore themselves the eternal life as the great thing to 
 be secured at the end, and have always felt that, 
 
 50 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 without the attainment of this reward, the life here 
 will prove to be a hopeless failure. They have, as 
 they thought, sincerely endeavoured to do the duties 
 of life, and thus to make the end their own. But 
 they have limited their thought and energy to the 
 sphere of action only, and have lost sight of the 
 sources from which action derives all good that 
 there is, or can be in it. And when they have dis- 
 covered that peace has not come to their souls with 
 the doing of this good thing or the other, which has 
 just entered with its influence into their lives, they 
 are restless to find some new good thing, different 
 perchance from what they have known before, that 
 by the doing of this also they may gain the prize. 
 Lovable souls they often are in the earlier years, but 
 they are moving away from the true line of living ; 
 and by and by, as if by a law of the soul's nature, 
 they lose out of themselves the lovable element more 
 and more, and become, at the best, mere men of 
 good works without any inspiring life-force — that 
 is, of works which are dead and valueless to the view 
 of every man who knows what the deepest life is. 
 
 We may next observe how Jesus answered the 
 young man's question. It is noticeable, in the first 
 place, that He met him on the ground of his inquiry. 
 He did not turn his thought to faith and repentance 
 directly, but, as the question had been with reference 
 to something to be done, He reminds him of the 
 sphere within which it is to be found. The keeping 
 of the divine commandments is the means by which 
 eternal life is to be gained. To do God's will, as it 
 
 51 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 is made known, is to secure the reward. And when 
 the questioner, who is filled with the idea of some 
 special and remarkable good thing as essential to 
 the end, asks in reply, Which command, or as the 
 expression more properly means, What sort of com- 
 mand — Of what singular and peculiar character is 
 this command of which you speak, He simply 
 points him to the well-known requirements of the 
 law : Do not kill ; Do not bear false witness ; 
 Honour thy father and mother. The way to life is 
 not a far-off path. It lies before you, along the line 
 of your daily living. Do the duty, refrain from the 
 evil, which you meet from day to day. The answer 
 was so simple that the man could scarcely under- 
 stand it. I have been fulfilling all these things from 
 my early youth until now, he says, but no peace has 
 come. Tell me of something more and further — 
 some great thing which is, at the same time, the 
 good thing. But no — Jesus has only the simple 
 words : Do not kill. Do not bear false witness. 
 
 The purpose of Jesus was to teach him the truth 
 from his own starting-point. So long as you think 
 of mere doing, there is no one great thing to be dis- 
 covered. The sum of duty is the law, with its words 
 which you think you have always obeyed. If you 
 have not realised in your soul the blessing which 
 you seek, you must ask some other question than 
 this which you are thinking of. Life goes with the 
 doing of the requirements indeed, but not with 
 the doing as an outward act. The law is fulfilled in the 
 spirit of it, and there is no keeping of its commands 
 until this spirit rules and guides the soul. 
 
 52 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 The Christian teaching is Hke the teaching of the 
 Master. It approaches all who would seek life in 
 the mere fulfilment of prescribed duties as Jesus ap- 
 proached this ruler. They are ever asking for some 
 new thing to be done, as they come to know that 
 what has been done has failed. They persuade 
 themselves that they are ready to do anything, how- 
 ever great it may be, and however much of effort 
 and self-sacrifice it may require, if they can only 
 have tJie one thing made known to them which will 
 surely bring the result. The unsatisfied want of their 
 hearts is ever asking where it is. But the Christian 
 teaching constantly reminds them, that the old and 
 familiar commandments are those whose fulfilment 
 is required — that eternal life lies near to them ; and, 
 in this way, it strives to lead their minds to some 
 truer conception of what obedience unto life is — 
 not mere doing the good thing, or turning away from 
 the bad thing, but doing, or turning away, with the 
 obedient and loving spirit. The same outward act 
 may have two different characters, as determined by 
 the presence or absence of this inward spirit; and, 
 when determined in character by its presence, it 
 takes hold upon the blessing, no matter whether in 
 itself it be small or great. 
 
 We may well notice, also, the manner in which 
 the test of his own character was placed before the 
 questioner. Jesus did not set up some abstract rule 
 or method of deciding what right character or good 
 action is. He did not proclaim the truth in the case 
 as a moral teacher or philosopher might do. But 
 
 53 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 with that wonderful knowledge of the soul which He 
 manifested everywhere, He adapted His words to 
 the individual man before Him. He penetrated, as 
 with divine wisdom, the secret recesses of this man's 
 character, and taught him personally what he needed 
 to be taught. Moreover, in doing this, He revealed 
 him to himself. It was for this end, no doubt, that 
 He dealt with him as He did. The individual soul 
 was what Jesus was ever seeking ; and whether the 
 soul should be gained, as the result of the seeking, 
 or should be lost. He desired ever to make it know 
 itself and know its real attitude towards the truth. 
 The young man was not told that, so far from keep- 
 ing the commandments, all of them, as he supposed, 
 he had in reality transgressed some of them, or 
 failed in the right doing of the special things which 
 they required. He was not reminded in words that 
 he was self-righteous, or even that his mind was 
 dwelling in the sphere of mere external acts. So 
 far from this, which might have turned him away 
 from Jesus, with a justification of himself, or into a 
 determined opposition, and have accomplished noth- 
 ing for the opening of his true character to his 
 own consciousness, Jesus called his thought to a 
 single action, which was connected with the peculiar 
 condition of his own personal life. He was very rich 
 and had great possessions, the evangelists tell us. 
 Jesus bids him sell what he has, and give to the poor. 
 If you desire to know the good thing to be done, or 
 the thing which, in your individual case, will be the 
 fulfilling of the commandments, Jesus says to him as 
 it were, do this which the animating spirit of the law 
 
 54 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 in all its requirements calls upon you personally to 
 do, and then you may come and follow me to the 
 securing of eternal life. How central, as related 
 to character, do these words become to the one to 
 whom they are spoken. How clearly, in and of 
 themselves, and with the addition of no further 
 word, do they reveal to him the depths of his 
 inner self. 
 
 And so it is always with the Christian teaching. 
 It deals with the individual soul, and adapts its de- 
 mands and lessons to each one for himself. There 
 is no call sent forth to every man to sell his prop- 
 erty and give to the poor about him. The over- 
 powering love of riches may not be in the heart 
 of every person who has great possessions, or even 
 if it is present, it may not be the thing which deter- 
 mines the character and constitutes the turning 
 point of life or death. It was so in this young man's 
 case, and doubtless is in many similar cases. But 
 there may be, in many others, no such love of 
 wealth, and the turning point of character may be 
 elsewhere. Let it be where it will, however, there 
 is, at that point, some act or decision which is, in the 
 sense in which Jesus uses the words, the doing of 
 the commandments. And this, not because of the 
 value or life-giving power of the act in itself, but 
 because in the doing of the act at the demand of 
 righteousness and of God the man has born within 
 him the spirit which fills the law and gives it its 
 living force. 
 
 There come to each one of us some such critical 
 moments of decision and action, at which character 
 
 55 
 
Thoughts of and for 
 
 turns in one direction or another — and the turning, 
 at such a moment, may involve all the future. 
 These moments become tests for the soul. The 
 thing involved in the divine demand may be not as 
 great as that which is here mentioned by the evan- 
 gelist — it may be of a very different character. 
 But it will be a thing in which self is sacrificed, and 
 the man is brought under the rule of love. If the 
 sacrifice is refused, the nobleness of the soul gives 
 way. The evil power gains new strength and, it may 
 be, becomes ever afterward resistless. If the sacri- 
 fice, on the other hand, is willingly made, the soul 
 finds the thing which has hitherto been lacking — 
 the good thing which secures for it eternal life. So 
 soon as this demand has been met, the way to go 
 forward into the true and eternal life is opened ; 
 and the man has only to follow after the Master, as 
 the impulse of his soul will move him to do, and to 
 find the life where He found it. 
 
 The young man went away sorrowful. The test 
 made him known to himself. He saw, in a moment, 
 that he had not fulfilled the commandments, and 
 that the hfe-principle was not within him. He saw 
 also that, for the unwilling soul, the giving entrance 
 to the life-principle was a far harder and more try- 
 ing thing than the doing of the most difficult acts, 
 and that, in asking for some great thing to be done, 
 he had failed to comprehend the greater things of 
 character and loving obedience to duty. He was 
 brought into the life-struggle of the soul by the 
 words of Jesus, and the victory, as he knew, was 
 lost. He was grieved, but he turned away. 
 
 S6 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 What a different thing Hfe would have been for 
 him in the future, if he had turned its course in the 
 opposite direction ! The words of the story are 
 very suggestive in this regard. Jesus assures him 
 that, if he will yield to the demand which carries for 
 his soul the life-forces within itself, he will have at 
 once tJie great possession, in place of tJie great posses- 
 sions. The eternal life is not simply an inheritance 
 to be bestowed and waited for. It is something to 
 be gained in the very fulfilment of the required duty. 
 And this, because it is life. The act is nothing in 
 itself, as we may say, — hard as it is, it is a mere 
 doing of one thing rather than another. But in it 
 the mind and purpose turn from selfishness to love, 
 and the man is changed. Yesterday the man was 
 moving downward, in the controlling impulses of 
 the soul, but now he begins to move upward. The 
 life-principle was at the point of the action, and the 
 movement follows where the principle impels, just 
 as the stream flows westward, or eastward, as the 
 fountain turns on the mountain summit. Life moves, 
 indeed, and grows afterward, and takes into itself all 
 that may naturally belong to it, and reaps con- 
 tinually its own reward ; and thus there is progress, 
 and gradual development, and slow advance, as it 
 may seem to be, towards a distant future. But, 
 nevertheless, it has at the beginning what it has at 
 the end, its owjt vital power, which is the reward. 
 
 And so Jesus says to the questioner, in the very 
 words of His sentence: not, Give to the poor and 
 then follow me ; and thou shalt find at the end a 
 treasure in heaven ; but. Give to the poor and thou 
 
 57 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 shall" have the treasure in heaven ; and Come, follow 
 me. The assurance of the heavenly treasure — that 
 is, the true and eternal life of the soul, with all the 
 blessings which it does, and may, involve — is thine 
 already, when this act of giving, which is the turn- 
 ing act of the life, is done. What thou mayest do, 
 and wilt do joyfully, after the moment of turning, is 
 to follow me. 
 
 The whole thought and idea of the young man, 
 as he approached Jesus with his earnest inquiry and 
 with his hope of gaining light from Him, were mis- 
 taken from the very foundation. His mind had 
 been moving, as the minds of many like him even 
 in this age, to whom we have alluded, are now mov- 
 ing, in the sphere of the legal system and of reward 
 for works. But discipleship to Christ is not a long 
 labour, or a long pathway, at the end of which we 
 secure a reward m payment ior what we have done. 
 It is a life which has its inheritance as its birthright 
 at the outset, and moves forward in the conscious 
 possession of it. In this sense it follows, rather than 
 precedes, the attainment of the end. It is a move- 
 ment along the line of true living, which begins 
 from the self-propelling impulses of a new life. It 
 is a learning from Christ ; a service and imitation of 
 Him ; a following after Him as the great Master 
 and Teacher, because in Him is manifestly set forth, 
 in its perfectness and glory, this life into which the 
 soul has newly entered. And thus the turning to 
 the new life — whatever may be the special act of the 
 man in the doing of which it takes place — is always 
 a joyful turning. It takes into itself the joy which 
 
 58 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 Jesus meant to have the young ruler take, when He 
 said to him : Sell that thou hast and give to the 
 poor. The young ruler's countenance fell as he 
 heard the saying, and he moved on into the future 
 sorrowful, because he had turned backward along 
 the old course of his living. But there was nothing 
 like this where Jesus pointed him. There was the 
 beginning of a new life-force there, just within his 
 grasp — just ready to be the inspiration of all his 
 future existence — just waiting to give him the 
 blessing to which no sorrow is added. There was 
 a new life there, which should be, Hke all true and 
 beautiful life, full of joy because full of its own 
 activity ; growing stronger and richer because of the 
 continual forth-putting of its own powers ; realising 
 ever more and more fully the greatness of the in- 
 heritance, the possession of which it knew to be an 
 essential part of itself at the moment when it began 
 to know its own being. The treasure becomes yours 
 when you turn toward God, instead of turning away 
 from Him — such is the meaning of the words ad- 
 dressed to the young ruler, as they go forth beyond 
 him to all who ask the question which he asked — 
 the treasure becomes yours so soon as you turn 
 toward God, instead of turning away from Him, 
 Come, is the invitation, learn what the treasure is 
 in its joy and blessing, by following after Christ. 
 
 And now, as we have followed out the line of 
 thought thus far, we find a suggestion as to the sig- 
 nificance of the words which seem strange to us at 
 first, and with which Jesus opens His part of the 
 
 59 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 conversation: — Why askest thou me concerning 
 that which is good? One there is who is good. 
 The Christian message does not come to teach us 
 what is good, as if this had never been revealed to 
 men before. The good lies in the fulfilling of what 
 God commands — that is, the expression of His 
 will, which is the outcome of the perfect life within 
 Himself, Do the will of God, and become like 
 Him. This is the fundamental truth of all soul-life. 
 But this is a revelation of God in the consciences of 
 men, and in the law which was given long ages be- 
 fore the coming of the Gospel. Jesus was not a 
 new teacher, in the sense in which his questioner 
 seemed to look upon Him as such — a teacher who 
 could add to the old commandments and services 
 some one great thing, in the doing of which the 
 secret of life and peace was to be discovered. His 
 purpose and work were to a different end from this. 
 He came only to point the way, and to open the 
 way to God — to bring the soul back to that start- 
 ing-place of life, as it were, where with a newly 
 awakened and efficient life-force it could successfully 
 begin the work of true, loving obedience. There- 
 fore, His bidding to this young man was: Do the 
 commandments — the simple, plain, old commands 
 of the law: not to kill, or steal, or bear false witness 
 — but do them, not as you have been doing them, 
 but with a full sense of their meaning and with the 
 spirit of God's children. To give you this sense 
 and this spirit, which you have lost out of yourself, 
 as you will realise in your own mind in a little while, 
 when I call you to give up your possessions for the 
 
 60 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 help of the poor around you, — to make you this 
 gift was the purpose of my coming to you as a 
 teacher. To receive this gift should be the purpose 
 of your coming to me. Do not call me, Good Master 
 
 — none is good save one, that is, God, Do not ask 
 me respecting the good. One there is, who is good 
 
 — the Divine Father. Let mc only reveal you to 
 yourself, and open your mind and your way to 
 Him. My doctrine is no new commandment ; it is 
 the old commandment which was from the begin- 
 ning. My words are spirit, and they are life. 
 Take them into yourself, and you are a new man. 
 The secret of the life which you desire is in the 
 life-force. 
 
 We come thus at this point to the central truth. 
 The Christian doctrine is not a revealing of what the 
 good is, as if this had never been made known 
 before, but a revealing of the way to attain it. The 
 good is righteousness. The good is conformity 
 in the life to the will, and thus to the character, of 
 the one Being who is good — that is, God. But 
 how shall we gain it? This is the question which 
 we need to have answered for us, and Christianity 
 gives us its answer. 
 
 It is worthy of notice, as we take leave of the 
 story and its thoughts, how completely this answer 
 turns the man away from self and selfishness. 
 Jesus bids the young ruler seek after the good, 
 which brings life and is hfe, in God. He is to find 
 what he asks for in a personal communion with the 
 source and author of the wonderful gift. He is to 
 
 6i 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 attain to this communion by a fulfilment of what is 
 required as the essential element of true action and 
 life; — and this fulfilment is to be the result and 
 outgrowth of that principle of love which is the 
 opposite of all selfishness. He bids him, again, in 
 his movement towards fulfilling the law, to do those 
 things which the law requires in his relations to his 
 fellow-men. Do no ill to those about you, but ever 
 do them good. Have that loving spirit within you, 
 the out-flowing of which is service and helpfulness, 
 and thus abide in the sphere of that golden rule of 
 life which inspires you, while it commands yon, to do 
 to others as you would have them do to you. In 
 this way, take the demands of the Divine law, as it 
 was given at the beginning, into the deepest and 
 inmost part of your soul, and make it the spring and 
 fountain of all good deeds. He bids him, once 
 more, to follow after Himself. Come, be my dis- 
 ciple — not as asking me one question, or how to do 
 one thing, and then going away to depend on your- 
 self, and to deceive yourself with the thought that 
 you are obedient to the law — but, as a true follower 
 in the way of the soul's true life, imitating, trusting, 
 believing in, and yielding the soul, with its active 
 powers and its loving powers, to the Teacher who 
 will lead you away from the evil that is in yourself 
 towards and into that good which dwells, in its ful- 
 ness, in the one God. And so the bidding and 
 the lesson are from the beginning to the end the 
 same. Let him deny himself and follow me. Let 
 him gain his life by losing it, and let him receive the 
 hundredfold reward in the eternal good — which is 
 
 62 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 the perfected soul, perfect in love — through giving 
 up all that centres the soul in its selfishness and 
 itself. 
 
 How clearly the lesson gathered itself into one 
 word and one act, when Jesus said, Go, sell that 
 thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have 
 treasure in heaven. The life in the lower sense 
 would be lost in the moment of the doing of that 
 act, and the life in the higher sense would be gained 
 at the same moment, because the act was so central, 
 as related to the life-forces, that it carried within it- 
 self the change for all the future. The same is true 
 of us. There is somewhere, for each one of us, a 
 movement towards God which takes hold of loving 
 trustfulness in Him, and is the beginning of the 
 eternal life. It is a movement which answers to the 
 inviting and teaching word of Jesus, and is ever 
 afterward a following after Him. The supreme 
 moment of our life-time is the moment when this 
 word is spoken. The question of the eternal good 
 for us is the question of our yielding to the call and 
 bidding of the Master, or our turning away. The 
 young ruler heard the word, and sorrowfully went 
 to his old life once more. But the true life-forces 
 were not to be found in the old path; and his going 
 away was a far more sorrowful thing than he 
 thought. 
 
 63 
 
V 
 
 THE HEAVENLY VISION 
 
 Wherefore, O King Agrippa, I was not disobedient u?ito the 
 heavenly vision. — Acts xxvi. ig. 
 
 THE conversion of the Apostle Paul from his 
 Jewish belief to his Christian faith, from his 
 bitter enmity against Jesus to an all-constraining 
 love for Him, and from an old life of harassing 
 inward struggle to a new life of inward peace, has 
 always stood forth in the history of the Church so 
 conspicuously as to arrest the attention of every 
 serious mind. The suddenness and the complete- 
 ness in the change of the man bear witness of a 
 remarkable power putting forth its energy, the real- 
 ity of which it is impossible to deny. One day a 
 persecutor ; the next day a preacher ; and the great 
 transformation taking place by reason of a wonder- 
 ful light breaking forth at noon-day — there must 
 have been something in the scene and event, the 
 reader of the narrative is impelled to say, which had 
 a marvellous, if not mysterious, force for character 
 and life. There must have been behind what was 
 made manifest to the bodily eye, or in the centre, as 
 it were, of that which was revealed to the senses, a 
 life-moving element for the soul. The man does 
 not become a new man — the newness does not 
 
 64 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 make itself known as absolute and immediate — un- 
 less new and mighty energies are in movement at 
 the hour. The wonder of the result proves the 
 wonder of the cause, and there is no room for 
 doubting when the result appears. Life testifies 
 unmistakably of what lies back of it, for life is itself 
 the movement of living forces. 
 
 It cannot but be interesting, if we arc interested in 
 Christian history and experience, or even if we are 
 interested, as every manly man must be, in the con- 
 dition and possibilities of the soul within us, to look 
 into what the person who had this great change in 
 his own life said about it, and to interpret his words 
 by what we know of him after the hour of the won- 
 derful scene. 
 
 The words of the verse which is taken as the sub- 
 ject of our thought give us tJie cause of the change, 
 and the working force in the life that followed it. 
 We may look at the words from the two points of 
 view. 
 
 The cause of the change is represented in the 
 expression : the heavenly vision. What was it, that 
 was seen? It was a person. The Apostle saw Jesus. 
 The wonderful man concerning whom he had heard 
 so much, but in whom he had had so little disposi- 
 tion to believe — whose career he thought to have 
 been ignominiously and disastrously ended by His 
 ignominious death, and whose influence he doubted 
 not would cease, so soon as His few followers could 
 be scattered or suppressed — appeared in a marvel- 
 lous way. He manifested himself as still alive ; as 
 5 65 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 exalted to a higher position, and higher power; as 
 standing in close relation to His disciples; as plan- 
 ning for and ordering His cause in the world ; as 
 uniting in Himself and in His thought the heavenly- 
 things and the earthly, now that He had passed 
 from the latter to the former. He stood forth 
 clearly as what He had claimed to be, and as what 
 those who had trusted Him supposed that He was 
 — the divine messenger and Messiah sent from God. 
 But there was something beyond this, and some- 
 thing which was even more and nearer to Paul's per- 
 sonal life. The wonderful man declared Himself to 
 be affected by what he had individually been doing. 
 The persecution of His followers had not found its 
 end in them ; it had reached Him. The attempt to 
 destroy the new belief was, in reality, an attempt 
 put forth against Him who had awakened it. The 
 onward movement in the line which Paul had 
 chosen, and along which he was pressing so deter- 
 minately and earnestly, was a movement in opposi- 
 tion to Him whose voice called to another line of 
 action and another manner of living. There was a 
 revelation of one personality to another personality, 
 involving all which the one could reveal to the other. 
 I am Jesus — so the voice said; — What am I to 
 you, and what are you to me? These were the 
 questions and thoughts which the scene brought to 
 the mind of the one who witnessed it. They were 
 thoughts to be dwelt upon, and questions to be 
 answered, in the meditations of the years that fol- 
 lowed, as well as in the first thinking of the present 
 hour. 
 
 66 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 This is the representation of the matter which the 
 Apostle gives in both of his two descriptions of the 
 vision recorded in the narrative of tlie historian, and 
 in all the passages of his own writings, also, in which 
 he makes allusion to it. The sight which he had 
 was a sight of Jesus; and the moving force for life 
 was the force which came from His personality. 
 We miss the very essence and central significance 
 of the whole matter when we view it in any other 
 way. The Apostle was not, as related to the great 
 and remarkable change which took place in his 
 inmost life, a man of reflection, or a philosopher, 
 who had long been searching after the true doctrine 
 of righteousness, and had finally reasoned out for 
 himself the doctrine of faith. Much less was he one 
 who, having been dissatisfied with all experiments 
 and experiences which he had known in the past, 
 had suddenly, as it seemed to himself at the moment, 
 though probably not so afterwards, come to the 
 conviction that the way of faith was the only way to 
 attain forgiveness and salvation. His mind, even in 
 the after years, when he became a great teacher of 
 the churches, — much as it had to do with doctrine, 
 or dwelt upon it for the benefit of others — never 
 had the real movement of its living powers in the 
 sphere of doctrine. This movement was in the 
 sphere of personal living. All new thoughts which 
 came to him — all new revealings — were of life, and 
 for life. The doctrine entered through the door of 
 the life, and was a secondary thing, while the life 
 was primary. It was but the setting forth in words 
 of the way in which the living begins and goes for- 
 
 67 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 ward — useful for its purpose, but not the first and 
 all-important and all-embracing thing. Life was 
 this all-important thing. It was so as truly in the 
 earlier days as it was in the later days. The deeply- 
 implanted and fundamental characteristics of the 
 man were not altered as the strange light shone in 
 upon him. The same enthusiasm for living, as dis- 
 tinguished from everything else, was in him at the 
 first, and remained in him. The line of its outgoing 
 only was, in the later time, a new one. The pur- 
 pose of the man at the first, as always, was a pur- 
 pose of life, and to the movement of life, and of 
 its forces, all his thinking was wholly subordinate. 
 The fact that it was thus, made the suddenness and 
 the wonder of the change possible. There could be 
 no great visions and revelations for such a man, 
 except visions and revelations for personal life. 
 
 How was it, then, that Paul saw the truth, or the 
 way of life and peace for his soul? He saw, in the 
 sudden light of the moment, what the other disciples 
 had seen in the years preceding. He saw that in 
 Jesus the Divine Father was manifesting Himself in 
 relation to men as His children, and that thus, in and 
 through Jesus, he could come into personal relation 
 to God as his Father. The whole matter of life for 
 himself was thus changed at once for his thought. 
 He was not living, as he had supposed himself to be, 
 under a system of rules appointed for him by a 
 governing power, in which the starting-point of all 
 action was within himself, and through which noth- 
 ing but law moved towards his soul. He was living 
 
 68 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 under a system, though he had not realised it at all, 
 of personal love. The voice which called him was 
 a Father's voice. Because it was so, it carried the 
 offer of forgiveness in itself — a free forgiveness, full 
 and without conditions — immediate, and not depen- 
 dent on a previous testing of long-continued action. 
 Because it was so, it bore witness of loving trust as 
 the uniting and re-uniting power which should bind 
 the soul to God — uniting, where no sin had entered 
 to break the union ; re-uniting, where there had 
 been such an entrance. How strange that he had 
 never, before this, seen the truth ! How beautiful it 
 seemed, now that he saw it ! 
 
 The words were very few, and very personal 
 words : I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest. I am 
 the messenger of God bearing to you, and to all men, 
 the message of the Divine love, and you are resist- 
 ing the message and persecuting the messenger. I 
 place myself now before you, and place you, also, 
 before myself. Think what we are, in our relation 
 to each other — how you ought to feel towards me, 
 and how you are feeling. You are moving in the 
 wrong direction — wrong in a sinful way. You are 
 acting as an enemy to one whom you ought to love 
 — to one who has said all things and done all things 
 in love to you. The soul's life is not, and cannot 
 be, found where you are moving. It is not in 
 enmity, but in love. How can you find your way 
 back to it? By the pathway, and the only pathway, 
 in which souls move into union — the pathway of 
 loving confidence, the pathway of faith. Turn 
 back upon your course and into this way; and for- 
 
 69 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 giveness and peace will meet you at once. They 
 will meet you at once, for I am in the pathway, and 
 the Father is in me. 
 
 Such were the thoughts that the voice brought to 
 him. They were involved in the words which were 
 spoken. They bore in themselves a revelation which 
 included everything for the man's personal living. 
 They constituted, as we may truly say, the vision, 
 for in the sight of Jesus, as the vision made Him 
 known, they were opened to the mind. It is no 
 wonder that they came in a moment, or that they 
 changed the whole of life for the man who received 
 them into his soul. This is the manner in which 
 great life-thoughts come and work — oftentimes, if 
 not always. Every true man knows somewhat of 
 such experiences in his own mental and moral 
 development. That is a beautiful story — as real in 
 the history of the soul as it is beautiful in the telling 
 of it — that story of the Prodigal Son, which Luke 
 has recorded for us among the sayings of Jesus. It 
 gathers up and centres in itself the gospel-teaching 
 of forgiveness and life. But of all the wonderful 
 and real things suggested in it, there is nothing more 
 impressive for our thought than the suddenness of 
 the new revelation for tJie soiW s life, which came to 
 the returning son when he saw his father in the 
 pathway. He had before this, in all the seriousness 
 of his mind which followed what the writer of the 
 Gospel calls his coming to himself, been thinking of 
 action beginning on his own part, and of earning 
 favour by good deeds in the future, and of full 
 reconciliation and restoration to the old tenderness 
 
 70 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 of love on the father's side, when he had proved, by 
 days or years of better hving, his right to be trusted. 
 But as the father stood before him, suddenly and 
 unexpectedly revealed, the vision opened to him the 
 inner life of the man whom he saw, and at the same 
 moment opened to him also a new understanding of 
 the relation of his own inner life to the life which 
 he saw. He apprehended, as through the breaking 
 forth of a light from heaven, that the renewed union 
 of the two souls was to be secured through loving 
 faith, to which immediate forgiveness answered, and 
 thus that the life-pathway was the plainest and 
 easiest of all pathways — with forgiveness and trust 
 meeting each other at the very beginning of the 
 path. 
 
 Paul was not a man like the prodigal, indeed, — 
 far from it, — but he had the same revelation of the 
 true life-way, and it came with the same suddenness, 
 and after a similar manner. The old thinking gave 
 way before the new vision. The new vision was the 
 vision of the personality of him who was revealed 
 in the one case as truly as it was in the other, and it 
 carried in itself, in both cases alike, all the forces of 
 the changed life. These forces were loving trust on 
 the one part, and loving favour on the other — a thing 
 on each side which the man had not comprehended 
 before, but which, when comprehended, could not 
 but stir, for all the future, the deepest thoughts of 
 the soul. 
 
 The reasoning, the arguments and proofs, the de- 
 velopment of the true doctrine, the unfolding of the 
 plan and system of the Divine working for the re- 
 
 71 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 newed life of men — ^ all this belonged to a later 
 season. All this had relation to the mind's thinking 
 and to the presentation of the truth to others. It 
 needed the growth of thought out of the first seed- 
 thought. It could wait for a time till the coming of 
 its own appropriate hour. But the man, at this 
 critical moment, was in another sphere. He was in 
 the great personal crisis for himself. He needed 
 only — and imperatively — the seed-thought, which 
 should have its growth afterwards. This seed- 
 thought was connected with the relation of his own 
 personality to the Divine personality, and it required 
 for its coming to the man, and its implantation 
 within him, one thing alone — the meeting of the 
 two personalities. The vision realised this meeting. 
 It had in itself the cmise of what followed in the after 
 time, but did not gather into itself cvejythijig that 
 followed, whether in thought or in act. The soul- 
 movement which it knew as a real experience set in 
 motion the mind-movement and the life-movement, 
 but these in their completeness became real experi- 
 ences only when the after-time had come. The 
 cause was not the effect ; but it produced the effect. 
 What pertained to the vision was not the whole of 
 the changed life of the future; but it was the whole 
 of the change, out of which the future naturally, and 
 as by a necessity, came into being. It was, as life- 
 changes are, the matter of a single momentous hour 
 which centres all in itself. 
 
 Such was the cause of the change. The working- 
 force, by which the cause of the change was con- 
 
 72 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 nectcd with the result, is also indicated in the words 
 of Paul. Let us look at this for a few moments. 
 " I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision." 
 I did not resist, but I yielded myself to the influ- 
 ences which came to me from it. How simple and 
 natural it was ! The son met his father in the path- 
 way, as he had not thought of meeting him. At 
 the moment of the meeting, he saw in the father 
 what he had not thought to see. The revelation 
 was as distinct, and as complete, as it was unex- 
 pected. It opened an entirely new view of life and 
 its forces. It revealed love, and forgiveness, and 
 far-reaching possibilities, and wonderful hopes. 
 But there was a further revelation for the son's 
 life which came forth from that of the father's 
 life. It was the revelation of a new impulse 
 within himself, which was to make the life's move- 
 ment afterward an easy one, and which would 
 prove a uniting power linking the cause of the 
 changed life to all the results. The impulse was 
 that of obedience to what the vision carried in 
 itself. The vision for Paul bore witness that the 
 Divine Father's love was ready, with a boundless 
 readiness, to forgive and pass over the past at the 
 very moment of the first turn in the soul's attitude 
 and feeling. The impulse of his manly soul was 
 to meet the love on God's part with an answering 
 love on his own. The Friend who had stayed him 
 on his journey through the suddenness and bright- 
 ness of the light from heaven, had said all things 
 in testimony of love and of the Father when He 
 said, I am Jesus whom thou art persecuting. The 
 
 73 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 response could be no other than it was : What 
 wilt thou have me to do? The reconciliation, 
 which terminated the old life for him and began 
 the new life, was a change from enmity to love on 
 the one part, because of the overflowing fulness 
 of love on the other — and the impulse of the new 
 life was inseparable from the life itself. 
 
 We look along the course of the life-time after 
 that hour, and we see the new force working every- 
 where, and at all times. No sooner had the vision 
 passed, in the wonderful effect which it produced 
 for the moment, than the carrying out of the obedi- 
 ence to it began. In the very city to which he 
 had directed his way that he might accomplish his 
 hostile purpose, destroying the faith in Jesus if 
 this should be possible, he begins to tell of Him 
 as the hope of the soul and the power of God. 
 The movement of his energy is, at once, in entire 
 contrast to what it had ever been before. He 
 cannot be earnest enough to satisfy his own desires 
 and to meet with fulness of result the obligation 
 which he feels. The years pass on, and it is ever 
 the same. The sentiment of his life is expressed in 
 the words which, at the middle point of his career, 
 he addressed to the Corinthian believers : " The 
 love of Christ constraineth us, because he died for 
 us all ; and he died for us that we should no longer 
 live for ourselves, but for him." These words were, 
 in reality, the remembrance of the vision. They 
 contained in themselves the essence of its mean- 
 ing, and, by their living presence and power within 
 his soul, caused it to abide with him always. So 
 
 74 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 he passed from city to city — so he preached to 
 Jews and Greeks — so he made his defence before 
 the high-priest and the emperor — so he endured 
 all sufferings and trials — so he fought the good 
 fight and kept the faith — so he finished his course, 
 as he had begun it, with the one principle always 
 triumphant in his soul, the principle of love for the 
 one who had loved him and manifested Himself to 
 him. 
 
 This is the way in which life moves, when it is 
 impelled by a great and grand impulse, taken into 
 himself by one man by reason of his meeting with 
 another. But the peculiar expression of the Apostle 
 is worthy of notice, and it has a revelation in itself. 
 " I was not disobedient." He does not say, I put 
 forth mighty effort; or I roused my energy anew 
 by daily and continual awakening; or I stirred 
 my enthusiasm by the thoughts of duty or of suc- 
 cess; or, even, I was active in obeying what I 
 seemed to have heard. He says simply, I was not 
 disobedient. The vision was a beautiful one, a 
 wonderful one. It had in it all thoughts of God in 
 His relation to my soul. It revealed to me Jesus 
 and all that is in Him. It set before me Jesus and 
 myself in the meeting together of the two person- 
 alities. There was but one thing needful for me to 
 do — and there never has been but this one thing, 
 from that far distant hour of my seeing the vision 
 to this late hour of my telling of it — and that was 
 not to resist its teaching and its influence. If I did 
 not resist these, the power for the life came forth of 
 itself. If I let it come, in the early or the late 
 
 75 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 hour — in the one equally as in the other — it came 
 directly, easily, sweetly, with heavenly naturalness, 
 to my soul, and showed itself in every way to be 
 fitted for my soul. So I have worked on, with 
 never-failing earnestness and with boundless enthu- 
 siasm, simply keeping the door of my soul open to 
 receive what the vision ever held within itself for 
 me. This is the story of my life, and now, as the 
 end seems to be drawing near, and I stand before 
 the great earthly powers awaiting their decision as 
 to my fate, I am calm and peaceful in my memory 
 of the vision and my thought of what it has done 
 for me. I am even doubtful as to what I may wish 
 to be the result, for I find, with an ever deepening 
 sense of the reality of the experience, that it is 
 Christ for me to live, and I know, with an ever 
 growing confidence, that it is Christ in me, and 
 with me, if I die. 
 
 This, my friend, is Christian experience from the 
 beginning to the end. I commend it to you, that 
 you may make it your own. The vision of Jesus is 
 before you, if you will only open your eyes to 
 behold it. You may see it to-day, if you will retire 
 into the depths of your own soul and let your true 
 personality meet His. The vision will be a more 
 beautiful one than you ever saw before. It will 
 have the great revelation of life for you. It will 
 have in itself the life-power and the life-impulse. 
 And the impulse which moves all forces within you 
 will come into your soul, at the first, — and ever, 
 again and again, through all the years — if you will 
 only not be disobedient to the vision, but will suffer 
 
 76 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 it to be for you what it truly is. The marvel of the 
 Divine impulse for noblest living is, that it enters 
 the soul of itself, when the vision is seen and the 
 man opens the door. It is the working-force of 
 the changed and renewed life, whose source is the 
 love made known in the vision. It starts all ener- 
 gies and activities ; moves to duty and endurance ; 
 gives strength for labour and trial ; stirs the man- 
 hood to enthusiasm and heroism ; makes life to be 
 full, and great, and victorious everywhere. But it 
 comes itself to the man gently and easily, asking of 
 him nothing but that the door may be opened to 
 receive it. It is breathed into his open soul with 
 the breathing of Divine love, even as Jesus breathed 
 on the earliest disciples when He met them on that 
 first Sunday evening, and said, Receive ye the Holy 
 Spirit. The effort, the struggle, the victory, come 
 with the years, and along the years. But they all 
 grow out of the impulse. It takes care of them 
 and secures them; and, as it does so, it makes life 
 strong, and manly, and ready for the present and 
 the future alike. Let it enter in its own sweet way, 
 through your seeing the heavenly vision, and not 
 being disobedient to it. The life-time that follows 
 will be ever realising more fully for you, and within 
 you, what the life has in its possession and its 
 promise. 
 
 It is a very significant circumstance connected 
 with these words of the Apostle, as here recorded, 
 that they were addressed to a man who had no 
 interest in the speaker except that of curiosity, and 
 
 77 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 no openness of mind at all for the doctrine which 
 he declared. The man said to him a few moments 
 later, in a tone half of pity and half of contempt: 
 It is with a very little of persuasive power that you 
 are trying to make me a Christian. Your visions, 
 as you call them, have no meaning for me. They 
 have, as I believe, no reality for yourself. You are 
 a dreamer — a dreamer even to madness. My old 
 faith, or my no faith, is better than this; and I have 
 known too much of life to trust to such dreamings. 
 
 Paul made the answer which came from the 
 inmost soul and from the soul's deepest experience: 
 I would to God that not only thou, but also all 
 that hear me, might become such as I am. What 
 I am is tJie reality of the vision. Life-power, which 
 transforms, and builds up, and new-creates the soul, 
 pertains to no dreaming. It is the most actual 
 and vital of all things. It comes to the soul, when 
 it comes from another as it came to me, not from 
 the picture of the man, or the dreaming of the man, 
 but from the man himself. Call to mind what I 
 was in the early days, and what I am now — think 
 of what I was just before the vision, and what I was 
 just afterwards; — and you may know for yourself 
 what the vision had in it — reality and vital force — 
 the cause and moving power of all that followed. 
 
 And this is the Christian testimony, which every 
 believer has for himself and for the doubting or 
 hostile world. I saw the vision, and it made me 
 what I am. The growing years, since I saw it, 
 have witnessed the growing life. The forces of the 
 growing life are still working, and they are making 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 the man. The man within me, that is made, is the 
 rcahty of all realities. No dream has made it. 
 Dreams fade away and die. No empty vision has 
 made it. The empty vision passes into nothing- 
 ness. It was the meeting of my personal soul 
 with the personality of Jesus which accomplished 
 the result, and is still accomplishing it. I am not 
 yet what I might be or ought to be — the years 
 have not wrought in me all that the vision would, 
 if unhindered in its influence, have realised. But I 
 am something, and more than I once was, in the 
 life of the soul that is worthy of the vision ; and 
 from the depth of the realised experience within 
 myself I say to each and every one, I would to 
 God that you all might become, in this regard, 
 what I am. The life which I now live, I live in 
 faith, the faith which is in the Son of God, who 
 loved me and gave Himself for me. It was a 
 beautiful vision. It is a glorious reality. The love 
 and the impulse came from the vision, and they 
 make the reality. They will make it for you, as 
 they have made it for me. 
 
 So the Christian stands in the world, ever bearing 
 witness as the Apostle did. His witness has in it a 
 Divinely-given power, and it testifies for the truth 
 of revelation and of experience. 
 
 79 
 
VI 
 
 IN NOTHING BE ANXIOUS 
 
 In tiothing be anxious; but in everything by prayer and sup- 
 plication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made 
 known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all 
 understanding, shall guard your hearts and your thoughts 
 in Christ Jesus. — Philippians iv. 6, 7. 
 
 THE Epistle from which these words are taken 
 was written near the end of Paul's life, within 
 the two years of his stay in Rome, the reference to 
 which is found at the close of the Book of Acts. 
 There are many evidences in the letter that he had 
 gathered into his heart the lessons of a life-time, and 
 was now in the calmer and quieter mood of advanc- 
 ing age. He says that he has learned in whatsoever 
 state he is, therewith to be content; that he knows 
 how to be abased, and how to abound ; that he can 
 do all things through Him that strengtheneth him ; 
 that he forgets the things which are behind, and 
 presses on beyond them towards the goal ; that he 
 is willing to have the Gospel preached, whether it be 
 by those in sympathy with himself or those strongly 
 opposed to his views, if so be that Christ is pro- 
 claimed ; that he is ready either to live or to die, as 
 may be best for the cause. These things are, all of 
 
 80 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 them, utterances which come more naturally from 
 one who has been long engaged in the struggle of 
 life, and to whom the ambitions, the hopes, and the 
 victories of the earthly warfare are becoming less 
 powerful in the soul than they once were. Paul did 
 not lose his energy, or his consecration to the work 
 of Christ, as the years carried him forward beyond 
 the age of sixty. But life became a different thing 
 from what it had been at his entrance upon his 
 labours; and he looked upon it from a different 
 standing-place. 
 
 It is certainly fitting, and may well be a matter of 
 interest, to contemplate him as he comes to this 
 quiet Christian feeling at the later period — de- 
 veloped, as it was, so beautifully, and so much more 
 fully than it could have been before. The life under 
 the educating influence of religion does not remain 
 always at one stage, or in one condition, but it grows 
 into greater richness and deeper power as it moves 
 on from period to period, until it passes into the 
 perfectness of heaven. But, as it is ever growing, 
 it gains the truest views in the later season — unless 
 it suffers other and evil influences to becloud the 
 clear mental vision. 
 
 The verses which have been chosen as the subject 
 of our thought contain a most appropriate suggestion 
 for a rule of living, and one which gains an especial 
 force because it comes to us from the earnest and 
 ardent Apostle in the calmer and later period of his 
 life. I know of nothing in all literature which gives 
 such a picture of what our feeling and action ought 
 to be, or is a more beautiful motto for every man. 
 6 8i 
 
THOUGHTS OF AXD FOR 
 
 In nothing be anxious. This is the Apostle's 
 reflection of the words of Christ in the Sermon on 
 the Mount, Be not anxious for the morrow. But it 
 bears the testimony of Paul's own life to these words. 
 The words suggest what he deemed life to be, in 
 the right view of it; and I am sure that we must 
 hold that he saw the truth. The view of life here 
 on earth which he had was, that it was a service like 
 that of a commissioned agent, or a soldier. The 
 plan of all working was not in the soldier's mind. 
 It belonged to his leader. Labour and duty, there- 
 fore, were the things for him ; results pertained to 
 the sphere of another. Now anxiety begins when 
 the soldier or servant allows his thought to go 
 beyond his appointed work, and when he demands 
 for his happiness success in his own part of the field, 
 and not merely success in the whole undertaking at 
 the end of all the conflict. 
 
 We see how Paul looked upon the matter for him- 
 self. He regarded himself and the other teachers 
 as mere ministers employed by God in different 
 parts of the one common work. The station assigned 
 to each, the success granted to each, was determined 
 by God. Whether as the layer of foundations, or 
 the builder upon them ; whether as a preacher to the 
 Gentiles where the Gospel had never been carried 
 before, or a presiding presbyter at Jerusalem ; 
 whether to fail and be driven off in one city, or to 
 gain many converts in another; all these things 
 alike were in the Divine counsels. What was best 
 and wisest for the kingdom, he could not tell ; but 
 God who saw the end from the beginning could. 
 
 82 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 He would be only the soldier, to go whither he was 
 sent, and to do what he was bidden. He would do 
 earnestly and enthusiastically what he had to do. 
 He would do it hopefully, also. He would know 
 how to abound, when abundance came. But he 
 would not be disheartened by failures, or let his fear 
 of coming failure, which might indeed never come, 
 disturb his trustfulness or his peace. His work was 
 done to the best of his ability. What could he do 
 more? The results must be committed to a higher 
 wisdom and a mightier power than his own. 
 
 We, also, ought to be living in this way. It is a 
 hard lesson for any of us to learn ; but certainly, as 
 the Apostle intimates, it is a peaceful one when it 
 is learned. Take the case of your entrance upon 
 the work of life, for example, or of a call to a par- 
 ticular service. You may be in some questioning 
 as to the summons of duty. But if you determine 
 this point as you best may, and then go forward, 
 you may joyfully perform the labour of each day as 
 it comes, and believe that all will be well at the end. 
 And so in all your course. Like the daily bread 
 which we are taught to ask for only for a single day, 
 the daily duties are to occupy the thoughts. They 
 come upon us clearly and plentifully enough, with 
 each day as it passes. They bear with them the 
 Divine voice, and the Divine summons. They are 
 the private soldier's work. Why look beyond them 
 to uncertain possibilities of the future, to bring a 
 burden of distress upon the soul? 
 
 The Christian plan of living says to every man : 
 Do what to-day calls for ; fill it with everything 
 
 83 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 which it asks ; make such preparations for the future 
 as the work which is under your care demands, and 
 the probabiHties of continued Hfe suggest as wise. 
 But be content when you have clone this. Do not 
 hinder the efficiency of to-day by anxiety for to- 
 morrow. Do not make the uncertainty of results 
 which you cannot control a burden upon your soul. 
 That this plan is the right one for limited beings 
 like ourselves can scarcely be doubted. That it is 
 a reasonable one is certain, when we observe the 
 facts of our earthly life. But, for peaccfulncss, it is 
 the ojiiy plan. The man who makes it his rule to 
 do the utmost that he can, and ought to do, to-day, 
 and waits calmly for to-morrow, to follow the same 
 course in its work, must be undisturbed. He must 
 be in the line of the Divine appointment ; and it is 
 only because we forget this, that the worrying cares 
 and fears that break in from the future destroy our 
 happiness and our peace. 
 
 There is surely nothing grander than the words 
 of the Apostle which have been quoted at the 
 beginning of our discourse. There is nothing in 
 human experience which seems to come forth more 
 truly from, or testify more sweetly of, the peace of 
 God that passeth all understanding. Filling each 
 day with his duty as a preacher of the Gospel to all 
 who would come to him, he was ready for whatever 
 the Divine Master might send. To live would be 
 for him, as he well knew, Christ; to die would be 
 gain. He could scarcely determine which to choose. 
 He was ready for either; and ready to leave the 
 decision with the wisdom of that loving Friend who 
 
 84 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 had led him for so many years, and who had taught 
 him, by many an experience, that the abounding 
 and the abasing alike wrought out results of blessing 
 at the end. Why should not the years have taught 
 him to be anxious in nothing? 
 
 But, while the Christian disciple fulfils his ap- 
 pointed duty, leaving results with God, and thus, so 
 far as he accords in his life with the doctrine, is free 
 from anxiety that burdens the heart, he is not left 
 with no manifestation of God, or communion with 
 God. In everything, the Apostle adds, by prayer 
 and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your re- 
 quests be made known unto God. These words 
 open before us a most delightful representation of 
 Christian living. They show that, in the course of 
 all His work and service, the Divine Father abides 
 near the believer, and is ready to know and consi- 
 der the wants, desires, and aspirations of his soul. 
 They encourage him to present his thoughts and 
 earnest wishes before God ; and they allow and even 
 direct him to let the range of his supplication extend 
 itself to the whole circle of the things that interest 
 his mind. The teaching of the New Testament is 
 not, that we need not or should not be anxious for 
 anything, because there is a destiny and fate which 
 we cannot change — that we can only perform 
 blindly the task which falls to us, there being no 
 thought of us, or care for us, above ourselves. But 
 it is, that we may make known our requests to a 
 wiser Friend — laying before Him every pure 
 thought, every plan and purpose and hope, every 
 
 85 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 conception we have of what is best for the success 
 of our working — that we have with Him the inter- 
 course of a reverential fellowship ; — but only that, 
 in the appreciation and acknowledgment of His 
 wisdom as far greater than our own, we commit the 
 decision to Him. 
 
 And this is to be in everything, and with giving 
 of thanks. What is prayer, but the communing of 
 the child with his father? It begins, indeed, in the 
 earlier stages of the life, with simple petitions for 
 the fundamental and necessary things. It asks for 
 the first forgiveness, and the elementary teaching, 
 and the tender care of the soul. But as the Chris- 
 tian grows into maturity, and his thoughts move 
 through a wider circle, and his living becomes in 
 all its parts a preparation for a greater life in another 
 world, prayer rises into something higher. It is 
 then the opening to God of what the mind is dwell- 
 ing upon, and the meeting with Him in the medita- 
 tion of the soul. As the child, in his later years, 
 when he comes to the borders of manhood, enters 
 into a new relation to his father, and there is a con- 
 ferring of mind with mind on higher themes, so the 
 disciple finds his thoughts going out towards God in 
 every line. He lets the sanctifying influence of the 
 Divine presence and communion rest upon all his 
 inner life. 
 
 There is, thus, no limitation imposed with regard 
 to any request which can find lodgment in a right 
 thinking mind. But earthly and heavenly things 
 alike are the proper subjects of our supplication; 
 and where the man outside of the Christian sphere 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 is filled with anxiety, the Christian is allowed to 
 present his request for help or success, while the 
 anxious feeling alone is put aside. We do not 
 know, in our ordinary living, the full privilege of 
 prayer; and therefore it loses for us, oftentimes, its 
 richness and its blessing. But when we let it range 
 throughout the whole circle of life, it makes God a 
 personal present friend to us, — one to whom we 
 can turn at any moment, and one through whom we 
 can rise above the perplexities, and lose the anxious 
 cares that press upon us. 
 
 Thus it is that thanksgiving naturally comes into 
 the heart. The view of the true believer which the 
 Apostle presents to us, is this : The man is placed 
 in a condition where he cannot see the future. He 
 is, however, appointed to a life which, in many ways, 
 takes hold upon that future. He can realise it only 
 as it comes, but he cannot fail to hope, or to plan 
 for it. His mind reaches beyond its vision. What 
 must he do? He must work as the duties open 
 themselves, but he must leave the results. He must 
 live the life of trust and faith. But, as he looks back- 
 ward over what was a little while ago as uncertain as 
 the coming time now is, he must observe the move- 
 ment of the Divine plan and be thankful. 
 
 The call of the Christian teaching is to look be- 
 hind us, as truly as it is to look before us. It is, 
 indeed, to have our outlook upon the future wholly 
 free from anxiety, as connected with the review 
 of the way by which blessings have come to us in 
 the past. No lesson of life is more universal in the 
 experience of the disciples of Christ, than that the 
 
 87 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 overruling of God is always towards good. Those 
 things which for the present seem not to be joyous, 
 but grievous, work out afterwards the peaceable 
 fruits. The darkness of the days past has given 
 way to the light of to-day. It has how often, to 
 our own appreciation and knowledge now, been 
 itself the thing which has brought the light, and 
 been transformed into the light. And as we get 
 more fully the consciousness that life for each one 
 of us is God's plan of good, we may have confidence 
 that all this is so as truly in what we do not yet un- 
 derstand, as in what we do. Acknowledgment of 
 the goodness of God is, therefore, a part of every 
 true prayer ; and as we utter our thanksgiving, both 
 for what we have always known as blessings, and 
 for what we did not once realise to be such, but are 
 now understanding more completely, the gratitude 
 for the past brings with it a calm and loving com- 
 mittal of the future to Him who has guided us all 
 the way from the beginning. 
 
 And now the Apostle adds his word of assurance 
 and promise. If the soul moves on in this way — 
 in nothing allowing anxious care and fear to abide 
 within itself; in everything, with filial affection, and 
 with no doubtings as to the freeness of the offer, 
 making known its requests ; in review of the past, 
 giving thanks for the working of all things together 
 for good, and in the outlook upon the future, asking 
 for what we desire, yet only realising that our desire 
 afterwards may be opposite to what it is now, when 
 we come to see the end — and thus ready to leave 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 the issues with Divine love and wisdom; — the 
 declaration is, that the peace of God shall guard 
 the heart and the thoughts in Christ Jesus. It re- 
 quires no word from heaven, to assure us that there 
 must be peacefulness in the soul when a man is 
 living thus. But there is more than a simple assur- 
 ance of peacefulness, in the Pauline sentence. The 
 peace, it declares, will be the peace of God. The 
 relation of the Christian soul to God, at the very- 
 beginning of the new life, involves as its chief 
 element, or one of its chief elements certainly, a 
 peculiar peacefulness. It is the peacefulness of 
 reconciliation and reunion. The forgiveness of the 
 past sins and the justification which accompanies it, 
 as the Apostle says elsewhere, bring peace with 
 themselves. But this is, as it were, the first expe- 
 rience, the first consciousness of the child-relation- 
 ship to the Divine Father. With reference to what 
 follows afterwards, it is but as the door which opens 
 into the richer blessedness — the child's foretaste of 
 what is to be realised in a measure, and with a ful- 
 ness beyond present imagination, in the long-con- 
 tinued and growing manhood of the future years. 
 The peace here described is that which God gives 
 to the trusting soul in ever-enlarging measure, and 
 which answers to His own peace. My peace, said 
 Jesus to the disciples, I give unto you. Not as the 
 world giveth, give I unto you. The peace of Jesus 
 was that which belonged to Plim and dwelt within 
 Him, because of His union of love and purpose 
 and inmost life with God. It was the peace which 
 pertains to communion of souls, and its impartation 
 
 89 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 from one to the other is the result of the fellowship 
 of the two — the measure of the blessing being pro- 
 portioned to the perfectness of the fellowship. 
 
 Into such fellowship the believer enters, who lives 
 after the manner which Paul sets forth. By his trust- 
 fulness, by his confidence in God which rises above 
 the power and the disturbing influence of anxiety, 
 by his prayer and supplication which go out into the 
 widest range of pure thought and desire, by his ever- 
 arising and ever-enduring thankfulness, he brings 
 his soul into that harmony with the Divine which 
 makes the gift of a peace like that of God Himself 
 possible for his experience. This peace, in its com- 
 pleteness in the Divine Father, is founded, as we 
 may believe, upon the two great truths, that He 
 abides in the light in which there is no darkness at 
 all, and is Himself this light, and that He also abides 
 in love, and is Himself love. The trustful soul does 
 not see all things and for this reason feel safe be- 
 yond all questionings. It does not have in itself the 
 perfection of the life of love. But it believes where 
 it does not yet see, and is moved to confidence and 
 steadfast hope by the love-power within itself; and 
 thus in the limitations of its knowledge it takes to 
 itself its measure of what God has and of what God 
 bestows. Its peace becomes like that of Jesus, 
 which dwelt in His soul always, and was, even in the 
 darkest hours, calm as the calmness of the ocean's 
 depths, because He knew the storms of life to be 
 under His Father's power, and therefore without the 
 ability to shake or disturb the trusting heart. 
 
 This peace it is, which the Apostle declares shall 
 90 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 be with the prayerful, grateful Christian, who lays 
 aside his anxious fears and doubts. 
 
 But there is one peculiar word in the assurance 
 set before us in the Pauline expression, which seems, 
 in a sense, to involve the force of the promise. The 
 peace of God, he says, shall guard your hearts and 
 your thoughts. The figure is that of a city guarded 
 from its enemies, or of a fortress, where the disciple 
 is protected, as by an irresistible power, from all 
 assaults from without. The thoughts and the whole 
 sphere of the heart and mind will be kept secure 
 from disturbing forces of uncertainty, or appre- 
 hension, or distress in view of the future. "Thou 
 shalt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed 
 upon thee." The heavenly existence is begun al- 
 ready for the man who has truly and fully come into 
 this peace, guarded by the Divine presence and 
 guarding every thought in the sphere of Christ's own 
 living. It is realised, in some measure, just as the 
 soul enters into the trust that turns away anxiety 
 and makes prayer and thankfulness the atmosphere 
 of its life. 
 
 The years are steadily moving on, and they are 
 rapidly passing away. What are they teaching us? 
 More and more, surely, of the uncertainty of life ; 
 more and more of the unsatisfactoriness of it, if there 
 is nothing beyond. The men who were a little way 
 before us, and who have suddenly passed within the 
 region of the unseen, are testifying to us of what we 
 are learning for ourselves — that the things of this 
 
 91 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 world, good, and valuable, and worthy of thought as 
 they may be, are only preparatory to something 
 higher and future. The manly way of living, there- 
 fore, is not that of absorption in these things, as if 
 these were all, but that of using them for what they 
 may help us to attain. Life thus teaches us that 
 they belong to a single and passing stage of our 
 being, and that it is what they prepare us for in 
 character and service, which gives them their true 
 meaning. To be anxious for them in themselves, is 
 like living for the day, and not for life. To be over- 
 burdened with trouble respecting what they may 
 bring in the immediate future, is to forget that the 
 temporary loss or trial in human experience often 
 transforms itself into glorious blessing. It is to 
 make the future subordinate to the present, for we 
 lose sight of what the present may do for the 
 future, and lose care for it. 
 
 I cannot but think that, as life moves on, the man 
 who lives aright sees more clearly that he is in a 
 process of education, and understands more fully 
 that he is dependent for wisdom and guidance on a 
 higher power. We know, in the retirement of our 
 own souls, that we are limited, weak, and ignorant 
 beings, whose knowledge and vision reach but a lit- 
 tle way. How can peace come to us, except through 
 committing our way to the Divine Father, and losing 
 our anxiety in prayer to Him for the future, and 
 grateful feeling for the past? 
 
 The Apostle to the Gentiles had a manly soul, if 
 any one ever had. He was earnest in labour ; ar- 
 dent in feeling ; enthusiastic as a youth, through all 
 
 92 
 
THE IiYNER LIFE 
 
 his life ; intensely full of energy for the completion 
 of his work before the end ; hopeful for the future, 
 and burning with desire that it should bring triumph 
 to the cause. But he died while the victory was still 
 in the distant and unseen coming age; yet he had 
 no doubts; no cloud gathered over his spirit; no 
 weariness made him ready to lay down his work in 
 despair, for another to take it. He finished his 
 course with the same confidence with which he had 
 passed through it. He went away from the peace 
 of earth, as his soul had experienced it in Jesus 
 Christ, to the peace of heaven. But it was here, as 
 it was to be there, a peace that had no anxious fore- 
 bodings — the peace which passes all understanding 
 — the peace of God, which kept his heart and 
 guarded every thought. A grand living and a 
 grand dying — like that of the Master Himself. 
 What a blessedness for us, if it may be ours also ! 
 The lesson is a Divine one, full of love ; — but it is 
 a difficult one to learn. I commend it to all others, 
 and to myself. 
 
 93 
 
VII 
 
 THE TRUE LIFE OF MAN NOT IN HIS 
 POSSESSIONS 
 
 A mail's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things 
 which he possesseth. — Luke xii. 15. 
 
 THIS sentence is also translated, and perhaps 
 more properly : A man's life, even if he have 
 abundance, does not consist in what he possesses. 
 In cither case — only that there is a certain 
 greater emphasis with the latter rendering — the 
 declaration is the same : — that life is not to be 
 found in what a man has, however abundant what he 
 has may be, but in something independent of this. 
 
 One of the multitude accompanying Jesus at the 
 time, and listening to His teachings, said to Him : 
 Master, bid my brother divide the inheritance with 
 me. Jesus reminded him, in answer to his request, 
 that it was not a part of His mission in the world as 
 the Christ to pass judicial decisions in such matters, 
 and then, perceiving the motive which had impelled 
 the man in his demand. He turned to the people 
 about Him, and addressed to them these words: 
 Do not be ever desiring and striving to have more 
 than you already have. The gaining of more does 
 not bring you life. Even if you gain more, and 
 
 94 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 much more — up to the limits of great abundance — 
 life, in case you then have it, will not consist in 
 what you have gained. Life is something deeper 
 and more personal than this. It is, like the king- 
 dom of God itself, not around you, but within you. 
 
 This is the Christian doctrine concerning life, and 
 it is in accordance with all analogies, and with all 
 that we know. Among the questions of these 
 recent days, one which awakens greatest interest is. 
 What is life? The search which is pressed further 
 than all other searchings is that which seeks to dis- 
 cover it. We would lay our hands upon life, and 
 determine its nature and its essence. It eludes our 
 grasp, indeed, and leaves us in disputation. We 
 are compelled to wait for the future to answer our 
 questioning, or to acknowledge the possibility that 
 no answer may ever be given. But however we 
 may divide in our thoughts about it, or whatever 
 may be the measure of our knowledge or fancied 
 knowledge, there is one thing revealed to us the 
 more clearly and impressively, the further we carry 
 forward our investigations. This one thing is told 
 us, each and all alike. It is, that life lies back of 
 anything which we have yet discovered. We know 
 life's acquisitions, its activities, its varied revelations 
 of itself. But it is not itself these, or in these alone. 
 It has a being of its own, and moves and gains by its 
 own vital force. The movement is not itself. It is 
 the outreaching of its energy towards and after that 
 which will minister to its growth, or enjoyment, or 
 well-being. But the life precedes the motion. The 
 
 95 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 gains, also, are not the life. They are additions to 
 it, in one form or another — sometimes near its 
 inmost self, far more often quite outside of it, and 
 never, and nowhere, of its own primal and indepen- 
 dent essence. Life by its living power gains for, or 
 even in, itself; but its existence is the condition of 
 the forthputting of the power which gains. It is 
 the source of the power, as well as of that which the 
 power secures. 
 
 All this is true, moreover, not only in the physical 
 sphere, within which the questioning is so often 
 and so urgently raised, but in every sphere. The 
 essence of the intellectual life of the student, in any 
 department of learning, is not to be found in that 
 which he brings into his mind by his studies, or in 
 the act of his studying. These things are the results 
 of the life. They are the evidences of its existence, 
 it may be. But they are not the life itself. Let a 
 man examine himself, and he may know this. You 
 and I, if we enter into the realisation of our souls' 
 deepest experience, do not rejoice as men of living 
 minds in what we have acquired of learning or 
 knowledge, within the last week or the last year, as 
 if this were the most joyful thing. We rejoice in 
 the living mind which acquired for itself the knowl- 
 edge of the past time, and which may acquire for 
 itself far different knowledge, and far more, in the 
 future time. However abundant the acquisitions 
 may be, we know that they are added to ourselves 
 — possessions which we have gained — things 
 which we have made our own. But the thing which 
 is gained is not a blessing like the thing by which it 
 
 96 
 
THE INXER LIFE 
 
 is gained. The former may pass away perchance, 
 or may lose itself in what is greater and comes 
 afterward, or may prove itself to be almost useless 
 at times. But the latter is ever-abiding. It is a 
 power through whose energy losses may be repaired, 
 new and ever-enlarging acquirements may be brought 
 into the possession of the life, the development even 
 of itself may become continually greater. The 
 knowledge which the mind possesses is one thing. 
 The knowing mind is another and far better thing. 
 It is better and grander, because it can gather into 
 itself all the possibilities of the other; and because 
 the life is in it, and not in the other. The central 
 blessing which we have as educated men, is the in- 
 tellectual life. Forth from this centre moves every 
 energy which fills the life with its possessions. 
 
 The moral and spiritual life follows, as it were, 
 the same law of our being. It is to be discovered, 
 if discovered at all, in the deep recesses of the man, 
 far away from and below all external things. It is 
 the breath of God, which is breathed into the man 
 as he first enters upon the sphere where these things 
 have their being. It is the inspiration of the Divine 
 nature within him, by which he is made fit for a 
 purer and higher atmosphere than that of the evil 
 and passing world. It is most truly a life from 
 above, imparted to him and implanted within him. 
 It must therefore, in a pre-eminent degree, be an 
 energising force, which gains great things for itself, 
 but which is independent of these things. They 
 are what it has. It is what it is. They are the 
 fruits which it puts forth — the possessions which it 
 7 97 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 places, it may be, in closest relation to itself, and 
 uses for its own development — the glorious mani- 
 festion of what it contains within itself, perchance, 
 and thus the revealing of itself to the eye that sees. 
 But it is the God-given principle— the power that 
 worketh all things. 
 
 But if life, in any department of our being, is not 
 to be discovered in what it gains for itself, much 
 less even, it would seem, can life in one department 
 consist in the possessions secured by life in another 
 department. The intellectual life, surely, cannot 
 have its being in that which the physical life 
 acquires by the forthputting of its peculiar powers. 
 It must move in its own sphere, and reach out after 
 what may satisfy its own desires. The forces of the 
 two lives work along different lines. They may in- 
 deed co-operate with each other, in some degree, so 
 that the gains of the former may be larger by 
 reason of what the latter has done for itself. But if 
 this be the fact in any case, the things which the 
 one life is partly enabled to secure through the aid 
 of the other are essentially unlike anything which 
 that other knows as its own possession. The re- 
 wards of the mind belong within the sphere of 
 mental effort and working, and this sphere is not 
 that of the physical powers, even when these, 
 by reason of the mysterious union of body and 
 mind, may quicken or strengthen the mental effort. 
 Indeed, so true is this, that we often find the one 
 life active while the other is not, or the energy 
 which is put forth in the line of the one so exclu- 
 
 98 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 sively taking possession of the man, as it were, that 
 there is a corresponding loss of power in the line of 
 the other. One of the great difficulties in every 
 man's work for himself is to adjust the two in their 
 mutual relations, and thus to guard successfully 
 against the danger of losing the life in one sense, 
 while it is saved in another. This, indeed, is a 
 problem of chief importance in all education — a 
 problem in connection with which the successes and 
 failures alike show the one truth, that each life 
 must gain for itself, and cannot consist in, or depend 
 upon, what the other gains. 
 
 We may compare the spiritual life, again, with 
 either of the other two, and the truth will manifest 
 itself, only if possible the more clearly. The spirit- 
 ual life is character. Its gains are gains in virtue, 
 and purity, and the development of all goodness. 
 How can its living force be found in knowledge, or 
 physical strength or beauty, or in anything which 
 may be secured for the man without building up 
 the moral part of him? 
 
 The story in the Gospel from which our verse is 
 taken may reveal the fact to us. Jesus was speak- 
 ing of the spiritual life, when He used these words. 
 The man who had come to Him — with the strange 
 request, as it would seem, to be made of such a 
 teacher — was thinking of the inheritance which 
 pertained to his family. It was houses and lands 
 and goods of every sort — possessions, in the sense 
 in which we use the word in our ordinary conver- 
 sation — that he was thinking of and asking for. 
 An abundance greater than what he at present had 
 
 99 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 was the object which he desired ; and seeing plainl}- 
 where it was, and how it might be at once secured, 
 he presented the case to Jesus for His aid. What 
 were his thoughts respecting hfe? They were cer- 
 tainly thoughts concerning it as moving, and having 
 its being, in one sphere only — that of the' abun- 
 dance of the things possessed through the inheri- 
 tance of an estate. But how could it be possible to 
 discover the life which Jesus thought of simply in 
 such abundance? The things which made up the 
 inheritance had been acquired by the powers of 
 another sort of life than this. They were independ- 
 ent of it, and it was independent of them. They 
 might pass into the possession of the man without 
 touching the character, whether for good or for 
 evil. They might even impoverish the character, 
 while they enlarged the estate. It is evident, 
 indeed, that in the case of this man such impover- 
 ishment was the result which was distinctly foreseen. 
 The life, therefore, could not consist in the abun- 
 dance of the possessions. It might, perchance, 
 co-exist with such abundance, even for this man, 
 if he would take into himself the true idea, and live 
 by it ; but, whether he should do so or not, it could 
 not consist in it. It could not, because the life and 
 the abundance were widely and essentially separate 
 from each other. The abundance was an acquire- 
 ment of the mental or physical life, or both to- 
 gether ; but the life now thought of was spiritual, 
 and pertained to the soul. The life of the soul, 
 surely, the central part of the man, cannot be the 
 external possessions of a less central life. It cannot 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 depend on houses, and lands, and rich inheritance, 
 and the right sharing of ancestral property. It hes 
 back even of what it gains for itself by the exercise 
 of its own powers. Surely, it must lie far away from 
 what is gained by powers other than its own, and 
 from that abundance of which it knows nothing and 
 thinks nothing within its own sphere. 
 
 For this reason it was, that Jesus said to the 
 people who were standing by Him : Keep )'our- 
 selves carefully from the overweening, all-control- 
 ling desire for abundance of possessions. The 
 thing to be desired, with the all-controlling move- 
 ment of the soul, is life. Take heed — the life is in 
 one place, the abundance in another; and when 
 the desire for the abundance becomes an inordinate 
 desire, the life is lost. How true His words are to 
 human experience — and how true they are also, 
 when He points forward to the future and gives 
 another reason why the life does not consist in the 
 possessions. The little illustrative story that follows 
 tells of the ending of the one, and the continuance 
 of the other. The life moves onward, and the 
 abundance falls away. The gain which the powers 
 have secured in one department of the man's liv- 
 ing is a treasure which may be lost for him in a 
 day. The ever-living life of the man, certainly, 
 must be independent of this, and must be separate 
 and distinct from it, however abundant it may be. 
 
 This indeed it is, which glorifies us as men. We 
 are ourselves, in every line, greater and deeper than 
 anything that we have gained outside of ourselves. 
 We live, and the gains pass away or are forgotten. 
 
THOUGHTS OF AiVD FOR 
 
 They pass away because of the earth and time, or 
 they are forgotten by reason of the far greater ones 
 that we make for ourselves afterwards. But we 
 move on, with hving power, beyond them and 
 above them. The hfe of to-day, for each one of us, 
 is not found in the abundance which we secured ten 
 years ago. No more is it in that which we now 
 possess. The abundance is dying, it may be, but 
 we are hving. The abundance is of this world, but 
 we are taking hold in our life upon what is higher 
 than this world. The immortal part cannot consist 
 in the mortal part. Most truly it cannot have its 
 life in what the mortal part only possesses. 
 
 These thoughts are clear to us, so soon as we 
 give them a lodgment in our minds. They seem 
 so plain, perhaps, as scarcely to need any expres- 
 sion. Of course, we are prompted to say, Of 
 course, life is different from the gains of life, and 
 life in one sphere cannot be made out of the acqui- 
 sitions of life in another sphere. But how many 
 are there in any company of men who bear within 
 themselves the thought — and give it a practical 
 realisation in their daily thinking — that they are 
 themselves more than all that they are doing, or 
 gaining, or making their own, and that their life is 
 behind and beneath all these things? The mass of 
 men about us are like the man who came, at this 
 time, to Jesus. They are pressing after the posses- 
 sions — seeking after the inheritance — struggling 
 for a division of it — striving everywhere for more. 
 It is the additions to the life, which fill their minds 
 
 102 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 and impel their efforts. Happiness is to be found 
 in these additions, for it is these which give com- 
 fort and restfuhiess and freedom from all burdens, 
 it is said : One may well sacrifice all else for these, 
 and put forth the labour of years to secure them. 
 Perhaps no age in the world's history has been 
 more full of such thoughts than the one which is 
 now opening upon us. This influence is work- 
 ing rapidly into the minds of educated men, and 
 they are beginning everywhere to feel that life 
 needs more of what is external, if its perfect 
 ideal is to be attained. Even the student moves 
 after wealth as one of the greatest things — or if 
 perhaps not after this, after station, and comfortable 
 place, and large fame, as if these were the main 
 ends of living. Everything centres, as it were, in 
 what one has ; and so the desire to have more lays 
 ever stronger hold upon the soul. 
 
 The message which comes over the ages to us, 
 in the midst of our thinking, is the word which 
 came to this man. The life is not in the posses- 
 sions. It is elsewhere. It is no more in them 
 when they are abundant, than it is when they arc 
 scanty. It has, so far as its essence and central 
 forces are concerned, nothing to do with them. 
 It may use them, but they are not itself. It may 
 enjoy what they may enable it to secure, but it may 
 have its true enjoyment without them, as well as 
 with them. It is, in the widest and deepest mean- 
 ing of the expression, one thitig, while they are 
 a7iother. 
 
 To educated men this message may have an 
 103 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 especial emphasis, for their own experience may 
 tell them somewhat of its truth. The true student 
 knows, when he comes to himself in his thinking, 
 that his peculiar life is within, not without himself 
 — that he is independent of lands and houses and 
 the external gifts for which so many seek — that 
 the treasure of his mind and soul is the treasure of 
 knowledge and thought. He may live anywhere, 
 and this treasure abides with him. He may share 
 the inheritance and gain the abundance, or not, and 
 the essential life is the same. But even the edu- 
 cated man may lose the power of the lesson. The 
 Christian teaching is needed for him, as it is needed 
 for all, while it utters its voice concerning a life 
 deeper than his, as it is also deeper than that of 
 those who live wholly in the outward possessions. 
 The life is the central thing in the man. It is what 
 makes the man in his manhood ; — not in his learn- 
 ing, not in his inheritance, not in his wealth, but in 
 his manhood. And the manhood alone is tJie essence 
 of the man. This is what Jesus taught the people. 
 This is the great truth of the matter. Take heed. 
 He says, and do not forget it. Keep yourselves 
 from the ever-continuing desire for more, as if in 
 the possessing of more the secret of the life were 
 to be discovered. 
 
 My friend, you are, perchance, preparing in your 
 earlier years for the future — for your own future. 
 You believe in that future ; you anticipate it joy- 
 fully and hopefully ; you feel, in your most thought- 
 ful moments, that it is far better and far more than 
 the present, and that your life is in it. What is the 
 
 104 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 end in view of your preparation? Is it to be soine- 
 thiiig, or to have souictJiing? If the primary object 
 is, to have something, your years and efforts will be 
 given to gaining possessions of one kind or another. 
 Your desires will continually be for more, and the 
 result, if you are successful, will be additions to 
 yourself — additions in the outward sphere, and in 
 the field of the abundance of which Jesus was speak- 
 ing. But you will be working away from the centre, 
 and may be losing, daily, more and more of that 
 which abides there. The inheritance of the man in 
 the story would have been secured to him, we may 
 believe, if Jesus had yielded to his request and 
 bidden the brother give him his rightful portion. 
 He would have lived on his estate, and stored his 
 possessions, and laid up his treasure ever more 
 abundantly for himself, and found the wishes of the 
 early days fulfilled. But the abundance v/ould have 
 been around him, not within him. Within him, if 
 we may listen to the suggestion of the narrative, 
 would have been one of the baser of the passions — 
 and constantly increasing in its strength — the un- 
 satisfied desire for more ; covetousness, as the 
 Scriptural word describes it. The outward things 
 would have been growing, but the inward things — 
 so far as they were worthy of a noble manhood — 
 would have been steadily diminishing and dying 
 away, while, in place of them, would have been 
 rising into being and victorious power evil affections 
 and impulses destructive of the true life. The liv- 
 ing in the one sphere would have been attended 
 by the dying in the other, and the manhood of 
 
 105 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 the man would have been gradually ruined and 
 lost. 
 
 There are men of the highest positions in the 
 world, at this moment — strange to say, there are 
 men whose educated life should, by its most im- 
 pressive lessons, be giving them a nobler inspiration 
 
 — of whom this melancholy truth is as true as it 
 was, or could have been, of the man in the Gospel 
 story. Their manhood is perishing, while their 
 fame or wealth is growing. The inward life is dying, 
 while the outward life is continually gathering more 
 into its forces and its gifts. But the man comes to 
 himself now and again, in some serious hour of self- 
 contemplation, or he will come to himself in the 
 future, — and then he knows, or will know, where 
 the life is — not in the abundance, but in the man- 
 hood. If the manhood is gone, the abundance has 
 no vital source beneath it. The things possessed 
 are worthless when the possessor is nothing. 
 
 But, with the life in its living force, the man is 
 triumphant. He finds in every place enough of duty 
 and service for the exercise of all his powers. He 
 finds in himself an ever-springing fountain of thought 
 and love. He sees the divinely-implanted seed 
 growing within him, and yielding its fruit day by 
 day. He knows himself to be what he ought to be 
 
 — not all that he ought to be, perchance, or all that 
 he hopes to be, but moving towards it; — living 
 within himself, and therefore to live always. 
 
 How fitting it seems that, just after this story and 
 the parable that accompanies it, the evangelist should 
 
 io6 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 place the words which Jesus addressed to the dis- 
 ciples : Therefore I say unto you, Be not anxious 
 for your life, what ye shall eat ; nor yet for your 
 body, what ye shall put on. For the life is more 
 than the food, and the body than the raiment. Seek 
 ye God's kingdom and His righteousness, and these 
 things shall be added unto you. Where your treas- 
 ure is, there will your heart be also. Fear not, little 
 flock ; it is your Father's good pleasure to give you 
 the kingdom. 
 
 It is the kingdom for which we should ever be 
 preparing, for the abundance of the life itself is 
 there. All else is an addition, but the life is the 
 man. All else may pass away, but the life moves 
 on to the greater life beyond. All else may be laid 
 aside or forgotten, without a permanent loss to the 
 soul, but the life is yourself. Take heed, says the 
 Master, the life is not in the world ; it is more than 
 the world. It is infinitely better to gain it, than to 
 gain the world. It is infinitely sad to lose it, for it 
 is the loss of the man. 
 
 107 
 
VIII 
 
 THE FOLLOWING OF CHRIST 
 
 Follow me. — John i. 43. 
 
 [The entire verse reads as follows : On the morrow he was 
 minded to go forth info Galilee, and he findeth Philip: and 
 Jesus saith unto him, Follow me.] 
 
 THE passage from which these words are taken 
 as the subject of our thought is the first one 
 in the order of the biographical record of the career 
 of Jesus, in which they are found. We meet them, 
 however, in six other places, as we move forward in 
 our reading of the Gospel story from its beginning 
 towards its ending, and we find them unfolding 
 their meaning to us as they are spoken on different 
 occasions and are addressed to different persons. 
 They involve the one central demand and call of 
 the Christian life — the words remaining always the 
 same; — but they suggest more and more of the 
 detail of duty, and indicate the varied applications 
 of the call, when the several narratives in which 
 they occur are gathered together in one, as it were, 
 and they are viewed in comparison with each 
 other. 
 
 To the young ruler who asked Him what he 
 should do to inherit eternal life, Jesus said. Go, sell 
 
 108 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt 
 have treasure in heaven : and come, follow me. To 
 the man who proposed to begin his service and 
 discipleship, but asked for delay that he might first 
 go and bury his father, the answer was, Follow me; 
 and leave the dead to bury their own dead. To 
 Matthew, who was in the ordinary business of his 
 life as a tax-gatherer, the sudden and abrupt sum- 
 mons came — possibly without any previous intima- 
 tion of such a change — to leave his occupation, 
 and be a new man in a new work. Jesus saw him 
 sitting at the place of toll, says the evangelist, and 
 said unto him. Follow me ; and he arose and fol- 
 lowed him. Philip, whom John mentions in the 
 verse selected for our text, was found by Jesus, 
 perhaps accidentally, and was asked to join the two 
 disciples who had met Him on the day before, and 
 to accompany Him on His return to Galilee. Fol- 
 low me was to him, as to them, an invitation to form 
 the acquaintance of Jesus, and to come under 
 those influences which might lead to faith and dis- 
 cipleship. Peter and Andrew, James and John, two 
 of whom, and perhaps all of whom, had thus been 
 summoned to acquaintanceship, and to the friendly 
 study of Jesus' character and claims, in the earlier 
 days, were afterwards, by the same words, Follow 
 me, bidden to enter upon the Apostolic office, and 
 become permanent associates of the Master, whom 
 they had already learned to love, in His proclama- 
 tion of the kingdom. One of these four — the 
 leader of them all — heard the bidding once more, 
 when the ministry of Jesus had come to its end and 
 
 109 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 the rising from the dead had given its witness to 
 His power. The Lord told him of what was await- 
 ing him in the future, and of the manner of his 
 death, and then said to him, Follow me — words 
 which were repeated, a few moments afterward, in 
 answer to his question with respect to John's com- 
 ing experience and destiny : If I will that he tarry 
 till I come, what is that to thee? Follow thou me. 
 
 Finally, we discover the same call and bidding in 
 that last prophetic utterance of Jesus, when He was 
 reminded, by the desire of certain Greeks to see 
 Him, and talk with Him, of the universal triumph of 
 His kingdom. Turning the thought of Andrew and 
 Philip, the very disciples whom He had met on the 
 first two days of His working, to the great fundamen- 
 tal principle of self-sacrifice. He uttered the com- 
 prehensive sentence, applicable to all who would 
 hear His voice, If any man serve me, let him fol- 
 low me. These are the several recorded instances 
 in which the words were used. What may we say of 
 the words, as we review them? 
 
 We say of them : The same and yet not the same. 
 The word meant to one a sacrifice at the central and 
 inmost point of his soul's life — the consent to part 
 with his great possessions for the good of the poor, 
 and thus the contradiction of his deepest affections 
 and desires, in order that he might gain even the 
 first entrance into the life of which he had been 
 thinking. No following was possible for such as he, 
 unless the man was changed in that secret region of 
 his character which, as yet, he had not opened to 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 his own view, and into which he did not wish to 
 look, even for a moment. To another, who thought 
 himself a disciple and declared himself ready to act 
 accordingly, only with an excuse for a temporary 
 delay, the meaning was, the immediateness of the call 
 of duty. No excuse can defer the first and fore- 
 most obligation of life. Natural affection is, indeed, 
 a beautiful thing, and the love of parents is no less 
 truly a Divine command, than it is a pure and noble 
 impulse of the heart. But even the demands which 
 come from this must not hinder the response of the 
 soul to a voice from the Divine Father, who claims 
 the supreme place for Himself Let the spiritually 
 dead take care of the burial of the physically dead 
 — leave them alone to do this — is a word which 
 may not need to be often spoken ; for the life of dis- 
 cipleship moves ordinarily along the lines of the 
 common earthly loves and duties. But there are 
 times when it carries with it the summons of the 
 only true life, and when — by the startling emphasis 
 with which it bids us neglect, and leave behind us, 
 that service of the family and of dearest friend- 
 ships which, as we are wont to say, glorifies our man- 
 hood — it teaches the solemn lesson that character 
 cannot wait, and that the turning of the soul towards 
 the right which, for any reason, is put off to a later 
 season, is no true turning at all. Character lies not 
 in a coming time, but in the present. Life belongs 
 to to-day, and the reformation or renewal which 
 we only propose to ourselves for to-morrow is far 
 more uncertain than is to-morrow itself 
 
 But, on the other hand, the significance of the 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 words as they were uttered to Philip, in the text, and 
 to Andrew and his friend, on the previous day, was 
 all in the line of gentleness. We would know where 
 you are abiding, they said to Jesus, in order that we 
 may speak with you in confidence of the great things 
 for which we are waiting in the kingdom of God, and 
 may know also something of yourself Come and 
 see ; follow me ; was the answer. Come with me, 
 and let us talk together ; and suffer the impressions 
 of what you see and hear to-day, and to-morrow, and 
 the day following, to take their rightful hold upon 
 your souls, as you would in the intercourse of any 
 friendship. I ask nothing more of you now. When 
 I say, Follow me, to honest, earnest men like you, I 
 mean live for a season in a nearness of mind and 
 heart to me, according to the laws and nature of a 
 friendly union, and then test the matter by your own 
 experience and form your decision. I have no fears 
 for the result; and you will not have, I am sure, 
 two or three days hence. Only follow me naturally, 
 easily, not suspiciously, not demanding more than I 
 do, for these days. This was His meaning. They 
 yielded to His reasonable demand, and the forces of 
 the new life were implanted in their hearts. 
 
 Then, after the few days had passed, He suffered 
 them — we may believe that He even urged them — 
 to return to their homes and their occupations again. 
 Tl^ei-e — by the lake-side, and in their daily round of 
 homely duties — they were to let the impulse and 
 spirit, which they had gained in their brief union 
 with Him, work out into action and life quietly, while 
 they had no thought of greater things for themselves, 
 
 112 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 until the new teaching of the new friend should 
 manifest itself as the truth by reason of its recognised 
 power within their souls. The character was to 
 grow gently and easily — even as the living seed had 
 been so naturally and tenderly planted at the first — 
 until it should be ripened and strengthened enough 
 for the Master's use. This was the plan and the 
 movement, as we see by the story ; and, after a 
 season, Jesus called them again. 
 
 But when the call came again, with its repetition 
 of the same words which they had heard before, 
 what a depth and breadth of meaning it carried in 
 itself! It meant now a life-long service, with all of 
 self-denial and labour and persecution, and with all 
 of joy also and courage and victory, which it might 
 involve. They were prepared to understand it now 
 — that it signified a giving up of all that they had 
 known and done in their past experience, for His 
 sake ; — and they were ever ready to yield obedience 
 to the summons. They heard the familiar words, 
 uttered by the voice which they knew, and in a 
 moment, without a hesitating thought, they left their 
 boats, and their father, to follow Him for all the 
 future. The decisive step which should never be 
 recalled, was taken immediately. But, because of 
 the quiet preparation and the time allowed for it, 
 it was taken as naturally as the step which turned 
 their course towards the house where He was tem- 
 porarily abiding, when He said to them, Come and 
 see. 
 
 Thus it was in all the cases. The suddenness of 
 the call to Matthew, if indeed it was as sudden and 
 8 113 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 unexpected as it appears in the story to have been, 
 and the instantaneousness of his answering act, bore 
 evidence of something, in his Hfe and thought, 
 which filled the words for him with a controlling 
 force and energy for the will. There have been 
 lives since the Apostolic age, in every generation, 
 in which such calls, at a critical moment, have been 
 the first and effective summons to a permanently 
 changed career. The significance of the call was 
 appreciated by the man himself; the result only, 
 which seemed perchance to have been without a cause 
 proportioned to its greatness, was visible to others. 
 But with most men, it is not so. They move along 
 the more even paths; and, if they hear the Christian 
 call at all, they reason according to the way which 
 Jesus Himself pointed out in His more general word : 
 If any man serve me, let him follow me. If I enter 
 the service of any master who calls for the exercise 
 of the true life-powers of the soul, it becomes me to 
 obey his voice as it utters the command /b/^zf me ; 
 and as a genuine man, worthy of the name, I will 
 do that which alone befits the life which I have 
 chosen. The reasoning which they thus carry for- 
 ward in their minds abides with them. It affects 
 their living gradually, yet constantly and powerfully, 
 and they become, as time passes on, thoughtful and 
 earnest followers of him whom they serve. 
 
 The summons which these words bear with them 
 thus had in the Gospel stories a special significance 
 in each several case — and we may believe that it 
 was so, also, in the many instances in Jesus' lifetime 
 where He gave utterance to the bidding follow me, 
 
 114 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 but which have not been recorded for our reading 
 by the evangelists. The call to all alike was one, 
 but its meaning varied with the circumstances and 
 peculiarities of each individual case. As we have 
 said at the outset, The same, and yet not the 
 same. 
 
 But with equal fitness, and in accordance with 
 what the several narratives suggest to us, we may 
 turn our expression into its opposite in order and 
 in thought, and say: Not the same, and yet the 
 same. And the full presentation of what the words 
 contain will not be brought before us, until we view 
 the summons in this light also. 
 
 The words involved, first of all — in every case — 
 decision and promptness of action. We may 
 observe this most clearly in the story of the man 
 who wished to wait until he had fulfilled the office 
 of natural affection in the burial of his dead father, 
 and in the call to the young ruler to give up for the 
 help of others the wealth which was the dearest pos- 
 session of his soul. Decision was essential, in these 
 cases, at the moment and in preparation for the first 
 step in the life of discipleship. So, on the other 
 side, it was evidently essential, when the call came to 
 Matthew, at the receipt of toll, or to Andrew and 
 John, at the sea of Galilee. The immediateness of 
 the decision, which these men made, was manifest 
 in what they did. Without a thought or a ques- 
 tion, they rose and left all. They formed in a 
 moment the determination of a life-time. The 
 brief record of this call to Matthew which the evan- 
 
 "5 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 gelist gives, and the single sentence wherein he 
 sums up the action on which all the future de- 
 pended, have arrested and impressed the mind of 
 every thoughtful reader from the writer's day to 
 ours. 
 
 But these were not the only cases. The same 
 promptness of decision was involved in the simple 
 invitation which was given, on the first day, to the 
 two young disciples of John the Baptist. By reason 
 of their condition, and of the end which both they 
 and Jesus had in view, the change of character was 
 not centred so wholly, and so apparently, in the 
 one act, as it was in the cases previously mentioned. 
 But the one act here, as elsewhere, was nevertheless 
 the first essential thing. The consent to follow Jesus 
 to His lodging, or to Galilee, was that which opened 
 the mind and heart, instead of closing them. The 
 life-movement afterward was in the new direction, 
 and towards the hght and truth of the kingdom, 
 because the footsteps were turned, at that hour, into 
 the way along which the words of Jesus called them. 
 If the men had lingered for awhile doubting, or had 
 refused to obey the call, the opportunity might have 
 passed, and the life might never have grown into 
 faith and discipleship. And we may easily beheve 
 that those who had been slow to be trustful and to 
 act, at that moment, would not have received, at a 
 later season, the summons to the service and glory 
 of the Apostolic office. The greater calls of the 
 future, in all our living, follow along the line of the 
 lesser ones of the past and the present, and the man 
 who refuses a decision for right character as the 
 
 ii6 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 CTatcwa}' towards the attainment of it opens, may 
 find the path beyond the gateway closed to his Hfe. 
 The words of Jesus may come to us, in many 
 ways, bidding us follow Him, They may have 
 their own significance for each one of us, because 
 of something which is individual and peculiar to 
 our lives. But however they come and whatever 
 may be their special meaning, they call for prompt 
 decision somewhere ; and this prompt decision is 
 vitally connected with character, and lies near the 
 sources and foundation of the inner life. 
 
 The words of the call of Jesus involved also, in 
 every case, a personal relation to Him. Philip was 
 invited to follow Him, that he might grow into the 
 friendship of Jesus and grow into friendship towards 
 Him. So it was, even pre-eminently, when the two 
 pairs of brothers were called away from their friends 
 and their business, at the sea of Galilee, and bidden 
 to be fishers of men as preachers of the Gospel. So 
 it was, also, at the end, when Peter was told of his 
 own future and his martyrdom. Follow tne meant 
 to him that, in his coming years, he should live, in 
 the soul's life, in union with the Friend who was now 
 to be removed from his bodily sight and presence, 
 and, in loving service and work for Him, should 
 triumph over the thought of the trial before him, 
 and even glory in it. 
 
 So it was everywhere. Following after Jesus was 
 never presented in His teaching as a mere imitation 
 of His example, or obedience to His commands. 
 It had a significance far deeper than this ; and, by 
 
 117 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 reason of this deeper significance, the teaching set 
 itself apart from every other doctrine and system. 
 It meant the personal union of the disciple with the 
 Master — a communion between the souls of the 
 two, kindred to that between the souls of loving men 
 — as real and vital as such human communion, and 
 laying hold even more powerfully upon the inmost 
 spirit. This is of the essence of Christianity. It 
 is its central truth, so far as life and experience are 
 concerned. The Christian call, whenever it comes 
 to us, is to the attainment of this. Its promise is 
 the promise of the realisation of what it tells us of 
 and offers to us. Why should not wealth and 
 earthly good be sacrificed for the union of the soul 
 with the Divine? Why should not the privilege and 
 duty of earthly affection be set aside, when the 
 heavenly friendship opens itself to our personal ex- 
 perience? Why should not the cross itself be taken 
 up by any man, when it is found in the pathway 
 which leads toward that following after Christ which 
 is communion and fellowship and friendship with 
 Him? The Gospel stories place these questions 
 before us, as we pass from one of them to another, 
 and they bear with them their answer. To follow 
 Jesus means to be united with Him, in such a 
 union that His life becomes the disciple's life, and 
 the two are, at the end, one — even with that one- 
 ness which unites the Father and the Son in love. 
 
 The words of the call, we may say once more, in- 
 volved a complete consecration to the work of the 
 Master. Christian character grows indeed, like 
 
 ii8 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 all character. Christian principle develops and 
 strengthens in its power and energy. The full 
 fruits we see at the end, not at the beginning. But 
 who can fail to observe, as he studies carefully the 
 New Testament narratives, that the young ruler's 
 selling his property, or Philip's consenting to accom- 
 pany Jesus — different as the one act was from the 
 other — was a first and decisive step towards that 
 fulness of devotion to which Jesus pointed the 
 thought of Peter, when He gave him, as His final, 
 personal word, the bidding to put aside all care as 
 to the manner of his own dying, and all questioning 
 as to allotments of life for his nearest friend, and 
 to concentrate his whole mind and soul and spirit on 
 one thing — the following after Christ. And then, 
 if we turn from the history to the letters of this 
 Apostle, and his friend also, about whom he asked 
 his question, and find tJie men revealed in what they 
 wrote long years after the ending of Jesus' life, how 
 clearly we see that the growth and fruitage of the 
 last days were only the development of that which 
 was planted in their souls when they first listened to 
 the words follow me. 
 
 It was the same thing from the beginning to the 
 ending. The devotion of the life to the Apostolic 
 work, when the call was given at the Galilean lake- 
 side, was in itself but one manifestation of the spirit 
 which the call involved. The act and course to 
 which it moved the four disciples pertained to their 
 peculiar work and duty. But it was illustrative of 
 the spirit involved in every call, in which the words 
 folloiv me came from the lips of Jesus. The im- 
 
 119 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 mediateness and, as we may say, comprehensiveness 
 of the act on their part strikingly exhibit the distinc- 
 tive feature of all obedience to such a summons, 
 which in and of itself, means the absolute and com- 
 plete turning of the character at the outset, and its 
 full development at the end. 
 
 And so the call comes down the centuries, from 
 those early days to ours — the same, yet not the 
 same ; or, on the other side, though not the same, 
 yet indeed one and the same. It meets us now, as 
 we ask where we shall find Jesus, and what we shall 
 find in Him — the question which Andrew and Philip 
 asked. It meets us again, when we inquire the way 
 to eternal life; or propose to enter into discipleship 
 when the earthly calls are satisfied ; or think of our 
 future hopes and possibilities ; or see the crosses 
 which life brings to all of us ; or raise the question 
 of life's permanent work and duty. But everywhere 
 it sounds in our hearing the words follow me, and 
 tells us the meaning of those words : — that their 
 meaning is service, as to a Divine Friend — that it 
 is yielding to His influence, and knowing His friend- 
 ship — that it is the immediate devotion of our souls 
 to Him, and the receiving into our souls the princi- 
 ples and powers of the true life, which shall develop 
 into strength and beauty of Christ-like character 
 through all the future. 
 
IX 
 
 OUR CITIZENSHIP IN HEAVEN 
 For our citizenship is in heaven. — Philippians iii. 20. 
 
 THE prominent word which Paul uses in this 
 sentence is derived from the Greek noun de- 
 noting a citizen, or member of a city or state. Its 
 precise significance as here employed has been a 
 matter of some discussion — particularly as to the 
 question whether it should be rendered in our lan- 
 guage by the word citizensJiip, as given in the text 
 of the Revised English Version, or commonwealth^ as 
 the margin of that version reads. In either case, 
 the Apostle applies to the condition and life of the 
 believer in Christ a term which involved the idea of 
 membership in a state, and especially in a free state, 
 with the privileges and rights pertaining to such 
 membership. The other word which he uses marks 
 the locality of this state, and thus indicates the char- 
 acter of the citizenship. The commonwealth to 
 which the Christian belongs is the heavenly, and not 
 an earthly one. He is a free citizen of this com- 
 monwealth ; and, as the Apostle views his condition, 
 the privileges and membership are his now, for he 
 joins the words of his sentence by the present tense 
 of a strong verb : Our citizenship is — our common- 
 wealth subsists, and has a real, and objective, and 
 
 121 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 present existence, in heaven. The fact, however, 
 that it is in heaven, while the beUever is yet on 
 earth, and the intimation given in the latter part of 
 the verse of a waiting for a future event — the com- 
 ing of the Lord Jesus — which alone is to bring the 
 complete realisation of the blessing, show that, ac- 
 cording to the thought of the writer, the citizenship 
 is viewed in its relation to one who is, for a time, ab- 
 sent from the home city and sojourning elsewhere. 
 The believer is not in heaven, but the citizenship, 
 the commonwealth to which he belongs, is there. 
 The close connection of the words, finally, with those 
 which precede and follow, indicate the bearing of 
 this thought of citizenship, as the Apostle desired to 
 present it to his readers. The sentence begins with 
 the word for, and, through it, points backward to a 
 context suggestive of duties ; and it passes, at its 
 ending, into words referring to heaven and what 
 shall be accomplished in the future, and thus turns 
 the mind to privileges and hopes. 
 
 Such is the text. I present it for consideration, 
 for a little time, as we view it in this light. What is 
 the privilege ; and what is the hope ; and what is the 
 duty, involved for the Christian in his membership in 
 the heavenly commonwealth, while he is on earth? 
 
 We may consider it, first, with respect to privilege. 
 It is evident that the citizen of any state, when 
 absent from his home and resident in a foreign land, 
 cannot be in the full exercise and enjoyment of the 
 privileges which appertain to him as a citizen. Lim- 
 itations, in this regard, are connected necessarily 
 
 122 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 with his present condition, and so there is a sphere 
 for patient waiting and for hope of a larger and 
 better future. It is evident, also, that these limita- 
 tions may check or hinder, for a time, the develop- 
 ment of the life and character along the lines of 
 these privileges. We grow, as we enjoy, where the 
 conditions of our life are perfectly fitted for its 
 growth. Where the conditions are not thus fitted, 
 the powers may become weaker, or they may work 
 toward loss and failure. But the man who has that 
 within himself which his birthright in the state has 
 made his own will bear it with him everywhere, and, 
 notwithstanding the limitations, will be conscious of 
 its presence as a privilege and a power. 
 
 The first element in this privilege is the life-prin- 
 ciple of the commonwealth — that which is central 
 to its own being. The citizen of the free common- 
 wealth knows within himself such a life-principle of 
 freedom, which makes him a different man from the 
 men of the foreign land where he may be temporarily 
 abiding, and as he knows it, he knows also the bless- 
 ing which belongs to him in consequence of its 
 indwelling power. The fundamental idea on which 
 the constitution and organisation of the state are 
 based has become, by reason of his citizenship, the 
 foundation of his own character. The manhood in 
 him takes hold upon this idea and principle, and in 
 all its development makes itself strong by reason of 
 its hold upon them. The Christian believer has a 
 possession of a kindred sort. He does not yet 
 realise the full privileges of the heavenly common- 
 wealth, but he has powers and gifts which come 
 
 123 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 forth from it. The laws and principles of the com- 
 monwealth work upon and into his personality, and 
 make him a new man. The fundamental idea of 
 this commonwealth is righteousness — a righteous- 
 ness which is based upon love and enters into the 
 heart as a living reality through faith. Its laws are 
 directed to this end. Its principles find their centre 
 and source of being in this. This righteousness is 
 secured to him from the moment of his spiritual 
 birth, and is the atmosphere of the life to which he 
 is born, as truly as is liberty in the case of one who, 
 by his birthright, is a member of the civil state that 
 is established for freedom. Having once entered 
 his life, it never leaves him. It only grows in its 
 strength as time moves forward. 
 
 The privilege of the citizenship is here. I am not, 
 indeed, perfect in the development of my life as yet; 
 I am subject to the assaults of temptation, and am so 
 weak in my powers until now, and so involved in 
 the evils of the world in which I am living, that I 
 sometimes or oftentimes fall, under the force of 
 these assaults, into wrong-doing and sin. My 
 actions belong, as they seem, to the commonwealth 
 in which I have my dwelling-place for a season, 
 rather than to that which claims me for itself, and 
 to which I am hoping to take my way. But this is 
 the weakness which comes from absence from my 
 home and its surroundings, and from the forgetful- 
 ness, for the time, of the great principles of the life 
 of my own commonwealth. When I come back to 
 myself, and look into the deeper recesses of my soul 
 for the life-power which is central to my spiritual 
 
 124 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 being, I find that it is still that which made its 
 entrance within me, at the beginning, from heaven, 
 and secured to me the citizenship of the heavenly 
 state. And so I rejoice in my birthright, and try to 
 live up to it. And so I take heart for the new con- 
 flict with temptation, and, peradventure, I win a vic- 
 tory, where I lost one before. And so I see that 
 the vital force becomes stronger and more all-con- 
 trolling — gradually, it may be, but surely — as my 
 course moves onward, and the citizenship bears new 
 witness continually for itself. This is the Christian 
 career. It is privilege and possession at the begin- 
 ning, and not merely at the end. It is, under what- 
 ever figure we may represent it, reality to-day, 
 though, with reference to its fulness, it may be 
 realisation only hereafter. It is therefore, as we use 
 the figure now before us, a citizenship whose life- 
 principle for the inner life is present with its trans- 
 forming and ennobling energy when we are in the 
 foreign land, and whose promise is ever laying hold 
 upon the future. 
 
 But the privilege of the citizen is not merely in 
 the fundamental principle of the commonwealth. It 
 is found also in the influence of the life of the mem- 
 bership. We do not, as we grow up into the pos- 
 session of the freedom of the civil state, gain the 
 privilege of our citizenship through the working of 
 liberty in our individual lives only. This is but 
 half of what is accomplished for us. The fact that 
 we do not breathe the atmosphere alone, is as im- 
 portant to our attaining the full results, as that we 
 breathe it at all. No man liveth for himself or by 
 
 125 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 himself, in any sphere of the inner hfe, who Hves for 
 the best ends. He draws from the common hfe, and 
 becomes greater and better by receiving into him- 
 self the lessons, and influences, given forth from the 
 growths of character, which are manifest in the large 
 and noble and pure-minded men around him, who 
 have been taught by the same masters or have been 
 impelled by the same forces. 
 
 It is thus, even in a peculiar measure, with the 
 Christian believer. It is a distinguishing mark of 
 the commonwealth to which he belongs, that love is 
 not only the foundation-principle in the righteous- 
 ness for which the commonwealth exists, but also 
 the uniting-power which binds the community to- 
 gether — that the inspiration of the common life and 
 of the individual life are thus the same. The Chris- 
 tian believer, therefore, cannot grow in his true 
 development along the line of the ideas of the 
 Christian state, unless he comes into vital union 
 with the brotherhood of believers. But the cannot 
 is not so much one of necessity, as one of privilege. 
 It is the blessed possibility of life in the Christian 
 commonwealth — not tJie rcqnircment of a stern and 
 hard lazv — that, through the binding force of that 
 love for one another which rests upon the common 
 love of the Lord for all, the individual believer may 
 know within himself the influence of the communion 
 of saints and so of what is universal in the brother- 
 hood. The citizen of the civil state, even when he 
 dwells by himself in a foreign land, is not a single 
 personality, confined within the limits of his own 
 being. As truly as he carries with him the freedom 
 
 126 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 to which he was born, so truly docs he possess in his 
 mind and soul the life of the community and the 
 state in which he was born. Wherever he may be, 
 his thought and character, and his very self, are in- 
 woven with what is innermost in all to whom has 
 been given the same inheritance ; and only thus, 
 and for this reason, is he a true citizen. How much 
 more truly, may we say, is this the fact in the case of 
 the citizen of the heavenly commonwealth, in whom 
 love moves ever parallel with faith, and for whom 
 the life of the state is the life of the individual multi- 
 plied, and united in its manifold manifestations, 
 through an ever outgoing and incoming love. 
 
 A third element in the privilege of citizenship, 
 which one carries with him whithersoever he goes, is 
 the consciousness of his relation to the state and its 
 government. The member of a strong common- 
 wealth has within himself abroad, as well as at 
 home, a kind of personal consciousness of the 
 strength which the state possesses. He is strong, 
 because of its power. He is firm, because of its 
 stability. He has a deeper sense of his own man- 
 hood, by reason of his assurance that the freedom 
 which it has bestowed upon him is made secure 
 by its ability to defend itself and him against all 
 enemies. What was the significance, in this regard, 
 of the words, I am a Roman citizen, to the Apostle 
 who was now writing to the church in Philippi, 
 where a few years before he had boldly challenged 
 the magistrates of the city by the assertion of this 
 claim ! He knew that the power and glory of Rome 
 were in the citizenship, and he rejoiced, with a 
 
 127 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 noble pride, that he was born to this privilege. The 
 citizenship in heaven had a similar significance to 
 his thought. The kingdom to u^hich I belong, he 
 said to himself, is a kingdom which cannot be 
 moved. Its immovable character passes into myself, 
 as I enter into its membership. The agitations and 
 oppositions and conflicts of the world cannot dis- 
 turb my confidence or my peace. The seizure of 
 my person for imprisonment or the hindrance of my 
 work cannot shake my faith. All things are moving 
 forward according to the plan of Divine wisdom, and 
 the kingdom pertains to God. 
 
 And so — even, as it would seem, with less incom- 
 ing of questioning or fear — may the believer of this 
 quieter age take to himself the same thoughts. The 
 warfare of the spiritual enemies of to-day is less 
 dangerous, than that of the forces and governments 
 of the earthly states was then, and the doubts and 
 denials which the Christian finds about him on every 
 side are only different in their character now from 
 what they have been in other generations. They 
 are not more formidable than those which have 
 been overcome by the powers of the heavenly com- 
 monwealth many times in the past history. The 
 triumphs already witnessed, therefore, bear testimony 
 for the issue of the present and coming struggles. I 
 may not disquiet my soul because I am pressed into 
 the midst of them, or because I see them fiercely 
 moving on about me, or even breaking in upon the 
 Church itself. The ages tell me their own story, 
 and it is one which brings calmness and peace. The 
 immovableness of the kingdom has ceased to be a 
 
 128 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 thing of promise only, and has become a thing of 
 experience. 
 
 The citizen of the heavenly commonwealth thus 
 has the privilege of rest and confidence in his soul. 
 His inheritance and home arc not in a weak state, 
 which has no strength to defend and secure him in 
 all his rights and blessings, and no influence or 
 authority extending beyond its own borders. He 
 is a member of the eternal commonwealth, and of 
 the city which hath the foundations, and he can 
 abide among strangers while he must do so, or in a 
 foreign land, with a sense of the power and greatness 
 of that which is eternal. His privilege, therefore, 
 takes hold upon the assured existence of the state, 
 as well as upon the life-principle pertaining to it, 
 and the life-powers which inspire his own life and 
 that of the community — and all the elements of 
 privilege combine to ennoble him in his citizen- 
 ship, while he experiences its blessings. 
 
 But this last point in the matter of privilege — 
 the assurance of the permanency and immovable- 
 ness of the power of the commonwealth — is closely 
 akin to the hope which belongs to the heavenly 
 citizenship. The Apostle points us towards this 
 hope as he moves on in his words, and shows us 
 that the possession of it is a chief ground of his 
 glorying and his joy. The particular thing upon 
 which his mind centres, indeed, is that in which 
 it finds its consummation. But there can be no 
 doubt that in the final completeness, to his thought, 
 there are gathered up, as it were, and presupposed 
 9 129 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 all those blessings the realisation of which prepares 
 the way for the end. 
 
 If the state is permanent in its life and victorious 
 in its power, it will fulfil its promises to its citizens. 
 They may be but in a partial experience, for the 
 present, of that which pertains to them in their 
 right as members of the state. They may have 
 only somewhat of the inner life of the home-country, 
 while they are sojourning in another land far away, 
 and may know only half of the privilege which they 
 might otherwise enjoy. But they can look forward. 
 It will not be thus always. The state will gather 
 its citizens to itself, and will put them in full 
 possession of that which it has within its own 
 boundaries. It will bear them forward in the 
 experiences of its distinctive and peculiar life, 
 until it has realised for them all that it has to 
 bestow. 
 
 The thought of Paul, which he indicates here and 
 to which he gives more full expression elsewhere, 
 is that from the beginning of the Christian course 
 the spirit of the man becomes possessed of a new 
 life — the true soul-life — because of righteousness, 
 but that the work is finished only in the future 
 when, at the end and the coming of the Lord, the 
 last enemy, death, shall be destroyed, and the per- 
 fected spirit shall have united with the perfected 
 spiritual body, the instrument of its action and the 
 home for its dwelling forever. The movement of 
 the heavenly commonwealth will be steadily onward 
 until that time. The principle that animates and 
 governs the life of the state — righteousness, founded 
 
 130 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 on faith and inspired by love — which was implanted 
 in the citizen at his entrance into it, gives to him 
 this life. The life develops ever afterwards — as it 
 can and may, while he is absent from his own coun- 
 try ; as it must and will, when he comes into it ; — 
 and by and by, when it is perfected in fitness 
 for the highest blessings, the outward and the 
 inward are brought together in a beautiful union, 
 and the soul has its building from God, its house 
 not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. This 
 is the perfected soul's dwelling-place in the eternal 
 city — the commonwealth of God. 
 
 Hope thus moves along the line of the ever con- 
 tinuing progress and is, as we may say, essentially 
 and vitally connected with it. It is a part of the 
 life-power of the commonwealth and its citizenship, 
 and rests upon the basis of what is enduring in the 
 commonwealth itself. 
 
 Such is the Apostle's conception ; and how can 
 it be otherwise? The citizen in his absence from ^ 
 home looks forward, as by a necessity, to the hour 
 of his return to his own country and to the fulness 
 of blessing of the time which shall follow that hour. 
 The greater his confidence in the strength and 
 stability of the state to which he belongs, the more 
 sure and undoubting is his hope. If the power is 
 there, the result will be secured. The life that is 
 stirring within him, and is growing towards the 
 completeness which can be realised only in the 
 experiences and surroundings of this home-country, 
 is itself the evidence that the hope will not be 
 disappointed. The citizenship involves and proves 
 
 131 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 the hope — and the citizen of the heavenly common- 
 wealth may well glory in it. 
 
 But the privilege of the citizenship, as the Apostle 
 speaks of it, points backward to the thought of 
 duty, as well as forward to the thought of hope. 
 The citizen of the heavenly state has a duty as 
 related to it, while he is dwelling in another country. 
 It is interesting to notice that the words which Paul 
 uses are in accordance here, as they are in other 
 points, with the suggestion of the figure of the text. 
 The sojourner in a stranger's land, who makes that 
 land his home for a season, does not owe it to his 
 native country to be careless of the life about him, 
 or to neglect or refuse to mingle in it. He is not 
 under obligation to dwell apart, and decline to be 
 a true man among men. Quite the opposite of this. 
 The call of the home-country, as well as of his 
 manhood, is to do faithfully whatever lies before 
 him in the pathway of right and truth and service 
 and love, and to grow in his fitness for the blessing 
 of the home-hfe through the fulfilment of duties in 
 the life abroad. 
 
 But the duty of his citizenship to his native land 
 is to be the first of all things — so penetrating his 
 life with its influence and summoning his powers 
 towards itself, that his work and heart shall turn 
 homeward in their final purpose and deep devotion. 
 And this is Paul's thought of the Christian behever. 
 He is to live in the world, but not to be of it. He 
 is to be earnest in the world's work as it falls to him 
 to do it, and to live as a man for the progress and 
 
 132 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 welfare of the world ; but he is not to mind earthly 
 things; — that is, the bent and direction of his 
 mind — his desires, and purpose, and will, and soul 
 itself — are not to be toward earth, but toward 
 heaven. He is to keep in thought, always, that 
 his citizenship is in the heavenly commonwealth, 
 and that the fulness of his life towards which he 
 should be ever moving is there. The duty of his 
 years of sojourning and absence from home is to 
 be in the line of the hope which pertains to his 
 citizenship, and of the privileges also. We cannot 
 separate the hopes and privileges of our citizenship 
 from its duties. They combine together in the 
 citizen's life. They are a part of himself, wherever 
 he may be. As he glories in the privileges and 
 rejoices in the hopes, so he must consecrate himself 
 to the duties. Thus only can he be a citizen, in 
 the true and full sense of the word. 
 
 The Christian life is a peaceful, happy one. It 
 has the three elements of such a life — duty, and 
 privilege, and hope. It moves on heavenward while 
 it abides on earth, ever bearing within itself the 
 knowledge of its origin and its future. It gathers 
 into itself all good, and puts forth its powers for all 
 helpfulness and service in the earthly sphere ; but it 
 grows, as by the impulse of its own nature, under 
 the influences of the heavenly sphere. Its perman- 
 ent and joyful peace will be there. 
 
 133 
 
FOR MY SAKE 
 
 Jesus said, Verily, I say unto you, There is tto man that hath 
 left house, or brethren^ or sisters, or mother, or father, or 
 children, or lands, for my sake, aiid for the gospel's sake, 
 but he shall receive a Jiundredfold now in this time, houses, 
 and brethren, and sisters, and tfiothers, and children, atid 
 lands, with persecutions, and in the world to cotne eternal 
 life. — Mark x. 29, 30. 
 
 THESE words, which are recorded after substan- 
 tially the same manner in all of the first three 
 Gospels, follow, according to each of the narratives, 
 immediately upon the story of the conversation 
 between Jesus and the rich young ruler. As the 
 young man turned away sorrowful, when the demand 
 was made that he should give up his possessions, 
 and distribute to the poor, as the condition of 
 entrance into the soul's true life, Jesus called the 
 thoughts of the disciples to the great and almost 
 insurmountable difficulty which those who loved 
 riches had in forsaking them for the kingdom of 
 God. In response to what He said, Peter, speaking 
 for himself and his companions, reminded Him that 
 they had left their homes and everything to become 
 His followers, and then, in the line of the suggestion 
 of the moment, asked the question as to what the 
 
 134 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 reward should be for doing this. The answer to 
 the question was given in this general form, and with 
 application to all disciples. Let us consider some 
 part of the teaching which the words suggest to us 
 respecting the Christian's service and reward. 
 
 The expression which holds the central place in 
 the order of the words and in the thought, is the 
 expression " for my sake." These words are funda- 
 mental to the Christian doctrine everywhere. The 
 disciple asks for, and receives forgiveness, at the 
 outset of his new life, for the sake of Jesus. He 
 consecrates himself to duty in His name. He makes 
 the work to which he devotes his energies a work 
 for Him. He offers his petitions to God for needed 
 gifts, and presents his thanksgiving for past bless- 
 ings only through Him. He finds the inspiration 
 which moves him to manly living and to service for 
 the good of men in his love for Him. He abides in 
 the joy of his own thoughts, and grows in the sweet- 
 ness and beauty of character in the hope of His 
 approval. He looks forward to the future with the 
 most delightful anticipation, because he is then to 
 be with Him and to be like Him. From the begin- 
 ning he lives for Him, and at the end he even dies 
 lor Him. The personal relation of the soul to Jesus 
 is insisted upon, under all circumstances, as essential 
 to that life of true righteousness which is acceptable 
 to God ; and in this personal relation is declared to 
 exist the life-giving force which opens the way into 
 it, and impels the soul forward in it. 
 
 So it is represented here. When the first act is 
 MS 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 spoken of by which, in the Hght of the call to the 
 young ruler that had just been given, the entrance 
 into the kingdom is pictured forth — an act of self- 
 sacrifice and of leaving possessions, or home, or 
 family — it is described as done for the sake of Jesus. 
 It is not simply that self is sacrificed or duty is ful- 
 filled, but chiefly, and above all, that the offering 
 and fulfilment are for Him. The answer of Jesus 
 was an answer to Peter's word, " We have left all 
 and followed thee." It was an answer which met 
 the demands of the case that was presented, and 
 which promised a reward to the action of those, who, 
 like him, had left their homes and their possessions 
 to the end of the following. 
 
 What, we may ask, are the elements of power in 
 this great motive and impulse of the Christian life, 
 as they are indicated in the two verses? The first 
 element is found in the leaving of all things for the 
 sake of a friend. It is sometimes claimed that this 
 is not the noblest ground of self-sacrifice — that 
 consecration to duty for its own sake, and because 
 it is right, is more worthy of the truest manhood, 
 than any devotion which rises out of personal affec- 
 tion. But no one can doubt that in such affection 
 there lies a powerful incentive, which must affect 
 and energise the soul. Friendship, wherever it 
 exists, bears witness to its force. It testifies, also, 
 that it is effective for the upbuilding of character. 
 Upon this force Christianity lays hold. The man 
 whom it approaches, and who has lost the true 
 righteousness, is pointed to a Friend who has loved 
 
 136 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 him. This Friend has seen his fall into sin, his 
 hopeless condition, his forfeiture of the blessedness 
 of union with God, his dark prospect for the future. 
 He has seen, also, how fatally sin has wrought by 
 its influence upon his soul, so that the eye of the 
 soul has been dimmed, or even blinded, to the 
 beauty of what is good, and its faculties have been 
 weakened in their outgoing towards right affection 
 or right action. Moved by the sight. He has drawn 
 near to help him. He has entered, as far as pos- 
 sible, into his limitations and temptations ; into his 
 experiences and possibilities ; into his weakness 
 and darkness ; and has offered him all things for 
 the future — forgiveness, to meet and set aside his 
 sin ; light, to illumine the darkness into which he 
 has fallen ; strength coming from a Divine source, 
 to enable him to resist evil ; a pure and perfect 
 example for him to imitate ; a beautiful life to in- 
 spire and allure him by what it has to give ; and a 
 hope reaching into the invisible, which carries in 
 itself the promise of a glorious realisation. The 
 Friend thus raises him from death to life — a death 
 the reality and sadness of which he apprehends 
 more fully, as the new life begins and moves for- 
 ward in its course. He is, in a sense in which no 
 other friend is or can be, the author of all things 
 on which the man now centres his thought and his 
 hope. When the words " for my sake " are spoken 
 by such a friend, and accompany the request or 
 demand to leave houses, or lands, or anything that 
 seems good, what a living and life-transforming 
 power they must bear with them ! Who that real- 
 ms? 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 ises what the things which have been done, and 
 those which are offered, are, can fail to respond to 
 these words with the answering sacrifice of all 
 things at the very door of the new life? 
 
 The motive may not, indeed, affect every man, 
 for it may not be that every man will believe in the 
 story of what the Friend has accomplished in his 
 behalf, or even that He is a friend. But where it 
 finds entrance into the soul far enough to stir the vital 
 forces, it must stir them as with a mighty energy, 
 and in the direction in which the friend calls them 
 forth. This impulse also, whatever we may say of 
 the comparative measure of nobleness which be- 
 longs to it, cannot but be an added power for the 
 soul's movement, beyond anything which can spring 
 from the sense of right, or devotion to duty — the 
 power of personal affection, of gratitude and love. 
 
 Why did Peter and his companions leave all and 
 follow after Jesus, while the young man who had 
 just departed, turned back to his great possessions 
 sorrowful? Because they had received into them- 
 selves, as he had not, this power. From the first 
 day of their meeting with the wonderful teacher, 
 they had learned from His words and His actions 
 how much He had done for them. They saw in 
 Him at the beginning a light, which shone more 
 and more brightly as the days passed, and they 
 believed that He had brought a great blessing to 
 their lives, and had wrought a great work in their 
 behalf The thought of Him grew richer and the 
 love for Him grew deeper, and a wonderful force 
 for the life came with the love and the thought. 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 When the call was made for the life-service and 
 the life-fellowship, the soul at once responded to 
 the influence. They forsook all which had filled 
 their minds and moved their hopes before, and 
 gave themselves to Him and His work. They rose 
 up immediately as He summoned them, and went 
 after Him in His way, not tJieir own. This, also, 
 was but the beginning. In the inner life, as well as 
 the outer, they listened to His voice ever afterward. 
 They heard in their deepest souls the words '* for 
 my sake," and they moved on to new duty, and 
 new love, and new hope — realising within them- 
 selves the meaning and impulse of the divine fel- 
 lowship. And thus it has always been, from that 
 early time to ours. These tender and heart-moving 
 words, which bear witness of so much in the life of 
 the great Friend, and of the disciple, also, in his 
 discipleship, have possessed for all believers the 
 secret of the vital force which has made them ever 
 ready after the same manner to follow Him. 
 
 The verses, however, suggest another element in 
 the power of the motive. The words, " for my 
 sake," are joined with the words, "for the gospel's 
 sake." The forms of expression used by the differ- 
 ent evangelists at this point are quite significant, as 
 they are compared with each other. Matthew has 
 the expression, " for my name's sake," Mark has, " for 
 niy sake and the gospel's," Luke has simply, " for 
 the kingdom of God's sake." The sacrifice and , 
 service, which are demanded for the- sake of the 
 friend, are demanded for the kingdom. The whole 
 
 139 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 matter is centred in the one thing, or the other, or 
 in the two together, according as the thought is di- 
 rected towards it from one place of observation or 
 from another. It is in this way that the motive be- 
 comes the noblest one possible, for — while it bears 
 in itself the force and inspiration of affection for a 
 friend, who has given all things, and even himself, 
 for those who needed his help — it also moves the 
 man by the impulses which send him forth to un- 
 selfish service on behalf of the world. The person 
 and the kingdom become in this sense one, and the 
 love which goes out in gratitude towards the person 
 for what he has accomplished for the individual 
 soul, goes forth also, and by the very necessity of 
 the case, in helpfulness for all others. 
 
 The Christian's love is not, therefore, and cannot 
 be, other than benevolent and all-embracing. It 
 cannot ever, while it remains itself, become, as the 
 love of earthly friendship sometimes does, a thing 
 in the enjoyment of which the possessor of it 
 indulges for himself alone, and thus unworthy of 
 his purest and most exalted manhood. But moving 
 along the same line of grand unselfishness in which 
 the spirit of consecration to right and duty moves, 
 it unites the most exalted impulses belonging to the 
 heart with those which rise from thought and moral 
 principle, and thus urges the man forward, as by 
 the common life-force of his whole being. It sup- 
 plies for him, and in him, what the mere moral sense 
 and the obligations of the soul to the law of right- 
 eousness can never of themselves furnish — and the 
 thing which it gives is a wonderful power for the 
 
 140 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 development of character, and for its outworking 
 in all good service. 
 
 Jesus entered our human life, and fulfilled His 
 work among men, and suffered and died, in order 
 that the Gospel might be made known, and the king- 
 dom established. He made all men His brethren to 
 this end, and as He tenderly and graciously told the 
 story of the love of God, He revealed impressively 
 His own self-sacrifice in love to all. The signifi- 
 cance of His work was to be found in the Gospel 
 and the kingdom. When He summoned His fol- 
 lowers, therefore, to leave possessions and friends 
 for His sake, He called them, at the same time and 
 by the same act, to give themselves to the kingdom. 
 They were to devote their lives to the cause to which ^ 
 He had devoted His life. They were to tell the 
 story, and labour for the kingdom, and bear witness 
 of the true righteousness, and proclaim the way of 
 faith, and make God known as ready to forgive and 
 to save all who would turn to Him — placing this 
 work above all others, with whatever of self-sacrifice 
 it might involve. They were to do it for His sake, 
 because they had for themselves, and their own souls, 
 received such inestimable blessings from Him. But, 
 as they did it for His sake, they were to give them- 
 selves, in the deep and true understanding of the 
 meaning of these all-inspiring words, for His sake, 
 — and in a love and service, after their measure, 
 like His own, — to the extending of the same bless- 
 ings to their fellow-men. To leave all things for my 
 sake — such is His word to His disciples — is to 
 leave all things for the Gospel's sake. To tell the 
 
 141 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 Gospel story, and thereby bring in the reahsation of 
 the kingdom, is to do the work of God's righteous- 
 ness with an abounding and unselfish love. And so 
 the motive power of the words, " for my sake," is a 
 soul-stirring and all-victorious force. 
 
 The verses suggest, also, another element in the 
 power of the motive, which we may well notice for 
 a moment. By the call, which is given, to leave all 
 things for His sake, Jesus puts Himself in compar- 
 ison not only with houses and lands — that is, the 
 great possessions, which had proved sufficient to 
 keep the young ruler from entering the gateway of 
 life, even when he saw it opening before him — but 
 also with brethren, and parents, and children. The 
 friendship of Jesus is set above he nearest and 
 truest earthly friendships, and the suggestion is thus 
 given of what it is for the soul. The impelling 
 force of which we are speaking is found in the 
 character of the Friend and of the personal relation 
 with Him. The weakness or even selfishness of 
 human love, as it exists at times between two friends, 
 is connected closely with the imperfection which 
 pertains to human character. The higher the one 
 whom we love rises in the beauty and glory of man- 
 hood, however, — the more nearly he approaches 
 the perfection which we picture to ourselves, but do 
 not realise, — the less are we in danger of making 
 the love minister to self, as we exercise and enjoy 
 it. This must be so, because the influences that 
 come through such a personal relation are those 
 which move from the inmost life of the one party in 
 
 142 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 the union into the inmost Hfc of the other. This 
 Hfc in the centre and fountain of the soul being all 
 purity, and truth, and self-sacrifice, and readiness 
 for faithful service, the teaching and the impulse 
 which come from it must be of the same character. 
 The man of magnanimous feeling, or lofty purpose, 
 or elevated sentiment, or sweet reasonableness, or 
 warm affection, inspires his intimate and loving friend 
 with what goes forth from himself, and by means of 
 the inspiration brings him into his own likeness. 
 This inspiration is a transforming and purifying and 
 glorifying power which works with continual, though 
 oftentimes, it may be, with silent energy. It is, 
 moreover, a power which is recognised, as its re- 
 sults in the life are seen, with the deepest gratitude. 
 When the request for service or sacrifice, accord- 
 ingly, presents itself from such a man to such a 
 friend in the words, " for my sake," there is hidden 
 in these words a secret force that reveals itself more 
 and more clearly — and with an ever-increasing 
 energy — as the call seems to sound along the 
 avenues of the soul, awakening there the remem- 
 brance of all the influence which has come from the 
 one to the other. It can only be a power for good 
 action, for the source from which it springs is the 
 goodness of another's character. It can only be a 
 power in harmony with true and generous feeling, 
 because the generous life of one soul must pro- 
 duce generous life in another. Its measure can 
 be estimated only by experience. The soul deter- 
 mines it for itself. 
 
 The life of Jesus, however, was the life of perfect 
 143 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 manhood, beyond any other that the world has 
 known. This is the thought of all respecting Him, 
 whatever differences there may be in the other 
 thinking of men as to His nature or His work. 
 What then must have been the influence which 
 passed from Him to those who sat beside Him, and 
 lived in His society and fellowship ! They must 
 have been conscious as the years passed on, that 
 they were growing larger in their manhood, and 
 nobler in their soul's living in every part of it, by 
 reason of their nearness to His thought and love and 
 perfectness. And when the call came, which they 
 obeyed, to follow Him in anything, and anywhere, 
 for His sake, they must have felt that the love of 
 Jesus, which constrained them, was the most divine 
 motive which could impel their souls. 
 
 The words " for my sake," therefore, as they read 
 their true lesson to us and speak of their true mean- 
 ing, tell us of an incentive for life which rejects from 
 itself all that is unworthy, or of self alone, and which 
 gathers into itself in different ways, and through 
 varied thoughts, the most effective force for the 
 transformation of character — a force which allies 
 itself actively with every other that inspires for 
 good, and gives new energy to every other. 
 
 It is a force also which works towards a reward. 
 The verses of the evangelist tell us of this, and, as 
 in the case of the motive-power, they reveal to us 
 something of its nature. The Christian doctrine 
 lays hold, for its followers, of the influence derived 
 from hope. It promises a blessedness in the future, 
 
 144 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 in recompense for the sacrifice of the present. But 
 as it turns the mind of the one who believes it away 
 from selfishness, when it imparts to him its impulse 
 at the beginning, and along the course, so it docs 
 the same thing when it points to the end. The 
 reward that it offers is one which belongs only to 
 the unselfish soul. The words of Jesus show this. 
 The very peculiarity of the call to leave all things 
 suggests the idea. The man who would be a disciple 
 is bidden to sacrifice himself. Possessions, it may 
 be great ones ; friends, even the nearest and most 
 precious ; a chosen and happy way of living, and a 
 work for one's own growth and to one's own advan- 
 tage; these things, and things like them, must be 
 given up, if the true life is to be gained. The inti- 
 mation of such a demand is, that the true life, and 
 whatever rewards there may be connected with it, 
 are to be found only in a sphere where self cannot 
 reign supreme. And the intimation is strengthened, 
 when the leaving of all is called for, not that one 
 may serve his own purpose or gain his own end, but 
 for the sake of a kingdom and a gospel which per- 
 tain to the true righteousness — the fruit of love 
 and of faith. It is made still further impressive, 
 when it is declared that all is to be done for the 
 sake of a friend whose whole work was an offering 
 of himself on behalf of others, and whose self-sacri- 
 ficing love led him even to die for the world. 
 
 But — apart from and beyond these intimations — 
 
 the words themselves which describe the reward 
 
 give their own suggestion. The assurance and 
 
 promise are presented in the verses in two parts. 
 
 10 145 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 111 the former part, which sets forth what is promised 
 in this world, the description of the reward is given, 
 after a manner which is characteristic of Mark's 
 Gospel, in expressions answering to those employed 
 in the giving of the call and demand. As the sacri- 
 fice is of houses and lands and friends, so the recom- 
 pense is said to be in a greater measure of the same 
 gifts. But the conversation with the rich ruler, and 
 the sayings which follow after it with respect to the 
 love of riches, as well as the very peculiarity of the 
 expressions themselves, make it manifest that their 
 meaning is not to be discovered in a literal interpre- 
 tation of them, but in the thought which the occasion 
 and the context place beneath and within the words. 
 Interpreted thus, they teach us the truth to which 
 all Christian experience bears witness, that for the 
 self-sacrificing soul the possessions which are left 
 
 "^ behind, and which pertain to the outward life, are 
 replaced, as it were, by possessions of the inward 
 
 y^ hfe. The joy of Christ, which came through His 
 offering of Himself in obedience to the Father's will, 
 is imparted to His followers. His peace becomes 
 theirs. The hope and blessedness of the Gospel 
 enter into their squIs. They take hold upon all 
 that is heavenly, rather than earthly, in character; 
 and the life within them which is worthy of the name 
 in all its full significance — the soul life — is saved. 
 
 This is, indeed, in accordance with the very law 
 of self-sacrifice. The soldier, who consecrates him- 
 self to the service of his country and goes to the 
 front in battle for its well-being, must leave his pos- 
 sessions behind him, but he gains a hundredfold in 
 
 146 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 the loss of them. He knows within himself som^- 
 thing which is far better, even as it is far grander, 
 than that which he once had and which was without 
 himself. The man who renders self-denying service 
 in love for a friend knows the same experience, only 
 in smaller measure, it may be, by reason of the more 
 limited nature of the service rendered. This mani- 
 folding in the inward life is the rich experience 
 which the years bring to all of us, if we are noble 
 men. But the manifolding is to the limit of the 
 hundredfold for the Christian disciple, because he 
 gives himself to the greatest of all causes, that of 
 God and man alike, and offers his service, in sacrifice 
 of self, for the sake of a Friend who is above and 
 beyond all others. 
 
 The continual movement towards him of love is 
 also realised in his experience, as it comes from 
 those who, by reason of his leaving all things for 
 the Gospel and the kingdom's sake, are themselves 
 brought to the membership of the kingdom and the 
 full blessing of the Gospel. This love is ever repay- 
 ing him, by its gifts, for the sacrifices which he has 
 made. 
 
 In the early time, when the words of Jesus were 
 first spoken, the new love, which had a purer and 
 more sacred element in it than the old love had, was 
 the whole, and indeed the sufficient, recompense for 
 what was given up. But, in these later and Chris- 
 tian ages, the love of the old friends, who are left 
 behind for the sake of Jesus and the kingdom, often- 
 times becomes itself a holier affection for this very 
 reason, and realises by its ever-increasing power a 
 
 147 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 special reward for the self-sacrificing disciple. The 
 gift thus bestowed — when viewed in relation to 
 friendships or possessions — seems even to be a mul- 
 tiplication of those which were enjoyed before ; and 
 in the deeper satisfaction of the soul, and the richer 
 blessing of its experience, the literal fulfilment of the 
 words, as it were, comes to pass — ■ now, in this time, 
 a hundredfold in houses, and lands, and brethren, 
 and friendships ; now, in this time — so truly does 
 the Gospel bear within itself the promise of the life 
 that now is, as well as of that which is to come. 
 
 Indeed, its second promise only grows out of, and 
 follows in the same line of blessing with, the first. 
 The eternal life is only the fulness of that which 
 enters the soul at the time of the leaving of all 
 things for the Divine Friend's sake, and which 
 abides there afterwards. It is no outward reward 
 which can be selfiishly sought after, like so many of 
 the recompenses of the earthly career. It is the 
 perfecting of holy character in love and every grace 
 and beauty — the very beginning and ending of 
 which is the loss of self in faithful service, and in 
 the doing and living for His sake. 
 
 How impressively is this taught us by that single 
 other word which Jesus adds to the picturing of the 
 earthly rewards — zvitJi persecutions^ a word which, 
 through the victories of the faith, has lost for us its 
 depth of meaning known so well by the first disciples, 
 yet still has an abiding force in the tests and trials 
 which beset us all. These, as the verses assure us, 
 move on with the reward, and work into it con- 
 tinuously. The perfectness of the result at the end 
 
 148 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 is reached, in part, by means of their mysterious 
 working. But their working is ever, through losses 
 and sacrifice of the outward, into the growth and 
 development of the inward. The soul becomes 
 wonderfully stronger through that which it loses. 
 It finds itself, when it gives up all things. And 
 thus its growth into its own fulness, through what 
 were in the old time persecutions, and are 7io%v trials 
 and sorrows, is ever realising for it more perfectly 
 the banishing of selfishness in the discovery of its 
 true self. The movement is a beautiful and a grand 
 one, in the line of the manliest living, from the first 
 act of sacrifice for His sake to the final experience 
 of reward in the eternal future. What a blessed 
 assurance it is, which the words give to us all, if we 
 will listen to them : There is no man who has left 
 all for me and for the Gospel, but he will receive a 
 hundredfold in his soul's experience here, and the 
 eternal life of the soul hereafter. 
 
 149 
 
XI 
 
 THE TRUE SEER 
 
 And one of the Pharisees desired him ^ that he ivoidd eat with 
 him. And he entered into the Pharisee's house, and sat 
 down to meat. — Luke vii. 36-50. 
 
 [The verses contain the story of the woman who anointed 
 the feet of Jesus in the Pharisee's house.] 
 
 I WOULD ofifer for consideration a few thoughts 
 which are suggested by this story as we look at 
 it from certain special points of view. In the first 
 place, it has a revelation for us as to the method by 
 which Jesus met the difficulties of those who ques- 
 tioned His claims as a teacher of the Divine truth, 
 and, though not meeting Him with hatred or with 
 obstinate rejection of His words, were yet unwilling 
 to come to Him for the truth until these difficulties 
 should be removed. The person whom the story 
 represents as inviting Jesus to his house was one of 
 the Pharisees. We are told nothing else with defi- 
 niteness concerning him. But we may infer, from 
 the indications of the verses, that his purpose in 
 giving the invitation was not a hostile one, such as 
 we find manifested by others of the sect to which he 
 belonged as they came into contact with Jesus. He 
 did not desire, apparently, to catch Him in His talk, 
 as the sacred writers express it, or so to entangle 
 
THE INXER LIFE 
 
 Him in His answers to what he asked, that he 
 might have some foundation for accusing Him 
 before the authorities of the nation. He simply 
 wished to satisfy himself, as we may believe, as to 
 whether Jesus was worth listening to and whether 
 He had any message from Heaven. He thought that 
 by offering Him his hospitality he would have Him 
 alone by Himself, and thus could, in the best and 
 most successful way, determine the matter which he 
 had in mind. Everything in the story points to 
 this as the correct supposition respecting him. Its 
 consistency with the details which are mentioned, 
 and the explanation which it presents for the 
 absence of certain details which we might otherwise 
 have expected to find, render it so probable that we 
 may without hesitation accept it. This Pharisee, 
 therefore, was a questioner in the sphere of right- 
 eousness and life, as all members of his party were in 
 greater or less degree, so far as they were truly 
 worthy of a place within it. He would know what 
 Jesus had to say, and would test Him. 
 
 If this is the right view of the matter, we may 
 believe that, for the carrying out of his purpose, he 
 had his direct questions in mind — many of them, 
 perchance — which he was prepared to present. He 
 was ready to offer them so soon as the supper 
 should have proceeded far enough to make it fitting 
 to do so. He was waiting, perhaps impatiently, for 
 the proper moment to come. But suddenly, and by 
 an accident as it seemed, a new turn was given to 
 his thought, and a question which appeared to him 
 fundamental to all others was started in his mind. 
 
 151 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 It was a question of doubt as to whether Jesus was 
 a prophet-teacher at all — whether He had any 
 prophetic relation to the truth whatever. 
 
 According to a custom of the region and of the 
 time, which allowed strangers to enter unbidden 
 at such a meal, and to approach the guests and 
 speak with them, a woman suddenly came into the 
 room where they were, and at once drew near to 
 Jesus and proceeded to anoint His feet with oint- 
 ment which she had brought. This person was, as 
 the writer tells us, a sinner. Evidently she was, to 
 the mind of the Pharisee, a sinner of so marked a 
 character that her very touch was a defilement. The 
 current of his thoughts was immediately arrested. 
 The difficulties connected with his old system of 
 belief rushed in upon him at once, and the inquiries 
 after the truth must, as he felt, wait until these were 
 settled. Is the man a prophet at all? he said to 
 himself. A prophet, surely, would know what sort 
 of a person this is. But apparently he does not 
 know. A prophet must not suffer himself to be de- 
 filed. But he is allowing this to happen, with no 
 resistance or objection. The manifest presence of 
 the sinner here, does it not prove that there is no 
 prophet here ? My questions, which I had promised 
 myself the asking, are useless until this matter is de- 
 termined ; and I do not see how it can be determined 
 except unfavourably for the professed teacher. So 
 long as this difficulty, thus suggested, remains, he 
 can have nothing for me. The teacher, surely, must 
 precede the teachings, and be the authority for them. 
 I doubt his right to the teacher's office, and I do not 
 
 152 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 believe that he can estabhsh it. What I had hoped 
 for fails, and I may well allow him to depart. 
 
 We may observe with interest how Jesus met his 
 difficulty. He did not meet it by argument, or by 
 a renewed and emphatic assertion of what He claimed 
 for Himself. He did not attempt to show him 
 directly or by reasoning that his view of the matter 
 of pollution was a narrow one, founded upon a mere 
 superficial view of the letter of his own system. He 
 did not enter at all into the sphere of his questionings. 
 He went behind all this, and farther down into the 
 depths of human experience. He said to him in 
 briefest words : Let me tell you a simple story of 
 common life. A money lender had two debtors, to 
 one of whom he had lent ten times as much as he 
 had to the other. Time passed on. The debts 
 became due, and when he found that both alike had 
 nothing wherewith to pay him, he forgave them 
 both. The story is a very simple one — is it not? 
 It has not much to do with the question whether a 
 man has a prophetic gift from God, or is a divinely- 
 commissioned teacher, you may think. Be it so, if 
 you will — at least, for the moment. We will wait 
 for the decision of that question, which will come in 
 Its own time. But its own time is not now. Now is 
 the time for something other than this. How will it 
 be about what follows the forgiveness? Which of the 
 two men, who have their debts forgiven, will love 
 the kindly friend the most? There cannot be much 
 doubt as to this point, surely. We may dispute 
 about the other question, but we shall agree in our 
 answer to this : The one to whom he forgave the 
 
 153 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 most. Let us make our starting-point then where 
 we agree, and after this look outward in two direc- 
 tions. There are two matters on which your mind 
 is resting — righteousness, and my claim to be a 
 prophet. The one is a matter of the soul's life ; — 
 the other, as you put it, a question of the mind's 
 thinking. You are placing the latter before the 
 former. You should place the former before the 
 latter. If you move from the right beginning, you 
 may hope to reach the right end. What then does 
 the story tell you about the true righteousness? 
 Think of this. It tells you how it originates, and 
 what it is. Apply the story to real life, and you 
 will understand it. 
 
 Thus he speaks with his questioner. The man 
 who in his own view had lived in accordance with 
 rules and had had few failures ; who had made the 
 letter of the law his study and had been punctilious 
 in his observance of it; who regarded himself even 
 as within the kingdom of God because of his birth 
 and education, and had little sense of sin, makes no 
 demonstration of love, because he has none. He is 
 cold and formal and critical, because there has been 
 no deep movement of his soul and no sense of ruin 
 or danger. The sinner, on the other hand, who is 
 conscious of the fact, and who therefore feels his 
 need of help and of deliverance, is the one who is on 
 the way to the true life, because the soul within him 
 is stirred. He knows where he stands, and will love 
 the Divine helper who lays hold upon and helps him. 
 It is when the soul is stirred that the life begins. 
 All life shows this. What a new light the words 
 
 154 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 were fitted to bring into the Pharisee's mind. The 
 action of the woman, which seemed to his dull ap- 
 prehension — dulled by his own self-righteousness 
 and legalism and hterahsm — to be polluting in its 
 character because she was a sinner, was in reality the 
 evidence and outflow of that love which had within 
 itself the power to overcome the sin and reform the 
 life. Righteousness is not mere action. It is not 
 mere conformity to the words of a law. It is such 
 action and conformity founded upon a life-principle. 
 Common life everywhere tells us this. Human ex- 
 perience, in its inmost and central sources, proves 
 it. Look within yourself, and you will be a witness 
 to the truth. Let the questions of life thus move 
 within the sphere of life ; — and when these ques- 
 tions are answered, it will be the time for further 
 questioning. 
 
 And now, who is the prophet? The man who 
 knows this, or the man who does not? The man 
 who penetrates by his clear vision into the secret 
 beginnings of human action as they are found in 
 the first impulses of the soul, or he who never gets 
 far enough below the surface of things to think of 
 anything except the external defilement of meeting 
 with one who has been a sinner? The prophet is a 
 seer. Which of the two is it that sees ? The prophet 
 is inspired to understand the Divine idea of right- 
 eousness. Which of the two gives evidence of the 
 inspiration? — The story of experience answers both 
 of the questions, if they are placed in their right 
 order. And why should it not — for the forces 
 which are illustrated in human experience are the 
 
 155 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 forces which move life, and the movement of life is 
 that which makes the man. To know this is to see 
 the truth, for all that is good centres in this 
 movement. 
 
 Another revelation which the story has for us is, 
 as to the way in which Jesus met those who came 
 to Him from the starting-point of the deep wants 
 of the inner life, and not from that of difficulties or 
 intellectual questionings. The sinner in the story 
 knew little, as we may believe — certainly, she 
 thought little now — of the points in the legal 
 system, which were filling, all at once, the mind 
 of the Pharisee. Life had passed, to her apprehen- 
 sion, so far beyond the questions of external and 
 ceremonial defilement, that this had become one of 
 the minor and secondary things. The helper whose 
 aid she felt to be necessary for her was one who 
 should see the life's sources, and should purify and 
 vitalise them. The sense of sin removed all diffi- 
 culties but one from the mind. That one was, how 
 to become free from sin's power. Everything in the 
 narrative, moreover, seems to indicate that, even 
 with regard to the great question of the renewal 
 of character, she had but limited knowledge. She 
 did not recognise her own faith, apparently. To 
 the Pharisee's mind, she did not know enough to 
 know her right position before a religious teacher, 
 or to ask for forgiveness. Perhaps she had not 
 thought far enough, to think of asking for it. But, 
 in some way, the mind of this sinner had been 
 turned to Jesus. From what she had seen of Him 
 
 156 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 or heard of Him she felt that there was a great 
 outflow of love and blessing in His soul, which was 
 ready for all who would receive it. Possibly, she 
 was conscious of having experienced already some- 
 what of its life-giving power. The confidence that 
 the blessing was in Him, or the consciousness that 
 the beginning of its influence had come to herself, 
 led her to draw near to Him now, and to bestow 
 upon Him a gift of affection and reverence. Her 
 thought was wholly occupied with this one thing. 
 If the Pharisee, or if Jesus Himself had asked her 
 how she expected to secure the Divine forgiveness 
 and to be set right with God, — what were the 
 steps by which she would seek the gift, in order 
 surely to attain it, or what was the precise pathway 
 back from sin to righteousness, — she would prob- 
 ably have found herself unable to answer. She 
 would certainly have said that all this was aside 
 from her thought at the moment. She was now 
 thinking only of an act of love, — perchance, of 
 grateful love, — and in this was the whole purpose 
 of her entering the house where they were. How 
 different was her condition from that of the Phar- 
 isee ! The difference was that which always exists 
 — which manifests itself a thousand times to every 
 careful observer of human nature, and is illustrated by 
 examples everywhere — between the cold and doubt- 
 ing questioner who stands outside of the Christian 
 system, and sees difficulties on every side for the 
 mind to grapple with, and the man who knows that 
 sin is a deadly evil, and feels its power within himself 
 to be too great for his own strength to overcome. 
 
 ^57 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 But what did Jesus say to the sinner? He did 
 not ask questions concerning her feeling ; or try to 
 draw from her a story of the way in which her mind 
 was now turning; or bid her place her present 
 thoughts and impulses beside the true order of the 
 plan of forgiveness and the new life, and thus set 
 her upon an examination of herself; or even in any 
 way attempt to make her look into the movement 
 of her soul, in order to determine its character or 
 its reality. With the seer's eye which belongs to 
 the true prophet. He saw for Himself, in the act 
 which she had just performed, all that He needed to 
 see, and then, with the same seer's eye, He saw that 
 she was not yet prepared to study the movement. 
 
 But He turned to the Pharisee, and said, Seest 
 thou this woman? Let the story of the debtors 
 apply itself to you and to her, and study the question 
 of the forces of life, as you make the application. 
 You will find what you do not yet know — what she 
 herself does not yet fully realise — that these forces 
 are behind the act, and thus that the true life has 
 begun in her, while you are still questioning and 
 doubting. Then He details what she had done, in 
 contrast with what the Pharisee himself had done, 
 and shows by the repetition and the contrast the 
 reality of the vital force — that her action was the 
 overflowing and outpouring of a love which involved 
 all things in itself The very essence of the living 
 righteousness, which had been lost out of the 
 Pharisee's conception of it, was in this love. The 
 love, therefore, may prove, even to your questioning 
 mind, he says to him at the end, that the sinner 
 
 158 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 whose presence here so troubles you, — however 
 many her sins have been, and they have indeed 
 been many, — has come into a new position. Her 
 sins are forgiven, and the Divine renewal has begun. 
 She has found God's righteousness, while you have 
 lost your way utterly in seeking your own. 
 
 Moreover, He does not even tell what she has 
 done, or picture the beauty of her act by its con- 
 trast, to the sinner herself. He lets her hear it, but 
 does not set it before her as an explanation of the 
 way in which she had come to be forgiven. So 
 far is He from dealing with her after the manner 
 of an examiner into the evidences of character, or 
 according to the successive stages of a plan, — He 
 says nothing at all of the relation of her love to her 
 forgiveness, except to the Pharisee, and to him 
 nothing except that he might know that she was 
 forgiven, by reason of the evidence of the new life- 
 power which her love gave. Indeed He says noth- 
 ing in any way to herself, until all this had passed. 
 The reasoning, the explanation, the pointing to the 
 forces of life, were needed only for the questioning 
 Pharisee. His dull mind — dulled by his own doubt- 
 ing — must have some answer. For the sinner, 
 who was as yet moving according to the simplest of 
 the nobler impulses of the soul, and was not ready to 
 ask or understand the explanation, or to know any- 
 thing of the philosophy of life, there was nothing until 
 the end, and then only the one word of assurance. 
 
 Surely there is a lesson which is full of suggestion 
 for us in the story, as we read it thus. But there is 
 
 159 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 another revelation which it has for us, as we notice 
 what He said to the sinner, after those who were 
 at the table with Him had expressed their astonish- 
 ment at His assuming the power of forgiving sin. 
 He now tells the woman herself the great truth of 
 her renewed life — how it originated: Thy faith 
 hath saved thee. The woman did not apprehend 
 the truth at the time. Those who sat at meat with 
 Jesus did not apprehend it. The questioning Phari- 
 see, no doubt, had his mind closed against it as the 
 words were uttered, for his thought and view of 
 righteousness had been altogether in another line. 
 But the words, nevertheless, contained the central 
 point of the Christian teaching, and they declare the 
 truth for all. The faith was saving because it was 
 an active force. It went forth in a heartfelt con- 
 fidence towards the source of help. It laid hold, 
 believing, upon the blessing which was offered, and 
 upon the one who offered it. And as it went forth, 
 it proved itself to be a uniting power between the 
 souls, which opened the way for all life-giving in- 
 fluence to pass from the greater Friend to the 
 weaker one, and all loving feeling and action to go 
 from the one who needed help to the one who gave 
 it. The life-time afterwards was but the unfolding 
 of what was here said. Faith originated what love 
 proved. Faith worked, through the love-element in 
 it, towards all good ; and love grew deeper and 
 richer, as faith became more and more beautifully 
 an undoubting confidence. 
 
 We question the Christian system from outside of 
 it, and then from inside of it; and we involve our- 
 
 i6o 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 selves, how often, in difficulties everywhere. What 
 is the relation of faith to love, we ask from the outer 
 position, and the inner one also ; and, Has the 
 movement of the two been, in our individual ex- 
 perience, we say to ourselves, just what it ought to 
 have been? We can separate the two things in our 
 philosophy, and in our setting forth of the plan. 
 But in human life they move, many times, in such 
 close and intricate intermingling, that they can 
 scarcely be recognised in their independence. The 
 man distresses himself in seeking after faith, when 
 the loving actions of his life bear clearest testimony 
 to its existence. Or he deceives himself, perchance, 
 by the thought that his love has no divine origin or 
 evidencing power, when, if he will look into his 
 soul's workings, he will see that everything in the 
 inward, or the outward, life is inspired by an un- 
 doubting confidence and trust in the Divine Friend. 
 The faith, as in every union of souls, is the first life- 
 producing force. The love is the offspring and the 
 proof — the flower and fruitage — of the faith. But 
 they abide together through the years, working 
 harmoniously in every line, and become so nearly 
 one that the man only knows the oneness — the 
 believing love and the loving belief. Yet the faith, 
 notwithstanding this, ever saves, and the love 
 proves; and the answer of both together to the 
 man's questionings as to himself is : Thy sins are 
 forgiven. 
 
 There is one more revelation or suggestion which 
 the story gives, as it leaves us. The last word 
 II i6i 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 addressed to the sinner bids her go in peace. 
 There is no such last word to the Pharisee, So far 
 as we are told, he remains in the midst of his ques- 
 tionings and his difficulties — waiting for the answer- 
 ing and removing of them by some explanation 
 which shall be more direct, and shall be more satis- 
 factory to his mind or his reasoning powers. The 
 accident of the hour had brought him very near to 
 the gate of the true life. But he could not suffer 
 Jesus to open it for him, because an old thought 
 connected with his old system of opinions made him 
 doubt whether Jesus was, after all, a prophet. How 
 could a prophet stand by the gate with such a sin- 
 ner and allow himself to be defiled by a polluting 
 touch. Settle the difficulty first, and look for the 
 life afterwards. So it is always with the doubting 
 questioner — in this age, as in the first age — in our 
 company, as in the company of those who were at 
 the table with Jesus on that memorable day. The 
 error into which the doubter falls is a fundamental 
 one. Christianity deals with life. It is life. Its 
 working moves along the line of the soul's deepest 
 and truest experience. It is the most natural of all 
 things, as it moves thus. What could be simpler or 
 truer than the movement of the renewing forces in 
 the case of this sinner, of whom the story tells us? 
 Who can question for a moment the reality of the 
 power which was within her as she came to Jesus, 
 and as she went forth from His presence? And 
 who that understands anything about human ex- 
 perience, and the relations of one soul to another, 
 can fail to see, that peace and forgiveness are 
 
 162 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 vitally related to faith and love as she manifested 
 them? 
 
 Christianity goes with us, indeed, into the mys- 
 teries of life and of thought. It answers many 
 questions and unfolds many mysteries for us as we 
 move patiently, and with open and honest minds, 
 through the years. But its office is not to remove 
 difficulties, but to remove sin. Its mission and pur- 
 pose are not to satisfy the mind in all its inquiries 
 and reasonings, but to give new life to the soul. 
 The mind may fall into disbelief anywhere in the 
 sphere of life and its impelling forces. It may 
 originate it for itself and by its own efforts. You 
 can doubt friendship, or family love, or patriotism, 
 or true righteousness — and can lose them all in your 
 doubtings — if you put yourself outside of them, as 
 it were, and refuse to believe until every difficulty 
 which your philosophy or your scepticism may start 
 is set aside. They are, however, none the less real 
 on this account. Their very life and sweetness and 
 power belong in another sphere than that of the 
 difficulties, and the questioning of the soul which 
 brings it to the door of the sphere where they 
 belong is the only one which reaches the blessing. 
 
 So is it with Christian living. What an insignifi- 
 cant thing as related to this, was the question 
 whether Jesus was a prophet who had never been 
 defiled by the touch of a sinner, and thus a prophet 
 who could meet the demands of the Pharisee's pre- 
 conceived ideas. What a momentous one, on the 
 other hand, it was, that He was a seer into life — a 
 man who knew the way to forgiveness, and right 
 
 163 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 character — that character which comes out of the 
 purified fountains of the soul, and is, when it thus 
 comes, the grandest and most real thing in exis- 
 tence. Life has its own laws and its own forces. 
 The way to live is the way of discovering the forces 
 and using them. Doubts and questionings are not 
 life. They are, rather, its opposite. Life is posi- 
 tive. Life is movement. Life is faith in the reality 
 of things. Life is love which animates and inspires 
 and glorifies the soul. The sinner of the story — 
 many as her sins had been — had life, at this hour. 
 The Pharisee had doubtings, and no noble impulse 
 which stirred the man. 
 
 And so peace came to the one, but not to the 
 other. The peace of the soul is the result of faith. 
 The man who doubts and questions cannot be at 
 rest. The settlement of his questionings must be 
 secured before quietness and truest happiness can 
 be his. But when faith enters the heart as an active 
 power, and puts forth its energy through love, and 
 unites the soul with God, — then the Divine gift 
 comes in answer to the faith. The man lives, and 
 works, and moves in all his movements after the 
 Divine manner. There is peace in believing — 
 an ever-abiding, ever-deepening peace. Jesus knew 
 this, and knew the way to realise it. He was a 
 seer who saw the centre of the soul and saw how 
 it could be purified. He was one whom no sinner 
 with the true life-impulse within him could defile 
 by his touch, for He carried within Himself the 
 transforming power through which all life is made 
 holy. He was the helper for the sin-burdened man, 
 
 164 
 
THE INNER LIES 
 
 and the one who spoke, as with the Divine voice, 
 the word of forgiveness for the past and peace for 
 the future. If you will place yourself near to Him, 
 my friend, as He stands at the gateway of life, you 
 will find the great blessing. As you recognise in 
 Him the seer who sees the sources and forces of 
 the soul's living, you will also discover Him to be 
 the true prophet of the truth and of the ages. 
 
 i6s 
 
XII 
 
 Let him that stole steal no 7nore. — Ephesians iv. 28. 
 
 THE words of this sentence are a part of the 
 practical section of the epistle addressed by 
 Paul to the Ephesian Christians, They form one of 
 the elements which make up the leading exhorta- 
 tion of the letter : that the readers should walk 
 worthily of the calling wherewith they were called ; 
 and this exhortation, by the very manner in which 
 it is introduced — I therefore beseech you — is 
 founded upon the doctrinal teaching of the preced- 
 ing chapters. They afford us, accordingly, an 
 illustration of the way in which the Divinely-com- 
 missioned Apostle would bring the Christian truth 
 to bear upon conduct. Examples, however, always 
 pass in their teaching beyond their own immediate 
 and narrow limits, and impress upon the mind not 
 only particular lessons, but general ones. Let me 
 offer some thoughts in connection with the words 
 as bearing upon the results of our faith in our ac- 
 tion and daily living. 
 
 In the first place, we may notice the immediate 
 connection between this exhortation and the urgent 
 request or demand, which the writer makes, that 
 these Christians should hold firmly the true Chris- 
 
 166 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 tiaii doctrine. There is one Lord, one faith, one 
 baptism, he says. In walking worthily of your 
 calling, therefore, you should give all diligence to 
 keep the unity of the Spirit and the unity of the 
 faith. You should be careful not to be carried 
 about with every wind, or to be tossed to and fro, 
 after the wiles of error, but should possess, and 
 cherish, and grow up more and more into the truth. 
 But, in order to do this, and in doing it, you should 
 cease — because of the new life-principle in the inner 
 life — to give yourselves up any longer to the old 
 practices of your former unchristian state, and 
 should do what is right and good. The truth of 
 the doctrine is to be sought for and to be main- 
 tained, for it alone is the Divine truth. But the 
 doctrine has no vitality, and no fulness of meaning, 
 without the true living which is the legitimate out- 
 growth of it. Hence the true living is the end, — 
 the doctrine is only the means. 
 
 The Apostolic preachers were not the founders of 
 a philosophical system, or professors in a school 
 of theological science, to whose minds the setting 
 forth of truth in definite and accurate and system- 
 atic formulas was the aim of their efforts or the 
 object of their career. They were proclaimers of 
 a way of salvation — of reforming and sanctifying 
 the soul — of delivering mankind, and each individ- 
 ual man, from sin, and bringing all to righteousness. 
 Their unfolding of the system which they taught 
 was wholly for a practical end. We find them 
 accordingly, in all their writings, placing the prac- 
 tical application to the personal and inmost life 
 
 167 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 after the doctrinal teaching and argument, and 
 making the latter preparatory to the former. They 
 did not enter into religious controversy for its own 
 sake. They did not stand on the watch-towers of 
 Zion to defend the truth simply as truth, but rather 
 to defend, and explain, and enforce it because they 
 believed it to be the only foundation of right living. 
 It was for the reason that the Christian teaching 
 would, through the working of its power within his 
 soul, lead the man who had been wont to steal to 
 do so no more — and for this reason as the first and 
 great and all-important reason — that Paul urged 
 upon him to guard himself against the deceits of 
 error, and to keep the faith. If the man succeeded 
 in holding the faith-system in its every minutest 
 point, so that the sleight of men or their cunning 
 craftiness could not move him in the smallest degree 
 from the form of sound words — so long as he did 
 not cease to steal his right belief was worthless, — 
 the Apostolic message had done him no good. 
 
 The claim which Christianity made for itself, as 
 it entered the world ; the ground on which it asked 
 men to receive it, was, not that it contained a 
 system of doctrine beautiful to contemplate, but 
 that it presented the best, and even the only way of 
 developing the life of God in the soul of man. On 
 the satisfying of this claim its success in the world 
 must depend. The Master accepted the necessity 
 of the position which He assumed. By their fruits 
 ye shall know them. He set forth as the principle 
 of judging; and His immediate followers fully 
 recognised what He had set before them. As the 
 
 i68 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 ages have moved forward, however, the Church 
 has, many times, forgotten, or in large measure lost 
 sight of this fact. It has, how often, given itself to 
 fiery, and even savage discussion about the details 
 of believing, and become careless and negligent 
 about the heart-power of faith in the individual 
 man, and its results in action. It has demanded the 
 acceptance of doctrine as the essential condition of 
 entrance into the heavenly kingdom, and has ceased 
 to remember the Pauline word : If I know all mys- 
 teries and all knowledge in the Christian system, 
 and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, 
 but have not love, I am nothing. But this is because 
 the Church has not reached the standard of the 
 Christianity which it professes, or been guided by 
 the teaching of Christ and His Apostles in the truest 
 and deepest meaning of it. 
 
 I ask you then, in the second place, to observe 
 how Christianity approaches those to whom it offers 
 its teaching. To take what will seem to us all, 
 doubtless, one of the more extreme cases — how 
 does it come to the man who has been a thief? 
 It lays before him its doctrine of salvation by faith, 
 in the simplest way, and asks him to accept it and 
 make it a power — the power — in his life. How 
 shall I do this? he says. The first thing for you to 
 do, it answers — the special thing for you as an 
 individual man — in developing the new life within 
 you and opening the way for its fruitage is, to give 
 up your old habit. Let him that stole steal no 
 more. This ceasing to steal is, for you, the turning- 
 
 169 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 point of your career. In this way only can you 
 reverse your course, and free yourself from your sin. 
 You may believe anything or everything — you may 
 admire the precepts or doctrines given you by the 
 New Testament — you may cultivate many virtues 
 and have many good emotions, but if you continue 
 your course of stealing, without effort to alter it, you 
 are no Christian. After the same manner, as he goes 
 on in his life — when the temptation and the weak- 
 ness which come down to him from his old way of 
 living make him liable to fall into sin, the same voice 
 addresses itself to his mind and heart. Steal no 
 more : — let this be the motto and maxim of your 
 life. 
 
 Christianity does not say to such a man, guard 
 yourself against drunkenness ; perhaps the man has 
 never been intoxicated in his life-time ; - — nor, take 
 care not to be angry; perhaps he is good-natured 
 under all circumstances; — nor, let no corrupt 
 speech proceed out of your mouth ; possibly his 
 speech is not corrupt. It does not divide its forces, 
 or begin its attack upon him in the wrong place. It 
 concentrates its energy upon that which is the centre 
 of the evil, — that which stands in the way of the 
 Divine life in the soul — and says, in a trumpet-tone 
 and with a never-ceasing repetition, You have been 
 a thief. Be an honest man. 
 
 The extreme character of the case supposed takes 
 it out of our experience, but may only render its 
 lesson more clear and more emphatic. It is a rare 
 thing, no doubt, that one of our ordinary churches 
 contains in its membership a man who lived, before 
 
 170 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 his conversion, the hfe of a thief. The churches of 
 the ApostoHc age, whose members had been brought 
 out of the vices of heathenism, may have had in 
 their circle many such persons. But the message of 
 Christianity is a similar one to all. As it opens its 
 teaching to every man, it bids him cease to practise 
 his own peculiar sins and become a new man. 
 What is the membership of our churches? Not 
 composed, indeed, of men who, in the vulgar sense, 
 have been in the habit of stealing. But, in how 
 many cases, of men who are willing to take advan- 
 tage of their neighbours, or who in a petty way and 
 in minor things fall below the highest standard of 
 honesty, or who cherish their money as if it were the 
 greatest good, or who are ungenerous, or are tyran- 
 nical in their families, provoking their children to 
 wrath, or are so immovably obstinate as to make all 
 who are dependent on them lose much of the happi- 
 ness of life, or are so narrow-minded that they have 
 no charity for others' views. To each of these classes 
 of persons, and the many others of which we see 
 examples in the churches of every name, the 
 Christian teaching directs its demands just where 
 they are needed. To the man who never gives K 
 away his money, for example, it does not say, first of 
 all, Attend the weekly prayer-meeting; Give an 
 hour daily to religious meditation ; Establish family 
 prayers in your house. Much less does it exhort 
 him to give up slandering his neighbours — -a thing 
 which he has never had any impulse to do ; or to 
 avoid quickness of angry passion — to which his 
 natural disposition is a stranger. It penetrates the 
 
 171 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 inmost heart of his living, and bids him begin, and 
 begin at once, to give away his money as he ought 
 to give it. The love of that money is the stronghold 
 of evil within his soul; and, until it is taken away in 
 its all-controlling force, the work of Christianity is 
 either not begun, or not perfected, in his case, no 
 matter how sweet-tempered he may be, or how many 
 hours he may spend in meditation. So to the 
 obstinate man, it says, Lay aside your obstinacy ; to 
 the narrow-minded, Give up your narrow-minded- 
 ness ; to the man who is indolent. Be earnest and 
 laborious ; to each and every man. Cease to do the 
 particular evil thing or things which you, personally 
 and individually, are in the habit of doing. Build up 
 character by beginning at the foundation. 
 
 It deals with men as John the Baptist did with the 
 different classes who came before him. To the 
 publicans, — as they asked him, What must we 
 do? — he answered. Extort no more than that which 
 is appointed you. This was the gateway of a 
 righteous life in their case. To the soldiers, pre- 
 senting the same question, his reply was, Do violence 
 to no man, and, Be content with your wages. To 
 the multitudes of selfish listeners, who desired to 
 know his demand upon them, he said. He that hath 
 two coats, let him impart to him that hath none, and 
 he that hath food, let him do likewise. How simple 
 the answer was. Be content with your wages. Be 
 satisfied with your just dues. Be charitable and 
 generous. The answer is the same to-day : Do the 
 duty which lies directly before you in your individ- 
 ual pathway. Abandon the wrong in your feelings, 
 
 172 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 your action, your attitude towards others, your daily 
 living, whatever it may be. Let the inward life- 
 power which you receive from the new faith impel 
 you to do thus. This is the way in which you are 
 to begin or to go forward in the Christian course. 
 
 Whether you are a Christian believer already or 
 not, my friend, the Christian teaching calls you to x 
 one thing : to look at your own life — not at mankind 
 in general, or at the men around you, but at your 
 own life — and to see what is your own evil habit or 
 sin. Is it dishonesty, or unfaithfulness in the dis- 
 charge of duties, or idleness, or censoriousness, or 
 frivolity, or disregard of others' feelings, or any 
 major or minor fault, as the world measures the 
 greater and the less. Whatever it may be, — and ,- 
 we all know what it is, in the depths of our souls — 
 the word that comes to us is: Put an end to it; 
 overcome it ; let its place be taken by the opposite 
 virtue ; just as to him that stole it is, Steal no more, 
 but labour, working with your own hands, that you 
 may have whereof to give to him that hath need. It 
 is a thoroughly individual matter — this Christian ^^ 
 doctrine. For this reason, it strikes at the root of 
 character, and is truly reformatory of the life. It 
 does not leave the inquirer or the disciple to fill his 
 hours with mere meditation on the beauty of holi- 
 ness, or even on the love of Christ — much less with 
 passing judgment on sins of which some men, but 
 not himself, are guilty. But it summons him, for 
 the love of Christ and for His sake, to commit his 
 own sins no more ; and if it cannot persuade him to 
 do this, its work for him is a failure. 
 
 173 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 We see thus, in the third place, that the success 
 of Christianity in the world can be hoped for mainly 
 — if not, indeed, only — from its success in this 
 
 "^ way in individual lives. We are passing, at present, 
 through a season of great and widespread doubt. 
 Everything connected with the Christian system is 
 questioned or denied. The enemies of the faith are 
 growing bolder, and its friends are sometimes prone 
 to be discouraged. What — above all things else — 
 is to check the evil, and to prove to mankind — to 
 the doubters and deniers, even — the truth of our 
 faith? The thing which can surely accomplish the 
 end is, that every Christian believer should do just 
 what has been referred to — put aside, by reason of 
 
 - his faith and because of its power within him, the 
 wrong that is in his own life, and bring into its place 
 the right. When this is done, the fruits will bear 
 their own irresistible witness to the tree. The world 
 
 ^ will believe the doctrine, when it sees the life. 
 
 Let us take the case of a single community — 
 the one, for example, in which we have our abiding 
 place. Who can doubt that, if every professing 
 Christian in such a community were to show to all 
 
 ' about him that the Christian principle, implanted in 
 his heart, was really overcoming the evils of his char- 
 acter, the power of Christianity would be multiplied 
 tenfold throughout the community. And if it were 
 so everywhere, how long would doubts about the 
 truth of the system continue? We do not need 
 laborious defences of the faith by able disputants 
 so much as conformity to what the faith teaches in the 
 daily actions which spring from the inner life of the 
 
 174 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 man. Keep the unity of the faith, not by discus- 
 sion and reasoning among yourselves or with the ^ 
 enemy, but rather by living and acting as true dis- 
 ciples of Christ. The power of the truth and the 
 triumph of the faith are in the hands of each be- 
 liever. He must be faithful to the charge committed 
 to him, faithful in his own sphere and in his own 
 life, or the victory will become so much harder to 
 attain or so much longer delayed. If Christian men 
 everywhere, and always, will practise the virtues — 
 the common, human virtues, as they are sometimes 
 called — which Christianity teaches, and will show 
 by their lives that they practise them under the in- 
 fluence and teaching of Christian love, the sceptics 
 will lose the power of their scepticism, so far as 
 other men are concerned, and they will be the ob- 
 ject of fear and apprehension no more. 
 
 Our train of thought thus far readily suggests to 
 us, as a fourth matter of reflection, the answer to the 
 question of duty for each and every Christian as 
 he stands related to the church and to the world. 
 Those who have recently entered the Christian life, 
 and especially those who are young men or women, 
 are often anxious about the matter of work. What 
 shall they do as disciples of Christ? This matter of 
 religious work has been made peculiarly prominent 
 of late years, and many are perplexed about it — 
 ready to put forth their efforts, but not knowing 
 how, or when, or where. To such persons, and to 
 all, the Christian teaching says : The great power 
 of the truth in the world is the individual life — the 
 
 175 
 
y- 
 
 THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 inner life of the individual as manifesting itself by the 
 outgoing of its own forces into true and righteous 
 personal living among men. Your greatest power, 
 my friend, lies in your ceasing, evidently to all 
 around you, to be what you were as an unconverted 
 man, and in being the opposite. What did Paul say 
 to the Ephesian church members, old and young 
 alike? He said. Let all bitterness, and wrath, and 
 anger, and clamour, and railing be put away from 
 you, with all malice. Let there be no covetousness, 
 or uncleanness, or falsehood, or unfruitful works of 
 darkness among you. Speak the truth, each one of 
 you, with his neighbour. Let not the sun go down 
 upon your wrath. If any one has been accustomed, 
 in his former life, to steal, let him steal no more. 
 In any and every way, be no longer a partaker with 
 the sons of disobedience. Put off the old man from 
 yourself, and put on the new man. Give to him 
 that hath need. Be kind, tender-hearted, forgiving 
 each other. If you are a child, obey your parents, 
 and honour them. If you are a father, see that you 
 do not provoke your children. Whatever your con- 
 dition, walk in that condition worthily of the calling 
 wherewith you were called. Be thus imitators of 
 God, as dear children. This was the work which he 
 gave these early Christians to do ; and as they did 
 it they commended the faith which they professed to 
 all about them, and the Church grew in numbers 
 and in power. 
 
 The same message comes to Christians every- 
 where, in our day. You desire, my friend, to do 
 something for Christ — to exert an influence for 
 
 176 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 Him, and His cause, in the place and among the 
 community where you Hve ; and you ask. What is 
 the work, and where is the opening for it? The 
 Apostle's answer is : It opens in your own individual 
 daily living. Your life may be very limited in its 
 circle of action ; it may be very wide in its range. 
 But the message is the same. Are you a father? — 
 I take an example from the life of those who are 
 mature or older men — see how you are living with 
 and before your household and your children. If 
 you have been wilful, or tyrannical, or unsympa- 
 thetic, or prone to insist upon your own views or 
 wishes, to the disregard of those who are under 
 your care — if you have not been tender-hearted or 
 forgiving, considerate or magnanimous, free from 
 wrath or bitterness — go home to your house to- 
 day, and apply to yourselves the bidding which Paul 
 gave to the men who had been stealing : that they 
 should do so no more, but should live as honest 
 and true men. Begin to be kind ; put away wilful- 
 ness ; let your children know that you are ready to 
 consider their feelings, and not only their feelings, 
 but their thoughts and opinions; show them that 
 your own opinions are not held, and violently en- 
 forced upon them, because you inherited them from 
 your fathers, or formed them under the influences 
 of a former generation, which influences no longer 
 exist. Be a Christian man, in all sympathy, gentle- 
 ness, large-mindedness, self-sacrifice, sincerity, per- 
 fect truth — doing every duty of your position as a 
 father, as Christ would have you do it. 
 
 How long a time would pass, my friend, before 
 
 12 Ijr? 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 your household would begin to feel the power of 
 Christianity as they, perchance, had never felt it 
 before? How long, before the knowledge and in- 
 fluence of your Christian living would reach men 
 outside of your household, and they would begin 
 to say to one another, and to themselves. There is 
 a truth in the doctrine which that man professes to 
 hold, for it has gone down into the recesses and 
 fountains of his moral being, and made him a new 
 and lovely man? And what Christian work for the 
 neighbourhood, or town, or city, could be better 
 than this? What work of yours could, by any 
 means, be half as effective? But this lies directly 
 before you, and may be begun in your own dwelling 
 to-day. 
 
 You are a young man, perchance, just working 
 your way into life. What is the call to you? To 
 exhibit faithfulness in all little things ; to be truth- 
 ful, honest, upright; to be manly, earnest, devoted 
 to what is good ; to be kindly, ready for every ser- 
 vice of friendliness, a generous Christian youth. 
 There is work enough to do, without turning aside 
 from that which God opens before you where you 
 are. You need not seek it. It is present with you, 
 and meets you at every step. Christ desires you to 
 be a Christian in your own sphere, and in your own 
 heart. By being so, you exert an influence greater 
 than you can in any other way. 
 
 That positive Christian efforts for the religious 
 welfare of the community — teaching, and exhorta- 
 tion, and persuasion, and benevolent aiding and giv- 
 ing, and the many other things which we think of as 
 
 178 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 connected with this matter — are demanded, no 
 Christian will deny. These things are of vast im- 
 portance. They are a vital and essential part of the 
 duty of the Church. They constitute, in no incon- 
 siderable measure, that for which the Church exists. 
 But as we read the Apostolic letters to the early 
 churches — though the command to make known 
 the good-tidings everywhere is most clearly set 
 forth — it is a most noticeable and impressive fact, 
 that the burden of the practical exhortations, which 
 are represented as growing out of the Christian 
 truth, is not the fulfilling of this command, but the 
 developing of personal Christian hfe. How strik- 
 ingly all the Epistles abound in urgent appeals to 
 the readers to be honest, honourable, merciful, pure, 
 generous, truth-telling, gentle; — not to be extor- 
 tionate, covetous, lovers of money, wrathful ; — not 
 to be contentious, or given to much wine, or men- 
 pleasers, or full of envyings and jealousy ; — not 
 to lie, or deceive, or be guilty of slander, or of 
 hatred. 
 
 It was the individual soul that the Divinely com- 
 missioned preachers were aiming at and seeking for. 
 They knew that, if the doctrine purified and per- 
 fected the soul of one man, it would be irresistible. 
 It would extend its influence to other souls, because 
 it would show, beyond all possibility of doubting, 
 that it could bring the life of God into human living 
 — and a doctrine that can do this must be true. 
 If the man who had stolen all his life could be 
 brought to cease from stealing; — if — though at a 
 wide remove from this man — the one who had 
 
 179 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 never been tender-hearted could be made kind and 
 forgiving, Paul knew that his work and mission 
 would be accomplished. It is so everywhere and 
 in all ages. The mightiest influence of Christianity 
 in the city or town where you reside, my friend, or in 
 the one where I am hving, is not to be found in any 
 benevolent organisation, or mission work, or even 
 in any pastor's ministrations and efforts more truly 
 than it is in the simple daily Hfe of some individual 
 man, prominent before the entire community, who 
 is, in the expressive language of the Scriptures, 
 known and read of all men as a true Christian — 
 a man whose faith works by love, and purifies the 
 heart — a man who in every recess and corner and 
 secret place of all his being lives the life which he 
 professes. 
 
 The words of the Apostle may seem to the reader 
 whose eye and thought pass quickly over them, or 
 by whom the depth below the surface is not seen, to 
 move only in the outward sphere — the sphere of 
 action. Do not continue to do what you have been 
 doing. The man that stole is exhorted to steal no 
 more. It is all external. But when the mind pene- 
 trates below the surface, and gets the vision of the 
 origin and movement and vital power and new-creat- 
 ing results of the forces which were in the Apostle's 
 thought when he used the words, it grasps the sig- 
 nificance of what is said, and knows that the depths 
 are in the internal. The man who has sinned gives 
 up the old sinning and puts the opposite virtue in 
 its place, because there is a new manhood in him; 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 and, as he docs the one thing and the other, a force 
 goes into the new manhood which makes it grow in 
 strength and beauty. The inward and the outward 
 move together. But the movement begins with the 
 inward and ends also with the inward ; and so the 
 thoughts which the PauHne words that we have been 
 considering bring to us are thoughts of and for the 
 inner life. 
 
 i8i 
 
XIII 
 
 LOVE IS THE FULFILLING OF THE LAW 
 
 He that loveth his neighbour hath fulfilled the law. For this. 
 Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shall not kill, TJiou 
 shall not steal. Thou shalt not bear false witness. Thou shall 
 not covet, and if there be any other commafidmettt, it is 
 summed up in this word, namely, Thou shalt lo7'e thy neigh- 
 bour as thyself. Love worketh no ill to his neighbour : love 
 therefore is the fulfibnent of the law. — Romans xiii. 8-10. 
 
 THE reader of this passage, when he views it in 
 the Hght of the suggestions which it offers with 
 respect to the Christian teaching and life, cannot fail 
 to be impressed by the contrast presented in the two 
 expressions which give it much of its characteristic 
 force and emphasis — the contrast between TJioii 
 shall not, and Thojt shall. This contrast, in one 
 view of the matter, may be regarded as a contrast 
 between the Old Testament system and the New. 
 The Old Testament system dealt very largely with 
 prohibitions as connected with special wrongs and 
 sins. The several commands which are here cited 
 from the great and central law itself are of this char- 
 acter. They together make up the entire second 
 portion of that law, which relates to our duties to 
 our fellow-men. We are not to kill or to steal, not 
 
 182 
 
THE INNER LIEE 
 
 to bear false witness or to covet — that is, the 
 thought is fixed upon one or another of the things 
 which men, and particularly the men to whom the 
 words were originally addressed, are or were dis- 
 posed to do or to feel, and each one in its turn is 
 forbidden. It sometimes seems strange to us, as 
 we hear the words read as the Divine law still bind- 
 ing, that nothing further or more comprehensive 
 should have been added. Can it be, we say, that 
 there is no more than this in the setting forth of 
 human duty as connected with those about us? 
 And so, at times, it happens that the attempt is 
 made to find in these individual prohibitions a wider 
 significance than the words contain, as if all that we 
 can see in the sphere of obligation were intended to 
 be conveyed in words which, of themselves, have so 
 much of limitation. But this mode of dealing with 
 the commands is one which loses sight of what they 
 really are. They prohibit special sins and evils, 
 and have reference to these. 
 
 The same thing is true, very largely, of the law, 
 in its more detailed presentation, as belonging to 
 the older revelation of it. Thou shalt not, as we 
 may say, was the characteristic form of its expres- 
 sion. It was so, because of the stage of develop- 
 ment of those to whom the teaching came. In the 
 great progress of the Divine plan of education for 
 the race, the men of those ages represented the 
 period of childhood. They were to be led to right 
 moral ideas and right moral action, as all who are 
 at the beginning must be, in largest measure by 
 knowing what they should not do. The proJiibition 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 of wrong was, by the necessity of the age, the chief 
 means of communicating the thought of right, and 
 bringing men to it. The early moral systems of 
 teaching answered, in this regard, to the Divine 
 system. They did so, because there was not readi- 
 ness as yet for what was of another order, or what 
 moved from another starting-point. The result was, 
 that character did not reach its highest point. It 
 never does when the limitations of the age necessi- 
 tate the limitations of the teaching, after this manner 
 — and we are not to find fault with the men, or the 
 system, because of what could not be expected at the 
 time. It is those to whom much is given, of whom 
 much will be required. The child's development is 
 not the man's, and the method of leading the child 
 in his moral life may fitly be different from that by 
 which the man is led. 
 
 But the latter method is higher than the former, 
 even as the man's development is higher. The 
 positive system is more and greater than the nega- 
 tive. Thou shalt reaches beyond TJiou shalt not. 
 And here we come to the first characteristic of the 
 Christian teaching. It is not. Thou shalt not kill, 
 or steal, or bear false witness, but. Thou shalt love. 
 We may look through the New Testament, and we 
 shall find it everywhere the same. There are, in- 
 deed, prohibitions in many places within the range 
 of its different books — and prohibitions which 
 relate to particular and special evils. But no stu- 
 dent of these writings, who observes what they set 
 before him and grasps their controlling thought, 
 can be without the impression that it is the positive 
 
 1S4 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 side of moral teaching, which is altogether prom- 
 inent and everywhere the same. Whether it be 
 Jesus himself who speaks, or Paul, or John, the 
 negative sinks into comparative insignificance. The 
 great active force is demanded, and is called into 
 being by the demand. As it comes forward into 
 activity, it accomplishes the result. The single 
 prohibitions fall into the line of its working and lose 
 themselves in its living and transforming energy. 
 In this very passage, how clear and plain it is : 
 Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. He that 
 loveth his neighbour hath, in that very act and fact, 
 fulfilled the law. All that is forbidden is included 
 in this one positive command. And after the 
 same manner in the comprehensive exhortation for 
 Christian life, which opens and covers the entire 
 practical section of the epistle from which the pas- 
 sage is taken, we have the words : Present your 
 bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God ; 
 and be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind. 
 If this exhortation is fulfilled, the opposite negative. 
 Be not conformed to this world, as well as every sug- 
 gestion which is subordinate to it, is also fulfilled. 
 The power of the Christian teaching, in one aspect 
 of it, is in its seizing thus upon the positive element 
 in the moral and spiritual sphere and pressing this 
 upon the soul as the force for character and for 
 true life. Herein also is its adaptation for the 
 moral development of manhood, as contrasted with 
 childhood. It is the positive force which makes 
 the man. The command to do the right appeals 
 to the manly energies and sets them in motion. It 
 
 185 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 has life in itself in a degree and measure of which 
 the prohibition knows nothing. 
 
 In the second place, the reader who carefully 
 observes the passage in its negative and positive 
 parts will notice that, while the prohibitions are of 
 the nature of rules of living in special lines, the 
 positive command takes hold of a great principle. 
 Love is the controlling power of the soul. When 
 once implanted within the soul, it applies its force 
 wherever it needs to be applied. This is strikingly 
 manifest in the matters of which the writer is speak- 
 ing in these verses. They refer to specific wrongs 
 inflicted by one man upon another. How shall 
 they be prevented and the tendency towards them 
 be overcome? Not by forbidding them, one after 
 another, as if this were the main thing to be done, 
 says the New Testament teaching, but by bringing 
 a principle of life to bear upon all action and feel- 
 ing as between man and man. The law in its 
 relation to one's fellow man is fulfilled by love, for 
 the simple and sufficient reason that love does no ill 
 to the fellow man. Love must, for this reason, 
 cover and include within itself every prohibition of 
 the doing of particular evil. It does no ill, because 
 it pervades life and character everywhere. It ac- 
 complishes its end also, because as a positive force 
 it excludes the desire to do evil — overcoming, at 
 the very centre of character, the source of evil 
 action by establishing itself as the source of good. 
 
 It is interesting to observe — and this is of the 
 very essence of the Gospel — how Jesus, in His 
 
 i86 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 teaching, everywhere turns the thought of His 
 hearers from the outward act to the inward thought 
 and feehng. The sin itself, He says, in referring to 
 these very commands of the law which Paul here 
 cites, is not to be discovered in the mere action, 
 but rather behind and beneath it. It lies in the 
 thought or desire of the soul which prompts the 
 act. If this desire and thought be made right, all 
 danger of the committing of the act is at once 
 removed. Put love at the centre, and the work is 
 complete. After a similar manner. He declares to 
 the scribe who asked Him, as if there were higher 
 and lower commands in the law, which command- 
 ment was first, that love is the first and all-inclusive 
 thing enjoined by God. So also, He calls upon 
 His most immediate and intimate disciples, along 
 their course of life with Him and especially at the 
 end, to let love abide in their hearts, and bids them, 
 for the future, in their separation from Him, to love 
 one another. 
 
 It is remarkable also how Jesus — even as Paul 
 does here — when He was dealing with those to 
 whom the Old Testament law was familiar, seized 
 upon those thoughts and sentences of the Old 
 Testament in which the deepest or widest meaning, 
 as yet not fully apprehended, lay, and threw the 
 light of great principles upon them. Thou shalt 
 love thy neighbour as thyself — which had been 
 limited in its application, and only half understood 
 in its life-power — became, as Jesus used the words, 
 and as Paul used them in imitation of Him, the 
 summation of all that God would ask of men in 
 
 187 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 their relations to each other. Love avoids all evil 
 and urges to all good, and thus there can be noth- 
 ing greater in the commandments than this, and 
 nothing that reaches beyond this. 
 
 The same thing is evident in the other great 
 matter of the law — the relation of man to God 
 Himself. The various duties and services, which 
 the Jewish system asked for in its training of the 
 people for what was far off in the future time, were 
 only manifestations of the loving spirit, or means of 
 bringing the mind and heart into nearness to God. 
 When they sank into outward and formal service, or 
 lost their deepest significance as duties by becom- 
 ing spiritless and perfunctory, the educating force, 
 and the very life itself, passed out of them. So far 
 as they were counted as so much doing attended by 
 so much result, and the saving of the soul became a 
 mere reward of outward action, the divine element 
 in the system gave place to the human, and the 
 true righteousness was unknown. So plain is it 
 that the real vitality and living power of the older 
 system were wholly in the central force of love. 
 
 But it was Jesus who made this central force 
 known in all its significance. By His teaching the 
 first part of the law was filled with love, even as 
 was the second part; and, in the words, Thou shalt 
 love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, was found 
 the summation of all the prohibitions of the law — 
 to worship no other gods, to make no graven image, 
 not to take the Divine name in vain ; and not only 
 this, but of all positive duty and all holy feeling 
 towards the Divine Father. The answer to the 
 
 188 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 scribe, which involved the statement of love to God 
 and man, contained in itself the substance of the 
 Christian teaching. There is, there can be, no 
 other commandment greater than these. 
 
 Thus — as in the former case, where Thou sJialt 
 not precedes, and at length gives way to, Thoit shalt 
 — the Divine movement here again is in the line of 
 education. The rules are for the early time, as 
 they are, ever and everywhere, for childhood. The 
 principles which include and pervade the rules, and 
 which become the living force for character, are 
 made known, and brought to bear upon the soul in 
 their true influence, when the early time gives way 
 to the later and childhood passes into manhood. 
 We are not therefore — if we would be right-minded 
 in our thinking — to find fault with or misjudge the 
 earlier system, or the men who lived under it, as if 
 God could not have been dealing with them to the 
 end of righteousness, or leading them, according to 
 the possibilities of the age indeed, yet really, to the 
 attainment of it. But above all, we are not to misap- 
 prehend the significance and privilege and power of 
 that system and teaching under which we ourselves 
 live. The Christian doctrine has its meaning in a 
 life-principle, and its power is found where its 
 meaning is. 
 
 The careful reader, who considers these verses, 
 will also see in them the suggestion that the life- 
 principle, according to the Christian teaching, is 
 expected to work in the life in a reasonable and 
 natural way. As thyself is set, in the command, as 
 
 189 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 the measure of the love to a fellow-man. And this 
 expression is defined and limited, as it were, by the 
 following words. Love worketh no ill to his neigh- 
 bour; therefore love is the fulfilment of the law. 
 The man who comes under the true influence of the 
 teaching is so far io love, as to do no evil ; to refrain 
 from all such injury to his fellow-man as is indicated 
 in the prohibitions of the ancient law, and from all 
 evil of a minor character which is suggested by them, 
 even as he would refrain from injury to himself. He 
 is, as he turns to the positive side of the matter, to do 
 his neighbour good as readily and earnestly as he 
 would do himself good. The impulses of his heart, 
 that is, as impelling to action, are not to centre in or 
 upon himself and his own well-being, but are to 
 move outward towards the welfare of others. 
 
 But he is not called upon in every sense, and every 
 outlook of his life, to do for them what he does for 
 himself The life of each man is entrusted in a 
 peculiar manner to his own keeping, and there must 
 be an interest in and devotion to it, which cannot be 
 given to any or every other life. When Jesus said 
 to His own disciples that they should love one 
 another as He had loved them, He did not mean 
 that they should love every disciple with an equal 
 love, or that the love, in any case, should absolutely 
 equal His own. This could not have been His 
 demand, for His power of loving was greater than 
 theirs. He meant that, in every case, they should 
 love according to the possibilities of their nature 
 and condition, even as He had done. He had loved 
 them all alike, in that He had lived to do them 
 
 190 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 good. He called upon them to love one another 
 after the same manner. The meaning of the law, as 
 interpreted by His teaching, is readiness ever to do 
 good and unwillingness ever to do evil. It is, in a 
 single word, love which thus moves the man always 
 in his relation to his fellow-man. 
 
 This love — which duly regards the personal life, 
 but continually reaches out to other lives — lifts the 
 soul in love to Him who is higher than all. The 
 brotherhood of men opens towards the fatherhood 
 of God. And so, as the command which enjoins 
 the spirit of the brotherhood carries on the man to 
 the fulfilment of that greater command, which calls 
 for all-controlling love towards the Divine Father, 
 the end of all true living is secured. The life-prin- 
 ciple is one, only with different outworkings. It 
 pervades the soul, and inspires its movements 
 whithersoever it turns in all its relations, and thus 
 becomes for each and every man the complete ful- 
 filment of the law in both of its parts. The enmity 
 to God and man alike is done away in every mani- 
 festation of it, and it passes into an affection which, 
 as related to the one, is more than the love to one's 
 self — supreme and above all things; — and, as re- 
 lated to the other, is equal to the love to self — ever 
 moving outward, as readily as it turns inward. The 
 working, everywhere, is in accordance with the 
 natural movement of the life. 
 
 In view of the thoughts which have thus been pre- 
 sented, let us not misunderstand what the Christian 
 system is. We are all prone to put ourselves on 
 
 191 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 the standpoint of the older teaching. As we are 
 called to the new life, or as we go forward in it, the 
 rules and prohibitions assume the place of promi- 
 nence in our thinking. We stand just outside the 
 gate of Christian living, and, as we look inward 
 upon the path along which we are asked to move, 
 we seem to see everywhere placed before us the 
 words. Thou shalt not. These words appear to attach 
 themselves to actions, and pleasures, and purposes 
 for our own well-being, and plans and hopes for the 
 earthly career. The doctrine, we say to ourselves, 
 is a forbidding one. It denies us almost everything 
 on which we have fixed our thoughts and desires. 
 It penetrates everywhere, and makes life a hard ser- 
 vice. It may perhaps be fitted for the later years, 
 when the joy of youth and manhood come to their 
 end, and preparation must be made for what lies 
 beyond the boundary of this world. But we cannot 
 listen to the call now, when life is too happy in its 
 possibilities and enjoyments for the suffering of pro- 
 hibition on every side. And so we turn back from 
 the gate as it opens for us and refuse to obey the 
 summons. 
 
 But all this is misapprehension. Christianity is 
 not a negative moral system, or one that is made 
 up of rules or prohibitions only which attend the man 
 at every step. Its teaching is positive. The spring 
 and power of life, which it gives, is a principle. 
 You are invited, my friend, to take the love-principle 
 into your soul, and let it work there. To move you 
 to accept the invitation — the love of God as your 
 Father, dealing tenderly with you, watching over 
 
 192 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 you always, bestowing upon you a multitude of 
 blessings, filling the years for you as they pass with 
 more and more of good, is set before your mind, to 
 the end that you may, if possible, see how much 
 greater and better He is than all other friends. 
 To impel you still further, the relation of all other 
 men — like the relation of yourself — to Him as 
 Father is made known, and you are awakened, if 
 you can be, to the grand, inspiring thought of the 
 great brotherhood, with common needs, and hopes, 
 and life. And, as uniting in Himself the Divine and 
 human, Jesus appears before you, according to the 
 Christian teaching, with His divine example and 
 His Jiuman affection^ and asks you to become like 
 Him in your soul's living. The principle is im- 
 planted within you, if you will receive it, and you 
 are left to its working. Life now begins from a 
 new point — from the opposite point, as contrasted 
 with what you were thinking of, — and it develops 
 in the happiest and most natural way. 
 
 What is the working? It is the same with that 
 of the love-principle everywhere. It excludes the 
 wrong things and the evil desires, not by turning 
 the mind to the prohibitory command relating to 
 each sinful act or course of action, but by so filling 
 the mind with itself that the wish to do ill passes 
 away. It is wonderful how the Christian teaching, 
 with a sublime confidence, leaves the love-principle, 
 as it enters the disciple's soul, to itself — assured 
 that it will accomplish its work. It has no doubts 
 or fears, for it knows the transforming power which 
 the living principle has within it. Its outlook is ever 
 13 193 
 
TIIOUGIirS OF AND FOR 
 
 forward, and it sees the results in the future. And 
 well it may have this confidence, for the love-force 
 is the positive all-creating and all-subduing life- 
 force. You are asked to begin the Christian life just 
 as you would begin any other life where the love- 
 force is the governing principle. The positive ele- 
 ment of the life takes care of all on the negative 
 side; and, just as far and as fast as the character 
 grows, the hardness of giving up what is forbidden 
 ceases, and the development becomes continuous 
 and joyous. Look at the growth of love anywhere, 
 and you will see that it carries all this in itself. 
 
 The Christian life has great promises, my friends. 
 Whatever else we may do respecting it, let us not 
 turn aside from its call, and lose its gifts, through 
 a misapprehension of what it asks of us, and of what 
 it offers to us as its moving power. 
 
 But our misunderstanding is not only at the 
 beginning and while we are yet outside of the gate- 
 way. We linger often under the influence of the 
 old ideas, after we have been long moving on in 
 the new way of living. We think of the Christian 
 system still as one of rules and prohibitions, and 
 concentrate our thought upon these. TJioti sJialtnot 
 continues to be the great word of command. As 
 the result of this we become severe in our judgment 
 of others and, oftentimes, of ourselves, also. The 
 prohibitions of the law are studied, perhaps, in all 
 their minuteness as they may be made to bear upon 
 present action, or they are extended to a sphere 
 of conduct which they were not intended to cover.. 
 If another violates them in any measure, as they 
 
 194 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 are thus extended and applied, we declare him to 
 be losing sight of duty or wandering off from the 
 Christian path. If we find ourselves failing at times, 
 even in matters the wrong of which is questionable, 
 we become anxious for our own well-being. We 
 move downward or backward from the Christian 
 idea to the idea of the old system as the Jews of 
 the time of Jesus understood it — losing sight of 
 its truest and deepest significance. 
 
 The revelation of the Gospel was other than this. 
 It was the revelation of the love-principle as the x 
 transforming life-power. It was the revelation, in 
 all clearness, of what had not been apprehended 
 before — the revelation of God as the Father of the 
 great brotherhood of men, and of love as the unit- 
 ing force binding the membership of the brother- 
 hood to one another and all alike to God. If the 
 love which answers the demands of the relationship 
 in which the man stands dwells in his heart, he can 
 be trusted in his action. The love itself fulfils the 
 law. Whatever he may do while love is trium- 
 phant within him, and while there is in the act, or 
 the feeling which prompts it, no inconsistency with 
 love, he may do rightly. If love be thus all-con- 
 trolling, all questions will settle themselves, and the 
 man may be where he will with the true life still 
 abiding in all its strength. The system of rules, 
 and of these only, has passed for him into a system 
 of principle, and he is free with the freedom that 
 is given by Christ. 
 
 And here is the educating power for manhood. 
 It is easier, in one sense, to be in the childhood 
 
 195 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 state, and to have rules set for us at every step, so 
 that we know just what we may, and may not, do. 
 Life needs comparatively little thought or decision 
 or resolution, when it is adjusted thus. But man- 
 hood is not appointed to be without thought, and 
 decision, and resolution. These are essential ele- 
 ments pertaining to it, as distinguished from child- 
 hood. The man is designed for principles, not rules 
 
 — to take them as the governing force of life — to 
 apply them in every critical moment of thought and 
 action. The responsibility of decision continually 
 develops the manly power. 
 
 And so Christianity works upon us, and in us, by 
 imposing upon our lives this responsibility. It deals 
 with us and treats us, thus, in the manliest way. It 
 tells us, at its first meeting with our souls, of what 
 we know in some measure from our own experience 
 
 — that love is the great working force for character. 
 It reveals to us — what is beyond our limited human 
 knowledge, but what we might hope to be true from 
 what we see of the human soul — that the same 
 force is that which brings us into nearest relation to 
 God and transforms us into His likeness. It points 
 us to God Himself, as having the same life-force in 
 His own Divine life, and as ever sending forth His 
 love to those who love Him. It thus offers to us 
 its great gift and bids us take it, with its word of 
 command. Thou shalt love God supremely, and thy 
 fellow-man as thyself. And then, when we accept 
 its offer and yield to its bidding, it tells us to go on 
 our way rejoicing. Love, it assures us, will answer 
 all questions, prompt all actions, control all life, 
 
 196 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 reject all evil, take to itself all good. Let it always 
 abide in the soul and do its own work. This is 
 what it says — and along the way, and at the end, 
 it brings its peaceful message to the soul in the 
 words, Love is the fulfilment of the law. 
 
 I commend to you, once more, my young friends, 
 the Christian message and the Christian teaching. 
 If you will receive into your souls the great life- 
 principle which is presented to you for your accep- 
 tance, it will become for you an ever-working power 
 — whose working will overcome evil as the days 
 and years pass. It will continually develop largest 
 and grandest manhood, and will bring beautiful and 
 peaceful life for all the future. The gift which 
 Christianity offers is a great one. It will become 
 greater to your thought, the more you know of it in 
 your own personal experience. Let your mind rest 
 upon it, and upon all that it bears with itself. 
 
 197 
 
XIV 
 
 LIKENESS TO CHRIST THE BEGINNING 
 AND END OF OUR SONSHIP TO GOD 
 
 Beloved^ jwiu are we childj-ett of God, and it is not yet made 
 nianifest what we shall be. We know that if he shall 
 be fnanifested, we shall be like himj for we shall see him 
 even as he is. — i John iii. 2. 
 
 ^T~^HE writer of these words, at the time of his 
 ■*- writing them, had had a very peculiar exper- 
 ience as related to the Christian truth and life. He 
 had been summoned very soon after the beginning 
 of the ministry of Jesus to the office and work of the 
 Apostleship and had, accordingly, had the most 
 abundant opportunities to learn from Jesus what He 
 had to teach on every subject connected with His 
 mission to the world and with the Divine revelation. 
 With a mind wonderfully adapted to receive the 
 truth and ever ready to penetrate as far as possible 
 into its deepest meaning, he must, as we cannot 
 doubt, have sought by questioning, by continued re- 
 flection, by careful study of the working of the truth 
 in his own mind and heart, and in the minds and 
 hearts of his fellow disciples, and by every means 
 within his power, to enter into the full possession of 
 what he had heard from the lips of his Master. A 
 long period had now passed since the Master's death, 
 
 198 
 
THE IiYNER LIFE 
 
 and, with the progress of these years, the more out- 
 ward communion, as it might be called, had changed 
 into the more inward one. But he had meditated 
 upon the truth, and in his soul had drawn near to 
 the source of truth, and had dwelt in thought upon 
 the development of his own interior life, and had 
 looked intently backward to the old experience, now 
 become the richest of all memories, and forward to 
 the great mysterious future ever drawing nearer to 
 himself. He was, at the date of his writing, almost 
 at the end of life here, and almost at the beginning 
 of life hereafter — when the hopes and dreams of 
 what is beyond most fill the soul. 
 
 It cannot but be a matter of interest to think of 
 these words of the epistle as revealing what one who 
 had been so intimately related to Jesus, and who Avas 
 so near to the promised reunion with Him, had 
 learned of the future life in its connection with the 
 present, and what he had not learned. 
 
 Of the special experiences of the future life he 
 had learned nothing. Two things in the teaching of 
 Jesus, and His intercourse with the Apostles, impress 
 us as very remarkable, I think, when we study the 
 Gospel history in relation to this matter. The first 
 is, that, although His teaching was continually of 
 the things belonging to the soul's life, and thus 
 moved oftentimes, as if by necessity, on the borders 
 of the hereafter, He seems never to have lifted the 
 veil for a moment, or given the Apostles even a 
 passing vision of the things which lay behind it. 
 He told them nothing which could be wrought 
 
 199 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 by their subsequent reflection into the semblance of 
 knowledge. The other thing is, if possible, more 
 strange and striking, to my own mind, than this. 
 It is, that they did not press Him with questions on 
 this matter, and try to gain from Him thereby some- 
 thing which might satisfy the eager inquiries and 
 strong desires of their own minds. There must 
 have been, as it would seem, some mysterious influ- 
 ence in His presence and character, and some won- 
 derful concentration of His words, in all His 
 intercourse with them, upon duty and service and 
 the inner life, which awed them into a silence almost 
 hke His own with reference to the unseen world. A 
 similar silence, if we may so express it, seems to 
 have continued with them and stilled their question- 
 ings, after they were left to their own thoughts, and 
 when the revelations of the Spirit came to them, to 
 lead them into the truth. 
 
 How often, and with how much interest, a mind 
 like that of the writer of this epistle, it would seem, 
 must have dwelt upon the circumstances and condi- 
 tions under which his own character might grow into 
 a higher than earthly completeness in another state of 
 existence. So we should say to ourselves, before 
 we read the record of his thoughts. But when we 
 read it, we find him telling us no more of these 
 things than we, who never saw the Lord and talked 
 with Him, can tell one another ; and even the ques- 
 tions which rise so often in our minds seem to have 
 been lost for him in the peaceful and loving confi- 
 dence in which he moved forward in the daily service 
 of God. We arc children of God, he says, but what 
 
 200 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 we shall be is not yet made manifest. lie says this 
 as calmly as if he had never dreamed of the possi- 
 bility of answering the question respecting the 
 future ; as if he had never seen a messenger from 
 the other world who knew everything relating to the 
 life there ; almost as if the details of that life had 
 been beyond the limits of his thought. 
 
 That he had thought, however, of the life beyond 
 is manifest from many passages in his writings, and 
 even from the one before us. It is manifest, also, 
 from what his writings reveal to us of himself. A 
 meditative, self-contemplative man, such as he was — 
 to whom the growth of mind and character is the 
 most important of all things in the world, and who 
 has an intense interest in the working and movement 
 of his own mind and character — cannot make the 
 present life the boundary of his thinking. As he 
 sees the wonderful capabilities of his soul, and the 
 hindrances and imperfections which beset it here, he 
 must go out in his hopes and imagination to a more 
 perfect state, in which the growth will be an un- 
 ending one. And so it doubtless was in his case ; 
 and he came to deep conviction, and even to as- 
 surance, as he meditated. Of the details and precise 
 conditions of the future he knew nothing indeed. 
 He was content to wait for this knowledge until all 
 should be revealed. But that a better and higher 
 life was before him he was well-assured, and what 
 would be its great characteristic, and the source of 
 its blessedness, he knew with a knowledge that was 
 like the realisation of the blessedness in his own 
 soul. It is not yet made manifest what we shall be ; 
 
 20I 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 but we know that when He shall be manifested, we 
 shall be like Him. 
 
 Let us look somewhat more closely at what this 
 knowledge was, and how it grew within him. The 
 foundation of the thought of the verses seems to 
 be in the expression : children of God, The Johan- 
 nean idea of the child-relationship to God is that 
 of likeness to Him in character. As the human 
 , soul comes into union and fellowship with God, a 
 new principle is implanted within it, which corres- 
 ponds with that by which the Divine life itself is 
 guided. The entrance of this principle makes the 
 ~^ man God's child. This entrance is secured by faith, 
 which is the basis and essential element of spiritual 
 union. We may believe that the Apostle gained this 
 conception, so far as it was peculiar to himself, from 
 his own experience. We cannot suppose that, 
 when he first came to Jesus and gave himself up 
 to friendship with Him, there was any great crisis 
 or violent overturning in his life, as there was, for 
 example, in the case of Paul. His nature and his 
 earlier life were of a different sort. He was a man 
 of thoughtfulness, far more exclusively than Paul 
 was, and he had turned already with willingness to 
 the teachings of John the Baptist and had, not im- 
 probably, been from the beginning a follower of 
 the light so far as it had come to him from the Old 
 Testament. When he found in Jesus the promised 
 messenger from heaven, therefore, he simply sat at 
 His feet and learned of Him. As the Divine influ- 
 ence passed from the Master to the disciple, faith 
 
 202 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 became to him immediately a working and trans- 
 forming principle. It was the power of a new life 
 springing up in his soul. Spiritually, he found 
 himself to be what he had not been before. His 
 mind and heart had been born again. The life 
 within him had only to grow from this beginning, 
 in order to become perfect. He saw, as at the time 
 of his writing he looked backward from his far- 
 advanced age, that it had been growing steadily, 
 and that it was now much deeper and larger and 
 stronger than in the first days ; — but it was still 
 the same thing, and it had not yet reached its high- 
 est possibility. We cannot wonder that it seemed 
 to him to be like the natural life, which comes into 
 being by a force outside of itself, and then only 
 goes on and develops, under all the influences sur- 
 rounding it and through all the powers within it, 
 until it reaches the fulness of its growth. He was 
 a child of God on the first day of the revelation of 
 Jesus to his soul. He was a child of God still, 
 though half a century had passed away, and what he 
 had gained seemed almost too great to be measured. 
 The change which had taken place was only the natu- 
 ral progress of a life in its appropriate conditions. 
 
 The influence also, which had been most power- 
 ful in causing the growth, and had been working 
 constantly through all the years, was the same that 
 had originated the life within him. As he saw 
 Jesus, and heard Him speak of Himself and of the 
 truth, he believed, and thus entered into fellowship 
 with God. The inner life of Jesus infused itself 
 into his own inner life, as he communed with Him 
 
 20-; 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 in the daily intercourse of the time that followed, 
 even to the day of the crucifixion. How evident it 
 is, that in his association with Jesus there was real- 
 ised a union in which the character of the one 
 absorbed into itself, in a wonderful degree, the 
 character of the other, and the two persons became 
 one, as we say, not only because they were closely 
 joined together in affection, but especially because 
 there was a common life-principle filling their souls; 
 a life-principle given forth by the one and received 
 as the source of life by the other. And, after their 
 separation by reason of the death of Jesus, the 
 Apostle grew in his soul's living by the remem- 
 brance and study of what Jesus was. 
 
 No reader of his Gospel and first Epistle can 
 question this. Indeed, so manifest are the evi- 
 dences which establish the fact, that some, who 
 have not appreciated the striking proofs of historic 
 truthfulness in his narrative in the Gospel, have 
 thought the whole of it to be but the result of 
 musings and reflections on what the author had 
 learned of Jesus from the other Gospel stories. 
 If it be true of any person in the world's history, 
 that he developed gradually into what he was in 
 his inmost character by the seeing of another's 
 character and life, this was true in the highest 
 degree of John in relation to Jesus. He sat at 
 Jesus' feet ; he gathered into himself the lessons of 
 His history ; he contemplated Him as the perfect 
 man who was to be imitated by other men, if they 
 desired perfection ; he looked to Him as revealing 
 and possessing within Himself that Hfe of God which 
 
 204 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 is light, and in which there is no darkness at all ; 
 and, as he looked, he became more and more like 
 Him. 
 
 Now he was conscious of all this. He knew that 
 he was, and had been for long years past, a child 
 of God, and that he had been growing in his char- 
 acter, from the first days, into the Divine likeness 
 through his seeing the Lord Jesus with the eye of 
 his mind and soul. But if he knew this with refer- 
 ence to the past, what did the knowledge bear with 
 it respecting the future? Nothing, indeed, as to the 
 particular circumstances, or employments, or condi- 
 tions of growth, or other details of the new state of 
 being upon which he should enter. Of all this he 
 knew no more as he came to the closing day of his 
 Christian life on earth than he had known on the day 
 of its beginning. But one thing his experience had 
 placed within his knowledge: — that, as his life had 
 grown, in some measure, into the likeness of God's life 
 through the sight of Jesus in the past — a partial and 
 limited vision, at the best, because of the limitations 
 of the earthly state, — it would grow into the perfect 
 likeness of that life when he should come to see Him 
 in all the glory of His being, precisely as He is. 
 The promise of Jesus, on the last evening of His life, 
 had assured him that the time was coming when He 
 would be manifested. The history of his own inner 
 life had made known to him all the rest — had made 
 it certain, beyond a doubt or a fear, that when Jesus 
 should be manifested he would be like Him; and 
 this because of the more perfect vision. I shall see 
 
 205 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 Him as He is, and His life will become mine. The 
 influence of the Divine friendship, which begins in 
 this world, will continue forever — ever penetrating 
 and transforming and glorifying the soul which has 
 once trusted itself and its future to the love and care 
 of that friendship. 
 
 The verses declare to us that every believer has 
 this child-relationship to God, which the writer is 
 himself conscious of possessing. If the life of the 
 soul is the development of a principle which is 
 implanted through a Divine influence, the life must, 
 of course, come into being at the very moment of 
 the implanting of the principle. The child-relation- 
 ship begins from birth. The Apostle addresses all 
 the members of the Christian body, to whom he 
 wrote, with the words before us, and declares them 
 to be true of all alike. He claims nothing of privi- 
 lege or blessing for himself as distinguished from 
 them, and nothing apparently for himself, at this 
 later period of his life, beyond what he saw that he 
 had fully possessed in the hour when he first 
 believed. There had been growth since then, but 
 no change of life-principle. What is involved in his 
 words, therefore, both for the present and the future, 
 belongs to all — ■ to the youngest Christian as truly 
 as to the oldest. 
 
 It is also worthy of notice that — when he sug- 
 gests the evidences or indications of the new life — 
 they are those which the youngest, as well as the 
 oldest, may find within himself. The two evidences 
 which are brought before us are the indwelling in 
 
 206 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 the soul of something which the world — the un- 
 believing, sinful world — does not know ; and the 
 out-going of the soul's desire after purity; that is, a 
 life-principle, and a life-movement, both of which are 
 marked by a likeness to Christ. The reality of the 
 life is not determined by tJic strength of this principle, 
 or the secured results of this movement, but by their 
 existence in the soul. The man who is conscious of 
 an impulse towards right living therefore, as a fol- 
 lower of Christ, which he did not have in former 
 years, or which he did not have yesterday it may 
 be, and who is ready to act in accordance with it in 
 a loving, trustful, childlike way, may know that he 
 is now a child of God — just beginning his new life 
 perhaps, but yet a true child of the Divine family. 
 And the work for to-morrow, for the coming years, 
 for the life-time, is only to grow towards the fulness 
 of Christ himself. 
 
 What a simple and beautiful thing it is, as we view 
 it in the light of the experience which is revealed to 
 us in these verses. Likeness to Christ is that which 
 enters the soul at the hour when the act of faith 
 opens to the Christian the new career. Likeness to 
 Christ is the consummation at the end, when the 
 earthly living has passed into the heavenly, and the 
 imperfection of the one has become the perfectness 
 of the other. And all the way from the beginning 
 to the ending, this likeness is the result of a study 
 of Christ's character — the lessons and influences of 
 His life transforming themselves into the principles 
 and actions of the disciple's life. This is what every 
 believer may know: — that he is to-day a child of 
 
 207 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 God's household, and that, therefore, he will be like 
 Him as He is revealed in Christ; — that the life- 
 principle unknown by the world and the life-move- 
 ment of pure desire will, in the day when He is 
 manifested, have their complete and victorious 
 power over every faculty of the soul. As the 
 imperfect sight of the present has occasioned the 
 partial resemblance, which he now sees within him- 
 self, the seeing Him in the future as He is will make 
 the resemblance forever complete. 
 
 This is the wonderful thing about the child-rela- 
 tionship, and the thing which makes it, in a pure 
 and thoughtful and noble household, so great a 
 blessing for the life. As we closely observe a family 
 history, how remarkable it is. As soon as the child 
 begins his development, he shows to all about him 
 — perhaps unconsciously to himself- — -a sort of 
 peculiar life-principle which came to him from his 
 father or his mother, and which makes him different 
 in his qualities, his mental growth, his peculiar ex- 
 hibitions of virtue and character, from the children 
 of other families. The life-movement is along the 
 line of the life-principle ; and, as he grows up to ma- 
 turity, he bears on the ancestral character from the 
 past generations towards the future. How is it that he 
 grows thus? Not by rules and precepts which are 
 laid down for him. Not by a paternal command 
 that requires him to imitate his parents. Not even 
 by laboured efforts on his own part to be like those 
 whom he loves in his home. These things, especially 
 the one last mentioned, have their influence on his 
 
 208 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 living. But — more than all these things, and 
 nearer to the centre of life's forces — he grows by 
 seeing his parents as tJicy arc. He lives in their 
 presence, as he passes from childhood to maturity, 
 and their life becomes his life. If they have Chris- 
 tian piety filling the atmosphere of their home, the 
 same piety comes so gradually, and gently, and 
 sweetly, into his soul, that he is often unconscious, 
 and they are also, of the hour when the new power 
 begins to bear sway over his soul. If they are intel- 
 ligent and thoughtful, he grows into their likeness. 
 If generosity, and kindness, and purity, and peace, 
 and love are in their hearts, the years pass on a 
 little way, and we see the same virtues taking strong 
 hold upon his character and life. The religious 
 atmosphere makes the child religious ; the thought- 
 ful atmosphere makes him thoughtful. So we often 
 say ; and sometimes we wonder at the result, because 
 so little of what we call positive effort seems to have 
 been put forth. But the child sees the inner life of 
 those whose child he is, and his life, in after years, 
 is like theirs beeanse he lias seen it. And how little, 
 as his course begins and the days pass by him, he 
 realises what is going on within himself! How dim 
 is his vision of what is to follow in the result ! He 
 simply goes through his daily employments and 
 amusements, his pleasures and his duties, — what 
 is before him, he cannot tell. But he is seeing 
 a pure life and breathing a thoughtful and Chris- 
 tian air, and, by and by, the future unfolds to him 
 with the richest blessing which this world can 
 give. 
 
 14 209 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 Such also, and after the same manner, is the 
 child-relationship to God, only He is infinitely purer 
 and better than we are, and infinitely nearer, we 
 may almost say, to our souls than we can be to one 
 another. To see Him, is the education of the soul. 
 To see Him as Pie is, is to be like Him. The 
 message, which the Divine messenger, whom this 
 writer had known in the past years and with whom 
 he hoped soon to be re-united, brought to His 
 followers, was of this child-relationship and its 
 promise. 
 
 What the Apostle did not understand, therefore, 
 because it was not yet made manifest, — and what 
 we, like him, cannot yet know, — was only the 
 peculiar circumstances of the remoter future; the 
 special conditions of the life beyond the veil. The 
 place of living would change, and what the change 
 would be, precisely, had never been revealed to him, 
 as it has not been to us. But this is a comparatively 
 small matter. It belongs, as we may say, to the 
 externals and the accidental only. The great reality 
 is the child life as related to God, which came into 
 your soul or mine at some past moment, as it came 
 to the Apostle in his early manhood. That life takes 
 hold upon the eternal future and, whatever may be 
 the imperfection of its growth thus far, so it be really 
 existing, it bears within itself the promise of an all- 
 glorious perfectness. It is not yet made manifest 
 what we shall be, but we know that when He shall 
 be manifested, we shall be like Him ; for we shall 
 see Him even as He is. 
 
 2IO 
 
The inner life 
 
 It Is not strange, then, that as this writer saw and 
 felt all this, he rose into a lofty conception of the 
 power of faith, and thought of the life that begins 
 with faith as never having a sight or taste of death. 
 Death, to the believer, is simply the passing from 
 the partial seeing to the seeing Him as He is. 
 The sadness and sorrowfulness of its meaning are 
 lost, and it ceases to be itself. The life becomes 
 one and perpetual, now here and after a season 
 there, but ever more full of light and blessedness 
 because ever more in the likeness of His life. 
 
 211 
 
XV 
 
 THE PEACE OF CHRIST A RULING 
 POWER 
 
 Let the peace of CJirist rule in your Jieaj-ts, to the which 
 also ye ivere called in one body j and be ye tJiankful. 
 
 COLOSSIANS iii. 15. 
 
 THESE words have a striking and peculiar 
 character which is fitted to arrest the atten- 
 tion of the thoughtful reader. There is seemingly a 
 strange significance in themselves — what can they 
 mean? There is something even more remarkable, 
 if possible, in their position and prominence — what 
 is the thought which they press upon the mind? 
 That peace should dwell in our hearts ; that it 
 should be within them a power for calmness or com- 
 fort; that it should be as a guard keeping the 
 thoughts in restfulness — all this is in accordance 
 with its nature, we say, and the suggestion of these 
 things by the Christian teachers is clearly harmoni- 
 ous with the doctrine which they teach. But when 
 we think of a ruling power, is not something more 
 active and forceful needed in the soul's life, we ask, 
 and does not Christianity so represent it? Love, 
 with its propelling energy, may well be spoken of 
 as such a power. So may faith, with its inspiration 
 and its hold upon the invisible. So again may 
 
 212 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 hope, with its confident and courageous outlook 
 towards the future. But peace is quiet, and still, 
 and peaceful — how can it rule ; especially, how 
 can it rule in the midst of that struggle of the 
 soul, in which the old evil forces, all-controlling in 
 the past, are to be put away and destroyed, and 
 the new forces of the new life are to be made 
 victorious? 
 
 In this remarkable passage, however, peace is set 
 forth as governing, rather than love itself, although 
 love is in the very same passage called the bond of 
 perfectness and is urged as above all things else 
 that are mentioned — and even more than this, 
 the exhortation respecting peace is added to all the 
 other exhortations, as if in the fulfilment of this 
 were the consummation and completeness of that 
 which was demanded and desired by the Christian 
 teaching. It is as if the writer had said to his 
 readers : In order that you may so set your mind on 
 the things that are above as to find and possess for 
 yourselves the life which is in Christ and God, and 
 may thus put off the old man with his doings, and 
 put on the new man who is renewed after the image 
 of Him that created him, you must let the peace of 
 Christ rule in your hearts. This is that to which 
 you were called. This is that for which, as you 
 realise it in your own experience, you may be most 
 truly thankful. The very strangeness of the words, 
 as they first present themselves to our thought, may 
 appropriately lead us to consider them more atten- 
 tively. Such an attentive consideration, I think, 
 will give us a clearer apprehension of their meaning 
 
 213 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 and, at the same time, a sense of their fitness and 
 truthfulness. 
 
 The peace here spoken of is not mere quietness 
 of spirit, or evenness in the movement of the hfe 
 and its powers. Were it this alone, it could hardly 
 with justice be described, or demanded, as a govern- 
 ing force. And yet even such peace is no insignifi- 
 cant element in the matter of developing character 
 or of accomplishing a man's best work. We may 
 look about us, and we shall see that those in whom 
 the mental or moral faculties are constantly oper- 
 ating without friction or fretfulness, are the men 
 who, at least when other things are equal, are the 
 most successful. The mind or soul which is not in 
 peace — which is disturbed by anxiety or doubt or 
 fear or foreboding — loses a part, often a large part, 
 of its energy in connection with these things. It 
 must overcome them, if they are to be overcome, by 
 using a portion of its forces in a struggle with their 
 power or, in case it does not resist them, it must of 
 necessity abide with half of its life among them, not 
 escaping from their dominion into the full liberty of 
 its own joyous action. The evenly, easily moving 
 mind on the other hand, tied down by no fetters, 
 and freely working by the exercise of all its facul- 
 ties, is ready for each new effort. It may concen- 
 trate itself upon that to which it is called at any 
 moment, and may command itself wholly for the 
 task assigned. It has nothing behind, or apart, to 
 hinder its progress, but is able to pass on with its 
 full strength from what has been accomplished to 
 
 214 
 
THE INiXKR LIFE 
 
 what is to be effected in the early future. So too 
 with the soul. It is the anxiety about the old 
 things and the dwelling among them that restrain 
 the soul, oftentimes, in the putting forth of all its 
 efforts for the one end of gaining for itself the new 
 things. Character develops slowly, because the 
 development is with but a part of the forces. The 
 man is divided, according to the expressive word 
 which the New Testament writers use to set forth 
 the idea of anxiety. He is drawn this way and that 
 way, and is not one zvitJdn himself. He cannot for- 
 get the past in such a sense as to give himself 
 entirely to the pressing forward towards that which 
 is before him. He fails therefore, or half-way fails, 
 where he might otherwise succeed. There must be, 
 in this sense as it would seem, even a certain 
 dominion of peace within the soul, or the end is not 
 perfectly secured. If the peace is not strictly, and 
 in the full meaning of the word, the ruling force, it 
 unites itself with the ruling force and helps it every- 
 where and always. We realise this, all of us, for 
 ourselves so soon as we begin to study the expe- 
 riences of our inmost life — and the more so, as we 
 advance along the line of the years. We learn the 
 lesson and understand the truth, whether we know 
 the peacefulness as our own personal possession or 
 not. The case is one where the absence or the 
 presence of the thing desired tells the same story, 
 though it tells it from a different starting-point and 
 in a different way. And I believe that the thought- 
 ful man, in his estimate of the elements of his real 
 life-power, as to their relative importance, will often 
 
 215 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 question which is of greater vahic — the energy 
 that impels him to action, or the peacefuhiess 
 which enables the energy to have its full impulse 
 unrestrained. 
 
 But the peace to which our verse from the 
 Apostle's letter refers is something more than this 
 quietness or evenness, of which we are speaking. 
 It is called the peace of Christ, and is counted 
 among the powers of Christian living. It is an 
 "^ element of Christ's life which is imparted to His 
 followers' lives, and is to be apprehended, in its 
 significance, only as we see what it was for Him. 
 The expression itself seems to be suggested by the 
 words which Christ used in His talk with the dis- 
 ciples on the last evening before His death. Peace 
 I leave with you. He said to them at that time ; my 
 peace I give unto you. And then He added the 
 impressive sentence : Not as the world giveth, give 
 I unto you. It was not a worldly peace in any 
 sense of the word, which He would impart to them 
 — not a peace even which might, by any possibility, 
 enter the mind or the heart apart from Himself, and 
 might, by reason of the calm and even movement 
 of the life which it should secure, add to all the 
 powers and successes of the man to whom it came. 
 
 X It was above and beyond this — a possession be- 
 longing only to Himself, which should be for His 
 disciples what it was for Him and which they could 
 see in the manifestation of its nature and its effi- 
 cacy, if they would, as they looked upon Him at 
 that hour. If they thus looked, they would recog- 
 
 y nise it as an active, not a mere passive thing — a 
 
 216 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 thing of force and energy, which could rule and 
 ivas 7'uliug\h.c Hfe of the man. If they looked more 
 carefully and more continuously, they would dis- 
 cover it as fundamental to all His living — -as true 
 and controlling a life-power as love itself 
 
 The hour when Jesus thus used the words in 
 speaking to the eleven was the darkest hour in His 
 career. It was the closing hour in a long succes- 
 sion of dark ones, in which His soul had been tested 
 and tried to its deepest depths. It was the critical 
 hour towards which all the past had been moving, 
 and the movement — to human thought, at least — 
 seemed to have been towards failure and loss. 
 What did the peace which He then called His 
 peace do for Him — what was it within Him? It 
 was surely something more than mere calmness of 
 spirit, which kept Him at rest among the doubts 
 and dangers that surrounded His life and His cause. 
 It was this, but it was, at the same time, much more 
 than this. It was something which gathered into 
 itself all His far-reaching thought of the Divine 
 plan for the Divine kingdom — all His willing obe- 
 dience to His Father's will, whithersoever that will 
 should call Him — all His fixedness of resolve to 
 carry out the idea and purpose of His earthly mis- 
 sion — all His heroism of self-sacrifice, even to the 
 consummation of His sufferings — all the mighti- 
 ness of His power to be and to do at the end that 
 for which He had been sent at the beginning. It 
 was thus inseparable from every force that was dis- 
 coverable within Him. It regulated all these forces, 
 and held them in their true adjustment to one an- 
 
 217 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 other. It directed their activity in accordance with 
 the demand of the hour, and so imparted its own 
 influence that they moved harmoniously. It be- 
 came, in and of itself, an inspiration and life-giving 
 power for all the forces. We see its sovereign 
 authority and its impelling energy in His words of 
 every sort during those last days. 
 
 How wonderful those words were as they turned 
 towards one and another person or towards one or 
 another experience. The word of prayer addressed 
 to the Father, Shall I say, save me from this hour 
 — no — it was for this cause that I came unto this 
 hour. The word to the disciples, That the world 
 may know that, as the Father hath given me com- 
 mandment, even so I do, arise, let us go hence. 
 The word to Peter, Thinkest thou that I cannot 
 pray unto my Father, and he shall even now send 
 me more than twelve legions of angels, but how 
 then should the scriptures be fulfilled, that so it 
 must be? The word to the Roman governor. Thou 
 wouldest have no power at all against me except it 
 were given thee from above. The word to the Jew- 
 ish high-priest. Henceforth ye shall see the Son of 
 Man sitting at the right hand of power, and coming 
 on the clouds of heaven. The word to the scorn- 
 ful sceptic, who had a half-compassionate contempt 
 for him, Every one that is of the truth heareth 
 my voice. The word to His mother, Woman, be- 
 hold thy son, and to the disciple, behold thy 
 mother. The word to the sorrowing eleven, I 
 have overcome the world. The word for Him- 
 self, I am not alone, because the Father is witii 
 
 218 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 me. The word for His work and His life, It is 
 finished. 
 
 These words, in their appropriateness to each 
 moment — giving expression, at one moment, to a 
 sense of power; at another, to a subHme confidence 
 in the future ; at another, to an assurance of victory 
 already secured ; at another, to a consciousness of 
 union with the Father; at another, to a tender affec- 
 tion for those whom He was to leave behind Him 
 and a thoughtfulness for their coming necessity ; at 
 another, to a ready submission to the will of God, 
 and the final summons of duty ; and, at the last, to 
 a deep and satisfying conviction that all things per- 
 taining to the great mission had been accomplished 
 — were all governed and sent forth by the peace 
 within Him. They answered, each and every one 
 of them, to that peace. They would have been im- 
 possible without it. They sprang forth from it and 
 rose out of it, as naturally as love comes forth from 
 the loving soul, or truth from the truthful soul — 
 and after the same manner. The inspiration of them 
 all was in it, as it held them all in its power and 
 ruled them all. 
 
 The Christian believer is an imitator of Christ and 
 a recipient of His spirit. The peace therefore 
 which is given to him from the Master will become 
 for him, and will work within him, that which it was 
 and wrought in the Master's life. It will have do- 
 minion throughout the whole sphere of the inward 
 man. It will hold all things under its authority and 
 will send forth its guiding and impelling force into 
 every emotion, and every resolution, and every 
 
 219 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 action, and every consecration, which pertain to 
 him as a man, ever and everywhere moving him to 
 the noblest hving in all the heroism, whether of 
 suffering or of triumph, which he may know in his 
 career. 
 
 It is interesting to look into the Apostle's thought, 
 as he sets forth the development of the individual 
 life in the passage from which our verse is taken, 
 and to see how the ruling peace is related to the 
 whole of it from its beginning to its ending. The 
 ruling peace settles all questions, directs all forces, 
 turns the mind whither it should turn, establishing 
 it also in fixedness there, and brings to a gradual 
 realisation the completeness of the true life. In the 
 conflict between anger and kindness — if we study 
 the details which he gives — or between falsehood 
 and truth, or between evil desire and holy purpose, 
 or between the old impulses and powers, any or all 
 of them, and the new, it determines which should 
 and must prevail. In the work of putting off the 
 old man and putting on the new man, it at once 
 adjusts the soul to its task and points to it the 
 right way. In the matter of the seeking of the 
 things that are above, it gives inspiration, by show- 
 ing that itself abides in, and in connection with, 
 those things. In the sphere of the promise of the 
 future, it strengthens confidence by imparting of 
 its own calm assurance that the promise will be 
 realised. The word which the Apostle uses to ex- 
 press the riding idea is a peculiar one, as to the 
 central thought of which there has been somewhat 
 of questioning — some holding that the arbitrating 
 
 220 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 or judging function of a ruling authority, as in a 
 conflict between opposite forces, is prominent ; and 
 others, that the special meaning is that of the ruler's 
 bestowal of reward, at the end of a contest, or 
 perhaps that of his direction or guidance of a 
 course, or a struggle ; and others, again, that all 
 limitation of significance passes away, and that the 
 word is only a forceful one expressing the idea of 
 governing in the widest and largest sense. But the 
 ruling peace, as we trace its influence and power in 
 the life-process which he opens before us, satis- 
 fies all these meanings, and moves, as we may say, 
 in its significance through them all, as it directs and 
 controls the living forces. 
 
 Let us turn our thought now towards our own 
 personal experience, and see how interesting the 
 thought becomes to us there. There are times when 
 every Christian believer knows within himself the 
 presence, not only of a peaceful spirit, giving calm- 
 ness, but of a. ruling peace, taking the life under its 
 authority. These times are passing seasons with 
 most of us, indeed, but they continue long enough to 
 teach us their lesson and reveal to us some measure 
 of the truth. How quickly, as they come, do we 
 realise that we are, for the hour, adjusted in our 
 thinking and purpose to the Divine plan, and how 
 soon after their coming do all thoughts and impulses 
 place themselves in readiness for the word of 
 authority which the ruling power may speak. That 
 authoritative word holds in restraint, or sets in 
 motion, according as the movement of the plan 
 demands. The man therefore acts with the right 
 
 221 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 forces at the right moment, and the acting and rest- 
 ing forces aHke, in peaceful adjustment to each 
 other, serve the great end to be secured. I look 
 within myself, the Christian says at such a season, 
 and behold, the old doubting and disquietude have 
 passed away. I listen for the inward voice, which 
 becomes to me as the Divine voice, and in obedience 
 to it I put forth the energy which the hour calls for. 
 I lose anxiety for distant results, and centre my 
 thought upon present duty and service. I strive to 
 be kindly when the call for kindness comes, and 
 self-sacrificing when it comes with the summons for 
 sacrifice, and heroic when the duty involves heroism. 
 I find my powers at each moment, and in answer 
 to each call, in readiness or order for their work. 
 They are so because peace is the reigning power, 
 and hence they cannot contend against each other, 
 or usurp each other's places, or move out of 
 harmony with the common purpose of good. How 
 beautiful life seems to be for the moment — how 
 right it seems ! Character takes a new starting-point 
 for its growth and development. Manhood becomes 
 larger and nobler, as in the image of Christ and of 
 God. 
 
 The season passes indeed, and we fall backward 
 into the old condition, but the lesson is not lost 
 altogether, nor are we altogether what we were be- 
 fore. The entrance way for peace in the after days 
 opens more easily into our souls, than it did long 
 ago. The experience, when it has ceased as a present 
 experience, lingers with us as a testimony and as a 
 bright vision, and, in some hour of new impulse, we 
 
 222 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 find it in its reality once more. This is the process 
 and progress — even as the Apostle recognised it — 
 and, as the years pass, we know within ourselves 
 what he taught and urged upon his readers. The 
 ruling peace becomes to our thought and our life 
 more and more the central force of all forces, taking 
 love and humility and forgiveness and courage and 
 every virtue of the manly Christian life under its 
 sway, and making them, in their harmonious develop- 
 ment, triumphant in the character. We see in this 
 ruling peace the power which realises for us what it 
 realised for the Master, and know it joyfully as the 
 Master's peace given to His disciples. 
 
 We see also — through our own experience — the 
 truth and fitness of the statement which the Apostle 
 adds to his exhortation. Unto this peace, he says 
 to each one of his readers, you were called. For 
 this reason, let it ever abide within you and rule 
 over you. The calling of God, according to the 
 strictest sense of the words — as we find it repre- 
 sented in many passages of the New Testament 
 writings — is a calling to participation in the Divine 
 kingdom, its life and its rewards as they shall mani- 
 fest themselves in the future. But that life and 
 those rewards rest upon, and consist in, what the 
 soul, by means of the call and under the influences 
 of the kingdom, possesses in itself. To make the 
 soul what it should be, is the purpose of God. To 
 give it the characteristics of the kingdom, and make 
 its life to move in the atmosphere of the kingdom's 
 life, is that for which He is, first of all, working in 
 
 223 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 the carrying out of His plan of love. The soul that 
 is right will secure the blessedness. And so the 
 call directs itself to the end of the soul's right living 
 — to the impelling of the soul towards the sphere 
 where right living finds its natural home. That 
 sphere, as we have already seen, is the sphere of 
 peace. The right life is the life which is adjusted 
 properly to every duty and every privilege. The life 
 governed and guided by the peace of Christ is the 
 life which is thus adjusted. The Christian is thus 
 as truly called to peace, as he is called to heaven. 
 He is called to peace, we may fitly say, because he is 
 called to heaven ; for the heavenly life is but the 
 experience, in its ever-continuing fulness, of that 
 happy state of the soul in which Christ's peace is 
 the ruling force. 
 
 The exhortation after this manner answers to the 
 call, and finds its legitimate and fundamental reason 
 in it. To be called to peace, and to live outside of 
 its sphere, is a contradiction at the very centre of 
 the life. To be called to it as the ruling element 
 and principle in the soul's developing of itself for 
 the kingdom in the future, and not to give it domin- 
 ion over all things else, in the progress of that 
 development, is to deny the call at the outset, and 
 to lose the richness of its reward at the end. 
 
 But the exhortation takes into itself the force of 
 an additional reason beyond the one just mentioned. 
 Ye were called unto peace as individuals ; but not 
 only this, Ye were all of you called unto peace — 
 the Apostle says to the whole company of his 
 readers — in one body ; that is, to the end that you 
 
 224 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 may become one body, or as connected with the 
 fact that you are members of one body. The end 
 and purpose of your Christian calling is this very 
 thing, to which you are urged. The foundation of 
 unity, on which the calling rests, is itself this very 
 thing. In either view or in both views, the common 
 call adds its emphasis to the individual call, and the 
 oneness of the life of all declares itself to be found 
 where, and only where, the personal life of each 
 abides. The Christian believer is one of a brother- 
 hood. He cannot dwell apart in himself, or grow, 
 after the true manner, within the soul in sepa- 
 ration from all others. He must ever be con- 
 scious, not only of a life-principle which he tries 
 always to strengthen in its power within his own 
 soul, but of a life-principle in which he shares with 
 his fellow-believers. The forces within them must 
 be the forces within him. The calling which comes 
 to him — and he must know this fact, if he would 
 know the truth and live as he ought — the calling 
 which comes to him from God is one that rests r 
 upon his unity in life with others and moves towards 
 a harmony in life with them. The man is not called 
 alone as if to a solitude, but as one in a company — 
 as one who has a participation in the same inward 
 life-powers in which others of the company partici- 
 pate and one who is to have a community of life 
 with them. The brotherhood accordingly can never 
 be lost sight of, whether in his thought of himself 
 or of them — whether he is looking at the sources 
 and forces of his own Christian living or of theirs. 
 And the common principle, which at once rules in 
 15 225 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 him and goes forth in its influence from him to them, 
 must be this of which the Apostle speaks — namely, 
 ruling peace — for this is the one thing which unites 
 the brotherhood according to the Master's desire 
 and prayer. 
 
 The Apostle's exhortation therefore justifies itself 
 in every way as we look carefully into it. It lays 
 hold upon that which was a central force in Christ's 
 life, and which manifested itself most wonderfully in 
 the hours and days of His history when the greatest 
 of all demands and all necessities came upon Him. 
 It appeals to that which, in every individual soul 
 inspired by the inspiration of Christ's history, at 
 once reveals itself to be the power that brings the 
 life most happily and perfectly into harmony with 
 His. It presses with all emphasis upon the indi- 
 vidual believer, and upon the company of believers, 
 the most impressive of reasons — those reasons 
 which are vitally connected with their calling to the 
 new kingdom, and their union with one another ; — 
 and, by the energy which pertains to these reasons, 
 commends to thought and feeling the duty of which 
 it speaks. And throughout all the words which are 
 used, it keeps before the mind the example of 
 Christ and the gift of Christ — thus tenderly and 
 forcefully suggesting the imitation of the one and 
 the joyful reception of the other. 
 
 After our thought of all this, we cannot regard it 
 as strange that the words which the Apostle adds in 
 closing the verse, should be the words, Be ye thank- 
 
 226 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 ful — or, as in the strictness of their meaning they 
 read, Become thankful, as with a new measure of 
 gratitude, and an ever-increasing measure. It is as 
 if, in his review of what he had said, he seemed to 
 himself to have given his readers a beautiful vision 
 of the peace of Christ, after the manner in which it 
 enters, and may enter, into the Christian's soul ; 
 and of the same peace as, in its becoming a ruling 
 power there, it may subdue all things to itself, and 
 may bring the life into harmony and unity in all its 
 development; and again of the same peace, as it 
 may carry this harmony outward from the one soul 
 to all souls, and establish the true unity among all; 
 — and now, at the end, he finds but one feeling that 
 can answer to the thought, and but one word appro- 
 priate for himself or for them. What could the 
 word or the feeling be, but thankfulness — for the 
 possibility and the reality of the vision. 
 
 And so the word comes down to us enriched, if 
 we may say it, with the experience of the genera- 
 tions since the Apostle's day. We too may well 
 move on to the realising of the vision, and to the 
 joyful possession of the peace, with an ever-abound- 
 insf gratitude to God. 
 
 227 
 
XVI 
 
 THE LAW OF LIBERTY 
 
 If any man is a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like 
 unto a man beholding his natural face in a mirror j for he 
 beholdeth himself, and goeth away, and straightway forget- 
 teth what manner of tnan he was. But he that looketh into 
 the perfect law, the law of liberty, and so continueth, being 
 not a hearer that forgetteth, but a doer that worketh, this 
 man shall be blessed in his doing. — James i. 23-25. 
 
 THE word of the Divine message, or what we 
 often call the Gospel, is here presented to our 
 minds as a rule of conduct and life. The writer 
 takes up the thought of it, as we may say, at a 
 later point of development, or from a different point 
 of view, as compared with that which we discover 
 many times in the Pauline epistles. To the Pauline 
 mind the Gospel seems to manifest itself most readily 
 as a system of forgiveness and justification. It 
 opens the way by which the past can be set aside or 
 remedied and the soul can escape from the burdens 
 and dangers connected with it. It then bids the 
 soul move on in its new course unfettered by the old 
 sins and fears, and fills it with all hope and confi- 
 dence as it trusts God lovingly for the future. But 
 Paul himself, happily and peacefully as he turned 
 his mind to this conception of the word, had 
 another thought which dwelt upon it at a later stage 
 
 228 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 of its working. The new life was not only to begin, 
 but to go forward. It needed to go forward accord- 
 ing to a law peculiar to itself — to move to an end 
 under the guidance of rules and principles of its 
 own. A system of forgiveness and a law of living — 
 these two elements pertain to the word, and must 
 pertain to it, if it is to accomplish the Divinely- 
 intended result. This writer, by reason of the spe- 
 cial tendencies of his thinking and the natural 
 movement of his mind, looks most readily at the life 
 as developing, rather than beginning; in its growth 
 in the right way, rather than its moment of turning 
 from the wrong way. The rule of the true life, how 
 is it to be regarded and used — this is the question 
 which he would ask and answer. The special words 
 which he employs are impressively suggestive. 
 
 The word of the message, he says, is a law. To 
 his mind this expression naturally presented itself as 
 connected with his personal relation to the Mosaic 
 system. A strict observer of the duties imposed by 
 that system, he looked with deepest reverence upon 
 the law, which the Old Testament contained, as the 
 revelation of the Divine will respecting human living. 
 No new system introduced by God could have any 
 other end than this had had, or could be appropri- 
 ately designated by any other name. But it is 
 interesting to notice that, when he assigns this name 
 to it, he adds a descriptive phrase having two parts. 
 He calls it the perfect law, and the law of liberty. 
 He had not been under the influence of the teaching 
 of Jesus, and of his thoughts concerning Him, with- 
 
 229 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 out seeing the differences between the new system 
 and the old. Stern moralist of the older type as he 
 was, he had learned long before the time of his 
 writing, even as Paul had, that there was something 
 of imperfection, with reference to tJic working potver 
 for the life of men, in the law which, as a revelation 
 of the Divine tvill, was so clear and so full. The 
 study of his own life and of the lives of those about 
 him had made this imperfection continually more 
 evident. The perfect thing was to be waited for in 
 a development or manifestation beyond that of the 
 imperfect thing. The latter must give way to, and 
 pass into the former. The Gospel was to realise, 
 and had realised, what the law could not do. It 
 was to secure life in its completeness. 
 
 If we inquire after the elements which, being 
 added in the new system, justified this title oi per- 
 fect, we may find them at two points. The word 
 which Jesus brought, opened on the one side, to His 
 disciples a wider and deeper view of the old law 
 than had been known before. They saw, under His 
 teaching, that there was no limitation in the demand 
 for human love, and service, and duty, to the bound- 
 aries of nations or of parties, but that everything 
 was wide-reaching as the world, and far-reaching as 
 the results of action could reach in the present and 
 the future. Life was no narrow thing. Individual 
 life was not confined within any limited circle of 
 surroundings. The law must become grander as 
 life became larger. The all-embracing character of 
 it, as it was now apprehended, changed its imper- 
 fection to pcrfcctness, and the word of the new 
 
 230 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 message revealed this all-embracing character. They 
 also saw, under His teaching, as a second thing, that 
 the law penetrated, in a measure which they had not 
 realised before, into the depths of the soul. The 
 outward act was revealed to be far outside of, and 
 distant from the source within, and that hidden 
 source was the place to which the demand for right 
 living directed itself. Life was discovered to be at 
 the centre of the personality. It was found in the 
 thoughts rather than the deeds; and the law was 
 made to reach inward, as it was made to reach out- 
 ward — into the inmost part of the man, as unto the 
 widest limits of his relation to other men. The fact 
 that the word moved thus inward made the law per- 
 fect — making it deep in its reach even as life itself 
 is deep. The perfection was revealed when the 
 recesses of the life were opened. The new system 
 did what the old had failed to accomplish. 
 
 But these elements — or rather this one element 
 operating in two directions — were but secondary, 
 as connected with the perfectness of the new system. 
 The true and vital element was found in its central 
 working-force. The word made love known as this 
 force in the soul of the man, and as the source of 
 what was given him in Christ. There was a weakness 
 in the old law, which was fatal to its success, at just 
 this point. Love was not manifestly at its centre. 
 But the word of the message told the story of 
 Jesus. It set forth His life as related to the law, 
 and showed how He fulfilled its demands, as under 
 the guidance of the great all-controlling principle. 
 It declared His life also in its relation to men — 
 
 231 
 
THOUGHTS OF AXD FOR 
 
 animated from its beginning to its ending by love 
 to men and to all men. It made known how this 
 love dwelt in His deepest soul — how it ruled and 
 guided all things there — how it impelled all action 
 from its most secret sources and purified the out- 
 going life everywhere — how it took all demands 
 and commands into itself and made the fulfilment 
 of them beautiful service to God and to men, as 
 that fulfilment realised itself in the sphere of the 
 outward life. It did more even than this. It 
 brought this love, so wonderfully manifested in 
 Jesus' life, into the closest personal relation to 
 each individual man to whom it addressed itself. 
 It said to each one, This life, thus inspired and 
 guided and governed, was lived in all its move- 
 ment, and in the great things that it accom- 
 plished, for you. You are what you are in the 
 possibilities of your personal living, because it was 
 thus lived. • The future of good for you will rest 
 upon it. 
 
 The word is a law, but it is a law with a working- 
 force in it ; a law, not imperfect because it cannot 
 bring to pass the results it desires, but having with 
 itself its own living power — the inspiration of love 
 which moves the soul of him who receives it to 
 do its bidding. Herein is the secret of its perfec- 
 tion. The other elements already mentioned unite 
 with this, as they deepen and widen the reach 
 of the force which pertains to it. But they are 
 second only, while it is first, because that which is 
 the working-force, dwells not in them, but in it 
 alone. 
 
 232 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 At this point we draw near to the other descrip- 
 tive word which the writer uses — the law of hberty. 
 The old system was ever liable to become for men 
 a bondage, because it presented itself to them as a 
 system of rules and commands. The inspiration 
 of the obedience to it was not found within it. But 
 when the new system founded itself on the love of 
 God as manifested in Jesus, and made its appeal to 
 that love in addressing each individual man, it 
 made obedience a new thing. The love revealed 
 stirred the love of the soul in return, and this love 
 at once became the controlling power in the life. 
 The result was what it always is when such an in- 
 spiration moves the man. Commands seem to lose 
 their character as words of governmental authority. 
 Rules are no longer thought of as limiting or fetter- 
 ing the life. The law is not a letter that kills, or 
 a restraining force that awakens the opposition 
 of the soul, or a thing which merely compels, by 
 its threatening of penalty, a yielding to its require- 
 ment. Privilege takes the place of rules — the >>~ 
 privilege of rendering service to another, who on 
 his part has done everything for us. The man, 
 with the new revelation in his soul, finds himself 
 joyous in his doing of what he is asked to do, where 
 he had been full of unwillingness, or rebellious as 
 against superior power. The whole system under 
 which he lives puts on a new appearance to his 
 view. It is arranged in all its parts, and in its 
 every demand upon him, for the best and truest 
 development of his personal life. The rules are 
 simply the method of growth formulated in words. 
 
 233 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 Obedience to them is the means of reaching the 
 end. It is that by which the soul takes to itself 
 the living forces and makes them effective. It is 
 that which brings the imperfect, yet growing life 
 into union with the perfect life — the life of man 
 with the life of God, — and into such union that 
 the one can be changed, steadily and rapidly, into the 
 likeness of the other. The spirit which enters the 
 man is no longer a spirit of bondage. It is a spirit 
 of sonship. The whole relation is as of a son 
 to a father — and this, not a father beset with the 
 earthly weakness, who loses himself, ever and anon, 
 in wilful assertion of his own will or in arbitrary 
 exercise of authority, but a father, who realises in 
 himself, and in his relation to his son, all the teach- 
 ings of wisdom, and gentleness, and affection, which 
 the long years give as they pass. The spirit of 
 sonship is the spirit of freedom when the fatherhood 
 is such as this, and when the sonship answers on 
 its part to the fatherhood on its part. What is the 
 law between the two? Surely it is the law of liberty. 
 There is no bondage, and never has been since the 
 two came to know and understand each other. The 
 life is freedom, and the rule of the life is freedom's 
 rule. 
 
 It was a great thing for one who had lived under 
 the old system, and had been so strict an observer 
 of it in its requirements as a legal system, to receive 
 into his mind such a revelation as this. But the 
 teaching of Jesus had made the light clear; and 
 the darkness had passed away. The law meant 
 ^ liberty — not liberty without law or against law, 
 
 234 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 but liberty working out the fulness of free and 
 perfect life, in union with the Divine Father's life, 
 through the law that is essential to its own develop- 
 ment. This was the wonder and the glory of the 
 Christian revelation. The rules of the Divine life in 
 the soul of man were the rules pertaining to the 
 orderly and natural movement of that life ; and the 
 natural movement is of necessity a free movement. 
 But the free movement in this true life is inspired 
 by love, and when this enters there is forgetfulness 
 of all except its promptings. These promptings are 
 to fulness of service, to largeness of obedience, to 
 the fulfilment of every demand as in devotion to 
 a friend and benefactor and father, to the giving 
 of all to one who has given all, to the giving of the 
 self to Him who has given Himself. The spirit of 
 freedom, not of bondage, is the spirit of the Chris- 
 tian system. Its law is the law of liberty — the 
 law by which the son of the Divine Father freely 
 guides his life and makes it like the Father's life. 
 
 The third expression which may arrest our atten- 
 tion in the writer's verses is this : He that lookcth 
 into the perfect law, and so continiicth. The word 
 here used is a peculiar one which denotes a very 
 intent and careful examination. The man is con- 
 ceived of as looking thus intently into the Christian 
 rule of life and conduct ; and as doing so — not 
 like the man who beholds his face in a mirror and 
 passes on his way forgetful of what he is, but with 
 continuous earnestness. Such looking the writer 
 urges as essential. The necessity of it he appre- 
 
 235 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 ciated, as we may not doubt, because of the revela- 
 tion of the new system, which he had received, as 
 a perfect law of liberty. Viewing the old law as it 
 was viewed in the earlier days, the man who would 
 conform his life to it must, as it would seem, have 
 looked into it with no passing or careless look. 
 It had rules for every day and every action, and 
 the man must know them and know whether he 
 was fully conforming to them, if he would discover 
 peace for himself. But here was a new system, 
 involving the freedom of sonship. Its animating 
 and governing principle was love. The love was 
 to be inspired by a love which had gone before 
 and given all blessing. This love-principle, having 
 its root and foundation in the Divine love, was to 
 penetrate every rule, impel every action, control 
 every feeling, stir the life in every part. It was to 
 be the working force that was always in operation. 
 It was to renew the man on all sides, and in every 
 department of his character and his soul. In the 
 system and its teachings the ideal of the life was 
 presented, and many rules and suggestions for its 
 realisation were set forth. The work of securing 
 for himself the realisation was left to the man. 
 
 What could be more essential to the end to be 
 attained than the one thing to which the writer 
 refers? Place yourself before the ideal life, and 
 think of your own relation to it. You must see it 
 not only once for yourself, and then move on your 
 way. You must look at it, not as a beautiful thing 
 apart from yourself, and after a little forget what it 
 is, and what you are. It is set before you as a 
 
 236 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 thing to be studied as you study nothing else. It 
 is a life, with its reahties and its rules. It is a life 
 to be passed into your life through your turning 
 your life into its likeness. Its rules are to be fol- , 
 lowed, not in blind obedience, but in the freedom 
 of a love that is inspired by love. It is to be devel- 
 oped on every side, through all action and feeling, 
 from one day to another. It is to be brought to 
 its completeness through the union of your soul in 
 conscious fellowship with Christ who revealed the 
 ideal. No chance looking can give you the bless- 
 ing. The man who beholds his natural face in a 
 mirror may go his way, and straightway forget 
 what manner of man he was, and no loss may be 
 suffered or growth of manhood be prevented. But 
 the beholding of the life for the soul is a different 
 matter, wherein the forgetfulness of the manner of 
 man that one is in comparison of the true soul-life 
 is fatal to the great result that is needed. The 
 thought must be ever on what the man is and on 
 what the ideal would make him, and so the look 
 must be continuously and intently on the word of 
 the Divine message which is the perfect law. 
 
 The writer now presents to us the close relation 
 between the looking into the law, after this manner, 
 and the doing of it. His words are striking words: 
 He that looketh into the perfect law and so con- 
 tinueth, ^^?;/^ — as if, of necessity, in the very nature 
 of the case — not a hearer that forgetteth, but a 
 doer that worketh. The doing, as contrasted with 
 hearing and then forgetting, is assumed in the very 
 
 237 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 form of the sentence as essentially and vitally con- 
 nected with the intent and continuous looking. 
 Christianity, in its teaching and its exhortations, 
 rests, and fitly may rest upon this assumption. It 
 knows full well that a man can hear its message of 
 life, or the proclamation of its demands, and can for 
 the moment even be impressed in his mind, and yet 
 can go away from the hearing with no abiding 
 thought of the deep significance of the word for 
 himself. He can forget what he has heard, and 
 forget what manner of man he is. The beholding 
 himself as in a mirror is a passing thing, and the 
 remembrance of it is lost. 
 
 But it knows also, and with equal assurance and 
 certainty, that if the man can be brought to study 
 the law of life — the law of liberty and love for the 
 free and freely developing life of loving service — 
 as he does who looks intently into some place where 
 there is hidden treasure, or some mystery whose 
 solution is of deepest import, the result will be and 
 must be the doing of what the law asks for. Intent- 
 ness of looking indicates and proves earnestness 
 of purpose. When the intentness is in the sphere 
 of character, the earnestness naturally and even of 
 necessity moves into effort. The man is aroused 
 to action with reference to manhood. The knowl- 
 edge of what manhood is impels at once to working 
 for it. Thoughtlessness makes forgetfulness. But 
 when the thoughtlessness has given way to thought, 
 and the chance looking to the continuous, serious, 
 earnest looking, a new spirit takes control. The 
 hearer becomes a doer ; and the doer, a doer that 
 
 238 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 vvorketh to the attainmentof an end which is deemed 
 vital to the soul. This is the way in which genuine 
 character grows and develops itself. It is so in every 
 department of our living. Awaken the man to the 
 intent contemplation of the ideal in any line, and to 
 the laws pertaining to it, and which it imposes, and 
 you have begun the work of the making of the 
 man — a work which will surely move onward 
 towards completeness, if the awakening is contin- 
 uous. It is true, most of all, in the moral and spirit- 
 ual sphere, for here is the essential life of the man. 
 It is to the end of the impression of the power of 
 this ideal on the soul, as we may believe, that Chris- 
 tianity, in its message, dwells so largely on the per- 
 sonality of Jesus, and stirs men by its every appeal to 
 look towards Him. To the same end it represents 
 His life everywhere, according to the reality of it, 
 as moving freely and lovingly under the perfect law 
 of liberty. Fix your thought upon Him, it says, as 
 a manly man studies and thinks upon the ideal set 
 before him. Place your life beside His in compar- 
 ison with His. See there and then, with the seeing 
 of the inmost soul, what manner of man He was, 
 and what you ought to be and may be. Abide 
 there in the soul's thinking, as with the ever-con- 
 tinuing look of intentness. With this word, it al- 
 most leaves you to yourself for all the rest, for it 
 knows that, as you thus look, you will cease to be a 
 hearer only of the message, and will become a doer 
 of the law, fulfilling its requirements and carry- 
 ing the results of your working into character. If 
 it can only move the soul by its appeal ; if it can 
 
 239 
 
 V 
 
V. 
 
 THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 lead it to put itself in the right place and the right 
 attitude, it trusts the future with confidence. 
 
 And then it adds for the soul its final word, of 
 assurance and promise: This man shall be blessed 
 in his doing. The writer had learned, as he wrote 
 these words, the deep thought of the Christian 
 teaching. It is only when we stand apart with our 
 souls unmoved by the contemplation of the ideal, — 
 only when we are forgetful hearers, like the one who 
 beholds his natural face in a mirror and loses all 
 thought or care as to what he is, that the law of 
 Christian living seems a law of bondage. It mani- 
 fests itself thus to our vision simply because our 
 souls are not stirred to activity for the soul's true 
 well-being. But when we look into the law, and by 
 looking intently see in it the law of liberty and of 
 perfectness for the soul's life, and when our looking 
 changes, as it were by a wonderful transformation, 
 into doing and working, a new experience comes to 
 us. It is the experience of the Christian's career. 
 What is it? It is the experience not of hope merely, 
 but of realisation. The blessing is not only a thing 
 which we work for through the earthly course, 
 patiently waiting for it, while we are ever attracted 
 by the lovely vision of it as a future good. It is a 
 present reality, known day by day, and in all the 
 years, which abides in the doing, and pertains to it. 
 The law of free service always has such blessing. 
 Its demands come to us as calls upon our love for a 
 loving friend. We answer them by our doing and 
 working, as the sweet privilege of life. We grow in 
 
 240 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 love, in beautiful character, in happy consciousness 
 of right and blessed life, in assurance that the ideal 
 is forming itself in our souls, in all that is most 
 precious and delightful within ourselves, as we thus 
 answer them. The inner life of the man becomes 
 more and more a blessing to himself, and he moves 
 on toward and into the future, knowing that greater 
 and better things are awaiting him as he himself 
 becomes better and greater. 
 
 The Christian teaching — the word of its mes- 
 sage — the law of its free, happy, grand life, is a 
 wonderful teaching and word and law. In the 
 words of this writer the summons comes to you — 
 and how reasonably and fitly — to look into it, and 
 to make your lives conform to the ideal which it 
 sets before you. 
 
 i6 
 
 241 
 
XVII 
 
 THE PASSING OF LIFE 
 
 For what is your life ? It is even a vapour that appeareth for 
 a little time, atid then vanisheth away. — James iv. 14. 
 
 I PLACE this question of the sacred writer at the 
 beginning of what I would say at this time — 
 having it in my thought to address my words to a 
 company of educated young men in a university — 
 not for the purpose of unfolding directly the answer 
 which he gives to it, but rather because, in connec- 
 tion with that answer, it appears more indirectly, to 
 offer the opportunity of gathering together a few 
 thoughts upon the general subject of our passing 
 life. The answer of the sacred writer, indeed, when 
 regarded in itself, is one which almost from the 
 necessity of the case loses its force in great measure 
 to the thought of such a company. The shortness 
 of the time appointed for us in this world is a sub- 
 ject which can scarcely make a very deep impression 
 upon our minds when, in the fulness of youthful and 
 manly vigour, we are just preparing for or commenc- 
 ing our work for ourselves. The way looks long 
 before us, as we view it from the starting-point. 
 How can we believe that we shall soon reach the 
 end? We shall not reach the end soon. There are 
 thirty or forty or fifty years before us, — and that 
 
 242 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 is not soon. The man who lias passed through 
 those fifty years may fitly say, if he will, that life 
 vanishes, for everything vanishes at last. But we 
 have not passed through them. We are at the 
 beginning, when all things are beautiful and hopeful. 
 God did not mean, surely, that we should call life a 
 vapour, and we cannot do so, at least till the realisa- 
 tion of the future has taught us the lesson which, as 
 yet, we do not more than half believe it has to 
 teach us. 
 
 Such, in substance, is what every young man says 
 to himself, and what the members of every company 
 of youthful friends say to each other, when their 
 thoughts are arrested for the moment by this ques- 
 tion of life. The ending and the beginning do 
 not easily meet together. There are, however, some 
 things so closely connected with that constant pass- 
 ing away of the years which is to every reflecting 
 mind an appreciated fact, that we may urge them 
 upon those who look forward, as well as upon those 
 who look backward. If not all within the realm of 
 experience to-day, they are, at least, pressing upon 
 us from the immediate future, and must be allowed 
 their influence upon our minds even now, if we are 
 to guide our course by great principles or by the 
 great truths of our being. 
 
 Let me ask you, then, to call to your thought the , 
 fact, that life is always passing out of the present into 
 the future. In one sense, life is wholly within the 
 present, for the future is uncertain, and the past is 
 gone from us. It is what we have and enjoy and 
 
 243 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 are, at this hour, that makes up our existence. We 
 may have been anything in the time gone by, and it 
 matters not, except as the results of that former time 
 have worked out our present character and con- 
 dition, or as memory has brought into the present 
 the joy or sorrow which it then gathered into itself; 
 while, as for to-morrow, it is an unknown season, 
 which can never be ours until it is no longer to-mor- 
 row, but to-day. This is the view of life which lin- 
 gers with us, in general, through all the earlier period 
 of our career ; and it is for us all one of the kindnesses 
 of the Providential ordering, that the preparatory 
 season does thus seem to limit itself to itself, so that 
 no anxiety or fear mingles with the gladness of life's 
 morning. 
 
 But this is not the truest view, nor is it the one 
 which can abide the progress of time and the changes 
 of the world. You come, my friend, to the hour 
 when all the preparation is completed, — when the 
 implements of your service have been given you, 
 and you are bidden to go forth and do your 
 appointed work ; — and then, the present begins to 
 seem to you almost as nothing. It is but a moment. 
 It vanishes away into the future. You think of it 
 only as it helps you onward towards that future, to 
 which all your labours and hopes are pointing; in 
 which your life centres and has its being. 
 
 And thus it will be, more and more, just accord- 
 ing to the nobleness of your aims or the largeness of 
 your desires and plans. While you see the days 
 running by you with so little done, and yet the work 
 opening more widely before you with so much to 
 
 244 
 
THE IN'NER LIFE 
 
 do — the attainments and progress already made 
 appearing to your thought the smaller, just in pro- 
 portion, perchance, as they appear to others, or 
 even are in reality, the greater — you will be always 
 pressing on, laying hold upon the things before, and 
 finding yourself, in your dissatisfaction with the pres- 
 ent, waiting most impatiently for that coming period 
 which, in its turn, must lengthen and enlarge itself 
 continually in order to fill the deep wants of your soul. 
 The mind, in this way, alters its judgment of things 
 completely as it comes to its mature reflection, and 
 it is compelled to do so, because it sees that each 
 to-day is only the time of fitting itself for each 
 to-morrow, — the season of toil or warfare, while life 
 passes out of this into the season of rest or victory. 
 But if all this is true, there is nothing necessarily 
 of the brevity of life in it, nor is there anything 
 which it is unnatural for us to think of when all is 
 hopeful. There is, however, a suggestion that may 
 have an all-important bearing upon our course of 
 action in the world. Life is vanishing out of the 
 present into the future now, and it always will be. 
 What is the lesson? Is it not, that the future is the -, 
 most certain and real part of our existence? Is it 
 not, that the work of the soul for itself within the 
 present is never accomplished, except as it takes 
 hold upon the future and prepares for it? Surely, 
 it would seem that this cannot be denied, for it is 
 the very principle on which men are working every- 
 where around us — only that they limit their vision. 
 You, my friend, for example, use all your energy 
 willingly in your chosen life's work, with no thought 
 
 245 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 of a full reward until perhaps the last ten years of 
 the forty or fifty, to which you look forward, shall 
 have begun ; and if some one tells you that those 
 years may never come, you give no heed to what he 
 says — you do not even half believe in the possibility 
 of its truth — because you know that your highest and 
 best life is not here, but there. You are preparing 
 for something in the distance before you, and you 
 will not, for a moment, hinder your labours by ad- 
 mitting the thought that you may die before you 
 reach it. 
 
 And as it seems to me, you are in one sense, 
 perhaps in the highest sense, right in this. Your 
 mistake is not so much in thinking that you have so 
 many years awaiting you, as it is in thinking that 
 you have so few. It is not so much in forgetting 
 your liability to fall in death before the way is half- 
 accomplished, as it is in suffering yourself to imagine 
 that death, whenever it comes, is anything more than 
 a point in your history — an event which changes, 
 indeed, the sphere, but not the fact, nor the greatest 
 wants, of your existence. 
 
 We grant you, then, the longest life — the whole 
 of the half-century, even, that lies between you and 
 the appointed boundary. We grant you that it is a 
 long period, even as it seems to yourself. But that 
 is not all the future, nor all your future. There are 
 years beyond that. You are just as sure of sixty 
 years or of a hundred, as you are of fifty ; and you 
 are absolutely certain of both. At some time within 
 the hundred years, your sphere of activity will 
 change. But that will not make the time that 
 
 246 
 
THE IiVNEk LIFE 
 
 follows of less value to you — far from It Rather, 
 as to-morrow is more real and valuable than to-day, 
 so the later period must ever rise to the rightly- 
 thinking mind, into an importance which vastly out- 
 weighs the possibilities of the earlier one. This is 
 the law of our being; a law which no reasonable 
 man among us ever thinks of disregarding in his 
 plan of living for this world, and a law which it is no 
 more reasonable to disregard for any part of the 
 future, so long as, whatever may be its dwelling- 
 place, the soul remains itself. 
 
 I am speaking now, especially, of what you are 
 doing for yourself, my friend. Why direct every- 
 thing with so much care — why, as you are just 
 passing forth into life, lay every plan, as you are 
 doing, with so much thoughtfulness and so bright 
 visions of hope, with reference to the ten or twenty 
 years which shall close the nexthalf-century of your 
 existence, and then give not a moment's reflection, 
 or the smallest part of your wisdom, to the ten or 
 twenty years that begin the following half-century ? 
 And this is all the difference between the two 
 periods, when we consider the subject as we ought. 
 Life is not going to contradict itself, when you are 
 sixty years of age. It is not going to bring in the 
 fulness of success then, and so remain a harvest- 
 time of joy for you until it suddenly ceases at 
 seventy. No : — it will be passing out of the 
 present into the future then, as truly and as con- 
 stantly as it docs now. Otherwise, it is nothing but 
 a mockery. Otherwise, our largest desires and hopes 
 and aspirations arc to meet disappointment, and 
 
 247 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 disappointment only. God cannot thus deceive the 
 nature that He has Himself made. 
 
 The Gospel comes to us at this hour, then, and 
 here is its first message : — Be ready, at every mo- 
 ment, for the future, and think of the remoter future, 
 as well as the nearer one. It tells us also, that, in 
 view of our present thought, death is nothing ; — 
 and as the man who labours with no care reaching 
 beyond the night that closes these daylight hours 
 is degrading his humanity to the level of the beasts 
 that perish, so every one who limits his preparation 
 for the future by the bounds of threescore years and 
 ten, because, forsooth, the darkness of death is full 
 of doubt or mystery, is forgetful of his soul's high- 
 est welfare and of the glorious birthright of his 
 immortality. 
 
 Let me ask you to call to your thought, again, 
 % the fact that life is always passing out of the seen 
 into the unseen. To the young child there is noth- 
 ing, as it were, beyond what is seen. He lives 
 among outward things, and fulfils the divine ap- 
 pointment in that he does do. But there is another 
 destiny for those who have already begun the labours 
 of their career in the world. They also are in the 
 midst of outward things, but these are growing — ■ 
 gradually, it may be, but yet constantly — less and 
 less to be their life. I do not mean that multitudes 
 of persons may not go on from the commencement 
 of their course to its close almost like children in 
 this regard, or that multitudes more may not fail 
 ever to look so earnestly at those things which in 
 
 248 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 the Scriptures are called unseen, as to lay hold upon 
 the eternal blessings. But I speak of the tendency 
 — of the great fact alone, which is realised, in 
 greater or less degree, in the experience of all 
 thoughtful persons as they move onward in their 
 course. The opening of mature years brings with 
 it the necessity of working and the burden of re- 
 sponsibility. A man is obliged to force his way 
 into the great company who are carrying forward 
 the world's affairs, and to achieve for himself success 
 in his chosen line. The carelessness of the past is 
 over now, while the reality of the present and the 
 future breaks in more and more impressively upon 
 the soul. Now there is something in this very work 
 of life which drives one in upon himself, to com- 
 mune there with all that he knows of the spiritual 
 world. Your work, my brother, does not merely go 
 from yourself outward and thus terminate upon it- 
 self; but it returns from without inward also, so that 
 you are growing up in your own inner life con- 
 tinually by means of all that you are doing. And 
 to your serious thought, this will ever be the truest, 
 greatest result of your working, so far as you are 
 concerned in yourself alone. Yes, you may enter 
 on your career with whatever plans you please — 
 with all your efforts directed towards the attainment 
 of reputation, or wealth, or any of the thousand ob- 
 jects of human desire that are at all worthy of an in- 
 telligent man, — and in the earnest pursuit of these, 
 you may throw yourself purposely into the midst of 
 external things, into the hurry and business of the 
 world around you ; but you cannot escape the ef- 
 
 249 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 feet of whieh I am speaking. There will be hours 
 — now and then at least, if not always — when you 
 will realise it. Life — whether we will it or not — 
 becomes sober. Life becomes thoughtful. Life, if 
 I may so say, becomes self-contemplative, very 
 rapidly, as we go on in it ; and if you have any life 
 that is deserving of the name at all — so that you 
 are not a mere pleasure-hunter, or liver for the day 
 only — you will see that your work is most unreal 
 in itself, and most real in its influence within you. 
 But the time will only suffer me thus to hint at 
 this thought. It will impress itself more deeply 
 upon us when we think of the responsibility and 
 anxiety of life's work. The continual demand that 
 is made upon the soul for fortitude and energy — no 
 matter what may be the dangers, or disappointments, 
 or defeats, which are met with in the struggle of the 
 world — will force every man, even the strongest 
 hearted, to retire often and look after the sources of 
 new power. As such a man first becomes per- 
 suaded of his own weakness, indeed, he may begin 
 to search for these sources without himself, among 
 the fellow-workers around him. But the search will 
 soon cease ; or, if it be resumed from time to time, 
 as the delusion of our life lingers with him, it will 
 show itself to be fruitless where the deepest wants 
 of the soul need to be supplied. No one human 
 mind can ever fully enter into the experience of 
 another, and the truth, that it cannot, men learn 
 more thoroughly as the years move forward. What 
 remains for the man then, but to go within himself? 
 And when he has gone within, what remains for him 
 
 250 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 there? Nothing, but cither to strive to gather up 
 his own energies anew, which have already failed 
 him once, or many times, or to turn toward the 
 powers of the spiritual realm. Let him, now, take 
 whichever of these two courses he will, life has com- 
 pelled him, in the hour of his greatest emergency, 
 to abandon the external altogether. Life has passed, 
 for that hour at least, from the seen to the unseen. 
 
 But with the earnest and thoughtful soul, which is 
 faithful to itself, the effort will not always be — no, 
 it will be less and less — to waken up its own un- 
 aided strength, as its only resource. It will realise 
 that its need is of a new power, higher than its own, 
 and therefore it will try to hold communion with 
 that which rules in the unseen world, and to search 
 more deeply into the knowledge of that world, until 
 it comes to feel and know that its own real existence 
 is there. I do not say, let me repeat again, that all 
 this is true, in its fulness, in the case of every mind. 
 The blindness and sluggishness and passions of our 
 humanity keep many from the truth forever. But I 
 do say that such is the tendency — such is the les- 
 son of the years — and you and I will be learning 
 the lesson as we go forward towards the end, even 
 though we may die, perchance, long before we have 
 learned it thoroughly or received the richness of its 
 Divine gift to the soul. 
 
 It is a universal fact, also, that we do not move far 
 beyond the opening of mature life, before we are 
 called to endure the separations and sorrows of 
 this world. The joyousness with which even the 
 lightest-hearted among you, my young friends, may 
 
 251 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 enter on the ten years immediately before you — 
 strong as you are in the confidence of warm friend- 
 ships, and filled as you are with the bright vision of 
 the future — will find itself, surely it will, over- 
 clouded somewhat, before the ten years are ended. 
 It is better, no doubt, not to think about it much, as 
 yet. It will be time enough for that, when it comes. 
 But, even now, I ask you to bear it in mind that, when 
 it does come, you will know the fact within yourself. 
 If you are called, for example, a few years hence to 
 separate from one of your tried friends, as he is 
 summoned into the eternal world, you will find that 
 a part of your life is gone with him ; and, if you are 
 to each other what you think you are to-day, that 
 part of your life will never return from that world, 
 any more than he will. It will have passed, once for 
 all, from the seen to the unseen. Or if, in your per- 
 sonal experience, you find the struggle of the world, 
 even in its beginnings, harder for you than you had 
 pictured it in your happy dreamings, or bearing 
 with itself a suggestion, or perchance a threatening, 
 of possible failure as to your largest hopes, a similar 
 lesson will come to you — only it will be a lesson, 
 not from the region of the unseen into which an- 
 other has entered, but from that unseen region 
 where the deepest thoughts and the central life of 
 your own manhood have their abiding-place. 
 
 But not only with sorrows or trials like these ; so 
 it is with every separation, with every disappoint- 
 ment, with everything that brings on darkness 
 instead of light. There is a sort of distinct and 
 independent life in these things, which runs on 
 
 252 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 parallel with our outward work. The world knows 
 nothing of it. It is wholly of and within our souls, 
 and it makes us leave the outward behind us, 
 because it leaves the outward behind itself. 
 
 The very advancing years, also, tell the same 
 story for themselves, because they are bearing us 
 continually nearer to the unseen world. Life may 
 not be brief to you now, because you have fifty 
 years before you ; but it will begin to grow briefer 
 to your view after a little while, and just in propor- 
 tion as it does so, will be the impressiveness of the 
 thought that the unseen life is the real one. I do 
 not ask you to realise this fully now — but the 
 Gospel message to you, as you form your plans of 
 living and go forth into the world, is : Do not 
 deceive yourself with regard to the future : it no 
 more constantly brings the unseen into the seen, 
 than it bears the seen into the unseen. 
 
 In presenting the subject thus far, I have been 
 led to allude to our active work in its bear- 
 ing upon ourselves. Let me now ask you once 
 more — my final thought — to call to your remem- 
 brance that, so far as our work in other respects is 
 concerned, life is always passing out of self into t]ie 
 world. There is a deception which we all practise 
 upon ourselves, in this regard. Not only at the 
 outset of our career, but long afterward, we per- 
 suade our souls that the work which we have under- 
 taken has a completeness in itself; and we press on 
 with all earnestness, as if the whole of it centred in 
 the few years of our sojourning on earth. But if 
 
 253 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 our life is good for anything, — not given to mere 
 personal enjoyment, — this is very far from being 
 the fact. When we think of it rightly, you and I 
 have not commenced anything, nor shall we finish 
 anything. No, we simply take up an unfinished 
 work, which some one else who went before us left 
 for us to do and, after a season, we shall leave it, 
 still unfinished, for some one else to take up anew, 
 who shall follow after us. That is all. 
 
 I may draw an illustration from the place in 
 which we are educated. The person who finds his 
 appointed sphere for a life-work in a University 
 may be said to have two great things — at least, 
 among others — assigned to him to do : — namely, 
 to maintain, in common with those around him, the 
 life of the institution, and to make all possible pro- 
 gress in the department of learning to which he 
 devotes himself. Now, in the former of these two 
 things, he may find every day requiring new efforts 
 or bringing new cares; he may become absorbed in 
 devotion to his work, and may go on with ever- 
 increasing energy and enthusiasm to the latest hour. 
 But, as he passes away from his individual earthly 
 life, the life of the University moves steadily on 
 beyond him. His work enters into its future, and 
 mingles there with what went before and what fol- 
 lows after, until its relation to him may be alto- 
 gether lost sight of, and forgotten. Thus it is, also, 
 with the other portion of his duty, — even more 
 clearly still, if that be possible. What has he done 
 there, but advance his own science beyond the point 
 where he received it, so that he opens to the future 
 
 254 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 generation a wider vision and a larger field ? So far 
 from a completeness within his lifetime, it had its 
 beginning centuries ago, perchance, and may endure 
 for centuries upon centuries to come. 
 
 We, however, are but an example of mankind 
 around us. The truth about our living is the truth 
 about all living. The life of each individual may, in 
 some sense, have a completeness ; but surely it is 
 not in its work. The work has no completeness. 
 It has, in the light in which we view it at this 
 moment, no meaning, except as it finds its way out 
 of self into the world, and not only this, but into 
 the world of the future. 
 
 The great law of self-sacrifice is dependent, in large 
 measure, upon this fact. You cannot think rightly of 
 the heroic sacrifices made in a great struggle for 
 freedom, or in the work of a missionary to the 
 heathen, or in any of the grander movements of the 
 world in which those who have the most of life 
 before them are called upon to give up that life 
 most readily, except as you think of them thus. 
 But when you thus think of them, the mystery is 
 solved. The soldier may fall in his first battle, or 
 the missionary in his first year of service, and yet 
 not have thrown himself away for nothing. His 
 life's work has ended just where it must have ended, 
 had he been permitted to see the final success of 
 his efforts. It has passed out of himself into the 
 world. 
 
 And so everywhere, whether there be a voluntary 
 offering like this or not. The friend beside you, 
 whom you have known and loved with the ardour of 
 
 255 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 a youthful affection, may pass away just as he sees 
 the world opening before him and with the dis- 
 appointment of every cherished hope, while you 
 may linger on until the farthest limit of age is 
 reached, realising all the visions that are now so 
 beautiful to your soul. But your life — so widely 
 different, as it seems, from his — is like his, in 
 reality. You have gained nothing by your length- 
 ened course, as we may almost say; for the ques- 
 tion of sooner or later becomes an idle one, as 
 you remember that the work of both takes hold 
 upon the future, and abides there — as you re- 
 member that his work and yours may even unite 
 together again, as they both move on beyond you 
 into the coming age and form together, in some 
 mysterious way, a portion of the world's inheritance. 
 
 The Gospel takes this closing thought, my friend, 
 and says to you : Be as earnest and hopeful as 
 you can be in all your work ; but remember that it 
 passes on in this world while you go to another, and 
 that, when your earthly life has thus vanished away, 
 you will remain. 
 
 But if this is so, here is one of the most vital and 
 infinitely momentous truths of existence to all, and 
 especially to those who are just forming their plans 
 for the future. This thought may work backward 
 in its influence, also, upon the two which have pre- 
 ceded it; for if your life is so passing away from 
 yourself that what you are doing now finds its perfec- 
 tion only in later times, then the varied influences 
 of your work in the unseen region of your soul are 
 the only thing of importance connected with it, so far 
 
 256 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 as you alone are concerned — and the growth of 
 your character and interior being rises, of necessity, 
 into the highest consequence. And again, if your 
 work is leaving your hands as it were continually, 
 and is to leave them altogether at death, to belong 
 thereafter to the world only, not to you — then the 
 years that follow the termination of your earthly 
 course are worthy of your thought beyond all meas- 
 ure more than any of those which precede it, for then 
 you are entering on a new stage of your existence, 
 when all things may depend on what you are. 
 
 17 257 
 
XVIII 
 
 THE THINGS THAT REMAIN 
 The things that remain. — Revelation iii. 2. 
 
 THESE four words were written by the author 
 of the book from which they are taken 
 with a special reference to thoughts or visions 
 which were given to him. I venture to use them 
 simply for what they are in themselves. We 
 who belong to this peculiar community have 
 reached within these now passing days the last 
 brief section of our academic year. A large com- 
 pany included in our number have come not only 
 to the ending of this single year, but to the closing 
 period of all the years in which they can know this 
 place as the home of their united life. The final 
 hour lingers a little while, yet it so manifestly draws 
 near that it bears witness impressively of itself. It 
 comes, as it were, out of the distance and darkness 
 in which it has been so long hiding, and sends 
 forth, just before itself, its word of seriousness for 
 every one. While it lingers, the days have new 
 meaning and new thought in them. They are quiet 
 days, in the brightest and happiest part of the year. 
 But they are, because of their nearness to the end, 
 full of tenderness and suggestiveness, full of remem- 
 brance and of hope, full of earnest movement of the 
 
 258 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 soul, both inward and outward. They set the mind 
 upon thinking in a way in which it has not thought 
 before. They ask the man where he is, and what 
 he is, in his inmost self; and, as they wait for his 
 answer, they point forward. 
 
 It is to those especially, who are nearest to-day 
 to the final ending of the pleasant life here, that 
 I would say a few words appropriate to the hour 
 and the season — words which will also have their 
 application, though in less measure it may be, to 
 all. The days, upon which these are now enter- 
 ing and which will so soon be past, may well 
 suggest to them, I am sure, the thought of the 
 things that remain. You stand to-day, my friends, 
 at the last dividing-point of the course. Questions 
 of your personal life must arise in your minds, at 
 such a time. The questions above all others in 
 which your manliest interest centres must be, What 
 has passed away for us? — for each one of you, 
 What has passed away for me, — and Wliat re- 
 mains ? and the second of these two questions can- 
 not but appear to your deepest thought the most 
 vital one for yourselves. 
 
 The first thing that remains for you is the time 
 before the end ; which is indeed, very full of signifi- 
 cance. In this matter there is found one of the 
 marvellous kindnesses of God to us in this world 
 — one of the proofs that He is a loving Father. 
 
 There seems to be so much time when we begin 
 life, or when we begin anything that is of what we 
 call long continuance, that we waste it as if it were 
 
 259 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 valueless, or even misuse it to unworthy ends. The 
 days and years pass on rapidly — flying by us, and 
 beyond us, as if with wings ; — but they come, as 
 they go, and we think of the coming, not of the 
 going. To-morrow will answer the purpose of to- 
 day, and we may wait for it. Or it will, at least, 
 give us the hours wherein the half-work of to-day 
 may be made complete. We may, therefore, leave 
 to-day's work half-accomplished. So we live on. 
 We live as children, thoughtless of the present and 
 trustful of the future. Or, with more heroic and 
 manly spirit, we resolve, at the beginning, with 
 a great resolve. The years shall realise wonder- 
 fully rich results for us in whatever we undertake. 
 We will be more, and do more, than the idle multi- 
 tude around us. We will be and do what is worthy 
 of ourselves. But the resolution meets with weak- 
 ness and hindrance as the time moves forward. 
 The man's power is not what he thought it was. 
 The end does not answer to the beginning. The 
 hope changes to disappointment, and the years are 
 gone. From whatever cause, when we come to a 
 turning-point and look backward, we find that 
 partial failure has befallen us. The past has not 
 been what it might have been, or what we our- 
 selves once hoped it would be when it came to its 
 ending. 
 
 This is oitr side of the matter, and it is a hard 
 thing for us all when we think of it soberly. Look 
 at the subject for yourselves, my friends. You who 
 are drawing near the end here at this time, cannot 
 help thinking in these passing days. You who are 
 
 260 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 closing the first year here, or the last, must find 
 the impulse to reflection moving you because 
 of this fact. Do you not discover for yourselves 
 the common experience? The college life has not 
 brought you all the results that you hoped for, 
 or all that it might have brought. There is a loss 
 out of ih.Q platis and purpose when the achievement 
 is measured. The time has failed of its fruits — not 
 all of them, indeed — life is not all waste or disap- 
 pointment; but much of good is for every one, to- 
 day, among, and only among, the things that might 
 have been. It is not a pleasant thought to you or 
 to me — this one of the failures ; it is full of sadness. 
 But it comes to us all in the quiet meditative days 
 before the ending of the old years and the be- 
 ginning of the new ones. This is our side of the 
 matter. 
 
 But it is not the Divine Father^s side. His 
 thought, with which He comes to us as with inspira- 
 tion and impulse, is, The quiet days are of the 
 things that yet remaiit. They centre life in them- 
 selves. They have within them the time that is all- 
 sufiicient. Not all-sufficient indeed to do the work 
 which might have filled the long years that are 
 gone. They have not hours enough for this ; and 
 the work, if ever done, must wait for some new stage 
 of life for its accomplishment. But all-sufficient for 
 the making of the man with reference to the present 
 and the future. The making of the man did not 
 pass away, in its possibility, with the failure of the 
 work. It did not require the years for its beginning 
 and its security, though it did for its early perfectness. 
 
 261 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 Its beginning may come now; and as it comes, the 
 truest life of the man will be secure. The ivork also 
 will follow the manhood — not as easily, not as 
 rapidly, not as perfectly as it might have done, had 
 all been right from the outset; but it will follow 
 beautifully notwithstanding. This is the Divine side 
 of the matter. The thought is of present possibility, 
 and thus of encouragement. The thought is of the 
 days that remain, not of the days that are past. 
 The thought is of promise and hope, not of hope- 
 less loss ; — and the summons which comes with the 
 thought, is the summons to duty and manhood, in 
 the time that remains, as inspired by the promise, 
 and cheered by the Jiopc. Let the deep sense of the 
 past failure turn itself into a quickening power for 
 the coming time, and let the man hear the twofold 
 voice of the past and future as a single call to man- 
 hood. 
 
 The thought which has just been presented sug- 
 gests easily, as a second thing that remains, the 
 power of new resolve. This, in the movement of 
 the soul, is the starting-point of manhood. The 
 power lingers for all with the time, and gathers 
 itself up in its full energy within the time. In the 
 case of some men in every community, the newness 
 of the resolve must be entire, if truest manhood is 
 to follow. The old purpose has been wholly wrong; 
 or the life thus far has been aimless, drifting along 
 and away with the chances of the passing days. 
 In a company such as that to which we belong, the 
 latter experience is more often realised. There are 
 
 262 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 persons here perchance, from time to time, who 
 come hither, or abide in this place, with their will- 
 power definitely and consciously set towards evil — 
 the determination being, that the life shall be given 
 to it. But if they ever appear among us, the bless- 
 ing of the place is, that they appear as aliens to the 
 commonwealth. Their soul-movement is not the 
 soul-movement of the community. They belong 
 elsewhere, and are not recognised as of the citizen- 
 ship. Our oftentimes occurring experience, rather, 
 is that we treat life as we treat the days. We enjoy 
 it, as we enjoy them ; but, as for the great purpose 
 which is to govern it and truly create it, we defer 
 this until the future, or form it only in some part of 
 its force. This fault is not like the other. It is not 
 the man' s devotion of himself to wrong-doing with 
 the energy of a hardened nature ; but the tveakness 
 oi youth, which fails to think of what is not within its 
 immediate vision, and contents itself with what is 
 thus near and around it. The weakness of youth, it 
 is called. It is one, however, in which human ex- 
 perience shows that the youth is father of the man, 
 for it tarries with the man — and with every man, 
 in greater or less degree — long after the youthful 
 years have passed. But it is one that tends to 
 failure, and involves it. 
 
 The critical moment, however, comes by the 
 Divine appointment. The day arrives, which is not 
 the end itself, but which is near the end and testi- 
 fies of it — the day which begins the brief closing 
 season, and calls for and awakens thoughtfulness. 
 What does it say to the thoughtful man, who now 
 
 263 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 hears its voice? It tells him that there remains 
 within the brief season one of the greatest of 
 gifts — the gift which may bear with it a remedy 
 for all weakness, and even for all wrong purpose, 
 in the past — the power of a new resolve. The man 
 may take the gift as it is offered to him, and, in the 
 yet lingering days, may make out of it a strong and 
 vigorous and glorified life; or, if it need be so, a 
 wholly renewed and transformed life, full of good 
 as the former one was of evil. 
 
 This is one of the ways in which we are educated 
 in this world. Something is always ending for us. 
 Something, as the ending time draws near, is ever 
 reminding us, as if by a friendly forewarning, of 
 that which is so soon to come. Something is whis- 
 pering in our ear, with the tenderness as of interest 
 in our well-being, that in the days between the fore- 
 warning and the ending, there is opportunity, and 
 more than this — a great force. Rise to the use 
 and exercise of the force, according to its true mean- 
 ing. The power of new resolve stands ready to 
 change the character, or to strengthen it, if already 
 changed. Let it have its perfect work. So the 
 teaching comes, again and again, as we move on 
 from one period to another, — out of an old experi- 
 ence into a new one, — away from past thoughtless- 
 ness, or failure, toward the opening possibility of 
 the larger and better future. It comes with a pecu- 
 liar impressiveness, when the premonition of the 
 end is given at the beginning of that brief closing 
 time after which youth in its fulness is to pass into 
 manhood, and the regrets for the old days mingle 
 
 264 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 with the hopes and fears for the new ones. The 
 educating influence of such a time must tell upon 
 the life which receives it, and the power of the new 
 resolve must gain the mastery over the regrets and 
 the fears alike, and must turn the hopes into assured 
 confidence. 
 
 Closely connected with the matter of new resolve, 
 though having an independence of it, is another 
 thing which remains — the power of forming a new 
 ideal. This is one of the best things which still 
 linger with us in the closing days. And this, again, 
 is a blessing for all. For the man who has had a 
 low ideal, unworthy of himself, the possibility is of 
 a wholly changed one, which shall elevate and 
 ennoble him, lifting him by its grand force above 
 his old self and bringing him into the realisation of 
 what it reveals. But for men who have known 
 something better than this — whose ideal has been, 
 to their own thought, high perchance, and yet has 
 not reached the loftiest limits — there is a great 
 possibility. The ideal of life or manhood, in one 
 sense, may never be higher for the true man than it 
 is at the beginning. He may enter on his course 
 with the thought of the perfection of himself as 
 that at which he is to aim — and there can be noth- 
 ing beyond this. We believe that there are many 
 who have this thought in the early years, and who 
 hold it fast in their minds and hearts. There are 
 many such in our own number, as we would not 
 doubt. 
 
 But what is the perfection of ourselves ? It is a 
 265 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 happy thing that, as the years go on, this question 
 receives for us, and in us, a larger answer — more 
 full of meaning and richness. We do not stay, in 
 our thought, as we were in the earliest time. Our 
 thought widens and deepens. You do not wish, my 
 friend, — if you are in the right line of growth — to 
 be where you were a year ago, or ten years ago, in 
 the mind's life and the soul's life. You are more 
 than you were then, and you rejoice in the fact. 
 It will be so hereafter. You will be more ten years 
 hence, and thirty years hence, than you are now. 
 Youth in its fulness, just opening into manhood, is 
 a grand thing and a good thing — as beautiful as it 
 is hopeful, — but it is not everything, or the best 
 thing. The best thing is beyond it, in the distance. 
 And as for the progress of time which realises 
 what is better, and at last, away off beyond the 
 present vision, what is best — how much of its 
 rich gift is found in the enlarging and ennobling 
 of the ideal, which seemed to us, at the beginning, 
 as grand as it could be. The ideal has become 
 new to our thought — we discover in the after 
 days — because of the new meaning which it has 
 gathered into itself, and we dwell upon it with 
 ever increasing interest, as its influence within us 
 glorifies our souls. This is life as it was intended to 
 be of God, and as we know it for ourselves, in our 
 imperfect measure, in the growing years. 
 
 But here, as everywhere, life moves especially in 
 the critical seasons, and new revelations are made 
 to it as it turns from one stage of its progress 
 toward another. We gain, at the turning-points, 
 
 266 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 more than we do along the even pathway/ Uphft- 
 ing thoughts and larger views come to our minds 
 when the ending of one age arrives for us and 
 points onward to the beginning of another. The 
 thoughts then are suggestive and quickening for all 
 the future. The vision widens, and takes in, ever 
 afterward, more than it did before. We know, with 
 a deeper knowledge, by reason of these suggestive 
 thoughts and this wider vision, what is the meaning 
 and what is the reality of that ideal which we but 
 partially understood in the earlier time ; and the 
 ideal of life seems, and in a certain real sense 
 is, a new one for us. Such is the gift which, as 
 the ending of one period of life waits a little for 
 the opening of the next one, remains within the 
 last days — waiting for us, each and every one, 
 to take it. It is one of the precious things that 
 remain. 
 
 And, in a peculiar sense and measure, does it 
 belong in the season just before the termination of 
 the youthful work for the educated man, for then the 
 taking into one's self the best thoughts for the future 
 is the most natural of all things. The season lingers 
 a little, we may almost say, for this purpose ; and the 
 power of forming the new ideal is among its great- 
 est blessings, — for, as this is filled out to greater 
 fulness at the starting-point of the manly years, the 
 life has its best and largest opportunity for develop- 
 ment under its influence. 
 
 Allied to the influence of the new ideal is still 
 another of the things that remain. The power of 
 
 267 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 putting the life in the right path Hngers with the 
 final days which turn the thought forward to the 
 future. And here we may speak of the matter 
 in two ways. 
 
 The life, what is it? It is first, the life in itself — 
 the great, deep, central life of the soul, in which 
 the man is to live always. This may be put in the 
 right pathway in the season before the ending, if it 
 has never been set on that way before. The mean- 
 ing and purpose of the season indeed, with all its 
 admonition of the future and tender suggestivcness 
 as to the present and the past, are found in its influ- 
 ence to this great end. There is no more earnest 
 call, in all the years, to any man in this company, 
 and no more loving one, than that which comes to 
 him who has thus far failed to be deeply thoughtful 
 of right living. He is called, in these passing weeks 
 before the ending of the days here, to do what has 
 not been done — to make the life what it ought to 
 be, by giving it a new beginning. And with the sum- 
 mons, comes the promise which rests upon the power 
 of forming new ideals and the power of new resolve 
 on the man's part, and upon the wonderful love of 
 the heavenly Father who sends the call and bids 
 the time yet linger. The blessing of all blessings, 
 in its possibility, is in the passing days. 
 
 But the life, we may ask again, what is it? It is 
 what pertains to its special work and duty. Here 
 also it may be put upon the right pathway. The 
 question of the particular line of life and service, is 
 a question which the young man just passing out 
 of the preparatory period most naturally presents 
 
 268 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 to himself. It is not essential, however, that he 
 should answer it, at the moment. It may be that 
 the time when the Divine wisdom would open the 
 course clearly has not yet arrived. We may wait 
 for the light until it is given us. But the great 
 principles which should determine the answer and 
 decision are needed now. Through them the life 
 is to be set right, and when they have their abiding- 
 place within the man, the answer in its more special 
 bearing will be possible in its own season. The 
 closing days wait for many with the gift of tliis 
 power remaining within them. The man may es- 
 tablish in himself, with a strength unknown before 
 and with a firmness such that it cannot be shaken, 
 the principle that shall govern his choice — the 
 principle which bears with it the resolve to do 
 what the love of God and the love of man re- 
 quire of him. We do not go wrong, when this 
 has dominion over our souls. Love shows the 
 pathway, when the Divine moment comes for the 
 particular decision. The days that wait may not 
 be long enough for this decision, but they will be 
 long enough for the entrance of the Divinely-given 
 principle — and the life will be on the right path- 
 way, so soon as this finds its legitimate place and 
 force in the soul. 
 
 And now — with this power of new resolve, and 
 of forming the new ideal, and of putting life on the 
 right path, which is offered to all alike, and with 
 this gift of the time yet lingering, in which each 
 may take to himself the power — there is one 
 
 269 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 more thing that remains. It must be so, because 
 of the close relations of the company to one another. 
 The days that wait for us a little while before the 
 end carry in them tlie power of gaining and of giv- 
 ing the best influence. One of the marked peculiari- 
 ties of the life which young men lead in a place 
 like this — in near and intimate companionship for 
 a term of years, having common pursuits, and 
 hopes, and impulses, and tastes, in large measure — 
 is this : that they may do much for the making of 
 one another, all along the course. Force for char- 
 acter, and for thought, and for feeling, passes and 
 repasses continually throughout the little commun- 
 ity so thoroughly bound together. Consciously at 
 times, and far more often unconsciously, each one 
 gives to his fellow what is helpful in many ways — 
 and each receives as richly as he gives. When the 
 result is counted by the individual man, he finds 
 himself to be far different from what he was at the 
 beginning. New elements have come into him 
 which were unknown in the earlier time. New 
 force is manifested in his manhood. As he studies 
 himself carefully, and traces back to its sources 
 what he has gained, he discovers that he is partly 
 made, in the richest development of mind and soul, 
 out of the inward life of those whom he has known 
 so intimately, and with whom he has moved onward 
 in the journey of the passing years. He sees also, 
 as he studies the lives of those about him, that they 
 have, in like manner, received from himself. The 
 life of the united company has become quite another 
 thing than that which it was. The individuality of 
 
 270 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 each, indeed, has been preserved, but it has been 
 enlarged, and manifolded in its powers and re- 
 sources, and made more beautiful for the man him- 
 self and sweeter in its influence for other men, 
 because it has taken into itself the best of that 
 which came to it from every side. So it is always, 
 when the individual life has suffered itself to grow, 
 here, in the right way, and to become what the 
 ideal of the place would make it. The man at the 
 end, in this aspect of the matter, is created out of 
 many men, and, in his turn, he has done his part in 
 creating many men. It is a wonderful process and 
 a wonderful result, but it is one of the interesting 
 things of this our peculiar life, that we see the 
 process ever going forward and the result ever com- 
 ing nearer to its realisation. 
 
 But our thought now turns towards the closing 
 days, just before the end and yet waiting for the 
 end. In a singular measure and degree is the 
 power of which we are speaking manifest in these 
 days. There is something in the tenderness, and 
 even sadness, of the ending time, which opens both 
 mind and heart. No one has failed to know this, 
 who has passed through the experience of this 
 season in any of the years that reach far back 
 to the beginning of the college history. Men get 
 closer to each other as they draw near to the hour 
 of separation, and the deeper manhood shows itself 
 more easily. It opens itself both for the giving 
 and receiving. 
 
 I have seen many times in life, as has every man 
 who has moved along the years for a considerable 
 
 271 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 distance, in which the opportunity for getting and 
 for bestowing good seemed to gather itself up as it 
 were, in a remarkable way, into a brief season. But 
 I have never known a time when for manly influence 
 on men a larger possibility offered itself, than in such 
 days as these, through which those of you, my friends, 
 for whom the past and the future are so near their 
 dividing point, are now passing. A man among you 
 need not even put himself to earnest effort to exert or 
 receive the influence. He may simply open his soul 
 and mind for its incoming and outgoing, and the result 
 will be secured. Everything is helpful now toward 
 good, if one only does not shut the door of his inmost 
 self against it. But if with the serious life-purpose 
 of a man who is just entering upon the needs, and 
 the experiences, and the largeness of his manly 
 years, he puts himself to the earnest efl"ort, and de- 
 termines to make for himself and take for himself 
 what is in the closing time, he may find within 
 it the richest gift of all the past to all the future. 
 The thing that remains is the best thing, and it 
 stands ready for each and every man, that he may 
 receive it, in the brief season which is now beginning 
 and is so soon to end, as a source of inspiration and 
 impulse and life-giving force — a force and impulse 
 and inspiration, which shall make the man ever 
 larger in his manhood and happier also. 
 
 I think of human life — when it is lived after the 
 right method and when the powers of mind and soul 
 abide till the end — as always growing in the rich- 
 ness of its experiences and blessings, as it grows in 
 
 272 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 the forces and acquisitions, the knowledge and ex- 
 perience, that pertain to it. How can it seem 
 otherwise to us, when we view it as we ought? 
 But if so, may we not think of it, and must we not, 
 as finding in its closing season — after the admoni- 
 tion of the end has been given, but before the end 
 itself has come — a gift which will have a singular 
 blessing for us because, as it enters the life, it may 
 be taken onward into the greater world beyond? 
 And is not this gift, the power, realised in ex- 
 perience, of gathering up into the life all the elevat- 
 ing and enriching influence of the past years, and 
 the past associations, as it offers itself anew to the 
 mind and the heart? The evening time of the true 
 life will be light, by reason of the light of the by- 
 gone years thus shining out upon the coming and 
 eternal years. 
 
 So, in its measure, is it with the Hfe of youth in a 
 place like this and surroundings like ours. The last 
 happy days are not happy only because of the 
 bright season of the year, or because the work is 
 mainly ended, or because there is promise in the 
 future. They are happy, far more truly and in far 
 higher degree, because in them is this thing still 
 remaining — that we gather up, as it were, in this 
 brief season all the possibilities of giving and of 
 getting, for the inmost soul of each and all, the in- 
 fluence for good of every individual life and of the 
 common Hfe. The good which is thus off'ered, and 
 is thus made one's own, abides for the lifetime, and 
 beyond the lifetime in this world. It glorifies the 
 man, and makes the memory of the past years, and 
 
 i8 
 
 273 
 
THE INNER LIEE 
 
 the hopes and experiences of the future years, 
 blessed as with a Divine blessing. 
 
 The days that are now passing by you, my young 
 friends, who are drawing near the end of your 
 course here, are full of meaning, of possibility, of 
 gifts, whose value cannot be measured. Let me, 
 as an older friend who passed through similar days 
 a long time ago, ask you with all the emphasis of 
 the subsequent years, to realise for yourselves their 
 meaning, and take to yourselves the full measure 
 of their gifts and their possibilities. 
 
 274 
 
XIX 
 
 THE POWER OF PERSONAL LIFE 
 
 Sorrowing most of all for the word which he had spoken, 
 that they should see his face 7io more. — Acts xx. 38. 
 
 THESE words are very human and very sug- 
 gestive. We can easily picture to ourselves 
 the scene which the historian presents before us, as 
 he tells of the farewell which was given by the 
 Apostle to his friends. He had lived with them, 
 and among them, for the three preceding years. 
 During this period he had declared to them a new 
 doctrine, which had become life to their souls. He 
 had spoken the truth, as he believed it, with all 
 faithfulness and tenderness. He had warned them 
 of dangers, and assured them of consolation, and 
 borne witness to them of the purpose and plan of 
 God, and pointed them in all their needs to His 
 grace. He had given all to them and done all for 
 them freely, imposing himself in no way as a burden 
 upon them, but ever labouring for his own support, 
 that he might make all things that he did in their 
 behalf a gift. When the three years were drawing 
 near their end, he had been constrained to leave 
 their city, as violent excitement had been roused 
 against him and his teaching, and for a few months 
 he had returned to Corinth to renew his work and 
 
 275 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 strengthen the disciples there. The lime for one 
 of the great annual feasts at Jerusalem was now 
 approaching, and he turned his course thitherward. 
 On the way, the vessel in which he was making his 
 voyage touched at a place in the neighbourhood of 
 the city where he had thus lived so long. The 
 opportunity was now afforded him of meeting once 
 more, for a brief hour, the chief members of the 
 church brotherhood which he had gathered together 
 by his preaching. He calls them to him and 
 addresses them in words of affection and retro- 
 spect; and as he thus speaks, he takes his final 
 leave of them, telling them of his belief that they 
 will never meet him again. 
 
 What a human scene it was — answering to the 
 experience of all ages, and bearing in itself the 
 evidence of the most natural sentiment, as we read 
 the words in which it is described. But of all the 
 words the most natural and most human are the 
 closing ones : They sorrowed most of all, because 
 they knew that they should see his face no more. 
 
 The picture, as we call it before our minds, is an 
 interesting one indeed, for it represents a thousand 
 other scenes in human experience as truly as that 
 which it offers to our view. But we would not 
 dwell upon it simply or mainly because of this fact. 
 The words, as we have said, are as suggestive 
 as they are human, and the teaching comes from 
 them — as it comes often from words and thoughts 
 — by reason of their suggestiveness. 
 
 Why was it that these Christian believers sorrowed 
 276 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 tluis by reason of the thought that they should not 
 see Paul's face again? It was because they realised 
 at that moment, with an emphasis of reality, that the 
 sight of the face was the sight of the man. If they 
 could see him, they knew that there would rise 
 before them the vivid representation of all that he 
 had been and done, and of what he might do and 
 be. They knew that the blessing of the past would 
 have a new manifestation of itself, and the richness 
 of the future would give a foreshadowing and fore- 
 taste of its promise. It is always so, when we meet 
 an old friend after a season of separation. His face 
 bears testimony to us of all that is behind the pres- 
 ent, and of all that is before it. The face, at such a 
 moment, is the man. The loss of the face is, in a 
 certain sense, the loss of the man. Everything 
 passes into the sphere of memory, and the clearness 
 and distinctness of the vision fade in some measure, 
 and gradually, away. 
 
 But if the face is the man, it is wJiat the man was 
 that makes the renewed seeing of the face a matter 
 of such strong desire. We do not care to meet 
 again those who have left nothing of themselves 
 within us, or for our lives, from the time of our last 
 meeting. We bid them farewell without any stir- 
 ring of sorrowful feeling. Let us look at the 
 Apostle and his friends again. He had been for 
 them a teacher. The message which he had 
 brought to them was an announcement of something 
 that they had not known or thought of before. As 
 they received it and gave it its full power over their 
 minds, it ennobled and glorified life for them. As 
 
 2?7 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 a teacher, he had carefully explained to them what 
 they were slow to learn. He had repeated and 
 impressed his lessons. He had led them on from 
 step to step, giving them new light when they were 
 moving towards darkness. He had testified of what 
 he believed, and had admonished and encouraged 
 and inspired them, according to the necessity of 
 their development in discipleship. He had been 
 more even than their teacher; he had been, as he 
 said to the members of another Christian brother- 
 hood, their spiritual father. Their life had come 
 from him, and had been watched over and cared for 
 by him. Surely they might well, in view of all this, 
 have grief of a peculiar sort in the thought that they 
 were not to see his face again. How much would 
 such a sight mean, if it could only be granted even 
 for an hour ! It would mean the fresh remembrance, 
 with all its quickening and wonderful power for the 
 soul, of the first beginning and the joyous progress 
 in the early days, and the rich growth in the later 
 time, of that new life for which they were thankful 
 to God, and in which they were ever rejoicing as 
 they .looked onward and upward. 
 
 But there was something besides this, as the face 
 represented the man. It was the personality of the 
 teacher, and not only his teaching, which they 
 called to mind as they thought of the separation. 
 The teacher had, as we may say, lived the teaching, 
 which he commended to their reception. He had 
 given them deep thoughts, and sweet thoughts, and 
 inspiring thoughts, respecting the great truth, as he 
 had manifested before them its controlling power 
 
 278 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 within himself. He had displayed to them in many 
 ways, and on many sides, the greatness and grand- 
 ness of human character as it is brought under the 
 influence of the Gospel of God. How impressive 
 must have been to their minds, at this hour of their 
 last meeting, the words which he spoke in such 
 simplicity and sincerity : After what manner I was 
 with you all the time ; how I shrank not from de- 
 claring unto you anything that was profitable ; by 
 the space of three years, I ceased not to admonish 
 every one night and day with tears ; in all things 
 I gave you an example, that ye ought to help the 
 weak : I hold not my life of any account, as dear 
 unto myself, so that I may accomplish my course 
 and the ministry which I received from the Lord 
 Jesus. How the man must have risen before them 
 in the magnificence of his Christian manhood, as 
 these expressions came upon their hearing. And 
 what a wonderful emphasis must have been added 
 to them, as from the depths of a heroic soul, when, 
 with the consciousness of what his life among them 
 had been, he said : I coveted no man's silver, or 
 gold, or apparel ; ye yourselves know that these 
 hands ministered to my necessities and to them 
 that were with me ; remember the words of the 
 Lord Jesus, which I have remembered and followed, 
 how he himself said. It is more blessed to give than 
 to receive. 
 
 They must have taken knowledge of him — as 
 they thus saw what was in his inmost soul — that x 
 he had indeed been with Jesus, and had learned of 
 Him — learned of Him, not with the mind only, 
 
 279 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 but in the life. All these words also, as they called 
 up in review the years of their happy fellowship 
 with him, must have brought to their recollection 
 many others which he had spoken, and which had 
 become life-developing for their own souls. Such 
 words as he wrote afterwards have moved the life- 
 powers for multitudes of the most intelligent and 
 thoughtful men in all generations. They must have 
 contained within themselves, in some peculiar sense 
 and degree, the seed-principle of the true life for 
 those who first heard, or first read them. To see 
 again a man full of such thoughts would be a privi- 
 lege indeed ; to see him no more would be, as we 
 may easily believe, a matter of sorrowful feeling, 
 with which no other would seem worthy to be 
 compared. 
 
 Let us now, as we think of the scene and its sug- 
 gestions, ask, What are the thoughts which may fitly 
 come to our minds respecting ourselves, and respect- 
 ing life? The first, as it seems to me, is a thought 
 bearing upon the matter of reward, and is this: 
 — that the true and best reward of life, as it moves 
 on its way, or as it ends, is not to be found in its 
 success or its fame, but in that which Paul had here. 
 Paul had done a remarkable work in this promi- 
 nent city, and also elsewhere. He had become one 
 of the great lights in the Christian Church, as it 
 extended itself widely from its earliest home over 
 the Gentile world. He had had wonderful success, 
 as estimated by the possibilities of the sphere within 
 which he put forth his efforts and to which he con- 
 
 280 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 secrated his powers. But what would his fame, or 
 success, or prominence, or wide influence have 
 been, if he had not been hi hiJiisclf what he was, — 
 if the men who saw and heard him had not per- 
 ceived within him the reaHty of that which he 
 taught, — if, in a word, the man had not been more 
 than the success or the fame, and had not been in 
 the highest measure worthy to be seen again ? 
 
 Men look forward with intensity of interest and 
 desire to success in the attainment of reputation or 
 power or position as an inestimable good in itself. 
 They make the possession of this good the dream 
 of their early ambition, the aim of their manly effort, 
 the end of their living. When they strive or 
 struggle for the prize, which they thus covet, in a 
 selfish spirit, and with no thought or care for any 
 service on behalf of the world, they persuade them- 
 selves that life has no nobler meaning in it, and is 
 only intended to realise its gains. When they rise 
 above this lower level, where they are unworthy of 
 their manhood, and take into their thought and 
 action what may be helpful to others, they think 
 that the prize is glorified, indeed, by this motive 
 which attends the effort for it, but that it is still in 
 itself the same thing. In every way they press on 
 after it, as if it were what makes life worth the 
 living. 
 
 But a touching and beautiful scene like this, upon 
 which we are dwelling in our thought for a few 
 moments, has in itself another lesson and a widely 
 different one. The grief, which was so manifestly 
 and sincerely in the hearts of those about him, was 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 more to the man who witnessed it than any success, 
 in the outward measure of success, which he had had 
 could ever be. It was so, because it bore testimony 
 of the hfe which was in them, and of that which 
 was in him. And so it is always. The earnest 
 desire to see the face again — so that the knowledge 
 that it cannot be is the most regretful of all things in 
 the parting — shows that the associate of the years 
 has much in himself, and has given forth much for 
 us. A uniting force binds us together, and the life, 
 which is now common to us both, owes its origin and 
 its growth for ourselves, in greater or less degree, 
 to what was, and is, in him. 
 
 I ask you to think of it, my friends — you who are 
 soon to go forth from the pleasant associations of 
 the four years in this place. What is the word which 
 you desire most of all to hear from your intimate 
 friends, and most of all to speak to them at the end ? 
 Is it not the word that carries in itself the hope of 
 another meeting — the sight of the face, at some 
 future time? Is not the hearing of this word, as it 
 comes from the depths of the soul of the man whom 
 you have known and loved, the reward of these years, 
 beyond any other reward? And why is it thus? Is 
 it not — when you have the thought resting upon the 
 true foundation — because the word as it is spoken 
 tells, with the emphasis of the soul's life, of what he 
 knows that you have done for him by reason of 
 what you have been in yourself? It is a testimony 
 to what is more fundamental than success, and far 
 nearer to the centre of life than fame. It speaks of 
 what the man really is ; and surely the manhood 
 
 282 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 of the man is the highest reward of the years. It 
 will be so, equally, in the coming time. Life is not 
 going to turn around for you and become quite 
 another thing, when the youthful season is past, from 
 what it is now. There is a larger sphere before you, 
 indeed ; and there are greater prizes, as the world 
 calls them, which are to be offered. But the human 
 soul is the same, and the reward, which meets and 
 satisfies the human soul in its inmost and noblest 
 feeling, will be the same at the ending that it is at 
 the opening of the manly career. This reward will 
 be the testimony which comes from the living forces 
 of other souls, as they have received the best of 
 influence and inspiration from the man in whose 
 behalf they testify. 
 
 The second thought, that comes to us from the 
 scene to which we have turned our minds and its sug- 
 gestions, as it seems to me, is this: — that the true 
 standard for the measurement of value, as related to 
 our personal lives, is not to be discovered in our 
 teaching, or our working, but in our living. Paul's 
 teaching was a marvellous teaching, surely; full of 
 life-giving power, if any teaching could be. His 
 working, in its constancy and its energy, and its 
 wisdom in adapting itself to its purpose, was as 
 remarkable as was the doctrine which he taught. 
 But what a change there would have been in the 
 manifestation before the world of both, if the man - 
 had not been what he was in his living. It was the 
 man as formed under the influence of the doctrine, 
 and putting forth the reality of himself into his work, 
 
 283 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 that made the glory of his career. It was the man 
 within him that made his friends grieve because they 
 were to see him no more. So it is with us, each and 
 every one. 
 
 The tendency of the world is to teaching and 
 working. We become restless, with the thought that 
 we are not fulfilling our mission among men, if we 
 are not in action always, or ever declaring a mes- 
 sage. But it is well for us to remember that, in the 
 Divine ordering, a message of life is but half of it- 
 self, without life in the messenger, and that action, 
 even when it moves in the right line, is a force- 
 less thing, unless there is a vital energy behind 
 it. Herein lies the effective power of enthusiasm. 
 Enthusiasm means life in the man. He works, out 
 of an inspiration which has become a part of his 
 being, and so he moves victoriously towards results 
 in other men. But in the moral sphere, especially, 
 there is no true enthusiasm without life. 
 
 I ask you to look at your own experience, my 
 friend, whether it be narrower or wider. Who is the 
 man from whom the greatest power has come upon 
 your personal manhood ? Is it not the one whose 
 inner life has been most rich and deep and true? Is 
 it not the one from whom, whenever you have seen 
 him — not only in the intercourse of every day, but 
 even as he was passing along these paths and under- 
 neath these elms — you have felt that a lesson of 
 genuine manliness has come to your soul? Such a 
 man, if a teacher, has carried his moral and spiritual 
 teaching for you in himself. It needed no word 
 from his lips for your hearing, for you have seen it 
 
 284 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 in your seeing him. If he was a worker, even in the 
 best lines of effort — even for the purifying and 
 elevating of the souls of those around him — his 
 real energy and force have been manifest to you 
 as behind and beneath the work, and in the life. If 
 he was a friend, you have known the influence, not 
 simply when you have talked with him and have 
 listened to the expression of his thoughts, but be- 
 cause you have beheld, in his whole exhibition of 
 himself, what his thoughts have been to his own 
 mind and for the development of character within 
 himself. But if this be so, the very atmosphere of the 
 place in which we are passing these years is full of 
 testimony to the truth. No serious man, I am sure, 
 can take his farewell of the place, and its associations, 
 without giving to himself at least, if not to others, his 
 witness, that the manhood in those whom he has 
 esteemed and loved here as the worthiest men lies 
 deeper than their doing, or their speaking, and that, 
 in his desire to see them again, the chief impulse 
 comes to him from what he knows them to be. 
 
 It must have been a delightful thing to the mind 
 of Paul, that the men with whom he had lived for 
 three years of intimate acquaintance wished so 
 earnestly that they might have another meeting with 
 him because he was what he was. But as he thought 
 of their feeling with pleasure, he may well have said 
 to himself, This wish of theirs is an evidence of the 
 true estimate for myself, and for every other man. 
 What we are is more than what we do. And so -^ 
 with us all. If we may have within ourselves the 
 thought that the first of all things for the true life is 
 
 285 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 what we are, and that from this, as if its outgoing 
 and its fruit, is to go forth all that we do or teach, 
 we shall ever abide near the Divine ideal, and ever 
 be under its glorifying influence. 
 
 The third thought that comes to us from the 
 scene, which has been presented to our minds, and 
 its suggestions — and the last one to which I will 
 refer — is closely related to those which we have 
 been considering. It is this : — The true impulse of 
 the true man is, to develop rich thoughts within 
 himself, and to give them to others. A man does 
 not fulfil the ideal of his life any more truly than he 
 fulfils its obligations, if he simply performs the tasks 
 assigned him, or does his outward work, whatever it 
 may be. The mind and soul within him need to be 
 cultivated, and to be fruitful. He needs to have, 
 according to the possibilities which life opens to 
 him, elevating thoughts on the subjects which relate 
 to the highest interests of his manhood. It is such 
 thoughts, that enlarge and glorify his personality. 
 He needs them, also, for their helpful and upbuilding 
 influence as bearing upon those about him. If a 
 man lives for three years, as Paul did, in intimate 
 relations with a little community of men, or with a 
 few individual men, he fails of his highest duty, as 
 well as of his best influence, in case they are able 
 to gain nothing from the movement and working of 
 his inmost life. We were intended to do good to 
 one another in this way, as truly as in other ways, 
 and, if wc have the vital power of the life in our- 
 selves, we shall do so; for life always works from 
 
 286 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 the centre outwards and beyond itself. No man can 
 take into himself the all-powerful, transforming Chris-v; 
 tian doctrine, and live with it as a vivifying force in 
 his heart, without having much of its influence in 
 the mind's thinking ; — and if he has this influence 
 in his thinking, it will go forth, often without an 
 effort and almost before he is aware, to those with 
 whom he is associated in the fellowships of the 
 world. 
 
 The Christian man always has thoughts. He can-^ 
 not be near to Christ, and dwell upon His love, 
 without them. But the educated Christian has an 
 especial duty and privilege in this regard. It is a 
 part of his calling — as it is indeed, after his measure, 
 in the case of every educated man — to be thought- 
 ful. Education is not mere learning or the acquisi- 
 tion of knowledge — the accumulation of a treasure 
 to be laid up in the mind, and to remain there without 
 living energy. Education is the cultivation and de- 
 velopment of thinking power, and a man who has not 
 secured for himself this has, so far, wasted the years 
 of his education. The knowledge and learning find 
 their real end in this. But the highest moral and 
 spiritual education is open to the Christian ; and in 
 this sphere, especially, is there no richest develop- 
 ment without the stirring of the thinking power. A 
 man must turn his mind in upon itself, and must 
 study his soul, if he would set forward the true 
 growth of his character. 
 
 What would Paul's life have been without his > 
 thoughts — where would have been the greatness of 
 his character, which we now see so clearly, if there 
 
 287 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 had been within him nothing of that inspiring Chris- 
 tian thinking which filled his letters with the ex- 
 pression of itself, and came with impelling power to 
 the minds of those to whom he spoke ? We need not 
 look back to Paul, however. We may look again at 
 ourselves. If we find, as we all do in the review of 
 the years, that the growth of our individual lives in 
 the mental and spiritual part is largely the result 
 of what is given to us by the stimulating thought of 
 others, the question is answered for us at once, and 
 with emphasis. We miss half of the opportunity of 
 hfe, we fail of half of its power for good, if we do 
 not become thoughtful men — men who make the 
 having and the giving forth of the most helpful, and 
 the most inspiring, and the best thoughts the object 
 of their constant mental effort. And how may this 
 be accomplished better than in the way in which the 
 Apostle realised it for himself — by putting the 
 mind in daily communion with the highest truths of 
 the soul's hfe, and bringing it to the continual,- 
 joyful study of the thought and inner life of Christ, 
 the great teacher and the perfect man? 
 
 I have thus called your attention, my friends, to 
 a verse from the sacred writings which tells of a 
 parting between friends in the eariiest days of the 
 church. It has a fitness in its lesson for all of 
 us in the closing of our academic year, and an 
 especial fitness for some of us in the ending of all 
 the academic years. The old scene in its great 
 central feature, may seem to repeat itself, as the 
 days pass on and the question of future meetings 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 comes to those who must think of them with so 
 much of interest. It is well for you to bear in 
 mind the true standard of living, and the best re- 
 ward of life, as you look back over the past and 
 forward to the future. And it is fitting for you to 
 remember that the thoughts for the inner life and 
 the true life, which you gain and which you give, 
 are the upbuilding forces for the souls of all alike. 
 That you may, every one of you, realise the 
 blessing of giving and receiving, in all that makes 
 life what it ought to be, is my best wish for you ; and 
 that you may know, by a constant experience, that 
 it is more blessed to give than it is to receive, even 
 as the Lord Jesus Himself said, is my largest hope ; 
 — the same wish and hope which I would have for 
 myself. 
 
 19 289 
 
XX 
 
 THE GIFTS AND LESSONS OF THE YEARS 
 
 IViih lo)ig life will I satisfy hitn, atid show him iny salva- 
 tion. — Psalm xci. i6. 
 
 I PROPOSE to suggest for consideration, at this 
 time, a few thoughts upon a somewhat uncom- 
 mon subject of discourse — the blessing of growing 
 older, or the increasing happiness of life as it ad- 
 vances. We hear much, in the ordinary conversa- 
 tion of mankind, of the brightness and joy of early 
 years. Almost every man looks back upon his 
 childhood with a sense of peculiar charm, and feels 
 that its half-remembered days were cloudless like a 
 summer morning, while the later years have been 
 clouded and darkened. The fond wishes of the soul, 
 therefore, return to that which is behind us, in the 
 nearer or remoter distance. We carry with us a 
 regret, which sometimes, indeed, hides itself away 
 from notice in the multitude of our employments, but 
 ever and anon breaks forth in its strength, that the 
 past cannot come back even for an hour, and that 
 we can never experience again what we once en- 
 joyed. We listen also to much in the public dis- 
 coursing of the Church concerning the peculiar 
 privileges of the young and those who are just enter- 
 ing upon their career. They are believed to hav^e, 
 
 290 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 not only the hope and promise of the world in them- 
 selves, but to be in a more desirable position than 
 older persons in what relates to their own individual 
 and interior life. How seldom, on the other hand, 
 are men of forty or sixty addressed, except to re- 
 mind them of increasing responsibilities, or, per- 
 chance, of wasted opportunities, or of the rapidity 
 with which life is passing, or the nearness of its end- 
 ing. That a man is becoming happier as he is 
 getting older — that life is richer, and deeper, and y 
 better for every right-minded person now, than it 
 was twenty years ago — seems to be a thought 
 which scarcely enters the ordinary mind, or, at least, 
 which scarcely ever so impresses itself as to demand 
 and find an utterance. 
 
 I believe that the truth is on the other side of this 
 matter, and I ask the kindly reader to follow me as 
 we consider the question whether it be not so. 
 
 In the first place, let us look at the happiness of ^ 
 childhood or early youth, and inquire what it is. 
 It is the sense of life, in its beauty and joy, as a new 
 thing. It is freedom from anxieties, doubts and 
 fears. It is the calm confidence that there will be 
 provision for its wants. It is the affection of the 
 home circle, as yet unbroken by separation. It is 
 the awakening consciousness of the mind's own 
 powers and capacities, and the hope that, by means 
 of them, the man will in due time accomplish great 
 things in the world. We move onward a little way 
 beyond our first maturity, and we find all this 
 changed, in greater or less degree. The world seems 
 
 291 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 a different place from what it used to be, and we are 
 roughly shaken out of our pleasant dreams and pict- 
 urings. No wonder, that we begin at once to be dis- 
 heartened, and to feel that the early years, as they ran 
 away from us, bore with them beyond our sight the 
 brightness and unalloyed happiness of life. Trials, 
 and anxieties, and labours, and separations, and 
 many failures in plans and purposes enter soon into 
 the place of all that was so peaceful and beautiful. 
 It is a world of hard work, instead of play. It is a 
 world of sorrow, even, and constant disappointment. 
 The golden period is behind us, not before us. 
 But stay a moment in your thought, my friend. 
 ■^ Happiness is not freedom from care. We are 
 reasoning and working beings — designed for ma- 
 turity, and not for the mere beginnings. Thirty 
 or forty years ago, perchance, you had not a thought 
 going out beyond the enjoyment of the day, or the 
 morrow, and therefore were free from care. But 
 you were doi7ig nothing; you were only, at the 
 most, preparing to do. You had no true sense of 
 your own capacities. You knew nothing of the sat- 
 isfaction which comes from the full exercise of your 
 powers, and from the accomplishment of real results. 
 You were restless, even — just in proportion to the 
 nobleness of your nature — to reach the hour when 
 you might begin your portion of the world's work. 
 If you are not in a morbid and diseased state of 
 feeling for the time, you would not give up your 
 present sense of manly force in action, and go back 
 to the old condition, if you had the possibility, to-day, 
 of choosing to do so once for all ; — and you would 
 
 292 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 not, because you are assured in your deepest soul 
 that it is not only better, but happier, to be what 
 you now are, than what you then were. There is 
 no truth more certainly learned in a man's own 
 experience, than that, to the highest happiness of 
 our life in this world some element of conflict and^ 
 victory is essential. We must meet something of 
 opposition to try our powers, and must feel that we 
 have grown strong in overcoming it, or we do not 
 know one half of the glory of our manhood. And 
 this is the Divine appointment for mature and later 
 years. The child is a lovely object in his own place ; 
 but he is only the beginning, the imperfect develop- 
 ment, of that which is to grow to its perfection 
 afterwards. If the beginning were never to pass 
 into something higher, life would be a most unat- 
 tractive, because a most unfinished thing. The 
 work must be better than the preparation. 
 
 Look at your home life — where the happiness 
 of childhood seems to us often the only unalloyed 
 one, — and you will find, I am sure, that you are 
 mistaken here also. Love goes downward, rather 
 than upward. Your children do not, and cannot 
 love you as '.-.i^ivy and beautifully as you love 
 them. The law of nature and the possibilities of 
 nature are only in the other way. You may turn 
 your thoughts backward to the home of your earliest 
 life and recall your affection for your father and 
 mother, and — pure as it may have been — it is not 
 what your affection now is for your own children. 
 You have entered upon a new stage of your being, 
 in this regard, and the feeling of to-day gives you 
 
 293 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 a deeper joy than the old one ever did, or ever 
 could. 
 
 The delightful peace, that fills the home life and 
 makes it such an emblem of heaven — my friend, 
 V^ in your childhood you participated in it only, but 
 now, if it is in your home, you make it ; you are the 
 author of it, and give it its being. And it is more 
 blessed to give than only to receive. I can think 
 of nothing better, as related to this world alone, 
 than to be the centre of happiness and affection for 
 the inmost circle in which God has placed our lives 
 and given us our sphere of highest duty — always 
 bestowing upon others that for which their life is a 
 continual, though it may be a silent, thanksgiving. 
 But this the child cannot be, because of his position 
 and his years. It is a blessing reserved for after 
 life, and it makes the later years happier even than 
 the best part of the earlier ones. 
 
 You were receptive, and wholly so once, in that 
 former time, and therefore, again, you were free 
 from many disturbing and harassing thoughts. 
 Others cared for you, and you rested upon them. 
 But now you are a giver in all things, and others 
 rest upon you. You were made, however, to be a 
 giver, and you have now only reached the fulness 
 of your life. The labour, or fear of failure, or sense 
 of uncertainty, which attends upon you as a condi- 
 tion of your giving, is all lost sight of when it is 
 over, and the result is reached. It even passes into, 
 and forms an element of the joy of the result — so 
 that we enjoy the more what we do for those depend- 
 ent on our care, the more of effort, and self-sacrifice 
 
 294 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 even, our gift to them has made necessary. You 
 did not leave your happiness behind you, and bid it 
 a final farewell, when you first ceased to feel that 
 your wants would be supplied by those on whom 
 you used to rest. Far from it. You entered, rather, 
 upon a new stage and measure of it at that very 
 hour; and, if you will examine your own experience 
 carefully, you will surely find that the new condition 
 has been better than the old. Each of the two 
 stages has been good in its own appropriate season ; 
 but the former one was only a mere preparation for 
 the latter as that which is more perfect and more 
 desirable. 
 
 But is not the hope of great results, which belongs 
 to youth, you say, a more joyful thing than the 
 remembrance of Jialf-resiilts f This latter, however, 
 is the accompaniment of most lives in their middle 
 and later portions. Life is all new and hopeful at 
 the beginning; while, as we go onward, it becomes 
 an old, familiar thing, known mainly by its imper- 
 fections. No doubt, I answer, we all lose much of 
 the confidence of hope, after we begin to be actors 
 in the world. We learn that we are accomplishing 
 less — or in a difterent way, at least — than we used 
 to think we should ; and the work of reformation 
 and good goes forward more slowly than it might. 
 We are tempered, thus, and moderated in our 
 expectations. 
 
 But if we are doing less than we anticipated once, 
 we are doing, and not hoping only ; — and, in so far 
 as anything is daily done for the good cause in the 
 world, the manly soul has a satisfaction in it which 
 
 295 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 is deeper than it can have in its early hopes. It must 
 be remembered, also, that, along with the moderat- 
 ing of our expectations as life advances, and keep- 
 ing pace with it, there comes in the soul the growth 
 of two feelings, which are all-important to its happi- 
 ness in a world like ours : — the one, that the good 
 cause, the cause of all good things, may go forward 
 most successfully in a way other than that which we 
 had thought of; and the other, the feeling of con- 
 fidence in a wiser and higher power that is ever- 
 ruling and overruling for its own best ends. The 
 youth is confident, indeed, in his anticipations, and 
 therefore he is happy. But he is strong in his own 
 ideas and plans, and believes that all things must 
 move after his own manner and through his own 
 efforts. He opens the door, therefore, for disap- 
 pointment so soon as he begins to turn his hopes 
 into action. But the man, who has been working 
 for a score or two of years, and has been a docile 
 disciple in the world's school, has learned other 
 lessons, which rob disappointment and even failure 
 of much of their disheartening effect upon the mind. 
 If life has wrought for him its legitimate result; if 
 he has grown older in the way in which God would 
 have him grow, he has become trustful in God's 
 wisdom, and hopeful, in a less ardent way indeed, 
 but in a more peaceful one. 
 
 And so, as I believe, the true effect of the pro- 
 gressing years is to bring us — even when we look 
 at that which is brightest in the early part of life — 
 to a happier, as well as a better state. But as we 
 may fitly turn our thoughts, in our Christian medi- 
 
 296 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 tation, rather towards what pertains to the soul and 
 its relations to the future, I would more especially 
 consider some other points in which life, as it would 
 seem, must bring greater happiness to right-minded 
 persons as they go forward in it. 
 
 Moving in this sphere of thought, I would say 
 that as life, in any true view of it, is a plan of God, 
 it must of necessity grow richer as it draws nearer 
 to the end. I do not mean, of course, that it must 
 be so in every man's actual experience. Some men, 
 by their own choice and determination, put them- 
 selves in direct opposition to the Divine plan and 
 working. They prevent the development of any 
 good design in their existence, and we can expect 
 nothing but perversion in their case. There are 
 others, also, who, though they may have the hopes 
 of the Gospel within them, become querulous, or 
 dry, or hardened in their feeling, and thus lose out 
 of their souls what is offered them so freely by the 
 Divine favour. We can only speak on such a subject, 
 however, of those who put themselves in the right 
 line of living, and affirm what will be true of them, 
 in so far as they do this. 
 
 But place yourself in the right position, and open 
 yourself to the right influences — and you will not 
 only know it must be so, but will realise for yourself 
 that your life is a plan of God, and that He is carry- 
 ing forward a work in you from its beginning to its 
 consummation. How strange it would be, if there 
 were no growth as the years advance, or if the 
 growth were downward ! Is it possible that, in His 
 training of a soul for its immortal existence, what is 
 
 297 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 best is placed at the very commencement, or that 
 the progress of the plan towards its final issue can 
 leave the soul less happy in the later, than in the 
 earlier years? No — even those things of which we 
 have already spoken are not, in this view of the 
 subject, mere outward things or of the earthly life. 
 In their influence, they belong to the character; 
 and these things and all others, as they work in 
 upon character, strengthen and purify and elevate 
 it. They are designed to carry the soul forward 
 in its own growth. They must make the soul hap- 
 pier than it was before it had known their power, 
 and before it had grown wiser and stronger and 
 better. 
 
 You may say that the carelessness, and the hope- 
 fulness, and the joyous outlook upon life in child- 
 hood, in themselves alone, are happier than what 
 follows them and takes their place in maturer life 
 — though, as I have already tried to show, I believe 
 you are mistaken even in this view of them. But, 
 when you look at your character, and at the plan of 
 God in your own life, you cannot feel thus. This 
 change indicates, and is, the progress of that plan. 
 It was then near its beginning, but it is now, it may 
 be, near its ending. What if, in this progress in 
 your case, or in some cases, the outward man may, 
 ^ as the Apostle says, have been decaying — the in- 
 ward man has been renewed more and more. Anx- 
 ieties, cares, struggles, labours — the assumption of 
 great responsibilities and the endurance of many 
 hardships — have brought strength to you. They 
 have awakened new earnestness, new confidence, 
 
 298 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 new devotion, new love to men and to God ; — and 
 the work is drawing nearer to its completion. 
 
 The Christian man, and even, in his measure, the 
 man who limits his view to this world and yet places 
 himself in the line of life's best influences, cannot 
 lose happiness as he goes forward. If he does, he 
 is contradicting the Divine order and, therefore, is 
 not in the true line of thought. As well might the 
 victorious general rejoice at the beginning of the 
 conflict, or at the first gathering of his forces, 
 and lose heart and happiness in the moment of 
 his approaching triumph. As well might we call 
 the dimmest hopes joyful, and the full fruition 
 sorrowful. 
 
 In every one of us who have been living in ac- 
 cordance with God's plan for these years past, and 
 who do not shut our eyes to the consciousness of it, 
 there is, and must be, a growing happiness as the 
 plan works onward through the years towards its 
 final result in a better life. If we do not daily enter 
 into the experience of it, it is because we have 
 become distrustful, or have clothed the past with an 
 unreal beauty, or have allowed the fruits of evil 
 habits to spread over our lives so widely that we 
 cannot see the Divine working alone and in its own 
 loveliness. 
 
 But there are some things wherein we grow 
 naturally as the years advance, which tend directly 
 to make us happier, as well as better men ; and to 
 two or three of these I would call your attention. 
 
 The man on whom the progress of life exerts its true 
 299 
 
y^ 
 
 THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 and legitimate influence comes into a kindlier and 
 more truly just judgment of those about him. The 
 tendency in early life — particularly, as we first begin 
 to associate with men — is to overestimate ourselves, 
 and underestimate them. We have grown up thus 
 far, as it were, within ourselves alone, and every- 
 thing we therefore feel must be measured according 
 to our standard. The good that is in others, unless 
 indeed it may be those who are in full sympathy 
 with ourselves, we are often slow to appreciate, and 
 our judgments become severe. It is said that youth 
 is generous — and so it is, in some respects, far more 
 than the harder side of later life. But I cannot 
 doubt that the man who has gained anything of the 
 true spirit of Christ learns, under the natural in- 
 fluence of progressing years, to believe good of 
 others — that the familiar association with men, as 
 time passes on, brings us to see, in spite of all their 
 weaknesses or sins, the elements of good within them 
 and the possibilities of building up the nobler life. 
 If you, my friend, are becoming constantly more 
 distrustful of those around you ; if your associates 
 and neighbours are judged more harshly than they 
 once were ; you are, I am sure, not learning the true 
 lessons of the years, and are, so far at least, not 
 under the Divine guidance. But, on the other hand, 
 those who follow this guidance, and look through 
 their own weak souls upon the souls of those around 
 them, must continually grow more appreciative of 
 their better nature and more generously hopeful re- 
 specting them. And the kindlier you come to be in 
 your judgment of other men, the happier you will 
 
 300 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 be and must be ; — and this is the true and un- 
 pei'verted influence of advancing Hfe. 
 
 The natural effect of the years in a really manly 
 soul is, also, to make it softer and gentler in itself 
 I know that this may contradict the experience or 
 observation of many persons. Habits strengthen, it 
 is said, as life goes on, and we become harder and 
 less open to impression. Not so, I believe, with 
 those who are living nearest to the Divine method 
 and are taking into themselves the proper influences 
 of life. As I look back upon those of the genera- 
 tion before me with whom I used to be most familiar, 
 and who have finished their earthly course — strong 
 and rigid and severe, as the men of that generation 
 were, — I remember how the character softened into 
 beauty, more and more, in the later years. If you 
 also, on your part, will look upon those around you 
 who are living rightly, you will see, I am sure, 
 the gentler influences moving in upon their souls 
 gradually and constantly as they move onward. 
 
 Life must bring us nearer to the Divine tender-^ 
 ness and gentleness as we live longer under their 
 wonderful power. But the years themselves have 
 the same effect, in that they naturally wear away 
 the rougher and harsher parts of the nature, and 
 show how much mightier a power in the world gen- 
 tleness is, than severity. As the gentler influences, 
 however, bear sway more and more completely, the 
 happiness of the soul becomes, of necessity, deeper 
 and deeper — even as the beloved Disciple, passing 
 out of that vehemence and energy which gave him, 
 
 301 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 in his early manhood, the name of the Son of Thun- 
 '^ der, came in the after period of his hfe into the 
 quietness of the loving spirit which, as the old 
 legends pictured it, faded away, without his dying, 
 into the happiness of heaven. 
 
 My friends, I hope that you and I are growing 
 '*' gentler and kindlier as the years bear us onward. 
 If we are not, we are losing one of the best, as well 
 as one of the most natural influences of life, and 
 are certainly not, in this regard, under the leading 
 of the Divine Master, But, if we are thus growing, 
 > we know for ourselves, and in ourselves, that life is 
 becoming happier as we are becoming older, far 
 better than any one can tell us. 
 
 The right-thinking man, also, is naturally brought, 
 as the years pass, to estimate more truly the com- 
 parative value of the things offered to him in this 
 world. You know, my friend, with a deeper knowl- 
 edge than you had five and twenty years ago, that 
 /^ the things relating to the inward life are better than 
 those belonging to the outward; and if you are 
 living in view of what you know, you are happier 
 for knowing it. The experience of life has taught 
 you that your success, or your wealth, or your 
 ^ fame, is not the highest of earth's gifts, — that these 
 things are nothing in comparison with those which 
 take hold upon the well-being of your inmost souls. 
 In early years, we do not appreciate this, except as 
 it is taught us by the testimony of others. Life is 
 new to us in those years, and the outward things 
 fill our field of vision. But the progress of time 
 
 302 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 opens to us the truth, and experience impresses it 
 more deeply upon the soul. Who can doubt that, 
 as we learn this truth, we become happier? I do 
 not believe that any man knows what rich and deep 
 happiness is, until he has taken into the depths of x 
 his mind that which the lesson of the years teaches, 
 and has made for himself the one great discovery, that 
 it is what is internal, and not what is external to the 
 soul, which fills the wants of our nature. We were 
 created for the internal — for the development of 
 ourselves to perfection ; and it is here alone, that 
 the highest joy can come. 
 
 We are thus led onward to our final thought: 
 that, as the years advance, we are brought nearer ^ 
 to the heavenly life. There is a certain point in 
 the history of all men who think at all — some time 
 after early youth has passed away — when a great 
 change comes over them. Every thoughtful man 
 who is in middle Hfe, or beyond that period, will 
 recall it, I am sure, in his own review of past expe- 
 rience. I scarcely know how to describe it better 
 than by saying, that we then began to feel, as we 
 had never felt before, the significance of the fact ^ 
 that we are immortal beings. We had known this 
 truth ever since we knew anything, perhaps, but 
 we had not realised it in any impressive way for our 
 thought. But now it becomes a vital thing to us, 
 and we are never again what we had been. The 
 idea of the eternal future, and of our life as passing 
 into it — at any moment, it may be — cannot after- 
 ward be shaken off altogether from our minds. It 
 
 303 
 
THOUGHTS OF AND FOR 
 
 presents itself, whenever it will in our every under- 
 taking, and may colour by its presence our entire 
 view of life. 
 
 A man may, indeed, resist the influence of this 
 thought so far that it will not regulate his subse- 
 quent course of action. In that case, it will only 
 disturb his quietness, from time to time, with its 
 suggestion of possibilities or dangers. But if he 
 gives it its proper force, and makes life to be what 
 it would dictate, it opens continually before him 
 >c the prospect of heaven, — not of heaven as a place 
 merely, or an outward reward, but of a beautiful 
 growth of the soul in all that is most desired and 
 desirable. The most elevating thoughts ; the deep- 
 '^ est emotions of love and kindliness ; the nearest 
 communion with God which we ever have : — these 
 are the foretastes of the heaven which it opens to 
 us ; a future life and time in which these shall be- 
 come the permanent experience of the soul in a 
 place where all outward surroundings and all 
 friendly associations shall be adapted to the pure 
 inward and spiritual condition. 
 
 I cannot believe that life was intended by its 
 Divine author to grow less happy, as it should grow 
 older, with such a prospect before it ; or that it ever 
 does become so, except as we forget what we are 
 gaining from year to year — what we are passing 
 out of, and what we are passing into, as we draw 
 steadily nearer to the end. 
 
 It was not, then, without reason, that the Psalmist 
 sang of long life as a blessing, when it was lived in 
 
 304 
 
THE INNER LIFE 
 
 the line of the Divine ordering. We may not for- 
 get indeed that, as the years go on, there arc many 
 things which try the soul to the very foundations of 
 its being — toils, and burdens, and separations, and 
 deaths of those we love. But in the wonderful 
 working of all influences under the guidance of Him 
 within whose plan are all our lives, even these 
 things are made mysteriously to purify the soul, 
 and thus, as it grows better, to make it grow hap- 
 pier also. So too, when the life reaches its end, 
 and the deepening and increasing happiness of 
 earth is exchanged for the greater blessedness be- 
 yond, the salvation which comes to the soul in its 
 fulness is only that which had been shown or un- 
 folded to it, in ever enlarging measures and clearer 
 visions, while the years here were bearing it onward. 
 
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